Group items tagged

Summary via The Scout Report (May 2012): "The journal Nature provides a range of peer-reviewed scientific works on a weekly basis, along with science updates and materials aimed at the general public. This particular feature on malaria is available at no charge to the curious public, and as the homepage asks, "What will it take to finally subdue this deadly disease?" Visitors will find a collection of recent articles in the Outlook area, such as "The Numbers Game" and "Vaccines: The Take Home Lesson." Moving on, the Collection area brings together peer-reviewed pieces on the story behind the efforts to eradicate the disease, along with some nice pieces about how the disease is transmitted. It's easy to see how this collection could be used in a public health course, or in another classroom setting. Finally, the site also includes links to popular articles from Nature, along with other open access materials. [KMG]"

A list of games related to: "Issues relating to human activities and the natural environment including resource use, pollution, climate change, energy use, ecology, nature conservation and sustainable development."

a good example of prime numbers in nature -- and why they are important, e.g., for a kind of cicada which has a 13-year cycle... "Because 13 and 17 are both indivisible this gives the cicadas an evolutionary advantage as primes are helpful in avoiding other animals with periodic behaviour. Suppose for example that a predator appears every six years in the forest. Then a cicada with an eight or nine-year life cycle will coincide with the predator much more often than a cicada with a seven-year prime life cycle. These insects are tapping into the code of mathematics for their survival. The cicadas unwittingly discovered the primes using evolutionary tactics but humans have understood that these numbers not just the key to survival but are the very building blocks of the code of mathematics."

"The authors of this paper use characters from the 1998 film The Big Lebowski to illustrate the intricate, self-defined nature of information seeking behavior and the ways in which personal characteristics contribute to the success or failure of an information search."

big names in science & humanities answer big questions, e.g., does moral action depend on reasoning? Does evolution explain human nature?

"In fact, the focus of the framework rests on a much larger concept of the ways in which humans have altered and continue to alter the "natural world" with the goal of fulfilling "needs and desires." Technology is much bigger and more complex than a single device or site."

"Children have infinite potential. Play is a natural vehicle for learning. Joy is most often found in simple things. Give children the space to create and the time to grow. Curiosity, imagination and creativity are timeless tools. Asking children questions is more powerful than telling them things. All children have basic needs, such as love and belongingness. Never underestimate the power of one caring adult in a child's life. Persistence, persistence, persistence pays off. Expect the unexpected. We need to strive to make learning transformational. There is a child in all of us."

My first Tagging session

"Creativity is just as vital in science and engineering as it is in art and drama, argues Gerard Darby. Yet the present education system is undermining young people's natural creativity, he says, and is in urgent need of reform. He highlights some novel approaches, and explains why this matters both for the individuals, and for our wider society and economy. "

"With the many enhancements to mobile devices, multimedia websites, e-books, interactive graphics, and social media, there's no question that the nature of reading has changed during the past decade. But has the way reading is taught in elementary schools changed as well? And what should teachers be doing to get students ready for the realities of modern reading?"

"A learning environment expert and education advocate, Elyse is dedicated to improving the teaching of writing by helping educators understand the changing nature of the discipline in a digital age."

"Inform is a design system for interactive fiction based on natural language. It is a radical reinvention of the way interactive fiction is designed, guided by contemporary work in semantics and by the practical experience of some of the world's best-known writers of IF."

"This is what psychologists call "metacognition," thinking about how we think. Trailblazer gave me an x-ray view of my own mental activity. Clicking on random memes triggered a curious search query and-boom-20 pages later I'd find a useful scientific paper. (I'm now more forgiving of falling down a Twitter hole.) Traditional academic citations never capture serendipity, the stumbling, associational nature of how knowledge relates to itself. Trailblazer does."

Between April 20 and July 15, 2010, a generally accepted estimate of nearly 5 million barrels (200 million gallons) of crude oil emerged from the wellhead drilled into the seafloor by BP from the now-destroyed Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Now that the flow of oil has been stopped, the impact of all the spilled oil and natural gas is still being measured. The current moratorium on deep water remains in place as reports from varying scientific groups are at odds about the extent of the remaining oil, and some fishing restrictions have already been lifted. As BP finalizes its work in killing the well, here is a collection of photos from around the Gulf of Mexico over the past couple of months, as all of those affected enter the next phase of this event. (42 photos total)

Article on biomimetics-applying designs from nature to solve problems in engineering, materials science, medicine, and other fields.

"That said, even if further evidence backs it up, the idea that the inner core is in a continuous cycle of self recreation probably won't matter that much to the landscapes and ecosystems doing similar things 5,000 kilometres further out. The effect is more one of underlining an aesthetic, or even an ideology, of the planet as an engine of ceaseless self-stabilising change. Such an ideology may serve as a useful guide to dealing with the unavoidable impacts that a large technological civilisation must have on the planet it inhabits: while caution counsels minimising such impacts, a sense of how the planet works suggests that making sure its natural systems can deal with them, that they can become part of the flow, could matter just as much."

Video clips from the documentary - The Pleasure of finding Things Out - plus links to other great resources from the BBC Archive re Science & Nature

from Canada:  "Scientists and teachers work together to develop and deliver science units comprised of hands-on lessons on specific themes. There is a major focus on the experimental process of science. The lesson plans fit the BC Ministry of Education guidelines for Science K to 7. Opportunities are created to link lessons to other areas of the curriculum, such as math, fine arts, English and French language arts, and First Nations. Some lessons focus on issues facing society such as marine pollution, climate change, soil erosion, biodiversity, and the importance of protecting the environment and ecosystems. Thirty-three science units have been developed during the Scientist in Residence Program and are organized within four curriculum areas. More than 200 science lesson plans are available for download as PDF documents. These include lesson plans for field trips, thereby extending learning in natural environments. Please scroll down to view the titles of science units for each curriculum area, and click on science unit titles to view and download individual science lesson plans. If required by your browser, please enable Scripts to download documents from this web site. New science lesson plans will be posted on this website as they become available."