iTeachSTEM

• BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Schools ‘may be wasting millions’

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    • As you read this, what questions do you have — specifically about the “big numbers?” - post by brunsell
  • 32,000
    • The value of my savings account grew 100fold over that same time period. So what? Any chance the author could put ANY of these numbers in context? Did it grow 1%, 10%? Very sloppy article. - post by brunsell

• NSTA :: Pressroom

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  • “The 21st Century Skills and Science map, which includes examples taken directly from science classrooms, represents a tool for teachers and students as they move toward a 21st century education system,” said Dr. Francis Eberle, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association. “Through a combination of rigorous coursework and the application of skills such as communication, collaboration and innovation, science courses come alive and better engage students. In turn, students will enjoy learning more and achieve a higher level of excellence.”

• Paleontology and Creationism Meet but Don’t Mesh - NYTimes.com

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• NPR: Texas Body Farm Produces Rotten Knowledge

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  • 
    • Great headline! - post by brunsell
  • For instance, it was actually supposed to be sited somewhere other than its current location. But the original planned site was too close to the San Marcos Airport and officials there as well as pilots worried that the body farm would attract buzzards which might collide with airplanes.
    • well, that is a disturbing thought. - post by brunsell

• Paleontology and Creationism Meet but Don’t Mesh - NYTimes.com

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  • Eau Claire, Wis. “This is what should be taught even in science,” Mr. Leinberger said.
  • The area has also long attracted paleontologists with some of the most fossil-laden rocks in North America, where it is easy along some roadsides to pick up fossils dated to be hundreds of millions of years old. The rocks are so well known that they are called the Cincinnatian Series, representing the stretch of time from 451 million to 443 million years ago.
    • oops, the reporter just let his bias show. Scientists believe in these ages…not Biblical literalists. - post by brunsell

  • Dr. Bengtson noted that to explain how the few species aboard the ark could have diversified to the multitude of animals alive today in only a few thousand years, the museum said simply, “God provided organisms with special tools to change rapidly.”

    “Thus in one sentence they admit that evolution is real,” Dr. Bengtson said, “and that they have to invoke magic to explain how it works.”

    • Great quote! What are these special tools? - post by brunsell

  • Dr. Sato likened the museum to an amusement park. “I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed Disneyland,” she said.

    Did she enjoy Disneyland?

    “Not very much,” she said.

    • Awesome! - post by brunsell

• Paleontology and Creationism Meet but Don’t Mesh - NYTimes.com

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  • the stegosaurus from the Upper Jurassic, the heterodontosaurus from the Lower Jurassic, the velociraptor from the Upper Cretaceous — yet in each case, the date of demise was the same: around 2348 B.C.
  • For paleontologists like Dr. Sato,
    • and anyone else with a basic understanding of science. - post by brunsell
  • Near the entrance to the exhibits is an animatronic display that includes a girl feeding a carrot to a squirrel as two dinosaurs stand nearby, a stark departure from natural history museums that say the first humans lived 65 million years after the last dinosaurs.
  • “It’s rather scary.”
  • We will very strongly contest an evolutionist position that they are letting facts speak for themselves.”
    • they may strongly contest it, but if they do it on a scientific basis, they will lose every time. Are they not strong enough in their faith? They have to try to scientifically prove it… - post by brunsell

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• Tweeting Your Way to Better Grades - US News and World Report - Annotated

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  • 
    • Or perhaps they collaborate? As educators, we need to realize the power of professional networking and collaborating - we need to encourage our students to collaborate & not view it as cheating. - post by brunsell

• Tweeting Your Way to Better Grades - US News and World Report - Annotated

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    • Thanks Sue! - post by brunsell

• Google Calendar

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• Stripgenerator v1.0.3

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  • 
    • Have students summarize a concept in three cartoon frames. - post by brunsell

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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On the anniversary of his death:

“MY PEDAGOGIC CREED”
by John Dewey

ARTICLE I. WHAT EDUCATION IS.

I believe that all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race. This process begins unconsciously almost at birth, and is continually shaping the individual’s powers, saturating his consciousness, forming his habits, training his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotions. Through this unconscious education the individual gradually comes to share in the intellectual and moral resources which humanity has succeeded in getting together. He becomes an inheritor of the funded capital of civilization. The most formal and technical education in the world cannot safely depart from this general process. It can only organize it; or differentiate it in some particular direction.

I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs. Through the responses which others make to his own activities he comes to know what these mean in social terms. The value which they have is reflected back into them. For instance, through the response which is made of the child’s instinctive babblings the child comes to know what those babblings mean; they are transformed into articulate language and thus the child is introduced into the consolidated wealth of ideas and emotions which are now summed up in language.

I believe that this educational process has two sides - one psychological and one sociological; and that neither can be subordinated to the other or neglected without evil results following. Of these two sides, the psychological is the basis. The child’s own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education. Save as the efforts of the educator connect with some activity which the child is carrying on his own initiative independent of the educator, education becomes reduced to a pressure from without. It may, indeed, give certain external results but cannot truly be called educative. Without insight into the psychological structure and activities of the individual, the educative process will, therefore, be haphazard and arbitrary. If it chances to coincide with the child’s activity it will get a leverage; if it does not, it will result in friction, or disintegration, or arrest of the child nature.

I believe that knowledge of social conditions, or the present state of civilization, is necessary in order properly to interpret the child’s powers. The child has his own instincts and tendencies, but we do not know what these mean until we can translate them into their social equivalents. We must be able to carry them back into a social past and see them as the inheritance of previous race activities. We must also be able to project them into the future to see what their outcome and end will be. In the illustration just used, it is the ability to see in the child’s babblings the promise and potency of a future intercourse and conversation which enables one to deal in the proper way with that instinct.

I believe that the psychological and social sides are organically related and that education cannot be regarded as a compromise between the two, or a superimposition of one upon the other. We are told that the psychological definition of education is barren and formal - that it gives us only the idea of a development of all the metal powers without giving us any idea of the use to which these powers are put. On the other hand, it is urged that the social definition of education, as getting adjusted to civilization, makes of it a forced and external process, and results in subordinating the freedom of the individual to a preconceived social and political status.

I believe each of these objections is true when urged against one side isolated from the other. In order to know what a power really is we must know what its end, use, or function is; and this we cannot know save as we conceive of the individual as active in social relationships. But, on the other hand, the only possible adjustment which we can give to the child under existing conditions, is that which arises through putting him in complete possession of all his powers. With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgement may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently. It is impossible to read this sort of adjustment save as constant regard is had to the individual’s own powers, tastes, and interests - say, that is, as education is continually converted into psychological terms.

In sum, I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass. Education, therefore, must begin with a psychological insight into the child’s capacities, interests, and habits. It must be controlled at every point by reference to these same considerations. These powers, interests, and habits must be continually interpreted - we must know what they mean. They must be translated into terms of their social equivalents - into terms of what they are capable of in the way of social service.

ARTICLE II. WHAT THE SCHOOL IS.

I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social end.

I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.

I believe that the school must represent present life - life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the play-ground.

I believe that education which does not occur through forms of life, or that are worth living for their own sake, is always a poor substitute for the genuine reality and tends to cramp and to deaden.

I believe that the school, as an institution, should simply existing social life; should reduce it, as it were, to an embryonic form. Existing life is so complex that the child cannot be brought into contact with it without either confusion or distraction; he is either overwhelmed by the multiplicities of activities which are going on, so that he loses his own power of orderly reaction, or he is so stimulated by these various activities that his powers are prematurely called into play and he becomes either unduly specialized or else disintegrated.

I believe that, as such simplified social life, the school life should grow gradually out of the home life; that it should take up and continue the activities with which the child is already familiar in the home.

I believe that it should exhibit these activities to the child, and reproduce them in such ways that the child will gradually learn the meaning of them, and be capable of playing his own part in relation to them.

I believe that this is a psychological necessity, because it is the only way of securing continuity in the child’s growth, the only way of giving a back-ground of past experience to the new ideas given in school.

I believe it is also a social necessity because the home is the form of social life in which the child has been nurtured and in connection with which he has had his moral training. It is the business of the school to deepen and extend his sense of the values bound up in his home life.

I believe that much of present education fails because it neglects this fundamental principle of the school as a form of community life. It conceives the school as a place where certain information is to be given, where certain lessons are to be learned, or where certain habits are to be formed. The value of these is conceived as lying largely in the remote future the child must do these things for the sake of something else he is to do; they are mere preparation. As a result they do not become a part of life experience of the child and so are not truly educative.

I believe that the moral education centers around this conception of the school as a mode of social life, that the best and deepest moral training is precisely that which one gets through having to enter into proper relations with others in a unity of work and thought. The present educational systems, so far as they destroy or neglect this unity, render it difficult or impossible to get any genuine, regular moral training.

