A Focus on a Beautiful Mind: Sidney Dancoff

Sidney Dancoff was a Pittsburgh Squirrel Hill Russian immigrant. He died in 1951 at 38 years old having already earned a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley under Robert Oppenheimer. He was a part of the research done for the Manhattan Project during WW II. He helped design the bomb and worked with Henry Quastler, a pioneer in radiology. One of his contributions to the world, Dancoff's Law: "The greatest growth occurs when the greatest number of mistakes are made consistent with survival." Or, in other words, risk-taking can have great rewards so long as it doesn't kill you. Ironically, in Dancoff's own life, this will be fatally reinforced as he died of cancer, lymphoma, which is believed to be caused from his work with the Manhattan Project, a theory supported by correspondence between Dancoff and Oppenheimer.
His main achievements in physics, he lead a life that had no promise of a very bright future as a child until his physics teacher convinced his grandfather to let him go to Carnegie Tech on private scholarships. With a B.S. in physics in 1934 he went on to receive a masters from the University of Pittsburgh in 1936. Then, at Berkeley, in their Radiation Laboratory, he helped develop the experimental program where cyclotrons were invented, built and tested. Cyclotrons are a type of particle accelerator.
Teaching physics at the University of Illinois, he as well as other physicists, produced the world's first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction for the Manhattan Project. He co-developed the Dancoff Factor now used in reactor calculations.


For pictures from WW II: Zincov, a center of thriving Jews before WW II was cleaned out in close to three years has been memorialized by the publishings of Alan Shulman at alanzolashulman.com


Lowry, Patricia. (April 10, 2011) He wrote the law on risk-taking. Sunday Magazine, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p1,4.
Contact: plowery@post-gazette.com

Response to Walking with Water, an article in the PGH Post-Gazette

On Sunday, April 10, 2011 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette featured an article in the Region section written by Ann Rodgers about an event held by the Spiritan Campus Ministry at Duquesne and Amizade, a Pittsburgh-based global service learning organization. The activity: Participants in the Water Walk make a 6.4-mile trek to simulate trips made by women in third world countries in order to provide water for their families. The walk was intended to raise money to support Amizade's efforts to build rainwater gathering systems in other countries.
Duquesne student, Emily Cowan shared about her experience volunteering in Tanzania. The response that children gave her when she opened a bottle of drinking water caused her to realize how important something that she takes for granted is for their daily lives. The next day she brought bottles for all the students but this time they saved them, causing her to realize even more how significant and valuable water was to them as they reserved the water for their families back home.
My response: Activities such as this help raise awareness that improved living is not always complicated or costly. The science and monetary resources involved in improving these families' lives is minimal but the improvement to their lives is phenomenal. Water to these communities can not only be far away though, it can also be very dirty and contaminated. Thus reinforcing: Activism is not a luxury; it is essential to our understanding the cost of responsible actions.

Actions Taken to Ensure Equal High Quality Science Instruction

The challenges I have faced in my efforts to improve the science program at my school and district include such things as not having a school district to impact. There is not much leeway that is given to a day to day substitute.
The school that I am at right now for long term subbing has been impacted by my doing what I can to fill out their science curriculum in kindergarten. They do not do much with it, but I try my best to get that in. I also send information on to the principal as I can. If I can send him links to grant possibilities, or events, contests, or anything of the like, I do. He has not done much with it so far though. He did copy a paper that I put in his mailbox and give it out to the various teachers that would benefit from it. I started a grant proposition from and electrical company. We could have gotten up to 10,000 dollars in funds, but then I would have had to write a big explanation of what I would do with the money and I won't even be there next year to fulfill it since I am a sub. That wouldn't have stopped me from passing it on to the right teacher except that the deadline is tomorrow and I do not have her contact information.

How have you overcome these obstacles? I haven't! I do not think that I can. I believe that I can wait it out until I do have the power and authority to make these advances. I have submitted to many applications that I want to create these types of changes but I need to be allowed the ability to do so and right now, I have none.

Do We Need a New Sputnik?

