Group items tagged

"The site provides science students and educators, at levels from kindergarten to college, with a free online space to create, collaborate and share their own digital drawings, Wang says. It initially was inspired by Frankel's Picturing to Learn project, where MIT and Harvard undergraduates majoring in science created drawings to explain scientific phenomena to high school students, according to Wang. Excited about the potential for drawing as a tool for students and science enthusiasts in and out of the classroom, Wang saw an opportunity in that space to infuse new energy and greater creativity into science education, he said."

"Despite broadly similar views about the overall place of science in America, there are striking differences between the views of the public and those of the scientific community connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on a host of science-related issues, from whether genetically modified foods are safe to eat to whether the world's growing population will be a major problem. See how their views differ by clicking on the topics below. "

"The art of science and the science of art. "

"The Science through Technology Enhanced Play project (STEP) engages 6-8 year old students in a series of playful inquiry activities situated within a Augmented Reality environment. Tested at two schools and across two very different science topics-states of matter and the complex system of honey bee pollination-we have pioneered a new way for young students to engage in scientific inquiry and modeling in developmentally appropriate ways that breaks the mold of one-student-one computer. The big idea of STEP is to engage young children in an activity they are experts at, socio-dramatic play, in such a way that play becomes a form of scientific modeling and collective inquiry."

"Muller concluded that those "clear," "concise" and "easy to understand" expository videos that abound in science education do not appear to be particularly effective in teaching science. By contrast, videos with dialogue that address the underlying misconceptions students bring to science seem to be more educationally effective."

"In 1998, a National Science Foundation report made a remark that begins to hit the mark a little closer: "It is important to understand how individuals assess their own knowledge of these subjects. For many purposes … it is the individual's self-assessment of his or her knowledge that will either encourage or discourage a given behavior." This starts to tear down the wall of judging people based on how "well-informed" or "attentive" they are (terms that permeate these statistics reports) to science, and instead places more significance on an individual's assessment of themselves. To go further, I'd argue that "knowledge" isn't as telltale of a measurement as "experience"."

"Here are my five tips for science artists on Instagram." "Go hashtag crazy."

"I cannot sit on the fence. I like twitter and what it offers. I have learned things I never would, built genuine relationships with international people who I would have perhaps have only met over a quick coffee at a conference. And I have changed the way I speak about science. It is interesting, and often funny. It can of course be a harsh and challenging space. I am genuinely horrified at what I have seen some colleagues endure online - particularly the women: but it is here to stay. I wish my female colleagues and women in general were always treated well, and as people, but the only thing I can personally do is contribute to a positive space. I believe twitter is a strong positive for science, and it is a worthwhile investment of your time. This short document has a few ill-considered ideas about what I like about it.   "

"The Science of Online Discussions Our working knowledge regarding distance education suggests that productive discussions are essential to learning in an asynchronous online environment. Online discussions effectively take the place of face-to-face classroom discussion. It has even been suggested that, if well facilitated, online discussions may allow for more in-depth and thoughtful learning than is possible in a face-to-face setting (Hawkes, 2006). Gao, Wang, and Sun (2009) contend that in a productive online discussion, it is essential for participants to embrace the following four dispositions:"

"I believe in the professorial mandate, the deep commitment we must have to giving back knowledge because we get the privilege of being able to spend our days thinking. But that isn't just a matter of toiling in our worlds and then throwing knowledge out of the ivory tower. It's not just about making material open and hoping people will come. It's about actively engaging the very people that we seek to understand, contributing to the communities we spend time analyzing. To treat them respectfully and to understand our moral and ethical responsibility to them."

"OK, so how do we fix this problem? How do I help these students understand that there is value in being confused? I think the only solution is to keep confusing students. Sorry students, there is no shortcut to real understanding."

"More than a technique, PCR is a concept, that enables molecular biologists to think in new ways of their object of study, DNA, to ask genes new questions. Opening the way to new experiments, it literally frees the imagination. Some even use PCR machines as fridges. After all a thermocycler is nothing but an intelligent heating and cooling block. It can be set on 4ºC for 48 hours, to conserve the result of an experiment over the week-end. "

"Scott Fisher gets a lot of educational mileage from a postcard."

""Twitter is really useful for simultaneous monitoring of events in real time," says Witze (who is also on TON's Board of Directors). At another meeting, the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston in March 2015, she went to a session about the MAVEN mission to Mars. She used real-time Twitter feeds to get a sense of what the scientists in the room thought was important, and wrote up this story while the speakers were still talking. The real-time feedback she got from Twitter was "like having a small army of smart people helping out," Witze says. And following the live tweets provides "a whole other level of commentary" that can be valuable for identifying sources to interview for a story. "

"THE EDITORS OF THE Public Library of Science (PLOS) family of scientific journals recently decided to give their authors much more specific instructions for sharing data. They announced that "authors must make all data publicly available, without restriction, immediately upon publication of the article." They defined data as "any and all of the digital materials that are collected and analyzed in the pursuit of scientific advances," and now require authors to provide a "data availability statement" that serves the purpose of "describing where and how others can access each dataset that underlies the findings.""

""This is a musical experience, a meditational concentration experience," says Tod Machover, composer and inventor at the MIT Media Lab. He created Vocal Vibrations with architect and designer Neri Oxman and with the help of Al Grodzinsky, a bioengineer at MIT and an expert in biological tissue. "

"We live in an age when all manner of scientific knowledge-from climate change to vaccinations-faces furious opposition. Some even have doubts about the moon landing."

Some really interesting stuff going on in the science/art sphere. Really seems like VCU ought to be able to do some amazing things here especially with student clubs like the scientific illustrators society.