I believe that the child should be stimulated and controlled in his work through the life of the community.

I believe that under existing conditions far too much of the stimulus and control proceeds from the teacher, because of neglect of the idea of the school as a form of social life.

I believe that the teacher’s place and work in the school is to be interpreted from this same basis. The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences.

I believe that the discipline of the school should proceed from the life of the school as a whole and not directly from the teacher.

I believe that the teacher’s business is simply to determine on the basis of larger experience and riper wisdom, how the discipline of life shall come to the child.

I believe that all questions of the grading of the child and his promotion should be determined by reference to the same standard. Examinations are of use only so far as they test the child’s fitness for social life and reveal the place in which he can be of most service and where he can receive the most help.

ARTICLE III. THE SUBJECT MATTER OF EDUCATION.

I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration or correlation, in all is training or growth. The social life gives the unconscious unity and the background of all his efforts and of all his attainments.

I believe that the subject-matter of the school curriculum should mark a gradual differentiation out of the primitive unconscious unity of social life.

I believe that we violate the child’s nature and render difficult the best ethical results, by introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies, of reading, writing, geography, but the child’s own social activities.

I believe that education cannot be unified in the study of science, or so called nature study, because apart from human activity, nature itself is not a unity; nature in itself is a number of diverse objects in space and time, and to attempt to make it the center of work by itself, is to introduce a principle of radiation rather than one of concentration.

I believe that literature is the reflex expression and interpretation of social experience; that hence it must follow upon and not precede such experience. It, therefore, cannot be made the basis, although it may be made the summary of unification.

I believe once more that history is of educative value in so far as it presents phases of social life and growth. It must be controlled by reference to social life. When taken simply as history it is thrown into the distant past and becomes dead and inert. Taken as the record of man’s social life and progress it becomes full of meaning. I believe, however, that it cannot be so taken excepting as the child is also introduced directly into social life.

I believe accordingly that the primary basis of education is in the child’s powers at work along the same general constructive lines as those which had brought civilization into being.

I believe that the only way to make the child conscious of his social heritage is to enable him to perform those fundamental types of activity which makes civilization what it is.

I believe, therefore, in the so-called expressive or constructive activities as the center of correlation.

I believe that this gives the standard for the place of cooking, sewing, manual training, etc., in the school.

I believe that they are not special studies which are to be introduced over and above a lot of others in the way of relaxation or relief, or as additional accomplishments. I believe rather that they represent, as types, fundamental forms of social activity; and that it is possible and desirable that the child’s introduction into the more formal subjects of the curriculum be through the medium of these activities.

I believe that the study of science is educational in so far as it brings out the materials and processes which make social life what it is.

I believe that one of the greatest difficulties in the present teaching of science is that the material is presented in purely objective form, or is treated as a new peculiar kind of experience which the child can add to that which he has already had. In reality, science is of value because it gives the ability to interpret and control the experience already had. It should be introduced, not as so much new subject-matter, but as showing the factors already involved in previous experience can be more easily and effectively regulated.

I believe that at present we lose much of the value of literature and language studies because of our elimination of the social element. Language is almost always treated in the books of pedagogy simply as the expression of thought. It is true that language is a logical instrument, bit it is fundamentally and primarily a social instrument. Language is the device for communication; it is the tool through which one individual comes to share the ideas and feelings of others. When treated simply as a way of getting individual information, or as a means of showing off what one has learned, it loses its social motive and end.

I believe that there is, therefore, so succession of studies in the ideal school curriculum. If education is life, all life has, from the outset, a scientific aspect; an aspect of art and culture and an aspect of communication. It cannot, therefore, be true that the proper studies for one grade are mere reading and writing, and that at a later grade, reading, or literature, or science, may be introduced. The progress is not in the succession of studies but in the development of new attitudes towards, and new interests in, experience.

I believe firmly, that education must be conceived as a continuing reconstruction of experience; that the process and the goal of education are one and the same thing.

I believe that to set up any end outside of education, as furnishing its goal and standard, is to deprive the educational process of much of its meaning and tends to make us rely upon false and external stimuli in dealing with the child.

ARTICLE IV. THE NATURE OF METHOD.

