NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2014/04/04
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2014-04-04 17:13.
National Center for Science Education
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Dear friends of NCSE, NCSE's Eugenie C. Scott receives NSTA's Distinguished Service to Science Education Award. NCSE's Minda Berbeco, Mark McCaffrey, Eric Meikle, and Glenn Branch address the issue of teaching controversies in the science classroom in the pages of The Science Teacher. Brian Alters, the president of NCSE's board of directors, is profiled in the Orange County Register. And a new issue of Reports of the NCSE, a new milestone for NCSE on Facebook, and a new honor for Kenneth R. Miller.
NSTA AWARD FOR NCSE'S SCOTT Eugenie C. Scott, the former executive director of NCSE and the current chair of its Advisory Council, will be presented with a Distinguished Service to Science Education Award from the National Science Teachers Association. The award is presented to members of NSTA "who, through active leadership and scholarly endeavor over a significant period of time, have made extraordinary contributions to the advancement of education in the sciences and science teaching." Scott will receive the award at a special banquet and ceremony on April 4, 2014, during the NSTA's national conference in Boston. For information about NSTA, visit: http://www.nsta.org/ "CHOOSE CONTROVERSIES WISELY" "When teaching scientific argumentation, selecting the wrong topic can impair -- rather than increase -- student understanding." That was the message of four members of NCSE's staff, Minda Berbeco, Mark McCaffrey, Eric Meikle, and Glenn Branch, in their commentary "Choose Controversies Wisely," published in the April/May 2014 issue of The Science Teacher. Because interest in teaching scientific argumentation is burgeoning, the commentary observed, "It's tempting to choose controversial topics to teach the skill of arguing from evidence. Controversies, after all, are what people argue about." But they also pose a risk: "Choosing the wrong controversial topic can result in a net loss ... in student understanding." Five criteria for assessing whether a controversy is appropriate for a science classroom were presented. Among them: "If a controversy is presented as a scientific controversy, it should be a genuine scientific controversy," with climate change and evolution identified as two topics that are socially controversial but not scientifically controversial. The commentary then addressed the question of whether to discuss non-scientific controversies in a science class at all. Without offering a definitive answer, Berbeco and her colleagues urged the importance of explicitly contrasting scientific argumentation "with the freewheeling, undisciplined, and often antagonistic argumentation of ordinary life." Finally, a few further pitfalls in introducing students to scientific argumentation were mentioned, warning not only of counterproductive approaches like staging debates but also of attempts to exploit the increasing interest in teaching scientific argumentation in the service of undermining the teaching of evolution and climate change. For the article in The Science Teacher, visit: http://digital.nsta.org/publication/?i=202138&p=10 BRIAN ALTERS PROFILED IN THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER Brian Alters, president of NCSE's board of directors, was profiled in the Orange County Register (April 1, 2014). The article described how Alters's twin interests in Charles Darwin and Walt Disney now intersect in his popular class "Pursuit of Happiness: Charles Darwin and Walt Disney," in which he "compares and contrasts the lives of Darwin and Disney and delves into the philosophical and scientific question: What is happiness and why do we pursue it? Did we evolve for happiness?" Alters teaches the class at Chapman University, where he is Professor of Education. The Register's story also summarizes Alters's involvement with the creationism/evolution controversy: "Today, he's director of the Evolution Education Research Center at Chapman and president of the board of directors for the National Center for Science Education, a San Francisco-based organization that advocates for science in the classroom. He is co-author of several books, including 'Defending Evolution in the Classroom.' Before Bill Nye 'the Science Guy' debated creationist Ken Ham, Alters debated Ham at Harvard University in 1999, and he helped Nye prep for his debate with Ham." For the profile in the Orange County Register, visit: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/disney-607863-alters-darwin.html RNCSE 34:2 NOW ON-LINE NCSE is pleased to announce that the latest issue of Reports of the National Center for Science Education is now available on-line. The issue -- volume 34, number 2 -- features commentary on the Bill Nye-Ken Ham debate from John W. Patterson, Andrew J. Petto, and Steve Watkins, as well as Bernard Winograd's reflections on science and public policy in general. And for his regular People and Places column, Randy Moore discusses the "man tracks" of Glen Rose, Texas. Plus a host of reviews of books on the history of biology: Carol Anelli reviews Charles Darwin: A Celebration of his Life and Legacy, Lee Ehrman reviews Erike Lorraine Milam's Looking for a Few Good Males, Paul Lawrence Farber reviews Ted R. Anderson's The Life of David Lack, Scott Gilbert reviews Rudolf A. Raff's Once We All Had Gills, William Kimler reviews Peter J. Bowler's Darwin Deleted, and Keith Stewart Thomson reviews J. David Pleins's The Evolving God. All of these articles, features, and reviews are freely available in PDF form from http://reports.ncse.com. Members of NCSE will shortly be receiving in the mail the print supplement to Reports 34:2, which, in addition to summaries of the on-line material, contains news from the membership, a regular column in which NCSE staffers offer personal reports on what they've been doing to defend the teaching of evolution, a regular column interviewing NCSE's favorite people, and more besides. (Not a member? Join today!) For the table of contents for RNCSE 34:2, visit: http://reports.ncse.com/index.php/rncse/issue/current/showToc For information about joining NCSE, visit: http://ncse.com/join FACEBOOK: N > 50,000 A milestone: there are now over 50,000 fans of NCSE's Facebook page. Why not join them, by visiting the page and becoming a fan by clicking on the "Like" box by NCSE's name? You'll receive the latest NCSE news delivered straight to your Facebook Home page, as well as updates on evolution-related and climate-related topics. Or if you prefer your news in 140-character chunks, follow NCSE on Twitter. And while you're surfing the web, why not visit NCSE's YouTube channel, with hundreds of videos for your watching pleasure? It's the best place on the web to view talks by NCSE's staff, including the new series of activist workshop webinars. For NCSE's Facebook page, Twitter feed, and YouTube channel, visit: http://www.facebook.com/evolution.ncse http://twitter.com/ncse http://www.youtube.com/NatCen4ScienceEd CONGRATULATIONS TO KENNETH R. MILLER NCSE is pleased to congratulate Kenneth R. Miller, who will receive the University of Notre Dame's Laetare Medal for 2014. According to a March 30, 2014, press release from the university, the award, established in 1883, is "the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics." "Kenneth Miller has given eloquent and incisive witness both to scientific acumen and religious belief," explained Notre Dame's president John I. Jenkins. "As an accomplished biologist and an articulate believer, he pursues two distinct but harmonious vocations and illustrates how science and faith can mutually flourish." A member of NCSE's Advisory Council, Miller is Professor of Biology of Brown University. He is the coauthor, with Joseph S. Levine, of four popular high school and college textbooks, and author of Finding Darwin's God (1999) and Only a Theory (2008). Among his awards are the Public Service Award from the American Society for Cell Biology, the AAAS's Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology, the Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution. He testified for the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the 2005 case establishing the unconstitutionality of teaching "intelligent design" in the public schools. For the press release from the University of Notre Dame, visit: http://news.nd.edu/news/47186-biologist-kenneth-miller-to-receive-notre-dames-2014-laetare-medal/ WHAT'S NEW FROM THE SCIENCE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Have you been visiting NCSE's blog, The Science League of America, recently? If not, then you've missed: * Josh Rosenau contemplating a creationist commencement controversy: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/03/digging-into-diggers-dispute-0015480 * Glenn Branch discussing whether "intelligent design" is interventionist: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/04/intervening-first-things-0015476 * Peter Hess surveying the creationist reaction to the new movie about Noah: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/03/who-owns-rights-to-noah-0015482 * Ann Reid explaining the drama of the turtles of Heron Island: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/03/occasional-evolutionist-ii-0015485 And much more besides! For The Science League of America, visit: http://ncse.com/blog Thanks for reading. And don't forget to visit NCSE's website -- http://ncse.com -- where you can always find the latest news on evolution and climate education and threats to them. -- Sincerely, Glenn Branch Deputy Director National Center for Science Education, Inc. 420 40th Street, Suite 2 Oakland, CA 94609-2509 510-601-7203 x305 fax: 510-601-7204 800-290-6006 branch@ncse.com http://ncse.com Check out NCSE's new blog, Science League of America: http://ncse.com/blog Read Reports of the NCSE on-line: http://reports.ncse.com Subscribe to NCSE's free weekly e-newsletter: http://groups.google.com/group/ncse-news NCSE is on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/evolution.ncse http://www.youtube.com/NatCen4ScienceEd http://twitter.com/ncse NCSE's work is supported by its members. Join today! http://ncse.com/join
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