In response to a need for professional development in science for afterschool educators, the Exploratorium, the premier science center located in San Francisco, organized a series of teacher training workshops and online resources for the afterschool community. Even before they started their first workshop, Sherry Hsi, Director of Online Learning at the Exploratorium, and […]

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is a free, online magazine dedicated to integrating science and literacy! With the polar regions as a context, each issue of the magazine contains professional development articles, lesson plans, downloadable assessment probes and nonfiction stories for students, stories of polar researchers, and much more.
The magazine is aimed at K-5 educators, […]

In the past year, a greater interest in online learning has brought forth a flurry of discussion on what schools should offer their students and teachers in terms of training and course development suited for an online medium. The 2007 Speak Up Survey conducted by Project Tomorrow polled students, teachers, parents, and school leaders […]

Thanks, Robert for posting all of those valuable astronomy resources. I would like to add another. The AAPT digital library for K-12 Physics and Astronomy that is under the ComPADRE Pathways Project: http://thephysicsfront.org There you will find lesson plans, references, activities, simulations, assessments, teacher content support and student tutorials as well as much much more….

2009 marks the 400th anniversary in celebrating Gallileo’s use of a telescope to study the night sky. As a prelude to the International Year of Astronomy, NSDL offers the first seminar in the 2008 Fall Series: Celebrating Astronomy: A Star’s Story on Thursday, September 25th. Our NSDL experts, Dr. Cathy […]

This blog is for K12 educators to explore, discuss, and learn about resources, tools, and educational issues related to the use of digital resources in teaching. Entries will include highlights from the NSDL collection, content and materials showcased in the NSDL Web Seminar Series in partnership with the National Science Teachers Association, best practices […]

Are there good, reliable reference resources on the Internet?  Yes.  This list is by no means complete.  It is intended to give you a feel for what’s out there.
American Society for Indexing
http://www.asindexing.org/site/refbooks.shtml 
Council of Science Editors
http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/links.cfm
Fact Monster from Information Please
http://www.factmonster.com/science.html 
General Tables of Units of Measurement (NIST)
http://ts.nist.gov/WeightsAndMeasures/Publications/upload/h4402_appenc.pdf
How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/
HyperPhysics, HyperMath, HyperBiology
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html
tcaep.co.uk  (constants […]

It seems that understanding and solving physics word problems is difficult for many students.  Here are some web pages that may prove useful.
Polya’s Recipe for Problem Solving
 Cooperative Group Problem Solving in Physics
A Logical Probelm Solving Strategy
Suggested reading:
Hewitt, Paul G. 2006 “Problems Without Numbers–at First”>  Science Teacher 73(5): 40-42.
Gaigher, E. 2007 “Exploring the Development of Conceptual […]

Occasionally one finds a few minutes that need to be filled with a fun activity or an activity designed to stimulate discussion. Here are a few places to look for that sort of material.
teachertube.com I especially like the Brain Teaser series.
The Ford/MIT Nobel Laureate Lecture Series  One example is “Defining the Boundaries: Homeland Security and Its […]

e! Science News is an automated news search engine whose sole purpose is to ensure that you have access to the very latest and popular science breakthroughs. Give it a test drive!

When I am faced with a need for information, my first instinct is to search the literature. If someone has written a good review of a topic, why re-invent the wheel? Access to various indexes varies from one institution to another. I am pleased to tell you about a service from the folks at the […]

comPADRE is the physics portion of the National Science Digital Library. It has a wealth of information for faculty at all levels and for students. Do yourself a favor and get acquainted with this valuable resource. The description below comes from Dr. Bruce Mason, Principle Investigator for the project.
Browsing the ComPADRE Collections:
Go to http://www.compadre.org. Collections […]

Institutions who have NSF grants must offer outreach programs. I will show links to the various outreach programs here at Cornell because I know Cornell best! But, other instituions also offer lesson plans that have been written as part of their outreach programs.  For example:
Columbia University Summer Research Program for Science for Teachers–lesson plans
Below I […]

