Who the heck is Adam Savage, and why should we care how he proposes to improve science education?
Put it this way . . . do you like to watch things go boom?
Do you ever wonder "What if . . .", followed by any combination of the following terms - bullets, cannons, chickens, urination, 3rd rail, flammability, cel phones, gas stations, breast implants, tanning beds . . . ?
If that's the case, then you're already a fan of the Mythbusters and you know that the names of Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman are synonymous with destruction for the sake of curiosity. Think of the program as Snopes.com on steroids. But louder. Much louder.
Savage has a short piece in this month's Popular Mechanics describing his three steps to fixing science education in our country:
. . . You can lecture about the surface tension of water, but it's not as effective as conducting an experiment with a needle and a single beam balance.
Hands-on, minds-on learning . . . any other way of teaching is just boring, and the other ways of learning are inefficient. The Mythbusters episodes let students experience the more, um, attorney-attracting investigations vicariously.
We like to do things on the cheap at MythBusters, and we often find the most elegant solution is also the least expensive. But we still need significant resources. . .
Computer-interfaced probeware can be used to help students draw the crucial connection between the impulse-momentum theorem and why they should wear seatbelts. That apparatus isn't cheap by any means, but at the high school level it's not replaceable by simulations or videos.
A good scientist will tell you that being wrong can be just as interesting as being right. The same holds for our show. We love hearing from fans who challenge our conclusions - especially kids.
When anti-science folks make mistakes, they hurriedly change their webpages or delete polite comments or prohibit dissident scientists from speaking to the press. On the other hand, scientists learn from mistakes - their own and each others'. It's not fun being wrong, but it's always a learning experience.
Of course, it's huge fun to watch Adam & Jamie and the gang figure out how to conjure up spectacular messes and experiment with explosive combinations . . . but science teachers can use some episodes to help students learn more about the process of science. (also available through iTunes)
Ask students to predict what they think will happen in each episode. As the Mythbusters have become more popular, though, students are more likely to have seen a particular episode. To get around this, you can have students explain why they've made this particular prediction.
The Mythbusters don't usually adhere to the strict middle-school progression of the scientific method: observation, hypothesis, hypothesis testing, analysis, etc. These components are likely to pop up anywhere in the episode, so students are asked to list those parts and describe how Adam & Jamie & their henchmen adhere to scientific rigor. Sometimes the episode follows a scientific method, sometimes it doesn't. (See #3 above) And, of course, since it's a REAL science program, "God did it" is not considered a viable scientific solution.
I bet some of the crew is praying during those stunts, though . . .
posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams
