Blogs on Science

Here's an experiment you can conduct in many schools, maybe even the school where you teach. Look through the door of one classroom and you might see the students hunched over, not engaged, even frowning. The teacher looks frazzled, tired and wishing he or she were somewhere else. You might think, "Well, everyone has a bad day." But you might witness this scenario in this teacher's classroom no matter what day you look through the door. For the second part of the experiment, look through the door of another classroom, and you might see a room full of lively students, eager, engaged and participating. The teacher is full of energy and smiling. This happens no matter what day you look through that door.

As mobile learning becomes more and more prevalent, we must find effective ways to leverage mobile tools in the classroom.

Why is the sky blue? I remember in my physical science class, our teacher showed us a possible reason why the sky is blue. He took a canister of liquid oxygen and poured it out on the table. I saw the blueness of the liquid as it flowed out and then disappeared. Then we talked about color, frequencies, and absorption, reflected and radiated light. I wondered how scientist ever figured these things out? Duh -- math! How can you really teach science without math? It is impossible. Science is the application of math.

Even though more people are recognizing the potential for teaching and learning through video games, there are still plenty of skeptics -- those who see video games as a mindless distraction, as entertainment and not education. But the work of a research center at the University of Washington may be at the forefront of challenging that notion. And this isn't just about how students can benefit from educational gaming either; it's about how scientific discovery can benefit from gamers.