On May 9th, the eastern Sichuan region of China experienced a 7.9 magnitude earthquake (at this USGS website, you can obtain details, a summary, maps, and more technical information about this powerful quake). More than 30 million experienced from strong to extreme shaking in a region about 600 km by 300 km. The quake however was felt, however, thousands of miles away. The earthquake was the result of motion on a northeast direction (striking) fault on the margin of the Sichuan basin. On a large, or continental scale, the earthquake activity of this area of Asia is due to the convergence of the India tectonic plate against the Eurasia plate.

The epicenter of the May 9th earthquake is in a mountainous region (about 2400 m or 7200 feet) at the edge of the Sichuan basin. The maps below show the region of the initial 7.9 M quake, and the many after shocks (quakes) in the Sichuan region. The first map gives a more regional view, while the second map is closer look a the 7.9 M earthquake and the aftershocks. The May 9th earthquake is the largest yellow circle shown on the map.

The images shown above were generated with Google Earth, which you can download onto your computer. . Search Google for google earthquakes, and you can open a file of recent earthquakes.

For the past year I have been working with Mike Dias writing the second edition of The Art of Teaching Science.

For the most part, the process has been a Web 2.0 experience. We’ve used a variety of web tools to create the second edition of the book. We started by using Google Docs which is a place where you can put files and then share editing with others, in this case Mike and myself. I uploaded all of the word files from the first edition of Art, so that we could see the entire book at Google docs. I found it an interesting way to get started, but we abandoned the idea after working on the first two chapters.

We then got into a groove of Jack doing the first pass on the chapter, sending via e-mail to Mike for a second pass, and then back to me. It then went to Routledge’s New York office were Elizabeth Renner headed the editing group for the book. They edited it on a first pass, and then emailed it back to us. We then had a short time to examine their review, and make the changes that were needed. Documents went back and forth between Mike and I, and then we sent all of the text files, table files, and figure files in final form back to New York.

During this process, which took about seven months, not one page of text, tables or figures was printed out for examination. Everything was done on the computer; no hard copies.

So from June 2007 to January 2008, we created the files, all of which were edited for the second edition.

In keeping with a Web 2.0 tradition, we also created a Companion Website hosted by Routledge. We integrated the content of the Companion Website with the second edition, and again this was done in an online environment. You can take a look at the Companion Site now, even though the book won’t be published until July 2008. The Companion Website contains student and teacher materials. It was a way for us to include more content, but also feature aspects of the Art of Teaching Science in a Web environment.

For example, we created Powerpoint slides for each chapter that students and teachers can use to explore nature of the book online. Click here for an example. We also created teaching notes in the form of Syllabus Helpers and Agenda Strategies for the instructor, as well.

For the students, we posted all of the interviews we did with about 20 practicing science teachers, representing a variety of countries, and years of teaching experience. These Science Teacher Talk sessions are organized by chapter, and based on a 17 item questionnaire we used with teachers. Here’s an example from Chapter 1. We included other resources for students including links to all of the sites mentioned in the text, lesson examples, and other features.

In Febrary 2008, the book’s files were sent to Swales & Willis Ltd, the Innovation Centre, University of Exeter Campus, U.K. under the direction of Dr. Richard Willis. They organized the copyediting of the book, and we were in contact with the copyeditor who sent email queries that we responded to on the Web. This happened during the month of March 2008. In very early April we received the PDF files for the page proofs for the entire book, a little better than 500 pages.

At this point, we had to face the fact that that we needed a hard copy of the book. I went on the Web, and located the Kinko’s closest to my home, and sent them an email attachment containing the PDF file. I drove to the Kinkos that I thought I had contacted, only to find that the book was printed at another Kinkos about 15 miles away.

With 500 pages to review, Mike and I split the book in half, and then switched when each of us completed our separate reviews. We had to make changes, but overall, they were minor.