The Perimeter Institute for Theorectical Physics offers curriculum called “The Mystery of Dark Matter.” It has been reviewed by a high school physics teacher who says: ” The
activities are very good and the information supporting the labs is thorough. Materials are well fit for an upper high school physics class (i.e. AP, Honors, or better […]

Notable Scientists (Information Please)
Eric Weisstein’s World of Scientific Biography
The Galileo Project
A Science Odyssey
Library Spot
The Nobel Foundation

The constructivist learning theory says that children learn best when they construct a personal understanding based on experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences.The constructivist learning theory says that children learn best when they construct a personal understanding based on experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences. (wikipedia)
Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning
Water […]

MY DEAR SIR,—The accompanying papers, which we have the honour of communicating to the Linnean Society, and which all relate to the same subject, viz. the Laws which affect the Production of Varieties, Races, and Species, contain the results of the investigations of two indefatigable naturalists, Mr. Charles Darwin and Mr. Alfred Wallace.
These gentlemen […]

This article was written by middle school science teacher Todd Williamson for the Integrating Technology column of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, an online magazine for elementary teachers. All versions of this article are licensed under a Creative Commons License.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
If you’ve used a search engine like Google or Yahoo anytime in the past two years […]

Data overwhelms our modern lives. How to make sense of the numbers in newspaper stories, in campaign speeches, in scientific experiments? Statistics offers tools to help us organize and interpret data. Even at the middle school level, students can work with statistics in real-world situations, whether actual or simulated. To actually apply statistics to real […]

What is the
Largest machine
Fastest racetrack
Coldest place
Emptiest space
Hottest spot
on earth?
It’s the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that is scheduled to be “turned on” September 10, 2008. The LHC is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, Switzerland that is 100m underground. It is a particle accelerator where two beams of subatomic particles called hadrons will travel in opposite […]

This article first appeared in Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears online magazine August 1, 2008. The article has been modified to include middle school math and science examples. All versions of this article are licensed under a Creative Commons License.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Over the last few years, blogs have evolved into an exciting web-based publishing tool for individuals […]

Middle schoolers may not easily see the connection between data analysis problems invented for the classroom and math problems encountered in their daily lives. You will spark their interest in data analysis by showing them its value in finding solutions to real problems in many settings — from buying a soda to taking after-school jobs […]

If you want to “hook” your class on math right from the start, you may want to consider one of these real-world projects. Students deal with real data in these investigations—collecting, presenting, and analyzing their findings. As they work on the NCTM Data Analysis and Probability Standard, they apply school mathematics in contexts arising outside […]

Sometimes geoboards are left on the shelf because we don’t know what to do with them. They can be powerful tools for students to study, length, area and perimeter. (But remember to be careful with the perimeter part because the length of one unit is only measured on the horizontal or vertical, not the diagonal.) […]

The Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionized the study of astronomy since its launch in 1990 and has sent a steady stream of striking images of space back to Earth from its orbit. It has:
Precisely measured the age of the universe
Found evidence of dark energy
Took images of distant galaxies in the young universe
Captured the “best […]

Factors and their multiples are so important to students’ work with fractions and number theory. These concepts come under the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Number and Operations Standard for the middle grades. The resources here are all hands-on, if only virtually. Important to their success is the classroom talk that the resources […]

DEET (short for N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) is the most widely used insect repellent in the world for a very good reason – it works really, really well! Just a quick spray on exposed skin keeps mosquitoes, flies, fleas, chiggers, and ticks away. Developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and patented by the U.S. Army […]

If you’ve taught plate tectonics at the middle school level, you’re probably quite familiar with the supercontinent Pangaea. But did you know that Pangaea was not the only supercontinent in earth’s history – just the last to date? Millions of years before Pangaea, another supercontinent known as Rodinia united all of earth’s landmass in an […]

A third of reef-building corals around the world are threatened with extinction, according to the first-ever comprehensive global assessment to determine their conservation status. Corals produce reefs in shallow tropical and sub-tropical seas and have been shown to be highly sensitive to changes in their environment. The study findings were published July 11, 2008 by […]

