I went to the web site that Alan Scott suggested: http://physics.uwstout.edu/stoutsci/ and I persevered through the
reading of 14 of the "activities" and tried to imagine there was any
real science in them. I'm sorry, but I couldn't find it.
The activities are primarily education jargon, i.e. statements written
to satisfy state teaching standards as opposed to demonstrating a
particular scientific principle. Of course the words "scientific
method" appear everywhere, giving strong suggestion that if you are
using the "scientific method" then you must be doing science.
Sometimes I couldn't fathom what the people has in mind. For example,
if you go to this site, read the one about reaction times between males
and females. In the "procedure" you are supposed to start out by asking
how you might go about figuring out why your ATV doesn't start, or why
your hair turned out red when you tried to dye it black. Then you
examine some advertisements that might might contain false claims. Then
you pass out rulers and do the usual reaction time experiment by having
one student try to catch a ruler released by another student. Then you
make an assignment for the next day about finding advertisements that
might be false.
Am I missing something here? How does the reaction-time experiment have
anything to do with anything else in this "lesson?" Indeed, how do any
of the activities in this lesson fit together.
In another, students try to use scientific method to determine if magnet
therapy might be worthwhile. The necessary equipment includes a
"magnetic field intensity meter" but there isn't any indication of what
is done with the meter. I suppose a gauss/teslameter could be used to
determine if the product really contains magnets or not, and you could
determine which products have stronger magnets. But that doesn't answer
the question. I see lot's of this coming from education departments.
They try to do some measurements to make it appear they are applying
"science" to some question. But the measurements have nothing to do
with answering the question.
It sure seems to me this is psuedoscience trying to evaluate
pseudoscience.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Chair of Sciences
Bluffton College
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu