Texas History Day, and National History Day 2008

November 12, 2007

Your classes are gearing up for the competition, no?

Alfie Kohn might not like the idea of competition in history. In a state famous for competition in almost everything, but most famous for athletic competitions to the detriment of academics, I find great appeal in a contest that requires kids to find, analyze and write history.

Then the students get together to present and discuss history — and usually about 60 Texas kids go on to the National History Day festival. (Details here from the Texas State Historical Association)

Q. What is Texas History Day?

A. Texas History Day, a part of the National History Day program, is a yearlong education program that culminates in an annual state-level history fair for students in grades six through twelve. It provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate their interest in, and knowledge of, history through creative and original papers, performances, documentaries, individual interpretive web sites, or three-dimensional exhibits.

Over the course of the school year, students research and produce a History Day entry, the results of which are presented at a regional competition in early spring. From there, some students advance to the state fair in May, or even to the national contest held each June at the University of Maryland at College Park. At each level of competition, outstanding achievement may be recognized through certificates, medals, trophies, or monetary awards. The most important rewards are the skills and insight that students acquire as they move through the History Day program.

As many as 33,000 young Texans are involved in the program at the regional and state level each year. More than 900 students participate in Texas History Day, and approximately 60 students represent Texas at National History Day each year.

The 2008 National History Day Theme is “Conflict and Compromise in History.”

Texas has 23 regions for preliminary rounds. Details here. A list of sample topics for Texas students should give lots of good ideas.

The topics and the papers promise a lot. These projects could make good lesson plans. (Who publishes the winning entries? I have not found that yet.)

Don’t forget the Texas History Day T-shirt Design Contest — entries are due by December 14, 2007.

3 Comments | Capturing history, Education, Historic documents, History, Lesson plans, Pedagogy, Teaching, Technology, Texas history | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Praying to DDT for a miracle that DDT cannot work

November 11, 2007

Evolution denier Ray Bohlin is in Liberia telling the Liberians their salvation lies with DDT, at least in fighting malaria. Wholly apart from the theological problems of elevating a chlorinated hydrocarbon killer to the level of idolic deity, DDT can’t solve the many problems that conspire to keep Liberia in the grip of DDT as a killer of children and pregnant women.

What an odd conflict of faith and science. Bohlin is a Christian. His strong faith in DDT is a double puzzle.

[And, what is it with all this denial? Creationist/IDist/evolution deniers tend heavily to be HIV deniers as well, and global warming deniers — now DDT deniers? Have they all had close encounters of the third kind, too? Is it a virus? Is it a cult?]

Fighting malaria in Africa requires a concentrated, integrated plan that provides appropriate medical care to cure any human who contracts malaria, thus breaking a key link in the malaria cycle. Malaria kills children under 5 and pregnant women in larger percentages than other people. Bohlin correctly notes that malaria kills, and that the disease disrupts the nation’s economy. But his recommendation that Liberians increase DDT use, in the absence of an integrated pest management plan, is a prescription for dashed hopes at best, and disaster at worst.

Bohlin seems to urge junk science. DDT offers significant dangers, which Bohlin seems blithely to ignore.

Why won’t DDT help much in the fight against malaria?

Wholly apart from the inherent problems of DDT — mosquitoes develop immunity, or already are immune; DDT kills beneficial insect and arachnid predators of malaria vectors, so the mosquitoes come back in geometrically increased numbers; DDT kills the food fish of people who live on fish; DDT kills reptile, mammal and bird predators of mosquitoes, so the mosquito population roars back with increased killing efficiency — DDT cannot solve the other problems that play a greater role in frustrating the fight against malaria. DDT doesn’t treat the disease once humans catch it; DDT is just one, small tool to prevent infection, and perhaps not the most effective. Read the rest of this entry »

13 Comments | Africa, DDT, History, Junk science, Malaria, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Climate hoax|hoax author speaks

November 11, 2007

He did it to expose the climate change skeptics.

Nature‘s blog has the interview, here.

Why did you decide to construct the fake website? Was it purely a joke or did you set out to make people taking your paper at face value look foolish?

Its purpose was to expose the credulity and scientific illiteracy of many of the people who call themselves climate sceptics. While dismissive of the work of the great majority of climate scientists, they will believe almost anything if it lends support to their position. Their approach to climate science is the opposite of scepticism.

Are you surprised at the pick up your coverage has generated?

Not really. Equally ridiculous claims – like those in the paper attached to the “Oregon Petition” or David Bellamy’s dodgy glacier figures – have been widely circulated and taken up by the ‘sceptic’ community. But you can explain this until you are blue in the face. To get people to sit up and listen, you have to demonstrate it. This is what I set out to do.

