titel_SiS_Issue3_06_RZ 11.11.2006 16:54 Uhr Seite 1
Winter 2006 Issue 3
In this issue: Human diversity Alec Jeffreys’ early fascination with chemistry, and current work with Chernobyl survivors Also:
The power of the Sun
Published by the EIROforum: Supported by the European Union: Part of the NUCLEUS project:
ISSN: 1818-0353 Highlighting the best in science teaching and research SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 2
Publisher EIROforum www.eiroforum.org
Editor Dr Eleanor Hayes, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany
Editorial Board Dr Giovanna Cicognani, Institut Laue Langevin, France Dr Dominique Cornuéjols, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, France Dr Richard Harwood, Aiglon College, Switzerland Russ Hodge, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany Dr Rolf Landua, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland Dr Dean Madden, National Centre for Biotechnology Education, University of Reading, UK Claus Madsen, European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), Germany Dr Karl Sarnow, European Schoolnet, Belgium Dr Silke Schumacher, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany Barbara Warmbein, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Germany Chris Warrick, European Fusion Development Agreement, UK Helen Wilson, European Space Agency, the Netherlands
Editorial Advisor Russ Hodge, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany
Copy Editor Dr Caroline Hadley, European Molecular Biology Organization, Germany
Composition Nicola Graf, Germany Email: [email protected]
Printers ColorDruckLeimen, Germany www.colordruck.com
Layout Designer Vienna Leigh, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany
Web Architect Francesco Sottile, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany
Technical Partners European Schoolnet www.eun.org
ISSN Print version: 1818-0353 Online version: 1818-0361
Cover Images
The great yellow bumblebee, Bombus distinguendus Image courtesy of Dave Goulson, University of Stirling, UK
Energy production in the Sun Image courtesy of Mark Tiele Westra, European Fusion Development Agreement, Germany SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 1 Contents
Editorial Welcome to the third issue of Science in School ...... 2-3
Events Forthcoming events ...... 4-6 Catch a Star! and win an astronomical competition! ...... 7-9 ESOF 2006: science close up and personal ...... 10-12 Something special in the air ...... 13-15 Feature article Alec Jeffreys: a pioneer on the frontier of human diversity ...... 16-19 Cutting-edge science The joy of discovery: a personal experience ...... 20-23 The ecologist’s view of bird flu ...... 24-30 The yeast proteome: retooling the factory floor ...... 31-34 Teaching activities The detective mystery: an interdisciplinary foray into basic forensic science ...... 35-38 Introducing radio transmission with a simple experiment ...... 39-42 Putting the buzz back into school grounds ...... 43-47 Projects in science education Perfume chemistry, sexual attraction and exploding balloons: university activities for school ...... 48-51 The Bone Trail: generating enthusiasm for earth sciences in the classroom ...... 52-55 Bringing global climate change to the classroom ...... 56-59 Science topics Fusion in the Universe: the power of the Sun ...... 60-62 Sleep and learning ...... 63-66 Science and society 1000 years of missing science ...... 67-70 Spotlight on education Eurobarometer ...... 71-77 Scientist profile Memories of a very special teacher ...... 78-80 Teacher profile Handstands and ties: a career in teaching ...... 81-83 Feedback Forensic entomology: activities for schools ...... 84-85 Reviews Does Anything Eat Wasps? And 101 Other Questions ...... 86 Kleine botanische Experimente ...... 86 The Poison Paradox: Chemicals as Friends and Foes ...... 87 A Stem Cell Story ...... 88 Resources on the web Science podcasts ...... 89-91 Back in the staffroom The neutron teaspoon ...... 92
Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 1 SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 2
Welcome to the third issue of Science in School
eedback from our entertain and inspire with his school F readers has contin- detective mystery. Or why not help ued to be very positive: save European bumblebees, explore you’ve told us that you the behaviour of maggots, or investi- like the variety of articles, gate whether a good night’s sleep the informative but read- really does help you to learn? able style, and the unique combina- In the events section, we review tion of ideas drawn from teachers and some recent and future activities in scientists across Europe. This issue, science education across Europe. like the first two, offers a wide range Stephen Parker from the European of subjects and contributors: teachers, Commission describes the excitement scientists, politicians and others from of the European Union Contest for nine European countries cover topics Young Scientists in Stockholm; Sabina as varied as bird flu, proteomics, solar Griffith reports on how EIROforum fusion and what it feels like to discov- took a group of young people for a er your very own comet. virtual trip around the world; and In our feature article, world- Douglas Pierce-Price invites school renowned geneticist Alec Jeffreys, the students to enter an astronomy com- inventor of DNA fingerprinting, remi- petition and win a trip to Chile. nisces about his childhood passion for When several readers asked us to science and describes his current include articles on the history of sci- work on the aftermath of the ence, we took up the challenge. This Chernobyl disaster – how profound issue offers not only a consideration are the effects and how long will they of the Muslim contribution to Western be felt? Meanwhile, deep below the science and a fascinating project com- ocean surface, scientists are using bining evolution and anatomy, but plankton to predict an even more far- also a do-it-yourself (and then eat-it- reaching phenomenon: climate yourself) geological map. change. But Science in School is not only for If you prefer something more you; it also depends on your involve- hands-on, Graham Gardner is sure to ment. You can leave comments online
2 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 3
Editorial
for all readers to see or email your informative article for the ‘Back in the suggestions directly to us. We are also staffroom’ slot? Or do you use a pop- still looking for teachers to join our ular film to teach an aspect of science? reviewer panel, to help us decide We are looking particularly for which articles to include and how to good ideas for interdisciplinary teach- improve them; see the Science in ing, as well as articles on chemistry, School website for details. mathematics and earth sciences. Have Several of you have already trans- you combined science topics in a cre- lated Science in School articles from ative way? Or linked science with English, to make them available to a subjects such as art, languages, infor- wider European audience. Thanks to mation technology (IT) or ethics? your efforts, we now have articles Perhaps you’ve looked at the connec- online in 16 languages (Albanian, tions between mathematics, physics Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, and medieval church architecture? Or French, German, Italian, Latvian, used Google Earth in a biology les- Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, son? This is your chance to share Slovene, Spanish, Swedish and those ideas with teachers and others Ukrainian). This is a good start, but across Europe! we still need more help: we are still In the meantime, enjoy the articles far from including all articles in all in this issue. European languages. If you would like to help, please contact us. Finally, you are not only our read- ers, but also potential authors. Have you prepared some original and excit- ing teaching materials? Are you Eleanor Hayes involved in a project that could serve Editor, Science in School as a role model for teachers, scientists [email protected] or museums in other European coun- tries? Would you like to try your hand at writing a short, amusing and
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 3 SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 4
Forthcoming events
Throughout 2006 4-6 January 2007 19 March 2007 Europe-wide Birmingham University, UK Warwickshire, UK Competition: Marine photography Workshops: Dynamic Science Training course: Learning Skills By sharing the enthusiasm of scientif- Aimed at teachers of 11-16-year-olds, in Science ic discovery and the beauty of the sea, these 90-minute workshops help biol- This training course aims to: Marine Genomics Europe wishes to ogy, physics and chemistry teachers · Enhance learning skills for science raise awareness among European citi- to teach science in an earth-science among secondary school students zens of the value of science and the context, making the science relevant · Provide teachers with resources that need to protect our marine heritage. to the world around us, our environ- can be easily integrated into a vari- In a photography competition, under- ment and our lives. Workshops are ety of scientific subjects water images will be publicly exhibit- relevant to teachers in all countries. · Design flexible teaching and learn- ed during 2006 in a travelling exhibi- The workshops are led by science ing tasks suitable for different levels tion at aquaria, museums and schools. educators from the Earth Science of students and a variety of learning Schools, science museums and others Education Unit and will take place styles. are invited to host the exhibition. within the Association of Science More information: www.slcs.ac.uk/wm More information: Education (ASE) annual conference. Contact: [email protected] www.marine-genomics-europe.org More information: Contact: Michele Barbier www.earthscienceeducation.com 20 March 2007 ([email protected]) Contact: [email protected] Worcestershire, UK Training course: Learning Skills 3-6 January 2007 14 March 2007 in Science Birmingham, UK Keele, UK This training course aims to: Conference: The Association for Training course: Motivating the · Enhance learning skills for science Science Education (ASE) annual Disaffected in Science among secondary school students conference This new course views learning from · Provide teachers with resources that Science teachers and technicians are the pupils’ perspective and seeks can be easily integrated into a vari- invited to explore, debate and discov- engaging solutions to motivate and ety of scientific subjects er what is important to them in the inspire adolescents to succeed in sci- · Design flexible teaching and learn- world of science education in over ence. Pop culture, movies and games ing tasks suitable for different levels 350 lectures and workshops. can all be applied in new teaching of students and a variety of learning Highlights include: and learning approaches. This course styles. · Lectures on teaching and learning will share outcomes from classroom- More information: www.slcs.ac.uk/wm · Cutting-edge science trialled activities and recent research Contact: [email protected] · Hands-on practicals to use in the findings to provide participants with classroom immediate ideas for the classroom. Until 30 March 2007 · A commercial exhibition of More information: www.slcs.ac.uk/wm Europe-wide resources for making science Contact: [email protected] Competition: Marine Biodiversity accessible to young people. To celebrate Biodiversity Day, More information: www.ase.org.uk MarBEF (Marine Biodiversity and
4 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 5
Events
Ecosystem Functioning) are launching take part in their countries’ activities. Until 30 November 2007 a competition for European children The best proposals will be selected for Italy, Austria and Switzerland and adults to capture marine biodi- the international festival. Proposals Competition: Junge Forscher versity by: can be for workshops, displays at the gesucht! – Giovani ricercatori · Drawing a picture teaching fair or on-stage activities, cercansi! (Wanted: young · Designing a mascot such as presentations or performanc- researchers!) · Taking a photograph. es. The national webpages and In this search for talented young Winners will receive prizes of value contact points can be accessed from researchers, young people are up to €100, and their entries may be the European Science on Stage project required to develop scientific projects published online and in the MarBEF website. on many topics, including art and newsletter, which is delivered to Science on Stage is organised by music. Regional finalists, selected on almost 1000 scientists across Europe. EIROforum (a collaboration between the basis of a report they submit, More information: seven European inter-governmental present their project to an internation- www.marbef.org/outreach/kids/ scientific research organisations), who al jury and the public. Prizes of competition.php also publish Science in School. It is part €1500-3000 are awarded. Contact: Chris Emblow of the NUCLEUS project supported The competition is open people aged ([email protected]) by the European Union. Science on 16-20, living in South Tyrol (Italy), Stage is also supported by the Trentino (Italy), Tyrol (Austria) or 2-6 April 2007 European Physical Society and the Grisons (Switzerland), and is held in European Synchrotron Radiation European Association for Astronomy the regional languages German and Facility, Grenoble, France Education. Italian. Science teaching festival: Science More information: To enter the next competition, register on Stage 2 www.scienceonstage.net before 30 November 2007. The final The Science on Stage programme Contact: [email protected] event will take place in March 2008 at offers European science teachers the the University of Innsbruck, Austria. chance to exchange successful and 26-31 August 2007 More information: www.explora- innovative teaching methods and Opatija, Croatia science.net/wettbewerb materials. The goal is to strengthen Conference: GIREP-EPEC: Frontiers the awareness and interest of young of Physics Education Throughout 2007 people in science and technology by For the first time, the GIREP Schullabor Novartis, Basel, increasing the attractiveness of sci- (International Research Group on Switzerland ence lessons through the promotion of Physics Teaching) Seminar is organ- Workshop: ‘Gentechnik Erleben’ exciting ideas. ised as a joint event with European (Experience Genetic Engineering) Competitions, workshops and events Physics Education Conference These workshops focus on practical organised by national steering com- (EPEC). While GIREP traditionally laboratory work, but background mittees will take place in 30 partici- gathers experts and practitioners in information is given for all experi- pating European countries in 2006. educational physics, EPEC is a young ments. Students isolate plasmid DNA These activities will raise awareness conference organised by the European from bacterial cultures and digest it of best practices in science teaching Physical Society, which attracts the with restriction enzymes. The result- and identify exceptional teaching top physicists in Europe. ing DNA fragments are separated and projects and outstanding educators in The joint conference will bring togeth- visualised by gel electrophoresis. each country. er physics teachers from schools and Students should already have the nec- At the European science teaching universities across the European con- essary theoretical background and be festival at the European Synchrotron tinent, encouraging dialogue and the over 17 years of age. The workshops Radiation Facility in Grenoble, exchange of best practice in physics are free, are run in German or English France, from 2-6 April 2007, 500 teach- education. Teachers are invited to join (on request) and have a maximum of ers from 30 countries are expected to this conference. (Theme to be 20 participants. take part. The event will showcase the arranged, the working language will More information: www.schullabor.ch very best of today’s science education be English.) Contact: [email protected] and serve as a discussion forum for More information: www.ffri.hr/GE2 relevant topics. Contact: [email protected] European teachers can apply through their national steering committees to
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 5 SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 6
Throughout 2007 Throughout 2007 10 locations around the UK Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK Training courses: Science Workshops: Primary school Continuing Professional The Pembrokeshire Darwin Science Development Festival offers a double workshop The national network of Science visit for a maximum of 30 Key Stage 2 Learning Centres, set up by the UK pupils (ages 8-11) and costs £200 for Department for Education and Skills half a day. The group is split into and the Wellcome Trust, provides two workshops, which run simultane- continuing professional education for ously: everyone involved in UK science edu- · Plankton / microscopy identifica- cation, at all levels. With nine regional tion workshop centres and a national centre in York, · Energy workshop using dynamos, access to innovative and inspiring solar panels and a steam engine as courses is within reach across the UK. hands-on props. The centres not only deliver hundreds Also available are three 90-minute of courses, but also act as a focus for workshops, each for a maximum of 20 all the science learning activities in pupils and costing £120: their region. · Oil-spill workshop for Key Stage 2 More information: pupils (ages 8-11) www.sciencelearningcentres.org.uk · Climate change workshop for Key Contact: [email protected] Stage 2 pupils (ages 8-11) · Marine litter workshop for Key Throughout 2007 Stage 1 pupils (ages 4-7) Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK More information: Field trip: Rockpools Pembrokeshire Darwin Science Festival The Pembrokeshire Darwin Science Contact: Marten Lewis Festival invites all primary schools in ([email protected]) Pembrokeshire to book a rockpool ramble and identification field trip. The course is aimed at Key Stage 2 If you organise events or competi- pupils (ages 8-11), takes half a day tions that would be of interest to and is led by three qualified marine European science teachers and scientists. Cost: £250 with a bus or would like to see them mentioned in £170 without a bus. Maximum 30 Science in School, please email children. details, including date, location, title, More information: abstract, website and contact email Pembrokeshire Darwin Science Festival address to [email protected] Contact: Marten Lewis ([email protected]) For a frequently updated list of forthcoming events, see the Science in School website: www.scienceinschool.org
6 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 7
Events
Catch a Star! and win an astronomical competition! Catch a Star!, an international competition for school students, is starting its fifth year. Douglas Pierce-Price from ESO invites students from all over the world to take part.
Winning entry by Gilles Backes, Luxembourg
he aim of the programme, organ- Tised by the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) and the European Association for Astronomy Education, is to encourage students to work together, learn about astronomy and discover things for themselves by researching information. Catch a Star! actually includes more than one competition, so there is something for everyone, no matter what their level.
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 7 SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 8
Winning entry by Karolis Markauskas, Lithuania
Student teams can write a project Younger students are invited to take about a chosen topic in astronomy, part in an additional Catch a Star! selecting an astronomical object such drawing and painting competition, as a nebula, star, planet or moon, or a with prizes awarded with the help of more general theme such as ‘black a public web-based vote. holes’ or ‘star formation’. They research this theme, and discuss how How to take part large telescopes such as ESO’s can To take part in this year’s Catch a play a part in studying it. The most Star!, visit the website at important goal is to develop an inter- www.eso.org/catchastar/ to find full est in science and astronomy through details of the competition and to sub- investigation and teamwork. For this mit your entries. The contest is now reason, to make the programme inclu- open, and the deadline for entries is sive and to avoid a sense of elitism, 2 March 2007. Winners will be one section of the competition has announced at the Science on Stage 2 prizes awarded by lottery. teaching festival in Grenoble, France, There is also another section in in April 2007. which an international jury awards prizes including a trip to visit Results from the previous ESO’s Very Large Telescope facility competition Winning entry by Tom Dumont, on the Paranal mountain-top in In the previous competition, which Luxembourg Chile. ran in 2005-2006, more than 130 teams
8 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 9
Events
Winning entry by Yuriy Baluk, Belarus Winning entry by Ruta Eistreike, Latvia
from 24 countries wrote projects Given the importance of gender We welcome the wide range of stu- about astronomy. Winning projects issues in science, and especially dents who took part and learned included topics such as ‘Star clusters physics, it is encouraging to note that something new about the wonders of and the structure of the Milky Way’, girls did particularly well in the com- the Universe. With the new and ‘The fireworks galaxy – NGC 6946’, petition. For example, of the 11 stu- updated competition, we hope that ‘The annual solar eclipse vs the Venus dents who won travel prizes, ten are even more students, from even more transit’, and ‘Sunspots’. In the picture girls. There was also, as we have con- countries, will Catch a Star! competition, students created a large sistently seen in ESO’s educational number of very impressive drawings projects, a strong showing from and paintings, and some of the win- Central and Eastern European ners are shown in this article. nations.
ESO’s education activities:
In addition to the Catch a Star! series of competitions in the Atacama desert. To find out more and to get (www.eso.org/catchastar/), ESO has other educational involved, visit www.eso.org/outreach/eduoff/edu- projects, often organised together with the European prog/almaitp/ Association for Astronomy Education (EAAE). · A comprehensive website about the 2004 Venus · We are currently working on an interdisciplinary transit is available at www.vt-2004.org teaching project based on the Atacama Large · A series of information sheets for students and teach- Millimeter Array (ALMA). ALMA is a new telescope ers, the ESO/EAAE ‘Journey across the Solar System’, which ESO is in the process of building, as part of a is available at www.eso.org/outreach/eduoff/ global collaboration, at an altutude of 5000 m in edu-materials/info-solsys/ Chile’s Atacama desert – the driest place on Earth. ESO, in conjunction with the European Space ESO and the EAAE are working with teachers to pro- · Agency, also offers a series of astronomy exercises at duce exciting interdisciplinary teaching material www.astroex.org about ALMA. This material will highlight the links between 21st-century astronomy and the topics in For questions about these resources or other material, engineering, earth sciences, biology, medicine, his- please contact the ESO Educational Office at
BACKGROUND tory and culture which spring from ALMA’s location [email protected]
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 9 SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:33 Uhr Seite 10
ESOF 2006: science close up and personal
Image courtesy of Hans Hermann Heyer, ESO ©
t first, only a few of the audience of EMBL, ILL and ESRF in Grenoble, CERN and more than 3000 scientists Adared to ask. Then one after France. The videolink was part of this and engineers from all over the the other, they realised that this year’s European Open Science Forum world. One of them is Anne-Sylvie might be a once-in-a-lifetime chance. (ESOF), taking place from 15-19 July Giolo-Nicollerat, a physicist who is How often do you get to talk to an 2006 in the Deutsches Museum in part of a team building the detector astronomer on his way home after a Munich. Its intention was to give for CERN’s new flagship, the Large long night shift under the world’s young people the possibility to inter- Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is a largest telescope in the Chilean act with representatives of the scien- particle accelerator which will probe Atacama Desert? tific community and, by doing so, into matter deeper than ever before. More than 80 students, pupils and hopefully raise their interest in The first collision is due to start in teachers from schools in and around research and perhaps a scientific 2007. Munich, Germany, took the chance career. Heavy welding and hammering and attended the live video confer- was going on inside the cavern where ence that linked to six leading Geneva, Switzerland the detector is currently being built European research institutes: CERN The round-the-world trip guided by when the young scientist wearing a in Geneva, Switzerland, ESO in Chile, Rolf Landua from CERN started in yellow helmet walked up to the cam- JET in Culham, UK, and the joint site the Swiss Alps, in Geneva, home of era and microphone that had been
10 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:34 Uhr Seite 11
Events
Students and scientists communicating across the globe
How do I become a star-chaser? How do we recognise particles that we don’t know? When will fusion power become available to mankind? Sabina Griffith from the European Fusion Development Agreement in Garching, Germany, describes the guided round-the-world trip through the science of the EIROforum organisations. Image courtesy of Hans Hermann Heyer, ESO © installed for the live videolink. “As pens. That’s always thrilling and you can see,” Anne addressed the sends the theoreticians back to their audience gathered in the Deutsches desks.” Museum, “we have to build very But it wasn’t only the scientific large machines to detect very small aspect of Anne’s work in which the particles.” young listeners expressed an interest. With the LHC, the scientists at When it was their turn to ask ques- CERN hope to gain new information tions, they wanted to know why she about the origin of the Universe. And had chosen to be a physicist, a career the new detector Anne and her team in what (in their eyes) is still a man’s are constructing will help them to do world. “I was always interested in so. “This machine can take more than books about the Big Bang,” Anne one billion pictures per second with Inside the Large Hadron Collider replied. “I guess I just wanted to know one million pixels per picture,” Anne how it worked. And yes,” she added, explained. “But how do you detect to computer models, we know pretty “there are still more men around in particles that you don’t know?” a well what to expect,” Anne replied. this field than women. But that has young girl wanted to know. “Thanks “Nevertheless the unexpected hap- never been a problem for me.”
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 11 SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:34 Uhr Seite 12
Paranal, Chile by physicists, but is largely being mental research organisations. In From Geneva, the journey contin- developed and built by engineers. So EIROforum, these organisations ued across the Atlantic Ocean to the there are lots of possibilities! pursue joint initiatives, combine Atacama Desert in Chile, where the resources, and share best practices. German astronomer Daniel Kubas Grenoble, France Not only does EIROforum publish was expecting the virtual travellers The final stop on the round-the- Science in School, it also organises from Munich. At six o’clock in the world trip was Grenoble, home to the Science on Stage, an international morning local time, Kubas had just European Synchrotron Radiation science teaching festival that brings returned from his night watch scan- Facility (ESRF), the European together around 500 science educa- ning the Universe with ESO’s impres- Molecular Biology Laboratory tors from 29 European countries to sive machine, the Very Large (EMBL) and the Institut Laue- show how fascinating and enter- Telescope. Though obviously tired, he Langevin (ILL). Although the labora- taining science can be. For more still had enough energy to explain all tories use different methods, neutron- information about EIROforum and the questions about Einstein Rings, beam or X-ray, some of their work its initiatives, see www.eiroforum.org gravitational lenses and the capacity overlaps: investigating the structures The European Science Open Forum of the ESO telescope. Its resolution is of molecules and proteins. The results (ESOF) aims to bring together all comparable with the Hubble Space of their research deliver important groups involved in the scientific Telescope, Kubas said – and gave the information for the development of endeavour, including researchers, young listeners a stunning example of drug treatments as well as new mate- policy-makers, representatives of what that means. “If there was a car rials. “Sometimes we test very old industrial research and develop- driving on the Moon, we would be ones too,” Christoph Müller ment, science journalists and the able to distinguish the two front explained, live from his lab at EMBL. general public. It is organised by lights.” But if they could do so, had “For example, we are currently inves- Euroscience, an organisation of they found any evidence that tigating what gives wood its excellent research professionals, science Americans had ever set foot on the mechanical properties.” administrators, policy-makers, Moon, a young listener wanted to One and a half hours after takeoff teachers, PhD students, post-doctor- know? Not yet, it seems. in Geneva, the trip to the frontiers of al researchers, engineers, industrial- science returned to the cinema theatre ists, and any citizen interested in Culham, UK in Munich. A trip that might be just science and technology and its links At 12.25 GMT the satellite link the beginning of a promising journey with society. For more information switched back to Europe to connect of investigation for some of the audi- about ESOF 2006 and Euroscience, the audience with Marco de Baar and ence. see www.esof2006.org and Sandra Grünhagen at the Joint www.euroscience.org European Torus (JET) in Culham, UK. Resources Sitting in the heart of ‘Ground EIROforum is a partnership of Control’, the two physicists explained Europe’s seven largest intergovern- the principles and aims of fusion in general and in detail. Image courtesy of Hans Hermann Heyer, ESO © “When will the technique that will be tested in the ITER project, the next step in the development of fusion energy, be ready for commercial use?” the audience wanted to know. The answer? If ITER is a success, the first commercial fusion power plants are expected in some 40 years. “What is work like at an interna- tional place like JET?” The response: “Thrilling”. This big project involves not only many different nationalities, but also different cultures. Finally, “Is there a chance for engi- neers to participate?” ITER is a large, complex device, which will be used Master of ceremonies
12 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:34 Uhr Seite 13
Events
Something special in the air
Stephen Parker from the European Commission describes a contest that demonstrates the truly astonishing achievements of some aspiring young scientists.
