We’ve been up to some fun stuff as usual over here in Iowa, but on Giving Tuesday it seemed appropriate to consider what has allowed the Science Booster Club project to grow so big and do so much.In 2016, we’ve reached out to over 54,000 people in Iowa on topics like evolution and…
NCSE's executive director Ann Reid was interviewed by Tania Lombrozo for NPR's 13.7 Cosmos and Culture blog (November 21, 2016) about the implications of a Trump presidency for climate change education.Although the federal government is not directly involved in curriculum and instruction, Reid…
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, with T. T. Martin’s unforgettably titled Hell and the High Schools (1923). In chapter 2—“What Is Evolution?”—Martin invites the reader to:Hear a Professor of Chicago University [sic], that slaughter-house of faith, where they do as the old…
The Darwin Day Roadshow is returning! The Roadshow is a project of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action and the Society for the Study of Evolution, in which scientists and educators share their enthusiasm for evolutionary science with students, teachers, and the general public on…
NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview (PDF) of Joseph Romm's Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2016). The preview consists of chapter 7, "Climate Change and You," which offers to "explore some of the more personal questions that climate change raises…
In “Who Was the Occupant?” (part 1, part 2, part 3), I investigated a claim that the expression “we may well suppose” occurs over eight hundred times in Darwin’s works On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. That claim, of course, is plainly bogus; the phrase would have…
Dear NCSE members and friends of science, I’m writing in a profound state of shock, as I’m sure you’ll understand. You are no doubt in the same state. For the National Center for Science Education, of course, the election of someone who thinks climate change is a hoax and whose running mate once…
This fall, I had a problem. Our Iowa City club was invited back to a large Halloween event, The University of Iowa’s Creepy Campus Crawl. But, we were under probation—in trouble for being too much fun the last time around. Our activities in 2015 generated “excessive audience interest,” leading to…
Ralph J. Cicerone, immediate past president of the National Academy of Sciences, died on November 5, 2016, at the age of 73, according to a memorial notice from the Academy. "The entire scientific community is mourning the sudden and untimely loss of this great leader who has been unexpectedly…