Lab Out Loud

See Show Notes at: http://www.laboutloud.com/episodes/

Find show notes for this episode at: http://www.laboutloud.com/

Find show notes for this episode at: http://www.laboutloud.com/

For this episode, we chatted with Dr. Karen Harpp, Associate Professor in Geology at Colgate University in New York.  Dr. Harpp talked with us about her research, science outreach and creating connections between science teachers and researchers. Colgate Geology Karen Harpp's Homepage Volcanoes in the Classroom: A Simulation of an Eruption Column Dive and Discover: Interview with Geochemist Karen Harpp Polar Palooza Underwater Volcanoes of the Northern Hawaiian Islands Crew Mt. St. Helens Volcano Cams Mt Etna Volcano Cams List of Volcano Cams West Bend, WI SeisMac Science Friday Live Broadcast in Milwaukee, WI May 16:, 2008: Great Lakes Water Issues and The Science of Brewing Pictures from Science Friday Broadcast Cory Doctorow's Craphound.com Little Brother Book Tour Little Brother on Amazon.com

In response to the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, we decided to talk with someone who has invested her life defending evolution.  Dr. Eugenie Scott, Director for the National Center for Science Education, talks to us about the movie, the NCSE response, and the place of evolution in science education. National Center for Science EducationExpelled Exposed: Flunked, Not Expelled - What Ben Stein isn't telling you about Intelligent DesignBen Stein: "Science Leads you to Killing People"Doonesbury Comic regarding medicine and Intelligent DesignThe Post-Crescent: It's Your Call PZ Myers (Pharyngula) gets expelled from ExpelledBoston Globe: No Intelligence Allowed in 'Expelled'Scientific American: Expelled ExplainedExpelled Producers Accused of Copyright Infringement

For our contribution to Earth Day, we had the opportunity to chat with Bill Nye about his new show on the new Planet Green channel called Stuff Happens. Preview from the Show: I’m doing this other thing called “Stuff Happens? for the Discovery Channel.  It’s strictly for a new channel Discovery is re-purposing – they’re calling it "Planet Green".  So all the programming is green, or about environmental issues and stuff.  And so this show is about consumer choices that you can make to live a more environmentally responsible life. I am a serious hobbyist.  I have four kilowatts of solar panels and I have a solar water heating system that I, if you will, designed – along with a guy who’s worked in solar in southern California for many, many years…I hired him, and two very good plumbers, and these guys who were good with gas mains, and we re-rigged the whole house.  So now I have solar hot water that pre-heats the water before it runs through two tankless hot water heaters.  So my gas bill in the summ

This week we talk to Terry Devitt from WhyFiles.org.Preview from the Show: Our primary mission is to look at what is going on in the world every week and find some corner of the scientific enterprise that lends itself to a public conversation about science, and then we drill down into that, to contact the best experts that we can find to try to shed light on those dark corners of science - the places and things that people don't know about, and to provide more than what you're going to get in a straight-up treatment of science than one routinely encounters in popular media.  I think it's safe to say that after we complete our formal educations, most people only encounter science through popular media, and so a big part of the Why Files mission is to help people come to grips with science - what it is,  why it's important, why it makes a difference in our lives on a daily basis. It's really essential that people in a democracy have some understanding of how we generate knowledge, because it impacts our lives

Today's guest calls himself the Bad Astronomer.  Phil Plait is an astronomer, an author, and a well-known blogger at www.badastronomy.com.  Phil talks to us about myths and skepticism in the science classroom. Special Announcement: Don't miss Lab Out Loud's Conference Coverage live from the NSTA conference in Boston! Preview from the show: Plait: I am in fact a skeptic.  In the public mind - if you ask somebody "what's a skeptic" - most people think it's a cynic or a denier, somebody who just doesn't believe in anything.  And that's not strictly true.  All a skeptic is, is someone who demands evidence for a claim.  If you come up to me and say the sky is pink, I'm going to say "what is your evidence for this?".  Or I'll say, "that's an interesting claim, but here's the evidence against it."  It's someone who applies critical thinking, logic, evidence, observation, the scientific method to any sort of claim. Science is all about skepticism.  They are hardly different - I mean skepticism is a tool of scien

