SCIENCE YEAR NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 44 Week ending Friday, 23rd November 2001 Welcome welcome welcome to another gripping installment of the Science Year newsletter. With more drama, intrigue, passion and comedy than a Robert Altman movie and more goalmouth incidents than an England v Germany game, we’re sure you’ll be pinned to your seat for at least the next three and a half minutes. Do hope so anyway....Here’s what’s coming up: 1. Online planetary JOURNEY OF ADVENTURE for primary schools 2. Inspirational TEACHING RESOURCES free to all 3. Get WIRED-UP – if you think you’re young and funky enough… 4. HUMAN BODY star wows crowds in Sheffield 5. Dumfries prepares for touchdown of NASA ASTRONAUT 6. HAVE YOUR SAY about school Science Year 7. Put your SPACE TRIVIA KNOWLEDGE to the test 8. ONLINE ENVIRONMENTAL DEBATE warms up the atmosphere 9. Get physical with SCIENCE LINE’S QUESTION OF THE WEEK 10. Is that a WEBSITE OF THE WEEK or am I seeing things? 11. HILARIOUS JOKES FREE SOFTWARE – SUITABLE FOR PRIMARY PUPILS ‘Planet 10’ and the intellectual battle to create a 3D environment that can sustain life within the solar system is still keeping many people addictively preoccupied, interrupting family life and distracting office workers from the daily grind… However – we did say we’d be bringing you a new software resource every month, didn’t we? So, following in the cosmic-sized footsteps of Planet 10, we bring you another interplanetary adventure: ‘Ciel Space Explorer’ from Blumetime Education Ltd. This is a game/educational experience specifically aimed at Key Stage 2 pupils. What happens is this: the central character, Ciel visits an alien solar system in his rocket. In this solar system there are five planets and a space station which can be explored by the user, and each of them has a different and exciting theme for Ciel to explore and learn about. MORE TEACHING RESOURCES Meanwhile, if it’s teaching resources you want, here’s some information that may be of interest … Bulletpoint, manufacturer of interactive whiteboards, have developed specially for Science Year an online science teaching portal with resources and information for pupils aged between 5-16 years old. Anyone can use the site (so long as you can run Flash on your machine) and it’s free. The address is: http://scienceyear.digitalbrain.com and you’ll find a plethora of quality quizzes, information on areas of the curriculum and other teaching tools lurking there just waiting for you to take advantage of them. By the way, Bulletpoint also do science resources specifically designed for use with their interactive whiteboards, and you’ll find more info about all of that on their website: www.interactivewhiteboards.co.uk SIGN UP FOR WIRED-UP Ok … be honest, did you yawn your way through the previous two items because you’re not a teacher and would much rather be finding out about where all the good competitions are on the web, how to create invisible ink and how SETI are getting on in the quest to make contact with alien life forms? If so, we recommend you go straight away and sign up for our new e-zine WIRED-UP, a soon-to-be-launched monthly-mailed newsletter particularly aimed at people who are … not old. (Sorry to the rest of you, tricky to know how to phrase that one, but basically if you were eligible to vote in the last election, this is not aimed at you … though you might still enjoy it, if you’re the sort of person who still enjoys watching Ant & Dec and reading Smash Hits should it happen to be lying about …!) ROBERT WINSTON’S STAR TURN AT SHEFFIELD The highlight of the past week for many people was the lecture given by Robert Winston on Wednesday night at Sheffield Hallam University. This was the second in the series of Science Year lectures, and was also his inaugural lecture as Chancellor of the University. Tickets for the lecture were snapped up as soon as it was announced, and the lecture hall was packed out on the night. The talk was entitled ‘From Human to Superhuman’ and it ranged over subjects such as fertility and reproduction, the battle against disease, and human cloning (very topical as the following day news broke that Britain is to ban reproductive human cloning.) "I looked at my watch at 7pm when the lecture started, and the next minute it was 8 o’clock, I was completely engrossed all the way through," marvelled one member of the audience afterwards, "It was absolutely brilliant" said another, and "I now understand what mitochondria are!" was another wide-eyed comment of appreciation. Incidentally more details of the human cloning news story can be found in BBC Online news at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1285000/1285151.stm NASA ASTRONAUT TOUCHES DOWN IN DUMFRIES Meanwhile, news of another fascinating public lecture happening in the next few days, this time organised by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Dr Bonnie Dunbar is a veteran of five space flights with NASA during which she’s undertaken many scientific and medical experiments. She’s travelled over 20 million miles in Space, and orbited the Earth almost 800 times … and on Tuesday she’s arriving in Dumfries to talk about her experiences. The talk’s taking place at Dumfries Academy on Tuesday 4th December, and there’ll be a talk for local school students in the afternoon and another talk for the general public in the evening. Dr Dunbar will be speaking about our quest over the past hundred years to "go where no (wo)man has gone before" and she’ll also be explaining the types of scientific research that have been carried out in space on her and others’ missions, and what has been learned. For more information about the event and how to obtain tickets, visit the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s website at: www.royalsoced.org.uk/ and click through on ‘Events - November 2001 - May 2002’. CURRICULUM REVIEW But back to Science Year events. As you may know already, the Science Museum is a key partner of Science Year (and their colossal and vital contribution to the launch of the year will remain gratefully etched in the memory of organiser Bobby Cerini and her team for a very long time to come – isn’t that right, Bobby?!) Anyway! Another part of their contribution to the Year is something called the Curriculum Review. And they need your help… Here’s what they say: ‘As a major part of our contribution to Science Year, we are organising a truly student and