An Animated Open Letter to President Obama on the State of Science Education

[babylonsister]

This is AWESOME!


http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/11/13/minutephysics-open-letter-to-obama/

An Animated Open Letter to President Obama on the State of Science Education
by Maria Popova

Reigniting the spark of physics in an education ethos stuck 150 years in the past.

Many of us living in the United States have recently taken a massive exhale at the triumphant news of four more years of sanity and progress. But it isn’t all unicorns and rainbows for President Obama, who will have to address some serious challenges. The fine folks of MinutePhysics — who have previously explained why the color pink doesn’t exist, why the past is different from the future, and why it’s dark at night — have zoomed in one of them in this animated open letter to the President, addressing an astonishing gap in physics education: Namely, the fact that most high school curricula cover none of the physics breakthroughs that have taken place in the past 150 years, including “the topic of every single Nobel Prize in physics since…always.” MinutePhysics advises the President to take a cue from Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and Neil deGrasse Tyson — men “committed 100% to the dissemination of the awesomeness of the universe” — and reignite the educational spark of physics.

[octoberlib]

1. K&R!

[EmeraldCityGrl]

2. Awesome!

[longship]

3. Very awesome!

The reason I went into physics is because I was taught physics by Roger Parish at Cooley High School in Detroit. He was great and brought the excitement that I was later to learn was what set aside Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and Neil Tyson.

A good little video. Click it!
R&

[babylonsister]

4. I know nothing about physics, but this video made it sound

worth knowing about!

[longship]

5. I can recommend a book.

It is not a physics book, but it was written by one of the twentieth centuries greatest physicists, and a truly wonderful teacher. It is autobiographical and truly fun read, even if you know jack shit about physics. It does give a look into the type of person who may like physics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You're_Joking,_Mr._Feynman!

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman is a collection of anecdotes by the very mischievous genius, Nobel laureate Richard Feynman. My mother always loved that book, and she knew bupkiss about physics. (Of course, I turned her on to it just as she turned me onto the importance of reading in my early life.)

Available in paperback, and it's cheap.

[Xyzse]

6. I Loved Physics.

Not that I was any good at it... But loved it regardless.

In regards to science, the reason it becomes so hard is because it isn't made interesting.
When kids, get taught just the basics, they do not get the relationships between real life, application and in so doing, makes it boring.

It sucks, but the only reason I was able to play with lasers in high school was because I was in AP Physics, which allowed me to play around with optics, how light bends and so forth.

A lot of people did not get to experience playing around with a speedometer either, and how it shows that when a person walks it is not at a constant speed. Although, I kinda did freak out the teacher for being able to do that by doing a shuffling, low center of gravity step.

I enjoyed learning the Millikan experiments, and playing with it using the handy dandy Ti-82 at the time.

I guess, all I'm saying is, unless the way things are taught changes. Where they don't concentrate on just a test, but actually instill the wonder of science instead. It just makes things harder.

The idea is, if something becomes interesting, no matter how hard it is, a student will more likely try to learn more about the topic and improve. Which is why I still think Bush's No Child Left Behind was the single worst thing that could have happened to education in this country.