Florida Citizens for Science

A website called 100 Ideas “Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future” is soliciting the public for ideas to make Florida better. It’s a Republican Party of Florida-sponsored project, but makes the promise that the overall effort is nonpartisan.

In any case, there are a few ideas posed that touch on science education. Browse this list and you will find ideas like K-12 Educational Technology needs Registry.

However, not all ideas are created equal. This one about promoting Intelligent Design is one example.

It’s late in the game, but if you have the time, please submit ideas, vote on ideas and present your own.

Sorry for the posting gap here. Life gets a little crowded what with a paying job, spending time with family and stressing over college classes. Ugh! But since I have a few minutes, why don’t I do a quick brain dump …

I’ve designed a nifty logo for FlCfS. The board has approved it, and now I just need to touch it up and start using it.

This website will move to a new server sometime soon (no deadline set right now … just when I get the chunk of time needed). We’ll then have a regular website coupled with a blog so as to provide information in a comprehensive, easy-to-use format.

More importantly, our official by-laws are pretty much approved and ready to be put into action. Once that task is put to bed, we can turn our attention to identifying and accomplishing some goals, such as drafting improved state science standards.

We’re also still tossing around ideas for an appropriate response to the anti-science conference coming up in a few months. Feel free to pitch in your ideas! Some members have already taken an active role in alerting the local media about our opposition to the event. The preliminary groundwork is just getting started, though. We need your help to make this project a success.

Even though we’re deep into the summer months, there is still plenty of wonderful science education going on out there. For instance: ‘Mad Science’ teaches through fun tricks. And there is also: Macabre topic brings life to science camp.

“Forensic science is so popular with kids,” who are especially intrigued by the various television shows, Waters said.

However, it’s some of those television misconceptions that Garavaglia wants to clear up for the students.

“I try to give a more accurate picture of what we do, and it may not be as glamorous as television,” she said. “They [TV shows] make it seem like all we do is homicide, but a lot of our caseload is natural deaths and auto accidents.”

Like any job, she said, there are always less-pleasant aspects, such as dull moments or rotting corpses.

“They’re smelly, they’re green, but we still have to figure out what happened,” she told the campers.

Florida’s own Amazing Randi links to a great resource in his latest online newsletter: Thinking Tools. Even though these tools seem simple, they are great for teaching kids how to do something we take for granted: how to think. Kids are taught so many things in and out of school, but hardly anyone ever takes the time to show kids how to properly figure things out and make clear, supported arguments.

And last, but not least, there is a website hosted by the Girl Scouts called Girls Go Tech. It’s a bit sparce and simplistic in its content, but, nonetheless, it’s still a way to entice girls into thinking seriously about math and science.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula has a couple of good posts lately related to science and kids. He recently posted about a teacher using a gun in class to do a ballistic pendulum experiment. As always, the real interesting stuff is the discussion in the comments section. Should the teacher be allowed to use a gun in school? Provided the teacher uses the gun responsibly and makes sure the gun is otherwise secure when not in use, then I have to side with PZ. There’s nothing wrong with it.

In another post, PZ waxes nostalgic about old chemistry sets for kids and how modern ones are weak and worthless. In this case, though, I’m not sure that I agree with him. Folks have a tendency to view the past with rose-colored glasses. In the vein of “you’ll shoot your eye out kid,” handing a child a chest full of chemicals is not a great idea, no matter how much fun they seemed to be in years gone by. Similar to the previous post about the teacher with a gun in school, this should be about supervision, safety and responsibility. Sure, some parents would be gung-ho about spending time with the kids doing experiments, but in reality that just doesn’t happen near enough. I do see the point about modern chemistry kits not exactly being the hook to get kids interested in science that they used to be. But that doesn’t negate the safety aspect.

GrrlScientist at Living the Scientific Life brings to our attention a contest offered by the Union of Concerned Scientists: Science Idol.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is hosting Science Idol:  the Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest. We’re looking for your creative take on the issue of political interference in science. Submit one-panel or multi-panel, print cartoons that address the misuse of science on a specific issue or in general.

Tara at Aetiology kindly informs us that a group calling itself “Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity” is trying to round up people to sign on to their dissent from Darwin statement. The reason why it’s so interesting to us Floridians is that this is apparently happening right here in our backyard: Clearwater.

The list gathered so far is small and not much to fret over, but this group bears keeping an eye on. Here’s what a donation to their organization pays for:

Your tax-deductible donation assists in covering the costs of activities and events to educate the public on the inadequacies of Darwinian macroevolution to explain the origination and complexity of life. These activities and events include the free distribution of the Unlocking the Mystery of Life DVD to high school and college students, teachers and professors, as well as the costs of educational conferences, seminars and debates nationally and internationally.

Anyone know if this video is being shown in any schools around here?

Another great interview by DarkSyde at DailyKos about the fight against anti-science:
Know Your Creationists: Know Your Allies

One of the key contributors to establishing the position that IDC is simply creationism redux was DR Barbara Forrest. Barbara is coauthor of Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (A must read for anyone who wishes to take on school boards if and when creationism rears its ugly head in the local area). Research and data garnered from writing that book allowed Barbara to undercut and falsify the defendants (Intelligent Design Creationists) using their own on the record statements. The damage inflicted to the creationist’s credibility was so damaging that the presiding judge, John E. Jones III, chastized them severely in his decision …

Professor PZ Myers talks on his blog Pharyngula about giving an evolution lecture to high school students. I would love to see such partnerships become a trend. Students need to see what’s waiting for them beyond high school, and they need to see that professors really care about what students are learning before those students even step foot on a college campus. There are no losers in such a working relationship.

