Who is a Scientist? : Effects of an Intervention to Change Students\u27 Ideas about Science and Scientists

Advocates for improving science literacy have focused much attention on the negative impressions about science and scientists held by many Americans. The image of scientists as \u27nerdy\u27 bespectacled men in laboratories has been related by some researchers to people\u27s lack of interest in pursuing science. This thesis analyzes one component of a program aimed at changing that stereotype. The Science-By-Mail (tm) program at the Museum of Science in Boston was designed to give students a more inclusive image of scientists. Central to the program was the creation of pen-pal relationships between students in grades 4-9 with scientists who did not fit the stereotype. The correspondence was driven by a set of hands-on science challenges, which included a variety of experiments. The activities introduced students to science as an engaging process of critical thought and exploration. To determine participants\u27 images of scientists changed, an empirical study was performed. Pretest and posttest questionnaires, consisting of five questions related to student images of science and scientists, were distributed to all participants. Responses from all students who returned both components on the evaluation were matched to form a test population of 217 pair, and analyzed using series of statistical tests. Only one of the five questions, What does a scientist look like? was analyzed. This question was seen as the most likely to elicit responses were evaluated to determine the number of exclusive indicators, such as all scientists wear lab coats, as well as inclusive indicators, such as a scientist looks like anyone. The stereotype\u27s existence before the intervention was confirmed. The average number of exclusive indicators decreased significantly from pretest to posttest, regardless of age or gender of subject, gender of pen-pal scientist, or number of correspondences exchanged. No single feature of the program could be isolated as necessary for producing change, but overall the data showed a positive shift in students\u27 images of scientists. The results prompted questions for further investigations into the causes and effects of the stereotype of scientists

Clemson Trustees Minutes, 1981 December 8

Minutes of the Emergency Meeting of The Clemson University Board of Trustees. Held in the Second Floor Conference Room, Gressette Office Building, Columbia, SC

NOU Founding Ornithologist, Hypnotist, Physician: Isador Trostler

Eminent radiologist Benjamin H. Orndoff, eulogizing an esteemed colleague some months after his death, noted that Isador Simon Trostler (1869–1957) “as a lad . . . became interested in ornithology and herpetology, sending accounts of his observations and explorations to natural history magazines up to the late [18]90s.” Understandably more interested in Trostler’s role as a “pioneer in radiology,” Orndoff had no more to say about the natural history pursuits of one of Nebraska’s most notable early ornithologists, one of the founders 125 years ago of the Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union. Conversely, we birders have known little or nothing of Trostler’s life and activities after his departure from Nebraska in 1907. Even Wilson Tout (1876–1951), a fellow charter member, who claimed to have developed “a warm friendship” with Trostler in the earliest days of the NOU, was in possession of only the most fragmentary, and not thoroughly accurate, knowledge of his subsequent career. In his biographical sketch of the founders, published on the occasion of the NOU’s semicentennial jubilee, Tout could report only that Trostler “later completed a medical course in Omaha and in Chicago and located in the east, perhaps in Buffalo or Ithaca, New York.” In Nebraska, Trostler vanished so thoroughly from birderly memory that he was believed to have predeceased Wilson and Nell Tout (1878–1942), “the last surviving charter members of [the] NOU,” both of whom in fact he handily outlived. As it turns out, Trostler’s activities, in Nebraska and in Chicago, as a birder and as an innovative radiologist, are somewhat better documented than either Orndoff or Tout—or any of the rest of us—could know. And a look at the sources reveals an unsuspected continuity between his activities as a busy amateur natural historian and his subsequent professional career in medicine, a connection grounded in those pursuits’ shared focus on making the otherwise hidden visible

VCU voice (1992-09-04)

VCU Today, the University’s first official administrative organ, began as a somewhat irregular monthly publication but moved to a bi-weekly newspaper format in the 1980s. The newspaper changed its name to VCU Voice in 1988 and ten years later it appeared under the title UniverCity News. As it neared the end of its run as a physical newspaper, the publication became simply VCU News. These four publications were essentially the same periodical published under different titles by the Office of University Relations. VCU News appeared online for the first time in 2002.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/vcv/1076/thumbnail.jp

Marshall News Releases: July, August, September, 1992

These news releases were written by and distributed by Marshall during the period indicated in the title.https://mds.marshall.edu/marshall_news_releases_archives/1054/thumbnail.jp

Annual reports of the town officers of Stoddard, N.H. for the year ending December 31, 1999.

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire