Science Education & Policy

Telling the time, using a knife and fork, manners: what should be taught in the home and what in the school? Shutterstock By Pauline Lysaght, University of Wollongong Who taught you to tell the time, to tie your shoelaces or to write your name? I have memories of my parents and teachers taking a hand in helping me to learn these skills as a small child. But what about more challenging tasks - who taught you to analyze a poem or to solve equations? Mr Williamson, my favorite teacher, taught the principles of algebra to our class and patiently went over the information until it started to make…

Climate science is right – but it isn't winning. NASA, CC BY By Mathis Hampel, University of East Anglia Scientists tell us the world is warming and that a climate catastrophe is imminent. They’re probably right. Yet climate change framed by scientists, politicians and economists as a straightforward pollution problem will neither convince skeptics nor advance the difficult decision-making process. Mark Maslin, a climatologist at University College London, recently offered his analysis of climate denial and the skeptics’ reluctance to accept the science. In an article published here he…

Throughout the European Union, environmental elites have to scramble a bit to rationalize their anti-GMO stance while trying not to sound silly. That's not easy. How can modern GMOs be Frankenfood while the previous generation of genetically modified foods, made using less precise mutagenesis, are not only allowed but considered organic? So they mumble about something about illegal and policies and the people have spoken. That is the crux of it - they created a legal definition to exempt the GMOs that already existed while still penalizing new ones and claiming that makes them healthier.…

The government's ad promoting proposed changes to higher education. Is it legal? And if so, should it be? Youtube screen grab, CC BY-SA By Andrew Hughes, Australian National University The federal government’s recent television advertisement promoting the benefits of the proposed changes to higher education have raised the ire of not only the opposition but also taxpayers who have reportedly spent A$8 million for the campaign. The changes to higher education, including deregulation of fees and cuts to government subsidies, were voted down in the Senate last year, before the advertisements…

Hurricane Sandy pummeled cities along the east coast in 2012, causing billions of dollars in damage. Shutterstock By Delavane Diaz, Stanford University Climate change is as much an economic problem as an environmental one. The effects of climate change, such as damage from more severe weather or health problems from higher temperatures, will impose a cost on society. On the other hand, moving away from a fossil fuel-based energy system will require significant investments into low-carbon technologies. How does society determine which efforts are most cost-effective? My co-author Fran Moore…

Some groups want to label foods that contain anything created with modern genetic modification. Yet the previous generation of genetically modified foods, using mutagenesis, can be labeled organic. And why not label all pesticides used on food, whether synthetic or organic, if awareness is important? If a Bt genetic modification is important to know about, why isn't Bt spray on organic food important to know about. The only thing less valuable than most proposed labeling changes are the existing labels, according to a new paper - at least if the goal is improving nutrition.  Yet…

Can the promise of free community college be delivered? President Obama at Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, TN Kevin Lamarque/Reuters By Donald E. Heller, Michigan State University Last week, President Barack Obama announced a proposal to guarantee that students could attend a community college for free for their first two years. The announcement was one in a series of previews of domestic policy proposals he is planning to include in his State of the Union speech later this month. The important question to ask is, will the president’s proposal help achieve his goal of returning the…

Memorizing the ions is one of the most challenging part of mastering the basics of inorganic nomenclature.  As I agree with Gerhand, Lind (1992), students of chemistry should master the naming and writing inorganic compounds. With this, I am suggesting the following aids that students and teachers of general chemistry may find helpful.  I believe, however, that memorizing the ions  should be a behavioral learning process because to be fluent in the language, one should automatically remember the ions.  This can be likened to typewriting or keyboarding where the…

Funding for institutions of higher education in Norway is partially determined by how many publications their employees produce. While there are already six troubling problems with this system, one of them is about to get much, much worse. A group of experts was commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Research to suggest improvements in the financing system. Their report includes one proposal that is not only mathematically garbled; it is also an incentive to corruption. Here’s how it works: In our current system, an individual publication earns a…

Poverty causes more deaths than climate change. Otis Historical Archives, CC BY By Andrew Papworth, University College London Climate change will cause all sorts of problems for humans in the future. It could cause mass migration and conflict as people flee flooded homes or arid farmland, and fight over ever more scarce resources. It’ll mean economic slowdown as industries are hit and societies cough up the money required to adapt to the new world. Climate change will even affect your health. Indeed, some scholars have warned that climate change is the greatest risk to global health. While…