Still waiting for someone to back up junk science purveyor Steve Milloy’s claim that the hoax was exposed by the skeptics it was aimed at. The hoaxer doesn’t think so.

[Yeah, I know — Nature is a British publication, and they use the British spelling for “skeptic.”]

2 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, Global warming, Hoaxes, Reason, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Misplaced comments on vouchers

November 11, 2007

Crooks and Liars highlighted the sore-loser comments of the pro-voucher bunch in Utah — and a bunch of people commented there. I’m sure they were planning to leave comments here, or at UtahAmicus, or Utah Teacher, or one of the other blogs that covered the issue like a blanket, but somehow they got sidetracked to Crooks and Liars. The comments are sometimes enlightening.

Eh. We probably ought to be reading C&L more anyway.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Notes from Evil Bender.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education spending, Politics, School vouchers | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fly your flag today: Veterans Day

November 11, 2007

Fly your U.S. flag today, to honor veterans of military service. November 11 was originally celebrated as Armistice Day after World War I’s armistice.

Veterans Administration poster for 2007 Veterans Day

Add to FacebookAdd to NewsvineAdd to DiggAdd to Del.icio.usAdd to StumbleuponAdd to RedditAdd to BlinklistAdd to TwitterAdd to TechnoratiAdd to Furl

5 Comments | Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, Heroes, History, War, World War I | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Working out of poverty in Ethiopia

November 10, 2007

Joseph Stiglitz, from Kristof blog

Nobel-winner economist Joseph Stiglitz is in Ethiopia. His comments on the value and the problems of economic development in order to fight poverty could provide important background or discussion material for your economics unit on international economics, international trade, and world financing systems.

2 Comments | Bell Ringers, Economics, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Government, Poverty, Warm-up exercises | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Black men teaching

November 10, 2007

Will Okun’s question: Does it make a difference to a black student what color her teacher is?

Some students say it makes no difference; some students vigorously argue that black male teachers push black kids harder, but understand them better.

Good, thoughtful post, lots of comments — at Nicholas Kristof’s blog at the New York Times site.

1 Comment | Civil Rights, Education, Education blogs, Education quality, Education success, Teaching | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Global warming a hoax? No, the hoax claim is a hoax

November 9, 2007

Global warming a hoax? No, the hoax was the claim that there was a study that said global warming is a hoax.

Bob Parks put it succinctly:

4. GLOBAL WARMING HOAX: OR WAS IT JUST A HOAX OF A HOAX?
There was a wild scramble on Wednesday about the death of the manmade global warming theory, except the authors didn’t exist, nor their institution, nor the journal. It took two minutes to find this out, so what was the purpose? Just a prank?

What was it?

Nature reports the hoax site, looking like the website of a research journal, took the article down (that’s the link to the article; it’s gone, as you can see. The hoax included a purported article and a purported editorial from the journal.

But nothing checked out. The journal doesn’t exist. The researchers probably are bogus, too, nor does their purported institution/department exist.

Rush Limbaugh fell for it, though, as did several others who profess to be skeptical of global warming.

Certainly a hoax — but by whom? For what purpose?

In the meantime, junk science purveyor Steven Milloy claims that it was the skeptics of global warming who smoked out the hoax, not the many scientists who immediately smelled fishiness. Does he suggest the name of even one warming “skeptic” who called it? No.

Did Limbaugh apologize yet? Do you think he’ll be more skeptical next time?

Update, November 11, 2007:  Nature interviews the hoax creator and perpetrator. Explanation, excerpt, and links to the article.

19 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, History, Hoaxes, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Roundup of Utah-based comments on Utah voucher defeat

November 8, 2007

LaVarr Webb’s UtahPolicy.com features a roundup of comments from blogs on the Utah election, and the referendum defeat of vouchers:

Blog Watch

Lots of reaction to the voucher referendum outcome: See BoardBuzz, Steve Urquhart, SLCSpin, The Utah Amicus, Dynamic Range, The Senate Site, Paul Rolly, Out of Context, Reach Upward, COL Takashi, Jeremy’s Jeremiad, Davis County Watch, Salt Blog, and Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.

Utah is a small state, blessed with television, radio and newspaper outlets that perform way beyond what the population should expect.  Webb’s site tends to summarize most of the important political stuff every day.

It is exactly that type of information that led to the defeat of the voucher plan, I think.  More later, maybe.  Go take a look at Webb’s link to a CATO Institute commentary; voucher advocates are not giving up in any way.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education reform, Education spending, Elections, Politics, School vouchers | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Vote tampering in Ohio, 2004

November 8, 2007

Kathy Dopp’s project keeps turning up reasons to watch out for electronic voting machines, and other tampering with elections.

