Interest In Physical Sciences Research Articles

Mothers’ and Fathers’ Science-Related Talk With Daughters and Sons While Reading Life and Physical Science Books

IntroductionIn prior studies conducted in the United States, parents’ gender-differentiated encouragement of science predicted children’s later science motivation. Most of this research has focused on older children or teens and only looked at the impact of mothers. However, accumulating evidence suggests that gender-differentiated encouragement of science interest may begin in early childhood. Moreover, fathers may be more likely than mothers to treat sons and daughters differently in science-learning contexts.MethodsWe examined 50 United States families with both a mother and a father (82% White; 98% with at least some college education) and either a daughter or a son (48–83 months; M = 62, SD = 9). On separate visits, each parent reads two books with their child. One was about life science and the other was about physical science. We coded parents’ science-related talk during these interactions.Results and ConclusionIn contrast to our predictions, parents used higher proportions of science talk with daughters than sons, including higher average rates of overall science talk and specific types of science talk (e.g., science explanations, science-related personal connections, and science-learning talk). Moreover, most of the child gender effects occurred while reading the physical science books. Book topic and parent gender moderated some additional patterns. Book reading is discussed as a potential context for mitigating socialization experiences that traditionally disfavor girls’ interest in physical science.

A MODEL OF INTEREST IN STEM CAREERS AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Studies have shown that various factors (the role of formal education, informal education, and community) contribute to the lack of participation in STEM and STEM careers. This research aimed to understand the multi pathways of factors contributing to the interest in STEM careers (STEM careers in physical sciences and STEM careers in life sciences). This research was a survey research which administered a questionnaire randomly to 1485 secondary school students (14 years of age). Data analysis was based on the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) to test the hypothesized model. A model containing five constructs, namely environmental factors (learning experiences, media, social influences), self-efficacy in science, technology, engineering and mathematics respectively, perceptions of STEM careers and interest in physical sciences and life sciences STEM careers was proposed in this research. The results show that students’ interest in life sciences based careers is influence by their self-efficacy and perceptions of the career. Meanwhile, students’ interest in physical sciences based careers is influence only by their self-efficacy and not influence by their perceptions of the career. The need to improve students’ self-efficacy through STEM learning experiences is imperative to ensure continued interest in STEM careers. Key words: environmental factors, life sciences STEM careers, perceptions of STEM careers, physical sciences STEM careers, self-efficacy, social cognitive career theory.

On the Evaluation of Correction Terms of Gaussian Integration

Accurate and compact computing recipe for evaluating correction terms for the Gaussian integration of analytic functions offers economy and high accuracy for many integrals of interest in physical sciences. The requirement of numerical integration in physical sciences is quite pervasive because many practical functions aren't integrable in closed form. A simple example is the error function Erβx) defined by1 Erf(x) 2 /<; dt.

Sir Kingsley Charles Dunham. 2 January 1910 – 5 April 2001 Elected FRS 1955

The history of the Dunham family goes back to the researches of Kingsley Dunham's grandfather, Rev. Charles Dunham (1848–1942), a Methodist Minister and diarist who, at the age of 72, brought together facts and recollections of the Dunham family. Apparently the family migrated from East Anglia and settled in the Bedford area for 200 years, centred on the village of Shillington. By the middle of the nineteenth century the family were bootmakers and shoemakers and moved to north London. Kingsley Dunham's father, Ernest Pedder Dunham, was trained in estate management at the Duke of Bedford's office in Trafalgar Square, and in 1904 he was given a position in the Pitt-Rivers estate office at Hinton St Mary, Dorset. To here he brought his bride, Edith Agnes Humphreys, to live at Newton House, Sturminster Newton. The first child, Kingsley Charles Dunham, was born on 2 January 1910. The family's time in Dorset was short, because Ernest Dunham's post came to an end in 1913 and be obtained a new appointment at Lord Boyne's estate office at Brancepeth near Durham. Although this estate was later sold to the Duke of Westminster, Ernest Dunham stayed on as agent throughout his career. Kingsley Dunham's mother Edith was a trained schoolteacher and chapel organist, and she gave him the foundations of his education and an introduction to music. Aged seven years he joined the school on the estate, Brancepeth Village School. Here he was well prepared to sit for a County Scholarship in the spring of 1921, when he was 11 years old. Dunham won the scholarship and entrance to the Durham Johnston School, a notable secondary school in the district. The teaching at the Johnston School was extremely efficient and he flourished, developing a particular interest in physical science and mathematics. His hobby was music and he was taught the organ at Durham Cathedral by the Canon Precentor, A.D. Culley. He was also a chorister at St Brandon's Church, Brancepeth, for five years, where, despite his Methodist background, the liturgy of the Anglican prayerbook made a deep and lasting impression. He was head of school in 1927 and sat for a Durham University Open Foundation Scholarship, winning a junior award. Thus, early in October 1927, aged 171/2, Dunham went up to Hatfield College, University of Durham, a scholar and later organ scholar. He was advised to read honours in chemistry with two auxiliary subjects, for which he chose physics and geology. The chemistry course was enjoyable, but the real joy was the geology course, with lectures on physical fundamentals given by Professor Arthur Holmes (FRS 1942) and practical work and fieldwork with Dr William Hopkins. The geology course and particularly the fieldwork proved to be life changing. At the end of the first year, Dunham was encouraged to continue with geology and found himself the only honours candidate in geology in his year, with almost individual attention from Professor Holmes and Dr Hopkins.

