Lab Out Loud

A Dashboard Physics Lesson

Dale — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:41:31 +0000

For several years I’ve turned my students loose with a rather boring video of my speedometer as I traveled around town.

The best part of this video is that I don’t need to come up with an assignment. I just play the video. It doesn’t take more than a minute for questions to start bubbling out of the students?

How long did you do this?
Where did you go?
How far did you drive?

And there it is. A physics lesson. I send the students off with a challenge: “tell us everything you can about my trip.”

A few days later students share their findings, and more importantly, how they were found. Students share answers to all their initial questions along with some new answers to questions like:

What was the average speed?
What was the top acceleration?
Should I get a speeding ticket?

At this point there is at least one student who asks, “so what’s the right answer?” You need to be careful here. I keep the emphasis on how we conducted our investigations and which method is more accurate. That being said, I do share more information with students by doing the following.

At the end, I keep the camera rolling and simply pan over to the odometer to show how far I traveled. I trim this part off the video before initially sharing it with students.
Odometer
Use a second camera to synchronize video of the road with the speedometer.
Picture-in-picture
Collect GPS waypoints to create a Google Map of your trip.
Google Maps

I’ve made the speedometer video many different ways but the best, and safest, way for me to get a straight-on view of the speedometer was to tape a webcam to the dash and record the video to a laptop sitting on the passenger’s seat.

Webcam on dash

To get the video of the road, I taped my pocket camcorder to a lead block and set it on top of the dashboard. With both the webcam and camcorder recording, I made on loud clap with my hands so I could use that audio point to synchronize the video in Final Cut Express.

To capture video of road

The waypoints were collected using the GPS on my phone and the free My Tracks app from Google. Apple iPhone users should be able to find similar apps online. Vernier has software and hardware that also allows you to do a lot with GPS.

My Tracks

I’ve always enjoyed teaching with lessons like this and I think the students enjoy it too. Until recently, I’ve never known what to call lessons like this but I think former math teacher Dan Meyer has come up with a name. Dan uses the simple label “What can you do with this?” or “WCYDWT” at his blog. He explains the need for more lessons like this during a TED Talk and has many other examples.

Episode 48 – Don’t Be Such a Scientist

Brian — Mon, 10 May 2010 05:15:07 +0000

Randy Olson (Credit: Sandy Huffaker for the New York Times

For our 100th podcast interview (including 52 interviews with Periodicity), we talk with former marine biologist turned filmmaker and author Randy Olson. Since we last talked with Randy about Flock of Dodos, he has since put out another movie (Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy) and a book (Don’t Be Such a Scientist: ). We talk with Randy about his new book and the importance of how scientists communicate.

We’d like to thank NSTA for their continued support of Lab Out Loud. If you haven’t already done so, make sure to join or renew your membership. If you have any comments from our third season, or have any suggestions for next year, please contact us.

Links:

Barnacle Sex Music Video (Barnacles Tell No Lies)

Direct download: LOL48.mp3

Episode 47 – Evolution for the Young Reader

Brian — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:15:53 +0000

Daniel Loxton

Our guest this week is Daniel Loxton, editor of Junior Skeptic and author/illustrator. Daniel joins us to talk about Junior Skeptic, shepherding and his new book: Evolution: How we and all Things Came to Be.

Links:

Praise From GeekDad (Wired):

Evolution

Daniel Loxton’s Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be (Kids Can Press, 2010) is the best overview of evolution for children of which I’m aware. There have been other recent kids’ books on Darwin, motivated by last year’s 150th anniversary of Origin of the Species. Instead of focusing on Darwin, Loxton sticks with explaining the mechanics of natural selection, both what it can accomplish and explain and what it can’t. Beautifully illustrated and elegantly written, any child interested in the story of life will be fascinated by it. There’s no need to take my word for it: This review is a couple of weeks later than I’d hoped, because my 6-yr-old kept stealing it and carrying it around the house to study.