Below the fold I copy a recent e-mail from Dopp’s group. If true, the allegations here paint a sad picture of the U.S. as a nation plunging to third-world status in important areas, such as democratic elections.

I wish it were different, but for myself, I have little confidence that either the 2000 or 2004 election was straight up. Was it crooked enough to skew results? Let me know what you think in comments.

Dopp’s e-mail follows: Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Civil Rights, Elections, Government, Law, Lessons of history, Voting Rights Act | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

100 things about DDT: Dissecting #10

November 8, 2007

This is another in an occasional series of posts dissecting the claims made by JunkScience purveyor Steven Milloy’s “100 things you should know about DDT.” What I find in this list is a lot of deception, misleading claims, and general unjustified vitriol. In this post I’m looking at Milloy’s point #10.

Milloy said:

10. Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson wrote “Dr. DeWitt’s now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction. Quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched.” DeWitt’s 1956 article (in Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) actually yielded a very different conclusion. Quail were fed 200 parts per million of DDT in all of their food throughout the breeding season. DeWitt reports that 80% of their eggs hatched, compared with the “control”” birds which hatched 83.9% of their eggs. Carson also omitted mention of DeWitt’s report that “control” pheasants hatched only 57 percent of their eggs, while those that were fed high levels of DDT in all of their food for an entire year hatched more than 80% of their eggs.

Considering Carson’s careful citing of studies on all sides of the issue, and her use of sources dating back 30 years and more, it would be difficult for her to have “represented the science of DDT erroneously.” Carson got the science right. Milloy doesn’t even get the quote of Carson right, however, deleting her main point, and editing it to set up a straw man argument which misleads unwary readers.

Carson represented the science faithfully. Milloy simply dissembles in his accusation that she got it wrong.

In fact, Carson offered more than 50 pages of citations to studies, virtually everything available on DDT and the other chemicals she wrote about, up to the time of publication. Carson had started working on the issue in 1948, and worked almost solely on the work that became Silent Spring between 1959 and the book’s publication. None of the studies she cited has been retracted. Most of the studies were determined to be accurate in follow-up studies.

I discuss this at some length, below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »

17 Comments | Accuracy, Cost of Green, DDT, Environmental protection, Green Politics, Junk science, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Best education blogs – vote tonight!

November 7, 2007

Some kind soul nominated this blog for “best education blog” in some award process last year, but that was as far as this blog got. Several good education blogs were nominated, but I wasn’t impressed with the final standings. My candidates didn’t rank 1, 2, or 3.

So, should we swear off blog award? Heck, no! As Roger Beynon would say, everything someone says has potential value. And really, there is a lot of good stuff in a lot of these blogs.

So get on over to the 2007 Weblog Awards page on education, and check out the blogs in the running (do it now — you can vote tonight and tomorrow).

One blog excited me a lot — not because it covers education particularly well, but because it’s done by high school students. It’s solid, and it should give your students an idea of just what they can do. Even if you don’t check out the nominatees, go see the James Logan Courier.

Meanwhile, here are the ten finalists — only one of which I link to on this blogroll, which is a clue that I need to get out more, and a clue that there are a lot of high quality blogs out there:

Finalist Links

The Jose Vilson
Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs
Frumteacher
Hobo Teacher
NYC Educator
Education Week
Matthew K. Tabor, Education for the Aughts
James Logan Courier
The Miss Rumphius Effect
IvyGate

1 Comment | Education, Education assessment, Education blogs, Student projects, Weblogs | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Tired of the conservative media bias? Carnival for you

November 7, 2007

We get fun e-mail; some of you will take great heart:

Carnival of the Liberals #51


Want this badge?

Dear Liberal Carnivalers,

Blue Steel over at Pollyticks.com has your bi-weekly fix of the all that’s good in the liberal blogosphere. As always it’s great to see some new faces amidst all our old friends.

I also wanted to mention that I’ll be headed to DC this weekend. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has invited myself and several other bloggers down to participate in organizing, fund raising and lobbying training, not to mention help AU celebrate it’s 60th anniversary. I’m not sure who all is coming but I’m told that among those attending will be Blue Gal, DCup, Phil Plait, and PZ Myers. Wonder if I can finally convince DCup and Phil to host Carnival of the Liberals? In any event it’ll be great to meet so many of my bloggy friends in real life.

