They have a ton of very cool images there, I must say. When they load, they are fitted to your screen, but then you can zoom in or out, which is fun. There are descriptions on the sidebar (generally tapped from the press releases, looks like) and there are animations as well. There are some nifty gizmos, like an “Embed This” link with pretty clear instructions on how to embed a given picture into a blog or web page –I embedded an illustration of the New Horizons spacecraft by my friend Dan Durda above — and of course there is the ubiquitous “Share This” link, too.
All in all, well done! It’s nice to see some folks at NASA figuring out this whole intertoob thing and doing a nice job of it. Kudos!
A new study at Stanford finds that using everyday language helped students learn. The results are only preliminary, since it was a small study and they don’t have a lot of data on students’ english language proficiency, but it is still an interesting and promising bit of research. An excerpt from the Stanford Report tells us:
Usually, elementary school students are expected to learn the concepts and lexicon of photosynthesis—and other scientific subjects—simultaneously.
But according to a recent study by Bryan Brown, an assistant professor of education at Stanford, and Kihyun Ryoo, a doctoral candidate in Stanford’s School of Education, students who learned the basic concepts of photosynthesis in “everyday English” before learning the scientific terms for the phenomenon fared much better on tests than students taught the traditional way.
The traditional approach
To help students master scientific lingo, teachers usually build word walls—interactive displays of the lingo, with graphics illustrating their links to photosynthesis. They hand out vocabulary lists. They use flash cards. They ask students to make up their own definitions.
But Brown and Ryoo say those techniques do not take into account that children learn new words as those words become valuable and meaningful to their lives.
“In contrast to foreign language instruction, where students are learning new ways to express familiar ideas, science instruction often involves the presentation of new ideas expressed through new language,” they write.
This is somewhat related to my old colleague Modesto Tamez’ attitude that vocabulary should be introduced at the end of a lesson, not the beginning (as is traditional). We often present vocab at the beginning of a lesson so we’ve got a common set of vocabulary for talking about a subject. But the result is that students tend to see science as the mastering of a bunch of vocabulary words — here are the words, now I’ll tell you what they mean, and that’s the lesson. Rather, we want students to experience the phenomenon, be intrigued, and then be given the words to talk about what they’re seeing. This is covered in one of my Science Teaching Tips podcasts where Modesto talks about this idea, in an episode called “When Words Fail You.”
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In the spirit of science raps you can also check out the Exploratorium Explainer’s fabu rap for Einstein’s birthday (which also happens to be Pi Day… March 14).
And while we’re on the theme, Cocktail Party Physics let us all know about this video that I haven’t been able to get out of my head, “I Will Derive”.
At first I was afraid, what could the answer be?
It said given this position find velocity.
So I tried to work it out, but I knew that I was wrong.
I struggled; I cried, “A problem shouldn’t take this long!”
I admit, I just love geeky humor like this. And it’s not just science geek humor that’s funny. ANY kind of geek humor is funny. I’m using geek in one of it’s original senses, “A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest” (from Wikipedia). I contra dance, and I find stupid contra dance jokes (about certain dance figures, for example), hilarious. My mom’s a retired librarian. Librarian jokes are de rigeur in our household (Anyone see the movie Party Girl? A real stitch for librarians). These kind of in-jokes are just so terribly funny. I’ve always wondered why that is. “In jokes” have a certain brand of funny, you know what I mean? In part, I imagine it’s making fun of ourselves. In large part, too, I imagine it’s seeing something familiar in a new way — a pun on a word that we use in all seriousness quite often, for example, or (as in the YouTubes posted above) a song about something that we’re used to taking seriously. It turns something familiar on its head, and our brains seem to love that.
I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.
Wikis in the Classroom
Let’s take the course of study mentioned above as the example: Start with a single wiki page that outlines the concepts that will be covered throughout the year. Focusing a little more specifically on science, let’s say you intend to cover: weather, systems of the body, and electricity. Obviously there is a tremendous range of information that can fall under each of those categories.
As with any teaching strategy, wikis can exist as teacher-directed or student-directed exercises. On the teacher-directed end, some teachers choose to use their classroom wiki to seed their students’ learning. An example of this would be finding several web sites or videos online and linking or embedding them into the page for weather. This page can be used to give students an overview before they start the unit. The teacher controls the layout of the wiki, perhaps even locking the page for editing by others.
On the student-directed end, other teachers use the same idea, but allow their students to scour the Internet for the information. This allows students to choose what information is important to their learning.
For example:
After completing a section on the water cycle, Jeffery goes in the wiki and posts information about each of the stages. Jeffery happens to not be your most studious child, and he mixes up the concepts of evaporation and condensation. Allison logs on and reads the water cycle page, catches the error, and is immediately able to go in and fix the mishap. Allison also notes that there is more than one type of collection, giving details of surface runoff and percolation. Brittany, who hates to read, logs in and embeds a video from YouTube showing the stages of the water cycle.
