It would appear that some students in England got tired of the pedagogical / pedantic / infantile nature of the videos that came with their chemistry text and decided to do their own. You have to stay with this one for a bit as it takes a while for them to hit their stride but I must admit I learned a lot from this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmw7JfsNzoY&eurl=http://selenized.wordpress.com/
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
"Natural" Chemistry
I see that an "all natural" desert restaurant chain named Pinkberry in the States has fallen afoul of reality. "Natural" ingredients will rot, decompose or go rancid in an hour to a day or so. For that reason we created the whole industry of food additives so that we can make a donut in 1990 and have it still be "fresh" in 2008.The harsh reality is that the food industry is designed to sell us water, salt, sugar, fat and air for as high a mark-up as possible. In order to make us to pay for these cheap foods the industry flavours them with "natural" or "synthetic" additives.
So what we mostly pay for is flavoured water, salt, sugar, fat and air that can't go bad. The "best before" date on these foods are mostly made up to make people throw the food away and buy some more not because the food has changed in any significant way. Anyway, welcome to reality Pinkberry. What I like about this article is that they took the time to completely chemically deconstruct the ingredient list for the desert. If fact you could pretty much find the same list for everything from Twinkys to Pogos.
PS I think this is the first post possibly ever where I didn't use ellipses ... but then again I may have overused quotation marks as an indication of dubious meaning.
Monday, April 21, 2008
New Scientist Asks a Great Question
The editors of New Scientist asked 17 of the leading scientists in the world what books shaped their worldview or changed the course of their lives and the results are below. It is interesting how many selections are "adult / academic" selections where I would suspect that the truth is that their paths were shaped much earlier in their lives by textbooks or magazines. I also notice that philosophy or religion really do not make any impact in the list either. I guess I now have a reading list for the summer since I have only read five of the texts listed.
1. Farthest North - Steve Jones, geneticist
2. The Art of the Soluble - V. S. Ramachandran, neuroscientist
3. Animal Liberation - Jane Goodall, primatologist
4. The Foundation trilogy - Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist
5. Alice in Wonderland - Alison Gopnik, developmental psychologist
6. One, Two, Three... Infinity - Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist
7. The Idea of a Social Science - Harry Collins, sociologist of science
8. Handbook of Mathematical Functions - Peter Atkins, chemist
9. The Mind of a Mnemonist - Oliver Sacks, neurologist
10. A Mathematician’s Apology - Marcus du Sautoy, mathematician
11. The Leopard - Susan Greenfield, neurophysiologist
12. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior - Frans de Waal, psychologist and ethologist
13. Catch-22 / The First Three Minutes - Lawrence Krauss, physicist
14. William James, Writings 1878-1910 - Daniel Everett, linguist
15. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Chris Frith, neuroscientist
16. The Naked Ape - Elaine Morgan, author of The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis
17. King Solomon's Ring - Marion Stamp Dawkins, Zoologist
1. Farthest North - Steve Jones, geneticist
2. The Art of the Soluble - V. S. Ramachandran, neuroscientist
3. Animal Liberation - Jane Goodall, primatologist
4. The Foundation trilogy - Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist
5. Alice in Wonderland - Alison Gopnik, developmental psychologist
6. One, Two, Three... Infinity - Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist
7. The Idea of a Social Science - Harry Collins, sociologist of science
8. Handbook of Mathematical Functions - Peter Atkins, chemist
9. The Mind of a Mnemonist - Oliver Sacks, neurologist
10. A Mathematician’s Apology - Marcus du Sautoy, mathematician
11. The Leopard - Susan Greenfield, neurophysiologist
12. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior - Frans de Waal, psychologist and ethologist
13. Catch-22 / The First Three Minutes - Lawrence Krauss, physicist
14. William James, Writings 1878-1910 - Daniel Everett, linguist
15. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Chris Frith, neuroscientist
16. The Naked Ape - Elaine Morgan, author of The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis
17. King Solomon's Ring - Marion Stamp Dawkins, Zoologist
Now an interesting question would be what selection(s) shaped my life and my worldview. There is no doubt that the one book that I have read and thought about the most would be the Bible and most specifically the writings of Paul. After that would come the Tolkien Grand Tour from "The Hobbit" to the "Book of Unfinished Tales" (which I read about every two years) but that was more for entertainment rather than thinking or changing my life.
When I was a teenager the non-biblical books would have to be both the science fiction and non-fiction selections from Isaac Asimov. What I learned from that experience was that science was one of the few areas where one could stand on solid ground and imagine at the same time.
