Tag Archives: science education

Chemistry of opera

Kate Yandell has written a thoroughly fascinating article about opera and chemistry (Atoms and Arias) for the Mar. 23, 2013 issue of The Scientist,

In a paper published earlier this year (January 14) in the Journal of Chemical Education, André [João Paulo André], who is now a professor at the University of Minho in Portugal, described his strategy for exploring the links between chemistry and opera for educational purposes.

According to André, the pairing is a natural one, as opera actually chronicled the heady, early days of chemical discovery. Joseph Haydn’s Der Apotheker (also known as Lo Speziale) and Gaetano Donizetti’s one-act opera, Il Campanello, for example, both featured pharmacists as main characters. In 1768, as Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier, and Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who would eventually discover oxygen, were immersed in their chemical labors, Haydn debuted Der Apotheker, a story about competition and love that plays out in the pharmacy. “There was something in the air. Chemistry was coming to be called a modern science,” Andé says. Il Campanello was first performed publicly in 1836, a time when many natural compounds were being isolated. It includes songs about long, complicated prescriptions. These “apothecary operas” illustrate the cultural pull chemistry used to have.

The researcher’s paper, published in the Journal of Chemical Education, has received worldwide interest. Meanwhile, Yandell’s article inspired this Mar. 24, 2013 posting on Les Vérités Scientifiques,

La constatation que nous livre l’auteur constitue-t-elle une surprise ? Non, car il en est de l’Opéra comme il en est de toute d’autre production artistique, littérature, peinture, musique : la mise en évidence d’une interpénétration entre l’actualité de  la science et l’art. Chaque époque de la société se reflète dans ce que choisissent d’exprimer ses différents acteurs ce qui permet de regarder efficacement derrière soi (cf l’exposition L’ange du bizarre. Le romantisme noir de Goya à Max Ernst au musée d’Orsay).

This is going to be a rough (very) translation and any errors are entirely mine,

The relationship between opera and chemistry should not be a surprise since opera like all the other artistic enterprises such as literature, painting, music always reflect the social and scientific interests of their own epochs as we can see in various venues, e.g. L’ange du bizarre: the dark romanticism of artists ranging from Goya to Max Ernst at the musée d’Orsay [in Paris].

As Yandell’s article notes others have observed a relationship between opera and chemistry (Links have been removed),

Jorge Calado, a retired Portuguese chemistry professor and an opera critic for the Portuguese newspaper Expresso, saw André’s talk and helped edit the Journal of Chemical Education paper. …

Calado published a book in Portuguese in 2011 whose title translates to Let There be Light! A History of Chemistry Through Everything, in which he tells the story of chemistry’s early roots through the lens of the arts and humanities, including opera.

He says that André’s paper made him want to write his own follow-up paper, and that he could think of even more examples of operas with connections to chemistry—from Jacques Offenbach’s Le Docteur Ox (1877), based on a story by science fiction writer Jules Verne, to John Adams’ Doctor Atomic (2005), which chronicles the creation of the atom bomb in Los Alamos.

Aside from the fact that it’s well worth reading, Yandell’s article is studded with opera videos that enhance the opera/chemistry relationships being described.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the research article,

Opera and Poison: A Secret and Enjoyable Approach To Teaching and Learning Chemistry by João Paulo André. J. Chem. Educ., 2013, 90 (3), pp 352–357 DOI: 10.1021/ed300445b
Publication Date (Web): January 14, 2013
Copyright © 2013 The American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

This article is behind a paywall.

The Feb. 14, 2013 posting on the Smithsonian blog offers a little more information about the project,

Any good opera needs a dramatic twist, and death by poison and potions fits the bill. When a team of chemists took a closer look at the formulas behind these concoctions in 20 operas, they found 25 different natural and synthetic chemical materials featured. The researchers suggest that teachers use these poison plots to engage students with chemistry, and while opera isn’t exactly an easy sell with most teenagers, learning about death by deadly nightshade probably ranks higher for most than memorizing yet another chemical formula.

The Smithsonian posting also offers a few tidbits from beyond the article’s paywall.

I believe this is a case where a few people independently had similar ideas as there is a professor in Germany who has also combined chemistry and opera although he has turned to performance. Professor Dr. Gerald Linti, at Heidelberg University has been staging musical chemistry experiments since 2004 if I’ve properly understood the German on his Special Events webpage,

  • Lange Nacht im Schloss (März 2004)

  “Chemie und Oper für Jedermann: Tannhäuser”

More recently (2009), Linti produced a Puccini night as part of his ongoing Chemistry and Opera series,

Under the title “Turandot’s Three Chemical Riddles” Gerald Linti, professor at Heidelberg University’s Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, and his students will be giving another demonstration of their legendary skill in the musical staging of chemical experiments at 6 p.m. on 26 June 2009.

