Filed under: Uncategorized
This week has been pretty interesting so far. Yesterday we went to an inner city school to host the Science Olympics, basically working the angle that science can be fun. It was a fun time. Since it’s -40 in town right now, about half the kids came out that we expected so we had another grade join us. In total I think 60-70 kids came out, formed groups and cycled through the stations we had set up for them. The stations included a catapult build, a simulated beaver dam construction, a parachuted egg drop (my station), a carbon dioxide boat build and a station that had them fashion a tower out of straws. It was a good time and neat to see all the ideas the kids would come up with to safely drop the egg. Afterwards, we threw them a pizza party and gave them a cake that said “science rules” in icing. Nerdy, but awesome.
Today we checked out some of the technology available in schools these days. It was kind of neat, they had these probes that you could hook up to a computer to make graphs and charts. My group spent the morning playing with the microscope. I collected random things from the room to look at and we nerded out pretty hard. Check it, can you guess what this stuff is?
I’ll give you a hint, Henry Rollins has referred to this as the Black Blood of Creativity…
…to which we add this.
Anyways, so tomorrow we’re going to be making DVD’s that have to do with something in the Science curriculum. My group has decided to do ours on misconceptions about STI’s. Our storyboard is looking pretty good, it’s based on a friend of mine who used to get extremely anxious after he would make out, thinking he had an STD of some sort. The nurses at the test clinic eventually started telling him that he was being ridiculous and sending him home with pamphlets on anxiety. True story. Anyways, if it works out, I’ll see if I can post it on youtube or something so y’alls can view it.
Friday we’ll be checking out an judging a science fair. Then I’ve got a week and a half.
Guh, my cat’s breath reeks right now. Gross animal.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Oh man, I’m really frustrated as I just spent a good 90 minutes on a post that wordpress decided to only publish a paragraph of, while deleting the rest. Of course I didn’t save it. Crap crap crap. Alright. Going to sum it up briefly before I toss my computer out the window. Grrrrr.
The industry behind lab dissections is cruel and inhumane. While preparing for my demo on dissection alternatives I found that animals are not only taken from ecosystems experiencing hard times, but are rounded up by people referred to as Class B dealers who will find animals in pounds, newspapers and what-have-you and sell them to the bio-supply companies. In the instances of cats (not unlike those supplied to me in my comparative anatomy class a few years back):
In Mexico, children are given $1 for every cat they catch. These cats, may be stolen from their homes, are drowned sometimes 10 to a bag or their throats are slit. (Boston Globe, 1994 and The Associated Press, 1995)
“We have irrefutable evidence that the cats cruelly killed in Mexico were going to American biological supply firms who supply public schools with animals for dissection,” states John Walsh of the World Society for the Protection of Animals. (Cat Fancy, 1995)
For a documentary on Class B dealers, see HBO’s Dealing Dogs.
It should also be stated that the law in Canada as well as the United States more or less ensures the continuation of this BS because under it animals are basically defined as property. You heard me. Sentient beings=property. WTF?
Also, animals such as the fetal pigs supplied to many high school kids in North America are in many cases byproducts of intensive hog farms (or at least their mothers are, sadly) which we all know are rough on the environment. Don’t forget, the water contamination in Walkerton Ont. was a direct result of a hog farms polluting the water source of the town.
The good news is that you can teach kids about the natural environment without contributing to it’s destruction via countless models and programs available on or through the internet. The options are pretty remarkable. Check it:
Educational Memorial Programs - Basically, people donating their pet’s body to science. I think for authentic dissections, this is probably as ethical as it gets.
Frog Guts - The kind of computer programs I’m talking about. Check out the demo, I almost had “fun” doing it.
Ethical Science and Education Coalition
I also got to build a quincy the other day, did some geocaching with my peers and learned about 50 new science experiments to do with high school kids. So, besides being under the weather, this week was pretty rad.
My request to be placed in a small mountain town was accepted as well, so I’ll be spending the next two weeks trying to find a place as well as subletting my current one.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Still down for the count. Spent the day at home yesterday in a cold sweat. Expect updates to resume this weekend.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The Vegan Teacher is very sick today. I cannot look at a computer screen for very long as I have a terrible headache. However, I will tell you that my dissection alternatives presentation went very well today. Will talk about it more and post some links soon. Promise!
Filed under: Vegan Interest
Alright, been pretty busy. I’ve decided that I’m not going to continue talking about the creationism/evolution debate right now. What I’ll say is that the presentation really reinforced the notion of presenting kids with facts and letting them figure out things for themselves. It’s a much less polarizing method of education than simply stating “you’re wrong, learn this”. But you already know this.
Anyways, a funny thing about this blog is that I can see how people come across the site through their google searches. A couple funny ones that have occurred in the last couple days with people arriving at my site while searching “is Jello Biafra vegan or vegetarian?”, “punk rock music saved my life” and my favorite, “we should band [sic] homework”.
