Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
worldsfair | February 5, 2010
So, today 22 Grade 1's and 2's came to my lab.
So what to do? What to do? That's a lot of kids in a full on laboratory settng. I've written about this activity before, but here goes again.
Thankfully, this is where ScienceBlogs rocks, since I had happened upon an awesome post by Janet over at Adventures in Science and Ethics that was all about the simple act of "just adding water" to see what happens.
The only difference here, of course, is that we got to do it at a real lab, so it was wonderful to see the kids get a real hearty dose of science culture as it were.
As well, just to make it…
vlicata | January 31, 2010When the most recent LSU budget cuts were handed down by the Louisiana governor a couple of weeks ago, one of the items that went on the chopping block was the Louisiana State Science and Engineering Fair, which has long been sponsored and hosted by the university. In a state with a creationist governor, and a state that recently became a national embarrassment by passing into law one of the Discovery Institute's new pseudonyms for teaching creationism, it is extraordinarily frightening that the State Science Fair might be canceled. Although it was indirect (the governor just forced the…
worldsfair | January 28, 2010Well, now it can be used for the Phylomon project. You know, the one where we're hoping we can guide an open source project into a free and massive card collecting game that is fun and even perchance (oh no, here it comes...) educational.
Now that we're at a stage where we're confident that the mechanics of obtaining images is sound (check out the submissions pool here, and the few from this pool that we've already lined up for beta testing as shown below), we're ready to move onto other crucial components of the project.
Namely gameplay and content on the card.
In many ways, we think these…
vlicata | January 21, 2010Although it's not Dr. Forbin's Colossus (one of the first AI systems to attempt to destroy the world on film --note the "on film" please), it is quite irritating, and the result might eventually be the same: We recently replaced our oven - why? the computer went out on it. We recently replaced our washer -- it was quite difficult to find a new washer without a computer in it, a computer that would be exposed to warm, wet vibrational conditions every day. We just disconnected the waterbath from our microcalorimeter - why? the on-board computer that controls the $ 3K water bath went out and…
worldsfair | January 18, 2010O.K. Now that we're back in the swing of things - Here is talk number five from the TEDx Terry talks event I helped organize. This might seem like a talk about science, but if you think about it, there's a lot of the humanities when it comes to fully appreciating something as magical as wonder.
- - -
Name: Jennifer Kaban
Talk Title: "Sharing Wonder"
Notes: Unclassified Student
Topic: Jennifer believes that the most precious gift we can give each other is a sense of wonder. And she believes that the best way to achieve this is to share the world of science with non-scientists. She thinks…
vlicata | January 16, 2010A next step beyond believing in it (or any well established theory -- e.g. Evolution) is to ask: do you like it? (and here I'm talking about the real thing, we'll deal with the television show later).
Einstein didn't like it. So much so he made his self-proclaimed "biggest mistake" trying to work around it.
Over on Oscillator, Christina quotes a great line from the biography of Barbara McClintock:
"Good science cannot proceed without a deep emotional investment on the part of the scientist. It is that emotional investment that provides the motivating force for the endless hours of intense,…
vlicata | January 12, 2010Writing about gravitational waves and the fact that waves from the big bang might still be bouncing around the universe (see January 10th post) reminded me of an odd science-and-religion overlap that happened in one of my classes recently. We were studying a play about Ralph Alpher's work on Big Bang nucleosynthesis and cosmic background radiation (the play is called "Background" and is by Lauren Gunderson).
Anyway, one of the questions on the exam about this play was: define "nucleosynthesis". The answer is that Big Bang nucleosynthesis is the formation of several different elements (…
worldsfair | January 12, 2010If so, you should join this facebook group. Or to discuss further, please go to http://friendfeed.com/phylomon.
Here's part of what started this group and project: a friend of mine passed on this "letter to Santa:"
It quite nicely demonstrates an issue with advocates of biodiversity - that is, what can we do to get kids engaged with the wonderful creatures that are all around them? They obviously have the ability and the passion to care about such things, but it appears misplaced - they'll spend a ton of resources and time tracking down fictional things, when they could easily do the same…
vlicata | January 10, 2010Greetings from Louisiana State University. By some odd fluke, I've been asked to blog here at the World's Fair (who says the world is fair?) while the venerable Ben goes emeritus for a while. Don't worry, you still have Dave!
Anyway, just so you're not too surprised, here's the usual kind of posts to expect from me: inappropriate humor, vicious attacks on anti-science conservatives, heart-warming stories about puppies and kittens, celebrity gossip, movie reviews, unauthorized peer review, pharmaceutical industry general disrespect, and lots and lots of art-and-science stuff.
