Wednesday - August 05, 2009
Wasted Grant Money?
A physics professor who says he’ll do “anything” to get people interested in science is teaming up with the Philadelphia 76ers cheerleaders to offer online lessons on magnetics, mass and matter — all through the magic of miniskirts.
James Trefil’s 20-year campaign for science literacy has led him to link up with some unlikely allies at ScienceCheerleader.com, where he and a scantily clad crew of dancing Darwins offer 18 video lessons on core ideas in science.
Trefil, who’s left behind his classroom for the summer to help on the Brain Makeover videos, said it made sense for him to use “a little sex appeal” in his effort to reach and teach nonscientists.
“Why not cheerleaders?” asked Trefil, the Robinson Professor of Science at George Mason University. “My own philosophy is, any way you can get the scientific message across, that’s a good thing.”
The Web site offers brief scientific lessons from members of the Sixers squad ("All matter is made of atoms,” explains Lauren), and a bit more background from the septuagenarian Trefil, who does not appear in the videos. Visitors can then take a quiz to judge their own scientific literacy.
The site is the creation of science advocate Darlene Cavalier, a Master of Science Policy who has spent a decade working for Discover Magazine and was also one of the original 76ers dancers.
Cavalier, who is also leading projects to increase the number of citizen scientists in the country, told FOXNews.com she doesn’t worry that some people visiting the site might be less interested in their physics than their physiology.
“More than anything I think it does help break stereotypes,” said Cavalier, who said a higher percentage of Tennessee Titans cheerleaders have formal science training than do members of Congress. Cheerleaders have the edge 10 percent to 8 percent, she said.
Some students could be getting more skirts with their science soon. Cavalier said she’s fielded a number of requests from high school teachers who want to use her videos next year “to turn people on to science.”
Ok, color me willing. Pretty girls with pom poms, and a bit of school. What the heck. Besides, I used to take science classes at college just to pump up my GPA. No worries. So let’s go visit!
Aside from a few minor grammatical and html errors, the site is not bad. It’s a bit hard to figure out how to get to the lessons, so I linked directly there for you. Basically the site is a blog.
Now onto the lessons, let’s put some sexy into our schooling!
YAWN. This is not sexy. It’s lame. Each of the 18 little lessons has a 15 second video, wherein a thumbnail sized cheerleader speaks aloud the label/title of that lesson. It’s not until video 15, labled “All living things are made from cells, the chemical factories of life” that they even try the risky practice of having a conversation; in this one cheerleaders Chenelle and Dierdre go all ad-lib to ratchet up the excitement:
Dierdre: “Number 15 - All living things are made from cells”
Chenelle: “I know, the chemical factories of life.”
Cinematography at it’s finest! But fear not, there is also a paragraph or two of study text, and once in a great while a link to some external bit of deeper reading.
You can take a quiz at the end. I went and watched all the little videos, read all the text, and took the 26 question exam. Results?
Damn, I got one wrong. Which one? I have NO IDEA, because you don’t get to review the test. And it turns out that the exam questions go waaaay beyond what is covered in the study material and the “sexy” videos. Only about half of the questions are even alluded to, much less answered by, the study text. I guess the exam is more to see who already knows the stuff, and the study material is just a very light refresher.
Still, a passing score is a mere 80%, enough to get you this awesome certificate, suitable for framing or housebreaking puppies on:
I think Hot For Words is about 100 times sexier, and is usually 20 times the learning experience. Cheerleaders “teaching” science may eventually be a good idea, but right now these videos are really lame. The only thing I learned from them is that the cheerleader called “VI” has really great abs and great hips. They’ve got a lot more work to do to “make science fun”, “make learning science easy”, and “make science sexy”. But I guess it’s a start.
Now, how about Obama giving me a few million to videotape pole dancers teaching basic arithmetic and algebra? Solving systems of simultaneous equations was never so much fun!
Posted by Drew458
on 08/05/2009 at 11:57 AM
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries • Education •
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