From Go San Angelo: Girl Scouts learning to be leaders
SAN ANGELO, Texas — A wooden catapult, Bubble Wrap, a golf ball and masking tape sat on tables in the loft of Angelo State University's Cavness Building, waiting to be put to use by a team of teenage girls.
The girls' mission: to combine those items with packing peanuts, felt, and pipe cleaners to create a "protective device" for an egg, to be projected with the catapult, then measured for accuracy and distance. Girls used the golf ball to simulate the egg while testing their device.
The "Sharp Shooter" workshop was one of 17 offered at Saturday's Girl Genius STEM Conference at ASU, sponsored by Ethicon and hosted by ASU and the Girl Scouts of Central Texas.
"STEM has been our focus for quite some time now," said Kandace Fiero, public relations specialist for GSCTX. The long-term goal is to create balance and leadership, she said, and to build girls as leaders as prescribed in the Girl Scouts' new campaign, "ToGetHerThere."
The ToGetHerThere campaign is a multiyear effort to break down societal barriers that hinder girls from leading and achieving success in everything from technology
and science to business and industry.
Nearly 200 girls in grades six through 12 attended the event Saturday, which focused on careers in STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math.
"We are building girls as leaders," Fiero said, "literally, 'to get her there.' "
Girls came from as far away as Stephenville, Killeen, and San Antonio to attend the event.
"It sounded like an exciting opportunity to get the girls on a college campus, get exposure to a university, see what it's like to go to classes, and meet the professors," said Theresa Reusel, leader of Girl Scout Troop 2151 from San Antonio.
"They loved the science here today," she said. "It sparked their interest. They got to see things to do with science that they don't see in school. They're already talking about coming back next year."
Mostly female professors from ASU, along with engineers from Ethicon — the event's major sponsor — presented the workshops.
"It's kind of a unique opportunity," said Kit Price Blount, research scientist at ASU. "We never had anything like it, before we started this four years ago."
The conference has become an annual event for area schools, hoping to expand the girls' horizons.
"I really think it's a great opportunity for girls to see what's out there," said Amy Brown, a junior high teacher from Veribest.
"A lot of girls just think teacher or nurse (as a career)," Brown said, "even still today."
The STEM conference "helps them see science and math as not just a class, but something fun they can use in everyday life," she said.
"Math is hard for me," said Ashley Esquivel, ninth grade student from Veribest. She said that attending the conference last year "actually helped me learn that it is fun."
Esquivel had so much fun last year, that she encouraged her friend, Angela Molina, to attend with her this year.
"Ashley was talking about how much fun it was," said Molina, also in ninth grade at Veribest. "It helped her, maybe it will help me."
At the end of the day, students and their parents were treated to a show of chemistry and physics displays and a laser light show, presented by professors and Society of Physics students.
"It was a fabulous day," said Onessa Freasier, who attended workshops designed for parents while her daughter was at the conference. "It was way better than I expected, and I expected it to be great."
Freasier's daughter, Zolivia, a home-schooled sixth-grader, described the conference as "seriously fun." Before the conference, Zolivia said, "I wasn't into all kinds of science and art."
"Today, I realized how much work goes into it," she said, "but the work actually makes it more fun."
"I would definitely recommend it to anyone," she said. "I'm seriously looking forward to the next one — I'm not even kidding."
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Arizona: Planetary Science Institute, Girl Scouts Offer Educational OutreachPlanetary Science Institute, Girl Scouts Offer Educational Outreach
From the Tuscon Citizen: Planetary Science Institute, Girl Scouts Offer Educational Outreach
Feb. 23, 2012, Tucson, Ariz. — The Planetary Science Institute (PSI) is partnering with the Girls Scouts of Southern Arizona (GSSoAz) to offer science-based educational opportunities to area students.
The “Comets: From Head to Tail” program, which will include a series of astronomy “star parties” for students in the Amphitheater School District, is funded by a $45,000 NASA Supplemental Education Award for ROSES Investigators grant.
“The partnership will build upon and strengthen existing programs at GSSoAz and PSI bringing together the Education/Public Outreach expertise of the two organizations that are dedicated to Science, Technology Engineering and Math education in Southern Arizona,” said Larry Lebofsky, project co-investigator and Senior Education Specialist at PSI.
The program will include four major activities:
• Annual Family STEM Nights for each elementary school in Tucson’s Amphitheater School District.
• Development of activities for students to do in school and showcase at the school Family STEM Nights.
• Support of GSSoAz staff and volunteers through training and mentoring for their work on Family STEM Nights and classroom visits.
• Expansion of the program to be replicated by other educators and to expand the effort to other topics.
PSI Senior Scientist Beatrice Mueller is the Principal Investigator. Others involved in the program include Senior Scientist Nalin Samarasinha, Education Specialist Sanlyn Buxner and Lebofsky from PSI and Michelle Higgins, Director Membership Experience
STEM, Hispanic, Social Justice at GSSoAz.
THE PLANETARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE:
Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Planetary Science Institute is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation dedicated to solar system exploration. It is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, where it was founded in 1972.
PSI scientists are involved in numerous NASA and international missions, the study of Mars and other planets, the Moon, asteroids, comets, interplanetary dust, impact physics, the origin of the solar system, extra-solar planet formation, dynamics, the rise of life, and other areas of research. They conduct fieldwork in North America, Australia and Africa. They also are actively involved in science education and public outreach through school programs, children’s books, popular science books and art.
PSI scientists are based in 17 states, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Russia, Australia and Canada.
Feb. 23, 2012, Tucson, Ariz. — The Planetary Science Institute (PSI) is partnering with the Girls Scouts of Southern Arizona (GSSoAz) to offer science-based educational opportunities to area students.
The “Comets: From Head to Tail” program, which will include a series of astronomy “star parties” for students in the Amphitheater School District, is funded by a $45,000 NASA Supplemental Education Award for ROSES Investigators grant.
“The partnership will build upon and strengthen existing programs at GSSoAz and PSI bringing together the Education/Public Outreach expertise of the two organizations that are dedicated to Science, Technology Engineering and Math education in Southern Arizona,” said Larry Lebofsky, project co-investigator and Senior Education Specialist at PSI.
The program will include four major activities:
• Annual Family STEM Nights for each elementary school in Tucson’s Amphitheater School District.
• Development of activities for students to do in school and showcase at the school Family STEM Nights.
• Support of GSSoAz staff and volunteers through training and mentoring for their work on Family STEM Nights and classroom visits.
• Expansion of the program to be replicated by other educators and to expand the effort to other topics.
PSI Senior Scientist Beatrice Mueller is the Principal Investigator. Others involved in the program include Senior Scientist Nalin Samarasinha, Education Specialist Sanlyn Buxner and Lebofsky from PSI and Michelle Higgins, Director Membership Experience
STEM, Hispanic, Social Justice at GSSoAz.
THE PLANETARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE:
Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Planetary Science Institute is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation dedicated to solar system exploration. It is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, where it was founded in 1972.
PSI scientists are involved in numerous NASA and international missions, the study of Mars and other planets, the Moon, asteroids, comets, interplanetary dust, impact physics, the origin of the solar system, extra-solar planet formation, dynamics, the rise of life, and other areas of research. They conduct fieldwork in North America, Australia and Africa. They also are actively involved in science education and public outreach through school programs, children’s books, popular science books and art.
PSI scientists are based in 17 states, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Russia, Australia and Canada.
Evil Commercials: Sylvan
I have another blog called Devolution Media, in which I comment on the various commercials and TV programs of the day which I feel are causing are society to devolve instead of evolve.
My post for today there was on Sylvan. I've decided to share it here as well
My post for today there was on Sylvan. I've decided to share it here as well
Sylvan is a chain of private education facilities to teach your kids math and English, if they are lagging behind in real school.
Nothing wrong with that - more power to them.
But their latest commercial is soooo offensive. Some teacher is giving a lesson, when this smug teenage boy stands up and starts talking about how good Sylvan is. Okay fine - does it matter if the spokesperson is a boy or a girl? (Well, considering that girls always do well in math until they reach teenage years and then plummet precipitously, and that there is therefore this myth that girls are no good at math, perhaps a girl spokesperson would have been better in order to recruit girls to the programs.)
But what I found really offensive is that the boy is standing between two teenage girls, and these girls are looking at him - not appreciative at what he's saying regarding math, but just looking at him with moon-calf eyes as if they're in love with him. So is that the subliminal message being sent to girls? "Join Sylvan and there will be boys there that you can get for boyfriend, because having a boyfriend is soooo much more important than being able to do math!""
Very sad.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Chicago: Not So Nerdy: Argonne Shows Girls the Fun Side of Science
From Darien Patch: Not So Nerdy: Argonne Shows Girls the Fun Side of Science
Middle-school girls from around Chicago visited Argonne Thursday for the 11th annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.
The scientist asked the girls, what’s the term for when a solid turns directly into a gas?
“You thought, ‘Ohhhh, never thought I’d use that again,’” climate researcher Doug Sisterson said.
But the concept, just like so many aspects of math and science, is a part of everyday life. (For the record, the solid-to-gas transformation is called sublimation.)
Just as science is intertwined with all aspects of daily life, Argonne National Laboratory is committed to teaching young women that careers in engineering aren’t as vague and unattainable as they might think.
Middle school girls from around the Chicago area visited the lab Thursday to learn just how realistic such careers are during the 11th annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.
“We want to get them early telling girls this is a possibility for you,” said the event’s co-chair Mary Finster, an environmental engineer.
While many girls may be intimidated by the idea of a career in engineering, Finster said it’s a myth that you must be a straight-A student in math and science to succeed.
Finster’s co-chair Maria Power confessed she had a hard time understanding the practical impact of physics when she was a student.
“It was so theoretical at the time,” she said.
But today the computer scientist works in Argonne’s physics division.
Power and Finster designed the day’s activities to be as interactive as possible so the students could see how things they learn in the classroom translate to the real world.
During the event’s expo, Sisterson, a climate researcher, created a mini-twister with a bathroom exhaust fan mounted on a Plexiglas box. While a cloud of dry ice vapors whirled inside the contraption, Sisterson explained how engineering helped scientists understand where tornadoes get their power.
“When kids are young, they never learn about science because it’s nerdy,” he said. “They want to be doctors or lawyers. So when they go to college, their minds are already made up they’re not going to be scientists.”
But engaging bright children with demonstrations such as the tornado show them all the possibilities of a career in the sciences, Sisterson said.
Cass Junior High eighth-grader Mady Matsunaga said she enjoyed the hands-on projects, which included constructing a miniature battery-operated car from an array of brightly colored parts.
Mady began taking engineering courses at Hinsdale South High School this year after building a working Mars rover model in science class.
“Today definitely helped me narrow down what type of engineer I want to be because it gave all the different categories,” said Mady, who is interested in building things like the rover.
Old Quarry Middle School eighth-grader Gabby Voltarel, for one, thought slimy goo the girls created during the morning session was awesome — and she had the bright blue hands to prove it. Gabby wants to be an environmental scientist because of her love for nature.
The day's activities succeeded in proving to Gabby that science is anything but nerdy.
“Learning about all the different types of science and engineering," she said, "is really cool."
Middle-school girls from around Chicago visited Argonne Thursday for the 11th annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.
The scientist asked the girls, what’s the term for when a solid turns directly into a gas?
“You thought, ‘Ohhhh, never thought I’d use that again,’” climate researcher Doug Sisterson said.
But the concept, just like so many aspects of math and science, is a part of everyday life. (For the record, the solid-to-gas transformation is called sublimation.)
Just as science is intertwined with all aspects of daily life, Argonne National Laboratory is committed to teaching young women that careers in engineering aren’t as vague and unattainable as they might think.
Middle school girls from around the Chicago area visited the lab Thursday to learn just how realistic such careers are during the 11th annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.
“We want to get them early telling girls this is a possibility for you,” said the event’s co-chair Mary Finster, an environmental engineer.
While many girls may be intimidated by the idea of a career in engineering, Finster said it’s a myth that you must be a straight-A student in math and science to succeed.
Finster’s co-chair Maria Power confessed she had a hard time understanding the practical impact of physics when she was a student.
“It was so theoretical at the time,” she said.
But today the computer scientist works in Argonne’s physics division.
Power and Finster designed the day’s activities to be as interactive as possible so the students could see how things they learn in the classroom translate to the real world.
During the event’s expo, Sisterson, a climate researcher, created a mini-twister with a bathroom exhaust fan mounted on a Plexiglas box. While a cloud of dry ice vapors whirled inside the contraption, Sisterson explained how engineering helped scientists understand where tornadoes get their power.
“When kids are young, they never learn about science because it’s nerdy,” he said. “They want to be doctors or lawyers. So when they go to college, their minds are already made up they’re not going to be scientists.”
But engaging bright children with demonstrations such as the tornado show them all the possibilities of a career in the sciences, Sisterson said.
Cass Junior High eighth-grader Mady Matsunaga said she enjoyed the hands-on projects, which included constructing a miniature battery-operated car from an array of brightly colored parts.
Mady began taking engineering courses at Hinsdale South High School this year after building a working Mars rover model in science class.
“Today definitely helped me narrow down what type of engineer I want to be because it gave all the different categories,” said Mady, who is interested in building things like the rover.
