Science Education & Policy

Game development company Fantastec has created an online 3D game called PolarHeroes for children aged 4 to 8. Since games, Farmville aside, are essentially about drama, the game begins with terrible news: Christmas is in trouble and only your children can save it.   And so the players embark on a journey in order to save Christmas and become, you guessed it, PolarHeroes.  It isn't just adventure in a 3-D world, the fictional plot set in various snowy villages also has dozens of educational mini games, which teach children early reading skills, social and cultural skills, geography…

On his Reference Frame site, contrarian physicist Luboš Motl uses Google to determine the 'reading level' of some science blogs, with, he says, "Basic" being 1 star, "intermediate" 3 stars and "advanced"  counted by having 5 stars. Based on the results, there would seem to be an inverse correlation between hard science content and popularity. His diagram shows that the uber-popular P.Z. Myers of Pharyngula fame comes in at 2.02, right near Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy, Wired Science is just about in the middle at 3.143 and Quantum Diaries here at Science 2.0 is 4.31. Perhaps Tommaso needs…

In the midst of all the lamentations that their isn't enough spending on science outreach (read: grants to do it rather than simply doing it, like we do here) or enough spending on turning people who want to be veterinarians (insert any alternative career choice here) into scientists, young people who want to excel in science are still doing it, just like they always have. Guerin Catholic High School senior Mark Babbey is co-author of a paper in Physical Review A on the properties of quantum particles that hop from site to site on a chain in which one site can absorb them and another can emit…

Here a short outtake of a depressing but interesting piece “The Shadow Scholar: The man who writes your students' papers tells his story” on outsourcing of thesis etc. writing that undermines our at points plainly ridiculous education systems further. This has been already commented on in other blogs, but I would like to stress a different aspect here. Yes, there is much to say about evaluation versus education, about the way teachers cannot pursue cheaters even if they clearly identified them, and so on. I claim however that one of the main culprits is the way we let language be used in…

Warning! If you’re thinking this is going to be about gruesome punishments or such like, prepare to be disappointed! This is about teaching and learning electromagnetism. Having recently retired, I am trying to keep my brain active. One thing I am doing is trying to grasp electromagnetism, which I never really got hold of either at school or university. At school, it was full of horrible formulae like the magnetic field inside a solenoid, and moreover it was taught in cgs units. Here one encounters two sets of units for all sorts of things, the electrostatic units (esu) and the…

You're on this website so you obviously know how to read.  And some regard the digital revolution as a monumental one but there was one even greater; the invention of writing itself. If you are in the Chicago area this weekend and keen to learn about how and where writing originated - in not just one place but at four distinct times and places - a panel of  scholars will explore how writing developed in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and Mesoamerica.   The seminar is Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 1:00 pm at the Oriental Institute, Breasted Hall1155 East 58th Street,…

University of California president Mark G. Yudof has issued an 'open letter' to California to talk about the budget problems the system is facing and how they want to deal with the issues facing the state- "I am writing today to let Californians know about the fiscal realities that confront the university, and also about some recommendations I intend to bring next week to our governing Board of Regents. First, though, I'd like to provide a bit of background." So I will list what he writes and then translate that into economic reality, as seen by people who actually live here but are not…

A Disclaimer: I am not spreading any social gospel of minimalism or primitivism; nor am I making any moral statement about the merit of culture with my blog's title. Tis a dramatic catch phrase which more or less represents a correct attitude, driven to fierce scrutiny of our own formative enculturation. I’m Kenneth. There are letters which occasionally precede me, but I find it a clumsy existence with them under foot. You may call me Ken or Lippy, unless you plan to disagree--. In that case, I prefer my dissent with the honorific. When I began my schooling I did so at a liberal arts…

Is obesity contagious?   A Harvard groups says it is and that it is spreading via social networks.   If so, America's obesity epidemic won't plateau until at least 42 percent of adults are obese, according to their estimate derived by applying mathematical modeling to 40 years of Framingham Heart Study data. Their work is contrary to recent assertions by some experts that the obesity rate has peaked at around 34 percent.  34 percent more American adults are overweight but not obese, according to the federal government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates…

Climate science is suffering a crisis of confidence among the public but the data is there - what climate scientists need are effective climate change communication strategies and ways to engage the people on the street who influence policy decisions. It helped to have journalists as cheerleaders for a time but when the issue became overly political and scientists who disputed some of the methodologies or claims by IPCC Working Groups got boxed out, the trust in the data of climate scientists also began to spiral downward, even among other scientists.    What climate science needs…