Interesting discussion around how a student’s mood affects retention of material covered in homework, from the students at Extreme Biology.
What is your experience?
Does mood affect how well you do homework?
September 22, 2008
1 Comment | 
Brain learning, Education, psychology, Research, Science, Student projects, Teaching, Weblogs | Tagged: Education, Homework, Learning, psychology, Research, Student projects, Weblogs | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Let your students blog
September 22, 2008One way to get better use out of technology is to let your students use it. How about having students make posts to a blog, for credit? They learn how to write, they learn technology, and they learn the class material.
Here’s a great example of a classroom-driven blog, where the students do most of the work: Extreme Biology. Miss Baker’s Biology Class holds forth from a school in the northeast, with 9th grade and AP biology students doing most of the work.
Here’s another good example, from another biology class (in Appleton, Wisconsin — close to you, James!): Endless Forms Most Beautiful (every biologist will recognize the title from biology literature).
The idea is attracting some attention in science circles, especially with an idea that working scientists ought to drop by from time to time to discuss things with students.
How do your students use technology to boost their learning?
Leave a Comment » | Biology, Brain learning, Education, Learning, Learning styles, Public education, Science, Student projects, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom, Weblogs | Tagged: Biology, Classroom technology, Education, Science, Student projects, Technology, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
John Stossel: Wrong again, on DDT
September 17, 2008John Stossel’s new book makes a detour to rail against the regulation of DDT and against Rachel Carson and her book, Silent Spring.
I’ve not read the book, but from what I’ve read about it, he’s got it dead wrong. If the example offered by Grokmedia is their own, and not Stossel’s, shame on them. (Stossel’s complained about DDT before, though, and gotten the facts as wrong as Grokmedia has them.) The claims are unbelievable:
Consider the chemical DDT. I’m sure, if you’ve heard anything at all about DDT, it’s that it’s a horrible, deadly chemical, that must be banned to preserve the public’s safety. The truth is, the only thing DDT affects are mosquitos. Not humans. In fact, I’m old enough to remember trucks pulling through our neighborhood and spraying the stuff into the air, like gigantic clouds, bringing death – to the mosquito population. These clouds of DDT harmed no one. There were no great increases in any kind of cancer or other fatal diseases – and certainly none that could be associated with DDT. Enter the book, Silent Spring.
A woman by the name of Rachel Carson wrote a book that vilified DDT, and blamed our love of chemical solutions for her own cancer. (She died of breast cancer two years after the publication of her book.) Silent Spring is almost single-handedly credited with triggering a worldwide ban on DDT. The result of this ban has been, paradoxically enough, millions of deaths in countries like Ethiopia, where malaria kills due to mosquito infestations. U.S. aid policy bans sending money to any country that chooses to spray with DDT.
How did Silent Spring cause this wave of destruction? Marketing. The book was marketed by it’s publishers. The marketing efforts attracted the attention of a mainstream media hungry for stories that scare the populace to death. The unwashed masses Demanded That Something Be Done. Politicians, eager to grandstand (and free of conciences that might give them pause to think about the Law of Unintended Consequences) passed laws, and that was that.
Here’s what I wrote in comments to the post at Grokmedia, which appears to have gone into their own hell for any post that disagrees with their views:
Stossel said that about DDT? Once again, he’s gone off the rails.
Do you seriously think that a book publisher with its meager PR budget could derail a multi-billion-dollar pesticide manufacturing industry that was led by several of America’s top 100 corporations? Do you think corporations are really that incompetent at the public relations game?
The truth is that DDT was banned because of its harm to the environment, not due to its dangers to human health (though, to be perfectly accurate we should note that every cancer-fighting agency on Earth says DDT is a probably human carcinogen, and recent research has strengthened the links between cancer in people exposed to DDT in their mother’s breast milk and in utero, and that DDT is now known to be a rather nasty endocrine disruptor in all animals). More than a thousand studies confirmed the dangers of DDT to birds and other predators higher up in food chains, especially in estuarine waters.
No one passed a law banning DDT. If the action was popular, that was beside the point. In 1962, in response to the half-million-dollar slander campaign against Carson by the pesticide manufacturers (don’t take my word for it — look it up), President Kennedy asked his Science Advisory Council to scrutinize the book. In May 1963 they reported back that Carson was correct on all counts but one — they said Carson went too easy on the dangers of DDT, and that action needed to be taken right away to stop its use. Kennedy dallied, however, and did little before he died.