The next task was to create the index. We purchased a 1000 3 x 5 index cards, and I went through the book, writing words and phrases, as well as page numbers, one per card. My wife and I worked together on this, and we ended up with about 1500 index cards, each of which contained some piece of the content of the book.

Fortunately with Word, you can make a long list of entries, and then alphabitize them by clicking on Table and Sort. The index is 30 pages (single-spaced). The entries for the letter “s” took an hour and 15 minutes to type into word. Here’s an image of the “s” cards compared to “q” cards, which came in last.

Unfortunately, I have to use postal mail to return the edited page proofs, and they will be sent to England. The proofs weight about 6 pounds 8 ounces, and if they are sent via FedX, it will cost about $138, and if sent Global Express (USPS), it will only cost about $45.

We tried to keep this a Web 2.0 endeavor. Only at the end did we have to use atoms and molecule to communicate our ideas, rather than bytes.

So, sometime next week, we’ll ship the page proofs to Dr. Willis in England, and they will be reviewed again. We’ll receive a final set of page proofs on PDF that we can examine. When that process is finished the final-final PDF files will be emailed to a printer in the U.S., and the book will be printed in July, 2008. I began the process looking for a new publisher in January 2007, and in July 2008, the second edition will be published.

Do you think there is any harm in going for a brisk 3-mile run on a summer afternoon in the metro-Atlanta area? It’s not a good idea. The ozone level is highest in the late afternoon and early evening.

Late afternoon readings of ozone are typically highest for the daily cycle of ozone levels. It’s not a good time to be out running.
Temperatures are beginning to rise in Atlanta, and other northern hemisphere cities. And with it, increased air pollution. And increased health problems, especially for youth who have asthma.

There was an interesting article on cnn.com about how air pollution affects children, and how increased exposure to outdoor polluted air exacerbates the problem. One of the best things that parents and children can do is to be aware of the ozone level for the day, and take the precautions that will lessen asthma related effects.

One place to find the air quality in a USA location is an Air-Now page on the EPA site. In other countries you can contact the environmental protection agency at the government level. For example in Australia, you can find this information at the government’s environment site. Here are some others: China, Canada, UK, Botswana, Argentina.

You can also monitor air pollution yourself. For several years, we worked with students around the world showing them how to monitor the air near their school, and then use the Internet to share their results. The monitoring system we used was a very clever device invented by Gary Short, himself an asthmatic, and entrenpenur. He called the device an ecobadge, and it is a strip of paper that changes color when exposed to the air. Color changes can be used to measure ozone in parts per million. Here are pictures of the ecobadge which you can clip to your shirt and walk about as you monitor the air, and a card showing the color changes used to measure the ozone level.

This is the Ecobadge. A strip of paper that has been chemically treated to react to ozone in the air is slipped into the Ecobadge. The top exposes in one-hour; the bottom in eight-hours. The value of ozone can be read by matching the color change to the color circles or by using a card as shown below.

If you are a teacher, or a parent home schooling, you might take a look at these websites:
Project Ozone
The Globe Program
US Environmental Protection Agency: Ground Level Ozone
Vistanomics: Source of Ozone Monitoring Kits
U.S. Government Clean Air Act

Earthday is a day for action and reflection. Some reflection follows:

I read two wonderful books about birds this past year by Bernd Heinrich, professor emeritus of biology at the University of Vermont. The first was the Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through A Century of Biology. It’s a wonderful story of his father’s life which begins in pre-World War I Germany. His father becomes a devoted and famous naturalist, and and lives a life through two world wars in Europe, and comes to Maine where is son, Bernd, becomes an avid biologist at UVM. It’s a wonderful story.

The second book I read was Heinrich’s Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival. Although not entirely about birds, there is amble space devoted to these marvelous and amazing animals, who like their counterparts in nature, have “evolved innovations” to help them survive winter. It’s another marvelous and wonderfully written book.

