Spiral Theas and Chimera Cosmos

A friend and colleague of mine, Liz Dorland and I decided to organize a Second Life Eduator’s group.  We kept meeting these fabulous teachers who wanted to learn  more about the application of the virtual world to education and so, we thought, what the heck – let’s set up a workshop series for these teachers. We’ll meet for just an hour – two times per week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) for four weeks, as an experiment.  We can show them beginning navigational stuff, introduce them to basic building skills, and take them to other educational builds, favorites of ours, for inspiration.

For those of you unfamiliar with Second Life – it is an online virtual world that consists of a flat-earth simulation of roughly 1.8 billion square meters (if it were a physical place, it would be about the size of Houston, Texas). First launched in 2003, SL is an example of an immersive, three-dimensional (3D) environment that supports a high level of social networking and interaction with information.  Visitors can access the virtual world through a free, client program called the Second Life viewer. You enter the SL virtual world, which residents refer to as “the grid”, as an avatar (Second Life “users” are referred to as “residents”). Once there, you can explore environments, meet and socialize with other residents (using voice and text chat), participate in group and individual activities, and learn from designed experiences. Built into the software is a three-dimensional modeling tool, based around simple geometric shapes, that allows anyone to build virtual objects. These objects can be used, in combination with a scripting language, to add functionality.

While virtual worlds with their 3D landscapes and customizable avatars, seem similar to popular massively multiplayer online games, they do not adhere to the traditional definition of a game.  Virtual worlds, like SL, are more focused on socializing, exploring, and building.  As a result, there is an active educational community in SL. Over 300 colleges and universities have “builds” in SL where they teach courses and conduct research. A number of organizations (NASA, NOAA, NIH, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Public Radio), along with a host of government agencies, museums, and educational groups stage regular events, seminars and workshops in world.

Since I started exploring around in Second Life last year, it’s seemed to me to be a great way to involve students in science.  But before we can think about the applications with students, I knew we needed to get teachers in there.  So, Liz and I thought we’d start with these simple workshops.

Comicbook-Style Handouts, designed by Liz Dorland

What sounded like a relatively simple (and fun idea!) has turned out to be quite a bit of work – but it’s also even more fun that I would have imagined. First of all, it gives Liz and I an iron-clad excuse to investigate lots of interesting places and activities we’ve been wanting to learn about any way.  It’s also forced us to be more systematic about understanding the basics of getting around in Second Life (as always, you learn the most when you are going to teach). We’ve created handouts and step-by-step instructions for the participants. Then, of course, we needed an online place to store and display all of those, as well as a place to keep the schedule – so we built a wiki site for the group.  And then we wanted to document the sessions – so we started a Koin-Up group where everyone in the class can post photos.  Now, I’m experimenting with recording options so that we can archive the sessions.

This week, we had our first session.  13 teachers showed up (there will be 17 when everyone attends) and they’re from all over – Great Britain, Colorado, Missouri, Indiana, and Boston.  Some teach college students, some are curriculum developers, some teach primary years, and some secondary grades.  Men and women – older and younger – some experienced in SL and some brand spankin’ new.  I love the diversity.

Teachers in our Second Life "Skybox' Classroom

We started with some basic navigational stuff (creating landmarks, map reading, inventory) and then we teleported up to our skybox classroom.  Everyone learned how to “buy” a chair, find it in their inventory, and then rez it on their spot on the classroom floor.  Then we had a little lesson in camera controls, learning how to zoom in/out and focus.

After that. we teleported down to the ground and then bounced over to Chichenitza for a bit of fun.  Everyone picked up the free Mayan costume and then climbed the magnificent stairs to take in the view from the top.

I was very impressed with how well everyone did.  They seemed to follow along beautifully and were patient with the various technical hassles one inevitably has with a platform like this.  For Liz and me, it was great fun and a welcome challenge (that’s us, up there in the photo at the top of the post – I’m the one with the  yellow hardhat).  We work well together – trading off the various responsibilities, and supporting each other (I would never do this by myself!).  When one is leading the class, the other is adding helpful explanations to the backchat, taking snapshots, and giving extra support to those who need it.

