Education

Teachers’ Domain

teacher’s domain http://www.teachersdomain.org/sci/index.html is a wonderful resource for teaching (and learning). You should register, but if you’re just checking it out you can ‘take a test-drive’. Alternatively you can simply click on the test-drive option if you want to call up a video-clip without having to sign in.

Not all of the resources are videos, and as always check them out yourself in advance before showing them to the troops.

I have linked to many of the useful physics ones on my site, but if I had to pick one clip it would probably be this one. At 1:15 it’s just what you need to reinforce a very strange idea indeed!

http://www.teachersdomain.org/resources/phy03/sci/phys/matter/atoms/index.html

Ted.com

Mny of the best resources on the internet involve video-clips which unfortunately are not available in most schools.

One resource which is available is www.ted.com

As it says itself “Inspired talks by the worlds’ greatest thinkers and doers”. wonderful

Science and Astronomy talks are there, along with much, much more.

Many of these involve concepts which should be part and parcel of out students’ education, but because of the inertia involved in education will probably never appear on a syllabus until they in turn have become obsolete. If nothing else it’s nice to listen to a talk in the background while doing other work on the computer.

It “brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes)”.  It tends to be the antithesis of our conventional educational system in that it encourages interdisciplinary links rather than pigeon-holing knowledge into autonomous subject areas.

This talk by James Watson of The Double Helix fame is a perfect example. We / I need to show these more often in class.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/35

Currently listening to ten ways the world could end:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/167

quiz with a difference

Saw this recently in a physics education journal (IOP Classroom Physics).
I’m probably the last person to have come across this, but still . . .

When giving a quiz why not give the answers and have the troops figure out the questions?
It gets them thinking, as opposed to simply vomiting back up the facts they learned off the night before.
Here are some sample questions / answers for junior cert magnetism:

1. Iron, cobalt and nickel
Which elements are magnetic?

2. They repel each other
What do two north poles or two south poles do when they are near each other? 3. It lines up with the magnetic field
What does a magnetic compass do?

4. A region of space where a magnetic material experiences a force
What is a magnetic field?

5. Increasing the number of coils on an iron core
How could you increase the strength of an electromagnet?

6. Away from the north pole and towards the south pole
Which way does a compass needle point when near a magnet?

7. You end up with two smaller magnets
What happens when you break a magnet in half?

Teaching ’bout evolution of the eye

Was at a very interesting lecture at the ISTA AGM in UCC over the weekend, where Dr Jeremy Pritchard gave a lecture entitled ‘The evolution of evolution’. He spoke about how the eye was a difficult subject for Darwin to explain.
While the audience was mostly Biology teachers, I got to thinking about how I could introduce evolution into my own teaching.
We do a little bit on short-sightedness and long-sightedness in the Leaving Cert Physics course (under the heading of Lenses), and this would be an ideal spot to open up a discussion.

Dissecting a cow’s eye used to be allowed, but no longer is, but there is a link to a nice video of it, plus some other useful links here although it can take a while to download.

There is also a movie clip of how the eye itself could have evolved here, and an animated version here

Every so often I notice that the school library receives a copy of a journal/magazine entitled (I think) creation science, or something similar. I must look into it to see why we get this.

The Applied Maths class and the religion class got together a couple of weeks ago to discuss/debate many of the issues that bring Science and Religion together and also which bring them into conflict. It went very well; hopefully we can build upon it and do something similar in the future.

Nuclear Radiation Misconceptions

Let’s get straight to it:
Myth 1.
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Reality
Approximately 50 emergency workers died as a result of radiation poisoning (known as ARS – Aqute Radiation Syndrome).
A total of 134 emergency workers were diagnosed with ARS.

Approximaely 4,000 children contacted thyroid cancer, and nine children died as a result.
Children are the most susceptable to thyroid cancer because of their large take-up of milk, which contains concentrated radiation, but also because their cells reproduce more rapidly and are therefore more sensitive to radiation poisoning.
Among the general population exposed to the radioactive fallout, the radiation doses were relatively low, and ARS and associatied fatalities did not occur.

The possible increase in cancer mortality due to this radiation exposure may be up to . . . four thousand fatal cancers . . .

