The Chicken and the Egg

Imagine a kitchen counter with freshly baked, crusty French bread, sun-ripening tomatoes, a small potted basil plant, and a bowl of eggs.  Wait, eggs?  This is the United States.  We don’t do that here.  We keep our squeaky clean and bright white eggs neatly packaged in their twelve cardboard cups on the top shelf of our fridges.  Brown or speckled eggs left at room temperature in the open air?  Inconceivable.  And don’t get me started on dirty eggs.  That fresh-from-the-chicken look is soooo rural Europe.

A recent story on NPR about egg-chilling and washing practices has left me questioning our routine – and the role of science and technology in our everyday lives.  Maybe we should back off a little and let mother nature have her way?  Let me explain…

We wash the protective layer from eggs as soon as they’re collected, causing them to be the marketable classic clean white.  This also means that the porous egg shell is open to the air, and bacteria can get in pretty easily.  Our solution?  Toss them in the refrigerator.  They’ll be just fine.  And they are.

But… we could skip the need for refrigeration from chicken to skillet by not washing our eggs.  There are definitely better and worse washing methods as well, but that’s not important here.  My argument is that this is one of many instances when modifying nature (simply because we have the knowledge and technology) isn’t necessarily the best option.  In a world with increasing energy needs and decreasing energy stores, issues like these aren’t trivial.  We can save the western medicine and government subsidized food arguments for a later date…

Where’s the STEM in a Chanel fashion show?

I’ve been in the mood to sew and ran across this gem the other day:

“Like home economics, dressmaking is a traditionally womanly endeavor that can explode gender stereotypes. Scientists say that the average man has a better capacity to imagine a three-dimensional object than the average woman, but how can this be true of the dressmaker starting from scratch? She not only imagines the dress, she also makes a blueprint of the pieces to achieve the shape she wants and figures out the steps to put the whole thing together. Dressmaking is a form of engineering. And in order to make the final product look good from the outside, a dress is put together inside out. Show me a bridge builder who’s been asked to do that.”
~ Linda Przybyszewski

Then I found this video that details the procedures involved in a Chanel fashion show.  It’s all about making STEM practical and valuable for everybody, even (especially?) the boys and girls who feel like fashion is their calling.

We Look Amazing in These Gowns

I need to be friends with some speech writers…
Commencement 2014 season produced some gems 🙂

Here’s a list:
http://www.graduationwisdom.com/speeches/2014-commencement-speakers-graduation-list-announced.htm

Happy Friday! Enjoy the words of some of the most brilliant and successful (and sometimes controversial) minds on the planet.
If you get bored with this years’ speeches, NPR has a list of the best ones since 1774. That should keep you busy for a bit:
http://apps.npr.org/commencement/

Time Lapse Supercell in Wyoming

Who needs CG when nature gives you *this*?

I’d like to put in my official resignation. Instead of doing this whole Ph.D. thing, I’m going to spend the summer chasing tornadoes through the plains of the U.S. This has been a dream of mine since I was very young. Tornado alley, here I come!

(I wish. But totally a bucket list item, yes?)

Tyler Hicks *deserves* his Pulitzer

Yesterday, I had the good fortune of stumbling upon Tyler Hicks’ interview on Fresh Air (NPR). As I checked off my errands list and drove from one side of town to the other, I started to feel like a busy ant – always scurrying and hurrying, but for what?  Why am I doing all of these things?  What meaning do I bring to the world? (Yes. I’m thinking about changing my career path. Again.)

His story was so powerful that I found myself sitting in the grocery store parking lot for the last half hour.  I just couldn’t bring myself to turn off the car and head inside.  I had to finish.  I was hanging on every word.

So, I sat in my car and was close to tears as I heard about his friends’ deaths and how his annual trips to the Middle East are getting more and more difficult.  I am in awe of this man and of those like him.  I don’t exactly want to be him (how would that even happen? tryouts?),  but I would love to be his friend.  He could really put my daily conflicts and hassles into perspective.  “Do you have clean water, some food, and no guns against your head? Yes?  Then you’re going to be just fine.”