Need an answer to your students’ question “Why do I need to take science? I’m not going to be a scientist!” On June 1, 2008, Brian Greene, physicist at Columbia University and author, wrote an op ed in the New York Times with your answer. Early in the two page article, he says
When we look […]

Middle school students are often intrigued by the excitement of exploration and the adventures of explorers, as their enthusiasm for Indiana Jones attests. Space exploration should be no exception. With new images now available from the Mars explorer, Phoenix, teachers can capitalize on student interest in exploration to meet some of the Earth and Space […]

Many news outlets reported earlier this week that recent rice crop failures could have been avoided. An infestation of the brown plant hopper is the cause for the crop failure. The science knowledge and biotechnology needed to breed resistant rice plants have been in existence for several years. However, funds were not available to mass […]

Distinguishing between science and science fiction can be a good reinforcement activity for students learning the characteristics of science. Cognitively, middle school students are able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. But because science is not always intuitively obvious, distinguishing science fact from science fiction can be more challenging. Today’s blog encourages you to use […]

Those of us born after World War II have take antibiotics for granted. Strep throat? Ear infection? Acne? Bronchitis? Not a problem. Take the full prescribed antibiotic dose and you are cured. The reality of antibiotic resistant bacteria however, disrupts that scenario. No longer can we always trust in a full recovery from a bacterial […]

Typically, a middle school life science study of cells explores the ways cells get what they need and get rid of waste, and the cell cycle concept, including how cells reproduce through mitosis. Discussion of cancer at this time is appropriate since cancer cells share the needs of normal cells in terms of obtaining nutrients […]

This week’s blog focuses on Earth Day, April 22. There is no news article accompanying today’s blog. Instead, we provide you with an assortment of resources related to Earth Day. Do you know how Earth Day started? You can find the answer to that question and more in The History of Earth Day by Gaylord […]

My name is Jessica Fries-Gaither, and I am an elementary resource specialist at the Ohio State University, where I serve as project director for Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears. Beyond Penguins is a free, online professional development magazine for elementary teachers dedicated to increasing knowledge of the polar regions and to integrating science and literacy […]

Karen Kalumuck, presenter for the NSDL web seminar, Small Creatures Under the Microscope, has had a lifelong desire to learn and teach science at all age levels. From the university classroom to the science center lab at the Exploratorium, Karen has dedicated herself to making science exciting for the audiences she serves. Learn […]

As a teenager, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I did know what I wanted to study.
I lived in the Washington, D.C., suburbs until I was 13. So it was a shock to move to rural upstate New York. But soon the woods and lakes and farms won me […]

Marcia Eames-Sheavly of the Garden-Based Learning Program at Cornell University and presenter for the NSDL Web Seminar:
Flower Bulb Science shares how she was able to combine her interests into a satisfying career:
When I was in high school, I admired my friends who seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do. […]

I never figured I’d work so much of my career in science museums, but looking back it really comes as no surprise. The city park in the area that I grew up in is right next to what was then the Denver Museum of Natural History. Our family would go on picnics in […]

As our presenter for “Studying Genomes“, Rob DeSalle takes life as one big discovery after another. Here’s an excerpt from his biography from the AMNH Seminars on Science profiles:
As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago in the 1970s, Rob had vague plans of becoming a social worker. But frequent visits to the Field […]

My name is Lynn Diener and I work on the new Chemistry Education pathway. The Chemistry Education Digital Library (ChemEd DL) brings together a variety of innovative electronic resources for teaching Chemistry. We will highlight a number of these resources in our upcoming seminar, Chemistry Comes Alive II: Sticky Molecules and Folding Proteins.
I knew […]

My name is Christina Symons and I am one of the geologists working on the ERESE Project (Enduring Resources for Earth Science Education, http://www.Earthref.org/ERESE). ERESE provides a digital collection rich with state of the art earth science data and images for the classroom, bringing students and teachers onboard virtual cruises and into the field. […]