Old Quarry Middle School eighth-grader Gabby Voltarel, for one, thought slimy goo the girls created during the morning session was awesome — and she had the bright blue hands to prove it. Gabby wants to be an environmental scientist because of her love for nature.
The day's activities succeeded in proving to Gabby that science is anything but nerdy.
“Learning about all the different types of science and engineering," she said, "is really cool."
Sunday, February 26, 2012
11-year old girls fight - over a boy!
I know this happens...although I thought they held off until they were 13 or so. This is just so sad. At age 11 girls should be thinking of their careers...they shouldn't even be thinking of boys in a sexual way... or if they are...it should be - "OH, he's going to date her! Well then fine, I'll go find someone else." But to fight over him, physically fight - as if who he wanted didn't matter - that's just sick and sad and is evidence of the sexualization of our culture which makes girls think that fighting each other over who a boy gets to love...is causing havoc with our young people.
I mean... wasn't it boys who used to fight over a girl? When did girls deciding who got to date a boy by physical force start?
From ABC News: 11-Year-Old Girl Dies After Fight With Classmate Over Boy
Health officials and police in Long Beach, Calif., are trying to determine how an 11-year-old girl died after getting into a fight with another girl over a boy.
Joanna Ramos, a fifth grader at Willard Elementary School, died Friday night in the hospital after complaining of a headache.
"She was so nice to me; she was like a sister to me," said classmate Stephanie Soltero, crying. "They were fighting over a boy, just for a boy. It's just stupid."
The two girls and seven onlookers went to an alley off campus after school on Friday, where they had planned to fight, according to Deputy Chief Robert Luna of the Long Beach Police Department. No weapons were used and no one was knocked to the ground.
Police are waiting for autopsy results to determine Ramos' cause of death.
Ramos' classmate said she was complaining about a pain in her head during an after-school program.
"She was crying and saying her head was hurting. She said to the supervisor, the principal on call, she told them that my head was hurting and then she called the parents and the parents took her to the hospital," classmate Justin Robert King Jr. said.
Ramos was unconscious and not breathing when family members took her to the hospital at about 5:50 p.m., according to police. She was rushed into surgery but pronounced dead three hours later.
"There are times when words do not convey a sense of sadness and loss that we feel. This was one of those times. Our hearts go out to the families affected by this tragic event yesterday. It resulted in the death of an 11-year-old girl from Long Beach. It's hard to understand how this can happen. If you're like me, you're also thinking of your own children, perhaps your daughter or your granddaughter, and you get a sense of how precious life really is," Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster said Saturday.
Outside Willard Elementary School, friends left balloons, candles, stuffed animals, flowers and letters to Ramos.
I mean... wasn't it boys who used to fight over a girl? When did girls deciding who got to date a boy by physical force start?
From ABC News: 11-Year-Old Girl Dies After Fight With Classmate Over Boy
Health officials and police in Long Beach, Calif., are trying to determine how an 11-year-old girl died after getting into a fight with another girl over a boy.
Joanna Ramos, a fifth grader at Willard Elementary School, died Friday night in the hospital after complaining of a headache.
"She was so nice to me; she was like a sister to me," said classmate Stephanie Soltero, crying. "They were fighting over a boy, just for a boy. It's just stupid."
The two girls and seven onlookers went to an alley off campus after school on Friday, where they had planned to fight, according to Deputy Chief Robert Luna of the Long Beach Police Department. No weapons were used and no one was knocked to the ground.
Police are waiting for autopsy results to determine Ramos' cause of death.
Ramos' classmate said she was complaining about a pain in her head during an after-school program.
"She was crying and saying her head was hurting. She said to the supervisor, the principal on call, she told them that my head was hurting and then she called the parents and the parents took her to the hospital," classmate Justin Robert King Jr. said.
Ramos was unconscious and not breathing when family members took her to the hospital at about 5:50 p.m., according to police. She was rushed into surgery but pronounced dead three hours later.
"There are times when words do not convey a sense of sadness and loss that we feel. This was one of those times. Our hearts go out to the families affected by this tragic event yesterday. It resulted in the death of an 11-year-old girl from Long Beach. It's hard to understand how this can happen. If you're like me, you're also thinking of your own children, perhaps your daughter or your granddaughter, and you get a sense of how precious life really is," Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster said Saturday.
Outside Willard Elementary School, friends left balloons, candles, stuffed animals, flowers and letters to Ramos.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Parents Play a Crucial Role in Building Kids’ Interest in Science and Math
From Scientific American blog: Parents Play a Crucial Role in Building Kids’ Interest in Science and Math
Earlier this week the Girl Scouts, which turns 100 this year, released an interesting report on teenage girls’ attitudes toward science and math. Some highlights:
74 percent of girls ages 14 to 17 report an interest in science, technology, engineering or math (known as STEM)
Parents play a major role in getting their kids interested in these subjects. Two-thirds of the girls who reported an interest in science, math or engineering had mothers or fathers who encouraged these interests, as compared to only one-third of girls who reported little interest in STEM. This is true of both genders, as the role of parents has come up a lot in similar studies, particularly this one by Jon D. Miller of the University of Michigan.
Hispanic and African-American girls report an even higher interest in STEM than caucasian girls.
There is a gap between girls’ interest in STEM subjects and their desire to pursue a career as a scientist or engineer. The No. 1 career choice of science-interested girls was medicine/healthcare, which does not technically qualify as a STEM career. Arts/design, followed by social science, entertainment, and communications/media were the next four most popular choices. Physical/life sciences came in sixth place, with 57 percent of STEM-interested girls placing it first. Among non-science-interested girls, arts/design and entertainment were the two top career choices.
Why the gap? Peer pressure and gender stereotypes may play a role, as 57 percent of all respondents said girls their age don’t typically consider a career in science or in technical fields. Also, many girls may not be making the connection that a science career can help them achieve their goals. According to the report, girls want a career that will allow them to help people (94 percent of STEM-interested girls; 83 percent of non-STEM) and to make a difference in the world (92 percent of STEM-interested girls; 82 percent of non-STEM).
Studies like this are a reminder to all adults, and especially to parents, that they are responsible for introducing kids to the full breadth of what they can do with their lives. Let’s remind kids to give equal weight to literature, the arts and math and science.
Earlier this week the Girl Scouts, which turns 100 this year, released an interesting report on teenage girls’ attitudes toward science and math. Some highlights:
74 percent of girls ages 14 to 17 report an interest in science, technology, engineering or math (known as STEM)
Parents play a major role in getting their kids interested in these subjects. Two-thirds of the girls who reported an interest in science, math or engineering had mothers or fathers who encouraged these interests, as compared to only one-third of girls who reported little interest in STEM. This is true of both genders, as the role of parents has come up a lot in similar studies, particularly this one by Jon D. Miller of the University of Michigan.
Hispanic and African-American girls report an even higher interest in STEM than caucasian girls.
There is a gap between girls’ interest in STEM subjects and their desire to pursue a career as a scientist or engineer. The No. 1 career choice of science-interested girls was medicine/healthcare, which does not technically qualify as a STEM career. Arts/design, followed by social science, entertainment, and communications/media were the next four most popular choices. Physical/life sciences came in sixth place, with 57 percent of STEM-interested girls placing it first. Among non-science-interested girls, arts/design and entertainment were the two top career choices.
Why the gap? Peer pressure and gender stereotypes may play a role, as 57 percent of all respondents said girls their age don’t typically consider a career in science or in technical fields. Also, many girls may not be making the connection that a science career can help them achieve their goals. According to the report, girls want a career that will allow them to help people (94 percent of STEM-interested girls; 83 percent of non-STEM) and to make a difference in the world (92 percent of STEM-interested girls; 82 percent of non-STEM).
Studies like this are a reminder to all adults, and especially to parents, that they are responsible for introducing kids to the full breadth of what they can do with their lives. Let’s remind kids to give equal weight to literature, the arts and math and science.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Aim for a career in science, girls told
from BNLive.com: Aim for a career in science, girls told
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There has never been a more opportune moment for women to take up science as a profession than now - given the vast expanse of knowledge and the numerous avenues available to them, said Project Director for Agni - India’s long-range missile system - at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in Hyderabad Tessy Thomas here on Friday.
Tessy Thomas was addressing a gathering of researchers, schoolgirls and science enthusiasts at a meeting organised by the Women Scientists Cell of the Kerala State Council for Science Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) in connection with International Women’s Day celebrations.
“Young girls today have greater support both at home and outside, a wider knowledge base and more opportunities to learn, which they must utilise to pursue an extremely fulfilling career in science,” said Tessy, also known as ‘India’s Missile Woman.’
“We need more women in the decision-making process to serve as mentors and role models for our youngsters. A woman scientist will face opposition and multiple challenges throughout her life. The key is to remain focused on your goals, be confident in your abilities and never stop learning,” she said.
V N Rajasekharan Pillai, KSCSTE executive vice-president, said that women’s education has been the bedrock of the state’s developmental success; but to achieve a more inclusive growth, this talent pool needs to be retained.
“We have exceptionally talented girls who pursue science up to undergraduate or postgraduate level, but their research activity is often not sustained beyond that for many reasons,” he said.
“We need to make them aware that there are a number of meaningful schemes introduced by leading research institutions to encourage them to stay in science,” he added.
Eminent scientist C G Ramachandran Nair delivered a special lecture on the life and work of women scientists such as Marie Curie, chemist Margot Becke-Goehring, nuclear physicist Lise Meitner, molecular biologist Rosalind Franklin, Indian meteorologist Anna Mani and botanist E K Janaki Ammal.
K R Lekha, head of KSCSTE’s Women Scientists Cell, said in her welcome address that the council would extend all support to youngsters who want to excel in science.
Six winners of the Young Scientist Awards presented at the annual Kerala Science Congress event presented papers on varied research subjects. Lakshmi S Nair, who is currently associated with The University of Connecticut Health Centre in Farmington, US, spoke on ‘Biomaterials for medical devices and regenerative engineering.’
Giable George of MG University gave an outline of her research on ‘Environment-friendly rare earth-based inorganic cool pigments.’� Others who presented scientific papers included Uma S from Sophisticated Test and Instrumentation Centre (STIC), Amita Ajit of KSCSTE, Renju Krisha V of Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (JNTBGRI) and Beena R of Kerala Agricultural University.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There has never been a more opportune moment for women to take up science as a profession than now - given the vast expanse of knowledge and the numerous avenues available to them, said Project Director for Agni - India’s long-range missile system - at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in Hyderabad Tessy Thomas here on Friday.
Tessy Thomas was addressing a gathering of researchers, schoolgirls and science enthusiasts at a meeting organised by the Women Scientists Cell of the Kerala State Council for Science Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) in connection with International Women’s Day celebrations.
“Young girls today have greater support both at home and outside, a wider knowledge base and more opportunities to learn, which they must utilise to pursue an extremely fulfilling career in science,” said Tessy, also known as ‘India’s Missile Woman.’
“We need more women in the decision-making process to serve as mentors and role models for our youngsters. A woman scientist will face opposition and multiple challenges throughout her life. The key is to remain focused on your goals, be confident in your abilities and never stop learning,” she said.
V N Rajasekharan Pillai, KSCSTE executive vice-president, said that women’s education has been the bedrock of the state’s developmental success; but to achieve a more inclusive growth, this talent pool needs to be retained.
“We have exceptionally talented girls who pursue science up to undergraduate or postgraduate level, but their research activity is often not sustained beyond that for many reasons,” he said.
“We need to make them aware that there are a number of meaningful schemes introduced by leading research institutions to encourage them to stay in science,” he added.
Eminent scientist C G Ramachandran Nair delivered a special lecture on the life and work of women scientists such as Marie Curie, chemist Margot Becke-Goehring, nuclear physicist Lise Meitner, molecular biologist Rosalind Franklin, Indian meteorologist Anna Mani and botanist E K Janaki Ammal.
K R Lekha, head of KSCSTE’s Women Scientists Cell, said in her welcome address that the council would extend all support to youngsters who want to excel in science.
Six winners of the Young Scientist Awards presented at the annual Kerala Science Congress event presented papers on varied research subjects. Lakshmi S Nair, who is currently associated with The University of Connecticut Health Centre in Farmington, US, spoke on ‘Biomaterials for medical devices and regenerative engineering.’
Giable George of MG University gave an outline of her research on ‘Environment-friendly rare earth-based inorganic cool pigments.’� Others who presented scientific papers included Uma S from Sophisticated Test and Instrumentation Centre (STIC), Amita Ajit of KSCSTE, Renju Krisha V of Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (JNTBGRI) and Beena R of Kerala Agricultural University.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Marie Colvin: RIP
Marie Colvin was a journalist rather than a scientist, but her life of courage is one to be celebrated. Many journalists have lost their lives covering wars and uprisings and terrorist activity around the world. Marie Colvin joins that august company.
New York Daily News: Marie Colvin, American-born journalist killed in Syria, remembered as fearless
Marie Colvin, an American war reporter killed in a mortar strike in Syria Tuesday, is being remembered by colleagues as one of the bravest foreign correspondents of the current generation.
Raised in the Oyster Bay area of Long Island, Colvin attended Yale University before starting her career as an overnight crime reporter for the United Press Agency in New York City.
She later moved overseas to work as a foreign correspondent for Britain’s Sunday Times, where she reported for the past two decades.
TWO WAR CORRESPONDENTS KILLED IN SYRIA
"Marie was an extraordinary figure in the life of The Sunday Times, driven by a passion to cover wars in the belief that what she did mattered," Sunday Times editor John Witherow said in a statement.
"But she was much more than a war reporter. She was a woman with a tremendous joie de vivre, full of humour and mischief and surrounded by a large circle of friends, all of whom feared the consequences of her bravery."
Colvin, 57, was renowned for her fearless reporting from notorious war zones including Afghanistan, the Balkans, Baghdad, Beirut, Chechnya, East Timor, Libya and Sri Lanka, where she lost an eye after being hit with shrapnel in a 2001 attack.
"So, was I stupid? Stupid I would feel writing a column about the dinner party I went to last night," she wrote in the Sunday Times after the attack in Sri Lanka. "Equally, I'd rather be in that middle ground between a desk job and getting shot, no offense to desk jobs.
"For my part, the next war I cover, I'll be more awed than ever by the quiet bravery of civilians who endure far more than I ever will. They must stay where they are; I can come home to London."
Colvin married and divorced twice. She had no children.
Colleagues said she spent her life defending and reporting on the plight of women and children in insufferable war zones.
"She was among the greatest human beings I have ever met because she was always on the side of truth. She was always on the side of the oppressed. She never once tired. She never once faltered. All that mattered to Marie was the truth," American journalist T.D. Allman wrote in the Daily Beast on Wednesday.
She was believed to be the only British journalist in Homs - and was last seen making the media rounds eerily close to her death. In an appearance on the BBC on Tuesday night, she described seeing a baby die in front of her. And in her last report published in the Sunday Times over the weekend she wrote that people in the besieged Syrian city were, "waiting for a massacre."
The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense," she wrote. "The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one."
Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director of the Human Rights Watch told Britain's Telegraph newspaper it never occurred to Colvin to evacuate the war zone.
"Just yesterday, after she filed her news story, one of the first things Marie Colvin did was get in touch to tell me just how horrible the situation was in Homs. It was vintage Marie Colvin -- I could just imagine her happily chatting away with me as the shells fell around her building, and being totally in her element," he said. "She was one of the most fearless and dedicated ... reporters I have ever met, and someone I looked up to as a hero and an inspiration."
Colvin shrugged off her many accolades and awards and was known for her quick wit, laughter and for being the life of any party, Sky News defense and security editor Sam Kiley wrote.
"She was, however, never coarse. Always elegant. She did not get around to having children but yearned for them without bitterness," he wrote. "Her maternal warmth was so gentle and magnetic than when she played with my toddlers years ago in Jerusalem, it was all I could do to resist giving her one to take home."
Her death, according to the Telegraph, was something she never saw as too big of a price to pay to report the truth.
"Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice," she said at a ceremony honoring foreign journalists in 2010. "We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?
"Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price."
Imagining Their Futures... as Scientists, Engineers, More
From the Missourian: Imagining Their Futures... as Scientists, Engineers, More
Long after school had let out for the day, girls were gathered around lab stations in a biology room at Washington High School laughing and chatting as they delved into a hands-on science project — extracting DNA from a banana.
Following a step-by-step process, the girls had fun as they learned the concept behind this complex technique. A pair of guest speakers took the lesson a step further.
Food scientists Candice Schroepfer and Rebecca Guzy, who work in food safety and product development at Frick’s Quality Meats in Washington, shared details about their educational background, various employers and work projects with the teens to help them better understand and visualize the types of STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — jobs that are available.
The girls were impressed and their interest was piqued, especially when they heard about some of the food products Guzy has helped put on store shelves over the years.
The food science lesson was one of several the teens have engaged in over the last three weeks as part of a special program offered by Girl Scouts of America through a $1 million grant from AT&T.
“The STEM program is a free, educational, lab-based, four-part series designed to engage girls in the scientific process and offer insight into science careers,” said Krista Williams, a biology teacher at WHS, who introduced the opportunity to her female students earlier this year.
The girls didn’t need to be members of the Girl Scouts to participate, and few, if any, were, Williams noted.
The girls have been meeting Wednesday afternoons in February from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Ginny Bretzke, who is the Girl Scouts neighborhood team chairperson for this area and who also holds a master’s in engineering, facilitated the meetings.
The program provides all of the supplies for each of the four meetings, including a snack and drink for each girl.
Girls Tend to Opt Out of Science
STEM is a new program being offered by Girl Scouts to help boost girls pursuit of science- and math-related careers, said Kate Engemann, a community development manager. It was rolled out last October and all of the details for it only came together in January.
“Educating girls about STEM fields and careers has never been more critical,” the STEM literature reads.
“Girls indicate interest in math and science in elementary school, but are less inclined to take advanced-level courses in high school . . . Research suggests that many girls experience a loss in confidence and direction with the onset of adolescence. Girls opt out of science and technology not because they lack ability, but because they lack confidence.”
Williams said she sees that reality in her classrooms every year. Girls are still interested in these subjects, she said. They just need a little encouragement and opportunity.
“The fact that I didn’t have to pull teeth to get them to sign up for this tells me that they’re interested,” said Williams. “I offered it to a couple of my classes and 20 girls signed up right away.”
The demand for STEM fields currently is high and is expecting to continue growing, the program literature points out.
“The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 15 of the 20 fastest growing occupations require significant science and math training,” it reads. “By 2015, the United States will need 400,000 graduates in STEM fields.”
STEM Projects
The day of the first meeting was one of those spring-like days with the sun shining and temperatures well above normal. Still 25 girls showed up at the biology lab room for the 1 1/2 hour lesson.
The first class, “Imagine Yourself on the Cutting Edge,” had the girls working in groups to think of ways to improve some item they had previously said they could not live without — most girls said their cellphones. They had to envision what the item could be like 10 years from now, listing the many new features it could have.
“The point is to get you thinking like scientists,” said Bretzke.
None of the girls cringed at the bookish assignment. Rather they laughed with each other as they stretched their creativity and bounced ideas off of each other.
The second meeting, “Imagine Yourself in a Lab,” was the banana DNA experiment, and the girls clearly had fun with it.
This week the focus was on engineering — “Imagine Yourself as an Engineer.”
“The girls worked in teams to build an electric circuit with a battery and other everyday office supplies to make a buzzer ring,” said Williams. “Once the girls completed their buzzers, they participated in a science game show, where they used the buzzers to get the first opportunity to answer the questions.”
Next Wednesday for the final lesson, “Imagine Saving the Planet,” the girls will do two different activities that explore the careers of environmental scientist and environmental architect.
“In the first activity, the girls will compete to find the best system to contain and clean up a ‘fake’ oil spill using vegetable oil and cocoa to simulate crude oil,” said Williams. “In the next activity the girls will build a fountain to see how different forces work together to lift a liquid.
“The idea is that the girls will get to design a fountain using ‘clean’ energy that might be used in a similar design for a park or garden fountain.”
The finale of the program is a free trip to the St. Louis Science Center.
Did Your School Miss It?
Schools that signed up to bring the STEM program to their students have until the end of June to implement it, said Engemann.
For more information on the program, people can contact Engemann at 573-486-2899 or kengemann@girlscoutsem.org.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
‘Nerd Girl’ scientist to speak at engineers banquet
How I dislike people who adopt pejorative terms for themselves. "Nerd" is a pejorative, yet here we have someone who has adopted it and thereby apparently hopes to turn it into a positive. Not going to happen, IMHO.
From WSU: ‘Nerd Girl’ scientist to speak at engineers banquet
RICHLAND, Wash. - The founder of the nationally acclaimed "Nerd Girls” program will be the keynote speaker Feb. 24 at the 2012 Tri-Cities Engineers Week banquet in Kennewick.
Karen Panetta is professor and director of the Simulation Research Laboratory at Tufts University in Massachusetts and is a NASA Langley Research Scientist "JOVE” Fellow. She created the "Nerd Girls” program, where undergraduate engineers research renewable energy topics and serve as role models for younger students.
Panetta received the 2011 Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Award for Social Impact and the 2010 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. The latter was awarded by the White House to recognize the crucial role that mentoring plays in the academic and personal development of students studying science and engineering.
The banquet is Feb. 24 at the Red Lion Hotel, 1101 N. Columbia Center Blvd., Kennewick. Doors open at 6 p.m. Dinner and the program start at 6:30 p.m. During the evening, the 2011 Tri-Cities Engineer of the Year award will be announced.
Purchase a table or individual tickets by 4 p.m. Feb. 22 by contacting Bonnie Bates at bbates@tricity.wsu.edu or 509-372-7171. The cost is $300 for a table of eight or $40 per person.
This is the 61st anniversary of Engineers Week, being held Feb. 19-25. It was established in 1951 to coincide with George Washington's birthday. Washington has been described as America's first engineer. National Engineers Week is dedicated to raising public awareness of engineers' positive contributions to quality of life. Learn more at http://www.eweek.org.
Banquet sponsors and organizers include the Tri-Cities Engineering Week Coalition, the 3 Rivers Community Foundation, Washington State University Tri-Cities, Battelle, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and WSU Tri-Cities engineering alumni.
WSU Tri-Cities is located along the scenic Columbia River in Richland, Wash. Established in 1989 with upper division and graduate programs, WSU Tri-Cities expanded in 2007 to a four-year undergraduate campus offering 18 bachelor’s, 10 master’s and eight doctoral degrees. Learn more about the most diverse campus in the WSU system at http://www.tricity.wsu.edu.
From WSU: ‘Nerd Girl’ scientist to speak at engineers banquet
RICHLAND, Wash. - The founder of the nationally acclaimed "Nerd Girls” program will be the keynote speaker Feb. 24 at the 2012 Tri-Cities Engineers Week banquet in Kennewick.
Karen Panetta is professor and director of the Simulation Research Laboratory at Tufts University in Massachusetts and is a NASA Langley Research Scientist "JOVE” Fellow. She created the "Nerd Girls” program, where undergraduate engineers research renewable energy topics and serve as role models for younger students.
Panetta received the 2011 Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Award for Social Impact and the 2010 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. The latter was awarded by the White House to recognize the crucial role that mentoring plays in the academic and personal development of students studying science and engineering.
The banquet is Feb. 24 at the Red Lion Hotel, 1101 N. Columbia Center Blvd., Kennewick. Doors open at 6 p.m. Dinner and the program start at 6:30 p.m. During the evening, the 2011 Tri-Cities Engineer of the Year award will be announced.
Purchase a table or individual tickets by 4 p.m. Feb. 22 by contacting Bonnie Bates at bbates@tricity.wsu.edu or 509-372-7171. The cost is $300 for a table of eight or $40 per person.
This is the 61st anniversary of Engineers Week, being held Feb. 19-25. It was established in 1951 to coincide with George Washington's birthday. Washington has been described as America's first engineer. National Engineers Week is dedicated to raising public awareness of engineers' positive contributions to quality of life. Learn more at http://www.eweek.org.
Banquet sponsors and organizers include the Tri-Cities Engineering Week Coalition, the 3 Rivers Community Foundation, Washington State University Tri-Cities, Battelle, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and WSU Tri-Cities engineering alumni.
WSU Tri-Cities is located along the scenic Columbia River in Richland, Wash. Established in 1989 with upper division and graduate programs, WSU Tri-Cities expanded in 2007 to a four-year undergraduate campus offering 18 bachelor’s, 10 master’s and eight doctoral degrees. Learn more about the most diverse campus in the WSU system at http://www.tricity.wsu.edu.
Opportune time for women to pursue science: ‘Missile Woman'
From The Hindu: Business Line: Opportune time for women to pursue science: ‘Missile Woman'
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb. 19:
There has never been a more opportune moment for women to take up science as a profession than now, says Dr Tessy Thomas, the country's ‘Missile Woman.'
Young girls have greater support both at home and outside, a wider knowledge base and more opportunities to learn, she said addressing a gathering of researchers, schoolgirls and science enthusiasts here.
MUST BUILD ON
They must build on these attributes to pursue an extremely fulfilling career in science, Dr Thomas said.
The meeting was organised by the Women Scientists Cell of Kerala State Council for Science Technology and Environment in connection with the International Women's Day celebrations.
Dr Thomas, the first woman scientist to head a missile programme, is currently the Project Director for Agni - India's long-range missile system - at the Defence Research and Development Organisation in Hyderabad.
“We need more women in the decision-making process to serve as mentors and role models for our youngsters,” she said.
They key is to remain focused on your goals, confident in your abilities and never stop learning.
BEDROCK OF SUCCESS
Dr Thomas inaugurated the meeting of women achievers in science, a platform for aspiring researchers to interact with some of the leading figures in the field.
Later, she made a presentation on science and technology with special focus on the missile defence systems.
Speaking on the occasion, Prof V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, Executive Vice-President of the Council and Ex-officio Principal Secretary of to the Department of Science and Technology, Kerala, noted that women's education has been the bedrock of the State's developmental success.
But this talent pool needs to be retained in the industry and academia in order to achieve a more inclusive growth.
“We have exceptionally talented girls who pursue science up to undergraduate or postgraduate level, but their research activity is often not sustained beyond for many reasons.” he said.
CAREER-BREAK
We need to make them aware that there are a number of meaningful schemes introduced by leading research institutions to encourage them to stay in science.
Prof Pillai said there are programmes today that allow women scientists to take a career-break of up to 10 years to fulfil their family commitments before returning to work.
Eminent scientist Prof C.G. Ramachandran Nair gave a special lecture on ‘Life and work of women scientists.'
Dr K.R. Lekha, the head of the Women Scientists Cell, said in her welcome address that the council would extend all support for youngsters who want to excel in science.
Six winners of the Young Scientist Award presented at the annual Kerala Science Congress event presented papers on varied research subjects.
Among these were Dr Lakshmi S. Nair of the University of Connecticut Health Centre in Farmington, US; Dr Giable George of M.G. University; Ms Uma S. from the Sophisticated Test and Instrumentation Centre; Ms Amita Ajit; Ms Renju Krishna V. of Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute and Dr Been R. of Kerala Agricultural University.
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb. 19:
There has never been a more opportune moment for women to take up science as a profession than now, says Dr Tessy Thomas, the country's ‘Missile Woman.'
Young girls have greater support both at home and outside, a wider knowledge base and more opportunities to learn, she said addressing a gathering of researchers, schoolgirls and science enthusiasts here.
MUST BUILD ON
They must build on these attributes to pursue an extremely fulfilling career in science, Dr Thomas said.
The meeting was organised by the Women Scientists Cell of Kerala State Council for Science Technology and Environment in connection with the International Women's Day celebrations.
Dr Thomas, the first woman scientist to head a missile programme, is currently the Project Director for Agni - India's long-range missile system - at the Defence Research and Development Organisation in Hyderabad.
“We need more women in the decision-making process to serve as mentors and role models for our youngsters,” she said.
They key is to remain focused on your goals, confident in your abilities and never stop learning.
BEDROCK OF SUCCESS
Dr Thomas inaugurated the meeting of women achievers in science, a platform for aspiring researchers to interact with some of the leading figures in the field.
Later, she made a presentation on science and technology with special focus on the missile defence systems.
Speaking on the occasion, Prof V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, Executive Vice-President of the Council and Ex-officio Principal Secretary of to the Department of Science and Technology, Kerala, noted that women's education has been the bedrock of the State's developmental success.
But this talent pool needs to be retained in the industry and academia in order to achieve a more inclusive growth.
“We have exceptionally talented girls who pursue science up to undergraduate or postgraduate level, but their research activity is often not sustained beyond for many reasons.” he said.
CAREER-BREAK
We need to make them aware that there are a number of meaningful schemes introduced by leading research institutions to encourage them to stay in science.
Prof Pillai said there are programmes today that allow women scientists to take a career-break of up to 10 years to fulfil their family commitments before returning to work.
Eminent scientist Prof C.G. Ramachandran Nair gave a special lecture on ‘Life and work of women scientists.'
Dr K.R. Lekha, the head of the Women Scientists Cell, said in her welcome address that the council would extend all support for youngsters who want to excel in science.
Six winners of the Young Scientist Award presented at the annual Kerala Science Congress event presented papers on varied research subjects.
Among these were Dr Lakshmi S. Nair of the University of Connecticut Health Centre in Farmington, US; Dr Giable George of M.G. University; Ms Uma S. from the Sophisticated Test and Instrumentation Centre; Ms Amita Ajit; Ms Renju Krishna V. of Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute and Dr Been R. of Kerala Agricultural University.
Friday, February 17, 2012
2012 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Faster Than the Speed of Light
There will be only one woman on the panel, but 1 out of 6 ain't bad..
From American Museum of Natural History: 2012 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Faster Than the Speed of Light
March 20, 2012
Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity has been tested with ever-increasing precision since its publication in 1905. One of its key predictions is that only light itself can travel at the speed of light. While the theory does not forbid particles from moving faster, such particles must be traveling backward in time.
Two recent papers by a large consortium of physicists using the world's most powerful accelerator are claiming the discovery of neutrinos moving at speeds slightly in excess of the speed of light. If confirmed, this would be one of the greatest breakthroughs in the history of physics. Our understanding of space, time, mass, and energy all hang in the balance until we know who is right.
This year's Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate will pit some of the experimentalists who claim to have discovered faster-than-light neutrinos against their strongest critics, as well as other teams that are racing to replicate or disprove the extraordinary claims.
Join Director of the Hayden Planetarium Neil deGrasse Tyson as he hosts and moderates six of the world’s leading voices in this great scientific debate.
Dr. David Cline, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA
Dr. Gian Giudice, Theoretical Physics Division, CERN
Dr. Sheldon Glashow, Department of Physics, Boston University
Dr. Chris Hegarty, MITRE’s Center for Advanced Aviation System Development
Dr. Laura Patrizii, Department of Physics, University of Bologna
Dr. Mike Shara, Curator of the Department of Astrophysics, AMNH
Café on One will offer refreshments for purchase before the event from 6 to 7:15 pm.
The late Dr. Isaac Asimov, one of the most prolific and influential authors of our time, was a dear friend and supporter of the American Museum of Natural History. In his memory, the Hayden Planetarium is honored to host the annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate-generously endowed by relatives, friends, and admirers of Isaac Asimov and his work-bringing the finest minds in the world to the Museum each year to debate pressing questions on the frontier of scientific discovery. Proceeds from ticket sales of the Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate benefit the scientific and educational programs of the Hayden Planetarium.
From American Museum of Natural History: 2012 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Faster Than the Speed of Light
March 20, 2012
Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity has been tested with ever-increasing precision since its publication in 1905. One of its key predictions is that only light itself can travel at the speed of light. While the theory does not forbid particles from moving faster, such particles must be traveling backward in time.
Two recent papers by a large consortium of physicists using the world's most powerful accelerator are claiming the discovery of neutrinos moving at speeds slightly in excess of the speed of light. If confirmed, this would be one of the greatest breakthroughs in the history of physics. Our understanding of space, time, mass, and energy all hang in the balance until we know who is right.
This year's Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate will pit some of the experimentalists who claim to have discovered faster-than-light neutrinos against their strongest critics, as well as other teams that are racing to replicate or disprove the extraordinary claims.
Join Director of the Hayden Planetarium Neil deGrasse Tyson as he hosts and moderates six of the world’s leading voices in this great scientific debate.
Dr. David Cline, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA
Dr. Gian Giudice, Theoretical Physics Division, CERN
Dr. Sheldon Glashow, Department of Physics, Boston University
Dr. Chris Hegarty, MITRE’s Center for Advanced Aviation System Development
Dr. Laura Patrizii, Department of Physics, University of Bologna
Dr. Mike Shara, Curator of the Department of Astrophysics, AMNH
Café on One will offer refreshments for purchase before the event from 6 to 7:15 pm.
The late Dr. Isaac Asimov, one of the most prolific and influential authors of our time, was a dear friend and supporter of the American Museum of Natural History. In his memory, the Hayden Planetarium is honored to host the annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate-generously endowed by relatives, friends, and admirers of Isaac Asimov and his work-bringing the finest minds in the world to the Museum each year to debate pressing questions on the frontier of scientific discovery. Proceeds from ticket sales of the Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate benefit the scientific and educational programs of the Hayden Planetarium.
Why Do Dinosaur Skeletons Look So Weird?
Science Daily: Why Do Dinosaur Skeletons Look So Weird?
ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2012) — Many fossilized dinosaurs have been found in a twisted posture. Scientists have long interpreted this as a sign of death spasms. Two researchers from Basel and Mainz now come to the conclusion that this bizarre deformations occurred only during the decomposition of dead dinosaurs.
More or less complete and articulated skeletons of dinosaurs with a long neck and tail often exhibit a body posture in which the head and neck are recurved over the back of the animal. This posture, also known from Archaeopteryx, has been fascinating paleontologists for more than 150 years. It was called "bicycle pose" when talking with a wink, or "opisthotonic posture" in a more oppressive way of speaking.
The latter alludes to an accessory symptom of tetanus, well known in human and veterinarian medicine. Usually, an "opisthotonic posture" like that is the result of vitamin deficiency, poisoning or damage to the cerebellum.
Basically, the cerebellum is a brain region that controls fine muscle movement, which includes the body's antigravity muscles that keep the head and tail upright. If the cerebellum ceases to function, the antigravity muscles will clench at full force, tipping the head and tail back, and contracting the limbs.
A syndrome like that as a petrified expression of death throes was discussed for the first time about 100 years ago for some vertebrate fossils, but the acceptance of this interpretation declined during the following decades. In 2007, this "opisthotonus hypothesis" was newly posted by a veterinarian and a palaeontologist. This study, generously planned, received much attention in the public and the scientific community.
Now, five years later, two scientists from Switzerland and Germany have re-evaluated the revitalized "opisthotonus hypothesis" and examined one of its icons, the famous bipedal dinosaur Compsognathus longipes from the "Solnhofen Archipelago" (Germany). It is widely acknowledged that this 150-millions-years-old land-living dinosaur was embedded in a watery grave of a tropical lagoon.
"In our opinion, the most critical point in the newly discussed scenario of the preservation of an opisthotonic posture in a fossil is the requirement that terrestrial vertebrates must have been embedded immediately after death without substantial transport. But consigning a carcass from land to sea and the following need of sinking through the water column for only a few decimetres or meters is nothing else" says sedimentologist Achim Reisdorf from University of Basel's Institute of Geology and Paleontology.
Biomechanics in Watery Graves Convinced that the back arching was generated, not by death throes, but by postmortem alterations of a decaying carcass, the researchers made experiments with plucked chicken necks and thoraxes, immersed in water. Submersed in water, the necks spontaneously arched backwards for more than 90°. Ongoing decay for some months even increased the degree of the pose. Thorough preparation and dissection combined with testing revealed that a special ligament connecting the vertebrae at their upper side was responsible for the recurved necks in the chickens. This ligament, the so-called Ligamentum elasticum, is pre-stressed in living chickens, but also in dead ones.
"Veterinarians may often have to do with sick and dying animals, where they see the opisthotonic posture in many cases. Vertebrate palaeontologists, however, who want to infer the environment in which the animals perished and finally were embedded have to elucidate postmortem processes and biomechanical constraints too" says palaeontologist Michael Wuttke from the Section of Earth History in the General Department for the Conservation of Cultural History Rhineland Palatinate in Mainz (Germany).
"A strong Ligamentum elasticum was essential for all long necked dinosaurs with a long tail. The preloaded ligament helped them saving energy in their terrestrial mode of life. Following their death, at which they were immersed in water, the stored energy along the vertebra was strong enough to arch back the spine, increasingly so as more and more muscles and other soft parts were decaying" conclude the researchers. "It is a special highlight that, in the Compsognathus specimen, these gradual steps of recurvature can be substantiated, too. Therefore, biomechanics is ruling the postmortem weird posture of a carcass in a watery grave, not death throes."
ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2012) — Many fossilized dinosaurs have been found in a twisted posture. Scientists have long interpreted this as a sign of death spasms. Two researchers from Basel and Mainz now come to the conclusion that this bizarre deformations occurred only during the decomposition of dead dinosaurs.
More or less complete and articulated skeletons of dinosaurs with a long neck and tail often exhibit a body posture in which the head and neck are recurved over the back of the animal. This posture, also known from Archaeopteryx, has been fascinating paleontologists for more than 150 years. It was called "bicycle pose" when talking with a wink, or "opisthotonic posture" in a more oppressive way of speaking.
The latter alludes to an accessory symptom of tetanus, well known in human and veterinarian medicine. Usually, an "opisthotonic posture" like that is the result of vitamin deficiency, poisoning or damage to the cerebellum.
Basically, the cerebellum is a brain region that controls fine muscle movement, which includes the body's antigravity muscles that keep the head and tail upright. If the cerebellum ceases to function, the antigravity muscles will clench at full force, tipping the head and tail back, and contracting the limbs.
A syndrome like that as a petrified expression of death throes was discussed for the first time about 100 years ago for some vertebrate fossils, but the acceptance of this interpretation declined during the following decades. In 2007, this "opisthotonus hypothesis" was newly posted by a veterinarian and a palaeontologist. This study, generously planned, received much attention in the public and the scientific community.
Now, five years later, two scientists from Switzerland and Germany have re-evaluated the revitalized "opisthotonus hypothesis" and examined one of its icons, the famous bipedal dinosaur Compsognathus longipes from the "Solnhofen Archipelago" (Germany). It is widely acknowledged that this 150-millions-years-old land-living dinosaur was embedded in a watery grave of a tropical lagoon.
"In our opinion, the most critical point in the newly discussed scenario of the preservation of an opisthotonic posture in a fossil is the requirement that terrestrial vertebrates must have been embedded immediately after death without substantial transport. But consigning a carcass from land to sea and the following need of sinking through the water column for only a few decimetres or meters is nothing else" says sedimentologist Achim Reisdorf from University of Basel's Institute of Geology and Paleontology.
Biomechanics in Watery Graves Convinced that the back arching was generated, not by death throes, but by postmortem alterations of a decaying carcass, the researchers made experiments with plucked chicken necks and thoraxes, immersed in water. Submersed in water, the necks spontaneously arched backwards for more than 90°. Ongoing decay for some months even increased the degree of the pose. Thorough preparation and dissection combined with testing revealed that a special ligament connecting the vertebrae at their upper side was responsible for the recurved necks in the chickens. This ligament, the so-called Ligamentum elasticum, is pre-stressed in living chickens, but also in dead ones.
