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Singing Science

Posted by samzenpus on from the lyrical-learning dept.

udderly writes " Wired is running a story about a University of Washington biology lecturer, Greg Crowther, who sings lectures. From the article: 'Crowther bursts into song to the melody of Sugar Sugar, the bubble-gum '60s tune - "Glucose, ah sugar sugar / You are my favorite fuel from the bloodborne substrate pool / Glucose -- monosaccharide sugar -- you're sweeter than a woman's kiss / 'cause I need you for glycolysis."' In college I used many different types of devices to help memorize information like this. Crowther has a page where you can download samples. Among my favorites are The Krebs Cycle and Come On Down (The Electron Transport Chain)."

28 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Mnemonics by Shimmer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm all for using mnemonics to remember somewhat arbitrary information (Roy G. Biv, Every Good Boy Deserves Fish), but not for semantic cramming. If you need a song to understand the difference between glucose and fructose, then why bother taking the course in the first place? You're just going to forget everything you learned as soon as you complete the final exam.

    --
    The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
    1. Re:Mnemonics by ltwally · · Score: 4, Insightful
      "If you need a song to understand the difference between glucose and fructose, then why bother taking the course in the first place?"
      Many of us were forced to take non-major classes that we had no interest in, in order to get our degrees. I'm going to hazard a guess that you either never attended an institution of higher-education, or you attended a technical/trade school.

      Also, one of the reasons that universities force you to learn so many things that you will later forget is so that your future employer knows that you are capable of learning these things. The knowledge itself is often secondary to the ability to acquire that knowledge.

      --



      /dev/random
    2. Re:Mnemonics by ATeamMrT · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If you need a song to understand the difference between glucose and fructose, then why bother taking the course in the first place? You're just going to forget everything you learned as soon as you complete the final exam.

      Just because a class ends, does not mean the learning ends. Some people will have a lightbulb click on in their heads, a year later, remembering something from a previous class.

      Most of what we learn when young is compartmentalized. We don't know how topic A1 relates to topic B4. In your example, maybe glucose means nothing to the test taker, except an answer to get a good grade in Biology 100. But next year, when taking Chem 100 and hearing about exothermic reactions, something will click in his head, and he will remember ATP and the krebs cycle. Maybe he will sit back, close his eyes, and start thinking of making a super mitochondira where an elephant can lift 10 times the normal weight, and how to use this elephant in hard to reach parts of Africa to build better housing or hospitals.

      We should get the most from everyone, use whatever methods work, and not critisize a teacher for reaching 10% of his students that might otherwise not understand.

    3. Re:Mnemonics by Rayaru · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Aside from the task of passing on human knowledge from generation to generation, another major focus of universities is to provide an environment conducive to research, or the creation of new knowledge. Joe Dropout might be able to start a local computer business and make more money that a graduate fresh out of college, but except in extraordinary cases he is not the one pioneering the development of new computers.

  2. Sounds like the next.. by ciroknight · · Score: 2, Funny

    Bill Nye the Science Guy backup singer/songwriter.

    --
    "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
  3. It really works too unfortunately, by technoextreme · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can't get this dam song out of my head about snells. Signing n sub 1 sin theta sub 1 signing n sub 2 sin theta sub 2. Gosh darn it. I don't even remember the entire sign only the dam formula. Anway, here is a website from which I found the songs.
    http:http://www.haverford.edu/physics-astro/songs/ >
    Ps. I just had one of those I have no life epathanies.

    --
    Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
  4. Nice try.. by saskboy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nice try, but the Rolling Stones have been promoting Geology's Rock Cycle for decades now.

    --
    Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
  5. Re:So, how long until he's sued? by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hey, Valente, notw that you're retired, go back in your hole. You know damn well that educational use/performance by a teacher in front of his students is specifically exempt from it in the copyright act, as part of "fair use."

  6. Memory devices work... by ATeamMrT · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The worst teachers are stuck in one method. The best ones will explain a topic in multiple ways. I had one math teacher that used things like "Please Excuse My Poor Aunt Sally" to teach about equations- parenthesis, exponents, multiplication/division, addition, subtraction. To someone else, it might be a complex list of what to do first and rules. But he showed a small trick, and nobody missed it. I wish more teachers would take the time to find teaching methods that work, rather than passing the blame to students and telling students to "study harder".

