Science Cheerleader

Come meet the Science Cheerleader team, see professional cheerleaders-turned-scientists and engineers as they dance and cheer on science, and get your hands dirty doing science with ScienceForCitizens.net activities!

At the USA Science and Engineering Festival
Festival Dates: 10/10/10 – 10/24/10
Expo on the National Mall: October 23 and 24, 2010 (more…)

Part of the Brain Makeover, adult science literacy effort. People must fancy learning about the predictability of the universe (ok, Deidre’s easy on the eyes…there’s that, too).  Check it out.

Greetings!

Thrilled to see the entire adult science literacy quiz from our Brain Makeover printed in today’s Toronto Star (Canada’s largest daily newspaper). The accompanying article on the Science Cheerleader ain’t to shabby either!

If you’re looking for the Brain Makeover project–including the videos with the 76ers girls, Professor Trefil’s explanations and the science literacy quiz–click here. Or, simply click on the link titled “Brain Makeover” which you’ll find on the right navigation bar here on the homepage.

We’ve got some more interesting collaborations in the works so be sure to subscribe to our posts for updates. (See right navigation to subscribe to emails or RSS feeds.)

Thanks for your interest in science and technology.

Cheers!

Very exciting day here spurred by an article about Science Cheerleader’s efforts to increase adult science literacy in the Chronicle of Higher Education and today’s FOX News “headline news story” about our Brain Makeover! The traffic brought this site to its knees. Might still be slow at times.  Thanks for your patience and persistence. We should have it all fixed soon.
And, welcome, to all of our new subscribers!

Cheers,
Darlene

This morning, we officially unveil the Brain Makeover project in our quest to diminish the gap between science and society. (Check out George Mason University’s sweet announcement on their homepage.)

Watch the videos of the 76ers cheerleaders, read the accompanying descriptions by GMU’s Professor Trefil, then  take the quiz to see how you stack up against others when it comes to understanding how our universe works. Pass the quiz and you’ve scored yourself a very cheeky “I’m a science literate!” certificate.
Then, find out how you can apply your science knowledge and get involved in research projects and federal policy discussions.
Step one: give your brain a makeover. Get started!

18. All life is connected.

Ecosystem is a term that refers to all of the living things in a specific area, together with the material surroundings. Plants and animals within as ecosystem often depend on each other in complex ways, so that it is not usually possible to change one part of the system without changing other parts as well. Study of the records of past ecosystems shows that both the kinds of plants and animals associated with it and the kinds of relationships between them change over time, so we should not think of ecosystems as rigid and unchanging, nor assume that any change in an ecosystem must be for the worst.

Lesson #17 of 18 in the Brain Makeover collaboration with Professor James Trefil/George Mason University, the 76ers Cheerleaders and the Science Cheerleader. See Brain Makeover Series.
17. All forms of life evolved by natural selection.

Scientists divide the development of life on Earth into two segments: chemical evolution, which involves the development of life from inorganic materials, and evolution by natural selection, which describes the process by which that early life form produced the diversity of modern life. The latter is what people associate with Charles Darwin and usually mean by the term ‘evolution’.

Evolution by natural selection depends on two things: first, that there are variations within populations (so that, for example, some rabbits can run faster than others) and, second, competition between individuals (so that fast rabbits are more likely to survive and reproduce). Over time, this selection process produces new species.

Evidence for evolution by natural selection comes from the fossil record and from the examination of genes in the DNA of modern life forms.

Lesson #15 of 18 in the Brain Makeover collaboration with Professor James Trefil/George Mason University, the 76ers Cheerleaders and the Science Cheerleader. See Brain Makeover Series.

All living things are made from cells, the chemical factories of life.

One of the most important discoveries of nineteenth century science was that life is based on chemical reactions, and that these reactions take place in complex structures called cells. In the twentieth century we learned that the instructions for carrying that chemistry are carried in DNA.

The best analogy for a cell is a complex factory—think of a big refinery. There is a front office where instructions for carrying out the factory’s activities are kept. DNA in the nucleus of cells plays this role. In a factory there is a place where energy is generated. In cells, this happens when complex molecules are combined with oxygen in organelles called mitochondria. There is a wall that separates the factory from its surroundings, and in a cell there is a flexible cell membrane that carries out this function. There must also be a way for material to enter and leave the factory, a function that in the cell is the job of large protein molecules called receptors in the cell membrane. The shape of these membranes matches that of molecules outside the cell.

The chemical reactions in a cell are run by protein molecules that serve as enzymes, and the information for building those molecules is coded in stretches of DNA called genes. Understanding how genes operate remains a major area of research in the sciences.

(Image credit.)

Lesson #13 of 18 in the Brain Makeover collaboration with Professor James Trefil/GMU, the 76ers Cheerleaders and the Science Cheerleader. See Brain Makeover Series.

The surface of the earth is constantly changing.

The Earth can be thought of as being separated into three layers. The core, at the center, consists of heavy materials like iron and nickel. At the very center the core is solid, but farther out it is liquid. The next layer is the mantle, composed of heavy minerals, and the outermost layer is the crust. The surface of the Earth is separated into tectonic plates, some 30-50 miles thick. These plates move around in response to convection in the Earth’s mantle. The continent are the uppermost layer of the tectonic plates. The constant motion of the plates causes a constant change in the surface features of the planet. Only the Earth among  planets in the solar system has this kind of variability in its surface.

Where plates are moving away from each other, hot magma from the mantle comes to the surface to form mountain chains and deep sea vents. Where plates are moving together, one plate will slip beneath the other, forming mountain chains or deep ocean trenches, depending on whether or not there is a continent on the plate. If plates slide by each, as they do in the San Andreas Fault, their motion will cause frequent earthquakes.

All matter is made from quarks and leptons

The primary parts of the nucleus of the atom are the positively charged proton and the electrically neutral neutron. During the twentieth century it was discovered that there are literally hundreds of other particles—all unstable—that take part in various interaction at the atomic level. These can be divided into two major classes: there are hadrons that exist inside the nucleus and participate in the strong interaction, and leptons that do not. Protons and neutrons are both hadrons, while the electron is an example of a lepton. One way of thinking about atoms, then, is to say that their nuclei are made of hadrons, while leptons (electrons) in orbit complete the structure.

More recently, it was realized that all of the hundreds of hadrons can be understood as different combination of particles more fundamental still—particles called quarks. In this scheme, then, the quarks make up the hadrons that constitute the nucleus, while the leptons in orbit complete the atoms that make up all matter.