I hate Science Week
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: November 9, 2009
I find it very difficult to get excited by Science Week.
In fact let me just come straight out and say it; I hate Science Week.
Why does it exist? Like so many other great ideas we have here in Ireland, it seems we have one because England has one. And why does England have one? - for the same reason we have one; to let all our young folk know that science is fun. Obvious innit?
Well no actually. Irish students study three years of science at Junior Cert – surely this is enough time to convince anybody that science is fun (assuming it is).
But this is the point – Science as we teach it in school is definitely not fun. The science concepts which the department syllabus tells us must be covered could not be more mind-numbingly boring if we tried. Any hint of a concept which might be actually interesting has been very carefully removed.
How can you teach Biology without mentioning evolution?
How can you teach energy without mentioning the big bang?
How can we teach energy without explaining that it’s not just another chapter – it is the one concept which ties all others together?
How can you teach the atom without reference to the idea that the structure of the atom is such that we are all almost totally empty space?
How can we torture our students with graphs without ever expecting them to know why we use graphs?
How can we teach Ecology without mentioning global warming?
How can we teach reproduction without mentioning overpopulation or homosexuality?
How can we teach about food without mentioning obesity?
How can we teach genetics without mentioning forensic science – one of the few areas which has become ‘sexy’ of late?
How can we teach mass without mentioning that 90% of the mass of the universe is ‘missing’?
How can we teach about size without mentioning the incredible scale of the universe – from the very small to the very large? It’s incredible to think that there is absolutely no reference to astronomical or cosmological objects in any any science syllabus at secondary level – we might as well go back and tell that the Earth is the centre of the universe after all.
Check out this link for an interesting starting point to astronomy.
How can we mention time without giving reference to the incredible age of the earth?
How do we manage to avoid talking about extinction of species, radiation and cancer, the incredible complexity of the biological cell, the jiggling of atoms etc?
At the risk of being totally ridiculous could we not delve into psychology and look at the evidence which is there to suggest that we are very easy to manipulate and that almost all of us could be persuaded to do some very nasty things to our fellow humans given the right ‘persuasion’? Just because psychology didn’t exist when the first science syllabus was put together two hundred years ago is hardly justification for not including it today.
Obviously every teacher will have their own pet loves and hates, but underneath there must me a core set of ideas which are inherently interesting fascinating. Should we not be starting from this point and working out rather than the current approach which obviously doesn’t work?
Do we really need to focus on activities like measuring the density of a stone using an overflow can, plotting a graph of the extension of a stretched string or demonstrating the action of a digestive enzyme?
It’s one thing to blame ‘the system’ for not being able to change anything, but at this level we as teachers must surely have a strong voice, yet rarely if ever have I heard a teachers suggest that we should radically overhaul what we are teaching – indeed I suspect there would actually be considerable resistance to this at teacher level.
So forgive me if I don’t get excited by one more demonstration-lecture on exploding custard and water changing to wine. It’s just that the problem with science education is a bit deeper than this, and one week highlighting the so-called ‘fun’ in science does little more than remind us that for the rest of year it is as boring as dishwater and we’re doing a very poor job of rectifying this.
Secrets of the Van der Graff
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: October 20, 2009
The philosopher of science Michael Polyani referred to it as ‘personal knowledge’, sociologist of science Harry Collins called it ‘tacit knowledge’ and your local gardener would simply know it as ‘green fingers’. It is the knowledge which we possess as experts in any given field but which is difficult to articulate. A certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ if you will. I suppose it’s why these cookery programs are so popular. All these wonderful chefs giving the impression that ‘there’s nothing to it’ is music to our ears – until we try to repeat the exercise ourselves.
In fairness to cookery programs, they are so much better than cookery books because there are so many vital steps which would never appear in print, partly because the chef simply can’t think of everything, but also perhaps because some of the essential steps would be considered ‘too obvious’ by the expert.
Needless to say, the same applies to teaching, and even more so when teaching a practical subject.
So with this caveat, here are a few tips when using the Van der Graff generator in a physics lesson.
- Don’t make the mistake of waiting for a sunny summer’s day. Yes the air needs to be dry to prevent the machine discharging into the air, but if you think about it there is likely to be less moisture in the air in a cold, dry winter’s day than in a warm dry summer’s day (warm air holds more moisture).