Our backyard feeders attract a wide variety of birds.
During the past year, my wife and I set up bird feeders in our backyard which boarders a protected wetlands area. I was surely motivated to do this after reading Heinhrich’s books, but also by simply being so close to a nature preserve. Our bird feeds have not only brought many species of birds, especially nots of cardinals, but rabbits (all of whom are named “Bob,”) as well as squirrels, deer, and opossum.

One of hundreds of cardinals that visit us.

As you reflect on Earthday 2008, you might watch this video showing how one person decided to participate in Earthday.

Charles Blow had a very interesting op-ed column in the New York Times today entitled “all atmospherics, no climate.” The op-ed focused on the graph shown below, generated from survey data by the Pew Research Center, which describes the percentage of Americans who think the issues of protecting the environment, and dealing with the energy problem should be top priorities for the president and Congress.

Blow points out that of the 2,372 questions posed by the moderators (primarily national TV anchors of major corporations), only 8 questions asked mentioned global warming or climate change.

So here we have one of the most important problems of the day, and it is not being discussed by any of the presidential candidates. There are many reasons for this. It is in the best interests of the network to achieve high ratings, and questions that are most titillating and tend to put the candidates on the defensive help steer toward this goal. The candidates play into this as a way of attacking the personal qualities of their opponents, rather than risk discussing problems and issues that might reveal an inability to deal with “real problems.” It doesn’t really matter why. It is as it is.

I think an interesting reformat of presidential debates would be select senior high school or college students as the moderators, and suggest that they ask questions related to the major issues facing us today: the environment, education, the economy, the war in Iraq & Afghanistan, and jobs. There is very good evidence why this would be a good strategy.

Andrew Revkin, in one of his blog posts, discussed the research done by Mathew LaClair, a high school senior in Kearny, NJ who criticized the way authors of high school text on American Government presented the issue of global warming. Mathew contacted the Center for Inquiry and they in turn wrote a blistering critique of the text, based on his initial research. As a result, the publisher is taking a careful look at the book, not only its treatment of global warming, but other topics as well. Point made. High school students can show more intellect and wisdom than many of the moderators we’ve seen participating in the presidential debates.

Some resources that you might start with if you were to role play this idea in your classroom:

Dot Earth: Andrew C. Revkin’s Weblog about the Environment
Environmental Issues
Education
Georgia State University Economic Forecasting Center
Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce
War in Afghanistan
War in Iraq

Earthday 2008 arrives in just a few days. I’ve been thinking and reading about Earthday, and about how our dependence of fossil fuels impacts all of us all of the time. From buying groceries, to going to work, to enjoying leisure activities. Our dependence on coal and oil as our primary source of energy has led to a critical problem that we face today.

About a year ago I read and wrote about James Lovelock’s book, The Revenge of GAIA: Earth’s Climatic Crisis & The Fate of Humanity. You are probably familiar with Lovelock’s and Lynn Margolis’ (co-discoverer of the GAIA hypothesis) idea that “the Earth behaves as a single, self-regulating system, comprised of physical, chemical, biological and human components. The interactions and feedbacks between component parts are complex and exhibit multi-scale termporal and spatial variability” (Lovelock, The Revenge of GAIA, p. xvi).

In his book, Lovelock discusses the sources of energy that are available to us, and raises the issue that humans need to seriously consider sources of energy that are being used to derive the energy from various sources. He points out that chemically burning carbon provides at best about 9 kilowatt hours per kilogram of coal or other source of carbon. Nuclear fusion of hydrogen atoms gives us several million times as much, and the energy from splitting uranium is even greater. He then outlines what we might consider Earth’s portfolio of energy sources, and discusses how this energy source has evolved among human societies.

Our energy portfolio includes: Fossil Fuels–coal and oil, natural gas; Hydrogen; Renewables–wind power, wave & tidal energy, hydro-electricity, bio fuels, solar energy; Nuclear Energy–fusion energy, fission energy.

