— First of all, anyone know what this site is saying about our Stick Science Contest? I ran it through Google translator, but still couldn’t figure it out.
— Here’s a sad story about nature doing its thing, no matter what we humans do about it.
— Now here is a quote that ought to make many a science teacher shake his or her head: “I like actually doing science,” 13-year-old Tavonna Bell said. “We don’t really do it in school.”
— For those who’ve been waiting for the ultimate patience sport, try the Tour de Turtles. Here’s the official website. Actually, it’s a cute and cool way to get the public involved in science and conservation.
— Florida science teacher Wendy Shelden is one of only 100 nationwide to win the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering. “It’s overwhelming that a little, insignificant teacher like me is going to meet the president.”
— YMCA Junior Marine Biology Summer Camp offers youngsters ages 10 to 15 a unique learning experience through hands-on exploration of Florida’s marine life, ecology, coastal sciences and the environment.
— The SciGirls program gets quite a bit of good press. Here’s the latest story.
“With girls, middle school is where we lose girls in science. They don’t take the necessary classes and by the time they finish they are already behind,” Hughes said. “This program shows them they can do it, it’s just a matter of preparation and realizing they can do it at a young age.”
— We’ve run across Mr. Kemple before during our fight over evolution in the science standards. He’s back. Evolution opponent says church-state separation is ‘lie’.
— Tallahassee’s Resident Astronaut says kids are not as interested in math and science as they once were.
Well, I don’t speak Russian. However, this appears to be the only real paragraph about Florida Citizens for Science that Google (mostly) translated for me.
That provides most of the context. Russian speakers are more than welcome to correct this likely botched machine translation.
I responded to Mr Kemple’s statements in the Tampa Tribune.
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/jul/23/na-big-leap-of-faith/
Very nice, Jonathan. But I fear that using the word “zeitgeist” isn’t going to change many of the minds you’re trying to reach.
Yea PH, my girl friend has already called me out on that, my bad !!!!!
You asked about what they are sying?
It is a Russian news site, section “Progress” of it.
They’re saying that most people think that scientists are very dull guys and it is always hard to understand what they’re saiyng (then there are couple of exmples of complicated scientific text, really hard to get what it is about because of many specific words).
Then they’re saying that that such comlicated communication occurs because scientists got used to think using terms. That usual men gave up trying to understand what some scientific news are about and the only thing that most people do is listening to the media news, trying to describe scientific discoveries. The journalists sometimes can hardly understand anything themselves, this why almost every day there are dozens of “scientific” breakthroughs.
Scientists try to tell the people what they are doing and what they’ve achieved by making short films. There was contest, organized by The Scientist magazine, which ended on Tuesday. The first prize went to the film (and there is a link to the film).
Some films weren’t aimed to tell about any specific discovery, just to show the beauty of the science world (new link to the film).
Some scientists used the dance to show what they’re doing. The next film is about the role of vitamin D in beta-cells (new link).
Some scientists also use caricatures for communication. By the end of June a Stick Science contest on scientific caricatures ended up in Florida. The carucatures aimed to blast some typical mistakes of average men. The only strict rule of the contest was to use a stick-and-circle man in the caricatures. One of the winners caricature is on the right (below the picture there are words “Gravitation theory. Picture from the contest organizator blog. Click to enlarge”).
Above described proves that scientists can be good not only in their work, but also in creation, like mathematic Lous Carrol, Arthur Clark’s fantasy books, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpieces. Many Russian science-fiction authors come from science institutes, many of them still work there (for example, Kirill Eskov (link)).
So you shouldn’t think that the scientists are that boring.
This is not a word for word translation, but just the main points. Hope it helps ))) and “Hi!” from Russia! )))
Thanks, Maria.
Yes … thanks, Maria! We’ve been getting quite a bit of traffic from that article, so it’s nice to see that it’s a generally positive one.
Maria, “Spasiba “