Another classroom activity, this one using a scenario of investigating groundwater contamination at a gas station to reinforce some basic concepts about hydraulic head and groundwater flow. It’s based on a lab by Karen Kortz at CCRI which I stumbled across on the SERC website. I expanded the grid a bit, put together a slick … Continue reading
Science communicators expend a lot of energy on account of the opposition to important (but publicly controversial) scientific topics like evolution and climate change. Misinformation is debunked. Grumbles about Fox News, the Daily Mail, or [insert politician here] build to a low roar of background frustration. The questions are obvious. “Why do these people think … Continue reading
Take over a century’s worth of climate science and bin it! A new paper posted at the website of “Principia Scientific, International” purports to demonstrate that there is no such thing as an atmospheric greenhouse effect by ushering in a “21st century paradigm in atmospheric physics”. This is not the first time this site has … Continue reading
Opponents of well-established scientific ideas (like evolution or climate change) often have to resort to the same playbook. If you can’t produce scientific evidence to support your position, your options are pretty limited. Opponents commonly feel that if they can just show that there are problems with the consensus explanation, their preferred explanation will come … Continue reading
Just posting this relative dating diagram I drew up and the associated classroom activity in case it’s useful to some Google-searching instructor out there. (Updated 2/12/13: Edited figure to fix error.) (Updated 2/14/13: Activity questions modified.) (Note: WordPress is messing with the colors here, but if you click on the image for the full resolution … Continue reading
The singular Richard Feynman liked to describe science that lacked a certain rigor as “cargo cult science”. In his words from a 1974 commencement speech: In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged … Continue reading
