January 2009 Archives

Elizabeth Fernandez, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, January 12, 2009 Science may not always be known for its pizzazz, but don't tell that to Lucas Utzig. "My mommy won't believe her eyes," said the 4-year-old from Walnut Creek, holding up in proud wonder his scientific creation - an abstract contraption consisting of a paper plate, straw, coffee filter, Dixie cup and feathers, all bound together with masking tape and Popsicle sticks. Believing that science has historically been shortchanged in public stature, a national grassroots campaign kicked off the "Year of Science 2009" on Sunday to elevate scientific literacy and inform people about its value to society. "So often science is taught as a formula," said Rachel Winheld, who helped organize the event, at San Francisco's Crissy Field Center, sponsored by Bay Area Science, a network that includes science research centers, museums, libraries, businesses, schools and government agencies. "But it is more fun that that, richer than that." Inside the center, Lucas watched his device hurtle upward in a wind tunnel. "For my kids at this age, it's wonderful for them to do hands-on experiments," said Mike Utzig, a substitute teacher who brought his three kids to San Francisco to participate in the science fair. The lesson immediately took hold, at least for one of Utzig's children. "I want to be a scientist," said 3 1/2-year-old Aidan. Lucas, however, has other aspirations. "I want to be an ice cream man," he said. Well, never mind. The point, for organizers of the event which begins a national celebration of science, is to heighten the public's understanding, to share its marvels and raise curiosity about its discoveries. The year is being organized through themes such as evolution, astronomy and weather. Next month will be big, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, as well as the birth of Abraham Lincoln, who launched the National Academy of Sciences. "People who do science love it - the work is dynamic and creative but we don't always show it," said Judy Scotchmoor, an assistant director at the UC Museum of Paleontology at UC Berkeley. "We're trying to get people excited about it." Mission accomplished for the dozens of children scampering from booth to booth at the event near Golden Gate Park. Some of the tables were laden with specimens encased in glass-like clear acrylic - sea urchins, algae, crabs. Others displayed replicas of skulls, ranging from leopard and cheetah skulls to a human skull. One table posed a question: "How many drops of water can you fit on a penny?" "So far, 27 is tops," said Gretchen Walker, who holds a degree in physics and works at the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley. "It's all about the surface tension of water - the water molecules like to cling together. They'll stay together until you put down just one too many." Wendy and Eric Smith brought their three children from their home in San Rafael. "I'd really love to raise my kids to be excited about science," said Wendy Smith, who worked as a second-grade teacher until becoming a stay-at-home mom. At one table, Velvet Sharpe, 10, drew with a radish and a tiny stalk of turmeric. "Plants are made for more things than eating," she said. The fourth-grader was joined by her parents and two siblings. They live in Redding. "I think science is becoming more appreciated," said Jeff Sharpe, a fifth-grade teacher. "It's heading in the right direction." Online resources For more information, go to the Web site of the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science: www.copusproject.org or www.yearofscience2009.org. Also visit www.bayareascience.org or scienceatcal.berkeley.edu.

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | 08 January 2009

BERKELEY -- If you think you know what science is and how science works, think again. A new University of California, Berkeley, Web site called "Understanding Science" paints an entirely new picture of what science is and how science is done, showing it to be a dynamic and creative process rather than the linear - and frequently boring - process depicted in most textbooks.

Funded by the National Science Foundation as a resource for teachers and the public, the material was vetted by historians and philosophers of science as well as by K-12 teachers and scientists from many disciplines.

"Through this collaborative project, we hope to overturn the paradigm of how science is presented in our classrooms," said Roy Caldwell, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology who led the project along with colleague David Lindberg. "The Web site presents, not the rigid scientific method, but how science really works, including its creative and often unpredictable nature, which is more engaging to students and far less intimidating to those teachers who are less secure in their science."

"Part of the fun of science is lost when you present it as a linear thing," said Natalie Kuldell, an instructor in biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one of 18 scientific advisors for the project. While the five-step process described in textbooks - ask a question, form an hypothesis, conduct an experiment, collect data and draw a conclusion - isn't wrong, "it is an oversimplification," she said.

The core idea, said Judy Scotchmoor, assistant director of the UC Museum of Paleontology at UC Berkeley and coordinator of Understanding Science, is that science is about exploring, asking questions and testing ideas. The site provides a Science Checklist that can be used to determine just how "scientific" particular activities are.