He seems to have followed that up with a 2011 opera night at a conference titled, Modeling Molecular Properties, according to an Oct. 11, 2011 article by Sarah Miller for Chemistry Views,

The first day concluded with the spectacular “Chemistry and Opera” arranged by Professor Gerald Linti, University of Heidelberg. This demonstrated the beauty and fun of chemistry as Linti told the story of a Chinese Princess while his assistants performed chemistry experiments in time to live opera.

This sounds like a restaging of ‘Turandot’s Three Chemical Riddles’ from 2009. Here’s one of the images which illustrates Miller’s article,

[Downloaded from: http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/1371029/Modeling_Molecular_Properties_and_Opera.html]

[Downloaded from: http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/1371029/Modeling_Molecular_Properties_and_Opera.html]

Maybe it’s time for a new ‘chemistry’ opera. Any takers?

Three Canadian subatomic physics powerhouses invite graduate students to apply for summer 2013 TRISEP in Vancouver (Canada)

It’s not the first time I’ve been puzzled by a TRIUMF (Canada’s National Particle and Nuclear Physics Laboratory) news release but now I have to break my silence: please, please hire me or someone else or anyone else to help you write these things. Putting the reason (or call to action) for the news release in its last line at the very end is not good practice.

Particle physics graduate students from anywhere in the world are invited to apply for an opportunity to attend the Tri-Institute Summer School on Elementary Particles (TRISEP) sponsored by Canada’s big three subatomic physics research institutions, TRIUMF, Perimeter Institute (PI), and SNOLAB.

From TRIUMF’s Apr. 12, 2013 news release,

… master the pioneering topics of collider physics, neutrino physics, dark matter, Monte-Carlo simulation, and physics beyond the Standard Model.

The new international summer school is convened by Canada’s three subatomic physics powerhouses: TRIUMF in experimental particle physics, Perimeter Institute in theoretical physics, and SNOLAB in deep underground physics. Taken together, these three institutions not only give Canada a competitive advantage on the world stage, but they also give international students an opportunity to learn about and then pursue the hottest science topics with
some of the leaders.

One of the incentives for attending, according to the news release, is this,

A recent independent analysis by the Council of Canadian Academies showed that Canada is one of the world’s top six national performers in terms of physics and astronomy (driven by particle and nuclear physics) as measured by bibliometric analysis and surveys of international scientists.

I’m not quite as impressed by that assessment as the folks at the ‘big three’ since there are problems with bibliometric analysis in general which I noted in part of two of my commentary on the report (The State of Science and Technology in Canada, 2012 report—examined (part 2: the rest of the report).

I find this bit from the TRISEP home page (Note: Some links have been removed) a little more exciting,

TRISEP will feature lectures by leading experts in the field of particle physics and is designed to be very interactive with ample time for questions, discussions and interaction with the speakers. Students will also have the opportunity to present a poster describing their research topic. The summer school can also be taken for graduate course credit, more details are available here

The key note speaker will be Hitoshi Murayama, UC Berkeley/Kavli IPMU

Lecturers at the summer school include:
Richard Baartman, TRIUMF
André de Gouvêa, NorthWestern University
Ashutosh Kotwal, Duke University
Heather Logan, Carleton University
Tsuyoshi Nakaya, Kyoto University
Scott Oser, University of British Columbia
Torbjörn Sjöstrand, Lund University
Tim Tait, University of California, Irvine
Viktor Zacek, Université de Montréal

The deadline for applications as listed on the TRISEP home is Friday, June 1, 2013, which is a little confusing since June 1, 2013 is on a Saturday. Presumably you should have your application submitted by Friday, May 31, 2013.

When twice as much (algebra) is good for you

“We find positive and substantial longer-run impacts of double-dose algebra on college entrance exam scores, high school graduation rates and college enrollment rates, suggesting that the policy had significant benefits that were not easily observable in the first couple of years of its existence,” wrote the article’s authors.

The Mar. 21, 2013 news release on EurekAlert which includes the preceding quote recounts an extraordinary story about an approach to teaching algebra that was not enthusiastically adopted at first but first some reason administrators and teachers persisted with it. Chelsey Leu’s Mar. 21, 2013 article (which originated the news release) for UChicago (University of Chicago) News (Note: Links have been removed),

Martin Gartzman sat in his dentist’s waiting room last fall when he read a study in Education Next that nearly brought him to tears.

A decade ago, in his former position as chief math and science officer for Chicago Public Schools [CPS], Gartzman spearheaded an attempt to decrease ninth-grade algebra failure rates, an issue he calls “an incredibly vexing problem.” His idea was to provide extra time for struggling students by having them take two consecutive periods of algebra.

In high schools, ninth-grade algebra is typically the class with the highest failure rate. This presents a barrier to graduation, because high schools usually require three to four years of math to graduate.

Students have about a 20 percent chance of passing the next math level if they don’t first pass algebra, Gartzman said, versus 80 percent for those who do pass. The data are clear: If students fail ninth-grade algebra, the likelihood of passing later years of math, and ultimately of graduating, is slim

Gartzman’s work to decrease algebra failure rates at CPS was motivated by a study of Melissa Roderick, the Hermon Dunlap Smith Professor at UChicago’s School of Social Service Administration. The study emphasized the importance of keeping students academically on track in their freshman year to increase the graduation rate.