I hope you connect with the interview as much as I did.

Happy Friday, internet.  May we all go into the weekend a little more grateful and with a little more perspective.

Big Bang Theory

I mean the recent Physics discovery, not the popular television show.

I was going to draft a well-written, well-researched, humorous but informative blog post about the amazing discovery.  Then I realized that the geniuses over at PhD Comics already did that.  Here’s a serious video and then their impressively down-to-Earth (get it?!) comic about the topic.

Science is awesome.  I wonder if Neil deGrasse Tyson will mention this on Cosmos?

Big Bang Gravitational Waves Discovered – video

Cosmic Inflation Explained – comic

NPR’s Planet Money published a story today that compares household income during childhood and job choice during adulthood.  Based on the National Longitudinal Study/Bureau of Labor Statistics data, these graphs introduce some thought provoking trends from 1979 to 2010.

The first graph shows the most likely professions for children (now adults) who grew up in each income band.  Unsurprisingly, growing up in a household with more money correlates with careers like lawyers and judges, financial analysts and advisors, and physical, life, and social scientists – and those who grew up with less money became janitors, maids, truck drivers, and food preparation workers.

The second graph is where things get interesting.  Doctors, dentists, surgeons, and chief executives take their expected place at the top, but why do police officers, fire fighters, and nurses have such an increase over their parents’ income?  I’d call the underlying explanation “accessibility of profession”.  How likely is it that children from a lower income bracket can enter into this profession – and earn more money than their parents?  The jobs at the top of this list are exactly those.

On another note, physical, life, and social scientists  don’t demonstrate a large increase in second-generation income, but this could be because these people start at a higher income level – as the first graph illustrates.  At least we’re stable.  I’ll have to be content.

The third graph compares adults with each profession  to their parents’ income levels.  I am intrigued by the blue dots – especially those in the lower income bands, i.e. nurses, police officers, and teachers.  Since our economy cannot support everybody working as doctors, lawyers, scientists, and engineers, maybe these fields are where we should be focusing our energy as educators?  This might be a leap, but I’m going to see what the sociological literature has to say about it.  I’ll report back later.

Until then, join me in mourning for the country’s designers, musicians, and artists.

“Let Kids Fail!”

James Dyson, inventor of the well-known vacuum brand, talks about how failures are important to learning in an interview on ScienceFriday.  I love his view and am interested in how this translates to K-16 classrooms.  If you don’t have time to listen to all ~17 minutes, listen to the clip between 4:14 and 4:52.  This quote sums up his position:

“In life, you don’t have the right answers available all the time.  You have to work them out.  So I would actually mark children by the number of mistakes they make because they’ve experienced failure and learned from it.  Whereas the brilliant child who gets it right the first time because they remembered the answer isn’t necessarily the one who is going to change the world or succeed in life.”

Curriculum developers are also interested in this idea.  The Museum of Science in Boston has created an entire engineering curriculum for grades 1-8.  One of the ideas is “testing to failure”, i.e. adding weight to a bridge until it fails.  Failure is acceptable, and even needed, in this view in order to understand the design and materials – and to build a better bridge the next time.

We need to give up our idea of “right answers”, producing high-stakes testing outcomes.  From Charlotte Sanford Mason’s review of Yong Zhao’s books:

“…schools’ increasing reliance on standards, guidelines, assessment and evaluation is antithetical to producing creative, risk-taking entrepreneurs. He equates rates of “perceived entrepreneurial capacity” with numbers of patents and patent applications. Then, by comparing high scores on international tests, such as PISA and TIMSS, with the number of patents and patent applications in various countries, he establishes an inverse relationship between the two. He concludes, for example, that students from Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan achieve high-test scores, but produce low rates of entrepreneurship; students from the U.S., Australia, and the U.K. achieve middling test scores, but produce high numbers of entrepreneurs. He believes that support for entrepreneurship is exemplified in education that presents students with cross-disciplinary approaches, uses interactive pedagogy, and encourages creativity, critical thinking, and innovation.  These elements are found in all good schools in the U.S., according to Zhao, and reflect our national character.”