"The goal was to present (the concept) that testable ideas are right at the center of science, and if you don't generate testable ideas, then you are really not doing science," Kuldell said.

Testing, however, is intertwined with exploration and discovery - the "cowboy" aspect of science, in the words of one project advisor - review of hypotheses and theories by skeptical peers, and actual application of the science to real world problems.

Within the Web site, personal stories contributed by top scientists around the country illustrate the interplay of exploration, peer review and outcomes, and demonstrate the different pathways to discovery taken in different fields of science, from biology to cosmology.

Scotchmoor hopes that the site will show students and the public that "science really is an adventure. There are certain rules that you need to follow, but really you can't predict where questions will take you."

The Web site premiered on Jan. 5 during the launch of Year of Science 2009, and received rave reviews from New York Times science writer Carl Zimmer, who referred to it in his blog as "a guided tour through the basic questions of what science is and how it works." He particularly praised the Process of Science flowchart illustrating how science works. A set of four interlocking circles represent the interplay between hypothesis testing and the ways scientists generate these hypotheses, while multiple arrows connect the circles to illustrate the roundabout way scientists make their discoveries.

"At best, I think, stories about science can only be snapshots of small patches of science's cycles within cycles," Zimmer wrote of the flowchart. "It (story telling) uses the one-dimensional medium of language to gesture towards science's mind-boggling multidimensionality. This picture from Understanding Science will help me remember to make that gesture, long after the Year of Science is over."

Four years ago, Scotchmoor, Caldwell and Lindberg created a Web site called Understanding Evolution that now provides a much-needed resource for teachers and the public.

"We discovered, however, that there was a lot of confusion about what science is and isn't," Scotchmoor said. "We found nothing on the Web that would clarify this, so we approached the National Science Foundation to create this unique K-16 site."

"Teachers had misconceptions, such as what a theory is or whether creationism is science," Caldwell said. "Many even thought science wasn't creative, in part because of cookbook labs, in part because of the emphasis on testing factual knowledge, not process."

With advice and input from historians, philosophers, teachers and scientists, Scotchmoor, Caldwell and Lindberg constructed the Web site from scratch, modeling it after Understanding Evolution. Understanding Science has been endorsed by the California Science Teacher's Association and the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and will be part of the next edition of a popular high school biology textbook, "Biology" (Prentice Hall), by Ken Miller and Joe Levine.

Kuldell uses it in her second- and third-year college lab courses to "set the expectations of my students, (to show them) that science is iterative and messy and doesn't always make a clean story - and that that should be expected. You work and then you rework, you get feedback, you rethink your ideas, and then retest. Science isn't quite as neat as people wish it were and think it should be."

The Web site will continue to grow, with personal profiles of scientists and their research, each accompanied by a flow chart showing how they proceeded from ideas to discovery.

"We hope these cool stories will draw people in," Scotchmoor said.