Hello, everybody! Thanks for visiting the blog for the NSDL/NSTA Web Seminar 2007 Fall Series. My name is Bethany Carlson, and I worked with project director Sarita Nair-Pillai on the creation of the FunWorks NSDL collection.
A little about me:
I have a B.S. in engineering—I was one of those kids in high school whose social life […]

We’ve asked our presenters for the NSDL/NSTA Web Seminar 2007 Fall Series to share their insights on pursuing careers in science and science education. They’ll also share some of their current work in their fields of expertise. Read, share, and comment on the discussion for the Fall Series running from September 2007 to […]

The Web is a powerful tool. Like all powerful tools it can be used for good, for not-so-good, and for downright bad purposes. Examples of the last surface every so often, such as false biographical information planted in Wikipedia (1) and destruction of a reputation and job by a Web-based campaign of exaggerated […]

from Erica Jacobsen, JCE High School Editor
The WonderLab Museum in Bloomington, IN was alive with movement and sound. Limber bodies snaked up a two-story maze called the “Grapevine Climber” to arrive triumphantly at the top. Massive soap bubbles burst, showering heads with a misty spray. Cheers and applause broke out as the centerpiece of a […]

from Laura Slocum, JCE High School Associate Editor
New has been defined in various ways—recently made, created, or invented; recently discovered or noticed; recently introduced and previously unfamiliar; at the beginning of another day, month, or year. At this time of year most of us are probably thinking about this last definition of new. However, for […]

I have always liked Rudolph Clausius’s statement of two laws of thermodynamics in the original German: “Die Energie der Welt ist konstant. Die Entropie der Welt strebt einem Maximum zu”. If you know thermodynamics and a little German, this statement summarizes a wealth of experimental data. The title of this editorial is the second law […]

Mathematics is fundamental to science because a great many aspects of science are best described and elucidated using mathematical tools. Lack of preparation in mathematics hampers many students’ efforts to learn science and prevents many other students from pursuing science at all. Consequently, mathematics education is important not only for mathematicians, but for all scientists. […]

I recently had the pleasure of listening to a talk, “Scientific Challenges in Sustainable Energy Technology”, by Nathan S. Lewis, California Institute of Technology. Lewis summarized data on energy resources and provided his analysis of their implications for the future of human society. He has provided slides, text, and a streaming audio/video version at his […]

from Erica Jacobsen, JCE High School Editor
If you haven’t visited it before, chemistry.com (accessed Jun 2008) probably isn’t quite what you think. The Web site does focus on chemistry—of the matchmaking kind. The online dating service uses an algorithm created by Helen E. Fisher, an anthropologist who has studied the neural chemistry of people in […]

from Laura Slocum, JCE High School Associate Editor
What could the three items in the title possibly have in common? For me, they represent three of the 24 different projects my students turned in February 14. In the July 2007 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education, Ami LeFevre shared her Element Project, Bouquets of Periodicity, […]

 
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Yancey, 1816
Thinking is hard. Writing is hard because it requires thinking. Both thinking and writing involve time and concentration-commodities that these days are hard to come […]

Als Ik Kan is the message in the logo of Gustav Stickley, creator of the Mission style of furniture. Loosely translated from Flemish it means “to the best of my ability”. Jim D. Roach, Emporia State University, KS uses Als Ik Kan as the theme for his call for greater dedication by everyone, teachers, students, […]

Today in History - September 27, 2003 - The first European mission to the moon was launched aboard an Ariane-5 rocket carrying the SMART-1 exploration probe, along with two commercial satellites. It took 15 months to reach lunar orbit, covered over 60 million miles with only 13 gallons of fuel. After being captured by […]

In honor of National Manufacturing Week, the Engineering Pathway highlights Manufacturing Engineering Education in September. Check out our Manufacturing Engineering Education Disciplinary Community and related manufacturing engineering educational resources, such as NIST’s Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory (MEL) or the Manufacturing Video Library.

