Links

• Science/AAAS
• Science Magazine Editors
• Subscribe to Science (K12 Teacher Membership Requires verification of teaching status)
• 2011 Breakthrough of the Year
• “HIV Treatment as Prevention” (Science Abstract)
• “HIV Treatment Dramatically Prevents Heterosexual Transmission” (Science Insider)
• Hayabusa Mission Website
• “Australopithecus sediba May Have Paved the Way for Homo“ (AAAS News Release)
• “Malaria Vaccine Meets (Modest) Expectations” (Science Now)
• Laser Mosquito Killer (YouTube)

Science/AAAS cover art courtesy of Science/AAAS.  Readers may view, browse, and/or download material for temporary copying purposes only, provided these uses are for noncommercial personal purposes. Except as provided by law, this material may not be further reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, adapted, performed, displayed, published, or sold in whole or in part, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Featured image courtesy of lead author, Dr. Myron Cohen.

To listen to this episode, download the mp3 directly, find us on iTunes, or use the player below.

Mark Schober

This week we talk with Mark Schober about using Modeling Instruction in the science classroom.  As president of the American Modeling Teacher’s Association, Mark shares with us a history of modeling, how it can be used in the classroom and that it is for more than just physics courses.

Links

• Schober’s Physics: ModelingPhysics.org
• Contact Mark Schober
• Modeling Instruction in High School Physics
• Weblinks for Modelers (from ASU)
• American Modeling Teachers Association
• ASU Modeling Instruction Program
• Modeling Physical Science (UW-Oshkosh)
• Modeling Instruction from Frank Noschese
• Modeling Instruction in Physics channel on Vimeo

To listen to this episode, download the mp3 directly, find us on iTunes, or use the player below.

Frank Noschese

This week we discuss teaching techniques with Frank Noschese.  Frank is a high school physics teacher at John Jay High School in Cross River, N.Y.  and an active blogger.  We talk with Frank about blogging, active student engagement, flipped classrooms, psuedoteaching, and the Khan Academy.  Join the conversation and leave your comments.

Preview from the Show:

There’s a lot of research and evidence to backup the fact that having a more interactive class does work.  And there’s a lot of ways to go about being interactive.  One way is with the questioning technique that you were talking about in the Harvard justice videos; I haven’t seen them, but it sounds like that’s one way.  Or using clickers is another way. Or with whiteboarding and modeling, where the kids are working in groups on these problems, and they’re working on them on these large whiteboards that maybe two or three kids can work on at a time, and they share and present their solutions to the problem.  So there’s lot of different techniques depending on the size of the class and the materials that you have, so I don’t think anybody should just be able to throw their hands up and say “well based on my situation, the only thing I can do is lecture”, because there’s always different techniques.

If you think back to even how you learned – something that you found you had to struggle through, whether it was a sport or an instrument, or a kind of arts and crafts, woodworking – anything like that.  You worked hard at it, got feedback from someone who knew what they were doing, there were lots of tests along the way to see if you were getting it or not.  That kind of interactivity and feedback is so necessary for learning.  And then there’s also people that say – we had this conversation on twitter a few months ago – where somebody said “but kids do learn from lecture, there are kids that are gaining.”  And it’s true, there are kids that do still learn physics through lecture, and what we think is going on there is that the kids are doing these active engagement strategies in their head, so they’re trying to think ahead: “what’s the next step this would take”, or “how does this fit in with that,” and they’re doing it in their head.  And these are very few kids that actually know how to learn from a lecture, and I would say the bulk of students just sit there and think that they’re going to learn from osmosis.

Links:

• Action-Reaction (Frank’s Blog)
• Frank on MSNBC talking about
• Frank on flipped classrooms with USA Today
• Follow Frank on Twitter
• Frank on the Web: Frank’s Posterous, Noschese 180, Win? Fail? PHYSICS!, WQDYH?
• Harvard’s Justice with Michael Sandel
• A Private Universe
• dy/dan (Dan Meyer)
• Geoset (Global Educational Outreach for Science, Engineering and Technology)
• Veritasium Science Videos

To listen to this episode, download the mp3 directly, find us on iTunes, or use the player below.

Farmers fails physics

Yes, this is just a silly ad. I should relax and let it slide. Right? Then again, the insurance business is all about numbers, units, and equations.

Speaking of equations, let’s take a look at those numbers again.

A closer look at the numbers

The cow is a projectile launched at 70 degrees off the horizontal with an initial velocity of 42 m/s.

Oh no. It’s not just a little slip on a label; all the distances are wrong too.

Zip over to the Wolfram Alpha site for the correct answers.

Wolfram Alpha can solve this

Looks like I’ll be saving this image for my physics students to investigate. I guess it is back to school for Farmers.

Bill Prady

Bill Prady, Executive Producer and co-creator of the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, joins us to talk about one of our favorite science shows.

Links:

• The Big Bang Theory on CBS
• The Big Bang Theory (IMDB)
• Follow Bill Prady on Twitter
• Bill Prady on Facebook
• The Biog Blog Theory (David Saltsberg)
• David Saltzberg (UCLA Physics)
• Interview with David Saltzberg

Direct download: LOL62.mp3

Many of our listeners have felt the same. One commenter wrote:

For a show called Lab Out Loud, why don’t we ever hear the sounds of lab?

We admit that our critics are right. While many of our guests work in a laboratory environment, our show has failed to bring you to their lab.

Quite frankly, we were lazy; we have relied on the voices of people instead of the symphony of tools and facilities that are really doing the science.