I believe that the question of method is ultimately reducible to the question of the order of development of the child’s powers and interests. The law for presenting and treating material is the law implicit within the child’s own nature. Because this is so I believe the following statements are of supreme importance as determining the spirit in which education is carried on:

1. I believe that the active side precedes the passive in the development of the child nature; that expression comes before conscious impression; that the muscular development precedes the sensory; that movements comes before conscious sensations; I believe that consciousness is essentially motor or impulsive; that conscious stated tend to project themselves in action.

I believe that the neglect of this principle is the cause of a large part of the waste of time and strength in school work. The child is thrown into a passive, receptive or absorbing attitude. The conditions are such that he is not permitted to follow the law of his nature; the result is friction and waste.

I believe that ideas (intellectual and rational processes) also result from action and devolve for the sake of the better control of action. What we term reason is primarily the law of orderly or effective action. To attempt to develop the reasoning powers, the powers of judgement, without reference to the selection and arrangement of means in action, is the fundamental fallacy in our present methods of dealing with this matter. As a result we present the child with arbitrary symbols. Symbols are a necessity in mental development, but they have their places as tools for economizing effort; presented by themselves they are a mass of meaningless and arbitrary ideas imposed from without.

2. I believe that the image is the great instrument of instruction. What a child gets out of any subject presented him is simply the images which he himself forms with regard to it.

I believe that if nine tenths of the energy at present directed towards making the child learn certain things, were spent in seeing to it that the child was forming proper images, the work of instruction would be indefinitely facilitated.

I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration or correlation, in all is training or growth. The social life gives the unconscious unity and the background of all his efforts and of all his attainments.

I believe that much of the time and attention now given to the preparation and presentation of lessons might be more wisely and profitably expended in training the child’s power of imagery and in seeing to it that he was continually forming definite, vivid, and growing images of the various subjects with which he comes in contact in his experience.

I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration or correlation, in all is training or growth. The social life gives the unconscious unity and the background of all his efforts and of all his attainments.

3. I believe that interests are the signs and symptoms of growing power. I believe that they represent dawning capacities. Accordingly the constant and careful observation of interests is of the utmost importance for the educator.

I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration or correlation, in all is training or growth. The social life gives the unconscious unity and the background of all his efforts and of all his attainments.

I believe that these interests are to be observed as showing the state of development which the child has reached.

I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration or correlation, in all is training or growth. The social life gives the unconscious unity and the background of all his efforts and of all his attainments.

I believe that the prophesy the stage upon which he is about to enter.

I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration or correlation, in all is training or growth. The social life gives the unconscious unity and the background of all his efforts and of all his attainments.

I believe that only through the continual and sympathetic observation of childhood’s interests can the adult enter into the child’s life and see what it is ready for, and upon what material it could work most readily and fruitfully.

I believe that these interests are neither to be honored nor repressed. To repress interest is to substitute the adult for the child, and so te weaken intellectual curiosity and alertness, to suppress initiative, and to deaden interest. To humor the interests is to substitute the transient for the permanent. The interest is always the sign of some power below; the important thing is to discover this power. To humor the interest is to fail to penetrate below the surface and its sure result is to substitute caprice and whim for genuine interest.

4. I believe that the emotions are the reflex of actions.

I believe that to endeavor to stimulate or arouse the emotions apart from their corresponding activities, is to introduce an unhealthy and morbid state of mind.

I believe that if we can only secure right habits of action and thought, with reference to the good, the true, and the beautiful, the emotions will for the most part take care of themselves.

I believe that next to deadness and dullness, formalism and routine, our education is threatened with no greater evil than sentimentalism.

I believe that this sentimentalism is the necessary result of the attempt to divorce feeling from action.

ARTICLE V. THE SCHOOL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS.

I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.

I believe that all reforms which rest simply upon the enactment of law, or the threatening of certain penalties, or upon changes in mechanical or outward arrangements, are transitory and futile.

I believe that education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.

I believe that this conception has due regard for both individualistic and socialistic ideals. It is duly individual because it recognizes the formation of a certain character as the only genuine basis of right living. It is socialistic because it recognizes that this right character is not to be formed merely by individual precept, example, or exhortation, but rather by the influence of a certain form of institutional or community life upon the individual, and that the social organism through the school, as its organ, may determine ethical results.

I believe that in the ideal school we have the reconciliation of the individualistic and the institutional ideals.

I believe that the community’s duty to education is, therefore, its paramount moral duty. By law and punishment, by social agitation and discussion, society can regulate and form itself in a more or less haphazard and chance way. But through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move.