pupil led review of the Science National Curriculum' This is not an official study - although both the DfES and QCA are interested in the outcomes - but rather a vigorous contribution to wider debate, giving students a rarely heard voice in their educational provision at this level. The review will involve a number of regional conferences for students aged 16-19 years in which they will draft the content for a Web-driven questionnaire about science. Thus, we're looking for a number of schools and sixth form college departments across the country who would be prepared to identify two or three students (including one non-scientist) and to excite them into taking part. (The potential for UCAS statements etc. is, of course, obvious.) If you would like to be involved, please get in touch with the Review Manager, Ian Murray, as soon as is possible. The first regional conferences (organised through the SETPOINT network) will be taking place soon and your school / college may well wish to send students. If you know of other people who might be interested, please pass details on to them. Contact: Ian Murray on curriculumreview@nmsi.ac.uk GOODBYE NOBEL, HELLO SPACE TRIVIA The Science Year Nobel Prize quiz has now closed its doors to contenders. Hundreds of entries were received, but only a handful had all the answers right. Those that did will be going in the hat, and the first ten pulled out will receive the set of Royal Mail hologram etc stamps plus the Discovery PostBag full of experiment goodies. If you didn’t enter or suspect you got question no 8 wrong, dinnae fret, we have something new for you to get your teeth into. Namely, the Space Trivia Quiz. And as prizes we have three sets of the brilliant ‘Amazing Science Facts and Trivia’ books by Paul Holper & Simon Torok to give away. ONLINE ENVIRONMENT DEBATE The Natural Environment Research Council and Spiked have launched an online debate about global warming - the first in a series of heated discussions about science and the environment. Bjørn Lomborg, author of 'The Skeptical Environmentalist', puts the case against implementing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change - while Dr Mike Hulme, executive director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, puts the case for. Expert responses from John Gillott, co-author of 'Science and the Retreat from Reason', and Margaret Mogford of the UK Emissions Trading Group, have already been posted, and will be followed by contributions from scientists, campaign groups, and possibly YOU. Join the debate... www.spiked-online.com/sections/science/debates Future debates will address genetic modification, renewable energy, water resources and environmental ethics, so have a look and take part … and let us know what you think. SCIENCE LINE QUESTION As you’ll know from your own experience, scientifically-curious individuals are constantly scratching their heads and wishing they understood more fully eg. how catalytic converters work, which new sub-atomic particles have been discovered recently, and the average reaction speeds for lesser executed chemical processes. But none of those are the most popular question recorded by Science Line. No, the most popular question is … wait for it …‘Why do farts smell?’ (Woops, sorry, that should be "f**ts" shouldn’t it, for those of a delicate disposition). Science Line are of course the people with their fingers on the web statistics that have given the UK public away, and it seems that when people surf their site, they just can’t help visiting the f**t Q&A rather more often than they do the catalytic converter ones… So to enable them to boost their stats even more, here’s the weblink so you can find out for yourself. www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Biology/Food/b00212c.html Remember, Science Line is free, and they’re ready, willing and able to answer any science-related questions you can throw at them. Their website is: http://www.sciencenet.org.uk and their phone line is 0808 800 4000 (Mon-Sat, 1pm-7pm). PS if you liked this week’s featured question, you may well enjoy the following link < http://yucky.kids.discovery.com/flash/body/ ‘the yuckiest site on the web’ as they call themselves. And, you may also enjoy this chemistry-related site: Molecules with Silly or Unusual Names (‘megaphone’ and ‘moronic acid’ being two of the more repeatable ones!) www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/silly/sillymols.htm RECOMMENDED WEBSITE(S) OF THE WEEK If you’ve been to the ‘Library’ area of our website lately, you may have noticed that the list of links available has lately shot into orbit like genetically modified magic beanstalk. It’s also therefore been reorganised to try and make finding what you want easier. Thank you to everyone who’s suggested links, and let us know if you think we’ve missed any. Meanwhile, Katie Walsh is the web-headed woman who has been spending her days and nights surfing to the remotest corners of cyberspace to check out and review each site, so praise be to her. And it seemed crazy not to ask her to nominate this week’s Recommended Website of the Week. So here it is: (drumroll) Sandlot Science, a site (sight?) full of optical illusions, beautifully illustrated and animated. Their url is: http://www.sandlotscience.com/ Let the eyeball boggling begin! JOKE OF THE WEEK Just time for a quick couple of teacher jokes this week: Teacher: Well, at least there's one thing I can say about your son. Father: What's that? Teacher: With grades like these, he couldn't be cheating. Gary: I don't think I deserve a zero on this test. Teacher: I agree, but it's the lowest mark I can give you. But there are also loads of other slightly longer and more sciencey jokes at a very nice man called Andy Darvill’s site: http://www.darvill.clara.net/ Enjoy! (And thanks again Andy) FINALLY … A quick mention for Thames Water (UK) who have set up a website associated with Water Aid. If 2 million people click on it, they will donate £150,000 to provide safe drinking water in Africa and Asia for 10,000 people. There are only a few more weeks left and 500,000 more clicks are still required to meet the target. So please take a hit at: www.givewater.org and tell your friends! And … that’s all the news that’s fit to print this week. As ever though we welcome your comments, news items, website recommendations and jokes, so keep em coming. The email address is: anne.mcnaught@scienceyear.com Have a great week!