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A teacher asked for a good experiment to show 8th graders that gas has mass. “We have used balloons in the past,” she says, “but some of the kids still don’t make the connection.”
Paul Doherty replied:
I like to get a big weather balloon from a surplus store , inflate it until it is 1 meter in diameter or a little more and then a second balloon that is deflated.
Have a kid stand and throw the empty balloon at the back of their head…they feel almost no force.
Then throw the full one. It packs a noticeable punch due to the mass of moving air. the mass approaches a kilogram.
Of course you cannot weigh it using a scale due to buoyancy. You can only feel the mass by accelerating it or decelerating it.
And Eric Muller added:
Get some dry ice. It is solid Carbon Dioxide and it has noticeable mass. Lots of stores around the bay area sell dry ice. Many Safeways, Albertsons, bait shops, liquor stores, ice distributors and welding supply companies carry dry ice.
Weigh (or Mass) a chunk of dry ice. Put the chunk in a plastic bag and tie it off. It will sublimate and turn into a gas. The bag will expand noticeable. A solid, 44gram chunk of dry ice (that’s the size of a couple of fingers) will expand to around 22.4 liters of gas.
Gas has mass!
Pressure Pumper
Here’s a cheap little toy from Arbor Scientific that also shows that air has mass — pump air into a small bottle using the pressure pumper. Why does it increase in mass?
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Are there particular personality traits that make certain people more likely to write a blog? If so, what are those personality traits? Do you have them, too?
A team of scientists, led by psychologist Rosanna Guadagno from the University of Alabama, wondered what personality traits made some people more likely than others to write blogs. To answer these questions, Guadagno and her colleagues used the Big Five personality inventory test to measure five key personality traits in college students who write blogs.
The Big Five personality traits are five broad personality factors that had been discovered throughout repeated psychological research during the middle of the twentieth century. As agreed by the professionals in the field, these Big Five factors are Openness to new experiences, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN) and each comprises a cluster of more specific personality traits that correlate together. For example, Neuroticism includes such related qualities as a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily and is sometimes referred to as emotional instability. One of the Big Five qualities, Openness — which comprises an appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experiences — is still widely discussed in the literature, where it is often referred to as “intellect.” Nevertheless, despite some discussion among the experts as to how to define the subtle nuances of these five qualities, research shows that they become stable measurable personality qualities in humans after they’ve reached adulthood. So how do these personality traits correlate to blog writing?
According to their results, Guadagno’s team found that high scores for two of the Big Five qualities strongly predicted blog writing activity: Openness to new experience and Neuroticism. Considering that blog writing and reading is a new activity that was mostly unheard of even five years ago, Openness to new experiences is a logical prerequisite for adopting in this behavior. High Neuroticism is also not a surprising finding, since even bloggers refer to writing about personal experiences as “navel gazing” — neurotic behavior.
Guadagno’s team also found some gender differences. For example, women with a high Neuroticism score who were also lonely were more likely to write a blog, while this was not the case among men who write blogs.
So, of course, I had to take the quiz.
Your score on Extraversion is average (52%) , indicating you are neither a subdued loner nor a jovial chatterbox. You enjoy time with others but also time alone.
Your score on Agreeableness is low (26%), indicating less concern with others’ needs Than with your own. People see you as tough, critical, and uncompromising. [Lest you all think I'm a terrible person, I did score high on the sub-portions of Trust, Cooperation, and Sympathy]
Your score on Conscientiousness is high (68%). This means you set clear goals and pursue them with determination. People regard you as reliable and hard-working.
Your score on Neuroticism is high (85%), indicating that you are easily upset, even by what most people consider the normal demands of living. People consider you to be sensitive and emotional. [Heh, no surprise to me]
Your score on Openness to Experience is average (43%), indicating you enjoy tradition but are willing to try new things. Your thinking is neither simple nor complex. To others you appear to be a well-educated person but not an intellectual
Grrlscientist also couldn’t resist the temptation and she took the quiz, finding out that she’s
Average in Extroversion (45%)
High in Agreeableness (77%)
High in Conscientiousness (96%)
Average Neuroticism (40%)
High Openness to New Experiences (99%)
So, it’s interesting that neither of us quite fit the blogger profile (high in Neuroticism and Openness to Experience). I was high in Neuroticism (but average in Openness) and GrrlScientist was high in Openness (but average in Neuroticism).
As some others have mentioned, it would be interesting to know if there is an effect of what one actually blogs about. After all, the study was done on college students. Writing a Livejournal blog about your social life seems like it would have only some things in common with writing, say, a science blog. On the other hand, the desire to be in the public eye probably drives at least some of what we do as bloggers, and it’s just a matter of finding something to write about that interests us or that we know something about. It’s not like I’d get very far writing a blog about, say, television personalities.
I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.
