Computational Science Research: Climate modeling example

 This is one of my favorite TED talks, where Dr. Schmidt does the best job I've seen explaining what a climate model is, how they create the model, how they test the model, which leads to confidence in using the model to predict future climates based on different initial conditions one feeds into the model. Nicely done, and this is something I wish we could show all skeptics and naysayers, who simply do not understand the process and science that goes into this type of scientific research. 

Intro to developing research questions from everyday phenomena: Hydraulic jump

 This is a short video that demonstrates a simple way teachers can introduce a research-geared approach to simple, everyday phenomena. In this case, it is the hydraulic jump. We see this daily any time one turns on a sink faucet, and that stream of water hits a hard surface and flows out in a smooth, circular manner - but at some radius, the water level 'jumps' up and goes into turbulent flow. 

By having students spend 5 minutes pouring water on a hard surface, and thinking about and listing any and all possible variables or parameters that may have an effect on the jump, one can quickly come up with a double-digit list of possible experiments you can try, and investigate under more controlled conditions the effect of this or that on the jump: flow rate of water, height from which you pour the water, temperature of the water, falling on a horizontal surface vs an angled surface, if the water stream falls on just a smooth surface or if there is an object it hits and flows over, if there are two streams of water and the jumps interact, changing the surface the water lands on, and so on. All of these can be turned into research studies! 

Always new things to discover in the sciences!! We need the curious to continue to search and ask questions!

 An article in Science News the other day made me think again about how there have been times when scientists thought a whole field of study may be 'dead', because they knew everything about it! The article was about a massive gas cloud in space that was just discovered and identified - while this sort of thing happens frequently in astronomy, what stands out is it is just 300 light-years from earth. This is like a few doors down the street when it comes to astronomy because this is really close. 

This cloud was hiding right in front of our faces, it appears! It has a mass of about 5500 Suns, and its chemical composition just happens to be one that was difficult to detect. Astronomers have peered through that patch of space countless times over the past few centuries, and still there is something right there! 

In every field of STEM, this is a reminder we will never discover and understand everything, and there will always be a need for the curious and determined minds of youth to come up and keep the quest for knowledge and understanding and curiosity alive! 

'Frustration' objects - mismatched geometric shapes lead to objects with interesting propoerties

 This is a neat study out of the U. of Michigan, where researchers used natural structures made from a variety of different, and often complex, shaped pieces. Interesting properties of the structures result, from really hard shells to flexible, but strong, objects. 

This could be a cool type of study to do for those with 3-D printers, where you can try to find interesting shaped pieces to build complex, but useful, structures and objects.

New Tokamak Fusion Reactor turns on in Japan

 What is now the world's largest tokamak (sort of like a toroid shaped reactor) thermonuclear fusion reactor is now working north of Tokyo, Japan. The continued work towards the 'Holy Grail' of energy production is making progress towards the dream of unlimited energy (can get the 'fuel' from water, which is deuterium and tritium, the isotopes of hydrogen), with no risk of meltdowns, no radioactive waste, and no greenhouse gas emissions. This is a big attempt to show fusion is possible, and can scale up to industrial and commercial production levels. Let's hope this works and shows scientists and engineers the next steps of accomplishing this long-term dream! 

For those interested in this, it is a major multidisciplinary area of research and engineering: nuclear and plasma physics, math modeling, nuclear and plasma engineering, mechanical and electrical and computer engineering, civil engineering, environmental sciences, city planning, eventually governmental energy and patent regulations and policy, and so much more!

                                                            From BYJUs.

A Dangerous Era for Science Funding

 Here is how politics instantly affects science (STEM in general) research. At the professional level, most university funding comes through grants. One must write a proposal to foundations, businesses, individuals, or a huge amount from the federal government. The largest amount of federal funding comes through the National Science Foundation, or NSF. But with new directives from the current administration, and its obsession to get rid of anything that they think smells like 'DEI' (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), one can lose their federal funding, and who knows if other legal consequences will be part of this. 

Check out this article to see a LIST OF WORDS that will get a scientific paper FLAGGED FOR DEI. Apparently, federal agencies like NSF, the CDC, and likely every other one, are scrubbing published papers on their websites to remove these words. This is outright censorship, and we all need to be aware of this in K-12 research because so many programs and opportunities to help all sorts of students may have federal funding behind them. This could include anything a school does with colleges, special education, food programs, different grants or fellowships through the Dept. of Education (which is being significantly downsized, with a stated goal of the president to be eliminated), and anything a school is doing that has to do with helping students of color, girls (yes, FEMALE and WOMEN are on the banned list), LGBTQ kids, or any group that is underrepresented in anything...ALL of this can get your work or funding flagged for DEI. 

This is a new era for science research, and we all need to be aware of it. This is dangerous, and is what authoritarians and dictators do to control countries and its citizens - the notion of any ideas that differ from 'the state' are banned and outlawed, and has been done throughout history by all sorts of regimes. Be safe, be strong, and resist this nonsense! 

Interesting experiment to investigate sound from clapping hands

 This is an interesting study into the sound created when we clap our hands. And what's more, this is a potential project setup for research of your own. The technique used was filming the patterns of air coming out from one's clapping hands by using baby powder. If you have access to any level of high-speed video tools, you could study these patterns, and compare them between various shaped objects coming together in a clapping manner. Investigate similarities and differences as functions of shape, size, mass, size of the cavities formed when the two objects come together, and anything else you can think of! If you have 3-D printers, you can design different shaped objects and cavities, and so on. 

Here's a brief video of this technique.