NCSE Roundup: This Week in Evolution and Climate Change

This week in evolution and climate change, the National Center for Science Education talks science in politics, getting rid of images of needles in vaccine articles, new evidence that climate change is endangering polar bears, and also provides teachers with a free resource for studying evolution. 

The Need for a Change in Debating Science this Election Season

This week, Josh Rosenau sounds off on the lack of science discussed in the first round of GOP debates—especially on the hot issue of climate change.

Rosenau not only wants science to be an emphasized subject during the presidential campaign, he wants candidates to reconsider how they convey to voters their stances on issues that involve science.

Instead of having presidential candidates discuss science as the experts they are not, Rosenau says a meaningful debate should have each presidential hopeful discussing how they will respectively choose the specialists that will guide them, "assess disagreements among them at critical moments, and move forward if the science is ambiguous (or even seems to conflict with their values)."

By doing this, he says, the voter will get the best idea on how the respective candidates feel on scientific issues or would approach a topic involving science for which they are not an expert.

Read his full post here.

The Most Impressive Cartoon Guide to Evolution

Writer Stephanie Keep has found an impressive and handy cartoon on evolution that could very well be of use in your science classroom as a free and amazing resource.

The guide is the product of an undergraduate geology student at the University of Maryland, Albert Chen.

Keep appreciates Chen's model for several reasons, one of the most important being that it does not indicate an "end goal" to evolution but rather depicts it as tree and not a ladder.

You can read more about Chen's work and see it for yourself here.

Why We Should Avoid Images of Needles When Writing about Vaccine Safety

"Can we agree on one thing? Stories about childhood vaccination in general, and the safety and desirability of having your children vaccinated in particular, should not be illustrated with needles and syringes," said Ann Reid.

As the school year begins and scientists and doctors urge parents to do more research into ensuring they vaccinate their children, Reid wants to send out a PSA letting writers know that scary and negative images don't help the cause.

Read the full post here.

More Bad News for Polar Bears

Though polar bears typically represent the negative effects that climate change has on species as its the first mammal to be proven to become endangered as a result, NCSE guest blogger Nikita Daryanani wants everyone to still heed the latest research regarding them.

In the latest research published in Science magazine, researchers studied a certain group of polar bears over a few years' time and found that polar bears' body temperature and energy levels drop during the summer because they are starving as a result of the reduction of summer arctic ice due to warming temps.

"Yes, the polar bear has become a climate change cliché, but there is a reason why and the latest research is just more bad news. The polar bear’s decline in population is a signal to the world that our activities as humans can have disastrous impacts on wildlife."

Read the full post here. 

Compiled by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

08/13/2015