Michael Kaiser and Johannes Kienl from Austria, Alexander Joos and Johannes Burkart from Germany, and Thomas Wdowik from Poland receive their prizes
hey came from all over Europe Buses and coaches took the 120 con- would be the jury, not the judged. Tand beyond; some had already testants – all winners of national pre- They had already read and discussed spent hours on aeroplanes before university science competitions from the descriptions of the 78 projects in arriving in Stockholm. They came car- the 33 participating countries – to the contest, and were almost ready to rying boxes and cases; some brought their hotel; and, on Sunday, from interview the young scientists who intricate electronic gadgetry, others there to the Swedish National did the work. just paper rolled up in tubes that they Museum of Science and Technologyw2 Soon it was the opening ceremony. guarded as they would priceless man- where the contest was about to begin. Speeches from the organisers, the uscripts. Just what were these young The air was pulsating with expecta- Swedish Federation of Young people doing in Stockholm on that tion and unspoken questions: Will my Scientists, the Swedish Research sunny Saturday in September? project win? Can I fix this in time? Councilw3 and the Royal Swedish Clandestine participants in some Why won’t my PC boot up? Where is Academy of Sciencew4, and music secret ritual, perhaps? The astute that adhesive tape? from some very talented young musi- observer, however, would not have Elsewhere in the museum, 15 pro- cians. been so misled. After all, the signs fessional scientists were finalising Then the judging began: What were there: it was the 18th European their preparations, but here the made you choose this project? Did Union Contest for Young Scientistsw1. atmosphere was much calmer: they you consider any other explanation
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 13 SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:34 Uhr Seite 14
for what you saw? How did you It’s now Wednesday and the winner of one of the first prizes, record those data? Were these meas- Awards Ceremony is about to begin. explains: “We did not expect it! We urements repeatable? Had you Everyone is seated in the Vinter- are so satisfied and surprised that we expected that when you started? trädgården of the Grand Hotel. This is won!” Johannes Kienl, his partner on Have you thought about protecting where the Nobel laureates stay during the project, which developed an inno- your work through patents? How did the Nobel week, whispers a young vative electrothermal mechanical de- you split the work up between the contestant to her neighbour. Neither icing system for aircraft (see box), members of your team? can speak each other’s first language adds: “It was brilliant to come here Two intense hours later and the first and so they share one that they are and meet people from all over the round of interviews was over. The learning at school. There is something world – we have made a really good jury retired to exchange first impres- special in the air: an excitement that is network!” sions: When I spoke to her I realised almost tangible. More speeches, an For most, of course, the climax of that she really did understand the sci- outstanding a cappella performance by the four-day event was the farewell ence! That project is outstanding, but a group of young singers, and then party: a chance to say goodbye to new who did the work? He was shy at the winners are finally announced. friends, or rather “au revoir”! first, but when he started to explain Later at the press conference, how he got around that technical dif- Michael Kaiser from Austria, joint Web references ficulty, his enthusiasm was unstop- w1 - The 18th European Union Contest pable! And so on. for Young Scientists took place in Monday came and the judging con- Stockholm, from 23-27 September tinued. Gradually the jury began to 2006. A complete list of the winning discuss possible winners: it was diffi- projects can be found on the official cult of course, but it always is. How website. In 2007, the contest will can you compare a project in compu- take place in Valencia. tational science with one in the social The European Union Contest for sciences? Professor Jane Grimson, the Young Scientists is an initiative of president of the jury, reminded her the European Commission to pro- colleagues that up to three joint first, mote co-operation and interchange second and third prizes could be between young scientists, and awarded. Furthermore, there were demonstrate the best in European those special prizes donated by student scientific achievement. By EIROforum, the European Patent giving young scientists the chance Office and the Swedish Plant Science to meet others with similar abilities Centre. The final decisions would be Aisling Judge, age 15, receives third prize and interests and to be guided by taken on Tuesday after the last judg- for her project to develop and evaluate a some of the most prominent scien- ing sessions. biological food spoilage indicator tists in Europe, the European
14 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:34 Uhr Seite 15
Events
Commission seeks to strengthen the w2 - For more information about w4 - For more information about the efforts made in each participating Tekniska Museet, the Swedish Royal Swedish Academy of Science, country to attract young people to National Museum of Science and see www.kva.se careers in science and technology. Technology, see www.tekniska- For more details, see museet.se http://ec.europa.eu/research/ w3 - For more information on the youngscientists Swedish Research Council, see www.vr.se
Some of the winning projects
Aspiring Austrian pilots Michael Kaiser and Johannes physicists, were fascinated by how professional table- Kienl (both 19) developed a new de-icing system for tennis players manage to place balls exactly on the aircraft. This advanced system, planned in co-opera- edge of the table and serve difficult top-spins, so they tion with two offices of technical engineers, can be wanted to understand and simulate the curve of the fly- used to de-ice all important aerofoils of aircraft and ing ball. Using a computer, the young scientists wind-power stations. Attached to an aircraft’s wings or analysed the paths of balls served by a training vertical and horizontal stabilizers, or to the rotors of machine, then compared flight curve experiments with wind-power stations, the device pushes ice off the sur- simulated trajectories and were able to imitate several face when a heated metal layer expands. This has a sig- real table-tennis situations. nificant advantage over conventional de-icing systems: Heart diseases are among the most common causes of Michael’s and Johannes’s invention only requires heat death in humans. One group of drugs often used to and power when ice is actually present, in contrast to treat these diseases is beta-blockers, such as propra- the traditional ‘bleed air system’, which has to use nolol and metoprolol. Tomek Wdowik (19) from power to heat the aerofoils whenever the aircraft is at Poland carried out a complex organic chemical syn- risk of icing. The advanced Austrian de-icing system thesis to produce a new compound that may add a also has the advantage in terms of weight, size, energy new and efficient drug to the family of beta-blockers. efficiency and power. Tomek, who would like to become a chemist, Table tennis probably is one of the fastest sports in the explained the action of the known beta-blockers and world for both players and spectators. Johannes Burkart described how he designed and performed his synthe-
BACKGROUND (20) and Alexander Joos (19), both of whom aim to be sis.
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 15 SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:34 Uhr Seite 16
Alec Jeffreys interview: a pioneer on the frontier of human diversity
Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, the inventor of DNA fingerprinting, remembers his childhood passion for science, explains what we have learned from direct DNA analysis, and describes his work with Chernobyl survivors. Interviewed by Russ Hodge and Anna-Lynn Wegener from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany.
What attracted you to science in the that sort of practical science. It’s a first place? way of getting immersed in science which today is absolutely impossible I was born a curious child; I was the because of health and safety sort of child who would go around concerns. slicing up earthworms to see what was inside – a fairly ghastly child. But And nothing happened at school to at the age of eight, I got two great distract you or put you off science? things from my dad: a microscope and a chemistry set. And not any I had the most fantastic teachers, ordinary set; this was a real, fully particularly my biology teacher, Mr lethal chemistry set. Barton. I’d say, “I want to know what Basically, I was a self-taught organic a starfish looks like inside,” and he’d chemist. By the age of 11 or 12, get me a dead starfish so I could dis- through sheer enthusiasm, I’d taken sect it. So the school was enormously myself up to first-year university important, but they were working on level. There were bangs, there were a child who had already been con- stinks, I was making the most verted – at that point, I was complete- extraordinary compounds and you ly addicted to science anyway. learn very rapidly if you’re doing
16 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:34 Uhr Seite 17
Feature article
The author aged eight with his new microscope
You’ve been studying genetics and That simply reflects the fact that we’re make up about 25-30% of the entire human variation for nearly three a young species which has not had human genome. decades now. What do we know now enough time to split into different, There are also regions of repeat seg- about human variation that we didn’t genetically distinct, subspecies. The ments of DNA, known as minisatel- know thirty years ago? project has also told us that Africa is lites. These are my favourites and the richest source of genetic diversity, they’re the ones that underpin DNA We first had the tools for beginning which is consistent with mankind fingerprintingw3. They really interest to look at human variation in late having evolved in Africa. Again, these me because some of them are fantasti- 1977. Before that, what we knew was are insights that simply couldn’t have cally variable, hence their use in based on indirect inference. We could been achieved without looking at the DNA fingerprinting. Not only that, look at proteins in the blood or in sali- DNA. but some of them can be major va, and by studying variations in the But the other thing that direct causes of inherited disease, such as products of genes, we could make analysis of DNA has taught us is that Huntington’s Disease, which is inferences about variation in the the old model for how DNA varies caused by repeat segments of DNA genes themselves. Thirty years ago, from one person to another was replicating and making toxic gene though, we had no inkling of the true radically wrong. DNA was seen as products, killing cells in the brain. level of variation at that most funda- just a string of letters, with individu- We can also look at the origin of mental level of all: the DNA level. als differing in terms of single letter inherited disease itself: we can take Within about two years, though, it changes, the so-called single the most common cystic fibrosis became clear that there were going to nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs. mutation and begin to estimate when be many, many millions of sites of dif- We now know not only that there are it arose in human history and how it ferences between two people. many sites of these single nucleotide spread. Hand in hand with the Human polymorphisms, but also that the So direct analysis of DNA has told Genome Projectw1, there’s been the human genome is full of little dele- us about normal variation, pathologi- parallel Human Genome Diversity tions, duplications, inversions, all cal variation and the origins of patho- Projectw2. We’ve learned not only the sorts of rearrangements. There are logical changes; it’s created entirely true extent of variation, but also a even little segments of DNA that can new types of genetic marker, such as great deal about how that variation is copy themselves to a new location – those used in forensic DNA finger- distributed between different popula- the so-called transposable elements. printing, and it’s told us quite a lot tions, and that most genetic variation These little molecular fleas, hopping about the overall evolution of the is shared by everybody on the planet. around on the human genome host, species.
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 17 SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:34 Uhr Seite 18
This whole field is now moving really typing systems to help the police in 10 000 children before you found a fast. What do you expect will be the their enquiries and simultaneously new mutation. With these bits of DNA, kinds of new issues that we’ll be able identify people at risk of disease and in the most extreme example, about to deal with in the next decade? help them make the right lifestyle one child in four carries a new version. decisions?” My view is that the police So they’re very easy to pick up. Many of the issues that we’re going use of DNA and the medical use of Given that instability, a colleague of to be talking about ten years from DNA should be totally, completely mine, Yuri Dubrova from Moscow, now haven’t even been thought about and utterly separate. I would be con- came up with the idea of using these now. Having said that, it’s obvious tent for the police to have a sample of DNA segments for mutation monitor- that some things are going to be my DNA if it were to help in a specif- ing. For example, in Chernobyl, important, such as the genetic basis of ic investigation. I would not be happy where there was a mass release of common diseases like diabetes. for the police to look at characters in radioactivity into the environment, Diabetes has a genetic component but my DNA that are important to me as can you detect radiation-induced it’s very difficult to know which of all an individual – that’s an invasion of mutations in children? We did some the millions of sites of genetic varia- my genetic privacy. As soon as you of the experiments in an animal tion directly affect your risk of devel- cross the boundary between the model system, and showed that if you oping the disease. The environmental forensic and medical uses of DNA, I irradiate mice, more mutations accu- pathways are absolutely obvious – think you are creating a seriously dif- mulate in the repeat segments of lack of exercise and lousy diet – and ficult situation. DNA in their offspring. So these bits that can be changed right now: people That would undermine the great of DNA are not only spontaneously can dramatically modify their risk of success story of the forensic use of highly unstable, they are also exceed- diabetes without even thinking about DNA. The public by and large are ingly sensitive to radiation, and give genetics. But genetics would give content for the police to retain sam- us a very simple way to pick up radi- insights into the mechanisms, and ples of DNA from convicted people, ation-induced mutations. could lead to new drugs to minimise analyse them and create databases. Having shown that, Yuri then went an obese person’s risk of developing That sympathy would start evaporat- on to parallel studies in Chernobyl, diabetes. ing if the police had all sorts of infor- which blew up in April 1986. He mation on disease liabilities, ethnic recruited mother-father-child trios in Could you explain the distinction origins of people, and family relation- Belarus, where the child had been between DNA fingerprinting and the ships. born some time after the disaster, types of profiling that are used to try where both parents had been perma- to anticipate future disease? You’ve been involved with some nently living in the area, and where work involving Chernobyl. Could you there was information available on With old-fashioned DNA finger- explain what you’ve been doing and the level of radiation in the environ- printing, you couldn’t distinguish what’s come out of that work? ment. Again, he found that the chil- between ethnic groups, or even pre- dren had an elevated number of these dict things like hair colour and eye This came straight out of DNA fin- mutations and that the elevation colour, or disease liability. With mod- gerprinting. The repeat segments of seemed to be roughly in proportion to ern forensic DNA typing systems, DNA we use for DNA fingerprinting the amount of radioactivity in the that’s not quite true: there are some are highly variable because they are environment. weak hints about ethnicity and some unstable, so as they are transmitted Now if that is true, that is the first very, very weak hints about specific from parent to child, they quite often direct evidence in humans for radia- disease liabilities, particularly about spontaneously change – which is very tion-induced heritable mutations. Big diabetes. different from an average human genetic studies of the survivors of People have said, “Why don’t you gene. If you were to use a typical Hiroshima and Nagasaki lacked the create very high-throughput DNA- gene, you might have to look at power to be able to ask those sorts of
18 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_02-19_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:34 Uhr Seite 19
Feature article
questions. We also saw these muta- can be – was to collect semen from tions in both mice and humans at lev- men and count the number of sperm els of radiation exposure that were that had the mutations. We then irra- As a teacher, I was partic- traditionally thought to be without diated these men’s testes, waited a ularly impressed by the significant genetic risk. That may well while and then collected and analysed first part of the article, in question the basis for setting radiation further semen samples. After radia- which Professor Jeffreys thresholds and for risk estimation. tion, we found no effect on mutation remembers his fantastic In mice, we also saw a trans-genera- rate whatsoever! science teacher. This is a tional phenomenon, whereby if you You might wonder how we got any- real reward for good sci- expose a mouse to radiation, you see one to volunteer. We worked with tes- ence teachers. new radiation-induced mutations ticular cancer patients, so we needed appearing not only in its offspring, to find a patient who’s not only going Immacolata Ercolino, but also in its offspring’s offspring to undergo radiotherapy – hence the Italy REVIEW and in their offspring, even though testis irradiation – but is also pre- they’ve never been exposed to radia- pared to give semen samples. tion. We don’t know if that happens Worldwide we found three people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dna in humans, but if it does, then it raises who were prepared to do that. _fingerprinting issues about the effects of radiation – However, despite the small size of the not just for individuals, but for their study, there was clearly no effect. unexposed children, grandchildren, So to summarise, we found radia- Resources and more distant descendents. If that tion-induced heritable mutations in Alec Jeffreys’ website: phenomenon works in a trans-genera- Belarus, and when the study was www.le.ac.uk/genetics/pages/staff tional way, as it does in mice. repeated in the northern Ukraine, we /staff_pages/jeffreys.html saw the same effect. At a nuclear Wikipedia entry on Alec Jeffreys: Is there still debate about what the weapons test site in Kazakhstan, with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec results of this study mean? contaminated villages, the same effect _Jeffreys was seen. Studies on survivors of the Yes, I have to stress that there is no Japanese atom bombs showed no The International HapMap Project consensus yet on the human effect. Direct exposure of the testes is an effort to develop a haplotype response. I mean, there is a response, also showed no effect. And studies of map of the human genome, to identi- but this is epidemiology and one the Chernobyl clean-up workers and fy and catalogue genetic similarities thing you cannot do with population their families likewise showed no and differences in human beings: studies is define cause and effect. So effect. So there’s no consensus yet – www.hapmap.org you can always argue that maybe it’s and that’s the way science works. got nothing to do with radiation, that maybe the people living in the most Web references seriously contaminated areas were so w1 - Wikipedia entry on the Human nervous that they smoked a lot and Genome Project: that it was the smoking that induced http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ the mutations. You can see correla- Human_Genome_Project tions, but to really pin down cause w2 - Wikipedia entry on the Human and effect, to really see if radiation is Genome Diversity Project: the cause, is very difficult. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ The most direct experiment that we Human_Genome_Diversity_Project subsequently did – which shows just w3 - Wikipedia entry on DNA finger- how confusing this particular field printing:
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 19 SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 20
The joy of discovery:
Image courtesy of Peter Stättmayer © Stättmayer Image courtesy of Peter a personal experience
Comet West
esterday, in front of the comput- Almost exactly 30 years ago, in Richard West Yer at home, I had a funny feeling March 1976, I had seen this happen to of déjà vu. The photo on the website another comet. Looking through one describes the of the European Organisation for of the largest telescopes at ESO’s La Astronomical Research in the Silla observatory on a remote moun- excitement and joy Southern Hemisphere (ESO)w1 some- tain in the Chilean Atacama desert, I of discovering a how looked familiar. The comet had witnessed the awesome demise seemed a bit unsharp, and there were of one of the brightest comets of the new comet. several diffuse blobs. Clearly, Comet 20th century, marvelling at the forces Schwassmann-Wachmann 3w2 was in of nature in action. Once more, the process of breaking up (see my thoughts went back further to an image). After the comet’s numerous exhilarating afternoon in November approaches to the Sun in its elongated 1975. I remember it as if it were yes- orbit, the intense solar radiation was terday. What a lucky day in my life! finally taking its toll. This cosmic ice- But wait, I must tell the story from berg full of dust – the comet’s ‘nucle- the beginning. It started much earlier, us’, as we astronomers call it – was in the early 1960s, when astronomers falling apart, producing a swarm of from several countries decided to baby comets. unite their efforts and set up what
20 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 21
Cutting-edge science
as with the laboratory staff, including ness and limiting magnitude (a meas- Bernard Dumoulin, Françoise Patard, ure of the faintest stars visible on the Bernard Pillet and Jean Quebatte. plate). Only the very best plates, with The real work started in 1974, when the sharpest images and the faintest
Image courtesy of ESO a steady stream of exposed glass objects, were then included in the plates arrived in Geneva, carefully Atlas and several hundred photo- packed in big containers to survive graphic copies were made and deliv- the hardships of the long journey ered to other observatories all over from Chile. It was one of my jobs to the world. check all these plates, judging their On these negative plates, images of quality, e.g. in terms of image sharp- stars and galaxies appeared as small
Image of Fragment B of disintegrating Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 Image courtesy of ESO and associated mini-comets (arrows)
was to become Europe’s astronomy organisation, ESO. One of its most important tasks was to survey the relatively little-known southern sky, mapping hundreds of millions of heavenly objects south of the celestial equator. Such a programme would find many hitherto unknown stars, planets, nebulae and galaxies, open- ing wonderful opportunities for sub- sequent detailed studies and leading to an astrophysical bonanza. My own country, Denmark, joined ESO in 1967. At that time, I worked at the Copenhagen University Astro- nomical Observatory. Two years later, I was fortunate to obtain a position at ESO, as Assistant Astronomer to the Director General, Professor Adriaan Blaauw. In 1972, I was charged with setting up the new ESO Sky Atlas Laboratory on the premises of CERNw3 in Geneva, Switzerland, as part of a collaboration between the sister organisations. The laboratory’s main task was the production of ESO’s Atlas of the Southern Sky, con- sisting of faithful reproductions of 30 x 30 cm photographic glass plates exposed with a giant camera (a 1 m Schmidt telescope), optimised to sur- vey large sky areas. For this, I worked closely with the German astronomer Hans-Emil Schuster and his night assistants, the brothers Guido and Part of the photographic plate on which the trail of Comet West was first seen. Can you Oscar Pizarro from Chile, who did the find the fuzzy comet trail? Stars and galaxies appear as black dots; the brighter ones original exposures at La Silla, as well have different forms that are artefacts of light reflection in the telescope. See page 74
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 21 SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 22
clusters of silver grains in the photo- quick check in the tables did not obvi- more than 15 times within a few days. graphic emulsion. I normally started ously identify it as any known comet. It then disappeared behind the Sun as out with a quick ‘eye scan’ – being Which way was this comet moving – seen from the Earth and when it re- rather short-sighted, I could see even east or west? You cannot tell this from appeared in late February, it had quite small details on the plates. Then one trail alone, but suppose I could become very bright. Indeed, several followed a careful evaluation under a find another trail on another plate observers were able to see the comet’s microscope, examining even the taken before or after this one! Then ‘head’ (the gas and dust cloud sur- faintest smudges. The scrutiny of each the direction would become known. rounding the nucleus) in broad day- plate normally took between five and And if I found three trails, it would light. One wrote: “brilliant like the 15 minutes. become possible to calculate the orbit planet Venus”. Each plate contained images of sev- and predict the comet’s future motion....! Early in the morning of 1 March, I eral million stars in the Milky Way This plate was taken by Guido woke my 7-year-old son. Leaving and thousands of galaxies. Depending Pizarro on 24 September 1975, so I sleeping Geneva behind us, we on the position in the sky, there were searched some other plates obtained a ascended nearby Mount Salève and also nebulae of gas and dust, or short month earlier. One hour passed: noth- found a site with a view towards the trails of asteroids in the Solar System ing found. But then, incredibly, there eastern horizon. Dawn was approach- which had moved in their orbits dur- it was: another, much fainter, trail ing and the colour of the clear sky ing the exposure. It was a strenuous right in the corner of a plate taken by above the grandiose alpine mountains but fascinating job. The photos Oscar Pizarro on 10 August. And slowly changed from black to dark showed innumerable celestial objects another one on a plate from 13 blue to red. Anxiously waiting, we that had never before been seen by August! I could hardly believe my strained our eyes and soon noticed a human eye – what a privilege! Many luck. Lost to the world, I went to the bright spot rising behind the moun- of them were later catalogued system- large measuring machine to deter- tains, almost like a distant lighthouse. atically from the Atlas copies by dili- mine the exact sky positions of the It was deeply touching to show my gent colleagues in various countries. three trails; this took me another hour. son the comet I had seen on that plate Little did I know, on the morning of The rest is recorded history. We four months earlier. During the next 5 November 1975, what would hap- telexed (no emails in those days!) few days, it moved further away from pen later that day. It must have been the data to Brian Marsden at the the Sun and rose earlier, now with a about two o’clock in the afternoon Central Bureau of the International long and majestic tail in a darker sky. when I cautiously removed a newly Astronomical Union (IAU) in I got a call from my parents. Living arrived plate from its white cover, Baltimore (Maryland, USA). I went north of Copenhagen, they went to took off my heavy glasses and made a home that evening and tried to relax the Øresund beach in the early morn- first quick scan, supporting the plate with my family, but those trails were ing and saw the comet rising just edges with my hands a few centime- in my head all the time. Brian’s telex south of the island of Hven (Ven), the tres in front of my eyes. At one edge, I answer came the next day. The three site of the observatory of Tycho Brahe came upon a little black smudge that trails were of the same comet, it was (1546-1601), one of the most famous looked somehow strange. Yes, it was hitherto unknown, and Brian was astronomers before the invention of like the trail of a minor planet, but it able to calculate the orbit! He issued the telescope changed astronomy for- was fuzzy, as the trails of planets are IAU Circular 2860 the same day, and ever. not. And it looked fuzzier on one side under the heading “COMET WEST The comet was observed intensively than the other! Could it possible be...? (1975n)”, he stated that “the orbit over this period. Thanks to its unusu- A quick glance through the micro- indicates that the comet should be al brightness, detailed investigations scope confirmed my suspicion – it conveniently placed for observation could be made of its composition and was indeed the image of a moving in the northern hemisphere in the the impressive structures in its object. Oh yes, it was undoubtedly morning sky at m1 ~ 5 in mid-March coloured tails. It broke up, right in that of a comet with a short tail, and 1976”. Magnitude five! That meant front of the astronomers, with an thus most likely located in the inner that this comet might become visible intense release of fresh cometary Solar System. to the naked eye! I had in fact material. Enormous amounts of glow- In the 1970s, only two dozen comets discovered a relatively rare object. ing gas and reflected sunlight pro- were being discovered each year. This As the comet moved nearer to the duced a spectacular sight for profes- was becoming exciting! Questions Sun, it continued to brighten, as pre- sionals and amateurs alike, as well as arose: where was this comet in space? dicted. However, in mid-February for many stalwart, early risers among Was it perhaps already known? A 1976, it quite unexpectedly brightened the public. Marvellous photos were
22 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 23
Cutting-edge science
Web references w1 - For more information about the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) see: www.eso.org w2 - The ESO press release about Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is available here: www.eso.org/ outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-15- 06.html w3 - CERN is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory: www.cern.ch w4 - The International Astronomical Union aims to promote and safe- guard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international co-operation: www.iau.org
Resources Further reading about Comet West is available on Gary Kronk’s Cometography: www.cometography .com/lcomets/1975v1.html More details of Comet West are also available from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Comet_West IAU Circular 2860 announcing the discovery is available here: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/ 02800/02860.html (more informa- Image courtesy of Peter Stättmayer © Stättmayer Image courtesy of Peter tion about the comet can be seen on An impressive photo of Comet West in the morning sky, obtained in early March 1976 Circulars 2910, 2919, 2924, 2927, and 2928).
taken, some by teachers and their times at night in front of the comput- Comet West became a ‘great comet’ school classes. er screen on mountain observatories. and was technically the brightest – Comets are named by the Such moments are priceless. Of if only for a very short time – in the th International Astronomical Unionw4 course, scientists study science to gain 20 century. Background informa- after the discoverer(s). For me, to new insights and make them known tion on great comets is available have a celestial body – ‘Comet West’ – to the world, contributing to our from: named after me was a very great hon- common knowledge. However, I Wikipedia: our and a wonderful feeling! think that many will agree that it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ This is a personal story which not only the final results, but also Great_comet illustrates an important phenomenon many facets of the process itself – and NASA: in real science: the joy of making a especially some rare and intense http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?great_ discovery. I have been fortunate to moments on the road towards comets experience this fantastic feeling in understanding – which constitute my career as an astronomer, certainly the true highlights of the scientific that afternoon in Geneva, and some- profession.