Find out How Everyday Things are Made with courseware hosted by […]

Today in History - September 19, 1982 - Invention of the Smiley Face emoticon by Scott E. Fahlman.
Scott Fahlman has authored the following blog in honor of Smiley’s birthday for the Engineering Pathway.

Today in History - September 19, 1982 - Invention of the Smiley Face emoticon by Scott E. Fahlman. A lot of people […]

WGBH Teachers Domain in partnership with NSDL hosted a meeting of 17 leaders in education from 14 states in Boston to discuss educational issues that included best practices and models for professional development, online resources for teaching, educational technology, and effective methods for teaching science. Participants learned about the rich media resources found […]

Today in History - September 14, 1959 - In 1959, a spaceship fell out of the lunar sky and hit the ground near the Sea of Serenity. Although the ship itself was shattered, the mission was considered a success, making Luna 2 from the Soviet Union the first manmade object to “land” on the […]

Just in time for back to school, Teachers’ Domain has expanded resources in Science, Math, Social Studies, Art, and English Language Arts for grades K-12. We have also added a Teachers’ Domain College Edition, which includes resources in science and engineering for higher education, and VITAL New York, K-12 resources for NY state educators. Click here to read the […]

The NSDL Engineering Pathway(EP) recently redesigned its website to better engage the younger generation by incorporating findings and recommendations from the recent National Academy of Engineering study, Changing the Conversation. The new Engineering Pathway logo connotes movement and adventure - paths that provide opportunities to learn, connect, create, dream, design and do. The tagline messages encourage the […]

Today in History - September 1, 1873 - the world’s first cable-powered railroad in San Francisco is put into operation. The inventor of the cable car was Andrew S. Hallidie (center image above) and contracted by the Clay Street Hill Railroad Company in San Francisco. Hallidie’s system used a continuous looped wire rope that was […]

Today in History - August 27, 2003 - World’s largest battery is connected to provide emergency power to Fairbanks, Alaska’s second-largest city. Backup power is critical here as Alaska could become an “electrical island” when the power lines go down. In fact, environmental conditions cause a total city blackout every two or three years. In […]

Today in History - August 23, 1977 - Gossamer Condor achieves first human powered flight around a figure eight. This team effort, under the leadership of Paul B. MacCready, Jr., won the $50,000 Kremer Prize and captured the world’s attention. Bryan Allen maintained a head-height during the 7 1/2 minute figure eight flight.
British millionaire […]

Ending two and a half days of networking, sharing research results, project outcomes and swapping good stories, almost 200 NSDL partners and projects said goodbye and headed home from Washington D.C. on October 2 to continue building NSDL’s capacity as a national platform for cyberlearning. Presentations will be downloadable from the Annual Meeting Full Schedule […]

NSDL’s Annual Meeting is set to take place from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, 2008 in Washington, D.C. This year, the program focuses on the complementary efforts of mature NSDL projects in a format developed to highlight the collective work from NSDL projects. Achievments in professional development and outreach with K12 and higher education audiences; […]

Teachers work to connect broad learning concepts, standards and educational resources in K12 classrooms to ensure that their students’ progress is both developmentally sound and measurable. The new version of the National Science Digital Library’s Science Literacy Map (SLM) tool is an easy-to-use service that finds and presents students  with the right resource at just the right moment. SLM provides visualizations for […]

Under the Swiss Alps this week beams of protons known as Hadrons circled the 27 kilometers of the most powerful particle accelerator (the CERN Large Hadron Collider) in the world for the first time. As those protons begin to collide scientists expect to learn more about dark matter and how mass exists. This NSDL resource […]

In last year’s Speak Up 2007 Report, Project Tomorrow’s annual survey of teachers, parents, and students focusing on technology in schools, teachers expressed a growing need for online professional development programs. The survey showed a 29% increase in teacher interest in online programs from the previous year. The National Science Teachers Association’s […]

The NSDL Web Seminar Fall 2008 Series begins September 25th with another year of online professional development programs in partnership with the National Science Teachers Association. These 90-minute seminars allow educators to interact online with NSDL community experts and other educators across the nation. In conjunction with next year’s International Year of Astronomy, […]

On Thursday, July 31, 2008, Digital Promise, a fund to keep America competitive in this digital century by transforming education, workforce training, and lifelong learning, was passed by both the U.S. House and Senate as part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. It is expected to be signed into law by President […]

Issue Five of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears magazine, Water, Ice, and Snow, uses the polar regions to better understand the water cycle as well as states and changes of matter. While the weather at the beach may be steamy right now, the August issue looks at the cool blue and white of forming, moving and melting glaciers, […]

NSDL has streamlined collection browsing at NSDL.org to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. Browse collections alphabetically or through subject gateways that include: Biological and Health Sciences; Engineering, Computing, and Technology; General Science and STEM; Geosciences; Mathematics; Physical Sciences; and Social Sciences. Within each of these broad categories, users may browse by […]

A new National Science Digital Library (NSDL) scholarly publication, Classic Articles in Context (CAC), was launched in April 2008 with an atmospheric science theme: “Climate Change and Anthropogenic Greenhouse Warming: A Selection of Key Articles, 1824-1995, with Interpretive Essays.” Each issue of Classic Articles in Context presents significant scientific questions of the Twentieth Century […]

National Science Ditial Library projects, partners and pathways met in Washington, D.C. Sept. 30-October 2, 2008 to discuss new directions for the 8-yr-old NSF initiative designed to leverage online educational STEM opportunities for students and learners of all ages nationwide. Many partners and projects have been part of NSDL since 2000, and as usual, the […]

Since 2000 National Science Digital Library (NSDL) projects and partners have demonstrated multiple ways to provide high quality resources and tools that support innovations in teaching and learning. This year’s NSDL Annual Meeting promises to highlight even more of these ongoing cyberlearning initiatives that in total have increased the educational value of national investment in […]

Wondering how to design an evaluation with limited or no funding? Have questions about what to do with the data you’ve been collecting but don’t know what to do with? Bring your questions to the 1:15 session on Wednesday Oct. 1, 2008 (Sharing Evaluation Expertise and Results). We’ll discuss evaluation and take a stab at […]

This year’s Annual Meeting with the theme “STEM Research and Education in Action” will be held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. from September 30 - October 2, 2008.
The schedule includes presentations and overviews from NSDL Pathways and partners who are implementing NSDL resources and tools for K12 and undergraduate classrooms nationwide. Stay tuned to this […]

“Invisibility. Teleportation. Mind reading. Psychokinesis. Time travel. Star ships. Parallel universes. Normally, these would be dismissed by scientists as being impossible. One hundred years ago, the same was thought about lasers, televisions and visiting outer space.” This is the first sentence of Michio Kaku’s abstract from his presentation to AAPT entitled, “Physics of the […]

If you cross Amazon.com CTO Verner Vogels’, “Two Pizza Team Rule” with what David Flanders, Project Manager, The Bloomsbury Colleges, and organizer of the summer of 2008 “Repository Road Shows,” compares to “Penny Universities” of the 18th century that were often convened in taverns, or to the work life of Shakespeare who more than likely […]

Los Angeles is a town where reality is a reinvented on a daily basis. Even so the exhibits, talks and media presented at SIGGRAPH 2008 pushed the limits of perceived reality with a provocative theme exhorting participants to “Evolve.” However the almost 30,000 graphics and robotics researchers, entertainment industry representatives, educators, programmers, artists and students […]

Cheryl Lemke, CEO and President of Metiri Group, a consulting firm dedicated to advancing technology in schools presented to a full house of educators, technology coordinators and other educational technology professionals at this week’s National Education Computing Conference (NECC) held in San Antonio, Texas. In her session, The Ripple Effect: 21st […]

SLA June 15-18, 2008
Seattle, Washington
As usual, my activities were mainly with the Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics (PAM) division of SLA. I gave a brief report about the meeting “Graduate Education in Physics: Which Way Forward” at which I gave a poster presentation on information fluency at the PAM-wide roundtable discussion. I gave a two hour poster presentation on […]