    It is one of the reasons dissection is so important in Biology classes. Kids can't learn by looking at a picture in a book of what the digestive system looks like. It is different to cut a frog open and see for yourself. It also stimulates the imagination in ways books can not. I remember looking at the cardiovascular system and wondering "Why do we have heart attacks? Why not just add a small pump at the inferior vena cava to help weak hearts. And if someone has a heart attack, the pump will act like a CPR machine, keeping blood flowing.

    Teachers like this guy are a pleasure to have. They love their field. They feel a responsibility to reach all students, regardless of how the kid learns. I knew some smart kids in highschool who never made it that far in academia because they got stuck with book learning- read the book than take a scan tron. But when you talk with them, you realize they learn 10X as much as the rest of us when they see something done. I've seen this guy tear a carburetor apart and rebuild it, after watching someone else do it. But he could not do simple Chem 100 problems.

    I wonder how many savants are out there who were pushed out of mainstream education because traditional book reading followed by test taking did not show their potential?

    I think the anwser for education is to require a Ed.D instead of a Ph.D to teach the first four years of college. Let the Ph.D's do research. Just because they are expert in their field does not mean they know how to convey that information to others.

    1. Re:Memory devices work... by Aladrin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Umm... Are you SURE they work? "Please Excuse My Poor Aunt Sally" is PEMPAS, not PEMDAS. I think the word you want is 'dear' rather than 'poor.' Also, you just said the worst teachers are stuck on 1 method, and then give a tale about a teacher that only used one method, but it worked...

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    2. Re:Memory devices work... by Vegeta99 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But it still worked! he failed to recall the nmemonic correctly, but he recalled the information he needed the nmeonic's help to remember.

      His teacher used the standard write-the-rules-on-the-board method and then gave a nmemonic to remember it. That gives you just one extra thing (that's worth a lot) to link it to in memory. That's the best way to memorize things, not to sit and read it over and over again, but to give it a relationship to something else in memory.

  7. Physics Rap by FuzzyDaddy · · Score: 2, Funny
    At Berkeley, there was a professor who used to start out his graduate condensed matter class with a rap about the subject. All I remember is "If it's 1-D you desire, use lithography to make a real fine wire..."

    I think he got tired of it after a few semesters, but it was fun while it lasted.

    --
    It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
  8. Singing Science Records by fyoder · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Singing Science Records

    My favourites are 'The Ballad of Sir Isaac Newton' and 'Why Does the Sun Shine'.

    --
    Loose lips lose spit.
  9. No one beats by oever · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Hawkman

    --
    DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
  10. My favourite learning song by jurt1235 · · Score: 5, Funny

    My favourite for learning to count in bin:

    1100011 bottles of beer on the wall, 1100011 bottles of beer.
    Take one down and pass it around, 1100010 bottles of beer on the wall.
    1100010 bottles of beer on the wall, 1100010 bottles of beer.
    Take one down and pass it around, 1100001 bottles of beer on the wall.
    etc etc etc

    --

    My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
  11. Reminds me of... by Masato · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Reminds me of Fourier's Song that we got to listen to in class this year.

  12. www.physicssongs.org by Pendersempai · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I highly recommend taking a look at www.physicssongs.org . It's full of fantastic songs about physics.

  13. Re:Samples by EmoryBrighton · · Score: 2, Informative

    Upon closer inspection, You are wrong, here's the frontpage link:
    http://www.science-groove.org/Now/

    and here's the link I extracted the mp3's from:
    http://faculty.washington.edu/crowther/Misc/Songs/ music.shtml

    The second link is his own webpage at uwash while the first is a compilation of his cd records.

    --
    Rule 2: Writing a spec is like writing code for a brain to execute.
  14. Re:Mother of God by JabberWokky · · Score: 3, Informative
    Oh, c'mon... this is pretty durn standard stuff. I have a box of cassettes of this kind of music, and a rack of CDs. It's called Filk, and there's both Science and Science Fiction variants. Back before it had a name, it was just music done by scientists and professors. Tom Lehrer was singing about the elements, Wernher Von Braun and New Math starting in the late 50s, and I have a songbook of Medieval students songs that predates that by several centuries.

    Heck, I've written songs about Polyethylene terephthalate and patch panels... they are things I work with and like. I also write and sing songs about corsets and myths and the SCA. Pretty much anything that somebody likes or is into, if they are a musician, gets written about. I have lyrics about the tetramanganese cluster in Photosystem II because my fiance worked with it.

