The Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science (TIES) was founded to provide teachers with content and engaging resources to teach evolution in an effective and respectful way. Now with downloadable units that meet every state’s evolution standards, TIES offers formidable resources for teaching evolution online. TIES Director Bertha Vazquez joins us to discuss how science teachers can access their powerful resources, tap into their training, and use their support to address critics of evolution....
Nov 01, 2021•36 min•Season 15Ep. 254
To answer their questions about pumpkins, the Lab Out Loud podcast connects with a pumpkin expert. From the University of Rhode Island, Dr. Rebecca Brown joins co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler to talk about growing pumpkins, the surprising results of pumpkin breeding, and the pumpkin industry in the United States. About The Guest: Rebecca Brown is an assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island in the Department of Plant Sciences and Entomology, where she conducts research in the a...
Oct 18, 2021•47 min•Season 15Ep. 253
Can all games provide learning activities? Is there a connection between scientific models and games? How can educators evaluate games and simulators as learning tools in the classroom? David Gagnon joins the Lab Out Loud podcast to discuss designing and evaluating games for learning, and describes how his team integrates learning theory to create meaningful games that make personal connections to students. About Our Guest David Gagnon is the Director of a game studio and research lab at the Uni...
Oct 04, 2021•37 min•Season 15Ep. 252
As schools transitioned to online learning in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Skype a Scientist saw a increased demand for their service. Boasting a database of thousands of scientists, SKYPE a Scientist uses readily available video chat tools to connect scientists to teachers, students and other groups around the world. Founder and Executive Director Sarah McAnulty joins the Lab Out Loud podcast to talk about Skype a Scientist and its increased programming, how the resource grew during the p...
Sep 20, 2021•37 min•Season 15Ep. 251
Erika Shugart joins the Lab Out Loud podcast for their 250th episode to discuss her role as NSTA Executive Director, share how the association can provide professional development and networking opportunities in a face to face world with digital demands, and explain her vision to provide equity and evidence in science education. Show notes at: https://laboutloud.com/2021/09/episode-250-erika-shugart/
Sep 06, 2021•24 min•Season 15Ep. 250
What happens when scientists abandon ethical standards in the pursuit of science? Can we trust scientific discoveries learned with fraudulent practices? To answer some of these questions and more, science writer Sam Kean joins The Lab Out Loud podcast to share from his new book, The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science. Listen to the show to hear Sam explain how he uses storytelling as a means to engage the listener in sci...
Aug 23, 2021•32 min•Season 15Ep. 249
To close out season 14, the Lab Out Loud podcast reflects on experiences educating and learning through a pandemic. Co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler also re-connect with Fred Ende and his kids as they share their experiences learning science and communicating with others over the last year. Show notes: https://laboutloud.com/2021/06/episode-248-pandemic-reflections/
Jun 07, 2021•52 min•Season 14Ep. 248
In the latest installment of their Scientist Out Loud series, Dr. Terry McGlynn joins the Lab Out Loud podcast to discuss his research with ants and other insects found in tropical rainforests. Since 1995, Terry has been working out of La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica studying ants as a model system. Instead of the boring ants we might find in North America, these tropical species are far more interesting and can teach us a lot about social interactions, organizing behaviors, and balanc...
May 24, 2021•41 min•Season 14Ep. 247
In an attempt to help students make visible connections between science and sound, Dr. Victor Minces and his team have created Listening to Waves - a suite of online tools that allow students to easily view, manipulate and generate sound. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Listening to Waves freely provides an online oscilloscope, signal generator, and spectrogram. Dr. Minces joins the Lab Out Loud podcast to share his appreciation of science and sound, explain how students can have f...
May 10, 2021•45 min•Season 14Ep. 246
With a shift to online learning during the pandemic, students have relied on watching and creating more videos. But how has that impacted science education? To help answer that question, the Lab Out Loud Podcast invites Rhett Allain back to the show. Rhett shares some tips and suggestions for online learning - especially dealing with online math. Spoiler alert! He suggests that students make a video to showcase their learning. Rhett also describes his work as technical advisor at McGyver, then t...
Apr 26, 2021•56 min•Season 14Ep. 245
As schooling has expanded into our homes during the pandemic, it's no surprise that online resources geared towards learning at home have been extremely valuable. That's why Lab Out Loud's exploration into science at home connects them with Ben Finio and Svenja Lohner, both senior staff scientists at Science Buddies. With an emphasis on providing kid-friendly, bite-sized STEM learning activities for students to do at home, Science Buddies also offers a robust array of resources like science news...