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 23 SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 24
The ecologist’s view of bird flu
The white-fronted goose is an excellent example of a migrating bird. It breeds in north-west Russia and Siberia in summer- time and hibernates in west, central and south-east Europe
Image courtesy of Jan Visser, NIOO-KNAW
Are migratory birds responsible for the ill all migratory birds.” With “Kthis controversial statement, spread of bird flu? Should we kill them Russian politician Vladimir Zjirinovski caused widespread con- all? Lucienne Niekoop and Froukje sternation in January 2006, when the bird flu virus was spreading rapidly. Rienks from the Netherlands Institute The big question, however, is which birds are to blame. By addressing this of Ecology argue for a more scientific question, ecological research can play approach. a key role in the understanding of avian flu.
An overview In mid-2003, the H5N1 bird flu out- break began in south-east Asia. We do not yet fully understand how this
24 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 25
Cutting-edge science Image courtesy of Jan Visser, NIOO-KNAW
Millions of birds migrate each year, but are they spreading bird flu? Millions of lorries carrying poultry travel roads around the world...
virus spreads, but to prevent a pan- types: A, B, and C, all of which can be harmless, in which case they are demic, it is important to take a multi- infect humans. Bird flu (avian influen- known as low pathogenic avian disciplinary approach. Ecologists za) is caused by influenza A viruses, influenza (LPAI) viruses. Harmful or from the Netherlands Institute of for which birds form the reservoir. lethal subtypes are classed as highly Ecologyw1 are co-operating closely There are several subtypes of pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) with virologists at the Erasmus influenza A. The severe virus that is viruses. Medical Centre in Rotterdamw2, the currently spreading has the codename Netherlands, to understand the role H5N1, derived from the membrane Global outbreak of migratory birds in the transmission proteins on the virus particle. H5 Usually, influenza viruses do not of bird flu. stands for the haemagglutinin type 5 cross the species barrier, which means membrane protein (there are 16 types that different species of organisms Lethal subtypes in total). Neuraminidase is the full cannot pass the infection from one to First, let us go back to bird flu name of the membrane protein N, of another. However, the highly patho- basics. Viruses, small pieces of RNA which there are nine variants. genic bird flu H5N1 has been shown or DNA covered in a protein coat, Different combinations of the H and to jump from birds to humans, occur in many forms. Flu is caused by N membrane protein types result in although not easily. In the recent out- the influenza virus, which has three many virus subtypes. Subtypes may break, there have been at least 256
Table 1: Only those influenza A virus subtypes shown in blue are found in wild birds. The list of subtypes in poultry is not com- plete, but it most likely resembles that of wild birds. Source: Dr. Vincent Munster, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6 H7 H8 H9 H10 H11 H12 H13 H14 H15 H16
N1 N2 N3 N4 N5 N6 N7 N8 N9
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 25 SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 26
Table 2: Human cases of influenza A (blue) involve far fewer virus subtypes than are found in birds. H1N1 = 1918 ‘Spanish flu’ (>40 million deaths) H2N2 = 1957 ‘Asian Flu’ (1-4 million deaths) H3N2 = 1968 ‘Hong Kong Flu’ (1-4 million deaths) Source: Dr. Vincent Munster, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6 H7 H8 H9 H10 H11 H12 H13 H14 H15 H16
N1 N2 N3 N4 N5 N6 N7 N8 N9
Since 2003, H5N1 has been reported in poultry or wild birds in many areas (situation on 12 September 2006)
geese and swans seem to be among the most infected species of birds and form a natural reservoir of all influen- za viruses, usually the low pathogenic forms. Jan van Gils, an ecologist at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, explains: “Notably water-foraging birds appear to be sensitive. This is probably because they forage in con- taminated water.” Colleague Marcel Klaassen continues: “There are four
Image courtesy of the World Health Organization World Image courtesy of the potential reasons for the higher sensi- tivity of waterfowl. First, many of human cases, of whom more than half specific influenza virus. The resulting them travel over long distances as died (as of 16 October 2006), accord- highly pathogenic germ could then migratory birds, so their chances of ing to the World Health Organization disperse freely from person to person visiting an infection hotspot are high- (WHO)w3. Nonetheless, the WHO and result in a global outbreak or er. Second, they prefer to live in wet states that this is a small number pandemic. areas. Outside the host, the virus is compared with the huge number of capable of surviving for long periods, birds affected. Faeces especially in fresh water at low tem- The H5N1 virus has been shown to It is likely that all species of birds peratures: after one month in ice, the spread from human to human only can become infected with avian virus is still virulent. Furthermore, sporadically, as a result of intensive influenza. Affected birds secrete the waterfowl are highly social birds, contact. However, because the virus virus in high concentrations in their which can increase the possibility of mutates rapidly, researchers all over faeces, and the main known infection exchanging the virus.” Klaassen fin- the world predict that the H5N1 virus route is oral intake of these conta- ishes by pointing out the role of their will eventually merge with a human- gious faeces. Waterfowl like ducks, food source: “They produce large
26 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 27
Cutting-edge science
Images courtesy of Jan Visser, NIOO-KNAW
Outside the breeding season, migrating birds form mixed groups with other migratory bird species, making them vulnerable to viruses
amounts of faeces due to their Sick birds in head and neck, diarrhoea, subcuta- vegetarian diet. As such a diet has Ecological research is necessary for neous haemorrhages, loss of appetite, low nutritional value, herbivores us to understand how the bird flu lethargy, and respiratory problems. eat large amounts of food per day virus is distributed in a bird popula- However, this year the ecologists and produce a lot of dung. For tion, the location of infection, the found two LPAI-infected swans example, geese defecate every five transmission and the effects influenza (infected with H6N2 and H6N8) that minutes.” viruses have on their migratory host. began their spring migration more Migratory birds are being regarded To this end, ecologists at the than a month behind schedule. Jan with great suspicion as H5N1 spreads Netherlands Institute of Ecology van Gils explains: “When we found rapidly. Their food availability fluctu- study migratory water birds, such as the infected birds, they were in poor ates seasonally; for this and other rea- the Bewick’s swan. The scientists col- condition. They ate less and had poor sons, migratory birds travel enormous lect faeces and take swabs or cloacal digestion, resulting in less stored fat. distances – up to 30 000 km annually samples, observe the birds’ behaviour We are curious about the condition in – and can disperse pathogenic and study the food intake and diet of which these two infected swans will micro-organisms such as viruses. this small swan. The faeces and swabs return in winter and whether they Many migratory birds cross each are then sent to virologists at the will produce offspring.” Hopefully, other’s paths, forming a network of Erasmus Medical Centre, who analyse the knowledge acquired on the LPAI migratory routes and resulting in con- them for pathogens like influenza will contribute to the HPAI research. tact between many species and popu- viruses. By doing this, the researchers lations. Depending on the extent of aim to make an inventory of which High-tech collar contact between migratory birds and hosts carry which influenza subtype. To predict the continuing spread of the way in which birds infect each So far, only LPAI viruses have been bird flu, it is crucial to study migrato- other, viruses may ultimately spread found. Until recently, scientists did ry routes. At the Netherlands Institute across the world. Thus the infection not know that birds could become ill of Ecology, data is collected by the route is determined to a large extent from an LPAI infection: only HPAI Dutch Ringing Centrew4 to study the by the specific ecology of the viruses were thought to cause symp- routes of migratory birds in co-opera- pathogen and the host. toms such as sudden death, oedema tion with other European countries.
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 27 SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 28
How do bird flu viruses spread?
Waterfowl seem to be among the most infected species of wild birds. They form a natural reservoir of all influenza viruses, but mainly low pathogenic forms.
Low pathogenic avian influenza mutates rapidly in poultry. Moreover, the flu virus can spread easily due to very densely accommodated poultry, the poultry trade and frequent transport of these domestic birds.
You can prevent an H5N1 infection by taking some The main known infection precautions: route of the virus is via oral 1.Avoid any direct contact with infected intake of contagious bird birds. droppings. 2.Cook your eggs and poultry well before you eat them. 3.Stay away from drop- pings of infected birds or contaminated surfaces. A pandemic outbreak could occur if the H5N1 virus merged with a human specific influenza A virus. So far, only sporadic cases of human-to-human spread have been confirmed, but the virus mutates rapidly.
Image courtesy of Elaine Sullivan
28 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 29
Cutting-edge science Image courtesy of Jan Visser, NIOO-KNAW Visser, Image courtesy of Jan
The migratory pintail duck, Anas acuta, is widespread in the north of Europe, Asia, and North America. In winter, it flies south as far as the equator. Outside the breeding season, this social duck forms mixed groups with other species of duck
Numerous bird species are captured Bewick’s swan is also studied by fit- routes is compared with the hotbeds and ringed by volunteers. The light ting some of these swans with a global of H5N1 outbreaks. metal ring is a bird’s passport: if positioning system (GPS) collar, which someone finds a ringed bird, they allows the birds to be traced more The core of the problem inform the Ringing Centre. In this accurately. Some other species of So far, migratory water birds have way, individual birds can be tracked water birds are followed in a similar received the most attention as health and the flight routes of different way by other ecologists (see image), hazards. They are considered by many species obtained. The route of the and the information on these flight to be the main or even the only virus
Eco-factsheets
The Netherlands Institute of Ecology offers up-to-date The eco-factsheets contain: ecological information in eco-factsheets. The first · Background on current ecological themes factsheet deals with the ecology of bird flu and is tai- · Supporting graphics and pictures lored to secondary school students, for use in school Online quizzes or other challenges assignments such as reports, experiments, presenta- · tions and preparations for · Information on, or interviews with, researchers debate. Biology teachers · Future research questions can find supplementary · Links, e.g. to short movies. ecological information on The eco-factsheet The Ecology of Bird Flu is available topical subjects from the in English and Dutch from www.nioo.knaw.nl/
BACKGROUND associated website. NEWS/ecofactsheets/
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 29 SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 30
Birds equipped with GPS collars can be traced at all times. The pink dots represent the path of the white-fronted goose Harry; the yellow dots show that of Adri. Examples of live tracking satellite pictures are available online (e.g. www.blessgans.de)
vectors infecting people and poultry, viruses found in poultry. In summary, isms, populations, ecological com- but solid scientific evidence is lacking. migratory birds are involved in the munities and ecosystems: Ecologist Marcel Klaassen says, spread of bird flu, as victims but not www.nioo.knaw.nl “There is a lot of hysteria about the necessarily as offenders. w2 - The Erasmus Medical Centre in role migratory birds play. Perhaps Research need to continue into the Rotterdam is the largest university because this distracts the attention role that migratory birds and poultry medical centre in the Netherlands: from the real core of the problem: the play in the spread of influenza virus www.erasmusmc.nl very densely kept poultry, constitut- before people like Zhirinovski advo- w3 - The World Health Organization ing a virus’s paradise. And due to cate harming migratory birds. In par- (WHO) is the United Nations trade, poultry is transported very fre- ticular, the exact link between host specialised agency for health: quently and extensively. In these and infecting influenza virus should www.who.int ways, the flu virus can spread easily.” be investigated. Furthermore, virologists from the w4 - The Dutch Ringing Centre Erasmus Medical Centre found that Web references administers almost everything LPAI infections naturally present in w1 - The Netherlands Institute of concerning rings on wild birds in wild migratory birds are stable, Ecology focuses on basic and strate- the Netherlands: www.vogeltrek unlike the rapidly mutating LPAI gic research into individual organ- station.nl
In the last three years, bird flu has captured people’s deadly bird flu virus. Group projects could be aimed attention more than any other disease. Frequent at gathering data to determine whether migratory updates on its spread and victims have been routinely birds are, as accused, good candidates for spreading included in the news, alarming scientists, govern- bird flu and eventually causing a global outbreak. ments and the lay public. As expected, student curios- Other investigations could focus on what measures ity regarding bird flu is also on the rise. could be taken to prevent the disease from spreading This article provides the reader with a brief but useful to even more parts of the world. account of the scientific specifics of bird flu with a The nature and subject of these investigations make focus on the role played by migratory birds in the them ideal for interdisciplinary studies. For example, spread of the disease. biology and geography could be combined to shed The information in the article could serve directly as a more light onto the facts and myths surrounding the means of satisfying students’ curiosity. Additionally, it correlation between migratory birds and bird flu out- could inspire teachers and students to design small breaks. investigations to collect additional information con- Michalis Hadjimarcou, Cyprus
REVIEW cerning the role of migratory birds as vectors of the
30 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 31
Cutting-edge science
The yeast proteome: retooling the factory floor Russ Hodge from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, reports on the first complete survey of “molecular machines” in yeast.
Gitte Neubauer, Anne-Claude Gavin, Rob Russell and Peer Bork
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 31 SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 32
n 1901, Franz Hofmeister compared An alternative would be to start Ithe cell to a factory, able to take in with complete machines and then raw elements and convert them into analyse the molecules that compose the necessities of life; he even sug- them. But methods of extracting pro- gested that the sub-compartments of teins from cells usually break com- cells that had been identified under plexes apart. Then, several years ago, the microscope might be responsible Bertrand Séraphin’s lab at EMBL for specific types of conversions. invented a process called tandem The factory analogy has persisted affinity purification (TAP), a method through a century of discoveries which fishes single molecules from about the functions of molecules. cells along with any machines Proteins were described as ‘worker attached to them, intact. The compo- molecules’ and chemical processes as nents of complexes could then be ‘assembly lines’. Unlike a car factory, analysed using mass spectrometry – a however, where machines usually method that fragments proteins and remain bolted to the floor and are ‘weighs’ the pieces. Since each protein only changed as new models come has a unique composition, mass spec- into fashion, the cell continually trometry gives scientists measure- retools itself. Proteins are simultane- ments that can be matched by com- ously workers and components of puter to the profile of a specific mole- intricate robots that are continually cule. Working with scientists at assembled and taken apart; often, the EMBL, the company Cellzome decid- same molecule can be found in sever- Patrick Aloy and Rob Russell ed to tackle the entire yeast genome al machines. using these methods. Thousands of The full extent of this flexible organi- yeast machines based on single experiments later, this has produced sation has only become clear through a pieces, using a method called a two- the first full scan of the genes of a recent study published in the journal hybrid screen. This matches every eukaryotic cell, searching for molecu- Nature (Gavin et al., 2006). Previously, yeast protein to every other, like com- lar machines. scientists had a very limited view of pletely disassembling everything in a the machines and their components. car factory and trying to fit pieces “The situation was like coming into a together one-by-one. The method has The study revealed 491 complexes, factory and finding parts of single generated a wealth of useful informa- 257 of them wholly new. The rest machines scattered across the floor,” tion but also many false leads. were familiar from other research, but says lead researcher Anne-Claude It might be physically possible to now virtually all of them were found Gavin, a scientist at the European insert a gear stick into an exhaust to have new components. Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) pipe, but that doesn’t mean it ever Is the list exhaustive? “We estimate in Heidelberg, Germany. “We have happens in a functioning automobile. there may about 300 more,” Anne- known what some machines do, and a With 6500 parts to deal with – Claude says. “Some complexes may bit about how they operate, but there approximately the number of proteins appear only when particular condi- was really no view of the whole con- encoded in the yeast genome – the tions are used to grow the yeast, and text.” one-by-one method provides a very others may not be discoverable with Scientists had already started to limited view of complete machines, this method of extracting them.” For puzzle together the construction of let alone the complete factory. example, it has been notoriously diffi- cult to purify complexes attached to the cell membrane. The researchers adapted the method for doing so, and found 74 new complexes involving membrane proteins, but Anne-Claude is sure that many more exist. A parts list is only the beginning: the scientists also want to know where the complexes are stationed in the cell, what they do, and how they
32 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 33
Cutting-edge science
function. Sometimes these questions “Imagine replacing a chart of dis- gives the likelihood that they are can be answered from the compo- tances with a table that tells you only found together in purifications.” nents alone. A complex with three yes or no – can you get there from That information has now been proteins that respond to heat here?” Patrick says. “From that infor- converted into a map of the factory undoubtedly plays a role in helping mation you wouldn’t be able to draw floor, complete with finished and par- the organism adapt to changes in a very meaningful map, but that type tial machines, prefabricated parts, and temperature. Other complexes could of study is what we’ve had so far. snap-on modules. “What you discov- be linked to processes such as binding Well, now we’ve produced something er is that most complexes have a core to DNA, or assisting in the refinement more like the distance chart – each set of components that are almost of other molecules. pair of proteins has a value which always found together and others that The information has also provided new insights into how the cell man- ages the incredibly complicated task of putting complexes together, and this says something important about the biology of yeast and other organ- isms. “Does a cell pre-assemble machines and have them on hand, or are they built from scratch when something happens?” Anne-Claude says. “In other words, how are the machines – and the factory as a whole – really managed? We didn’t know, but now we can say a lot about this. To do that, we had to find new ways of understanding the data.”
Road atlases often contain a chart showing the driving distances between cities. For example, 1150 kilometres separate Rome and Heidelberg; Heidelberg to Cambridge is 2045 kilometres (counting a transit by ferry). From such a chart and a bit more information, you could sort cities into regions, states, and coun- tries. To understand the inner work- ings of protein complexes, says Patrick Aloy, scientists would like to have such a map of molecules. Patrick was a member of Rob Russell’s group at EMBL, where com- putational techniques are used to understand the inner workings of protein complexes. Combining infor- mation on protein shapes and func- tions with data on how they bind to other molecules has permitted the scientists to start drawing ‘technical diagrams’ of machines. But sketchy Some of the complexes and knowledge has restricted the scope dynamic modules discovered of these efforts. in the yeast proteomics project
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 33 SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 34
In the field of life sciences, the word proteome has I recommend this article to teachers and students of become very popular, like other words ending with upper secondary school within the curriculum of bio- “-ome”, but it is rare to find it explained as clearly as chemistry and/or cell biology. In fact, it can be used it is in this article. for classroom teaching or for autonomous investiga- Beginning with the metaphor of the cell as a factory, tion of the subject by students. Russ Hodge leads the reader into its complex protein Finally I would stress that this article, in spite of the machinery using a plain and captivating style, with simple and friendly style, offers an illuminating and vivid examples from everyday life. synthetic view of a very complex issue: with the excit- Another engaging feature of the article is the descrip- ing taste of the adventure of discovery, it gives an tion of methods and strategies used by researchers to excellent example of high-level science popularisa- investigate the structure, function and evolution of tion, which is especially needed at present to encour- those incredibly tiny objects that are cell protein com- age scientific vocations.
REVIEW plexes. Giulia Realdon, Italy
come and go,” Rob says. “You can many of the same machines, using the Health reflects the operation of the think of the cores as crucial, prefabri- same basic components to do the entire cell in the context of the organ- cated parts of machines that are kept same things,” Peer says. “The com- ism. The level of molecular machines on hand, with temporary modules plexes reflect how evolution works – is crucial in influencing that and added on as the need arises.” as variations on a theme. You don’t keeping things in balance. What the The function of such modules, find every species inventing a new scientists have accomplished is chang- Anne-Claude says, may be to alter the way of doing things; instead, they’re ing what we think about not only job of the core machine, to link it to refining what they’re up to by adding how individual machines work and other things going on in the factory, to on specialised modules, or slightly are regulated, but how they function switch it on or shut it down. “This changing the way the whole thing is together. That will obviously be cru- has several very important effects. regulated.” cial as scientists try to guide organ- First, it gives the cell a way to carry The study reveals a great deal about isms from a diseased state to a out a large number of tasks with a individual machines and how they healthy one. limited number of basic machines. work together. Yet much remains to That gives it quite a bit of flexibility. be learned about their work in living References Secondly, it means that in an emer- cells – where many of them are locat- Gavin, AC et al. (2006) Proteome sur- gency, the cell doesn’t have to build ed, and how many copies of each vey reveals modularity of the yeast all the machines it needs from scratch. machine are at work at any given cell machinery. Nature 440: 631-636. It only has to produce a few really time. Structural information about the doi:10.1038/nature04532 essential parts. The other side of that complexes is helping to answer some is that it may be relatively simple for of these questions, because it gives This article appears in the annual the cell to control a quite sophisticat- scientists an idea about the overall report of the European Molecular Biology ed machine, just by supplying or shape of a complex. This means it can Laboratory, a collection of articles on blocking the delivery of a critical be looked for under the microscope. topics from the most current science. piece.” “Even with electron microscopy, The rest of the report is available here: There is an important connection to protein complexes are fuzzy spots www.embl.org/aboutus/news/ evolution because generally, certain that are difficult or impossible to publications/report/report06.html types of machines and their basic identify,” Anne-Claude says. “But components have been conserved with good shape information, we over hundreds of millions of years as might be able to put names to some of new species arose. Peer Bork’s group the shapes.” at EMBL has helped in investigating this question. “If you compare what goes on in yeast and our own cells, you find
34 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 35
Teaching activities
The detective mystery: an interdisciplinary foray into basic forensic science
Graham Gardner from the Inter-Community School in Zürich, Switzerland, describes how an attempt to interest his students in chemical separation techniques developed into a full-scale interdisciplinary detective mystery.
had been teaching a unit on chemi- Ical separation techniques to my 8th grade class (14-year-olds) for several years and noticed that it was one of the most tedious parts of the science course for these students. The unit introduced them to a range of tech- niques from the obvious and simple method of filtration to the more abstract and complicated technique of chromatography. The most common question the unit raised from students was “what’s the point?” So with one particularly difficult group of students, I introduced a practical test situation where four sus- pects of a crime had various samples taken from them. The students were given pre-analysed samples from the crime scene that they then had to match to their own analysis from each suspect. The two lessons I set aside for this activity quickly became four. The students all arrived at class well before each lesson started with lab – even asking to work during breaks them? One of the most motivating coats and safety glasses on (normally and lunchtimes! They had been one of aspects for the students was the final I have to repeat this instruction sever- my least motivated classes and now explanation of their analysis, normal- al times). At the end of each class I my colleagues were asking what I had ly a boring written activity. It became even had to throw them out to let my done to make them work so diligently a courtroom drama, and the students next class in. They wanted more time – had I punished them or threatened became expert witnesses and lawyers
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 35 SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 36
students and teachers amazed by the crystal. Comments overheard by the librarian included “huh, I don’t think much of their security system, we could easily steal this” and from a teacher “I can’t believe the headmas- ter didn’t tell us about this before.” I’d made a fake picture of the head- master digging the crystal out of the ground. On the day of the activity, in a very hushed assembly, the students were told that the stone had been stolen. As we then explained that they would have to solve the crime, it started to dawn on them that it was part of the mystery. As well as the usual analysis, the students had to work out how the thief had bypassed the security system – by trying to break the system themselves. For the last two years, we have had a humanities/science energy confer- ence at the school. Each group of stu- dents represents an energy source and they make a presentation stand on the exhibition floor. Teachers in character attend, along with students from who had to cross-examine (exploiting Sherlock Holmes met his end. I’ve other grades and parents. The crime their natural tendency to be argumen- even managed to get Shakespeare’s from the mystery is connected to tative). Macbeth in somehow. some of the characters that the teacher The following year, the activity was Usually four teachers play the role delegates play, as well as being relat- expanded to a full-day activity. It was of the suspects (with suspect photo- ed to an energy issue. This year, for still a science activity at this point, but graphs) whom the students have to example, the mystery revolved as the timetable had been abandoned interview. All the students study around a new species of oil seed that for the day, non-science teachers were German as we are located in Zürich, would revolutionise the energy indus- also involved. They quickly picked up so we have one suspect who will only try. A delegate at the conference had on the potential for the activity to answer questions posed in German. recently discovered the seed in the involve many other subjects. From Sometimes we include a suspect who this point on, it became an established only speaks French, as that is also a interdisciplinary activity in the school language offered in our curriculum. year. One year, we had a crime that The students do not know in revolved around the theft of a $2 mil- advance when the mystery will take lion crystal that was on display in the place but they all anticipate it as they school library. The technology teacher have heard about it from previous made a glass display case full of anti- years’ groups. theft devices. The school’s website Over the eight years that the detec- advertised the crystal as being an tive mystery has been running, we archaeological find on the site of the have had input from the English school when its foundations were department through the study of the being built. It claimed that the local detective novel as a genre of litera- museum had loaned it to us for an ture; one year, the students went to exhibition. Most people fell for it and the Giessbach Falls to see where the library was constantly visited by
36 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 37
Teaching activities
Amazon rainforest but had not made scene. I only use one fingerprint and try to find a match. They the seed available or his findings pub- per suspect otherwise it is too need to analyse the chromato- lic. Rumours about oil companies and time-consuming for the students gram, describing colours and the governments trying to get hold of the to analyse. Some students print extent to which each colour has seed set the scenario for the delegate’s out the documents and identify travelled to obtain data that can mysterious death. We then introduce loops and arches in the finger- be compared, not just a visual energy from a science perspective, prints; others use computer impression. and the humanities teachers investi- graphics to illustrate the features 4. Supporting evidence is given in the gate the social issues. they have identified. school’s online curriculum centre. The basic elements of the detective · A toxic chemical from a bottle, Access to this information is by day are: and also found in the victim’s passwords that can be obtained by 1. Introduction to the scenario – usu- body. Students are given sub- solving simple problems and puz- ally this is a short movie or stances that have been obtained zles, for example Sudoku or optical PowerPoint presentation that from each suspect, as well as a illusions. This supporting evidence explains the characters and the sample found at the crime scene is background information about basic evidence found at the crime that the police have already the suspects, such as bank state- scene. Each year, I make a new sce- matched with the toxic substance ments, police records, marriage cer- nario otherwise the students will found in the victim’s body. The tificates, passports and newspaper find out from the previous year students characterise the sub- articles. what happened. stances in terms of solubility, 5. There is usually surveillance of a 2. Students are put into working crystallisation and melting points, suspect. This is one of the most groups; the groups are of mixed to identify which of the suspects’ popular activities. Each group is ability and will include speakers of substances match the poison in given a time to observe the suspect. the languages of the suspects. the victim’s body. The actual sub- The suspect repeats the same rou- 3. There are three pieces of evidence stances used are harmless: salt, tine for each group, usually in the found at the crime scene that I alum, sugar and chalk. library. The surveillance team tries always use but others are added · Ink on a note to be matched to ink to blend in with the environment depending on the scenario. Each from pens found on each suspect. (I’m sure they read more in this group is given a pack of their own The suspects each had a black ink time than on their regular visits to evidence. The standard evidence is: pen that the police have collected the library). They make notes of the · Fingerprints found on a bottle. as evidence. There is also a sam- suspect’s movements and conver- The students do not actually take ple of ink that has already been sations as well as sneakily taking the fingerprints; they are given analysed – it is usually from an photographs. electronic versions of the finger- apparent suicide note or a threat- 6. The day ends with the courtroom prints. A sheet with the suspects’ ening note found on the victim. trial. At short notice, each group is fingerprints on it accompanies a The students carry out chro- given a specific piece of evidence set of fingerprints found at the matographies on the other pens to present. This prevents presenta-
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 37 SIS_20-38_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:42 Uhr Seite 38
Macbeth, which the 8th grade is also studying, is not short on bloody mur- ders and it is not likely to be removed from the curriculum. It may be an interesting aspect for the school coun- sellor to explore, and certainly in terms of the students’ imagination, the more gory aspects come out in full when we get them to dramatise how they thought the crime had been committed.