So, let's…
bcohen | December 24, 2009"The world is full of light and life, and the true crime is not to be interested in it." A.S. Byatt
"What seems a detour has a way of becoming, in time, a direct route." Richard Powers
I had more fun doing this series than anything else in the past 3+ years here at the Fair. It was a unique opportunity and one that wouldn't have been possible without the blog format. I was able to start down a track and let it run as far as it would go. What seemed like a detour at times had a way of becoming a direct route so that, in the end, the meandering came to encircle epistemology, technology, and…
bcohen | December 23, 2009(Ten Best of the Decade from Half of the World's Fair)
This series began with the kindness of a friend who agreed to let me ask him about his book about Barry Commoner, science, and modern environmentalism. It then spawned a series of 17 interviews with authors of books in science studies, environmental history, the history of science, and all combinations in between. Every one of them was enjoyable to do; every author was generous and insightful. I've been able to use some of these as thumbnail sketches of readings I use in class. In that, they stand as the best example of blogging as a…
bcohen | December 22, 2009These never got formalized into an official series (not to demystify it too much, but that formalization process requires mostly that Dave make an icon to put on the sidebar). Nevertheless, they ended up as an eight-part set of posts about landscape art of various types. I'll put a representative sample from each one below, each one clickable back to the original post. For clicking duplication, that first set (of western U.S. landscapes), ran in October 2008; the last, and most appropriate for this blog (it was about World's Fairs) ran this past June. I loved these.
Series #8: The World's…
bcohen | December 21, 2009This one was immense. It was also a dual effort (and not by "one of the guys" at the blog). Like the Puzzle Fantastica, this one is very difficult to re-post in its entirety. Luckily, Dave made a great graphic with links embedded to each game. I'll reprint the Press Center, then, which includes links to every game that had running commentary. For those who never saw this, it started here and, all told, the best feature was that it involved a slew of bloggers across scienceblogs, all working in conjunction to run the tournament.
(March 12th)
Grand opening. Introductory remarks. Brackets…
bcohen | December 20, 2009Halfway there. This one first ran earlier this year, back in February. I was actually preparing for an interview, sitting in a bed and breakfast when I posted it, as I recall, which in retrospect makes it yet more meaningful to me. It was snowing, picturesque, comforting. Now a memory.
I had the chance to see a talk by William Cronon last week here at U.Va. He's a professor at the University of Wisconsin and a recognized world leader in environmental history and environmental studies. His work, while helping define the field of environmental history as it became one in recent decades,…
worldsfair | December 18, 2009With respect to this and much apologies to all the "shoulders of giants."
Whereby:
(1) mystery tweet = M2c2(A/Ï)(mx+b)-XF(q/t)
And given that:
(1.a) A = ÏR2 (area of a circle)
(1.b) y = mx+b (linear equation)
(1.c) F=MA (from Newton's laws of motion)
(1.d) S=q/t (classical Entropy definition)
Then:
(2) mystery tweet = M2c2R2y-XMAS
And given that:
(2.a) E = Mc2 (Einstein's equivalence of mass and energy equations)
Therefore:
(3) mystery tweet = MER2y-XMAS
(4) mystery tweet = MERRy-XMAS
That's probably it from me until the new year. Have a happy and restful holidays!
bcohen | December 18, 2009In a countdown from just one of us, this one isn't just from one half of the World's Fair; it's from both of us. Truth be told, Dave did most of the work here and in the end this was a hallmark achievement for the blog. There isn't a great way to repost the totality of the Puzzle Fantastica, the solution to which was first posted here in September 2006. But I'll try. If you've never seen the PFs, then it's probably best to start back at the beginning and work your way up.
The Worlds' Fair is thinking, pondering, mulling over, mulling under, obsessing around something, something not to be…
worldsfair | December 17, 2009... well this. This being the (now pretty much) annual SCQ Christmas offering from structural biochemist and playwright, Vince LiCata.
NARRATOR: Every Who
Down in U-ville
Liked their research a lot...
FACULTY: (pipeting): I sure like research a lot.
I love running gels,
I get bored when I'm not.
NARRATOR: But the Pinch
Who lived just North of U-ville
Most certainly, did not.
FACULTY: Now, who wouldn't love labwork?
I'm sure I don't know.
They'd have to be a real jerk,
Or perhaps a bit slow.
He sings:
Fah who for-aze
Dah who dor-aze
Welcome Research
Come this way
Fah who for-aze
Dah who dor-…
bcohen | December 17, 2009Moving along (see here), the order of quality for Halloween candy has been a source of constant conversation for years in my family. Since my kids became full-on trick-or-treaters a few years ago, it seemed necessary to get down to the science of it. That led to the first hierarchy, in 2006, which was supplemented with revised versions in 2007 and 2008. The version below was posted in October 2008
The data presented below were first published after Halloween in 2006. After further (non-anonymous) peer review, we pushed into the second phase of the research in 2007. We are proud to…
bcohen | December 16, 2009For a year or so, we had the privilege at the World's Fair to garner our own sponsors, corporate and otherwise, so as not to rely on money from Dow Chemical or Shell, money that Seed Media Group was all too willing to take. In the end, we had nine separate alternative sponsors, each coming with its own tale to tell about the morally tenuous, environmentally destructive activities of Dow Chemical. The first ran in May 2007, the last in April 2008. Below are all the sponsors together, a class photo of sorts.
The evidence of Dow's debased policies that went with some of these ads:…
worldsfair | December 15, 2009
Has anybody reading this post used twitter in the classroom? Not in the sense of:
"Students, write something witty in less than 140 characters"
But rather:
"Students, we don't mind you using twitter during class, but keep the tweets class specific. Oh yeah, and use this hashtag #subject101"
In other words, use the online tool in much the same way as a conference, but specifically for a class in, say, university.
I've had a chance to look at a number of articles here and there by searching "using twitter in classroom." This one, in particular, was interesting:
Professor Encourages Students…