This week we talk with Steve Silberman, contributing editor for Wired Magazine. Steve talks to us about the demise of the chemistry set  (as related to his article Don't Try this at Home) and what that might mean for the future of scientific curiosity in our children. Preview from the Show: In the last few years, a kind of perfect storm of concerns and legislation has arisen that has had the unintended effect of discouraging amateur chemistry. Kids really want to fall in love with science.  And I know how much the teachers really want to communicate their own enthusiasm about science to their kids.  But with fears of liability, and these restrictive laws, and just a kind of general paranoia, instead what's being transmitted to kids is some kind of combination of boredom and fear. I would say that one of the reasons that I became a science writer was that I had a well stocked chemistry set when I was in elementary school, that contained many things that I am sure are now illegal. If we're cutting off the p

Get a preview of what's in store for you at the 2008 National Conference on Science Education, as we chat with conference chair Joyce Croce. New to an NSTA Conference? Visit the NSTA Conferences Newcomer's PageAttend the First-Timers Session: Thursday, March 27th 8:00-9:00, repeated on Thursday, March 27th 3:30-4:30 free Conference Links Boston Convention CenterConference RegistrationHotel Reservations and TravelOnline reservationHousing Reservation Form Conference ProgramPrintable Conference Preview (PDF)Session Browser/Personal SchedulerConcurrent Sessions and Events Presentations and WorkshopsFeatured SpeakersExhibitor Workshops Ticketed Events Science Assessment: Research and Practical ApproachesProfessional Development InstitutesScience for Teachers of Young LearnersNSTA SymposiaShort CoursesField TripsSocial Functions Conference Strands Using and Abusing DataSharpening the Edge in ScienceCutting-Edge Research: Foundation for the FutureInstructional Techn

In this episode, we chat with PZ Myers - lead author of the blog Pharyngula (Pharyngula is hosted at Science Blogs - a project from Seed Magazine). Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Contact Information at UM Morris Curriculum Vitae Personal Page Profile on Nature Network Pharyngula Galleries Articles written by PZ Myers at Seed Magazine 2006 Weblog Award Winner: Best Science Blog Preview from the Show: Myers: What you want to do with a blog - it's such an informal medium - if you get all stuffy and treat it as something where you are going to write a formal treatise everyday, I don't think you'll get as much interest. So by keeping it personal, keeping it human, what I think I've done is open up a little window into a science professor's life, which is sometimes scary, but fun. Basler: Do you think that this type of casual communication [blogging] is something really important that the students are going t

In this episode, Dale talks with physicist Don Lincoln of the DZero detector experiment at Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratories. Don talks about physics, Fermilab, his books, and some opportunities for teachers and students with QuarkNet. Preview from the Show: Basler: Can you give us an overview of what the [Fermilab] does, and what the facility’s goals are? Lincoln: My own lab, Fermilab, accelerates protons and antimatter protons near the speed of light and collides them together. Fermilab has some other programs also where we accelerate protons and smash the protons into a target, which is usually some material - nickel or something. And from that, we extract other particles – which could be neutrinos – which is what we’re doing mostly - and experimenting with those as well.�? Basler: What do you say to the person that says “I hated Physics�?? Lincoln: Well I ask them why they hated physics. Usually they say “well, ‘cuz it was too math oriented and it was difficult�?. And I say, “le

On this week's episode, we talk with Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov. Dr. Mitalipov is an Assistant Scientist and a Co-Director of the Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Embryonic Stem Cell Core Laboratory at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University. We talk with Dr. Mitalipov about his recent breakthrough in cloning monkey embryos and the scientific methods that got him there. Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2007 (see #9) Producing primate embryonic stem cells by somatic cell nuclear transfer (Nature) Scientists Use Monkey Clones to Extract Stem Cells (NY Times) Researchers Clone Monkeys for Stem Cells (Reuters) Stem-Cell Researchers Clone Monkey Embryo (NPR) Scientists claim to clone monkey embryos (MSNBC) Scientists Claim to Clone Monkey Embryos (ABC News) Scientists Claim to Clone Monkey Embryos (CBC) Oregon Scientists Say They've Cloned First Primate and Generated Stem Cells (Wir

