Teachable Moments In Science: Kiera Wilmot

Photo via WikiMedia

Science is fun! Part of the fun is failing, failing again, and pushing a hypothesis forward or rejecting it based off of evidence. This involves a ton of mistakes - some of which are more dangerous than others.  We need to learn how to turn reasonable mistakes into teachable moments.

16 year old Kiera Wilmot of Bartow High School mixed toilet bowl cleaner and aluminum foil on school grounds without supervision, resulting in a small non-harmful explosion. She was expelled for violating the school code of conduct, and faces felony charges of "possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds and discharging a destructive device." The gory details, including the full police report, are located on the Miami New Times website.

Kiera Wilmot, via Miami New Times

The real problem is with the school and the police. When a kid makes a mistake that's not severe, it can be easily turned into a teachable moment. How about suspension instead of expulsion, with the requirement of a lab assignment based on the very experiment that was tried by Kiera? How about requiring a presentation by her to the class and/or principal to show mastery of the subject? This solution combines a reasonable punishment with additional academic work to help Kiera learn the proper way to conduct experiments. It also gives the adults involved another way to gauge her understanding of the scientific method. The penalties should go up for repeated offenses, up to and including expulsion. 

For more about how scientific curiosity helps us all win, check out my post Curiosity Kills the Gap.

This post also appears on TWIB.

Motivate Yourself with a TED Science Talk!

TED (Technology, Education, Design) is a nonprofit dedicated to spreading ideas. TED is known for attracting amazing speakers to deliver short but impactful speeches on various subjects. There have been a few great ones regarding science - check them out below!  They will motivate you to be the best that you can, in 5 - 15 minutes!

Almost all new phones have touch screens instead of physical buttons - the following talk by Katherine Kuchenbecker of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) covers the technology behind these screens, and how it can be driven forward.

This next talk by Freeman Hrabowski covers his success with a diverse STEM program a President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

The final TED talk is by Elon Musk, who is one of the most fascinating innovators around. He developed the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that's currently running resupply trips to the International Space Station (ISS).  While he's bored with that, he's doing small things like founding PayPal or designing fully electric performance cars under his Tesla Motors company. Whew!

STEM Equality: The Fiscal Argument

Chelsea Clinton (yes, daughter of Slick WIllie) wrote a fascinating piece on STEM in the Huffington Post. She not only recognizes that others have not been able to have the resources that she grew up with, but she makes a fiscal argument for diversity in the workplace.

If women matched men's employment rates in America, GDP would rise by 5 percent, according to Booz & Company. With the U.S. Department of Commerce expecting STEM jobs to grow 17 percent between 2008 to 2018 -- compared to just 9.8 percent for non-STEM jobs -- excluding women from the pipeline hurts American companies in search of the best high-tech talent. Economic expansion hinges on both halves of the workforce receiving the tools needed to drive innovation..

This is a point that is often missing from discussions of diversity, and not just limited to the sciences .  Diversity is not just a "feel good" thing,  It has realistic implications and serves as the only way for our country to keep up with the rest of the world.  Every year that the US finishes near the bottom of  the country lists for math and science, I think about stats such as this.

Check out the rest of the article here!

Adafruit: Learning Electronics The Fun Way

Adafruit, the brainchild of Limor Fried for teaching electronics, has debuted a wonderful cartoon called Circuit Playground. Being an electrical engineer, I love seeing simplified attempts to describe the complexity behind the things that everyone uses - everyone plugs in a lamp!

The video below describes what current actually as - a flow of electrons. Most electronic devices have a suggested rating for amps (normally listed as A) in honor of scientist André-Marie Ampère. Amps is a measure of the amount of electrons that flows per second. Too little amps and the electronic device won't function.  Too many and it'll fry!

If you can't see the video below, click here.

