Education – Page 3 – Southern Fried Science

Try your hand at celestial navigation with an open-source, Glowforge-ready astrolabe!

March 28, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Education

I have a bit of a soft spot for classic navigational instruments. In an age where more people interact with maps than ever before and yet spend much less time plotting their own course, being able to look up at the sky and discern your place in the world is a powerful skill. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly easy to make your own navigational instruments. Unless, of course, you have your own laser cutter.

I recently got a Glowforge, so honestly, you should have seen this coming.

Say hello to the Mariner’s Astrolabe!

This month’s 3D printed reward is a megalodon tooth! Here are 5 things to know about megalodon.

March 14, 2018March 13, 2018 David Shiffman

Education, Science

I recently unveiled a new tier of Patreon rewards: 3D printed shark and ray models! For $17 per month, you will get a monthly 3D printed educational model of different shark or ray parts in the mail, and you’ll be supporting my efforts to provide these models to schools for free.

The first month’s reward comes from one of the most (in)famous sharks of all time, Carcharocles megalodon! The first 3D printed Patreon reward is a meg tooth, an exact copy of the meg tooth that has been used to educate thousands of students at UBC’s Beaty Biodiversity Museum!

Here are some things to know about Carcharocles megalodon!

6 Essential Tips for the 3D Printing Newbie.

January 23, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Education

If you’re like me, you’ve probably been enjoying watching David Shiffman and Craig McClain take their first steps into 3D printing. For a small subset of people, small consumer 3D printers can be an incredibly useful tool, for a larger subset, 3D printing has fantastic teaching applications, but for most enthusiasts, it’s a fun hobby. Fortunately, the 3D printing hype train has slowed down in the last few years and it is now much easier to separate the wheat from the chaff and drill down into the applications where 3D printing really shines.

3D printers are fairly inexpensive now. You can get a pretty okay 3D printer like the Monoprice Mini (which we used at various hack-a-thons and maker events) for around $220 USD on Amazon. I’ve worked a bit with that particular printer and it’s good. It won’t blow you away but it will do everything you’d expect a solid 3D printer to do. My in house machine is a Printrbot Simple Metal, which has since been replaced by the Simple Pro. It’s not the cheapest one out there, but it’s an absolute beast, taking all the abuse I can throw at it. It’s even been to sea.

Gills Club Shark Tales: An online and in-person sharkstravaganza 19-20 September at NEAQ!

September 13, 2017September 20, 2017 Michelle Jewell 2 Comments

Education, Uncategorized

Note: This post has been updated on 18 September 2017.

Friends, Researchers, Countrywomen, lend me your ears!

The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy and New England Aquarium are hosting a completely free two-day event, 19-20 September, featuring an amazing line-up of shark scientists and enthusiasts, including:

Keynote Speakers:

Susan Goldberg – Editor in Chief of National Geographic Magazine

Wendy Benchley – Renowned global voice for shark protection and co-founder of the prestigious Peter Benchley Ocean Awards.

Gills Club Science Team Speakers:
Dr. Michelle Heupel – Australian Institute of Marine Science
Dr. Alison Kock – South African National Parks

What makes high school girls love sharks but avoid science

July 25, 2017 Michelle Jewell

Education, Uncategorized

A shortened – and less ribald – version of this post was published 24-07-2017 in the International Business Times.

Ah, the transition from middle school to high school… the one part of adolescence no one reminisces about fondly. It’s the time in our lives where mental and physical changes happen at pace without any apparent continuity, and we feel compelled to blend in. This is the same time when most young girls’ interest in STEM stops, and in my educator/zoologist opinion, these events are related.

What does our culture gear teenage girls to prioritize? Making varsity teams, growing boobs to the correct size and at the correct time, and completing enough social jostling to earn the superhuman prom date. Most of the STEM-geared young girls I have worked with couldn’t care less about the above – but the attitude of their peers changes by the end of 8^th grade.

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Students of both sexes in 6^th grade will happily discuss how rainbows are made and share their mutual wonder if the natural world, but those conversations quickly become “immature” when the puberty plague takes hold. It’s also in 8^th grade when boys enter a race to the bottom of inappropriate jokes fueled by mutual insecurities. Suddenly, STEM-interested pupils find that their friends are segregating, fashion forward girls to one side and crude boys to the other, leaving a handful who want to discuss the space/time continuum floundering somewhere in the middle.

Then, regardless of where you sit on the social divide, hormones kick in. This critical time is when young people figure out how to create partnerships, what constitutes a good or bad relationship, and the physics of copulation. In addition to this, obtaining a socially higher-ranking partner becomes an unconscious priority. Guess what most young men think is unattractive in women? Intelligence (unless you’re beautiful enough to compensate). YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY.

