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