http://online.chabotcollege.edu/shildreth/physci/bbphysci15hw2.html
Physical Science 15 Online - Chabot College - Scott Hildreth
The scientific method allows ordinary people to do extraordinary things -
Francis Bacon
Please make your initial post and responses by Thursday, 8/28 at 11:55 PM Pacific Time;
50 points total - 30 for your post, 20 for your replies to the posts of at least two other students.
Part 1: Stereotypes of Scientists
A. You can do this activity with friends or classmates, or especially with members of your family. Start by simply picturing in your mind a "scientist". Make a detailed mental image, and then describe in words, in a short typed, spell-checked essay of at least 2 paragraphs (250 words or more), posted on Blackboard, please:
What does the scientist look like? Include a description
of the clothes, hair, and personal characteristics of your image.
Be as detailed as you can about their characteristics, and list those
characteristics.
How does your mental image of the astronomer act;
that is, what behavioral and academic characteristics do you associate
with someone who is a scientist?
Where does this mental image come from, in your opinion? What influenced you to create this image? It could be that you know an scientist, or you have seen scientists on TV or movies, or you have a sense of what they might be like from books or magazine articles.
B. Analyze your description. Did you picture a scientist as male? As sharing a particular ethnicity (caucasian, asian, african, etc.)? Why?
C. Watch one of the videos at "The Physics Place" and share in a brief paragraph what you thought. Did Paul Hewitt fit your image of a scientist? :)
Part 2: The Scientific Method
D. Read one of the following short descriptions of the process of science. Comment in your essay about what you read, and what you thought of the website. Be sure to cite the article you read properly in your homework, and include it in a bibliography.
(Short) Steps of the Scientific Method.(2008) Kenneth Lafferty Hess Family Charitable Foundation. http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method.shtml. Accessed 1/12/08.
(Short) Scientific method. (2008, January 12). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientific_method&oldid=183784127 Accessed 1/12/08.
(Longer, deeper) Pine, Ronald (1999). Philosophy and the Scientific Method. (Excerpted from the book, Science and the Human Prospect, available online at http://home.honolulu.hawaii.edu/~pine/book1-2.html.) http://personal.tcu.edu/~dingram/edu/pine.html Accessed 1/12/08
(Longer, interactive) University of Utah (2003) The Scientific Method. ASPIRE. http://aspire.cosmic-ray.org/labs/scientific_method/sci_method_main.html
E. Could you be a scientist? Do you think you have the "right" characteristics? What qualities do you have that would be useful in science? What qualities do you think you have that would not be useful in science?
F. Consider what you know about Global Warming. What you do think? It is real? Is it hype? What media or information has influenced this opinion?