Solar Roadways

A married couple from Idaho is about to change the world drastically, for the better.

Julie & Scott Brusaw from Sagle Idaho wanted to do something about Climate Change, and wondered if their crazy idea of making roads out of solar panels could actually work.  Well, after some funding for Research & Development from the Federal Highway Administration, they proved it can and does.  Learn about it with this video:




This makes me so geeking happy, you have no idea.  And I'm just a little proud that these folks are from a neighboring state, and the husband is a mechanical engineer.  I'm excited that hopefully these will be a reality by the time my little boys are driving.  I am REALLY hoping with the public's backing, this won't be killed by Big Oil and the politicians they have so much control over.  Here's to still having hope in America!

Solar Roadways is raising money to go into PRODUCTION until May 31, 2014.  Please visit their Indiegogo page to make a donation and get some cool swag along the way.

That ^ is my fave of their bumper stickers you can get for a $25 donation (mine is on its way).  You can get even cooler stuff for bigger donations if you can afford that.  (If you can't afford to donate, help spread the word instead!)

Click on the logo to go to their funding campaign:

And here is their website where you can get more updates on what's going on with them currently:

SolarRoadways.com

And/or like their Facebook Page for updates!

Thanks, spread the Solar Love: save the planet, the economy, our health, and our wallets.

(Info for this post was from SolarRoadways.com and www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways)

Nature High Summer Camp

This camp is so awesome!  I was a counselor last year, so I'll put up some pics and stories below, but first off, here's the promotional video they made for the camp which shows a lot of awesome footage from last summer!  If you or someone you know is a High School student in Utah, you owe it to yourself to check this opportunity out!





Wondering what to do this summer in Utah? Summer camp, teens, teenagers, resume builder During summer 2013, it was my great pleasure to work as a camp counselor for Nature High Summer Camp in Ephraim Canyon, Utah!  Here's my awesome group of students:

Under Construction, sorry! I'm a busy college student, please forgive me. :)

Marie Curie

This was shared on Facebook by Science is Awesome.

Marie Curie was also denied a seat on the French Academy of Sciences in 1911.  She responded to this by diving into her work and earning her second Nobel Prize a year later for her work with radioactivity.  (There is a measurement of the effects of radiation named after her, the Curie, abbreviated Ci.)  Go to this source for a full article about this story.

Here's a real photograph of her.

You can read a short biography on the Nobel Prize website

Einstein and Pie - I mean Pi

Today is a very special day for two reasons - Albert Einstein, and Pi!
Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879.

And today's date is the first three digits of Pi -  3.14 which are pretty much the only digits the typical person knows.  Pi is an irrational number, so the digits are infinite and non-repeating.

The best Pi ever... today I'm going to listen to this song, eat a piece of pie, and solve the area of a circle all at the same time. ;)

My favorite Einstein quotes:
"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and  knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods."

"The only source of knowledge is experience."

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"

Lastly, my personal and blog motto:

Videos for Einstein's Theory of Relativity

Happy Pi Day - go eat some pie!

Free Choice Learning, Social Science, Exhibit Proposal

I am in the middle of putting together my exhibit proposal and my power point presentation for the final symposium on Friday and I had to take a quick break to geek out.

I'm going through all the data I collected by talking with people in the visitor center here, and I find myself feeling so excited!  I'm so loving this.  I think this kind of work is the perfect marriage of my passions for science, education, and psychology!  I get to think about how the brain works, how it learns, how people interact with things based on their beliefs and values, and also some sociology of how they do all this in the context of participating with their family, sharing their opinion with others, etc.  This is so cool!

I think I'm also really going to enjoy the research I'll be doing this fall with Dr. Heath Ogden.  We're going to do a study on how college Biology students learn and accept or reject evolution.  I'm super excited for this!  Once again, it's that marriage of science, education, psychology, and even some religion on that one.  Perfect.

I think the other wonderful thing about this project is that it's not just one of those research projects where you find some data and present it and you're done.  No, I got to collect the data, interpret it, and immediately apply it into an exhibit proposal that is catered to the wants and needs of people based on that data I collected!  It's data collection with an immediately applicable purpose!  And creating the exhibit proposal is just such a powerful thing.  To think that my work and ideas will be taken, tweaked and fleshed out, and made into an actual thing that people will use.  That's very exciting to me.  I wish I could be around for that tweaking and fleshing out process.  It would be so awesome to see a project like this all the way to the finish.

