All posts by erin

Science For Six-Year-Olds: The Butter Experiment

First Grade, Grad School, Science For Six Year Olds, Videos

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. 

Goodbye Western Black Rhino: A Conservation Failure

Conservation

Over the summer I posted about the recovery of the Arabian Oryx and how refreshing it was to see a conservation success story. Since then I started studying conservation biology, in particular the extinction of species in one of my classes this semester. While it was great to be able to talk about conservation in positive terms with the oryx, we are once again confronted with the loss of a species to extinction. A subspecies of Black Rhinoceros, the Western Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis longipes) was declared extinct in early November, having last been seen in the wild in 2006.

A Black Rhino in Africa’s Ngorongo Crater.
Source: Wikimedia Commons/Flikr:farmgirl

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, the Black Rhino (overall) was first listed as endangered in 1986, it has remained on the list transitioning to critically endangered in 1996. Various rhinoceros species are threatened by poaching because their horns are extremely valuable for ornamental reasons, in addition to its use in traditional Chinese medicine. Demand for rhino horn, compounded by the rarity of the animal and upheaval in its native range has caused the cost to increase on the black market. 

The latest update to the IUCN’s Red List shows that 25% of mammals are at risk of extinction. Though the Western Black Rhino is already lost, there are other species of rhino that are also facing extinction including the Northern White Rhino (which may already be extinct in the wild,) and the Javan Rhino. In a statement chair of the IUCN species survival commission, Simon Stuart said:

“In the case of the western black rhino and the northern white rhino the situation could have had very different results if the suggested conservation measures had been implemented. These measures must be strengthened now, specifically managing habitats in order to improve performance and prevent other rhinos from facing extinction.” 

In my extinction of species class we’ve been talking a lot about what motivates people to undertake conservation efforts. I would have thought that a species as charismatic as the rhino would have garnered a lot of public support either through funds or volunteers to implement the necessary conservation measures. Losing large mammals like rhinos should in my mind be a wake up call for everyone that we need to take conservation seriously or we will lose these species. However, I see a problem in the fact that what we lost with the Western Black Rhino was a subspecies of Black Rhino. I feel like people can look at that fact and think, well we’ve got other rhinos so its not such a big deal.

I’ve been thinking about conservation a lot in the last few months, but unfortunately I think I still have more questions than answers. One of the biggest issues that I’ve been struggling with is responsibility. Who should be responsible for species conservation? Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) seem to be the most effective, but there are so many factors that have to be reconciled including making sure that people in the countries where the species we want to protect live aren’t detrimentally impacted by conservation efforts.

The successful recovery of the Arabian Oryx and the loss of the Western Black Rhino can both serve as a reminder that Earth’s biodiversity isn’t stagnant. Human activities have a direct impact for better or for worse, and no matter what type of management is undertaken or policy put into place everything we do will have some kind of outcome.

Making Bone With An Ink Jet Printer. Well…Bone-ish.

BioTechnology, Headline Makers, New Research

Reading the headline, “Engineers Pioneer Use of 3D Printer To Create New Bones” from the BBC I can’t help but imagine your standard ink jet spitting out layers of human bone until you come up with a whole femur. In case you aren’t familiar with 3D cell printing, let me be the one to tell you that isn’t the case. I think the BBC‘s headline leaves out a crucial piece of information: what the printer in question creates is a scaffold of bone-like material.

The research in the article was conducted at Washington State University, and I find their PR headline “3D Printer Used To Make Bone-like Material” more specific. I think 3D printing, tinkering with a printer so that it can make different kinds of biomaterials, is interesting in its own right. I’m okay with the fact that the material being made is only bone-ish and not really bone. Although and argument could be made for the BBC’s headline… which I’ll explain later.

Printing the bone scaffold via WSU

Here is the research rundown: led by Susmita Bose, professor of mechanical and materials engineering, WSU researchers used a 3D printer to to create a scaffold of calcium phosphate, silicon and zinc. When paired with actual bone, this scaffold provides a structure for new bone to grow on, to specifically manufacture the desired bone. The scaffold dissolves with no reported adverse effects, according to the researchers’ in vitro tests in rats and rabbits.

Described in the journal Dental Materials, (according to the PR*) the printer works by having the inkjet spray a plastic binder over a layer of the calcium phosphate, silicon and zinc powder in very thin layers (about 20 microns, comparable to the width of a human hair). A computer directs the printer to create the scaffold in the desired shape and size. The researchers found that after a week in a medium containing immature human bone cells, the scaffold was able to support new bone cell growth. According to the researchers, the material is likely most suitable for low load bearing (so, not a femur) and could be available for human use in a few years time.

So back to the BBC’s headline about the 3D printer creating new bone. Ultimately, that is what happens. New bone is grown around the scaffold, so the end product is real human bone. However, the printer is not itself printing bone. In my humble opinion, that doesn’t make this research any less cool. While the BBC‘s headline wasn’t itself inaccurate, I think it leaves a lot of wiggle room for assumptions (or at least imaginations like mine getting carried away with themselves) and accuracy is the end all and be all of science stories, isn’t it? Something like “3D Printer Creates Scaffold For New Bone Growth” isn’t as pretty as either headline used, but I think it would get to the heart of what this story is a little bit better.

For more information about the technology check out this video from WSU’s press page:
*I am typically loathe to post about a paper that I haven’t at least looked at the abstract, but I cannot find this paper online anywhere. If someone has a link, that would be awesome. 

My First Video Shoot

First Grade, Grad School, Interviewing, My Personal Life, Videos

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?

Conservation, Grad School, Science History

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.