The “ban” on DDT came nearly a decade later, in 1972. It was not due to any “junk science” law (an interesting claim since it is based on junk science itself). Two federal courts had ordered EPA to speed up its analysis of the registration of the pesticide, in lieu of simply ordering the stuff off the market after two entirely different lawsuits. Pesticide manufacturers had been defendants in both lawsuits, and they put up a more than vigorous fight — but they lost on the science.
EPA dragged its feet, but finally acted against DDT in 1972, effectively banning the broadcast spraying of DDT on crops, but leaving it available for things like malaria control. Of course the ruling was challenged in court, since under U.S. law, had the ruling been only popular, and not based on considerable evidence, the courts would have been obligated to nullify the ruling. In two separate challenges, the courts ruled that EPA’s action was solidly based on the scientific evidence, and therefore would stand.
That’s quite a bit different from the picture Stossel paints, I gather. Is this, perhaps, his first foray into fiction?
And, did you catch the contradictions? The author claims mosquito abatement in Ethiopia is hampered by a lack of U.S. aid, as a result of Rachel Carson’s book in 1962. Do they know that George Bush is president? Do they really think Bush and Cheney are tools of Rachel Carson? Do they know that bed nets have cut malaria rates by half where they were used in Ethiopia?
Looks like another example of DDT poisoning to me.
4 Comments | Africa, DDT, Junk science, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Ethiopia, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Disaster in Yellowstone Park: 20 years after the fires, it’s healing
September 17, 2008High school students weren’t alive when Yellowstone burned in 1988. Do you remember?
NASA infrared satellite photograph of Yellowstone fires in 1988
It was a conflagration that made hell look like good picnicking. 1988 was a particularly dry summer, and hot. Lightning and human carelessness ignited fires across western North America. Five huge fires raged out of control, and burned huge swaths out of forests in Yellowstone National Park that probably hadn’t seen fire in 80 years, maybe longer.
The Salt Lake Tribune featured several stories about the fires and Yellowstone’s recovery today, “Yellowstone: Back from the ashes,” how wildland firefighting changed, a great chart on fire succession stages, and another chart on the effects of the fire on larger animals in the Yellowstone system.
Old Faithfull erupts against background of smoke from 1988 fires - NPS photo by Deanna Marie Dulen
The 1988 fires made history in several ways; it was the first time so many fires had burned simultaneously. Ultimately some of the fires merged into even greater conflagrations. The fires forced the shutdown of tourism and other activities in the Park. Inadequacies in fire fighting equipment, staffing and policies were highlighted and displayed in newspapers and on television for weeks, forcing changes in policies by cities, states and the federal government.
Some good came out of the fires. Much undergrowth and dead wood had choked off plant diversity in some places in the Park. The fires opened new meadows and offered opportunities for some species to expand their ranges.
Scientifically, a lot of information came out of the fires. The mystery of when aspen would seed out was solved — new aspen seedlings appeared in areas where the fires had sterilized the ground with extremely high temperatures that seemed to trigger the seeds to germinate.
Our visits in 1989 offered a lot of opportunities to look at very bleak landscapes.
Yellowstone National Park in 1989, a year after the big fires - Copyright 1989 and 2008, Ed Darrell
Recover of the forested areas began rather quickly, but will take time to cover over all the scars of the fires.
Other resources:
3 Comments | Biology, Botany, Disasters, History, Natural history, Natural resources, Science | Tagged: Botany, Disasters, Fire Fighting, Forest Fires, History, Montana, National Park System, Natural Disasters, Science, Travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone Park | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The energy policy speech the candidates should give
September 14, 2008It emphasizes conservation and development of alternatives, but conservation mostly. Conservation has already been tried and shown to work.
The crises in Iran and Afghanistan have dramatized a very important lesson: Our excessive dependence on foreign oil is a clear and present danger to our Nation’s security. The need has never been more urgent. At long last, we must have a clear, comprehensive energy policy for the United States.
Sounds like this guy has the proper perspective. Who advocates a policy designed to keep us from war in the ‘Stans and the Middle East?
Jimmy Carter. In 1980. In his State of the Union speech.
Check it out at Patriots and Peoples. Carter’s policy is compared to McCain’s, and Obama’s.
And then consider the price of lost opportunities, and whether we can ever learn enough to avoid the punishing sword of Santayana’s Ghost, when we don’t learn from history.
3 Comments | Afghanistan, Conservation, Global warming, Globalization, History, Iran, Oil, Politics, Presidents, Science | Tagged: Energy Conservation, Energy Policy, History, Politics, Presidency | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Hope is the things with feathers
September 11, 2008The Singing Cricket noticed that, with DDT use in decline, a lot of birds can be seen that we didn’t see for a long time. She takes hope at that thought.
Nice photos, too.