Lovelock suggests that nuclear energy should be relied more than it is, and that reality of the cold war, nuclear proliferation, Chernobyl (and to a lesser extent, Three Mile Island), have created a mind set that nuclear energy of any sort is to be feared. Many of us have grown up in the “nuclear age” or “atomic age” and have come to see nuclear energy and nuclear power plants has harmful and dangerous to the environment. I remember taking one of my graduate classes (a course in Environmental Education) to see The China Syndrome, a film about a reporter and cameraman who discover safety coverups at a nuclear power plant.

Lovelock is not the only one to weigh in and see nuclear energy as important to our energy policy. Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, in a Washington Post article, makes the case for nuclear energy. As does Lovelock, Moore does not minimize the threat posed by nuclear material getting into the wrong hands.

You might also want to watch the video in which Stewart Brand, author of the Whole Earth Catalog addresses the 2006 Nuclear Energy Assembly.

Stewart Brand addressing the Nuclear Energy Assembly

One of the reviews that I read of Lovelock’s book that I think is pertinent is how Lovelock’s ideas (according to the reviewer) are consistent with Native American or Indigenous science. Energy policy needs to take into consideration Indigenous science, and the GAIA hypothesis as depicted by Lovelock.

As science educators, what views do we hold on an Earthday energy policy? This is a rich area for investigation and study in any of our science classes. As teachers we have an opportunity to help students inform themselves of the way we have used energy, how energy policy is developed, and what policy recommendations should be reviewed and discussed at the government level. And it does not have to be at the national level. More has been done at the local level—the level of cities and towns—than at the national level in many areas of energy policy. A case in point is the US Conference of Mayors Climate Protection plan that puts to shame what is happening in the US Congress and Administration.

What steps do you think teachers might take in involving students in studies and investigations that might be relevant to them?

Dear Readers,

Two days ago, I discussed two of my “first” experiences using the Internet. Well, today, want to talk about “my first colonoscopy”. For men and women, this is an important procedure that a healthcare provider uses to view the entire colon to see if there are any problems.

Some months ago, I had canceled my first outpatient appointment. A high percentage of people cancel the first time. You can guess why!

Although you only have to do this procedure once every ten years after age 50, one has to get up the nerve, and overcome being a chicken. I guess I over came this, and set up my appointment for yesterday. I arrived at my doctors office with my wife at 6:50 a.m. for a 7.30 appointment. By 9:15, my wife was driving me home with great results.

I have to admit, I don’t remember a thing about the procedure. I was pleasantly invited into the preparation room, and provided with the hospital’s finest garb, a backwards bath robe. Ricky, the nurse, tried one of my veins to set up an intravenous line, which would be used after I was rolled into “THE” room to sedate me with demerol. He had trouble getting the needle into one vein, so he choose an area further down my arm near my wrist. This took a bit of time, giving one more time to think, “Why am I here?” Furthermore this is, as Ricky said, a very sensitive area. I assure you it was! A half-hour after laying on a bed with the needle in my wrist and dressed for the occasion, I was rolled at about 50 mph into the procedure room. After some hellos and how are you doing from my doctor, I was given some demerol by Kevin (another nurse) and the next thing I remember was waking up about 45 minutes later to my wife’s beautiful face.

Light headed, and with no experience of any pain, but actually just a very nice feeling, I dressed, and was wheeled to my car, and off we went to MacDonald’s for coffee and pancakes. How good is that!

A colonscopy every 10 years is the best way to screen for colon cancer. More than 50,000 people die from colon cancer each year, making it second leading cause of death by cancer. Studies suggest that getting a colonoscopy can reduce the average person’s risk of getting colon cancer by 90%. A study, however, has found that some polyp (flat ones), are hard to detect during the colonoscopy procedure. However the best chance of finding these types of polyps is good preparation on the part of the patient the day before the procedure. I drank two quarts of a laxative-gatorade solution the day before the procedure.

