Saturday, January 28, 2012
Podcast of Interest: Lab Out Loud, Episode 43. “Mythbuster Adam Savage”
In this fifth post in my ‘Podcasts of Interest’ series, where I comment on podcasts with provocative or important science or mathematics content, I bring you another Lab Out Loud episode. Episode 43 features Adam Savage, one of the hosts of Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters program. Adam is an advocate for learning with your hands, learning from experience and recovering from failure.
In this podcast, Adam and the hosts talk about a wide range of topics. Those that piques my interest (and will do the same to you) are described after the jump.
Some topics that the hosts talk with Adam about include:
- How his science teachers made a huge difference for him, growing up. “There was something really important in the fact that I had questions that interested them, and that made me feel like my brain was something worth using to ask questions with. And that is one of the important distinctions. I have twin eleven year old boys, and I notice that with one of them just him getting up the courage to say I don’t know and not worry about being wrong about something is very difficult. Getting somebody to that moment where they bypass their fear of being wrong to ask interesting questions, because quite often they have an insight that they didn’t realize, is where real teaching happens.” (9:27-10:07)
- The importance of failure and making mistakes. “I view it [making mistakes] as one hundred percent essential to the work, not just ancillary and not a byproduct. … I’ve learned enough about everything I do to know what a craftsman can see in a lot of [unintelligible], and a craftsman is not by any stretch someone who never makes a mistake. They can just see a mistake coming from a lot farther off than we can. You can’t learn to spot mistakes unless you’ve actually made them. You have to make them.” (12:24-13:19)
- The scientific method; it’s portrayal in textbooks versus the way it really works. “I think the most surprising thing that I’ve learned, and I’ve learned this while doing the show, the most surprising thing about the scientific method is the fact that it is in fact a deeply creative process. Where the failure comes up is not in the fact that you weren’t able to properly test your hypothesis, but the creativity is in how many hypotheses can you come up with? The more you come up with the more you start to be able to come up with. You can do five test to find out that you were asking the wrong question. That type of failure is totally key!” (14:16-15:28)
Find the Episode’s home here and take a listen. Length: 21:57.
Podcast of Interest: Lab Out Loud, Episode 36. “The scientific method starts with curiosity”
What a great find! In this fourth post in my ‘Podcasts of Interest’ series, where I comment on podcasts with provocative or important science or mathematics content, I bring you another Lab Out Loud episode. Episode 36 features Dr. Bonnie Bassler, a microbiologist who studies quorum sensing in bacteria. Her science is world-class (she’s in the Lewis Thomas lab at Princeton, received a MacArthur ‘Genius’ grant, and has given a TED talk). She also has a passion for spreading her love for science, and that comes through loud and clear in this conversation. More about why I think you should listen after the jump.
The hosts ask her how she chooses the questions she pursues and how does she mentor her students to be successful scientists. She responds by rephrasing the question as, “How do you inspire students’ creativity without crushing it?” Then she answers the question about choosing pursuits by saying she asks herself a question: If I answered that question, would it contribute anything to a greater understanding of the Big Questions? She wants projects that will change the way we think about what we know. In this way, all the small experiments are framed by the big questions.
The discussion also touches on science literacy and the importance of non-scientists to engage in thinking about scientific topics (at time 10:28).
What’s beautiful about science is there’s what’s known and what’s not known, and there are right and wrong answers. When they [the humanity's students] get that, and that a right answer can be wrong five years down the line, but it’s right in the context of what we know currently. I think that making them understand that that’s what scientists do, that what we do is incredibly mysterious and creative and artistic. Really, we’re always trying to look at things that have never been looked at before, we’re trying to think very creatively about things in a different way. It’s not just this nerdy, boring bean counting. What the scientist does is to try to [understand] Nature from scratch. And I think that they get that.
The energetic discussion continues through the whole session, and Dr. Bassler shines more warm light on the nature of science and what it means to be a scientist, the role of wonderment and curiosity in the scientific process.
This is a must-listen for anyone who is reading this
Find the Episode’s home here and take a listen. Length: 31:26.
Podcast of Interest: Lab Out Loud, Episode 19. “Bioethics”
In this third post in my ‘Podcasts of Interest’ series, where I comment on podcasts with provocative or important science or mathematics content, I bring you another Lab Out Loud episode. Episode 19 features Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, the Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Kahn and the hosts talk about the importance of ethics in the science classroom. The episode gives some concrete examples of topics that teachers can use to help students understand ethics and to think more clearly about ethical issues (e.g., the Molly Nash case).
Dr. Kahn’s expertise seemed firmly planted in ethics as it relates to biomedical sciences, and he seemed reluctant to help the hosts and the listeners understand how ethical issues can be found in STEM subdisciplines like physics, chemistry, mathematics, or computer science. The only example he could share outside of biomedicine was the ethics of scientific misconduct (e.g., plagiarism or manufacturing of data).
They also talk about bringing ethics into the classroom. All three appear to agree that ethics should be brought into the classroom, but then they began talking about how. Very quickly, one of the hosts started balking at the idea of having a ‘discussion’ with his physics students. It’s as if he were frightened of losing control of his classroom. I was disappointed that nobody told him that releasing the lecture-forged grip on a classroom can be a good thing. Instead, Dr. Kahn implied that it’s important for the instructor to “prepare very well for every argument your students can come up with” before having an open discussion on ethical questions. Talk about discouraging (and, in my experience, wrong)! He didn’t do much to encourage more science teachers to bring ethics into their classrooms.
Find the Episode’s home here and take a listen. The same web page also has a list of additional resources for those who want to bring ethics into the classroom. Length: 27:35.
