Month: January 2008

Internet Safety competition

I’m not tech guru, and I’m still at the bottom of a very steep learning curve when it comes to incorporating ICT into my lessons, but I can’t help feeling a little dismayed whenever I hear people who should know better warn about the dangers of internet usage to the point where you imagine they would prefer if the damn thing had never been invented.

So it was nice to come across details of a video competetion from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner

“This competition should get entrants thinking about their privacy by considering :·        Advantages / disadvantages of the growing use of technology as a means to recording personal information including the use of Biometrics·        The security that CCTV brings Vs possible invasion of privacy·        Use of RFID (radio frequency identification tags) on products ·        Social networking and the electronic footprints we leave behind·        Are we evolving into a ‘Big Brother’ environment as depicted in George Orwells ‘1984’?  

·        What is the line between legitimate gathering of information and a surveillance society? “

Maybe I’m biased but it seems to be slanted slightly towards the “Beware the hooded monster” side of the argument.

It’s not going to change public opinion or anything, but it’s a nice start, particulary if it engages students. Nice prizes too.

Privacy in the 21st century competition

On youtube

The Alchemist Cafe

Nice idea.
Publicise an interesting and topical lecture/talk/discussion with a particular science slant, host it in an informal setting and encourage the public to attend and contribute free of charge.

“Cafe Scientifique is a forum for debating science issues, not a shop window for science. We are committed to promoting public engagement with science and to making science accountable.”
From The Alchemist Cafe Dublin

Or join their mailing list to get notified of upcoming events (usually monthly).

Why Ozymandias?

I have this poem on the door of my lab.

Why Ozymandias?
Obviously it’s one of my favourite poems. I am always reminded of the final scene from Planet of the Apes where Taylor comes across the upper half of the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand.

You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! Goddamn you all to hell!

 

No matter how important I think I am,
No matter how important we think this civilisation is,
No matter how important we think the human species is,
No matter how important we think the planet Earth is,
In the grand scheme of things we are only here for a very short time.
Let’s make the most of it.

The central theme of Ozymandias is mankind’s hubris. In fourteen short lines, Shelley condenses the history of not only Ozymandias’ rise, peak, and fall, but also that of an entire civilization. Without directly stating it, Shelley shows that all works of humankind – including power structures and governments -eventually must pass into history, no matter how permanent they may seem at the apex of their influence. Ozymandias’ short-sighted pride seems amusing at first – until the reader realizes that the lessons conveyed are equally applicable today. All things must pass.
From Wikipedia

I like this website for poetry because it includes readers’ comments which are educational in themselves. I’m sure there are other such sites out there – if you know of any you would recommend please let us know.

The Ideology that dare not speak its name

The January edition of Science Spin included a supplement on choosing science as a career. I was asked to contribute my thru’penny bit as a science teacher. Most of the other contributors included their opinion of what science is, but either I wasn’t asked or, more likely, my reply was too boring to print. So here’s what I should have written:

Science is many things, but the more I find out the more I believe that Science is a tool used to maintain the inequality that exists between the First and Third world. It is  an instrument used to develop the military technology which enforces this inequality, and which in turn is fed by the unequal distribution of the world’s resources.

One of its strengths lies in its refusal to acknowledge its role in this. Indeed the mere questioning of this can label the critic as an ‘outsider’ and consequently negate the message or its potential validity.

For an example of this  look no further than the  manner in which the role played by war has influenced so many developments in Science, and how this is conveniently ignored for the sake of a more sanitised and noble picture which is what you will find in your school science text-book.

Now why couldn’t I think of that at the time?

It’s also only fair to acknowledge that the article was both interesting and very well written by Marie-Catherine Mousseau. It described very well the wide spectrum of careers available for graduates in Science. The magazine itself is also very impressive. I genuinely hadn’t read it in years but its production is top quality and I will certainly be checking it out again. See for yourself if you get a chance. In all good bookshops, as they say.

