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Bringing Science and Math Into Writing?
I am an eighth grade English teacher. As much as I love my subject and believe in the value of skillful writing, I also believe that there is a terrible lack of interest in the sciences and maths among students in general. In some sense, I believe English to be a support subject for the others classes at this grade level. At my school, the average science classroom has time for labs and note taking, but reading and writing on the subject (beside textbooks) is usually limited. Math is in a similar situation: they have time to learn a concept and practice, but not to linger on possibilities. Therefore, I have two questions for the readers of Slashdot: which books / shows / movies caused a curiosity towards these subjects when you were young, and what suggestions do you have for incorporating these subjects into writing?
It's a noble quest you are on, but it is doomed to failure. Books/movies/shows won't do it. As any psychologist can tell you, by far the strongest formative influences on a child are other people. First among these are the parents. If they discuss Paris Hilton's latest cunt flash at the dinner table, the kids are not going to learn that science and math are important. They can be exposed to good books/movies/shows, but they just won't care. If they discuss mathematical proofs - as happened at our dinner table - the child will develop an interest in math and science. Then you won't need to find books/shows etc for him - he'll hunt them down himself.
The one good bit of news is that the next most influential person in a child's life is often a teacher. Your own enthusiasm for the subject will do more than you know. Just be your nerdy self; you will change their lives.
MacGyver may be a help. It also will teach thinking and improvising.
Fight Spammers!
The Connections series by James Burke, but i don't see how this will help writing about math or science.. It may be a way to tie all the subjects and lessons taught in school together though. Or if they are young perhaps Mr. Wizard is more relevant.
The books that weren't assigned by my teachers.
Doesn't matter what it is. It can be the latest and greatest gizmo like the iPhone, or a simple older gizmo like a dial telephone or a blender. Question how things work. Plant those questions in your young students minds, and then harvest their observations.
Enjoy Every Sandwich
No, I won't, even though I don't like abortion. If you want to protest abortion, do it at the proper time and place. You're only going to be modded down and ignored.
BTW: Mods, please don't attract attention to this thread by modding it or any of its children up.
We are geeks!!! we are predisposed to Math and Science.
at any rate, the best thing you can do is to talk with the math teachers in your school to find out what the students are working on and then collaboratively design some extensions that you can apply in your classroom. a writing assignment that gets the kids to crack a book and report on a famous mathematician... make it a 20th century mathematician to make the kids see math is a living subject.
perhaps get them to write some modern applications in the realm of medicine, construction, urban planning, etc. TO make such an assignment interesting to the student, make sure they pick a career field they are interested in and have them investigate math's applications in those fields
I would not mix math and science in the same unit... Science is a little "softer" than math and will be more popular fore the students if given a choice. Also, make sure to have the kids pick the career field they want to write about before they are told what angle they will be looking at it from. knowing the angle will likely affect the career field they choose and thus fail to make them see math/sciences real contributions to areas other than engineering/science. Make sure they stick with that same field when you have them investigate the science involved.
As you may have gleaned, I am a trained, but non-practicing, math teacher. I found that I could not stand the classroom. All that work on lesson plans and then even when you make up games, they still do not want to learn the material. I found the business world to be much more enjoyable. At least there your hard work gives you benefits.
You have to be careful with your selection, though, because a lot of what passes for SF these days is My Talking Pony stories and/or porn.
Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel has a nice discussion of acceleration and interplanetary distances. Arthur C Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise offers an introduction to material strengths and orbital mechanics. Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity juxtaposes gravity and centripetal acceleration.
Slightly off-topic, but tangentially related to TFA: I'm in the process of writing my masters. I'm doing it on the NAS Conjugate Gradient (CG) benchmark to several exotic architecture. Now for those of you who haven't heard of CG, it's a very-commonly-used but extremely complicated algorithm. I wanted to have a section in my masters explaining how CG works, only I hit a snag - all of the explanations SUCK. I mean, REALLY SUCK.
I went to one of the profs in my department. He does numerical electromagnetism, so he is very good at math and CG is familiar to him. I asked him if he could recommend a "CG for dummies" book.
He told me, as a matter of fact, there is: An Introduction to the Conjugate Gradient Method Without the Agonizing Pain by Carnegie Mellon professor Jonathan Richard Shewchuk. My E&M prof said it was the best bit of technical writing he'd ever seen. I'm about halfway through, but I have to agree - though it's complicated, it's by far the most comprehensible explanation I have ever seen. It really is a perfect example of what technical writing should be like.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Read to your kids when they are too young to be able to do it themselves. This will at least teach them that fun things can be found in books. If you can then direct them toward science fiction, such as Tom Swift or Heinlein's juveniles, an interest in math and science becomes a likely side-effect.
A variety of the better science fiction authors may provide some useful input for the students. If your School district will permit their teaching. Having the students then write some short science fiction would t be the obvious next step.
... but Feynman and various Crypto experts might be good choices.
If that isn't permitted, or doesn't appeal, various historical figures: Newton, and Einstein as obvious starting points
Either you should be expert and enthusiastic or you should work something out with some of the Math and Science teachers to coordindate your approaches would be helpful.
Rather than attempting a direct approach like including science or maths related material in your reading list, I would suggest adding in a healthy amount of philosophy and debate to the curriculum.
Both demand understanding the subject matter (whatever it may actually be) and promote critical thinking. They also encourage the development of a larger vocabulary and command of more complex grammatical constructs, as expressing complex ideas necessitates a mastery of whatever medium is being used to convey them. These skills will be invaluable to your students in every aspect of their academic careers, and are fundamental requirements for sciences and maths.
The best part is that the subject matter can be something that they're actually interested in. In fact, the deeper their personal interest, the more likely it is that they'll actually put forth the effort required to develop coherent arguments and care enough to force themselves to learn how to express their personal positions more clearly and effectively.
As for TV, one used to say Star Trek, but recent versions have less and less to do with science, and in any case aren't in production now. I enjoy the new Doctor Who, but that has a great deal of fantasy these days.
But for reading please avoid at all costs any novelisations of TV or movies. Hack writers can't bring anything worthwhile to plots whose shortcomings are only too apparent without special effects and explosions to distract.
Short story anthologies might be a good bet. Many excellent ones, perhaps the annual Hugo Award Winners.
And see Mathematical Fiction for a listo f books and stories about maths. I like Greg Egan and Rudy Rucker, but they might be beyond most kids.
Maybe if the books weren't http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm?? utter crap. I came to love math and science on my own; the teachers I had were an actual impediment to the process so I am probably not the best one to speak on this. The problem is the lack of teachers able to engage people's minds combined with people who have no interest in learning these subjects; throw in a dash of ridicule for enjoying those subjects from your oh so clever "peers" and you have a problem that is not going to be solved with a simple new teaching technique. You cannot force people to enjoy math or science, so to me it is better to find those who excel in this field and give them the most in depth and supportive training possible. You would have to maintain a good math program for the rest to root out the late bloomers and give them the level of math and science needed to be a contributing member of society; in other words, someone who uses reason and logic rather than superstition and religion to guide their life. So let's go with the assumption you are one of the rare few teachers who really and truly care, (and have not been ground down by the administration into not giving a shit) show them how math and science apply to real life. That kind of thing is what got my interest, for instance the math that goes into designing a motor cycle frame, or talk about the great scientists of the past that sacrificed everything for science and why they did it (marie curie for instance), give them a vision of where we as a species are going and how these skills can contribute to it. Deep down I think most people wish life was more like star trek, no inner conflicts unified as a species striving for some sort of progress. caveat: I am not a trekkie but i remember growing up the new generation was one of the few shows that gave me hope for the human race.
Panel F, Relay #70
About a month ago I read an awesome popular science book that I simply have to recommend here:
Natalie Angier: The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science
If you are looking for a book that can excite a layman, like me, about science, I think this book is one you should certainly take a closer look at. In my opinion, what makes it such a nice read is that you really feel how the author is herself excited and fascinated by the things she reports on.
At the bottom of the
Why didn't you want me Mommy?
Our first child was such a disappointment - he posted bullshit on slashdot and we were SO embarrassed! We couldn't stand the thought that you might be like him.
Ok, doc, turn on the suction and start slicing!!
Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov Any parent who does not provide his/her child with a set of the Heinlein Juveniles does not deserve descendants.
One of the ways to encourage love and respect for maths and science is to teach the children where it all came from to begin with. Mathematics and science came out of philosophy, so that is what you must teach your children! Teach them good philosophy and maths/science will reveal themselves and you can go from there. I think that teaching children what they can do with maths/science is good and necessary, but to many it will remain a pile of magical symbols and rituals instead of a beautiful language and investigation of reality. You need to give them the why, before the what. As for how to do that with an English curriculum well I'll leave that determination to others.
I wonder if the time one has - or rather the time one finds to linger on possibilities is not bound to their motivation in exploring the subject. I for one remember having done that two times, once in 9th grade (internal composition laws) and in 10th grade (2x2 matrices). Being eager to explore that really new world to me, I was writing pages and pages of exercices without anybody asking me to, just for the fun. As far as I remember, I missed deliberately "The Flintstones" once on TV because - though I loved this cartoon - I did not want to abandon the exercise I was in.
Therefore, I have two questions for the readers of Slashdot: which books / shows / movies caused a curiosity towards these subjects when you were young, and what suggestions do you have for incorporating these subjects into writing?
Books like Gamow's "Mr Tompkins" (not the recently revised vesion) and "One, two, three... infinity" aroused also my curiosity on the subject. Also, some exercises like : "You have a 10m statue on a 30m column. At which distance should you stand from the column's foot in order to see the statue with the widest possible angle ?" reminded me from time to time how maths could be a form of "super-power", allowing to do what would be either impossible or very tedious without them (well, incidentally, I chose an engineering career because of that).
Today's books on physics by Colin Bruce seem quite challenging too, but lack the technical appendixes that would be needed by those who want to go beyond the anedotic side of things to venture a little in calculus.
Finally, the is an SF novel by Normam Kagan called "The Mathenauts" which describes students exploring a mathematical space, and which is a quite accurate desciption of the feelings you have when you are doing it.
Just my two cents. Hope it can help...
Reading about the life of a certain scientist or mathematician was important for me. Knowing that those kind of people exist (all I knew was sports prior to my discovering mathematics, astronomy, and physics), and knowing about their work made me want to know more. Make a list of scientists and mathematicians. Assign each student to one, and have them read a biography about that person. Have them choose a writing topic, and then have them give an in-class presentation so that they can share information about the scientists and mathematicians to the rest of the class. You should have no trouble filling out a list. The ones I read about when I was young included Marie Curie, Einstein, Fermi, Newton, Euler, Gauss, and Bohr.
discovery channel's shows ....awesome.
Please help your students by encouraging them to watch Discovery channel.
-- "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" - TAE --
I'm an electrical engineer who's been in industry for 30 years (you can figure out how old I am). In addition, I was about 6 years old when I determined that I wanted to be an engineer. With that as a bit of background, I'll try to answer your questions...
What books/shows/movies influenced me...
Books:
The "Alvin Fernald" books - about the boy inventor
Popular Mechanics - how stuff works
Popular Science - sort of like Pop Mech, but substantially more cerebral
Shows:
Nova - this was "after the fact" but still kept my brain a chunkin
Movies:
James Bond, Matt Helm, Our Man Flint - aside from the other aspects, the gadgets were fascinating
And although you didn't specifically ask about it... for those that grew up in 60's, there was also NASA and the space program. Even if I didn't want to be an astronaut, you still spent a lot of time thinking about how those machines worked (and oggled a bit over those shots of mission control on TV).
To address the second part of your question, how to incorporate this into writing... hmmm....
This is going to be something that's more difficult to approach. First, English is NOT a precise language. Mathematical formula, chemical equations, etc., are precious. At the same time written language is always a bit more ambiguous. I'm not saying that its not important (it is), but rather, you can't simply apply it everywhere.
In particular, you need to use spoken/written language to convey your thoughts and ideas, however at the same time it is usually imperative that some of these thoughts be conveyed using other notation (e.g., mathematical equations, chemical formulae, etc.).
I think, what you want to instill in your students is that this can be fun. When I was in college we had to take "Technical Writing" during our senior year as a degree requirement. The instructor I had was GREAT (I wish I could remember his name). The thing that made him great was that he taught by teaching you the "mechanics" of how to do something (i.e., he didn't dwell on stuff like grammar, etc.). That's not to say that this didn't come through, but rather that the delivery method was geared towards engineers. It was fun! And nearly everyone in the class LOOKED FORWARD to the next class.
I wish you much success and I hope this helps!
I would highly recommend [especially for that age group] The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. It's a somewhat-illustrated novel about a kid who dreams of a number devil who teaches him math while he sleeps. The math he learns there helps him do math quickly in his incredibly dull and boring math class, shocking the obviously-unenthusiastic teacher as well as his fellow classmates. The student who was once bored to tears by math suddenly finds joy in the patterns that exist there... As I recall it's mostly basic algebra and geometry. I didn't end up reading it until well after I'd taken the classes [I picked it up because it looked amusing, I've always had a love for math and it seemed like it was related to comic books but more novely, generally a light read]. I'm not sure how well a student who's not already interested in math would respond to it, but I certainly think it'd be worth checking out. Also, I must point out that Star Trek is wonderful and delicious.
Dan T: Man, this sounds good, where can I download it?
Dan W: The Internet
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 novella by Edwin Abbott Abbott, still popular among mathematics and computer science students, and considered useful reading for people studying topics such as the concept of other dimensions. As a piece of literature, Flatland is respected for its satire on the social hierarchy of Victorian society.
It will not only perk interest in the sciences, but has also been shown to increase literacy.
Be prepared for resistance though, as schools are still a female-dominated sector, and sexist sterotypes are as strong as ever. You don't want to become the next whipping boy like Larry Summers.
When I was a kid, I got totally hooked on John Wyndham books -- "The Day Of The Triffids" is his most well known one, but he wrote quite a number of others.
Dunno if it'll help you in your quest, but he certainly inspired me when I was young.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
I didn't like to read until I got into D&D. It's kind of hard to avoid reading when you have a Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Guide, the adventure itself, etc. So, find out what the kids are interested in and get them to write about that.
For science and math, focus on technical writing. English was viewed as "creative" writing when I was in school. There is not much to be creative about when it comes to writing about science and math. Unless things have changed, technical writing isn't covered until college, and that's only if you take a technical writing class. So if you want to help those interested in math and science with writing, try focusing on technical writing (even though that may seem dry for someone who teaches english).
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
I think the things that got me most interested in this was having a computer at home when I was growing up. Now that is not as big a deal, but having a computer system in early 1980's was. I still remember doing my first up-grade to a computer on my own (upgraded the CPU from a 33MHz to a 66MHz when I was 9 or 10). I had always loved tinkering with the computer(s), and continued loving doing this till present day (I am a Unix Systems Administrator with a degree in Computer Science). I knew from early on that I needed to learn math and science in order to work on my hobby, which in turn, I found that I could make a career of my hobby, which is one of the best things you can have in life (finding someone to pay you to work on your hobby is right up there at the top of the list).
Heck, I grew up in a house where I would play chess against my father almost every night, and I remember doing this before I was even going to school. You need to have that early connection with sciences and math. You need to have that strong foundation well before 8th grade...
As for shows, well I liked "Mr. Wizard" when I was growing up. However, that is geared for people a little younger than 8th graders (more like 3-6th).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
I know a lot of evangelical Christians that feel strongly about abortion; moreso "partial-birth" abortions. They use shock tactics like graphically describing how doctors take a full or near-full term baby and crush its skull with a hammer. The oddity in your above logic is that [a lot of] Christians believe that the ultimate goal of humans is to realize and accept that Jesus Christ died for the sins of all men, and in this enlightenment, one is promised eternal life in heaven. Babies are devoid of sin in god's eyes, therefore get a "free pass" to heaven and to know god. What's there to complain about? How is being denied the ability to sin somehow a hinderance to their eternal existance? Many of these fervent anti-abortionists are oblivious to real-world problems like overpopulation (e.g. Evil China trying to make sure their country as a whole isn't destroyed due to overpopulation) or even psychological and physical abuse of already-born children.
I would think something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland would be an obvious topic.
For me, fiction wasn't particularly inspirational. I was mostly intrigued by the automation power of computers. Since computers automate that which, at the lowest level, is mathematics, I was naturally inclined to attempt to learn mathematical techniques for tackling problems because I could then devise a machine that would tackle those problems for me with great speed and proficiency. So essentially, it was the computers themselves and their capabilities that inspired my interest in maths. Science was also fundamentally attractive to me because it presented a way to discover truth with little foreknowledge. And since it involved a methodology, it could also be automated to a substantial degree. Of course, the "wow" factor of things like fighter planes, nuclear warheads, solar cells: ("look! it does work for free!"), and postage stamp sized ICs with bajillions of internal components also contributed to my interest in science. I eventually got a BS in physics and I am currently working on the core BS requirements for a CS degree in pursuance of CS graduate school, so one could say that my interest in these subjecs is significant.
To answer your question more specifically, even though I can't stand to watch it now, Star Trek:TNG offered a look at a possible future society that was attractive to me. I suppose the general benevolence of the characters and the "mission" combined with the reverence the characters showed toward those who were knowledgable and proficient made me think that a future that transcends the usual social, economic, and political BS that our society is riddled with might be possible. I think I had a more indulgent imagination back then.
'Nuff said.
"Why can't everyone just be straight with me?"
"Because we live in a bendy world, dear."
http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Million-Master-M agic-Numbers/dp/039331071X
God Created the Integers - Stephen Hawking
http://www.amazon.com/God-Created-Integers-Mathema tical-Breakthroughs/dp/0762419229/ref=pd_bbs_2/102 -3884603-8680934?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189325102&sr =1-2
The history of mathematics is a really fascinating subject. Somewhere I have a history of 0 called something like The Nothing that Is. It puts math in a context, and stops it from being magic that nobody could have thought up on their own. The book on zero is really quite short, and quite easy reading, even for somebody not well versed in math, and it makes it all the way to explaining Calculus in a reasonably accessible way.
Through the history of math, you get all sorts of interesting characters, exotic locales, conflict about how things should be done, and who invented what, etc. It's not exactly a way to bring math into writing, but there is a lot of writing already done about math that you may want to check out and see if it is of any use for you classroom.
Fairly Hard SF like some Arthur c Clarke can also be a great and interesting introduction to some stuff like the principles of celestial mechanics in a way that would stick better for most students than just throwing equations at them.
Glammahawarteyropoopskidoofart.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 novella by Edwin Abbott Abbott, still popular among mathematics and computer science students, and considered useful reading for people studying topics such as the concept of other dimensions. As a piece of literature, Flatland is respected for its satire on the social hierarchy of Victorian society.
The story posits a two dimensional world (Flatland). The unnamed narrator, a humble square (the social caste of gentlemen and professionals), guides us through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. Part I consists of physical and social descriptions of Flatland.
In Part II, the Square has a dream about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland), and attempts to convince the realm's ignorant monarch of a second dimension, but finds that it is essentially impossible to make him see outside of his eternally straight line.
The narrator is then visited by a three-dimensional sphere, which he cannot comprehend until he sees the Spaceland for himself. This sphere, who remains nameless, visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hopes of eventually educating the population of Flatland of the existence of Spaceland. From the safety of Spaceland, they are able to observe the leaders of Flatland secretly acknowledging the existence of the sphere and prescribing the silencing of anyone found preaching the truth of Spaceland and the third dimension. After this proclamation is made, many witnesses are massacred or imprisoned (according to caste).
