Dear IGS Sydney,
Thank you so much for your giving me such a warm welcome and for a fun morning sharing some optimistic yet realistic positivity and passion for teaching and learning. It was an absolute pleasure to join you for your first day back after the holidays and I look forward to hearing about your adventures back in the classroom.
As I promised, here are the links to the topics I covered this morning and to some further reading from the bottomless pit of knowledge.
Thank you again and all the very best for Term 3!
Ruben
Introduction and demonstrations
Professor Slo & Dr Mo: Slot Car vs hydrogen balloon
Curiosity Show YouTube Channel
Reminisce with Prof Julius Sumner Miller
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures®
When you lose weight where does the fat go? The BMJ paper published 16 Dec 2014 (Open Access)
Big Fat Myths Ebury Books in bookstores in September
Brian Schmidt donates $100k of his Nobel Prize money to Primary Connections
Optimism #1 – MORE PEACEFUL
The Better Angels of Our Nature the book by Professor Steven Pinker (2011)
Steven Pinker’s 2015 Nobel Peace Forum Presentation with updates on some of the recent calamities
The surprising decline in violence Steven Pinker’s 20min TED Talk
Steven Pinker: A History of Violence 37min talk at the Singularity Summit
Violence Vanquished essay featuring the two graphs in my slides
The News: A User’s Manual Allain de Botton’s timely book about how to consume the news
Optimism #2 – SMARTER: The Flynn Effect
The Mean IQ of Americans: Massive Gains 1932 to 1978 James Flynn (1984) Psychological Bulletin Vol. 95 No. 1
The Flynn Effect summary of the hypotheses by Indiana University’s Dr Jonathan Plucker
Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents’ Prof James Flynn’s TED Talk
Optimism #3 – NICER: The Bystander Effect
“The bystander-effect: A meta-analytic review on bystander intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergencies.” Fischer, P. et al. (2011) Psychological bulletin Vol. 137 No.4 *subscription required
Bystander Effect YouTube video (3min 35sec)
The Murder of Kitty Genovese Wikipedia page with good citations to further reading
Optimism #4 – RICHER
Retail Traded (Australian Bureau of Statistics) Lots of delicious data
Nail salons and massage parlours the new growth industries Weekend Financial Review article
Tattoos Catalyst story about getting inked and un-inked
Optimism #5 – HEALTHIER
Life expectancy trends Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
Control, elimination, eradication and re-emergence of infectious diseases: getting the message right 2006 WHO Bulletin editorial
Hans Rossling’s TED Talks amazing public health statistics
Optimism #6 – TECHNOLOGY: Better, faster, cheaper
Slow motion smartphone video (embroidery hoop vs pen)
Pop a balloon inside a balloon with a magnifying glass
Lasers in Medicine International Society for Optics and Photonics Open access article
Optimism #7 – SCIENCE: Unsolved Mysteries
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks why do we die?
Fun Fly Stick get one!
DIY Fun Fly Stick make your own (I once found the silvered plastic in a bait and tackle store in the DIY fly fishing area… Mylar Xmas tinsel won’t work)
DIY Oersted’s Experiment: compass+battery+coat hanger
The story of antimatter CERN Timelines
The theory of the positron by Richard Feynman (an electron traveling backwards in time)
A brief history of the universe from Dr Karl’s Great Moments in Science
How do we know the universe is expanding also by Dr Karl
The mathematics of weight loss TEDx Talk where do the kilograms go? (This is my rather clunky first attempt at explaining what I eventually published in The BMJ.)
FLIR One: thermal imaging camera where do kilojoules go?
www.8700.com.au the brilliant NSW Government free online calculator I used to balance my energy in/energy out equation