Clay Wedging for Clay Research Project

Wedging Clay

Thomson Crookes Tube

TV Tube

Weekly Schedule 12/10

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Dalton Writing Practice	Dalton Writing Practice	Dalton Exam	Thomson Reading, FRAME, annotation	Thomson Reading, FRAME, annotation

Weekly Schedule 12/3

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Dalton Reading & Frame Example video clips	Air compressor story Compound model building Electrolysis video Combustion video	Electrolysis Lab Combustion demonstration Finish FRAME	Practice Writing	Practice Writing *Essay Exam Monday*

Dalton Atomic Theory

Dalton's Meteorological Observations

Engine Animation VW TSI engine

Fuel Injector

Ohio Grain Elevator Explosion

Grain Elevator Dust Explosion Simulation

How It's Made- Baseballs

Weekly Schedule 11/26

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday
Correct Section 7 Significant Figures, Exponents and Scientific Notation Annotation Corrections	Annotation #2 (due end of hour)	Significant Figures, Exponents and Scientific Notation review	Scientific Notation/Exponents/Rounding Summative

Weekly Schedule 11/19

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday
Significant Figures, Exponents and Scientific Notation Sections 1-3 correct Section 4 due Tuesday	Correct Section 4 Section 5, 6 due Wednesday	Correct Section 5, 6 Section 7 due Monday

Samurai Movie

We needed a little break from  writing so we watched this NOVA video and did the following

Describe the role of the "four elements" in the making of a samurai sword

·         Earth

·         Air

·         Fire

·         Water

Weekly Schedule 11/12

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Practice Writing: Atomic Theory	Samurai Swords and the 4 Elements	Turn in Samurai sword notes Practice Writing: Atomic Theory	Practice Writing: Atomic Theory	Atomic Theory Essay Exam: Thales, Empedocles, Alchemists, Democritus

Weekly Schedule 11/5

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Scientific Discoveries Practice Writing	Atomic History Reading	Atomic History Reading	Atomic History Practice Writing	Scientific Discoveries Essay Test

Weekly Schedule 10/29

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Scientific Discovery Presentations	Scientific Discoveries Videos Turn in WWWWWH notes	Mr. Winberg Presentation on Penicillin and Plastics (Essay Test Next  Friday)	Mr. Winberg Gone- Collaboration with Fisher Atomic History Reading	Practice Writing Scientific Discoveries

Bela Fleck!

This Thursday at 1PM will be a FREE show by the amazing Bela Fleck at the Park Center Auditorium.  He's probably the world's greatest banjo player.  Even if you don't like the banjo, go see him.

Weekly Schedule 10/15

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday
Collect Graphing Exercise Technology Report Research	Technology Report Research	Technology Report Research Two more days of work next week.

 

Weekly Schedule 10/8

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday
Theory vs. Law W.S. due end of hour	Scientific Method Practice Test (correct in class)	Graph Interpretation W.S. (due Monday)	Scientific Method Test (Mr. Winberg Gone) Graphing H.W.

Scientific Peer Review

How Scientific Peer Review Works

Most people didn't know much about scientific peer review five years ago. Then, in December 2005, South Korean scientist Dr. Hwang Woo Suk stunned the world by admitting that his stem cell research -- research that was supposed to revolutionize health care by helping to cure diseases ranging from diabetes to Parkinson's -- used fabricated data. Although the revelation brought disgrace to Hwang and poured fuel on the stem cell controversy, it had a more damaging effect on the public's perception of science itself. Suddenly, there were reports questioning how Science, the prestigious U.S. journal that published Hwang's findings, could have been so easily duped. Other reports condemned the process of science itself as antiquated and flawed.

At the heart of that process is scientific peer review, a quality-control system that requires all new scientific discoveries, ideas and implications to be scrutinized and critiqued by expert scientists before they become widely accepted. Peer review has been around for nearly 300 years, so it is not new. It just seems that way sometimes because of the attention it has received in the wake of the stem cell scandal. Unfortunately, increased awareness does not always translate into increased understanding. Many myths and misconceptions about peer review still exist, and many average citizens don't see how a system of checks and balances is important either to science or to their day-to-day decision making.

Peer review, also known as refereeing, is the cornerstone of science. It is a process whereby a scientist's research is assessed for quality before it is funded or published. The "peer" in peer review means that the scientist in question will submit his work to other experts in the field. In other words, if the scientist is a biologist studying the migration habits of a particular bird, he will submit that research to colleagues who have sufficient knowledge of birds and bird migration to give a thorough and proper evaluation. It's the job of the reviewers to comment on the quality, significance and originality of the research.

It all starts with a scientist and his research. When the research is completed, the scientist writes a paper describing the experimental procedure and the results. He then submits it to a journal that publishes papers in his field. The path to acceptance begins with the journal editors. They first review the submission to make sure it fits both the journal's subject-matter focus and its editorial platform. For example, some journals prefer to publish only groundbreaking research and may overlook even good papers that don't, in the opinion of the editors, drive the field forward. Only a small percentage of papers survive this initial evaluation. Those that do enter the formal peer review system.

Generally, the process of peer review involves an exchange between a journal editor and a team of reviewers, also known as referees. After the referees receive a paper from the editor, they read it closely and provide individual critiques, usually within two to four weeks. In their critiques, they:

• Comment on the validity of the science, identifying scientific errors and evaluating the design and methodology used
  
• Judge the significance by evaluating the importance of the findings
  
• Determine the originality of the work based on how much it advances the field. Reviewers also identify missing or inaccurate references.
  
• Recommend that the paper be published or rejected. Editors don't have to heed this recommendation, but most do.
  

The Numbers at Nature

Nature didn't establish its peer-review process until 1953, but has applied the process rigorously ever since. As a result, the quality of its content is thought to be unparalleled among all scientific journals. And getting work published in Nature can be quite difficult:

• Nature receives about 10,000 papers every year.
  
• Editors reject 60 percent of them in the first round of the review process.
  
• The rest are sent to handpicked referees.
  

Ultimately, Nature publishes about 7 percent of its submissions.

[source: Nature]

 

Peer Review Article Questions

• What is "fabricated data"?
  
• What is "scientific peer review"?
  
• Who are a scientist's "peers"?
  
• What is the job of the journal editors?
  
• Summarize the 4 things reviewers do
  
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• What percent of articles submitted to Nature are accepted?
  

Grades

It appears as if TIES, our Gradebook provider, had some major system issues this week.  If you notice anything strange with your student's grade, PLEASE let me know.

Weekly Schedule 10/1

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Copter Lab Part A	Copter Lab Part A	Copter Lab Part B	Formative assignment review and corrections	Peer Review Annotation Finish Copter Lab graphs

Sick, Sick Sick

I'm out sick today and went home early yesterday.  Teaching stress takes its toll on the immune system.

Jenner and Smallpox

Here are a couple of videos on Edward Jenner
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3- What smallpox does to the body- a little gross
Video 4

Cowpox

Like any other doctor of the time, Edward Jenner carried out variolation (the deliberate infection of a person with a weakened form of smallpox, which caused a weak infection, after which came a quick recovery) to protect his patients from a more serious and usually life-threatening smallpox infection. However, from the early days of his career Edward Jenner had been intrigued by country-lore which said that people who caught cowpox from their cows could not catch smallpox. This and his own experience with variolation as a boy and the risks that accompanied it (1-2% of people died) led him to undertake the most important research of his life.
Cowpox is a mild viral infection of cows. It causes a few weeping spots (pocks) on their udders, but little discomfort. Milkmaids occasionally caught cowpox from the cows. Although they felt rather off-color for a few days and developed a small number of pocks, usually on the hand, the disease did not trouble them.


The First Vaccination
In May 1796 a dairymaid, Sarah Nelmes, consulted Jenner about a rash on her hand. He diagnosed cowpox rather than smallpox and Sarah confirmed that one of her cows, a Gloucester cow called Blossom, had recently had cowpox. Edward Jenner realized that this was his opportunity to test the protective properties of cowpox by giving it to someone who had not yet suffered smallpox.
He chose James Phipps, the eight-year old son of his gardener. On 14th May he made a few scratches on one of James' arms and rubbed into them some material from one of the pocks on Sarah's hand. A few days later James became mildly ill with cowpox but was well again a week later. So Jenner knew that cowpox could pass from person to person as well as from cow to person.
The next step was to test whether the cowpox would now protect James from smallpox. On 1st July Jenner variolated the boy. As Jenner anticipated, and undoubtedly to his great relief, James did not develop even the weak form of smallpox, either on this occasion or on the many later times when his immunity was tested again.

1. What is the question Jenner was trying to answer?
2. What is the manipulated variable?
3. What is the responding variable?
4. Write a hypothesis statement.
5. Describe his test.
6. What conclusions did he come to?

Broadstreet Pump Cholera Epidemic of 1854

The Broad Street cholera outbreak was a severe outbreak of cholera that occurred near Broad Street (now renamed Broadwick Street) in the Soho district of London, England in 1854. Cholera leads to an infection of the small intestine which results in extreme diarrhea which may lead to massive dehydration and death. The disease can be treated by giving the victim a lot of fluids -- either by mouth or intravenously (directly into the blood stream).

John Snow was a respected scientist investigating the outbreak. Snow did not subscribe to the common belief that miasma (poisonous or bad air)
caused the disease. The germ theory (the belief that microorganisms were the cause of many diseases) was not widely accepted at this time, so he was unaware of the mechanism by which the disease was transmitted, but evidence led him to believe that it was not due to breathing foul air.

By talking to local residents (with the help of Reverend Henry Whitehead), Dr. Snow plotted the distribution of deaths on a map. He confirmed that an unusually high number of deaths were taking place near a water pump on Broad Street. He suspected the source of the outbreak as the public water, and not something in the air. Although Snow's chemical and microscope examination of a sample of the Broad Street pump water was not able to find anything suspicious, his studies of the pattern of the disease were convincing enough to persuade the local council to disable the well pump by removing its handle. This was done and the number of cholera deaths was dramatically reduced. This action has been commonly reported as ending the outbreak.

The work of Doctor Snow stands out as one of the most famous and earliest cases of geography and maps being utilized to understand the spread of a disease. Today, specially trained medical geographers and medical practitioners routinely use mapping and advanced technology to understand the diffusion and spread of diseases such as AIDS and cancer.

Activity Answer the following questions in complete sentences: What question was Snow trying to answer?  What did most people at that time think the cause was? Identify variables in Snow's study. (manipulated, responding, and controlled) Write a hypothesis statement using the Manipulated and Responding Variables. How was this a controlled experiment?