Resources The student workbook for this year’s detective mystery can be down- loaded here: www.scienceinschool.org/2006/ issue3/detective/workbook
This article represents a great idea, which needs much time for plan- ning and co-ordination. I am fully convinced that the students will find these activities more exciting than traditional educational meth- ods. I think guiding the students through detective mysteries like those mentioned in the article is very motivating, and another valu- able source for teachers searching for different educational methods. Sølve Tegner Stenmark, Norway REVIEW
tions being repetitive. They can be hours. The more complex the mystery, asked to give evidence for either the more time it takes to prepare. This the prosecution or the defence. year’s activity probably took 15-20 Such an activity requires a lot of hours. preparation so it is important that the The main issue that I’ve had with school administration fully supports the mystery has been the insensitive the activity by allowing planning nature of dealing with death as a fun time, especially if it involves teachers activity. The crystal theft successfully from different disciplines. Originally, got around this but in trying to have a when I just had the activity in the sci- different scenario each year, I have ence class, it only took a few hours to gone back to a murder investigation. prepare. Involving the suspects, inter- A former colleague once pointed out views, surveillance, setting up lots of that detective novels and TV pro- clues such as a database of records, as grammes such as CSI treat death as well as the little movie I always make entertainment and children are not to introduce it, takes many, many only exposed to this but thrive on it.
38 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 39
Teaching activities
Introducing radio transmission with a simple experiment
Do you ever get frustrated with that mess of cables connecting your DVD player to your satellite dish, TV and video recorder? Did you know that you can cut those cables – and still get a signal to pass between the machines? Alessandro Iscra, Maria Teresa Quaglini and Giuseppina Rossi from Italy describe an experiment that will astound your students.
timulated by the widespread use transmitter: in Sof modern wireless devices, such other words, the as mobile phones, satellite TV receiver doesn’t receivers and wireless computer net- know whether it is works, many students are interested receiving a pro- in the topic of radio transmission. gramme transmit- Recognising this interest, we have ted by a distant, developed both educational docu- normal transmitter or ments and experimentsw1, some of by the nearer VCR. The VCR Image courtesy of PixelQuelle.de which use common modern wireless generates a radio signal that equipment. The project has involved reaches the TV via the coaxial cable. If many teachers working collaborative- we cut the cable, and connect the ly to produce papers, multimedia pieces of cable to two antennae, the activities and practical protocols. TV will receive the audio and video Materials Below, we describe a simple experi- signals transmitted by the VCR with- · ATV ment that introduces radio transmis- out any physical connection: we have · A VCR sions to young students using a video achieved radio transmission. The sig- · Two coaxial antenna cassette recorder (VCR) and a televi- nal transmitted is very weak, so the cables used to connect a VCR sion (TV). two antennae can be separated by to a TV (with one male and one only a few metres. female coaxial connector). One cable The radio transmission The following instructions should will be provided with the VCR; the experiment be suitable for all teachers, including second, identical to the first, can be A VCR can transmit sound and those who are unfamiliar with electri- bought in a TV shop, or constructed images to a TV via either the SCART cal equipment. A Microsoft from materials (the coaxial cable and cable or the classic coaxial antenna PowerPoint presentationw2 and a short the connectors) bought in an electri- cable. When transmitting via the video clipw3 are available online. cal goods shop. coaxial cable, the VCR emulates a TV · A metal grid (optional)
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 39 SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 40
A spectrum analyser, a classical directional antenna and a coaxial cable: three very important devices used in radio transmission experiments
A homemade condenser, built by distance of about 1 m between the students from Liceo Scientifico Nicoloso two antennae. The TV should receive da Recco (Recco, Genoa, Italy), is used a signal from the VCR, which acts as to show that a variable electric field a weak radio transmitter (see right). generates a magnetic field Interference If the experiment is performed out- doors or if the classroom is close to a TV transmitter, the TV may receive signals other than those from the VCR. In this case, re-tune both the TV Methods If no TV programme has yet been and the VCR. First, search for a chan- Step 1. Connect the VCR to the TV assigned to the VCR, this must be nel on which the TV receives no sig- using only the original coaxial anten- done. You may need to consult the TV nal. Then tune the output channel of na cable. A VCR is normally connect- instruction manual or ask a technician the VCR to the same channel. If nec- ed to a TV set by a thick cable joining for help. essary, consult the instruction manu- two rectangular connectors (the Step 3. Replace the original coaxial als. Alternatively, try the experiment SCART connectors) and/or by a thin cable with the second coaxial cable, in another room where the interfer- cable joining two cylindrical connec- and check that the system still works. ence may be less. tors (the coaxial antenna cable). This Then cut the new coaxial cable. The latter connection is necessary to TV will not receive any signal. Cautions receive normal television channels, so Step 4. Remove the two pieces of Unauthorised radio transmission it should be present if the TV is not the new coaxial cable from the TV is strictly prohibited. Do not interpose just used to watch videotapes. The and VCR and remove the external devices such as amplifiers between first thing to do is remove any other and internal insulating material along the VCR and the transmitting connections from the back of the a length of about 20-30 cm (this antenna. VCR; the only connection should be length is not critical). to the TV via the coaxial cable (see Step 5. From the un-insulated parts The propagation of right). of the two lengths of cable, create two electromagnetic waves Step 2. Try to play a videotape small antennae. Do this by exposing The simple experiment described using the configuration described in the inner conductor and by manipu- here demonstrates the propagation of Step 1. This may simply require you lating the outer conductor to form a electromagnetic waves in air and, by to insert and play the videotape, then single length, making the configura- placing the two antennae on either search the previously set programmes tion shown right. See these web- side of an obstruction (e.g. a book, a using the remote controller of the TV. sitesw2,w3 for further help. piece of aluminium foil or a wall), can Since the VCR is disconnected from Step 6. Cover the two antennae be used to show how the waves pene- the normal antenna, the TV can only with insulating tape. trate objects. receive signals transmitted by the Step 7. Reconnect the lengths of The teacher can also demonstrate VCR. cable to the TV and VCR. Maintain a the polarisation of the waves by plac-
40 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 41
Teaching activities
ing a metal grid between the two antennae. The waves cannot pass through the grid if the rods of the grid are parallel to the electric field Back of TV vector (E in the figure right). However, the grid is penetrable if the rods are at right angles to the electric field vector. Back of VCR
An explanation of the observed phenomena Coaxial cable Radio transmission occurs when energy is carried by electromagnetic waves. This transmission may be achieved simply by applying a high- The VCR connected to the TV using only the coaxial cable frequency voltage to a dipole antenna with a total length similar to the wavelength of the electromagnetic waves. VCRs generate ultra-high frequency Inner conductor (UHF) signals in the 470-862 MHz range; the exact frequency range depends on the European channel selectedw4. Since the wavelength (λ) is related to the frequency (f) by the sim- Dipole ple formula λ = c/f (where c is the speed of light), the wavelength is in the range of 0.35-0.63 m, requiring a small antenna. Electromagnetic waves generated Outer conductor (shield) by the dipole antenna are linearly polarised. The direction of the electric field (E in the figure right) is parallel A dipole antenna formed from a length of coaxial cable to the antenna.
Web references w1 - Radio Transmissions Experiments for Educational Purposes from a net- Back of TV work of Italian schools: www.iscra.net/radio_educational w2 - How to Make a Simple Radiotrans- mission by Using a Videorecorder and Back of VCR a TV-receiver, a PowerPoint presen- tation from Luisa Bove, Alessandro Iscra and Giuseppina Rossi: www.iscra.net/radio_educational/ english/englishvcr.ppt w3 - Transmitting from a Videorecorder, from some students of IIS Radio transmission and polarisation of the electromagnetic waves: E represents “Caramuel” in Vigevano (Italy): the electric field vector and H, the magnetic field vector. The dotted line www.iscra.net/radio_educational/ represents the direction of propagation english/englishvcrclip.mpg
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 41 SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 42
A related event The schools involved in this project recently organ- develop projects to communicate the social aspects ised a public event about the scientific, technical and of electromagnetism. Consorzio Elettra 2000 provid- social aspects of electromagnetic fields. During this ed the instruments necessary to measure the electric event, seven projects were presented to visitors by and magnetic fields. More details about this event are the school students. available onlinew6. The event was supported by Consorzio Elettra The seven school projects also took part in the 2000w5, which organised a national contest – Campi national contest, with one of them winning a trip to Elettromagnetici e Società (Electromagnetic Fields Rome.
BACKGROUND and Society) – to stimulate secondary schools to
w4 - TV Channel, CATV and FM Students at the IIS Broadcast Frequencies from ARRL, “Deambrosis-Natta” the national association for amateur testing electromagnetic radio in the USA: hazards associated www.arrl.org/tis/info/catv-ch.html with hand-held radio devices w5 - The Consorzio Elettra 2000 web- site: www.elettra2000.it (the Italian website links to an English version) w6 - The website of the public event organised by the schools involved in this project: www.iscra.net/eta (only in Italian)
Resources A more analytical approach to these experiments can be found on the following websites: www.iscra.net/radio_educational/ A Simple Approach to Radio english/englishradiocom.ppt Transmissions by Alessandro Iscra Radio Transmissions by Catia Fina, and Maria Teresa Quaglini: Alessandro Iscra and Maria Teresa Quaglini: www.iscra.net/radio_educational/ english/radiotransmissions.doc
This article describes an Alessandro Iscra teaches at the IIS easy to prepare and inter- “Deambrosis-Natta” in Sestri Levante, esting physics experiment Italy. to show wireless electro- Maria Teresa Quaglini teaches at the magnetism. Both the sim- IIS “Maserati” in Voghera, Italy. ple theoretical and practi- Giuseppina Rossi teaches at the cal aspects are covered. Liceo “Cairoli” in Pavia, Italy. Myrto Pouangare, Cyprus REVIEW
42 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 43
Teaching activities
Putting the buzz back into school grounds
Dave Goulson and Ben Darvill from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust at the University of Stirling, UK, explain why these furry insects are under threat – and what schools can do to help.
umblebees A honeybee, Apis mellifera, (right) are among and a typical bumblebee, the B the most familiar buff-tailed bumblebee, Bombus terrestris and endearing of garden insects. Chubby insects with yellow and black stripes that are recognisable, bumblebees are widely featured in children’s story books, cartoons, greetings cards and advertising logos. Yet most people are unaware that there is a distinction between bumblebees (genus Bombus) and the honeybees from which we get honey (genus Apis), although they are quite different in appearance. It is also not widely recognised that there are lots of different species of bumblebee, with very different colour patterns, many of which can be seen in almost any garden or park in Europe. In fact there are about 250 known species of bumblebee (~65 in Europe), found throughout the cooler parts of the northern hemisphere. Unfortunately for bumblebees, this region also contains much of the world’s human population and the most intensive agricultural regions. Probably as a result of this, many bumblebees appear to be undergoing dramatic declines in range.
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 43 SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 44
This decline has drawn consider- around ten more have suffered range often more. So why have some able media attention, which is gener- losses of greater than 70% in the last species undergone drastic declines ally positive, but it has led to some 60 years. However, a small number of while others remain abundant? confusion. Articles in various national species appear to be able to cope with Recent studies suggest a possible newspapers have claimed that bum- intensive farming and remain wide- answer. It seems that rare species tend blebees are “threatened with extinc- spread and reasonably abundant to be more specific in their feeding tion”, yet, paradoxically, they remain throughout Europe. These species requirements. a common sight in gardens. In fact appear to do particularly well in gar- All bumblebees feed exclusively on most bumblebee species have dens, exploiting the range of flowers nectar, which provides sugar (carbo- declined greatly, and have disap- to be found there. In almost any loca- hydrates) for energy, and pollen, peared from intensively farmed areas. tion in Europe, planting a few square which is their sole source of protein In the UK, three of 26 native species metres of bee-friendly flowers will for growth. Many of the rarer species have become locally extinct, and attract at least five bumblebee species, such as Bombus ruderatus, the ruderal
Drifts of red clover on South Uist, Hebrides, Scotland, an area that has largely escaped agricultural intensification and which is home to rare bumblebees such as the great yellow bumblebee, Bombus distinguendus (inset) SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 45
Teaching activities
bumblebee, and the short-haired Resources bumblebee, Bombus subterraneus, are Goulson D (2003) Bumblebees: Their heavily dependent on legumes Behaviour and Ecology. Oxford, UK: (Fabaceae) as their major source of Oxford University Press pollen. In particular red clover, Some UK specialist seed suppliers Trifolium pratense, seems to be a are: favourite with bumblebees. Herbiseed: www.herbiseed.com Red clover was once a very com- mon plant in Europe as it was widely Naturescape: grown as a fodder crop (it is also a www.naturescape.co.uk favourite with horses) and as a ley Emorsgate Wild Seeds: crop to boost soil fertility (it is able to www.wildseed.co.uk fix atmospheric nitrogen via mutualis- Scotia Seeds: tic bacteria in its root nodules). It was www.scotiaseeds.co.uk also a common plant on the unim- proved, nutrient-poor pastures and hay meadows which covered much of lowland Europe. In the mountains of southern Poland, which have largely escaped agricultural intensification and where horses are still widely used for farm transport, red clover leys are still common and rare bum- less abundant, which is almost cer- blebees thrive. tainly behind the decline in bumble- Bumblebees are ex- bees. In Europe, the best places for tremely important native rare bumblebees are isolated pockets pollinators and are disap- of habitat that have escaped agricul- pearing dramatically tural intensification, such as Salisbury across Europe – an envi- Plain in the UK and the Causses du ronmental disaster that Larzac in France (both owned by the seems to be caused by military) and remote areas where changes in land use. farming has changed little such as the This article is of great Outer Hebrides, Scotland and the interest to teachers of the mountains of Central Europe. life sciences, for both So what can we do to halt or environmental education reverse the decline of the bumblebee? and ethology. The hands- Overleaf are some ideas of how on activities can be schools can help. applied in different ways in both primary and sec- References ondary schools, although Prys-Jones E, Corbet SA (1991) they might be difficult for In contrast, in western Europe the Bumblebees. Richmond, London, UK: inner-city schools be- advent of artificial fertilisers and Richmond Publishing Co. Ltd. cause of space require- mechanisation in the middle of the ISBN: 0855462574 ments. The activities may 20th century led to the abandonment encourage students to of clover leys, and most pastures and Web references improve their knowledge hay meadows have either been w1 - The Bumblebee Conservation of science through nature ‘improved’ through ploughing and Trust website contains more infor- observation – and could reseeding, or turned over to arable mation about bumblebees, identify- help to prevent the production. ing and encouraging them, and insects’ extinction. The net result of these changes is much more: Immacolata Ercolino, that wildflowers in general, and red www.bumblebeeconservationtrust. Italy REVIEW clover in particular, are now much co.uk
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 45 SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.200610:48UhrSeite46 46
Science inSchool CLASSROOM ACTIVITY Projects withbumblebees · · · · · · · · · graphic range inEurope: flowers aregiven below, allofwhich have abroadgeo- cialist suppliers. A selectionofexcellentbumblebee Wildflower seedsarenow widelyavailable fromspe- Bumblebees arevery easytoattract toawildlifegarden. I. Createawildflower garden Sainfoin, Poppy, Knapweed, Borage, Red clover, Comfrey, Tufted vetch, Foxglove, Viper’s bugloss, Europe) Papaver rhoeas Borago officinalis Onobrychis viciifolia Symphytum officinale Issue 3: Winter 2006 Digitalis purpurea Trifolium pratense Centaurea Vicia cracca Echium vulgare spp. (native tocontinental which thebeeswillusetoinsulatetheirnest. The more kapok, orbitsofanoldbird’s nestshouldbeadded, for thebeestogetin. A fewdriedleaves, driedmoss, leaving asmallgap(about2cmwide)atgroundlevel chamber roughly15cmxby 10cmhigh,again bricks and/orplanksofwood can beusedtoconstructa left inplaceforayear ortwo. Alternatively, afewold bees (e.g. seems tobequiteattractive asanestplaceforcarder plywood placedonthegroundamongstlonggrass two gapsforthebeestogetin.Similarly, apieceofthick soil isprettyeffective. Just makesurethereareoneor paving slabplacedover afootball-sizedcavity inthe such asthebottomofahedge,orundershrub. A access hole,preferably placedinashady, quietcorner, dark, draught-free andfairlydrycavity withasmall artificial nestsitesforbumblebees. All theyneedisa usually wellhidden,butitisrelatively easytoprovide Few peoplehave seenabumblebeenestastheyare II. Providing nestsitesforbumblebees the differentspecies. terrestris. broad range ofspecieswithshortertongues,such as poppies, which have shallower flowers, arevisitedby a bee, mostly visitedby thevery long-tonguedgardenbumble- appropriate depth. Thus foxgloves andredclover are length oftheirtongue,andtendtovisitflowers ofan ingly different.Bumblebeespeciesvary greatlyinthe The feedingpreferencesofthedifferentspeciesarestrik- Record which speciesofbumblebeevisitwhich flowers. species inmuch ofmainlandEurope. (1987). This alsocovers mostofthemorecommon able, amongthebestofwhich isPrys-Jones &Corbet In theUK,several goodidentificationguidesareavail- research-curation/projects/bombus/bumblebeeid.html). History Museum,London,UK(www.nhm.ac.uk/ the excellentcolourkeyonwebsiteofNatural identify thebumblebeespeciesthatareattracted, using some oftheplantswillhave comeintoflower. Try to and otherinvasive weeds.Bysummer of thefirstyear, mixed together. Weed occasionallytoremove grasses soil inSeptemberorMarch, eitherinseparate patches or Sow any combinationofthesedirectlyintoawell-tilled Bombus hortorum This behaviour reducescompetitionbetween Bombus pascuorum , whereas viper’s buglossand ), althoughitworks bestif www.scienceinschool.org B. SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 47
Teaching activities
Easily grown wildflowers that will provide food for bumblebees include (from left to right) viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare), comfrey (Symphytum officinale) and sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia)
nest sites that are provided, the more likely it is that one will be found and used. It is noticeable that once a nest site has been used once, it is very often reoccupied the following year. It seems likely that queens searching for nest sites use the faint smell of an old nest as a good indication that the site is suitable for nesting. Thus it is best to leave nest sites in place for many years; the longer the better, for once they are eventually discovered by a queen and used for nesting, they are then likely to be used over and over again. Once a nest is established, there are many observations that can be made. How often do bees leave/ return to the Counting red-tailed bumblebee nest traffic. This nest is nest? What proportion of bees are carrying pollen on their in an old bird box that had been left on the ground legs? How is nest activity affected by temperature and rain- fall?
III. Bumblebee recording At present we do not have detailed information on the dis- atively well studied) there are many areas where there are tributions of bumblebee species across Europe. Schools currently no bumblebee recorders. Recording sheets can can play a valuable role by sending in records of the bum- be downloaded from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust blebee species present in their area. Such data are websitew1, and should be returned to the Trust. Keen stu- absolutely vital if we are to develop sensible conservation dents can, for a small fee, join the Trust and receive a reg- strategies for bumblebees, yet even in the UK (which is rel- ular newsletter which details various events and activities.
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 47 SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 48
Perfume chemistry, sexual attraction and exploding balloons: university activities for school
Tim Harrison and Dudley Shallcross from the University of Bristol, UK, describe some of the University’s activities to share a delight in chemistry with school students.
ristol ChemLabS at the many local school students who BUniversity of Bristol’s School of choose to go to university will move Chemistry provides activities to away from home to study. enthuse, excite, inspire and entertain large numbers of school students of Science and Engineering all ages. These range from half-day Ambassadors training conferences, workshops for school An important aspect of the schools students and master classes for teach- activities is the involvement of enthu- Investigating the properties of slime ers, to two-week summer schools. siastic postgraduate students, who not only provide technical expertise Why should a university provide but also act as role models for school activities for schools? students. The postgraduates receive The two main reasons for putting so voluntary training in working with much energy and resources into these children under the Science and activities are to assist local, regional Engineering Ambassadors Schemew1 and national science teachers and to (SEAS) at the University. All the activ- enthuse and inspire students. Both are ities are managed by an experienced hoped to promote the chemical sci- teacher, giving the young chemists a ences nationally rather than locally, as chance to contribute to the public
48 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 49
Projects in science education
Chemistry is cool – not to say, cold!
A Grätzel chemistry workshop with Dr Dimple Patel (left)
Students composing their own perfumes (right)
communication of science while pro- very popular. We work with profes- research chemists, using analytical viding them with advice and support. sional perfumer, John Stephen, to give equipment and techniques from thin Around 80 of the University’s post- students an understanding of the layer chromatography to gas chro- graduate chemists have undergone industry, historical developments, matography/mass spectrometry. SEAS training in the last year. economics and science behind the Another day is spent at the University sense of smell and the formulation of synthesising fragrance components, Workshops for secondary school fragrances. The students then spend and on the final half-day, the students students two hours perfecting their own per- give a short talk as part of a confer- Several one-day and half-day work- fume from a range of 24 components, ence on perfume chemistry, alongside shops allow school students to visit which they then bottle and package. academic speakers. the School of Chemistry to hear lec- This workshop has been run at the To allow school students to tures and do practical work in the University, in a school laboratory and immerse themselves in chemistry for University teaching laboratories. in the perfume factory itself. more than a day, Bristol ChemLabS Workshop topics include perfume An extension of the perfume work- runs one- and two-week summer chemistry, polymer chemistry, struc- shop involving a group of 30 students schools at the University of Bristol, ture and bonding, and Grätzel cells. from four state schools is being devel- and provides activities for summer Using perfumes to introduce stu- oped. In this project, the students take schools run by the science faculty. In dents to some of the more everyday perfume chemistry several stages fur- July 2006, for example, a joint chemi- applications of chemistry is proving ther. They spend a day working with cal sciences summer school for 17-
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 49 SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 50
fore aimed at secondary school sci- 16-year-old school students ence teachers who are new to teach- making aspirin at a summer school ing chemistry, are not chemistry grad- uates and wish to explore the more dramatic demonstrations and practi- cal lessons to enthuse their students. In the full-day course held in the undergraduate teaching laboratories, teachers have the opportunity to first see and then perform numerous experiments and discuss their use within the curriculum. The course also covers the risk assessment of the experiments. The expected outcomes for the partic- ipants are an increase in the teachers’: · Confidence in performing demon- strations or supervising practical lessons · Range of practical lessons for enthusing students year-olds will be held in conjunction at which three-star Michelin chef · Understanding of health and safety with Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Heston Blumenthal talked about the issues relating to the practical les- The potential chemists will take part psychology of food and provided sons in biochemistry and pharmaceutical beetroot-flavoured sweets for the · Use of such experiments with their laboratory exercises, attend lectures audience. Postgraduate students or students. with practicing research scientists, young post-doctoral researchers often The practical sessions range from discuss the ethics of drug testing and give a short scientific lecture, with simple experiments such as the visit pharmaceutical and other bio- help from the school teacher fellow to removal of the oxide layer from alu- chemistry companies. This is a pilot ensure that it is pitched at the correct minium foil to demonstrate the reac- of what is hoped to be an annual two- level for the audience. One recent lec- tivity of aluminium, the reactions of or three-way student exchange ture was on advances in synthetic alkali metals with water and passing between young chemists from bone chemistry, with a discussion of steam over magnesium, to the more European Union countries. tissue engineering and artificial hip involved organic experiments such as and elbow joints for the audience to cracking paraffin oil, esterification School chemistry conferences handle. The young research chemists and oscillating reactions. Other ses- So that students can visit a universi- benefit from the communication expe- sion include the correct handling of ty and find out about aspects of rience and the school students see gas cylinders, how to set fire to bal- chemistry that are not necessarily on that not all academic chemists fit the loons filled with hydrogen gas, how a school curriculum, we organise stereotype of eccentric, out of touch to make oxygen foam, slime-making afternoon chemistry conferences. men. investigations, exploding methanol Dramatic demonstrations with liquid vapour, burning acetylene (ethyne) nitrogen, colour changes and explo- Master classes for secondary foam, making nylon threads and the sions are included and are always school teachers catalytic oxidation of ammonia. appreciated by students of all ages, as To support regional teachers, we well as their teachers. provide courses for teachers, student Other activities In January 2006, 240 17- and 18- teachers and science technicians, In addition to the regular activities year-old students attended an after- working closely with the Science described above, Bristol ChemLabS noon conference on Alzheimer’s dis- Learning Centre South Westw2 on collaborate on many smaller ad hoc ease, the action of aspirin and the some courses. projects with schools. Examples chemistry of sexual attraction. In In the UK, chemistry is taught include providing activities for science March, another 200 school students increasingly by biology graduates. clubs or analysing infrared spectra of attended a food chemistry conference One very successful course is there- organic products made in schools.
