Why don’t more girls choose to pursue a science career?

 Why don’t more girls choose to pursue a science career?


The latest issue of PISA in Focus takes a closer look at this research, which was published last year by Gijsbert Stoet and David Geary. Their paper analyses PISA 2015 data to explore the nature of the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Girls outperformed boys in science in 19 of the 67 countries and economies that participated in PISA, the paper notes, while boys outperformed girls in 22. (Gender differences were not statistically s

The study by Stoet and Geary (2018) suggests that students may be influenced in their career choices by their understanding of their relative academic strengths as well as their confidence and interest in science. Unlike many high- performing boys, many high-performing girls may not pursue a career in science, even if they are capable of succeeding in it, because they are likely to be top of the class in non-science subjects too. This means that tackling boys’ underperformance in reading may be just as important to ensure greater representation of women in science careers as supporting girls’ performance in and attitudes towards STEM subjects.

How do science teachers teach science - and does it matter?

How do science teachers teach science - and does it?

PISA in Focus #90

https://doi.org/10.1787/f3ac3fd6-en

     
Much ink has been spilled debating the merits of different science-teaching practices. Proponents of enquiry-based science teaching argue that this approach exposes students to the procedures used by professional scientists, while the proponents of traditional practices emphasise the role of teachers in transmitting knowledge about science and in guiding students’ learning. So what is the best practice to use and is success contingent on the school environment? PISA 2015 asked students about the teaching practices they are exposed to at school. The analysis of these data reveals interesting findings about the effectiveness of certain teaching practices, particularly enquiry-based science activities and teacher-directed science instruction.                                                                     

Teachers often use a combination of practices to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Empowered with strong classroom- management skills and professional knowledge, teachers could guide students’ learning of science with explicit instruction on basic concepts, then encourage students to participate in enquiry-based activities to consolidate their knowledge. Adapting science lessons to meet the needs of individual students can benefit those students who struggle to understand a particular concept or topic. Flexibility and responsiveness to their students are the hallmarks of effective teachers.

What’s the best way to teach science?

How do science teachers teach science - and does it matter?

Teachers often use a combination of practices to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Empowered with strong classroom- management skills and professional knowledge, teachers could guide students’ learning of science with explicit instruction on basic concepts, then encourage students to participate in enquiry-based activities to consolidate their knowledge. Adapting science lessons to meet the needs of individual students can benefit those students who struggle to understand a particular concept or topic. Flexibility and responsiveness to their students are the hallmarks of effective teachers.

How do science teachers teach science - and does it matter?

Have 15-year-olds become “greener” over the years?

Have 15-year-olds become “greener” over the years?

The Earth is looking for environmentally mindful students

- September 04, 2018

by Alfonso Echazarra
Analyst, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills

Many characteristics of students and schools are positively associated with environmental awareness. For instance, scientifically-minded students – that is, high-performing students who participate in science activities, expect to pursue a career in science and are interested in broad science topics – and those in schools offering science activities showed greater environmental awareness. However, only a few characteristics were also positively related to optimism about the environment: the number of science activities in which students participate and students’ exposure to enquiry-based teaching.

Most people agree that the environment has deteriorated over the past few decades, even if there is an ongoing debate about the magnitude and consequences of this degradation. Fortunately, there are plenty of public and private initiatives to protect the environment, and students around the globe are increasingly aware of the most important environmental problems affecting the planet today. If we want to preserve the environment for future generations, it is essential that students become more aware of the threats to the environment and use this knowledge to adopt sustainable lifestyles, lower the cost of action and search for innovative solutions to environmental problems.

What do science teachers find most satisfying about their work?

Hide / Show Abstract

Teachers play a vital role in the lives of their students. They impart knowledge, provide pastoral care, act as role models and, above all, create an environment that’s conducive to learning. But teaching is fraught with numerous challenges that could lead to dissatisfaction; some teachers might decide to leave the profession entirely. In fact, in many countries around the world, high attrition rates are considered to be the most important factor contributing to the shortage of qualified science teachers.

So what is it that science teachers find satisfying about their work – satisfying enough that they want to keep teaching, despite any challenges they might face?