I believe it is the business of every one interested in education to insist upon the school as the primary and most effective interest of social progress and reform in order that society may be awakened to realize what the school stands for, and aroused to the necessity of endowing the educator with sufficient equipment properly to perform his task.

I believe that the art of thus giving shape to human powers and adapting them to social service, is the supreme art; one calling into its service the best of artists; that no insight, sympathy, tact, executive power it too great for such service.

I believe that with the growth of psychological service, giving added insight into individual structure and laws of growth; and with growth of social science, adding to our knowledge of the right organization of individuals, all scientific resources can be utilized for the purposes of education.

I believe that when science and art thus join hand the most commanding motive for human action will be reached; the most genuine springs of human conduct aroused and the best service that human nature is capable of guaranteed.

I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.

I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of social order and the securing of the right social growth.

I believe that in this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God.

University of Chicago
John Dewey
1897

STEM, Uncategorized, tech tools

So, Chris Matthews wanted to know if the Republicans are anti-science.  He invited a Republican and a Democat on his show to discuss.  The Republican did a fantastic job of sowing doubt…by rehashing all of the old, tired and debunked anti-anthropomorphic climate change arguments.  The Democrat and Matthews didn’t have the science background to discuss any of these.  So, why not have a real scientist join in the debate?  A scientist would have cleaned the Republican’s clock.

Watch the full video here.

Dana Rohrabacher’s (R-California) big “science” points and rebuttals.

1. Change in temperature on Mars and Jupiter.

Mars has a very thin atmosphere and has frequent dust storms.  Large dust storms change the albedo of the planet and reduce the reliability of telescope-based temperature measurements.  The empirical data is not conclusive for climate change on Mars.

Heat transfer within Jupiter’s atmosphere is very complicated.  Temperatures are increasing in equitorial regions, but cooling in polar regions.

2. Historical fluctuations in Earth’s temperatue.

No one denies that Earth’s climate fluctuates.  However, the natural causes for climate change have remained relatively stable since the 1970’s.  The change in global temperature that we are seeing is due to human impact on the atmosphere.

3. Temperature has not increased since 1998.

1998 was abnormally warm because of a very strong “El Nino” effect.  Long-term global mean temperatures show a statistically significant increase in temperature over the past decade.

4. It is the Sun.

The correlation between increased sunspots and increasing temperature ended in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s.  Sunspot activity is decreasing, yet temperature continues to increase.

4. Greenland used to be green.

Dana claims that 1000 years ago, Greenland used to be green.  The current ice sheet on Greenland is at least 110,000 years old and Greenland has been ice covered for hundreds of thousands of years.

Ramblings, Science

Why do Republican elected officials hate science? This is absolutely disgusting.

A few weeks ago, I posted about the Republicans old new attack against climate change.  Instead of providing solutions, they just keep denying that there is a problem.  Heck, it would even be more tolerable if they admitted there was a problem, but fought any action on the basis of the current state of our economy.  But, that is not what they are doing.

Republicans are continuing their attack on the science of climate change by saying that carbon dioxide can’t be a pollutant because it is created naturally (reminder to GOP: so is arsenic).  It can’t be bad for us because we need it to live.

This time, they added a new twist.  Since carbon dioxide is “natural,” it must be created by God.  We can’t regulate God.  Seriously, Rep Barton (R-TX) said this. The Ranking member on the House Energy & Commerce Committee said this.

During Barton’s time on C-Span he also said that no one has gone to the hospital due to carbon dioxide poisoning.  I guess we can forgive his ignorance, because carbon dioxide poisoning is usually called hypercapnia. He also said:

we are not a European country, so we can’t drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars because our “culture” is based on the need to drive really big vehicles long distances.

AND-

So, there is a, there is a climate theory and it’s a theory, it’s not a fact, it’s never been proven- that increasing concentrations of CO2 in the upper atmosphere somehow interact to trap more heat than the atmosphere would otherwise.

Rep Barton thinks he is smarter than the US Secretary of Energy, but somehow is so ill informed about the nature of science that he doesn’t even know what a theory is.  A theory is a robust scientific explanation for a natural phenomena. It is based on evidence.  The larger the body of supporting evidence, the stronger the theory.  Here is a good primer on how science works.

