A Successful Educational Collaboration between Scientists and Educators: Microscopic Explorations

The Microscopy Society of America (MSA) is beginning a long-term educational effort; the first goal of the program is to bring the excitement of microscopy to middle schools. We'll begin by developing a curriculum manual that integrates an understanding of how lenses magnify with observation of the microworld; examples will be from both physical and biological sciences. Funding will come from NSF and private foundations, and science education expertise will be provided by the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, a leading developer of science curriculum. As educators often use acronyms, we've named ours MICRO, for Microscopy In Curriculum - Research Outreach. Writing a manual is just the beginning. MSA is directing its first effort at middle schools, because teachers at that level who want and need to teach science often lack the background to do so as anything more than a dull textbook exercise; teacher training workshops will be offered nationally.

MICRO, an acronym for Microscopy In Curriculum—Research Outreach, is the outreach program for middle schools sponsored by the Microscopy Society of America (MSA). Middle schools are the battleground for minds of young people because this is an important time for students to make decisions about whether to take science classes in high school. Unfortunately, the majority of middle school teachers are not adequately prepared to teach science; therefore, additional exposure to science may encourage students' interest.

Bridging Worlds Through Images: The Microscopy Society of America’s New <i>Micrographia</i> and the Future of Microscopy Publishing

Microscopy and Microanalysis 2005 promises to be a dynamic meeting proving that good science can transcend national boundaries. In addition to the usual sponsoring societies, the Microscopy Society of America (MSA) and the Microbeam Analysis Society (MAS), the International Metallographic Society (IMS) will again be a co-sponsoring society of the meeting. We are also fortunate that with the prime location of the meeting in Hawaii, many of the Pacific Rim Microscopy Societies will be joining us for the meeting. These include the Committee of Asia-Pacific Societies for Microscopy (CAPSM), the Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Society (AMMS, Inc.), the Australian Microbeam Analysis Society (AMAS), and Microscopy New Zealand (MNZ). This truly international representation will provide attendees with the opportunity to observe how microscopy and microanalysis are advancing multiple fields of science in much of the world. The M&amp;M 2005 Executive Program Committee, comprised of co-chairs from each of the participating societies, has put together a comprehensive scientific program that will address a variety of cutting-edge topics in the applications of microscopy in the biological and physical sciences and in the development of new instrumentation and techniques.

The study, carried out in Ankara, Turkey, examined the effect of Middle East Technical University's Science Centre (METU SC) on students' attitudes towards science. The sample consisted of 251 students. The age range of the students varied from 11 to 14. The attitude scale was administered before, immediately after, and one week after a visit to METU SC. Because of the limitations on sampling procedure, two different research designs were used. Design 1 was a quasi-experimental design and arranged to determine the impact of METU SC on sixth graders' attitudes towards science with respect to the six constructs of the attitude scale, namely ‘Learning science in school’, ‘Self-concept in school science’, ‘Practical work in school science’, ‘Science outside of school’, ‘Future participation in science’, and ‘Importance of science’. Design 2 was a weak experimental design and arranged to determine the impact of METU SC on students' overall attitudes towards science with respect to their gender, grade levels, and science achievement levels. The results of this study suggest that science centres might have high potential on increasing students' attitudes towards science in all dimensions of the attitude scale, except for ‘Practical work in school science’. Furthermore, this increase is independent of gender, science achievement, and grade levels. Also, considering that this achievement was accomplished in quite a short time, science centres can be used by educators as an effective way of increasing students' attitudes towards science.

