Physical Science Study Research Articles

MANCHAS SOLARES E A LEI DE NEWCOMB-BENFORD

Este trabalho descreve uma atividade extracurricular na qual a lei dos primeiros dígitos de Newcomb-Benford (LNB) é introduzida a estudantes através do estudo de manchas solares. A LNB estabelece que os primeiros dígitos de vários tipos de conjunto de dados de ocorrência natural não são distribuídos de maneira uniforme, mas sim de acordo com uma distribuição logarítmica de probabilidade. A LNB é contra-intuitiva e é um ótimo exemplo de como a matemática aplicada ao estudo de fenômenos naturais pode fornecer resultados surpreendentes e inesperados, servindo também como um agente motivador no ensino de ciências e matemática.

Soil in the environment: crucible of terrestrial life

Key for every course in soil science, earth science, and environmental disciplines, this textbook engages students to critically look at soil as the central link in the function and creation of the terrestrial environment. For the first time, Dr. Hillel brilliantly discusses soils as a natural body that is engaged in dynamic interaction with the atmosphere above and the strata below that influences the planet's climate and hydrological cycle, and serves as the primary habitat for a versatile community of living organisms. Soil in the Environment offers a larger perspective of soil?s impact on the environment by organizing chapters among three main processes: Physical, Chemical and Biology. It provides students of geology, physical science, and environmental studies with fundamental information and tools for meeting the natural resource challenges of the 21st Century, while providing students of soil science and ecology with the understanding of physical and biological interactions necessary for sustainability

Do We Need Another Sputnik

This October 4th marks the 50th anniversary of Sputnik. Soviet satellite amplified America's Cold War fears and stimulated a public and political response. Sputnik culminated years of criticism centering on Progressive education and expanded the role of scientists in educational reform. Although the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) curriculum lead by Jerrold Zacharias was already underway, Sputnik brought the reform efforts to fruition. America hoped to recover international leadership in science and mathematics education. Accelerating, broadening, and deepening educational reform that had already been initiated. One of the first, largest, and longest-lasting of the post-Sputnik projects was the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) which will celebrate 50 years of leadership in 2008. Does the United States need another Sputnik? Clearly, there will not be another Sputnik, but we need what Sputnik has come to symbolize-an era of significant reform of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. In 2007 one can identify similar concerns about national security and the need for scientists, engineers, and scientifically literate citizens. 50th anniversary of Sputnik presents an opportunity to pause and reflect on that period in science education and offers potential insights for our contemporary era. Here are several insights about Sputnik. competitor and venue were clear--the Soviet Union and a race to space. President Kennedy challenged the nation to respond by setting a clear goal: Send a man to the moon and return him safely. President also set a timeline--by the end of the decade. This goal had a clear and visible symbol that every American could see on a regular basis-the moon. Accomplishing the ultimate goal included approximations of success that the public could see and understand--suborbital flights, orbital flights, a flight around the moon and back, and ultimately landing a man on the moon. One component of the U.S. response involved curriculum reform lead by the scientific community. One final insight centers on the use of curriculum materials and science teacher institutes as the primary methods of reform. Both of these methods center on the core of teachers' effective interaction with students. This was a positive and productive way the federal government facilitated educational reform. United States now confronts new challenges associated with the economy; and I would add the environment, and natural resources. National Research Council report, Rising Above Gathering Storm (NRC, 2007), has become one of several major reports signaling the need for a national response. Thomas Friedman has sustained public attention for a new reform in his book, World Is Flat (Friedman, 2005). Friedman has an interesting if not compelling premise: international economic playing field is level, hence the metaphor --hence the world is flat. flattening that Friedman refers to is a result of information technologies and associated innovations that have made it technically possible and economically feasible for U.S. companies to locate work offshore, for example, call centers in India. revolution of informational technologies has developed a generation of digital natives and left many of us as digital immigrants. implications for STEM education are significant, to say the least. On balance, Friedman argues that a flatter world will benefit all of us, those in developed and developing countries. Friedman does address education questions in a chapter entitled The Quiet Crisis. According to Friedman, The American education system from kindergarten through twelfth grade just is not stimulating enough for young people to want to go into science, math, and (p. 270). Friedman continues: Because it takes fifteen years to create a scientist or advanced engineer, starting from when that young man or woman first gets hooked on science and math in elementary school, we should be embarking on an all-hands-on-deck, no-holds-barred, crash program for science and engineering education immediately. …

The Commencement of the Manhattanville Music Curriculum Program: 1957–1966

The period extending from the late 1950s through the 1960s was an era of intensive curriculum reform in United States education history. (1) This period featured an alphabet soup of new curriculum projects in various school subjects: the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), the Chemical Education Materials Study (CEMS), the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC), the School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG), and, in music: the Contemporary Music Project (CMP) and the Manhattanville Music Curriculum Program (MMCP). (2) These new curricula were tested, re-tested, and revised in participating schools. Summer institutes and in-service programs were held to train teachers in the use of new materials and methods. This extensive education reform movement swept through many school subject areas and across the nation. (3) The Manhattanville Program was a major music curriculum reform project undertaken during the 1960s. Contemporary observers view the MMCP as one of the pivotal events in American music education history during the second half of the twentieth century. (4) Nevertheless, no major historical studies of the MMCP have been undertaken to date. All the extant research on the MMCP has been in the form of empirical studies on the effects of local, small-scale applications of MMCP principles and strategies. (5) This study constitutes a first attempt to document some of the history of the MMCP beyond its treatment in general surveys of American music education history, and focuses on an examination of the circumstances and major events that gave impetus to the formation of the MMCP. Involvement of the Federal Government The federal government played a significant role in the school reform movement. The direct impetus for the government's involvement was the Union's launching of the world's first space satellite, Sputnik I, in October 1957. The Soviet Union's triumph in space technology panicked the American people, and public education immediately fell under heavy criticism. Education came to be seen as a matter of the nation's survival in the cold war competition between the Union and the United States. Education reform became one of the most critical concerns of the nation during this post-Sputnik period. (6) Although the U.S. Constitution gives the states responsibility for education, during this period the federal government began to provide strong support for education reform in the form of financial support through educational legislation, beginning soon after the Sputnik event with the National Defense Education Act. During the five-year period 1963-1968, the U.S. Congress enacted twenty-four major pieces of educational legislation. As a result, more substantial funds than ever before were distributed to support education. (7) After Sputnik and until 1963, the federal government directed funding exclusively to the fields of mathematics, science, and modern foreign languages. Arts and humanities education was excluded from federal funding. There was no federal support for summer training for teachers in the arts, although the National Science Foundation sponsored approximately 416 summer institutes for high school teachers of mathematics, physics, and biology in the summer of 1962 alone, and the U. S. Office of Education financed eighty foreign language programs in the same summer. (8) This state of affairs in education curriculum reform took a turn in 1962 when the Kennedy administration established the Cultural Affairs Branch, a precursor of the Arts and Humanities Program, within the Office of Education. Kathryn Bloom was appointed as director. The branch consisted of two staff members, both in the Office of Education: Harold Arberg, a music education specialist, was appointed as the first arts specialist and Richard Grove was appointed museum education specialist. (9) This was a landmark event because for the first time arts education received official recognition within the federal government. …

Career Experiences and Scientific Performance: A Study of Social, Physical, Life, and Health Sciences

The experiences people have over the course of their careers are commonly held to contribute to creative achievement. In this study, an attempt was made to identify the career events contributing to creative achievement in the sciences. Prior theoretical and empirical work was used to identify relevant career events in the areas of education, domain exposure, mentoring, adversity, work procedures, collaboration, laboratory leadership, and organizational influences. Obituaries were obtained for 499 scientists working in multiple fields in the social, physical, life, and health sciences and were used to assess whether these events were evident in scientists' careers. Comparisons of high achieving and low achieving scientists with regard to these events indicated that multiple events lying in each of these general areas contributed to career achievement. The nature of the events yielding significant differences were discussed regarding their implications for the development of creative potential in scientific fields.

Career Experiences and Scientific Performance: A Study of Social, Physical, Life, and Health Sciences

Career Experiences and Scientific Performance: A Study of Social, Physical, Life, and Health Sciences

Changes in the Subject Matter of Geography Textbooks: 1907–1993

This study is centred on changes in subject matter in 15 sets of British geographical textbooks from 1907–1993. Measurements of eight variables were undertaken. Major findings are: first, classic content such as physical geography has decreased about 50%, and the traditional regional geography has been replaced by the new form of local study; second, new themes such as human geography earlier in the period, humanistic geography later, and the integrated paradigm more recently, dominate the content; and third, the approach to studying geography has switched from emphasising cause–effect relations in the past to geographical enquiry at present. It is concluded that the nature of the subject, which was formerly a mixture of place knowledge, physical science and social studies, is now focused on the development of children's sense of place, the sense of the globe, and the sense of environment.