Rep Barton also state that it has “never been proven that increasing concentrations of CO2 in the upper atmosphere somehow interact to trap more heat…”  Here is a kid friendly primer on the greenhouse effect. Perhaps it is in simple enough language that Rep Barton can understand it (Note: This is an EPA website that was created in 2006 - when the EPA was under Republican control).  Although Rep Barton says that this greenhouse “theory” has never been proven, he also says that it is necessary.  As the kid friendly primer says, the Earth would be 60oF cooler if it wasn’t for the greenhouse effect.  I know this is hard to grasp, sometimes things are good for us in moderation.  A “moderate” greenhouse effect is necessary for life on Earth.  Too little, we freeze.  Too much, we boil.  Too little, we get Mars.  Too much, we get Venus.

CO2 is ubiquitous so regulating it is like shuffling the chairs on the deck of the titanic.

I find this last comment rather interesting. The titanic sunk.  If Barton thinks that climate change is a bunch of BS, what is with the Titanic reference?  If he thinks that climate change is an environmental issue worthy of a “Titanic” reference, is he saying that we might as well not try to do anything because it is too big of a problem?

Watch it here:

Ramblings, Science

The National Science Education Standards clearly communicate that by the end of 8th grade, U.S. students are expected to have an understanding of the structure of the earth, lithospheric plates, and the theory of continental drift (plate tectonics).

As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop understanding of:

Structure of the Earth System

• The solid earth is layered with a lithosphere; hot, convecting mantle; and dense, metallic core.
• Lithospheric plates on the scales of continents and oceans constantly move at rates of centimeters per year in response to movements in the mantle. Major geological events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain building, result from these plate motions.

Earth’s History

The earth processes we see today, including erosion, movement of lithospheric plates, and changes in atmospheric composition, are similar to those that occurred in the past. Earth history is also influenced by occasional catastrophes, such as the impact of an asteroid or comet.

As a science educator, I take these things seriously, so, imagine my shock when I saw a video of Rep Joe Barton (R-TX) and Dr. Steven Chu (physicist, Nobel Laureate, former director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and current U.S. Secretary of Energy).  Rep Barton’s office posted this video of Joe “stumping” Dr. Chu on a simple question (04/22/09).

Holy cow fart!  The Secretary of Energy got stumped on a question about where the oil in Alaska comes from!  What a moron!  Oh, wait, perhaps the Nobel Laureate, a person who normally works with really smart people™ was surprised that a United States Congressman asked him a question basic to that Congressman’s oversight and creation of energy policy.  Perhaps the former director of the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory and expert on alternative energy, thought he was testifying at a Congressional energy committee hearing, not an 8th grade science classroom?

Rep Barton, your ignorance is appalling.  Watching you revel in your ignorance disgusts me. Watching your smug #!@ make a fool of yourself - priceless.  Our country deserves better leaders.

Yes, Rep Barton, it just drifted there.  You might want to watch these two videos before your next committee hearing (Thanks Slick for sending these to me).

Ramblings, STEM, Science

Science is a human endeavor to understand the world.  What sets science apart from other ways of understanding is the critical assumption that the world can be understood by using natural evidence.  Scientists can not use the supernatural, magic, or gremlins in their explanations.  Without this assumption, advances in technology, medicine, and other sciences would be severely hampered.

Scientists have determined that the average temperature of the Earth has increased over the past 100 years.  The rate of this increase is not consistent with normal Earth cycles.  If science allowed supernatural explanations, we could simply state that Mr. Heat Miser was finally beating his brother, Mr. Snow Miser.

Thankfully, most people are not satisfied with that explanation.  Over the past couple of decades, scientists have determined that human (we are part of the natural world) production of carbon dioxide (primarily through the increased use of fossil fuels as a result of industrialization) has increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which has increased the greenhouse effect.

or, a less colorful explanation…

Religion is another way of understanding the world.  The core of religion is faith – the belief in a supernatural being (God) without evidence.  Because of these different assumption, science and religion can come into conflict – primarily, when science conflicts with a specific religious belief (evolution vs. creation).

I assumed that there would not be too much conflict between religion and science when it came to climate change.  Heck, Christians believe that humans are stewards of God’s creation. I guess I was wrong.

Rep Shimkus (R-IL) [of plant food fame] concludes that we shouldn’t worry about climate change because the Bible states, “The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over.”  Shimkus says that we shouldn’t worry about the negative human impact on the Earth because the bible states, “Man will not destroy this earth.”  And those Climate Change Alarmists’ cries that global warming will result in a rising sea-level?  Don’t worry,  God states, “This earth will not be destroyed by a flood.”  So hey, pollute away –

But, but, but…the Bible doesn’t mention dinosaurs.  Oh, and floods won’t destroy the Earth…but rising sea levels could pose some big problems for humans.