As long ago as 2001, the director of the Science Museum of Virginia, Richmond, USA, in an article for ASTC Dimensions, described his institution as a “community powerhouse.” He rightly pointed out that science museums and science centers have many roles to play in serving their communities, many of which can only be fulfilled through “outreach.” Outreach is capable of many definitions, but one which applies well here is “any systematic effort to provide unsolicited and predefined help to groups or individuals deemed to need it.” This is not a new form of education: as early as 1891, the “science demonstrator” to the Birmingham School Board in England had adopted an outreach program which circulated science teaching equipment and samples to schools in a handcart. The motivation, then as now, was to provide resources where they were most needed – economically and efficiently and in a timely manner. Science museums and science centers embraced outreach from their early years. Museum loans of natural history specimens to schools were common during the twentieth century, and early-established science centers like the Ontario Science Centre were taking programs to remote areas (and, in the specific case of OSC, education programs for students and teachers in the schools for Canadian Forces based in Germany). In the succeeding years, the reasons for conducting science museum outreach have become more subtle. A process which may have begun as a profile-building exercise or for meeting a resource deficit has evolved into a developed sense of responsibility for promoting community engagement – in ways that are similarly practiced by orchestras, football teams, opera houses, and theater companies. Such engagement may be socially motivated (e.g., in using outreach programs to promote social cohesion) or driven by a wish to take science directly to the public. An important element in science museum outreach activity is engagement with the formal education system through visits to primary and, less frequently, to secondary high schools. Examples from around the world are now chosen to illustrate the various methods and motivations for delivering outreach programs from science museums and science centers. The broadcast media and online activity are excluded from this account, as they are treated separately elsewhere. The Shell Questacon Science Circus claims to be “recognised as the most extensive and longest running touring science centre outreach program in the world.” Using a large vehicle and a team of presenters, it offers school shows, professional development for teachers, a traveling science center for the community, and extension activities for senior high school students. This is a model which has been adopted worldwide and indeed was being used, e.g., by the Ontario Science Centre, as early as 1971. The Australian science circus has another purpose; however, it is a core component of the training of future science communication professionals who are following a Master’s program at the Australian National University, Canberra. It has also undertaken an “ambassadorial” visit to China. Science on the move, using vehicles ranging in size from caravans to tractor-hauled multi-wheel trailers can now be found on every continent. Heureka, the Finnish science center, has even offered science shows on cruise ships in the Baltic. PROMUSIT is the traveling museum program from MCT-PUCRS, the interactive Museum of Science and Technology run by the Catholic University of

On October 11, 1745, a German scientist Ewald Georg (Jürgen) Kleist in Cammin in Pommern (today Kamień Pomorski) discovered both the phenomenon of storing electricity in a glass vessel with water, and a new device – an electric capacitor. Kleist quickly and correctly announced his discovery to the scientific community.The greatest help in confirming the discovery and its publication was received by Kleist from Daniel Gralath who was active in the first Polish Society for Experimental Physics Societas Physicae Experimentalis in Gdańsk.At the beginning of 1746, in the Dutch Leiden, in the workshop of the famous professor Pieter Musschenbroek, an experiment was conducted similar to the one in Cammin. The information about the Leiden experiment quickly reached Paris, the centre of European science of that time, and which lead to a proclamation of a new, very important physical discovery. The experiment gained wide publicity in Europe thanks to numerous public repetitions. The French promoter of the Leiden experiment was physicist Jean-Antoine Nollet.The discoverer’s fame was unjustly attributed to Musschenbroek and Leiden, although Daniel Gralath reported Nollet’s letter about Kleist’s priority. From the moment of discovery to modern times, scientific publications in the field of physics and history of science often misrepresent the person of the discoverer, the place of discovery and its name.The aim of the article is to present a broad overview of the reports, descriptions and opinions contained in scientific publications about the discovery. In the review presented in the article, 117 books are divided by country of issue, language and time of publication. The most frequent errors were classified and assigned to the analyzed publications. The result turned out to be surprising, as only 6 items were free of errors, and in the remaining, 254 errors were found. Unfortunately, in both former and contemporary publications, Kleist is sometimes ignored, and even if noticed, his discovery is usually depreciated in various ways. It may come as a surprise that the first two works on the history of electrical research written in the eighteenth century by Daniel Gralath and Joseph Priestley correctly and profoundly convey the course of events and the priority of Kleist’s discovery. It turns out that the French untrue version of the history of this finding is still alive, especially in European countries, so that pupils, students and physics enthusiasts receive a false message about this important discovery.In the circle of reliable researchers in the history of science, the priority of Kleist’s discovery is widely recognized, but even they have a problem with naming the electric capacitor discovered by the Cammin physicist differently than the Leiden jar. One of the reasons for the poor knowledge of Kleist and his experiment is scant scientific literature on the subject and the ignorance of the source texts written by the Cammin explorer. This gap is bridged by a scientific monograph written by the author of the present article. The text of this paper complements the information presented in the author’s book entitled Ewald Georg Kleist – Wielki odkrywca z małego miasta (A great discoverer from a small town): Kamień Pomorski 1745 (Warszawa: Instytut Historii Nauki PAN, Stowarzyszenie Elektryków Polskich, Zachodniopomorski Uniwersytet Technologiczny w Szczecinie, 2018).