The Worlds First Empirical ‘How-To’ Get Into Graduate School Book

December 15, 2016 Kersey Sturdivant

Academic life, Education

Many years ago as a graduate student at the College of William & Mary, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, my former officemate (Noelle Relles) and I came up with a novel idea: take all the disparate information out there about strategies for getting into graduate school in the natural sciences and coalesce them into a single concise yet comprehensive text. Essentially develop a How-To book about graduate school. But we wanted the book to be more than just instructional anecdotes. We were scientist, and thought it would be useful to add a level of empiricism to the book. We wanted to write a How-To book where the conclusion were driven by results from a national survey of graduate admissions offices in the USA. At the time, writing a book based on a national survey of graduate programs seemed like quite a long-shot as we were both a number of years removed from getting our PhDs, and the most pressing issues in our lives at that time were graduating and finding free food and alcohol.

Living the life of a graduate student at VIMS’ infamous Fall Party. (Photo credit: Kersey Sturdivant)

Now, More Than Ever, America Needs an Ambassador for the Deep Sea.

November 25, 2016 Andrew Thaler

Conservation, Education

That ambassador is Bathynomus giganteus, the giant, deep-sea isopod.

A giant deep sea isopod on the sea floor. Photo via NOAA Photobank.

Conservation has long had the concept of Flagship Species—popular, charismatic species that serve as rallying points for conservation awareness and action. Formalized within the framework of conservation marketing, flagship species are focused around particular goals and audiences. Think of the WWF’s Giant Panda, Polar Bears and a thousand different arctic or climate change campaigns, or even the American Bald Eagle, whose decline galvanized the country into action. These animals are iconic. They connect people to species and ecosystems in crisis. They are Flagship Species.

The Giant Deep-sea Isopod is not a flagship species. The Giant Deep-sea Isopod addresses a much more fundamental issue: despite being the largest, most diverse ecosystem on the planet, most people have no direct connection, no frame of reference, for the deep sea.

Adopt the giant deep-sea isopod, Bathynomus giganteus, as the National Deep-sea Animal of the United States.

November 3, 2016November 7, 2016 Andrew Thaler

Education, Science

Picture a pill bug, roly poly, woodlouse, or doodle bug, an animal found under rocks and logs throughout the United States. Now picture an animal similar to that pill bug, but as big as a cat, crawling across the Gulf of Mexico. That is the giant deep-sea isopod.

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The deep waters of the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone is home to this large, recognizable animal, which can reach almost 2 feet in length. Since their discovery in the late 19th century, giant isopods have captured the public’s imagination, acting as an Ambassador Species for deep-sea ecosystems. Ambassador Species are important for education, exploration, and conservation as they provide a charismatic icon to help introduce people to new and unfamiliar places.

WHEREAS:

Let’s make America think again …

October 9, 2016October 9, 2016 Chris Parsons

Education

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think everyone would agree that the current US presidential election has been one for the history books … and not in a good way. One of the running themes in this election has been how many people do not understand the difference between a verified fact and something they saw on “the interwebs”. That “doing research” to far too many in the US means Googling until they find a website that supports their opinion (and ignoring any other source that does not). Those involved in science communication have long been aware of this problem, especially those involved in communicating issues such as climate change, evolution and health issues. However, perhaps now more of the country is aware that the lack of public understanding of what a fact is has become a major problem, and how substantive the proportion of the country is that can’t tell the difference between a fact and a belief or opinion or, quite frankly, a bold-faced lie. Perhaps now more people realize how dangerous it can be when facts no longer matter.

5 best baby books to launch your child’s ocean education.

September 15, 2016September 15, 2016 Andrew Thaler

Education, Popular Culture, Reviews and Interviews

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As a few of you have noticed, we recently added a tiny new member to our little ocean outreach empire. A new baby opens up a chance for us to explore a whole new world of ocean-themed content tailored to our newest explorers. As a family of marine biologists, we very quickly accumulated a massive library of ocean-themed baby books, some amazing, some not-so-amazing.

After critical review by two PhDs in Marine Science and Conservation, for both scientific accuracy and pure delightfulness, here are my top 5 baby books to get your ocean education started off right.

I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry.

Sherry must have written this book specifically for me, since Sizing ocean giants: patterns of intraspecific size variation in marine megafauna is already my most widely distributed paper. I know a few things about giant squids. I really love this book. The art is colorful and engaging. The story has a hilarious twist. It’s grounded in real ocean critters (though there’s something funky going on with that jellyfish). And there’s an important lesson about hubris and trophic position in marine food webs.