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Wednesday, March 1, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Students learn science facts from movies
The Associated Press
NEW YORK - If a new high school science curriculum were titled like a science fiction film, it would be an invasion of the Brain Enthancers."
Proposed curriculum increases interest
Leroy W. Dubeck, a physics professor at Temple University, has drawn up a curriculum that uses such sci-fi film classics as "Forbidden Planet," "The Andromeda Strain" and "Then." Students are in science at a time when U.S. students are finishing dead last in international comparisons on scientific knowledge.
The 185-page curriculum, "Science in Cinema: Teaching Science Fact Through Science Fiction Films," published by Columbia Teachers College Press, establishes lesson plans around 10 sci-films that Dubeck and co-authors Suzanne E. Mosher and Judith E. Boss said had been excellent for teaching high school science.
He said school reformers who simply wanted to increase science requirements overlooked the fact that "for many kids, the more science they get, the worse their attitude."
"The purpose is to tell kids that this thing called science can be fun, and it can help me understand world around me," Dubeeck said.
Dubeck doesn't claim that science fiction will, by itself, cure scientific illiteracy. But test results of 398 students exposed to his curriculum in more than a dozen Philadelphia area schools in 1987-88 showed that students learned about the scientific processes and felt more positive and less fearful about the subject.
"The greatest impact was on attitudes," said Matthew Bruce,
professor of science education at Temple, who conducted the student testing.
"Forbidden Planet," the 1956 classic, could easily spark a classroom discussion on relativity. Can a spaceship possibly travel faster or slower than light? Where does Robby the robot get his incredible energy?
Students could get a solid botany lesson from "The Day of the Trifids," a 1983 British offering feature plant, mutant plants from outer space.
"The Andromeda Strain," 1970 film about a killer microbe from outer space, has opened up discussions on fighting AIDS.
And "Them!" a chilling 1954 film about a world of giant ants, reptiles and other creatures. reptiles and can get students talking about whether radiation
Other films in the curriculum,
each available on videocassette,
were "The Day the Earth Caught
Fire," "Destination Moon,"
could possibly create such mammoth mutations.
"When Worlds Collide," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Five Million Years to Earth," and "Colosus: The Forbidden Project."
The immensely popular “Star Wars” was the film that inspired Dubeck to use science fiction to teach science fact. But ironically, he considered that creation too fetched to use as a teaching tool.
"Too much of it is fantasy," he said. "It gets all hung up with reincarnation and the 'force.'"
He similarly dismissed other box office hits such as the "Star Trek" and "Superman" movies. Of the caped crusader, Dubee
said, "Once you've said that a man can't fly, what else is there left to say?"
Dubeck, a science fiction buff who owns copies of more than 250 such films, has taught a course on Science. Science Fiction and Fiction in 1977 and thought the idea might also work for high school students.
The resulting curriculum, produced and field-tested with three National Science Foundation grants totaling $162,000, was tried in 13 public and parochial high schools and one middle school in the Philadelphia area in the 1987-88 school year.
Multiple choice exams at the beginning and end of the school year showed that 80 percent of the 398 students in classes using science fiction films outscored 372 students in classes using science knowledge, knowledge of scientific process, and in attitudes toward science careers.
U.S. to have wet and dry weather soon
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The danger of drought looms over California and the Missouri Valley, while spring is bringing the threat of floods in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and some of the nation's northernmost areas, the National Weather Service reported yesterday.
Michael Hudlow, the service director of hydrology, said he didn't expect drought to be as widespread as it has been; but some areas should be watched.
At the other extreme, parts of Kentucky and other southern states already have experienced flooding.
A potential for spring snowmelt flooding also threatens northern North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Arkansas, Cork and New England, Hudson told us.
How to get through college with money to spare:
1. Buy a Macintosh.
2. Add a peripheral.
3. Get a nice, fat check.
Now through March 31, when you buy selected Macintosh® SE or Macintosh II computers, you'll get a rebate for up to half the suggested retail price of the Apple® peripherals you add on—so you'll save up to $800. Ask for details today where computers are sold on campus.
save time and money...Classified
Apple Pays Half
For details on how you can get a "nice, fat check" from Apple Computer, Inc. come to the computer store in the Burge Union.
© 1998 Apple Computer Company. Apple is the logo and are required must be registered with Apple Computer Company. Contact macintosh.com All rights reserved subject to the Terms and Conditions of the License and the Apple Pass Holder Program conditions available from your university's Apple website (e-mail provided below) by law.
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