Science Education & Policy

Both boys and girls have issues but boys are  getting a raw deal, according to Judith Kleinfeld, professor of psychology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the US. It's commonplace to hear about gender-specific issues involving girls but when there are concerns about issues primarily affecting boys, responses tend to veer toward sexism.  Issues impacting boys have been neglected by policy makers, she says. Her review of issues characterizing American boyhood, how they compare to those affecting girls, and the lack of initiatives in place to address them was published in the…

In four weeks I will speak at a very interesting session of the World Conference on Science Journalism 2009, an event that takes place in London from June 30th to July 4th. Together with James Gillies (head of Communication at the CERN laboratories) and Matthew Chalmers (freelance science journalist, formerly featured editor at Physics World) we will discuss the following theme: Blogs, big physics and breaking news Summary: How are blogs changing the way science news develops and is reported? The commissioning of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will offer a telling case study over the next…

Today marks day two of our three day experience at Access Data 2009.  Here with the remarkably hot backdrop of my alma mater (Colorado College) we are hoping to come the great conclusions that we were hoping for.  Access Data is an organization that strives to get educators, scientists, technologists, and data processors in an environment where they can collaborate on new tools for K-12 education.  The format of the conference is to provide chapters that can be posted to the EET.

When women  apply for faculty positions in math, science, and engineering at major research universities, they are interviewed and hired at rates equal to or higher than those for men, says a new report from the National Research Council.   Women are still underrepresented among those considered for tenure, but those who are considered receive tenure at the same or higher rates than men. That means the gender gap is closing without quotas and with a consistent expectation of excellence. The congressionally mandated report examines how women at research-intensive universities…

Here in Missouri, the annual intelligent design bill has died with the end of the legislative session. Every year, several representatives from Missouri's rural areas introduce some sort of creationism bill. This year, the bill contained the latest anti-evolution line - students must analyze the "strengths and weaknesses" of the science evolution, with the weaknesses being defined as whatever creationists say they are. As long-time creation/evolution watchers know, modern creationism/intelligent design was never much more than an attack on evolution, instead of a positive theory. By requiring…

The politics of science is about more than just funding and science-based policy decisions: governments, and in particular the US Federal Government, are into science education in a big way, whether you like it or not. In fact, it's hard to see how the US government can avoid being in the science education business, even if it's not setting national standards for local schools: when people want to know about swine flu, they turn to the US Centers for Disease Control; the major science agencies, the NSF, NASA, NIH, DOE, are obligated (sometimes by law) to explain to the public how billions of…

I could write a book refuting the nonsense regularly expounded by New York Time’s columnist Stanley Fish. Oh, wait, I almost have written a book about it!   I already commented on this blog regarding Stanley’s thoughts concerning academic freedom, deconstructionism, and the New Atheism (part 1 and part 2). I was going to leave Fish alone for a while, but today three friends independently sent me his latest column and asked me to write about it, so here we go, again ... Fish apparently was shocked by an almost unanimously negative response his readers had to a…

British parents call for a radical overhaul of the education system, saying that secondary school is not working for over a quarter (28 per cent) of children. According to independent education foundation Edge, it is a situation that worsens with age as 40 per cent of 15-16 year olds are failing to thrive at school. And this appears to be impacting on happiness levels as a quarter (26 per cent) of secondary school mums and dads admit they often worry their child is not happy - 23 per cent saying their offspring has not been happy since starting secondary school. Questioning the one-size fits…

John Tierney wants to know - how widespread is the problem of unethical competition in science? Here's the problem explained by Dr Sean Cutler on Tierney's blog: Sadly, there is a lot of unethical competition that goes on in science. This year alone, I have heard of cases that are the scientific equivalent of insider trading, where reviewers of important papers exploit their access to privileged data to gain unfair advantages in the “race” to the next big discovery. I have heard of researchers being ignored when they request published materials from scientists. Not sending materials described…

Throughout the post-industrial era, science and technology have been central  to understanding both global security threats and possible solutions. Within the US and across the globe, major scientific organizations have developed Committees and working groups to integrate science with security policy, however, those efforts have focused almost exclusively on physical/life sciences and been applied predominantly to WMD-related threats． Although high-tech and catastrophic issues maintain their relevance, the contemporary global security environment has increasingly diffused, evolved in…