Daphnicle dynamics based on kinetic theory: an analogue-modelling of swarming and behaviour of daphnia

Attempts are presented of an analogue modelling of Daphnia responses to various influences and stimuli, as distribution of food and of predators. An aim of the study is to examine to what extent a statistical–mechanical approach may be useful as a tool in modelling of Daphnia swarms behaviour. In the modelling we follow a line close to test particle studies in physical sciences. A generalized kinetic equation of what we shall call daphnicles is derived. The modelling incorporates individual characteristics of daphnicles, as position, velocity, degree of food saturation and responses daphnicles have to outside influences. Each daphnicle we assume responds to some stimuli in ordered ways and to others in stochastic ways, and the degree or strength of reactions depends on the density of all daphnicles, the density of food available, the saturation level of daphnicles and the threat level in the environment, or background, the daphnicles are living on. Some fluid equations of daphnicle swarms are subsequently derived from the basic equation, and solutions are given of the model-equations, including a food distribution equation, in some particular cases that show peculiarities in reactions of daphnicles to food, degree of saturation and to threat, when these are acting alone, and in combination. The modelling results may be compared to results of laboratory experiments of Daphnia behaviour that soon will be performed.

PSSC’s Science Study Series

Early in 1957, a report was published describing the formation of the “Physical Science Study Committee” (PSSC) the previous December and its proposed December and its proposed new physics program for secondary schools.

Reform in science education: Then and now

In discussions about science education, we often hear and read references to two eras of reform: the first associated with launching of Sputnik in October of 1957 and the second prompted by the publication of Nation at Risk in 1983. Having been deeply involved in the first science project of the first era, namely the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) course in physics, now in its seventh edition, and following today's activities closely, I will try to describe the “what's” and “how's” of the PSSC as a representative of the first era and to compare them with today's reform.

Nonconventional Methods in Teaching Matter, Atoms, Molecules & the Periodic Table for Nonmajor Students

Instructional strategies that allow the integration of a variety of approaches such as hands-on activities, visualization, writing, demonstrations, role play, and guided inquiry are important in bridging the gap between concrete and abstract understanding of scientific concepts and principles among students. The following are a few of the instructional strategies that we have used in classes (from middle school through introductory college courses) and have found to be useful in helping nonscience majors better understand the nature of matter, atoms, molecules, the periodic table, and other related topics. The understanding of matter and its atomic properties is fundamental to the study of most biological and physical sciences in their present forms. For example, in biology, a basic understanding of chemistry (the study of matter and the changes it undergoes) is fundamental to understanding how cells, organisms, and ecosystems work. It is also important in understanding physiology, genetics, evolution, and the origin of life on the planet Earth. Therefore, students need to learn the atomic basis of matter and the periodic properties of the elements, in order for them to succeed in understanding most scientific concepts presented in any science class. At the same time, it is not at all obvious that matter consists of in-

The absolute age of the Côa valley rock-engravings: two physical-science studies

In December 1995, ANTIQUITY published contrary reports on the age of the animal and other figures engraved on open-air schist surfaces of the Côa valley in northern Portugal. João Zilhão (1995) contended that the figures, Palaeolithic in their look, are indeed of Palaeolithic age: they belong with the other Iberian sites where Palaeolithic petroglyphs survive on open-air surfaces. Robert Bednarik (1 995), using his own and others' physical-science studies, contended they were certainly under 3000 years old: the Palaeolithic presumption — and stylistic dating as a method — is false. We here print together two studies concerning the age of the Côa Valley rock-surfaces, and of the figures they bear.

Challenges Facing Social Economists in the Twenty-First Century: A Catholic’s Perspective

In his charge to the contributors to this special issue of the Review of Social Economy, special editor James Henderson stated that the idea for the general theme derived from Alfred Marshall's address in 1896 to the Cambridge Economic Club. The same can be said of this contribution but in ways that probably were not foreseen by Henderson. In brief, a fundamental premise of this essay is that economics has not been well served by infusing the discipline with the terse and powerful phrases of physical science because, whereas physical science studies physical objects, properly understood economics studies human beings in production, distribution, exchange, and consumption. That differ? ence introduces the first of three types of challenges facing social economists in the twenty-first century. The three types of challenges correspond to the three components of social economics as articulated by William R. Waters in his Presidential Address to the Association for Social Economics in

The Introductory University Physics Project

The last period of extensive curriculum reform in physics occurred about 30 years ago. The objectives of that earlier effort were sweeping. The high school physics course was an early target, and the Physical Science Study Committee was created to effect its reform. The Commission on College Physics, formed in June 1960, had as its objective the revitalization of the entire undergraduate physics curriculum. In the wake of this period of reform a new genre of introductory textbooks, modeled on the successful textbook authored by David Halliday and Robert Resnick, became standard. These texts followed the more mathematical emphasis favored after World War II but gave more attention to worked-out examples and other pedagogical elements as well as more substantial exercises and problems than was characteristic of their predecessors

Serving Students, Science, or Society? The Secondary School Physics Curriculum in the United States, 1930-65

