For Edline Users!  

It is possible to insert graphs, pictures, or diagrams into Edline quizzes.  Shown below is a partial quiz I created on Edline where questions 14 - 16 require a phase diagram (PD water.dox).  The phase diagram pops up for the students to use for the questions.

To insert the file in a quiz or assignment, 1) create the quiz using the Quiz Builder.  2) Next click the at position where you want insert the file and 3) select Hand-Out (file attachment handed out by you).  Save your work normally and your done.

Thanks goes to Mike Sirowich (Physics Teacher) for explaining this to me, although Mike Oberdick, Tech Integration Specialist at our school probably has this on his blog (Tech Messages)!

Reaching for Excellence: Clara Lazen

It is amazing to see that discovery can still be accomplished where the only tools are an imagination and wooden kits in this day age where high-tech computer modeling is so prevalent.  Although the testing to see if this molecule is stable was done with computer modeling.

It is especially amazing since Clara Lazen is only 10 years old.  Kudos to Clara and her teacher, Kenneth Boehr, who recognized that molecule could exist and sent it on to be tested.  Also, kudos to Robert Zoellner for for keeping the inspiration alive and publishing a paper that includes Clara and Kenneth.

A recent news article “Origin of Dinosuar-Killing AsteroidRemains a Mystery” posted on the NASA website by Whitney Clavin and TrentPerrotto the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has ruled out the hypothesis that a remnant from an Asteroid known as Baptistina caused the dinosaur extinction 65 mya.  According to the article, the Baptistina hypothesis was proposed in 2007 based on studies from ground-based telescopes.

I remember when the Baptistina hypothesis came out, in fact I wrote a related article on the extinction and refrenced it (Dinosaur Demise from a Collision: A Theory in the Making).  This work great in more ways than one.  Although the WISE data indicates that Baptistina is not the killer asteroid, it shows how science is done.  Sometimes new information, experiments, and observations support theories and hypotheses and sometimes they don’t.  If the data supports a hypothesis it may be moved into the realm of a theory, if it does not, it may be dropped.

We always teach and discuss the successful theories but we rarely teach or discuss unsuccessful theories and such.  I would like to say I will talk more about unsuccessful theories, but with so much information, much of it new, and dwindling time during the school year due to increased administration demands on teachers, I find it unlikely.  However, this one was short, recent, interesting, and most importantly, on my mind so I can discuss this with my students.