Some administrators and teachers resisted the new policy. Teachers called these sessions “double-period hell” because they gathered, in one class, the most unmotivated students who had the biggest problems with math.

Principals and counselors sometimes saw the double periods as punishment for the students, depriving them of courses they may have enjoyed taking and replacing them with courses they disliked.

It seemed to Gartzman that double-period students were learning more math, though he had no supporting data. He gauged students’ progress by class grades, not by standardized tests. The CPS educators had no way of fully assessing their double-period idea. All they knew was that failure rates didn’t budge.

Unfortunately, Leu does not explain why the administrators and teachers continued with the program but it’s a good thing they did (Note: Links have been removed),

“Double-dosing had an immediate impact on student performance in algebra, increasing the proportion of students earning at least a B by 9.4 percentage points, or more than 65 percent,” noted the Education Next article. Although ninth-grade algebra passing rates remained mostly unaffected, “The mean GPA across all math courses taken after freshman year increased by 0.14 grade points on a 4.0 scale.”

They also found significantly increased graduation rates. The researchers concluded on an encouraging note: “Although the intervention was not particularly effective for the average affected student, the fact that it improved high school graduation and college enrollment rates for even a subset of low-performing and at-risk students is extraordinarily promising when targeted at the appropriate students.” [emphasis mine]

Gartzman recalled that reading the article “was mind-blowing for me. I had no idea that the researchers were continuing to study these kids.”

The study had followed a set of students from eighth grade through graduation, while Gartzman’s team could only follow them for a year after the program began. The improvements appeared five years after launching double-dose algebra, hiding them from the CPS team, which had focused on short-term student performance. [emphasis mine]

Gartzman stressed the importance of education policy research. “Nomi and Allensworth did some really sophisticated modeling that only researchers could do, that school districts really can’t do. It validates school districts all over the country who had been investing in double-period strategies.”

I’m not sure I understand the numbers very well (maybe I need a double-dose of numbers). The 9.4% increase for students earning a B sounds good but a mean increase of 0.14 in grade points doesn’t sound as impressive. As for the bit about the program being “not particularly effective for the average affected student,” what kind of student is helped by this program? As for the improvements being seen five years after the program launch. does this mean that students in the program showed improvement five years later (in first year university) or that researchers weren’t able to effectively measure any impact in the grade nine classroom until five years after the program began?

Regardless, it seems there is an improvement and having suffered through my share algebra classes, I applaud the educators for finding a way to help some students, if not all.

Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada celebrates 20 years

The first time (May 11, 2012 posting) I wrote about the Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada (SBCC) competition was when Janelle Tam was recognized as the 2012 national winner for her work with nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) or, as it is sometimes known, cellulose nanocrystals (CNC).  As I noted then,

For anyone who’s curious about Sanofi, it’s a French multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Paris, France. I found the Wikipedia essay a little more informative than the Sanofi company website .

Justifiably proud not only of Tam and other 2012 winners, SBCC has sent out a news release enumerating the many triumphs and benefits associated with this competition. From the SBCC Feb.20, 2012 news release,

Unexpected bonus prizes from a high school bioscience competition, mentored by some of Canada’s top research experts, range from six-figure scholarships, valuable networks and commercial patents to peer-reviewed journal citations, global publicity, international conference invitations and more, former teen participants say.

But the reward cited most often by alumni of the “Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada” (SBCC), this year marking its 20th annual competition, is the eye-opening experience of watching their inventive ideas succeed and being encouraged in a professional lab, creating in many a career-shaping passion for science.

“That’s a benefit shared throughout Canada’s economy, which has a growing, $86 billion biotechnology sector, as well as with people worldwide,” says Jeff Graham, Chair of the Board at the Toronto-based Bioscience Education Canada, which manages the SBCC program.

“This program has been ‘infecting’ teens with what one mentor calls the ‘research virus’ and inspiring bioscience careers since 1994. And with hundreds of dedicated partner organizations and mentors nation-wide, we are extremely proud of the success achieved so far as we mark the 20th annual SBCC.

The competition’s latest surprise bonus prize winners are 2012 national competitors Jeanny Yao, 18, and Miranda Wang, 19 of Vancouver, both now in first year at universities in Toronto and Montreal respectively.  The pair will spend Feb. 27 in Long Beach California, invited by organizers of the prestigious TED 2013 conference to tell the world’s science elite how they identified a species of bacteria from the Fraser River’s muddy banks that helps decompose plastic.

Their BC regional SBCC-winning project came to public attention last May in a front page story by the Vancouver Sun (http://bit.ly/XrsaB9)  as the duo were packing to attend SBCC’s national finals in Ottawa.  In the white marble halls of National Research Council of Canada headquarters — the country’s science temple — SBCC’s high-level final judging panel recognised Jeanny and Miranda’s project with a special prize for the “greatest commercial potential.”  (The girls have since approached firms in BC and Ontario on commercialisation ideas.)

