Lab Out Loud

This week we talk with Vivek Wadhwa, columnist for Business Week, Wertheim Fellow at the Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University. Wadhwa will be discussing his recent article (The Science Education Myth) regarding science education in the United States. Quotes from the show: “It’s commonly accepted that the U.S. is falling behind other countries because our children score badly on math and science test scores and so on. The National Academies has sited this data; the President alluded to it in his last State of the Union address in 2006, the U.S. Department of Education talks about it. Everyone seems to accept the fact that the U.S. is falling behind and there is something wrong with our education system...I had a suspicion this was wrong.? “We actually added up the numbers, and we found that the U.S. graduates a comparable number [engineers] to India, and the Chinese numbers are bogus. Basically they’re published from the Chin

This week we talk with Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the science payload on the Mars Exploration Rover Project, & Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Preview from the show: "We have been so incredibly lucky with this mission. I mean, to have that dead wheel, which we thought was a catastrophe at the time, turn up one of the most exciting discoveries of the mission, was very good fortune." "The next big thing, at least in mars exploration, along with the continuing adventures of the rovers, is a mission called Phoenix. And Phoenix is a lander mission that's going to land near the north polar region of mars, and is going to dig down into the soil there, hope to find ice and then, scoop up some of that ice, and put it into a little chemistry set on top of the lander, and find out what's inside of that ice." "What we've tried to do is provide images, provide curriculum materials, and provide information for educators as we go. And I think that's actually the be

Dr. Sean B. Carroll (Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics and an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin) talks to us about evolution, his new project, and science literacy. Preview from the show: "What I am very convinced of, from all sorts of experiences of trying to communicate science, is that storytelling is a really valuable ingredient of that. And I don't mean storytelling in sort of a simplistic way, but just engaging the audience, whether they are students or teachers or laypersons, with the drama of scientific exploration, scientific discovery, even scientific debate. Because it's pretty darn common that when scientists find something new, something unexpected, there's a wrestling match for a while, figuring out whether a new view is emerging, or whether someone else is off base. And all of this is a very human enterprise - there's a whole lot of human nature in the game of science." -Sean B. Carroll, discussing a textbook a

Meet the hosts of NSTA's Lab Out Loud podcast - Dale Basler and Brian Bartel.  Later, we chat with NSTA Executive Director Gerry Wheeler, as he reflects on Sputnik and its impact on science education,  the importance of science literacy and 21st century skills, and how NSTA is helping science teachers both young and old. WSST The Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers WSST's Periodicity Gerry Wheeler Reflects on Sputnik: When Science Suddenly Mattered, in Space and in Class (NY Times) Sputnik Left Legacy  for U.S. Science Education (NPR) Sputnik heralded space race, focus on learning (USA Today) Science: Sputnik Redux (Edutopia) Visit NSTA's new website at www.nsta.org NSTA's New Science Teacher Academy With support from The Amgen Foundation, the program will support new middle and secondary school science educators by providing opportunities for professional development such as online mentoring and financial support to attend NSTA’s national conference. N