Stop Faking IT: Chemistry Basics

In NSTA’s seventh Behind the Books podcast, listen in as Stop Faking It: Chemistry Basics author Bill Robertson shares his approach to learning chemistry, with a hands-on approach that uses chemicals you can find under your kitchen sink, assuming it's equipped with more than a stack of dirty sponges. The emphasis is on why things happen in a certain way, not on memorizing chemistry principles. You will learn not just how to balance chemical equations but why in the world you would want to! To listen, visit Behind the Books.

Archaeology - artifacts found from wall of Jerusalem

A team of archaeologists in Jerusalem has uncovered what they believe to be part of a wall mentioned in the Bible's Book of Nehemiah.

Read about it here.

Does the atom really exist?

It never fails, every year when I teach atomic structure and the theory of the atom, I get this question from several students.

This year a paper was put together by the head of our school system's science department, which I think is very good at addressing this question.

You can read it here.

Great quote

I saw a great quote in a church bulletin this past weekend that I wanted to share:


"That God normally operates the universe consistently makes science possible; that He occasionally goes past science and the laws of nature to work miracles ought to keep scientists humble"

-- D.A. Carson

What do these numbers have in common?

What do these digital numbers have in common:

111, 202, 222, 252, 505, 525, 555, 609, 629, 659, 808, 828, 858, 906, 926, 956?

Time ceases to exist at the speed of light

I've long been intrigued by the fact that we live in a 'time' bounded realm and that eternity (heaven or hell) is 'timeless'. What then occurs when we die? We are transported from a 'time' oriented existence to a timeless existence? maybe, maybe not.

Anyway thinking back to my college days in studying quantum physics, I remembered that quantum physicists study the nature of light. So then wouldn't time cease to exist if people could be transported at the speed of light?

At least in theory, this idea is reasonable. If a carousel were spinning so that the outer edge of the carousel moved at nearly the speed of light, then time would appear to slow down for people on the carousel. When the carousel riders looked out at the world spinning by, the days would pass very quickly. So the people on the carousel would age very slowly relative to people not on the carousel. This would create, essentially, a time machine that lets the passengers on the carousel travel into the future.

To create a time machine like this, you would really have to do it with a spacecraft moving in a straight line through space. The main problem then becomes accelerating the spacecraft. Let's say that you want to accelerate to a speed approaching that of the speed of light, and you are willing to subject the passengers to 2 Gs of force (twice the force of gravity -- people weighing 150 pounds would feel like they weigh 300 pounds) during the acceleration process. The passengers would have to endure that force for about half a year! Never mind the amount of fuel it would take to provide that acceleration...

In other words, no one is going to be traveling near the speed of light anytime soon. So back to earth and living in time.

Zero Gravity or Micro Gravity

In a lesson this past week, I planted a 'seed' in my students mind by exploring their understanding of gravity. Of course, they are very bright and all know what gravity is experientially. I also asked them, based on their understanding of gravity (not what it really is) if there is such as thing as zero gravity. The answer was a resounding yes.

So now then why does some gravity exist on the moon, I ask. I then went on to introduce a new term related to gravity and have them think of environments of micro gravity.

I'll finish this lesson later in the curriculum, but for now their wheels are turning....

Why America Needs to Explore Space

There was a great but yet alarming article in this past Sunday's Parade section of the newspaper. One of the quotes that got my attention was:

"Science and technology are the greatest engines of economic growth the world has ever seen. Without regenerating homegrown interest in these fields, the comfortable lifestyle to which Americans have become accustomed will draw to a rapid close."

You can read the entire article here.

Slide Show of my trip to Italy this summer

Project-based teaching for science

As a new teacher last year, I leveraged some of my past experiences from the consulting and systems integration business. In that arena, one is constantly implementing project management principles when delivering a solution to a client.

I used some of that this past year in my teaching to see how students reacted and worked with assignments that were project based and research driven. It was a wonderful experience, and I plan to use it more extensively this year.

I was forwarded a great article on this and share it here.

What is Science?

Many activities are today characterized as "Science!", while other activities are just as definitely characterized as "Pseudoscience". We also tend to ascribe something to be science when it should be credited to 'technology'.

So what is science?

In its purest form, science is the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the universe and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories. The success and credibility of science are anchored in the willingness of scientists to:

1. Expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others. This requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials.

2. Abandon or modify previously accepted conclusions when confronted with more complete or reliable experimental or observational evidence.

