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Showing posts from March, 2018

Helping People Understand Science

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     A simple question: Why is it important to understand science? With science we are able to answer questions with quality, true information, as well as make technological advances and help us learn the  importance of the environment as well as even our own health.  Science isn't something that only scientist need to understand, it is important for everyday people as well. A disscusion made by Jonathon Garlick stated that "A recently elected senator has linked sealing the US- Mexican border with keeping Ebola out of the US, even though the disease is nonexistent in Mexico." This is an example of being misinformed about science; when people aren't knowledge on their science, they tend to spread information that is in fact false. Being an informed citizen makes conversations more productive and more educational as well as making your general academic knowledge useful. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/12/why-everyone-needs-to-understand-science/      Along

Engaging Scientist in Public Discourse

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     We (Rachel Lanier and Maddie Goodwin) were assigned Dr. Steve Hageman, a member of the Department if Geological and Environmental Science here at Appalachian State University. The paper that we were assigned by Dr. Hageman as well as the other two authors, Noel P. James and Yvonne Bone, was about Cool- Water Carbonate Production from Epizoic Bryozoans on Ephemeral Substrates. We did our best to break down the information within the paper in order for students like us to understand what was being studied by asking Dr. Hageman a couple questions about his research as well a a couple personal questions.      We asked Dr. Hageman if he were to have to explain the context of his paper to a group of students, what would he say. Although trying to break it down for us, the topic was still slightly confusing and hard for a student to understand without a decently strong scientific background. What he said was the study had to do with the natural production of limestone, and how it is c