Direct download: LOL47.mp3

Episode 46 – Paleontologist Scott from “Dinosaur Train”

Brian — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 05:15:13 +0000

Paleontologist Scott

You may know this week’s guest as Paleontologist Scott from the PBS hit show “Dinosaur Train”. In episode 46, Paleontologist Scott talks about the show, being a paleontologist, and his new book Dinosaur Odyssey.

Links:

Scott Sampson’s Website
Purchase Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life
Dinosaur Train (PBS)
Dinsosaur Train Videos
Dinosaur Train (Wikipedia Entry)
Dinosaur Fossil Reveals True Feather Colors (wired.com)
Listen to Colouring in Dinosaurs (Quirks and Quarks)
Masiakausaurus
Dinosaur Planet (IMDB)

Dinosaur Train Characters "Buddy" and "Tiny"

Direct download: LOL46.mp3

Plate Tectonics is a Hoax!!!

Dale — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:01:21 +0000

Lawmakers in Washington and in state governments across the United States have officially labeled earthquake damage as preventable. They have enacted laws that tax citizens for new building strategies. After watching the earthquake disasters unfold in Haiti and Chile, a majority of American citizens are now becoming skeptical of the claim that human actions can prevent the massive amount of damage that mother nature can throw at us. And governments are still not listening to the people.

How did we ever get to a point where bad science drives big government to punish the people for living the American dream that coastlines provide for us?

It all began with a geologist named Harry Hammond Hess. He served with the Navy in World War II. During the war, he became the captain of the USS Cape Johnson. Hess obtained major funding from the Navy to do measurements and research on the ocean around his travel routes to Pacific Ocean landings on the Marianas, Philippines, and Iwo Jima – continuously using his ship’s echo sounder. After the war, he remained in the Naval Reserve, and used his SONAR work to rise to the rank of rear admiral.

He greatly expanded the Office of Naval Research’s areas of interest and published a report titled ‘History of Ocean Basins.’ The thrust of the report lead to more funding for more studies. Funding was where Hess’s goal; he later used his connections to work with Project Mohole – an investigation about the feasibility and techniques of deep sea drilling! That’s where the real money was.

However, the damage was already done. Hess’s work, now called the ‘Theory of Plate Tectonics’ began to gain momentum. Hess was able to convince the government and his fellow scientists, despite the fact that many scientists debated over this theory and several demanded to know what forces drove these so-called ‘plates’

With the genie out of the bottle, Hess had to find alternative sources of funding. And he would find it in earthquakes. Hess’s work began to convince people that earthquakes will occur anywhere within the earth where there is sufficient stored strain along a fault plane. Where was one of the first places we looked? California. Of course, there are earthquakes in places such as Kansas and Oklahoma but California had the population that would scream loudly for reform that would protect them from mother nature’s wrath.

Government listened to the outcry and set new building standards. Scientists and engineers came to the rescue. They convinced the public that there are ways to protect and prepare possible sites of earthquakes from severe damage, through fancy processes like: earthquake engineering, earthquake preparedness, household seismic safety, seismic retrofit, seismic hazard, mitigation of seismic motion, and earthquake prediction. All this made lots of money for geologists, but people still die in earthquakes.

As the science now stands, the plate tectonics alarmist scientists say they can prove where earthquakes are likely to occur but they are still surprised when things snap in places like Haiti or Chile. The only thing they offer in those situations is more emphasis on earthquake engineering. Which really makes sense. See, they’ve sold all their sensors and so-called detectors to countries like the U.S. and now it’s time to branch out. They won’t be happy until we have seismic sensors all over the world. They’re getting closer to this goal each year. Yet I am totally convinced there is no scientific basis for any of this.

Plate Tectonics: It is a scam. It has taken control of public policy. It is terrible science. It is the greatest hoax of all time.

Episode 45 – Science Fiction Writer Cory Doctorow

Brian — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:15:13 +0000

Cory Doctorow (photo by Joi Ito, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0)

We first met Cory Doctorow in 2008 when he was giving a book tour for “Little Brother” in Milwaukee, WI. Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger, and the co-editor of Boing Boing. We talk with Doctorow about science and science fiction, privacy, and his new book “Makers”.