Adam Rogers discusses the new PBS show titled WIRED Science. Links WIRED Science  WIRED Magazine  Twitter  Dale's account  Brian's account  Dale's Twitter project  Other educators on Twitter

Professor Sir Alec Jeffries talks to us about the discovery of DNA fingerprinting, its uses/abuses and its impact on society. Preview from the Show: I’ve been called the father of DNA fingerprinting - I think grandfather is more appropriate. So basically the baby has grown up and spawned its own offspring – so I’m now granddad – and they are thriving. …But obviously I keep a very, very great interest in watching… just how it’s being used, and indeed, on occasion how it’s being misused, or potentially misused. And on that point, I will certainly stand up and raise these issues. BARTEL: Can you tell us a little bit about how you discovered the technology? By glorious accident. The last thing on my mind in the lead up work to developing that first DNA fingerprint was any thought of forensic investigation. [Later]: I went back that evening to my home and sat down with my wife Sue – very excited – and said, look this is what we’ve come up with; I think we can use it for this, that, and the other.

This week we talk with Vivek Wadhwa, columnist for Business Week, Wertheim Fellow at the Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University. Wadhwa will be discussing his recent article (The Science Education Myth) regarding science education in the United States. Quotes from the show: “It’s commonly accepted that the U.S. is falling behind other countries because our children score badly on math and science test scores and so on. The National Academies has sited this data; the President alluded to it in his last State of the Union address in 2006, the U.S. Department of Education talks about it. Everyone seems to accept the fact that the U.S. is falling behind and there is something wrong with our education system...I had a suspicion this was wrong.? “We actually added up the numbers, and we found that the U.S. graduates a comparable number [engineers] to India, and the Chinese numbers are bogus. Basically they’re published from the Chin

This week we talk with Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the science payload on the Mars Exploration Rover Project, & Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Preview from the show: "We have been so incredibly lucky with this mission. I mean, to have that dead wheel, which we thought was a catastrophe at the time, turn up one of the most exciting discoveries of the mission, was very good fortune." "The next big thing, at least in mars exploration, along with the continuing adventures of the rovers, is a mission called Phoenix. And Phoenix is a lander mission that's going to land near the north polar region of mars, and is going to dig down into the soil there, hope to find ice and then, scoop up some of that ice, and put it into a little chemistry set on top of the lander, and find out what's inside of that ice." "What we've tried to do is provide images, provide curriculum materials, and provide information for educators as we go. And I think that's actually the be

Dr. Sean B. Carroll (Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics and an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin) talks to us about evolution, his new project, and science literacy. Preview from the show: "What I am very convinced of, from all sorts of experiences of trying to communicate science, is that storytelling is a really valuable ingredient of that. And I don't mean storytelling in sort of a simplistic way, but just engaging the audience, whether they are students or teachers or laypersons, with the drama of scientific exploration, scientific discovery, even scientific debate. Because it's pretty darn common that when scientists find something new, something unexpected, there's a wrestling match for a while, figuring out whether a new view is emerging, or whether someone else is off base. And all of this is a very human enterprise - there's a whole lot of human nature in the game of science." -Sean B. Carroll, discussing a textbook a

Meet the hosts of NSTA's Lab Out Loud podcast - Dale Basler and Brian Bartel.  Later, we chat with NSTA Executive Director Gerry Wheeler, as he reflects on Sputnik and its impact on science education,  the importance of science literacy and 21st century skills, and how NSTA is helping science teachers both young and old. WSST The Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers WSST's Periodicity Gerry Wheeler Reflects on Sputnik: When Science Suddenly Mattered, in Space and in Class (NY Times) Sputnik Left Legacy  for U.S. Science Education (NPR) Sputnik heralded space race, focus on learning (USA Today) Science: Sputnik Redux (Edutopia) Visit NSTA's new website at www.nsta.org NSTA's New Science Teacher Academy With support from The Amgen Foundation, the program will support new middle and secondary school science educators by providing opportunities for professional development such as online mentoring and financial support to attend NSTA’s national conference. N