The National Academy of Sciences has a great online interactive tool called “I Was Wondering…“, which highlights the contributions of women in science. The site includes features on cool female scientists, a timeline of their discoveries, and games. Also, there’s a section called “Ask It!” where readers can submit their own questions.

The site, based on this series of books, is targeted toward tween girls:

What would it be like to build the first robot that could interact with people? Or to study human remains in search of criminal evidence? In Women’s Adventures in Science, readers will learn about the trailblazing women who are leaders in a variety of scientific fields, from robotics to forensics.

The site looks like a lot of fun and I hope that it inspires more young girls to embrace science.

[Via Science-Based Parenting]

The 3rd annual “Doodle 4 Google” contest begins today. Kids in grades K-12 can design their very own Google logo and the winner will have it displayed on Google.com for a day. They win other cool stuff, too:

In addition to the winner’s art appearing on Google.com on May 27, 2010, they’ll also receive a $15,000 college scholarship, a laptop computer and a $25,000 technology grant for their school.

Not too shabby.

The theme this year is “If I Could Do Anything, I Would…” and doodles must be submitted by March 31, 2010. It’s great that Google celebrates creativity in kids. If you’ve got a young designer or doodler at home, this could be a fun project.

This is a great story. It’s about a former New Orleans Saints cheerleader who also happens to be an analytical chemist at DuPont. Surprised? We shouldn’t be. She said:

I danced with several girls who had their PhD’s, Masters etc and it’s our obligation to share this duality with the public in an effort to help young girls feel comfortable following all of their dreams (and to help them understand how important education is and frankly how much fun science can be).

I couldn’t agree more.

Many people are shocked when sexy women are also smart. In fact, the woman in the article said she almost didn’t get hired at a science job because of the NFL cheerleader line on her resume.

It’s a pervasive stereotype in our country. Admit it–you laughed at the idea of Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist in The World is Not Enough. (Well, her character’s name of “Dr. Christmas Jones” didn’t help.) So it’s nice to see some non-Hollywood examples of real brains and beauty.

[Via BlagHag]

Since we’ve recently been discussing education and girls, I saw this and had to share. Here is a mudflap I can get behind:

It’s a girl reading a book and it’s pretty awesome. The sticker is only $4, and you can buy it at CafePress.

Maggie Koerth-Baker over at BoingBoing is doing a great series of monthly science questions from kids. This month’s question is about the color of light:

Why does a glow-in-the-dark Frisbee glow green? Why does a spark from a light socket look blue? Two different questions, but one intertwined answer.

I like that the answers are written so that both adults and kids can understand the concepts. It’s a great series. If you’ve missed any of the other questions, here are some of my favorites:

• Why is Poop Brown?
• What Do Blind People See?
• Omnivore Dinosaur

I have been saying for years that students are influenced by American society to think math is hard. People tell them math is hard, so they think math is hard, so they don’t do well in math. I even remember writing an essay on a college math final in which I ranted about this very topic.

I collected anecdotal evidence to support my theory when, as a grad student, I tried to teach elementary education majors some rudimentary physics labs. The class, which was a light version of Physics 101, designed just for elementary education majors, was required for the degree. Many of the students would put the class off until their final semester, and viewed it as a major obstacle to graduating. They had poor attitudes, because the subject was “so difficult”, and besides, “when would they ever use it”? They came into the class convinced that the subject, and the necessary math, was too hard, and they couldn’t do, and they’d never use it as a teacher. Let me rephrase that: they thought that physics, the basic science behind everything in the universe, was not only impossible, it was unnecessary, to learn. These people now teach our children.

» Continue reading “New study suggests girls learn math anxiety from their teachers”

When I was finishing my teaching credential, one entire class hinged on the idea of different learning styles. There was a self assessment we received that allowed us to pinpoint our best learning style of three major ones–auditory, visual, or tactile-kinesthetic. Most of the class identified as visual learners, and the teacher pointed out that most teachers are, in fact, visual learners. That’s why we tend to present information in a visual fashion, and that’s why we fail to reach many of our students. We learned to use movement or flash cards that students could touch for those who learned better in tactile and kinesthetic ways. We learned that students who are auditory learners would often ask more questions and need repetition.

All of this knowledge fundamentally changed the way I approached teaching and my level of patience with students. The only thing that sort of bothered me about the learning styles was seeing how teachers in this particular class I was taking started to pigeon hole themselves, as in, “See, I’m a visual learner, so this other thing just doesn’t make any sense to me.” I thought that those folks were probably just a little too suggestible.

As it turns out, I might have been highly suggestible myself. The entire idea that there are different learning styles has actually never been scientifically demonstrated. I could have sworn it seemed true, but Mommy Myth Busters have just busted it.

We’ve all grown up being told that we learn better in different ways: some by doing, some by seeing, some by hearing… This notion supported by the very real feeling that we do, in fact, absorb information better in some learning environments than in others. Well, the Association for Psychological Science now says that learning styles are all a bunch of hooey. They have reviewed all recognized studies that claim that a “visual learner” or an “auditory learner” exists, and have concluded that those studies “have not used the type of randomized research designs that would make their findings credible.” That being said, it is still entirely possible that “learning styles” actually do exist, but basically what APS has declared is that nobody has ever sufficiently proven it.

Anecdotally, I can say that as a teacher, using different methods to teach not only seemed to work, it just seemed like simple common sense. Of course people learn differently, right? However, as a skeptic, I look back at my whole hearted acceptance of this notion and I’m a tiny bit embarrassed. I mean, okay, it’s understandable that I swallowed the concept, considering I picked it up in a college course taught by an education expert. However, I never asked for evidence that the effectiveness of learning styles had ever been proven. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to second guess the idea, especially because my work experience validated it.

I am constantly running into surprises like this as a skeptic. First organic food, and now learning styles? Is there nothing I can trust because it sounds right?

If you are new to skepticism, or have only been a lurker in skeptical cyberspace up to now, you may be wondering what you can do to become involved in, or even contribute to, the skeptical community. It might seem like skepticism is something you are interested in, but only other people actually participate in. Sure, not all of us can be Genie Scott, Phil Plait, Kylie Sturgess, Joe Nickell, Ben Radford, or Derek and Swoopy,  just to name a few of the world’s skeptical superstars. But, I’m convinced you can easily become involved in, and even contribute to, skepticism. » Continue reading “I’m not a skeptical celebrity, how can I be involved?”

Check out this article about how homebirth increases the neonatal mortality rate by Amy Tuteur, the Skeptical OB.  I’ve been reading her blog for a while now.  I started with her previous blog, Homebirth Debate.  There is probably something appealing to many folks on Dr. Amy’s, whether you are interested in homebirth, or dead set against homebirth, or just wanting information about homebirth, or really, even if you don’t give a hoot about homebirth but just love to watch people get seriously into it with each other in the comments.  I mean, these folks go at it.  It’s kind of like the Jerry Springer of skeptical blogs.  I can’t get enough. » Continue reading “Fighting–er, I mean debating about homebirth”

Q: What do the Oort Cloud, the Kuiper Belt, and the dwarf-planet Sedna have in common with the accretion disc and event horizon of a black hole?

A: They’re all things that I first learned about through my 7-year-old son’s hobby of watching astronomy movies on the Internet.

Back when Nico first learned to navigate around YouTube and other sites with science videos, I was worried about what he might stumble onto. As we discussed here, he was confused by a weird conspiracy theory movie that looked like a science movie. But that problem turned out to be a lot less difficult to handle than I’d anticipated. » Continue reading “Nico’s favorite astronomy movies on the Internet!”