On to more important matters. For the last couple of days we’ve been going through labs that our peers are putting together, which are being compiled in a database that we can all access. I think it’s a really good thing to do before we head on out for our next field experience because we’re leaving with some applications, whereas last time we just kind of wung it. So I decided to do my lab on alternatives to dissection. Upon researching for it, I’ve found some interesting facts. Apparently the top Universities have stopped practicing animal dissection in medicine and favor both models and working with human cadavers. This site allows you to donate your deceased companion animal for learning purposes (ie. vet students). Also, there are a TON of websites and programs out there that walk you through virtual dissections. I was glad to come across such good news as we all know why dissection (though it can be a powerful learning tool) has serious ethical drawbacks. In case you want a refresher, here you go:
- Religious beliefs: Some religions do not support the killing of certain types of animals or any animals for unnecessary purposes.
- Moral/ethical beliefs: Many people feel it is morally wrong to kill an animal for the purposes of dissection, animal experimentation, or eating.
- Environmental issues: Dissection’s negative impact on the environment due to toxic chemicals and degradation of natural resources prompts many people to feel dissection is wrong.
- Animal abuse: Animals used for dissection purposes are collected, killed, and prepared in a manner that many people find abusive, unacceptable, and totally unnecessary. Animal abuse at biological supply companies has been documented by undercover investigations.
- Technology: Because of the advances in technology (especially in the realms of computers and video imaging) and the need to encourage students to want to utilize this technology, many people feel that dissection is outdated and obsolete.
- Respect for Life: Dissection teaches some children that humans need not respect other forms of life on this planet. Many people feel this can lead to desensitization, less compassion, and potentially more violence. (See NEAVS’ Resensitizing Society.)
(Taken from the Ethical Science and Education Coalition)
Filed under: Studies
Today we listened to a presentation of how to teach evolution in a climate that has a strong anti-evolution faction. The interesting thing is that our guest was a self described evangelical Christian with Ph.Ds in both Theology and Biology. I might write more on this later, right now I have to sneak a nap in. The thing about living with cats is sometimes you have no control over when they decide it’s time for you to get up. For me this morning that time was apparently 5:00.
Filed under: Studies
Yesterday we had a presentation from a teacher who used to teach on the Blood Reserve in Southern Alberta. He was Blackfoot and the point of the lesson was introducing aboriginal perspectives into science education. The most captivating part was hearing him talking about how a lot of science education focuses on attaining empirical facts, but neglects to recognize how we ended up there. Then we talked about the tradition of storytelling and how it can bring people together by keeping them from forcing to choose between what’s “right” or what’s “wrong”.
The thing that struck me the most was something he said, and that I’ve been thinking about for the last day or so. That is, and I’m paraphrasing, forcing students to accept facts is a form of violence. What you want to do as an educator is to provide your students with the opportunity to end up there on their own. I know it’s a little hippie-dippie-doo and that you can’t just ignore wrong answers and whatever, but I think the point was a bit of a revelation for me. I think North American education, for the most part, is an extension of colonialism in that it’s still a my-way-or-the-highway type deal. Evolution (or creationism in some states) is the be all and end all. I’m not suggesting we give it all up, start anew or anything, but we’ve definitely got to be able to accept the fact that somethings don’t work as well as we’d like to think they do.
Putting all the emphasis on marks, which is more or less institutionalized by government policy, doesn’t do anything for kids but teach them that to succeed as human beings they’ve got to be able to think about things the way they’re told to. Through rote memorization, you produce kids who can recite the periodic table of elements, but are incapable of applying rationality in a simple conversation. You and I see it all the time.
So, by thinking about aboriginal perspectives in science is not to say that we should dwell in our colonial past, but move toward a more holistic system of education, that’s all. What does the periodic table have to do with us, and our environment. What is the point of knowing all the elements? Is there one? I think if a kid can leave high school being able to discuss something like this, the system has done something for him/her. That’s what fascinates me about science by the way, is the interconnectedness of everything. An obvious example, how what we choose to put into our body affects the world around us and the other inhabitants that depend on it. I think we really start moving forward when we start recognizing these kinds of relationships.
Filed under: Studies
Ok, before you read this post ask yourself the following questions:
1. What makes the seasons?
2. Why does the moon have phases?
I like it when things I think I know are challenged and proven to be false. I like learning things and I dread becoming someone stuck in their ways who has lost the ability to adapt. Well I am in some ways (ie. I don’t have and refuse to buy a cell phone), but when it comes to information, gimmie gimmie gimmie, I need I need I need! Anyways, today we were talking about what inhibits people’s ability to learn and watched a video wherein Harvard graduates were asked the two questions I mentioned. In the video, everyone of them was shown responding with the wrong answers. Then they interviewed a class of Grade 9s, many of whom also gave the incorrect answer (some of them pretty amusing, like a figure eight earth orbit). The point of it was understanding how we formulate incorrect notions of our understanding of things. Turns out, most of it is based on experience, and how we might originally come across the info.
For example, I answered the moon question incorrectly (which was puzzling, since I just taught a unit on the solar system). When I answered “the phases of the moon are due to earth’s shadow”, I was thinking back to models I’ve seen of the Moon revolving around Earth and it made sense in my mind. I didn’t take into account that the model I was referencing was not to scale, and that caused this crazy disconnect.
