Robotics exhibit and experiment, St. Louis Science Center

It can take a long time for a science center to build relationships with scientists and engineers, but one member of the museum community is convinced that it’s worth the effort.  “You may not see tangible results for a long time,” says Christine Roman, PhD, associate director of emerging technologies for the Saint Louis Science Center (SLSC). “But eventually it can bear fruit in all kinds of ways.”

Roman’s long-term partnership with the Computer Science and Engineering department at Washington University has resulted in a win-win collaboration that could be a model for other science centers. In 2001, she and Professor Bill Smart designed a collaborative project in which SLSC visitors could drive a robot in a remote location. The underlying goal was to bring real scientific research to SLSC, involve visitors in the studies, and enhance the experience with related programming.

The early concept proceeded slowly from small studies to a full-scale deployment to refinement. In 2005, the collaborators set up a 5,000-square-foot maze with a research-grade iRobot, and put a control center in a gallery nearby.  The experiment was run by roboticists from Washington University and Idaho National Laboratories; the SLSC assembled participants and provided explanatory signage, educational media, and staff.  The roboticists “wanted to test human use of control screens with sensor feedback from the robot,” says Roman. “We invited robotics teams, mentors, and visitors to work together and drive the robot.  The researchers collected data on how the groups used the control screens.  About 400 people participated in one week. The researchers could not have acquired such a diverse group of subjects in any other way.”

Test Screen

The exhibit was a hit with visitors – and so far, the experiment’s results have yielded numerous conference presentations, published papers, and one doctoral dissertation for the researchers. “Early career scientists are highly focused on publishing, so they are eager to participate when a collaboration supports that need,” Roman says.

Roman and her collaborators have redesigned the experiment as a testable model that other science centers and research partners will employ. They’re currently seeking funding for additional studies. “Simply using visitors as test subjects is counter to every science center’s mission. We need to make sure we’re providing a valuable educational experience,” she says.   “If science center staff and scientists ensure that on-site research focuses on visitor learning, I think the results could be very rich for everyone.”

100 excellent blogs for science teachers (which includes yours truly!)

Includes a bunch of teacher blogs (which seems like a great way to get some online mentorship if you’re all alone), and subject-area blogs (like physics or biology). A very useful list.

100 cheat sheets for K12 teachers

The sections on math and science include such helpful handouts as trig basics, basic principles of chemistry, how to add positive and negative numbers, from a variety of sources and websites (many from Clif Notes).

Annenberg:

http://www.learner.org/resources/series90.html

http://www.learner.org/resources/series126.html

TIMSS

http://nces.ed.gov/timss/video.asp

A laser technique used successfully to detect bacteria in frozen Antarctic lakes might be used to identify signs of life in Mars’ polar regions. The noninvasive technique does not disrupt the ice or destroy individual organisms. If used in astronomical studies, the technique might be employed via satellite monitoring or by an interplanetary rover.

This fall, NASA will fly a 157-foot long airborne laboratory (housed on a DC-8 aircraft) over West Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, and coastal areas where sea ice is present. The flights are part of a six-year campaign called Operation Ice Bridge, an effort to continue monitoring changes to sea ice and ice sheets and better estimate future sea-level rise.

Sediment cores from ANDRILL (Antarctic Geologic Drilling Program) have provided evidence of a sudden and remarkably warm period in Antarctica approximately 15.7 million years ago. Researchers believe that the warm period, which lasted a few thousand years, was triggered by a shift of the jet stream in the Southern hemisphere.

While ice loss from the West Antarctic ice sheet is contributing to rising sea levels, the rate of loss may have been slightly overestimated. New GPS measurements are helping to correct and “ground-truth” prior measurements that were inferred from satellite data.

Tiny cameras attached to the backs of albatrosses in Antarctica reveal that the birds often feed alongside marine mammals such as killer whales. This strategy increases hunting efficiency for the birds, as their prey (fish) is directed to the surface by the whales, making them more accessible.

While the summer of 2009 saw a slight increase in the extent of Arctic sea ice, it still is on a downward trend leading toward ice-free Arctic summers – something that new research says is likely within a decade. One Arctic expert claims that the Arctic is essentially almost ice-free in the summer due to the disappearance of thick, multi-year ice that impedes navigation. An ice-free Arctic opens up new avenues to transportation and shipping, but also may set in motion positive climate feedbacks that will amplify the consequences of global warming around the globe.

One of the concerns about climate change in the Arctic is its large store of carbon. The region has historically served as a carbon sink, responsible for about 25 percent of the global net sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As the Arctic warms, thawing permafrost will release carbon into the atmosphere, amplifying global warming. This is concerning because global carbon dioxide levels are higher than they have been for the last 15 million years. At that time, global temperatures were 5-10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher, and there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland.

While some maintain that climate change is simply a natural variation in Earth’s history, new data from Arctic sediment cores show that these changes are unlike those seen during previous warming periods. The cores, spanning the past 200,000 years, indicate that the entire ecosystem has shifted and is different from that of past warm intervals.

As the Arctic warms and thaws, erosion becomes an increasingly serious problem, threatening villages and structures. Geosynthetic bags, developed by French and Norwegian partners, can be used to build protective infrastructures such as dykes and breakwaters. The bags are simply filled with soil and can easily be emptied if the structure is no longer needed.

As Canadian Inuit are moving away from their traditional diet and adopting a high-sodium, Western diet, their blood pressure is rising. In a 1992 survey, respondents reported consuming fish and seafood nearly three times a week, caribou nearly twice a week, and waterfowl once a week. By 2004, consumption of traditional foods had decreased significantly, and the consumption of packaged food, sweets, and soda had increased. Health experts are recommending that the Inuit, like others, reduce their consumption of packaged foods, sweets, and sodas.

Know of another significant news story from October that you’d like to share? Reactions to one of the stories mentioned above? Post a comment – we’d love to hear from you!

If you’d just left your fish out on a shelf, exposed to the air, bacteria and fungi would have begun to decay the fish, creating strong, unappetizing odors. Since all living things require water to survive, removing the water from the fish greatly inhibited the growth of these organisms, decreasing the unpleasant effects of rotting.

For an inquiry activity, try substituting salt for baking soda. Which one works best? (Hint: It’s not the salt).

Make him a little pyramid home. Imagine his little fishy afterlife. Bury some fishy mummy friends for him to play with.

Pyramid photo From Platonides on Flickr.

Originally posted on my sciencegeekgirl blog.

Most volunteers for science museums are older adults, according to a 2008 survey by the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC).  And because science centers have three times as many volunteers as they do paid staff, they are places where older adults are just as important as children.  But with nearly 40 million Americans aged 65 or older, it doesn’t make sense to think of “older Americans” as a single group, says a new report produced by ASTC with funding from the MetLife Foundation.  College-educated retirees are already an important source of volunteers.  But people in their 50s and older are also an underserved audience for science museums. And several museums use active older volunteers to bring science to home-bound audiences at senior centers and nursing homes.

Jack Bowman, a retired executive in Hickory, North Carolina, recruited a diverse group of people his age – a retired math teacher, a college chemistry professor, a nurse, an engineer, and four others with non-science backgrounds – and formed the Einstein Brigade for the Catawba Science Center.  The Brigade adapts programs the museum designed for school groups and takes them to places where seniors live and meet.  The adaptations are interesting.  For example, the Brigade doesn’t ask the audience to move around a room if a lot of them are using walkers or wheelchairs – they take exhibit stations to individuals and demonstrate them to individuals or pairs.  “Typically men will spend more time with animal pelts and bones, while women like the butterflies,” writes Bowman.  And he was surprised to find that older adults of both sexes were usually willing to handle snakes, despite the bad publicity that surrounds slithering things.

Gail Becker, who was director of the Louisville Science Center from 1991 until 2008, was having trouble finding qualified exhibit technicians until she started hiring older workers.  Older set designers, electricians, and carpenters brought her decades of experience, a strong work ethic, and the willingness to work for less in exchange for more flexibility and fun, she says.  As long as a skilled older person is comfortable working with younger colleagues, everyone can come out a winner.

The 56-page report “A Lifetime of Curiosity” was released in May 2009.  It includes statistics on the older population, tips on adapting exhibits to older viewers’ needs, and many case histories from museums that are tapping into this growing market.  It is available for $15, or $10 for ASTC members, plus $7.99 for shipping.  To order, visit the ASTC’s website, FAX your address and credit card number to (202) 783-7207, or mail a check to ASTC Publications, 1025 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 500, Washington DC 20005-6310.

EDUCAUSE, Nov. 3-6, 2009, Denver, CO–Michele Kimpton and Carol Minton Morris will be at the Sun booth and at a cocktail party with DuraSpace, JA-SIG, Kuali, Sakai (hope to see you there!). A press briefing is scheduled for Tuesday November 3, from 3:00-4:00 at the Hyatt Hotel that will highlight higher education community source projects:

•    Introduction and Next Steps – Brad Wheeler and Chris Coppola
•    Kuali Update – Colorado State, San Joaquin Delta
•    DuraSpace Update – Michele Kimpton, University of Virginia
•    Sakai Update – Marist College, UC Davis

SWITCH and “Digital Archivists Unite-DARCUNITE” event, Nov. 9, 2009, Zurich, Switzerland–Thorny Staples will be speaking with Swiss users about Fedora Commons and DuraSpace. http://www.switch.ch/collection/event/09fedora/index.html.

Digital Library Federation (DLF) Fall Forum, Nov. 11-13, 2009, Long Beach, CA–Sandy Payette and Brad McLean will be on hand. Brad will join Josh Greenberg and Jenn Riley for a panel session entitled “Innovation: Technology.” http://www.diglib.org/forums/fall2009/2009fallschedule.htm

Boulder, CO, Washington, DC The association for information technology (IT) in higher education, announced the release of the Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2008 Summary Report. It summarizes findings from the 2008 EDUCAUSE Core Data Service survey, in which nearly 930 colleges and universities provided detailed information about their IT environments and practices in fiscal year 2008.

EDUCAUSE made significant changes in the report format to make the material more useful and accessible. Many tables have been replaced by charts and graphs so the reader can see patterns or make visual comparisons. The report now addresses trends in the data from 2004 to 2008. And rather than reporting means and medians for variables with highly skewed distributions, the 2008 report presents medians and, in some cases quartiles, to provide a more accurate picture of the data.

Key findings include:

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND LEADERSHIP
• In all institutional classes except community colleges, the IT leader reports to the senior executive officer (e.g., president or chancellor) or the highest academic officer at the majority of institutions (60% or more).
• At community colleges, IT leaders are even more likely to report to the highest officer or highest administrative officer (almost 70%).
• The percentages on IT leader reporting relationships have been fairly stable over the last five years across most institutional types.
• The median ratio of student FTE to IT staff FTE is between 100- and 150-to-1 across most institutional categories, with community colleges having the highest ratio at roughly 200-to-1 and liberal arts institutions the lowest at 75-to-1.

IT FINANCING AND MANAGEMENT
• Adjusting for inflation, all classes of institutions generally saw centralized IT funding increase from 2004 to 2008, but it appears that this increase only kept pace with enrollment (and inflation). Median IT dollars spent per FTE student stayed relatively flat across institutional categories (adjusted for inflation).
• In 2008, centralized IT funding as a percentage of total campus expenditures varied from a low of 4% at doctoral-extensive universities and general baccalaureate institutions to a high of 7% at community colleges.
• Trends in median compensation (including benefits) for IT staff per FTE, when adjusted for inflation, remained fairly flat over the last five years.
• For 2008, approximately 70% of institutions reported using external suppliers for at least one IT function, reflecting a steady increase since 2004.

