Tag: Learning

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Planetarium by John Hawkhead

planetarium
she reaches across space
to find my hand

by John Hawkhead

In the 2008 USA presidential election, Senator John McCain criticised the value (and cost) of planetariums, as being little more than “overhead projectors”.

Yet planetariums, as well as being a unique form of entertainment, are valuable science communication tools: interactive and immersive pedagogic instruments for astronomical education.

For example, research by Plummer (2008) suggests that attending a planetarium program increased understanding of celestial motion in students aged 6 to 8 years old. Planetariums are also especially valuable for those living in large towns and cities, where light-pollution prevents most stars from being visible.

To celebrate the value and power of planetariums, the second Sunday of every March is International Day of Planetariums.

Further reading:

‘The Value of Education in the Planetarium’, The International Planetarium Society: https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/planetariumeducationvalue

‘International Day of Planetariums’, AnydayGuide: https://anydayguide.com/calendar/3858

‘Early elementary students’ development of astronomy concepts in the planetarium’, Journal of Research in Science Teaching: https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.20280

Author bio:

John Hawkhead (@HawkheadJohn) has been writing haiku and illustrating for over 25 years. His work has been published all over the world and he has won a number of haiku competitions. John’s books of haiku and senryu, ‘Small Shadows’ and ‘Bone Moon’, are now available from Alba Publishing (http://www.albapublishing.com/).

Enjoyed John’s sciku? Check out more of his sciku here: ‘Dark matter’, ‘Chirality’, ‘Spooky Interaction’, ‘Dancing’, ‘Empty Space’, ‘Averages’, ‘New Beginning’, ‘Interactions’, and ‘Surface Tension’.

‘Planetarium’ was previously published in Poetry Pea – podcast (June 2022); Journal 2:22 (Sept 2022).

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Moonwalk by R. Suresh Babu

AI tinkering lab
all the young student scientists
perform a moonwalking jig

by R. Suresh Babu

My haiku are centered on my experiences as a teacher where I observe children’s behaviour in the classroom situations, science labs and the school campus.

Science is fun. Children do funny acts. This sciku is based on moonwalking in an AI Tinkering Lab when children try to match their dance steps with a steering robot.

Further reading:

What is Tinkering Lab and Why Do We Need It? https://tinker.ly/tinkering-lab-what-is-it-and-why-do-we-need-it/

Artificial Intelligence (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

Author bio:

R. Suresh Babu is a graduate teacher of English and a teacher counsellor in a Government Residential School in India. He is an alumnus of the Regional Institute of Education, Mysuru in India. His works have been published in Cattails, Failed Haiku, Wales Haiku Journal, Akitsu, Presence, Under the Basho, Poetry Pea Journal and Podcast, The Asahi Shimbun, World Haiku Series, The Mamba, Kontinuum, Haikuniverse, Cold Moon Journal, Chrysanthemum, tsuri-dōrō and The Mainichi. He is a contributing writer to the anthology, We Will Not Be Silenced of the Indie Blu(e) Publishing. He has done the art works for the Haiku anthology Bull-Headed, edited by Corine Timmer. You can follow him on Twitter @sureshniranam

Read more sciku by R. Suresh Babu: ‘Climate Change’ and ‘Language’.

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Indigenous Engagement

The benefits of
indigenous engagement:
Ethics and Science.

Local knowledge and an awareness of local context can be integral to conducting a variety of research. However, one thing that’s less often considered is the impact of the diversity of the research team itself.

Conservation research by Ward-Fear et al (2019) into the impact of cane toads on yellow-spotted monitor lizards in Australia has unintentionally produced evidence of the scientific benefits of collaborating with local indigenous people.

Large cane toads are spreading through tropical Australia but are fatally toxic if eaten by yellow-spotted monitor lizards. Ward-Fear et al (2016) trained lizards with smaller, non-lethal cane toads and then compared the survival rates of trained and non-trained lizards in the wild over an 18 month period. They found that trained lizards had a greater survival rate than non-trained lizards, suggesting that the training helped the lizards to avoid eating the larger toxic cane toads.

Yet their study also revealed the importance of researcher diversity. In monitoring the population of lizards over 18 months, the research team included western scientists (professional, nonindigenous ecologists) and indigenous rangers (Australian-Aboriginal Traditional Owners of the region).

The indigenous rangers saw lizards from a greater distance, in more dense vegetation, under poorer light levels, and more frequently when the lizard was stationary. Additionally, when assessing the behavioural traits of the lizards, those that were spotted by the indigenous rangers were found to be more shy. What’s more, the ranger caught lizards appeared to benefit more from the training against the toxic cane toads.

All this highlights the importance of cultural diversity within research teams and in particular shows that indigenous collaboration can be utterly crucial for conservation efforts.

Original research:

Training of predatory lizards reduces their vulnerability to invasive toxic prey: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0863

Collaboration with indigenous peoples can alter the outcomes of conservation research: https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12643

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Food or family?

Food or family?

Learning to distinguish kin

is hard with prey near.

 

The benefits of recognising your relatives are many and in cannibalistic species can include avoiding eating members of your own family. Learning kin cues frequently occurs early in life when a number of other cues need to also be learnt, including food cues.

Christiansen and Schausberger (2017) found that predatory mites raised with only their relatives were able to distinguish between related and unrelated larvae. This distinction was not made by mites reared in the presence of relatives and food cues.

The presence of food cues interfered with the learning of kin cues, yet the presence of kin cues did not disrupt the learning of food cues. This suggests that if food is present the mites will learn to identify it, however if there is no food and the mites may need to resort to cannibalism then they learn to avoid eating their own relatives.

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.09.005

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Pray, are you a predator?

Have we met before?

Pray, are you a predator?

I am so naive!

 

Predators are a threat for most animals and gauging whether a novel species is dangerous or not can be a life or death judgment. Whilst some species may have a degree of innate predator recognition, research suggests other species require prior experience of the predator to learn of its danger.

Great and blue tits were tested with novel and familiar predators. Tits from populations familiar with both sparrowhawks and little owls reacted towards the stimuli as expected, mobbing the predators equally. But tits from populations only familiar with sparrowhawks did not treat the little owl stimulus as a threat, suggesting it wasn’t recognised as a predator. Prior experience of predator species is therefore important in great and blue tits. Carlson et al, 2017.