Having a blast!  Okay now back to work.

Science Center Spree

ASTC is the Association of Science-Technology Centers.  They have a passport program in which if you buy a membership at any of their participating centers, you can have free entry into all the others (with a couple restrictions- click here to learn about it if you're interested in getting one).

So, I bought a membership from Pacific Science Center and we took advantage of that and 3 other centers in the past 5 days.

Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum

McMinnville, Oregon

When I first saw this on the list I didn't think much of it except that it was probably a bit too far off I-5 to be worth the trip.  Boy was I wrong.  I pulled up their website and found that they have the actual Spruce Goose on display!  Yes the actual thing built by Howard Hughes.

Spruce Goose @ Evergreen Aviation Museum
Notice the tiny people standing below the nose

 And more surprises were in store- a water park.  Are you kidding me?  A water park at an aviation museum?  This place looks dang awesome with a wave pool, water slides, and a water science museum.  We didn't go to this part because it was an extra cost, but I would love to go there some day, it looks like a blast.  Very out of the box and an excellent attraction that probably puts McMinnville on the map.

The aviation museum and the Spruce Goose...all I can say is- wow.  Wow!  That thing is HUGE.  My jaw was dropped open most of the time and I was happy to get to go inside and we even paid a little extra to go up into the cockpit.  Amazing.

8 Huge propellers powered this giant

Tail of the Spruce Goose

Yup, it's actually made out of wood!  View inside passenger area

The cockpit - notice the tube on the back of the pilot's chair on the left - this was the special ventilation system for Howard Hughes.  Hepa filters were based on his invention.  We got to sit in these chairs and imagine what it would have been like to fly the old girl.

Spruce Goose Cockpit

Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum - If you're ever in the vicinity it's worth the detour.  And it's really not that big of a detour anyway, just a different route.  (Click to visit their website.)

Pacific Science Center

Seattle, Washington

(Click to go to Pacific Science Center website.)  I remember this place when my family went several years ago when I was a teen.  I had vivid memories of the cool water guns outside, the giant furniture, and the exhibits that explore the senses.  Those things were still there and we got to explore some music exhibits, space, ...  They have an exhibit of King Tut that I'm sure must be fabulous but it would have been an extra $40 for myself and my two boys, so we passed on that.  We did get to see a movie To the Arctic which was fantastic- it's the story of a mother polar bear and her two cubs.  Very beautiful 40 minute 3D IMAX film.

My big splurge that I justified as a birthday present to myself was They Might Be Giants "Here Comes Science" CD and DVD together for $35.  I thought that was a pretty killer deal.  The kids already know the songs by heart.

OMSI

Portland, Oregon

When I was remembering my long ago visits to Pacific Science Center and OMSI I thought that Pacific Science Center would be the better one.  I was wrong again.  I think OMSI was way better.  (Click for OMSI's website.)  They had a great exhibit on natural disasters that went through earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and volcanoes.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  They had a computer program where you could "create a volcano" by setting high or low gases and high or low silicon in the lava, and by adjusting those two settings you can create the 4 types of volcanoes (shield, cinder cone, stratovalcano, and lava dome).

Exhibits on life science and earth science thoroughly geeked me out and the kids loved the sand and water table in the earth science lab.  They also have a "science playground" meant for ages 6 and under that is pretty sweet.

Then we went into an awesome physics exhibit- many machines, laws of motion, etc. being explored here.  And one very cool feature was the inventor's ball room where you can hook up pipes and valves to create new pathways for blue foam balls to catapult around the enclosed room.  Major coolness factor.  There are also Chemistry, Physics and I think one other lab off of this area but they were closed by the time we got there.  The center stays open later- 7:00- which is great, but the labs close at 5 or 5:30.

There is also a submarine tour that I didn't find out about until 15 minutes to close.  It does cost extra though so we might not have done it anyway.  They have an actual sub in the river next to the center so it could be pretty neat.