50 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 51
Projects in science education
Bristol ChemLabS not only works effective and inspiring activities for with secondary schools, but also visits schools. We hope that this article and Tim Harrison is the first Bristol primary schools to promote practical our websitew5 provide some useful ChemLabS school teacher fellow in work in chemistry. ideas – and Bristol ChemLabS would the University of Bristol’s School of All school students visiting the be happy to offer advice. Chemistry and was awarded a Royal School of Chemistry may collect Society of Chemistry Schools careers information from professional Web references Education Award in 2005. Email: bodies such as the Royal Society w1 - More information on the Science [email protected]. of Chemistryw3 and the Association and Engineering Ambassadors Dudley E. Shallcross, Outreach of British Pharmaceutical Industriesw4. Scheme is available at: Director and Reader in Atmospheric www.setnet.org.uk/cgibin/ Chemistry at the University of Bristol, Practicalities wms.pl/32 was awarded a National Teaching The School of Chemistry at the Fellowship by the Higher Education w2 - The Science Learning Centres University of Bristol is one of the Academy, for his excellence and inno- form a national network, set up by biggest chemistry departments in the vation in teaching in 2004. He was the UK Department for Education UK, one of only six in the country awarded a Royal Society of Chemistry and Skills and the Wellcome Trust, with the highest rating for research. It Higher Education Award in 2005. is also the only department to gain to provide continuing professional Email: [email protected]. funding from the Higher Education development for everyone involved Funding Council for England to cre- in science education at all levels: ate a centre for excellence in teaching www.sciencelearningcentres.org.uk and learning in practical chemistry – w3 - The Royal Society of Chemistry Bristol ChemLabS. Some of this is the largest organisation in Europe money was used to appoint a quali- for advancing the chemical sciences: fied and experienced secondary www.rsc.org school teacher as a school teacher fel- w4 - The Association of British low, to find ways in which the many Pharmaceutical Industries is the resources of the University can be trade association of companies in used to stimulate an active interest in the UK producing prescription chemistry by school students and medicines: www.abpi.org.uk pupils of all ages. Most university science depart- w5 - Information on forthcoming and ments, of course, do not have these recent events organised by Bristol financial and staff resources, but this ChemLabS can be found at: need not stop them from providing www.chm.bristol.ac.uk/schools/
This article describes a number of activities developed it may inspire teachers to make contact with their by a university department to engage with students local chemistry (or other science/engineering) depart- and teachers at secondary school. It gives several use- ment to see what they can offer, to help them ‘sell’ ful ideas for the promotion of chemical sciences and teach science to their students. The inclusion of through workshops, conferences, master classes for web references adds to the general usefulness of the teachers and other activities including the Science article. and Engineering Ambassadors Scheme. This short article gives a concise description of activi- The most important aspect of the activities described ties, with just enough information to whet the appetite may be to attract students to the chemical sciences at for any teacher interested in finding out more. university. However, another important aspect is that
REVIEW Marie Walsh, Republic of Ireland
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 51 SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 52
The Bone Trail: generating enthusiasm for earth sciences in the classroom
Emm Barnes from the British Society for the History of Science describes an initiative to develop exciting interdisciplinary activities. And gives the recipe for a delicious edible geology project!
Build your own dinosaur
‘ he Bone Trail’ is an exciting Tschools project funded jointly by the British Society for the History of Science, Bolton Local Authority Secondary Strategy, and the Manchester Museum, UK. A team of three educators – one academic histo- rian of science (the author), and two science teachers (Peter Fowler and Alison Henning) – designed two full days of activities for Year 9 students (ages 13-14) on the history of compar- ative anatomy, geology and palaeon- tology. The emphasis was on teaching thinking skills, inspiring enthusiasm in earth sciences in particular and in learning in general. Students from Westhoughton High School and the Frances Bardsley School for Girls test- ed the activities in May 2006, and we are most grateful to the teachers in these schools for their ongoing com- mitment to the project.
52 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 53
Projects in science education
The model iguanadon leg and its creators
Most primary schools in England ed and talented. We intended our Want to get teach and integrate history and geog- materials, however, to be used with involved? raphy, science and art, literacy and all children, as we believe that every numeracy, using themes such as child can benefit, intellectually and For further information “where we live” or “life in the 1930s”. socially, from the extra attention and on the project, or to In contrast, children in secondary from making connections between register an interest in schools are taught these subjects sepa- different subject areas. taking part in the second rately, and many children appear to During the pilot of ‘The Bone Trail’, year of the pilot (2006- decide at this stage that they do not it was obvious that those activities 2007), please email like or are not good at science or the which avoided worksheets were the
BACKGROUND [email protected]. humanities, or indeed that they do most popular, stimulating discussion not belong in school at all. We wanted over lunch breaks and on follow-up to combat this tendency by reuniting weblog sites set up to evaluate the science with history, mathematics, lit- activities. One of the simplest activi- maps, to suggest when each had been erature, art and food technology. ties was to present children with two drawn, and to come up with their Interdisciplinary activities encourage different solid geology maps of own questions about the maps. This children to reflect on their process England, one a replica of William last task was crucial, as it encouraged skills, and offer scope for teachers to Smith’s 1815 map – the first to repre- the students to decide what the most cater to the full range of learning pref- sent the whole country – and the interesting questions about the maps erences. We have tried to produce other a modern survey. We set the were, and allowed their teachers to materials that are as enriching and children three tasks to work on in assess more accurately the level at fun as those that are sometimes made small groups: to list the similarities which individual children were work- available to children identified as gift- and differences between the two ing. We found that children were
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 53 SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 54
stunned to discover that the older session, we were fortunate enough to of the solid geology in their local area: map had been produced almost two have a fossilised iguanadon femur to firstly with bread and butter, and sec- centuries ago, from the work of one help the children to calculate the size ondly with three colours of chocolate. surveyor, especially given how simi- of the model leg required. The result- Overleaf is the recipe for the second lar the two maps were. ing models were, frankly, stunning. and sweeter option. To explore how we know how Some of those children who were extinct animals looked and moved, often disruptive in the classroom References we set each child the task of compil- proved themselves to be great engi- Anon (1859) Geological Twelfth- ing a one-page poster about the histo- neers and team leaders in this exer- Cakes. Punch 36, p31 ry of theories about dinosaurs, using cise, and we could see their self- Internet searches. We recommended esteem grow as the models took Web references several sites with reproductions of shape. w1 - The full range of ‘Bone Trail’ artists’ reconstructions from the 19th The full range of resources are resources can be downloaded from and 20th centuries, and showed the available to download from the out- the outreach page of the British children how to use image search reach page of the British Society for Society for the History of Science: engines, so that they could discover the History of Sciencew1 . We welcome www.bshs.org.uk/bshs/outreach/ for themselves how theories about the suggestions on how to improve the animals’ anatomy and physiology resources, as well as stories of how had evolved over time. The children you have used them in classrooms showed great sophistication in pre- and museums. To give you a taster, senting their findings to their peers. here is part of the ‘edible geology’ The final activity was for teams to activity. Making edible models helps design and build a life-size model of children learn how sedimentary rocks an iguanadon leg from galvanised are made, and the theory of superpo- wire, newspaper, and gauze impreg- sition. Sculpting with food also nated with plaster of Paris. Children increases interest and engagement in started by dissecting cooked chicken class discussion of the different pur- legs to determine how the muscles on poses of and relations between vari- a present-day descendent of the ous ways of representing strata – 2D dinosaurs attach to the bones. We representations such cross-sections then set them a simple mathematics and surface views of solid geology, problem: to scale up from a chicken to and 3D models such a relief maps. In an iguanadon, remembering that vol- the full set of resources, children are ume increases on the cube rule. In one given two ways to make 3D models
This article is very interesting and enjoyable, and the disciplinary curriculum and to foster students’ interest project addressed is even more engaging. The particu- in the history of science. The practical activities like larly strong points of The Bone Trail are the link building the anatomical model of a dinosaur’s leg and between academic research and school teaching; the preparing the ‘geological cake’ (with geological interdisciplinary approach, stressing the unity of cul- faults!) are simply fantastic to arouse enthusiasm and ture and the multiple connections between science motivation among the pupils. and humanities; the integration of traditional teaching Creative teachers may also be inspired to extend and with hands-on and e-learning activities; the use of adapt the proposed materials with the help of the models built with common household or kitchen quoted website. materials; and the transferability to other teaching Giulia Realdon, Italy contexts. I recommend this article to secondary school teachers (for students aged 10-15) willing to develop a multi- REVIEW
54 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.200610:48UhrSeite55 www.scienceinschool.org CLASSROOM ACTIVITY In 1859, .Meltthewhite chocolate withoneofthe20g 2. Ifusingacaketin,prepareitby liningwithbaking 1. Method line thecaketins.) mine andeatthecake,which removes theneedto can simplyberippedopenwhen itistimetocut, ter. (Smalldisposable foilbakingtrays alsowork and You alsoneedaround caketin15-17cmindiame- 75 gdigestive biscuits,brokenintocrumbs use sultanasorraisins) 120 gglacécherries, cutintohalves (ifnotavailable, 25 gricecrispies 3 piecesofbutter, each weighing20g 100 gdarkchocolate 100 gmilkchocolate 100 gwhite chocolate Ingredients cherry seam. After ithasset,theycreateafaultlinetoreveal the layer inbetweentwo otherstrata ofchocolate “rock”. In thisrecipe,children sandwich acherry-studded model ofit”(Anon,1859). a knowledge ofthecrustearthineating once withcakeandgeologicalscience,acquire sense oftaste.Childrenmightthusbecrammed at bling thoseoftheearthexceptintheirrelationto the scienceofgeology–composedstrata resem- sale oflayered cakes:“Letcakesbemadetoillustrate teach thepublicaboutgeologywould bethroughthe Stratified chocolaterefrigeratorStratified cake ments’ tohelpthembecomedenselypacked rock.) press down. (Hereyou are compressing ‘sedi- Pour themixtureintocaketin,level itoffand Add thericecrispies. ing water. heatproof bowl placedover asaucepanofsimmer- melted; itwilltakeabout2minintotal),ora (set itfor30sandthenstir, andrepeatuntilitis pieces ofbutter, inamicrowave onmediumpower parchment. Punch jokingly suggestedthatagoodway to .Now move oneofthepiecessothattop 6. Take asharpknifeandmakecutthroughthe 5. Placethecaketininarefrigerator andleave toset 4. Meltthedarkchocolate withtheremaining20gof 4. Meltthemilkchocolate with20gofthebutter, as 3. – you don’t want tocausearock fall! cherries. Try notto disturbtheotherlayers of rock could usetoothpicks tocarefullymineoutthe other, exposing thecherry seam.Ifyou like,you middle oftopthemilkchocolate layer onthe dark chocolate layer ononehalfislevel withthe rather thanstraight down. This isyour faultline. middle ofthecake,preferably ataslightangle before attemptingto‘fault’the‘rock’. remove thepaper. Leave towarm for15minorso lifting itoutontothebakingparchment. Carefully Once thecakehasset,remove itfromthetinby for about8h. and thenpressfirmly. Pour ontothetopofothertwo layers, level it Add thebiscuitcrumbs. butter. then pressdown. Pour ontopofthewhite chocolate layer, level it, Add thecherries. above. you preparethenextlayer. Place somewhere coldtohelpitsetalittlewhile Projects inscienceeducation Science inSchool Issue 3: Winter 2006 55 SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 56
Bringing global climate change to the classroom
I ma ge co u r te s y Ivo Grigorov from the o f T im
A d EurOCEANS project e y , N
O
C describes how the deep S seas can help us to understand and predict climate change.
Marine snow
t’s spring. It’s dark, but then it ‘blizzard’ starts Ialways is. The drift is gentle, it’s and covers the sea the calm before the storm. You would bed. Sometimes it is have to be on the Nautilus sitting next so intense that visibility is National to Captain Nemo to experience it. At reduced to zero. This is deep- Oceanography first sight not much lives here, and sea whiteout. You can’t see much but Centre in Southampton, UK, what life there is, is more suitable for it’s an awesome sight. organise an oceanographic cruise to a 1960s horror sci-fi film than for fac- The depths of the oceans hide many the North Atlantic and invite students tual science. The pressure is enor- secrets which at first glance have little and teachers to join them at the fron- mous and seawater corrosion is to do with our daily lives. If deep-sea tier of multidisciplinary research in vicious. Even treated steel is reduced ‘blizzards’ tickle your imagination, almost real time. Day by day, students to crumbs after a year, yet delicate life and Captain Nemo’s Nautilus is not at and teachers can follow life and forms thrive here. Gelatinous sea stars hand, no problem! Just climb aboard research at sea, send questions to the of all varieties and deep-sea cucum- the online weblog of the UK’s oceano- scientists and learn about climate bers are all waiting for the ‘snow’. graphic research ship Discovery. Every change and how it is measured and Pretty soon they are rewarded. The year oceanographers from the studied. The aim of the cruise is to continuously measure the fall of these Images courtesy of Richard Lampitt, NOCS deep-sea ‘blizzards’ to the depths of the ocean and find out how they are 22 June 29 June 14 July linked to the climate we experience every day. So what are deep-sea ‘blizzards’? The ‘snowflakes’ are not of the famil- iar type. Most of them are the settling Snow falls 4800 m below sea level! Fluff and mucus cover the seabed remains of a battle taking place at the in a brief moment surface of the oceans. Except for a
56 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 57
Projects in science education
Images courtesy of www.sinia-planeta.com
Deep-sea snowflakes: the elegant remnants of the blooming phytoplankton. The sinking shells of the single-celled algae bring with them organic matter, thus sequestering atmospheric CO2 to the bowels of the oceans
umph. Although single-celled phyto- plankton cannot outswim the fast zooplankton, their strength is in num- bers. Despite their microscopic size, How to get the phytoplankton can bloom in such high densities that long wisps gently involved swayed by the ocean currents can be seen even from space. Students can put their Phytoplankton armour also questions to the scientists includes spines, hooks and all-encom- involved in the 2006 passing calcite, glass or organic shells. oceanographic cruise by These are the architects-supreme of contacting Ivo Grigorov the nano-world. Their shell designs (ivo.grigorov@eur-oceans not only serve a protective purpose, .org). Please include the but are also intricate and elegant, pro- name and location of your viding maximum functionality with school.
Image courtesy of Richard Lampitt, NOCS Image courtesy of Richard minimum material – every architect’s Teachers keen to involve dream. their science class, in real- Measuring marine snow: RRS Discovery But even when the body armour deploying a sediment trap west of the serves its purpose, the phytoplankton time during future English Channel to capture sinking blooms have a limited lifespan. oceanography expeditions marine snow and analyse its composition Nutrients in the surface waters are or in future web confer- eventually exhausted and the blooms ences with European very thin sun-lit layer, the ocean is a settle out of sight, into the depths. oceanographers and cli- dark and cold place. At its surface, Moults of marine crustaceans, faecal mate change scientists, however, the Sun supports a diverse pellets of animals of all sizes, and can express their interest variety of single-celled phytoplank- dust swept off the continents by the to Ivo Grigorov or Sylvain ton. These are the green meadows of wind also accompany the dead plank- Ghiron (sylvain.ghiron@
the oceans on which the majority of ton to the bowels of the ocean. BACKGROUND oceanopolis.com). the ecosystem relies for food. Together, these remnants are termed The single-celled phytoplankton are ‘marine snow’. And at depths of 4500 m, grazed by agile zooplankton armed the ‘snowflakes’ seem to go in all Trapping and analysing the fragile with fierce mandibles ready to crush directions, depending on the prevail- ‘snowflakes’ requires the services of anything in their path. But for the ing currents – rather like snow bliz- engineers and materials scientists zooplankton, it is not a simple tri- zards, kilometres above. who design instruments that will sur-
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 57 SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 58
Other projects and materials from the partners
EurOCEANS part in the EurOCEANS educational projects. To The European Network of Excellence for OCean express and register your interest, contact edu-contact Ecosystem ANalysiS focuses on the future impact of @eur-oceans.info or visit www.eur-oceans.info /edu- climate change on the ocean ecosystem. The research cation/. of its members is disseminated through: National Oceanography Centre (NOC), Short films – regularly released short films on topical Southampton, UK issues such as climate change and ocean acidification NOC is a leading research institution and produces (Languages: English, French) the Oceans4Schools online educational aids as well Web conferences – live online conferences and Q&A as a very popular series of posters on earth science sessions with European oceanographers and climate topics. The institute also has a project that lets teach- change researchers. To express your interest, contact ers participate in oceanographic cruises. Visit Sylvain Ghiron ([email protected]) or www.noc.soton.ac.uk. (Language: English) visit www.eur-oceans.info/conferences/ for announce- ment of the next conference. (Languages: English, www.sinia-planeta.com French) www.sinia-planeta.com is a popular science web por- Educational cards – currently in French but other tal aimed at schools in Bulgaria. Products include in- European languages can be supplied depending on depth articles on topical scientific discoveries as well demand: www.eur-oceans.info/education/ as educational aids on earth science topics.
BACKGROUND To date, schools from France, UK and Italy have taken (Language: Bulgarian)
vive very hostile conditions for and the trapped bubbles in the layers secrets of the deep-sea layers they months and years at a time. Once the of ice in ancient glaciers help us to form. The shells of the long dead and marine snow has been gathered, iden- recreate the composition of the atmos- buried phytoplankton within these tifying its composition takes many phere, deep-sea sediments contain a layers hold clues to the climate condi- chemists and biologists. Even com- wealth of information on how the tions under which they were formed. puter scientists and mathematicians oceans function and interact with the Their isotopic composition can tell us help, creating sophisticated computer rest of the planet. The watery two- about sea surface temperature, nutri- models and trying to simulate the thirds of our planet act as a radiator, ents and productivity in the oceans, processes that form the deep sea ‘bliz- with the top few metres of its surface and the amount of wind-borne dust zards’. containing more heat than the entire gives clues to the planet’s aridity and This phenomenon, however, is atmosphere. A well-known example wind regimes millions of years ago. more than just a ‘strange but true’ today is the Gulf Stream, which And knowing the past is key to pre- fact. This is deep-sea climate, and it is brings warm tropical waters to dicting climate change in the future. directly linked to climate changes European shores. But how did it Today, scientists can recreate sea around the world, both past and behave in the past? How much heat surface temperature, ocean currents future. After the burst of spring pro- did ocean currents carry, and where and wind patterns, as well as how ductivity at the ocean’s surface, the did they take it? And as for the much polar ice caps changed and sea bed is covered with the nutritious future, how will these same currents how this caused sea level to oscillate snow of organic material. Some of it behave under the pressure of human by more that 100 m. Reading the sedi- feeds deep-sea animals, but some of it activity? mentary encyclopaedia formed by is buried in subsequent years, form- The answer lies in the chemical annual deep sea ‘blizzards’ is not just ing layer upon layer of deep-sea sedi- composition of deep-sea ‘blizzards’. an exercise in curiosity. All these ments. Just as tree rings can tell us Understanding their biology and parameters shape the weather we about annual rainfall and forest fires, chemistry is the key to unlocking the experience every day.
58 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_39-59_3-06++ 15.11.2006 10:48 Uhr Seite 59
Projects in science education
Learn more Marine snow To find out more about how oceanographers measure the deep-sea ‘blizzards’ and what it takes to be an oceanographer, visit the online weblog of Discovery Oceanography Expedition 2006 at www.eur- oceans.info/diary/index.php. The annual weblog is a joint project between www.sinia-planeta.com (Bulgaria) together with National Oceanography Center, Southampton (UK) and EurOCEANS – the European Network of Excellence for OCean Ecosystem ANalysiS. The 2006 weblog was run in English, French, Portuguese, Bulgarian and Turkish. Image courtesy of Tim Adey, NOCS Adey, Tim Image courtesy of
The climate puzzle is a complex scientist – the type that seeks answers Ivo Grigorov is a project officer for one. It transcends the boundaries of in areas where they have little knowl- EurOCEANS (European Network of the scientific disciplines that we are so edge. It creates a new science too – Excellence for OCean Ecosystem used to at school, and requires co- the multidisciplinary type, where ANalysiS) and editor of a popular operation between geologists and the boundaries between biology, science website in Bulgarian. chemists, biologists and mathemati- chemistry and mathematics melt cians. It also fosters a new breed of away.
Ivo Grigorov draws a colourful picture of the ocean world and intro- duces a non-traditional, highly interesting way of predicting global climate change, based on studying deep-sea ‘blizzards’. In doing so, he draws attention to two important issues in modern science research: how various science disciplines are often brought together to study a single phenomenon, and how research can be made avail- able to those interested, including high-school students. This is crucial in developing students’ attitudes towards science as it makes it more attractive to them. Furthermore, as this method of studying global climate change deals with a mostly unknown world, the mysteriousness of which fascinates people, it is likely to capture students’ imagination and motivate them to learn more. In the classroom, projects can be designed to investigate how the findings from the study of the deep-sea ‘blizzards’, made readily available by the actual research scientists, can correlate with the sur- face climate and other global phenomena. Such studies might require co-operation between students studying a variety of science disci- plines, including biology, chemistry, geography and geology. This can emphasise the interdisciplinary nature of modern science. Michalis Hadjimarcou, Cyprus REVIEW
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 59 SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 60
Fusion in the Universe: the power of the Sun
Mark Tiele Westra from the ust over one hundred years ago, Jnobody had a clue how the Sun European Fusion Development manages to produce the enormous amount of energy it radiates into Agreement (EFDA) in Garching, space. Sure, there were thoughts and ideas, many of them very clever. Germany, elucidates the source Some scholars thought the Sun was a huge cloud of gas, collapsing under of power on Earth: the Sun. its own gravity, with the resulting friction and collisions causing it to heat up. Others thought that the Sun just hadn’t had a chance to cool down since its creation. These ideas led to a similar conclusion: that the Sun couldn’t be much older than a couple of tens of millions of years. Any older and it would have already cooled down. But along came Darwin and his col- leagues, studying the formation and erosion of rocks, and the slow, slow evolution of life. For their theories to make sense, they needed the Sun to be much older, at least hundreds of
60 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 61
Science topics
Energy production in the Sun: two hydrogen nuclei fuse to form a deuterium nucleus, a positron and a neutrino. The positron quickly encounters an electron, they annihilate each other, and only energy remains. The deuterium nucleus goes on to fuse with another hydrogen nucleus to form helium-3. In the final step, two helium-3 nuclei fuse to form helium-4 and two hydrogen nuclei
millions of years, perhaps even a bil- lion years, old. Controversy reigned. It was not until the discovery of radioactivity, and the acceptance of The discovery of helium the surprising notion that mass and energy are somehow interchangeable In the 17th century, scientists studied the composition of light (the spec- according to Einstein’s E=mc2, that a trum) by splitting it into its composite colours using a thin slit and a solution was in sight. Sir Arthur prism. From experiments with glowing gases, it was well known that Eddington, a British astronomer, was elements, when heated, selectively emit certain precise colours of the first to weigh up all the evidence, light, showing up as bright lines in the spectrum (think of a neon tube). and boldly conjecture that it might be Looking at the spectrum of the Sun, people found dark lines that cor- nuclear fusion, the process that cre- responded exactly to the place in the spectrum where bright lines ates heavier elements by fusing appeared in glowing gases. People were quick to realise that the dark lighter ones, that was responsible for bands must be caused by the same element, which, instead of emit- the Sun’s copious energy production. ting light, absorbs it. In this way, the composition of the Sun could be In the meantime, we know that the analysed by carefully studying the spectrum of sunlight. Sun indeed burns hydrogen, the light- Most bands in the solar spectrum were known to belong to elements est gas in the universe, and turns it occurring on Earth, but there was a set in the solar spectrum that elud- into helium. We even know how – see ed scientists. In 1868, the British astronomer Norman Lockyer hypoth- the figure above. esised that these dark bands were caused by a hitherto unknown ele- The details of this process are ment present in the Sun, which he dubbed “helium”, after the Greek intriguing. First, a hydrogen nucleus Sun god Helios. It was not until 25 years later that helium was first iso-
(proton) in the Sun has to wait on BACKGROUND lated on Earth. average of five billion years before it
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 61 SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 62
takes the plunge, fusing with another When we think about the centre of So far, the Sun has burned up half hydrogen nucleus to form deuterium. the Sun, we image some fierce, fiery of its hydrogen fuel supply. It has This is actually good news for us: if it furnace, blasting out heat. With a den- been burning for five billion years, happened any faster, the Sun would sity 150 times that of water (half a and will burn for another five billion. have run out of fuel long ago, and we litre of Sun weighs as much as an What then? Then the party is over. wouldn’t be here. The second step, in average person), and a temperature of The Sun will swell up to become a which helium-3 is produced from 15 000 000 degrees Celsius, it is a pret- ‘red giant’, boiling away the atmos- deuterium and hydrogen, happens on ty daunting environment by any stan- phere and all water and life on our average after 1.4 seconds, and the dards. But if you were to take a cubic home planet. We’d better get out final step, the production of helium, metre from the centre of the Sun, you before that time, but let’s enjoy it takes 240 000 years. The energy would find that it only produces while it lasts. released during the fusion process is about 30 Watt, hardly enough to turned into photons: light. power a light bulb. It is the sheer size Resources When the first excitement is over, of the Sun that ensures that we actual- For a discussion of fusion as a future and photons of light have been pro- ly feel warm on Earth. energy source, see: duced that could one day reach Earth, At the moment, the Sun burns 600 Warrick C (2006) Fusion – ace in the they still need some patience. A pho- million tonnes of hydrogen each energy pack? Science in School 1: ton sets off on its journey to Earth at second, turning it into 596 million 52-55. www.scienceinschool.org/ the speed of light, but almost immedi- tonnes of helium. Where did the 2006/issue1/fusion ately bumps into an electron, which missing four million tonnes go? It scatters the incoming photon in a ran- has been completely transformed dom direction, like the ball in a pin- into energy. Applying E=mc2 (with ball machine. This happens again, E the energy, m the mass, and c and again and again. It takes the aver- the speed of light), we find that 4 age photon over 20 000 years to make million tonnes of matter equate to the 695 000 kilometre trip from the 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 Kilo- centre of the Sun to the Sun’s surface, watt hours of energy, or roughly one which translates into a rather pathetic million times the amount of energy four metres per hour. that the entire world uses in a year. After this long and erratic journey, And that energy is released by the the photon covers the remaining Sun every second. Now that’s solar 149 million kilometres to Earth with power! the usual speed of light, and 8 min- utes later finally arrives at its destina- tion. And those are the lucky ones: there are also photons in the Sun that were formed five billion years ago, In an age where non-renewable sources of energy are fast disappear- but have still not made it out. Imagine ing and efficient renewable sources of energy are frantically sought, that for a maze... fusion is often the subject of discussion in many scientific journals In the fusion process, another odd and newspapers. From a young age, students may be faced with such particle is formed: the neutrino (see a term without understanding quite what it means. figure). A neutrino hardly interacts Mark Tiele Westra from the European Fusion Development Agreement with matter, and can therefore escape in Garching, Germany, gives us a very interesting and concise from the Sun in an instant. Huge account of the fusion process occurring within the Sun. Although the numbers of neutrinos are formed by article provides a theoretical treatment of the topic and is of interest the Sun: every second, 100 billion solar to the science teacher just as it is, it comes with a very informative neutrinos fly through the tip of each illustration, both of which can be easily adapted and used according of your fingers! Most neutrinos fly to the students’ abilities to explain fusion in the science classroom. straight through the entire Earth, For more advanced students, there is also some detailed information without being affected by it at all. In on the discovery of helium. fact, a neutrino would fly through a Elton Micallef, Malta light-year of lead, without being REVIEW stopped!
