This article and the Science article its based on are only looking at ethanol. Saying biofuel is a bit deceptive. Ethanol takes corn/switchgrass/cane and makes the food part into fuel. Biodiesel takes soy/rape seed/bacon drippings oil and makes it into fuel, keeping the actual food for either human or animal consumption. This has a very different effect on land use and food prices. This is the technology that Europe is now pushing, partly because it is a better fuel (you can put it in any diesel car) and because Europe never moved away from diesel to gas.
Yes, hands-on is one of the few ways that a tech solution is better. You can get tons of activities out of a room full of computers, while you would otherwise spend thousands of dollars per activity. This fact may not matter to Universities, but to High Schools it's a HUGE deal. Many of the best things around now are web-based, so you can grab a bunch of machines your school is getting rid of, put Xubuntu on them (so you won't have to worry about Windows 2000 bugs) and get going for free.
I've used U of Colorado's Phyiscs Education Technology site with groups of honors university students and 6th graders. It works well with both. The guys who made the site even claim that in some situations, students learn more content using controlled, well designed web-based activities that students can show off at home than they would using a bunch of rusty old crap that was donated in the 60s.
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This article and the Science article its based on are only looking at ethanol. Saying biofuel is a bit deceptive. Ethanol takes corn/switchgrass/cane and makes the food part into fuel. Biodiesel takes soy/rape seed/bacon drippings oil and makes it into fuel, keeping the actual food for either human or animal consumption. This has a very different effect on land use and food prices. This is the technology that Europe is now pushing, partly because it is a better fuel (you can put it in any diesel car) and because Europe never moved away from diesel to gas.
Let's also remember that less than 1% of the energy in the gas is used to accelerate the driver. This energy density is near that of liquid H2!
Yes, hands-on is one of the few ways that a tech solution is better. You can get tons of activities out of a room full of computers, while you would otherwise spend thousands of dollars per activity. This fact may not matter to Universities, but to High Schools it's a HUGE deal. Many of the best things around now are web-based, so you can grab a bunch of machines your school is getting rid of, put Xubuntu on them (so you won't have to worry about Windows 2000 bugs) and get going for free. I've used U of Colorado's Phyiscs Education Technology site with groups of honors university students and 6th graders. It works well with both. The guys who made the site even claim that in some situations, students learn more content using controlled, well designed web-based activities that students can show off at home than they would using a bunch of rusty old crap that was donated in the 60s.