Yeah there’s a bunch of photos back in his Toguro college day. It’s quite hilarious that this jock-ish dude would later become an uber representative of science.
Dude’s also a wine connoisseur, a jazz/blues aficionado, and an expert dancer.
I’m just saying, he’s basically what would happen if Black Dynamite were a scientist.
The Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate was equal parts amazing and perplexing. Listening to Bill Nye speak is all sorts of inspiring.
Its like one of those moments I get. I suddenly realize all the stuff that’s possible now a days, I spazz out and tell myself: “Shit, I live in the future.”
While I know this is a mostly science thread, what do you guys recommend teachers should do or what did your teachers do that got you on to science? It would be very helpful to use your stories as references when talking to kids.
^I think having classes outside as well as hands on experiments(both individual and group) would do a lot for getting students more involved. Having them actually test things out firsthand and running through the scientific method would help put things in context(instead of testing their ability to regurgitate names and terms from their science textbooks). The more classes outside thing is just something I personally think kids would benefit from due to a lot of us having a disconnect from the natural world(spending most of our time inside with occasional jogs or whatnot). Could also be a time to do experiments or lectures that make use of the students actual surrounding environment and explain how much science impacts students daily lives.
edit: I’d also say axe the exam parts of the class(probably no way around that unless you’re a private school though) and instead focus on the aforementioned experiments and whatnot, and just showing kids the relevance of science, how and why its done, and its connection to other fields too.
edit2: Oh and for the final class project have them build a life size Metal Gear, kthanks.
When growing up science scared the hell out of me. It was only as an adult that I started to realize how amazing it is. Memories are vague, but I remember textbooks with plants and being bored.
Mythbusters has the right idea. If you can distill that shows appeal into a working curriculum, I don’t see too many kids being disinterested.
A neat video about water.
An addendum to my last post:
Another flaw of how science was taught in school, at least the schools I learned at, was that the practical application of the scientific method in everyday life wasn’t expanded upon. That’s something I’d like to see talked about in the classroom; how cool would it be to use, say, a video game analogy, where you play with a game’s mechanics, learn about them, hypthesize/test the rules, experiment, use your results to improve, etc.
Neat indeed. I suspect Dr. B provided the water necessary, but something something dude fluids.
I think people have this grand idea that science is only something you can do while wearing a lab coat with fancy degrees. It’s much more mundane than that.
I would hope the next generation is getting closer to understanding that the scientific method plays an integral role in interpreting everything you interact with.
You read a news story? Science it! (Yes, I just made science a verb)
Your cloths washer broke? Science it!
And for fucks sake, use Science in bed.
“Are you gonna hurry up and pleasure me?”
“I will when I’m done analyzing the structural integrity of these condoms at the molecular level, FFS.”
Big Bang Theory roleplay FT…W…?
I hope people one day realize the scientific mindset is not one of cold machine like “solve for X” type deal, but one of an explorer and one that has artistic view towards the universe.
A true scientific mind is not one that knows everything but one that is humbled by the vastness of the universe and realizes the he or she does not know, but is willing to explore. Exploring by experimenting to see what ticks and what doesn’t, in the same way that one would experiment in a fighting game. One also has to be artistic because in school it is wrongfully taught that there’s only one path whereas one should consider his endeavors as a blank canvas, free to do as one wishes, free to make mistakes, free to discover.
Here’s some cool sciencey news on a personal level: my ex and I just had our dog DNA tested to find out what his breed lineage is. We’ve been under the assumption that he’s a chihuahua mix, about two times too big and too lumpy to be a purebred.
Turns out, the results don’t show a trace of chihuahua. His parents were a Pomeranian and a Jack Russell Terrier mixed with all kinds of non-chihuahua potpourri. Who knew?
The funny thing is, Poms and Jack Russells have a tendency to be intelligent. Bear is not so much. He must have gotten some recessive genes.
26,000 years ago? Way to be late to the party, Earth.
I don’t think you can teach science to a broad spectrum. I really don’t think academia works the way it’s supposed to, because academia was never meant to be a competition and a way to sort candidates for jobs, but rather a place for an exchange of ideas. It was pretty much invented in Ancient Greece and back then they didn’t have grades and it was just nobles who didn’t care about money to begin with. That continued even in the US until maybe 50 some odd years ago when it was opened up to all the classes. Even then it took awhile to get minorities and women involved too.
It would be risky and I don’t know if you can do it, but if you could you should really have some ungraded portions where you just encourage people to look into an area they’re interested in. It would be a lot of work for you to find that material and become enough of an expert to guide students to these areas and where to look to go deeper. You’re still going to have to mostly grade in the standard way and teach in the standard way, but that is a terrible way to get people interested or even find people who can become scientists.
The best material for science does not come in textbooks or mainstream news sources. A lot comes from conventions, talking to actual scientists, science journals or newsletters, and a lot of leg work by someone compiling material and explaining it thoroughly. Your school likely will not allow you to use those other sources much or at all. But you can at least bring some speakers in, and maybe have a few field trips. Keep in mind how broad science is to begin with, there is a huge difference even in broad fields like biology (which itself will have a lot of subsects) and physics (same here). You can’t treat it all the same.
The Finnish have a similar teaching model and apparently it’s been working wonders. Personally, I think any system that nurtures critical thinking is bound to be effective, not just for the subject but in handling real life scenarios.
See I told you guys that Global warming was more than just inconveniently sweatier summers.
[sarcasm]welp, thats just fucking great.[/sarcasm]
Now the contaminated by unknown super virus masses will Zombie shuffle their way across the globe and little did I know playing The Last of Us was just a prep training for my eventual survival of said apocalypse.
I think having the public with a scientific understanding is much more important than having academia crank out a surplus of professional scientists. I dont see the two as having much common ground. I also dont think debates like Science vs Creation do anything to help the cause. If anything, waging war on religion compromises the message. But hey, sell some books and get a new show science guys. Dont you know, polarizing people/providing a echo chamber is the best way to get a loyal audience.
Who goes to scientific conventions or read journal articles except for scientists (mostly academic)? An inside look at US grad school (where you would think people are doing it for the love of it) would give sobering view where truly abused, overworked, powerless students and scientists having the love for science being sucked out of them. The current publish or perish regime (and the peer review system certainly has its own problems) in academia has enabled slavedriving advisors who acquire robotic apprentices who are typically locked into the advisor’s vision. The advisor has the underlings’ careers in the palm of his/her hands. Grad students are a dime a dozen these days due to the universities’/advisors’ appetite (publish or perish) for students coupled with the job market’s low capacity which makes escaping academia a struggle. It is not the norm for the budding scientist to write his own grant and find a suitable home to do his own research in, he typically searches for a big name advisor to attach himself to in order to put his own resume above the hoardes of other scientists our universities are pumping out into the already oversaturated market. And how exactly do these big shot advisors get their big names?
http://kingsreview.co.uk/magazine/blog/2014/02/24/how-academia-and-publishing-are-destroying-scientific-innovation-a-conversation-with-sydney-brenner/
^SB: “I strongly believe that the only way to encourage innovation is to give it to the young…Today the Americans have developed a new culture in science based on the slavery of graduate students…”
You guys probably already know Comos is coming back. But here a vid of Neil deGrasse Tyson introducing it
you guys and your ads :looney:
Thread needs a bump
Poland builds first Stealth Tank
