Tag Archives: Science

This Will Make You Smarter edited by John Brockman (book review)

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I was first interested in This Will Make You Smarter because, well, I want to be smarter. I’ve always found learning about learning to be interesting.

In this book, over a 100 scientist and other intellectuals answer the question, “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?” The answers vary wildly and by-and-large are interesting and helpful.

I found it interesting that most people picked an idea outside of their expertise. That makes sense though: these are ideas from other branches of science that they found useful to their own studies and lives.

As one might expect of a book that includes Richard Dawkins, the anti-God bias in the book can, at times, be quite strong. I still think that there are plenty of things that can be learned from a book like this.

Another nit-picky thing is that this book is that it’s obvious that it’s a gathering of a large number of different people’s writings. While John Brockman does a good job of organizing them so that similar concepts appear together, some of the same facts and anecdotes show up several different times. This comes off as a bit disjointed.

If you’re someone who dabbles in science as I do, I would recommend this book. It’s not difficult to understand: it’s written for “everybody,” after all.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of  This Will Make You Smarter in exchange for this review.

 

School Day Memory: Science Nerd

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Another week closer to graduating, another trip down memory lane. This week’s destination: high school. Good ole 9th grade.

I’ve always been and always will be a nerd. Today I’m more interested in literature and politics, but back in the day I was really into math and science (still like the subjects, but I’ve kinda moved away from them). So, when Boyfriend-at-the-Time wanted to try out for Science Olympiad, a school science competition team of 15 competitors, I went with him.

Though we were in high school, the 9th graders got to compete on the middle school team. I went, made the team, and decided to join the team. Boyfriend-at-the-Time either didn’t make it or dropped out, probably the latter. We broke up not long after that, but I definitely didn’t mind being on the team without him. That’s where I got to know My-Next-Boyfriend too, and compete awkwardly beside him the next two years after we broke up.

The thing is, my middle school’s Science Olympiad team was really good. The several years before I joined, they had won regionals, won state, and went on to nationals. Everything was in place for us to do the same.

We flew through regionals and went on to state. Only the 1st place team was guaranteed to go to nationals, and sometimes the 2nd place team got to go, too. Though all the individual event medals are awarded separately to large schools and small schools, the all-around team medals were given to the best teams, regardless of their size. We were a large school, but our biggest competition came from a small school.

We appeared to be neck-and-neck going into the all-around awards, and we were about jumping out of our seats with nervousness when they started awarding the team medals. Third place…not us or our biggest competition. Second place…not us or our biggest competition. First place…us! We were so excited, especially since that meant that we were getting to go to nationals in Michigan, with days off school, free travel, and a lot of fun and studying (hey, we were nerds). We also found out we would be joined by the second place team.

After all the celebration was done, we went home with pleasant dreams of all the fun to be had in the coming weeks. I’ll never forget where I was the next day when I got the call, in our garden. It was from our team’s coach. She called to say that they forgot to include the small teams when considering the best team all-around. Not only were we not in first, but we were not in second. We had gotten 3rd place and were not going to get to go to the national competition.

Despite the disappointment, I went ahead and competed the next three years in our high school’s Science Olympiad team. Though we went to nationals each of those years (to Chicago, Spokane, and Colorado Springs) and I won two 4th place individual medals (man, it’s a rush to realize that you’re the 4th best high school in the nation, at anything), those celebrations weren’t as big because each time we were afraid that our win would be taken away from us.

Other school day memories:

Kindergarten and First Grade: Kisses and Skunks
3rd grade: Childhood Games and Railroad Ties Don’t Mix
4th grade: Watching Whales
7th Grade: Teacher Review
8th Grade: 100 Marble Pick Up
College Senior Year: Why Procrastination Might Not Be My Thing

School Day Memory: 100 Marble Pickup

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Okay, so by now you might have realized I’m kinda nostalgic about my school days coming to an end. To celebrate (not eulogize) such an occasion, I’m going to post a new memory of school each week through the semester. I’ll try to do one from each grade, but really I just want to offer you the best stories I have.

This first memory happened in 8th grade science class. I’ve always excelled at math and science, but I didn’t enjoy science when I was younger. I think it’s because they focused too much on the life sciences. I’ve never been a fan of learning about animals or the human body. Anyway, 8th grade is when my love of science started to emerge, thanks to a strict teacher, Mr. Hagan, who taught us basic chemistry and physics.

I didn’t like one of my fellow students very much; I’ll call him George. There really is only one type of personality that I generally have a problem getting along with, and that is my own. I like to be right and be in control, and there is simply not room for two such people in the same group. As an adult and a maturing Christian, I’ve learned to handle situations like these for the most part with grace, but this wasn’t the case when I was 14.

So, George was as strong-willed as I was, and we had known each other for years, so there was probably some built up tension between the two of us. One day in our science class Mr. Hagan put us in the same group for a project. I don’t really remember what the point of the project was, but I know that we had a cup full of marbles.

At one point during the project, I wanted to do it one way, and George wanted to do it another. I knew I was right, so I didn’t budge but stayed put. He kept pushing for his way, and in the process knocked my arm that was holding the cup of marbles. I saw it coming, but I did absolutely nothing to stop it.

Everyone looked up as hundreds of marbles clattered across the tile floor.

Clearly there was an issue between George and I, and we both blamed the other for the spilled marbles. Yes, I could have prevented it and it was certainly my fault that they were now rolling under the desks, but I didn’t care because I wanted to make a point by not preventing it from happening. I’m not saying what I did was right, but it’s what I thought was right at the time. After all, how could I be wrong?

Well, Mr. Hagan walks over and asked what happened. After we each told our side of the story, he makes George, all by himself, pick up all the marbles. I felt vindicated in what I did, and perhaps this sealed my love of science.