After the Square's mind is opened to new dimensions, he tries to convince the Sphere of the theoretical possibility of the existence of a fourth (and fifth, and sixth...) spatial dimension. Offended by this presumption and incapable of comprehending other dimensions, the Sphere returns his student to Flatland in disgrace.
He then has a dream in which the Sphere visits him again, this time to introduce him to Pointland (which comprises a self-aware point that occupies all space and knows nothing but itself). The point (sole inhabitant, monarch, and universe in one) perceives any attempt at communicating with him as simply being a thought originating in his own mind. (cf. Solipsism)
The Square recognizes the connection between the ignorance of the monarchs of Pointland and Lineland with his own (and the Sphere's) previous ignorance of the existence of other dimensions.
Once returned to Flatland, the Square finds it difficult to convince anyone of Spaceland's existence, especially after official decrees are announced - anyone preaching the lies of three dimensions will be imprisoned (or executed, depending on caste). Eventually the Square himself is imprisoned for just this reason.
First, a book. "Relativity: The Special and the General Theory" by Albert Einstein. A math-light explanation of relativity by the man himself. The descriptions and implications provide several jumping-off points for fiction and non-fiction writing.
Then, a cartoon. "Donald Duck in Mathmagicland". Seriously. Includes demonstrations of the mathematics of music and three-cushion billiards. Would challenge students to consider the mathematical underpinnings of other activities in the junior-high sphere of interest. And the more precocious writers could tackle essays on the destruction of the copyright system wrought by Disney.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
A few books (apart from the Asimov, Clark etc SF that has already been mentioned.
Surely You're Joking Mr Fenyman
The Man with No Endorphins
Although technologically quite dated, the SF novels by Fred Hoyle.
I don't know if the transcripts or videos are available in the USA but the UK) Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are great vehicles for stimulating a child's interest in Science and Engineering.
They try to pose the 'What if?' question.
However much of the writing I have to do as part of my work is 'dry, technical and totally uninspiring'. (Reports, Specifications etc)
Get your children to express their imagination and be creative in their writing. SF (classical SF anyway) with a sold basis in Science and Fact can be a good platform to get kids to let their imagination run riot.
Why not let them have a go at writing a screenplay for a Dr Who episode? or something similar?
I think back in total horror at the 500 word English essays I had to write in School. As I am dyslexic these were a real bind. There was no stimulation of though or any need to be creative. One time I let my imagination run riot and instead of 500 words, I produced over 5000. IT was a proper story with a beginning, middle and end. I thought it was brilliant. I got an 'F' for my efforts (it was not 500 words approx) but won the School prize for best story of the year.
I write stories even today. Mainly they are for my (and my grandkids) enjoyment. They are what can only be classed as in the Classic SF genre. I do it for relaxation and fun. I also write everything in Longhand first.
Good Luck in your quest
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
It facinated and inspired me way back in the 70's when I stumbled across it in the library.
:)
Also provides some interesting paradoy of Victorian society at the same time. And since it was written in 1884 teachers can claim it is a "classic".
There are some modern variations that are quite good too, and more politically correct in their handling of woman
Wikipedia has more on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
All I remember about my 8th-12th grade english classes were the hours wasted analyzing rhetoric. As soon as I stepped foot in college, I took classes on technical communication, writing research papers, etc. In other words, learning to write without ambiguity. Without rhetoric. If you want to do a service to science and math, encourage writing assignments with tangibles and applicability. Give assignments like writing useful instruction sets, targeting audiences (this is a big one) and targeting different cultures. There is zero value in analyzing Shakespeare. None.
Are you vegetarian ?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Dunno why this is still sitting at 0. Flatland is considered a classic piece of mathematical fiction, and is definitely worth considering.
Also worth considering the unofficial sequel, Flatterland by Ian Stewart.
Aren't there time limitations involving mathematics and science? Maybe if there were 50% to 100% more class time, you could teach more.
Science fiction in general is good, but there are some very good non-fiction books out there as well. Suggestions, possibly for a somewhat older age group, would be:
Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
The Dancing Wu Li Masters - Gary Zukav
The Tao of Physics - Fritjof Kapra
The First Three Minutes - Steve Weinburg
Although I love old Heinlein myself, it's not for everyone! Offering only outer-space shoot 'em ups is giving students a very narrow idea of where math and science can be found. There are fabulous books that fall into many genres which discuss science and math intelligently.
Obviously, Flatland is the first book I thought of- not only is it fairly interesting, and spaceship free, but dimensional math is both mind-blowing and comprehensible to an 8th grader. A similar book would be the overpraised Einstein's Dreams, a good jumping off place, but lacking much real science. And although I haven't read it, David Foster Wallace's Everything And More is supposed to be interesting, although who knows if it's age appropriate?
If you pick up Isaac Babel's complete works, it's got a previously unpublished film script which was intended as an instructional film for children- what would happen if friction didn't exist? What if gravity stopped working? It would be a great instructional tool to start from, especially because it's just a skeleton. You could ask students to write their own, or have them act out one of the scenes, etc...
I grew up reading the works of Gerald Durrel (My Family and other Animals) and James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small), both of whom are wonderful writers on biology/zoology. Stephen Jay Gould is a fabulous, assessable writer on biology, too, if you're looking for something that addresses scientific issues more directly.
Don't ignore the greats, either- Einstein, Feinman, Hawking, Darwin, etc. have all written accessibly on their subjects.
I'm no psychologist, but I think the reasons that drew me to math and science were as much creative as they were egotistical. My parents were not mathematicians, scientists, or intellectuals. I started out as a child obsessed by the magic that is electricity; light at the flick of a switch, entertainment at the flick of a remote. The magic of it all, especially in a child's eyes, is obvious. I still remember sticking my fingers in electrical sockets....crying and running away, and then trying again. I was told by an old family-friend recently that he can still remember me exclaiming "You told me I would die if I stuck my finger in plug-ins.. You lied to me!" That little anecdote serves as evidence of two points--that I wasn't that bright of a kid and that I was insanely curious. Later on in life my dad bought an Apple IIe clone and later a Mac for home-office type work... I learned to love the computer and through the wonderful program "Hypercard" I soon became obsessed again. The ability to make the computer do my bidding was powerful for a kid like myself. I couldn't control my life or anything around me, but I could control the computer. I think I saw this potential in electricity as well. Even now in the present I'm still pursuing my somewhat egotistical goals of control. I learned C/C++ years ago, have dabbled in digital embedded computers and electronics with the Basic Stamp and the Atmel AVR line of microcontrollers, and am now pursuing a deep mathematical understanding of analog circuitry and hopefully a BSEE degree.. So, in my case, my parents or friends weren't a factor at all, at least not directly. I was the younger of two brothers and smaller than my friends. I sometimes wonder if I was the older brother or more athletic during my childhood if I would have poured my curiosity towards the same goals--no matter though, this is where I've ended up and I still love it. So, my advice would be to play on children's natural curiosity. They grow up in a world they want to understand. Some of them will see the innate magic of the things that surround them and want to contribute. If you can demonstrate the power of technology to them, some of them will take the bait. Science fairs are a great example of this.... Anywho, that's just my story, but on a more social level I think a huge problem with mathematics and science are the stigmas surrounding its difficulty and the culture of "nerdism" that surrounds it. Take the movie "revenge of the nerds" for instance, it clearly shows the messages society casts upon these endeavors--noble, but certainly less acceptable than playing football and drinking beer. :)
In the end though, I do think geekiness is becoming cooler, and if that trend continues we should see the fields of science and mathematics growing in the future. It's just culture.
If you want to somewhat expose your students to what a scientist can be, I suggest you make them read "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman!" and "What do you care what other people think?" by R.P. Feynman, and "Disturbing the Universe" by F. Dyson.
Another nice book is "Who Got Einstein's Office?: Eccentricity and Genius at the Institute for Advanced Study" from Ed Regis.
These are books that are not science books, but books on science (and/or scientists lifes). Most people seems to think that science is boring, and that doing science, that is, being a researcher is even more boring. These books shows that that's not always true, and that science can be interseting, intriguing and fun.
You are right to point out that English is generally treated as a "support subject for other classes." It is true at the primary and secondary levels, and it is no less true at the tertiary level. The latter is a serious problem in that English departments at colleges and universities--the very people who train those who go on to become K-12 teachers--have failed to make tenable arguments for why one should take reading, writing, and the study of literature seriously.
Fortunately, there are some people who have made, what seem to me, tenable arguments for why one should take reading, writing, and the study of literature seriously. One of these people is Mark Turner, author of several books including Reading Minds: The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive Science (1991), The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language (1996), and, with Gilles Fauconnier, The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities (2002). Without going into great detail, Turner's work develops the theory proposed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in Metaphors We Live By (1980) that our conceptual apparatus is "metaphorically" structured; that is, we proceed by means of relations.
My reason for mentioning Turner et al. is that their work suggests that the distinction often made between "ordinary" language and "poetic" language is false. It's "metaphor" all of the way down. If you introduce the topic of language to your eighth-grade students, then you will have a way of combining discussions of both language and biology, broadly conceived. A perceptive and engaging introduction to some of the matters I've mentioned is James P. Byrnes's Minds, Brains, and Learning: Understanding the Psychological and Educational Relevance of Neuroscientific Research (2001).
Two other books come to mind: Robert and Ellen Kaplan's Out of the Labyrinth: Setting Mathematics Free (2007), about their Math Circle program, and Gerald Holton and Stephen G. Brush's Physics, the Human Adventure (3rd ed., 2001).
The above titles ought to provide you with some insight into how you can go about engaging your students. Good luck!
Asimov's New Guide to Science ISBN, 0140172130.
My sister bought it when she began to have an interest in science and I was amazed by Asimov's skill to tell the history of scientific discoveries like a thrilling tale. This is however a big book (800+ pages), I would recommend to choose some chapters or some extracts and to study them.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Here in the States, Smart = Uncool.
Been that way for a long time. There's the occasional aknowledgment of scholarship, but look at the schools. Great athletes are paraded about like gods. Great scholars get a Printshop certificate. It's a tired old complaint, but nothing ever gets done about it. Our pro sports teams have become high paid clubs for thugs, and still no one cares.
I mean, like, dog fights? A guy makes it huge and becomes a millionaire and is staging asswiping dog fights? He doesn't need to be put in jail, he need to be put to sleep and have his brain srudied by science so we figure out the fuck happened in there.
I still remember the time I was at a gym and overheard a guy complaining how his ex-wife was raising hid son. "Fuck, she probably has him coming home with straight-A's some stupid shit!", he said. I've seen this stuff over and over. Even the parents thing smart = bad because it's how THEY were raised. It's a generation that thinks it's perfectly OK for a 50 year old to be a bagger at the supermarket.
So you see, this is why I laugh when laws get passed that fuck over the population.
Whatever. We'll all be wiped out soon by nuclear holy war or an asteroid or giant bees, so what matter?
Dune.
Dune was, and still is, a masterpiece. I found a copy of it in my senior required "Art Class" (nothing but kids hanging off the chandeliers), and it forever changed my outlook on life & the studies thereof. Required reading for anyone.
Because the comment author plagarized the entire introductory paragraph from Wikipedia.
October Sky
Good Will Hunting
A Beautiful Mind
Mind you, you won't learn an ounce of math or science from any of these -- but they're relatively entertaining movies that could set off a spark or two, and I feel the former two are especially appropriate for teenagers, as they touch on the issue of figuring out and pursuing what you're passionate about -- which seems to be the root issue here and in my opinion, the most valuable issue you could ever learn about.
Another movie of interest would be Pi by the wonderful Darren Arronofsky (Requiem for a Dream) -- though I'm not sure how that would go over with your typical 8th graders.
Trying to teach science via science fiction is very broken. SF authors don't limit themselves with pesky laws of physics etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
By the time i reached 8th grade, most the kids i grew up with were (already) either interested in math or hated it. The source that sparked my interest was probably closer to 4th grade, while we were still being taught the 3 R's (Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic). I remember my 4th grade teacher making math fun to learn, but reading/writing were so boring.
But are you trying to get 8th graders interesting in learning math and science, reading about math and science, or writing reports about math and science. In my opinion, those are not completely the same.
I have this one book called "Math Wonders - To inspire teachers and students", which i can recommend. More of this educational books you can find under http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/index.jsp/ .
Me personally, I find the study of some history around the mathematicians is very appealing to learn about the math itself. For example the story about "Gauss" where the teacher asked the students - 8 to 10 years old - to calculate the sum of all numbers between 1 and 100 to keep them busy while he does something. And Gauss figured out so quickly it is 51 pairs with the sum of 100 creating the formula Sum_(n=1)(^x) = x*(x+1) / 2.
I agree with Flatland and Flatterland, read them both, they're a good way to go. Flatterland (like Flatland, but only more so) may be good for getting more girls interested.
Bill Nye the Science Guy, of course! (Bill, Bill, Bill!)
Though to be honest, he was a bit after my own formative years. In my time, it was probably 3 2 1 Contact that did it most for me, And Carl Sagan's Cosmos certainly didn't hurt, either.
ProofReading Markup Language - and yes, I find typos.
First, the point about babies being without sin and getting a "free pass" is only true in some Christian beliefs, not in all. The point is not about sin, but about accepting Jesus as your personal savior. Whether or not one has sinned is not the determination in these beliefs but accepting Jesus and being "saved" is. In others, one can accept Jesus, but if one commits a mortal sin and dies before confessing it, then they lose it all.
I don't buy into these beliefs. I've been reading recently about the real death and resurrection and now I know who died for me and was resurrected (and stayed around a lot longer than 40 days). I live in peace knowing Harry Potter died to save me from evil.
One of the best ways to get kids into math is to expose them to contest math. There are lots of great books about contest math for middle schoolers. Check out www.artofproblemsolving.com to learn more about that.
It's people that you admire. It's role-models that inspire. Case in point: Apple's commercial 'The crazy ones': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUfH-BEBMoY&mode=re lated&search= (link is to the first youtube hit I found - there's probably a million others)
I would show the kids this video at the beginning of the class year. Half of the people in the clip are scientists. Let them dream a bit and hopefully one will become passionate to change things too in science.
Every scientist I know (and I grew up with more than a few) loved Sci Fi. Specifically, Star Trek. Unlike most sci-fi, Star Trek was actively engaged in science. (I personally grew up with Next Generation, the ones after -- meh). The officers talked scientifically, and they respected science.
Any show where you see people taking scientific measurements and using them relevantly within the show is useful. Show how science is relevant to them and the kids'll pick up on it.
For what's on today, I'd say having kids watch MythBusters and then making fun of the show is worthwhile. I'm still amazed they'll spend 30 min showing an experiment to prove what 30 sec of basic math & physics will usually tell you.
Reading-wise, you've got an unlimited selection of good material. Personally I'd try Cryptonomicon. It's fun and the whole thing's based on math & science.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
I've always had a knack for Maths-related subjects, but I my real enthusiasm was sparked by Simon Singh's "Fermat's Last Theorem". Singh has a great talent for communicating advanced ideas in a way that is easily understood by the layman. You won't find a single equation in the text (it reads more like a documentary), but some of the appendices contain classic mind-benders such as the infamous "proof" that 2 = 1.
His follow-up, "The Code Book", I found even more involving. It charts the use of codes from ancient times (simple substitution) through to the Enigma, RSA codes and it even touches on Quantum Cryptography. As an added bonus, Singh included a "cipher challenge" at the end of the book: ten encrypted messages, each using a more advanced form of encryption than the last. The first person to successfully decode all ten messages would win £100,000.
As a 17 year old reading these books (and, to be honest, not being much of a book-reader at the time), I can confidently say that these books are easily accessible to school children of 15 or above.
To find out more, visit http://www.simonsingh.com/
And I absolutely disagree with the precepts your question. As an English teacher, you should be doing your best to teaching the English language, and an appreciation of the English canon. It's almost like you're sabotaging your own field, and hope to stress other subjects! The sciences already receive far more government spending and grants than the arts; anyway it's not your place to correct perceived imbalances.
Plenty of nerds here will advise you to read Heinlen or some shit. But the prose of science fiction (or really, of any genre fiction) is for shit and the metaphors shallow, and really don't add anything to being a well-rounded, broadly-educated youth. They're the literary equivalent of watching "the Matrix" and "Independence Day" in a marathon session, with no real depth or artistic value. Furthermore, the sort of people who would get anything out of science-fiction are the sort of people who would read it anyway.
I think people have too little appreciation for culture, here in China my friends (many in the Computer field) can rattle off 8th century poetry, and have a much deeper appreciation of history and culture. How many Americans can quote even a single poem? Honestly I think it's terrible that an English teacher has so little regard for their own subject. If you were the teacher of my child I would demand them being transferred out, and I strongly believe you're in the wrong field.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Because the comment author plagarized the entire introductory paragraph from Wikipedia.
It's not exactly plagiarism, seeing as he did provide a link to his source.
It's interesting to note that the actual scientists do not believe that any such attempts are doomed. You might want to read this (free) crime story to learn about modern elementary particle physics from a professor of the field. It also sums up quite nicely what a scientist's real life is like -- if you subtract the wild sex life of the protagonist. ;-)
I think this is a great approach to the problem of getting people to read about science. As soon as the belief that science is necessarily boring is broken they might start to read more about it. Or so I hope at least.
FYI, for others that grew up with a fascination for this book Madeline L'Engle passed away at the age of 88 just 3 days ago, September 6th, 2007. I had no idea until I did a quick Google search just now to check on the spelling of her name. Made me sad to read about it, actually. She had a great talent.
\/\/oobie
Well, I probably got here too late, but f you are looking for some texts that could be read in an English class, but which pose big scientific questions, you couldn't really go wrong with Gregory Benford - I'm thinking in particular of two of his novels, Cosm and Timescape.
Benford's hook is that he uses research scientists as his protagonists. They are typically on the verge of making a big scientific discovery with accompanying moral dilemmas (will it save/destroy the world, who should profit from it, who 'owns' the science, etc). The characters live in our real world, and the physics is all valid (well, riffing of cutting edge unproven theories, but still possible - sending messages back in time, creating mini event horizon universes etc). But most importantly, the concerns of the characters are real world concerns.
The only downside is that the books are perhaps a bit too difficult for 8th graders... Cosm might work, but Timescape definately requires high level reading skills.
That is complete nonsense. There are many people whose interests vary greatly from those of their parents. And those are the very people who need/want this kind of exposure.
I took interest in computers and electronics fairly early on. However, my parents did not share this interest at all. My parents supported my interests by buying a computer and various electronic gadgets for me, but they did not teach me how to use them. My only sources of information were books, friends, and school. In fact, it was my seventh grade science teacher who originally sparked my interest in computers. During science class she mentioned that she taught an elective class on BASIC. I decided to give it a try. I found it so interesting that I continued to learn more and more about computers and software. I eventually went for a degree in computer science and a career as a software engineer.
You never know what someone will find interesting until they've tried it. Kids need as much exposure to as wide a variety of subjects as possible.
They've developed some educational programs, and have a list of online resources.
One of their programs is Science Books and Films, which sounds like what you're looking for.
I think it's a great idea to get kids reading and writing about science in English class. As a scientist, I wish I was a better writer. The difference between a good scientist and a great one is often communication and an ability to write in a clear, engaging style.
Issac Asimov wrote almost as many Science books as Science Fiction. Among the best are "Asimov on Chemistry" and "Asimov and the realm of Algebra". The 2nd is so good that paperback versions sometimes sell for > $50 on eBay. (It's out of print) I read it in 8th grade at the beginning of Algebra class and sailed through the rest of the year.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
As for ideas on how to relate English to math and science subjects, I think it's more about promoting inquiry and analysis than about learning math or science directly. Here are a few ideas that I don't think have been mentioned so far:
*Current Events: Have your students read a news article on or related to a math/science topic, then write about it and/or discuss with the class. Incorporating technology topics would probably be useful here, to hopefully spark their interest. Events could even be historical if you so desire.