"Veterinarians may often have to do with sick and dying animals, where they see the opisthotonic posture in many cases. Vertebrate palaeontologists, however, who want to infer the environment in which the animals perished and finally were embedded have to elucidate postmortem processes and biomechanical constraints too" says palaeontologist Michael Wuttke from the Section of Earth History in the General Department for the Conservation of Cultural History Rhineland Palatinate in Mainz (Germany).
"A strong Ligamentum elasticum was essential for all long necked dinosaurs with a long tail. The preloaded ligament helped them saving energy in their terrestrial mode of life. Following their death, at which they were immersed in water, the stored energy along the vertebra was strong enough to arch back the spine, increasingly so as more and more muscles and other soft parts were decaying" conclude the researchers. "It is a special highlight that, in the Compsognathus specimen, these gradual steps of recurvature can be substantiated, too. Therefore, biomechanics is ruling the postmortem weird posture of a carcass in a watery grave, not death throes."
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Science fiction needs more scientist heroes — not scientist villains
From I09: Science fiction needs more scientist heroes — not scientist villains
Science fiction scientists have been responsible for numerous fictional disasters. They've reanimated corpses that have come back to kill them. They've cloned dinosaurs only to utterly lose control of them. They've shrunk their kids and turned themselves into flies. But one researcher is calling for more fictional scientific triumphs to balance out these disasters.
Image: The mad but heroic scientist Agatha Heterodyne from Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio.
Laura H. Kahn, a physician and biodefense researcher, points out that, while science has influenced science fiction, so too has science fiction affected science. Science fiction has changed the way people think about scientific progress, and cultural shifts can have huge impacts on how scientific research is carried out. Kahn acknowledges that these cultural shifts can be good, leading to more humane research policies. But they can also lead to public misunderstandings about certain areas of science. She notes that stories like Jurassic Park, Frankenstein, and The Island of Doctor Moreau can leave the public timid about the idea of "tampering" with nature, even as they have little understanding about what actually goes on in current genetic research.
Kahn would like to see the public better educated about the positive possibilities of current research through science fiction stories centered on heroic scientists:
Scientists in the life sciences generally do a poor job of communicating with the public about what they do. Few of them write for the lay public, and even fewer write novels about their science. Busy scientists generally don't have the time to write fiction after writing grant proposals, doing research, and teaching. Not to mention the fact that writing engrossing stories is very, very hard. But, if the scientific community wants to engage and inform the public, science fiction is an excellent strategy. Stories captivate people, they survive the test of time, and they become part of the popular culture. So, if any scientists with a creative-writing affinity want to captivate the public and inspire the next generation to pursue careers in science and technology, perhaps they should put pen to paper and start writing. The world needs more stories with scientist-heroes, not more scientist-villains.
Do you agree with Kahn? Are we overloaded with villainous scientists? What stories out there shine a more positive light on scientific advances?
Friday, February 10, 2012
America's Next Top Engineer: She Needs Your Role Models
From the Harvard Business Review: America's Next Top Engineer: She Needs Your Role Models
Imagine the world in 2030, more resource-constrained than ever—but then suddenly benefitting from a breakthrough approach to harnessing wind energy. What if the person capable of hatching that innovation is, today, a middle-school girl in a village in Ecuador? Will it happen? Or think closer to home: If the cure for cystic fibrosis is just waiting in the mind of a girl in your community, will it ever see the light of day?
If we could only put the same level of resources into inspiring girls in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that we do into discovering America's Next Top Model, the chance wouldn't seem so remote. At the very least, the proportion of STEM professionals who are female—currently, in engineering, a paltry 11 percent—would grow.
It's no secret that we need more women in STEM. Our economy's major employers compete for the female graduates we do produce. So what's holding back the supply?
Some people look at the gender composition of graduating classes and conclude that girls just aren't as interested as boys are in engineering. If girls don't want to be computer scientists when they grow up, some ask, isn't that their choice? But I have the proof that they do, under the right circumstances. When the bell rings at the end of the day at schools in Oakland, CA I see a wave of girls heading for after-school programs, eager to stick around and do science.
Meet the girls participating in Techbridge. They tinker and use tools, and take apart things like lawnmower engines and hairdryers to learn how they work. They build their own green houses and learn about renewable energy. They make solar night lights, and in doing so learn to solder. And while it isn't their intention when they start, they also make mistakes—and learn to appreciate how mistakes are part of the process. They develop the confidence to persevere. As they team up for design challenges, they especially like to learn in the company of other girls.
Techbridge is a nonprofit organization based in Oakland, CA, whose mission is to promote girls' interest and skills in science, technology, and engineering. We do this through the programs we run, and by developing resources for others—teachers, role models, families, and partners like the Girl Scouts. We know the first step is engagement, letting girls have fun with the projects we introduce. Research shows that an early interest in science or engineering is a better indicator of the likelihood of pursuing a career in these fields than grades. But we can't stop there. For a girl to translate an early interest into a passion for becoming a mechanical engineer or biotech entrepreneur, she also needs early exposure to women who hold such careers. We need to provide girls with role models.
Techbridge can't do that alone—role models are busy working in places that have recognized and snapped up their talent. We can do it, however, with partners from industry. When major employers not only provide funding for our after-school programs but also support employee outreach, girls gain access to role models like Chevron geologists, Google programmers, and Intel engineers—all of whom have visited our after-school programs and led activities that offer a glimpse into their careers.
Role models make the difference by connecting with our girls on a personal level and sharing their passion and the personal stories of how they came to be the professionals they are. They help dispel stereotypes about engineering and who can be a computer scientist. Their enthusiasm conveys that these careers are personally and professionally rewarding. The work they describe shows that as a scientist or engineer you can make the world a better place—an aspiration for many girls.
We have to go out of our way to provide such models because too few girls have made their way into technical fields in the past. We can't count on a girl's having a STEM role model already in the women she knows well—her mother, relatives, and neighbors. When a girl meets a woman succeeding in STEM, it expands the range of careers she considers as she imagines her own future.
We know it works. Last year's evaluation of Techbridge's impact showed increases in participating girls' skills and confidence. Now, 90 percent of them believe engineering is a good career for women, and 89 percent think teamwork is good for solving problems. And guess how many are more interested than they had been in working in science, technology, and engineering? No fewer than 83 percent.
Results like this are what keep us working energetically to build corporate partnerships—even when we experience the occasional dispiriting setback. We've seen, for example, a corporate field trip that we had perfected over the years suspended as priorities there changed. In a downturn-related layoff, our liaison to another company lost her job. Some of the best role models we've attracted, and many we've invested to develop (because role modeling is a skill built by training, too) find it difficult in this tough economy to leave their workplaces and volunteer in afternoon programs.
The companies most likely to stay the course are those who value the payback in the long term. They know that the middle schoolers who come to their site are the next generation of workers, and that among them may be the one whose idea will revolutionize their business.
If your organization is an employer of science, engineering, and technology talent, please do what you can to reach out and inspire a girl. Do it by supporting programs like Techbridge that offer STEM programming in and out of school. But also do it by encouraging the women on your staff to be role models—to visit a classroom or host a field trip. Show that you value outreach by providing support and training for it, and even better, by mentoring a girl yourself. Not only will you discover how much students learn from role models and field trips, you'll discover how your organization benefits in return. We hear from role models how much their outreach deepens their sense of connection to their job, their staff, and their field. Corporate recruiters tell us that top talent is more attracted to organizations that believe in workers getting involved and giving back to their community.
Returns like this are hard to quantify, but we never hear from corporate partners that they aren't worth the investment. Girls who go through Techbridge programs have a habit of returning years later and telling us how a role model they met in middle school, or a field trip in high school, turned them on to engineering. When they faced a roadblock—a challenging class, a less than supportive study group —they remembered what a role model taught them. And they didn't give up.
Imagine the world in 2030, more resource-constrained than ever—but then suddenly benefitting from a breakthrough approach to harnessing wind energy. What if the person capable of hatching that innovation is, today, a middle-school girl in a village in Ecuador? Will it happen? Or think closer to home: If the cure for cystic fibrosis is just waiting in the mind of a girl in your community, will it ever see the light of day?
If we could only put the same level of resources into inspiring girls in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that we do into discovering America's Next Top Model, the chance wouldn't seem so remote. At the very least, the proportion of STEM professionals who are female—currently, in engineering, a paltry 11 percent—would grow.
It's no secret that we need more women in STEM. Our economy's major employers compete for the female graduates we do produce. So what's holding back the supply?
Some people look at the gender composition of graduating classes and conclude that girls just aren't as interested as boys are in engineering. If girls don't want to be computer scientists when they grow up, some ask, isn't that their choice? But I have the proof that they do, under the right circumstances. When the bell rings at the end of the day at schools in Oakland, CA I see a wave of girls heading for after-school programs, eager to stick around and do science.
Meet the girls participating in Techbridge. They tinker and use tools, and take apart things like lawnmower engines and hairdryers to learn how they work. They build their own green houses and learn about renewable energy. They make solar night lights, and in doing so learn to solder. And while it isn't their intention when they start, they also make mistakes—and learn to appreciate how mistakes are part of the process. They develop the confidence to persevere. As they team up for design challenges, they especially like to learn in the company of other girls.
Techbridge is a nonprofit organization based in Oakland, CA, whose mission is to promote girls' interest and skills in science, technology, and engineering. We do this through the programs we run, and by developing resources for others—teachers, role models, families, and partners like the Girl Scouts. We know the first step is engagement, letting girls have fun with the projects we introduce. Research shows that an early interest in science or engineering is a better indicator of the likelihood of pursuing a career in these fields than grades. But we can't stop there. For a girl to translate an early interest into a passion for becoming a mechanical engineer or biotech entrepreneur, she also needs early exposure to women who hold such careers. We need to provide girls with role models.
Techbridge can't do that alone—role models are busy working in places that have recognized and snapped up their talent. We can do it, however, with partners from industry. When major employers not only provide funding for our after-school programs but also support employee outreach, girls gain access to role models like Chevron geologists, Google programmers, and Intel engineers—all of whom have visited our after-school programs and led activities that offer a glimpse into their careers.
Role models make the difference by connecting with our girls on a personal level and sharing their passion and the personal stories of how they came to be the professionals they are. They help dispel stereotypes about engineering and who can be a computer scientist. Their enthusiasm conveys that these careers are personally and professionally rewarding. The work they describe shows that as a scientist or engineer you can make the world a better place—an aspiration for many girls.
We have to go out of our way to provide such models because too few girls have made their way into technical fields in the past. We can't count on a girl's having a STEM role model already in the women she knows well—her mother, relatives, and neighbors. When a girl meets a woman succeeding in STEM, it expands the range of careers she considers as she imagines her own future.
We know it works. Last year's evaluation of Techbridge's impact showed increases in participating girls' skills and confidence. Now, 90 percent of them believe engineering is a good career for women, and 89 percent think teamwork is good for solving problems. And guess how many are more interested than they had been in working in science, technology, and engineering? No fewer than 83 percent.
Results like this are what keep us working energetically to build corporate partnerships—even when we experience the occasional dispiriting setback. We've seen, for example, a corporate field trip that we had perfected over the years suspended as priorities there changed. In a downturn-related layoff, our liaison to another company lost her job. Some of the best role models we've attracted, and many we've invested to develop (because role modeling is a skill built by training, too) find it difficult in this tough economy to leave their workplaces and volunteer in afternoon programs.
The companies most likely to stay the course are those who value the payback in the long term. They know that the middle schoolers who come to their site are the next generation of workers, and that among them may be the one whose idea will revolutionize their business.
If your organization is an employer of science, engineering, and technology talent, please do what you can to reach out and inspire a girl. Do it by supporting programs like Techbridge that offer STEM programming in and out of school. But also do it by encouraging the women on your staff to be role models—to visit a classroom or host a field trip. Show that you value outreach by providing support and training for it, and even better, by mentoring a girl yourself. Not only will you discover how much students learn from role models and field trips, you'll discover how your organization benefits in return. We hear from role models how much their outreach deepens their sense of connection to their job, their staff, and their field. Corporate recruiters tell us that top talent is more attracted to organizations that believe in workers getting involved and giving back to their community.
Returns like this are hard to quantify, but we never hear from corporate partners that they aren't worth the investment. Girls who go through Techbridge programs have a habit of returning years later and telling us how a role model they met in middle school, or a field trip in high school, turned them on to engineering. When they faced a roadblock—a challenging class, a less than supportive study group —they remembered what a role model taught them. And they didn't give up.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Aprahamian named chair of APS nuclear physics division
From Notre Dame Department Physics: Aprahamian named chair of APS nuclear physics division
Ani Aprahamian, the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Physics, has been elected chair of the American Physical Society's Division of Nuclear Physics. APS is the second-largest organization in the field, chartered “to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics.” It publishes a number of journals, conducts extensive education and outreach programs, and is active in public and governmental affairs. The Division of Nuclear Physics is composed of scientists and educators who study fundamental problems related to the nature of matter – the properties of nuclei and of their ultimate constituents, quarks and gluons.
