… & I promise to write something more substantial in the next day or so, I just need to get the marking & committee work behind me! In the meantime – & using the word ‘theory’ rather loosely! – I offer you this: With many thanks to Dan Piraro at www.bizarrocomics.com
Continue readingYear: 2011
some thoughts on ‘looking ahead’
I’ve had a most enjoyable, and thought-provoking, discussion with a teacher friend of mine about the ideas & proposals contained in Looking ahead: science education for the 21st century. We both felt that the report is a provocative basis for discussion of what our science education system should look like (& indeed Sir Peter Gluckman described it […]
Continue readinglooking ahead: science education for the 21st century
Last October I wrote about Inspired by Science, a document commissioned by the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor with the aim of "[encouraging’ debate on how better to engage students with science". The paper had a particular focus on science education in primary and secondary schools and also asked "whether there is an increasing mismatch between science education […]
Continue readingto the ridiculous (answersingenesis)…
The internet is a strange place – not least because it makes easier to stumble across such strange juxtapositions as PZ’s sublime posting on killling and a strange and ridiculous piece by AIG (Answers in Genesis) that lays the blame for the Noachian flood on earthquakes (& I have to thank Ted for pointing me at the […]
Continue readingfrom the sublime (pz myers)…
This is not exactly biology, but nonetheless – over on Pharyngula, PZ Myers has written an eloquent and moving post on why applying shades of grey to ‘black-&-white’ issues may be doing us all a disservice: But sometimes the issues are black and white. Sometimes the answers are clear and absolute. And in those cases, […]
Continue readingscience education for the 21st century – an update
For those keen on attending (via the KAREN network or another provider) next week’s launch of Looking ahead: science education for the 21st century, here are the latest details on where & how to join the ‘virtual’ audience: Teachers can participate in the seminar in three ways. 1. Via Satellite Television, combined with the livechat which requires […]
Continue readingbullying – it’s everyone’s problem
Most of us will have seen still and video images of a disturbing, violent assaut by one Wanganui schoolgirl on another. (And maybe some have wondered, as I did, whether we really needed to see that footage again. And again. And again.) It was a horrible act and one that has been deservedly condemned. What […]
Continue readinginspired by science – the next stage
Last year the NZ Council for Education Research published Inspired by Science (Bull et al. 2010) – a discussion paper intended to promote debate about the future of science education in this country. I found it an interesting paper, although I also thought that it didn’t really address some issues (funding, for example, or the fact that […]
Continue readingmy mother said…
… not to put beans in your ears. But in the case of our fruit-loop of a burmese cat, Fidget, the operative word should have been ‘blowflies’.
Continue readingcan ducks count?
I’m beginning to think there should be 36 hours in a day – I might be able to catch up with things then! Anyway, I was talking with a colleague this evening about a seminar he’d just done with his MSc students, & he said he’d begun with ‘that duck paper’ as it was a […]
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