Day: December 16, 2007

Ten Great Ideas

Been thinking about my previous posting.

What are the ten great ideas in Science that we don’t emphasise?

The average student remembers bugger-all about science, but if we were told there were ten things that a student had to remember, what would they be?

1. Kinetic Theory – Everything is made up of atoms and vibrate at temperatures above -273 degrees Celsius.

2. Evolution

 3. Global Warming

4. Each atom is 99.9999% empty, and so therefore all objects which appear solid are almost completely empty space.

5. Deep Time: The age of the universe, the age of the Earth, the age of first life, and the age of humans

6. Science does not offer Absolute Proof

7. Fundamental Attribution Theory: Humans are genetically hard-wired to apportion blame for our own mistakes to others while wishing to take the credit for achievements which are outside our control.

8. Quantum Theory

9. What Science doesn’t know

10. Mass Extinctions

Where does the ‘stuff’ in trees come from?

learner.org is an interesting site which “uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools.”

One of the issues they address is the area of misconceptions in Science.
This is a wonderful video which asks where does the material that makes up trees come from.

College graduates from Harvard and MIT were asked and not one of them gave the correct answer. In fact their answers were very similar to those given by six year olds.

It makes us question what other serious misconceptions we are responsible for, and leads us to question what and why we are teaching.

If we put together the ten most important ideas in science, how many of them are emphasised in our science courses?

College students answering these questions kicks in at about the 8-minute mark.

A primary school kid gets a look at solid air (dry ice) at 53:20. The look on his face is worth waiting for.

The video is 1:21 long. Access it here