I’d do it again, gladly…as long as I’ve got a few weeks to recover between days at the high school. The grade schools are where we have the most need to get more science into play anyway, so it feels like a productive birthday for me when I can talk to a few 10th graders. And any high school teachers out there—you’re doing an important job, and those of us up in the ivory tower of the university really do care about what’s going on in our schools. Don’t be shy about asking your local college science departments if we’d be willing to contribute in your classroom, I think there is a fair number of us who’d be happy to share our perspective.

And yet again I found a true golden nugget in the comments. Commenter Kristine said she introduced a resolution somewhere or other (I’m not clear where) that sounds so … so … beautiful!

“Whereas ‘academic freedom’ means the liberty and the ability to distinguish data, facts, evidence, and theories from anecdotes, opinions, false claims, and agendas, be it resolved that that Minnesota science curriculum shall be guided by the standards set by legitimate scientific institutions that participate in internationally-accepted standards of the scientific method and the publication of peer-reviewed articles, and not by individuals or groups applying outside pressure to schools, school boards, teachers, students, or to students’ parents.”

I hope Kristine doesn’t mind Florida Citizens for Science making use of that at some point!

The God Fossil

A long but interesting article. (Note: posting of this article does not mean Florida Citizens for Science takes any particular stance concerning religion. This is merely an educational article about some controversial, fascinating research.)

Jesse Bering is at his mother’s bedside when she dies. The heart-rending experience leaves an impression on the man as he sets out to explain why his mother was so conflicted about God on her deathbed.

He was fortunate that the adviser to his PhD program at Florida Atlantic University, David Bjorklund, had himself become interested in how evolution shapes the human mind, and he agreed to help Bering design an experiment. Together, they set out to investigate whether evolution has given humans a tendency to believe in an afterlife.

The work fed Bering’s deep need to understand his mother’s existential flip-flopping. “These are just questions I can’t ignore,” he says. “I get really ravenous about them.” As a scientist, he says, his way of coping was to examine, weigh, and measure. “I want to get them into a lab,” he says of his concerns. “Obviously, my defense mechanism of choice is to intellectualize.”

By the time Alice Bering died on January 19, 2001, Bering and Bjorklund’s study was already well under way. Its findings are now being cited by other scientists working in an obscure but growing field that seeks to prove a radical notion: that God himself is a product of evolution.

Annual Lannutti Lecture, jointly sponsored by the Tallahassee Scientific Society and the FSU Physics Department Nobel Laureate and Pritzker Professor - Illinois Institute of Technology

The Perfect Storm in Science Education

Our Nation and the scientific community have been through innumerable crises in science education, from WWII to Sputnik to A Nation at Risk to By the Year 2000. Dr. Lederman will set the scale of the problem today, and present his ideas for solving the problems through physics education.

When: Thursday, March 16, 2006

Where: Richards Building (UPL), Room 101, FSU Campus
see D7 at http://www.fsu.edu/Campus/newmap/

Time: Lecture at 3:45 p.m.
Special Reception at 3:00 p.m. - Richards Building Foyer

Questions: Sharon Hagopian, 644-4777 or Dr. Penny Gilmer, 644-4026

Ed Brayton, member of scienceblogs and Michigan Citizens for Science, helped man a Citizens for Science booth at a Michigan Science Teacher’s Association conference recently. He had some funny experiences, but what attracted my attention the most was his conversations with teachers about how they handle evolution in the classroom.

More than anything else, though, I had a lot of conversations with teachers who related stories about the dificulty of teaching evolution these days. Many teachers told us that every semester when they get to the evolution unit, they would inevitably get phone calls from parents either demanding that their child be given an alternate assignment or condemning them for teaching a “myth” and demanding that it be “balanced” with the teaching of some form of creationism.

When asked how they handled such calls, responses varied. Some were more animated in their responses than others. One or two said that they just don’t bother to teach it anymore, they just teach about the basic facts and don’t really discuss evolution as a unifying explanation for those facts. One man told us that he actually does present both sides, that he shows a video called Evolution: Fact or Belief?, a young earth creationist video, to his class along with evolution. Another said that he lets his students present their views to the class in a presentation.

But most said that they just explained to the parents that they had no choice but to teach the approved curriculum, which includes evolution, and that they would have to take it up with the parents. I was a little discouraged by the responses. I think we need to work with teachers to help them respond in a more positive way. Almost every high school biology teacher has to deal with some sort of negative reaction every time they teach it, so we need to help them respond to such reactions without rancor or condescension but also without giving in to the demands.

As we get our own Citizens for Science group up and running, we need to focus some energy on supporting our science teachers. They obviously need it in a bad way! Speaking of supporting teachers, have you sent your e-mail to science teacher Bill Hausmann telling him what a great job he did in the recent newspaper article? I did, and I know of at least one other person who has. Let Mr. Hausmann and other science teachers know we’re here and ready to help if needed.

Here’s the quick note I sent:

Mr. Hausmann,

This is just a quick note of support in response to your being featured in the recent Florida Today newspaper article, “Debate may evolve in Brevard schools.” It was a pleasure to read your quotes. If only everyone would realize how science works.

If you ever run into any hassles, especially as a result of this story, don’t hesitate to let me and my group, Florida Citizens for Science, know.

Thank you, and keep up the great work!

Brandon Haught
Communications Director
Florida Citizens for Science
http://www.flcfs.org/wp/

I’ve been remiss in mentioning the Café Scientifique Gainesville here. It’s a great monthly event to attend if you’re in the area, and a perfect chance for networking and making friends. Stop by, why don’t ya!

We have started Café Scientifique Gainesville to serve our community. The Café is a place where anyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology, over a cup of coffee, tea or a glass of beer, outside a traditional academic setting. The Café is a forum for debating science issues (not a shop window for science) in an informal setting where relaxed conversation and an exchange of ideas is possible. We are committed to promoting public engagement with science and to making science accessible to all.