Science Education
sporte | November 7, 2006BioMed Central has gone beyond conventional scientific publishing and started including movie supplements to scientific papers. I saw this one in my e-mail box and couldn't resist.
After all, if you don't have access to a microscope, equipped with a digital video camera, how are you supposed to see these sorts of things?
I took a look at the article from Neural Development, from Zolessi, et. al. comparing the development of retinal ganglion cells in vitro and in vivo. In the movie, linked below, the first cell looks a bit like a child playing "Pin the tail on the Donkey." He/She (the…
sporte | November 6, 2006How does biomedical research impact you? Have you (or has someone in your family) benefited from vaccinations, pharmaceutical drugs, medical devices, surgery, or transplants? How does biomedical research affect the health of your dog, cat, or other pet? How might biomedical research touch your life in the future?
Do you know any middle school students who are interested in the life sciences? If they can write an essay, they might be able to win a prize.
If you know any middle school students or teachers in Washington, Idaho, Montana, or Oregon, let them know about the NWABR middle school…
sporte | November 6, 2006I wrote earlier about videos of lab protocols and the benefit these could bring to people who are trying to learn new techniques or perhaps troubleshoot their own. Unfortunately, I suspect that the people who would benefit the most from movies of others doing lab procedures correctly are those who are already pretty observant.
Nevertheless, I have some ideas for improvements to these kinds of movies, ala acting and editing, that could benefit the truly-technically-impaired.
We need lab movies of people doing things wrong.
Last night we watched the episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus,…
sporte | November 4, 2006You've probably heard about enterprising researchers attaching cameras to dolphins, dogs, and other animals, in order to learn how things look from the critter-point of view. Now, some enterprising lab rats have added a new twist to this technique.
It's lab cam!
From Attila Csordas , we have a report about researchers documenting their work through film in an unusual way. They put on a funky-looking hat with a digital camera attached and film their hands doing the experiments. There's even a short movie made by John Cumbers from OpenWetWare, on preparing Drosophila embryo chromatin for…
clock | November 2, 2006
I am currently teaching only the lab portion of BIO101 and will not teach the lecture again until January, but this is as good time as ever to start reposting my lecture notes here, starting with the very first one (originally posted on May 07, 2006) and continuing every Thursday over the next several weeks.
Although this is old, I'd love to get more comments on each of those lecture notes. Did I get any facts wrong? Is the material inappropriate for the level I am teaching? Is there a bette rway to do it? Are there online resources I can tap into…
evolgen | November 1, 2006You are all the products of retard fish having sex with squirrels. And monkeys are involved somehow. Anyway, someone needs to post Mr. Mrs. Garrison's lesson on evolution from tonight's South Park. All I've got is this:
All hail the retarded fish frogs!!
But Dawkins having the hots for Garrison is a bit too much. Isn't he married to a sex symbol?
evolgen | November 1, 2006Sorry to beat a long-dead horse, but I thought I saw a leg twitch:
Atlantic Books have begun to publish this year a series of texts titled 'Books that shook the world', which, rightly, includes a new biography of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species by Janet Browne. And some new shaking definitely seems to be in order. Darwinism appears under increasing challenge as 'creationism' and 'intelligent design' continue to creep into curricula, particularly in the US and the UK.
That quote comes from Nigel Williams's review of Brown's book. Williams writes for Current Biology, a widely read journal…
sporte | November 1, 2006These are the real things that give nightmares to post-docs and graduate students.
One thing that you don't learn, until you either do a research project in a lab or you start graduate school, is that science isn't really the straightforward cut and dry: we do this step, then we do this step; sort of field that you might imagine. You come to graduate school all bright-eyed and amazed, with the scientific method burned into your brain, only to find out that it's usually the little things that no one told you about that make the difference between productive experiments and a waste of time.…
clock | October 27, 2006Tomorrow morning I am starting to teach again. Only the lab this time around, my colleague is teaching the lecture. And it is going to look pretty much the same as last couple of times I did it:
Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4
tsmith | October 27, 2006Yesterday's Ames Tribune, the paper that originally carried Republican lieutenant governor candidate Bob Vander Plaats' comments supporting the teaching of intelligent design in schools contained an article noting Republican governor candidate Jim Nussle's dismissal of Vander Plaats' position:
Republican candidate for governor Jim Nussle and his running mate, Sioux City businessman Bob Vander Plaats, disagree on whether intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in Iowa's science classrooms.
***
On Wednesday Nussle broke with his running mate.
"While I believe and I have taught…
clock | October 26, 2006A short but good article by my schools' President (April 25, 2006, also here).
