tingilinde

the privileged poor

When economically disadvantaged students get into elite institutions.

 

 

two codes

The College Board (think SATs) has come up with two codes they think are necessary for success in college and a career and are shifting some of their tests.   An interesting opinion piece by someone I frequently disagree with.  I'm not totally onboard, but some of it is interesting. 

 

the funding of higher education in arizona

An opinion piece from the president of Arizona State University countering an earlier piece that appeared in the paper.  The problem exists in most state school systems - legislators have dramatically cut state support leading to dramatic tuition increases and cuts the mission of public higher education.   And people wonder why so many students are in debt...

 

 

 

when toys were a tad dangerous

Gilbert was known for their Erector Set building kit, chemistry sets and even a kit to let kids play with radiation.  (one of those was on a high self in the local toy store having gathered dust for years at an unaffordable price - I wanted it badly).  They also had lead casting kits (toy soldiers ) what's a little molten lead after all and, in the 30s, a glass blowing kit.  Here's the manual.

 

on the invention of the super soaker

Not what you might think

 

on the science of science communication

A blog post on a talk by Bruce Lewenstein of Cornell.  Some of the high level basics, but several useful links to resources. 

snip

...

Today’s science communication scientists, like Lewenstein, seek to find what aspects of these models are most productive. Lewenstein recommended the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ Perceptions of Science in America report for detailed recent data on these issues. But he summed it all up as two general conclusions:

The science community needs to recognize that science necessarily engages with social issues. It is embedded in social institutions, like having graduate schools attached to hospitals, or receiving funding from taxpayer dollars.

Ultimately, what matters is trust. It’s not about information, or the deficit model alone would work. It’s about trust, and that’s what is going to make changes in how people respond.

...

 

the scale of things in the solar system

These are always fun.

 

science, misinformation and fake news

A useful paper on the topic published in PNAS - outside their paywall I think

 

Science audiences, misinformation, and fake news

Dietram A. Scheufelea,1 and Nicole M. Krausea,1

Concerns about public misinformation in the United States—rang- ing from politics to science—are growing. Here, we provide an overview of how and why citizens become (and sometimes re- main) misinformed about science. Our discussion focuses specifi- cally on misinformation among individual citizens. However, it is impossible to understand individual information processing and acceptance without taking into account social networks, informa- tion ecologies, and other macro-level variables that provide impor- tant social context. Specifically, we show how being misinformed is a function of a person’s ability and motivation to spot falsehoods, but also of other group-level and societal factors that increase the chances of citizens to be exposed to correct(ive) information. We conclude by discussing a number of research areas—some of which echo themes of the 2017 National Academies of Sciences, Engineer- ing, and Medicine’s Communicating Science Effectively report—that will be particularly important for our future understanding of mis- information, specifically a systems approach to the problem of mis- information, the need for more systematic analyses of science communication in new media environments, and a (re)focusing on traditionally underserved audiences.

 

trump and bullying in middle school

A study suggests middle schools in districts that went for Trump is up over districts that went for Clinton since Trump's election.  There's been anecdotal evidence, but this tries to measure an effect.

snip

...

Bullying rates among middle school students in the spring of 2017 were 18 percent higher in localities where voters had favored Donald Trump than in those that had supported Hillary Clinton, according to a study published online today in Educational Researcher, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. Similarly, student reports of peers being teased or put down because of their race or ethnicity were 9 percent higher in localities favoring the Republican candidate.

Prior to the 2016 presidential election, there were no meaningful differences in bullying and teasing rates between Democratic and Republican localities. The study examined a Virginia statewide sample of more than 155,000 seventh- and eighth-grade students across the state’s 132 school districts.

...

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

speaking of engineering

 

I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer—born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow." Neil Armstrong