Next week we’ll be visiting Yifeng Hu’s Department of Communications Studies virtual location.  Yifeng Hu is an instructor at The College of New Jersey (in Ewing, NJ) where she teaches a course called ‘New Media and Health Communications’.  As part of her course, Professor Hu take students into Second Life for activities, lectures, and touring. We’re going to visit her virtual campus and hear how she uses the virtual world with her students.  They’ve used their time in Second Life to, among other things, examine whether the communications theories they learn about in class are applicable in the virtual world. Here is an article about Professor Hu’s work.  We also hope to visit Michael Demers virtual classroom.  Dr. Demers teaches geology at New Mexico State University and has done some really interesting things (including how to use GIS equipment) with his students in the virtual world. Here’s an article about his experiences.

All in all, this is turning out to be a worthwhile experiment.  I’m learning so much from our “students” and seeing my way toward a path to make this work for students.  If anyone is interested in joining us, in world, drop me a line!

The Rusty Blackbird Blitz

Rusty Blackbirds are in decline and Kansas is part of their winter range. This “blitz”/survey is set up for the first two weeks of Feb. Check out the link for protocols. If you decide to get out and count blackbirds don’t just report to eBird; share your experience here on the KABT BioBlog.

An excerpt from the Cornell eBird website:

January 11, 2010

Singing male Rusty Blackbird, Alaska. Photo by David Shaw (www.wildimagephoto.com).

Populations of Rusty Blackbirds are crashing! Their numbers have plummeted by as much as 88-98% over the last few decades, according to data gathered between 1966 and 2006 for the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Christmas Bird Count. A species that was once considered to be abundant is rapidly disappearing before our eyes. Your observations can help save this species by arming scientists with critical information about its ecology. The Rusty Blackbird Working Group has developed the Rusty Blackbird Blitz, a winter survey whose goal is to count Rusty Blackbirds range-wide just prior to spring migration. From 30 January – 15 February, search for Rusty Blackbirds in your area and report your observations to eBird.

Mole cricket tattoo

Most of us worry about the growing list of endangered species, many of us donate time or money to groups who work to protect them, but how many of us have taken steps to promote the cause by tattooing images of extinct organisms on our bodies?  I mean, really.  I ask you?

Well, 100 dedicated folks in Great Britain have.  That’s how seriously they’re taking it.  It started with a group called ExtInk and a November, 2009 exhibit of drawings, illustrating 100 of the most endangered species in the British Isles. Creatures like the water vole, the tundra swan, and narrow-leaved hellaborine.  It concluded with the live tattooing of the drawings on 100 willing volunteers. Apparently, you had to apply for the priveledge of having one of these tatoos (would love to read a few of those letters!).  Here’s the full list of all the participants, along with which tatoo they received.

I love the idea of these 100 people, walking around as bold biodiversity ambassadors.  Can’t you imagine the conversation?  ”What’s that on your arm?”  …”Oh, that?  Well, that’s a red-backed shrike.  Let me tell you about it…”

blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla

NPR’s Science Friday had a great interview with evolutionary biologist, Martin Schaefer (Associate Professor, University of Freiburg, Germany) about his current research in bird evolution. The radio segment was pitched perfectly for AP Biology — a re-cap of Darwin’s finches, genetic variation in the population, natural selection, geographic and reproductive isolation, and more.

Here’s the summary from the Science Friday Web site:

“What does it take to change a species? New research details how people putting out birdfeeders may have influenced the evolution of a species of songbirds. Writing in the journal Current Biology, researchers describe how one species of European songbird, the blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla), has been split into two reproductively isolated groups in fewer than 30 generations. One group migrates to the southwest, the other to the northwest, overwintering in either Spain or the United Kingdom. The researchers found that the northwestern-migrating birds, which take advantage of birdfeeders in the UK, had developed rounder wings and longer, narrower bills than the southwestern birds.”

Listen here to find out more.