A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village

Salem, Oregon 

Another surprising find.  They have 3 houses and then a huge outdoor play area with a maze, giant chess board, mammoth skeleton, and more.  In the houses were exhibit rooms such as the China room, China room, fossil room, and my favorite - the bubble room.  This is a place I think I will take the kids to anytime we have to pass through Salem or even close because it's a great way to kill a few hours and very educational stuff disguised as wicked awesome fun.  (Click for the website.)

Darwin Day

Tomorrow is Charles Darwin's birthday.  My school celebrated "Darwin Day" on Wednesday with a seminar during the lunch hour and an evening event including a speaker, panel, and yes, even birthday cake.

Being the nerd that I am, I attended all of it and was probably one of very few students not required by a teacher to be there.  I overheard a lot of students complaining about having to go, and the fact that the place was packed proves that they were being coerced.  Otherwise those seminars are full of faculty and staff, but pretty devoid of students - except yours truly.

Earlier this week, I was discussing evolution with a couple other Biology Ed majors.  The big thing that stuck out to me in our discussion was that people think they have to choose between evolution and religion.  One of my classmates told about a girl that was completely turned off to science altogether because of evolution.  I think that is probably quite common.  And it's sad.  I don't believe that science and religion or a faith in a Supreme Being should be mutually exclusive or that in order to be a good scientist, you need to be atheist.
But that is exactly the question I posed to the panel - are they mutually exclusive and do you need to be atheist?  The panel had 2 BYU professors on it who responded and then an atheist philosopher who argued every point the others made, and in fact, they went off on a tangent about the Book of Mormon and lack of DNA evidence tying the Native Americans to the middle east and it started an argument.  It wasn't my fault, I swear.  So obviously the BYU people think it's fine to have both science and religion, and the atheist said bluntly that it definitely makes it easier to be atheist and believe evolution is how the natural world works.

Dr. Heath Ogden was the one who gave the speech prior to the panel and he pointed out that only 40% of Americans accept evolution, but that a bunch of religions (including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that I belong to) have stated that they have no problem with science.  I mentioned in my question that I don't get the vibe that this kind of open-mindedness is returned by the scientific community.  I feel like the people on the panel were the exceptions to the rule, and that many scientists are more like the philosopher was.  (This goes back to my post on Darwin as Dogma.)

One of them did point out, however, a few good examples.  Many contributers to evolutionary science are religious.  Then there is the poignant exaple of Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins.  Dawkins is an atheist who said "you can't be a good scientist and religious."  I remember seeing this quote when I was searching for general science quotes last year and that really got me thinking about how scientists see religious people.  The panelist said that in response to this, Francis Collins challenged Dawkins "show me how you've been a better scientist than I have," to which Dawkins had no response.

The philosopher on the panel said that it's definitely easier to be an atheist because of Darwin.  Before then it was pretty impossible.  As it turns out, this man was regurgitating a quote by Dawkins:
"I could not imagine being an atheist at any time before 1859, when Darwin's Origin of Species was published"  "...although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist".
-- R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton, London, pp. 5,6  (http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/43991/22490045/Einstein,_Hawking,_and_the_Mind_of_God?pg=11)


The day after all this, I went to a meeting put on by the Wildlife and Botany Clubs about research and internships, and Dr. Ogden wants to do research on how to teach evolution to help people accept it.  I went and met with him Friday because I want to help with this.  Turns out he's LDS too and so we might take the angle of finding out how LDS people view evolution, what teaching methods would be effective in increasing acceptance of evolution, etc.  I'm really excited to get to help with this research.  I hope to prevent having my own students decide to hate science because it tries to rob them of their faith.

I love how this Coexist logo includes science with all the religions!

Science Fair Judge

Wahoo, I got to help judge a middle school science fair today.  It was way fun.  And I think I will get to do it for a Regional level on Valentine's Day.  Awww, how sweet, I can spend the afternoon with my true love - science and a bunch of teenagers! :D

In March I'm going to volunteer for a science/math/etc conference for 6th-12th grade girls, and a kids' science fair.  It's nice to finally find some volunteering opportunities that actually have something to do with science. :)

I've also enjoyed joining some new clubs this week- the Wildlife Club, and the Science Association of Women (SAW). It was SO nice to get to talk to a bunch of ladies who were geeks like me and several in my same major.