So what else do I think I know, but totally don’t? I’m sure there’s a ton of stuff and I want to find out what it is, like now! Unfortunately, (and I’m paraphrasing Donald Rumsfeld here) I know what I know, and know what I don’t know, but I don’t know what I don’t know. So, I guess it will come out the next time I take my car to the garage to get fixed and ask the mechanic about some engine part that has nothing to do with the problem, or at the farmers market when I think I know how some vegetable grows and get called out by a 10 year old.
In case you were wondering, the seasons are caused by the earth being tilted at 23.5 degrees (not due to an elliptical orbit) and the phases of the moon are caused by the direct illumination of it by the sun, and how much of that is visible to us from the angle in which we see it.
In other news, China is going to ban plastic bags! Step it up Canada!
When I come back from being on the road I get what I refer to as a post-tour bummer. After being closely surrounded by your friends and exposed to new terrain everyday, the shock of re-adopting a sessile lifestyle at home takes a good day or two to adjust to. This is also funny, because I am also prone to early-tour crazies that is; after a day or two of being in a van with people in close proximity I want to lose it from not having my own space. These things come and go, and due to our travels being relatively short (5 days), I’ve had both feelings in less than a week. So there’s that. Also, I would like to add that being on tour with a band is not unlike being with your family at Christmas time. At times, it is no walk in the park. To have the best experience, you really have to overcome some of the things others do that drive you completely nuts. Most times, I’m pretty good at taking everything with a grain of salt, but there have been times over the last few years when I’ve felt like quitting because I couldn’t deal with the egos, neuroses or negativity of members I was traveling with. Not to say that I am the model citizen in this regard. It’s just that you’ve really got to let the bad stuff slide to make it through to the next show. However, that is not to say that a little tension doesn’t mean you will play horribly because some of the best shows I’ve played were partially a result of inter-member drama. I guess after being exposed to it you are able to understand why bands split due to creative differences. Anyways, I digress and onto what seems to be my other personality.
This semester is going to be really fun. Basically, I’m in class taking 3 courses in 5 weeks. Some of the things we’re going to be doing include outdoor field trips, judging science fairs and going to check out the science Olympics at some high school. It’s an intense workload and I’ve got to fit some part time work in there to make sure I’ll be able to pay my bills, but I’m totally up for the challenge. Today I’ve got to study the curriculum for Bio 30 and figure out a way to teach it to my peer group as part of a jigsaw exercise.
Two more things.
Did you know there was once a headless chicken that survived for over a year? It’s pretty weird, and I don’t condone how Mike came to lose his head, but the story is interesting nonetheless.
Also, a cat was microwaved to death in small town Alberta last week. Not the first incident of animal cruelty to happen here in the past while. The good news is that there are some steps being taken to prevent these kinds of things by strengthening Canada’s animal cruelty laws but more support is needed to make it happen. If this interests you, check out Bill C-373 and throw some weight behind it by contacting your MP.
Filed under: Band?
Arrived home and fell asleep as soon as I walked in the door. The drive from Vancouver to Canmore yesterday was much longer than we had anticipated due to some pretty hairy weather. Canadian bands know better than to tour Canada in the winter, especially when it comes to driving through the shield or the rockies. The hitch is that if you’re willing to risk it, the shows are way better because there are less bands doing their thing, as compared to the summertime when there’s usually a show a night.
I’ll write a bit more about it later, right now I have to get ready for the first day of my last semester tomorrow. And sleep. I need sleep so badly…
Filed under: Band?
We arrived in Vancouver last night around midnight. The roads were alright, for the most part. There is a large population of Edmontonians in this city and some of them are putting us up while we’re here. S snored all night. I slept in the storage room. Tonight (and tomorrow) we’re playing in kind of a rough neighborhood that is slowly succumbing to gentrification and the city’s desire to hide the homeless population for the 2010 Olympics. Going out to find some eats.
Well, I’m back in my lovely city. Played a show on NYE and it was pretty wild. Unfortunately I was feeling a bit under the weather and had to call it a night a bit early so I could try to rid myself of some illness I picked up (on the plane I’m sure). Tomorrow the band I play in is leaving for a little mini-tour. Basically, an excuse to go hang out by the ocean for a couple of days and test drive a few new songs. Then it’s back to finish my last semester at the University. I applied to do my long practicum in a small mountain town, 3 hours West of where I live. I don’t really know what I’m going to do if I get it. Find a place to crash for 9 weeks I suppose and try to get someone to look after my cats.
2008 is shaping up to be an interesting year. One of my resolutions was to avoid any kind of relationship (of the romantic sort) for the year. Figured it would be a wise decision to put as much energy as possible into doing well finishing off my degree, musical endeavors and getting rid of some parasitic emotional baggage. I’m stoked. For the first time ever I will be putting out a musical recording on vinyl. I’m also applying to take a teaching class in Africa. Touring. Graduating. Generally just moving on into this whole new chapter of my life.
Anyways, if anything happens on the road, I’ll post it here. Otherwise, I’ll start with the regular updates next week, once the semester starts back up again.
Happy 2008. I’m anticipating a change in the tides this year, politically and musically.
