September 2008

A sciencegeekgirl career

September 30, 2008

I’ve been adopted by a physics class in the Adopt a Physicist program (like Swans on Tea has), and they’re asking me about my career (here’s Swans on Tea’s response to a similar question).  So, this is as good a chance as any to write about my favorite analogy, and what my career has to [...]

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For teachers: Summaries of research for your classroom

September 30, 2008

This just in from another blog (Discovering Biology in a Digital World): Researchblogging is a great resource for the classroom. She writes: How does this work? Bloggers who write about scientific literature use a special icon to identify those posts. They also register at the Researchblogging web site with their credentials and favorite topics. When [...]

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Seeing motion with light

September 29, 2008

A fabulous science activity from Sebastien Martin over at the Exploratorium, via teacher Bree Barnett — visualizing kinetics with LED lights. See detailed instructions and more pictures over at that blog post.

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Obama = science

September 29, 2008

In case any of you have missed it… Obama is increasingly the candidate who is the most science friendly. You can see a redux of his detailed plan for science and technology and the letter from 61 Nobel Laureates endorsing Obama . You can see more on the candidates’ positions on science & technology on [...]

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L’Oreal, mascara, and science

September 29, 2008

In the continuing vein of women and science (see my previous post Flirt Harder, I’m a Physicist in particular), I was just forwarded a link to L’Oreal’s postdoctoral fellowships for women scientists. I remember L’Oreal.  I remember them from when I was at a conference for the American Physical Society (APS), talking with some colleagues [...]

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Concept maps of science (and student misconceptions)

September 26, 2008

Especially for K-12 teachers, check this baby out.  The National Science Digital Library has Science Literacy Maps online.  For a bunch of different topics (Math, Technology, Physics, Nature of Science) you can click to get a concept map of a set of topics.  In physics, for example, you can click on waves to see a [...]

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Temperature and color

September 26, 2008

I just posted a new episode of Science Teaching Tips — Running Hot and Cold.  Thomas Humphrey is one of the smartest people I know (he’s a staff physicist at the Exploratorium, and studied under Richard Feynman at CalTech).  Here, he talks about what temperature and color have to do with one another, and how [...]

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Negative stereotypes make you remember less stuff

September 25, 2008

I just read an interesting article (Shmader and Johns, Converging Evidence That Stereotype Threat Reduces Working Memory Capacity, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003, Vol. 85, No. 3, 440 – 452) about why worrying about stereotypes can make women and other minorities perform poorly on tests. They gave subjects a test of working memory [...]

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Science blogs by women!

September 24, 2008

Sciencewomen just posted a fabulously detailed blogroll of all the women blogging on science topics. A great resource.  I wonder how the proportion of women blogging about science compares to the proportion of women employed in the sciences?  There certainly seem to b a decent number of us blogging about physics, considering the dismal number [...]

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Watering the garden of future teachers (TA training)

September 22, 2008

There was an interesting post, and comment thread, over at Built on Facts — on How to Be a Good TA. I’ve been wanting to respond to it for two weeks and have been too busy. It is interesting that this discussion came up just as I was forwarded a great article about TA Training [...]

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Adventures of a new teacher

September 22, 2008

There’s always a lot to learn when you start teaching.  But this new teacher’s story was particularly striking to me.  When she just started teaching, she was fresh out of the Peace Corps in West Africa, and this left her little prepared to teach chemistry in a portable classroom with, among other things, no proper [...]

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Electron band structure in Germanium, my ass

September 18, 2008

I didn’t come up with that title.  That’s the title of a lab report turned in by a disgruntled physics major after the obligatory upper-division laboratory.  It’s kinda famous in the physics circuit.  Read it.  It’s funny. Quotable quote: Check this shit out (Fig. 1). That’s bonafide, 100%-real data, my friends. I took it myself [...]

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Myth 1: Is glass liquid? (Addendum)

September 16, 2008

This is an addendum to my earlier (and popular) post about whether or not glass is a liquid.  If you haven’t read the previous post, the crux of the myth is that many of us are taught in science class that glass is a veeerry slow flowing liquid, and that’s why old windows are thicker [...]

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Nobody’s ever taught you anything

September 15, 2008

We remember these great teachers who have taught us so much about the world. But did they really? Some educators firmly believe that you can’t teach someone anything — rather, they have to learn it for themselves. A great teacher is someone who helps make that happen. A great teacher is a facilitator of learning [...]

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The physics of baseball (and the bat marimba!)

September 11, 2008

The Exploratorium has done a lot of fun stuff with the physics of baseball, including a whole website devoted to the science of baseball (where’s the sweet spot on the bat? What are baseballs made of?). One of our senior artists, Dave Barker, has also created the Bat Marimba (photo above). I’ve just posted a [...]

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The Physics Source – for Intro Physics

September 10, 2008

Posted from the PHYSLRNR listserv.  This resource looks very nice, useful and well-organized.  You can browse by topic (looking for a teaching activity on atomic physics?) as well as a wealth of other resources (click on PER-Support to look for assessments or how to use active engagement in the classroom). The AAPT, through COMPADRE has [...]

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Upcoming FREE NSDL web seminars on science!

September 10, 2008

Again, for you K-12 educators out there… did you know the NSDL and NSTA offers free web seminars on science topics? These are very nicely done workshops, I’ve been to one, with a live presenter and chance to simulchat with other participants. Here’s the schedule Web Seminar 1 Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008 Time: 6:30-8:00 [...]

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Blogroll – September 9th

September 9, 2008

PERticles posts about useful articles in physics education research Cocktail Party Physics on the science of wine, our perception of its quality, and just how much we can say about wine based on real evidence. Bad Astronomy on ten things you didn’t know about the earth. Nice read. Lots of stuff I didn’t know! Cognitive [...]

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Obama’s science policy

September 8, 2008

Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy just posted a very nice summary of Obama’s responses to a set of science questions. I generally don’t do politics on this blog, but this is the first posting I’ve seen that offers a pretty nice comprehensive summary. Phil writes: Both Senators Obama and McCain have made cursory statements [...]

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Postdoctoral job at the Exploratorium

September 8, 2008

My old postdoc at the Exploratorium Museum of Science is open again! This job was the single best thing I’ve ever done. If you’re a PhD Math, Physics, or Bio-physics person, you should strongly consider applying for this position. Feel free to ask me any questions about the position — here in the comments, or [...]

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