Here’s to a generation of American students who can get me the flying skateboards that Back to the Future Part II promised… for 2015.

‘The Expert’ at Penn State Abington predicts Oscar winners

‘The Expert’ at Penn State Abington predicts Oscar winners

I’m a big fan of following your dreams and being the best you can be in whatever area you choose.  Some say that one of the key parts of being human is having culture – and art plays a big role in culture.  Penn State Abington professor emeritus of integrative arts, Moylan C. Mills, has chosen to dedicate his life to studying film, theater, opera and popular culture.  I admire his decision and am a little jealous (how fun does that sound?!).   It’s easy to forget, living in our University silos, that there is more to the world than the current project/thesis/dissertation/paper/etc. and that other people in different fields are doing great work, too.  Of course, I wouldn’t exactly define the Oscars as obscure, but you get the drift.

The nominees have been released, and experts around the country, including Dr. Mills in this link, are predicting the winners. I’m making a (totally non-expert and mostly random guessing) list of my winners in a few categories here.  I’ll revisit in March and see who won: me or Dr. Mills.  I hope you get a chance to relax and take part in an American cultural tradition on Sunday, March 2nd.

• Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave (emotional period piece? Classic Oscar)
• Actor in a leading role: Leonardo DiCaprio (because he should at least have at least one win in his fabulous career!)
• Actress in a leading role: Amy Adams (red heads unite)
• Actor in a supporting role: Barkhad Abdi (root for the underdog)
• Actress in a supporting role: Sally Hawkins (though I’ll always be a Jennifer Lawrence fan)
• Animated feature film: Ernest & Celestine (loving the art style)
• Directing: Alfonso Cuaron (for that scene in Gravity)

Looking forward to watching all of the movies that I haven’t seen yet, especially in the Documentary, Foreign Film, Animated Short, and Live Action Short categories.  I know Catching Fire wasn’t nominated… but if you’re playing along, “may the odds be ever in your favor”.

A Little Sunday Pick-Me-Up starring vulnerability, failure, and imagination

Like many graduate students, I’ve recently been presented with choices that will certainly define my near future and most likely determine my life path.
What would I choose to research if I had absolute free reign (and reasonable resources)?
How long do I want to stay in school/What is the optimum ratio of time spent in school to benefits received?
When will I finally get to be a “big girl”?

Being the person that I am, I decided to spend a lot of time on TED talks looking for inspiration from people “like me”, meaning that many have similar educational backgrounds and an open world in front of them.  It also refers to my bucket list: one item is to be invited to give a TED talk.  It’s right below “visit Machu Picchu” and above “scuba dive with sharks”.  A girl can dream.

I’d like to share what I found.
First is Brene Brown’s talk about vulnerability.  For anybody who is having difficulty deciding how to put one foot in front of the other, her talk is freeing.  Instead of talking ourselves out of being our best self, she encourages us to be our biggest fans, embracing the vulnerability that comes with stepping outside of the lines.  Whatever those lines might mean for us.  Her talks will leave you with a sense of belonging, that you are not the only person who is experiencing doubt and questioning your worth and worthiness.  If TED talkers, some of the brightest and most influential people on the planet, go through this, then it’s not a big deal if we do too.  In fact, it is what makes us better people.

Similarly, I found J.K. Rowling’s 1998 Harvard Commencement Address.  Anybody who knows anything about her story also knows that she is one of the most inspiring people on the planet – that it is possible to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of life. Don’t confuse her, though, because there is no wallowing here.  She warns that there is an expiration date on how long you can blame your parents or circumstances for your outcomes.  Her speech is uplifting and refocuses the conversation from “how can I check the boxes to be most successful?” to “how can I have a life of meaning?”.  A few of my favorite excerpts of her speech from the text version:

“You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.”

“…written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.”

And the most powerful of all, from the lady who experienced and created Dementors:

“If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”

Now I have even more to think about, but that’s alright because I’m not alone.  If your head is foggy like mine (and this northeastern weather!), I hope that these brilliant minds help to part it – for a little while at least.