Credits:

• Ladyada – Limor Fried
• Andre-Marie Ampere – Collin Cunningham
• ADABOT – Collin Cunningham & Phil Torrone, Puppet by Annie Fresh, design by Bruce Yan
• Music: Tom White & Collin Cunningham
• Intro animation – Bruce Yan
• Written, filmed, edited, directed and produced by – Collin Cunningham, Limor Fried, Phil Torrone and the Adafruit team

Women In Chemistry Documentary = Awesome

I had the pleasure of attending a screening of the Women in Chemistry documentary (trailer shown above) by local NPR affiliate WHYY in Philadelphia. This amazing documentary profiles eight women that have changed the course of chemistry and science in general.  Afterwards, we were treated to a Q&A moderated by Maiken Scott  with two of the women profiled in the video - Uma Chowdry and Mary Good. I asked a question a;bout getting kids engaged that don't have a support system that pushes science.  Both Mary and Uma told me to start with the problems that students are facing, and design solutions while focusing on the math and science aspects.  This is a winning idea!

The full list of profiled women is below:

• Nancy Chang, cofounder and former CEO of the biopharmaceutical firm Tanox;
• Uma Chowdhry, retired senior vice president and chief science and technology officer of DuPont;
• Mildred Cohn, first female president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology;
• Mary L. Good, former president of the American Chemical Society, undersecretary for technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, and recipient of the Priestley Medal;
• Kathryn Hach-Darrow, cofounder of the Hach Chemical Company and the only woman to receive CHF’s Pittcon Heritage Award;
• Paula Hammond, David H. Koch Professor in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
• Stephanie Kwolek, former research associate at DuPont and inventor of Kevlar; and
• Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder, chairman, and managing director of Biocon Limited.

The full hour-long documentary is embedded below - checked it out.

STEMnasium: A Great Way to Teach Kids Science

Jon Skief founded the Harambee Charter School in West Philly in 1973. The school has been providing a quality science based education for children for 40 years, and recently received national attention 6 year old Zora Ball. She became one of the youngest people to develop a mobile gaming app.

Tairq Al-Nasir, head of the STEMnasium Learning Academy, adds the following stats:

In 2011, Philadelphia regional companies had 64,000 STEM-related and finance job openings, but area colleges graduated just 6,000 people with those degrees, according to Campus Philly. Al-Nasier widens the numbers even more.

“Every year, there’s a demand for 120,000 jobs for people with computer science backgrounds,” Al-Nasir said. “We’re only graduating nationally, 40,000. There are 80,000 students missing. Why is it missing? It’s missing because we haven’t rethought the STEM initiative.”

Check out the video that shows the program in action. If you can't see the video below, please click here.

Source: Harambee Institute of Science and Technology via Technically Philly

International Women's Day: Math is For All

Today is International Women's Day, and we should all celebrate the wonderful women that have made impacts in our lives. Google has an amazing doodle on its homepage to serve as a great launching point.  But y'all know that I'm all about the math and science, and making sure that everyone gets into it. 

Well, everyone except "math is tough" Barbie:

I ran into that video while reading about the stereotype of gender issues between men and women. I've often heard that men are better at math, and it becomes a bit of a self fufilling prophecy when I hear some of the women that I tutor repeat this myth. What boggles the mind is that some of these women repeat it even when they are damned good at math.

An interesting piece of data that comes out of the story is that we focus so much on tests, even though tests don't necessarily reflect classroom performance. We all know that women are beginning to dominate college, and I remember my advanced math and science classes in high school containing men and women. Despite that, repeatedly hearing "women can't do math or science" does have an effect, and at times can be a self fulfilling prophecy. I've tutored women that are stellar in math, yet still believe that they are not.   

Also, there's this:

Math aptitude (even measured at the levels of outstanding instead of average performance) doesn’t explain sex disparities in science careers (most of which, incidentally, only require you to be pretty good at math, as opposed to wildly genius at it). In any case, scoring high in math is only loosely related to who opts for a scientific career, especially for girls. Many high scoring girls don’t go into science, and many poor scoring boys do.

This is key - you only need to be proficient at math and problem solving to be successful in a technical career. You don't need to be AMAZING at it unless you want to be a theorist or go for the PhD.