Here is an interesting video on colonoscopy by CBS News.

It was a procedure I had put off probably longer than I should have. In my case, no polyps were discovered, and I was given a clean bill of health. I still can not believe that I went through the procedure. I don’t remember a thing. But I do know this: I recommend you follow through and experience your first colonoscopy.

Best regards,

Jack

In a recent study by the Lawrence Hall of Science Center for Research, Evaluation and Assessment, in collaboration with WestEd, more than 900 Bay Area school teachers and almost 60% of the Bay Area school districts that serve elementary school students were surveyed to shed light on the state of science education.

The results were summarized in video that I found on YouTube. You can go to the LHS site to read the detailed results of the study. In sum, the study found that there was very little allocated for the teaching of science in the elementary schools. It was also reported that teachers felt they were not adequately prepared to teach science, and the infrastructure to support science education was lacking. On the bright side, the report indicated that new opportunities could lead to an improvement of science education (e.g. increase time spent teaching science, select new teaching materials, provide more professional development opportunities, etc.).

Now the video. There are some issues here. The Lawrence Hall of Science is one of the leading and most prestigious science education centers in USA. The researchers choose to develop a cute, upbeat video to report the key results. When I first viewed it, I thought it was well done. I still do. However, I am not sure that using elementary age students to report findings that include statements such as: “I don’t think we do much science at our school,” “Does my teacher know how to teach science?” Whose going to help MY teacher?” If the students had conducted the study as part of an inquiry-based class project, then the video would have been a perfect way for them to report their results. In this case, however, adults conducted the study, and used students to report their findings. I hope you will view it. Am I off base? What are your thoughts about having young students report these result?

In the last post, I described two of my earlier experiences using the Internet to connect to information and people. Over the past two decades, the way digital media has changed, and how it is being used is truly astounding. Digital media in an Internet environment enables teachers to involve students in experiences that connect to their own lives—a world centered in the use of a variety of digital media tools.

Most of the students who are in school, K-college, have grown up in a digital world, using devices from early childhood on. Here is a Youtube video that tells us a lot about how students are using digital technology, and some implications for teaching. The student’s lived experience is centered in the world of technology as indicated by students’ comments. Here are some of the questions raised in this clip:

In a recent study of students in two and four year colleges (in the USA), most students believe that information technology does help improve their learning. This is a key statement in that students who have had to rely on “school-like” technologies (books, papers, journals) to learn might be motivated to engage in experiences that involve “real-world” technologies (i-phones, i-pods, laptops). Please understand I am not recommending the removal of books, but I am recommending that a better starting point might be resources on the Internet related to interesting questions that are generated by students and teachers working together.

What do you think? Can technology be helpful in the issue of motivation? Can it lead to increased interest in science and technology classes?

I had two real first experiences using the Internet.

Here’s the first:

I had purchased my first personal computer in 1980. It was an Apple II, which was invented by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple Computer. In his book, iWoz, Wozniak describes his unbelievable creativity in firstly inventing the Apple I, and followed soon thereafter (1977) with the Apple II. I used my 1980 Apple II (which used cassette tapes to run programs), along with a modem made by Hayes Micromodem of Atlanta to connect to two different data bases on the Internet: BRS Afterdark (Bibliographic Research Service which libraries used; afterdark meant it was cheaper), and Compuserve, one of the first online companies offering access to data bases and products—and this was 1980. No one at Georgia State University was doing this, so when I asked to use one of the phone lines to connect to data bases, not only did they not know what I meant, but they simply said, “sure.” So now I had connections at my home, and in my office at the university. Later I started using email, and gopher and some of the other ways of accessing and sharing information on the Intenet. Remember bitnet?