*Health/Nutrition/Medicine: Valuable subject matter for them to know, and involves scientific research as well as statistics. I don't know what kind of math your students are taking but basic prob/stat material could be incorporated. The Double Helix might work here too, or just genetics-related material in general.
*Business/Economics: I don't know how accessible this would be to your students, but some might be interested in the stock market, or someday owning their own businesses. Might be handled better with group discussion or assignments. You could ask them to learn about successful math/science/technology related companies, or historical phenomena such as the Depression or the Industrial Revolution.
*The Scientific Method: This is two-fold - You could have students learn and write about the scientific method directly. But more than that, you could ask students to form hypotheses (scientific or otherwise) and gather evidence to support or refute them, then use this evidence to move from hypothesis to thesis.
I think the possibilities here are very broad, and that you shouldn't worry too much if you can't think of a way to relate things directly to math and science. If you can encourage students to think about what they are reading and articulate their thoughts in an organized fashion, you will have done a hell of a job. :)
Back in HighSchool 1995, people had calculators keep all their notes on them. So calc and physics was simple when you had the equations, but people used them in English too. I'm not sure if they just kept notes or had full test answers on them. Yah Ti-85s were on the rage in my high school.
God spoke to me.
Well I always liked 80's era Mr. Wizard's World on Nickelodeon.
But I also liked Beakman's World on TLC when it was on.
Maybe you can show them the film "What the *bleep* Do We Know!?" and the pseudo-science crap will piss them off so much they'll want to learn the real thing.
In the library, I always liked this one series of books about the planets. They were thin hardcover books and pretty large, each one dedicated to a planet (plus one for the Sun). The pictures and diagrams of the layers of the planet sort of captured me. I also remember a book by Mr. Wizard about fun experiments to do at home. And books of optical illusions (with explanations).
My school always went to the Science Museum of Minnesota almost every year for field trips (plus trips to the Arboretum, Walker Art Center, and other stuff), and I used to LOVE going there. We'd usually catch an Omnimax movie produced in part by the museum.
We went to the Apple II lab about once a week or so in 1st grade as I recall.
But I don't know... something about the old technology we had around the school used to fascinate me too. Any time I got to go into an old storage room with stuff from 10 years or more before I went to the same school, with a little dust and grime on it, I was in heaven. Old film projectors, computers, phones, and other stuff used to just make me want to play with everything and see how it works.
You can't force a kid to be curious about science I guess and see beyond the textbook. But sleep easy knowing that in any class there's at least one kid who geeks out over this stuff, despite the curriculum.
When teaching 9th grade physics, I look for as many opportunities to include reading and writing in the curriculum as possible. Biographies and history are important to read, and I find that having students write research papers (of the short, reasonable 9th grade kind) is good exercise.
It is laudable that you want to include such cross-curricular activities in your language arts classes. Perhaps you can collaborate with the science faculty to do a joint activity--such as an experiment or research project with a magazine/journal-like writeup?
One of the greatest movies on mathematics ever. A Disney masterpiece that transcends all grades to show how very complex math concepts appear everywhere around us.
Everyone should check Donald in Mathmagic Land out. It's one of the best movies I ever saw in grade school and I still remember it to this day.
San Le www.slffea.com
Explain to the students that after an examination of a really good nutchruncher the highest graded students will get to kick the lowest graded students fair in the jugglies, fun for boys and girls. The video will be posted on YouTube.
Let me know where to view the video.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Unsurpassed in my view is "For All Practical Purposes", the book that accompanies the PBS series of the same title. "the most effective and engaging textbook available for showing mathematics at work in areas with a direct impact on our lives (consumer products and advertising, politics, the economy, the Internet). It was the first, and remains the best, textbook for liberal arts students". About the 8 graders in a moment. Google for the title, or click http://books.google.com/books?id=LqYeAgAACAAJ&dq=f or+all+practical+purposes
Two chapters from the book are on-line http://www.whfreeman.com/comap/con_index.htm?99oed
This is not for 8-graders, but it may give you an idea about the approach. Perhaps you can find a way to acquire some of the videos.
Chapters I can recommend: Social choice. For example, 8 graders know that if you want to share a piece of cake fairly with a friend: let one make the cut and the other one choose. So how to work this out with three people? Ten? In the same chapter, is there a fair voting system? Another chapter: How high can a mountain be? After a few simplifying assumptions that an 8 grader can understand they compute a maximum hight, and yes, it is approximately the hight of Mount Everest.
Good luck,
Eduard.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_/203-53128 67-0561522?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps& field-keywords=uncle+albert&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go
the uncle albert series is good from the age of about 7.
for the older ones: surely your joking mr feynman. Masters of deception for the computer geeks http://www.amazon.co.uk/Masters-Deception-Gang-Rul ed-Cyberspace/dp/0060926945/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/202-33 57981-3699820?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189332455&sr=8- 2.
And although its not brilliantly written the great mambo chicken and the the trans human condition is a fantastic insight into the minds of scientists http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Mambo-Chicken-Transh uman-Condition/dp/0140149651/ref=sr_1_1/202-335798 1-3699820?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189332537&sr=1-1
2. What do you care what everybody thinks?
Both by Richard Feynman
The movie Infinity, Matthew Broderick, Patricia Arquette
The books are the best. The movie concentrates on the love story between Feynman and his first wife..
-- There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I loved this in high school. Still a great read.
:: Clifton Fadiman (editor)
FANTASIA MATHEMATICA
Partial selections from Contents:
* "Young Archimedes" by Aldous Huxley
* "Peter Learns Arithmetic" by H.G. Wells
* "Socrates and the Slave" by Plato
* "The Devil and Simon Flagg" by Arthur Porges
* "--And he Built a Crooked House" by Robert A. Heinlein
* "No-sided Professor" by Martin Gardner
* "Superiority" by Arthur C. Clarke
* "The Captured Cross-Section" by Miles J. Breuer, M.D.
* "A. Botts and the Moebius Strip" by William Hazlett Upson
* "The Tachypomp" by Edward Page Mitchell
* The Island of Five Colors" by Martin Gardner
* "A Subway Named Moebius" by A. J. Deutsch
* "The Universal Library" by Kur Lasswitz
* "Postscript to `The Universal Library'" by Willy Ley
I'd always liked the "I Hate Mathematics" book in the Brown Paper School series.
When I was in middle school, my sixth grade social studies teacher was pushing to get our school district to adopt the Programme. The IB Diploma Programme (http://www.ibo.org/diploma/), which I would later complete, was then being made available at our high schools, and the Middle Years Programme was a valuable tie-in to that. Moreover, my teacher believed the same thing you do: that students can benefit from greater interrelation between subject curricula, and this was the primary basis upon which she was arguing in support of the Programme. I, and another student, joined her campaign, giving speeches to the faculty and the school board (where I later sat as a student representative).
Anyway, the district never adopted the Programme. There was too much resistance from conservative teachers and faculty members who didn't want to restructure their curriculum. Tell a PE teacher to tie his curriculum to science by incorporating anatomy, or humanities by discussing the cultural effects of sports and recreation, and he'll look at you funny and tell the kids to go kick the ball. I still believe in the value of the Programme's philosophy. A unified curriculum that ties subjects to each other and to the student's understanding of The Big World Out There can enhance learning not only in the middle school years, but also better prepares students for high school and life beyond. Students absorb information more readily when they can relate it to their own experiences and their own interests rather than viewing it as isolated knowledge-in-a-can that doesn't relate to anything beyond passing a test so they can move on to the next course.
So, where am I going with this? Talk to other teachers about this idea. Find like-minded colleagues and start a pilot program. Generate tangible results, then go forward and attempt to restructure curriculum on a level beyond your own classroom. Your desire to broaden your curriculum is the first spark, but fire can't burn in a vacuum.
By Malba Tahan.
I read "Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh, when I was younger, and i fell in love with math and especially arithmetic. I recommend this book to all.
My interest in science I guess probably was grounded in the fact that we always had computers at home, and I used to play computer games with my dad. It wasn't too long before I became interested in how to do make the computer do more and more things that _I_ wanted to do, and then of course you fall quickly into programming.
Computer games have to be an easy way to get people's attention, but working from there (for grade eight) your conversion rate into getting people interested in programming might be pretty low - unless you come up with a clever long-term multi-step plan that gradually exposes them to more and more of the inner works of the mysterious magic beige box.
The other thing I really remember grabbing my attention when I was a kid was the stories of the glory days of the US space programme (the Right Stuff-era). I had a couple of dumbed-down books which completely grabbed my imagination (as it still does today) - the stories of guys like Chuck Yeager and Neil Armstrong just blew me away.
Good luck! I heartily applaud any teacher trying to get more students into science. I was disappointed to see a lack of responses to this post, as well as some negative "why bother" ones. I can't think of anything more important than making sure kids are growing up with a firm grasp on reality grounded in science rather than some sort of religious rubbish that they're taught at home by criminally negligent parents.
I think the best thing would be to not emphasize science, mathematics or anything else, but simply guide in the right direction. I'd suggest including lots of literature on problem solving and anything to do with what might be described as a 'pioneering spirit'. For example, what if kids had to read selected Sherlock Holmes stories, like say "Adventure of the Dancing Men", which is a beautiful description of cryptanalysis. It's a story that grips you, is easily accessible, has value as a work of literature and not just a way of introducing cryptanalysis,... Even if the child in question is absolutely never going to get into cryptanalysis, they still get something out of the story. Some discussion on the story later might help bring out several aspects of it also.
when i was about 5 years old it was all about star wars and dinosaurs. At primary school we were taught about dinosaurs straight away and that fostered an interest in natural history. all the kids were into star wars and the space shuttle was doing interesting stuff. i think we were taught about the moon landing when we were about 7. i used to love watching "the black hole" probably before i'd even seen star wars, and back to the future had a massive impact on me when it came out, so between the two of them i've had a strong interest in physics. i dont know about maths. i just used to be good at it because liked puzzles and playing chess and stuff like that.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
From Douglas Hofstadter. This book tought me that no system can be complete and coherent at the same time (you are allowed to choose only one). That had profund impact on my life. In fact Godels incompletnes theorem is been studied for its philosophical consecuences a lot of times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incomple teness_theorem
No, not that MTV "reality" show, the thing outside the window... Rarely a day goes by without the media quoting some bit or science or statistics (and usually getting it wrong - but that's fine - get kids to critique it and write letters to the paper explaining why they agree or disagree with the figures...) You'll get into trouble, of course, but maybe in English you have slightly more leeway to discuss possibly contentious subjects.
The big problem is that the Math taught in schools is so divorced from any credible practical applications that the kids will need a lot of prompting to connect it with anything in the real world. Math lessons focus on isoated technical skills and rarely apply them to anything useful - even "word problems" are usually contrived to test a bit of math curriculum rather than to demonstrate a paractical application.
The problem with SF is that, even in "hard" SF books, the real science is intertwined with fantasy or highly speculative science, so you have to tread carefully - the most "scientific" are probably the classic short stories by the likes of Clarke and Asimov. Hard SF (i.e. with science in) is less in vogue these days, and what there is (e.g. Stephen Baxter, Greg Egan) tends to be a bit "extreme" (speculative cosmology, theories-of-everything, dark matter, posthuman intelligence...)
You won't find much science in Harry Potter... There is some science in The Golden Compass (heavily bowdlerized film coming real soon) , but it would be a brave teacher that took that into a US classroom in some States, other than to do a study of whether the amount of atheism in a book affects the temperature at which it burns... :-)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
It's unfortunate because it seems no one cares. I'm a physics fan - I know enough to know when I'm being lied to. Movies like Die Hard 4 and Spider Man portray stupid physics, and people seem to let it go because they don't know enough to 'feel' something is wrong (I confess - DH4 was f*king stupid, but fun nonetheless)
:(
I grew up reading Asimov and Clarke books. I also grew up reading "modern warfare" books too (E L Harry - Arc Light etc... not Clancy)... I grow up reading about the near future and far out future. Coupled with my geekism and house in the countryside with no one a similar age to me, it was natural to read, watch and learn - because there's nothing else to do!
A few years ago I dated a girl who I still hold a fantastic regard for - she was smart, successful, and beautiful. She grew up in a small town, with friends and a great family etc. We were both working at a bar together during the university summer - she studied Sociology, and I computer systems. I started talking to her about what I knew about sociology, relating it to personal needs (Manslow) and how regardless we have a brilliant scientific system where doubtful psychological methods are generally ignored; because we lack compelling proof. One thing lead to another and I introduced her to the Isaac Asimov series - Foundation.
Foundation started off as a short story for one of Asimov's earlier submissions. Later it because 2 or 3 fully fledged books. It goes a something a little like this - there exist advanced alien races who have incorporated psychology into society as we today use science. For them science is a mysterious tool that no one really understands. A danger. Eventually earth starts travelling the stars and they become scared of what we can do with 'science' - with our callous unpredictability.
I was given the compilation book back after a week. The short story was only 30 pages or so long. There was another Foundation short story towards the end. She "admitted" timidly to reading part of the story I introduced her to and not the rest. I don't believe it was for lack of time, but lack of enthusiasm. That was the first real introduction into modern education of my peers.
It seems people no one longer want to learn, want to grasp relevant theory or understand what they've been taught. People are now bullied by schools into memorising syllabus material without regard for what they're taught. Once they've done their "revision" they drift off into the txt messaging, and socializing abyss. Not for better want than to just experience a bit of fun before learning to pass the next exam.
No matter how beautiful my peers are, no matter how successful they are in their degrees; until I see people applying what they've learned I consider them an educational failure.
I take my education home with me everyday.
Of course, not everyone likes Asimov - so my entire rant could just be a moot point.
Matt
Now that I teach high school science (Physics), I remember that charismatic teaching did nothing for me. So, I get my students to read popular science books of their own choosing -- a couple students last year read James Watson's "The Double Helix"! This year I'll have them reading New Scientist and Scientific American magazines, which are highly readable, which is very important when you teach so many ESL students, like I do. These magazines are also packed with crazy subjects that slot nicely into the required curriculum.
I also got them to read some a couple chapters of philosophy of science, from a book called "The Golem: What you should know about science". For the students that don't plant to go on to do a BSc, this gives them something to chew on. This book gives examples to show that the scientific method is less important than you might think, and gives examples that show major scientific theories (general relativity) that were accepted because they were well liked, rather than because there was any evidence. Believe me, this is a fun topic for high school kids.
Anyway, reading is what brought me to science. Without those books, I would ended up in engineering -- a fine field, mind you, but I'm much happier to have gone into science. Now that I teach, I use reading as a tool to bring some interest into the curriculum because, sadly, the physics curriculum where I teach doesn't get past 1905, and students want to see what's going on now, what's going to change the world tomorrow, and it's books -- not their parents, in most cases -- that will present these ideas.
What I learned in English was to analyse and discuss, for which a language is an essential tool. The best service an English teacher can do for maths and science is to show pupils how language is used to reveal, but also to lie. In my day we learnt a lot of formal grammar, but also the basis of literary structures like simile and metaphor. We also learnt how to identify when someone was trying to mislead us with superficially attractive metaphors that were in fact defective, or by constructing an apparently complete chain of argument that in fact had big holes in it, covered by phrases that invited you to believe that something was obvious (shades of Descartes).
Children who can use a language as a tool of critical thinking are harder to lie to. They are also (in my view) more likely to spot that science and mathematics are in the business of trying to tell the truth. They are thus more resistant to being fooled by religious and political bigots. They are also perhaps more likely to become lawyers, but everything has its downside.
One way to encourage critical thinking, of course, is to give children things like newspaper articles and then get them to work on identifying the sloppy thinking. Unfortunately, in parts of the US, that will most likely get you into trouble.
Pining for the fjords
I wish that teacher certification required that at least once every three/five years, a teacher was required to get a job in the industry that they teach. I have asked around a hundred grade/high school teachers how what they teach is usefull in the non-academic world, and maybe ten have been able to answer.
Thanks, Oh and by the way you just made a sale for Amazon....
Added Pressly: "Oh, and by the way, milk is nothing but liquid meat."
First -- to qualify -- I couldn't stand math as taught in public school growing up. Perhaps it had something to do with the rigid, hierarchical structure of progress through the subject, compounded with the relative unsexiness of math teachers, who always had the most brittle tempers when it came to (my) screwing around.
Additionally, it seemed to me that achievement in math and science in public school selected for two types of people (please forgive my brutal generalization):
1) Stable, non-disruptive sorts who had no problem at all doing what they'd been told because they trusted that the system had their best interests in mind (suburban white people)
2) Borderline psychotic loners on a kick to show everybody -- to show them all -- to show them that they were the BEST -- the BEST, I say!
I imagined both of these types of people with the same father sitting at home in a recliner, highball in hand: "Numbers don't lie, child. Number's don't lie. Not like women. Not like liberals."
Rarely did either of these two types of people have drugs or sex for me, so generally I avoided them. Perhaps to my detriment...perhaps...who can say...
And then there was the factor that every adult I encountered and admired let me on the "Adult Math Secret." Unless you love math, unless you LOVE IT, you will never have to do it ever again as soon as you graduate high school. 90% of jobs don't even need ARITHMETIC. And there is always somebody around who is better at you than math, and who wants to show you just how much better they are by meeting your math needs.
That being said, there was one time in college where I felt a pang of regret. Where I felt as if I had "chosen poorly," and that if I had it to do over again, I would have spent those hours doing something called "trigonometry" instead of playing football and reading novels.
The class that made me reevaluate all of my opinions was "Pseudoscience," as taught by Dr. Rory Coker at the University of Texas. The rumour was that Coker had been forced to teach the class because he had failed an entire class of physics students and wasn't allowed to teach physics anymore. I'd never been in a math or science class that had an actual INTENT, whereas you could smoke out a history or English teacher's agenda the moment you heard their accent. The intent of Pseudoscience was to disabuse liberal artists (me) of ridiculous beliefs that were popularized as science by the greedy and malicious, such as crystal worship, astrology, alien abduction, faith healing, etc.
Every day, Coker -- a pretty damn good stage magician and an actual LITERATE science professor who read beyond the newspaper -- would perform a piece of magic, with the intent not to make us wonder and clap, but to figure out how he did it, and how that "magic" could be used for evil. He schooled us on the principles of misdirection, logical analysis, and Occam's razor. Suddenly, science had a point. You could use it as a yardstick for seeing if somebody was full of shit or not! Oh how I wished -- how I WISHED -- that I had taken the time to study this stuff in grade school, so that I could know how far this skill could be taken.
Dear readers, this power of science appeals to everyone. The WEAPON of science is the most important part to a person who does not get sexually excited by the prospect of a supercollider. That's where the ability to generate enthusiasm lies. To use science as a shield against the powers that be, and the powers that want to take your money and leave you dying on the side of the street, rubbing a rabbit's foot and burning incense.
Remember, the first chemists were alchemists trying to live forever, and the first astronomers were priests trying to control their society. I guess things have changed. I don't know.
Can science be taught as a weapon in a public school system that thrives on lies and control? It is a test. But until this happens, you can count on the vast majority of students not caring. And why should they?
P.S. Shame on you for letting your administration make you feel that English is a "support subject." English has every right to be an end unto itself. You have to have a reason to live, not just the ability.
(And into the 2nd grade)
This was in the late '60s; in no particular order except for the last:
The moon shot program; you aren't going to be able to replicate the excitement of that period, but it was of course a big thing at the time.
