Before writing this post, I did a quick search of UNdertheC looking for any hits related to ‘citizen science’, and surprisingly, nothing came up. I guess this means this will be the first post, tangentially related, to what is known as citizen science. So what is citizen science? The formal definition is: ‘the collection and … Continue reading
Category Archives: How do we science?
Science on the high seas
Here at UNC Marine Sciences, we have a really cool program that allows graduate students in the department to nominate and then select a seminar speaker to come to the university and give a talk. It’s a unique opportunity for students to select a speaker that not only conducts interesting, world-class research but that also … Continue reading
Symposium Season – CEE edition
Symposia! AKA great, low stakes opportunities to get out of the office, share the results you have been trying to make sense of for months, and hear about the cool research being done by your peers (plus free food). I had the opportunity to go to a few symposia recently and thought I would … Continue reading
A summer pondering the stormwater ponds
This guest post was written by Adam Gold. Adam is a second-year master’s student in the Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology (CEE) working at UNC IMS. He works in the Piehler Lab researching urban stormwater and its effects on water quality. Follow him on twitter at @acgold_04 for tweets about science and stormwater. This past summer, … Continue reading
The scientific method in real life
One of the very first things anybody learns about science is the scientific method. Observation, hypothesis, experiment, conclusion. It’s the scientific creed. The motto scientists live by. But, despite the seemingly simple 4-steps, in reality, the scientific method is a tortuous path that can be slow, complicated, winding, and at times, incredibly frustrating. To really … Continue reading
How researchers can be better science educators-advice from a science education professional
Over the winter break I interviewed Chris Anderson of Science Over Everything about how science researchers can be better science educators. Outside of his scicomm blog, Chris is a consultant with the Hamilton County Educational Service Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. He primarily works as an instructional coach to educators and curriculum managers to help them build science … Continue reading
When Animals Take Over (Restoration Projects)
Most productivity gurus say that when you hit a wall, you should switch tasks. This is how I ended up reading a paper about beavers who managed to hijack a wetland restoration for their benefit. So congratulations! You’re in the right place to learn some fancy philosophy terms and think about wetlands from a whooole … Continue reading