Teacher satisfaction is positively associated with factors known to improve students’ performance, such as collegial and positive school environments.

In other words, teachers’ satisfaction with their job and with the profession is both an aspect and a consequence of the school environment. As such, improving the learning experience for all students should also boost their teachers’ professional satisfaction.

La enseñanza de las ciencias en Europa:

Science Education in Europe: National Policies, Practices and Research





Many countries support individual programmes,
but national strategies to promote science education are rare



La enseñanza de las ciencias en Europa: políticas nacionales, prácticas e
investigación

La enseñanza integrada de las ciencias se da principalmente en los niveles educativos más bajos

Enseñanza más contextualizada y más actividades prácticas en el currículo de ciencias

La evaluación en el aula: siguen prevaleciendo los métodos tradicionales

Al menos una evaluación estandarizada durante la educación obligatoria

Falta de medidas de apoyo específicas para los alumnos con bajo rendimiento en ciencias

Existen diferentes iniciativas nacionales para ayudar a mejorar las competencias del profesorado

La formación inicial del profesorado: aún muy centrada en el currículo

El estudio completo

Aurora Australis at Flinders

Aurora Australis at Flinders from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.

While testing motion controlled time lapse I was rewarded with a nice display of Aurora Australis at Southern Ocean coast, Flinders, Australia (January 16th, 2012)

Alex Cherney en VImeo.

Top 10 Scientific Discoveries

10. The Drinking Cat

A cat can drink milk without getting its chin and whiskers wet.

The practical applications for this? None at all. Does that matter? Not a bit.

9. A New Element — Maybe - ununseptium

Lead, iron and uranium are nothing compared to ununseptium, the temporary name for element 117, an extremely heavy combination of berkelium and calcium isotopes created in a particle accelerator in Dubna, Russia. The new element existed for only the tiniest fraction of a second before vanishing again.

More discoveries

Passion For Knowledge zuzenean

Hitzaldiak jarraitzeko, Kursaalean bertan edo sarean


Ezagutzaren Jaialdiko hitzaldiak doan eta nahi duenarentzat irekiak dira, baina derrigorrezkoa da izena ematea: Internet bidez egin daiteke izen ematea www.dipc10.eu webgunean. Donostiara joan ezin duenak hitzaldiak zuzenean jarrai ditzake www.dipc.tv web orriaren bitartez.

Zientifikoki informatua dagoen gizartea izan behar


GAUR

17:00. Juan Ignacio Cirac (Asturiasko Printzea saria, 2006). Fisika kuantikoa: Naturaren ikuspegi berri bat eta askoz gehiago.

18:00. J. M. Lehn (Kimikako Nobel saria, 1987). Materiatik bizitzara. Kimika? Kimika!

19:00. Richard Ernst. (Kimika Nobel saria, 1991). Grina eta erantzukizuna. Hezkuntza, erresonantzia magnetikoa eta Asia Erdiko pinturaren artea.20:00. Sylvia A. Earle (TED saria 2009). Muga sakona aztertzeko premia.


BIHAR

17:00. D. Herschbach (Kimikako Nobel saria 1986). Molekula basatiak etxekotzen.

18:00. Theodor Hansch (Fisikako Nobel saria 2005). Zehaztasunaren aldeko grina.

19:00. F. Wilczek (Fisikako Nobel saria 2004). Urrezko aro berri bat aurreratzen.

20:00. Bernardo Atxaga. Poema bat Lazkano lagunari.


ON CIENCIA
¿Sientes passiON por la CIENCIA? ¡Demuéstralo!

Graba tu propio “microdocumental” de divulgación sobre ciencia y participa en el concurso de vídeos ON CIENCIA, organizado por la Fundación Elhuyar y el DIPC.

Más información en la página www.onzientzia.tv

PROGRAMA COMPLETO

Rethink Science: World Science Festival

worldsciencefestival on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Stephen Hawking on Religion: 'Science Will Win'

Hidden Dimensions: Exploring Hyperspace

¡qué sorpresa! : Mujer X

JUAN LUIS ARSUAGA
(..) El nuevo fósil... es una molécula. O casi, porque en el artículo se habla del ADN mitocondrial extraído de una falange distal -la de la uña- del dedo meñique. La diferencia genética entre el individuo al que pertenecía ese dedo meñique y los humanos actuales es el doble que la que existe entre los neandertales y nosotros.

Nature - Fossil finger points to new human species: A finger bone found in Denisova Cave in Siberia could add a branch to the human family tree.

National Lab Day: Zientzia astearen ondoren.....

(..)Sin demasiado miedo a equivocarme puedo señalar que la ciencia es cada vez más irrelevante para nuestros teenagers, aunque sean buenos consumidores de productos tecnológicos. El interés escolar por la ciencia está prácticamente agotado y su atractivo como horizonte profesional decrece, lo que también ocurre en otros países occidentales. Estudios de evaluación de la educación secundaria ponen de manifiesto que el nivel de excelencia en este ámbito es bastante limitado. Tanto en Catalunya como en el resto de España sólo hay que observar las "notas de corte" de acceso a la universidad para comprobar la escasa demanda que, con contadas excepciones, tienen las carreras que imparten estudios de ciencias, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas. La falta de competencia para acceder a estos estudios indica claramente el poco prestigio y el escaso interés que estos ámbitos suscitan en los estudiantes de educación secundaria. Las implicaciones económicas de este hecho son potencialmente enormes en una sociedad que proclama que aspira a participar plenamente en la economía del conocimiento. (..).

Institutos STEM



Students with High-Level Science Skills

"Encouraging young people to be makers of things, not just consumers of things."
President Barack Obama

White House Pushes Science and Math Education


Eta hemen... Y aquí(?)

TIMSS 2007 International Press Release

The TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, Lynch School of Education, Boston College, in association with IEA, is pleased to announce the international release of the TIMSS 2007 results via webcast at Boston College on December 9, 2008. TIMSS 2007 is the fourth in a cycle of internationally comparative assessments dedicated to improving teaching and learning in mathematics and science for students around the world. Carried out every four years at the fourth and eighth grades, TIMSS provides data about trends in mathematics and science achievement over time. The press materials accompanying the press release are available for downloading from this web page.

The press materials include

the news release,
statements from the presenters at the press conference,
data exhibits summarizing principal achievement results,

Information

Monkeys Control a Robot Arm With Their Thoughts

Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.

Cortical control of a prosthetic arm for self-feeding

The researchers, from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, used monkeys partly because of their anatomical similarities to humans and partly because they are quick learners.

It's not immoral to want to be immortal

Is it right to want to try to live forever? This ethical question is being kicked around quite a bit these days.

As the science of regenerative medicine using stem cells inches forward, as more is understood about how lifestyle influences longevity, as organ and tissue transplants become routine and as geneticists begin to unravel the secrets of why we age, the prospect of living forever — or at least until the Cubs win a pennant — makes the question something more than an exercise in science fiction.(..)

Normal people in first person

Science and Technology video

Zientzia- eta teknologia-bideoak sarean

By andoni sagarna

Hona hemen zientzia- eta teknologia-gaiak irakasteko hainbat bideo dauzkaten bildumak.

http://www.clipshack.com/Topic.aspx?id=1264
http://www.dailymotion.com/us/cluster/tech/featured
http://www.metacafe.com/science_and_tech/
http://video.google.es/videosearch?q=genre%3ASCI_TECH
http://www.viewdo.com/

Bideoak jaisteko prozedura egokienetako bat gaur egun Mozilla Firefox nabigatzailea Unplug gehigarriarekin erabiltzea da.

Why most of us believe that exercise makes us thinner—and why we're wrong.