Science Spin

BBC Horizon: What on Earth is wrong with gravity? Tuesday 29 Jan

This program looks intruiging; may have to ask if I can stay up late to watch it.

What on Earth is wrong with gravity?

From the website:
“Tuesday 29th January 2008, 9pm, BBC Two

Particle physicist and ex D:Ream keyboard player Dr Brian Cox wants to know why the Universe is built the way it is. He believes the answers lie in the force of gravity. But Newton thought gravity was powered by God, and even Einstein failed to completely solve it. Heading out with his film crew on a road trip across the USA, Brian fires lasers at the moon in Texas, goes mad in the desert in Arizona, encounters the bending of space and time at a maximum security military base, tries to detect ripples in our reality in the swamps of Louisiana and searches for hidden dimensions just outside Chicago.”

Check out Brian Cox’s rather cool biog

Students’ blogs

I was talking recently about setting up a group blog for students doing Scifest 2008.

John Hegarty suggested Google Groups might be a good way to go, and also mentioned that Tom Kendall gives talks on blogging in schools and he suggests the following site as a platform to work on http://www.21classes.com/

Tom has set up two of these in his own school: http://msmccarthy.21classes.com/ and http://crazy.21classes.com/.

Mags Amond however has suggested another alternative, which she mentioned on the DICTAT forum

“Also, nearer home, TeachNet / Digital Hub people are piloting a space for Irish Second Level students called Project Blogger (building with WordPress). The TY science students in 15 schools are being introduced to it over these few weeks, so Blogs being what they are there hopefully should be something to see very soon.”

All of these are involved with CESI, which is holding its conference on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th February, so maybe I’ll delay things a little and hopefully talk to them there.

Links for Scifest Project

Hello Philippa and Georgina and Jo Jo and Sarah and to others who I can’t remember.

The following are the links I said I would post which are related to your projects:

Charging while walking:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071019183459.htm
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=452
It’s worthwhile looking at how this motion produces electricity:

This one involves usual solar power
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1079991.htm

Potato battery
All you need for this one is 500 lb of potato

detail2-small.jpg
http://latteier.com/potato/
Not sure if this is possible either – but we can test!
http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2007/01/9276/

Onion and ipod
Looks like this may be a fake, but how can we tell . . .?

(not so) constructive comments:
http://www.fazed.net/view/?http://mailman.cloudnet.com/pipermail/compost/2003-December/011534.html
Heat from Manure
Not too much out there, but at least it seems to have been done before:
http://mailman.cloudnet.com/pipermail/compost/2003-December/011534.html

Good luck, and keep me informed.

Blog for Scifest?

Philippa and Georgina are in Second Year and have a wonderful idea for their Scifest competition. Philippa’s family have a number of horses and it has come to her attention that there is a large amount of heat generted in the manure heap. It may not be the cleanest job in the world but Philippa reckons she might be able to feed pipes through the manure heap and use it as a method to heat water.
They’re not so interested in whether or not this has commercial applications, merely in the science of how to get the most heat energy out.
I think it’s a wonderful idea – lots of variables to investigate- and has great potential.

We’re hoping to get quite a few students involved, and it occurred to me that this could be a really cool way to use blogs. Imagine if each group had their own blog, and could comment on each others’ projects. Serious potential for learning.

If anyone wants to advise on how best to approach this I would love to hear from you.

It would also bring them closer to how real science works. When I mentioned the possibility of blogging to the girls they were a little apprehensive of others stealing their ideas. Welcome to the world of science. Science has worked well in the past precisely because scientists were forced to publish their works in order to establish priority, yet they too had to be careful not to give away all their ideas.

One of the more well-known examples of this was the discovery of the structure of DNA by Crick and Watson. Watson wrote a wonderful book detailing his work at the time; this book – called The Double Helix – was highly controversial at the time because it turned out to be a warts-and-all approach, and many of the characters involved were not impressed with their portrayal.

Scifest 2008

The Double Helix on wikipedia

James Watson on TED.com