Podcast of Interest: Lab Out Loud, Episode 14. “Bill Nye the Science Guy”
In this second post in my ‘Podcasts of Interest’ series, where I comment on podcasts with provocative or important science or mathematics content, I bring you another Lab Out Loud episode. Episode 14 features Bill Nye the Science Guy. Need I say more? No, but I will.
The whole episode is a joy to listen to. Mr. Nye tells us about how he got started in the science entertainment biz (hint: Steve Martin played a role). He also talks about his passion for conserving energy and gives advice on small changes to your home that can make a big difference.
Toward the end of the show, he and the hosts wade into some policy through some back-and-forth about the Science DebatesM that had been proposed for presidential candidates in the 2008 campaign. Mr. Nye’s opinion on those debates is very interesting. This discussion starts at 23:26 and last through the end of the show at 26:50.
Find the Episode’s home here and take a listen. Length: 26:50.
Podcast of Interest: Lab Out Loud, Episode 4. “The Science Education Myth”
This is the first post in a series that will be pre-titled ‘Podcasts of Interest.’ In this series, I’ll point out podcasts that have interesting or valuable science or mathematics content. That content will be of interest to students, instructors, and administrators, alike. The first few posts will come from Lab Out Loud, a podcast of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). Its two hosts, secondary science teachers, keep it light and fun but aren’t afraid of wading into deeper waters, too. In the first post, I pick their Episode 4: The Science Education Myth in which they talk about whether or not the U.S. is producing enough future STEM professionals.
On May 28th, the U.S. House passed a bill (H.R. 2772) that will reauthorize the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science (COMPETES) Act of 2007. This Act can be seen as a response to the National Academies of Sciences report Rising Above the Gathering Storm which argued that America’s international economic competitiveness and prospect for future growth is jeopardized by its underproduction of STEM professionals. The America COMPETES Act steered additional national resources to reverse this perceived underproduction.
In this episode of Lab Out Loud, the hosts speak with Vivek Wadha, the author of an article that calls into question the assumptions of Rising Above the Gathering Storm. They have a wide-ranging and thoughtful discussion that is a welcome tonic to the often politicized hype associated to STEM talent expansion efforts.
Yes, I am one of those people who hype and sell the need for more future STEM professionals. But I’m also a scientist, and I welcome the chance to understand the perspective of the loyal opposition. Much of the criticism of America’s STEM underproduction seems to come from STEM professionals, and they are exactly the people who stand to gain from many aspects of the America COMPETES Act. If we care about finding the ‘right’ solutions to the problems that face us in this age of a flat, gloablized world, shouldn’t we all want to think critically about everyone’s arguments on the topic?
So this podcast is a must-listen for everyone who has an investment in preparing future STEM professionals and related public policy. All are welcome to sound-off in the comments here, or start a tweet-storm on Twitter, FriendFeed, or Buzz. Look for my Google Profile to find the many ways to start a conversation with me.
Science Kits: For Kids, by a Kid
Science is Working when Scientists are Arguing
Contributor Maggie Koerth Baker posts a nice short piece to Boing Boing called “Scientists disagree. You should not be surprised.” In this post, she uses a new spat over interpretations of a 2009 discovery of a fossil skeleton named Ardi to remind us that arguments like this are part of the scientific process. A thoughtful disagreement is not a sign of weak science. It’s an indication that science is working. “Science works because scientists disagree,” she writes. “They challenge each other’s ideas, find better ways to interpreting the data and eventually come to conclusions that bring us closer to truth.”
See the NYTimes article on the Ardi argument, here.
Basically, argumentation is an aspect of scientific investigation. Contrast this with the current state of political and social discourse, where people create arguments (often built on sound bites) to call into question and obscure the value of others’ ideas.
iPads in Education: A Journey Beginning
The STEM Talent Expansion Programs (STEP) Office here acquired a set of iPads to lend to students, staff, and faculty for exploring uses that will enhance learning and teaching of science and mathematics. We knew that we’d encounter management challenges, usage questions, and opportunities that might interest others, so we will share our experience in an academic spirit. Please chime in with you own thoughts and questions using the ‘Comments’, below.
Unboxing.
We purchased to sets of iPads, one as an education 10-pack and one as a set of five. These pics show how they shipped differently. While it would be nice to have cases for all the iPads, the iPads that came in the group of five were packed in the store-shelf boxes. These can be used to store and protect those iPads as we lend them to people. Those that shipped in the 10-pack have little in the way of protective casing, so we’re looking for a storage and transport solution for those.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534
From there, it was just a matter of following our nose through the instructions. Each iPad took only a little while to activate after being registered through iTunes.
We have many questions about managing a set of iPads that will be shared among a large set of borrowers. What do we do about the iPad that has an app that a borrower bought and installed for their use? What do we do when a borrower purchased a month of 3G access for an iPad and returns it a week or two later? When we find an app that we like, how can we install it on all the iPads? How can we create a standard factory-like install image that we restore to after an iPad is returned?Currently, our answer to these questions goes like this: ”We don’t know the answer to that question, and we are learning as we go. At this time, a borrower is responsible for any purchases made for use on a borrowed iPad. When the iPad is returned, it will be restored to factory settings. All content put on that iPad by the user will be lost.”
It feels like an extreme approach, but we don’t know how to put any nuances into play.
Experience So Far
We have loaned iPads out to fewer than ten people. This is what we’ve learned so far.
- people like the experience,
- people are buying apps,
- syncing an iTunes account to a new iPad installs purchased apps, books, etc. but does not install configurations
- it looks like the 3G iPad has a SIM card that can be removed; this suggests a way to allow borrowers to purchase 3G service and return an iPad without the associated SIM card (but then we’d have to keep track of our SIM cards, too)
We’ve also run across this set of instructions for managing multiple iPods on a single computer. Is it safe to assume that one could do the analogous things with a set of iPads?
Women in STEM
Patented genes
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