As I got older I can still remember the electric joy I felt reading Boorstin's "The Discoverers". More recently, "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" is a book that has become dated but still engages my mind.
What am I reading now? I am currently reading another one of the genre of science history books that are popular now. It is Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and it is a great read but it falls into the trap of giving the illusion of narrative history while in fact mostlydescribing the personal eccentricities of notable scientists. In my opinion Singh's "Big Bang" is much better at combining science, history and personality.
In chemistry there is only one book that stands out in my mind and that is "The Chemistry of the Elements" by Greenwoood and Earnshaw. It is well written and comprehensive if dated. It was shamelessly plagiarized in Housecroft's "Inorganic Chemistry" which at least updated the information.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Chemistry Builds Character, Courage and Creativity ... Who Knew?
So I am flipping through the Daily Gleaner the last time I was up to Fredericton and my eyes fell upon this add ...
It is about time that when they want to show students facing a true challenge that they don't airbrush some stock photo of some kid climbing Everest. No, in this case the Haley Joel Osment look-a-like is facing the true test of character, courage and creativity ... the titration of acids and bases in graduated cylinders. It wouldn't be character building to do it like everyone else in Erlenmeyer flasks, it wouldn't show courage if he didn't part his hair down the middle like they did in the 70's and as for creativity ... the dude is recording data even though there isn't any liquid in the buret. Perhaps he sees dead chemists. On top of all that the kid is left handed no wonder he had to go to a "special school" ... left handed people are sinister.*
* a joke you won't get until you take organic chemistry and even then some levo people won't think it funny.
It is about time that when they want to show students facing a true challenge that they don't airbrush some stock photo of some kid climbing Everest. No, in this case the Haley Joel Osment look-a-like is facing the true test of character, courage and creativity ... the titration of acids and bases in graduated cylinders. It wouldn't be character building to do it like everyone else in Erlenmeyer flasks, it wouldn't show courage if he didn't part his hair down the middle like they did in the 70's and as for creativity ... the dude is recording data even though there isn't any liquid in the buret. Perhaps he sees dead chemists. On top of all that the kid is left handed no wonder he had to go to a "special school" ... left handed people are sinister.** a joke you won't get until you take organic chemistry and even then some levo people won't think it funny.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Big Pharma Take a Hit
Between all the failed drug trials recently and the problems with side effects in so many prescription drugs this cartoon is a bit like kicking a guy when he is down but it does get to the heart of modern medicine's defining methodology of drugging every problem out of existence. Man that was a long sentence. I mean how many of us have heard of a friend or relative that was on such a complex drug regime that they end up in the hospital because of incompatible prescriptions?
PS How does Forrest Gump know if penguins have nipples or not anyway?
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
The Chemistry Student's Nemesis
We got this catalogue in the mail today and it made me think of stiochiometry.
Moles are actually killed using the unusual poison zinc phosphide. It seems the poison is an effective rodenticide and the rodents find the chemical attractive. The label claims they will die in their tunnels within a day of ingesting the poison.
The reaction to produce zinc phosphide from the elements makes for an interesting balanced chemical equation. I will give an appropriately geeky / nerdy prize to the first ABU student that gives me a correct balanced chemical equation in the comment section of this post and tells me what mass of mole killer they could make from 40 grams of phosphorus.
Moles are actually killed using the unusual poison zinc phosphide. It seems the poison is an effective rodenticide and the rodents find the chemical attractive. The label claims they will die in their tunnels within a day of ingesting the poison.The reaction to produce zinc phosphide from the elements makes for an interesting balanced chemical equation. I will give an appropriately geeky / nerdy prize to the first ABU student that gives me a correct balanced chemical equation in the comment section of this post and tells me what mass of mole killer they could make from 40 grams of phosphorus.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Classroom Chemistry Demonstrations
The story is in the news this weekend about a chemistry demonstration in a High School science class here in New Brunswick where a routine demonstration resulted in the injury of a student. Without a doubt this is the worst case scenario short of burning down the school. No teacher would accept any chance that a student could get hurt as a result of a demonstration. But accidents happen. We need to hope that this was a true random accident and pray that the student has a full recovery. It is clear that the teacher is an exceptional, caring teacher and that this incident has deeply affected him, we need to pray for him as well.
It is my position that there is just not enough information out yet to allow us to make anything other than the most general comments. We need to be careful not to overreact or make assumptions.
The link below to the CBC article has some interesting comments in addition to the article from students in support for the teacher. That is very revealing.
