Two new animated resources for Elementary Teachers: A Science story and...EELS?!?!

 I am breaking out two new animated resources that are most useful for elementary teachers. 

The first is a STEM story I wrote some years ago, but just had the text. It is titled Little Sue and the Rock, and is a story for children in grades 1-3. The goal is to introduce to younger children the concept of atoms, and what atoms are made of. It goes through electrons, and a nucleus, and then that a nucleus is made of protons and neutrons. But then it introduces the fact that protons and neutrons are made of still smaller pieces called up and down quarks! Quarks are typically unknown even to high school science classes, and therefore high school students, which seems silly to me since I think it is fundamentally we present the most basic ideas of what the world is made of in simple, and accurate, terms. 

The second resource has to do with Social-Emotional Learning, or SEL. Most schools in the country have made it a goal, at some level, to bring in more SEL to deal with some of the issues we've been dealing with with children and teenagers since the Covid pandemic, specifically mental health issues. But SEL has become politicized and is under attack in many regions of the country, and has begun to be frowned upon by many educators. The trouble is, the skills described and contained in traditional CASEL SEL are actually essential life skills any parent would want their children to be strong in, in order to have a healthy and successful life! I am proposing and pushing for a re-branding of SEL to EELS - Everyday Essential Life Skills needed for success! This is a short booklet with animated pages that introduce and define what the EELS are, and I ask all who are parents to decide if the skills shown are part of "left wing indoctrination", or if they are skills you yourself use every day of your life, and are skills any parent would want their kids to know and be strong in. I have yet to find anyone who does not want kids to be strong in the listed skills! 

Using E. coli to manufacture acetaminophin

 In this Science News article, check out how E. coli bacteria, with a change in several genetic instructions, were recently used to produce the chemical reactions within the bacteria to change bits of plastic bottles into acetaminophen, which is the active ingredient in things like Tylenol. With plastic being an environmental nightmare of a problem over the long-run, if we likely can find more natural ways (with the assist from genetic engineering) help alleviate human-made problems in our environment. 

This is a good article for those with interests in biology, biochemistry, genetics, bioengineering, genetic engineering, environmental science, and other related disciplines.

Want a Healthier Diet? Likely you need to ADD foods instead of reducing

 This is a good Science News article that summarizes new nutrition guidelines, that are updated every five years. There's nothing really new about them from what you may have heard or read in the past, but including more beans, peas, lentils, mushrooms, and other natural foods to any dishes, while reducing the amount of red meat and processed meats (processed foods in general), you are adding nutrients that we all are meant to have to optimize the performance of your body's machinery. 

It boils down to the more natural stuff you put in the body, and the less processed stuff, it will be beneficial. For me, one way to guide yourself is the more color in a meal (such as with mixes of red, yellow, orange, and green peppers, different colored beans and mushrooms, and red, yellow, and white onion, different colored tomatoes, etc.), likely that meal will be pretty healthy, and really tasty with the different natural flavors, along with some fresh herbs and seasonings for more flavor. 

A Student-made and run Math Website - Help for MV Calc and Linear Algebra!

 For future generations of students when they get to Multivariable (MV) Calculus and Linear Algebra, taught in semester courses at ETHS, make use of this website designed by former students Micah Cherkasky, Danny O'Connor, Cameron Eaton-Strong, and Emil Frommer. It should be beneficial and useful for students new to these topics!! 

Below are Maxwell's equations written MV style!

May the fourth be with you...always!!

 

                                             From Disney

Always new things to find in all areas of research

 An article in Science News the other day made me think again about how there have been times when scientists thought a whole field of study may be 'dead', because they knew everything about it! The article was about a massive gas cloud in space that was just discovered and identified - while this sort of thing happens frequently in astronomy, what stands out is it is just 300 light-years from earth. This is like a few doors down the street when it comes to astronomy because this is really close. 

This cloud was hiding right in front of our faces, it appears! It has a mass of about 5500 Suns, and its chemical composition just happens to be one that was difficult to detect. Astronomers have peered through that patch of space countless times over the past few centuries, and still there is something right there! 

In every field of STEM, this is a reminder we will never discover and understand everything, and there will always be a need for the curious and determined minds of youth to come up and keep the quest for knowledge and understanding and curiosity alive! 

National Hotline for mental health decline, suicidal thoughts = 988

 If you or anyone you ever know are having mental health crises, and/or even initial thoughts of suicide, please make use of the national hotline where you can immediately talk to someone who can help, or find help for you. 

TEXT OR DIAL 988! Or you can go to 988lifeline.org. 

New Fusion Reactor turns on in Japan

 What is now the world's largest tokamak (sort of like a toroid shaped reactor) thermonuclear fusion reactor is now working north of Tokyo, Japan. The continued work towards the 'Holy Grail' of energy production is making progress towards the dream of unlimited energy (can get the 'fuel' from water, which is deuterium and tritium, the isotopes of hydrogen), with no risk of meltdowns, no radioactive waste, and no greenhouse gas emissions. This is a big attempt to show fusion is possible, and can scale up to industrial and commercial production levels. Let's hope this works and shows scientists and engineers the next steps of accomplishing this long-term dream! 

                                                            From BYJUs.

A DANGEROUS Era for Science and Education of all kinds - Outright Censorship and restrictions on our work

 Here is how politics instantly affects science (STEM in general) research. At the professional level, most university funding comes through grants. One must write a proposal to foundations, businesses, individuals, or a huge amount from the federal government. The largest amount of federal funding comes through the National Science Foundation, or NSF. But with new directives from the current administration, and its obsession to get rid of anything that they think smells like 'DEI' (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), one can lose their federal funding, and who knows if other legal consequences will be part of this. 

Check out this article to see a LIST OF WORDS that will get a scientific paper FLAGGED FOR DEI. Apparently, federal agencies like NSF, the CDC, and likely every other one, are scrubbing published papers on their websites to remove these words. This is outright censorship, and we all need to be aware of this in K-12 research because so many programs and opportunities to help all sorts of students may have federal funding behind them. This could include anything a school does with colleges, special education, food programs, different grants or fellowships through the Dept. of Education (which is being significantly downsized, with a stated goal of the president to be eliminated), and anything a school is doing that has to do with helping students of color, girls (yes, FEMALE and WOMEN are on the banned list), LGBTQ kids, or any group that is underrepresented in anything...ALL of this can get your work or funding flagged for DEI. 

This is a new era for science research, and we all need to be aware of it. This is dangerous, and is what authoritarians and dictators do to control countries and its citizens - the notion of any ideas that differ from 'the state' are banned and outlawed, and has been done throughout history by all sorts of regimes. Be safe, be strong, and resist this nonsense! 

An Eclipsing Binary Star Simulator

 This looks like a pretty interesting binary star system simulator, with the added twist that it shows the eclipsing consequences of the radiation flux we observe from earth. 

If we see a system more from a side view of the plane the star's orbits are on, at certain times one of the stars blocks or partially blocks the other, resulting in dips in the light intensity we detect. This is a great way to measure the orbital periods, which are also needed to determine the masses of the stars. Pretty cool! 

                                                             From Tychos.info