- I say that like it’s the most natural thing in the world for a physics teacher to know, yet it was only pointed out to me last year. You see you don’t need to know everything to be an expert – you only need to know a little more than your neighbour.
- You must have a hair-dryer to hand. Ideally have a student spend 10 minutes warming up all the belt in advance of any demonstration, and if necessary continue to use it on and off throughout (but obviously have it off while speaking).
- You will also need to hair dryer when trying the hair-raising demo with a volunteer student. There isn’t any danger here (unless the student has a pace-maker!) and greatest chance of accident is if someone gets a shock accidently and falls and bangs their head.
- Here you will need to give the student a helping hand. Again it’s the hair-dryer to the rescue – use another student to help here (if the volunteer is a girl then the person with the hair-dryer should also be a responsible female, for obvious reasons). Get her to use the hair-dryer to ‘fluff-up’ the volunteer’s hair and the Van der Graff should keep it up there.
- Volunteer needs to be well insulted – standing on plastic box usually does the trick.
- Have another student hold up a mirror so the volunteer can see herself – it adds to the fun.
- Remember that not only can the volunteer be touched, but the electrons can ‘jump’ through the air, so you can’t even come close to her.
- When discharging, ask her to simply touch the wooden bench and she will discharge sufficiently slowly to prevent shock. The effect is most noticeable if there is contrast between the hair and the background, so ideally have the lights on and dark blinds on the windows.
- Don’t forget to try some of the other old reliable like aluminium trays, fluorescent light bulbs and even blowing bubbles at the dome.
Hope this helps.
Have fun!
Physics notes – now with a full set of solutions
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: October 12, 2009
- In: notes
- Leave a Comment
I may have mentioned that puting together the Junior Cert notes took rather a long time. Well it wasn’t much compared to how long it took to update the Leaving Cert notes.
For these I took all the exam papers from 2002 to 2009 at both higher level and ordinary level and broke up each question into the smallest chunks possible.
I then arranged these questions by topic, in the order in which the concepts appear in the notes themselves, so we’re left with a pretty comprehensive bank of questions.
Oh, and I typed up full solutions for these also.
This will hopefully be beneficial not only to students, but also to teachers (particularly new teachers) who want to make sure that they have all the material covered, and at the correct depth.
While it may have taken all Summer to put together, updating it each year shouldn’t prove too onerous.
Again, the intention is to see if it’s possible to publish this online for anyone to download as a booklet rather than coughing up beaucoup de moolah in these somewhat troubled times. This would also involve replacing the odd copyright image with a more legimate substitute and problably sticking in some sample questions in most chapters also.
All in good time.
I also dug out some (okay – all) of the comments which teachers and students have sent my way over the last couple of years and put a link to it on the homepage – it is really is hugely rewarding to receive these, so if that’s you then thanks!
www.thephysicsteacher.ie
Nice resources for atomic bonding
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: October 6, 2009
A rather unorthodox approach to revising atomic bonding:
It dovetails nicely with one of the many free resources from absorblearning – in this case an animation of an oxygen atom bonding (covalently) with two hydrogen atoms to form a water molecule.
There are over 100 other free resources like this from the same site (you can see more on the right-hand side of the pages).
It would be ideal if one could link directly to the resourse but instead you have to click on the icon on the top left to arrive at the required distination. Just as well it’s worth the trip.
The plan is put links to most of these in the relevant junior chemistry page of thephysicsteacher.ie
Annnnnd we’re back
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: October 1, 2009
It’s taken a while (actually all Summer) but thephysicsteacher.ie now contains student notes on all topics on the Junior Cert Science syllabus.
Each chapter contains a copy of the relevant points from the syllabus at the beginning. This gives the student an overview of what the chapter is about and also acts as a check for both student and teacher to ensure we have everything covered before we finish.
There is then the main body which contains the notes in a relatively condensed form.
Next come the questions; here we have included every relevant question which has appeared on an exam paper at higher or ordinary level. These have been arranged to follow the order of the concepts in the notes themselves.
Each question has a reference to the year when the question appeared. Some questions come up repeatedly and this is readily apparent by noting the numbering of years at the top.
