Category: science
-
Podcast63: Guidelines for Educational Revolutionaries (1-7)
This podcast is the second in a series focusing on Guidelines for Educational Revolutionaries. In this podcast I explore the first seven guidelines. As always, listener responses and feedback are welcome as comments to this post! 🙂 Program Length: 32 min, 14 sec File size: 7.3 MB (Click here to listen to this podcast) Show…
-
Universally available research
The June issue of Wired Magazine has an interesting article about Nobel Prize winning scientist and academic leader Harold Varmus, titled “Free Radical.” Varmus’ controversial position is that publishing should be free and open in the scientific and academic community. I agree with him, although this position is a radical departure from the traditional conception…
-
Wild Western Skies
I bought an outstanding children’s book today about the animals, landscapes, and plants of the American West titled “Under the Wild Western Sky”, by Jim Arnosky. Reading this to my daughter tonight, I really started looking forward to our upcoming family vacation later in the summer to Yellowstone Park! 🙂 This book also reminded me…
-
3D tours with NASA
NASA World Wind is a free, open source software program (for Windows-based computers only at present) similar to Google Earth but with all 3D imagery. According to the website: World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets…
-
Lithium powered smart cars
I’ve heard about hybrid cars, like the Prius from Toyota that use a combination of gas and electrical power to run, but until last night I had not heard much about all-electric cars powered by lithium batteries. Hybrid Technologies is partnered with NASA and lots of other folks in creating these cars. One is is…
-
The moon the night Titanic sank
I was excited to learn about the amazing, free and powerful planetarium software program Stellarium this week, and have taken some time to play with it a bit since. This morning with one of our science professors, we used it to discover exactly where the moon was the morning of April 15, 1912 when the…
-
Online science activities
EdHeads is a website with several engaging activities for students on different topics. A “virtual knee surgery” activity is available (probably of interest to older adults to who may have had this procedure or be contemplating it) as well as great activities and resources on simple machines. Use the drop-down menu in the upper right…
-
Let’s do more experiments in elementary science
It is likely in the weeks ahead, my family and I will be community, house, and school hunting. I am sure one of the main things we’ll be looking for is an elementary school where science (as well as THE ARTS) are highly valued and LOVED by teachers and students alike. A recent issue of…
-
School must be more than college-prep
Tim Stahmer wrote an excellent post yesterday titled, “Asking The Wrong Question.” His thoughts fall right in line with discussions I had this past weekend with my relatives visiting from out of town, talking about the role of schools and how most are inappropriately fixated on preparing students for college. Should schools offer rigorous preparation…
-
Meteorites and Human Development Index
Two Google Earth discoveries tonight, both from GoogleEarth Hacks via the OgleEarth blog. According to WikiPedia: The UN Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, childbirth, and other factors for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. The index was developed in…