Op-Ed columnist Thomas E. Friedman (2010, January 17) in his article, “What’s Our Sputnik?” has a very strong position on the things he would like to see happening in the United States economy and in reference to education in the states. I have to say that I was pretty shocked at how bold he was in his claims. Yet, I also found it refreshing that he should be so clear in his thoughts about reform.



I think that we have a bigger issue here than we would like to think since science education is not the sort of thing that gives instant gratification. Science work can very well be hard work! I believe that many people like jobs where they are creating video games or playing video games in order to check for glitches. That type of technology training spawns many a volunteer. However the gross, meticulous, time consuming stuff like investigating what caused a pond full of organisms to all die out is something that even shows like "Bones" show scientists to be odd if they enjoy, perhaps even "off of their rockers". Also, since so many of the scientists that got their catalyst from events like Sputnik and are therefore at the age where they can retire should they so chose, it would seem to make it difficult for students to see that career choice as much different from choosing to join a knitting group with their grandma. "Nice" maybe, but not "cool". So, we need a facelift in the science field.

Sputnik brought about a surge of desire that was natural. We had to be better and we had to be better because we did not trust those who were ahead of us. It was a need to feel safe in a survival mode setting. Do we need that again? Well, I think that whether we need it again or not, we certainly should not be sitting around hoping and waiting for it to happen because I do not see such a thing coming around in the near future. Countries do not act the same way. Like Friedman wrote, why threaten to bury us when they can do so much more damage by bankrupting us?(p.1)



No, rather than waiting, we need to see that there is already a threat of extinction that comes through our co-investor in the United States, China. No, there is no obvious and severe threat the China will try to overtake us and force communism down our throats, but even now I see little promise that we can keep up with China and keep our economic strong hold for long. It looks inevitable that China will be the next economic leader and will set the tone for what they want the rest of the world to be able to do in these fields.

But, how can we try our best to stay viable? I think that Friedman has a great point. We have to stop spending so much of our money, time and energy trying to fix all the other nations! I think that we need to invest a good amount of our time and energy on engaging our own people, young and old, in learning more about STEM related fields and doing it in such as way that the information is valuable to them. So often Americans are surrounded by lectures about things. "Well, you should really not drink this, it is so bad for you...well you really SHOULD drink this, it is really good for you..." But, the chemical "details" behind it, the logical reasoning or science methods used to reach that conclusion are not shared. So, faulty pseudosciences has caused many a person to just stop listening and to have no greater understanding or impact in their health than they did before. I believe we need to be more willing to teach people and less trying to force them to act or be a certain way. Let them take ownership of their own knowledge and stop acting like you have the corner on what they have to do.



Friedman, T. L. (2010, January 17). What’s our sputnik? [Op-Ed]. The New York Times [Late Edition (East Coast)], p. WK.8.

Modeling Earth Science instructional plan

Reflections:
How did the use of a model work for you and your students?

I was not completely sure how to make use of a model in discussing the biomes of the earth. The students will themselves be creating a diagram after they learn about all the biomes. They will chose an animal and create it's living environment. So, I was thinking of how to make use of a model that would display their knowledge of where the various biomes are and why they are there. I decided to use that as an interactive thing so that I would describe a biome and then ask them to predict where they believed it would be based off of what they know about the relationship that the sun has on weather and seasons. Later, I made them create a model of the types of trees one would find in each of the taiga and temperate deciduous forests and explain in writing why it is that they would be found there.





Share the triumphs and challenges of using models in an effort to support student understanding of complex science concepts.

Well, I think that these activities helped me to be able to see where each student's misconceptions were. Since the students went outside for a walk to look at examples of how plants adapt to the winter season in western PA, that became a part of their answers for the model. In some cases, they became the answer for BOTH biome choices though and although I am fond of oak trees, I am pretty sure that they would not do well in the taiga biome regions. So, what I believe I would do is just like after asking students to predict where they biomes are, I showed them the real places, I would also do the same thing with the trees. I can show them examples of particular plants and then explain to them why those plants can or can not live in various biomes.

