by Pamela | Dec 11, 2011 | Personal
I’m currently sort of on vacation. I say “sort of” because modern day technology and society combine to really makes it impossible for many of us to be totally off work, totally away for a couple of days, and totally removed from instantaneous...
by Pamela | Dec 7, 2011 | Academic Politics, Teaching
Over the past several weeks I’ve had more than one person ask me, “What is your view on the future of STEM (1) Education?” Sometimes they have gone on to ask further about how I feel about the future of science in general. This much repeated question...
by Pamela | Nov 18, 2011 | Books, Entertainment
Next week, all across America, we will go through a ritual holiday weekend. There is Thanksgiving Thursday; Back Friday, Bloated Saturday, and self-hating (still bloated) Sunday. For many, this is the weekend of eating way the [expletive] too much, watching football,...
by Pamela | Nov 15, 2011 | Personal, Travel
On January 13, 2005 I joined the American Airlines “AAdvantage” frequent flier program. The podcast I was part of, “Slacker Astronomy,” had taken off, and I had been invited to go to AAS in Washington DC and AAPT in Anchorage, Alaska to give...
by Pamela | Oct 4, 2011 | Astronomy, Citizen Science, Projects, Teaching, Travel
Here in the USA (or I should say there, since I’m currently in France), education tends to be somewhat nationalistic. It has to be. Teachers are tied to state and federal learning standards and if students don’t learn what is specifically listed in those standards,...