Links:

Doctorow’s craphound.com
Doctorow’s Novels (at Amazon.com)
News about Makers
Download Little Brother
Wikipedia Entry
Gruntzooki Flickr Stream
Doctorow on Twitter
Doctorow’s writing at the Guardian and Salon.com
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Boing Boing

Direct download: LOL45.mp3

Episode 44 – Griff Jones and the IIHS

Brian — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:15:46 +0000

Griff Jones

Griff Jones is an award-winning science teacher plucked from teaching high school to work with UFTeach – a program with the University of Florida designed to increase the quantity and quality of secondary mathematics and science teachers. Griff was also selected to work with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety to make two videos about understanding the science behind car crashes: Understanding Car Crashes: When Physics Meets Biology & Understanding Car Crashes: It’s Basic Physics. Griff talks to us about the videos, the IIHS, and their many resources for science teachers.

Make sure to visit Griff and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety at the 2010 NSTA Conference on Science Education in Philadephia.

Links:

(IIHS) Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
IIHS Vehicle Ratings
IIHS Videos: “Understanding Car Crashes: When Physics Meets Biology” & “Understanding Car Crashes: It’s Basic Physics”
50th Anniversary crash test video: 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air & 2009 Chevrolet Malibu
2010 NSTA Conference on Science Education in Philadephia
UFTeach
Griff Jones – UFTeach Biography (pdf)
Griff Jones – Products from Science Kit
‘Galileo’ Subs for Instructor in UFTeach Lab
UF Today: Two former high school teachers show their college students how to teach math and science. The first lesson is to have fun

From Paul G. Hewitt, the developer of the “Conceptual Physics” curriculum and author of the best selling text book by the same name: “The video “Understanding Car Crashes: It’s Basic Physics” and accompanying teacher’s guide are wonderful. The pacing is excellent, the coverage fascinating, and most importantly, the physics is correct. It’s a first rate teaching package. I give it five stars!” (www.iihs.org/videos/default.html)

Direct download: LOL44.mp3

Watch ‘The Pluto Files’ on NOVA

Dale — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:18:22 +0000

I know many of you are still fighting for Pluto (let it go, it’s over). You might find tonight’s NOVA special, The Pluto Files on PBS, helpful as you work through your loss. Host Neil deGrasse Tyson (also author of the book The Pluto Files) walks us through Pluto’s story from rise to fall.

Check out the trailer. After tonight’s airing, you can watch the video at the show’s website.

Also at the site is:

hate-mail from third graders,
a name your favorite planet contest
a place to share new ways to remember planet names.

Haven’t had enough, check out the book The Pluto Files.

By the way, I’ve heard Neil deGrasse Tyson speak several times. He is a frequent guest on shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. His enthusiasm is simply awe-inspiring. He is a true fighter for everything science. I recommend following everything he does.

We had a chance to meet and later interview Neil deGrasse Tyson for episode 32 last May. He talked about science literacy and other science education matters; his comments on grades really struck a cord with me.

Episode 43 – Mythbusters’ Adam Savage

Brian — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:15:18 +0000

Adam Savage

We first met Adam Savage (from the Mythbusters) at The Amaz!ng Meeting 7 last summer, where he gave a talk about the creative process and failure that comes with ‘making’. Of course, we knew that we had to get Adam on the show. A few months later, we were lucky to talk with Adam about the Mythbusters, science education, and how he uses both experimentation and learning from mistakes in his work both on and off the show.

Links:

Direct download: LOL43.mp3

Episode 42: SOFIA – A Telescope on a Plane

Brian — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:15:17 +0000

SOFIA's 100 Inch Diameter Telescope

Dana Backman is the Outreach Director for SOFIA – The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. Essentially, SOFIA is a modified 747SP with telescope in its fuselage. A joint project between NASA and the German Aerospace Center (NASA supplied the aircraft and the telescope was built in Germany), SOFIA is the largest airborne astronomical observatory that will allow astronomers to peer into the visible, infrared and sub-millimeter spectrum of space – above the majority of water vapor in the atmosphere. Dana talks with us about the aircraft, the mission, and some exciting opportunities for science teachers.

Links:

Direct download: LOL42.mp3