Aprahamian's research interests lie in nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics. Her current work relates to the elements heavier than iron, whose origin remains a scientific enigma; they cannot be formed by the normal nuclear fusion process in stars. It is thought that a neutron-rich explosive environment in the emerging shock front of a supernova may be responsible for the enhancement of the heavy elements, but experimental confirmation requires laboratory production of elusive, highly unstable nuclei in cutting-edge facilities. One such will be the Facility for Rare Isotopes Beams (FRIB) under construction at Michigan State University, for which Aprahamian serves as a member of the science advisory committee.
In addition to the above professional roles, Aprahamian has been both director of Notre Dame's Nuclear Science Laboratory and a former chair of the Department of Physics at Notre Dame. She is also the vice-chair of the National Academies' decadal review of nuclear physics (NP2010) and the co-chair of the standing Nuclear Science Advisory Subcommittee on Isotopes (NSACI), as well as chair of the Scientific Council for the GANIL research center in France.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Egypt expert heads Girls in Science event
Des Moines Register: Egypt expert heads Girls in Science event
She remembers thumbing through an encyclopedia as a little girl in Portugal.
“I was 8 years old and I saw this black-and-white picture of a man on his hands and knees, scraping at dirt inside these string squares,” Ana Tavares said last week in a Skype interview from London.
“It looked so interesting to me. I asked my father what he was doing and he told me he was an archeologist and explained what that meant.”
From that moment on, she was “very obsessed,” as she put it. Today, at the age of 47, Tavares is co-field research director for Ancient Egypt Research Associates and regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on ancient Egypt.
An adviser for the “Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets, Modern Science” exhibit now on display at the Science Center of Iowa, 401 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway in Des Moines, she will participate later this month in the center’s new scientist in residence program.
Tavares will spend four days in Iowa. She is scheduled to host a special tour of the exhibit, visit local schools and deliver the keynote address at the center’s Girls in Science event, spokeswoman Christina Zink said.
“There will be opportunities for adults and families to experience this exhibit with Ana, which we think will be very exciting,” Zink said.
Over the past two decades Tavares and her colleagues have completed some of the most important work ever done at the ancient sites of Egypt. Her home away from home has been in Egypt at the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders site.
“Much of what we have done has debunked a lot of myths,” Tavares said.
In particular, students have been taught for decades that slaves — men, women and children, built the pyramids of Egypt.
“That is not the case,” she said.
Tavares and her team have unearthed evidence that shows the pyramids were built by a rotating workforce made up of young men drafted by their village leaders to serve tours of duty.
“They got to work on a divine project, and because of their service they would be rewarded in the afterlife,” Tavares said.
While she is looking forward to sharing stories of her research in Des Moines, Tavares is also enthusiastic about meeting younger students, in particular teenage girls.
She is saddened by reports that “girls who are 14 and 15 are shying away from science… maybe they’re afraid that it is going to be boring and they are going to end up having to work every day in a white lab coat.”
She hopes to convince the younger students she meets that science is a field that provides many options.
“It’s like if you go into archeology, you don’t have to be a digger,” she said.
Originally from Lisbon, Portugal, Tavares studied Egyptology at University College in London. She began excavating in Egypt in 1987 and looks forward to many more years of working in archeology.
“My worst enemy word would be ‘retirement,’ ” she said.
Archeologist visits Science Center of Iowa
Opportunities for the public to interact with Ana Tavares, hear about her experience excavating in Egypt and learn about a career in the field of archaeology include:
Cafe Scientifique, Feb. 17: In “Excavating for Information: Uncovering Egypt,” she will discuss the latest findings at the Giza Plateau site. Cafe Scientifque, presented by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, is free and open to the public. 5:30 p.m., Feb. 17.
Following the presentation, Tavares will lead behind-the-scenes tours of “Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets, Modern Science.” Space is limited for the tours, which cost $10 for members and $20 for nonmembers. Reservations can be made via email at cafesci@sciowa.org or by calling (515) 274-6868, ext. 234.
Girls in Science event, Feb. 18: SCI’s new Girls in Science Initiative aims to empower and equip girls in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The initiative promotes girls’ early engagement in STEM, to encourage pursuit of careers in those areas and develop a diverse workforce for the 21st century. The Girls in Science event will allow girls the chance to explore the many careers and opportunities for them in science, technology, engineering and math, and celebrate the many women scientists in the community. Tavares will provide the keynote presentation at this event and will educate attendees about careers in archeology. The Girls in Science event and Tavares’ presentation are free with SCI admission. 1 p.m., Feb. 18.
She remembers thumbing through an encyclopedia as a little girl in Portugal.
“I was 8 years old and I saw this black-and-white picture of a man on his hands and knees, scraping at dirt inside these string squares,” Ana Tavares said last week in a Skype interview from London.
“It looked so interesting to me. I asked my father what he was doing and he told me he was an archeologist and explained what that meant.”
From that moment on, she was “very obsessed,” as she put it. Today, at the age of 47, Tavares is co-field research director for Ancient Egypt Research Associates and regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on ancient Egypt.
An adviser for the “Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets, Modern Science” exhibit now on display at the Science Center of Iowa, 401 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway in Des Moines, she will participate later this month in the center’s new scientist in residence program.
Tavares will spend four days in Iowa. She is scheduled to host a special tour of the exhibit, visit local schools and deliver the keynote address at the center’s Girls in Science event, spokeswoman Christina Zink said.
“There will be opportunities for adults and families to experience this exhibit with Ana, which we think will be very exciting,” Zink said.
Over the past two decades Tavares and her colleagues have completed some of the most important work ever done at the ancient sites of Egypt. Her home away from home has been in Egypt at the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders site.
“Much of what we have done has debunked a lot of myths,” Tavares said.
In particular, students have been taught for decades that slaves — men, women and children, built the pyramids of Egypt.
“That is not the case,” she said.
Tavares and her team have unearthed evidence that shows the pyramids were built by a rotating workforce made up of young men drafted by their village leaders to serve tours of duty.
“They got to work on a divine project, and because of their service they would be rewarded in the afterlife,” Tavares said.
While she is looking forward to sharing stories of her research in Des Moines, Tavares is also enthusiastic about meeting younger students, in particular teenage girls.
She is saddened by reports that “girls who are 14 and 15 are shying away from science… maybe they’re afraid that it is going to be boring and they are going to end up having to work every day in a white lab coat.”
She hopes to convince the younger students she meets that science is a field that provides many options.
“It’s like if you go into archeology, you don’t have to be a digger,” she said.
Originally from Lisbon, Portugal, Tavares studied Egyptology at University College in London. She began excavating in Egypt in 1987 and looks forward to many more years of working in archeology.
“My worst enemy word would be ‘retirement,’ ” she said.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Lose Weight By Peer Pressure
There was a commercial during the Super Bowl last night. Geico. A man wants to lose weight, so he hires three teenage girls to follow him around. Any time he starts to eat, they pop up and look at him contemptuously - two white girls, one Asian.
The Asian girl says "EW." One white girl says "Seriously?" The other white girl says, "That is so gross."
So eating has become gross?
This is not funny...the more so because it is how girls act - at least girls in California!
Bullying in schools has long been a national problem - in every country, really - bullying seems to be a natural human trait. And yes, what these 3 brainless girls are doing is bullying. But at least they're doing it to a guy and not to some other girl who wants to buck the crowd and be a scientist, or not get a tattoo, or dress like a street walker, etc. etc.
The Asian girl says "EW." One white girl says "Seriously?" The other white girl says, "That is so gross."
So eating has become gross?
This is not funny...the more so because it is how girls act - at least girls in California!
Bullying in schools has long been a national problem - in every country, really - bullying seems to be a natural human trait. And yes, what these 3 brainless girls are doing is bullying. But at least they're doing it to a guy and not to some other girl who wants to buck the crowd and be a scientist, or not get a tattoo, or dress like a street walker, etc. etc.
My story from the ScienceOnline 2012 banquet.
From Scientific American: My story from the ScienceOnline 2012 banquet.
By Janet D. Stemwedel
Here, we'll explore how ethical practices are essential to scientific knowledge-building, how that knowledge-building enterprise is tied to scientists' ability to play well with others, and how members of the tribe of science might best share a world with the segments of humanity who aren't employed in the knowledge-building business.
Once upon a time, Janet D. Stemwedel thought she would be a chemist when she grew up. So, she went to school, spent years in the lab, and earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry.
However, by the time she was putting the finishing touches on her dissertation, philosophical questions about how exactly science works had seized control of her brain. So, she went to school again, spent years in the library, and earned another Ph.D. in philosophy (with a concentration in the history and philosophy of science).
Now an Associate Professor of Philosophy at San José State University, she focuses her teaching and research on philosophy of science and the ethical conduct of science. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her better half, two children, and a white rabbit named Snowflake Free-Ride (aka Notorious B.U.N.).
This year at ScienceOnline, the conference banquet featured storytelling organized by The Monti, a North Carolina non-profit organization dedicated to building community by getting people to share their true stories with each other. Conference goers were asked to share stories on the theme of “connections”. The stories had to be true, and storytellers had to tell them without notes.
The seven stories told at the banquet provided a kaleidoscopic view of what “connections” might mean to a bunch of people involved in doing science, or teaching science, or communicating science, or trying to negotiate their own relationship with science in their personal and professional lives.
I feel honored that I got to tell my story as part of this event. My narrative was about connections between what things were like for me as a kid and how I’d like things to be different for my own kids, between online discussions and outcomes in the three-dimensional world, between my comfort zone and situations where I know I am out of my depth.
You can listen to the audio of me actually telling my story here. (It’s #3 in the list; I haven’t been able to figure out a way to grab just my story and embed it here, and you probably want to listen to the other stories, too, because they’re all really good.)
Partway through the story, it will become relevant.
So, like a lot of people in the room, I guess, I have always known that I loved science, but I grew up in a culture that told me that I shouldn’t, because I’m a girl.
And, between the TV, and the toy commercials, and my peers, and the teachers, the message was: “Look, science is not girls’ stuff. Science is not something girls are supposed to like. You are supposed to spend your time figuring out how to be like girls are, which is pretty, and pink, and neat, and well-behaved.” I did not want to be any of those things. I did not know how to be any of those things. I did not see how being any of those things was going to get my hands on the science-y stuff I wanted to do. So what was the point?
So, as you can imagine, school was not a lot of fun, because on the one hand, I had my peers making life crap because I could not perform femininity. And, I had teachers making my life crap, saying: “Look, no, I don’t care that you can do the math and do the science. It’s impossible that you can do the math and do the science because you’re a girl. So, stop that!”
And, one gets through this. And, I kind of figured by the time I was a grown-up, and had kids that I was raising of my own, we were going to be past all of this in our culture — that we would have fixed this particular blind spot we have. But the first time we cracked open the educational toy catalog, when our kids were old enough for those: hit in the face with the heavily gendered science kits.
And they come in two flavors: they come in the science kits, and the science kits for girls. And the science kits for girls of course come in a pink box, and they are science that concerns what girls are supposed to want to do, which is make lip gloss, or make bubble bath, or maybe grow pretty crystals. And the pictures on the box have cartoon girls with eye shadow and off-the-shoulder blouses, as if to say: “Look, dear, there’s nothing about doing this activity that is going to get in the way of your really important task of figuring out how to be conforming to our gendered expectations of you.”
The boys’ kits, meanwhile, had cool stuff — I mean, you got to take things apart. You got to blow things up. You got to examine the world on a really small scale. This is stuff I wanted to do — and got to do, luckily, when I was a kid, but only because my mother was as much of a rebel against this as I was.
What the girls are offered is the pink microscopes that don’t magnify as well as the blue microscopes do. Instead of getting kits where you get to blow stuff up, you get to make bath bombs, and as it turns out, bath bombs do not actually explode. Which is kind of a rip off.
So, of course, when I started blogging, this was one of the things I blogged about — because a good rant is what keeps a blogger going in the morning. And this was like five years ago. So I got my rant on. And of course, this November, those of you who watch the Twitters knew that Ed Yong tweeted about the WILD! Science* website selling extremely gendered science kits.
So it’s still going on! And people were like, “Yeah, we should blog about this some more!”
I’ll be honest: I was tired. I did not feel like blogging about this again. I said, I have been banging my head against this particular wall with this culture, and, you know, maybe I’d like to bang my head against a different wall that might move a little. But, I took a breath. I said, OK, everyone’s doing it, so I’ll try to explain again what it is about these kits that I find problematic — that they’re not really trying to interest kids in science so much as saying the only hook we’ve got with girls is their femininity. And, they’re not actually cultivating an interest in science so much as reminding girls: even in science, you are expected to do this femininity thing or you will get crap.
So, I blogged about it, and then a really exciting thing happened in December. In December, Edmund Scientific announced on their blog that they had noticed these blog posts, and letters they had gotten, emails they had gotten from customers, and they understood the criticism, and they recognized that they were sending out a message that they did not want to send out as they were selling science kits. And they said, we’re going to stop. They said, we are going to no longer sell boys’ science kits and girls’ science kits; they’re now all science kits for whatever kind of kid wants to do it.
And I was really, really excited. You know, all of us sort of being cranky eventually, I guess … every now and then we get this incremental piece of change.