Kim Foglia

He sees the biology of stem cells as the greatest opportunity for teaching about evolution.He referred to a very disconcerting Scientific American map, rating the evolution treatment in state public school science standards.

Tissue specific stem cells give rise to the cells of a single tissue by first generating restricted progenitor cells that only can generate some of the cell types in any given tissue.  Important to remember that its the progenitor cells that are the real work horses of developmental biology – and this, says Dr. Noble, is a medical revolution. He pointed out some interesting medical applications you don’t hear much about.  For instance, a succesful tracheal replacement with stem cells, grown on trachael-shaped biomaterials, and a similar procedure for bladder reconstruction.

Another teaching opporutnity – stem cells and cancer.  Dr. Nobel reminds us that cancer uses the same tricks as developmental biology.  Every therapy we have is targetted at removing the tumor – but if you leave the cancer stem cells, the tumor grows back.  Now our treatments are focused on killing the cancer stem cells.

Another teaching opportunity with stem cells – toxicology.  The World Health Organization estimates that 30 -40% of the burden of disesae is due to environmental factors.  Dr. Nobel explains that there are 80-150k registered chemcials relesased into the environment for which we have no information (an assumption of safety).  We have 100’s of these chemiscals in our bodies.  But stem cell science helps us to  figure out what these chemicals do.  For instance lead inhibits frature repiar by inhiting mesenchymal stem cell fucntion.  Other toxicants alter development of the nervous system or are risk factors for disbetes or alzheimer’s.

Dr. Nobel suggests that questions about the beginnings of “human-ness” are at the heart of the controversy over stem cell research. There are differeing scientific perspectives on the beginnings of human-ness – conception, 40-days post conception, 120-days post conception.  Do iPS and reprogramming technologies offer us a way to side-step these controversies? Ethics exist along a temporal continuim. For instance, what should happen to blastocysts, frozen in IVF clinics, that are currently targeted for destruction?

Dr. Nobel also suggests including the exmination of false claims in our biology teaching. For instance, “Adult-derived cells have successfully treated more than 70 diseases.”   But if you spend time with the list of diseases, most of them are bone marrow trasnplants.  So that is a false claim and its interesting to investigate the claim with students to watch them get at exactly why that claim is wrong.

Bruce Calhoun, Save the Rainforest

Bruce Calhoun (President of Save the Rainforest, Inc, Las Cruces, New Mexico) gave a terrific talk on Saturday morning – Tropical Forest and the New Climate Change Agreement.  He showed some fabulous photographs of rainforest jaguars, cougars, pigmy opossums, bats, katydids, bromeliads, passion flowers, orchids, frogs,

You can watch online videos of Bruce, giving his rainforest talk to students.

Mario Capecchi's Stem Cell Keynote Address

It’s Saturday morning in Denver – and its cold.  We went from 70 degree temperatures to 30 degrees in one day and there’s a light dusting of snow.

This morning started early with the Stem Cell Education Summit.  The keynote speaker, Mario Capecchi, is the molecular geneticist best known for his work with knock out mice, for which he was the co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize. The title of the talk was “Stem Cell Therapy:  Hype or Reality?”  He started his talk with the answer to that titular question  - ‘There’s alot of hype, a little reality, and a tremendous amount of potential.”

Diseases that may be treatable by stem cell therapies:  Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, insulin dependent diabetes, spinal cord injuries, and heart disease. Dr. Cappechi pointed out that it’s not all future – that stem cell therapies that have been used for a long time with bone marrow transplants for leukemia patients.

He then went on to explain stem cells to the audience – they are unspecialized cell types in the human body that are capable of becoming a specialized cell type.  Stem cells are capable of self renewal and differentiation.  There are two major classes of stem cells – embyonic (extremely rapid growth and very versatile, pluripotent) and adult (slower growing, restricted and require a niche)

Embryonic mouse cells can be harvested, reintroduced, and functon to create mouse tissue.  We’re not there yet with humans and that’s why these stem cell therapies are still outside of our reach.