FACULTY AND STUDENT COMPUTING
• Respondents reported that only 2–6% of institutions offered 24 x 7 help desks in 2008, except for the 20% of doctoral institutions with them; there are slight upward trends in this area in all classes over the last five years, though.
• Because many students rely on personal e-mail accounts, some campuses have stopped issuing institutional student e-mail addresses or are considering it. In 2004, only 1-2% of campuses considered this, but by 2008 nearly 10% of associate’s, baccalaureate, and master’s institutions and 25% of doctoral institutions were thinking about doing so.
• About two-thirds of campuses say they provide “intensive support” for faculty who are heavy technology users, including “opportunities for users to share experiences” (70-90% of institutions, depending on type), seminars (80-90%+ of campuses), and training on request (almost all campuses).
• To address unauthorized file sharing, some institutions offer students a campus-negotiated service for online music and movies. From 2004 to 2007, there was some increase across all classes of institutions in the percentage offering such a service, but sharp decreases from 2007 to 2008. In 2008, only 2% of community colleges, about 10% of baccalaureate and master’s institutions, and 25% of doctoral institutions offered this service.

NETWORKING AND SECURITY
• Relatively few institutions across most categories have bandwidth to the commodity Internet of 200 Mbps or better (about 25% of master’s and 10% of baccalaureate and associate’s).
• In contrast, most doctoral institutions report bandwidth to the commodity Internet of 200 Mbps or better and nearly 40% report connections of 1 Gbps-plus.
• Most campuses do track and/or shape bandwidth, for example, to limit the impact of large file downloads on their networks. The percentage that does not is less than 5% of doctoral, master’s, and baccalaureate institutions and about 10% of community colleges.
• About 70% of all campuses reported having conducted a campus IT security risk assessment, and the trend toward campuses conducting such assessments generally increased across each institutional category from 2004 to 2008.

INFORMATION SYSTEMS
• Institutions use many strategies to acquire information systems. In 2008, open-source applications were definitely in that mix, with 70% of doctoral institutions, 67% of baccalaureate institutions, 54% of master’s institutions, and 39% of community colleges reporting use of an open-source product (in most cases, a course management system), with or without customization.
• Purchasing a commercial product and implementing it with or without customization was the primary means of meeting information system needs in 2008, with rates ranging 72-88% across institutional categories.
• The percentage of institutions reporting that they had outsourced at least some of their information systems needs generally increased over the last five years, approaching or exceeding 20% of institutions in each category in 2008.
• Over the last five years, the use of homegrown systems declined for all institutions and for all system types surveyed, except library information systems, which have not had a history of homegrown development. Homegrown systems are still used most often for grants management, while homegrown course management systems seem to be disappearing.

To learn more about the Core Data Service and the benefits it offers to participating institutions, visit: http://www.educause.edu/coredata

Access the complete EDUCAUSE Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2008 Summary Report
at: http://net.educause.edu/coredata/reports/2008/index.asp

About EDUCAUSE
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association and the foremost community of IT leaders and professionals committed to advancing higher education. EDUCAUSE programs and services are focused on analysis, advocacy, community building, professional development, and knowledge creation because IT plays a transformative role in higher education. EDUCAUSE supports those who lead, manage, and use information technology through a comprehensive range of resources and activities. For more information, visit http://www.educause.edu.

Kai is a Software Engineer with FIZ Karlsruhe, and has been a member of the eSciDoc (https://www.escidoc.org/) Team since early 2008. His current roles include performance and scalability, eSciDoc core framework, development and other eSciDoc and Fedora-related projects.

Non-profit organizations dedicated to open source development depend on community contributions both from individuals and the organizations that support them. The willingness of skilled community members like Kai Stnad and others to participate in the overall direction and details of delivering an integrated platform upgrade is appreciated by all who benefit from the improvements. Eric S. Raymond, a long-time open source analyst, observed in his 1997 essay “The Cathedral and the Bazaar,” that programmers who freely share their code drive Internet culture and innovation because their contributions allow open source software to undergo constant improvement by users and developers.

About FIZ Karlsruhe

FIZ Karlsruhe (http://www.fiz-karlsruhe.de/) is a non-profit service institution for research whose task is to make sci-tech information published all over the world available to the public and to provide related services. As an international service partner to science and research, FIZ Karlsruhe provides expertise in handling all issues related to information transfer and knowledge management required for research and development. The FIZ Karlsruhe mission is to support and promote science by offering innovative information services. FIZ Karlsruhe is a member institute of the Leibniz Association (WGL).

For more information about how to participate in the release of Fedora Repository 3.3 please visit: http://www.fedora-commons.org/confluence/display/FCREPO/Fedora+3.3+-+Call+for+Participation.