    It's not "nerdy", it's simply people singing about what they do, work and play with. Pretty much the same as all the songs about the railroad, playing baseball or about steelworkers, only these happen to be written by people in the sciences. If you're riding on a railroad, you write "City of New Orleans". If you're working with NMR spec, you write a song about spectroscopy.

    --
    Evan

    --
    "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  15. Thermodynamics song by Flanders and Swann by davidwr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Who can forget Flanders and Swann's The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics

    "The First Law of Thermodymamics:
    Heat is work and work is heat"

    "The Second Law of Thermodymamics:
    Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body"

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  16. School of Rock & Animaniacs by Ifni · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Didn't Jack Black do this (or pretend to) in School of Rock?

    Also , never forget the Animaniacs' Warner Bros (and sister!) doing the countries of the world, among others (http://www2.cruzio.com/~keeper/00.html).

    --

    Oh, was that my outside voice?

  17. guys! it's just to not make students bored! by nanobuggs · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Our professor brings his electric guitar to the lab, and plays blues, rock, along with songs about DNA and cloning. He gives extra points for writing haiku about DNA as well. It's not for memorising, but to have fun and like the class. Once you are not bored you really learn something! A Man named Taq: Let me tell ya story 'bout a man named Taq Always priming forward never looking back Amplifying sequence for the research mind Extending off the primers on the PCR line Born near a thermal vent in Yellowstone Park Livin' in a hot spring, his life was a lark A surfer guy named Mullis saw what he could do Now he's amplifying DNA for me and for you ...etc

  18. Cheerleading in Calculus by Brataccas · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'll never forget my calc techer in college and his mnemonic for memorizing the sin and cos for the summation of two angles:
    sin(x+y) = sin(x)cos(y)+cos(x)sin(y)
    cos(x+y) = cos(x)cos(y)-sin(x)sin(y)

    You have to imagine a VERY large, balding, ex-marine jumping up and down in front of the blackboard squealing at the top of his voice in his best cheerleader impression:
    Sin!
    Cos!
    Cos!
    Sin!
    Cos! Cos!
    Sin! Sign! Sin!

    It doesn't translate as well in text but in was absolutely hilarious and somewhat frightening...

    1. Re:Cheerleading in Calculus by Brataccas · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ooops...change that last line to: Sign! Sin! Sin!

  19. Re:The trouble with this sort of learning. by massivefoot · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's Archimedes Principle, it gives the amount of upthrust a body will exprience when immersed in a fluid. And singing lectures do seem to be popular with biologists, I'm told that one of the biology lectures at Cambridge near the end of term is done entirely in song.

  20. He got the idea from Happy Days? by kimvette · · Score: 2, Informative

    Maybe he got the idea from Happy Days whre the student (Potsie) sings - anyone remember this episode?

    http://www.sitcomsonline.com/themesonglyrics.html

    (scroll down to "Pump Your Blood")

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  21. serious doubts by frenchbedroom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think we can all agree that remembering something has nothing to do with understanding it. That's why I have serious doubts about this kind of "educational practice", because it focuses on memory. Well, if the main purpose of the class is passing the test and getting a grade, I guess it's ok. If the guy actually wants to *teach* something, it's gonna take more than funny songs to put _knowledge_ in people's brains.

  22. ObPotsie by volpe · · Score: 2, Informative

    "PUMP YOUR BLOOD" SONG - VERSE ONE

    Pump, pump, pumps your Blood.

    The right atrium's where the process begins, where the CO2 Blood enters the heart.

    Through the tricuspid valve, to the right ventricle, the pulmonary artery, and lungs.

    Once inside the lungs, it dumps its carbon dioxide and picks up its oxygen supply.

    Then it's back to the heart through the pulmonary vein, through the atrium and left ventricle.

    Pump, pump, pumps your Blood.

    "PUMP YOUR BLOOD" SONG - VERSE TWO

    Pump, pump, pumps your Blood.

    The aortic valve's, where the Blood leaves the heart, then it's channeled to the rest of the bod.

    The arteries, arterioles, and capillaries too bring the oxygenated Blood to the cells.

    The tissues and the cells trade off waste and CO2, which is carried through the venules and the veins

    Through the larger vena cava to the atrium and lungs, and we're back to where we started in the heart.

    Pump, pump, pumps your Blood