I was so excited that afternoon, and I had to tell my kids, because, you know, you’ve got to share your excitement and your tweeps get tired of it so your kids have to listen to the overflow.
I should tell you something about my kids, something I sort of keep on the down-low on blogs ’cause of creepy internet stalker types. My kids are daughters.
The oldest one’s in seventh grade, the youngest one’s in fifth grade. So, they’re twelve and ten. The older one … I think maybe there was a six month stretch in kindergarten where she experimented with officially sanctioned femininity as recognized by our culture and then decided it just was not worth the trouble, and hasn’t really bothered with it since.
The ten-year-old is a pretty pink princess.
Which makes our relationship with each other complicated, because as I told you before, I don’t really do femininity. She actually tried to help me with my outfit for tonight, but in the end she said, “Please don’t tell them I was involved in this.” We’re different, she and I.
But, she was the one, when I told her this news about this company selling science kits that decided to drop the heavy gendering, she was the one who got really excited and gave me a hug and gave me a high five.
Because both of my kids — the tomboy and the pretty princess — both of them love science. The ten-year-old who loves to dress up, who loves to wear pantyhose, for God’s sake, who asked for a lint-roller for Christmas — she loves to do science. She is also a fierce goalie for her soccer team, and she can tell fart jokes with the best of them, and this is because, unlike what the marketers would have you believe, a pretty pink princess has facets.
So, as we’re celebrating this, I’m sort of keeping up with the discussion in the blogosphere. And there’s some discussion going on saying, “Well, OK, heavily gendered science kits: probably problematic. But, maybe we’re doing some pink-bashing here. Maybe we’ve got to make the world safe for pink microscopes, too.”
There was sort of this “click!” in my head when I remembered — oh wait, it’s not just that we live in a culture that says “Girls can’t do science,” and we’ve got to deal with that; or that girls need to be feminine, and we’ve got to deal with that. We live in a culture where we have this idea that scientists need to be a certain way.
So we’ve gone from where I was when I was in school, having teachers tell me, “You can’t do science ’cause you’re a girl,” to now maybe the teachers are saying , “Well, you’re probably not going to be into science because you’re a girly girl.” You can do science, but you’ve got to be one of those girls who thinks the whole femininity thing is not something you want to spend any kind of time with.
And that’s a problem, too.
And I thought back to my misspent scientific youth in a physical chemistry lab, where absolutely the smartest, the best scientist in that lab aside from my PI was a fourth year graduate student who graduated after her fourth year with a ton of publications in the Journal of Physical Chemistry. But people outside of our lab thought she had all kinds of help, or that her work must not be too significant, and the main reason they seemed to think that is ’cause she did her hair, and she wore make up, and she did her nails, and she was kind of a grown up pretty princess. If they had bothered to talk to her about her science, if they had bothered to look inside her notebooks — which, I grant, were kept in loopy script, sometimes in pink ink — they would have seen that she was fiercely intelligent and frighteningly organized in her attack on the research questions that she pursued. She was an astonishingly good scientist, and she was made to feel like an outsider in our scientific community simply because she did femininity.
And we’ve got to cut this out. We have to cut this out.
We not only have to, as a culture, get over the idea that boys have to be a certain way and girls have to be a certain way, and that the certain way girls have to be is not compatible with doing science. We also have to get over the idea that to be a good scientist you have to be a certain kind of person, and that’s not the kind of person who’s going to get his or her nails done.
Because ultimately, the world I want to be in, the world I want for my daughters — for the tomboy and the pretty princess — is one where they can be authentically who they are, and they can love science, and they can pursue science, and it doesn’t matter what else they like.
Thank you.
_____
*At the banquet, I erroneously said “Mad Science.” Ah, the dangers of telling a story without notes!
By Janet D. Stemwedel
Here, we'll explore how ethical practices are essential to scientific knowledge-building, how that knowledge-building enterprise is tied to scientists' ability to play well with others, and how members of the tribe of science might best share a world with the segments of humanity who aren't employed in the knowledge-building business.
Once upon a time, Janet D. Stemwedel thought she would be a chemist when she grew up. So, she went to school, spent years in the lab, and earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry.
However, by the time she was putting the finishing touches on her dissertation, philosophical questions about how exactly science works had seized control of her brain. So, she went to school again, spent years in the library, and earned another Ph.D. in philosophy (with a concentration in the history and philosophy of science).
Now an Associate Professor of Philosophy at San José State University, she focuses her teaching and research on philosophy of science and the ethical conduct of science. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her better half, two children, and a white rabbit named Snowflake Free-Ride (aka Notorious B.U.N.).
This year at ScienceOnline, the conference banquet featured storytelling organized by The Monti, a North Carolina non-profit organization dedicated to building community by getting people to share their true stories with each other. Conference goers were asked to share stories on the theme of “connections”. The stories had to be true, and storytellers had to tell them without notes.
The seven stories told at the banquet provided a kaleidoscopic view of what “connections” might mean to a bunch of people involved in doing science, or teaching science, or communicating science, or trying to negotiate their own relationship with science in their personal and professional lives.
I feel honored that I got to tell my story as part of this event. My narrative was about connections between what things were like for me as a kid and how I’d like things to be different for my own kids, between online discussions and outcomes in the three-dimensional world, between my comfort zone and situations where I know I am out of my depth.
You can listen to the audio of me actually telling my story here. (It’s #3 in the list; I haven’t been able to figure out a way to grab just my story and embed it here, and you probably want to listen to the other stories, too, because they’re all really good.)
Partway through the story, it will become relevant.
So, like a lot of people in the room, I guess, I have always known that I loved science, but I grew up in a culture that told me that I shouldn’t, because I’m a girl.
And, between the TV, and the toy commercials, and my peers, and the teachers, the message was: “Look, science is not girls’ stuff. Science is not something girls are supposed to like. You are supposed to spend your time figuring out how to be like girls are, which is pretty, and pink, and neat, and well-behaved.” I did not want to be any of those things. I did not know how to be any of those things. I did not see how being any of those things was going to get my hands on the science-y stuff I wanted to do. So what was the point?
So, as you can imagine, school was not a lot of fun, because on the one hand, I had my peers making life crap because I could not perform femininity. And, I had teachers making my life crap, saying: “Look, no, I don’t care that you can do the math and do the science. It’s impossible that you can do the math and do the science because you’re a girl. So, stop that!”
And, one gets through this. And, I kind of figured by the time I was a grown-up, and had kids that I was raising of my own, we were going to be past all of this in our culture — that we would have fixed this particular blind spot we have. But the first time we cracked open the educational toy catalog, when our kids were old enough for those: hit in the face with the heavily gendered science kits.
And they come in two flavors: they come in the science kits, and the science kits for girls. And the science kits for girls of course come in a pink box, and they are science that concerns what girls are supposed to want to do, which is make lip gloss, or make bubble bath, or maybe grow pretty crystals. And the pictures on the box have cartoon girls with eye shadow and off-the-shoulder blouses, as if to say: “Look, dear, there’s nothing about doing this activity that is going to get in the way of your really important task of figuring out how to be conforming to our gendered expectations of you.”
The boys’ kits, meanwhile, had cool stuff — I mean, you got to take things apart. You got to blow things up. You got to examine the world on a really small scale. This is stuff I wanted to do — and got to do, luckily, when I was a kid, but only because my mother was as much of a rebel against this as I was.
What the girls are offered is the pink microscopes that don’t magnify as well as the blue microscopes do. Instead of getting kits where you get to blow stuff up, you get to make bath bombs, and as it turns out, bath bombs do not actually explode. Which is kind of a rip off.
So, of course, when I started blogging, this was one of the things I blogged about — because a good rant is what keeps a blogger going in the morning. And this was like five years ago. So I got my rant on. And of course, this November, those of you who watch the Twitters knew that Ed Yong tweeted about the WILD! Science* website selling extremely gendered science kits.
So it’s still going on! And people were like, “Yeah, we should blog about this some more!”
I’ll be honest: I was tired. I did not feel like blogging about this again. I said, I have been banging my head against this particular wall with this culture, and, you know, maybe I’d like to bang my head against a different wall that might move a little. But, I took a breath. I said, OK, everyone’s doing it, so I’ll try to explain again what it is about these kits that I find problematic — that they’re not really trying to interest kids in science so much as saying the only hook we’ve got with girls is their femininity. And, they’re not actually cultivating an interest in science so much as reminding girls: even in science, you are expected to do this femininity thing or you will get crap.
So, I blogged about it, and then a really exciting thing happened in December. In December, Edmund Scientific announced on their blog that they had noticed these blog posts, and letters they had gotten, emails they had gotten from customers, and they understood the criticism, and they recognized that they were sending out a message that they did not want to send out as they were selling science kits. And they said, we’re going to stop. They said, we are going to no longer sell boys’ science kits and girls’ science kits; they’re now all science kits for whatever kind of kid wants to do it.
And I was really, really excited. You know, all of us sort of being cranky eventually, I guess … every now and then we get this incremental piece of change.
I was so excited that afternoon, and I had to tell my kids, because, you know, you’ve got to share your excitement and your tweeps get tired of it so your kids have to listen to the overflow.
I should tell you something about my kids, something I sort of keep on the down-low on blogs ’cause of creepy internet stalker types. My kids are daughters.
The oldest one’s in seventh grade, the youngest one’s in fifth grade. So, they’re twelve and ten. The older one … I think maybe there was a six month stretch in kindergarten where she experimented with officially sanctioned femininity as recognized by our culture and then decided it just was not worth the trouble, and hasn’t really bothered with it since.
The ten-year-old is a pretty pink princess.
Which makes our relationship with each other complicated, because as I told you before, I don’t really do femininity. She actually tried to help me with my outfit for tonight, but in the end she said, “Please don’t tell them I was involved in this.” We’re different, she and I.
But, she was the one, when I told her this news about this company selling science kits that decided to drop the heavy gendering, she was the one who got really excited and gave me a hug and gave me a high five.
Because both of my kids — the tomboy and the pretty princess — both of them love science. The ten-year-old who loves to dress up, who loves to wear pantyhose, for God’s sake, who asked for a lint-roller for Christmas — she loves to do science. She is also a fierce goalie for her soccer team, and she can tell fart jokes with the best of them, and this is because, unlike what the marketers would have you believe, a pretty pink princess has facets.
So, as we’re celebrating this, I’m sort of keeping up with the discussion in the blogosphere. And there’s some discussion going on saying, “Well, OK, heavily gendered science kits: probably problematic. But, maybe we’re doing some pink-bashing here. Maybe we’ve got to make the world safe for pink microscopes, too.”
There was sort of this “click!” in my head when I remembered — oh wait, it’s not just that we live in a culture that says “Girls can’t do science,” and we’ve got to deal with that; or that girls need to be feminine, and we’ve got to deal with that. We live in a culture where we have this idea that scientists need to be a certain way.
So we’ve gone from where I was when I was in school, having teachers tell me, “You can’t do science ’cause you’re a girl,” to now maybe the teachers are saying , “Well, you’re probably not going to be into science because you’re a girly girl.” You can do science, but you’ve got to be one of those girls who thinks the whole femininity thing is not something you want to spend any kind of time with.
And that’s a problem, too.
And I thought back to my misspent scientific youth in a physical chemistry lab, where absolutely the smartest, the best scientist in that lab aside from my PI was a fourth year graduate student who graduated after her fourth year with a ton of publications in the Journal of Physical Chemistry. But people outside of our lab thought she had all kinds of help, or that her work must not be too significant, and the main reason they seemed to think that is ’cause she did her hair, and she wore make up, and she did her nails, and she was kind of a grown up pretty princess. If they had bothered to talk to her about her science, if they had bothered to look inside her notebooks — which, I grant, were kept in loopy script, sometimes in pink ink — they would have seen that she was fiercely intelligent and frighteningly organized in her attack on the research questions that she pursued. She was an astonishingly good scientist, and she was made to feel like an outsider in our scientific community simply because she did femininity.
And we’ve got to cut this out. We have to cut this out.
We not only have to, as a culture, get over the idea that boys have to be a certain way and girls have to be a certain way, and that the certain way girls have to be is not compatible with doing science. We also have to get over the idea that to be a good scientist you have to be a certain kind of person, and that’s not the kind of person who’s going to get his or her nails done.
Because ultimately, the world I want to be in, the world I want for my daughters — for the tomboy and the pretty princess — is one where they can be authentically who they are, and they can love science, and they can pursue science, and it doesn’t matter what else they like.
Thank you.
_____
*At the banquet, I erroneously said “Mad Science.” Ah, the dangers of telling a story without notes!
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Meet St. Marys’ successful scientists of tomorrow
From Derry Journal: Meet St. Marys’ successful scientists of tomorrow
something from a movie.
It’s been played out on the silver screen many times before; an inspirational teacher comes along and instills a love of learning in the minds of those of whom she teaches. What exists between the pupils and their teacher is more of a friendship than forced respect. It endures even after some of the girls leave the school for university.
This is exactly what is happening in St. Mary’s College between Mrs. Blanking and her students.
“Mrs. Blanking is more like a friend than she is a teacher - we all really enjoy her company,” said fifth year pupil, Cara Molloy.