62 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 63
Science topics
Sleep and learning When we sleep, are we just passively recovering from a hard day, or is there something more going on? Angelika Börsch-Haubold considers the implications of some intriguing research – was her grandmother right all along? Test the scientists’ conclusions for yourself! Image courtesy of PixelQuelle.de y grandmother used to say Mthat a good night’s sleep is essential for learning. She even insist- ed that the sleep before midnight was best. Children are usually happy to go to bed when tired but most teenagers see it as part of their emancipation from parental interference to stay up late. And our society seems to approve: today, we sleep 20% less than our ancestors did because we push ourselves to work longer hours and to have evenings full of social activities (Hargreaves, 2000). Everybody knows that our own cognitive performance is impaired after a late night or even after regular- ly losing small amounts of sleep. Fatigue is estimated to be an impor- tant factor in one-third of traffic acci- dents and to be the number one cause of fatal crashes in 18-to 25-year-olds. its potentially fatal consequences, this susceptible to interference. After a But sleeping too little puts not only impinges strongly on our ability to certain time, an automatic process your own life at risk. In an anony- remember and hence to learn. called memory consolidation sets in, mous survey in San Francisco, over which stabilises that memory. 40% of hospital staff admitted causing Memory consolidation and Memory consolidation continues dur- the death of at least one patient by sudden insight ing sleep, but then leads to the addi- making a fatigue-related mistake. In the past few years, scientists tional effect of memory enhancement. A simple indicator of sleep depriva- have discovered that there is more to Thus, our brain performs better after tion is the urge to fall asleep during sleep than a simple refreshing of our an afternoon nap and much better the day. This happens to pupils dur- nerves. The process of learning is after a full night of sleep (Stickgold, ing lessons, to students over their actively taken up by our brain during 2005). Also, when we are searching textbooks, to travelling business peo- sleep (Huber et al., 2004), which is for the solution for a tricky problem, ple, or to elderly people in front of the essential for the formation of long- our brain continues to work on it TV. So, sleep deprivation is a wide- term memory. The first memory that while we are sleeping. As a result, we spread phenomenon and apart from is built when we learn a new task is may experience a sudden understand-
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 63 SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 64
temperature, hormone release, appetite and sleep. It contains a neu- ronal switch that regulates ‘wake Experimental protocol for nerves’ and ‘sleep nerves’. A sudden transition to the sleeping mode the finger-tapping task (‘falling’ asleep) means that sleep nerves fire to inhibit wake nerves. The For the finger tapping task, switch is stabilised by a third group please download the pre-pro- of neurons, otherwise we would fre- grammed Excel worksheet quently wake up at night (Saper et al., FingerTap.xlsw1. Before the 2005). To picture the neuronal mecha- spreadsheet is used, copy it and nism underlying sleep, imagine three save the copy under the name children on a see-saw. One sits on of the student learning the task. either side of the beam bouncing up Two students work together. and down – the switch. The third One of them, who needs to be child sits on top of the axis. When it right-handed, puts four fingers shifts its weight to one side of the of his/her left hand onto the beam, it effectively stops the motion – keys 1 to 4 of the computer the stabiliser. keyboard, see figure. Starting in This dynamic system generates the Performing the the column ‘run 1’, the subject different stages of sleep that have finger-tapping task must repeatedly tap the five-fig- been known for some time: rapid eye- ure target sequence shown at movement sleep (REM) in which the top of the sheet as quickly and as accurately as possible. The dreaming occurs, and non-REM sleep typed sequence is not displayed in the cells. After each sequence, the with the light sleep stages I and II and student presses the enter key with his/her right hand to move the cur- the deep sleep stages III and IV. The sor one cell down. The partner measures the time. Each run is per- pattern of a night of sleep is charac- formed for 30 seconds, followed by a 30 second rest; the training terised by 90-minute cycles composed phase consists of 12 runs (one in each of the ‘train’ columns labelled of deep sleep and light sleep phases. ‘run 1’ to ‘run 12’). The retest with 6 runs (‘retest’ columns ‘run 1’ to An initial long period of stage III and run 6’) under the same conditions is performed either 6-8 hours later IV sleep is followed by a short period on the same day (no sleep group) or the next day after a full night’s of REM and stage I and II sleep. As sleep (sleep group). the night progresses, the deep sleep phases become shorter and the The first sheet of the Excel spreadsheet is programmed to count all dreaming phases longer. correct sequence entries and to give the result in the row entitled The physiological function of sleep ‘score’ (row 56). The second sheet automatically analyses the data, seems to be two-fold. First, non-REM plotting the run number against the score result and comparing the sleep is a period of low metabolic training results with the retest results. To quantify the difference demand in which the adenosine between the sleep and the no-sleep group, the mean number of cor- triphosphate (ATP) energy stores, rect sequences of the training phase is compared with the mean of used up while we are awake, are the retest; the mean values for each student are automatically calcu- replenished. The degradation product lated in the spreadsheet. of ATP, adenosine, acts as a physio- Examples of completed spreadsheets can be downloaded from the logical sleeping agent by directly w1 CLASSROOM ACTIVITY CLASSROOM ACTIVITY Science in School website activating the sleep-promoting neu- rons. Second, sleep plays a key role in neural plasticity. During sleep, ing of a rule, an insight, that is some- What happens to our brain while significant connections between neu- times even triggered by a dream. Two we sleep? rons are reinforced while accidental experiments that measure the effect of The hypothalamus, as the central connections are eliminated. All the sleep on memory consolidation and regulatory organ of the autonomic different stages of sleep have been on sudden insight are described nervous system, controls the circadian implicated in sleep-dependent below. rhythms (body clock) of our body learning.
64 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 65
Science topics
Experimental protocol for the number-reduction task
Students are taught a standard algorithm for reducing string a given eight-digit sequence (composed of the digits 1, 4, and 9) to a final solution (see figure). They must response apply two simple rules: 1) the ‘same rule’ states that the result of two identical digits is just this digit (e.g. 1 hidden rule and 1 results in 1); 2) the ‘different rule’ states that the The number-reduction task result of two non-identical digits is the remaining third digit (e.g. 1 and 4 results in 9). After the first response, practice and experiment sequences (NumberRed.doc) comparisons are made between the preceding result can be downloadedw1. and the next digit (i.e. between the circled digits; the The experiment consists of an initial training phase arrow points to the correct result). The seventh (three task blocks each of 30 sequences), a period of 8 response indicates the final solution; the time needed hours of sleep or wakefulness and retesting (ten task to solving the sequence should be recorded. blocks). At the end of the experiment, the percentage What the students do not know is that there is a ‘hid- of subjects who recognised the hidden rule is calculat- den rule’: the strings are generated in such a way that ed and the sleep group is compared with the no-sleep the second response of each trial coincides with the group. In the original publication, subjects who recog- final response. Insight into this hidden rule sharply nised the hidden rule reduced their solution time per reduces the time needed to reach the final response string abruptly from 8.7 to 2.4 seconds. for a string. When preparing the experiment, make sure that stu- Before the experiment starts, students perform without dents do not suspect that there might be a shortcut to mistakes on ten practice sequences (that do not obey the solution. If a student discovers the hidden rule dur- the hidden rule) to ensure their understanding of the ing initial training, his or her data should be excluded ‘same’ and ‘different’ rule. A Word document with from final analysis. CLASSROOM ACTIVITY CLASSROOM ACTIVITY
Sleep-dependent memory day gives no further improvement. enhancement After a night of sleep, speed and The effect of sleep on learning is easi- accuracy of tapping is enhanced on est to quantify when measuring uncon- average by 20%. After another two scious learning. This can be done with nights, a further increase of 26% is experiments to test motor skills, such measured. These data clearly demon- as finger-tapping on a keyboard or strate the process of memory tracing a line displayed on a computer enhancement through sleep. screen, or by testing perceptual skills, Interestingly, sleep only helps if we such as differentiating between diago- do not learn too much at a time using nal bars in the foreground against hori- the same type of memory. During the zontal bars in the background. finger-tapping experiment, when a In the finger-tapping task, subjects second, unrelated sequence is learned repeatedly type a numeric sequence, immediately after the first training for example 4-1-3-2-4, as fast as possi- session, only the tapping of the sec- learning and only then becomes ble (see box). They get better over the ond sequence improves after sleeping resistant to interference from a com- first five minutes of practice, after (Walker et al., 2003). Different time peting memory. However, brief peri- which they approach an asymptote of settings of training and retesting ods of rehearsal (as in the retest situa- about 60% improvement over twelve show that memory undergoes the first tion) return the memory to a labile 30-second trials (Stickgold, 2005). stabilisation phase of consolidation state in which it again becomes vul- Retesting 4 to 12 hours later the same within 10 minutes to 6 hours after nerable to interference from a compet-
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 65 SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.200611:19UhrSeite66 66 Sleep andsuddeninsight (Stickgold, 2005). of this‘declarativememory’ deep sleep)supportsthestabilisation associates, earlynightsleep(richin sense syllablesortofindword-pair in subjectsaskedtomemorisenon- league atwork)isweaker. However, day) andfacts(nameofanewcol- ory forevents(whathappenedyester- dependent consolidationofourmem- dation. ing motorpatterninneedofconsoli- cal structure forDNA”(Watson, out asaconsequenceofdouble-heli- rule thensuddenlystood Chargaff’s seemed toformnaturally[...] sine pair[...] All thehydrogen bonds identical inshapetoaguanine-cyto- together bytwohydrogen bonds was that anadenine-thyminepairheld he writes:“SuddenlyIbecameaware bases. However, ofthenextmorning cut outcardboard modelsofthe right solutionthatday, althoughhe edge, Watson stilldidnotfindthe tion inDNA. equals cytosineintheoveralldistribu- adenine equalsthymineandguanine Rule,that reminded ofChargaff’s configuration); second,hewas textbook drawingsshowingtheenol- the keto-configuration(contraryto and thyminewere more likelytobein First, Watson wastoldthatguanine could notbecorrect fortworeasons. leagues pointedoutthatthismodel bonds. Soonhiscrystallographycol- with-like structures viahydrogen nine, cytosineandthymineaslike- to pairthefourbasesadenine,gua- he thoughtthathadfoundaway site forsolvingthestructure ofDNA, pairing rule, animportantprerequi- working inearly1953onthebase- the doublehelix,JamesWatson. When insight isgivenbythediscoverer of example ofhowsleepcantrigger prominent cognitive learning. A The scientificevidenceforsleep- Equipped withthisnewknowl- Sudden insightisaformofcomplex Science inSchool Issue 3: Winter 2006 Conclusion References Acknowledgements on it. rophysiological background. So,sleep with –ratherthanagainstourneu- learn, workandplayinharmony of ourbrainshouldteachushowto an insightintothesleeprequirements time from efficient learningstrategies, habits. As we profit foranentire life- time tore-evaluate oursleeping our society, andwerealise thatitis of widespread sleepdeprivationin Combine thiswiththeclearindicators on asoundscientificfooting. saying ing hasputmygrandmother’s Lancet ness, andagoodnight’ssleep. the classroom activities. for theircommentsonthedesignof conducted theresearch reported here, (Universität Lübeck,Germany),who MA, USA)andUllrichWagner (Harvard MedicalSchool,Boston, covered. know thatthere wasarule tobedis- sleep evenifthetestpersondidnot becomes mucheasierafteranightof ed humancognitiveactivities, plex rule, oneofthemostsophisticat- group. Thus,thediscoveryofacom- awake group versus60%inthesleep when theyare retested is22%inthe discover thisshortcutor‘hiddenrule’ exists. Thepercentage ofsubjectswho do notknowthatasimpleshortcut digit sequencetoafinalanswer. They simple rules) forreducing aneight- standard algorithm(consistingoftwo Wagner etal.,2004).Subjectsapplya time courseoflearning(seebox; such abstractinsightoccursinthe a testthatdeterminesexactlywhen was born. 1980). TheWatson-Crick doublehelix Recent research onsleepandlearn- Hargreaves S(2000)Health,happi- With thankstoRobertStickgold Wager andco-workershavedevised 355 : 155 The Huber R,Ghilardi MF, MassiminiM, w1 – All thematerialsneededfor Web references Saper CB,ScammellTE,LuJ(2005) Wagner U,GaisS,HaiderH,Verleger Stickgold R(2005)Sleep-dependent Watson J(1980) Walker MP, BrakefieldT, HobsonJA, learning. Tonomi G(2004)Localsleepand issue3/sleep/exercises www.scienceinschool.org/2006/ exercises canbedownloadedhere: and circadian rhythms. Hypothalamic regulation ofsleep USA: W. W. Norton&Company the Structure ofDNA Personal AccountoftheDiscovery insight. R, BornJ(2004)Sleepinspires 1272-1278 memory consolidation. 1257-1263 425 tion andreconsolidation. stages ofhumanmemoryconsolida- Stickgold R(2003)Dissociable
REVIEW : 616-620 other countries. pupils ofotheragesandin could alsobeusedwith 14-16) inEngland,but new GCSEcourses(ages appropriate aspartofthe and experimentsmay be simple terms. The article research andtheoryin some complexscientific pupils andteachers. Itsets capture theinterestof This isanarticlethatwill Nature Nature The DoubleHelix:A 427 www.scienceinschool.org 430 Clara Seery, UK : 352-355 : 78-81 . New York, NY, Nature Nature Nature 437 437 : : SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 67
Science and society
1000 years of missing science
Yasmin Khan from the Science Museum in London, UK, reveals how deeply our modern civilisation has been enriched by previous Muslim civilisations – and argues for a more balanced approach to the history of science.
16th century map of Cyprus saac Newton, Charles Darwin and by Piri Reis IAlbert Einstein. The chances are that if you try to remember which scientists you were taught about at school, these names will be on your list. But how many students will learn about scholars from non-Western civilisations, such as Ibn al-Haitham, a Muslim scholar of optics who first developed the laws of light reflection and invented the pinhole camera in the 11th century? Or Ibn Nafis, who first recorded observations on pul- monary blood circulation, a theory attributed to William Harvey 300 years later? How about Abbas ibn Firnas, who made the first attempt of human flight in the 9th century, using adjustable wings covered with feath- ers? And how many would know of Zeng He, the Chinese Muslim admiral who used refined technology to con- struct fleets of massive non-metal
ship vessels five centuries ago? Image courtesy of FSTC Many are unaware of the extent to which our modern civilisation has been enriched by a series of past great civilisations, which include a largely unacknowledged and untaught Muslim heritage. This heritage has become part of European mainstream culture over the centuries and is man- ifest, for example, in our treasured architectural icons such as the dome
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 67 SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 68 Image courtesy of FSTC
The oldest surviving map of the Americas, by Piri Reis, 1513 CE Image courtesy of FSTC
of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, UK, sumut), nadir (nazir), and zenith and in the horseshoe arches and goth- (al-samt), are also derived from ic ribs of Al-Hambra in Granada, Arabic. Spain. The discoveries described above Even the way we speak shows the were made during a period common- influence of languages from other cul- ly misconstrued in history textbooks tures: many English words used in as the Dark Ages. In fact, in the science, such as alchemy, algorithm, Muslim world, the period from circa alkali, amalgam and zero, have their 600-1600 CE was a prolific era of cre- roots in the Arabic language and are a ative enquiry into science, technology small demonstration of the cultural and engineering and a time of interconnectivity that has enriched advancement in civilisation, which Western civilisation over many cen- would later act as a catalyst for the turies. The history of astronomy also Western Renaissance. Amongst reveals conspicuous examples of European scholars who were pro- Muslim influences, such as in the foundly influenced and inspired by naming of stars. Betelgeuse, Rigel, Muslim scholars were Roger Bacon, Pendulum in mosque, a miniature Vega, Aldebaran and Fomalhaut are Leonardo da Vinci, Kepler, showing students studying astronomy among the names that are directly Michelangelo, Copernicus, Andreas with their teacher, reading measurements Arabic in origin or are Arabic transla- Veselius and Galileo. from an astrolabe. From the 15th century tions of Ptolemy’s Greek descriptions. There has been much study of Persian manuscript number 1418 in the Other terms, such as azimuth (al- Muslim contributions to science and University Library, Istanbul, Turkey
68 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 69
Science and society
civilisation, yet research findings have Taqi al Din and th until recently been confined to acade- other 16 -century astronomers work- mia, a major barrier for teachers and ing in the observa- students who seek easy-to-under- tory of Muradd III
stand material. Four years ago, the Image courtesy of FSTC in Istanbul. From UK-based Foundation for Science, the Shahansani- Technology and Civilisation (FSTC), namah, 16th centu- began a mission to popularise the ry, manuscript Muslim contributions to civilisation number FY 1404 in through its Muslim heritage websitew1. the University Library, Istanbul, For the first time, thanks to the Turkey Internet, information about this neg- lected period of history was readily and freely accessible to the wider public. The website has rapidly become a popular source for informa- tion on the Muslim contribution to science and a key resource for teach- ers and educators who wish to incor- porate links to the history of science in their lessons. After the launch of the website, the demand for more materials and resources on the subject increased rapidly. To address this gap, a touring, interactive educational exhibition was developed on Muslim scientific and technological discover- ies, contributions and inventions. This exhibition, entitled 1001 Inventionsw2, was launched in the UK at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchesterw3 earlier this year. For the first time, museum visitors, including vast numbers of school groups, had the opportunity to dis- cover innovations from Muslim her- array of surgical instruments, includ- about what caused the decline of this itage, many of which still have an ing the forceps used in childbirth. A period in the 17th century, but we impact on our lives. These range from favourite part of the exhibition is a would benefit from encouraging stu- the discovery of coffee as a recreation- picturesque manuscript illustrating dents, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, al beverage to the development of Muslim astronomers working in a 16th to draw inspiration from this rich sophisticated mechanical devices, as century Turkish observatory, clad in civilisation and heritage. well as basic jet propulsion and rock- traditional robes, turbans and beards. I once overheard a science teacher ets. We could all learn much from the These men are forgotten role models: describing the complaints of her stu- Muslim scientists, scholars, poly- dutifully star-gazing, making and dents: they were bored with being maths and pioneers of the past, such recording observations, taking precise taught about scientists who were as the 10th century medic Abul Qasim measurements and performing scien- mostly men and of Anglo origin. This Al-Zahrawi (known in the West as tific experiments as a sincere expres- is symptomatic of the existing ortho- Abulcasis) who dedicated his life to a sion of their faith, searching for doxy, which views history and science multitude of indispensable inventions knowledge to benefit humanity. with a Eurocentric lens, ignoring con- and innovations that still benefit Such was the degree of altruism tributions from other civilisations. humanity today. His discoveries and philanthropy that the golden age Teachers recognise the importance to include the use of catgut in surgery of Islamic science lasted for more than a student’s development of accessible such as caesarean sections and an 1000 years. There is much debate role models to identify with and
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 69 SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 70
relate to. Young female students who aspire to careers in science, particular- ly those of ethnic origins, could find This article is interesting to and appropriate for science teachers work- inspiration from unsung heroines of ing with students of all ages. There is little of the history of science the past. For instance, Miriam al-Ijli integrated into science lessons (certainly in the UK), and it is an area al-Astrulabi, who hand-crafted intri- in which many teachers have limited subject knowledge. This article cate astrolabes, an early type of global helps teachers think beyond the regular scientists that most students positioning system, or entrepreneur will have come across. Fatima al-Fihri, who in the 9th century Further information, and interesting stories about these Muslim scien- founded the world’s oldest university tists would be a great help. The 1001 Inventions website has an excel- in Morocco. lent teacher’s pack allowing discussion of Muslim scientists to be Initiatives such as the 1001 brought into everyday science topics, such as acids and alkalis, light Inventions project can encourage and pressure, through a series of lesson plans. As the lesson plans young people to participate in and include such regularly used science topics, it will be easy to fit these contribute to society. These pro- into a busy timetable. However, don’t try to download the resources grammes can have a lasting and posi- if you don’t have a broadband Internet connection. tive impact on this and the next gen- Sam Hollis, UK eration of entrepreneurs, scientists, REVIEW engineers and doctors from all com- munities. The current exhibition has already shown the positive outcomes of constructive representations of his- step in the right direction. Students Resources torical Muslim achievement. In June might thrive if they are exposed to The Foundation for Science 2006, journalist David Bocking, who ideas and knowledge that will help to Technology and Civilisation is a shadowed a school group visit to the cultivate their identity and to remind not-for-profit organisation which 1001 Inventions exhibition, reported in them of the different legacies that seeks to popularise the Muslim the UK’s Times Educational Supplement have shaped their world. These lega- contribution to the West: the poignant comments of a young cies include a shared and rich Muslim www.fstc.co.uk Muslim boy: heritage, still visible in Europe and 1001 Inventions was displayed at the “This has taught us a lot,” said Hassan the rest of the world. This particular Museum of Science and Industry in Zaffar. “I’m a Muslim and it gives me heritage might have been largely for- Manchester until 3 September 2006 inspiration. It makes you look up to these gotten, but is now being rediscovered and will tour the UK and Europe. people, and feel proud of them. It makes by all those with an interest in human For more information and to down- you want to go and do something like civilisation and progress. load a free teacher’s pack, endorsed that yourself.” by the British Association for the Educators and policy-makers are Web references Advancement of Science, visit: gradually realising the need for a w1 - The Muslim Heritage website is www.1001inventions.com more accurate and inclusive account an online education community A supporting book is also available of the history of science as part of that brings together Muslims and for purchase: school education, which includes an non-Muslims seeking to advance appreciation of the contributions of civilisation through the study of our Al-Hassani S (2006) 1001 Inventions: civilisations that excelled long before Muslim heritage: Muslim Heritage in Our World. our own. The future challenge will be www.MuslimHeritage.com Manchester, UK: FSTC. ISBN: 09555242606 for science curriculum developers to w2 - An extensive website containing find ways of integrating this into much of the information from the mainstream school science lessons. 1001 Inventions exhibition is avail- Instilling our children with a more able here: www.1001inventions.com Yasmin Khan was the project man- inclusive and balanced world-view ager for the 1001 Inventions exhibition. w3 - Information about the Museum through our education system is fun- of Science and Industry in damental to maintaining a harmo- Manchester is available here: nious co-existence in our society. A www.msim.org.uk shift towards a more balanced account of the history of science is a
70 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 71
Spotlight on education
What Europeans really think (and know) about science and technology
How much do Europeans really know about science and technology? What do they think about it? Do they even care? Russ Hodge from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory reports on one of the Eurobarometer surveys.
t’s easy to see that science and onlinew2. This article presents a few was to determine: Itechnology are racing along faster highlights. · European citizens’ interest and than ever – visit a big electronics For more than a decade, the level of information store; zoom in on your house with European Union (EU) has carried out · Their image and knowledge of Google Earthw1; test one of those talk- regular surveys, called Eurobaro- science and technology ing navigation systems that meters, to measure public opinion · Their attitudes towards science and make you think you could drive with and knowledge on a variety of technology your eyes shut (don’t try it). In the themes across its member states. One · Their ideas about the responsibili- face of these developments, you’d reason is to find common ground as ties of scientists and policy-makers think that people’s knowledge of the EU makes policies for countries · Their perception of scientific science and technology – and their with diverse cultures; another is to research in Europe compared with interest in them – would be keeping evaluate the effects of past EU pro- other parts of the world. pace. Unfortunately, that isn’t the grammes. The results are also used to The analysis looks at trends across case. Over the past few years, decide what sorts of projects – in edu- Europe as a whole, and then breaks Europeans’ overall interest in science cation and other areas – the European down the answers to reveal some fas- and technology has decreased – just Commission will support in the future. cinating differences between coun- one pattern shown by a series of Two special Eurobarometers carried tries, genders, and other types of recent major surveys, the Euro- out in early 2005 should be of particu- groups. The results are compared with barometersw2. The results of these lar interest to science teachers: past surveys to see how Europeans’ surveys will surely be of interest to ‘Europeans, Science, and Technology’ attitudes to these issues are evolving. teachers, who are probably our best and ‘Social values, science and technol- Below are some of the questions and a hope of changing the situation. The ogy’. This article focuses on the first. brief analysis of the results. complete surveys and a careful analy- The goal of the Eurobarometer on These are the results for Europe as a sis of their results can be found ‘Europeans, Science and Technology’ whole (1000 people surveyed in each
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 71 SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 72
Question: “Let us talk about those issues in the news which interest you. For each issue I read out please tell me if you are very interested, moderately interested or not at all interested in it.”