This reminds me of a story a priest told in a homily I heard many years ago.

A man was at his house during a flood.  As the waters reached his doorstep, a policeman drove up and offered to help him evacuate.  The man said, “No, I have faith and God will save me.”  The policeman left for the next house.

A few hours later, the depth of the water had risen to the top of the first floor.  The man had moved to his bedroom on the second floor.  A rescue boat came by and offered to evacuate him.  The man said, “No, I have faith and God will save me.” The boaters moved on to find others.

Another couple of hours past and the water had risen to the roofline.  The man was desparately clinging to his chimney.  A helicopter came by and the rescuers offeret to take him to safety.  The man said, “No, I have faith and God will save me.”  The rescuers shook their heads and moved on.

The water continued to rise. Eventually, the man drowned. He arrived at the gates of Heaven, where he met St. Peter. The man said, “St. Peter, I am a faithful man, why did God not save me?”

St. Peter replied, “Umm…we sent a car, a boat, and a helicopter.”

Ramblings, Science

A couple of years ago, many of the “big energy” folks admitted that anthropogenic climate change is a real issue.

While the political debate over global warming continues, top executives at many of the nation’s largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions as inevitable.

The Democratic takeover of Congress makes it more likely that the federal government will attempt to regulate emissions. The companies have been hiring new lobbyists who they hope can help fashion a national approach that would avert a patchwork of state plans now in the works. They are also working to change some company practices in anticipation of the regulation.

“We have to deal with greenhouse gases,” John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., said in a recent speech at the National Press Club. “From Shell’s point of view, the debate is over. When 98 percent of scientists agree, who is Shell to say, ‘Let’s debate the science’?”  (Washington Post 11/24/2006)

The train has left the station. Global warming is for real and it is only a matter of time before a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress takes action.  Legislation has been introduced, public opinion is favorable, and the science is clear. Even Exxon Mobil knew the train was leaving the station and decided to get on board.

“I think that their (Exxon Mobil) position on the science of global warming has definitely changed,” said Dan Lashof, deputy director of climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “They found that it was untenable to be in a position of casting doubt on whether global warming is happening and whether pollution is responsible for that.”

–snip–

Cohen (VP Public Affairs, Exxon Mobil) said that with Congress’s sights set on greenhouse gases, the oil giant wants “to be part of those discussions.” (Washington Post, 02/10/2007)

Last week, The U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Subcommittee held a hearing on “The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” – a Carbon cap and trade scheme proposed by Democrats.

Indeed, “When 98 percent of scientists agree, who is Shell to say, ‘Let’s debate the science’?”

Our government works best when we have an honest and vigorous debate on issues and solutions.  Lately, Democrats have labeled Republicans as the “Party of No Ideas.”  So, one would think that the Republicans would heed Hofmeister’s call to not argue the science and instead provide a credible alternative to their hated cap and trade scheme.  Umm…nope.

They don’t even have any new arguments against the science.  Instead, they rehashed this bizarre argument / commercial from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (A “think tank” funded with more than $2 million from Exxon Mobil between 1998 and 2005 - before Exxon Mobil got on the train.).  [NOTE: For more about how these "think tanks" create doubt about the science of climate change read this.]

Yes, this is a real commercial, aired in 2006. It is not satire.  It was not produced by The Onion. CEI tells you not to worry about climate change because Carbon Dioxide gives life.

The “New” 2009 Republican Climate Change meme – Carbon Dioxide is natural and necessary, so it can’t be bad.  Seriously.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) April 19, 2009:

Boehner: The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know when they do what they do you’ve got more carbon dioxide.

Rep Michele Bachman (R-MN) Earth Day - April 22, 2009:

Bachman: Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can’t even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that’s on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that — that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.

Note: Carbon Dioxide only makes up 0.03% of the atmosphere, not 3%.

Rep Shimkus (R-IL) March 25, 2009:

Shimkus: It’s plant food … So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? … So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.  (While questioning Lord Monckton)

It should also be noted that Lord Monkton backs this up by referencing the Cambrian period.  A time when the Earth had no land plants.

“When 98 percent of scientists agree, who is Shell to say, ‘Let’s debate the science’?”