Then there’s the idea of reprogramming somatic cells to function as a different type of cell.  There are two techniques for this – the first is nuclear transfer (remove the current nucleus and put in a different one). That technique is very inefficient (low success rates) and the resulting organism is fragile.  The second is the Yamanaka method (inducing a forced exprssion of certain genes in a fibroblast) to create induced pluriplotent stem cells.

Dr Capecchi then turned his attention to stem cell work in the small intestine. The intestinal epithelium is the most rapidly self-renewing tissue (turns over every 5 days) in adult mammals. The stem cells of the small intestine are made in the crypt (at the base of the villus).  Interestingly, the small intestine almost never gets cancer, while the colon (which doesn’t regnerate like this) is a common cancer site. The gut has many different types of absorbing cells, as you move along the length of the intestine. So, it turns out there are a number of different stem cell populations in the small intestine – multiple populations making one tissue type – an added complexity that is critical to understand. Though this system had been studied for year, they didn’t have a marker.  A marker is really important for geneicsts because that’s their way in.

When asked how close are we to the clinic with this research, Dr. Capecchi said that  ”the safe answer is 20 years” and then went on to reiterate how complex this research is. He explainted that we’re going to hear a lot of claims in the coming years and, unfortunately, most of those successes won’t be real.  Even worse, it will be difficult to know whether or not the claims are valid .  He reminds us that there are cancer patients who get better, even wtihout therapy, so, in some cases, you won’t know whether the improvement with cancer patients is due to the stem cell therapy or some other factor. But he concluded by saying that there is tremendous potential here – that stem cell research will provide cellular solutions for cellular problems.

But the dialog is not one-way at the Town Hall.  Members can ask any question, challenge any decision, and offer suggestions as they see fit.  This year offered some good suggestions about potential future convention sites, member recruitment, NABT merchandise sales, and the annual banquet, which were dutifully recorded by yours truly to be posted to the Board of Directors and added to the ongoing discussion.

The Town Hall ended with Past President Todd Carter presenting outgoing President John Moore with a plaque to commemorate his year of service to NABT.

Digital Camera Use Workshop

I stopped in time to catch the tail-end of a workshop on using digital cameras in teaching, given by Brian Gross, Mike Kittel, and Brian Heeney.  They had some great ideas for using digital cameras in the classroom.

One of my favorites was a new piece of hardward I’d never heard of called the Eye-Fi. This is a wireless device that allows you to automatically and wirelessly download photos from your camera to your computer.  No more cables, no more fussing around.  Instant access to the photos on your camera. There’s a range of options – they recommnded the Eye-Fi Pro (which is $140) which functions without a router (the others, that are less expensive must traffic through a router). With this technology, you can use the pictures you take in class and instantly have them up there on the screen – “Look at Suzy’s concept map!”  or “Everyone look up here to see what group 3 figured out.”

As for digital camera recomendations – Brian says it’s hard to go wrong these days. You can get a perfectly good camera for $99.  If your camera is capable of taking photos at 8 or 10 megapixel resolution, they recommend reducing the resolution to 3-4 mega pixels as that is perfectly sufficient for most classroom or web use and the photos download much faster. If you are buying a bunch of cameras for student use, they do recommend getting cameras that take double A batteries, so that it’s easy to replace them (without having to recharge).

Tiger Direct is a web site they recommend for good deals on electronic equipment.  They also provided the link to a wiki site they built full of teaching resources.

The question was asked, how about having the students use the cameras in their cell phones if you can’t afford to buy classroom sets of digital cameras? One of the speakers said, yes, if you have excellent classroom management and set up the expectations in advance.  The other said that he doesn’t open the door to that.

Some of their ideas for using the camera:

- pictures of procedures in a lab

- pictures of students on the first day of class

- take pictures of students goofing off or sleeping, encourages more compliant behavior (thye cautioned that you do need waivers, avoid putting student photos online, and tellt he students that if they don’t want pictures taken of them, to just request it)

- pictures of models that the students assemble

- students taking pictures of their lab results

Good stuff.