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GeekNights 20101101 - Science Education
Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss with our resident scientist Peter Olsen many aspects of science education. In the news, Facebook's new stalker feature is nothing scary compared to real threats like Firesheep, and Google is suing the US Government for unfair bid practices favoring Microsoft.
- Rym's Thing - Tunnels of Salem
- Scott's Thing - Best Slot Car Track Ever
- Pete's Thing - Crazy Reasons to Drink Raw Milk
Comments
The Internet? Fucking Miracles.
Something to do with magnets, I think...
If you are concerned about Thing of the Day links working in the future, how about linking direct to the content you want to share? The slot car track link took me to a blog that links to a NYT article, and only there could I see the video, and the Tunnels linked to Fark which then opened a new tab when I found almost nothing there.
A survey of old links to Fark (which I often use) showed me that it's pretty rare for the original articles to still be accessible. Link rot was a problem of the 90s that is re-emerging.
If link rot is a REAL problem, make a copy of every thing of the day, and link to this cache if the original disappears. Meanwhile, why make me jump through more hoops to get to the good stuff?
Here's my question, mostly to the younger listeners out there: if you've had any science classes, do you agree with my assessment of the way that science is taught? What is your experience?
I find that most people only see the body of facts and fail to grasp the actual implementation of scientific principles on the whole. I think, in part, that a far more applied approach is needed in order to get people thinking about how they should actually use science.
Now, there were also many bad science teachers in my life. Two of my three middle school teachers requested that we merely absorb facts, and one actually lied about a fact when I challenged her since I knew she was wrong. My sophomore science teacher was the same way. It was unfortunate, but I had enough drive and intellect already to not allow these experiences to define my scientific learning.
My current bio class is a rough blend. A lot of the testing is regurgitation of lecture facts, with lots of "tricky questions" to try and get you to make mistakes by simply not properly understanding the question posed, rather than actually analyzing whether or not you can properly reason your way through the function of biological systems. It irks me greatly; I did not come to college to do busywork and take exams that amount to tricky science trivia, and I would far rather be learning to reason complex problems out rather than simply running down a scantron going "Chromosome arms end in telomeres, the cis-face of the Golgi accepts vesicles from the ER..."
I'm going to apply for a research position next semester and hopefully join a synthetic bio team in addition to taking some more difficult classes, so hopefully things will change. I find it alarming, though, that there are individuals who are majoring in MCB like me and still don't see the value in anything but the lecture slides and texts that have already been written. You can't (or, more aptly, you shouldn't) succeed in any field without knowing how to apply knowledge for analysis and critical thinking.
On another note: I feel like doing something like Barfblog for synthetic bio and genetic engineering. So few people properly understand GMOs, so I feel like such a project could be very beneficial, not just for my resume, but for the unwashed masses in general.
Coming from an incredibly non-geeky house, I hadn't felt the need to actually learn about science in high school. Maybe it was the school I was at, but I don't think my teachers did a good job of making us interested in learning. I only had four teachers that made me want to do better than the bare minimum that others would gladly give me an A for.
In tenth grade AP Biology, we dissected your standard frogs, plus a shark, a cat fetus, and a manta ray. It wasn't my bag, but it was intensely interesting.
Our AP Biology class was almost entirely maths (statistics and probability primarily), academic writing, and academic article reading for half of the year, and almost entirely experimental design, procedural lab practices, and dissection for the other half. I think a lot of people are surprised when they're required to, say, write for physics class or do math in English class, yet this is exactly what we need to do to make education more meaningful to students.
As it stands, they're under-prepared and equipped with inaccurate ideas of what any sort of career would be like in any field.
Also, in grammar class, we discussed the math behind the evolution of language, and how it's used in archaeology to date things.