Sam asked me to post this for you:
Saw this in Wired, and it really hit me. Looks like it relates to the Stroop effect, as well as other elements used in Seeing. Or Mind, perhaps? Thought it might be of interest to the crew.
Fwd: Babies See Pure Color, but Adults Peer Through Prism of Language Wired Science from Wired.com http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/babies-see-pure.html
I’ve been having some great conversations with other explainers and visitors while initially just compiling a list of questions (without worrying about the answers) at the DNA demonstrations. Its a nice technique to get the conversation started and cultivate a more two-way street at the demo stations. Today a visitor shared reading this article in the NY times.
The Claim: Identical Twins Have Identical DNA…
The questions that he asked was “what can change DNA” because as the article shows, researchers studying identical twins are seeing changes on the genetic level with individuals that were previously believed to have the same DNA.
Then of course there’s these guys…
The easter-eggs that we colored on friday are starting to smell a little funky, but I can’t bear to just throw them out without sharing them with the world. So here are our attempts to create colored eggs that no child could ever duplicate!
So I’ll admit that at first I wasn’t too thrilled about the next member’s class topic. I mean what is there to talk about ‘soil’ and ‘why do I care’? That all changed after this weekend! Sarah took one look at my backyard and was convinced that we could make something of it! It turned out (obviously) that she was right and together we did an extreme home makeover on the garden. For those of you who took multiple ‘nature walks’ in my yard on Friday night you may remember that it looked somewhat like this…
After some vigorous pulling and shearing, we got my third of the garden to look pretty nice and ready to be sown with baby saplings of tasty vegetables. After mixing in some soil-booster it was time to plant.
We planted three varieties of tomatoes (baby clusters, brandywine, and early girl), Anaheim peppers, green bell peppers, snap peas, yellow squash and some cilantro. They should all bear fruit in 60-90 days and may appear in June lunch club offerings. I want to make signs in the wood-shop but for now they are labeled with the little paper tags.
Besides getting dirt on our hands, learning about how to deal with snail infestations (coffee grounds, garlic spray, or old fashioned pesticide), and anticipating the good veggies, one of the neatest things was checking out some of the life that flourished in the unkempt shrubbery. We found worms, beetles, slugs, caterpillars, and a california slender salamander that we named ‘Sal Paradise’.
I post all this not only to brag about how much work got done in one weekend, but to say how cool it is to discover the old human need to work on the garden and play in some dirt. I know a bunch of you all do some amateur gardening so any advice is appreciated. Also we were wondering how the plants pollinate with only one of the species around? What will the flowers look like? How long will it really take? So many questions.
I can’t wait to have every one over for some home grown produce. Stay tuned for future posts about the growing process as we see how they progress. And maybe I’ll actually be able to teach something about soil in member’s class. Phew!
Here it is, the video of the glorious Pi(e) Chain Reaction that took place on Pi Day. Visitors came in and built contraptions that linked with each other in a giant chain reaction, which was set off at 2:15pm. It was tons of fun, and, as always, the explainers rocked the house. You can see more photos on the PIE website, just click on Pi Day Chain Reaction.
All I can say is, she was the cutest:
I finally got the chance to post some photos from our retreat to the dairy barn.
We all piled into a van and drove up to Jenner,
made an amazing meal together,
and had a dance party.
Then, we got some really great work done.
Overall, we discovered what an amazing time we can have squeezing 15 people into a barn with 2 guitars, lots of food, butcher paper, smelly markers, and a chorus of peacocks outside.
We had a training last week with Charlie Carlson about the structure of brain cells in order to better understand the ways that the mind works to process feelings, sensations, and emotions. These kind of topics often come up as we interact with the public in the brain exploration demo station. While we came up with all kinds of pressing questions like, “Why does my heart hurt at night” and “What’s the difference between pleasure and pain on a neurological level” the ways Charlie went at it were a little different. And that’s not his fault. What I got out of the brain training is that at least with our current understanding of the brain, it is so difficult to understand the complex emotions and sensations that we feel all the time. While its informative to learn about the chemical processes, the balances of potassium and calcium, the complicated ways our brain works seems to still be a mystery. And that’s not too bad. It’s kinda mind-boggling to imagine that inside each of our heads we have a structure with connections that are unfathomable and complex as the universe. And check out the pictures to prove it!
Bruce didn’t make it, but Abe was continually on his way to our retreat this weekend. Also, several Bartels were spotted.
So I’m presenting at AERA in New York on March 27th along with some folks I went to school with and my thesis advisor. Some of the Visitor Research people from the Exploratorium will be there to speak, too. I’m going to talk about the importance of reflection in teacher research, and I have to edit my thesis so that I can submit it. I’ve never spoken at a conference before, so I’m excited and nervous. I’m blogging here to help me focus on why I’m going to this conference.