(...) For most of us, fear of flab is the reason we exercise, the motivation that drives us to the gym. It’s also why public-health authorities have taken to encouraging ever more exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle. If we’re fat or fatter than ideal, we work out. Burn calories. Expend energy. Still fat? Burn more. The dietary guidelines of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for instance, now recommend that we engage in up to 60 minutes daily of “moderate to vigorous intensity” physical activity just to maintain weight—that is, keep us from fattening further. Considering the ubiquity of the message, the hold it has on our lives, and the elegant simplicity of the notion—burn calories, lose weight—wouldn’t it be nice to believe it were true? The catch is that science suggests it

(...) This is not to say that there aren’t excellent reasons to be physically active, as these reports invariably point out. We might just enjoy exercise. We may increase our overall fitness; we may live longer, perhaps by reducing our risk of heart disease or diabetes; we’ll probably feel better about ourselves. (Of course, this may be purely a cultural phenomenon. It’s hard to imagine that the French, for instance, would improve their self-esteem by spending more time at the gym.) But there’s no reason to think that we will lose any significant amount of weight, and little reason to think we will prevent ourselves from gaining it.’s not, and so the answer to all of the above quiz questions is “no.”

(...) For the last 60 years, researchers studying obesity and weight regulation have insisted on treating the human body as a thermodynamic black box: Calories go in one side, they come out the other, and the difference (calories in minus calories out) ends up as either more or less fat. The fat tissue, in this thermodynamic model, has nothing to say in the matter. Thus the official recommendations to eat less and exercise more and assuredly you’ll get thinner. (Or at least not fatter.) And in the strict sense this is true—you can starve a human, or a rat, and he will indeed lose weight—but that misses the point. Humans, rats, and all living organisms are ruled by biology, not thermodynamics. When we deprive ourselves of food, we get hungry. When we push ourselves physically, we get tired.

(...) To be sure, this is the same logic that leads to other unconventional ideas. As it turns out, it’s carbohydrates—particularly easily digestible carbohydrates and sugars—that primarily stimulate insulin secretion. “Carbohydrates is driving insulin is driving fat,” as George Cahill Jr., a retired Harvard professor of medicine and expert on insulin, recently phrased it for me. So maybe if we eat fewer carbohydrates—in particular the easily digestible simple carbohydrates and sugars—we might lose considerable fat or at least not gain any more, whether we exercise or not. This would explain the slew of recent clinical trials demonstrating that dieters who restrict carbohydrates but not calories invariably lose more weight than dieters who restrict calories but not necessarily carbohydrates. Put simply, it’s quite possible that the foods—potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, pastries, sweets, soda, and beer—that our parents always thought were fattening (back when the medical specialists treating obesity believed that exercise made us hungry) really are fattening. And so if we avoid these foods specifically, we may find our weights more in line with our desires.

The Science of Gaydar

If sexual orientation is biological, are the traits that make people seem gay innate, too? The new research on everything from voice pitch to hair whorl.

EXAMPLE A: Hair Whorl (Men) Gay men are more likely than straight men to have a counterclockwise whorl. (?).

What are they looking for?

They are getting ready to see the universe born again.

“For me,” Dr. Gianotti said, “it would be a dream if, finally, in a couple of years in a laboratory we are going to produce the particle responsible for 25 percent of the universe.”

“In this business, society is prepared to support particle physics at a certain level,” Dr. Evans saids. “If you want society to accept this work which is not cheap, you have to be really innovative.”

“If the Higgs or something like it doesn’t exist,” Dr. Arkani-Hamed said, “then some very basic things like quantum mechanics are wrong.”

Dr. Arkani-Hamed said the tension was keeping him awake at night. “Nobody knows how this is going to go,” he said. “That’s what makes it so cool. The experiment itself is so spectacular.”
Sipping an espresso in his office, Dr. Mangano refused to consider the possibility of failure. “It’s like saying suppose you drive into a tree on the way home,” he said. “Let’s hope we get home safely and we see something.”

(...)Para mantener la superconductividad de los imanes (cuyos componentes se han fabricado en un centenar de empresas de varios países) es clave el sistema criogénico, que mantendrá todo el anillo de 27 kilómetros a 271 grados bajo cero.

Y mientras tanto el Papa en Brasil luchando contra los evangelistas o contra si mismo: "El Catolicismo no llegó por imposición a los pueblos originarios de América". Este sigue todavía las normas de la casa de la Sidra.