Let's celebrate International Women's Day by making sure that math and science reflect the diversity of the world!

The Intersection of Science, Race & Media

A few of us got together in a Google+ hangout to talk about the intersection between science, race & media. We filmed the video below as a response to a Loop21 Twitter chat on race & media in which there was very little discussion about science.  

The group features Dr. Caleph B. Wilson, Dr. Danielle N. Lee, journalist Jamila Bey, and myself. Unofficially known as the Dark Sci, we plan on pushing the conversation forward regarding the communication of science to a broader audience.

If you can't see the video below, please click here.

Melissa Harris-Perry & Doc McStuffins Rock The House

There was a great segment on diversity in science on the Melissa Harris Perry show this weekend.  Topics include the Doc McStuffins Disney cartoon which promotes women in science, and the involvement of the Girl Scouts with STEM.  The guests include Dr. Aletha Maybank, Anna Maria Chavez, Christianne Corbett and Danielle Moodie-Mills. 

One quote that stuck out for me was As Mooide-Mills says , "Be visible and be fabulous!" There are many times that minorities that are underrepresented in science get discouraged because they don't say examples of people that look like them teaching in their schools or being popularized by the media. And those that are - such as Neil Degrasse Tyson - can be seen as "exceptions". The visibility of women and Blacks within science well help us all push things forward. That's one of the reason why I created this site

More about the We Are Doc McStuffins movement is covered in this MSNBC piece.

If you find yourself singing Doc McStuffins' "Time For Your Checkup" song, don't blame me - it's infectious!

If you see the video below, please click here

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Michelle Obama also made a key point that scientists are not unreachable goals that are only intended for those with the resources - everyone should be able to achieve it.

If you can't see the video below, please click here.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dr. Bernard Harris Jr. Made History Today

On Feb 9th, 1995, Dr. Bernard Harris Jr. became the first African American to perform a space walk (EVA for extra vehicular activity).  A space walk essentially consists of leaving the confines of a spacecraft while in space. You may have seen astronauts moving around the outside of a spacecraft to make repairs and make other observations.

From Dr. Harris's bio, "he enjoys flying, sailing, skiing, running, scuba diving, art and music." Talk about well rounded, considering that he also holds degrees in medicine and bio medical science. Some people are just awesome. He's also a member of my fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

Dr. Harris founded the Harris Foundation with the mission "to invest in community-based initiatives to support education, health and wealth". Check a video from the foundation below - if you can't see it, click here.

The March for Diversity in Science Pushes On

City Town Info has created a nice infographic concerning women in science. While some numbers regarding income and representation may be bleak, there is positive news - more and more young women are becoming interested in science careers. The challenge is keeping this interest fresh by keeping science interesting throughout the crucial elementary and high school years.  We need to make sure that scientists are shown as role models, such as those that I posted about at the end of last year.

Courtesy of: Citytowninfo.com

CES 2013 Wrap Up Video & Tweets

Last week, I attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. Below is a video of some footage that I took on the floor. Unfortunately, my microphone adapter broke so I was not able to hold any interviews - gotta get that fixed for next year!

If you can't see the video below, click here.

Also, I've embedded a list of Tweets that I shared if you weren't following the action last week. Check it out! If you can't see the tweets below, click here.

Scientists Are The New Rockstars: 2012 Edition

It should be obvious that I love science, but I understand and respect that everyone doesn't.  Still, people that excel in their craft should be recognized the same way that entertainment stars are.  I'm not saying that we should have a "Real Housewives of Science" reality show or have a Kardashian scientist stumbling around labs, but it wouldn't hurt to share in some of that publicity.

To that end, let's check out some of the top scientists of 2012, as reported by the scientific journal Nature. Here is an excerpt that was news to me:

While it's no surprise that women are underrepresented in science, pinning that to discrimination, rather than gender differences in aptitude or interest, has been tricky. But when Yale University microbiologist Jo Handelsman showed that researchers offer fictitious female job applicants about $4,000 less in salary and rate them as less competent and worthy of mentorship than male counterparts, she produced strong evidence for sexual bias. Handelsman says she hasn't personally experienced strong bias, but became motivated to speak out about it when other women scientists described their experiences with sex discrimination.

