A-Rod

Is anyone REALLY that surprised?

Anti-evolution updates

There's a lot of news coming to us from the National Center for Science Education today.

1. Mississippi's anti-evolution bill died in committee.

2. A new anti-evolution bill has been introduced in the Alabama House of Representatives.

3. At least one researcher gives Kansas science standards an F-.

I hope to post on each of these later this weekend, especially the last one, which I have a serious problem with.

Congratulations Mr. DeWitt

Congratulations to Mr. DeWitt, who was selected as the EHS teacher of the year! I have asked Mr. DeWitt to visit us here at M-Squared, so you'll probably be hearing some from him in the next couple of weeks.

For those of you who are interested, Mr. Pickett, a fellow scientist, was selected as the EMS teacher of the year.

Congratulations to both of these outstanding teachers.

Blood Flow Videos

Today's lab asks you to observe the blood flowing through the webbing in a frog's foot. Since I'm not really into torturing frogs, I think we'll "go virtual" for this one. Below are three embedded videos showing blood flowing through capillaries. Use these to complete the lab.

The first is in the tail of a goldfish:


I'm not sure what animal the second is from, but it's narrated by someone who sounds really official:


The third is my favorite and is from the wing of a bat:

Antievolution in Iowa

Iowa has become the fourth state during this legislative year to have an anti-evolution bill introduced in its legislature. According to the NCSE:

Entitled the "Evolution Academic Freedom Act," HF 183 contains three sections. In the first, it is contended that "current law does not expressly protect the right of instructors to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding chemical and biological evolution," that "instructors have experienced or feared discipline, discrimination, or other adverse consequences as a result of presenting the full range of scientific views regarding chemical and biological evolution," and that "existing law does not expressly protect students from discrimination due to their positions or views regarding biological or chemical evolution."

This bill follows current trends in that it uses terms like "academic freedom", "protection", and "full range of scientific views" to disguise religious intent. And it fits into the same strategy that I discussed in a previous post, which is to give the impression that evolution is a weak theory and that there's a lot of scientific controversy about the validity of the theory of evolution. Both of these statements are false.

Daily Recap: Thursday, 2/5

Investigating Technologies:
Continued working on interval 1. Intervals 2 and 3 will be open tomorrow. The rocketry group should be ready to launch tomorrow morning!

Anatomy and Physiology:
We took notes over blood vessels. Those notes will be posted on the class website soon. We are now into textbook chapter 15.

Biology:
We reviewed for the genetics test which will be TOMORROW. Topics covered will include:
1. Meiosis
2. The history of genetics
3. Principles of genetics
4. Solving genetics problems
5. Complex inheritance patterns
6. Pedigree/Karyotypes

The test will be made up of 50 multiple choice questions.

Mistermagette on Facebook

Mistermagette is now on Facebook! As part of my ongoing experiments with this here Internet thing, I've decided to play around with a virtual classroom environment on Facebook. "Mistermagette" is set up as a business, which will allow me to (hopefully) use the application to communicate with students without having to share personal profile information.

So check it out...be one of the first to become a "fan". Write on the wall. Start a discussion. Just don't do it at school!

Picture of the Day

Pandemic

In anatomy class today we read a selection from John Barry's outstanding book The Great Influenza, which chronicled the global flu pandemic of 1918. Thanks to Chelsea, one of my students, for pointing out this game to me, in which you get to play the part of a disease-causing pathogen. The goal of the game is, obviously, to wipe out humanity.

Pretty cool. Just make sure you're not playing it when you should be doing school work. And if you figure out how to infect Madigascar, please let me know.

School Funding

It's late, but I wanted to get this posted before I got to bed.

The Kansas House today took up debate on their version of the budget bill. If you remember, on Friday the appropriations committee sent a bill to the floor that would have cut K-12 school funding by $88 per student. The bill that came through debate this afternoon decreased that amount to "only" $66 per pupil. Amendments were brought forward that would have decreased that amount to the $33 per pupil cut that the senate bill stipulated, but those amendments failed along party lines. (Meaning republicans--including the representative from our district--voted for the larger cuts, democrats for smaller).

The House will have their final action on this bill tomorrow. From there it will go back to the Senate.

The department of education has released this document, which compares the cuts to each district in Kansas for the three proposals (Governor, Senate, and House). Keep in mind that these cuts are for the current fiscal year. This is money that the districts have been told they would get and have budgeted for.

Daily Recap: Wednesday, 2/4

Investigating Technologies:
Still finishing up the first interval of this rotation. All grades have been updated in PowerSchool to include portfolios and other assessments from the last rotation, with the exception of the rocketry group, which is still waiting for good weather to launch. Tomorrow and Friday are both supposed to be nice, and should give us a chance.

Anatomy and Physiology:
We read chapter 8 from The Great Influenza by John Barry. The assignment was a 10 question multiple choice worksheet over the reading. The focus of the reading is the body's immune response and how the flu virus is able to consistently change and become unrecognizable to our immune systems.

Biology:
We are still scheduled to take the genetics test on Friday. Today was a catch-up day to help get ready for it.

New Mexico Anti-evolution Bill

Another anti-evolution bill has popped up. This time in the New Mexico state Senate. As reported by the National Center for Science Education:

If enacted, the bill would require schools to allow teachers to inform students "about relevant scientific information regarding either the scientific strengths or scientific weaknesses pertaining to biological evolution or chemical evolution," protecting teachers who choose to do so from "reassignment, termination, discipline or other discrimation [sic] for doing so."

This is another "back door" argument. Proponents of creationism have consistently re-labeled their tactics (equal time, scientific creationism, intelligent design, academic freedom, etc.) and have consistently had their tactics declared unconstitutional in the courts. So if they aren't able to legally introduce creationism, the next best thing is to make evolution look like a week theory, or a theory in jeopardy (neither of which, by the way, is accurate). The logic behind this goes something like this: 1) evolution and creationism are competing ideas used to explain the diversity of life of Earth, and 2) creationism can't be legally taught in science classes but if 3) people can be convinced that evolution is "weak" then 4) by default they will accept the creationists perspective as true.

Daily Recap: Tuesday 2/3/09

Investigating Technologies:
We continued working on suite 3, roation 2, interval 1. We should be getting close to done with this first interval so that we can move on to intervals 2 and 3 later in the week.

Anatomy and Physiology:
Lab day! We used simulated blood to practice techniques for typing an unknown sample. Lab exercise 24 should be completed in your lab notebook, and should include a chart identifying the antigen/antibody reactions and type for all four samples.

Make sure you get a copy of the new Physio-Phocus bulletin if you didn't pick one up in class.

Biology:
We practiced using pedigree charts to determine patterns of inheritance for autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, and sex-linked dominant genetic conditions. Make sure you've read the part of section 11.1 in your text that deals with pedigree analysis.

Groundhog Day Revisited

According to a post yesterday on Scientific American's "60-second science" blog, Groundhog Day has less to do with weather and more to do with...well..sex.

Citing a study conducted at Penn State University, the following is noted:

Groundhogs, aka woodchucks, stop hibernating in early March. But the male rodents emerge from their burrows periodically during their four-month hibernation to visit potential partners.

[...]

“For males, these early excursions are an opportunity to survey their territories and to establish bonds with females,” [study author Stam. M.] Zervanos said in a statement then. “For females, it is an opportunity to bond with males and assess food availability.”

On average, the groundhogs he studied went into hibernation on Nov. 7 and woke up for good on Feb. 28. But the ladies apparently needed their beauty rest: They snoozed for an average 117 days, compared with the guys' 106 days of shut-eye.

In one case, when a male groundhog emerged from his den, he hung out for a few days at the entrance of the girls' dorm until one of the lasses came out ... then, like a typical guy, he went and visited another woman.

And now you know the truth.

February 3, 1959

The day the music died.

Daily Recap: Monday 2/2

Early reports are that the groundhog saw his shadow...six more weeks of winter.

Intestigating Technologies:
We continued with the first interval of our second rotation. Intervals 2 and 3 will be opened later this week.

Anatomy and Physiology:
We completed the blood typing charts that were started on Friday, followed by a brief discussion of erythroblastosis fetalis. A practice worksheet was handed out, which we will go over at the beginning of class tomorrow. Both that worksheet and the blood typing chart should be turned in for daily credit.

Tomorrow will be the blood typing lab. We will be using synthetic blood. I also owe you a physio-phocus, and will try to get it to you in the next day or two.

Biology:
Today we took quiz 3.3, which covered complex inheritance patterns. The remainder of class was work time. Tomorrow we will be discussing pedigree charts, so I would appreciate it if you could look at that part of section 11.1 in your textbook before then.

The genetics test is still scheduled for Friday.

Blood Typing Game

It's kind of dorky, but it gets the point across:

More School Funding Stuff

This is how these things go. Last week the Kansas Senate passed a revised budget that would have limited the cuts to public K-12 education. Now the bill is in the House, and on Friday that chamber's appropriations committee brought forward an alternative bill that would slash school funding in a fashion similar to the original senate bill.

To better understand all these bills, it might be easiest to look at them in terms of how much money would be cut from the "base state aid per pupil" BSAPP. This is the amount of money that the state of Kansas pays districts for each student enrolled in their schools.

Under the governor's budget, schools would loose about $22/student. The bill that came out of the Senate ways and means committee would have cut about $117/student. The compromised bill which passed the Senate last week would have cut $33/student. The bill now moving to the floor of the house would cut $88/student.

To do the math, consider that our school district has about 1400 students. The total base amount cut from the district's budget, then, can be calculated by multiplying the BSAPP by 1400. Keep in mind that this is a simple way to compare these plans. Many of the proposed cuts would actually cut significantly more since reducing the BSAPP also reduces the amounts that districts can collect through sources such as the local options budget or new facilities weighting.