Home School Video Field Trips!

With the closure of schools due to COVID19, it is an opportunity to try new experiments in education. This week I'll be featuring Facebook Live streaming video that students can join from any location. I'll present topics in science and agriculture for 30 minutes, then stop to answer questions about the topic and about life as a scientist. We'll also present a diversity of guests that will show their work.

I'll gear the lessons for grades 3-6, but all ages are welcome. I'll be glad to answer questions afterward until there are no more!

11 AM EST at my professional Facebook page

This week:

3/23 Plants and Light

3/24 Plant Grafting: How and Why

3/25 From Egg to Goose (we'll look at live goose eggs as they develop)

3/26 No More Oranges? The race for a cure for the citrus disease

3/27 Crop Domestication - Where did Fruits and Veggies Come From?

Scientific American Destroys Public Trust in Science

This is a sad epitaph, parting words to an old friend that is now gone, leaving in a puff of bitter betrayal.
When I was a kid it was common for my mom to buy me a magazine if I was sick and home from school. I didn't want MAD Magazine or comic books. I preferred Scientific American.
The once stalwart publication held a unique spot at the science-public interface, bringing us interesting and diverse stories of scientific interest, long before the internet made such content instantly accessible. It was our trusted pipeline to the new edges of scientific discovery, from the mantle of the earth to the reaches of space, and every critter in between.
But like so much of our trusted traditional science media, Scientific American has traded its credibility for the glitz of post-truth non-scientific beliefs and the profits of clickbait.The problem is that when a trusted source publishes false information (or worse, when it hijacked by activists) it destroys trust in science, trust in s…

Chipotle's Ag-vertising to Fix their Anti-Ag Image

After years of anti-farmer rhetoric, disgusting anti-agriculture videos, and trashing farmer seed choice, Chipotle now seems to have found a love for the American farmer that is as warm and inviting as the gooey core of a steak burrito. Their new "Cultivate the Future of Farming" campaign raises awareness of the hardship being experienced in agriculture, and then offers their thoughts and some seed grants in order to reverse it.

But are they solving a problem that they were instrumental in creating?

The crisis in agriculture is real, with farmers suffering from low prices, astronomical costs, and strangling regulation. Farmer suicides are a barometer of the crisis. Farms, from commodity crops to dairies, are going out of business daily. It is good to see a company raising awareness.

From Chipotle's website- The "challenge is real" and "It's a hard living"-- and companies like Chipotle were central in creating those problems.

However, Chipotle&#…

Mangling Reality and Targeting Scientists

Welcome to 2019, and one thing that remains constant is that scientists engaging the public will continue to be targeted for harassment and attempted reputation harm.

The good news is that it is not working as well as it used to. People are disgusted by their tactics, and only a handful of true-believers acknowledge their sites as credible.

But for those on the fence I thought it might be nice to post how a website like SourceWatch uses a Wikipedia-mimic interface to spread false and/or misleading information about public scientists.

Don't get me wrong, this is not crying victim. I'm actually is screaming empowerment. I spent the time to correct the record, something anyone can check. Please look into their allegations and mine, and see who has it right.

This is published by the Center for Media and Democracy. Sadly, such pages actually threaten democracy by providing a forum for false information that makes evidence-based decisions in policy issues more challenging. It…

Illumination 2.0

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