Who Is A Scientist?

Who Is A Scientist?

Pam Cohea

Region 15

July 2008

Texas Regional Collaborative for Excellence in Teaching Science

Let’s Have Some Fun!

Oobleck Science Video Clips

What is the question or purpose of this experiment?

What is the hypothesis of this experiment?

Did the conclusion support or disprove the hypothesis?

How did the plan support the testable hypothesis?

What data was collected during this experiment?

What is the conclusion of this experiment?

Using the same materials, construct a question in which the outcome is unknown.

Change one variable of the experiment and hypothesize the outcome based on this change.

Construct a testable hypothesis that has not been explored using the same materials.

Develop a plan or procedure to test a new hypothesis using the same materials.

Measure a property and record your measurement.

Develop an investigation based on the new knowledge gained from the experiment.

Who is a Scientist?

• From the Nobel Prize in Medicine acceptance speech given by Werner Forssmann in 1956:

• "The credit for carrying out the first catheterization of the heart of a living animal for a definite experimental purpose is due to an English parson, the Reverend Stephen Hales. This scientifically interested layman undertook in Tordington in 1710 the first precise definition of the capacity of a heart. He bled a sheep to death and then led a gun-barrel from the neck vessels into the still-beating heart. Through this, he filled the hollow chambers with molten wax and then measured from the resultant cast the volume of the heartbeat and the minute-volume of the heart, which he calculated from the pulse-beat. Besides this, Stephen Hales was also the first, in 1727, to determine arterial blood pressure, when he measured the rise in a column of blood in a glass tube bound into an artery."

Pam Cohea

Toni LaffertyEBAT DeBakey Institute

A&M University

This is where the story begins. It begins with a superhero scientist named Dr. Quick.

This is what Dr.Quick really looks like. He is a research scientist. He is very interested in bats.

Dr. Quick became interested in bats when he saw a picture of a bat wing. He could see the little blood vessels in the wing branched like a tree.

Dr. Quick needed to find some bats. He discovered that the Chihuahuan Desert in west Texas was an environment with many bat habitats.

Dr. Quick and Missy went to the Chihuahuan Desert to search for bats. They found a Pallid bat colony in a little Texas town called Valentine. The little Pallid bats were roosting in the school house attic.

The principal of the school had a problem with the bats in his attic. The scientists help solve the problem by capturing the bats and removing the smelly guano.

Missy used safety equipment for protection.

This is one of the bats Dr. Quick caught. Why is this bat a good model to study blood vessels?

The habitat for the colony of Pallid bats is now at A&M University in College Station, Texas. The scientist built a very special home for the bats.

Pallid bats sleep during the day and hunt at night. During the day they go into a very deep sleep called torpor. Dr. Quick thought that the bats could sleep in a little box while the scientists observed the vascular system of its wing. This bat box is made of Lego blocks!

This bat box is used as a bed for a sleeping bat too. Missy trains the bats to sleep with their wing extended. The Q-Tips gently hold the wing in place so the scientist can study the blood vessels.

Blood vessels are very tiny and hard to observe. Scientists magnify the blood vessels by putting the bat box under a microscope while the bat sleeps.

Scientists are learning a lot about the blood vessels of bats. They are collecting data using the computer linked to a microscope.

Scientists must follow safety rules in the lab when observing the bat wing. Here is Jennifer following the safety rules.

What safety equipment does Jennifer use in the lab?

Missy takes very good care of the bat colony. She makes sure that the bats eat and exercise each night. She wears special safety gloves when handling the bats.

She carefully carries the sleeping bat in a special bag from its habitat to the lab. Everyone in the lab is very quiet so the bat will not wake up.

Pallid bats are insectivores. They are fed every night. That’s a lot of insects!

Missy and Jennifer play with a bat puppet, because you should never

play with real bats.

What observations can be made about the little bat’s ears? Can you see the tiny blood vessels?

Do you think researching the vascular system in the bat wing is important?

How might this help people?

Would you like to be a research scientist someday?

Who is a Scientist?

Encourage Questions!Isidor I. Rabi, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was once

asked why he

became a scientist. He attributed it to his mother.

“My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every

other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, ‘So?

Did you learn anything today?’ But not my mother. She always asked me

a different question. ‘Izzy,’ she would say, ‘did you ask a good question

today?’ That difference—asking good questions—made me become a

scientist!”

(U.S Department of Education, “Helping Your Child Learn Science,” August 1991.)

Encourage Questions!Isidor I. Rabi, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was once

asked why he

became a scientist. He attributed it to his mother.

“My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every

other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, ‘So?

Did you learn anything today?’ But not my mother. She always asked me

a different question. ‘Izzy,’ she would say, ‘did you ask a good question

today?’ That difference—asking good questions—made me become a

scientist!”

(U.S Department of Education, “Helping Your Child Learn Science,” August 1991.)

Resources

• http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000088

• http://www.kids4research.org/careers.html• http://pbskids.org/zoom/grownups/

scitraining/wrapup.html• http://www.vet.uga.edu/vpp/animaldoc/

index.php• http://www.studystack.com/category-4

Texas A&M Resources

• http://ebat.tamu.edu/home/• http://peer.tamu.edu • http://peer.tamu.edu/VetOutreach.

pdf

Oh Yeah – What About TAKS?

• C – cover the answer choices

• U – underline the science words

• R – read the question twice

• E – evaluate extra (charts, graphs, ect.)

• S – solve and write your answer• http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/

online/2006/grade8/science/8science.htm