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Martin-
In response to your point # 2, and if my memory of some of my tasks
serves me correctly, the lesson could be appended:
"This is what graduate students are for"
Jonah - thanks for the great humor on a Monday....
Best-
Red Riderless Sam
--------------
Sam Dean
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On Jan 28, 2008, at 2:28 PM, Martin Weiss wrote:
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
> institutions.
> **********************************************************************
> *******
>
> Jona;
>
> Two possible lessons:
>
> observe and the collect data or
>
> never get involved directly in your own experiment.
>
> They did not predict the potential results of their experiment.
>
>
> Martin
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> I think the lesson is, "Don't forget to include the article link."
>>
>> - Evan :-)
>>
>>
>>
>>>>> There's a lesson here somewhere, I'm just not sure what it is.
>>
>>
>>
>>> This is a true story, reported in the Hartford Courant, about
>>> what just
>>> might be the perfection of science.
>>>
>>> It tells of two young scientists who personified a great many
>>> (granted,
>>> not all) of the greatest virtues of science learning. Free-form,
>>> inquiry-driven science flowered in them. In the science center
>>> field, we
>>> DREAM of those who act in this manner.
>>>
>>> And yet...
>>>
>>> Let's examine the scientific virtues that this pair exemplified:
>>>
>>> 1) Their exploration was self-motivated. They did not decide to
>>> learn a
>>> little bit more about the natural world because their teacher
>>> made them,
>>> because they had to know it for a test, because it was on the state
>>> science standards, because a well meaning parent or science center
>>> educator led them in this direction. They were driven by their own
>>> curiosity.
>>>
>>> 2) They began with a healthy skepticism of scientific content as
>>> presented in popular entertainment. An entirely wise approach.
>>> [Real
>>> forensics investigators, for example, do not act like those on
>>> the CSI
>>> shows. Amongst many inaccuracies, they have more than one facial
>>> expression. Unlike David Caruso.]
>>>
>>> 3) Confronted with a possible physical phenomenom, they cast a
>>> definite
>>> hypothesis about how it would function.
>>>
>>> 4) As in the heart of all good science, they tested their
>>> hypothesis
>>> with experiment. To make things even better, they designed the
>>> experiment themselves (unlike the "follow these directions" m.o.
>>> commonly used in science education.)
>>>
>>> 5) Once the results were in, the experiment disproved their initial
>>> hypothesis... and they readily accepted this fact. "I decided to
>>> try it
>>> because I thought all of the TV shows were lies," one said
>>> later, "but
>>> it turns out I was wrong." This lack of dogmatism, intellectual
>>> honesty,
>>> and openess to revise one's ideas in the face of evidence is
>>> far, far
>>> too rare in this world.
>>>
>>> What could possibly be bad about such a wonderfully scientific
>>> process?
>>>
>>> Well, here are some details on their experiment: Two fourth
>>> graders in
>>> Indiana decided to see if putting their tongues on a frozen
>>> flagpole
>>> really would get them stuck --- just like in the movie A Christmas
>>> Story. It turns out that in this case, Hollywood got it right, and
>>> yes... your tongue really will stick to very cold metal.
>>>
>>> There's a lesson here somewhere, I'm just not sure what it is.
>>>
>>> Jonah Cohen
>>> Outreach & Public Programs Manager
>>> The Children's Museum
>>>
>>> "I hate quotations."
>>> -Ralph Waldo Emerson
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ********************************************************************
>>> ***
>>> For information about the Association of Science-Technology
>>> Centers and
>>> the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.
>>>
>>> Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at
>>> www.exhibitfiles.org.
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>>
>> *********************************************************************
>> **
>> For information about the Association of Science-Technology
>> Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit
>> www.astc.org.
>>
>> Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at
>> www.exhibitfiles.org.
>>
>> The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-
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>
>
> --
> Martin Weiss, PhD
> Science Interpretation
> Consultant,
> New York Hall of Science
>
> **********************************************************************
> *
> For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.
>
> Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at
> www.exhibitfiles.org.
>
> The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-
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