5 posts tagged “science education”
I finally got registered for my Intro to Astronomy and Lab classes today - woot! Classes begin at UCF and SCC on August 25th, so only three short weeks of sweet freedom left... but that's okay, because I'm very excited now to finally be able to start on my Astronomy minor for real.
I'm slightly worried about what the teacher will be like. He doesn't fare well on Rate My Professor, but I'm going to chalk that up to students who take astronomy for an "easy" science credit, but wind up with a passionate science geek for a teacher. Some of the comments made the guy sound like your basic nerd, and man do I love nerds... so hopefully it will all be fine.
Hmmm... maybe it's about time to break into the "Gravitation" chapter that we skipped in Physics I class.
I can't wait!
I just never get enough of the Theory of Gravity... and what's more adorable than a baby sheep? Oh, the image - gleefully stolen from Greta Christina's blog.
Since I'm linking like crazy, generally due to lack of time, and since I've already brought up Cocktail Physics, generally due to my crush on Jennifer Ouellette, minorScience now brings you:
The actual book can be found here:
Note that this is not an early Sunday Brunch and I have not (as of yet) read this book, so I don't know how it is, but I think that the idea is very good, at least. A stolen quote from the above linked interview is thus:
Q: Who is your target audience?
DLP: My book is meant for the NASCAR fan who doesn't know a lot of science, or the science fan who doesn't know a lot about NASCAR. The writer Margaret Wertheim pointed out that people who are already interested in science are very well served. It's the people who don't know that they're interested in science that we fail. NASCAR has 75 million fans. If this book gets even a very small percentage of them to think about taking a science course, or ask their teacher about springs, I will be thrilled. My goal is to stimulate people's interest.
In the event that I actually live through this semester of Physics and am ever able to read any book other than The Fundamentals of Physics I believe that I would give this one a try.
Woo hoo! The new Florida education standards passed with evolution intact. There was a last minute compromise between the ID's and the people with sense... the schools must teach "the scientific theory of evolution" rather than just "evolution." Good! Great! It's about time we spent some serious time explaining to our students what a theory actually is. The irony... it tickles.
Linkage:
Pharyngula
Wired Magazine
They was "tricked"
I didn't think the DI ID's actually believed the crap they were pushing to their own followers, and now their followers' lack of knowledge has bit them in the proverbial bum. I wonder if this is the last time they'll let the local yokels handle these fights all by themselves?
I've been wasting some time surfing while I should be getting ready for school, and ran across two articles of interest, both from the New York Times (ya know, one link leads to another, and so on...).
The Interesting: A new method of planet hunting proves successful.
The Depressing: America to the dumbth degree.
