musings

Flirt harder. I’m a physicist

August 17, 2008

So, I’ve got this bumper sticker, which has sort of become my little badge of fame, “Flirt harder. I’m a physicist.” I love it — I’ve had motorists pull up beside me, motion to roll down my window, and yell “What kind of physicist?” I once saw the driver of the car behind me taking [...]

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Academics versus the "real world"

October 12, 2007

One thing that’s been on my mind a lot lately is the special place called academics. I was very happy at the Exploratorium, because I could see the results of my work every day. I was working directly with teachers and giving them tools that they needed, and that felt good. Now, I am doing [...]

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Learning by lecture

August 31, 2007

Earlier this week I had the experience of being in a lecture again, in a junior-level Electricity & Magnetism class (I will be studying this class as part of my new job). The contrast between the structure of a university class and the Exploratorium workshops was dramatic. In the university class, the material was presented [...]

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How did I get here?

August 10, 2007

I promised a post on my oddball career path, because many people find it interesting. It’s certainly been a bit of a random walk and I’m thrilled to find myself here! Here is an interview with me about my career through the American Physical Society. I’ve often likened myself to a bacteria. Bacteria tend to [...]

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Erudite ecologists

August 6, 2007

This past weekend I was invited to speak at the Ecological Society of America for a workshop on communicating science. A bunch of ecologists wanted to know how to talk about their research to a broader audience. This is a huge issue nowadays, in part because of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) new “Broader Impacts” [...]

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New job!

August 3, 2007

I have a new job! My postdoc at the Exploratorium ends next week, and I will be taking off for the mountains. I have a fixed term position as Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I’ll be doing research on physics education — studying how students learn and offering suggestions to [...]

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Love letter to the Exploratorium

July 20, 2007

I want to point out a neat-o blog, Cocktail Party Physics by Jennifer Ouellette. This blog has a lot of prolific material about physics, and is very popular. She recently visited San Francisco and here is her post about the Exploratorium. That post concludes, “where everyone was encouraged to discover more about the topic at [...]

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Interview on Podcast for Teachers

July 10, 2007

My podcast Science Teaching Tips won an award a week or so ago, for Best Professional Development podcast, through the Podcast for Teachers. They just posted a very nice interview with me, which I included in a new post on Science Teaching Tips. I talk about why I started the podcast, and why I think [...]

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Why art?

May 20, 2007

One of the senior artists at the Exploratorium recently asked all the science types at the museum, “Could you tell me why you value art and the artists here?” Here’s what I told her: The artists at the Exploratorium tickle my brain. The art exhibits at the Exploratorium, as well as the conversations with artists, [...]

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Poke your world

May 11, 2007

Someone said to me recently that their interest in the science of everyday life stems from their natural curiosity, their desire to “poke the world.” I liked that. My interest in science is totally hedonistic. I like to learn stuff. There are lots of people like me. I think we find it sometimes hard to [...]

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