Speaking of carnival hosts… Next bi-week’s edition of Carnival of the Liberals is the very last edition of our 2nd year. Hosting will be BAC from Yikes! who will also be attending AU’s DC blogger meet-up. To commemorate AU’s 60th anniversary we’ll be making this edition dedicated to AU. Carnival of the Liberals 52 is seeking submissions on separation of church and state. As usual we’ll run the ten best submissions (as determined by BAC) but we’ll also be running posts from any of the DC attendees who wish to contribute.

Liberally yours,
— Leo (“tng”) Lincourt
http://www.neuralgourmet.com
http://www.carnivaloftheliberals.com

The Big Block of Links

 

2 Comments | Patriotism, Politics, Weblogs | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Econ teachers: Have you registered?

November 7, 2007

Have you Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana economics teachers registered for Evening at the Fed?

Evening at the Fed
 Dinner and Discussion for High School Teachers
 Dallas, November 29, 2007
Houston, December 4, 2007
San Antonio, December 11, 2007
El Paso, December 13, 2007

Financial Markets: Innovations and Challenges

The 2007 Evening at the Fed series will feature Jeffery Gunther, assistant vice president and senior economist in the Dallas Fed’s Financial Industry Studies Department. Gunther will speak on factors leading up to the recent financial market turmoil, in particular the role of nontraditional financial instruments. He will address such questions as:

  • Are financial innovations, such as hedge funds, forever changing the financial landscape?
  • What happened in the U.S. sub prime real estate market?
  • What does the consumer need to understand about nontraditional financial instruments?
  • What impact do these new financial instruments have on the US economy?

Join us at a location convenient for you. The fee to attend is $15, which includes dinner and materials. Space is limited and the registration fee must be received by the cut-off date.

This would probably be a good session for government and U.S. history teachers, too.

Registration details after the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Economics, Education, Federal Reserve Bank, Free market economics, Government, History, Personal finance | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Nobelist’s biography questioned: We’re still inspired

November 7, 2007

Mario Capecchi’s story of his mother’s arrest by the Gestapo, and his life on the streets of Italy as a young boy, only piqued interest in the story of his winning a Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, earlier this year.

It is such a great story, people set out to write it down in detail. Some of the details discovered, however, don’t quite square with historical records.

A group of reporters with the Associated Press uncovered the discrepancies. Realizing that the story comes from the memory of a very young child, so far the headlines and the stories have been corrective, but gently and adoringly so.

The story Capecchi has told repeatedly over the years in speeches and interviews begins when he is 3 and the Gestapo, Adolf Hitler’s secret police, snatch his mother before his very eyes and dispatch her to Dachau concentration camp. The peasant family that takes him in abandons him and he spends four years wandering about northern Italy – a street urchin, alone and begging for food.

At war’s end – on the boy’s ninth birthday – mother and son are reunited in the hospital ward where he is being treated for malnutrition and typhoid. They set sail for America where he flourishes, embarks on a brilliant research career – and goes on to win the Nobel Prize for medicine.

But The Associated Press, which set out to chronicle his extraordinary story in greater detail, has uncovered several inconsistencies and unanswered questions, chief among them whether his mother was in Dachau, and whether he really was for a long time a homeless street child.

You can read the full story at The Salt Lake Tribune.

This is a classic case. Memory differs from the facts. Human minds fill in details that would otherwise leave a mystery, and the details filled in differ from the details that can be corroborated.

This is part of what keeps history lively.

We see here also a demonstration that there is much we can never really know for sure. Historians work from imperfect records in the best of circumstances.

The director of the Dachau Memorial, Barbara Distel, said women weren’t imprisoned at Dachau until September 1943 – more than two years after Capecchi says his mother was arrested. She also said only Jewish women from eastern Europe were held in Dachau’s satellite camps.

”I do remember – I remember the Gestapo coming to the Wolfsgruben chalet,” Capecchi told AP in the interview, conducted days after his Nobel Prize was announced. ”It’s sort of like a photograph. I can tell you how many people were in the room, which ones were in uniform and which ones weren’t. Just boom. It’s there.”

Pressed to explain how he could be certain he was just 3 1/2 at the time and remember it so clearly, he stood by his account.

The big question we want answered here is this: How can we get more great people like Mario Capecchi? Can we get a few Nobelists out of the current generation of children?

No one proposes revisiting war to make kids great, so the fascination with Capecchi’s childhood is more academic, if still for inspiration.

In the end, we have a mystery. How did Capecchi get to be such a great man? There remains that great chapter near the end of the book; early chapters are missing.

Perhaps AP could put a team of reporters on a story to explain exactly how Capecchi’ s research explains what it does, and what it means down the road. That’s a story that needs to be told, too.

2 Comments | Accuracy, Capturing history, Heroes, Historic documents, History, Research, Science, World War II | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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