On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first satellite, into orbit. In the weeks that followed, Americans questioned why the Soviet Union, a country with only a fraction of the material prosperity of the United States, was able to surpass the world's wealthiest and most powerful nation in the race to outer space. In the minds of many university scholars and members of the public alike, the fault seemed to lie with a flabby American high school curriculum that was no match for the Soviet Union's merciless regimen of math and science for its brightest students. Quickly, the race to beat the Soviets in space became a race to outdo them in the classroom as well, with many educators and university scientists seeing physics as needing the most sweeping overhaul among all subjects within the high school curriculum, in order for America to produce the scientists and engineers needed to compete with the Soviets. After Sputnik's launch, the American high school physics curriculum underwent major reforms, yet it already had undergone what seemed an equally extensive change just after World War II. Starting in the 1940s and continuing into the early 1950s, progessive educators created a physics curriculum that related science to the everyday concerns, problems, and interests of teenagers as a way to meet the needs of non-collegebound students whose numbers in high schools had swelled during the previous two decades. After Sputnik, reformers advocated replacing the progressive curriculum with a discipline-based curriculum, as, for example, the one that the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) created in the late 1950s to promote basic research in physics and to develop the manpower required to compete with the Soviet Union in space and military technology. Both of these reform efforts influenced the high school physics curriculum over the long term, though at times in ways that the

Parallels and Shadows: Where Are We?

Abstract Designed for use with junior and senior high school students, this lesson provides teachers of physical geography, earth science, and social studies with a strategy that involves students in using higher order thinking skills in a cooperative learning format to solve a hypothetical problem that requires them to use their knowledge of earth-sun relationships, absolute location, and place. Students find the problem-solving approach interesting and challenging, and teachers readily identify with the themes of location and place. A knowledge of earth-sun relationships, latitude and longitude, and the characteristics of different places is critical for understanding events, both human and physical, that occur on earth. This lesson can be used at the end of a unit on earth-sun relationships in the physical geography component of a world geography course or near the end of a unit on the solar system in earth science. It could also be used at the end of a unit on maps and globes. Because this content kno...

Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences. J. L. Heilbron

<i>Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences</i>. J. L. Heilbron

Parameter-dependent transitions and the optimal control of dynamical diseases.

Many theoretical studies in biological and physical sciences consider the dynamical behavior of ann-dimensional ordinary differential equation that contains a large number of independent parameters. A frequently asked question is, are there permissible parameter sets that result in periodic or chaotic behavior? The large number of distinct parameters often limits the feasibility of trial and error calculations. The large dimension and nonlinearity of the system make application of analytic methods at best difficult and at worst effectively impossible. It is shown here that a computational search for parameter-dependent transitions of attractor topology can be effected by constrained optimization of quantitative measures of dynamical behavior (Hurwitz polynomials, Floquet coefficients, Lyapunov exponents and correlation dimension). As an example, we examine a three-dimensional nonlinear ordinary differential equation containing seven parameters that was constructed by Goldbeter and Segel to model periodic synthesis of cyclic AMP inDictyostelium. A search for bifurcations to periodic solutions is made by minimizing Hurwitz coefficients subject to parameter constraints. By comparing four optimization algorithms, the defects and advantages of the procedure are identified. It is also argued that it may be possible to use this characterization of dynamics to construct optimal responses to dynamical diseases (those disorders that result from parameter-dependent bifurcations in physiological control systems).

Starting Early: girls and engineering

SUMMARY This paper describes an action research project, ‘Girls into Science and Technology’ (GIST) which focussed on girls’ subject choices in the first three years in their secondary schools in the North of England. This age group was addressed because of the strong tendency of girls in state educational comprehensive schools to choose to drop the study of physical sciences and technical subjects as soon as the opportunity presents itself at about 14 years of age The GIST project had two main purposes: firstly, to research further the courses and processes which lead girls to avoid physical sciences and technical subjects at school, and secondly, to devise school-based interventions which might begin to change the situation. The paper summarises the initiatives taken by the GIST team in conjunction with the ‘action‘ schools, and the research findings and final outcome of the project.

Personal/Professional Characteristics and Teachers' Attitudes about Science

cience teaching in the junior and senior high school has undergone many changes in the last decade. Now with the Back to Basics movement gaining momentum, it is undergoing additional changes and emphasis. New science curricula have been developed and implemented in the classroom. These involve junior high school curricula such as Introductory Physical Science Program (IPS), Physical Science Study Committee Program (PSSC), and Earth Science Curriculum Project (ESCP), as well as senior high curricula such as BSCS biology, CHEMS chemistry, and Project Physics. They also include many modern textbookbased programs that have been influenced by the latest curricular innovations.