January 6, 2009 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Sheri Potter (e-mail: spotter@copusproject.org; telephone: 941-923-6320) Judy Scotchmoor (e-mail: jscotch@berkeley.edu; telephone: 510-642-4877) Washington, DC - The Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) kicked off Year of Science 2009 (YoS2009) -- a national, yearlong, grassroots celebration -- this week in Boston at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. COPUS, which represents more than 500 organizations, is celebrating how science works, who scientists are, and why science matters. Ira Flatow, host of Science Friday, broadcast every week on National Public Radio, launched the week's events with a plenary presentation encouraging scientists to get involved in communicating and sharing the excitement of science at every opportunity. Flatow said: "If you don't stand up for science, then no one else is going to do it. We as journalists and scientists have to figure out ways to share science in plain English whenever possible." This call to action is what drives YoS2009: it is a call for scientists to step out of their laboratories and into the public eye. COPUS participants--museums, federal agencies, K-12 schools, universities, scientific societies, and nonprofit and for-profit organizations from all 50 states and 13 countries--will host events in celebration of YoS2009. Regionally connected COPUS participants are bringing science to their local communities in innovative ways. Some of the activities taking place in different regions of the country are described below. Florida Charlie Crist of Florida was the first governor to issue a statewide proclamation of YoS2009. The proclamation will be formally presented in an event bringing together representatives from the Girl Scouts, local schools, the National Football League's (NFL) Environmental Program, and Florida's Division of Forestry, among many other diverse organizations, in a day of celebrating science through hands-on activities showcasing rich and diverse science resources. Washington, DC The nation's capital will be the site of a week-long "Meet the Scientist" effort in which leading scientists will go to schools, community groups, and science festivals to share their science with the general public and explain how they know what they know about science. Berkeley, California The University of California (UC) Berkeley maintains the Web site Science@Cal (http://scienceatcal.berkeley.edu) to promote the depth and breadth of science on campus. The site highlights opportunities for the public to meet UC scientists at the East Bay Science Café. Also, scientists can teach people how they do their work by hosting Flat Stanley at their labs and institutions (www.flatstanley.com/yearofscience2009/intro.htm). Seattle, Washington At Northwest School, the annual Winterfest celebration will highlight YoS2009 themes with rocket launches, flaming chemistry demonstrations, mousetrap cars, a play based on the Fibonacci number series, Rube Goldberg machines, and more! Nationally A special Web site (www.yearofscience2009.org) will help the general public learn more about this yearlong, national event. The site will feature a different scientific theme each month, complemented by blogs from scientists and science communicators about those topics and their fields of expertise. Highlights from the dynamic YoS2009 Web site include the integration of components from the newly launched Understanding Science Web site (www.understandingscience.org), Flat Stanley explorations of science, the opportunity to name a new species of jellyfish or adopt a species for the Encyclopedia of Life, and a contest to build the most scientific pizza. All of these events and activities foster innovative new partnerships that will bring science and the public closer together locally, regionally, and nationally--all in a growing celebration of science! Rita Colwell, former director of the National Science Foundation, states: "In this Year of Science 2009, scientists around the globe collectively are shining a spotlight on their work to highlight the achievements of modern science in the public square. This year provides a special opportunity to be optimistic and express hope for a better future. Through their passion and dedication, scientists and nonscientists alike are able to share in the thrill of scientific discovery." COPUS, which began with support from the National Science Foundation, has grown to be an inclusive grassroots endeavor spurring communication and collaboration in the scientific community while shining the spotlight on science in 2009. Still growing, the COPUS network of more than 500 organizations includes a broad range of participants from large federal agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to local groups such as the Banana Slug String Band from Santa Cruz, California, and TalkingScience, a New York City nonprofit that is organizing a "Rock-it Science" concert in 2009. Major sponsors of the Year of Science 2009 include the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the University of California Museum of Paleontology, the Geological Society of America, and the National Science Teachers Association. To register as a participant or to learn more, visit www.copusproject.org. Click here to view a word document version of this press release.

An awesome update from Lee Allison about his Science Friday experience:

Ira Flatow interviewed me this afternoon live on his NPR show, Science Friday (the segment should be available tonight), from New York, as the first story of the new year, talking about 2009 as the Year of Science. We only had less than 10 minutes, but a lot of people must have been listening. I started getting calls and emails within minutes of hanging up the phone. New registrations to COPUS - the organizers of the YoS activities - started rolling in all afternoon.

I just logged on after dinner tonight and found my in box stuffed with
more groups signing on from all over the country as well as from Mali, Australia, and Guatemala. I saw at least a few Arizona organizations
signing up among the participants.

It's energizing to see and hear the interest in engaging the public about science. Judy Scotchmoor, the co-founder of COPUS, and Sheri Potter, our effervescent program leader, are in Boston tonight for the opening of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology annual meeting on Saturday. Ira Flatow (left) and science writer Carl Zimmer (right, he blogs at Discover magazines The Loom) are featured presenters in a special session to formally launch 2009 as the Year of Science. Sheri told me this afternoon that what was going to be a rather intimate event is mushrooming in attendance. SICB says registration for the conference is up 20% with the YoS events creating a great sense of excitement.

What's my role in all this? Well, in the summer of 2005, Judy and I wrote a short white paper on the need for improving public understanding of science, at the urging of the National Science Foundation. They funded a small workshop that led to formation of COPUS, where I continue to serve on the steering committee. Some influential members of the science community suggested COPUS take the lead in organizing 2009 as a year to celebrate science and the group jumped at the idea.

Judy is the driving force behind the new Understanding Science website, whose roots are in the highly successful and popular Understanding Evolution site. Understanding Science officially goes public next Tuesday but Carl Zimmer is the YoS guest blogger for January and describes some of what he's discovered already in the site.

M. Lee Allison
State Geologist & Director
Arizona Geological Survey
416 W. Congress, #100
Tucson AZ 85701
520-770-3500, fax x3505
www.azgs.az.gov