The original first run Jonny Quest TV series, as re-runs then. Terribly politically incorrect today, of course, but made back at about the last time in the US that scientists were cool.
The Bell Science series, especially most of the ones directed by Frank Capra (at the time, due to the awfulness of the local public schools, my Catholic mom had put me into a Protestant Christian school, and one great thing they did was to gather everyone (K-6 at minimum) into the chapel and show us neat stuff without concern if you were "too young" to get anything out of it then (I wasn't)).
Apropos reading came later: after first grade, my parents bought a World Book encyclopedia set, and I pretty much devoured it over perhaps a year's time. But the hook had been set by the above three items, I knew from second grade on that I was a scientist (and that never changed). Others have covered the good stuff that's more targeted at the age range you're interested in, but these set the hook for me.
Titles and ASIN numbers for what's available of the above, obviously all are out of date in science, but they captured some essential of approach that I would hope are still relevant:
Jonny Quest - The Complete First Season (1964): ASIN: B0001MZ7J6
Uneven in a variety of ways, most probably weren't focused on "science" per se, but a few solidly were, or at least had critical puzzles or mysteries to be solved by something like the methods scientists and the like use.
Our Mr. Sun / Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays (1957): ASIN: B0000AKY5Z
These two, along with one about the organization of the body (the one that showed how a KO temporarily messes up your nervous system, not sure which one was that) were the most influential ones for me.
Hemo the Magnificent / Unchained Goddess (1958): ASIN: B0000AKY5V
I don't think Hemo was the above mentioned title, but I do remember the bit from it on capillaries. I vaguely remember Unchained Goddess, but it didn't have much impact on me.
Also, while I know there's no way any school could officially show this uncut, Real Genius captured some essential truths, at least about MIT and CalTech. The creators of it actually went to both to do research, and several of the characters are modeled on real people. I met the model for the lead woman (the one who sanded her dorm room floor), she assured us she wasn't normally that hyper, they'd just caught her at a particularly hyper time ^_^.
It's not really true (e.g. the classroom lecture sequence of tape recorders) in a variety of ways, but somehow it captured some of the spirit of MIT and I'm told CalTech.
And after you've learned Newtonian physics cold, watching Road Runner cartoons are a blast....
Perhaps showing some of the above could be fruitful for inspiring essays. I know I could write a bunch after re-watching them, from all sorts of angles.
Thats exactly right which is why you should look into the Orthodox Church. It has everything a thinking man wants. Personal responsibility, Symbolism, Faith, and most importantly love pure unselfish choice - you get to decide how you relate to God no one else you decide what is a sin. Oh the priest can tell you what he thinks but ultimately in the Orthodox Church it is up to you. Definitely not for people who like to be told what to think. The Churches symbol is a cross not a sword or a book.
Added Pressly: "Oh, and by the way, milk is nothing but liquid meat."
What is it with the recent phenomenon on Slashdot to have titles ending in question marks. It's crap journalism, stop it! Editors please give the news story some kind of meaning through the title, not degrade it to an internet forum-esque post.
FUTURAMA! (Well it was not what turned me on but I thing it is what will work nowadays)
I'm now a complete geek, and a science teacher on top. I have Star Trek to thank for that, and nothing else.
:)
Maybe Johnny Ball.........
How much poetry are you teaching, how challenging is it, and how closely are the kids reading it? Really good poetry packs as much meaning into words as it can, often relies on context and themes to enhance meaning, and turns on precise understanding of words' meanings to deliver its effect. Shakespearean sonnets are incredibly _crafted_. Their density prevents understanding on a first or second reading, but that construction yields huge rewards once you've chewed the thing over. Attention to that kind of construction and precision seems to me similar to good code. If you can teach that, you aren't necessarily teaching the love of math or science, but you are teaching a universal skill. And once they grasp it, you might then be able to point to parallels in engineering or technology.
Whatever it takes, instill the initial curiosity in your students. Like others have suggested a healthy debate/discussion, dinner table talks with the parents can help. But encourage your students to work hard on the subjects that they have found interesting. Spend more time on his interests and try to explore it further. Its kind of a mechanism that more you work on it, more you will love it.
Senthil
"The Challenge and Thrill of Pre-College Mathematics"
:)
This book has been responsible for my turning into a math geek.
I am sure *many* Indians would agree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivars_Peterson>Ivars Peterson is a mathematics writer who writes entertaining books that explain concepts clearly.
His homepage is here and an archive of his "Math Trek" articles can be found here.
Read, L
I'm surprised The Mad Scientist's Club by Bertrand R. Brinley hasn't been mentioned. There are four books in the series, all back in print (the last two actually in print in the US for the first time). The first books started as short stories in Boy's Life. It's about a group of kids who use basic science to sometimes help people, but also play a lot of practical jokes on the town. Great stories. The technology is all basic enough that it mostly doesn't date (like electromagnets and radio-servos).
Henry Reed, Inc. Also has possibilities. These are about a boy and the neighbor girl who start a research firm in the garage.
If you ever get younger kids, the Freddy the Pig books are fantastic -- a better Animal Farm than Orwell.
I seem to recall I had reading text books with a number of science fiction short stories, including "To Serve Man", Asimov's "The Feeling of Power" (the Manned Missile story), and excerpts from Edward Eagar's Half Magic.
Eagar's series is great because it uses 'magic' to introduce some logic, literature, and history.
Another: "The City Under Ground", by Suzanne Martel (and I've been told just about anything by her).
One advantage of (good) science fiction is that the author is creating an entirely new world, and therefore the author has to explain things in detail. One of the reasons younger students have problems reading more adult fiction is that the authors can assume a greater knowledge of the world without explanation, and this causes problems for younger students. Two good places to start with reading materials is Madelaine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time", or Issac Asimov's Robot novels. Winkle in Time introduces the concept of trans-dimensional travel and a number of other concepts such as two-dimensional universes, etc. These could be used as a starting point for a discussion. Likewise, the robot novels introduce a lot of robotics concepts, and robotics is a hot area right now. A good librarian could help find more examples.
Regarding the second question, there are a number of ways to stimulate discussion, and need not be restricted to books. I work with a research group called IKIT at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE/UT), and we are involved with just that. One approach is to find a real-world problem (there are lots, from large to small, example below), that can be used as a starting point. the key is to have the students actually try to solve the problem, no matter how large or small. We use an online discourse space as the forum for discussion, as this allows the students to put forward their ideas and re-visit them for later reflection. They can build onto the ideas of others in a constant flow of inquiry.
A practical example of this can be shown in the work of two teachers from a school in Toronto with a Gr. 3/4 class. Working together, the classroom teacher and the phys. ed. teacher set the students a problem: How can you improve your performance in the long jump? The students practiced and the teachers videotaped their long jumps. Each video segment was then imported into software that took video clips and allowed the students to analze things like the angle of take-off and landing, initial velocity, etc. After the analysis, the students used the discourse space to propose different ways of improving their performance (this is the writing part). They then went back into the field and tried out their solutions, again videotaping them and re-analyzing them to see if their performance had actually improved. They continued with this as long as they could.
During this process, they learned about:
If you need further information on this, I can be contacted at donphi@gmail.com
_Flatland_ is a spectacular story that many mathematicans and scientists mention as having been an inspiration when they were young.
At my high school in California a couple of years ago we developed a unit based on _Flatland_ that involved all four core academic subjects -- in the english class they actually read the book and discussed literary and stylistic aspects. In the history class they discussed the allegory being made about social class and gender. In the math class they talked about the geometry, and in my science class we talked about the role of geometry in understanding physics and chemistry, and did exercises and problems that drove home that point. It helped that this high school had a strong core teacher team that collaborated daily on coordinating lessons and sharing notes on struggles our students were having -- so we were already focused on interdisciplinary work and helping the students make connections between different subjects.
I applaud what you are trying to do, and reccomend that whatever materials you choose, you try to coordinate some of them with the other teachers at your level -- it works!
He had an Apple IIe and was trying to draw pictures using BASIC. I was fascinated with how it worked. I asked him if I could come in on my study halls and watch. I then changed my electives around to take more Art classes so I could use the thing. The Agriculture class also had an Apple IIe, so I took an Ag class so I could mess around with it for another hour of the day. It was the most fascinating year I ever spent in school. So for me, it was another person (a teacher to be exact) showing me something that I didn't know interested me. The other part of the equation though was that I was interested. Interested enough to make conscious changes about how I spent my day at school. You need to have both parts of the equation there.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Do not be discouraged by others. It is a great thing that you wish to "go interdisciplinary".
There is of course, science fiction, but why not explore some famous scientific publications that are literary classics in their own right and some were truly revolutionary works that shifted the way humanity thought of of itself and its place in the universe! Certainly topics that can inspire many expository and argumentative essays can be found in the following (non exhaustive) list...
1) Galileo's Dialog Concerning Two Chief World Systems, Two New Sciences and/or the Starry Messenger (in translation, of course).
2) Any of the works of Charles Darwin.
3) Translations of Einstein's 1905 paper "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies."
4) Flatland by Edwin Abbott.... Should get the minds working!
5) The Feynman Lectures in Physics... Even with the presence of advanced maths, the langauge is delightful and clear. Better yet, any book by Richard Feynman would provide lots of material for thought-provoking discussion.
6) The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. (Although if you live in a religious community, you may meet resistance to this..even more than for Mr. Darwins books!)
Good Luck!
The books that got me started on math[s] were the Martin Gardner collections of his mathematical recreations column in Scientific American -- "Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions" and "More Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions" (I think they were published under different titles in the USA).
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Schools tend to emphasize creative writing and literature at the expense of expository.
You might, for instance, have students write essays to explain to a stranger or alien how do do some familiar task, and perhaps have some other student read the instructions and follow them to the letter.
You might then have them describe (or read how to accomplish) some task for which there is some degree of uncertainty. For example, suppose you have three people, explain how to find out who is the strongest in an arm wrestling tournament.
In general, you can tie in any number of math and science subjects, but the trick is to have them describe and solve real (if trivial) problems, rather than providing bland summaries of what they read. If they do the latter, they might as well simply summarize the latest Harry Potter book, or the issues leading to the Civil War, or whatever.
Don't just expose these kids just to science. Let them try all kinds of different subjects like history, literature, math, art, biology, etc. And don't let them write reports about it, the report writing almost killed my interest in art when I was in school. Try to do fun field-trips or experiments once in a while and let the kids experience "the real thing". I went through several years of physics classes that where not really interesting. But partly because some field trips to real physics research institutes I knew there was more physics than just newtonian physics. The best physics course I have ever had was in my first year of university; special relativity. This was the kind of physics I liked!
It might sound a little corny but Jurassic Park actually created my interest in science-fiction, computer programming and science in general. I saw the movie first and besides being an entertaining thriller with some cool special effects it had no effect on me at all.
Then I read the book a couple of years later. I was around 13 or 14 and sick at home for a couple days. I read through it very quickly and I just remember how despite being a nut, Ian Malcolm was the one character who seemed to have a down-to-earth and realistic point of view on the whole situation. I also remember how cool it was that Crichton gave actual examples of computer code to support the story. It sparked my interest in computers and programming and logical, scientific thought in general.
Afterwards I convinced my grandmother to help me buy a computer and I spent the next few years going from pothead rocker to nerd teaching myself how to program the best I could.
Without having read that book my life would have turned out quite differently.
If you're trying to appeal to the average kid who watches far more movies than they do reading books, why not use something from pop-culture that was made into a successful movie ? Like most books vs. movies the two are rather different and so it would be difficult to impossible for one of the students to do any kind of report or test based on the movie.
It also has the advantage of demonstrating how powerful science can be. It's science fiction but it does a good job of coming off as plausible (if not then no one would have asked afterwards "could we do that?", even if the answer is "no because we haven't found such DNA still in tact"[1]) and it also goes to show how "cool" science can be. It deals with computers, biology, science fiction and logical thought and even touches on scientific ethics every once in a while. Over all it's a very entertaining book that most young people should enjoy reading while also doing a good job of advertising what science and math has to offer.
[1] Yes I realize there's several other reasons that it's still fiction, as well.
I agree, books etc. won't do it. What I would love to see in English classes is a notion that mathematically-inclined people almost take for granted: that contradictions highlight a weakness in the argument, somewhere.
In the quest for producing essays that are "balanced", the students are encouraged to think that holding simultaneously mutually exclusive points of view is desirable. This, of course, is not true. If you can, try to get the students to see the different assumptions that lead to the different perspectives. This type of analysis will be invaluable in all subjects.
In most times, most places, by most people, liars are considered contemptible. - Ursula Le Guin
was Beekman's World. But it was not just that. My grandparent is the kind of fix-it-yourself person, and he used to make me participate in the things he did, that also really motivated me.
Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics. The best math book for school children. Really got me into the subject.
I would have to suggest one of Richard Feynman's biographies. He does an incredibly good job of explaining in simple language exactly what science is and why it's so important in an age where everyone wants to convince you of something. Maybe more importantly, the accounts of his life: safe breaking during the manhattan project, pulling pranks on the censors etc can dispel the common view of all scientists as boring nerds.
failure? i doubt it. other people are important, but remember, people come in all formats, including dead authors.
i would look to radio shows as best for engaging children under 10. ZBS media or BBC, ala hitchikers guide to the galaxy, or any science fiction x-radio shows from the 50's, when the world and popular literature was run by engineers, not creationist obscurantists fronting mora-political agendas...
Being able to read PRINT versions of the following, again and again a. Scientific American: mathematical articles with martin gardner, douglas hofstadter, and a k dewdney b. Feynman lectures on physics c. Chess and reading about chess endgames in newspapers! d. The many many many books by RUSSIAN Mathematicians and physicists which were easily available in india, were of high calibre and consistently well written and easy to understand
You should be commended for your efforts to introduce additional science and math, and though you may not reach all of your students, if you set off a spark in even one student's mind you'll have done a good thing. Curiosity about the natural wold is critical for your plan to work, and though I admit the possibility that your efforts will make a difference, I am pessimistic. But I suppose one must be an optimist to be an educator, so take my pessimism with a grain of salt.
Fill a shelf or two with science and math related books and magazines, and require periodic "book reports". Or show an episode of a TV show, pose several questions, and request a one-page essay on the questions. You might also stimulate general interest in the natural world, as opposed to science and math in particular.
I wish you good fortune, and hope your students are starting with a solid foundation of reading and writing (often no longer the case).
Books
Books
Cosmos, Carl Sagan - book or TV show episodes
The Fractal Geometry of Nature, Mandelbrot
Chaos, Gleick
Any collection of Ansel Adams photographs
Video
Nature - PBS TV series
NOVA - PBS TV series
Connections - BBC?
Discovery Channel / BBC - Blue Planet series
Discovery Channel / BBC - Planet Earth series
Film footage of the moon landing
Mythbusters
Magazines
Scientific American
Discover
National Geographic
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;
For math books I personally was inspired by and really enjoyed the Mathematical Recreations books by Martin Gardner and Ian Stewart. They really made math fun. To explore the creative fun aspect of science, I think reading and writing is not the key for children. What I really liked was those 1000 in 1 electronic kits. When you can make a radio and hear yourself on the radio, it's really cool! So those are the things that I enjoyed when I was a kid.
Teach them that social situations are scary and they need to avoid social situations and read Slashdot all day. People who lack in the social area try to make up for it in other ways.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
...needs to be done on their terms. I remember in high school English, teachers would always berate me for writing fantasy or sci-fi. Even though the subject was fiction, they'd always sit me down and tell me to write contemporary fiction. Even though I had no interest in contemporary fiction. That pretty much killed all interest I had in English, and I dropped out of Honors English because it wasn't worth the effort to me.
English should be about teaching vocabulary and grammar, so that when your students graduate they can speak and write like adults. It is *not* about appreciating Shakespeare or Hemingway or Mark Twain, and teachers at the grade school level seriously need to get over themselves on this point. You keep your students' interest by letting them read and write about things that interest them, not by forcing them to read books you think they should read.
Why science fiction, why not science fact? How about a book like "One, Two, Three... Infinity" by George Gamow? Or anything written by Martin Gardner? How about Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos? Or Max Born wrote a book, "Einstein's Theory of Relativity", which explains relativity in great detail with nothing more than pre-algebra. Or for the computer nerds, the obligatory recommendation is "Godel Escher Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter.
I have never understood the point of fiction, except as pure entertainment. Non-fiction is where the good stuff is. If it really has to be fiction, try Flatland by Edwin Abbott.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
First off, I'm glad to see people out there thinking hard about education and how their aspects of education tie in with other people as well. There was a lovely paper by Reed Stevens and others not too long ago that comes at your idea from a different direction. (link)
Not precisely my field, but there's lots and lots of work being done in all aspects of integrating science and math with reading and writing. Visit your local friendly PsycInfo database for starters. I find it more useful than google scholar, but if you're at a school and don't have access to PsycInfor through a university, google scholar can help too. Depending on how theoretically-minded you are, ERIC (run by the US government) is also a good repository to search through. It tends toward the less theoretical.
I suggest you look for "Writing across the curriculum", "content-area reading / literacy", hmmm... "Science (scientific) Discourse", the works of Jay Lemke, Ann Brown for a start. There's a ton of stuff out there. Actually, you may want to search the back issues of Review of Educational Research (RER) and Review of Research in Education (RRE)
You should also problematize your assumption: that science is all about lectures and (by connotation) cookbook labs. There's a ton of work out there saying that teaching school science shouldn't be like that, but it has a hard time penetrating the actual practice of everyday teachers. But for a good read on what we'd like science to actually be, I recommend Taking Science to School. It's targeted to grades k-8, and it's somewhat US-centric (and I've inferred from your request that you're not a USian), but it's still a great read, and you can read the whole thing for free online (one PDF page at a time, though, which was enough of an encouragement to me to actually buy it.)
My last warning - you're venturing into the zones of thought which usually drive teachers into graduate school. I started down similar roads, and now I'm a professor. The challenge is getting people to really think along these lines, but remain a practicing teacher.
In the realm of non-fiction, that was about the age that I read the Richard Feynman's book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" It's a great mix of amusing stories and science, and not only shows a good peek into science but also shows that scientists can be fun and interesting people. A couple of years later I also read Leon Lederman's book "The God Particle" which was just as enjoyable although stronger on the science, maybe more suitable for a 10-12 grade classroom, but one of the funnier non-fictions I've read.
In the realm of fiction, I want to echo another's suggestion of Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", something that I've recently re-read. It's a great story targeted towards the younger scifi readers, but doesn't get any less enjoyable with age!
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Does anyone know of a book like Tracy Kidder's "Soul of a New Machine" that is perhaps a little more recently written? Kidder's book captivated me back when it was published, and I'm astonished to see that it's still in print, but it is pretty dated now. Amazon's got some similar items listed, but I haven't read 'em. "Soul" helped to fire me up about engineering.
I think that TV and movies rarely tell the stories of engineers and scientists in a way that will pique a kid's interest, and a kid who has a tendency toward leveraging their right brain much more than their left may not be reachable. For some kids, though, a well-written story about the human side of technology disciplines can turn a tiny inclination into a passion. Are there any out there that were written in this century?
Writing out problems, hypothesis' and ideas, then writing out the result of that. Sure its a pain in the ass. But if you learn Grammar out of it. You could easily learn to write out things right. I remember a Science teacher in college lowering my grade to a B from an A because I had one passive sentence in an 8 page essay. (I was pissed)
Macgyver was the coolest show to me as a kid, it always taught me that with a bit of effort and thinking outside of the box that pretty much anything was possible.