LINK TO TEACHERS WEBPAGE
LINK TO FIRST ARTICLE ON DANGERS OF SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS
LINK TO SECOND ARTICLE ON DANGERS OF SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS
LINK TO THIRD ARTICLE ON DANGERS OF SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS
This is all part of a cost-benefit calculation that every science teacher has to make. The primary consideration is always "Can I do this safely?" after that comes "Will the students learn anything from the demonstration", "Will the time and effort spent setting up, conducting and cleaning up the demonstration be justified by the facilitation of learning or am I just amusing the students?"
In my case I really agonize over this. I have always used a chalkboard because I felt that writing on the board slowed me down and showed the students that I too had to cope with how to write and draw scientifically. I have always stopped and told stories because I believe that for a lecture to work there must be "intellectual rest periods". I have always done demonstrations both to create breaks in the lecture and to emphasize points that are best learned by observing not being told. In the back of my mind however the rational part of my brain is always yelling "you have 36 hours to teach this material and you are going to blow 30 minutes on a demonstration? ... you do not have time for this".
In my experience demonstrations are an academic highwire where the teacher can look really stupid in front of his students and if something goes wrong people might get hurt. I remember that I used to burn small amount of sulphur in class to show them the cool blue flame. Then one year one of my students turned out to have an extreme allergic reaction to sulphites and she just barely made it to the hallway to escape the slight fumes from the reaction.
I can only see this going one way when it comes to the public schools. All classroom demonstrations will be stopped and the students will be shown videos of the demonstrations. I just do not see the public accepting any risk that when they send their children to school that they might get hurt in a classroom. I hope not, but I really feel that is where we are going.
Risk is one of those things that we have hardwired into our minds. We are usually well aware when we are doing something risky and the response to stress is heightened awareness and more deliberate action. The thing is that we are also conditioned to cope with stress as it becomes a routine part of our lives. In some peoples lives the riskiest thing that they will do during a day is drive down a highway. In spite of that years of coping with the stress of driving now allows them to eat, talk on the phone and drive all at the same time. It is not that they are better drivers ... they are simply conditioned to cope with the stress. Some people would argue that this leads to complacency and accidents. I hope that was not the case this time.
It is my position that there is just not enough information out yet to allow us to make anything other than the most general comments. We need to be careful not to overreact or make assumptions.
The link below to the CBC article has some interesting comments in addition to the article from students in support for the teacher. That is very revealing.
LINK TO TEACHERS WEBPAGE
LINK TO FIRST ARTICLE ON DANGERS OF SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS
LINK TO SECOND ARTICLE ON DANGERS OF SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS
LINK TO THIRD ARTICLE ON DANGERS OF SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS
This is all part of a cost-benefit calculation that every science teacher has to make. The primary consideration is always "Can I do this safely?" after that comes "Will the students learn anything from the demonstration", "Will the time and effort spent setting up, conducting and cleaning up the demonstration be justified by the facilitation of learning or am I just amusing the students?"
In my case I really agonize over this. I have always used a chalkboard because I felt that writing on the board slowed me down and showed the students that I too had to cope with how to write and draw scientifically. I have always stopped and told stories because I believe that for a lecture to work there must be "intellectual rest periods". I have always done demonstrations both to create breaks in the lecture and to emphasize points that are best learned by observing not being told. In the back of my mind however the rational part of my brain is always yelling "you have 36 hours to teach this material and you are going to blow 30 minutes on a demonstration? ... you do not have time for this".
In my experience demonstrations are an academic highwire where the teacher can look really stupid in front of his students and if something goes wrong people might get hurt. I remember that I used to burn small amount of sulphur in class to show them the cool blue flame. Then one year one of my students turned out to have an extreme allergic reaction to sulphites and she just barely made it to the hallway to escape the slight fumes from the reaction.
I can only see this going one way when it comes to the public schools. All classroom demonstrations will be stopped and the students will be shown videos of the demonstrations. I just do not see the public accepting any risk that when they send their children to school that they might get hurt in a classroom. I hope not, but I really feel that is where we are going.
Risk is one of those things that we have hardwired into our minds. We are usually well aware when we are doing something risky and the response to stress is heightened awareness and more deliberate action. The thing is that we are also conditioned to cope with stress as it becomes a routine part of our lives. In some peoples lives the riskiest thing that they will do during a day is drive down a highway. In spite of that years of coping with the stress of driving now allows them to eat, talk on the phone and drive all at the same time. It is not that they are better drivers ... they are simply conditioned to cope with the stress. Some people would argue that this leads to complacency and accidents. I hope that was not the case this time.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Friday Science Cartoon
I recently came across the comic strip Grand Avenue and there are occasional academic strips that make me laugh.
I found this YouTube video amusing as well in a low tech chaotic way.
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