Rays, BioKIDS, moon rocks and blithering

— Poor rays just get no respect. I had no idea there were so many of them.

Days after a group of dead rays was found in Ponce Inlet, researchers at the University of Florida were still working to nail down the exact species.

“Unless you have the experience, it takes a while,” said Ray Davis, a consultant who assisted with the recent identification effort.

The rather nondescript animals generally don’t capture the interest of the public or scientists.

You can learn a lot about these cool critters at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

— How much science is going on in your local elementary schools? And is it high quality? Should we ask more of young kids? This blog post at Education Week links to a good story on this important subject.

It’s about efforts by a University of Michigan researcher to cultivate “complex scientific-reasoning” skills in young, urban students. That researcher, Nancy Butler Songer, is challenging elementary students in Detroit not only to understand basic science facts and concepts, but also to understand what science is and what scientists actually do. That means that she and the teachers she works with in 22 Detroit schools ask elementary schools to formulate scientific arguments based on evidence, to make claims, to provide reasoning.

You should also check out the BioKIDS website. There are a lot of good resources there.

— AVON PARK – Exciting things are happening at Park Elementary School. Rocks from the moon are coming to the school as well as meteorites from Mars.

— Best quote of the week so far: “We have kept it under wraps because you can’t blither about something until you understand it. We now understand it. It is going to advance our knowledge of evolution.”