Category: 2011
Concord Consortium founder Bob Tinker will be a featured speaker at the California STEM Summit “Sparking Innovation in STEM,” held at UC Davis on October 10 and 11. Bob will describe a deeply digital future using Concord Consortium activities and resources.
NASA technology is being used to find fossil aquifers underneath Earth’s driest deserts. This technology was developed to explore underneath the surface of Mars, to help determine if there might be water on the red planet. Water is a sign that life might be possible. Why are they using this technology on Earth? We know […]
As plants grow, they transpire, releasing water into the atmosphere. During the summer in a city, trees help to cool the immediate surroundings through transpiration. New research from Carnegie’s Global Ecology department, published last month in Environmental Research Letters, concludes that transpiration has a global effect as well. How does this happen? Water vapor is […]
“Video games can unleash a learning revolution,” reports the Boston Globe. We agree. That’s why since 1994 we’ve been producing interactive digital activities—like our SPORE award-winning Molecular Workbench—in science and math for grades 4 and up. We’re tapping into the spirit of games to engage learners. And we’re excited to announce that we’ve just been awarded a new grant from the National Science Foundation. GeniGames will add game-based design elements to our Geniverse software. Students can learn about genetics by solving games of dragons and drakes.
Pumice, a type of volcanic rock, is so porous that it floats on water. Now researchers from Oxford University and the University of Western Australia are suggesting that life on Earth could have formed on floating rafts of pumice. The researchers argue that pumice has a unique set of properties which would have made it […]
What does irrigation have to do with climate change? Possibly a lot. According to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, irrigation has increased agricultural productivity by an amount roughly equivalent to the entire agricultural output of the United States. That’s a lot of increased productivity! All of those growing plants take up more […]
How can you tell when a scientific claim is bad? Look at the results. Compare the results from the models with what happened in real life. An August 2010 study published in Science claimed that drought induced a decline in global plant productivity during the past decade, posing a threat to global food security. Zhao […]
On September 12, 2011, a team of scientists announced that the HARPS telescope has identified more than 50 new planets; this is the largest number of planets ever announced at once. The HARPS telescope works by detecting the movement of stars. A star with an orbiting planet will be pulled towards the planet as it […]
Permafrost, the thick layer of soil that remains frozen throughout the year, currently holds a large amount of carbon. If the permafrost thaws, it will release the stored carbon, which could contribute to further warming. This is not new news. What is new is the idea that high latitude areas will become a carbon source […]
An interview with the Concord Consortium’s Dan Damelin.