Science Education & Policy

Can professional teachers in a crowded classroom hobbled by arcane government policies teach kids well? Probably, in most cases, but institutionalized education and their unions have gone to war against any changes to the status quo, even when the status ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Sep 9 2011 - 4:00am

Teaching Energy: Prepare for War

There is a bloody and brutal battle being wagered in schools. Science departments are split down the middle. It's friend vs friend and the future of our children's education rests on the outcome. Or so the educational literature would have you b ...

Blog Post - Daniel Chapman - Sep 10 2011 - 8:21am

Can Cheerleaders Successfully Market Science?

www.sciencecheerleader.com, an organization started by the dynamic and committed citizen scientist Darlene Cavalier, has a noble goal. It wants to demonstrate to young girls that it’s OK to be pretty, smart, and love science. In fact, all of the cheerleade ...

Blog Post - Aimee Stern - Sep 13 2011 - 10:44am

How To Take Your Squid Home

I must have missed that section in the What to Expect books on how to react when your child comes home from school with a Ziploc bag filled with squid parts in his backpack. Thus begins an entertaining account by Beth Braccio in the Chicago Parent abo ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Sep 14 2011 - 10:54pm

Perimeter Institute Recruits Xiao-Gang Wen To BMO Financial Group Newton Isaac Chair

Xiao-Gang Wen, a condensed matter theoretical physicist, has joined the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics as the new BMO Financial Group Isaac Newton Chair. Yes, their Isaac Newton Chair has a corporate sponsor. Xiao-Gang Wen is moving from M ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 18 2011 - 11:06pm

Training The Intellectually Elite For The Big Leagues

If a school system overburdened by costs cuts drama programs, celebrities get on television and lament the loss. Athletics gets support from boosters if their programs are in danger but if a gifted program goes on the chopping block, the presumption is & ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 23 2011 - 5:28pm

Are Single-Sex Schools Better For Education?

The least convincing argument for government-run schooling is that it provides a 'social' experience for children. Anyone who attended school has horror stories about the behavior kids learn from the social environment at schools and, if you are ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Sep 27 2011 - 10:29am

Teach Facts Or Teach Thinking? Why NCLB's Demise Could Hurt Science Classes

Being in media, it's easy to get inundated with convincing opposing data and so it's easy to understand why it can be confusing for the public who don't have hours each day to sift through it all. Over a decade ago, for example, people were ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Oct 4 2011 - 9:42am

EU Ph.D. Student Survey: The Results

To PhD or not to PhD? It seem this is a question many students face. Perhaps the results of the first Eurodoc Survey can help some of them with their decision. Eurodoc, or the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers, is an internati ...

Article - Gunnar De Winter - Oct 3 2011 - 11:08am

Increased Science Literacy Correlated To Less Worry About Climate Change

It makes environmental activists crazy, in that 'believe scientists when science agrees with us but scientists are out to kill us when science doesn't agree' kind of way, but a large study of U.S. adults found that the more science they knew ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Oct 5 2011 - 11:25am