I would love to make this a game sort of like memory. I could make cards that have the pictures of various trees/plants and then have listed information on the card about the biome that it lives in and why it needs to be there. Students could either match up the same picture, or be able to take up pairs according to their biome, or a partnership between a plant and an organim in that biome or something like that! Through this sort of game the facts could be reinforced while the students are also having fun.

Creating Compassionate Students

Natural disasters happen regularly, yet how often do we really pay attention to what is going on? I know that for me, most of the time it takes something happening within my backyard, or a very big event that everyone surrounding me will be talking about.

I believe that we can create more compassionate students in class by tying significant natural disasters into our science study in related events. If I am teaching on weather instruments and scientist, I would probably include some information on the hurricane that went through Galveston, Tx in 1900 and discuss how important studying the weather is because the people there did not believe that anything was going to happen to them.

I believe that a good incentive for my students would be to allow them to bring in recent events news clippings on natural disasters. They get extra credit, and even a chance to discuss it in class (which has the added incentive of being a small break from the regular activities), and then I can use those readings as a way to connect the science concepts to reality. If students are able to relate what we learn in class or in homework back to the events we read about, talk about, and post on the classroom wall, then they can get extra credit for either presenting that to the class orally or visually along side the news clippings. Students will also get credit for presenting information on organizations that they have found which help during these events. I would set an example by including the major ones in any unit that I do on a given natural disaster. In this way, I believe that students can become more aware of their surroundings, what the information they receive means, and how to respond to this information with compassion and understanding.

Ecological Exploration with a Touch of Sense

Since I do not have my own class, I was using the students from my sister’s third and fourth grade class for my lesson. These students have a forty-five minute block for science time. Ironically, that block also includes packing up for the end of the day, so my time with them was brief.
I wanted the students to understand ahead of time what the goals were so, although I planned on discussing the standards, instead I briefed the students on the objectives. I explained that since they were learning about their senses, and I needed to do a lesson on ecology, that we were going to observe nature because no matter what is being studied in science, a scientist relies on their senses to help them in their work. Yet, I also pointed out that for this lesson no one is allowed to use their sense of taste since I did not want anyone to become sick. I quickly handed out blank journal books and instructed students to label it with their name and a nature book title. I told them that our time would be brief and so they should use it wisely and then I took them outside with field study books to sit on benches and identify the trees.
Students were so excited about finding things. They noticed any number of organisms surrounding them including miniscule mushrooms.

At first, some students were searching for birds. I told them to first focus on the trees surrounding them. It took them a while to adjust their focus since their hopes were on birds but about half way through the lesson, some hawks started circling above us. They were gorgeous! The students loved to watch! Not much later a murder of black birds showed up and students drew them. In between that time, some students spotted a snake. It was about 3 feet long! We identified it as a garter snake and discussed why students do not need to be concerned about them living on the school grounds.

About half way through, students were looking more at the bark of trees and the things growing on them.



They looked at small seeds and nuts on the ground.
They started wandering further out to study more trees. Many students were numbering each organism they identified and using pencil rubbings to record leaf patterns.
Students met the goals with flying colors. Although I would have loved for us to be able to create their own presentation about what they saw, we never would have had enough time for it. Still, they did observe well for the time that they had. And, although I would have loved for the students to be able to collect more information, it is really impossible to research what all the various plant types are with third and fourth graders in a forty some minute block.

The lesson was successful because the students were intent and responsible in their research and collection of information. They loved going out and searching around them. It was like a scavenger hunt for them. They loved thinking about what plants were and collecting leaves or seeds. It was good for the students to practice looking in books to identify trees, but it was a bit awkward since it is a new procedure for them. The next time I would prepare them ahead of time by showing them how to use a field book appropriately. I believe that we could make a better use of time for a number of students that way.
The backward process worked well. I have used that process now for many years. It is what I was taught by my professors during college. I appreciate how a teacher does not lose sight of the final goal when this is used.

In closing, students discussed connections between what they saw, and how those organisms relate to each other to create our school environment. Students did very well in recognizing relationships and causal effects.