Apologies to Emily Dickinson, of course.
1 Comment | DDT, Environmental protection, Science | Tagged: Birds, DDT, Environmental protection, hope, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Scouts predict weather
September 8, 2008Bill Britt is Scoutmaster of Troop 509 in Hurlburt Field, Florida. In a missive recently he comments on the ability of his Scouts to predict stormy weather:
Subject: This is gettin’ old!!
Argggh!
We had an annual multi-troop campout scheduled for the weekend of August 22. Hurricane/TS Fay decides to go right over the camp, so we cancel early.
We schedule a flag retirement ceremony with the VFW for Labor Day and wake up to Tornado Warnings from Hurricane Gustav’s feeder bands.
Now Hurricane Ike is trying to visit us for next weekend’s Spectre Island campout.
We now figure we can offer our services to NOAA as a long term Hurricane predictor for the Gulf Coast. All we gotta do is check out the calendar for future Troop events through November when the season ends.
Bill Britt, SM
Troop 509
Hurlburt Field, FL
Providing accurate cyclonic prediction since 2008
Leave a Comment » | Boy Scouts of America, Climate change, Humor, Science | Tagged: Boy Scouts, Climate change, Humor, Weather | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Why science matters in the campaign
September 7, 2008Dr. Art Hunt at The RNA Underworld explains why Obama’s plan to double NIH research funding is a good idea.
Big bang for the buck: Hunt’s analysis suggests doubling the research budgets might drive as much as a trillion dollar increase in our economy. Sure it’s optimistic — but read what he says. And then consider: Which platform offers the greatest hope of cures or treatments for cancers? Which platform offers the best hope for a cure or treatments for Alzheimer’s disease?
The two industries I mention here – pharma and biotech – are intimately interwoven with the basic biomedical research enterprise, and a significant amount of the innovation that drives these industries originates (or originated) in the NIH-funded biomedical research laboratory. In this respect, the NIH budget is an investment, and a wildly-successful one. Even if we don’t take the face-value numbers I have pulled from Wiki here (that show an annual return of some 1000%, and more than 750,000 high-paying jobs the tax receipts from which would probably pay much of the NIH tab by themselves), and instead factor in that some of these receipts and jobs are not American, it is still easy to see that basic biomedical research returns considerably more than the investment made by the government. (And this doesn’t begin to weigh the intangibles, the ways that the research enterprise gives back to society as a whole.)
Science bloggers have been not so noisy as this issue might need: The closest John McCain came to supporting science, the driver of our economy, was when he offered to assault education, and that’s the opposite of supporting science. Obama’s mentions are encouraging, but not frequent enough nor strident enough.
Think of just three of the issues that are affected by basic science research, that will be yelled about during the campaign:
- Health care: New cures could save a great deal of money, but would likely drive up costs in the short term. Right to life? What right to life survives the inability to pay for basic life-saving pharmaceuticals?
- Climate change: Areas of ignorance cover more territory than the Arctic ice. To all sides it should be obvious that more information is needed, which will require a lot more basic research in almost all fields. If we fail to increase our investments in understanding climate change, how can we expect to avoid errors in public policy?
- Defense: Think of where the Allies would have been in World War II without RADAR. Think of how the invasion of Japan would have gone without nuclear weapons. Think of the successes of Gulf War I with the use of stealth and communications jamming technology — and the later problems. Think of where we would be today had we known there were no “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq in 2002 and 2003.
The silence on science should make us very, very concerned.
Have you read Obama’s response to the 14 big questions on science policy? McCain has not answered.
Other reading:
- Pharyngula, “Simple science teaching recommendations“
- The Intersection, “How I accidentally framed Carbon,” by Eric Roston (guest post – he’s the author of The Carbon Age)
- Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science
1 Comment | Climate change, Health care, Politics, Science, Science Debate 2008, Technology, War, War on Science | Tagged: Campaign 2008, Climate change, Health care, McCain, Obama, Politics, Science, Science Debate 2008 | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
McCain picked the wrong woman
September 3, 2008We need judgment and wisdom in a vice president of the U.S., as well as in a president.
Judging from this open letter to Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain picked the wrong woman.
So we do get to talk about your policies. And we do get to talk about hypocrisy. You asked us to repect your family’s privacy, but you won’t respect my family’s privacy to make our own decisions!
“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that, as parents, we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned,” said Palin, 44, and her husband. “We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents.” They asked the media to respect their child’s privacy.
How come she gets to make a decision but the rest of the girls and women in America don’t! You won’t even let me learn in school about all the decisions I might need to make!