The key term here is 'wonder', make them wonder about things instead of just getting facts stuffed down their throats. English is the language in which they wonder and are able to have thought experiments. Use the number zero (0) for instance. Where does that number come from, can they imagine a world where there is no number zero. How would those people have counted? Let them wonder about a guy who suddenly had his 'eureka' moment and came up with the zero sollution. Have them come up with a story and write it down. They'll learn that nothing is for granted, things needed to be created by somebody once. Wondering, reasoning and thought experiment are the tools made possible by language and imagination. They'll find this out by having to come up with a story and write it down. You're doing a great job for those kids...... let us know how things work out.... to be prepared for the zero question, read : Kaplan, Robert. (2000). The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero. Oxford: Oxford University Press. that book made me wonder... good luck.
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, among other books by John Allen Paulos, is excellent. In it he provides great examples where real stories seem to say one thing, but due to dodgy or obfuscated math actually mean something completely different. He points out that only by doing the math yourself are you able to know the real truth behind the real world news.. His website http://www.math.temple.edu/~paulos/ has some useful links. His stories come across much better than contrived word problems intended to show students why they might need to use math.
I am an eighth grade English teacher. As much as I love my subject and believe in the value of skillful writing, I also believe that there is a terrible lack of interest in the sciences and maths among students in general. In some sense, I believe English to be a support subject for the others classes at this grade level. At my school, the average science classroom has time for labs and note taking, but reading and writing on the subject (beside textbooks) is usually limited. Math is in a similar situation: they have time to learn a concept and practice, but not to linger on possibilities. Therefore, I have two questions for the readers of Slashdot: which books / shows / movies caused a curiosity towards these subjects when you were young, and what suggestions do you have for incorporating these subjects into writing? First, my own experience was that books and movies did not cause my interest in maths and sciences, but rather the other way around -- my interest in maths and sciences caused me to choose certain books and movies. Second, there are a number of ways I incorporate literacy skills in my high school math classroom. One of the easiest is to assign a "math journal." This is a short writing assignment at the end of the class several times a week. I put a prompt on the board (in your own words what are the key concepts learned today, or how would you explain today's lesson to a friend who was absent, or a similar open-ended prompt). I've also given long-term writing assignments, such as biographies of noted mathematicians, and one year I had geometry students read and discuss Flatland. A key part of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards is to encourage multiple representations and mathematical communications. I'm sure you're under pressure to cover a certain amount of curriculum, but don't let that squeeze you into giving communications short shrift. (for reference, I teach in NYC to a population performing significantly below grade level in both quantitative skills and language arts)
I read "The Education of T.C. Mits", by Lillian R Lieber:
sort of an irreverent introduction to mathematical ideas.
It was comparable to the time I discovered (by myself!)
a book on Roman and Greek mythology, which uncovered a
world I had never heard about.
I don't know where it fits in everyone's ideas of
pedagogy, but I liked it.
i wish my 8th grade english teacher had thought about this. stargate sg-1 tackles many issues, but uses very socially conscious variables to show their true direction. science fiction writer terry bisson has recently caught my attention.
I know they both aren't entirely scientific, but Mythbusters and in the UK Brainiac could be a good start, for inspiration and thinking about the scientific method. in fact, mythbusters is a good one- get the students to research a myth then plan how to bust it.
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
In college I had a TBA teacher for a communications class. He spent about five minutes on grammer and said nobody uses it so instead he was going to teach abstraction. As the class progressed he covered the different levels between the concrete and the abstract. I.e a name like Bessy is closer to the concrete in the identification of a cow named Bessy then in the more general identifications of Bessy being a cow or type of cow. As a name is more specific than a category. Unfortunately I did not complete that term due other events in my life, but I have never forgotten what he was on about.
.net, .com) .org for the Abstraction Physics - Virtual Interaction Configuration project (an open source program), .net for community communications (playing with abstractions) and .com for potential funding generation of the project.
.net up today and there is always the above link to start with.
From another direction many years later I came back to what he was on about, It is what I now call "abstraction physics" and its clear that math is a subset of abstraction as is the communication of sciences and fiction, programming etc..
For an introduction to Abstraction Physics
http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html
I am currently working on getting an AbstractionPhysics tri domain up (.org ,
I may have the beginning of
I teach 8th grade science, and I wouldn't pass up a chance to plug _Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman_ to the kids. It may be a little higher level for some, but many kids will grasp and love stories about the physicist who also played bongos, played with a Samba band in Brazil, worked on the A-bomb, picked locks, cracked safes, drew nudes, nearly got into fights in bars, rode in a car with a spy, and the list goes on. _The Beak of the Finch_ was great for high schoolers, but the advanced eighth grader with interest in the subject might enjoy it. Books about glacier hikers and mountain climbers (_Into Thin Air_, I think) almost (or actually) losing their lives are a big draw for kids, and heavy on the earth science. I don't know that any Volcanologists have written any quality work, but if they have, my students would read it.
Don't hesitate to stretch their reading level a bit, and look for material OUTSIDE of the middle school library - Some kids rightly view the available selection as 'Lame'. You'll get points for keeping a selection of cool books in your in-class library.
--Matt
What? No sig?
If all that people had shown me about math and sciences were books, I highly doubt I'd have shown any interest. Show the kids the applications of math and science. Introduce them to jobs and people in engineering and medical fields.
Another good way is an organizations called FIRST:
usfirst.org
They put the sports/competitive spin onto the sciences, and they do a really good job. They have competitions for every age group and do an awesome job of showing kids why and how learning will allow them to do amazing things. FIRST also does a good job of matching the competitions content to the age levels, ie High School students build 6 foot tall, 120 lb robots while younger kids are using things like Lego mindstorms and VEX.
Ha! So I'm not the only geek who's come across that document!
Beetle B.
I work in a high school tutoring kids in math and science. The big math push where I work has been to teach math via what used to be called story problems, as it's similar to the way they'll do math when doing most jobs. Kids who can't read or write well also struggle to learn math when it's taught this way. Many of them can solve the problem once the numbers are pulled out of the text and written out as an equation. But if they can't read and understand, if they can't write a clear sentence, they'll probably have a hard time doing real world math.
That's what I see in math classes every day. Ditto for science classes. I'm not sure if my observations support or contradict your premise.
Since studies showed how critical mentors were, NASA supports numerous programs where we mentored students ranging from annual Engineers Week where we visited classrooms at all grade levels, explaing how "cool" science and engineering concepts are and how great such careers are. Often this became the first time students had been exposed to a scientist or engineer and provided a connection with science and engineering that can be followed up on. I was also involved in mentoring dozens of high-school and college students on challenging problems making textbook learning alive - including sunmer or year-long mentorships.
I'd encourage my students to get "hooked on" Feynman, Faraday (who turned on Edison) or others. who had a gift of explaning complex concepts of how our world works in a simple and intriguing fashion, like "unraveling an onion". For Example, Feynman's:
1. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) (Paperback)
2. What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character (Paperback)
3. Classic Feynman: All the Adventures of a Curious Character
Although books alone are NOT the answer, books, such as Feynman's, can go a long way in turning on our young people to science and engineering. Good luck on your worthy but formidable challenge so critical to our future.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
By far the best science-related television show I ever saw was "The Mechanical Universe ... and Beyond". It's university freshman-level physics, but intelligent and interested high school kids would get much out of it too. At 52 episodes, you'd probably not be able to get through all of it in a semester, but you could selectively pick which areas to cover.
I teach math, not writing, so that affects my point of view. I don't know how to naturally incorporate math or science into a writing class, but you can incorporate writing into a math course. After all, one of the skills students are supposed to develop in such a course is problem-solving, and a key aspect to successfully solving a problem is communicating your solution (or else the solution isn't much use). So here's what you can do: take an interesting problem (it doesn't have to be hard, but the solution shouldn't be too short). Once the students have solved it, treat their solution like a rough draft and have them go through the whole multiple draft/revision/peer critique thing that writing teachers like so much.
This gives them practice at rewriting/revising, which is important in any kind of writing. It helps them to focus on what makes a solution better or worse. In order to explain something well, you need to understand it well, so it reinforces the mathematics. Plus there is the collaborative thing, which a number of people on slashdot will sneer at, but is actually useful in the real world, at least some of the time. Plus it gives other perspectives on solutions, the students may see multiple ways of approaching a problem, and they will see multiple ways of expressing the solution.
This is the way Bi-Coloured Python-Rock-Snakes always talk.
I was always very interested in maths but had no real exposure to science until I was 10 when my mom dragged me to see the film "A Brief History of Time" about Stephen Hawking. I came out begging for a copy of the book, which my uncle bought me for my 11th birthday. I was sold. 14 years later, I am doing my PhD in Quantum Gravity. Other books that inspired me along the way: Cosmos by Carl Sagan is something I come back to more than anything else; Contact by Sagan; Hyperspace by Michio Kaku; and Three Roads to Quantum Gravity by Lee Smolin. One TV show I really enjoyed was Bill Nye The Science Guy and the series Cosmos hosted by Carl Sagan. Contact the film was the first DVD I ever bought, and I still have it :)
I also second the comments about MacGyver, although I didn't learn until recently that he was a physicist on the show. But I did get a sense that humans have the power to do amazing things just by the innovations created in the mind and molded with the hands.
Finally, I should add that while my dad studied maths and philosophy in university, it wasn't something we ever discussed and has nothing to do with his work. My mom needs a calculator to do anything but simple arithmetic. I didn't know any scientists growing up. Politics was always the dinner topic at home. I have a theory that one reason science was/is so interesting to me is that it was so different. What was important in my home environment is that my mom was willing to expose me to things that she didn't know much about, and she encouraged my blossoming interest with books and trips to science lectures.
In some sense, I believe English to be a support subject for the others classes at this grade level. If you truly believe this, then why did you even become an English teacher in the first place? I believe that's a terrible attitude to take towards the subject you're supposed to be teaching these children. What makes you think that English at the 8th grade level can't stand on its own?
I don't have children yet, but when they get to school I seriously hope they don't have a teacher like you who only treats their subject as support for the other classes.
The one project I remember the most from high school calculus was writing fictional stories that included mathematical elements. The assignment was to write whatever you wanted, using certain ideas (such as approaching a limit) in your story.
This assignment was great. It forced the student to think about these ideas and really understand them so that they could be used correctly in the story. Depending on how it was used, you could tell if the student truly understood the concepts. It was such a great assignment that I was surprised when it didn't happen again. I got a lot out of it AND it was fun.
Love sees no species.
Early interest in science was created mostly by Heinlein. Interest in math was stimulated by my frustration of not being taught things that were clearly within the ability range of myself and my classmates, although I suspect that had I been taught those things, I would have hungered for even more. State-run school math was crippled when I was taking it 45 years ago, and I'm sure it hasn't gotten better.
I understood early that math was necessary to do interesting things, and with the introduction of math puzzles math becaume more intersting by itself.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Well, if you want people to be interested in mathematics (and I honestly don't know how someone could be "interested" in it, it's just numbers and formulas), I'd say the movies "Pi" and "The Number 23" would probably work. That is, as long as you don't tell them there's a distinct difference between mathematics and numerology. You could turn them into obsessive lunatics in just a couple days!
At least in computer science, which is the perspective I can bring, I think that doing was more important than seeing. I became interested in programming as some others here did: by fiddling with BASIC on an old 80s computer when I was young. Though I was always interested in how things worked and how to make them work in new ways, concepts at the heart of science and engineering, I didn't really know what scientists did exactly until college, when I was given the opportunity to do research with one of my professors. From there, I've switched my focus from coding to research (though I keep programming enough to maintain my ability, as I've come too far to simply let it lapse).
So how can you get students excited about science through writing? My advice would be to have them investigate and write about how or why something works, then follow up with ideas for using these facts to solve problems. That's, in essence, what scientists do. If students actually have the ability to implement these ideas, offer extra credit for doing so and presenting the implementation in front of class (since it's an English class, you can't really require an implementation, but you can offer credit for it). Encourage them to talk with their science teachers about this if they need to (after all, real research is collaborative). The goal of this is to reinforce the belief that science is not some arcane profession, but something that can be practiced right now by the class.
Feynman reviews the background of his thirst for knowledge and understanding of the world.
I think it's a great idea. Math is foundational, and many students lose the motivation to go back to areas where they've missed or not fully understood building blocks earlier in their learning. Incorporating literature or movies that inspire learning in general or math in particular can help students fill in the gaps, or push on to the next level.
For me, the movie about the real life of Jaime Escalante, "Stand and Deliver" played by Edward James Olmos is a classic. I watched it every semester before Calculus finals. Plus Edward James Olmos is a rock star. Warning, this may inspire your students to be teachers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRgIbKEsYT4
A sci-fi movie where the science is mathematics and the fiction is a discovery of a predictive code for a stock market pattern.
Educational bonus: Staring at the sun is a bad idea.
You can't take the sky from me...
Hey there! I was delighted when I saw "Good Will Hunting"! I think it will be good for young students to see this movie... It's truly motivative!!!
There are a lot of comments here that say either that 'you can't', or 'its doomed to try', or 'SciFi is crap' or the like. This is wrong-headed for so many reasons, it just boggles the mind.
... and longed for more. By the time I was done, I had a huge opus of 'triggers' in my mind that would later come into play to keep my interest in Science and Math keen through high school, college, university and beyond.
... but also that I would respond quickly to special assignments having to do with anything relating to science. So, I was introduced to SciFi, and it became yet another passion which in its own silly way, supported the Science-and-Math interest.
The genesis of Scientific Curiosity and Mathematical Reckoning are both influenced heavily by the sense of excitement that comes from BEGINNING to master the domain. As a kid, I ran into a couple boxes of old 1950s SciAm mags, which as a lark, I rescued from the predations of my neighbor's saturday rubbish incineration ritual. In no particular order, over the next year, I read them all
The same story goes for Time-Life Science series. Same neighbor, same rescue. This brought literally years of fascinating reading of The Elements, of all sort of specialized (and colorfully illustrated) topics. The two (SciAm & TLS) became mutually supporting - the more I read, the easier it became to "get into" the next thing I was just starting to read. Another friend had a father who purchased the Encyclopedia Brittanica yearly subscription to Science Year. I couldn't keep my hands off them! What fascinating stories of the things that came to fruition that very year! The excitement was as palpable to me as I imagine it must be to lads who are so totally into Sports that they pester their parents to buy a half-dozen recaps every month.
Yet, this keen synergy between what had been read, and remained to be absorbed wasn't without an influence from educators - both in and oddly apart from Science and Math itself! Most of the Science teachers were pretty inept, but a couple let me 'have my way' with self-study. That was good, but only became really influential when they occasionally tried to have some discussion too with me. Only then could I see the workings of their own science interest, rational, reason and belief. Some of the English Literature teachers were prescient enough to see I was doing 'just OK' in their courses
To end I must now answer how these observations be put to use to inspire kids to embrace Science and Math. I think it must start with and active attempt by parents and educators to 'adaptively pattern' the young minds they influence. Deep interest in ANYTHING truely seems to be like kindling a smouldering wad of tinder into a flame. It is so easy to wink out when confronted by early failure, or insipid teaching, or dogmatic loftiness. Parents CAN influence their kids markedly by the simplest expedient of all: eliminating limitless distraction from the child's bedroom, but leaving in its wake a host of 'interesting things' to read. The interest will develop precisely because at an early age, curiosity will have Johnny opening those books almost out of boredom. And if the books contain brilliant but simplified expose's of topics of nearly limitless range (note I'm not excluding stunning literature, short stories, sports or anything else!), then the child will almost invariably begin to search out more of the same, day after day.
It is exactly in realization of this conclusion that I am also deeply opposed to providing kids with limitless amounts of 'mind junk'. Cell phones are virtually without redeeming value, TVs do almost nothing except 'entertain' - if that. Video games aren't bad (how about that!) because they do cultivate the ideas of ciphering mental mazes, artifices of logic and reasoning. Computers are great, but I think they should for many years be in a common area, not in the bedroom. Just the greatest musicians and artists have a surprisingly common thread of 'focus through impoverishment', so too is the subtle - and yes, artificial - selective impoverishment of the child a key to their striving to GET BEYOND THE BARS.
Or so sez me.
We should take ides from them on how to make Science fun and exciting.
My seventh grade math teacher recommended this book to me. It sat on my bookshelf for a year or two, then I picked it up, probably sometime between eighth and ninth grade (sometime around 1990 or '91). Appropriate for high schoolers, it's interesting, it's fun, it's insightful, and it's completely about applying math to improve your life. The subtitle is "Mathematical illiteracy and its consequences," and the author doesn't use anything more than basic arithmetic, probability, and simple algebra, but he applies them to many of life's questions, some menial and some philosophical. He presents the idea that lack of knowledge about how to use math in everyday life allows absurd problems and beliefs to become not only possible, but commonplace. I have my issues with the book, but overall it's well-written, very light on the equations and rich with thought-provoking questions and random tidbits.
It's definitely more on the math side of the English/Math divide, but it's something that I'm sure would never get any time in a math curriculum, at least in the US. He talks about Archimedes and Rabelais, about AIDS and UFOs, about six degrees of separation and about the chances that a monkey could've written Hamlet. He also explores *why* mathematical illiteracy is so prevalent. One warning, though. This book stuck with me and is one of the reasons I'm a cynic today. =) Good luck!
"Both mathematics and humor are combinatorial, taking apart and putting together ideas for the fun of it--juxtaposing, generalizing, iterating, reversing (AIXELSYD)" -- John Allen Paulos
The writing part might be integrated in several ways:
--Kids write letters to engineers and engineering organizations requesting information
--Have kids write about projects they find using the internet and searching for 'engineering for kids'
--Have kids write reports about how things like baseball bats, wheelbarrows, escalators, pyrex, chain saws, car jacks, storm forecasting, bicycles, etc were developed
--Several books on engineering math for kids are listed by amazon.com. Books reports on such books by students would combine what you seek.
We had a teacher that really pushed us in the right way. He was actually a science teacher who subbed the entire year teaching english due to a lack of teachers. But he did something that was phenominal. He made us IMAGINE things. How did he do that? First he made us watch the movie Johnny Nmemonic. That failed horribly ... a few of us loved it .. but we were shadowrun fans already), everyone else just rolled their eyes and complained. What he did then, instead of making us read ALL the boring books that were part of the curriculum (we still read a few), he brought in news broadcasts. Crazy stuff you see on the discovery channel like future cars, medical procedures, cloning things, robots (usually in the form of robot cats and dogs... need to keep the girls happy). He then made us write papers on things WE thought would be cool if we had in the future... and then follow that up with getting into groups and actually writing a second paper on "how would you do it". Most of these papers were completely wrong and would never work, but the point is... we thought about it! My favorite story to date, was written by a cheerleader in the class. She wrote about a makeup kit with a screen on the side that had lots of pictures for pre-defined sets of makeup, and when you put your face to it, it recognizes your face, and added the makeup on (think of the 5th element movie.. but for your whole face, not just the eyes). But she went into a LOT of detail, and it just wasn't expected from a girl like that... Everyone was excited for her, and we actually spent a day in class discussing how to go about trying to invent something like this. Of course, the next year we went back to a normal curriculum where we have to read stories like a girl getting raped at age 13 and how horrible her life was .. and then she killed herself. yay... i could feel my creative juices flowing? nono... nm, that was the blood from when i slit my wrists....