However a website based on this report does mention that there could be perhaps another 5,000 fatalaties in surrounding regions.

The italicised section is taken from a report entitled Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Aspects, which can be found here

This involved the input of many of all the relevant United Nations organisations, along with others such as the World Health Organisation.

The report does state however that the latent period for many cancers – apart from thyroid cancer and leukemia – is ofter of the order of 10 to 15 years or lmore, therefore there may be some increase in these in the future, but as of yet (data seems to have been collected up until 2002) there is no noticeable increase in other cancers.

Incidentally, how do iodine tablets work in the event of a nuclear accident?
The tablets saturate the thyroid gland with stable iodine in order to prevent it from accumulating any radioactive iodine that may have been released into the environment.
Taken from The Department of Health and Children website here

Myth 2.
Children who were born in this area suffered terrible deformities as a result of the radiation fallout having been passed on through genes. This also applies to children who were born to survivors of the atomic bombs which were dropped in Japan in WWII.

Reality
There has been a modest but steady increase in reported congenital malformations in both ‘contaminated’ and ‘uncontaminated’ areas of Belarus since 1986. This does not appear to be radiation-related and may be the result of increased registration.
Again, this is taken from the report mentioned above.

For information on the Atomic Bomb Survivor Research Program see the FAQ here.
Question 7 in particular is relevant:
What health effects have been seen among the children born to atomic-bomb survivors?
This was one of the earliest concerns in the aftermath of the bombings. Efforts to detect genetic effects were begun in the late 1940s and continue to this day. Thus far, no evidence of genetic effects has been found.

Relevant sources of information
Chernobyl forum FAQ here. This is a fairly user-friendly access point.
There is a nice link here to a CNN news report video clip on the results of the forum (2:30, 17 MB).
Click here for a video (4:30, 30 MB) on how animals were affected.

Now one option on reading this is to question the source of the information, and in this age one is right to be cynical. However if we refuse to accept the word of the organisations involved in this report, where else can we turn?

There are two more issues which haven’t been dealt with here
1. What do the people who were evacuated actually do when they get moved?
2. You can’t really evacuate the population of an island.

To be continued . . .

No evolution in Junior Cert? Say it ain’t so!

Okay, let’s get one thing straight.
The greatest single idea that mankind has ever – and I mean ever – come up with is The Theory of Evolution.
It is the greatest idea in the history of the universe, and even comes ahead of the idea of the origin of the universe itself. And I say this as a physics graduate.
It’s not on the Junior Cert Science syllabus.
see for yourself

Now I do believe there is a general outcry that not enough students are taking science subjects at Leaving Cert level, and indeed this revised syllabus was designed partly to address this.
Indeed the ‘Introduction and Rationale’ section of the syllabus states:
“Arising out of their experiences in the junior cycle, it is hoped that many students will be encouraged to study one of the subjects in the senior cycle, thus preparing themselves for further study or work in this area”.

So why would you leave out the most incredible, stupendous, unbelievable (almost!), bizarre, wonderful, horrible, exciting, humbling, uplifting, emotional and awe-inspiring idea that the students could ever possible come across in thier lives, never mind in their school experience?

And here’s the kick.
Every so often the media here grab hold of the fact that the U.S. education system is having difficultity keeping evolution in their syllabus, and we think to ourselves “oh those silly yanks”.
Meanwhile we remain in ignorant bliss that we never had it on our syllabus in the first place.
Of course, the percentage of the school-going public that take Biology at leaving cert level do come across this, but for the rest of us there is nothing.
At least not in their science education.

Interestingly, while I don’t see a mention of it in the Junior Cert Religion syllabus (now there’s another missed opportunity! Imagine being able to make religion interesting?), it does make an appearance in the Leaving Cert Religion syllabus (check it out here – it’s first mentioned on page 103 of 110 in the pdf document).
Here’s part of what it says:
“Outline Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and highlight the major areas of conflict with religion”
Now there’s one to get your teeth into.

This section also delves into the origins of the universe, along with concepts like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. I reckon there’ll be some serious nervous religion teachers going in to class that day.

The fact that there’s nothing about The Big Bang or Origin of the Universe in the Junior Cert or Leaving Cert physics syllabus is for another day . . .