I posted a new podcast – “Ooh you make my motor run” on my Science Teaching Tips podcast. One of the Exploratorium staff educators, Modesto Tamez, tells how he gets students exploring electromagnets, a great preparation for making an electric motor.
OK, ok, I’ll start a blogroll. It seems to be the happenin’ thing to do, and I do read so many great articles on other blogs and want to acknowledge them in some way! So here’s Steph’s geekgirl picks for the last handful of weeks:
Cocktail Party Physics – Pretty Poison -- on how men don’t believe a woman can kick their ass (until she does) and takes us back to a history of bad-ass women whose weapon of choice was arsenic. And for those of you who, like me, read and were understandably puzzled by the climate-change denialism piece in the Physics & Society newsletter of the American Physical Society, she comments in detail on this climate change kerfuffle.And finally, she writes a really interesting post about teeth and her recent root canal and why you might feel tooth pain in your eye.
NPR – The Center for Inquiry (which has a fantastic podcast, called Point of Inquiry focusing on rationalism and critical thinking), holds a summer camp for skeptics called Camp Inquiry. Framing Science explains why this is a better face of atheism than angry hostility — “Rather than attacks and ridicule, the camp kids are focused on learning, reflection, and dialogue.” Sounds good to me.
Oh dear, do I have to rescind my “sciencegeekgirl” moniker? Twisted Physics just posted about a “Test your Science Savvy” quiz that was posted on World’s Fair. I got two wrong on that quiz (which disqualifies me from being a geek, by their scoring), but it was because I was thinking too hard, in a way. Like another reader, I thought that the statement “It is the father’s gene that decides whether the baby is a boy or a girl” was trying to trip me up about the difference between a gene and a chromosome. And I thought that the current theory didn’t see the Big Bang as an explosion per se (Jennifer O. certainly knows more about this than I do), but as “inflation” (which isn’t really an explosion).
So, in a way I scored poorly (only 9 out of 11) because I was thinking too hard… (“You will receive a lovely chemistry set as a parting gift” they tell me), which highlights the point of Jennifer’s post. She says:
Memorizing a bunch of facts and being able to pass a true/false quiz consisting of 11 “questions” doesn’t mean you can think critically, or have any in-depth understanding whatsoever of how science actually works.
In ed-speak, this is the problem that many schools focus on the lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, which attempts to categorize different types of understanding. From lower-level to upper-level, they are:
Knowledge (facts)
Comprehension (demonstrate understanding)
Application (Use it!)
Analysis (support generalizations)
Synthesis (put information together in a new way)
Evaluation (judge ideas)
You can imagine it’s much easier to create questions that test a student’s ability to recite, say, the base pairs in DNA than to demonstrate that they can analyze a complicated case in genetics. Try it. I have. It’s really hard. Here are some example questions at each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
In a similar vein, the Active Learning Blog recently posted ways to assess students in constructivist classrooms (eg., classrooms where they’re making sense of what they’re doing instead of memorizing facts). That kind of learning environment is definitely tough to test! (I’d be curious what effect teachers think the No Child Left Behind standardized testing has had on our tendency to teach flat facts!)
I agree with a commenter on Twisted Physics — you need to know the basic level fact stuff, the “vocabulary” as it were. It’s important in order to be well-versed in the subject content, to some degree. But you don’t need to know certain things, like the speed of sound, as Jennifer O. says. You do need to know that there is a speed of sound, and what it means. And how to apply it. And how to evaluate someone’s proposal to test the speed of sound. If you want to be a science guru anyway. Or, perhaps, a geek. Maybe I’ll earn my stripes someday.
I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.
A neat observation from one of the staff physicists at the Exploratorium:
Here is a little game to play with farsighted and nearsighted glasses. Ask all your students who wear glasses to put them on and stand up. Walk up to each of them, look into their eyes and you will be able to tell them if they are nearsighted or farsighted.
If they are farsighted (and therefore have convex lenses) you will see the contour of their cheeks move OUT when viewed through their glasses. If they are nearsighted (and therefore have concave lenses) you will see the contour of their cheeks move IN when viewed through their glasses. This is a nice opportunity for a ray diagram or two! Astigmatism, graded lenses and bifocals can make this more difficult, but it is fun to try. The stronger the prescription the better. Holding far and nearsighted glasses up to colored lights or shadows also produces discriminating effects.
This could be a great “nature of science” activity! Tell them you have mystical powers and can see the shape of their retina (or some such garbage) just by looking deeply into their eyes. (Of course, it won’t work with any students who wear contacts! Why not? Can they guess how you do it?)
I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.
I am a physicist, writer, podcaster, and educator in Boulder, CO. On this blog I get to wax on about science stuff I think is cool (like weird science, or stuff we think is true but isn't), K-16 science education, hands-on science activities, teaching pedagogy, and how to communicate science. Geek on. 8-)
Oh dear, do I have to rescind my “sciencegeekgirl” moniker? Twisted Physics just posted about a “
’)
