Using video games to teach science concepts

Melanie Stegman was another speaker at tonight's Science Rocks! event at the National Science Teachers Conference in Indianapolis. Melanie uses computers to help educate people about molecular science, especially the immune system. She has a Ph.D. in molecular genetics, biochemistry, and microbiology.

She is evaluating Immune Attack, a video game where the player navigates a nanobot through blood vessels and connective tissue to help a ill patient with a non-functional immune system. The game is designed to help teach people about the immune system in a fun, interactive format.

You can try out Immune Attack yourself at

http://www.fas.org/immuneattack/

Grand Hank does science his way

Grand Hank was a performer at the Science Rocks! event. I had never heard of him before, so I didn't know what to expect. He's quite an impressive science entertainer. The children in the audience loved him! He also has a great story about overcoming challenges to pursue higher education. And he does science raps! Really well! A lot of educators try to incorporate rap into lessons, but he was incredibly effective and engaging. Check out his website to learn more.

NSTA mtg: Day 1 Science Rocks!

Got to participate in breaking the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest group of people doing a science experiment at the same time. Over 700 people learned about polymers while experimenting with instant snow. Even though I've played with instant snow before, I learned something new about it today...when you add water to it, the polymer releases heat....this is probably best described as the heat of hydration. It's not a true textbook chemical reaction because the water is just trapped in the polymer structure. If you let the instant snow sit out for a while, the water will slowly evaporate. The evaporation causes the instant snow to become cool. If you let it sit out long enough, the instant snow will dry out and become a fine powder like it was before you added the water. So, the hydration process is reversible.

The message for the night was Science Rocks!, but I think the true message was "Anyone can be a scientist!" (the anthem that we sang at the end). They had an excellent panel of speakers, although it might have been better to have them as a separate event. I would have loved to learn more about the accomplished panel. After all, it's not every day that you have two astronauts, a mathematician, a race car driver, and a biochemist on the same stage, along with an excellent science entertainer and a highly regarded science journalist. Here's a link to a list of the speakers.

http://www.nsta.org/conferences/2012ind/sciencerocks.aspx

Check out my list of interesting science news stories and websites

I can't believe I forgot to post this information to my blog. Since December, I've been working on consolidating all of my science and science education website links onto an account on Delicious. I've also been posting current stories in science that I think might be particularly interesting to science teachers. When I have a chance, I include some comments about what drew me to the stories. I have over 1000 websites and current event stories posted. You can view my list, search for specific topics by the tags I've assigned, and even subscribe to receive an email whenever I add new content.

Here's the link to my Delicious page.
http://www.delicious.com/everydayscience

Sometimes my commentary for a story could really be its own blog post, but I forget to post it here. So, check out my Delicious page!