No one will read this!

No one will read this… but everyone should.

It is long, it relates to nothing we are doing in science (grade 6 or grade 8), and it has no pretty pictures, diagrams, or animations.  Well just one, of Richard Feynman, a very (VERY!) smart guy.

This is Feynman:

Once again, let me repeat:  no one will read this article.  Prove me wrong. Comment or email me.   mister.buracas@gmail.com

————————————————–

Feynman on Education in Brazil

From Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!:

In regard to education in Brazil, I had a very interesting experience. I was teaching a group of students who would ultimately become teachers, since at that time there were not many opportunities in Brazil for a highly trained person in science. These students had already had many courses, and this was to be their most advanced course in electricity and magnetism – Maxwell’s equations, and so on.

The university was located in various office buildings throughout the city, and the course I taught met in a building which overlooked the bay.

I discovered a very strange phenomenon: I could ask a question, which the students would answer immediately. But the next time I would ask the question – the same subject, and the same question, as far as I could tell – they couldn’t answer it at all! For instance, one time I was talking about polarized light, and I gave them all some strips of polaroid.

Beware the Ides of… September

In truth, there is not much to fear from the middle of the month. In fact, it is truly a time to be exploring one’s world, one’s universe, in search of some big meaning, greater Understanding.

As an introduction to Science, my students (all of them, regardless of grade) work through a little exercise that I call Mobius Loopage. It is a chance for them to experience a few things about science (using the example of a one sided, one edged strip of paper — a Mobius Loop.

All rights reserved by vashek

Science is, for example, sometimes not obvious. Often, something that seems one way, is often another, upon further investigation. Students prove this to themselves by predicting an outcome, and then investigating to see if it is so. In the case of a Mobius loop, they predict how many pieces you get when you cut a strip in half, down the middle. (The answer is…, well go find out for yourself    ).

The Mobius Loop is really an allegory to how science works, and from the story we see a few characteristics of science:

• A scientist needs to keep an open mind.  That is, she needs to allow herself to have her mind changed in the face of contrary information.

• Science is experiential and experimental.  Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty.

• Science is not always intuitive.  Sometimes the obvious answer is wrong.

• Science makes you say “Huh!”. Or hey!, or wow!, or “that’s weird”, or “that’s interesting…”.?

I want my students to experience these feelings on a regular basis.

To close our investigations into the Mobius Loop, I presented this short video: Wind and Mr. Ug. It’s a touching story that speaks to identity and one’s place in our World.  Those ideas — who we are and where we belong — are a key idea in the study of Cosmology. Our Grade 6s will know this well as they tour our Solar System in their study of Sky Science.

About “theories”

Words are funny things. Sometimes they don’t mean what you think they mean. Take the word “theory”, for example.

In normal, everyday language, it means a proposed explanation. Something we think, but do not know. But in science, it means something a bit different: a well substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world.

I don’t have the time to explore it right now, but rest assured that there’s a difference between “I have a theory about how to achieve world peace” and the theory of gravity.

Or periodic theory, which is of immediate concern to grade nine students. And the topic of this post. From reDiscovery.org, the theory of chemical periodicity:

It might not mean much to most of you (my students), but to grade nines who are currently in their chemistry unit, this is quite fun. See ti big (by clicking).

Blinded by science?

My question is this: What’s so wrong with learning about the physical world, and how it works?