Earlier this month Ann was presented with the Intel Educator of Excellence Award at the Young Scientist of the Year awards in Dublin. Ann is co-ordinator of Key Stage Three Science at the school.
St. Mary’s put seven projects forward and all seven were short listed. Out of 1,743 entries only 550 were selected to take part in the final competition in Dublin.
All seven St. Mary’s science projects made it into the final; two of the projects were highly commended while two other projects were runners-up.
Lavina Blanking, Ann’s grand-daughter was presented with the Irish Medical Board award.
If all of the above wasn’t enough to have everyone back at the Northland Road school jumping with joy, party mode was well and truly initiated when the school was presented with the best overall Northern Ireland school award.
“I was delighted for the girls and the school,” said Ann. “The girls got what they deserved. Their projects were top class - they were some of the best I have ever seen.”
Ann was a late comer to teaching.
After raising three children she decided at the age of 27 to study for a degree and a PGCE (teaching qualification) through the Open University. Her first teaching position was in St. Brigid’s in Claudy when she was 33.
“I don’t think there’s a school in Derry that I haven’t taught in at some stage. If memory serves me I think the only school I have never taught in is Foyle College.
“I started off in Claudy, then St. Brecan’s, I then moved to St. Brigid’s in Carnhill, spent some time at Rosemount PS before teaching in St. Columb’s College,” she recalled.
“I know that I have been teaching for a long time because there’s a girl I’m teaching now at St. Mary’s and I taught her mother when I was a teacher in St. Brecan’s High School. It’s longer than I like to remember,” she laughed.
Ann started up the chemistry club ten years ago and after recent successes she has been inundated with requests to join from other students.
“The Chemistry Club is something that I supervise after school. We meet up every Wednesday and conduct experiments and talk about what kind of things we’d like to do.
“For example, last winter was one of the most severe we have had for a long time. The girls wanted to find out what salt works best when there’s ice on the ground. They discovered using scientific techniques that calcium chloride was better than sodium chloride when withstanding the freezing conditions. It was a remarkable achievement for the girls - it was really practical and it impressed the judges in the Dublin.”
Ann’s students also endeavoured to make a coffee and tea based sun-cream and they also looked at developing a measuring device that would ensure that sick people consume the appropriate dose of antibiotics when they are ill.
Ann’s dedication to her students is unquestionable. She has a real passion for not just science but helping the girls to develop their skills. The fact that two former pupils stay in regular contact with Ann speaks volumes about her standing not just a teacher but as a figure of inspiration.
“One of my former pupils is now in her third year of a psychology degree - she’s been back into the school many times to meet with the current crop of girls and she came to Dublin with me to help me supervise the group.”
Ann praised this year’s batch of science hopefuls for the way the performed and represented the school in Dublin.
“The quality of project on show was staggering this year. All of the girls in the club are totally dedicated to science.
“I joke with the girls sometimes and tell them that they are nerds, they don’t like it but I tell them that nerds are now cool and trendy - we always end up having a really good laugh in class - they are a really good bunch of girls.
“It’s through projects like this that the girls at the school can develop skills that will stay with them with for the rest of their lives. They might have the greatest science project imaginable but unless they are able to articulate that to the judges they might not win - a big part of it is about communication.”
“There’s a great group of girls in the club and it also gives them the chance to meet with students from other schools. The girls are never out of my classroom - I am convinced they like it because it gives them a place to come and eat their lunch,” she laughed.
Ann’s teaching technique is something unique. It’s not something she learned in a text book or was taught - it’s something that she has believed in since she started teaching in 1990.
“I remember when I was teaching at St. Columb’s College a certain teacher walked past my classroom during one of my lessons. He told me afterwards that I should be more quiet and less bombastic and noisy.
“Well, here I am now, over 15 years later and I am still every bit as bombastic and noisy - the girls seem to like it,” she smiled.
“I do this because I enjoy it. I wish I had had the chance to get involved in science when I was at school.
“School was not like it is now when I was younger - it would have been great to have been able to carry out experiments and enter competitions - I think that that’s one of the reasons why science has become so popular.”
Cara Molloy joined the Chemistry Club in 2007 when she was a first year at the school; Cara is now in fifth year and studying for her GCSEs.
“The reason we love the Chemistry Club is because of Mrs. Blanking - she’s great company and she has taught us so much.
“There’s also a real social side to the chemistry club - it’s where we not only get to meet girls from other year groups from St. Mary’s but we also get the chance to meet with people from other schools all over Ireland.”
Cara added: “The project I worked on was the one to do with the coffee and tea based sun cream - it was highly commended during the awards in Dublin. We worked really hard on it and we were delighted with how it turned out.”
Sixteen year-old Maria McHugh joined the Chemistry Club when she was in second year. She’s now in lower-sixth and is studying Step Up Science for A-level.
“Step-up science covers all of the main disciplines of science. I love studying it.
“As Cara said the main reason we all love science so much is because of Mrs. Blanking - she’s a great teacher, we all get on so well.
“We are getting to go to the Braniac Awards in Birmingham soon too so that should be fun. I am really looking forward to it because we have a few good ideas up our sleeves in terms of what project we are going to take with us.
“I’d definitely say that if it wasn’t for Mrs. Blanking I wouldn’t have kept up science. She’s a really inspirational teacher.
“I love science so much that when I leave school I want to be a forensic psychologist.”
As a result of their success at the event in Dublin students from the chemistry club will take part in a national competition in Birmingham next month where they might run into well known television presenter Professor Brian Cox.
“I think all of the girls are looking forward to the Birmingham trip - it’s a big event. There will be schools from all over the United Kingdom there and apparently Professor Brian Cox will be attending also - we might even meet him, who knows?”
As a result of winning the Intel Educator of Excellence award Ann will travel to Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania to attend the Intel Educator Academy in May.
“Unfortunately the girls won’t get to go on this one. It’s all for me. The trip to America is just for me. I am really looking forward to it. I am going to bring back whatever new things I learn so that the girls can benefit from it too. We have high hopes for next year and as I keep saying to the girls if your science project is good enough and you know your stuff I’ll enter it into competitions.”
Science is one of the four S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects. Ann said that many of the girls at St. Mary’s decide to study science because it offers credible job opportunities.
“In terms of the S.T.E.M. area of employment it is seriously under resourced. There are not enough young people coming out of university with qualifications in a S.T.E.M. subject. There are plenty of jobs in the S.T.E.M. areas - I think that this is a major reason why so many young people are taking up S.T.E.M. subjects - it offers them a future.”
something from a movie.
It’s been played out on the silver screen many times before; an inspirational teacher comes along and instills a love of learning in the minds of those of whom she teaches. What exists between the pupils and their teacher is more of a friendship than forced respect. It endures even after some of the girls leave the school for university.
This is exactly what is happening in St. Mary’s College between Mrs. Blanking and her students.
“Mrs. Blanking is more like a friend than she is a teacher - we all really enjoy her company,” said fifth year pupil, Cara Molloy.
Earlier this month Ann was presented with the Intel Educator of Excellence Award at the Young Scientist of the Year awards in Dublin. Ann is co-ordinator of Key Stage Three Science at the school.
St. Mary’s put seven projects forward and all seven were short listed. Out of 1,743 entries only 550 were selected to take part in the final competition in Dublin.
All seven St. Mary’s science projects made it into the final; two of the projects were highly commended while two other projects were runners-up.
Lavina Blanking, Ann’s grand-daughter was presented with the Irish Medical Board award.
If all of the above wasn’t enough to have everyone back at the Northland Road school jumping with joy, party mode was well and truly initiated when the school was presented with the best overall Northern Ireland school award.
“I was delighted for the girls and the school,” said Ann. “The girls got what they deserved. Their projects were top class - they were some of the best I have ever seen.”
Ann was a late comer to teaching.
After raising three children she decided at the age of 27 to study for a degree and a PGCE (teaching qualification) through the Open University. Her first teaching position was in St. Brigid’s in Claudy when she was 33.
“I don’t think there’s a school in Derry that I haven’t taught in at some stage. If memory serves me I think the only school I have never taught in is Foyle College.
“I started off in Claudy, then St. Brecan’s, I then moved to St. Brigid’s in Carnhill, spent some time at Rosemount PS before teaching in St. Columb’s College,” she recalled.
“I know that I have been teaching for a long time because there’s a girl I’m teaching now at St. Mary’s and I taught her mother when I was a teacher in St. Brecan’s High School. It’s longer than I like to remember,” she laughed.
Ann started up the chemistry club ten years ago and after recent successes she has been inundated with requests to join from other students.
“The Chemistry Club is something that I supervise after school. We meet up every Wednesday and conduct experiments and talk about what kind of things we’d like to do.
“For example, last winter was one of the most severe we have had for a long time. The girls wanted to find out what salt works best when there’s ice on the ground. They discovered using scientific techniques that calcium chloride was better than sodium chloride when withstanding the freezing conditions. It was a remarkable achievement for the girls - it was really practical and it impressed the judges in the Dublin.”
Ann’s students also endeavoured to make a coffee and tea based sun-cream and they also looked at developing a measuring device that would ensure that sick people consume the appropriate dose of antibiotics when they are ill.
Ann’s dedication to her students is unquestionable. She has a real passion for not just science but helping the girls to develop their skills. The fact that two former pupils stay in regular contact with Ann speaks volumes about her standing not just a teacher but as a figure of inspiration.
“One of my former pupils is now in her third year of a psychology degree - she’s been back into the school many times to meet with the current crop of girls and she came to Dublin with me to help me supervise the group.”
Ann praised this year’s batch of science hopefuls for the way the performed and represented the school in Dublin.
“The quality of project on show was staggering this year. All of the girls in the club are totally dedicated to science.
“I joke with the girls sometimes and tell them that they are nerds, they don’t like it but I tell them that nerds are now cool and trendy - we always end up having a really good laugh in class - they are a really good bunch of girls.
“It’s through projects like this that the girls at the school can develop skills that will stay with them with for the rest of their lives. They might have the greatest science project imaginable but unless they are able to articulate that to the judges they might not win - a big part of it is about communication.”
“There’s a great group of girls in the club and it also gives them the chance to meet with students from other schools. The girls are never out of my classroom - I am convinced they like it because it gives them a place to come and eat their lunch,” she laughed.
Ann’s teaching technique is something unique. It’s not something she learned in a text book or was taught - it’s something that she has believed in since she started teaching in 1990.
“I remember when I was teaching at St. Columb’s College a certain teacher walked past my classroom during one of my lessons. He told me afterwards that I should be more quiet and less bombastic and noisy.
“Well, here I am now, over 15 years later and I am still every bit as bombastic and noisy - the girls seem to like it,” she smiled.
“I do this because I enjoy it. I wish I had had the chance to get involved in science when I was at school.
“School was not like it is now when I was younger - it would have been great to have been able to carry out experiments and enter competitions - I think that that’s one of the reasons why science has become so popular.”
Cara Molloy joined the Chemistry Club in 2007 when she was a first year at the school; Cara is now in fifth year and studying for her GCSEs.
“The reason we love the Chemistry Club is because of Mrs. Blanking - she’s great company and she has taught us so much.
“There’s also a real social side to the chemistry club - it’s where we not only get to meet girls from other year groups from St. Mary’s but we also get the chance to meet with people from other schools all over Ireland.”
Cara added: “The project I worked on was the one to do with the coffee and tea based sun cream - it was highly commended during the awards in Dublin. We worked really hard on it and we were delighted with how it turned out.”
Sixteen year-old Maria McHugh joined the Chemistry Club when she was in second year. She’s now in lower-sixth and is studying Step Up Science for A-level.
“Step-up science covers all of the main disciplines of science. I love studying it.
“As Cara said the main reason we all love science so much is because of Mrs. Blanking - she’s a great teacher, we all get on so well.
“We are getting to go to the Braniac Awards in Birmingham soon too so that should be fun. I am really looking forward to it because we have a few good ideas up our sleeves in terms of what project we are going to take with us.
“I’d definitely say that if it wasn’t for Mrs. Blanking I wouldn’t have kept up science. She’s a really inspirational teacher.
“I love science so much that when I leave school I want to be a forensic psychologist.”
As a result of their success at the event in Dublin students from the chemistry club will take part in a national competition in Birmingham next month where they might run into well known television presenter Professor Brian Cox.
“I think all of the girls are looking forward to the Birmingham trip - it’s a big event. There will be schools from all over the United Kingdom there and apparently Professor Brian Cox will be attending also - we might even meet him, who knows?”
As a result of winning the Intel Educator of Excellence award Ann will travel to Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania to attend the Intel Educator Academy in May.
“Unfortunately the girls won’t get to go on this one. It’s all for me. The trip to America is just for me. I am really looking forward to it. I am going to bring back whatever new things I learn so that the girls can benefit from it too. We have high hopes for next year and as I keep saying to the girls if your science project is good enough and you know your stuff I’ll enter it into competitions.”
Science is one of the four S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects. Ann said that many of the girls at St. Mary’s decide to study science because it offers credible job opportunities.
“In terms of the S.T.E.M. area of employment it is seriously under resourced. There are not enough young people coming out of university with qualifications in a S.T.E.M. subject. There are plenty of jobs in the S.T.E.M. areas - I think that this is a major reason why so many young people are taking up S.T.E.M. subjects - it offers them a future.”
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