Experiments

In this article, I have provided a brief history of my life. After tracing my family background and my early interest in physical sciences, I discuss how I entered biology under the influence of Robert Emerson. I have always enjoyed doing experiments and this led to new measurements and analyses of 'chlorophyll unit', efficiency of photosynthesis, excitation energy transfer, delayed light emission, thermoluminescence and electroluminescence in photosynthetic organisms. It is my view that discoveries are made because we follow our scientific curiosities.

Adults' Performance on Formal Operations: General Ability or Scientific Interest

Measures of performance on concrete and formal operations from 39 college students were inter-correlated with measures of fluid and verbal intelligence and of interest in physical science. Performance on concrete and formal operations correlated significantly with interest in physical science but did not correlate significantly with either of the measures of intelligence.

John Edward Harris, 1910-1968

John Edward Harris was born at Lincoln on 15 September 1910 and died suddenly at Bristol on 24 June 1968. He was the eldest of three sons, his father being a Master Mariner in the Merchant Service. His grandfather (Henry Harris), was a very well-known teacher in the Technical Colleges in Lincoln, who had gathered together quite an extensive library of scientific books; these became his grandson’s first contact with scientific literature. Learning to read at a very early age, John soon began to display an interest in physical science. Between the ages of five and eleven he went to an elementary school in Rosemary Lane which was widely recognized as one of the best junior schools in Lincoln from which to obtain a scholarship to one or other of the secondary schools in the city. Harris won one of these highly coveted awards and at the age of eleven moved to the City (Technical) School. Four years later, he had passed his School Certificate in ten subjects—the maximum number allowable. The City School was primarily concerned with the training of engineering apprentices and only to a minor extent with the teaching of boys whose aim was to enter a university. As a technical college the City School was extremely wellequipped with mechanical and electrical workshops whose facilities were made available to some of the senior schoolboys. The staff of the school wisely left the latter to their own devices and free to choose their own hobbies. Among their pupils were two future Fellows of the Royal Society: John Harris (1956) and Francis Rose (1957). For more than two years the two schoolboys worked as a team and for a graphic description of Harris’s activities during his latter years at school, I am indebted to Dr Rose.

William Cullen Bryant and the Science of Geology

T HAT WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT maintained an active interest in contemporary science throughout his life is a fact too well known to need documentation here. The poet himself has left an account of his introduction into the principles of medicine, chemistry, and botany,1 while his son-in-law and biographer, Parke Godwin, prints numerous letters of Bryant's friends revealing the poet as a competent, if amateur, scientist.2 Moreover, in 'his travel letters and public addresses, Bryant provides additional evidence of his concern with scientific matters.3 Finally, we may observe that in a recent article Charles I. Glicksberg has collected the most important references which the poet makes to contemporary scientific study.4 The fact of Bryant's interest in physical science is clearly beyond dispute. To the critic of Bryant's poetry, however, the listing of such evidence is not enough. For although it reveals much about the life of the man, it tells us little of the nature of his poetic achievement. It is Bryant the poet who is to be remembered, if he be remembered at all, and unless we can demonstrate that Bryant's scientific knowledge bears a direct relation to his verse, the fact of that knowledge is of little significance in any aesthetic consideration of his poetry. To be sure, Tremaine McDowell has shown that Bryant's poetry of nature rests upon a substantial basis of exact botanical information, that his allusions to natural objects are as varied and extensive as they are accurate.5 Such a state1 Parke Godwin, A Biography of William Cullen Bryant, with Extracts from His Private Correspondence (New York, I883), I, 36. 2 See, for example, the evidence of Colonel Ralph Taylor or of John Durand, quoted in ibid., I, 203; II, 74-75. 'A good example is Our Native Fruits and Flowers, an address of Bryant's reprinted in Prose Writings, ed. Parke Godwin (New York, I884), II, 194-202. 'William Cullen Bryant and Nineteenth-Century Science, New England Quarterly, XXIII, 9I-96 (March, I950). 6 William Cullen Bryant, American Writers Series (New York, 1935), pp. xxxiv-