This article explores the challenge presented to governments and the scientific establishment by physicists who campaigned internationally on behalf of their Soviet scientific colleagues in the early 1980s. Cold War science operated in a highly charged environment: while the work of scientists on both sides of the Cold War divide was sponsored and closely guarded by government and military agencies, scientists were also at the forefront of activist challenges to human rights infringements suffered by their colleagues. The article explores the motivations for and limitations of a moratorium on participation in scientific exchange with the Soviet Union launched by the California-based group “Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov and Shcharansky” (sos). It considers the ways that both professional identity and Cold War dynamics shaped this solidarity campaign. sos sought to build their activism on a transnational basis and worked closely with scientific colleagues in Europe to do so. They pitched a campaign that appealed beyond the university and national scientific laboratories to a broad range of people who identified as scientists. Unlike many contemporary scientific organizations, the sos leadership embraced the political nature of such activism. As a whole, this article shows how scientists navigated different political and scientific contexts when organizing support for their Soviet colleagues.

Research Article| May 01 1998 A Study of the Role of Research Scientists in K-12 Science Education Marvin Druger, Marvin Druger Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar George Allen George Allen Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The American Biology Teacher (1998) 60 (5): 344–349. https://doi.org/10.2307/4450492 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Marvin Druger, George Allen; A Study of the Role of Research Scientists in K-12 Science Education. The American Biology Teacher 1 May 1998; 60 (5): 344–349. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/4450492 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe American Biology Teacher Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright The National Association of Biology Teachers Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Some Research Wants to Be Free, Some Follows the Money: Bogus Journals Complicate the Open Access Movement

The article discusses the legal regulation of interrelated intellectual property and genomic research results within the transition of the Russian Federation to the digital economy. The relevance of the issue under research is determined by the need to improve legislation on the legal regulation of genomic research related to achieving the purposes set out in the national program “Digital economy of the Russian Federation.” The purpose of the paper is to determine the main directions for improvement of the regulatory framework relating forms and methods of using the genomic research results and effective legal mechanisms for the application of the intellectual property to fulfill the Digital Economy program. The main approaches of the research are cross-sectoral, dialectical and systemic. These approaches make it possible to comprehensively study whether the regulatory framework applies to intellectual property to solve the problems of the introduction of genomic research results within the implementation of the national program “Digital Economy.” Results: the paper investigates the current status of legal regulation of genomic research and discovers the peculiarities of the application of the intellectual property to solve the problems of introducing the results of similar research into the economy. We described the applicability of individual intellectual property objects in the field of introducing the genomic research results, including production secrets (know-how), databases and works of science. We state that the most suitable legal regime for introducing the genomic research results into civil commerce will be the legal regime of copyright law objects.