Well, apparently Boehner, Bachman, and Shimkus know better than 98% of scientists.  Or, perhaps they just can’t admit that they have no alternatives to Cap and Trade, so they have to keep beating the Climate Change denier drum by making stuff up.

Rep Blumenauer (D-OR) Earth Day April 22, 2009 - responds Bachman and House Republicans [Look at that socialist treehugger – he even wears a green bicycle on his lapel]

Dear Republicans.  You are correct.  Carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth. But, as a good friend of mine said, “life can’t exist without water, but try living at the bottom of the ocean you stupid twit!”

Excessive Carbon Dioxide is harmful to our environment.  Scientists know it, Big Energy gave up denying it, now it is your turn - swallow your pride, admit you were wrong and become part of an honest discussion about what to do about it.

Ramblings, STEM, Science, Uncategorized

Note: Although this was prompted by a conversation with a friend, it is not meant as an attack on him.  He is a good guy.  The purpose is to show an example of a common strategy used to attack science.

This week’s House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (introduced by Waxman, D-CA and Markey, D-MA) had its share of fireworks…not just in Congress, but on Facebook.  I posted an update related to some comments made by a legislator.  A friend of mine disagreed and said he wanted “an open and honest” debate” about climate change and then said that climate change is junk science.

The thing is, “an open and honest debate” is what defines science. A robust scientific argument is not created in isolation. Scientific arguments are vetted and vigorously debated by the science community. The scientific community is self-correcting. The science of climate has been subjected to an open and honest debate and consensus has been reached that humans are causing an unnatural increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases which is resulting in an increase in global temperatures (global warming). Scientists do not reach consensus by taking a vote.  This doesn’t mean that 51% of scientists agree and 49% disagree.  It means that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that points towards anthropogenic climate change (called “global warming” by the media).

For a primer on climate change, go here.
For a primer on how science works, go here.

Before we go further, it is important to realize that concern brought about by anthropogenic (human impact) climate change is due to human impacts interfering with natural phenomena and accelerating climate change.  It does not imply that the climate wasn’t different (warmer or cooler) in the past.  Human impacts are causing an unnatural rapid warming of the globe – an impact that may have devastating consequences.

So, if a consensus of science is directly opposed to your views, what do you do?  Well, if you are well financed, you sow doubt.  You realize that most people do not have the time to gain a deep understanding of an issue, so you persuade them that the science is in doubt and that the scientists are biased.  I found it ironic that my friend referred to climate change as “junk science.”  The term “junk science” was popularized in the early 1990’s by a PR firm funded by Phillip Morris as a way to sow doubt about the dangers of secondhand cigarette smoke.  This firm, lead by Steven Milloy, now sows doubt about the dangers of obesity, breast implants, pesticides like DDT, and climate change – all issues where the ‘status quo’ protects big business.

The Earth’s climate is incredibly complex, so it is particularly easy to create doubt around the science of climate change.  The first step is to fund “think tanks” to build the illusion of multiple sources that are at odds with climate change.

Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. “They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry,” says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. “Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That’s had a huge impact on both the public and Congress.” (Newsweek 08/13/07).

The second step – Ignore the scientists that work for the think tanks that you fund.

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995. (NYT, 4/23/09)

The third step – create and disseminate strawman argument after strawman argumetnt.  Don’t worry if your arguments are absurd, just keep them coming.  When they are debunked, say sarcastically, “oh, NOW you have a new explanation.”

This is where the need for a scientific literate population comes in.  Strawman arguments rely on people not having a deep understanding of an issue, and in the case of scientific arguments, an understanding of the process of science.  When someone makes a strawman argument about climate change, they first misrepresent a scientific finding (by distorting, only selecting portions of the data, or selectively ignoring evidence or rationales) – thus, creating a “strawman.”  Next, you ridicule and discredit that strawman.  Then, you claim that the science is obviously wrong because you defeated the strawman. Finally, repeat, repeat, repeat…  Mission accomplished.

Here are two examples of the strawman arguments used by those that have a financial or ideological reason to deny anthropogenic climate change.

Climate Denial Crock of the Week (includes video explanation of strawman arguments)

George Will and Arctic Ice (Washington Post Contributor and Conservative Pundit)

Ramblings, Science

What is a strawman argument?

Resources:

• More climate change myths & misconceptions
• Climate Change: A guide for the Perplexed
• Climate Change: The Truth about Denial

Science