Apr 12, 2021•33 min•Season 14Ep. 244
Lab Out Loud's exploration into distance learning takes on new meaning this week, as they discover what's next from the Perseverance rover that recently landed on Mars. To guide them in the conversation, co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler welcome Brandon Rodriguez to the show. A chemist by training, Brandon teaches high school chemistry and physics while working as an Education Specialist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he provides resources and training for K-12 schools. Brandon joi...
Mar 22, 2021•50 min•Season 14Ep. 243
Igniting Science Curiosity Across Africa As the Lab Out Loud Podcast continues to explore how science education has adapted during the pandemic, a new science TV show out of Africa caught their eye. In part created to accommodate learning at home through broadcast television, N*Gen has grown into a Pan-African TV show that encourages science across borders and allows African children to see themselves as scientists. With a STEM focus, episodes include engaging animations, hands-on experiments, t...
Mar 08, 2021•53 min•Season 14Ep. 242
This week, the Lab Out Loud podcast talks with Mallory Wills, a biology and earth science teacher at George Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In August 2020, Cedar Rapids and other parts of the Midwest were slammed by a derecho - an intense storm with straight line winds that damaged every school in the Cedar Rapids system. In the wake of the devastation, Mallory applied for a SSP (Science for Society and the Public) STEM Research Grant, hoping that the grant would provide much neede...
Feb 22, 2021•29 min•Season 14Ep. 241
This week, the Lab Out Loud podcast talks with India Carlson, a botany and environmental horticulture teacher at Ballard High School in Seattle, Washington. In a typical year, India's students spend a significant portion of time working in the school garden and greenhouse. Faced with the unique challenges of learning science at home this year, India decided to clone a plant for every one of her students to use at home for learning, experimentation, and even finding joy. India joins co-hosts Bria...
Feb 08, 2021•31 min•Season 14Ep. 240
Lab Out Loud's guest this week is Dr. Steffania Kapsetaki, a postdoctoral research fellow at Arizona State University at the Arizona Cancer & Evolution Center. Joining Lab Out Loud from Greece where she is working remotely during the pandemic, Dr. Kapsetaki is studying chimerism across the tree of life and its potential impact in triggering cancer. Representing a relatively new field of research in life science, chimerism occurs when organisms contain cells from other organisms. Dr. Kapsetak...
Jan 18, 2021•47 min•Season 14Ep. 239
This week, the Lab Out Loud podcast explores Meet The Lab, a new educational resource from PBS Wisconsin Education designed for middle school science classrooms. Similar to their #ScientistOutLoud series, Meet the Lab introduces students to real world issues, scientific practices and concepts, and also to the people that work together to research and solve problems using science. To guide them through this new resource, co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler are joined by Megan Monday, Executive ...
Jan 04, 2021•23 min•Season 14Ep. 238
The guest for the Lab Out Loud podcast this week is Dr. Rachel Hale. As a self-proclaimed invertebrate advocate, Rachel's personal interests in worms and other invertebrates have grown into a career as a marine biologist. Working for the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, part of her work includes research voyages where Rachel is able to study the biodiversity of invertebrates living around the sediment at the seafloor. Dr. Hale joins co-hosts Brian Bartel and D...
Dec 21, 2020•32 min•Season 14Ep. 237
To conclude their segment on video in science education, The Lab Out Loud podcast is joined this week by filmmakers Clayton Brown and Monica Long from 137 Films. This Chicago-based documentary production company promotes science through storytelling by exploring how its search for answers impacts our cultural, political, and personal lives. Directed by Clayton and Monica, We Believe in Dinosaurs follows the building of the Ark Encounter in Northern Kentucky to its opening day. By focusing on the...
Dec 07, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Season 14Ep. 236
This week, the Lab Out Loud podcast welcomes Jared Lipworth to the show. As Executive Producer and head of Outreach and Impact at HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, Jared oversees the production of documentaries in addition to the outreach and impact campaigns built around them. Recent NSTA Conference attendees will recognize HHMI's "Night at the Movies" hosted at the annual Conference. Without a physical conference to attend, Lab Out Loud wanted to help share some of the media produced by the studio th...