I think its great that you are looking into how to be relevant to your students! The relationship between writing, reading, and science is itself important to understand. The emergence of modern science is a direct outgrowth of what becoming 'code users' (readers and writers) made possible in our minds and institutions. Learning to read builds the cognitive infrastructure critical to appreciating the abstract aspects of science. I am currently working on a documentary called "Children of the Code" that involves these themes. You might find the following resources helpful to you and your students: Historical: The Power of Writing: http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/c5/power.htm
The Code of Da Vinci - The DNA of Science: http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/c5/davinci.h tm
Reading Today:
Why Reading Matters: http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/c1/readingma tters.htm
I remember watching 321 Contact, Mr. Wizard, Square One (both on PBS at the time) Square One is shown occasional on Noggin Network. In later years it was Bill Nye, then Julius Sumner Miller. Book wise I read Bet You Can't, a bunch of science type stuff you can't do We also played a computer game called a Mission to Mars. Fun stuff.
Not read it myself (it not having been released an all), but Lucy (Stephen's daughter) and Stephen Hawking's new book, "George's Secret Key to the Universe" might be worth a read?
The problem is that most of the math and science is either irrelevant boring or wrong (!)
This is easiest to see in math
Now that we have 5$ calculators, you don't need to know how to do multiplication or division - you just need to know how to apply them.
So what should be taught in math class is to take any random issue of a newspaper or magazine, and find the errors in use of math (eg, the Boston Globe had a front page story on property tax increase that used average increase/household (!!)).
The point is that most kids are not gonna go into math and science (cause there ain't no funding, the day bill gates pays math and science students as much as marketers,and the day we get rid of the incredibly stupid, wrong, racist stereotype that americans are creative and asians are mathy, kids will go into math and science)
So, what they need to know is how to use approx numbers in their lives. math beyond this is like teaching em how to shoe horses - a completely useless outdated skill.
Eighth grade is prime time for bright kids (girls especially, I hear) to get their first B grade and rationalize the disappointment as "I'm not good at math." The defeat sails right through college as other subjects continue to be more rewarding, when the fact is they're simply less prone to errors of haste ("careless" mistakes).
I have a soapbox about math teaching, but that's another thread. Maybe the best thing you can do is make sure there are right and wrong answers in your class too, so math and science aren't always playing bad cop?
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
You should talk to someone at the MATCH School in Boston http://www.matchschool.org/. They are a charter public school which, despite what you may think based on the name acronym (Media And Technology Charter Highschool), stresses reading & writing throughout all subject matter.
One of the first books that I read that really got me into physics was, "Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku (ISBN-13 978-0385477055). The book delves into in depth physics without assuming the reader has prior knowledge. I read it when I was a freshman in high school and knew nothing about physics or hyperspace. The book is engaging and paints clear pictures about abstract ideas about our universe. While some of the book goes into more theoretical physics and is not too useful or concrete, it none the less made me think more abstractly about the universe we lived in and motivated me to pursue the subject more.
Another book that I was recently given is, "The Physics of Superheroes" by James Kakalios (ISBN-13 978-1592401468). This book, like "Hyperspace," assumes no prior knowledge of physics and attempts and succeeds at paralleling specific superhero and situations that accurately depict physics and points out the "magic" part of the superhero. While at times somewhat drawn out it is still a good read with great in depth descriptions of what's actually happening without loosing the reader in the complexity of higher level physics or math. Anyone at the high school or even middle school level should have no problem with this book.
One of the reasons I decided to stop being afraid of math was the film "Stand and Deliver". At the time, I had an MFA in Creative Writing. At this time, once I complete my thesis, and I will have an MS in Mathematics.
I think a large part of required math/science reading should be the history of the subjects. A great introductory book I recently read was "Five Equations that Changed the World." I personally can't think of anything that would inspire someone to mathematical and scientific discovery more than understanding the excitement experienced by those who have discovered what we know so far.
I agree with what many others have said here - Asimov is great, for example.
Some books that I've enjoyed:
"The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins (controversial & excellent)
"A Brief History of Time" - Stephen Hawking
"Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" - Charles Seife
"Comets" - David Levy
Two excellent books on logic - very readable for students:
"Nonsense" - Robert J. Gula
"Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric" - Howard Kahane & Nancy Cavender (great textbook)
Fiction:
"Contact" - Carl Sagan
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" - Phillip K Dick
While a lot of people suggested science fiction, your students might be better served by some well-written science non-fiction. There are lots of great books in this category, a few of which have been suggested in other comments. A classic in this genre is "The Microbe Hunters" by Paul De Kruif -- this is his most famous book, but he wrote about a dozen others. Other popular (e.g., not too dry) science books that come to mind are "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" and "Dinosaurs in the Attic." There are also some great collections of science writing which introduce lots of different authors and subjects.
I am very optimistic about the possibilities of making science and math fascinating writing topics.
:-)
:-)
When I a kid, my father was into science and science fiction so I watched the Time Machine, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the wonderful Ascent of Man as well as Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Perhaps, it was inevitable that I would go into mathematics/computers when my favorite Sesame Street character was the Count.
I think that the trick is to approach mathematics and science from multiple perspectives including:
(i) Historical (the major turning events -- Kepler's Equations, Thales invention of proof, Newton's Laws, etc.)
(ii) Biographical (Math and science are filled with interesting folks: Pythagorus, Sophie Germain, Leonhard Euler, and of course, Kurt Goedel)
(iii) Artistic (Take a watch of the movie Pi or even rewatch the Matrix -- numbers and mysticism have a charm even if their meanings go unexplored; fractals and chaos theory have really fascinating visuals)
(iv) Mathematics/Science for Poets (One of the best classes I ever took at UCLA, learned why Foucalt's Pendulum proved that the earth rotated and learned Maxwell's prediction of radio waves based on believing that eletricity and magnetism were two aspects of the same thing)
In my free time, I have taken the question very seriously of whether mathematics can be conceptually interesting independent of its problem solving applications. For the past two years, I have been working on a blog dedicated to this question and specifically to the history and people behind Fermat's Last Theorem:
http://fermatslasttheorem.blogspot.com
Thanks very much for bringing up this topic!
-Larry
As others have mentioned, MacGyver had very little to do with the essence of basic science. It was mostly a "Gee, ain't technology wunnerful!" show.
OTOH, I've caught a few episodes of Myth Busters, and that does seem to be built on the investigative principles of science. They do a good job of showing how to apply the scientific approach to a variety of questions, and do it in a fun way. And they always manage to blow something up, which is always interesting.
But that is all just a small matter of classroom activity.
The major point of this missive is that English is beginning a period of rapid change unlike anything any language has ever experienced. It has now been over a decade since there are more people using English on a daily basis who have learned it as a second language than there are native English speakers. We are approaching the point, if we have not already past it, where the daily amount of English correspondence where both the sender and receiver learned English as second language is greater than the daily correspondence involving at least one native speaker of English.
Prototypical example: a Dane, a Dutchman, and a Malayasian use emails in English as they collaborate on writing a program written in XUL that will be tacked onto the Firefox browser. They use English because they have that language in common. They also have to write and publish the web pages that explain how their program works, and that has to be in English. They also need to respond to help requests that are made in English, and nearly all of their replies need to be in English.
English on the internet is currently having its syntax reduced to the minimum needed to convey information while its vocabulary is being expanded by a huge number of new words for concepts that are truly new to the language, like "ubuntu". This is a good thing.
This should be an exciting time for English scholars, and a good teacher could inject some of that excitement into the classroom.
Since this trend is not going away, it means that native English speakers who are comfortable with revising drafts of web pages, etc, written by others are going to be able to find good paying jobs in interesting fields.
Implications for the eighth grade classroom: move students away from the angst and stress of creating their own work. Engage them with the challenges of revision: of taking someone else's work and making it better. Done right, this would also lead to an interesting secondary theme of how to use the language diplomatically when telling someone what they wrote, their baby, is a piece of crap.
As for what you can do as an English teacher, my English teacher allowed me to read a few articles of popular scientific journals as substitute for a book in the list of 7 books I had to read for oral exams. (And he also wisely didn't ask me the question about the role of the Native American in 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' I admit, I didn't really read the book. Well, most pupils just memorized the pre-made book summaries anyway). In retrospect, he did a good thing with that, as I need the use of scientific English more than anything else nowadays.
But what I liked most of my school time was that most teachers were getting us think for ourselves. My biology teacher was phenomenal. He never used to present us the stuff in the book, he just started each class by asking one of the pupils a question. Why do we need sex? What is a cold? He would not accept an "I don't know". Everyone feared his class, because you couldn't just lay back and sleep, he might send you away. But this was probably one of the best trainings for well, thinking for yourself!
In general, if you can in any way inspire kids with your general interests, you are doing already a good job in making them open-minded, and open mind helps you in all aspects of life.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
The single most important book in my high school that was always raved about was Orsan Scott Card's "Ender's Game", and "Ender's Shadow." The series has won so many awards, and its also being made into a movie in 2008. This would be the perfect opportunity to turn them into avid readers. I attended a magnet school which catered to science & math. We typically read science fiction by Robert Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury. I never was much of a reader until the Ender's Game series. It deals with some political ideas, satire, irony, and psychological aspects as well as delivering an incredible story line of child geniuses and a Battle School. Many argue that Harry Potter was a parallel to Orsan Scott Card's Ender's Game series. This book is also in the top three best science fiction novels of all time. You can't possibly go wrong with it. p.s - Heinlein, Bradbury, and Card are very controversial with some of their satire. Conservative parents often try to ban it. At the Science Academy ( rated 3rd best high school in the US four times ) many of the books were challenged frequently. Be sure to preemptively give them handouts from www.abffe.com - fREADom to read. Those board meetings arguments presented by somewhere near eighty students were the fondest memories I have in my education.
When I was young (which wasn't very long ago) I always enjoyed movies like Phenomenon, Little Man Tate, Rain Man, Harriet The Spy, Good Will Hunting, Short Circuit I & II, and of course Searching for Bobby Fischer . Unlike many nerds, I never was much for science fiction growing up, I was really more into those films about individual triumph and ability. I suppose the question is whether I enjoyed those movies because I could relate to the characters, or if I aspired to be like the characters.
While there is a lot of hype about increasing the level of Sci & Math education, I do have reservations. A lot of this hype is just propaganda resulting from corporate lobbying. If there is a shortage, it is because of economics and not education. I see way to many PhD's running community colleges making practically nothing. Its absurd to expect people to rally to a profession that is more demanding and less rewarding than almost any other. How many tenure positions are open vs qualified applicants? I would guess the ratio is at least 50 to 1. Scientist are not only required to get a PhD, but also have to have significant post Doc at almost no pay to be even considered. Scientist do not get to study the fundamentals of the universe, but have to fight tooth and nail for limited funding for earmarked corporate research. Corporations artificially up qualifications for scientist and engineers, although there are plenty available because they need to ensure enough H-1B visa's are allowed to ensure low cost research. As technology streamlines and consolidates, there is less demand per capita of needed high skill workers. We are pushing all these kids to go into an economy where they are just going to be frustrated. I absolutely love science and math, but we are taking it to far. The government and cooperations do not emphasize social studies because the more the general populace knows about history, economics, and science combined, the harder they are to manipulate. Science and math alone are just great money makers. Its a great idea to incorporate other subjects into English classes, but over emphasizing any one subject is unbalanced and harmful.
Developing modern games requires more math and science than most people are willing to believe. But, it also requires a deep understanding of philosophy, history, psychology, literature, art, and even sociology. It is an ideal cross disciplinary area that can be used to tie all these different areas together.
Science Fiction plus great books and shows such as Connections and Mythbusters are also a good way to get people interested in math and science. But, they do not grab the modern imagination like games do.
Stonewolf
Where I teach currently, we have the opposite problem. We are trying to get ACT101 students to be able to manipulate numbers (read Add, Subtract, Multiply, and Divide) correctly, and we are being saddled with requirements that such students write term papers. Were they getting math in all their other classes, I would not have any problems with this, but the point of these remedial classes is to teach the very basics which many of these students simply have not picked up in 18 years of life. When students are getting their reading and writing requirements in via the other 12 or 13 credits they are taking, I'm not much inclined to dilute the little pure math (if you can call basic arithmetic pure math) to which they are exposed.
But this is off topic. I would try to get a few courses listed as interdisciplinary so that you can show how differing subjects are related. I would suggest as a starting point the books "Godel, Escher, and Bach" and "Metamagical Themas" by Douglas Hoefstaeder (sp?) as they are brilliant in relating math and science to virtually everything from art to music to philosphy. Best of luck!
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, is a great book for kids. Main themes: Words, numbers, knowledge, and love of learning. I have read this book / had this book read to me / read this book to my kids many times.
Dancing Wu Li Masters?
Tao of Physics?
They're full of non-scientific Eastern Mysticism bullshit. Reading that crap serves to hinder scientific thought.
Here is a link to the Wikipedia on this author who I think teaches youth to be bright, bold and thoughtful. He has a number of books that are written for just the age range you are looking for, such as Have Space Suit--Will Travel and Red Planet, where the main character is an adolescent who uses science and math, as well as other worldly skills to survive various adventures. His writings are a bit dated, as some of them were written as early as the mid 1940's but I think this just adds to the educational value as they show what was believed to be the future, but we can now see how things turned out. As a additional note, beware his adult books, they deal with very series issues and can't be assumed to be appropriate for young readers until their parents try them first. Enjoy
I'm probably not the first person to respond by mentioning this book. I just need to make sure :)
Another film I just remembered from my childhood is: The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics It won Chuck Jones an Oscar and remains one of the most visually impressive presentations of geometry ever.
San Le www.slffea.com
- Professor E. McSquared's Calculus Primer, by Howard Swann and John Johnson. What? 8th graders are too young for calculus? No problem. I discovered this book when I was about seven years old, as my mom was using it in a calculus class. It was years before I understood much of the math in the book, but I greatly enjoyed the comics and illustrations. As a seven-year-old, this book did not teach me math, but it made me decide that math must be something fun and enjoyable, and that notion has stuck with me ever since.
:-)
- The movie "I.Q.". A quaint romantic comedy, this doesn't even try to really teach math or science, but again, it inspires the viewer to think that math and science are fun and enjoyable topics.
- Good science fiction. This topic has already come up in this thread, but I'll toss out a few opinions of my own. If you can find them, there was a series of books, "The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree" by Louis Slobdikin. I remember reading these in 5th grade or so, and they might be "too young" for 8th graders. Sadly out of print either way, but these books also helped me see science as a fun and enjoyable thing. Some "Star Trek" and some "Dr. Who" is good for this sort of thing as well, but avoid newer "Star Trek", and either way, watch it first yourself to verify useful content. Some episodes are better than others in this regard.
- If you can persuade them, maybe get a hold of some of the old Infocom text adventure games, and have them play these. Especially the sci-fi oriented ones, like "Planetfall" and "Starcross". These not only build up interest in science, but also encourage reading skills, build vocabulary, and help teach problem solving. I don't know why these ever died off... but I shan't digress on that at this point in time.
How about the good old fashioned way, by using various forms of communications outside of mathematics to describe ideas? Einstein's Dreams was a pretty cool book... Coming to science through ideas of what makes the world tick is fascinating and very likely exactly why many scientists become scientists -- to understand. To understand something esoteric but important. The most interesting scientists are those who look at things beyond their work, but they were probably like that before they became scientists. Some analogous reading may be Edge (edge.org) or "Three Scientists and Their Gods."
Speaking as a father, the most influential people are your child's peers.
How about teaching *writing*! Writing is so much more than just a support topic for the sciences. Not everyone needs math and science *all the time*.
Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher and Bach is a must-read for both its english language surprises and its science eye-opening. It's a big books but you can select some parts for class reading. The 'group intelligence of ants' chapter introduction comes to mind. Many intros read like Lewis Carol, and I'm pretty sure it was written with that intent. Note: english is not my prime language, but this is the 3rd english book I've read when I was 15 (after Orwell's Animal Farm as a warmup and Tolkien's trilogy which is the whole point why I learnt english in the first place)...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Ok my epiphany came much later in life as an adult. I was looking for ways of teaching discrete math and statistics to first year university students in the Arts program. They were less than interested until I presented the following relationship, math is about language eg. the semantics of programming languages identify a grammar, rules of construction, etc. just like any verbal language. As luck would have it, I found an ancient book on law that had a great section on fallacies (false arguments) that I translated directly into subject material for our module on logic. I then borrowed a book of puzzles that had the usual logic word problems, and we worked some of those out using math. I capped the semester by having them creating arguments to justify the addition of marks to their existing averages. It turned out to be quite a useful and fun semester.
What I emphasized was that those in the Arts are usually required to establish a position, and defend it, using the written word eg. essays, theses, etc. Presenting a clear and reasoned argument is the essence of so much non-fiction writing including business proposals, engineering proposals, project definition statements, legal statements, political speeches (which seem to rely exclusively on fallacies =).
In a nutshell, books on philosophy and law should have a lot of fodder to introduce some aspects of math. And logic is quite accessible to even the very young, Who doesn't like to argue at that age?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Carl Sagan's "Cosmos", David Attenborough's "Life on Earth", James Burke's "Connections"
I don't understand the negative posts here. There are lots of good, well-written, accessible science books that would be appropriate reading for an English class.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone mention Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. It's "about" math but it's as much social criticism (of Victorian England). Edwin A Aabot, the author, was also largely responsible for the acceptance of Shakespeare as high literature, and there are lots of references to Shakespeare scattered througout (including beginning every chapter). Students can follow up with Sphereland or one of Rudy Rucker's books. Another great math-related book is George Gamow's One, two, three...Infinity
Another good choice is The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks (or Awakenings or just about anything else he's written). Howard Gardner and Steve Pinker are also good authors for middle school students interested in cognition.
How about Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel or Collapse? Either combine science and history in a way that may appeal to students. Stephen Jay Gould's The Panda's Thumb might also be good (if evolution isn't too hot to touch).
In computer science, there's Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine (which is more history of science than science per se), and Ray Kruzweils' The Singularity is Near will get students talking.
Dava Sobel's Longitude is a great story wrapped into a short book about the history of science and the relationship between science and engineering.
... when I saw 'Hemo the Magnificent' in school. Frank Baxter was a righteous dude.
Isaac Asimov wrote more nonfiction books than fiction... in the same witty style. Check out some of his nonfiction work, then his fiction, and see if you can generate assignments around some ideas he had.
The tv show that got me into science, was Bill Nye The Science Guy. Every saturday morning I would wake up to it. That got me into going to the library and finding books on how stuff worked. What got me into math, was the movie about the robot named "Johnnie 5"... can't recall the name of the movie... but anyways, that got me into the dream of building robots and soon I found out I needed to learn math to succesfully do it.
I'm currently a high school junior. I think I have found the value of the written word independently. I'm the only one I know who has read through Supreme Court transcripts, listened to or read speeches. I prefer reading over watching TV.
I'm probably every teacher's dream, but to be honest, I do not enjoy school at all (surprise surprise). All of the classes are generally boring and there is nothing I learn there which I wouldn't be able to learn on my own if I was actually interested in researching the subject. Last year I had a history class with a teacher who was an incredibly interesting man. Though I nearly failed his class, I think I learned the most in his presence then from anyone else. The class headed off on tangents quite often. We talked a lot about psychology, philosophy, government, law, and current events a lot more then we talked about the time period we were supposed to be studying.
I think the best thing school could do (unfortunately this is not what school ever tends to focus on) is training students for life. We are not databases, dictionaries, or computers. We are not meant to remember tons of dates, the definitions of exotic words which are never seen in speech, or to compute a dozen or two math problems every night - Especially if we have no interest in the information or it does not match our field of interest(s) very well at all. We are humans. We have things that we would rather do then study uninteresting subject matter or preform busy work. If there is anything schools should hope to do is to get us _interested_ in subjects, not spoon-feed them (and the mission of trying to get a student interested in every subject available - the way we are typically graded - is flawed). An interested student will learn things much more intimately then one who would rather be elsewhere. Those who are not interested in education at all shouldn't be in the building.