Next come the solutions. These are not just the answers but where necessary fully worked out solutions.
Finally there is a bank of miscellaneous questions which rounds of the chapter.
So what next?
Because it’s my first year using this approach it will take at least the year to road-test it and fine tune as I go along. This time next year it should be closer to a polished product.
I teach second- and third-years and so far we have never needed to look at a text-book. The hope is that next year we can spare parents the expense of purchasing science text-books for Junior Science.
Of course the notes still need to be photocopied and distributed, but at least we cut down considerably on paper by using narrow margins, reducing size by printing two pages onto one A4 and photocopying back to back, with the result that most chapters are on one double-sided page. Students seem to have little trouble with this approach although they do have to invest in a plastic folder to contain the notes.
It would be nice to think that we could work in a paperless classroom, but this would require all students to have their own laptop in class so I’m not holding my breath.
The wonderful people at CESI have been helping with the presentation and I can’t see any reason why the notes can’t be published as an online book after we have road-tested it.
It can be updated every year both to improve the quality and add extra exam questions as they appear. In particular I would like to develop the questions to include a lot more ‘higher order’ thinking rather than just simple recall.
It needs to be in ‘editable’ format to allow other teachers to adapt it to their own needs.
I also need to add interactive links to the Junior Chemistry and Junior Biology pages of the website; currently I have over one hundred waiting patiently in the wings; they range from average to priceless.
It’s all freely available to download. In fact to save teachers and/or students the trouble of downloading 45 different chapters I can’t see any reason why I can’t copy them to cd and post them – at least initially.
The website already contains a guide to teaching Junior Cert Physics by topic; it would be nice if this could be expanded to include Chemistry and Biology, but this would involve a contribution from a more knowledgeable source than I.
And what I really want to do is to have evolution permeate the entire Biology section – after all could there be anything more ridiculous than teaching Biology without reference to the underlying template upon which all life is built?
That, and the fact that it’s only the greatest story ever told.
That’ll do for now.
Junior Cert Physics Junior Cert Biology Junior Cert Chemistry
Assessment: the tail that wags the dog
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: August 25, 2009
All this talk about whether leaving cert results or aptitude tests are better for gaining information about a student’s ability to become a doctor reminds me of the story of the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight.
A cop walking his beat one night finds a drunk on his knees, searching for something on the street. The cop asks the drunk, “What are you doing?” “Looking for my car keys,” says the drunk. The cop asks, “Where did you lose your keys?” “I don’t know,” the man answers. The cop, a bit perplexed, asks, “Then, why are you looking here if you don’t know where you lost your keys?” Responds the drunk, “Because the light is better here, under the streetlight.”
Why does our education have such a focus on assessment? Because that’s the only bit we can put a number on.
And we do love to put numbers on things.
The danger arises when this very dubious practice becomes ingrained in us to such an extent that all the stakeholders assume it is a ‘natural’ process.
Certainly students associate ‘points’ with intelligence, and identify ‘good’ teachers as those whose students get ‘A’s.
Of course there are very valid reasons for doing this; the point is that in so doing we are reinforcing the notion that this is right (and again that word ‘natural’).
Assessment then turns into the tail that wags the dog.
Look at the aims and objectives of any syllabus at senior or junior level – they are full of wonderful aspirations.
This particular one can be found at the beginning of every leaving cert subject syllabus:
The general aim of education is to contribute towards the development of all aspects of the individual, including aesthetic, creative, critical, cultural, emotional, expressive, intellectual, for personal and home life, for working life, for living in the community and for leisure.
I wonder how much time authors spend reading this when they set out to write their textbooks.
Palaeontologist and popular-science writer Stephen Jay Gould looked at the origin of the I.Q. test in his wonderful book ‘The mismeasure of man’.
He used the term ‘reification’ to describe the fallacy of putting a number on something that couldn’t be quantified (in this case intelligence) and with this very simple process an incredible transformation takes place. Because the concept has now got a number everybody assumes that the concept must be measureable and therefore the concept must be valid.
Wasn’t it Margaret Mead who said that she was taking her daughter out of school so that she could get an education?
