Lab Out Loud

Lab Out Loud co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler welcome ecologist & author Caren Cooper to the show.  As an Associate Professor at North Carolina State university, Dr. Cooper also works with the Chancellor's Faculty Excellence Program on Leadership in Public Science.  She is an advocate of citizen science, believing that anyone, anywhere at any time, can help conduct genuine scientific research...

In this special On the Lookout installment of Lab Out Loud, co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler explore another device in the world of desktop fabrication as they recently tested out Carvey - a tabletop 3D carving machine from Inventables. Right out of the box, they discovered Carvey to be a remarkably easy to use tool appropriate for younger learners. Solidly built, Carvey’s small footprint can...

This week, Lab Out Loud talks with Sonia Epstein, the Executive Editor of the Museum of the Moving Image's online publication Science & Film. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Science & Film is devoted to exploring the intersection of science and film and enhancing the public's understanding of science and technology. Sonia joins co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler to talk about Sloan...

Making his third appearance on Lab Out Loud, co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler welcome Rhett Allain back to the show.  As an Associate Professor of physics at Southeastern Louisiana University, Rhett is also an avid blogger for Wired Science.  In addition to his consultant work for Mythbusters, Rhett has recently added another impressive accolade to his resume: Technical Consultant for the TV...

Two science teachers call the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line ! To prepare for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, we decided to consult with a professionally trained expert who could answer all of our important turkey questions. Show Notes at:  http://laboutloud.com/2016/11/episode-155-butterball-hotline/  

Making his third appearance on Lab Out Loud, co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler welcome Dr. Ken Roy back to discuss safety in science classrooms and other potentially harmful areas (such as makerspaces). This fall, Ken launched the NSTA Safety Blog to share commentaries on the latest safety issues, legal standards and better professional practices. Ken reminds us about important science safety...

Have you ever relied upon a lab or resource so much that you don't know what you would do without it?  This mini-lab episode discusses such a tool that was lost and then found again - Mihara Naoki's Ramp and Roll. Originally developed to assist introductory physics students understand the simple motion of ball rolling on a ramp, Ramp and Roll's unique user-friendly interface calculates and graphs...

Making his fourth appearance on Lab Out Loud, co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler welcome Fred Ende back to the show. As the Assistant Director of Curriculum and Instructional Services for a cooperative educational service in New York, Fred has sat through, observed, and delivered a lot of professional development. Most recently, Fred has written a book on professional development entitled Profe...

Lab Out Loud welcomes former astronaut Stephen Frick, Director of Strategic Planning and Operations at the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Advanced Technology Center. Lockheed Martin and Discovery Education have partnered to launch the next phase of Generation Beyond – an initiative to use science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education to prepare today’s middle school students for deep s...

This week co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler talk sex with Dr. Carin Bondar (specifically, they discuss how science teachers can use sex to teach biological concepts).  As biologist, writer and presenter, Dr. Bondar hosts an independent web series called Wild Sex and has just released her second book, also titled Wild Sex.  Listen to Lab Out Loud to hear ideas on how you might utilize biologica...

As students are returning to school, they might be hunting for Pokémon with the wildly popular Pokémon GO app. Part of the game allows students students to evolve their Pokémon into other pocket monsters. But is this an accurate portrayal of biological evolution? Can science educators actually use Pokémon GO to teach evolution or other scientific concepts? To help answer some of these questions, L...

To close season nine, co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler discuss newer technologies such as 3D printers, virtual reality and drones.  These newer technologies have recently Lab Out Loud's attention and they are exploring how they might be used in the science classroom.  Lab Out Loud also talks with Benjamin Schrom, product manager at Google for Education. Ben shares a taste of Google Expedition...

This week, Lab Out Loud co-host Brian Bartel talks with Dr. Tom Hart - penguinologist and lead researcher for Penguin Watch. Penguin Watch is a project that collects images of penguins and other seabirds from cameras scattered throughout the Southern Ocean. These images are shared online where citizen scientists can easily identify adult penguins, chicks and eggs. Listen to Lab Out Loud to hear ho...