I know university is an entirely different ballpark, but some of the same concepts apply. I'm asking this out of my own curiosity, so a reply would be appreciated. Why should one pay (tens of) thousands of dollars per year just to be spoon-fed information at a higher level. If we are capable of learning things (we're human - right?), I don't see why we should pay others. The internet is packed with freely available information for anyone who is interested - and it costs much less to access. To my, university seems to be an obsticle that one must go through just to get a shiny piece of paper. A paper can't tell anyone a thing about your personality or the actual attachment you feel towards your field of study. It says you ware able to jump though hoops and have deeper pockets then many and that's about it.
From an English perspective, I would recommend you have your students read a magazine like Make (http://makezine.com/) or a website like Instructables (http://www.instructables.com/home) with a two-fold goal. First, either individually or preferably in groups, the students should create one of the projects they find (with instructor and parent approval). Second, again individually or in groups, they should create something new and post the what they did and the results. Both of these could easily be joint projects between science and English instructors. Personally speaking, I'd be really interested in what 8th graders would choose to make, and would therefore really would like to see what they publish. You might even be able to strike up a deal with the folks over at Make to have a special 'middle school' edition with projects from students around the world. One of the popular concepts in instructional technology right now is 'authentic' learning/problems/assessments, and between the creation of something new and writing it up for publication, I can't think of anything more authentic to encapsulate both science and English at the middle school level.
I'd also strongly suggest having them read a classic scifi book (http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/ lists_books_rank1.html; and I'd highly recommend the Red, Green, Blue Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson) then do a report or class presentation including (a) what science was fiction when the book was written, but is now real (think tricorder), (b) what science was fiction when the book was written, but is based on real science (think anti-matter in Star Trek), and (c) what science was and appears to be fiction (think faster than light travel).
Robert Anson Heinlein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein/
It might be dated now-- I don't know--but when I was that age, it was Isaac Asimov's non-fiction Realm of Algebra that did the most to set my trajectory. I don't think I've seen anything that was accessible as this since then.
Egads. It looks like this out of print, and expensive on the used-books market. Grrr.
jhw
If you just want a neat writing activity involving writing and any subject at all (I've seen it done in geography and science, and I used it myself in an art/social studies lesson), you might want to try a GRASPS activity. Here is a page that describes how to think up a GRASPS activity. I learned it from a guy who uses these activities as performance assessments in 8th grade Geography. I'm going to try to incorporate one into a math activity this year. If you need suggestions, or if that link isn't very helpful, let me know.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
In my school, at the eighth grade level, we have a lot of basic work in grammar to finish before the student moves on to high school, where it is no longer formally taught. Arguments in compositions are a small section not always touched on by the teachers. However, because grammar is still a topic we need to discuss, I try to relate the functions of the sentence several ways, one of them mathematical.
By showing off sentences that are worded incorrectly or have incorrect mechanics, I help the students see the lacking logic of order. Additionally, I show them how they can prove the functions of words in a sentence by simply working the "diagramming" backwards. In doing so, I explicitly compare this to an algebraic formula so that they can begin to make connections in order and logic. Seek the function to determine the purpose.
I have encountered teachers that think that this method allows for open minds, to which I can only respond, "open to what?" (What's the point of having an open mind if you don't know how to assign qualitative measurements?) However (and I do not know if this is what you might have been thinking of) I will note that it is good practice in argumentative writing to address the other side in order to show its fallacies.
An explanation of my choices for friends
First, I'll agree that reading to your kids until they can read to you is a good way to start. Encouraging them as they explain what they've learned by reading is another important thing to do, as I recall.
One great series was the Time/Life series on the sciences. I particularly remember the ones about Geology and Dinosaurs and the early eath, with pictures, etc. I think I started reading those when I was in 3rd or 4th grade -- probably because they were new then, or I might have looked at them earlier. The "Books of Knowledge" and "Books of Popular Science" came with the Encyclopedia Americana we got about the time I was in 8th grade (I have 3 younger brothers) and I spent a lot of time reading those.
In highschool, the books that really hooked me on Science and Math were the books by George Gamow, particularly 1, 2, 3, infinity, and probably Mr. Tomkins in Wonderland. I also stumbled on a really great, if somewhat strange, pair of books in a school library -- Recently I found copies of these so I now have my own: Lillian Lieber's (with wonderful illustrations by Hugh Lieber) The Education of T.C. MITS and the mind-boggling Infinity. They were old when I found them (T.C. MITS was published in 1942, Infinity in 1953). Infinity was my first exposure to transfinite numbers, when I was a sophomore in HS.
Of course, Scientific American was extremely important. As an Army Brat, we moved to Taiwan in 1957, and the local USIA library had a collection from 1948 on -- I read all the Mathematical Games columns, in particular. The Amateur Scientist columns were often very intriguing, but I didn't have the money (or perhaps gumption) to do most of those experiments, but I certainly read a lot of them.
Science Fiction, naturally -- Asimov, Blish, Bradbury, Clement, Heinlein, Sturgeon, ... A.E. Merritt's Indiana-Jones-like heros were something I discovered around then, too -- but I was probably science/math/engineering bound long before that. I probably started with Heinlein.
Teachers who asked as many questions as they answered and forced me to think things through on my own were also key. My math teachers and science teachers really tried to teach logical / deductive thinking, not science-facts, and that's key. Hands on -- I joined the Science Club and we set up a "The Monkey and the Hunter" experiment for a whole-school presentation -- making that work, at least once, on stage, was a thrill.
On the other hand, I hated English and writing through most of highschool. My senior year, as new kid in school, I had an English teacher who finally got me engaged -- Somehow I got hooked on e.e.cummings' poetry -- and writing more (although I did try to write a bit of a science fiction story when I was in 8th grade). I took one or at most two writing courses courses that weren't required in college, but never did get into Literature. But writing remained difficult, primarily because I always tried to write in perfect prose from the beginning, rather than brain dump and rewrite (programmers are supposed to get it right from the start, eh?). It wasn't until I got to Bell Telephone Labs (...->Lucent Technologies) after a tour in the Nuclear Submarine force and Grad School, that I took a course in writing that helped make it easier to write.
First thing that was important was being taught not to worry about "the rules" but trust that, as a native speaker, if it sounded right, it probably was right -- at least as a starting point. Another key point was "If you want to be a good writer, write for at least 5 minutes every day". I took that one and used it on my sons when they were in gradeschool -- they had to write me a 100-word paragraph on any subject every day before they could get access to the TV / Computer (for games). They were allowed to use the computer to writ
In middle school and high school, I read some of Lewis Carroll's (Charles Dodgeson's) works, including Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. I was struck by how similar some of Carroll's ideas were to theories of physics -- such as the rabbit hole leading to Wonderland, and its similarity to wormholes. Because he was a mathematician, and in contact with notable mathematicians of the time, it is possible that he was inspired by their conjectures and worked them into his stories. As a student already interested in science, I found the similarities intriguing. Michio Kaku discusses the Alice stories in his book, Hyperspace. Another book, Alice in Quantumland by Robert Gilmore, borrows Alice and sends her on a more obvious journey through physics. Both are interesting reads that might help you generate ideas for integrating literature and science for your students. I share your concern about children's lack of interest in math and science, and I am grateful for your efforts to create a multidisciplinary classroom. Best of luck!
Also, for shows, I highly recommend Dragonfly TV. Awesome new PBS show! I'm in PhD program on learning and design of learning environments, and this past spring I organized a series of afternoons watching and analyzing educational TV - this show was the coolest one, I think. We had Mr Wizard (from both the 60s and 80s), Bill Nye, and Dragonfly TV, and I was shocked at how much MORE I liked it than any of the older stuff. Mr Wizard gives the message that science is stuff that someone else came up with that you use to do cool things. Bill Nye says more than science is a bunch of cool stuff you can learn about the world. But Dragonfly TV gives the message that science is something YOU do when you want to learn something. It is A++.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
The Time trilogy also hooked me on science, though I was much younger than the 8th grade when I read them. Perhaps the reading level isn't high enough for your students (and they may already have read the series before coming to you), but the books do discuss interesting aspects of science and cast scientists in a favorable light.
Great question in that it touches on my view that much of the current emphasis on math and science in high school is misguided, focusing on quantity rather than quality. I've been an engineering manager for more than 25 years and in my experience a person's ability to communicate well in both writing and speaking is a better indicator of success than a bag of technical skills. An engineer who can write a well-reasoned and persuasive analysis is more valuable to the company in the long run than one who is a technical whiz but can't communicate his or her ideas. Math and science skills are important but they need to be applied, not just regurgitated. To apply math in writing I would encourage your students to write numerate essays, that is, to include arguments based on numerical data that demonstrate that they have modeled the problem, not just thrown out disconnected statistics. I often read articles in newspapers and magazines that include bad math, and not just subtle statistical mistakes but rather wrongly modeling the question. For example, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal argued that if someone wants to be a CEO he should attend the University of Wisconsin rather than Harvard because slightly more Fortune 500 CEOs attended Wisconsin than Harvard. This completely misses the fact that Wisconsin has many times the student body of Harvard thus a random Harvard student is far more likely to become a CEO than a random Wisconsin student. Similarly for writing incorporating science, students should demonstrate that they understand the scientific method and are not just sprinkling their writing with scientific terms. They should be able to use logic to decide what facts are sufficient to reasonably prove an argument and what facts are irrelevant. They should be able to re-interpret old facts in new ways, the so-called paradigm shift. And they should be able to describe what additional information or tests are necessary to further elucidate or confirm their position. As inspirational material I suggest Sherlock Holmes. Too much science fiction incorporates imagination without reason. Holmes celebrates reason even if it's sometimes a bit contrived. Challenge your students to find flaws in Holmes' logic.
Harper Perennial has an annual "The Best American Science Writing" series (going back to at least 2000) that is an anthology of short pieces. I always find them a great and intriguing read. They're fairly short pieces, often stress the scientist as much as the science, and are an excellent way of introducing the often times messy or controversial way that science progresses.
For example, from the blurb on my library's catalog for the 2006 edition:
Your move / Tom Mueller -- My bionic quest for Boléro / Michael Chorost -- Earth without people / Alan Weisman -- The curse of Akkad / Elizabeth Kolbert -- Remembrance of things future : the mystery of time / Dennis Overbye -- Obesity : an overblown epidemic? / W. Wayt Gibbs -- Nature's bioterrorist / Michael Specter -- On autism's cause, it's parents vs. research / Gardiner Harris and Anahad O'Connor -- What makes people gay? / Neil Swidey -- The tangle / Jonathan Weiner -- Clone your troubles away / David Quammen -- The coming death shortage / Charles C. Mann -- Devolution / H. Allen Orr -- The literary Darwinists / D.T. Max -- The day everything died / Karen Wright -- Mighty white of you / Jack Hitt -- Is God an accident? / Paul Bloom -- Yawning / Robert R. Provine -- Ten planets? Why not eleven? / Kenneth Chang -- Climbing the redwoods / Richard Preston -- We're all Machiavellians / Frans B.M. De Waal.
This one did it for, with a heaping serving of the old SciFi masters, starting with Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury, Asimov, Foster...
o lden/dp/0465026567
http://www.amazon.com/Godel-Escher-Bach-Eternal-G
While you can teach writing pop science, I think it would more useful to teach formal math/scientific writing like on http://www.arxiv.org/, or on http://scholar.google.com/ for any topic in economics, physics, computer science or even social sciences. These sorts of papers generally combine math, logical argument, and scientific experiments.
These papers generally review the current literature, explain/extend the math/jargon, and possibly justify some things with experiments. I think the ability to successfully write and understand papers like this can be very valuable.
Learning to operate a machine without instructions is an endeavour where the scientific method will become very handy. Sure, the machine itself might be technology; but your hopefully systematic attempts to learn about it are science, or at least they better be if you want to have success. WOW, most of the machine instructions come from translations of Japaneses or some other asian country. I am 75 years old now, and the memory of Grade School and High School is fading fast. My teachers after Grade School were very quick to pass over my questions.So..... I left school and joined the Army. All I wanted at that age was to be a "Grown up" and lead my own life. Later in life I attended Graduate School at Ohio State University and have a 60's plus thirst for learning. OH, that I could have had it as a child. Edward M Dunagin edunagin@gmail.com mobile ---406-570-0992 Bozeman, MT
Books that affected me as a child included "Carry on Mr. Bowditch" by Virginia Lee Latham, a fictionalized biography about the great navigator and mathematician whose formal schooling ended at age 10, but who ended up getting that doctorate at Harvard (and offered a professorship, which he declined) anyway. A great story about a great, fiery individual. I also enjoyed "The Monitor and the Merrimack," in the Landmark series (don't recall the author) which tells in a simple children's story, how a young inventor (John Ericson) grew up and created a battleship on whose success of failure the civil war could depend. For any young war buff, granted mostly male, it's pretty gripping stuff. The vision of this tiny little "tin can on a shingle" interposing itself between the conferedate ironclad and the helpless wooden ship run aground, suddenly rotating, pointing two enormous cannons and firing, and then the duel which resulted in a draw, the frustration of the gunner on the monitor who was not allowed to use full charges due to a ridiculous navy order, the captain who was blinded, and to whom President Lincoln personally went to give the thanks of the nation -- an interesting contrast, I don't recall Bush ever visiting wounded soldiers, I'll have to look that one up. Last of the three, I loved a biography of Thomas Edison. I don't remember the one, but frankly you can pick a well written biography, in these specific examples, it's the people who are interesting, and their stories are so entwined with science, engineering and mathematics that the excitement rubs off. While I'm now 40, I think that some parts of the biography of Einstein I'm now reading would be wonderful for a class. While the book is enormous and not all appropriate for children, some parts are funny, some are enlightening, and some are simply inspirational. When his parents brought his little sister home, after talking up how much fun she was going to be, having a little sister, he said "But where are the wheels?" Perhaps a better example is Feinman's autobiographies, starting with "Surely you must be joking Mr. Feinman" which are full of his highjinks, and shows that scientists can have fun, like cracking safes, not just making atomic bombs. He cared enough to be on the Challenger commission and while he was dying of cancer, had the wit to end a particularly silly argument about what could have happened to the Challenger's O-ring by doing the experiment quietly in his drinking glass while others yakked about it.
Without a doubt watching Doctor Who when I was little was what inspired me to delve into mathematics. I wanted to build a Tardis :)
One issue is getting real material that is technical in nature. One very extensive source is
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp
Some of those reports are approaching 100 yrs old. Some are quite readable. Some of them hurt my head. There are reports on engines, mufflers, wing design, flutter characteristics, ergonomics...
The point is that it's all real. Was all leading edge material at one time, and is all interesting to someone. At least to me, this gives the material more significance.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Rainbow Mars: by Larry Niven
The nice thing about this book is that each chapter is a
powerful short story that can stand on its own.
You can inspire with targeted chapters to ideas like
the biology of a living trans-orbital beanstalk
If they want they can read more.
In the mean-time you can share some neat algebra and biology that
relates to each story. This makes it easier to sell and
package and create teaching lessons.
When I was young I had a lot of interest in non-fiction books and youth-oriented encyclopedias and reference books. Try to have one or two on hand for a variety of subjects.
I was also a big fan of Diane Duane and Monica Hughes. Duane's "So You Want to be a Wizard?" and sequels might interest Harry Potter fans, without neglecting the scientific repercussions of magic. My favourite Hughes novel was "Invitation to the Game," which had themes revolving around the environment, technology, overpopulation, social engineering, and returning to a primitive technological state. I don't think these really sparked an interest in science per se nearly as much as they did in science fiction. Non-fiction did much more for me there.
Science classes have a curriculum to get through, so the books tend to be dry and practical and don't let kids find their own interests. Teaching some of this in English class would give kids a chance to explain the subjects in their own words and share what they learn with their classmates.
"Exploring the Night Sky" by Terence Dickinson was one of my favourite books as a kid. It's a nicely illustrated introduction to astronomy. Unfortunately, somewhat out-of-date. I'd suggest at least one good text on astronomy anyway, especially one that discusses gravity and orbits, the composition of planets, the births and deaths of stars (and nuclear fusion), telescopes, and wavelengths of light.
A book on the human body, like the one by DK or Eyewitness, is a must. A friend who works with kids recommended a "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" book. Books on everyday technology in the "How Stuff Works" vein are a good idea. I was always very interested in archaeology and mythology -- your students can probably give you ideas of their interests. Lots of kids like animals and are interested in volcanos, earthquakes, storms, and other such natural drama.
I used to like Discover Magazine quite a bit because it was broad -- touching on everything from astrophysics to medicine to archaeology. I didn't usually understand every article, but it was always interesting. At the beginning of each issue are a bunch of short articles on recent discoveries that would make excellent fodder for minor assignments.
To try and spark interest in general subjects, try to find books about specific people related to the field. Case studies, brief biographies (historical figures, great scientists, etc.), anecdotes, and how-tos (easy science experiments?) bring life to the subjects and make them more real than broad strokes.
"The World of Myth" by David Adams Leeming compares many of the myths of the world, shockingly. Consider having the original, nasty Grimm's Fairy Tales around.
Consider also:
"The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales" (Oliver Sacks)
"The Origin of Species" (Charles Darwin)
"A Briefer History of Time" (Stephen Hawking)
"Frankenstein" (Mary Shelley)
Finally, since arts don't get much love these days, I also recommend "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art" by Scott McCloud, absolutely the best book on mixed visual-written forms like plays, film, and of course comics I've ever read. If your students have trouble getting into Shakespeare due to the language or can't visualizing who's speaking, consider a graphic novel edition (just make sure it's unabridged and well illustrated). "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is an excellent book on perception, and will help those kids with an interest in art. Drawing is a seriously underappreciated skill that can be used in all kinds of fields, including engineering and teaching. (How many times have you heard a teacher apologize for their bad art as they drew something on the board?) Teaching them to draw isn't the goal -- the goal is to make them think about how they see things.
My high school physics teacher would read sections from Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynmann! every week on Friday. I though it was weird then, but now I realize that it had a positive effect on me. It really helped to humanize the sciences.
I am Jack's sig. I reduce Jack's karma.
Flatland is an amazing book, and even though I read it in the early 1990s when I was in college I still love it today. It's easy to read, and the math is highly accessible, so much so I hesitate to call it math. For college or high school level, I also advise Torvald's "Just For Fun", I had one student get really into it.
I would recommend you check out the varied works of Neal Stephenson. He manages to work a geeky subject into every book. His books are always very engaging.
Snow Crash = memes + religion + gripping cyber romp.
Cryptonomicon = Crypto + math + history + computing + gripping story.
Zodiac = environmental issues + chemistry + neat eco thriller.
System of the Worlf = LOTS of history + monetary systems + damn good story.
Etc.... He's an amazing writer, and I'm ashamed of all of Slashdot because he didn't get into the first couple of posts.... Shame on you all!
