Middle and High School … from a Montessori Point of View
Rob Dunn at the Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting article on the not-so-useful aspects of human anatomy that resulted from evolutionary history. It starts with evidence that the mitochondria in our cells were once separate organisms and goes on to explain things like how the change from quadrupedal to bipedal, upright walking resulted in our … Continue reading “Vestiges of evolution”
The small window into the effects of modern life on the way we think was opened just a little wider recently by an interesting article by Joseph Heinrich and others. They sift through a large number of studies of people living the industrialized life and their more rural counterparts to find real differences in they … Continue reading “WEIRD behavior”
NOVA’s program The Elegant Universe has an excellent website where the entire three hour video is available for free (with a full screen option). They have also broken the video up into segments and have a great teachers’ page which summarizes what’s in each segment. Created in 2003, when string theory was making it’s big … Continue reading “About The Elegant Universe”
The way sub-atomic particles behave is weird. They don’t fit very well into our everyday experience of the world, but the math and the experimental observations hold up. Chad Orzel has an interesting post on the seven things everyone should know about quantum physics that’s written in language a lay person can understand. This does … Continue reading “Quantum mechanics – things you should know”
Almost every time I discuss protons, neutrons and the nucleus of an atom, or at least so my students complain, I end up talking about nuclear fission and fusion and nuclear weapons. If the discussion goes on long enough I tend to bring up the cold war and how the fear of mutually assured destruction … Continue reading “Nuclear Winter and MAD”
It’s absolutely amazing how much the different numbers of neutrons in atoms can tell us about the ourselves and the world. Over 99% of the carbon in the atmosphere is carbon-12, with 6 neutrons and 6 protons, but the rest is made of carbon-12 (6 protons and 7 neutrons) or carbon-14 (6 protons and 8 … Continue reading “Corn, chemistry and the food you eat”