Nov 23, 2020•34 min•Season 14Ep. 235
As the Lab Out Loud podcast continues to explore the use of video in science education, they turn their attention to the use and creation of short format films. To guide them through that discussion, they are joined by Douglas Dicconson from Theorem Studios and Kim Birbrower from Big Picture Educational Consulting. Theorem Studios and Big Picture Educational Consulting recently paired up to create content for Chemistry Shorts, a project sponsored by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation to co...
Nov 09, 2020•39 min•Season 14Ep. 234
Continuing their exploration into science documentaries, the Lab Out Loud podcast welcomes environmental photographer James Balog to the show. For almost four decades, Balog has been building a visual time capsule documenting the complicated and intimate relationship between humanity and nature. In The Human Element, Balog exposes this relationship with vivid and often uncomfortable imagery that illustrates unmistakable human impacts on the essential elements of water, air, fire and earth. Balog...
Oct 19, 2020•40 min•Season 14Ep. 233
The guest for the Lab Out Loud podcast this week is director, writer and producer Scott Hamilton Kennedy. At the 2019 NSTA Conference in St. Louis, Kennedy hosted a screening of his recent documentary "Food Evolution" (2016). Narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, "Food Evolution" investigates GMOs to showcase how misinformation and fear can drown out rational evidence and divide communities. Kennedy joins co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler to discuss the process of making science documentaries, ho...
Oct 04, 2020•28 min•Season 14Ep. 232
This week, the Lab Out Loud podcast talks with Dave Bakker, co-founder and COO of PocketLab. In March, Dave and some of his colleagues were looking for a way to provide professional development to STEM teachers while #COVID-19 kept many of them at home. The result was a virtual conference called ScIC (Science is Cool) that has attracted tens of thousands of science teachers and education professionals from around the world. Dave joins co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler to discuss the origins ...
Sep 21, 2020•42 min•Season 14Ep. 231
This week, the Lab Out Loud podcast features GIS Specialist and author Tyler Danielson. As part of his work with civil engineering firm Bolton & Menk, Tyler has recently written a book geared towards children to help them understand GIS in the world around them. In "Lindsey the GIS Specialist - A GIS Mapping Story," the title character Lindsey helps to explain what GIS is, describe what data she might collect, and how she could use that data to create digital maps. Listen to the show to hear...
Sep 07, 2020•35 min•Season 14Ep. 230
As some schools are returning to in-person learning this fall, science teachers will need to address virus mitigation both in the traditional classroom and in lab environments. To discuss safety considerations while teaching science in the pandemic, the Lab Out Loud podcast welcomes Dr. Ken Roy back to the show. With health and safety always as the priority, Ken joins co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler to discuss important safety aspects such as checking for clean water pipes and functioning ...
Aug 24, 2020•45 min•Season 14Ep. 229
To wrap up season 13, the Lab Out Loud podcast welcomes Ainissa Ramirez back to the show. As science teachers are building their reading lists for the summer, they may want to check out Ainissa's new book - The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another. In this collection of stories about eight inventions (from clocks to silicon chips), Ramirez unearths vivid stories that showcase how humans have created inventions, and in turn, how those inventions have shaped us. Ainissa joi...
Jun 08, 2020•34 min•Season 13Ep. 228
Lab Out Loud's guest this week is Kris Brown from the Office of STEM Engagement at NASA. As a NASA engineer, Kris used to work with critical hardware used on numerous shuttle missions. Now, as Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA's Office of STEM Engagement, Kris works towards creating unique opportunities for students and the public to contribute to NASA’s work in exploration and discovery, and to building a diverse future STEM workforce by engaging students in authentic learning experiences...
May 25, 2020•25 min•Season 13Ep. 227
The Lab Out Loud podcast welcomes Dr. Alex Evans to the show. From a young age, Alex developed a love for science that eventually led to a career as a research scientist in animal physiology, focusing on measuring the energetics of animals in flight. Changing gears to science communication, Alex now works as a science educator, presenter, and writer. Joining co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler, Alex discusses his love of parrot Twitter accounts, describes what we can learn from bird energetics...
May 11, 2020•32 min•Season 13Ep. 226
The Lab Out Loud podcast guest this week is Dawn Fallik, reporter and associate professor at the University of Delaware. As a medical reporter, Dawn writes about loneliness and the medical consequences of loneliness in Millennials and Gen Z. At SXSWedu, Dawn recently presented as part of a panel about Generation Lonely: 10,000 Followers and No Friends, discussing what's behind increasing feelings of social isolation and loneliness. Dawn joins co-hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler to talk about t...
Apr 27, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Season 13Ep. 225