Dear Ms. Dawson. From the number of responses that I have seen, I am not certain that you will be aware of my reply. Nevertheless, I would enjoy offering a comment or two regarding your interest in movies and the introduction of math and science in the English classroom. I have been involved in a science and engineering for many years now and notice that a major difference I witness between the graduates entering these professions today versus yesterday is their inability for the most part to communicate effectively with their coworkers and peers, appropriately document their work, or work beyond basic technicalities. Please don't misunderstand me. There are some that are extremely intelligent and do good work, however, many times, there is a depth that is missing. I believe that there is so much more that their minds could contribute if only they were inspired to do so. I personally believe that one item that is missing is a fundamental training in the classics. While an aspiring student of English literature may be interested in the works of British authors, John Locke, Greek or Roman mythology, many math and science majors are probably unaware of Viete, Peacock, Gibbs, Cayley, or the history of algebra (classical vs. abstract) for instance. Also, I can't remember any class that I participated in in either high school or university that exposed me to the classics. For that reason I was quite bored in many of the English classes that I participated. I discovered the classics later from my father, an engineer, and from reading about mathematicians and scientists of yesterday that pursued them as well. It is my opinion that this training provides the aspiring mathematician, scientist, or engineer fundamentals and foundational thinking. It is not enough to be taught how to do mathematics or what equation is used for what. The real beauty and artistry of mathematics lies in understanding the foundation of what you are attempting to do. Why was it created? What problem was the creator attempting to solve? What motivated them? Like the winding forest path that leads to the mountain meadow, the mathematics presented in great works leads the reader and practitioner to an understanding of its beauty as well. Regarding your question about movies. Interest in movies, I realize, is a very personal thing, but I have always appreciated scientific biographies about the men and women of science. Most are pretty old. Today, I enjoy the Discovery Channel a lot... anything that teaches or broadens my mind as to what is possible. Modern science fiction is not of much interest to me as I have never been interested in space aliens and the like and after the movie is over, I feel rather empty. The only sci-fi movie I ever attended more than once was 2001, A Space Odyssey. I felt that it was closet to realistic technology, I didn't see any weird creatures, and the music was fabulous. Also, too many movies today contain much objectionable content. I don't personally enjoy spending any amount of money to sit in front of a screen and be subjected to profanity. Thank you for the opportunity to express my opinion and thank you for your interest and desire to inspire others who pursue mathematics and science. Wishing you the best.
... I wanted to point the good English teacher towards this: http://paulgraham.com/essay.html -- which provided many entertaining ideas^* about why do we write our essays about "symbolism in Dickens" (or, in my and my mates' case, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, "Folk motives in Evgeny Onegin" :) ) -- and not about something which would take a bit of, say, math skills (even on the basic accounting level), you know, like relevant in real life...
;-)
Did my best to avoid Redundant, and I have to agree with you that the one you linked is indeed good for students to digest -- but do you think it will go well with the school administration?
Paul B.
* alas, no link to the actual text of an example argument about "the number of angels dancing on a pinhead", which I always wanted to read since first running across mocking references to that in my textbooks -- but at least a good explanation of why would people spend time discussing such crazy things.
I am a physicist and I think you have a brilliant idea here. I completely agree that their is simply not enough time during a math and science class to teach kids the foundations of mathematical and scientific principals as well as get them interested in the topics by association. I myself remember being chastised by a teacher in a math class for asking why a certain mathematician decided to prove a principal in a specific manner that eventually lead him to the proof we were discussing. Their are so many stories out there that kids or for that matter adults are never exposed to in the realms of science and math. They never get to ask the question "why?". (I know, I tried several times and was shot down every time) Looking back at my education I now realize that most of my math and science teachers were either unable or to fearful of the subject themselves to answer my questions so in the end I remember being very bored in those classes. If one could tie reading and writing into science and math like you are suggesting perhaps other students out there who feel like they are getting cheated in those classes will be able to begin to make connections as to who did what when and why earlier than I did. So I suggest looking into some history books. Perhaps you could even bring in the history teacher in and with the math and science teachers work together to allow students to see the time lines for some of the big discoveries in those areas. Or how about something really strange like going out and grabbing a journal article from something like The American Journal of Physics (AJP). Those are usually easy to read and understand. Pick a topic that will be covered in one of the physics classes like pendulums or something. Work as a class to read and try to understand the article. Then maybe make them write their own article and see how it compares. I can tell you after years of trying to read and understand journal articles as well as write some it is not easy to do. If someone out there could start preparing young students very early how to do this that would be amazing. Even just exposing them to these ideas would be a great idea. This may sound impossible but think of it this way, if a student is serious about science or math within 4-8 years after taking your class they will be doing something in this area and when I did it I can tell you I was so unprepared that my first attempt at a journal article was a joke. No one ever covered anything like that in any class I took in grade school, high school, or even undergraduate college. I had to just do it on my own, and I had never even been exposed to a journal article. Needless to say it was an overwhelming experience. Perhaps just exposing the students to the idea of different types of writing would be a good idea. I can honestly say that nothing I ever wrote before writing my first journal paper was preparation for writing my journal paper. It was like speaking in a new language. So by showing the students that their is more to writing than creative writing, or poetry, or magazines and news papers maybe helpful, and that sometimes things aren't written or even read as like book or story. As for reading material that may interest some students or bring about some provocative discussion I would suggest anything by Arthur C. Clarke. I know his books made me ask questions and they still do. Although science fiction can be a hard sell for many students I would recommend the following books that I think could be tied into science, albeit hypothetical and hand waving but still it may generate interest in general. The Songs of Distant Earth, Arthur C. Clarke, interesting science and political ideas. Imperial Earth, Islands in the Sky, The Sands of Mars, A Fall of Moondust, all by Arthur C. Clarke. These books again have some great descriptions of space travel before they even had space travel. They talk about the way the world perceived space and the solar system before we had any real hard facts. These are all quick reads and they may all bring about som
Flatland is a short movie and a book, that is intriguing.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
Hm, it's odd - I do seem to remember having read an excellent description on conjugate gradient somewhere, at some point during my undergrad years, but now I can't seem to find it anywhere. Perhaps it was in a textbook or something, I can't remember. In any case, that paper seems very clear, though honestly, it's a bit long for an explanation of a single algorithm (I guess the problem is that it goes through most of the prerequisite knowledge, too, whereas a textbook treatment could leave all that stuff to the earlier chapters).
Anyhow, on the general topic of science/math writing, I'm surprised that fewer people have mentioned Richard Feynman. Pretty much all of his writings, from "Six Easy Pieces" to his freshman lectures all the way up to his published papers exhibit a clarity, simplicity, and sense of enthusiasm that is unmatched by just about any other technical writer out there. His less technical (i.e. more personal/humorous) stuff is also quite fun to read, and maybe a bit more palatable to people early in their educations, though I even think Six Easy Pieces is easy enough for kids just about to hit high school. In my opinion, he was the best person out there to really bring complex topics down to earth - I don't think any other physicist in his right mind would try to explain quantum electrodynamics at a level that doesn't even involve calculus, and it's really amazing to me that when all is said and done, he actually succeeds in giving it a fair (if not very detailed) treatment at a level where a mathematical person could just about generate the entire mathematical theory themselves but a lay person can at least grasp the basic idea.
Roger Penrose's recent physics tome, monstrous and threatening as it may be, was also quite a good read. I think it does an excellent job at proving that even the most complex of mathematical topics can be broken down into easy to digest pieces that actually have some good intuition behind them. Unfortunately, the damn book is so huge and the scope is so broad that it's a little bit threatening even to those with pretty good math backgrounds - definitely not one for the kids! But it is a step in the direction of simplicity in explanation, at least, good for someone interested in learning to explain things without complicating them to read.
We live in an era of anti-intellectualism. We all assume we know best about any field of expertise that is not ours.
Thusly, according to the derided parent post (moded insightful nonetheless) children would be better doing arithmetic by colours. Oh yeah, and the indo-arabic numeric system is boring. Well yeah, but it is the standard in all the civilized world, bare some tribes in Africa that do not need to count beyond 3.
So all the expertise of education specialists, teachers, etc. is wrong because you say so.
I showed the above comment to my mother, a retired teacher with 40 years teaching experience and several masters degrees in the education field, she told me if the poster would be happy to pay half his salary or more to educate one person in that way (irrespective of who would provide such kind of education, either fees or taxes, it makes no difference, she worked both in private and public schools, so I think she knows what she is talking about).
The education system has a tricky balance to play with limited resources (something the poster should have learned somewhere, but on his dreamland obviously resources, both material and human, seem to be limitless).
It is easy to use fluffy goody feely ideas that don't have to be encumbered with the harsh realities of budgets and competing interests (political, parental and even religious in some localities that do not know better). In that hazy world we can have a loving substitute parent that pampers the student to allow him to do what he wants, forgetting what he may need to know. But that is alright I suppose, in an era where parents do not have the moral fortitude to direct the childhood of their children it is to be expected that many people expect that "natural curiosity" will be the best educational guide....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
NO question it is a good book, but it is not something I would try to use to insitigate curiosity about science, if anything such a book would put off somebody undecided about the matter.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I am almost appalled that only one person has mentioned Cosmos.
Cosmos was a phenomenon on its day, it really beats me why on these days when every piece of crap that TV has splattered on us is repeated in one of the 500 channels we have on TV, but Cosmos is not seen as often (or maybe I have the wrong TV package, who knows). Perhaps the unashamed atheism of Carl Sagan has played some part in ostracizing his divulgation work, as far as I am concerned it should be obligatory material when introducing science into somebody's life. For bunnies sakes, my mates and I used to talk about Cosmos instead of football or the latest cartoon show.
Cosmos (the TV series) is engaging and talks to you assuming you are not knowledgeable about the topics at hand but without patronizing you, a very difficult feat, it introduces you to complex subjects (Newtonian physics, planetary movement laws, relativity theory) with ease.
Going even further back in time I would say the "Ascent of Man" and "Civilization" would also make great contributions.
I grew up with documentaries as well (on commercial TV mind you, when the original owners of TV companies understood that they had a social responsibility) where people like Jacques Cousteau would introduce you to biological sciences in the best way there is: watching the beasties.
Although some may mention Discovery Channel and such, they have fallen well below the standards they originally have, I would have recommended them some years ago, but not now that they mix genuine good documentaries with complete nonsense.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Comments were already made concerning people versus books as being influential.
However, books can help promote and further one's interest in science if one gains some bit of interest. SciFi can help a great deal but it's a double edged sword. Star Trek influenced a generation, according to some. There's a history channel program about how william shatner changed the world that includes interviews of many examples where people were influenced to think and invent some of the staples of our modern technological society. The flip side is that I think star trek helped create a lack of interest in our space program - how can going to the moon compare to traveling to the stars?
That said, for the more mature and interested budding scientist or engineer, Dava Sobel's book "Longitude" is quite the fascinating read. Her other book has never enticed me to continue reading past chapter one so I can't comment on it. Another book that has some fascinating things to learn is "The Measure of All Things". Note there is another by an almost identical name which I've not read as well. The first is the struggle to establish reliable longitude measurement, a key nautical consideration. The second is an attempt to measure the length of the prime meridian and establish the length of the meter - where the notions of scientist versus savant and accuracy versus resolution are presented.
As an U.S. state education consultant who has experienced the frustration of trying to get middle level students to write about ANYTHING, let me offer the following titles for help: Robb, Laura (2003). Teaching Reading in Social Studies, Science, and Math. New York: Scholastic. Jacobs, Heidi Hayes (2006). Active Literacy Across the Curriculum. Larchmont, NY:Eye on Education. Kaplan, Andrew, et.al.(1998). Math on Call: A Mathematics Handbook. Wilmington, MA:Great Source Education Group. Burns, Marilyn (1995). Writing in Math Class: A Resource for Grades 2-8. Sausalito, CA: Math Solutions Publications. Harvey, S.& Goudvis, A.(2000). Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding. Portalnd, ME: Stenhouse Publishers. The trick is to hook them in with what they already know - what is of interest in the popular culture, and take them from there.
Ah, such arrogance. Must be a university student. I'm a Canadian, and I'll start by quoting Kungfu Tze (Confucius, born about 551 B.C), so I guess that just blows away your '8th century poetry' idiotic comment. "The journey of a thousand 'ri' begins with a single step" (rough translation). I can provide it for you in French and Japanese if you like (I converse in 3 languages, and have studied several others) (and I can quote the Analects and various other 'classics' of Asia. You make a typical racist remark that "Chinese" education is somehow 'better'. I have a job that involves (several) human languages, computers, science, etc. I'm fairly certain I could teach you a few things about "Asian" history, culture, etc. (having lived in Asia for a few years), including Chinese. All you have demonstrated is that your education included racist ideas that your 'Chinese' education is somehow 'superior'. Science fiction is absolutely an incredible literary treasure of ideas, imagination, creativity, etc. So, tell me about some science fiction written by Chinese authors? As you (probably) already know, there is an abundance of 'poetry' in both English and Chinese. Let's compare the imaginative/creative scifi/fantasy genre, shall we? In short, too bad we can't meet so I could blow away all of that racist thinking that has been planted in your brain by your 'education' system.
I can totally recommend Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything". Not only a good introduction to an enormous number of scientific fields, but also backed with a huge list of the reference material.
Zig Ziglar wrote a book about this very topic. Sorry but I am not at home just now to check the title. It was full of good writing examples from many different fields of science. One I remember off the top of my head was "Silent Spring." I'll try to find the name of the book and post it later.
There were no books or movies that turned me on to math; for me it was
simply wanting to do better at the things I needed to do better ---
and a bunch of people who told me I'd never be good at math, however I
advise against applying that approach generally.
What I have found to be generally good at getting people interested is
the history of mathematics: there are some really good dramatic
stories in there. Consider Evariste Galois, who was killed in a duel
with a political rival (although something much more interesting to
adolescents was actually involved). Before he was killed, he was
busily getting rejected from every academy in France, much to the
dismay of his mentor Liouville. Liouville helped to preserve his
memory by publishing much of his work, and I've heard it said that
Galois laid the groundwork for over 500 years of mathematics. Pretty
freakin' cool.
Also, as already suggested, Lewis Carroll's (mathematician and
photographer Charles Dodgson) books are riddled with logic puzzles.
You're not doomed.
Joel
I'm a Software Developer. My parents never talked about Math or Science to me, they didn't read to me much either. However, I think I have a very creative mind and I love to do many things in the arts. Such as playing music, writing stories, and creating my own desktop wallpapers using photos and the like. When I was young there was a television show that aired on Discovery early Saturday mornings called Movie Magic. The show was about movie special effects: blue screens, CGI, motion capture, ect. I watched that show like it was my religion and it defiantly gave me a huge interest in computers and software. Later I determined that using software someone else made to do all that didn't appeal to me; I really wanted to make that software. I was lucky that I found something that could combine my artistic and creative talents with science and math. The truth is you can't get every kid interested in science and mathematics. There are a few out there that you can steer, find those kids and give them all the information you can about what kind of life they can have.
All I can say is that I loved science fiction when I was a child. Whenever some scientist (mad or otherwise) was in a movie or show, surrounded by all sorts of cool lightning bolts flashing aroudn the room and beakers of chemicals boiling away, I always said, "I want to be him." Whenever my parents asked what I wanted for birthday or Christmas, I always said "Scientific stuff." I eventually graduated from college in Electrical Engineering. Of course, the science in science fiction is, to put it mildly, not the most accurate source of information, but is can certainly spark the imagination and curiousity. Incidentally, another idea is to expose the children to toys that might spark a curiousity, such as chemistry sets, erector set (do they still have those?), microscopes, telescopes, "fun with science" type kits, etc.
All excellent communicators on top of being scientists.
Specifically, Gould's Natural History columns are often short and intriguing investigations into history of science.
The Feynman lectures are very accessible to high school and even motivated junior high students. He approaches physics from a conceptual viewpoints and does not get bogged down in the maths.
Sagan's many video works certainly impacted a sense of wonder and a view of our place in the univers.
"Flatland" stimulates mind stretching shifts in perspectives.
All fertile departure points for more in depth explorations in classes.
Another vote for any of the Mr Thompson stories by George Gamow. In fact, any of the books by George Gamow are good for 8th graders.
Also:
"Never Cry Wolf" by Farley Mowat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farley_Mowat
"Dune" by Frank Herbert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Herbert
"My Side of the Mountain" by Jean George http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Side_of_the_Mountain
"Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatchet_(novel)
My grade school experience with math was not good. It became my least favorite subject. Just the same, I can remember several influences that drew me to the subject. I read _Men of Mathematics_ by E. T. Bell. I saw the movie about Jaime Escalante, who taught calc to kids in some poor area in California. Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column in Scientific American had a strong influence. _One, Two, Three, Infinity_ and _How to Lie with Statistics_. The tone of a lot of the science fiction I read as a kid - Heinlein and Niven - was favorable toward math and I picked up on that. I liked my geometry teacher in HS. Those are the things that come immediately to mind.
Best wishes, Rogers George
The first childhood books I read over & over (mom taught me to read at 4) were collections: Aesop, the Brother's Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson. All morality tales, but giving great lessons if you cared to take them in.
Later I took up science fiction (real skiffy, not dragons & whatnot) which fed my appetite for what might be possible, and more importantly kept me reading.
Along the way I picked up Roald Dahl, Madeline L'Engle, and many other wonderful writers.
Being dragged along as "chaperone" for my teen-aged aunt to go see a movie with her boyfriend (I was then seven) led me to 2001. Not understanding the movie, I looked for the book, which had not yet been written (it was created as a screenplay, not converted from any earlier novel). Instead found The City & The Stars, set a half million years in the future, and in which the first chapter mentions a machine that was totally electronic, with "no moving parts." Reading about such a distant time at such an early age has definitely warped my sense of time.
In high school, my trig teacher turned me on to "Flatland" by Edwin Abbot. Written in the mid 1860's, it definitely has a Victorian slant to it (it's a 2-d world, where the more segments you have the higher in society you are. So isosceles triangles are workers, squares middle-class, circles priests. Of course all women are lines...), but is still a story against discrimination. Again, it kept me thinking, and reading. Another one that teacher recommended was "Innumeracy" by John Allen Paulos. Whether or not you're a math student, it's very informative & entertaining.
For general essays on almost any subject under the sun, Issac Asimov can't be beat. His non-fiction works are just as well-written and interesting as his scads of skiffy tales. Beginning his professional career as a chemist, he had a knack for explaining even the most complex subject in an easy to understand style.
As everyone's tastes vary, some will turn to reading fiction, some historical accounts, some textbooks. Even if some of your students don't write as much, the important thing is to keep reading. It stimulates the mind, and adds to the store of self-knowledge that helps make everyone unique.
Encouraging and incorporating a science-based slant into your student's writing will be trickier. Alas, some will not be interested in writing at all, and that's not something you can really force. The best you can do is show them some science or math, ask them to show how they feel about what they've read, and what it makes them think about, and wait for results.
You could also enlist the student's aid by involving them in choosing a book that the entire class will read. Giving them a part in the selecting process will help keep them interested in the project. The choices can come from a book that a particular student has already discovered, something you may have run across or heard about; anywhere, really.
Good luck!
I loved the SW/Dune series up through Jr High, but grew to love Ayn Rand, Nabokov, and Orwell in HS. The intergallatic obsessions never fade away: what is up with Teg's Mentat skills in Sandworms of Dune?! GRRR B.H.!
I am an English as a second language teacher and I have used Zinsser's books in class in the past and the children respond positively to the work. If I can be of any help, drop me a message.
Please ignore my earlier post- too much work fried my brain.
My parents encouraged reading from the day we were able to (sort of) hold a book, and sci fi was extremely prevalent throughout my formative years. I continued in this pattern with my sons and see the same interests and patterns. Star Trek and its forebears, along with the rest of the genre, was a huge influence in fostering a desire to improve the world around us. My sons and my nieces and nephews are following right along with what my parents began. I can only stress one thing - PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT is critical and absolutely essential - I went to far too many Open Houses and PTA Meetings where parents were too busy or too lazy to attend. I was an INVOLVED parent and it shows in my now adult sons. I made some real sacrifices to be there, but it was the single most important thing I could have done for my sons and for the future of our world.