In this month’s Leaders Letter, the topic for the building content area focused on the recent record setting sky (or should we say space) jump conducted by Felix Baumgartner. The undertaking was sponsored by Red Bull Stratos which has a history of sponsoring extreme sports.  For more information on their Mission to the Edge of Space visit their webpage which provides information associated with the science, technology, team and other mission aspects.
I’m not sure about you, but on that particular Sunday afternoon, I sat in my living room totally mesmerized by the live coverage of this event (Okay I confess—I would LOVE to do something like that someday—whether my mother calls me crazy or not!!!!) and totally plugged in to the social media outlet as myself and other friends from across the country interacted asynchronously through outlets such as Twitter and Facebook.  This was not the first time that social media provided updates and information from colleagues across the country on a current event. 
Most recently it was the final trip of the Space Shuttle from Florida to California. Flybys over the flight path were expected and it was like watching the entire event through the eyes of my friends as they posted pictures from Florida, Texas, Arizona and California. I could not have had a better seat for viewing either of the current and momentous events unless I was there in person.
Current events such as the brewing of Hurricane Sandy at the moment and the impending “Frankenstorm” as it has been labeled are ways to engage students in science topics.  We as science educators have a great opportunity to engage and interest students in their real world thanks largely to the real world!! Recent years current events that I can think of include the freak snowstorm last October (with many NSTA members stuck in Hartford for a few extra days); the Earthquake that rocked the east coast in August 2011; the Tsunami that hit the west coast during the San Francisco conference in March 2011 and was a result of the great Japan earthquake that caused massive amounts of damage and in particular concern over the nuclear plants. Furthermore, the use of social media to share information allows us to have massive amounts of information (some accurate and some inaccurate) available about a particular topic almost immediately.
The opportunity to engage students with current events and keep them connected through social media is ever ready and available. To continue this conversation, it would be great to hear what others have chosen as current events to teach science and what the focus of the lesson was as well as how social media played a role in sharing this information.

Even if you don’t tweet to any followers, it’s a great idea to use Twitter for updates, news, and suggestions. #scichat and #nsta are two hashtags that are a must for science teachers. Just this morning, I saw quite a few online events and resources that were worth learning more about:
Cell Day — The National Institute of General Medical Science (NIGMS) will host an interactive Web chatroom about the cell for middle and high school students. You can join in on Friday, November 2, 2012, anytime between 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. EDT. Even if you can’t participate in the event, their Cell Day online resources on look good
Tundra Connections — This project features live, free broadcasts from the tundra during the annual polar bear migration in Churchill. There is a section for educators that includes archived broadcasts, and unit and lesson plans.
Several colleagues mentioned the interactive Rock Cycle, which guides students through a discussion and examples of rock types. I noticed that this is on the ICT Magic website, which is a treasure of interactive animations on many topics (see the index in the left margin). Within a few minutes, I was exploring a virtual volcano and the factors that affect a volcanic eruption. ICT Magic is a wiki that synthesizes resources  from other sources such as pHET, Discovery, and the Annenberg Foundation. I could see showing students the site and asking them to explore their interests!
I’m also using Twitter to keep abreast of Hurricane Sandy and its impact on the Northeast. @usNWSgov  and @usNWSgov

As the S&C editor notes, most of us have had struggled with hard-to-teach concepts. But as one article states, Hard to Teach Does Not Mean Impossible if the classroom is an environment in which students feel comfortable questioning and sharing their thinking, if preconceptions or misconceptions that might affect learning are identified, and if connections are made with other subject areas.  (Talking About Shadows describes this “friendly talk.”)
The featured articles in this issue  have suggestions for addressing hard-to-teach concepts with planned and purposeful learning activities, including identifying misconceptions, rubrics, lesson plans, and examples of student work. (It may be a coincidence, but it seems that most focus on physical science concepts. Hmm.) NSTA’s SciLinks has collections of vetted websites with background information on the concepts and additional teacher resources:

