National Science and Engineering Week starts today

Just a reminder to anyone who doesn’t know, National Science and Engineering Week starts today. There’s a searchable online programme here. There’s stuff all over the country, and also some online things, which you might find useful resources.

And speaking of useful resources, I love Quirkology. Richard Wiseman always seems to come up with simple, interesting experiments, that actually answer questions people want to know the answers to. You could accuse him of being gimmicky or populist, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being accessible.

I think Prof Wiseman’s work on luck contains more useful, evidence-based insights to help people live fulfilled lives than an awful lot of more orthodox psychology, or the self-help industry. And a lot of his experiments could be adapted for the classroom, or you could get students to take part in his ongoing online experiments on contagious laughter or the effect of first names.

Posted on March 7, 2008 by in Science Education. Tagged , , , , . Comments Off on National Science and Engineering Week starts today