By: Cynthia, Gina | November 23 2009 | Category: Issues in Education, Science News
NLD connects teachers, students, scientists and community volunteers for hands-on learning. (See White House release.)
U.S. students will now have more chances to do what comes naturally -ask questions, explore, and test life's boundaries to better understand their world when President Obama announces a National Lab Day today.
The first NLD, scheduled for May, 2010, will celebrate community hubs - collaborations among volunteers, students and educators. But it doesn't end there. NLD is a nationwide initiative to build new and foster ongoing hubs for the long-term. Through these hubs, students can design, build, experiment, and explore in a real laboratory.
What is a real laboratory? It's any place a student can explore, experiment, and test. We're not just talking about test tubes and beakers. A lab could be a laptop to a software designer, a mountaintop to a geologist, a computer link to a distant particle accelerator to a physicist, or a factory floor to an industrial engineer. It's a place where lessons in science, engineering, and technology can be designed to happen, or where math can come alive. It could be anywhere in the physical or virtual world.
The NLD Website will support hands-on learning across the country by serving as a place where educators and scientists will be able to connect to potential partners in their area and to find out what is happening around the country. The site will also help them find resources to support, improve, and streamline their efforts.
In April '09 President Obama said "I want us all to think about new and creative ways to engage young people in science and engineering, whether it's science festivals, robotics competitions, fairs that encourage young people to create and build and invent -- to be makers of things, not just consumers of things." NLD does just that.
By: Cynthia | November 16 2009 | Category: Science and the Arts
Artist Luke Jerram creates glass sculptures of deadly viruses.
Search the Web for images of a virus, and you’ll see many colorful versions. So what is the real color of the swine flu virus? Honestly, I don’t know. Does it really matter? Well, maybe ... if the artist’s rendition “colors” our understanding of how a virus really works.
These are the types of questions colorblind UK artist Luke Jerramasked when he created a series of transparent glass sculptures modeled after viruses. He wondered how a person could tell the difference between an image colored for scientific versus aesthetic reasons, and how color affects the reception of an image. He also saw the project as way to explore the global impact of diseases these viruses cause.
Right now, the sculptures are on display at Mori Museum, Tokyo. In January 2010, they will be at the Courtauld Institute, London.
A slideshow of Jerram’s sculpturesincludes models of the HIV, swine flu, and smallpox viruses. While looking at these beautiful images, you might easily forget what they represent – viruses that can make you ill or kill you.
By: Cynthia | November 13 2009 | Category: NIH Resources, Scientists in the Community
SciLife is an annual college- and career-planning program for high school students and their parents. It’s sponsored by the NIH, Office of Science Education, and Washington, D.C. area education leaders.
SciLife program planners, including me, believe this year’s program was better than ever. Nearly 300 students and their parents joined us on the NIH campus, October 24th.
A highlight of the day was Dr. Lonise Bias’s tear-inducing keynote address. She is an internationally known motivational speaker and the founder of The Abundant Life Resources A More Excellent Way LLC, a community service resource. “Our youth are reachable, teachable, lovable, and savable,” said Bias.
Bias also shared her story of how the deaths of her two sons propelled her into action and service. Her son Len died in 1986 of cocaine intoxication, two days after being drafted by the Boston Celtics. Four years later, her son Jay became the victim of a drive-by shooting at a shopping mall.
Each year, our SciLife team strives to improve the program by heeding the advice and suggestions of participating students and parents. Now in it’s fourth year, our efforts are paying off. (See previous SciLife blog.)
This year’s event gets high scores because
of an improved registration process, resulting in fewer phone calls to the office
program check-in was smoother and less harried than in previous years
the simple schedule allowed participants to get their preferred workshops
We have a couple of plans to tweak the program further. First, we are doing a thorough evaluation of the program this time. Second, we started a SciLife teen advisory board to help us plan the 2010 program. We hope these measures will take the program to even greater heights of success.
By: Bradie | November 6 2009 | Category: Issues in Education
A large majority of Americans -- 76%-- believe that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education is very important for the nation's competitiveness and its future economic prosperity. Another 21% believe it’s somewhat important.
