{"id":1034,"date":"2009-05-12T23:15:29","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T03:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1034"},"modified":"2009-06-27T13:38:38","modified_gmt":"2009-06-27T17:38:38","slug":"rays-biokids-moon-rocks-and-blithering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1034","title":{"rendered":"Rays, BioKIDS, moon rocks and blithering"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>— Poor rays just get no respect<\/a>. I had no idea there were so many of them.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“Unless you have the experience, it takes a while,” said Ray Davis, a consultant who assisted with the recent identification effort.<\/p>\n

The rather nondescript animals generally don’t capture the interest of the public or scientists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can learn a lot about these cool critters at the Florida Museum of Natural History<\/a>.<\/p>\n

— 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<\/a> links to a good story on this important subject.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about efforts by a University of Michigan researcher to cultivate \u00e2\u20ac\u0153complex scientific-reasoning\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You should also check out the BioKIDS website<\/a>. There are a lot of good resources there.<\/p>\n

— AVON PARK – Exciting things are happening<\/a> at Park Elementary School. Rocks from the moon are coming to the school as well as meteorites from Mars.<\/p>\n

— Best quote of the week<\/a> 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.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

— 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-gG","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":269,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=269","url_meta":{"origin":1034,"position":0},"title":"Everything I needed to know about physics I learned from Hollywood","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"No, not really. But that does seem to be the case for many people. Of course, there are plenty of areas where audiences can draw a clear line between entertainment and reality. Superman shooting heat rays from his eyes? I think everyone would agree that is fantasy. But there is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "On the Web"","block_context":{"text":"On the Web","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":929,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=929","url_meta":{"origin":1034,"position":1},"title":"Brain found in Kansas","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"No, that's not a Kansas joke. Oldest fossilized brain ever is uncovered in Kansas: The fossil was from an iniopterygian, an ancient extinct fish that is a relative of sharks, rays and ratfish. What surprised researchers even further is that it showed a brain similar to that of modern-day shark.","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=929#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3541,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3541","url_meta":{"origin":1034,"position":2},"title":"Why isn\u2019t Florida government making science education a priority?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 13, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"An op-ed I wrote was published in today's Orlando Sentinel. Press releases issued by the Florida Department of Education are always overflowing with good news. Everything is great. Student performance is always trending upward. Our state government is doing everything right when it comes to education. But the it\u2019s-always-sunny-in-Florida mantra\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":825,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=825","url_meta":{"origin":1034,"position":3},"title":"Scientific American","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow, Scientific American's January issue is awesome. It's an issue devoted to evolution. One of the several articles in there is The Latest Face of Creationism in the Classroom. Florida gets a number of mentions in there. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Academic freedom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was the creationist catchphrase of choice in 2008: the Louisiana Science\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 8 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 8 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=825#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":161,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=161","url_meta":{"origin":1034,"position":4},"title":"Florida math-science education research","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We here at Florida Citizens for Science have been following this fairly closely. We were actually rooting for another university to get the one year grant, but you certainly can't always win when politics are involved. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A Nobel laureate will head a new state center that Gov.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":290,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=290","url_meta":{"origin":1034,"position":5},"title":"Dinosaur Month","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently, it's Dinosaur Month! This newspaper has a good list of places in Florida participating in some way. My favorites: The Florida Museum of Natural History: Just in time for Dinosaur Month, the museum has opened \"The Hall of Florida Fossils: Evolution of Life and Land.\" The exhibit will feature\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}