Do teachers ever stop complaining about getting sick? End of the second week in school and already I have my first cold, along with several colleagues and a good number of students in a pretty small school. Fortunately it is not serious, a relatively minor version (as of now, it could get worse) and if I really wanted to I could even do some exercise in spite of it, but I've been good lately so I can take a few days off without much guilt or worry.
What has me particularly annoyed, though, is what I've discovered about those gel-type hand "sanitizers" along the way. In August I bought a big economy bottle of the stuff hoping that using it liberally might cut down on some of the colds I get every year - I still average 5-6 per school year, some of them lingering for 2 or more weeks - "Kills 99.99% of germs and bacteria..." Sure. Umm, could you define "germ?"
Turns out that 0.01% of germs that don't have to worry about hand sanitizers includes the cold viruses, which are the number one problem among most people in the civilized world when it comes to pathogens that make us sick on a regular basis. I would give up just about any pleasureable, non-essential activity you can think of for freedom from these dreaded almost-living particles that exist for no other reason that to make me misreable.
So, when a colleague mentioned that those products don't work on viruses, I argued that they were all alcohol based and I thought alcohol killed everything? Not exactly. I came home and did a little research, and it turns out that alcohol is not effective against nonenveloped viruses, and wouldn't you know it, most of the viruses that cause the common cold are nonenveloped viruses - both the rhinoviruses and adenoviruses.
The other important point about hand sanitizers is that the jury seems to still be out as to whether cold viruses are more likely spread in the first place through hand-to-nose contact or through the air, in which case no hand sanitizer will help anyway, even one that might be effective at killing these viruses.
Bottom line, I'll still use it when I get off the subways and buses - no telling WHAT nasty bugs I might get on my hands there and better safe than sorry. But at school, I don't see much use in the products.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Sophmore Year
Wow, if I thought this second year was going to be a little easier, it isn't looking that way at the moment. I've not had time to post at all, so I'll skip the kwetching and go straight to the instruction.
I'm pretty happy with the way things are going at the moment. We just got into some nature of science stuff this week and will finish up the introductory material next week. I budgeted 2 full weeks (not counting this past one) and I may just meet the schedule for a change. This week we talked a little about magic - I did the "Science Never Sucks" (Word Doc) trick with the test tubes, penny, and soapy water. Worked in 2 classes but not a third. The penny is just a hair too big or doesn't sit just right on the lip of the test tube so it's a little inconsistent. Then I showed them a "gory" Crisangel video and we talked a little about the importance of observation and skepticism.
We spent a little time on the "Tracks" activity that I can't link to for copyright issues. E-mail me and I'll send you the copy that I scanned. It's actually from BSCS (or that's where I got it) and involves exposing a "fossil bed" (picture) of animal tracks, one section at a time, and making observations/inferences, then revising those inferences as more information accumulates. I'm sure there are other versions of the activity, but a google search turned up nothing. It was interesting to me that students at the end wanted to know the "real" story. That lack of certainty is obviously a problem in science for a lot of people. We seem to crave an author, an authority, or an authoritarian to give us a definitive answer.
Next week we will be playing with the hissing cockroaches. They will begin a long term observation of the critters and I will start by asking them to compare the cockroaches to themselves in as much detail as possible. I don't have a formal lab write-up. Instead, they will be taking notes and keeping a log in their journals. For lab minutes I will have to supply some sort of worksheet to keep on file for them, but that will have to wait a few weeks. I also have the mealworms that I will work in at some point. I found an idea to conduct a controlled experiment on the effect of temperature on their development from pupa to adult. It's the only transition where there's a certain degree of control for the age variable, since you can actually know within a few hours when a mealworm turns into a pupa, then measure how long it takes to turn into a beetle. Unfortunately I think my adult beetles are engaging in a little cannibalism, and I may have to start a separate cage for the adults to keep this from continuing. Gotta get those student monitors lined up next week to help with some of the lab set up and live critter upkeep.
I'm pretty happy with the way things are going at the moment. We just got into some nature of science stuff this week and will finish up the introductory material next week. I budgeted 2 full weeks (not counting this past one) and I may just meet the schedule for a change. This week we talked a little about magic - I did the "Science Never Sucks" (Word Doc) trick with the test tubes, penny, and soapy water. Worked in 2 classes but not a third. The penny is just a hair too big or doesn't sit just right on the lip of the test tube so it's a little inconsistent. Then I showed them a "gory" Crisangel video and we talked a little about the importance of observation and skepticism.
We spent a little time on the "Tracks" activity that I can't link to for copyright issues. E-mail me and I'll send you the copy that I scanned. It's actually from BSCS (or that's where I got it) and involves exposing a "fossil bed" (picture) of animal tracks, one section at a time, and making observations/inferences, then revising those inferences as more information accumulates. I'm sure there are other versions of the activity, but a google search turned up nothing. It was interesting to me that students at the end wanted to know the "real" story. That lack of certainty is obviously a problem in science for a lot of people. We seem to crave an author, an authority, or an authoritarian to give us a definitive answer.
Next week we will be playing with the hissing cockroaches. They will begin a long term observation of the critters and I will start by asking them to compare the cockroaches to themselves in as much detail as possible. I don't have a formal lab write-up. Instead, they will be taking notes and keeping a log in their journals. For lab minutes I will have to supply some sort of worksheet to keep on file for them, but that will have to wait a few weeks. I also have the mealworms that I will work in at some point. I found an idea to conduct a controlled experiment on the effect of temperature on their development from pupa to adult. It's the only transition where there's a certain degree of control for the age variable, since you can actually know within a few hours when a mealworm turns into a pupa, then measure how long it takes to turn into a beetle. Unfortunately I think my adult beetles are engaging in a little cannibalism, and I may have to start a separate cage for the adults to keep this from continuing. Gotta get those student monitors lined up next week to help with some of the lab set up and live critter upkeep.
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