The interpenetration of global challenges and local threats accelerates the transition to more innovative and digital economic models, adopting a balanced approach that prioritizes economic growth, environmental protection, and equal access to resources, benefits, and opportunities for all members of society. In the extreme conditions of war, with limited resources and an urgent need for accelerated production, business plays a crucial role in supporting the economy and stability, demonstrating resilience, adapting to the external environment, retaining employees, and even planning for further development. Critically important for the regions is the small and medium scale of its operation, which stimulates economic growth, mitigates social tensions, and contributes to market saturation, supporting their livelihoods. Dynamic changes in the processes of forming a competitive environment, ensuring market flexibility, and introducing sought-after technologies focus the attention of small and medium-sized businesses, in addition to the need for state support for the regional economy, simplifying access to financing, improving infrastructure, the search for significant, yet unrealized opportunities, hidden strengths and prospects inherent in the chosen economic concept, which can be used to achieve specific goals or solve tasks of implementation and development or change. In this context, decision-making should be linked to regional demand from small and medium-sized businesses for 'smart tools' with the potential to promote comprehensive modernization, innovative development of competitive advantages in priority sectors in synergy with an integrated environment for knowledge generation, development of new technologies and products in various forms of partnership and joint management. For empirical analysis, the article uses official statistical reports from international organizations (EPC, CEPS, European Business Association, EU Science Hub − JRC, ICDT), analytical reviews of business publications (NV Business, Interfax-Ukraine, Stock World, UA-Region), scientific publications by leading authors, and the results of surveys and expert interviews conducted in different regions of the country. The study conducts a comparative analysis of the conceptual capabilities of the innovative and smart economy in ensuring the recovery and further development of regions in extreme external conditions. The article utilizes data systematization and visualization to clearly reflect the regional features of smart specialization in small and medium-sized enterprises. The results show that the application of the conceptual principles of start-specialization in the country's regions is becoming an effective tool for accelerating innovative development and increasing competitiveness, which contributes to the growth of small and medium-sized businesses with potential technological, social, and environmental advantages. The success of implementation depends on the level of partnership between the government, business, and science, with the main challenges related to resource constraints and the extreme conditions of a dynamic environment. Significant advantages of the innovation cluster as an effective form of integrating production, science, and the state, based on the principles of specialization, were also identified. The study demonstrated that the primary characteristics of an innovation cluster in the region include regional concentration of enterprises, scientific centers, and institutions related to the industry, characterized by intensive information exchange, a common specialized infrastructure, and innovative production with long-term competitive advantages.