With halloween fast approaching, it’s time to take advantage of a frivolous holiday to do some fun science stuff.

No post about Halloween would be complete without a reference to the Grossology site. Scroll down for “lab activities”: This gets high marks from one teacher who says, “It has the simpliest of the slimey things, glue slime, and fake blood.”

In that vein, read the post on “how to make slime” over at Schooner of Science. The Schooner also has a recent post on zombies — an interesting story about the origin of zombies and a toxin-like powder which may, or may not, have put people into a zombie-like state.

The “whoosh bottle” is also somewhat spooky as a demonstration. And you get to talk about gas laws and combustion, too.

Fire is always fun. If you google Exploding Pumpkin Experiment or Flaming Pumpkin Experiment, you can find some great things to do with those leftover jack-o-lanterns after Halloween. Here is Steve Spangler’s version of an Exploding Pumpkin that carves itself. Most people just have the pumpkin shoot flame from its mouth. You can get lycopodium powder (from Flinn Scientific, for example), and use a syringe to spray it along candles at the bottom of a pumpkin’s mouth, creating a fireball coming out of the mouth. Obviously, t there are safety measures to consider. The video below has the best explanation of how to do this that I found.

And here are a few suggestions from veteran teacher Raleigh McElmore:

Slime: If you can score a magnetic stirring hot plate you can easily get Poly vinyl alcohol at a chemcial supply store and make up some great slime at 40 gr/L and mixing it with a bit of Sodium Borate (known as “Borax” and in many supermarkets detergent aisle) at 40 gr/L.

Your own grossology: In elementary school I always filled a big pyrex bowl with peeled grapes that had been soaked in red food coloring. This brings out the “veins” in the grapes and I announced that “eyeball soup” would be shared with the students. A chunk of dry ice, the grapes and fill the bowl with cheap fruit punch gives you a seething and bubbling drink with “eyeballs” floating around. Or you can, for realism, use sheep eyeballs. Give them to your star pupils. I’ll keep an eye out for you.

And to keep them on their toes:

A great magic trick that Penn and Teller invented is to bring two cans of sparkling soda (not anything else as this is messy). Give one can to a quiet student tell them to keep the can totally quiet. Give the other can to a hyperactive sort and tell them to “shake the can as hard as you can without touching anything”. Did I mention that this should be done outside, oh yeah, do it outside.

Take the highly shaken can, put it in plain sight and say that this is the season for strange things. Tell the students that you will change fizz in the shaken can to the quiet can. Gently touch the quiet can and touch the shaken can. Mumble incantations about AYP and other scary things. Waste at least 30 seconds in mindless babble and then take the “quiet can” and hold it high while you open it. Curve your fingers behind it and squeeze the can as you pop the lid. It will shoot fizz all over everybody as you have secretly crushed the can. After you have sprayed everyone dramatically throw the can into a nearby garbage can to avoid students seeing the crushed can.

Then quietly open the shaken can. The gas will have gone back into solution by then and it won’t do anything. Explain to the students that teachers are given these powers, but only to be used for the good. Drink the calm can and draw attention from the garbage can with the crushed evidence.

Need more ideas? Here are some links here and here and here.

Top image from Extremepumpkins.com

Originally posted on my sciencegeekgirl blog.

A full text of the release is below or you may visit https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/5212.html.

October 23, 2009
OTTAWA/GHENT, BELGIUM - On October 21, CARL became a founding member of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR). COAR is an international association of organizations that have a common strategic interest in open access to scholarly communication. COAR was formed out of a need to work together at the international level to promote greater visibility and application of research outputs through global networks of open access digital repositories.

Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has played a leadership role in the development of open access repositories in Canada. Through the CARL Institutional Repositories Program, the Association has assisted its members in setting up repositories on their campuses; and worked with other research organizations in Canada and internationally in support of open access. Participation in COAR is a natural extension of these activities. “We are delighted to announce our membership in COAR,” said Tom Hickerson, chair of the CARL Institutional Repositories Working Group and Vice-President/President-Elect of CARL. “COAR membership offers CARL and Canadian research libraries the opportunity to have a greater influence on the direction and expansion of open access world-wide”.