Themes Very interested Moderately interested Not at all interested
2005 1992 Diff. 2005 1992 Diff. 2005 1992 Diff. Environmental 38% 56% -18 49% 38% +11 12% 6% +6 pollution New medical 33% 45% -12 50% 44% +6 16% 10% +6 discoveries New inventions 30% 35% -5 48% 47% +1 21% 18% +3 and technologies New scientific 30% 38% -8 48% 45% +3 20% 16% +4 discoveries Sports news 26% 29% -3 42% 38% +4 32% 33% -1 Politics 22% 28% -6 49% 52% -3 29% 20% +9
of the 25 EU member/candidate states). On the whole, inventions and technologies’) for a country-by-country there is a noticeable drop in the number of people who analysis. Respondents in Cyprus show the highest interest: claimed to be ‘very interested’ in scientific themes between 54% said they are ‘very interested’, far above the European 1992 and 2005. Additionally, there are interesting differ- norm. At the other end of the spectrum, only 14% of ences between individual countries. In an attempt to pin Lithuanians said they are ‘very interested’, along with 15% down the reasons behind these trends, interviewers com- of Romanians, 16% of Italians, 17% of Bulgarians, and 18% bined the first four themes into a general category (‘new of Portuguese.
Breaking the answers down into different groups reveals some other “Very interested” in new inventions and technologies interesting trends: Males 40% Females 21% Ages 15-24 38% Ages 55+ 24% Finished education after the age of 20 41% Finished education by the age of 15 19%
Those who were very interested or Medicine 61% moderately interested were asked to rate the themes they were most The environment 47% interested in. They answered: Humanities (history, literature, 30% theology, etc.) The Internet 29% Economics and social sciences 24% Astronomy and space 23% Genetics 23% Nanotechnologies 8%
72 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 73
Spotlight on education
There are also some surprising differ- ences in how various groups rate these People ranking medicine as one theme they are most interested in themes. With medicine, for example, Males 50% the results are: Females 73% Ages 15-24 40% Ages 55+ 73% Finished education after the age of 20 73% Finished education by the age of 15 61% Still studying 38%
3951 people are ‘not at all interested’ “I don’t understand it” 32% in new inventions or technologies or new scientific discoveries, and the “I don’t care about it’” 31% survey asked them why. The most “I don’t need it” 16% common answers are:
Why don’t people understand? Surveyors asked their subjects, “Do you feel very well informed, moderately informed or poorly informed about these issues in the news?” The results are listed below:
Issues Very well informed Moderately well informed Poorly informed
2005 1992 Diff. 2005 1992 Diff. 2005 1992 Diff.
Environmental 15% 25% -10 61% 60% +1 23% 14% +9 pollution
New medical 11% 12% -1 59% 59% 0 28% 28% 0 discoveries
New inventions 11% 9% +2 53% 53% 0 35% 36% -1 and technologies
New scientific 10% 9% +1 51% 51% 0 37% 37% 0 discoveries
Sports news 28% 26% +2 41% 41% 0 29% 32% -3 Politics 20% 20% 0 55% 60% -5 24% 19% +5
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 73 SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 74
The survey then asked where people get their information about science. The results are the following:
How often do you... Regularly Occasionally Hardly ever Never
Read articles on science in newspapers, 19% 40% 20% 20% magazines, or on the Internet?
Talk with your friends about 10% 37% 26% 27% science and technology?
Attend public meetings or debates 2% 8% 19% 71% about science or technology?
Sign petitions or join street demonstrations 2% 11% 14% 73% about nuclear power, biotechnology or the environment?
People were then asked about the Which of the following have you visited in the last 12 months? types of institutes they visited: Public library 34% Zoo or aquarium 27% Art museum 23% Science museum, technology museum or science centre 16% Science exhibition or science week 8%
Interestingly, in Sweden a much within the past year. Overall in after the age of 20 had visited one of higher percentage of the population Europe, there is a strong correlation these places, compared with just 7% visits science centres or science and between the level of education a per- for people who had finished by the technology museums: 36% of the peo- son has attained and such visits: 25% age of 15. ple interviewed had made such a visit of people who finished their studies Image courtesy of ESO
Answers from page 23, ‘The joy of discovery: a personal experience’
The trail from which Comet West was discovered is indicated by an arrow CLASSROOM ACTIVITY CLASSROOM ACTIVITY
74 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 75
Spotlight on education
Another part of the survey concerns people’s knowledge of scientific facts. Thirteen statements were made, and the participants were asked to determine whether they were true or false. The chart below shows the overall results.
Quiz statements True False Don’t know
1. The Sun goes around the Earth. 29% 66% 4% 2. The centre of the Earth is very hot. 86% 7% 7% 3. The oxygen we breathe comes from plants. 82% 14% 4% 4. Radioactive milk can be made safe by boiling it. 10% 75% 15% 5. Electrons are smaller than atoms. 46% 29% 25% 6. The continents on which we live have been moving for 87% 6% 8% millions of years and will continue to move in the future. 7. It is the mother’s genes that decide whether the baby is a boy or a girl. 20% 64% 16% 8. The earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. 23% 66% 11% 9. Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria. 43% 46% 11% 10. Lasers work by focusing sound waves. 26% 47% 28% 11. All radioactivity is man-made. 27% 59% 14% 12. Human beings, as we know them today, developed from 70% 20% 10% earlier species of animals. 13. It takes one month for the Earth to go around the Sun. 17% 66% 16%
Of the 25 countries tested, Sweden centage of correct answers has risen Luxembourg (17%) and the has the highest percentage of correct appreciably since the same questions Netherlands (11%). There are large answers (79%); Cyprus has the lowest were asked in 1992: Belgium (13%), differences between the answers (49%). In several countries, the per- Germany (10%), Ireland (10%), given by various groups:
Group Average of correct answers
Male 70% Female 62%
Ages 15-24 70% Ages 55+ 59%
Finished education by the age of 15 53% Finished education after the age of 20 76%
Attend religious services more than once a week 54% Never attend religious services 70%
A major part of this Eurobarometer focuses on public attitudes towards science: issues of trust and optimism regard- ing science’s ability to improve society and the world.
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 75 SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 76
To the question, “Among the following Scientists working at a university or government laboratory 52% categories of people and organisations, which three are best qualified to Television journalists 32% explain to you the impact of scientific Scientists working in an industrial laboratory 28% and technological developments on society?”, participants responded: Newspaper journalists 25% Medical doctors 23% Environmental protection associations 21% Consumer organisations 16% Writers and intellectuals 10% The industry 6% The government 6% Politicians 5%
Respondents were then asked to 26% disagree, and the rest neither Swedish people surveyed agree (54% respond to the following statement: agree nor disagree (or don’t know). disagree), and results are almost the “One day, science will be able to give But here the responses from country same in the other Nordic countries a complete picture of how nature and are extremely different. In Malta and and Iceland. the Universe work.” The average Greece, more than 70% of the popula- response across Europe is: 50% agree; tion agree, whereas only 27% of the
The overall optimism about the potential of science was also measured, by asking for responses to the following statements:
Statement Agree Disagree
Scientific and technological progress will help to cure illnesses 88% 4% such as AIDS, cancer, etc.
Science and technology make our lives healthier, easier 78% 6% and more comfortable.
Thanks to science and technology, there will be more opportunities 77% 8% for future generations.
The benefits of science are greater than any harmful effects it may have. 52% 14%
Science and technology will help eliminate poverty and hunger 39% 37% around the world.
Thanks to scientific and technological advances, the Earth’s 23% 54% resources will be inexhaustible.
Science and technology can sort out any problem. 21% 58%
The remainder of the respondents answered “neither agree nor disagree” or “don’t know”. Here, too, there are inter- esting differences between countries, which would be worth investigating further.
76 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_60-77_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:19 Uhr Seite 77
Spotlight on education
The survey went on to ask about specific technologies and applications. People were asked for their opinion on the following statements:
Statement Agree Disagree
Science and technology are responsible for most of the environmental 57% 20% problems we have today.
Food made from genetically modified organisms is dangerous. 54% 14%
Science and technology cannot really play a role in improving 28% 50% the environment.
These questions show some of the genetically modified foods, whereas dangerous) and the Netherlands (30% widest differences between attitudes there is much less concern in the agree; 39% disagree). across Europe. Cypriots (88%) and United Kingdom (33% agree; 23% dis- Greeks (80%) are most worried about agree with the statement that they are
The survey included a small grade card on Country Agree Disagree science teaching through- 25 EU members/associated countries 50% 15% out Europe: people were asked to respond to the Turkey 66% 9% statement, “Science class- es at school are not suffi- Sweden 64% 6% ciently appealing.” Here Slovenia 63% 10% are some of the responses: Austria 61% 8%
France 60% 10%
Portugal 60% 6%
Malta 39% 21%
Germany 36% 36%
Czech Republic 36% 11%
Cyprus 29% 30%
This is only a small taste of an exten- they define policies and decide what Web references sive survey that gives many more types of projects should be supported w1 – Google Earth combines satellite insights into the state of knowledge to improve people’s perceptions and imagery, maps and the power of and perceptions of science among the knowledge of science. These figures Google to put the world’s geograph- population of Europe. Such numbers can also be used to reinforce the case ic information at your fingertips: are good to have; the real question is for new ideas and initiatives, particu- http://earth.google.com what they mean. Answering that ques- larly in applying for educational w2 – Eurobarometer survey website: tion is the challenge that faces the grants. http://ec.europa.eu/public_ European Commission, national gov- opinion ernments, ministries and others as
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 77 SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 78
Memories of a very special teacher
Fay Christodoulou, a Greek PhD student at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), is an example that shows not every researcher is born with a passion for science. She describes to Anna-Lynn Wegener from EMBL how her biology teacher inspired a long-lasting interest in science.
Did you always want to become a biologist?
To tell you the truth, it was a very spontaneous decision. Initially I want- ed to go into economics, which might seem a bit strange because the fields are not very related. I had already fin- ished the first year of my internation- al baccalaureate and had chosen those subjects that would lead to a career in economics when I suddenly changed my mind and decided to study biolo- gy. It was really difficult to convince the head of my school that I was seri- ous about this change. I had missed a whole year’s worth of biology lessons while I was studying economics and I had to catch up with all the material by myself. So biology wasn’t an easy option.
So, what happened in the last year of school that made you change your mind? Was there a specific event that awoke your interest in biology? came from the material that biology Sometimes teachers come into the Not an event, but a person: Dr. offers, but he was the one who con- classroom and give a 45-minute les- Alexander Alevizos, my biology tributed the inspiration. son out of the textbook. But my biolo- teacher at school in Athens, Greece. gy teacher was special in that he was He was the one who made me realise And what was so special about him very well informed: he followed cut- my passion for biology. The interest and his lessons? ting-edge science as well as the news
78 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 79
Scientist profile
and he knew about the applications of text. He would, for example, talk wants to become a scientist, he science. He chose thrilling examples about the history of a scientific break- also reached and inspired those to illustrate the material: one day he through or the political consequences students who had no interest in told us about the Gene Police that had that a discovery can have. And he biology at all. been established in Canada when the painted a very human picture of the first transgenic crops emerged. personalities behind science, which But you clearly had an interest and Farmers were very concerned that the made it easy for us to identify with decided to become a molecular biolo- modified plants could contaminate them. gist. What exactly are you doing now? their natural crops and many of them tried to sue companies working with Judging from your enthusiasm about I have just finished the first year of the modified crops. So the Gene his lessons, all your classmates should my PhD studies in Detlev Arendt’s Police were established to screen the be biologists by now. group at the European Molecular crops genetically to see if contamina- Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, tion had actually occurred. Dr. Some are. Others have of course Germany. We are trying to under- Alevizos used the story to explain the chosen a different path, but even they stand how the brain evolved. The science underlying genetic modifica- must have gained a lot from Dr. human brain is very complex with tion and cross-pollination and we Alevizos’ lessons. He never pushed many subunits, but it started off as a absorbed this information without us to become scientists, instead he simple organ and gradually evolved really realising it because we were so tried to show us how useful a basic into something more complex. The fascinated by the story. And he did knowledge of biology can be for all last ancestor of humans (and many not stop at the science: he also sorts of things. For example, he used other species) that had this simplistic involved us in a discussion about to tell us that people in the marketing brain is what interests me, because I bioethics based on this example. That or advertising sector are always look- would like to know how it all began. is something I really liked, that he ing for candidates who can under- This is why I am working on a sea gave an overview of all aspects of sci- stand science, because they need to worm called Platynereis dumerilii, ence, from molecular details to moral promote products based on science. which we think is quite similar to this implications. Similarly, in law and the patenting last ancestor. In particular I am look- Another thing that made his lessons business he said that a background in ing at the hypothalamus, a part of the really interesting was that he always biology can open many doors. By brain that is very ancient in terms of tried to put science into a wider con- acknowledging that not every student the functions that it controls: thirst,
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 79 SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 80
hunger, sex drive, reproduction, Are you happy with your choice to go what keeps me going in periods when aggression and other basic functions. I into research? I am working hard but getting no want to find out how a chemical path- results at all. This can be a bit way that is crucial for the develop- I love what I am doing and I really frustrating sometimes, but the feeling ment of the brain in the embryo like the room for creativity in science. when you achieve what you are works in this worm. We can then You get to design your own experi- aiming for is so great that I would compare it with the pathway in other ments, and obtaining a result from an never exchange my work for any organisms to see what has changed experiment that you designed your- other. during evolution. self is very rewarding. This is also And what are your plans for the future?
If everything goes well, I would love to lead my own laboratory at some point and also to teach students, either at university or even at school.
That sounds like another thing that might have been inspired by your biology teacher.
Yes, definitely. This man has influ- enced my life so much and helped me to find my way. I would love to be able to do something similar for other people one day.
For me as a primary school teacher constantly trying other side. To read about the inspiration given by one to find different and creative ways to inspire my teacher – inspiration that changed lives and widened pupils, the article was a refreshing read. So often in horizons – makes me aim to do this in my own teach- teaching, amidst all the planning, marking and assess- ing. I will continue to grasp the moment, to stray a lit- ment, it is possible to lose sight of the wider goal of tle from the formal curriculum, and to tell the story developing a child’s curiosity about and engagement around the science, reinforced by the knowledge that with their environment. Fay’s experience served to it can and does make a difference. give me a welcome reminder. Andrea Goetzee, UK Without too much science terminology, it hits a satis-
REVIEW fying target in giving the view of teaching from the
80 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 81
Teacher profile
Handstands and ties: a career in teaching
The author, John Watson
John Watson, “the teacher who does handstands in class”, reminisces about what drew him to teach biology, shares memorable moments from his 38-year teaching career, and explains how scientists can help to inspire science teaching.
Why did you decide to become a I arrived at my classroom a few Currently, I teach in Luxembourg at science teacher? years ago to find an unexpected the European School. The European inspector who wanted to see what I Schools are unique: we have teachers I have always enjoyed working was doing. Obviously, I invited him and students from every country in with children. When I was at school, I in and got on with the lesson. I was the European Union and we teach sci- became a very active member of a teaching mitosis, a topic I love, and ences in 11 languages, but we all use children’s theatre group set up by my the blackboard was covered in dia- the same syllabus. Obviously writing drama teacher. We were called the grams. To demonstrate the separation the syllabus is complicated, and Pied Piper Players because we would of chromatids at anaphase, I like to requires teachers and inspectors of parade through a park or an inner take two ties that are a little inter- different nationalities to find a city housing estate to collect an audi- twined and pull them apart at the European compromise about what ence and then perform a play with a middle on a desk. The ties make a should be taught. I personally find lot of improvisation and audience wonderful ‘V’ shape just like the chro- the process very stimulating, though participation, using the characters of matids as they are pulled to the poles. it can be long and discussions do the Commedia dell’Arte. I was wearing a tie but I needed sometimes go round in circles. After university, with an MSc in another, and the only other person in At a meeting of biology teachers in applied genetics, I was qualified as the room with a tie was the inspector. 1993, we had a big discussion about a plant or animal breeder. After a The students were delighted when I the diagrams to use in the baccalaure- quick search, though, the only job I asked him to “undress” and he went ate exam. We decided that the only found was breeding tomatoes. I hate along with the fun with a big smile on way to make the exam fair for all stu- tomatoes! So I decided to use my his face. dents was to produce our own dia- biology training in teaching instead – grams. This idea developed into a and I have never regretted my You’ve been involved in developing project to produce our whole biology choice. the science syllabus and a textbook to syllabus in diagram form with anno- teach the syllabus. Could you tell us tations in all languages. We called the Can you tell us about a particularly about it? book Eurobio and it has proved very memorable moment in your career? popular (especially with new teach-
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 81 SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 82
ers) and is used in all 13 European advise and even take part in policy from the European Learning Schools. making. Laboratory for the Life Sciences. In the Since 1978, I have been a member of laboratory, DNA chips trace the activi- the biology commission, which is the What do you think scientists most ty of genes by detecting the mRNA group responsible for writing the need to know about science in the they produce; the virtual microarray biology syllabus for the European classroom? simulates a DNA chip using a mat Schools, and have been involved in and lots of coloured lightsw1. For my the writing and development of Science is moving at a tremendous lessons, I adapted the simulation the syllabus for almost 30 years. pace and much of what is new cannot slightly by replacing the coloured Additionally, I have organised all the be done in schools; there is just not lights with discs that fluoresce red and in-service training courses for biolo- enough money. But if scientists could green under a screened UV lamp. gists in the European Schools since develop simple simulations so that we The other problem with introducing 1980. These responsibilities add to could teach the principles in an excit- scientific developments into school the variety and satisfaction of my ing and stimulating way, some of this is time: students are only in the class- job – and I believe that interested progress in science would make its room for a short amount of time each teachers can, with a little effort, way into schools faster. A good exam- week. So we need protocols that can put themselves in a position to ple is the virtual microarray game be completed in one or two lessons.
Demonstrating peristalsis The teacher who does handstands...
I met the daughter of a colleague recently, outside school. She was not a student I had ever taught and when her mother asked her if she knew me, she said, “Yes, he is the teacher who does handstands in class.” Whenever I teach peristalsis to a new class, I do a handstand and drink a glass of water ‘upwards’. BACKGROUND
82 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 83
Teacher profile
Demonstrating mitosis with ties
This is an excellent article for inspiring new teachers and improving science teaching. Such memorable teachers make a difference not only in the classroom but also to long-term educational programmes. Teaching sciences in an exciting and creative way involves students and makes them love science. Being a good teacher is like being a good actor; an actor who makes the audience part of the play. Good teachers like John Watson are working towards better global educa- tion, curricula and teaching materials. I wish all teachers and scientists inspired their students like John Watson!
REVIEW Myrto Pouangare, Cyprus
If the European Union gave you the bring researchers and teachers togeth- Web references money, what kind of project would er to develop protocols that will work w1 - The European Learning you design to make a significant dif- in the classroom with the limited Laboratory for the Life Sciences ference to teachers and their students? materials and time that are available. (ELLS) is an education facility to The researchers would supply the bring secondary school teachers into Volvox!w2 This is a network of teach- practical expertise and the teachers a research laboratory. Based at the ers, scientists, educational specialists would know the limits of what can European Molecular Biology and science communicators, estab- and cannot be done; this is how the Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, lished to share teaching resources virtual microarray game and other ELLS welcomes European teachers between countries. It will provide materials from the European Learning to its free three-day practical work- biology teachers with laboratory Laboratory for the Life Sciences were shops. Instructions for the virtual protocols, classroom activities on developed. If other research centres microarray are available in the ELLS the social impact of bioscience, and universities around Europe set TeachingBASE. See www.embl.org accounts of the careers of young up programmes like this for local /ells/ for further details. scientists and other resources to help teachers, I am sure we would have w2 - For more details about Volvox, motivate teachers and their students. lots of new materials in a short see www.eurovolvox.org I also have an idea for a project to time.
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 83 SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 84
Forensic entomology: activities for schools
Many of you were fascinated (and disgusted!) by the article about forensic entomology in our last issue. Paula Starbäck, the reviewer, suggested that it would be a fascinating activity for students, if only someone could find a way to avoid the terrible smell. We challenged you to come up with a solution – and Martin Hall from the Natural History Museum in London, UK, who wrote the original article, promptly responded.
Life cycle of a calliphorid fly (clockwise from bottom left): adults, eggs, first instar larvae, second instar larvae, third instar larvae, puparia containing pupae
espite the smelly conditions in a fridge before they start to Image courtesy of Martin Hall Dto which adult blowflies are pupariate. attracted and in which they lay their Here are some ideas of how to eggs, working with the larvae need use blowfly larvae to investigate not be an olfactory torment. Towards the behaviour and physiology of the end of the larval period, the mag- blowflies. How do your results in gots finish feeding on animal tissues the laboratory relate to the ecology and search for a suitable site to of the insects? pupariate. It is this post-feeding stage that is sold as fishing bait in angling Responses to light shops, and is suitable (not smelly) for Construct simple arenas with differ- use in classroom activities. They are ent levels of light (e.g. cover half the easy to keep: they do not need food arena with a piece of card) and see and can be kept for one to two weeks how much time the larvae spend at
84 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 85
Feedback
the different light levels (they usually Effects of substrate texture Available species prefer the dark). What do they do in How far do larvae migrate in differ- Different shops sell different the dark areas; for example, do they ent media? This can be measured by species, but usually the largest larvae change their speed of movement how long it takes them to pupariate. are Calliphora vomitoria (bluebottle (slow down), or rate of turning Test larvae with a hard surface and fly), the intermediate sized ones are (change direction more often) or do compare with larvae in sawdust and Lucilia sericata (greenbottle fly) and they only change direction at the in sand/soil, both of which they can the smallest are Musca domestica light/dark edge, so as to stay in the burrow into. (housefly). Different responses may dark? be observed with the different species. Effects of substrate moisture A few could be reared to adulthood to Effects of temperature Do larvae select soil with a different facilitate identification. How long does it take larvae to moisture content to burrow into? You pupariate (become pupae) at different could set up a chamber, offering lar- Safety note temperatures? You would need an vae a choice of dry, damp and water- Students should take care when incubator of some sort that could be logged soil to burrow into. Measure handling larvae to avoid contamina- set to different temperatures. Plot dampness by some easy system, e.g. tion (the larvae have, after all, fed on temperature against the time taken to volume of water per volume of soil. decomposing animal tissues). Wear pupariate. Note that the larvae might rubber gloves and wash hands after- be at different ages when purchased, Other influences wards with disinfectant soaps. so you would need to compare differ- You could also measure what fac- Although teachers and students ent temperatures using larvae from tors influence the length of time that should not be complacent, the risks the same batch, rather than buying the larvae spend wandering and bur- are low: after all, many millions of fly one batch and testing it at one tem- rowing, e.g. light, temperature, gradi- larvae are sold each year to anglers perature and then buying another ent, objects on the surface under with no health and safety warnings. batch and testing it at another tem- which they can rest. perature. This investigation could be extend- ed by looking at the effects of temper- ature on time spent as pupae and, if a more complex dissection study were required, students could record the morphological changes in the pupa as Lucilia sericata (Meigen) metamorphosis proceeds (e.g. onset of Image courtesy of insectimages.org/Joseph Berger segmentation, the first appearance of legs and wings, the first appearance of eyes, then body coloration and so forth). Do these occur at the same intervals in development (e.g. at 25%, 50% through the pupal period) at dif- ferent temperatures?