One strategy for classifying the millions of galaxies mapped by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey was to open the Galaxy Zoo, invite the public to look at the new creatures, and give them tools to record their observations.
When Alex Szalay is not considering improved strategies for managing and sharing big data, and how that […]

As if social networking craze weren’t spreading across the globe quickly enough, Google recently announced a new service  - Friend Connect – that can turn any website into a social networking site. All the webmasters have to do is add “ a snippet” of code to their page and Google takes care of the rest.  […]

Tim Krueger
 
            The cover article of Sunday’s New York Times Magazine explores the mechanics of a new approach to gang conflict on Chicago’s south side, in doing so weighing the logic behind regarding violence as a sort of virus.  Alex Kotlowitz explains how Gary Slutkin, the architect of CeaseFire in Chicago, plots out a strategy […]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE7D81530F936A15751C1A966958260&scp=1&sq=Braess’Paradox&st=cse

Much to the chagrin of many New Yorkers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a widespread traffic proposal that would charge people $8 to enter Manhattan below 86th Street. While many praised Bloomberg for his plan—estimated to bring New York City $500M—most said that the toll would encumber New York City businesses. For months, the mayor has […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/business/02view.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&sq=information%20cascade&st=nyt&scp=1
One of my father’s favorite jokes is “What is the state bird of Florida? The construction crane!” For a time, I believed that the joke was more of a fact than a mere quip. Driving up A1A, a major thoroughfare that runs parallel to South Florida’s beaches, revealed hundreds of new condominium development project each […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/education/13voices.html?pagewanted=2&sq=

Upon completion of this four-course meal they call college, Cornell University will stick me with a bill totaling $200,000. The price of college education—especially at private institutions—has been the subject of much media attention as of late. Institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale have instituted bold programs providing free education for students who cannot […]

As an assistant with the Cincinatti Bengals, Bill Walsh developed an offense strategy called the West Coast offense. This system used multiple receiver sets and short, precise passing that countered the traditional football strategies of run-based offenses and downfield passing. Walsh later became head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and won three Super Bowls […]

Hedge funds are small aggressively run funds that use advanced strategies and advanced derivatives to produce high returns in either absolute marks or market bench marks. The $2 trillion hedge fund market brings around questions about their power, performance, and economic impact. Compared to the highly regulated mutual funds, […]

What first struck me about this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/health/research/06dise.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin) from today’s New York Times was the similarity of the diagram of diseases organized by the genes that cause them to say any other network diagram we have studied in class. While the bulk of the article deals with the changing paradigm of how disease are thought […]

This online simulation game (http://www.indiana.edu/~istdemo/) created by the University of Indiana, has at its heart, the premise of exploring how information is transmitted across a network. By using a created narrative of getting different teachers at a fictional high school to adopt a new pedagogical technique, it focuses many topics of discussion including the way […]

In 2001, The National Institute of Justice released a report on drug epidemics and warned of a new marijuana epidemic that had begun in the 1990s. Through extensive research, the Institute discovered an alarming rise in marijuana usage among the nation’s youth. This trend could have serious implications, including precipitating an increase in so-called “hard […]

From late March to the middle of August, scientists and others at Antarctica research stations were resigned to no air service during the months without sunlight. A C-17 Globemaster III changed all that in September by landing at McMurdo Station in complete darkness using night-vision goggles technology and reflective cones on the runway.
The mission was […]

A trio of seal-sniffing dogs was featured in the September issue of Current, a monthly newsletter of the National Science Foundation. Marine biologist Brendan P. Kelly and researchers at the University of Alaska Southeast use the three Labrador retrievers to locate ringed seals in the sea ice of the far north.
Researchers are seeking to […]

Solar radiation, albedo, and the natural resources of the polar regions are all part of the newest issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears: Energy and the Polar Environment. In this issue, you can:
Learn about the albedo (reflectivity) of Earth’s various surfaces and how increased melting of polar ice caps will affect Earth’s energy balance
Find […]