COAR evolved out of a European project called the Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research (DRIVER) in consultation with the international repository community. The Confederation aims
to support the expansion of open access through developing international, interoperable standards; advocating for open access policies with research funders and institutions; and working to improve deposit rates at repositories. Other founding members of COAR are from Europe, Asia, and the United States. “The collections contained in open access repositories gain tremendous value when they are part of a larger, interconnected network,” said Norbert Lossau, Scientific Coordinator of the DRIVER Project. “CARL’s membership creates an important strategic link between Canada and the international community.”

COAR was officially launched in Ghent, Belgium during Open Access Week.

———————-

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) counts as its members the 28 largest Canadian university libraries and the three major federal national libraries (Library and Archives Canada, the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information [CISTI], and the Library of Parliament). CARL strives to enhance the capacity of Canada’s research libraries to partner in research and higher education, seeking effective and sustainable scholarly communication and public policy encouraging of research and broad access to scholarly information. www.carl-abrc.ca

DRIVER is a multi-phase effort whose vision and primary objective is to establish a cohesive, pan-European infrastructure of Digital Repositories, offering sophisticated functionality services to both researchers and the general public. Based on the establishment of a co-ordinated network of Digital Repositories, containing (textual) research and other scholarly publications, and on the development of an advanced-quality test-bed infrastructure, DRIVER will enable enhanced interoperability of data and service-providers while providing the required functionalities to the end users. Through its awareness and advocacy programme, it will foster the development of Digital Repositories in all European countries. With a number of studies on the current state of the Digital Repository landscape, it will also identify the most pressing issues for future developments. www.driver-repository.eu

For more information, please contact:

Brent Roe
Executive Director
Canadian Association of Research Libraries
T +1(613)562.5800 x 3652
carl@uottawa.ca

Dr. Dale Peters
Scientific Technical Manager DRIVER II
State and University Library of Goettingen
T +49 551 39 5242
peters@sub.uni‐goettingen.de

Among the speakers are Chuck Henry, President of the Council on Library and Information Resources, Clifford Lynch, Director of the Coalition for Networked Information, Cathrine Harboe-Ree, University Librarian at Monash University, who led the ARROW project and is involved in leading the ANDS project, and Christian Zimmerman, Economics professor at the University of Connecticut. Professor Nick Barr of the London School of Economics will launch the Economists Online portal.

The delegate fee is £155 (approx. €175 and US$250) and includes attendance at plenary and parallel sessions, refreshments during breaks, two lunches and VAT. For further information about how to book, speakers, travel information and hotels, please visit: http://www.neeoconference.eu/.

I have used “A Kool Reaction from the Fine Print” JCE Classroom Activity with my 8th grade students as guided-inquiry method in order to introduce atoms. (This activity is the one that was done in the Chemistry Comes Alive! Part 4 NSDL/NSTA Web Seminar on October 15.) We began the lesson discussing why it is important to read the fine print on labels, and I passed around packages of Kool-Aid and asked students to locate any important instructions. As we discussed labels I realized that many of my students are not well versed at reading labels. There were good observations regarding the ingredients in Kool-Aid, and I asked them why it might be important not to store things in metal containers.

Student responses were varied, and I asked them what the Kool-Aid and steel wool might look like at their smallest sizes. In other words, I tried to get students to start thinking about what the Kool-Aid and steel wool were made of at the atomic scale. We launched into the activity, and as might be expected there was much joy after students observed the color change. After the activity, we discussed what was occurring at the molecular level between the substances involved, and we looked closer at iron as an element and its properties. We are beginning our chemistry unit, and will focus on the NSES and AAAS standards associated with matter. NSES: Matter is made of minute particles called atoms, and atoms are composed of even smaller components. AAAS: All matter is made up of atoms. In the 5E Learning Cycle, this activity is a great example of students engaged in the unit. As we continue to explore and engage with other activities, the class can refer back to this activity and continue to add to our understanding of elements, matter, atoms, moles, and strong and weak acids.  Who would have thought steel wool and Kool-Aid could lead to that?