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 85 SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 86
Does Anything Eat Wasps? And 101 Other Questions
By New Scientist Reviewed by Michalis Hadjimarcou, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Does Anything Eat Wasps? is a user- are quite common and are probably fact, this book would be suitable for friendly, easy-to-read collection of ques- shared by many people, whereas others most people with a minimal scientific tions and short answers that covers a are somewhat strange. The topics knowledge. wide range of science topics, from galax- addressed in the book are from a wide Most certainly, this book is not some- ies colliding in outer space to the amount range of scientific disciplines, including thing a science teacher can expect to use of fat necessary to render a human bul- biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, as a main teaching tool. However, it letproof. These questions and their corre- geology and oceanography. includes a large enough selection of use- sponding answers were published over The type of answers is also broad, ful and interesting information to pro- the last 11 years in The Last Word, New ranging from the strictly scientific to the vide any science teacher with the appro- Scientist magazine’s weekly column of simple and humorous. The latter might priate material as well as a good excuse everyday science questions. Both the not provide the reader with many for an exciting break during teaching. questions and the answers have been answers, but will at least give reason to Furthermore, the book can prove an provided by the readers of the column. smile or even, in some cases, have a invaluable pool of truly unique ideas As is clearly stated in the introduction, good laugh. that a teacher can draw from to stimulate this book is not an attempt to solve the Some of the topics in the book require small-scale investigations by students. big mysteries of life, such as the meaning substantial scientific knowledge and an of human existence or the nature of God. excellent understanding of English to Instead, it is an effort to answer the small appreciate fully the information provid- Details Publisher: Profile Books Ltd questions of everyday life, the kind that ed in the answers. However, in the arise while watching a bartender pour a majority of cases, the general scientific Publication year: 2005 beer or pondering the flight pattern of knowledge that any science teacher ISBN: 1861979738 migrating geese. Some of these questions should possess is more than adequate. In Kleine botanische Experimente
By Hilke Steinicke and Imme Meyer Reviewed by Friedlinde Krotscheck, Internationale Gesamthochschule Heidelberg, Germany
The book, written in German, ogy, natural phenomena, physics, chem- Kleine botanische Experimente addresses describes a great variety of experiments istry or biotechnology. It could be used at a very neglected area – plants as produc- using plants. The experiments are at home, on field trips or in the classroom. ers, as models for technical projects, and different levels of difficulty and often Teachers are, of course, good at using as the source of life on Earth. This book explain everyday observations. The materials like this to tailor worksheets. belongs in the library of every (German- chapter titles focus on certain parts of Unfortunately, in contrast to the com- speaking) school. plants and provide detailed information plete and detailed descriptions in the on plant physiology. The required mate- book, the drawings are unhelpful. Details rials are easy to obtain and mostly free; Furthermore, the book would be greatly Publisher: Verlag Harry Deutsch the equipment can be found in any improved if the useful chapter titles were Publication year: 2005 household. complemented with graphic information For any age and any level, this is a on characteristic features, such as flowers ISBN: 3817116977 very good source of experiments for biol- and their different shapes.
86 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 87
Reviews
The Poison Paradox: Chemicals as Friends and Foes
By John Timbrell Reviewed by Angelika Börsch-Haubold, Germany
“All substances are poisons; there is Throughout his account, Timbrell is in the style of newspaper clippings none that is not a poison. The right dose anxious to display the positive aspects of vividly describe the action of a poison, differentiates a poison from a remedy.” chemicals. One prominent example is and the accounts of serial killers and Thus wrote the physician and scientist DDT, successfully used as an anti-louse political murder juxtapose historical Paracelsus 500 years ago, and this is powder during World War II and also to anecdotes (“Was Napoleon poisoned?”) also the point of view of the English combat malaria. The extensive spraying with toxicological facts. Figures such as toxicologist John Timbrell. For him, all of forests against bark beetles, however, the photograph of an alcoholic’s liver chemicals have both good (wanted) and had detrimental effects on wildlife which say more than a thousand words. bad (unwanted) effects, which he calls were triggered by an accumulation of There are a few unfortunate errors, the “paradoxical” nature of poisons. As DDT in the food chain. Timbrell blames however. The repeated misspelling of the subtitle of The Poison Paradox: this overuse for our loss of a chemical Nobel laureate Paul Ehrlich’s name and Chemicals as Friends and Foes states, that was relatively safe for humans. inconsistencies in the botanic names of chemicals are our friends as drugs, pest- One does not need to agree with this plants and families should have caught icides and cleaning agents, and our foes point of view to learn a lot from the a careful editor’s eye. In addition, a as environmental pollutants, natural book. Timbrell moves methodically number of pharmacological details are poisons and harmful food additives. from the small scale – household poison irritatingly mistaken; for example, the After a short historical outline of the cabinets with cleaning agents, garden- former use of atropine-containing plants concept of poisons, Timbrell introduces ers’ tools, and “our favourite drug: alco- for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease the reader to the physiological mecha- hol” – to the large scale – the deliberate (and not epilepsy), or the case note on nisms of the uptake of a substance into release of industrial waste products into herbal-tea poisoning in which the our body, of its fate there (metabolism) the environment, as well as industrial pyrrolizidine alkaloid-containing plant and of individual differences in these accidents in which cities or whole popu- coltsfoot is more likely to be the culprit mechanisms due to genetic factors and lations are exposed to toxins. But it is in the liver disease than alpendost. A lifestyle. He continues with a survey of not always humans who damage nature number of repetitive phrases should pharmacological concepts such as the with synthetic chemicals: it works both also have been cut before publication. dose-response relationship and recep- ways. We all teach our children to eat Nevertheless, The Poison Paradox is a tors, explains mutagenesis, teratogene- only berries that are known as “safe”, good source for teachers in search of sis, and carcinogenesis, and describes because plant toxins are among the examples to enliven chemistry, biology tissue degeneration and cell death. He most deadly compounds in the world. or ecology lessons. I also recommend it then contrasts the benefits of common Timbrell aims to teach the lay reader to older school students with an interest medicines such as aspirin, paracetamol about poisons. He avoids complicated in chemistry and the life sciences. The and penicillin with their adverse effects. scientific terminology, places detailed manifold involvement of poisons in our The mechanisms of drugs of abuse information for advanced readers in daily life and Paracelsus’ principle of (cocaine, morphine/heroin, and ecstasy) separate boxes, and defines toxicologi- the right dose is bound to be an eye- are also explained. As virtually all of us cal jargon in a glossary at the end of the opener for them. will take some form of medication in book. What is more, he knows how to our lifetime, and almost nobody is in a entertain. Headlines such as “Ricin: a Details Publisher: Oxford University Press position to second guess the doctor’s molecular Trojan horse from the castor prescription, this alone makes these bean” or “Lucy in the sky with dia- Publication year: 2005 two chapters on medicines worth monds: hallucinogenic compounds” ISBN: 0192804952 reading. catch the reader’s attention. Case notes
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 87 SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 88
A Stem Cell Story
By the European Consortium for Stem Cell Research Reviewed by Philipp Gebhardt, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany
A Stem Cell Story portrays scientists describes it as a “battle of wills” to Publication year: 2005 from the field of stem-cell research, their induce cells to follow a particular path- Running time: 15 min individual research interests and the way of differentiation. Examples of the Soundtrack: English potential applications of their work. The clinical applications of stem-cell Voice-over and subtitles: French, DVD is aimed at the public, to shed research are reviewed, such as skin German, Italian light on stem-cell research and on the transplantation, and the generation of science behind the headlines and public neural stem cells and insulin-producing Subtitles: Swedish, Dutch debate of the last few years. cells for the treatment of diabetes. Even though research on stem cells With its beautiful pictures of fluores- Ordering has been going on for 40 years, another cently labelled cells and its modern, Within Europe, the first copy costs £4, level of controversy was added when informative and very appealing look, including postage and packaging. researchers derived the first human this educational film is a valuable Additional copies cost £2.50 each; up embryonic stem-cell line in 1998. The resource for people who want to go to five copies can be ordered. For fur- hopes associated with this cutting-edge beyond the headlines on this controver- ther details, see technology are as diverse as the produc- sial topic. The DVD offers a captivating www.eurostemcell.org/Outreach/ tion of replaceable tissues, the repair of insight into the world of stem cells, but outreach_film.htm defective tissues using healthy cells and at the same time does not go much the treatment of a broad spectrum of beyond pure knowledge transfer. Its Resources diseases. main goal is to demonstrate the fasci- The website of the European The film begins by comparing the nating possibilities of this branch of bio- Consortium for Stem Cell Research complex processes in the microscopic medical research, which is probably has additional information about world of our cells to the hustle and bus- why the relevant ethical questions are to stem cells. In its outreach section, it tle of modern city life. The fast-chang- a great extent left out. Furthermore, offers a jargon-buster (definitions of ing scenery makes it very appealing to although the very fast turnover of the key stem-cell terms), information an audience used to the style of contem- illustrations maintains a high attention about the legislation of human porary music videos. At the beginning level, it can make it somewhat difficult embryonic stem-cell research in dif- of the documentary, the filmmakers to follow the theory. ferent countries, and other interesting introduce the importance of stem cells The original soundtrack is in English, facts: www.eurostemcell.org/Outreach/ for the generation and maintenance of a but voice-overs and subtitles are avail- outreach.htm multiplicity of specialised cells in our able in other languages (see below for body, and the natural role of embryonic details). Its short format makes this film stem cells in development. ideal for use in the classroom, for exam- The underlying science is communi- ple as an introduction to stem cells. It is cated with very creative cartoon-like recommended for audiences aged 14 animations, which are integrated nicely and older. into the plot and illustrate the plasticity in the system of differentiating cells. Details This is highlighted during interviews Technical details: DVD PAL, all zones with scientists, who explain their strate- Producer: EuroStemCell, European gies for inducing isolated embryonic Consortium for Stem Cell Research stem cells to specialise; one scientist (www.eurostemcell.org)
88 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 89
Resources on the web
Science podcasts
The worldwide web is a wonderful source of information, but the sheer amount of content can be overwhelming. Where do you start looking for science news? In each issue of Science in School, we will suggest useful websites for particular purposes.
Whether you are looking for a quick snippet about stem Ecogeeks: cells or dark matter to use in a lesson, or want to inform www.thewildclassroom.com/home/nav/subscribe.html yourself regularly about developments in science, pod- Aimed at science teachers and supported by lesson casts could be the answer. You can subscribe (free) to these plans, further online information, and terrible music, these radio programmes on the web, automatically download short video podcasts are presented by young biologists. new episodes, and listen to them when and where you · 1 October 2006: Everything you wanted to know about like: on the train, in the gym, in the garden.... alligator snapping turtles. (2 min) The files can be played either directly on your computer, · 31 August 2006: Grasslands and prairies – why do or using an MP3 player or iPod. iTunes and other similar grasses dominate? (4 min) software allow you to search the vast range of topics avail- able, download individual episodes or subscribe to regular ESApod: podcasts, play them, read reviews by other listeners and esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia/esc/esapod.xml leave your own comments. iTunes can be run on an Apple The European Space Agency brings audio and video Mac or a PC, and is free to download: news from space to your desktop. www.apple.com/itunes/download 16 October 2006: The Mars Express investigates water Below is a selection of the many science podcasts avail- · on Mars, demonstrating that it was once covered by able. Most of those listed are in English, but if you tell us vast oceans. (7 min) about your favourites in any European language, we’d be · 10 October 2006: Life on the International Space Station, happy to mention them on the Science in School website. carrying out scientific experiments as part of the AstroLab mission. (5 min) Podcasts in English Current Science and Technology: Fraunhofer podcast (also in German): feed://www.mos.org/cst/?cat=7;feed=rss2 www.fraunhofer.de/fhg/EN/press/audio/2006/ Audio-magazine_ 2006s.jsp Weekly interviews with guest researchers and staff from the Museum of Science in Boston, USA. Short podcasts presenting research from Germany’s Fraunhofer institutes. · 20 October 2006: How the deadly toxin botulinum (botox) can be used to limit facial scarring, and how · 4 October 2006: Applications of nanotechnology range melanoma can be detected by listening for cancer cells. from car manufacture to medicine. (7 min) (14 min) · 20 September 2006: White biotechnology – using plants · 13 October 2006: How anthrax spores can be detected to manufacture raw materials. (4 min) and caught using sugar-coated carbon nanotubes, and why one researcher is studying ants by filling their nests with molten metal. (23 min)
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 89 SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 90
Microbe World Radio: Science Talk, the podcast of Scientific American: http://feeds.feedburner.com/microbeworld www.sciam.com/podcast/ Daily 90-second podcasts from the American Society for This weekly podcast of Scientific American covers cut- Microbiology, USA. ting-edge developments and controversial issues with · 20 October 2006: Astrobiologists from NASA speculate leading scientists and journalists. A useful resource is the that a group of salt-loving microbes called halophiles list of related websites. once existed on Mars. (2 min) · 4 October 2006: Court cases increasingly deal with · 19 October 2006: Producing electricity – by feeding complex science and technical issues. Shouldn’t judges microbes on chocolate waste. (2 min) be trained in cutting-edge science? (20 min) · 6 September 2006: MIT astrophysicist Paul Schechter discusses recent research into dark matter. (23 min) Nature podcast: www.nature.com/nature/podcast/subscribe.html sciPod, the New Scientist podcast: By the Naked Scientists team, this weekly podcast high- www.newscientist.com/podcast.ns lights contents from the journal Nature, sets the research in context and allows the scientists to explain the significance This podcast from the popular science magazine New Scientist of their work in their own words. reviews the week’s science stories and interviews scientists. · 4 October 2006: The evolution of insect eyes, five-billion · 6 October 2006: Confabulation is a tendency among Jupiter-sized exoplanets, a scientific pub guide to zoolo- some brain-injured patients to create fictional memo- gy (fish that fake orgasms, kidnapping among penguins), ries. What can it tell us about the way the human mind climate change regulation, and more. (32 min) separates fact from fiction? And more. (29 min) · 7 September 2006: Cancer and unintelligent design, · 4 August 2006: Increased carbon dioxide levels in the methane emissions from the permafrost, chiral-selective atmosphere are acidifying the world’s oceans. What are catalysts, and more. (26 min) the consequences for marine life? And more. (26 min)
Science@NASA: 60-Second Science, from Scientific American: feed://science.nasa.gov/itunespodcast.xml www.sciam.com/podcast/ In this daily, one-minute commentary, Scientific American Frequent short podcasts about recent space research at casts a brief look at some of the most exciting scientific NASA, USA. developments. 3 October 2006: Climate scientists are learning new · 5 October 2006: Did the Ancient Greeks use nano- things from an old and very powerful Alaskan volcano: · technology to conceal grey hairs? (1 min) Novarupta. (4 min) 20 September 2006: Discrimination against women 1 September 2006: With astronauts returning to the · · academics is still depriving American science of an Moon, reliable forecasts of space weather are more important source of talent. (1 min) important than ever. A new proposed mission called Solar Sentinels would surround the Sun with spacecraft to monitor solar activity. (5 min) The Naked Scientists: www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/Shows/ Science magazine podcast: streaming_media.htm www.sciencemag.org/about/podcast.dtl In this weekly UK podcast, Cambridge University’s Naked Scientists answer your science questions, interview This bi-weekly podcast presents research from Science top scientists and cover the latest science news. magazine and its news website. · 1 October 2006: Would you invest in an allergy-free cat, · 13 October 2006: Cancer therapy with monoclonal anti- what stimulated life’s diversity, how are magnets made, bodies, building the world’s biggest fusion experiment why is blood red, and how are leeches used in medi- (ITER), the neurobiology of face recognition, and more. cine? And more. (57 min) (30 min) · 17 September 2006: Peruvian mummies, why exercising · 15 September 2006: The oldest writing from the New can keep your guts healthy, environmental clues in World (1000 BC), the most precise test yet of relativity, geo- 10 000-year-old pollen, and how to make your own engineering to prevent climate change, and more. (34 min) futuristic forcefield. And more. (56 min)
90 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 91
Resources on the web
The Science Show: Podcasts in German www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/subscribe/ dradio Wissenschaft und Forschung: A review of this week’s news about scientific research, www.dradio.de/rss/podcast/sendungen/forschak/ scandal and discovery, from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. A table of contents allows you to skip direct- Science news from Deutschland Radio. ly to the topic of interest. · 1 November 2006: To make more use of wind power, · 13 October 2006: Ancient coral reefs, how our ancestors new methods of storing energy are necessary. (3 min) lived 3.5 million years ago, the applications of RNA · 27 October 2006: What happens to our rubbish after it is interference, other Nobel-Prize winning research, and collected for recycling? A new Dutch robot demonstrates more. (49 min) just how finely the different types of rubbish can be sep- · 29 September 2006: The environmental cost of your PC, arated – with sufficiently high-tech equipment. (4 min) what affects Australia’s climate, whether the dinosaurs died of constipation, and more. (49 min) Fraunhofer podcast (also in English): www.fraunhofer.de/fhg/data/pub5/dcp/jsp/dcp67165 Teachers’ TV News: _67166.jsp www.teachers.tv/podcasting Short podcasts presenting research from Germany’s The weekly Teachers’ TV News video podcast covers the Fraunhofer institutes. latest UK education news stories, interviews and analysis. · 4 October 2006: Applications of nanotechnology range · 22 September 2006: Schoolgirl violence, primary school from car manufacture to medicine. (7 min) truancy, school meals, and other news stories. (25 min) · 20 September 2006: White biotechnology – using plants · 15 September 2006: Is modern life poisoning childhood, to manufacture raw materials. (4 min) does drug education work, compulsory language learn- ing, how war is robbing children worldwide of educa- Helmholtz Schongewusst podcast: tion, and other news stories. (25 min) www.helmholtz.de/audio/schongewusst.xml These short podcasts present gems from the wide range The Week from The Scientist: of research carried out at Germany’s Helmholtz institutes. www.the-scientist.com/xml/podcasts/ · 10 October 2006: Acid bath or swimming lake? How theweek/index.xml bacteria can make the difference. (3 min) This weekly podcast from the popular life science · 4 October 2006: Deep-frozen history in the Antarctic. magazine, The Scientist, presents recent science news (3 min) and research. · 13 September 2006: Nutrigenomics: why what your Pisa Polizei: grandmother ate when she was pregnant with your www.ndr.de/podcastlink/pisa.xml mother may affect your children’s health. (18 min) Not always science, but definitely education-related. 2 June 2006: RNAi toxicity, blood diseases involving · These daily podcasts from the Norddeutscher Rundfunk SNPs and how Italy should fund its research. (15 min) investigate the general knowledge of Hamburg’s teenagers. Scary and hilarious. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution podcast: · 12 October 2006: What is the Periodic Table? (1 min) www.whoi.edu/services/graphics/WHOIPodcast.xml · 17 August 2006: What is 3% of 100? (1 min) Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA, describe their research in marine science To suggest types of websites that you would like us to and the fascinating, scary and beautiful moments review, or to tell us about your own favourite websites, involved. Choose between video or audio-only podcasts. email [email protected]. In the subject field of 30 May 2006: Rhian Waller describes – and shows – · the email, please include the text ‘Website review’. deep sea corals and investigates how they reproduce. (6 min) · 20 March 2006: Susan Humphris explains what hydrother- mal vents are and why they are important. (4 min)
www.scienceinschool.org Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 91 SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 11:34 Uhr Seite 92
Back in the staffroom
The neutron teaspoon
steel spoons and were discarded from Jonathan Swinton pushes back the subsequent analysis on the grounds frontiers of knowledge – in his kitchen. that no one visualises a Teletubbies spoon full of neutron star. The plastic spoons did have heaped loads com- t is well known that a teaspoonful including the rarely seen spot right at parable with the metal spoons, possi- Iof neutron star is really quite the back with the pastry crimper) con- bly because of increased surface ten- heavyw1. This would provide a way to taining teaspoons believed not to sion. The 11 steel teaspoons had a estimate the density of a neutron star, have been previously used to unscrew mean level volume of 2.66 ml (stan- in units of ‘really quite heavy’ per things. These comprised: in shiny dard deviation 0.37 ml) and heaped millilitre, were the volume of the tea- metallic (steel), five wedding-list tea- volume of 4.2 ml (standard deviation spoon known in millilitres. We report spoons, acquired at time of marriage 0.46 ml). Intriguingly, the positive the surprising results of a series of to teaspoon expert, with subsequent control had a level load of only 3.2 ml determinations here. resupply at time of critical inability to and was reclassified as a vacillating find any teaspoons at all in this control. bloody house (Lim et al, 2005), two Ikea teaspoons, two unbranded Conclusions spoons (made in China), and two · Teaspoons do contain about 5 ml, Winnie the Pooh spoons (superior but only when you heap them. E. H. Shepard version); in plastic, · Although NASA is wrong and three spoons from technical suppliers author’s spouse may appear to be (Teletubbies, Mothercare, and Heinz right, power effects mean that Baby Basics), and the measuring acknowledgement of this from such spoon from the breadmaker. A 5 ml a small sample size is unlikely. medicine spoon was used as a posi- · Water in surface tension looks tive control. rather beautiful close up. · Where’s the rest of the breadmaker? Methods Preliminary studies revealed sur- References prising differences between the vol- Lim MS, Hellard ME, Aitken CK ume in a level teaspoon and a heaped (2005) The case of the disappearing teaspoon. Assessment of level loading teaspoons: longitudinal cohort was subject to parallax errors when study of the displacement of tea- The Crab nebula, hiding a rotating neutron star evaluated from the height of the spoons in an Australian research 6-year-old technical assistant, institute. British Medical Journal 331: Literature review although these were minimised by the 1498-1500. DOI: Estimates of the volume of a tea- beginning of The Simpsons and the 10.1136/bmj.331.7531.1498 spoon vary from 1.5 ml (NASAw2) to subsequent author-only experiments. 5 ml (author’s spouse). However, Assessment of maximum loads was Web references both sources have been known to be performed by watching for the first w1 - The Wow of Physics: the Amazing in error: the Hubble Space Telescope drip, and required a steadier hand Variability of the Neutron Star for the former, and an unpublished than likely available. Replications Teaspoon: www.swintons.net/ occasion for the latter. were not performed so as not to com- deodands/archives/000075.html plicate the analysis of variance. w2 - A Teaspoon of Starstuff Materials http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs All identifiable teaspoons were Results /teachers/lifecycles/LC_main_p11. gathered from two locations (author’s Plastic teaspoons were found to be html dishwasher and cutlery drawer, consistently smaller level loaders than
92 Science in School Issue 3 : Winter 2006 www.scienceinschool.org SIS_78-93_3-06++ 15.11.2006 13:03 Uhr Seite 93
About Science in School Contact us Science in School aims to promote inspiring science teaching by encouraging Dr Eleanor Hayes Editor of Science in School communication between teachers, scientists and everyone else involved in European Office of Information and Public Affairs science education. European Molecular Biology Laboratory Science in School addresses science teaching both across Europe and across Meyerhofstrasse 1 disciplines: highlighting the best in teaching and cutting-edge research. It covers not 69117 Heidelberg only biology, physics and chemistry, but also maths, earth sciences, engineering and Germany medicine, focusing on interdisciplinary work. [email protected] The contents include teaching materials; cutting-edge science; education projects; Submissions We welcome articles submitted by scien- interviews with young scientists and inspiring teachers; education research; book tists, teachers and others interested in reviews; and European events for teachers. An online discussion forum will enable European science education. Please see the direct communication across national and subject boundaries. author guidelines on our website for details. Science in School is published quarterly and is freely available online; print copies Reviewer panel are being distributed across Europe. Online articles are published in many European If you would be interested in reviewing languages; the print version is available in English. articles for their suitability for publication, please read the guidelines for reviewers on our website. 1) Attribution Non-commercial Credits Book reviewers Science in School is published by the Share Alike (by-nc-sa): If you would like to review books or other EIROforum (a collaboration between seven resources for Science in School, please read European inter-governmental scientific the guidelines for reviewing books on our research organisations: www.eiroforum.org) This license lets others remix, tweak, and website. and is based at the European Molecular build upon the author’s work non-commer- Biology Laboratory (EMBL: www.embl.org) cially, as long as they credit the author and Translators in Heidelberg, Germany. license their new creations under the iden- We offer articles online in many European tical terms. Others can download and redis- languages. If you would like to help us by Science in School is a non-profit activity, tribute the author’s work, but they can also translating articles into your own language, part of the NUCLEUS project supported by translate, make remixes, and produce new the European Union. please read the guidelines for translators on stories based on the work. All new work our website. Disclaimer based on the author’s work will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be Advertising in Science in School Views and opinions expressed by authors non-commercial in nature. and advertisers are not necessarily those of Science in School is the only European the editor or publishers. Furthermore, the author of the derivative journal aimed at secondary school science work may not imply that the derivative teachers across Europe, and across the full work is endorsed or approved by the author Subscriptions spectrum of sciences. It is freely available Science in School is freely available online of the original work or by Science in on the web and 30 000 full-colour printed and print copes are distributed across Europe. School. copies are distributed each quarter. Register online to: · Receive an email alert when each issue 2) Attribution Non-commercial The target readership of Science in School is published No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) covers all stakeholders in European science · Request a free print subscription teaching, including: (limited availability) · Secondary school science teachers Post your comments on articles in · Scientists · This license is often called the ‘free adver- Science in School · Science museums tising’ license because it allows others to · Join the Science in School discussion · Curriculum authorities forum. download the author’s works and share them with others as long as they mention Advertising rates Copyright the author and link back to the author, but · Full page: 3150 € With very few exceptions, articles in they can’t change them in any way or use · Half page: 2285 € Science in School are published under them commercially. · Quarter page: 990 € Creative Commons copyright licences, For further details, see We offer a 20% discount on advertisements under which the author allows others to http://creativecommons.org. that appear in four or more consecutive re-use the material as specified by the issues. appropriate license. All articles in Science in School will carry the relevant copyright logos (see above) or, To advertise in the printed version of These articles will carry one of two where these do not apply, the appropriate Science in School, please contact copyright licences: copyright notice will be appended. [email protected]. titel_SiS_Issue3_06_RZ 15.11.2006 13:19 Uhr Seite 1
Winter 2006 Issue 3
In this issue: Human diversity Alec Jeffreys’ early fascination with chemistry, and current work with Chernobyl survivors Also:
The power of the Sun
Published by the EIROforum: Supported by the European Union: Part of the NUCLEUS project:
ISSN: 1818-0353 Highlighting the best in science teaching and research