When I was at SFSU getting my MA in Education, I was exposed to a really powerful method for looking at my teaching practice. It’s called Descriptive Review and it was conceived by a group of independent, progressive educators in rural Vermont at the Prospect School. Prospect’s staff documented the children’s learning by writing down observations, taking pictures of the children’s work, and saving individual and group work. Today, the Archive consists of over 300,000 pieces, and is currently housed in the University of Vermont’s library.
How did the Prospect teachers make meaning out of all of this collected information? That’s where the Descriptive Review method comes in. It’s not easy to talk about what Descriptive Review is or why it works; it’s something that a person needs to experience and practice in order to really get it. A group of people sit together and, with help from a facilitating chairperson, slowly build meaning. I have participated in reviews about a child, a learning environment, a piece of curriculum, a transcript of what a child has said, a picture of children at work, a piece of art, and excerpts from my own teaching journal. As the process builds, participant’s reflections connect and interact, often in complex and surprising ways. Always I end in a new and unexpected place, just by allowing myself to listen to fellow educators and consider their viewpoint.
Why is reflection so important to me? It is so easy to remain in a “putting out fires” mindset of a bustling, busy day. It is quite difficult to slow down and stretch out my attention span so that I can appreciate the many possibilities that exist in a child’s painting, the subtleties of a child’s question, the contradictions within my own lesson plan, or the political implications of a school’s mission. When I don’t reflect on my teaching practice, my interactions with children and other teachers can be reactive: I can easily jump to conclusions, let bias get the better of me, make snap judgments about chaperones or entire school groups, blame a bad orientation on any number of things. But when we do Descriptive Review, we make no assumptions. We base our comments on what can be observed. We avoid labeling or diagnosing children. We see details that make up a more complete big picture, and are less likely to feel defensive or possessive about our role as teacher.
I liked Descriptive Review so much that I decided to start a group to practice it. Three other students joined me and together we formed an independent study group, meeting every week for academic credit with the support of our advisor. We researched the history of the Prospect School and read about other teacher research groups that practiced Descriptive Review. Some of us went to Vermont the following summer to meet the founders of the method and practice with educators from all over the country. Five semesters later, the independent study group on Descriptive Review is still functioning at SFSU, and a second group has formed for teachers who are not currently in school. We meet about once a month at my friend Karen’s house. She’s the only one in the group still in school – she’s going to write her thesis about this latest iteration of the group.
One of the best books I read in my program was Steven Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In it is a powerful passage that reminds me both of the reflection we do in Descriptive Review, and the philosophy we practice as Explainers.
Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are—or, as we are conditioned to see it. when we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms. When other people disagree with us, we immediately think something is wrong with them. But, sincere, clearheaded people see things differently, each looking through the unique lens of experience.
This does not mean that there are no facts. But each person’s interpretation of these facts represents prior experiences, and the facts have no meaning whatsoever apart from the interpretation.
The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.
Last weekend I saw Michel Gondry’s new film, Be Kind Rewind. In this movie, Jack Black’s character becomes magnetized after being electrocuted and subsequently erases all of the VHS tapes in a video store with his body’s new electromagnetic properties.
Thanks to Paul D., I understand that even though electricity and magnetism go together like American Gladiators and steroids, this integral plot detail wouldn’t physically happen in real, non-movie, life. However, the movie left me wondering…is any part of that series unfortunate events even remotely possible? How much electricity would need to be surging through a human body in order to create a magnetic field strong enough to erase a tape? Could a human live through it? And for that matter, does Jack Black have a greater likelihood of becoming a chick magnet or an electromagnet?
Since our bodies are composed of a lot more water than iron, we can be diamagnetic like that frog, but not ferromagnetic. And ferromagnets are the only things that can become permanently magnetized after an electrocution. So Jack Black’s character had a pretty strong magnetic field around him during the ridiculous scene when he was being electrocuted, but not afterwards when he walked back into the video store.
So what if he happened to have been touching a blank tape at the exact moment he was electrocuted? I did some research (thanks, slate.com!) and found out that pretty much you need a current of several thousand amps coursing through your body to generate a magnetic field strong enough to erase the tape you are touching. To put that in perspective, electric chairs only zap you with around 5 amps, so becoming a magnet strong enough to erase a tape would have to be your last feat before you died…
Unless, of course, you were struck by lightening while holding your VHS tape. Although lightening carries more than enough current to demagnetize your tape, about 80 percent of people live through their lighting strikes. Not that I’d recommend trying this or anything. I do recommend you see this movie though, cuz it’s really funny (like Kristin and Marcus dancing) and I think Explainers would appreciate the creativity and imagination used to recreate the blockbusters that got erased.