The hollow Einstein face
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: May 23, 2009
- In: Einstein| Psychology
- 1 Comment
We have an illusion that consists of a hollow face of Einstein which seems to be looking at you whether you are looking at the front of it or the back. It’s very impressive. I use it to remind students (and myself) that there is a heck of a lot out there that we still don’t understand, even if we like to pretend otherwise.
The illusion can be purchased from grand-illusions.com, one of the very best sources for all types of illusions.
So when New-Scientist posted a video on how this was being used to test for schizophrenia, I thought perhaps it was time to check it out again (apparently people suffering from schizophrenia don’t notice the effect).
New podcast on exam technique
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: May 13, 2009
I have uploaded a new podcast on exam technique. It’s 19 minutes long so I may have overdone it somewhat.
The document itself is available here and both podcast and document are on the revision page of the website.
You might notice that there is a gap where the itunes link should be; that’s because I’ve forgotten how to incorporate the podcast into itunes. It’ll come back to me some day.
I have also fixed all the links on top of each webpage (I hope) and played with the main banner on the homepage. It still looks very amateurish – one of these days I’ll get it right.
Junior Cert Physics Resources
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: May 7, 2009
- In: junior cert
- 1 Comment
I have tended to neglect the Junior Cert end of thephysicsteacher.ie
Hopefully this has now been rectified. Or at any rate it’s a start.
The interactive links were there already but not easily accessable, and were all on one long page.
The section which took longest to prepare was the ‘Tips for Teachers’ section. Hopefully this will prove useful to Biology and Chemistry teachers, and any new teachers, particularly hdip and trainee teachers.
Being more organised may also encourage me to be a bit more adventurous with the investigative approach rather than just telling students what to do for each so-called ‘experiment’.
I had my own school in mind with our own resources, but tried to be as general as possible.
The links on top are as likely to take you into a parallel universe as anywhere else, but that’s for another day.
I am particularly proud of the ‘Teachers’ Tips’ column; each section of the Junior Physics syllabus has been teased out seperately with comments which I hope prove useful. Having everything itemised like this means I can follow this guide as I teach them myself and alter sections as needs be. Perhaps others may even get involved and offer constructive criticism on sections which they approach differently.
As with all advice, it is more a work in progress than a finished product. I would like to include a set of equipment for each section which teachers could cross-check in advance, along with a suggested length of time for teaching each chapter and sub-topic.
Next up would be a set of higher-order questions and a variety of teaching approaches, with particular emphasis on Assessment for Learning.
Electricity in particular requires special attention. It is one of the most popular topics on the exam paper and I imagine one of the trickiest to teach for the non-specialist teacher.
But it’s a start.
Feel free to download them to your own pc and adapt them to suit your own school needs.
Let’s put the swine flu in perspective
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: April 29, 2009
- In: health
- 2 Comments
The total number of deaths in World War One was 16 million.
The number of deaths as a result of the Spanish flu which followed in 1918 was somewhere between 30 and 80 million.
In the 14th century the Black Death is estimated to have killed 75 million people (including anywhere from 30% to 60% of Europe’s population – including Ireland).
Which isn’t to say that the current Swine Flu shouldn’t be taken seriously, just that when it comes to risk our ability to be objective tends to go out the window.
The Black Death by Philip Ziegler is a book well worth reading for the historical and in particular the social and political implications of this desease.
Latest videos from New Scientist
- vodcast_octvodcast_oct
- Andrea: Queen of MantasPreview of a BBC documentary about Andrea Marshall and her manta ray research.
- vod_octvod_oct
- Mini microscope A small microscope fitted to a rat's head can see brain cell activity as the rat moves.
- Fractal forecastingFuture weather forecasts could be much simpler thanks to atmospheric models based on fractals.
- Hands-free controlSony's hands-free, full-body game control tracks motion and facial gestures.
- Virtual soundsA new computer model can produce realistic crashes and clangs faster than traditional methods.
- Animations stop botsThe distorted letters we decipher online to prove we are human, not a bot, could be replaced by animations.
- Humanoid teleconferencingAn old theme park trick is being applied to mannequins for video conferencing.
- Dashboard robotAn expressive dashboard robot could replace traditional satnav gadgets.