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James Oblinger, the new President of North Carolina State University (promoted from within after many years as the Dean of the School Of Agriculture And Life Sciences), has a good editorial in today's News and Observer:
Nurturing success in the sciences:
We've all heard the line from President Bush: We need more students to join the "nerd patrol." It's an overly simple solution for a complex problem that imperils the traditions of invention and innovation that…
tsmith | October 26, 2006I mentioned the situation with Lieutenant Governor candidate Bob Vander Plaats and his support of intelligent design last week (posts here and here). A group of us have put together an editorial discussing Vander Plaats' position and why it matters to Iowa voters (letter and signatories can be found here at the Iowa Citizens for Science site). Yesterday, a columnist for the Des Moines register also wrote up the story, and our response to it:
Town and gown are often mutual strangers when it comes to political involvement. But the Iowa governor's race this year is attracting the involvement…
clock | October 26, 2006From the press release (doc):
The report, prepared by Potomac Communications Group of Washington, DC under a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, provides a candid glimpse into the NSF's Urban Systemic Program (USP), the first national effort to reform how a school district teaches and students perform in science and math throughout an entire school system.
Launched in 1994, the USP was the first time that the NSF gave funds directly to school districts rather than through universities. It offered districts the opportunity to address their own education challenges and control how funds…
evolgen | October 26, 2006On November 7, the citizens of the State of Ohio will be voting a bunch of things, just like all Americans. One of the things they'll be voting for are seats on the State Board of Education (see Ed's discussion here). In one of the races, an anti-science incumbent, Deborah Owens-Fink, is running against a pro-science challenger, Tom Sawyer. Owens-Fink has been far more successful at raising money than Sawyer. To donate money to Sawyer's campaign visit here.
More about the push for donations can be found below the fold.
Taken from EvolDir:
Dear Fellow Scientists,
In 2003, our community pulled…
clock | October 24, 2006There has been an exciting new addition fo the Conference Program - a new break-out session:
Illustrating your posts: Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist Magazine, leads a discussion about using photographs, illustrations, video clips and other multimedia to offer blog readers other ways to learn about science.
See what's new at the conference homepage. See how you can help spread the word about it here.
And speaking of illustrations and multimedia as science educational tools, you should check out THE FILTER, a BoingBoing of science. Learn more about it here.
clock | October 20, 2006Ask a ScienceBlogger:
What's the best science TV show of all time?
This one's easy: Dont' Ask Me, 1970s BBC show starring Magnus Pyke, David Bellamy
and Miriam Stoppard (and occasionally some other people). Absolutely the best of all time!
Update: Thanks to Brandon, you can see a short clip:
That is actually one of the weakest and tamest I remember. You should have seen where Magnus explains coriolis force, or quicksand!
clock | October 19, 2006I just got the teaching schedule for Spring, so I decided to follow up on last week's post by putting, under the fold, a series of short posts I wrote when I taught the last time, musing about teaching in general and teaching biology to adults in particular. These are really a running commentary on the course. The actual lecture notes are here:
Biology and the Scientific MethodLab 1Cell StructureProtein Synthesis: Transcription and TranslationCell-Cell InteractionsCell Division and DNA ReplicationLab 2From Two Cells To Many: Cell Differentiation and Embryonic DevelopmentFrom Genes To Traits…
sporte | October 18, 2006Reposted from the original Digitalbio.
About a decade ago, I took a fascinating summer course at the UW on bioethics. We read about the Nuremburg trials and the Geneva conventions. We learned about horizon problems and eugenics. And we discussed lots of challenging scenarios with genetic testing, autonomy, family relationships, and the problems faced by people seeking to have children, trying to get insurance, or looking for a job.
So naturally, when I started a biotechnology course for non-science majors (Biotechnology and Society) at our community college, I used many of those examples…
tsmith | October 14, 2006As one commenter at Aetiology pointed out, support for Intelligent design/creationism is included in the Republican Party of Iowa State Platform:
3.4 We support the teaching of alternative theories on the origins of life including Darwinian Evolution, Creation Science or Intelligent Design, and that each should be given equal weight in presentation.
What I don't know is if this is typical of other Republican platforms in other states, or how frequently each candidate uses these points in their own campaign. I've still not heard back either from Nussle or Culver regarding Intelligent Design,…
tsmith | October 13, 2006Vander Plaats supports teaching intelligent design
"If we are going to teach evolution, there is another viewpoint and one that holds pretty good too (evolution) in regards to creation," Vander Plaats said. "I think that is something that I would want to visit further along with Jim Nussle in regards to 'Where are you at on that?' But my viewpoint is I would like to give both of these (time in the classroom)."
For those of you unfamiliar wth Iowa politics, Jim Nussle is the Republican candidate for governor, opposed by Democrat Chet Culver. Bob Vander Plaats, as noted, is Nussle's running…