A solid 92% of Americans think that research is important to the U.S. economy, and 88% believe that scientific research is important for job creation and incomes.
Those statistics were part of a "Your Congress Your Health" survey completed this past June for Research!America by Charlton Research Company. Research!America is a nonprofit alliance for health-research support.
It is into this seemingly aware public marketplace that “Making the Connection,” a report by the Massachusetts Graduation and Dropout Prevention and Recovery Commission, has just been released.
Can this commissioners’ report generate the energy to get the money, secure the cooperation from education stakeholders, and, most important, garner the public’s support needed to cut the State’s dropout rate of 10,000 students per year in half in the next five years?
People attending the Commission’s public meetings over the past year continually expressed their doubts that the necessary funding for an effort of this size would be available.
Reports similar to “Making the Connection,” with its focus on cutting dramatically the number of student dropouts, are, in one model form or another, being prepared now in nearly every state in the country. Will this focus on student dropout rates lead to significantly stronger STEM education initiatives? Only time will tell.
The Massachusetts report highlights the cost to society of dropouts. For instance, they make up the majority (70%) of jail and prison populations in the state. The U.S. Department of Justice statistics put the annual cost of maintaining one prisoner at about $35,000 per year. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that the average cost of maintaining a student in public school is about $9,600 per year.
The report also makes the point that over a lifetime, the average high school dropout in Massachusetts will impose a net fiscal burden of over $118,000 in cash and other benefits -- such as food stamps, healthcare, and childcare subsidies -- on State and Federal taxpayers.
The Alliance for Excellent Educationhas found that over the course of his or her lifetime, a high school dropout will earn, on average, about $260,000 less than a high school graduate. In comparison, the average high school graduate will contribute $319,000 more in paid taxes than he or she will receive from State and Federal governments in the form of subsidies.
Questions for today:
What can educators and public officials at the community level do to reinforce the public's strong belief in the importance of STEM education and research to gro wing America's competitiveness and eco nomy?
What can teachers do to help students and parents understand the importance of STEM education and research to America's position in global competitiveness and the strength of its economy?
On Oct. 5, 2007, three American researchers -- Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, and Jack W. Szostak -- were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This marks a milestone because it’s the first time two women have shared a Nobel prize. In a recent online interview, Blackburn said the honor for her and Greider is “a hopeful sign” for women. In the future, she said, people will say, “Oh yes, it’s not too unusual to have women getting Nobel prizes. Two got one this year. I hope it becomes very normal.” You can listen to the scientists’ reactions to The Call announcing their award at the Nobel Web site.
Their story begins with chromosomes, the giant complexes of DNA and proteins found in our cells. When cells divide, they make a copy of each chromosome, so the daughter cell receives a full complement of DNA. The enzymes that control this process can’t quite copy the chromosome all the way to the end, so a little bit of the chromosome is lost every time a cell divides. Enter the telomere and our Nobelists’ research.
Telomeres are short regions of repetitive DNA that sit at the ends of chromosomes but don’t encode any genes. When a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter, not the business part of the chromosomes. With each cell division, the telomeres get shorter. Scientists believe that this telomere shortening is in part responsible for the limited lifespan of most cells. However, some cells, including stem cells that live for the life of an organism, can replace telomeres through the action of the enzyme telomerase.
Telomerase is turned off in most cells, but it’s reactivated in many cancer cells. This allows the cancer cells to replicate many more times than normal. This has opened the possibility of treating cancer by zeroing in on telomerase. Clinical trials are under way to evaluate vaccines directed against cells with elevated telomerase activity.
The Nobelists’ research also opens up a wide range of investigations into the roles that telomeres and telomerase play in aging. This is because as we age, more and more of our cells have shortened telomeres. Some cells with short telomeres die while others “senesce,’ which means they remain in place but can’t divide and have reduced functional capacity. If we have too many senescent cells, normal processes are less efficient, and repairing even minor damage becomes difficult.