The Apple II: my first computer, C.1980. I connected a modem to the Apple II, and I was connected to the Internet! See the end of this post for a picture of the modem I used

Then I started traveling to Russia (then, the Soviet Union). I first went there in 1981. After several years of travel, and after developing very wonderful and strong relationships with Russian educators in Tbilisi (Georgia), Moscow, and St. Petersburg, and after bringing hundreds of American and Russian teachers and researchers together through a series of exchanges through the rest of the 1980s, we jointly decided to begin designing and writing lesson plans and curriculum that we would implement and teach in each others classrooms. Russian teachers taught in American classrooms, and Americans taught in Russian classrooms. We developed trust. We were ready to move on.

The second first real experience with the Internet:

A group of us had developed the Global Thinking Project. We designed it to be used in an Internet environment. Problem was, we didn’t have the hardware for the Russian schools.

Phil Gang, a friend and colleague, suggested we visit the local Apple Computer office, and see if they might be interested. It just so happened that we were hosting a group of educators from Russia who were involved in the GTP, so we all went to the Apple office. The meeting broke the ice, and because we had our Russian colleagues with us, Apple realized that the project was going to happen. We needed computers.

At the next meeting we met with the Apple directors, and they agreed to give us six Macintosh SE computers and printers. They also introduced us to Gary Lieber, an engineer for Apple who had just moved to Atlanta from Cupertino. Gary became a part of the GTP, and he traveled to Russia with us. Ten of us arrived at the Atlanta airport with the Macs, printers and modems (given to us by Hayes Micromodems) boarded the airplane carrying this technology on with us. We flew to Moscow, and we now ready to install the computers in six different schools in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In late January, 1990 we carried (literally) six Macintosh SE computers (printers and modems) onto a Delta jet, and flew with them to Moscow, and installed them in six schools, helping establish one of the first global telecommunications systems for science teaching.

We were held hostage at the airport for about six hours. The Soviet customs officials demanded money from our Soviet colleagues, so it took hours of negotiation to let us through. We did and we were ready for the first installation the next day.

Without Gary, we couldn’t have done it. Telecommunications connections were not as easily obtained as they are today. There was only one company in the Soviet Union that we could use to get a modem connection, and it was called SOVAM (Soviet American Telecommunications). Gary had to program the computer we used in each school to reach SOVAM, which we used to connect through Europe to Apple’s email system. Unbelievably Gary got the system running in each school, and we had a telecommunications project that linked six Russian schools with six American schools (Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles).

There was a wonderful moment in School 157 in St. Petersburg. Gary was explaining to a group of Russian secondary students how the computer network and telecommunications system worked. One of the Russian students asked Gary how long it took a message typed on the Macintosh in his classroom to reach America. Gary said, “Oh, less than a second!” The students were astounded. So were some of the adults.

With the installation of the computers and modems into six Russian schools, we had established The Global Thinking Project telecommunications system.

The network shown here was established by putting Mac SE computers and modems in Russian and American schools. In Russia, telephone lines connected the IASNET to Geisco in Europe, which used satellites to transmit data to the US. Without Apple’s Gary Lieber, we probably could not have established this early telecommunications system.

This was an exhilarating experience for all of us. We implemented the first field test of the GTP curriculum over the next two months. Students in Russia were using their new computers to send email messages containing information about themselves and the data they had collected on the various GTP projects. That summer we brought all of the teachers together for a conference and training session several months later in Atlanta. Although there were many problems with telecommunications, and helping teachers develop a habit of mind of using email and checking posts on the bulletin board system we had set up, it showed us the potential of using the Internet as a tool in science teaching. This was the beginning. The GTP grew to include schools not only in the USA and Russia, but Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Spain, the Czech Republic, Botswana, Singapore, Scotland, and Finland.

These were the two-first ways that I used the Internet. I’ll continue talking about the Net further this week. Let me hear from you and about your first experiences with the Net in teaching.

This was the modem we used in the Soviet Union. It was made by Hayes, and had a speed of 2400! It worked beautifully.