Te Kohanga Pūtaiao o Te Whare Wānanga o Otāgo
Thursday, March 28th, 2013 | STEPHEN BRONI | No Comments
It’s Official! Chocolate is good for you!
So says the science.
Or does it?
Research from my old university in Glasgow claims to show that eating just a single chocolate bar has a direct effect on the brain and may cut the risk of stroke.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10873524
However
Is it a case of roundabouts and swings?
http://sciblogs.co.nz/bioblog/2013/03/27/chocolate-just-in-time-for-easter/
Thursday, March 21st, 2013 | STEPHEN BRONI | No Comments
There is up to $5000 to be won in this nationwide competition
Each finalist gets $1000.
EUREKA! FREE WORKSHOPS
Be inspired
Meet like minds
Find out what the judges are looking for
Develop winning ideas
Learn awesome presentation skills
Boost your confidence
Elizabeth Connor, the inaugural winner of the Prime Minister’s prize for science communication, is to run a series of workshops for students who intend to enter the Sir Paul Callaghan Awards for Young Science Orators. Workshops will be fun and interactive and will help you put your best foot forward to try to win the prestigious Sir Paul Callaghan Supreme Award.
It’d be great to see an OUASSA presence! You gotta be in to win!
Click here for more info:
Friday, March 15th, 2013 | STEPHEN BRONI | No Comments
“Throughout humankind’s history, we’ve driven species after species extinct: the passenger pigeon, the Eastern cougar, the dodo … 
But now, says Stewart Brand, we have the technology (and the biology) to bring back species that humanity wiped out. So — should we? Which ones? ”
Check out Stewart Brand’s TED Talk here at
http://www.ted.com/talks/stewart_brand_the_dawn_of_de_extinction_are_you_ready.html
Is it the answer to every conservationist’s prayer?
Or,
As Barry Hillman muses in on one of the responses,
“Sure, we have a responsibility to un-do the damage we’ve done,let’s try to change our thinking and become a more caring society that has no need to damage our world and then we can spend more of our valuable and limited time on earth creating instead of repairing.”
What do you think?
There’s a follow-up here, a panel video discussion `hot off the press’ from March 15th : http://tedxdeextinction.org/
(OUASSA students: You can now comment on our Blog-posts, but after clicking ` Comment’ box, you will have to sign-in using your Otago University login given to you at the January camp)
Friday, March 1st, 2013 | EMILY HALL | No Comments
Well done for the contributions you have made to our start-up activity in Knowledge Forum on three global problems. Many of you are doing a great job structuring well written posts which have created discussion and further questioning amongst your peers. Many of you are also trying hard to use the PQP approach and you will soon begin to see that this method of structuring answers is a useful tool to master, not just in Knowledge Forum. Remember that when proposing something that builds on the post you should provide evidence that supports your proposition. This can be a link supporting information, a news item, magazine article, video clip or another post.
To date you have been building knowledge on 3 global problems. Shortly we will move our focus closer to home – to your Project subjects. First, however we would like you to pull together what you have learned in each of these global views by posting a`Synthesis View’ as outlined below:
| `My Synthesis’ of Global Problem View Discussions 2013
Task: You are each to make to a New Note (titled `My Synthesis’) that pulls together the knowledge you have gained from our knowledge building community discussion on at least one the three Global Problem Views:
We have added a new set of scaffolds entitled ‘My Synthesis’ to help you do this. Use some or all these scaffolds to help you. In your synthesis we’d like you to outline:
Post your synthesis as a New Note titled `My Synthesis’ within the relevant `View’ This task should take you no more than 30 minutes. Date Due: March 10th Every `synthesis’ posted goes in draw for 1 of 5 I-Tunes/Warehouse vouchers! |
1. Time frame
The three Global views will remain open for the rest of the year so feel free to contribute any good ideas, resources, thoughts at any time. However, from March 11th we would like you to focus primarily on your Project A views (Maths, Physics, Geography or Zoology). We will shortly post a starting view for each of these project groups with the help of your project leaders. These you will individually be building on, the same way as you have been doing with the Global problem views. You are free to contribute to any of the project views. You will then have two weeks to you synthesize and consolidate the ideas and knowledge you have taken from community’s contributions.
We will then move onto your Project B group (Biochemistry/Genetics, Chemistry, Computer Science or Marine Science) and repeat the exercise with four views on these projects. The synthesis and consolidation phase for these projects will take place in the lead up to the Winter Science camp in July.
2. Commitment/expectations
As outlined in the January camp as part of OUASSA 2013 we expect you to be contributing to Knowledge Forum on a weekly to fortnightly basis. At least one post per week would be brilliant! Emily and I check Knowledge Forum very regularly and read your posts. Occaisionally we will post ourselves. However, our role is to guide the discussion and sometimes present useful links – not to provide `answers. You are the `knowledge builders’!
3. Trouble shooting
The login page for knowledge forum is at http://knowledgeforum1.otago.ac.nz/login
Remember to use the ‘Enhanced’ version of the software where possible and to select ‘OUASSA-2013’ from the Database drop-down box
If you are having any problems logging into Knowledge Forum, remembering your user name or password, or have any general questions, please contact us right away:
Email: ouassa@otago.ac.nz Ph: 03 3793496 steve.broni@otago.ac.nz Ph: 03 4799204
Also, please don’t forget to be checking the OUASSA Resource Page for useful resources: https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/ouassa/
We try to add to this page regularly with at least one useful link/resource. Please feel free to send me any useful links that you would recommend or you can post them yourselves on comments box.
Anything else we can help you with? Email us… we are here to support and help you reach your full science potential.
Kind regards – The OUASSA Team
Steve Broni (Director)
Emily Hall (Science Teaching Co-ordinator)
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