Category: Grad School

The Final Countdown (Part I) The Blog

Well Wisconsin, here we are. Stranded in the middle of another midwest winter, staring down my last semester of grad school. Yes, the last semester. It’s the final countdown people. Just 16 weeks stand between me and my Master’s degree. Two years ago when I decided to pack up and leave behind everyone I knew to chase this crazy science writing dream across the country it felt like I was facing a mountain of a task. But day by day, my time in Wisconsin has chipped away, leaving me asking… how did I get here?

Now that that’s over, back to talking about grad school. I’ve decided to run a series of posts this semester, under the title The Final Countdown to reflect on this experience. As I head toward graduation, and the conclusion of my life in Madison, I want to take the time to pull it all apart and examine the good and the bad. Today, I want to do some thinking about Science Decoded, and what having a blog to chronicle this time has meant to me. Each month I hope to talk about something different, leading up to graduation in May.
This blog started when I made my move to Wisconsin and has played an integral role in my life here. It is my distraction when I’m bored, my place to publish my work, share what I’ve learned, and on multiple occasions served as a class assignment. Science Decoded was recently featured in Scientific American’s Incubator blog (along with many more distinguished clips from my colleagues here at UW!) and it really got me thinking about how important this blog has become to me. One of the best things about the Internet is being able to carve out your own little piece, to share what you think is important, to have a voice.
I’ve always wanted Science Decoded to be a place where people just have access to scientific ideas that aren’t complicated and pompous, because science itself isn’t highfalutin. I’ve always found the beauty in science to be its simplicity, but that can get lost so quickly. A good friend recently told me that what he liked about this blog was that I write the way I talk. I had been wondering if I should change the tone I use on here to something more professional, since it has been getting a higher profile lately, but my friend’s comment inspired me to keep things the way they are. He told me that he likes the way I lure people in with anecdotes and asides about what I think about each topic, with a generally innocent tone but in the end smack you with the point.
That description made me laugh, but I was also relieved to know that I do get the point across (or at least in there, somewhere). Everything I write on here does have a purpose, even the polar bear posts, and I was worried that the reason behind each post was getting lost. But, all I’ve ever wanted was to get people thinking, and if I’m doing that, then I’m happy with what this blog has become.
I’d love to know what more people think about this blog. I’ve said over and over that I have no idea who reads this or why, but I’d love to find out. If there are things I could do differently, if there are things I can keep doing — let me know! Regardless, I intend to keep blogging. I know I was slacking during the month I was in New Jersey for the holidays (but honestly, it was a crazy time). That doesn’t mean I’ve given up on Science Decoded or that even when grad school ends I’ll throw in the towel. This blog means far more to me than just a class assignment. Now that I’ve carved my corner out in the Internet, I have no intention of giving it up.

Science For Six-Year-Olds: The Butter Experiment

This semester I took a multimedia journalism class, and decided that it would be great to get my blogging buddies from Mrs. Podolak’s first grade class involved in my work. So, I paid a visit to their classroom to document just what goes on during a science experiment, and what makes science in the classroom so important, even for the primary grades.
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From Liquid to Solid, First Graders Learn The States of Matter
 
In the elementary school classroom science lessons showcase the ability to engage students through different types of learning.
 
The first grade students at Lincoln-Hubbard Elementary School in Summit, NJ are optimizing their opportunities to learn by participating in a hands-on educational experience. If you ask them though they will tell you they are having a fun, and tasty, time. The students are learning the states of matter by making, and then sampling, butter to exemplify the transition from a liquid to a solid. Science is a core subject for students at all levels, but it holds special significance for students in the primary grades. 
 
“Starting at the primary level, teachers are immersing their students in the scientific process and encouraging their role as scientists,” says Matt Carlin, Principal, Lincoln-Hubbard Elementary School. “As scientists, students develop an understanding of the elements and relationships in the natural world. They engage in observations, form a hypothesis, and test through experimentation to arrive at a conclusion. These experiences are invaluable at the primary level because they establish a foundation of learning that will develop through a child’s academic career, and in many cases beyond as they enter the work force.”
 
According to Carlin, the basis for any curriculum design is to provide students with a learning experience that is both meaningful and engaging. Carlin cites Howard Gardner’s 1983 theory of multiple intelligences, which states that there are various aspects of intelligence, to explain why for some primary students, science lessons are particularly useful. Gardner’s theory includes the naturalistic learner, a student who feels a greater sense of connectedness and understanding with the environment. Carlin says this is an area of strength for some students that can be optimized during scientific experimentation.
 
“A hands-on approach to science instruction immerses our students in the role of being a scientist and also attends to the different learning styles and preferences that are so highly evident in our classrooms,” says Carlin.
 
The inherent hands-on nature of science experimentation has known benefits for young students. For well over a decade educators have been tying knowledge of childhood brain development into educational practices to create learning environments that are optimized for each level of schooling. According to Kenneth Frattini, Vice Principal of Milburn Middle School and former elementary curriculum facilitator, the hands-on nature of scientific inquiry and experimentation is precisely what children at the elementary level need to help improve their absorption of information.
 