Darwin - Dogma?

Disclaimer: These are my thoughts and opinions with my current level of knowledge and understanding, which I'm the first to admit is not great.  I'm certain as I learn more I will weaken or strengthen, toss out, or completely change my views.  Please comment with your views, but please keep in mind my admitted ignorance and keep your words kind. :)

Is it just me, or do some evolutionists (and atheists, for that matter), seem to just be another group of religious fanatics trying to convert you to their beliefs?  It seems like anyone who dares question any of Darwin's theories as scientists currently understand them is ridiculed as a heretic.

In Physics last summer, my teacher introduced science as something where you do not accept ANYTHING based on someone's say so.  It all has to be evidence based from your own experience.  He also said that scientists are a funny bunch.  When a colleague creates something (a new theory), the acceptable way to respond is to attempt to destroy their creation.  If it withstands the skepticism and repeated testing and experimenting, then it is deemed of value.

I agree with this whole-heartedly.  I am very skeptical.  I want to learn everything for myself and figure things out until they click in my head and make sense to my being (aka spirit).
However, I feel like many scientists don't actually agree with this skepticism.  If anyone expresses skepticism about evolution in particular, they are not praised as a true scientist, but they seem to be ridiculed.  I read a quote from some guy a few months ago (forgive me, I only remember the jist of it), saying that science cannot exist with God.  He had some pretty strong words about the fools who believe in God and said that science very effectively disproves the existence of such a being.  I found myself wondering if this is the common view of the entire scientific community or if this guy was just a bit over-the-top.

I myself believe in Natural Selection, it's pretty dang obvious. But I don't necessarily believe it was the sole mechanism for creating the current diversity of life we enjoy on the earth.  So far I don't know enough, but I suspect that evolution CAN happen in individuals, not just populations, and be passed on to their posterity.  That may sound preposterous to most people, and maybe after further study I'll find that it is.  But isn't that what science is about?  Inferring truth and meaning based on what you currently know.

Geology is based heavily on uniformitarianism (spell checker doesn't like that word, but I think I spelled it correctly haha).  I think that Geologists are incredible scientists who are really rather like detectives.  It's super fun to try to figure out what happened to get a given land form to where it is today.  However I think that uniformitarianism is a bit too simple.  I think it could be foolish to take this tiny amount of data we have from recorded history, and apply it to billions of years.  The only constant is change.  I think Geology is great for figuring out how things happened but I don't necessarily believe that they took the amount of time they suppose.  I do think that geologic processes could have happened at different speeds during different times of earth history.  There are too many factors to assume things were always as they are now.

I think that Darwin effectively disproved the idea of the earth being only a few thousand years old.  But I think him jumping to the conclusion that this meant there was no God at all may have been a bit hasty.

My Microbiology teacher always called DNA the "Spirit molecule".  I could never tell if he was making fun of religious people or if he believes in something like that.  I think "spirit" is much smaller than DNA though.  Perhaps quantum physics is scratching the surface of something.  I think there are so many things at play on the sub-atomic level that we may never understand.  And call me crazy if you want, but I think spirit (and indeed, God) is in there- somewhere.

Thanks for reading.  Please comment. :)  And have a nice day.

New Geekin' Science Blog

Yippee I have a new blog.  I like to geek out about science stuff and sometimes people just don't get it, ya know?  I guess I'm a freak, but I think the world and the living things on it are freaking amazing!  I love to learn new things all the time, and now I have a place to post them.
A little about me and what this blog will be about...

I am a college student in Utah and I plan to be a science teacher (Junior High or High School, teaching Biology and Geology hopefully).  I am also a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I love science and learning lots of stuff particularly about the earth, how it was formed, why it is the way it is now, its prehistory, how plants and animals work, how they came to be, etc.  Surprising to some, science does not make me doubt my faith in God.  I think science and God go together quite nicely.  I bring this up because sometimes my posts will refer to my faith since it's a big part of my life, and I'm always finding ways in which the natural world/ science fit in beautifully with my beliefs, and I love to share this information with whomever happens to be willing to listen.

Okie dokie, so I hope you enjoy my ramblings, and feel free to comment!  I'd love to hear from people.