They were invited last summer to present their project again at TED@Vancouver (http://bit.ly/X5PRAF), part of a “worldwide talent search,” and were among a handful picked from 293 entrants to reprise their presentation in California.

TED is widely considered the world’s marquee annual science show-and-tell.  And sharing a stage with fellow speakers like U2’s lead singer Bono and PayPal Founder Peter Theil is a five exclamation mark adventure for a couple of university frosh.

“We are extremely excited about this opportunity…!! We couldn’t have done this without your help!!!” Miranda wrote, announcing the news to SBCC’s Vancouver coordinators, LifeSciences BC.  (For more on Jeanny and Miranda at TED: http://bit.ly/WRAs45).

According to the news release some 4500 Canadian teenagers have participated in the competition since 1994. There was a survey of 375 participants, from the news release,

In a survey of 375 past participants by Bioscience Education Canada [BEC], which runs SBCC, 84% said their participation helped determine their field of study or career plan; 74% were pursuing biotechnology-related education or professions, with 12.5% undecided.  Some 55% were current university students, 24% planned to apply after high school, and 21% were post-secondary graduates now in the workforce.  Nearly 60% of respondents were female and 79% had or have bursaries and/or scholarships.

Typical of comments teens relayed with the survey replies, from Brooke Drover of Vernon River, PEI: “It was amazing. So unbelievably stressful, but when my team came second place I could hardly breathe. It was the best feeling in the world knowing that I didn’t just play a sport and win a trophy. I helped the scientific community.”

“Thanks to hundreds of top scientist mentors who have shared their expertise and lab space with the student competitors, we’ve discovered and nurtured incredible talent in high schools and CEGEP classrooms nation-wide,” says Rick Levick, Executive Director of BEC and head of the national competition since its inception,

“The mentors are the unsung heroes of the SBCC program. They often bring out a passion for science and talent for research in kids who didn’t know they had any.”

While I do have some questions about the survey (when was it administered? how was it administered? why 375? etc.), I’m letting them go in appreciation of the participants’ extraordinary accomplishments, from the news release,

Ottawa

Maria Merziotis, $5,000 first place winner in the national 2008 SBCC, found her prize included an academic fast track.  At 21, when those her age at university typically complete an undergrad degree, she’s finishing second year at the University of Ottawa’s medical school, with papers about her flu-related research in preparation for academic publication.

And, just seven years after he first impressed SBCC’s august panel of national judges as a Grade 11 student, Ottawa’s James MacLeod, now 23, is completing a Queen’s University master’s degree in pathology and molecular medicine and applying for early acceptance into the department’s PhD program.

Both credit SBCC with helping them reach medical career doors unusually soon.  Says Maria: “The SBCC competition is the main reason I stand where I am today.  It allowed me to explore the field of research, and through the doors it opened, gained me early acceptance into medical school.”

Saskatchewan

Says Rui Song of Saskatoon, who in Grade 9, age 14 (a veteran of Saskatchewan’s unique SBCC program for kids in Grades 7 and 8) prevailed over much older teens to win the #1 national award in 2010: “Before the SBCC, I hadn’t even considered being a researcher. I now hope to continue my research journey in university and in my career to continue creating beneficial change in the world.”

Her 2010 work to genetically fingerprint a lentil crop-killing fungus left the expert national judges “astonished.”  She also placed 2nd in last year’s national competition, accepted an offer to spend last summer doing research at Harvard, and today, in Grade 12, is weighing full-time university offers.

Southwestern Ontario

The 2012 top national winner, Janelle Tam of Waterloo, says “SBCC was a huge part of why I started laboratory research at the university in high school, which was instrumental in my decision that I want to be a professor.”

Janelle, completing Grade 12 with studies at Princeton University ahead this fall, detailed the anti-ageing potential of a nano compound found in wood pulp, capturing media attention in at least 36 countries (http://bit.ly/XduBJd), including a social media blog by then-Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty (http://bit.ly/THiq7P).  Last summer in Québec she detailed her findings to staff and researchers of CelluForce’s, Domtar Corp. and FPInnovations — Canadian firms leading the commercial development of nanocrystalline cellulose.

Newfoundland

At 17, Sarai Hamodat of St John’s, Newfoundland, entered a prize-winning SBCC project  showing that a traditional Asian oil remedy could ease the suffering of asthma patients, a project inspired by her hope of helping her asthmatic uncle.

Says Sarai, now 23 and a medical resident in pharmacology at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax: “SBCC was my first real introduction to what the world of science has to offer.”

British Columbia

Taneille Johnson entered the competition in 2009 from Fort St. John (pop. 22,000) near the Alberta border in northern BC.  At 16, she lived alone for a summer to work with a University of Calgary mentor in a quest to decipher DNA mutations that may lie behind a rare disorder which causes early onset aging and progressive bone marrow failure.

Taneille, the first student from northern BC to enter the regional event, won it in 2010 and placed third overall at the national finals in Ottawa.  Now 20, she’s a second year BSc student of immunology at McGill University, Montreal, with a goal of medical school studies at the University of British Columbia.

“Not many first year university science students can approach their professor and show them the amount of lab experience I had from the SBCC,” she says, adding “I really cannot overstate how unique the SBCC experience is for high school students.”

Greater Toronto

A year after his first place national win in the 2011 SBCC, Toronto’s Marshall Zhang faced a tough decision: offers from three of the world’s most prestigious Ivy League universities — Yale, Harvard and Princeton.

“The SBCC changed the course of my life,” says Marshall, now a Harvard freshman, who at age 16, and mentored at the Hospital for Sick Kids, used a powerful supercomputer cluster to create a potential new treatment for cystic fibrosis.

On CBC’s “The Nature of Things,” host Dr. David Suzuki cited Marshall and his ideas as an example of the marvels of uninhibited teenage thinking.  CF patients and their parents from across Canada and elsewhere wrote or called out of the blue to congratulate and thank Marshall for his efforts on their behalf.  He was in Grade 11.

“I’d never met a CF patient before then,” he says, adding that the most memorable part of the entire adventure was realizing the real impact his research could have on people.

Manitoba

At 17, Ted Paranjothy of Winnipeg, inspired by a memory from five years old of a friend who died from leukemia, invested 3,000 research hours over two years after school with a mentor at the University of Manitoba, developing innovative ideas for cancer treatment.  Ted’s framework for an anti-cancer agent able to kill human cancer cells without harming healthy ones is an innovation on which he now holds a patent.

His Grade 12 project earned a triple crown of high school biotech science: a first place sweep of the 2007 SBCC regional and national competitions, as well as the Sanofi-sponsored International BioGENEius Challenge — the only Canadian to achieve that distinction so far.  The three first prize cheques totaled $15,000.

Later awarded some $150,000 in scholarships from other sources, Ted continued work with his distinguished mentor, Dr. Marek Los, and had three papers in peer-reviewed journals by the end of first year at UofM.  Now 22, Ted is an independent researcher in cell science at UofM.  He credits SBCC with enabling his university graduate-level research while still in high school, and says it “inspired me to pursue a career in biomedical research.”

Quebec

In 2011, a trio of Montreal CEGEP students entered the national SBCC with their new sorbet for vegetarians, having discovered a substitute for animal-based gelatine normally found in the frozen dessert.  They won 2nd prize overall, a special award for that year’s project with the greatest commercial potential, and a lot of public attention, which helped create connections with several patent lawyers.

Today, all three are at universities studying science.  “The SBCC definitely pushed to me to explore research opportunities in medicine,” says one team member, Simon Leclerc, adding that feedback from top scientists who evaluated their project and the experience gained was “inestimable… The SBCC is of great help for young, otherwise non-connected students to push their projects forward.”

Brava! Bravo!

Applications for the 2013 competition have been closed since November 2012 but there is a listing of the times and dates for the regional and national 2013 competitions. Although it’s unclear to me whether or not the public is invited to attend, you can get more details here.

Engineering toys for girls

Ariel Schwartz in her Dec. 6, 2012 article for Fast Company’s Co-Design website describes three engineering toys, two of which are explicitly designed for girls while the other one is of interest to any child who might want to build a robot. From the article (Note: I have removed links),

Devised by Debbie Sterling, a Stanford-educated engineer, GoldieBlox is a brand new series of construction toys and books for girls that focuses on a young blond girl named Goldie who lives in what Sterling described to us as a “crazy engineering house,” chock full of moving parts and gears.

A triad of women who studied mechanical engineering, neuroscience, and electrical engineering created Roominate, a modular hacker dollhouse that comes with connectable circuits. Alice Brooks, one of the designers, told Co.Design: “We started with a toy that girls already love, and added educational components that make the toy even more engaging.”

Slightly older girls (11 and up) might enjoy the $199 Hummingbird robotics kit, created by BirdBrain Technologies (a spin-off from Carnegie Mellon University). The kit comes with four sub-kits: a light and vibration set with 10 multi-colored LEDs and two vibration motors; a control set that comes with an auxiliary motor power supply, a USB cable, and a screwdriver; a motion that includes DC motors and servos; and a sensing kit that contains sound, temperature, distance, light sensors along with a rotary knob; basically, anything you would need to build the robot of your dreams. [emphases mine]

You won’t be able to get GoldieBlox in time for Christmas as it doesn’t ship until April 2013. By the way, GoldieBlox was a successful Kickstarter project raising over $285,000 when the goal was $150,000. Here’s an image from their campaign,

GoldieBlox (image from http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/16029337/goldieblox-the-engineering-toy-for-girls)

You can find GoldieBlox here and you will find that a little more culture diversity is being introduced.

Roominate looks like great fun and you can get that kit in time for Christmas, assuming they don’t run out of stock,

“A cooling fan that I wired myself!”

And then there’s this,

“A spinning dog for my pet shop!”

There’s one more picture from the home page and I must say I heartily agree with the sentiments,

“Every airport needs a cupcake shop and an aquarium!”

Personally, I’m particularly interested in the robotics kit from BirdBrain Technologies. Schwartz notes in her article that a group of eighth graders used the kit to build a scene from Carl Sandberg’s poem Sand. Here’s a video from inventor (it’s geeky),

Interested in a summer internship in Singapore?

I got another (see my May 14, 2012 posting about Singapore’s 2012 fellow programme) announcement for a student programme being funded in Singapore,

Undergraduate and graduate students in science, technology, research and engineering can experience the exciting city of Singapore by applying for the Experience@Singapore: Research Summer Internships. From Nov. 15, 2012 to March 1, 2013, the program is accepting applications for internships in one of the most exciting cities in Asia – a globally-ranked city that combines Western cosmopolitan standard of living with the rich history and cultural diversity of the East.

The program offers:

  • Opportunities to interact and be mentored by senior research talent
  • Exposure to research opportunities available in Singapore
  • A taste of Asia’s cultural diversity
  • Monthly stipend of SGD 1,500 (approximately US $1,200)
  • one-time travel allowance of SGD 1,500 (approximately US $1,200) for students travelling from U.S. to Singapore

The internship is open to outstanding students with the following criteria:

  • Minimum of a “B” grade average;
  • In his /her 3rd or 4th year of undergraduate studies or pursuing a master’s degree in any discipline of computer, life and natural / physical sciences; all branches of engineering; technology and medicine;
  • Ability to commit to an internship period of at least three months.

Applications for the Experience@Singapore program are ContactSingapore.sg/ExperienceSG/Research/Jul2013

Experience@Singapore is an initiative of Contact Singapore (ContactSingapore.sg), a Singapore government agency that aims to attract global talent to live, work and invest in Singapore.

The internship program is just an example of how Singapore is investing in R&D. From 2011-2015, it plans to invest an additional US $13 billion to establish itself as a research powerhouse in Asia. The country offers not only strong public funding, significant industry partnerships and state-of-the-art infrastructure, but also a diverse and international scientific community consisting of many nationalities.

There’s still lots of time to write up your application and Good luck! BTW, the internships start July 2013.

Math Out Loud—the math musical—on tour in British Columbia (Canada)

Mathematics as a performing art (music, dance, and theatre) and all of it framed with stunning set designs incorporating MC Escher’s art, fractals, and other mathematically-based visual art demonstrates how pervasive mathematics is throughout society both now and in the past.

Following up on its December 2011 première, Math Out Loud is about to embark on a Fall 2012 tour. From the Tour webpage on the Math Out Loud website,

Experience Math Out Loud, an acclaimed, trailblazing stage production featuring a superb cast, original music, choreography, animations and a high tech set. This fall, Math Out Loud will tour three cities [Vancouver, Sidney, and Surrey] in British Columbia with weekday performances for schools and weekend matinees for the general public. The 75 minute show combines mathy ideas and musical comedy and is intended for audiences ages 13 and up. Parents, join your kids in a learning experience that is fun for all.

The school shows are free . In Vancouver, school shows run from Sept. 24 – 28, 2012 (three of the shows are fully booked) and shows for the public are scheduled for Sept. 29, 2012. All of the Vancouver shows are being held at the Norman Rothstein Theatre in the Jewish Community Centre at 41st and Oak St.

In Sidney, the school shows run from Oct. 1 – 5, 2012 and the shows for the public are Oct. 6, 2012. All the shows are being held at the Charlie White Theatre located in the Mary Winspear Centre at 2243 Beacon Avenue.

In Surrey, the school shows run from Oct. 23 – 26, 2012 and the shows for the public are Oct. 27 – 28, 2012. All the shows are being held at the Surrey Arts Centre (SAC mainstage) at 13750 88th Avenue.

You can find out more about the show (there’s a 15 min. video) and book your school class or buy a ticket for the Fall 2012 tour at the Math Out Loud website.

I first mentioned this math musical which is being produced by MITACS (Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems, a not-for-profit research organization) in my Jan. 9, 2012 posting.

Encouraging STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers while opportunities decline in Canada

The problem never seems to get solved. One end of the organization or institution makes a decision without considering the impact on those affected. Take for example the current drive to encourage more students to undertake STEM (science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics) careers when there are few job opportunities (except for engineers).

The University of British Columbia has just announced a science outreach toolkit, from the Aug. 30, 2012 news release on EurekAlert,

Outreach programs that offer a taste of real-world science and pair secondary students with enthusiastic young researchers are key to promoting careers in science and technology, according to University of British Columbia researchers.

In a paper published this week in PLoS Computational Biology, UBC researchers document their work on the Genomics Field Trip Program hosted at the Michael Smith Laboratories (MSL). Joanne Fox, Jennifer McQueen and Jody Wright outline the benefits of research-based field trips, offering a blueprint for designing science outreach programs.

The Genomics Field Trip program encourages exploration of the sciences through a full day genomics experience which takes place at the MSL laboratories. Program instructors are typically UBC graduate students who benefit from the experience by developing their ability to communicate scientific ideas to the general public. They also develop skills in lesson design and delivery, allowing them to enhance their instructional skills, something that does not always occur in teaching assistantship positions.

Fox hopes the success of the Genomics Field Trip Program will inspire other institutions to develop similar programs. The recommendations included in her paper can be used as a blueprint for science programs and an online genomics toolkit provides valuable information for lesson plans.

“This type of program helps graduate students remember why science is so exciting, and in turn inspires the next generation of scientists,” Fox explains.

The toolkit available here is designed for grade nine classes and it looks to be quite engaging. However, it is a disconcerting effort in light of the current situation for many STEM graduates. Nassif Ghoussoub (a mathematician at the University of British Columbia) in an Aug. 20, 2012 posting on his Piece of Mind blog writes about the diminishing opportunities for postgraduate science work (Note: I have removed links),

Canada’s “Natural Science and Engineering Research Council” has grown uncomfortable with the rapidly dwindling success rate in its postdoctoral fellowship programme, the latest having clocked in at 7.8%. So, it has decided to artificially inflate these rates by limiting the number of times young Canadian scholars can apply for such awards to … once. Never mind that the pathetic $40,000 salary (see comments below for corrections) for a highly trained Canadian post-doc hasn’t changed in more than 25 years, young Canadian scientists will now be fighting tooth and nail for the privilege of living on the fringe of the poverty line while trying to jumpstart their research careers. Welcome to Canada’s new lottery system for deciding the future of the nation’s capacity for advanced study and research.

I guess something needed to be done to cover up the fact that NSERC is now awarding 66% fewer fellowships than it did 5 years ago. Last year, we wondered whether the following numbers reflected a policy shift at NSERC or just collateral damage.

  • (2008) 250 awards/ 1169 applicants
  • (2009) 254 awards/ 1220 applicants
  • (2010) 286 awards/ 1341 applicants
  • (2011) 133 awards/ 1431 applicants
  • (2012) 98 awards/ 1254 applicants

These 98 fellowships are to be shared by 20 scientific disciplines and to be split among the 59 PhD-granting Canadian universities.

This theme is also addressed in an Aug. 24, 2012 posting by Jonathan Thon on the Black Hole blog which is now being hosted by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), Note: I have removed a link,

It should come as no surprise that by increasing the supply of graduate students (and in turn post-doctoral fellows), we have arranged to produce more knowledge workers than we can employ, creating a labor-excess economy that keeps labor costs down and productivity high (How much is a scientist worth?) – but is this what we want? While advantageous in the short-term, there is little room for additional gains and a more efficient and productive system will need to be created if we wish to actualize research-based economic growth.

As for opportunities in the industrial sector, Canada has a longstanding reputation for exceptionally low rates of industrial R&D (research and development).

I’ve yet to see the programme for the 2012 Canadian Science Policy Conference taking place in Calagary (Alberta) from Nov. 5 – 7, 2012 but I’m hoping this will be on the agenda.

Bits and bobs about the Canadian science scene: ecology news from Manitoba; Canadian space news; scientists in residence in BC

In the last ten days, I’ve gotten news of three Canadian science blogs and a scientist in residence program in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Andy Park, Associate Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of Winnipeg (Manitoba), writes the ‘It’s the Ecology, Stupid!;  A grumpy professor tells you what he really thinks about environmental issues in Canada’ blog. From his About page,

As you’d quickly find out if you met me, I was not born in Canada.  I moved here from the UK in 1988, having previously taken refuge from Thatcher’s Britain in Saudi Arabia for several years.

Since that time, I have finished an undergraduate degree at Simon Fraser University, worked as a forestry consultant in northern British Columbia, acquired a PhD, lived in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and of course, Winnipeg, and travelled extensively within Canada from Tadousak to the McKenzie Delta.

Allied to my academic qualifications, I believe that these experiences make me at least somewhat qualified to comment on Canadian environmental issues.

Here’s a sample from Park’s June 7, 2012 posting (Note: I have removed links.],

You would have to have been living under a rock over the last couple of weeks not to have heard of the federal government’s decision to withdraw funding for Canada’s world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area (ELA).  Research emerging from this network of 58 small lakes in northwest Ontario has helped to clean up Lake Erie (see Figure 1), saved municipalities millions of dollars on the design of sewage plants, and shed light on the ecological pathways by which acid rain harms lakes.

The imminent closure of the ELA has not gone unnoticed internationally, and threatens to add another twist to the death spiral of Canada’s environmental reputation.

Water experts from around the world have weighed in to condemn the closure, and a who’s who of leading aquatic experts have written an open letter to Steven Harper requesting that he reverse the closure.

(I mentioned the ELA in a May 3 2012 posting about a major three-year project (starting in 2012) to study silver nanoparticles and their impact in the ELA ecosystem.)

Welcome to Andy Park and his lively blog!

Chuck Black contacted me about his two blogs both focused on outer space. There’s ‘Commercial Space‘ which is subtitled,  Focused on Canadian money making activities high above the skies… From the About this Blog page,

Businesses operating space related ventures have been commercially viable since at least the 1960’s, when the first Early Bird satellite was successfully launched into geosynchronous orbit according to David M. Livingston in his paper, Space: The Final Financial Frontier.

And Canadian companies have always been leaders in this area, beginning with the launch of the Allouette and Anik satellites and moving forward from there.

 

In fact, it’s got to the point where former Cabinet Minister Jim Prentice went so far as to say that “Canada has more than 200 firms that are involved in space” employing thousands of skilled workers who know that “working in space or working in the space-based industries is just another career option.”

This blog will focus on those industries, the partnerships developed to maintain and grow them and the politics surrounding those partnerships.

And perhaps somewhere along the line, we’ll even get around to discussing the next big opportunity to make some money.

The June 9, 2012 posting features the cancellation of a long-running high school science contest (Note: I have removed links from the excerpt),

The University of Toronto Space Design Contest (UTSDC), will not be holding a competition in 2012 and seems unlikely to be revived anytime soon.

The contest was an independent, student run organization operating out of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto and held annual competitions from 2004 until 2011 for high school students to solve challenging space-related science and technology problems.

But the contest website hasn’t been updated since last years results were posted in May 2011, the contact form for the website is “offline” and inquiries to the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (which links from the UTSDC for contest “donations“) have gone unanswered.

Black’s second blog is called Space Conference News, from the About this Blog page (Note: I have removed a link from the excerpt),

Approximately 14,000 government and private organizations are considered as part of the international space systems industry, according to the 2011 Space Report.

Theses organizations generated $276.52 Billion USD last year and employ over 300,000 people throughout the world

But this industry is notoriously lacking in collaboration or cohesion and is composed primarily of narrow silo’s of skills distributed widely across political boundaries which possess little interconnectedness.

This is a shame, since these organizations need to connect with each other (and to students who will eventually become their future employees) in order to fill in knowledge gaps, develop useful contacts and present current proposals or provisional scientific findings for peer review.

So pretty much everyone is going to eventually end up needing to attend one or more of the 1000+ yearly conferences that have grown up over the last 20 years to cater to the people and organizations involved in this industry.

Black’s May 13, 2012 posting provides a listing of space-related events in June 2012. As for Chuck Black himself, here’s a description from the Space Conference News About the Author page (Note: I have removed links from the excerpt),

I’m a writer, “sales rainmaker,” aerospace pundit and the Treasurer of the Canadian Space Commerce Association (CSCA).

My background is cold calling “C” level executives, networking to build industry specific expertise and developing options for the building of long-term profitable sales relationships in situations with multiple key decision makers.

I also have a background in conference organizing, sponsorship and management. If you’d like to see some of my recent events, check out the National Conferences and Bimonthly Meetings sections of the CSCA website.

I write the Space Conference News website (which tracks upcoming international space science and engineering conferences) and the Commercial Space Blog (which focuses on the Canadian space systems industry).

My last item is about the Scientist in Residence Program in British Columbia. From the About page,

Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Scientist in Residence Program excites, inspires and supports elementary school children and teachers to discover the world through hands-on science. Scientists collaborate with teachers throughout the school year and engage children in the process of science through six or more visits in classrooms and on field trips. Through these direct interactions, scientists are positive role models, teachers enhance their comfort and abilities to teach science, and students develop positive attitudes and have fun while they learn about diverse aspects of science. Children gain skills such as keen observation, critical thinking, and thoughtful communication. These are essential life skills as well as science skills.

Paige Axelrood, Ph.D., is the Founder and Managing Director of the Scientist in Residence Program. Catriona Gordon, M.Sc., is the Assistant Program Manager of the Scientist in Residence Program. They collaborate with Valerie Overgaard, Ph.D., Associate Superintendent of Learning Services, and others at the Vancouver Board of Education to deliver the Program to Vancouver schools. Since 2004, 114 teachers, 20 scientists in residence, and more than more than 2700 students in kindergarten through grade 7 have participated in the Program at 37 elementary schools in the Vancouver School District, plus one elementary school in the West Vancouver School District.

The scientists in residence have M.Sc. or Ph.D. degrees in fields including botany, plant pathology, environmental sciences, fish physiology, marine biology and deep sea ecology, cell biology and medical genetics, human biology, physics, and electrical engineering. The scientists are researchers, instructors, project managers, and consultants. Many of them have had some affiliation with the University of British Columbia.

Scientists and teachers, together or separately, can apply to participate in the program. You can find forms and additional information here.