Well, the charade is over. Today, we are proud to announce that Lab Out Loud is moving to where it belongs – the laboratory. From this point on, Lab Out Loud will no longer do interviews but focus on the sounds of the lab instead.

Fun With Chemistry by jemsweb, on Flickr

Each episode will showcase a specific field of science. Today we start with the Soundtrack of the Chemistry Lab. Listeners can interact with the show by identifying their favor sounds in the comments. Was that a buret or a pipet? Only the trained ear can tell!

Direct download: LOLv2-e1-chem.mp3

If chemistry is not your thing, don’t fret. You’ll be able to find harmony with one of our future episodes. Squishes and Scalpels will be up next for our biology fans followed by Sediment Drifts and Sifts for the geologists.

Got a favorite lab sound stirring in your head? Leave us a request in the comments. We’ll have it ready to play in a few weeks.

With your help we hope to finally turn up the dial on every laboratory so they can be enjoyed as intended – Out Loud!

The latter concerns us the most and it was the topic of discussion at the start of our most recent episode. In Episode 59 – The Courage to Teach, we speculated that without a teachers’ union, it would be more difficult and riskier for teachers to stand up for science.

For example, suppose an environmental science teacher was teaching global climate change and a principal objected. Without the due process that teachers’ unions ensure, we suggested that a teacher might retreat from the attacks from their employer since they now know that they can be terminated more easily.

The scenario above was only hypothetical but we can look to the past for real-life examples.

Dover Area High School

In 2004 the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania announced that their science teachers would be required to read a statement to students that discredited evolution and showcased intelligent design as a valid scientific theory.

Eight Dover science teachers stood together and sent a memo to their school superintendent that outlined their objection to the policy and explained that they would not read the board’s statement to their students.

The decisions in Dover, Pennsylvania quickly erupted onto the national scene when a lawsuit was filed against the school district in Federal District Court by eleven parents of students at the Dover high school. The suit resulted in a landmark case on the teaching of evolution known today as Kitzmiller v. Dover School District.

I explained our worries about what may happen in Wisconsin to Jennifer Miller, one of the science teachers who stood up to the Dover school board, and asked her if their teachers’ union provided any assistance when they took a stand six years ago.

Below is her response:

I would say that you have VERY valid concerns!!! Our union helped us tremendously!!! When we went to trial, our superintendent tried to tell us that the school board’s lawyer (the Thomas More Law Center) represented us because we were part of the school district. We demanded our own lawyer and our union provided one for us. This was invaluable because none of us had ever been to trial before including subpoenas and depositions. Our union lawyer met with us many, many times to go over things and let us know what to say and what not to say and to guide us in the whole process, including being our support the day we testified. I think I would have stood up anyway without the lawyer and the union, but it would have been much, much more difficult. Our union representatives went with us to the many meetings we had with the school board. We always felt protected!!

We are watching the Wisconsin situation very closely and know that you have our complete support!!!

We saw in Dover that government can get it wrong. Sometimes workers need to stand up against injustices perpetrated by government. However, without a union to stand beside you, this is much harder to do. Would you risk your career and your livelihood for what you believe is right? Maybe. But it’s the maybe that worries me most.

Dr. Ben Goldacre

Finishing our UK tour, we talk with Dr. Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks and Big Pharma Flacks.  Dr. Goldacre talks to us about interpreting scientific results, the tricks used to deceive us, and how science teachers might combat bad science in the classroom.

• badscience.net
• Bad Science Column at guardian.co.uk
• Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks and Big Pharma Flacks (from Amazon.com)
• Ben Goldacre’s Twitter Feed
• Review of Bad Science by Cory Doctorow on boingboing.net
• Ben Goldacre videos on YouTube
• Ben Goldacre Talks Bad Science from PopTech on Vimeo (below)

Direct download: LOL57.mp3

Periodic Table of Videos Team

Links:

• Periodic Table of Videos (non-YouTube version)
• PTOV YouTube Channel
• PTOV Roadtrips
• PTOV Molecular Videos
• PTOV Blog
• PTOV Flickr Photostream
• PTOV on Twitter
• PTOV on Facebook
• PTOV Outtakes, and videos about science and scientists in Nottingham
• International Year of Chemistry
• Sixty Symbols (Physics)

Chem Definition Video: Polyatomic

The International Year of Chemistry 2011 (IYC 2011) is a worldwide celebration of the achievements of chemistry and its contributions to the well-being of humankind. Under the unifying theme “Chemistry—our life, our future,” IYC 2011 will offer a range of interactive, entertaining, and educational activities for all ages. The Year of Chemistry is intended to reach across the globe, with opportunities for public participation at the local, regional, and national level.

Direct download: LOL56.mp3

Science Comedian Brian Malow

This week we talk (and laugh with) Brian Malow – a science comedian and video correspondent for Time Magazine’s website.  Malow talks to us about about science and comedy, communicating science, and even lesson planning.

See you next year!  Lab Out Loud will return in 2011 on January 10.

Links:

• ScienceComedian.com
• TIME Video Essays by Brian Malow
• Insect Photography by Malow at insectpaparazzi.com
• Malow on Good Morning, Sacramento
• Malow on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson
• Trivia: Scientific Errors in ‘Star Wars’: A “Parsec” is a Unit of Distance, Not Time
• “Making Science Funny” (San Francisco Chronicle)
• “Brian Malow” (C&EN)
• “Brian Malow is the Science Comedian” (GeekDad)
• The Daily Show on Helium
• The Nerdist with Jim Gaffigan

‘A Virus Walks Into a Bar…’ and Other Science Jokes:

(see the full video at fora.tv)

Brian Malow on Evolution: