Disciplinary Problems In Our Education System

Posted on June 8, 2013 | 2 Comments

I recently wrote about my thoughts on how a schools response to a young girl’s science experiment reflected racism and the expectation that women should not cause trouble, but this is not the sole issue behind the overreaction of the school. There is certainly a farther-reaching problem with our school disciplinary systems that affects everyone. Students are being punished for the wrong things all too often. I emphasize the wrong things because I don’t always see students getting disciplined when it needs to happen.

The overreaction

I want to think my fellow bloggers and commenters for alerting me to many recent ridiculous disciplinary actions at schools. I will post a few of these instances below:

Forming the Thread wrote an excellent blog post called “The Idiotic Message We Send Our Kids About Violence,” which includes several recent incidents of disciplinary actions and lack thereof.

Fifty Four and A Half wrote a post about guns in schools versus current gun legislation called “The Danish Connection.”

The Infrequent Atheist alerted me to a Kindergartender who was interrogated until he peed his pants, and was then suspended for 10 days.

The under reaction

Time and time again we hear of stories where bullies and rapists are not getting the proper punishments through schools. When we ask why we don’t see punishments for these crimes, a common response is “why aren’t these crimes handed over to the police?”

What an excellent question. Why should schools be faced with the heavy burden of suspending and expelling rapists and bullies? After all, it’s not like they are punishing students for petty crimes or fake guns.

Oh, hold on a second. Something seems off here…

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Posted in Education, Thoughts

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Noncontact Atomic Force Microscope Shows Molecular Reformation

Posted on May 31, 2013 | 2 Comments

 

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High-Resolution Images of a Molecule as it Breaks and Reforms

Using a very neat technique, scientists were able to image a chemical reaction. I would suggest taking a look at the article, especially if those stick drawings of organic chemicals always intrigued you.

What this lab has done is use an atomic force microscope (AFM) to detect atoms and forces between the bonds during a chemical reaction. The resulting images through the process are fascinating.

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Posted in Chemistry, Engineering, Science

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Why I Won’t Stop Talking

Posted on May 26, 2013 | 15 Comments

My Thoughts regarding sexism in the sciences

“Are you here spend your time on women’s rights, or are you here to get your PhD in engineering?”

I thought for a second. What kind of a question is that?

“Both. I want to do both.”

Then I quickly asked. “Do you want to get a PhD or do you want to promote evolution over creationism.” His research is not in the area of evolution, just as mine is not in the area of gender biases.

The person who asked me this question is a strong promoter of science. He fiercely debates anyone who denies climate change or evolution. It’s not a problem for him. In the scientific community, for the most part, people agree with his views on evolution and climate change.

Yet, when it comes to science regarding social issues, some hard scientists don’t take it seriously, despite the data to back up the results.

When I started noticing differences in the way women and men were treated in engineering, I did research. Sexism is actually a thing– an observable, real thing. The highly renowned science journal Nature even devoted a special issue to women in science very recently. The following quote was on the cover:

Science remains institutionally sexist. Despite some progress, women scientists are still paid less, promoted less frequently, win fewer grants, and are more likely to leave research than similarly qualified men.

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The friend asking me the question was trying to help. He was pointing out that some of my male colleagues did not like my “radical views” about women.

What exactly constitutes “radical” for these colleagues?

Apparently, “radical” is the view that sexism and biases still exist in engineering, and that institutions should set up programs to help reduce biases and encourage women not to drop out. When I started a group for graduate women in engineering, the harassment and ridicule from these colleagues began. Starting groups for women and promoting understanding about biases and sexism is evidently “radical.” Still, numerous women show up to these groups despite the devious connotation.

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I understand where my friend is coming from, but I disagree that I should stop talking about issues surrounding gender and engineering. The most ground breaking scientific ideas and thoughts are not readily accepted. If change were that easy, we would have no wars, no polarized political parties, and no protests. We would be teaching our young students about climate change. There would be no arguments about whether or not evolution should be taught in schools.

Just as there are people who think I am a crazy liberal with an agenda because I work with instrumentation for atmospheric science, there will be people who think I am crazy because I even suggest that sexism was not cured by the women’s movement in the 60’s. The only way old beliefs will ever change is if the scientific minded people keep talking about the statistics and the data, and the idealists keep propagating the notion that we can live in an even better world than we are living in today.

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Posted in Academia, Engineering, Feminism, Research, Science, Sexism, Women in Engineering, Women in Science

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My Free Time: Dandelion Wine

Posted on May 13, 2013 | 7 Comments

What? Engineers and scientists don’t have free time. They just sit in labs all hours of the day and think up conspiracies like global warming.

Well, that’s partially true. However, every now and then we venture outside the lab. Actually, in most cases we venture away from the desk where we read and write papers, but I like it better when people think I am doing some kind of mad science.

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Recently, I came home and found the yard littered with dandelions. I don’t need to provide a link on what those are. Everyone knows they are those annoying yellow weed flowers.

Someone recently mentioned to me that you could eat the dandelion leaves. So, being the moron scientist that I am, I had to try this. Naturally, I went for one of the biggest, brightest, flowering weeds I could find, and it tasted hideously bitter. I later found out that you have to find the newly developing leaves with no flowers, otherwise the plant is bitter. I tried a newer plant as well. It wasn’t bitter but it still tasted like crap. The same person who told me about the edibility of dandelions also mentioned that wine can be made from the flowers.

I can’t resist an experiment that involves me getting gloriously drunk in the end…

I’ve never brewed anything in my life, but I’ve wanted to try. Why not start with making dandelion wine? If it sucks, I can just blame it on those crap flowers. Plus, making wine from weeds sounds like about the most hippie thing one can do after raising awareness about global warming and feminism.

In researching this on the Internet, I found that dandelion wine is actually a thing. I came across a book written by Ray Bradbury called Dandelion Wine. I also stumbled upon this beautiful song by Gregory Alan Isakov called “Dandelion Wine.”

I got to work picking dandelions and buying some cheap brewing materials. My favorite part was taking a knife to the damned flowers and slicing the petals from the flower stem. It was like beheading the epitome of annoying.

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Beheading dandelions: should I feel happy or sad about this?

For this project, I did not delve as much into the science. I used the basic principle that yeast+suger=alcohol. Brewing wine and beer seems like an absolutely fascinating and complex field though, and I hope with time I can explore this more in depth. Here is an interesting article from how stuff works about brewing beer to quell your curiosity about the process.

In the mean time I get to wait and see what happens. I’m not sure if I will be daring enough to try the results. Only time will tell…

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Posted in Brewing, Cooking, Crafts

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It’s still a trend though, right? Right?

Posted on May 4, 2013 | 3 Comments

Sure, just find a periodic function to fit this data. Be sure to include that last part. Then we can talk.

Global Carbon Dioxide Levels Reaching 400 PPM (for more information).

Ice-core_co2

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Posted in Climate Change, Engineering, Politics, Research, Science, Science Policy

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Florida School Manages to be Racist, Sexist, and Obnoxious All at Once

Posted on May 1, 2013 | 11 Comments

In the news of things that are overtly unfair, a young African American girl was expelled from school for setting off a small “explosion” during an outdoor chemistry experiment on school grounds. At age 16, she will be tried as an adult for the felony of possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds.  She mixed two chemicals in a small water bottle, which caused the top to pop off in addition to some smoke and a loud noise.

Excuse me? Is this actually true? Chemistry is an exciting subject, and often does result in loud bangs. What I would like to know is, if she were a nerdy white male (our stereotype of genius) would this be laughed off? Would she be treated differently?

I saw lots of nerdy guys at my high school get away with stuff like this all the time. There were capacitor explosions, which actually release toxic chemicals into the air. One male in my physics class did this and boasted about it for months. He got cool nerd points.

Then there was the day that some boys in my AP biology class decided to get into the chemicals and make hydrogen oxygen rockets (see the video below on how to do this). These rockets were set up in the hall of the of the chemistry wing, while we were supposed to be doing group study work. The rockets were lit INSIDE THE BUILDING. The teachers just had the attitude that “boys will be boys,” and embraced their interest in chemistry.

Yet, when a African American girl does this, it’s seen as a felony. We sit and wonder why women and minorities don’t join the sciences. The answer is right in front of us, and it’s pretty horrifying. While the odds of a white middle or high school getting suspended are one in fourteen, the odds of an African American student getting suspended are one in four.

A petition to the Polk County police has been created. You can sign it here.

This girl’s bright future does not need to be ruined due to ignorant people who cannot see beyond their obnoxious biases.

*** Update: The Charges against Kiera Wilmont have been dropped. However, she is still now allowed to attended her old school. Here is the story in her own words.

 

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Posted in Discrimination, Education, Engineering, Feminism, Politics, Science, Women, Women in Engineering, Women in Science

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NSF Science Must “Directly Benefit the American People”

Posted on April 29, 2013 | 6 Comments

LamarSmith

It already does, but Representative Lamar Smith thinks that there are many scientists that are schemers out to steal money from the government. In fact, he decided to pick out a few projects that didn’t interest him to use as examples of how NSF just throws money to “useless” research.

Additionally, he would like Congress to get involved in the peer review process, because congress has such great track record of being efficient and solving problems. When we start moving away from the peer review process, and into the “I am judging this research based on my feelings, even though I am a politician and not a scientist” process, problems arise. Scientists work very hard to convey research to the public as well as agencies such as NSF. However, many fields go into such intricate detail that it is necessary to have other people in the field review the scientific project proposed. Many researchers are adding a tiny grain of sand to the astoundingly large world of research. Some research leads to things that we don’t notice like an improved polymer, or a tiny addition to a huge model of the climate, or a small statistical study that opens up new questions about the ways in which we are currently running our society.

Lamar Smith is a climate change critic, a trendy thing in the Republican Party. This goes to show that he is not spending a lot of time delving into the research itself, and attempting to understand it. I am happy that he at least read through some of the NSF proposals, but what he should really spend time doing is reading some of the peer reviewed papers that have come out of research, and the citations of those papers.

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Posted in Climate Change, Engineering, Politics, Research, Science, Science Policy

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