As a former biology teacher and now product manager at PASCO Scientific, Mike Blasberg has witnessed a transformation in how students can collect data in the science classroom. Mike joins us to talk about the evolution of sensors, how we can use a smartphone to collect and analyze data, and discusses the capabilities and features of the new wireless sensors available from PASCO scientific. Shownot...

At  SXSWedu , co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler were fortunate to see littleBits founder and CEO Ayah Bdeir unveil the new littleBits STEAM set.  In fact, they were quite impressed to hear about littleBits' gender neutral design and see examples of students using the sets to solve real problems. Wanting to find more about this invention-based learning tool, Lab Out Loud is proud to welcome lit...

From NOVA Education, Lab Out Loud welcomes outreach coordinator Ralph Bouquet to showcase NOVA Labs - a free digital platform featuring games that foster authentic scientific exploration. With engaging interactives and informative videos, NOVA Labs allows students to participate in an area of active research where they can analyze and play with the same data that scientists use. Listen to the show...

Lab Out Loud had so much fun talking movies with Andy Howell, so they continued talking with him about his work as scientist at Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) and Adjunct Faculty in physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  Andy joins co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler (again) to talk about studying supernovae, robotic telescopes, and how science really...

In February, the journal Science published an article entitled “Climate Confusion Among U.S. Teachers” that has been attracting a great deal of mainstream media attention. Examining a nationwide survey of how middle school and high science teachers address climate change in their classes, the article reveals some encouraging insights and uncovers a few areas for improvement. To better understand t...

Co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler discuss movies and science with scientist, writer and podcaster Andy Howell. Besides studying supernovae and working with robotic telescopes (at Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) and the University of California, Santa Barbara, Andy has been working on a podcast to evaluate the scientific content in movies and the portrayal of scientists...

Lab Out Loud's guest this week is Shaun Whitehead, space engineer and founder of Thumbsat. Dreaming of once becoming an astronaut, Shaun now provides the engineering reality to put experiments in space with Thumbsat - a thumbsize platform for space exploration complete with microcontroller, camera, radio, GPS and temperature sensors. Thumbsat data can be harvested through Thumbnet, a global networ...

At Lab Out Loud, we love data collection. That's why we are happy to welcome Chrystian and Rebecca Vieyra to the show.  Working as an app developer and high school physics teacher, this husband and wife team developed Physics Toolbox - a suite of apps that use the built-in sensors inside smartphones to complement the current probeware used in classrooms. Listen to the show to hear more about Physi...

Co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler are proud to welcome fellow science podcaster Ainissa Ramirez to Lab Out Loud. As scientist, inventor and self-proclaimed science evangelist, Ainissa is the host of Science Underground - a new, two-minute podcast that delivers a science topic in an enjoyable and easy to understand fashion. Listen to the show to hear Ainissa discuss the importance of science co...

Lab Out Loud welcomes Matt Hartman, the content coordinator for eCYBERMISSION, to the show. Sponsored by the Army and administered by NSTA, eCYBERMISSION is a web-based STEM competition for 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th grade teams tasked with proposing a solution to a real problem in their community. Matt joins co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler to talk us about the competition and its alignment to th...

Our guest this week is Todd L. Pittinsky, professor in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Stony Brook University.  Todd and Nicole Diamante (a doctoral candidate in engineering at Stony Brook) recently wrote an article that caught our eyes. In "Going Beyond Fun in STEM" (Phi Delta Kappan) Pittinsky and Diamante suggest that perhaps after the Mentos geyser demonstration, science tea...

Do your students have a vision for the future? Then they might be motivated to enter the 23rd Annual Toshiba/NSTA annual ExploraVision competition. Through problem solving, critical thinking and communication skills, this K-12 science competition encourages students to imagine and explore a vision of a technology 20 years into the future. To help explain what ExploraVision is and how to participat...