Adherence to these principles provides a mechanism for self-correction that is the foundation of the credibility of science.

Shuttle Endeavour set for launch

The next space shuttle mission, STS-118, will be the space shuttle Endeavour which is now scheduled for launch on August 7th.

What makes this flight to the International Space Station significant is that we will have an 'educator' in space again. Not since the Challenger tradgedy in 1986 have we done this. At that time, it was the first attempt to place an educator in space - Christa McAuliffe.

Well this time, it is another educator - Barbara Morgan. What makes this even more significant is that Barbara was Christa McAuliffe's backup in 1986.

Five States of Matter

In my science curriculum, I teach students there are five states of matter. I find that most of them are familiar with four - solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. However, none are aware of a recent state of matter discovery - B.E.C., the Bose-Einstein condensate.

A Bose–Einstein condensate (B.E.C.) is a state of matter formed by particles cooled to temperatures very near to absolute zero(0 kelvin or -273.15 °C). Under such supercooled conditions, a large fraction of the atoms collapse into the lowest quantum state, at which point quantum effects become apparent on a macroscopic scale.

This state of matter was first predicted by Albert Einstein, building upon the work of Satyendra Bose in 1925, hence the name. Seventy years later, the first such condensate was produced by Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman in 1995 at the University of Colorado at Boulder NIST-JILA lab, using a gas of rubidium atoms cooled to 170 nanokelvin (nK). Cornell, Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle at MIT were awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics in Stockholm, Sweden.

Space Camp for Educators

I just finished an outstanding week at the NASA Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. It was funded by a grant from the University of Alabama at Huntsville and was focused on educators. To sum it up, 'it was awesome' !. The week is filled with workshops, simulations, and other activities to enable teachers to take back learnings to the classroom, all focused around our space industry.

Everyday started at 7:00 a.m. and ended around 9:00 p.m., but it was worth it.

You can see a Photo Story replay of my week by clicking on the link below:

http://www.trussvillecityschools.com/Teachers/Larry.Jones/Pictures/Forms/AllItems.aspx

Sound to heat converted to electricity

This is a most interesting article explaining a experimental process of energy being recycled by using sound to convert heat into electricity.

You can read it here - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19034341/

Dark Energy

There was a very interesting article in the past Sunday's (May 27th) Parade insert to the Birmingham News. The article is by the chair of the Department of Physics at Yale.

Scientists have discovered that the expansion of the universe is 'speeding up' which can only be caused by some form of energy that opposes gravity. Currently, they are referring to this form of energy as 'Dark Energy', and it could be the most important scientific breakthrough of the last 50 years.

You can read the entire article at http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_05-27-2007/Dark_Energy

Global Warming

It wasn't until about 7 years ago, that I began to pay some attention to the discussion about 'global warming'. Unfortunately, the label is somewhat mis-leading because I believe the issue is the every growing population of the earth and the changes brought about by this growth.

We must admit that mankind has not been a good steward of this beautiful place God created, and therefore, we are reaping what we have sown. The changes taking place are evident in the animal kingdom and in nature itself. For example, one used to only see an armadillo in the southwest part of the U.S. This was because those areas provided a year round warm climate with no sub-freezing temperatures. Now, however, you can see armadillos as far north as my area and possibly further north than that. Nature certainly has changed significantly. When I was a child, you very seldom had severe hurricanes on the Gulf Coast that would affect the weather 250 miles inland. But now it seems that it is a yearly event.

In the first 30 years of my life, the world population grew to approximately 4 billion. It only took 20 years to increase to 6 billion. The strain that this is putting on earth is unbelievable. We must become better stewards of the precious resources we have.

Mosquito Ring Tones

The normal frequency range for human hearing is 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz. One of the things that happens as we get older, is that this range decreases. Here is a link to a New York Times article that has a chart showing by age groups the maximum frequency we can hear: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/technology/12ring.html?ex=1307764800&en=2a80d150770df0df&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Well, our ‘young’ students, ages 13 to 14, can hear in the upper ranges of 17,000 to 20,000 hertz. They can now select a menu and download ring tones for their cell phones which are preset to a specific frequency. This means that parents and teachers can’t hear them, but the students can. One such is called the ‘Mosquito Ring Tone’. Some of my 8th grade students already have it.


If you want to see what I’m talking about, go to this link http://www.mosquitoringtones.com/

and see if you can hear a 17,000 hertz ring tone.

If you can hear it, you are young !!!