March 2009

Adopt a Physicist is open!

March 31, 2009

I did this in the fall and it was a lot of fun!  Register as a teacher (to adopt a physicist) or as a physicist (to be adopted).  This is an informal dialogue between physicists and high school students to give students a taste of what it’s like to be a physicist.  If you’re a [...]

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The podcast is dead. Long live the podcast!

March 30, 2009

What an appropriate title.  I am posting the very last episode of my Science Teaching Tips podcast on Podomatic, and at the same time it has been given new life over at the Exploratorium Teacher Institute website! The last Podomatic podcast episode is here:  The World’s Cheapest Electroscope. Dying to know whether something’s positively or [...]

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Meet the Physicists. Meet me!

March 29, 2009

Hey guys, I’m featured as one of the physicists for Meet the Physicists on the Year of Science site.  The site is for the Celebrate Physics and Technology month ( which was March, so it’s about over now), and you can submit your questions to me and other physicists on the site. I should have [...]

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Professional Development opportunities for teachers

March 27, 2009

As summer approaches, everyone’s vying for teachers’ time.  A bunch of deadlines have already passed, but there’s still time to sign up for several great programs. Teacher Institute at the Exploratorium Application deadline April 1 — soon! I can’t even describe how much this institute will change your teaching — I worked with the Teacher [...]

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Myth: Helium makes your voice high-pitched

March 26, 2009

A friend just pointed out an interesting misconception that I hadn’t thought about. When you inhale helium, your voice sounds higher. It turns out that your voice isn’t actually higher-pitched! At least, not in the way that we think it is.  The reasoning is a little convoluted…. read on. Here’s the common misconception: The speed [...]

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The Periodic Table of Videos

March 25, 2009

This is so charming I can’t stand it.  You get the periodic table, and on each element, you can click to get a video with a little experiment on that element, performed by a guy with a cute British accent.  Check it out — The Periodic Table of Videos. Here is their YouTube channel. Here’s [...]

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Blogs on teaching and learning

March 24, 2009

As y’all know, I’m a big fan of the blogosphere.  I recently ran across a couple blogs that I thought others might be interested in. The Teaching Professor, by a retired professor of teaching and learning at Penn State (MaryEllen Weimer).  Very good posts, on topics that we often discuss, such as self-assessment, and whether [...]

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Why motion sickness makes us nauseous

March 20, 2009

If you spin around and around, why is it that you can feel a little sick? The answer lies in how we sense our balance, and an ancient disease of the gut. We get our sense of balance in large part from the vestibular system of the inner ear. A delicate little set of organs [...]

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Spreading great ideas in teaching: How does change happen?

March 17, 2009

In my previous post on The Burden of Proof (what does educational research tell us?), many of us started to discuss why do faculty choose to change their teaching, if they decide that they should? (The question of whether or not they should is left for another discussion, another day). So, I’m sitting now in [...]

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Suggest podcasts for elementary teachers?

March 17, 2009

My readers were so helpful when I was writing my article on why physics teachers should read blogs, so I’m coming to you again for your expert advice on another short article.  This one is on how elementary teachers can use podcasts in their classroom, and what podcasts they should consider listening to.  Or, alternatively, [...]

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Why twiddle with twitter?

March 16, 2009

A recent query on a writers’ listserv pleaded: Can someone, anyone, please explain the advantages to me of being on Twitter? I certainly understand the “concept” of repeated exposure, and that it takes less time and words than blogging, but in all honesty, even though this is called “social” networking, it leaves me a bit [...]

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Cabspotting: San Francisco cab tracker reveals the life of the city

March 14, 2009

A recent post over at Working Knowledge (Measuring the Intangible) about how Barcelona plotted Flickr photos on a map of Spain to reveal favorite tourist locations reminded me about a really neat site at the Exploratorium.  This is a great example of enhanced mapping – taking some interesting available public data to find out someone [...]

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Science resources for bilingual elementary classrooms

March 12, 2009

If you’re not a subscriber to Pat’s Picks for STEM Educators (run by the physics & astronomy librarian at Cornell), you may want to take a look. She posts great lists of useful resources (recent lists include public TV programs on science, national lab education programs, lesson plans for biology teachers, and TappedIn communities for [...]

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Pi day is just around the corner… are you ready?

March 11, 2009

Gosh, I’m posting a pi day post just FOUR DAYS before pi day.  Heavens.  Well, any teachers reading this aren’t going to be preparing until the night before, right?  Besides, pi day is, sadly, on a Saturday this year, so you can always cheat and do it on Monday if you need to! So, yes, [...]

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It’s contest season!

March 10, 2009

I’ve been getting more and more notices about upcoming contests that K12 students can enter, professional opportunities for teachers, or grant deadlines coming up, so I thought I’d compile them into a blog post.  If you have others you would like to add, stick them in the comments! Teacher Institute at the Exploratorium Application deadline [...]

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Correlation vs causation

March 9, 2009

As usual, Randall Munroe says it all And while we’re on the subject of causality, a reader just reminded me of this wonderful graph from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster showing how the lack of pirates are responsible for global warming  (If the FSM doesn’t ring a bell, you need to work on [...]

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The Voices in Your Head, OR How NPR reporters do their voicing

March 8, 2009

I recently posted an entry about one of the best jobs I’ll never have – a reporter job at NPR.  But I did have the good fortune to dip my toes into the yummy warm pool that is NPR for a summer, when I was a AAAS Mass Media intern at NPR’s Science Desk.  You [...]

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Clickers in upper division physics. 1. What does it look like?

March 4, 2009

I recently gave a talk at the AAPT about how we’re using clickers in upper division physics, and I keep meaning to include this as a post here!  I wonder, should I submit this to The Physics Teacher, perhaps? First off, you can download my powerpoint, as well as the accompanying videos, here. There are [...]

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The job I want…

March 3, 2009

I was talking to another science communicator recently about how frustrating it is that if we’d spent the last 10 years focused on one thing, we’d be all set for getting some really interesting high-level job. Instead, we’re both Jacks (well, Jills) – of-all-trades. That’s not a bad thing, I have some incredible experiences (psychology, [...]

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Flame in space

March 1, 2009

A beautiful video of what a flame does in space. This is a good video to use in a classroom physics or chemistry lesson on convection. Convection needs gravity in order to draw flames upward (ie., “heat rises”). Without gravity, there’s nothing to draw the heat and energy of the flame in any particular direction. [...]

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