It's common news that job applicants with ethnic sounding names (hello Shareef Jackson!) get called less for interviews, but it is extremely worrisome that this applies within the science field. Gender discrimination is real and it exists.

To see the full list, check out the entire article on the Mother Nature Network.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson & the GZA

I grew up on hip hop and science, so I was thrilled to see The GZA appear on an episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson's Star Talk. It's fun to watch because they are both fans of each other.  The genuine interest and respect for one another's work is incredibly apparent. My favorite part is around 16 minutes, when they talk about how current hip hop isn't "literate" and how many artists nowadays don't have a muse. A little later, during a great conversation about violence in hip hop , Tyson compares the artful use of lyrics to one of the film masters, as "Hitchcock forces you to fill in the blanks". Check it out below! 

If you can't see the video below, click here.

Creating A Culture to Support Diversity in the Sciences

Laci Green explains it all in her own amazing way. Warning, there is some Gangnam Style involved ...

Best quote: "We need to create college environments and culture that support women in the sciences in the same way that the men are supported". I can't count the amount of women that have told me that they've felt bullied and talked down to as they've supported their scientific goals.  

If you can't see the video below, click here.

#1ReasonWhy We All Must Stand for Diversity

I've posted in the past about gender diversity in the sciences. There have been gaffes, such as the EU attempt to get women more involved in science by making it "sexy". But there has been plenty of positivity out there too - women like Adria Richards, Clara Ma, Andrea Deveaux, Sally Ride, and the ladies of Nerdgasm Noire Network.

Iit disgusts me to read stories that women in the gaming industry are sharing via the #1ReasonWhy hash tag on twitter, and covered by publications such as Mother Jones and GamesIndustry.biz. Women are not being valued for their contributions to the gaming community and it had to stop if we ever want to be the true center of innovation and excellence that we claim to be.

When women are being asked about husbands and body parts more than there science and tech skills, is there a question why less women wan to enter these industries?

The more women we have making games, the more games we will have that accurately represent the full human condition. Lets face it - a male dominate industry is not good for any of us, especially given the purchasing power if women in our economy.

Discrimination within the science and tech industries only harms us all. Lets put a stop to it.

Celebrate Women in Science!

Photo via Mike Wall and Space.com shows Clara Ma, the originator of the Curiosity name

I came across a great article profiling some of the women involved with launching the Curiosity rover into space and landing on Mars. In particular, I love the following quote by Ann Devereaux, a flight systems engineer on the Curiosity team:

When she speaks about her job to young students, she tells them she hates math, according to a profile on NASA’s website. “Who ever said you have to like math to be an engineer?” she adds, understanding that a dislike of math keeps many kids from exploring STEM career. “What’s interesting are the cool applications you can do that need some math applied to them to make them work.”

It's not just about learning obscure, theoretical math - it's about applying math to real world solutions. This is something that I try to get across to the youth that I work with,  but especially young women that tend to be more easily deterred from math than young men.  Showing people the cool applications of math, instead of just problems and equations, is a much better way to get people excited about science.

#ScienceLooksGood Only When You Treat Everyone Equally

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The above video is the sad attempt by the European Commission to promote gender diversity in the sciences.  What were they thinking? How about you just ... show normal looking women participating in science experiments? They don't have to be doing "cute" things like trying to be fashionable, analyzing makeup, or striking a pose every time the camera is on them. Support women by showing women.

Sometimes I think these marketing companies outthink themselves when they're trying to be creative and come up with a commercial that gains traction. Unfortunately, this particular commercial went viral for the wrong reason.  Whether it's gender diversity, racial diversity, age diversity, or any thing else - we just want to see people that look like us doing what we want to do. That's it.

For better examples of promoting diversity, see WiSE (Women in Science and Engineering) and NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers). Don't forget about Liu Yang, the first Chinese woman in space and a national hero?

Your move, European Commission.