McCain could have used a woman like FrecklesCassie. Alas for McCain, she’s about 20 years too young.
Maybe he should have waited. At a minimum, he should have shopped around for someone with more common sense.
72 Comments | Elections, Health care, McCain 2008, medicine, Politics, Reason, Science | Tagged: Abortion, Common Sense, Family Planning, McCain 2008, medicine, Politics, Reproductive Rights, Sarah Palin, Science, sex education, Vice President | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Rapping physics in the Bathtub
September 3, 2008Now it’s gone big time, with NPR’s Morning Edition and Pharyngula on the bandwagon, remember you saw the Large Hadron Collider Rap second here at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.
You saw it first at Tommaso Dorigo’s A Quantum Diaries Survivor.
Geography teachers, have you figured out how to use this in your classrooms yet?
Related NPR stories:
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Aug. 29, 2008
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April 11, 2008
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April 9, 2007
2 Comments | Education, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Globalization, Physics, Research, Science, Teaching, Technology, Travel | Tagged: CERN, Education, Entertainment, Large Hadron Collider, Particle Physics, Physics, Rap, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
“Big LASERS are cool”
September 3, 2008Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin showed off their petawatt LASER last week (alas, couldn’t make the open house myself).
LASER project manager Todd Ditmire summed it up: “Big LASERs are cool.”
The $15 million laser creates a beam that is brighter than the surface of the sun. The pulses of light can reach 1 quadrillion watts (a petawatt) but last just one-tenth of a trillionth of a second.
Scientists such as Todd Ditmire, a UT physics researcher, will use the laser to heat substances to incredibly high temperatures for incredibly short periods of time, approximating the conditions at the center of a star. It’s also expected to help the U.S. Department of Energy in its ambitious research effort to create a laser-based controlled fusion energy source, which might one day be the ultimate clean energy source for the country.
With such pride showing, it might be a good time to note that this project is the result of pure science research funding with federal assistance. If we could have a science debate among presidential candidates, the Texas Petawatt LASER should be front and center evidence for the value and fun of expanding federal support for science. Texas’s U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison participated in the dedication ceremony. Maybe she noticed.
Congratulations, UT. Don’t point that thing this way!
Read about it here:
- Story in the Austin American-Statesman
- Story in UT’s paper, The Daily Texan, online version: UT’s so proud of the thing they lit up the Texas Tower exactly as if the football team had won a game.
- News 8 Austin, “Texas hosts the most powerful laser in the world.”
Leave a Comment » | Education, McCain 2008, Obama 2008, Politics, Science, Science Debate 2008, Technology, Texas | Tagged: Petawatt LASER, Science, Science Debate 2008, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Moth image not Jesus, but juggling elf!
September 1, 2008Thermopsis pointed the way from Bug Girl’s Blog — it’s not Jesus we see on the moth, but a juggling elf!
What do you think?
2 Comments | Humor, psychology, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science | Tagged: Humor, Perception, psychology, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
What’s the difference between a burro and a burrow?
August 30, 2008Burro:
Burro
Burrow:
If you can click to this site, you should know the difference. Do you?
8 Comments | Education, Education assessment, Humor, Politics, Science, Words | Tagged: Education, Education Policy, Humor, Lexicography, Politics, school boards, Science, Words | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Jesus and the lamp unto my porch
August 29, 2008Bug Girl has the story — and go see it at her site, and look at the photograph.
Friend, do you see Jesus? (I didn’t.)
Oh, sure. It’s from Texas. Maybe a trailer park.
On the plus side, there’s a poll you can crash: Do you see Jesus, someone else, or nothing at all? (“Moth” is not one of the choices.) The poll is by KLTV Channel 7 out in the Longview-Tyler area.
“I immediately thought it looked like Jesus and that was what was so cool cause you’ve seen His face in grilled cheese sandwiches and windows and things but on a moth’s back…we thought that was pretty neat.”
As if the moth weren’t cool enough. Feynman was right: The scientist appreciates this stuff better.
6 Comments | Humor, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science | Tagged: Humor, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Lost expedition? Where’s the photos of the “new” Peruvian waterfall?
August 28, 2008You’d think someone like National Geographic Society would hustle down there to find it.
Whatever happened to the expedition that took off on the trek to photograph what was rumored to be a world-class waterfall newly discovered in Peru? The cataract was rumored to be among the world’s tallest.
Perhaps a reader who reads Spanish might find some news in the South American newspapers. Has anyone seen any news?
1 Comment | Adventure, Conservation, Environmental protection, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Natural history, Natural resources, Science, Travel | Tagged: Adventure, geography, Peru, South America, Travel, Waterfalls | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 