By: Gina | October 29 2009 | Category: Science Lite, Scientists in the Community, Tidbits for Teachers
Like I said, I get bored easily. After a while, I got tired of investigating things that my boss wanted to study and wanted to try out some new ideas of my own. That meant I needed my own lab, which in turn meant I needed my own faculty position at a university. Getting one of those is not as easy as it sounds, but I worked hard and succeeded.
Great! Now all I needed was money. To get that, I needed to write a grant. Who would have thought that I would have to be a good writer to be a scientist? Between writing articles for scientific journals and applying for grants, I spent a lot of my time writing. Worse yet, my research involved doing experiments with mice and collecting blood from people. Both require special approval. I did lots of paper work to explain why it made scientific sense to study mice and collect human blood. I had to show how I was going to minimize any possible distress for the mice and protect the health and privacy of my human volunteers. As a new kid on the block, it was all pretty overwhelming, but I survived and got my lab going.
Of course, professors teach, too, so I spent a lot of my time doing that. I taught undergraduate and graduate courses and had students and postdocs in my lab doing research. In the summer, I even worked with some high school students. One fun thing about being a scientist is meeting people from all over the world. I had people from India, Iran, Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Serbia, and China working in my lab. I worked with other faculty from Nigeria, Romania, Germany, Canada, and Brazil, among others. Today, my three closest friends are a German, a Bulgarian, and an American.
There is a third part of being a university professor, but more about that next time.
By: Gina | October 28 2009 | Category: Science Lite, Scientists in the Community, Tidbits for Teachers
When it came time to leave my fellowship, I was still crazy about doing experiments in the laboratory. To keep doing lab work, I could choose between an industry and a university lab. (I didn’t know it at the time, but I could have considered one of the many government labs, too.) I decided on an academic job because, frankly, I still liked being able to play basketball in the middle of the day. I found a job working in a lab with a professor who was studying how genes get turned on and off. Oops! Did I change research areas again? Well, I get bored easily!
One of my best friends who also loved working in the lab took a job in industry. No more midday sports, but he had kids and wanted to work regular hours. It was perfect for him. Besides, industry usually pays better than academia.
Another friend still loved science but just didn’t want to work in a laboratory any more. She got a job in a university office that helps scientists patent and commercialize their discoveries. Her job was to work with the lawyers in the office to help them better understand the science behind the products and devices they were helping commercialize.
While I was looking for my job, I heard from a friend from my old theoretical chemistry days. He had become a full-time musician. He was applying all his computer skills to making electronic music.
Whew! We all got jobs, said our goodbyes, and moved to Seattle, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Boston.
NLD connects teachers, students, scientists and community volunteers for hands-on learning. (See White House release.)
will support hands-on learning across the country by serving as a place where educators and scientists will be able to connect to potential partners in their area and to find out what is happening around the country. The site will also help them find resources to support, improve, and streamline their efforts.
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Artist Luke Jerram creates glass sculptures of deadly viruses.
A large majority of Americans -- 76%-- believe that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education is very important for the nation's competitiveness and its future economic prosperity. Another 21% believe it’s somewhat important.
On Oct. 5, 2007, three American researchers -- Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, and Jack W. Szostak -- were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This marks a milestone because it’s the first time two women have shared a Nobel prize. In a recent online interview, Blackburn said the honor for her and Greider is “a hopeful sign” for women. In the future, she said, people will say, “Oh yes, it’s not too unusual to have women getting Nobel prizes. Two got one this year. I hope it becomes very normal.” You can listen to the scientists’ reactions to The Call announcing their award at the Nobel Web site. 
Like I said, I get bored easily. After a while, I got tired of investigating things that my boss wanted to study and wanted to try out some new ideas of my own. That meant I needed my own lab, which in turn meant I needed my own faculty position at a university. Getting one of those is not as easy as it sounds, but I worked hard and succeeded.
When it came time to leave my fellowship, I was still crazy about doing experiments in the laboratory. To keep doing lab work, I could choose between an industry and a university lab. (I didn’t know it at the time, but I could have considered one of the many government labs, too.) I decided on an academic job because, frankly, I still liked being able to play basketball in the middle of the day. I found a job working in a lab with a professor who was studying how genes get turned on and off. Oops! Did I change research areas again? Well, I get bored easily!
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