Teaching Science 2.0

• Band shirts hit wrong note with parents | 0px, span, font - Top Story - Sedalia Democrat

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  • The shirts, which were designed to promote the band’s fall program, are light gray and feature an image of a monkey progressing through stages and eventually emerging as a man. Each figure holds a brass instrument. Several instruments decorate the background and the words “Smith-Cotton High School Tiger Pride Marching Band” and “Brass Evolutions 2009” are emblazoned above and below the image.

  • “I made the decision to have the band members turn the shirts in after several concerned parents brought the shirts to my attention,” Pollitt said. 

    
    

    Pollitt said the district is required by law to remain neutral where religion is concerned.

  • “If the shirts had said ‘Brass Resurrections’ and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing,” he said.

  • “I was disappointed with the image on the shirt.” Melby said. “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.” 

  • If I wanted my children to be sheltered, I would have enrolled them in private school,” she said. 
  • “I can see where the parents are coming from,” he said. “Evolution has always been controversial.” The 17-year-old trombone player said his parents “didn’t care” about the shirt because it was the “name of the band’s show.”

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• Climate Change - New Analysis Projects State-by-State Temperature Increases

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  • What will temperatures be like in your state in 100 years? If current trends continue, chances are they’ll be much hotter than they are today — especially if you live in the American Midwest. 
  • “If we don’t take strong action to confront the causes and consequences of climate change, the nation’s natural resources, economic stability and way of life will face serious threats in the coming years,” warns Hoekstra.

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• Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

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  • “The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction,” said Barbara Means, the study’s lead author and an educational psychologist at SRI International.
  • The real promise of online education, experts say, is providing learning experiences that are more tailored to individual students than is possible in classrooms. That enables more “learning by doing,” which many students find more engaging and useful.
  • “We are at an inflection point in online education,” said Philip R. Regier, the dean of Arizona State University’s Online and Extended Campus program.
  • Mr. Regier sees things evolving fairly rapidly, accelerated by the increasing use of social networking technology. More and more, students will help and teach each other, he said. For example, it will be assumed that college students know the basics of calculus, and the classroom time will focus on applying the math to real-world problems — perhaps in exploring the physics of climate change or modeling trends in stock prices, he said.
  • “The technology will be used to create learning communities among students in new ways,” Mr. Regier said. “People are correct when they say online education will take things out the classroom. But they are wrong, I think, when they assume it will make learning an independent, personal activity. Learning has to occur in a community.”

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• Bowling Green Daily News

  tags: science, education

  • Far from saving Christianity, Ken Ham and his minions are damaging it by making it look ridiculous. They’re devaluing the Bible by trying to make it something it’s not.

    Science describes the physical world around us and how it works. The Bible talks about morality, about why, not how. But it’s no more a biology book than it is a car repair manual; and proclaiming that Leviticus is the perfect guide to changing oil filters should only provoke laughter.

    Not everyone will laugh, of course. Those who fear motorized vehicles, have never seen a car, or have never learned anything about mechanics, might consider Levitical filtering plausible. And those people are Ham’s victims. That’s all his “museum” does: it preys on the anti-science, the young and uninformed. They all deserve better.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• The Population Bomb, Nuclear Winter and the Role of Science in Public Advocacy : The Primate Diaries

  The Population Bomb, Nuclear Winter and the Role of Science in Public Advocacy

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  • The Population Bomb, Nuclear Winter and the Role of Science in Public Advocacy

• Glaciers a canary in the coal mine of global warming - CNN.com

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  • A 50-year government study found that the world’s glaciers are melting at a rapid and alarming rate. The ongoing study is the latest in a series of reports that found glaciers worldwide are melting faster than anyone had predicted they would just a few years ago. It offers a clear indication of an accelerating climate change and warming earth, according to the authors.

• America’s National Parks: Canaries in the Climate Change Coal Mine | SolveClimate.com

  tags: climate

  • “Climate change,” Jarvis testified “is potentially the most far-reaching and consequential challenge to our mission than any previously encountered in the entire history of the NPS.”

    “Our national park units can serve as the proverbial canary in the coal mine, a place where we can monitor and document ecosystem change without many of the stressors that are found on other public lands.”

  • rees in Yosemite are Shrinking

    Last week, the US Geological Survey (USGS), part of the Department of the Interior, announced that large trees have declined in number in Yosemite National Park during the 20th century, and they believe that warmer climatic conditions may be playing a role.

    The number of large diameter trees dropped 24% between 1932 (the earliest records available) and 1999. This is of consequence not just for trees. It also means habitat loss and adverse affects for species including spotted owls, mosses, orchids and fishers (a carnivore related to weasels). It also is causing a decline in the overall number of trees since large diameter trees are a seed source for new trees and also tend to be more fire resistant. Data from another National Park –  Sequoia and Kings Canyon –  home to some of the world’s largest trees, are showing similar trends in declining tree diameter.

  • But I also learned something new and disturbing: All is not well in America’s National Parks, where the impacts of climate change are already apparent, not only where I hiked, but in parks all across the nation.
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  • But I also learned something new and disturbing: All is not well in America’s National Parks, where the impacts of climate change are already apparent, not only where I hiked, but in parks all across the nation.
  • But I also learned something new and disturbing: All is not well in America’s National Parks, where the impacts of climate change are already apparent, not only where I hiked, but in parks all across the nation.
  • But I also learned something new and disturbing: All is not well in America’s National Parks, where the impacts of climate change are already apparent, not only where I hiked, but in parks all across the nation.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.