“Children have an enormous and natural curiosity regarding the world around them. In educational terms; students who have learning experiences through experimentation and self-discovery appear to retain and apply more information,” says Frattini.
 
In Susan Podolak’s first grade classroom at Lincoln-Hubbard, it can be surprising just how much complex information primary students can understand. In their liquid to solid experiment the children were able to grasp that on the molecular level there are “air bubbles” that help cream keep its form as a liquid. When these air bubbles are removed, in the case of their experiment by shaking the cream, the liquid will change states and transform into a solid.
 
This complex idea was still approachable for six-year-old students due to what Principal Carlin describes as the student’s ability to figure things out on their own, within the confines of the right curriculum. Appealing to different types of learner, and reinforcing information through hands-on experiences aren’t the only things science lessons have to offer primary students. According to Carlin, science lessons also have value for primary students because they make learning fun.
 
“In all likelihood, these are the experiences that students will retain, transfer, and use in future learning situations,” says Carlin. 

My First Video Shoot

I am working on my last project for my integrated media and storytelling class, which is going to be an iMovie, with some added pictures and audio. Today I went and shot the video and pictures, and I just wanted to share a few of the things I learned along the way. I’ll be posting the finished project once I get it all edited (I promised my subjects I’d put it up here) so stay tuned, but in the meantime:

  • It is harder than you’d think to make sure you aren’t cutting off a subject’s head in your shot
  • I drink too much coffee to hold a camera steady
  • Sometimes the B Roll contains the real gems
  • People are comfortable in a group, but get them alone and they can freeze up
  • Fluorescent lighting is no one’s friend
  • A rolling desk chair can be a fun, and useful prop
  • I still hate how my voice sounds when it is being recorded
  • The smaller the camera, the less people realize you are shooting them
  • Sometimes getting the shot means getting down on the floor, or up on a table
  • I’m really tall, I’m really nice, I give good hugs, and I’m like totally old enough to have a husband by now. (My subjects might have been more interested in me than the science, but the interviews were great!)

Now here’s a little hint about what shooting my last project entailed, and what my topic will be:

I love my blogging buddies!

Captive Breeding and Mummification?

As I’ve mentioned before I am taking a class this semester about the extinction of species. One of the topics we recently covered (and I recently got a crash course in for the midterm) is captive breeding. Captive breeding is a conservation strategy in which animals are captured and held in a protected area, where they are then bred to another specific animal of their species to optimize the production and survival of their offspring. I just assumed that this was a more recent (meaning within the last century) trend in conservation efforts, but then I saw this BBC article about the effects of sacrifice and mummification on Egyptian species, and realized how wrong I was.

Mummified monkey in Cairo. Source:
Wikimedia Commons.

The ancient Egyptians would often mummify animals to be included in a person’s tomb as a sacrifice to follow the dead into the afterlife to provide company and serve as an offering to the gods. However, according to the article by Jane O’Brien, the Egyptians had favorite species that they chose to mummify. They sacrificed these animals so much that they put these species in danger of extinction. Thus, to keep up with demand captive breeding was needed to keep the number of available animals high.

Experts, like Selima Ikram a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo who was quoted in the BBC article, believe that at least one bird species (the Sacred Ibis) was so popular for mummification that it was driven close to extinction. Other animals that were popular for mummification were dogs, cats, hawks, falcons, and baboons, although Ikram was quoted saying:

“Its easier to say which animals the Egyptians didn’t mummify. There are no mummified pigs as far as we know, no mummified hippos, and I think thats about it – because almost every other creature at some time or another has been mummified.” 

According to the article, when the animals most sought after for mummification started to become rare in the wild, breeding programs were launched by temples (the animals were often seen as sacred or representations of the gods) and the nearby villages. Evidence of these programs shows them in place as early as 3,000BC with the height of captive breeding at 650BC-200AD.

I liked this article because it provided a little bit of context about why animals would have been slaughtered for sacrifice in such great numbers. If you just look at the fact that so many animals were killed, it seems like the Egyptians were being selfish, putting human desires (not even needs) above all these animals. However, you have to look at their religion, and how they viewed the animals. Ikram says that the Egyptians would have viewed sacrificing the animals as a great honor for the animals, because they were so revered. The focus was on life, and continuing the animals’ existence in the afterlife, not on death or killing them. I think this bit of context is a really important part of the story and I’m glad it was included in the BBC article. Captive breeding by the Ancient Egyptians… who knew?
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Just want to note that the BBC piece was a plug for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History’s new exhibit of mummified animals. Haven’t seen it and can’t endorse it, but it looks like it might be pretty cool to check out if you are in the DC area. 

Covering The Wisconsin Science Festival

In my integrated media and storytelling class this semester our first project was to cover an event using pictures and audio, and combine it into a slideshow. I chose the first Wisconsin Science Festival at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.

I had some upload problems trying to convert from a SoundSlides project into something uploadable but I finally got there. I edited the pictures in Photoshop and iPhoto, and edited the audio using Audacity. I lost a lot of photo quality in the conversion, but please watch and let me know what you think. This was my first foray into multi-media so any feedback would be much appreciated.