John T. Shepherd, MD, a visionary physiologist who headed the American Heart Association, served as a NASA adviser and led US scientific exchanges with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, died 4 October 2011 at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He was 92. Over the course of his career he received many awards, including honorary degrees from the Universities of Bologna, Ghent and Queens (Belfast). He was actively involved with NASA and the US National Academy of Sciences, and chaired the academy's Committee on Space Medicine from 1965 to 1974. During the Cold War, he helped the US space program by working with colleagues in the then-Soviet Union on space physiology. He was president of the American Heart Association in 1975–76. He was also a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in the United Kingdom and Ireland. He was elected a Member of The Physiological Society in 1951 and elected to the Committee in 1957 (Fig. 1). Figure 1 Professor John T. Shepherd (1919–2011) Professor Shepherd made major contributions to understanding the regulation of the cardiovascular system, producing more than 300 scientific publications and four books. His research spanned a number of areas related to cardiovascular control including classic studies on reflex control of the circulation, haemodynamic responses to heat stress and exercise, and mechanisms of vasodilation. Depending on the question, he conducted studies in normal humans, patients with specific diseases, animal models and isolated tissues. Many of his studies from the 1950s, 60s and 70s are considered foundational and still cited today: Duff et al. (1953), Roddie et al. (1956, 1957), Marshall et al. (1961), Donald & Shepherd (1963), Corcondilas et al. (1964), Bevegard & Shepherd (1966), Strandell & Shepherd (1967), Vanhoutte & Shepherd (1973) and Mancia et al. (1976). The concept of ‘translational’ research that is in vogue today was inherently obvious to John Shepherd throughout his long career. His scientific work was also the platform that facilitated the training of more than 100 research fellows. John Shepherd was born 21 May 1919 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and received his MB, BCh, MChir and MD with honours from Queens University in Belfast. He completed his internship and residency at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. He joined the academic staff at Queens in the Department of Physiology. In 1953, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to come to Mayo Clinic for 1 year to engage in cardiovascular research. The selection of Mayo Clinic was based on his brother's enthusiasm after reading The Doctors Mayo in the late 1940s. He returned to Northern Ireland. His four close colleagues in the Department of Physiology at Queen's University (Greenfield, Roddie, Glover and Whelan) later became deans of medical schools around the world. In 1957 he joined the Mayo staff where he spent the rest of his professional career. In addition to his cutting edge scientific work, Professor Shepherd also had exceptional leadership skills and led the transformation of the Mayo Clinic from a group practice of medicine to a group practice embedded in a world class academic medical centre which included a medical school, graduate school and broad based research programmes. He was director of research from 1969 to 1976. In this position, and as a member of the Mayo Board of Trustees, he was instrumental in enabling Mayo Clinic to become a degree-granting institution in 1972. He became director for education of the Mayo Foundation and dean of the new Mayo Medical School from 1977 to 1983. This included responsibility for the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine and Mayo School of Health-Related Sciences. From 1983 to 1988, Dr Shepherd chaired the Mayo Board of Development and was actively involved in establishment of the Mayo Clinic campus in Jacksonville, FL. He retired from Mayo Clinic in 1989. In 2003, he published a memoir, Inside the Mayo Clinic. He was also one of more than 15 physicians in his family, including his daughter and his son who is on the staff at Mayo Clinic. His grandson and namesake is a Mayo Medical Student and participating in physiology research. Dr Shepherd is survived by his second wife, Marion, a son and a daughter, four step-children, five grandchildren, eight step-grandchildren and a great-grandson. ‘As I look back on my fifty years at Mayo Clinic and Foundation, I am astonished at its metamorphosis beyond what William Worrall Mayo, and particularly his sons, Charles Horace Mayo and William James Mayo, first envisioned,’ Shepherd wrote in his memoirs. ‘I am also gratified by my opportunities to play a part in that growth as a researcher, educator and partner in what is, arguably, the world's greatest medical group practice.’ For those of us who had an opportunity to work with him his superior intellect, great enthusiasm, endless energy, generosity and inclusive leadership style were remarkable.

“Good luck on your first day as an assistant professor, Dr. Tanner! Have a great class!” On the wall above my desk, these words scream out from an otherwise encouraging note that is adorned with many exclamation points. This note has hung on my wall since my very first day as an Assistant Professor of Biology. As I was charging off to teach my first class, a senior faculty member who had been on my hiring committee slipped this note under my office door. In moments of pause years later, I still stare up at that note and breathe a sigh of relief that I had much more than luck to guide me on my first day as a college-level teacher. Although I continue to have much to learn—as all of us do no matter the number of years of teaching experience—I did arrive at the university with both formal and informal training in science education. I had had plenty of exposure to innovative pedagogical approaches, questioning strategies, and techniques for engaging diverse audiences in learning science. As a scientist educator, I had had the privilege of many years of collaboration with outstanding K–12 educators as well as a postdoctoral fellowship in science education. However, my training has been, to say the least, unconventional compared with that of my fellow junior faculty and unique in its preparation in regard to the teaching and learning of my discipline. It will not be news to anyone reading this article that university and college teaching is to a large extent a profession with no formal training. It’s startling but true that the majority of faculty members—and lecturers who often teach large numbers of students—have no formal training in the teaching and learning of their discipline. In fact, the hiring process in university science departments is structured primarily to evaluate a faculty candidate’s ability to be a productive researcher, with success measured in number of publications and magnitude of grant funds raised. Depending on the type of institution, for example, research university, state-level university, or liberal arts college, there may be a component of the faculty interview process that probes a candidate’s teaching ability, for example, requesting a statement of teaching philosophy and requiring the candidate to teach a sample lecture class. However, this sample lecture often screens for gross inadequacies, rather than looking for stellar innovations or pedagogical skills. This lack of formal, accredited training for university and college instructors stands in stark contrast to the requirements for a high school teacher who is charged with the education of students only a year junior to college freshmen. High school teachers in the United States must be credentialed as a secondary science teacher, demonstrate subject matter competency in every subject that they will be teaching, and must continually engage in professional development in the teaching and learning of their discipline throughout their career as a science teacher. With the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind legislation, the onus is upon each precollege science teacher to become “highly qualified” in terms of formal university-level training in science education. However, no such required professional training or measurable standards for teaching are required in institutions of higher education. Many policy documents have suggested standards of teaching practice in postsecondary science education (National Research Council, 1996, 1997; Siebert and McIntosh, 2001), but the extent of implementation of these ideals is unclear and has gone relatively unstudied, although national and regional accreditation boards do look at outcomes, asking colleges and universities to assess what their students have gained from four years of study at their institutions. Nonetheless, there is a striking reversal of accountability that happens when one crosses the precollege teaching to college-level teaching boundary (Table 1). During the K–12 school years, society expects K–12 teachers to be responsible for student learning. Salaries of teachers in many states are tied to student test scores, and poor student performance can potentially invoke penalties. At a college or university, several variables in the educational universe shift. Students are the ones responsible for learning. The evaluation and compensation of college-level teachers is not DOI: 10.1187/cbe.05–12–0132 Address correspondence to: Kimberly Tanner (kdtanner@sfsu.edu). CBE—Life Sciences Education Vol. 5, 1–6, Spring 2006

Professor Nikolay Kirov Nikolov graduated in Chemistry from Sofia University ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’, Bulgaria, in 1968. He received his Ph.D. degree in 1973, D.Sc. in 1988 and was appointed to the position of Professor of Physics in the Institute of Solid State Physics (ISSP), Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), in 1989. Prof. Kirov rose to become an international authority in the area of molecular spectroscopy, and in particular in the vibrational spectroscopy of thermotropic liquid crystals.Prof. Kirov was a scientist of high reputation both in Bulgaria and globally. His scientific papers, numbering some 150, focus on the physics of liquid crystals. His systematic investigations of the vibrational spectroscopy of a wide class of thermotropic liquid crystals were collected in the monograph Vibrational spectroscopy of liquid crystals (1984), in which the molecular structure and properties of various liquid crystals, vibrational assignments, orientational order parameters and their calculation by molecular dynamics are presented. A range of liquid crystal materials was categorised and reported in his second book Atlas of vibrational spectra of liquid crystals (1988). Both publications remain a valuable source of information for specialists in the field of molecular spectroscopy. The outstanding contributions and growing reputation of Prof. Kirov led to periods as Visiting Scientist in the Universities of Parma, Calabria and Wroclaw. His abilities as a scientific organizer and leader were also notable, and led to a long and distinguished period of service in the Institute of Solid State Physics, being first appointed in 1980 as Scientific Secretary, and subsequently as Head of the Laboratory of Optics and Spectroscopy (1990-1998) and Director of the Institute (1991-1999). He was Chairman of the Scientific Council of ISSP over this period, and a member of the Specialized Scientific Council on Condensed Matter Physics. Prof. Kirov was a member of the High Testimonial Committee of the Republic of Bulgaria during 1996.Nikolay Kirov was a key figure in the organization, promotion and success of the International School on Condensed Matter Physics (ISCMP), where he was able to use his network of international contacts to excellent effect. He served as Scientific Secretary (1988-1990), Chairman and Editor of the ISCMP Proceedings (1992-1998), and as Chairman Emeritus (2002-2012).Prof. Kirov is an Honorary Member of the Institute of Solid State Physics. He received the Honorary Diploma ‘Nicola Obreshkov’ in 1986 and the “Marin Drinov” Sign of Honour BAS (on a ribbon) in 1998, for achievements in the physical and mathematical sciences. He was also honoured outside his native Bulgaria, receiving a Gold Medal from Wroclaw University, Poland, in recognition of successful scientific collaborations in the area of molecular structure.