• Changes Matter!  [SciLinks: Physical/Chemical Changes, Law of Conservation of Matter]
• Experiencing Friction in First Grade [SciLinks: Friction]
• Talking About Shadows, Modeling Light and Shadows  [SciLinks: The Sun]
• How Does Force Affect Motion? [SciLinks: Forces and Motion (K-4), Forces and Motion (5-8), Friction, Force of Gravity, Gravity]
• May the Magnetic Force Be With You [SciLinks: Magnets, Magnetism, Magnetic Fields]
• Shining Light on Misconceptions [SciLinks: Light, Light and Color]
• Energy Makes Things Happen [SciLinks: Energy, Sources of Energy, Energy Transformations, Winds]
• Does Technology Evolve? [SciLinks: Technology and Society, Inventions/Inventors]
• More Is Less [SciLinks: Parts of a Plant, Plant Growth]
• The Spider Files [SciLinks: Arthropods]
• Big Ideas for Little People [SciLinks: Biological Evolution, Vertebrate Evolution]

Many of these articles have extensive resources to share, so check out the Connections for this issue (October 2012). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, there are ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, and other resources.

Brainwave entrainment or “brainwave synchronization,” is any practice that aims to cause brainwave frequencies to fall into step with a periodic stimulus having a frequency corresponding to the intended brain-state (at least according to Wikipedia).
I have a fascinating App on my iPad called simply Headache.  It’s introduction in the App Store reports, “Advanced Brainwave Entrainment is used to synchronize your brainwaves to deeply relaxing low-frequency alpha, theta and delta waves to help provide headache relief through deep relaxation. “
For $0.99, I downloaded the App to play with it.
Right away I could tell it was tapping into something inside my head.  It was hard to explain, but perhaps a picture would help. Visualization is an important variation of communication, and as they (whoever they is?) say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
The Wikipedia entry provides two graphics of interest in my exploration; Monaural beats and Binaural beats.

Monaural Beats

Binaural Beats

Monaural beats, again according to Wikipedia,  are derived from the convergence of two frequencies within a single speaker to create a perceivable pulse or beat.
On the other hand, Binaural beats are “perceived by presenting two different tones at slightly different pitches (or frequencies) separately into each ear. This effect is produced in the brain, not in the ears as with monaural beats.”
So if I understand this correctly, monaural beats are heard with the ears, while binaural beats are heard with the brain. WOW! I guess that explains why I could feel the sound in my head, not just heard it with my ears.
In order to “picture” the sound (I bet there’s no noun I can’t verb), I needed to be able to capture an image of the sound both as a traditional recording of compression and rarefaction of air, as well as the sharper vibrations moving through solid materials.
The movement of air was easy. I just propped up a mic next to the Bluetooth speaker I had paired to my iPad and used GarageBand to record the audible sound. Garage Band gave me both a picture and a sound file that you can listen to here: brainwave entrainment.

A visualization from GarageBand of the sound file available above.

But I wanted something more dynamic. Something that gave me more of a real-time image of what was happening at the exact moment I was hearing/feeling it. Not that there is a delay with GarageBand, but I wanted something more like how a seismograph presents a graphic showing the subtleties of vibrations as I was hearing them (or not hearing them since subsonic frequencies are part of the Headache App’s equation. As “they” say, there’s an App for that, and it’s called iSeismometer. And it’s free.
 

The iPad screen shows the visualization that the App iSeismometer shows for the signal.  The bluetooth speaker is sitting directly on the iPad screen thus vibrating the iPad and its built-in accelerometers. Note that only the z-axis contains the beats.

With Headache running through the speaker, and the speaker sitting on the iPad screen, iSeismometer displayed the sound, which, interestingly, was almost all in the Z-axis of motion (but I suspect that is just a function of the interaction of the speaker and its placement on the iPad’s glass screen).
 

The speaker on the left emits the audio signal from the Headache Relief App (icon visible in the lower right) while a microphone records the sound from the speaker for import into GarageBand. 

 
As usually happens, more questions were generated then answered. Right now, I’m wondering if I could match light output and frequency cycling with the sound to create a stronger inner-brain visual effect. But what if the light and sound were slightly out of phase? Could a seizure be induced? I once had a dog that would have a seizure about six hours after being exposed to flashing police or fire engine lights. And we all remember the famous scene in the movie The Andromeda Strain. But I digress.
A big unknown here is the stereo vs. mono issue. Headphones are distinctively stereo. Although a single speaker may project in stereo, the App iSeismometer might only be able to detect a single channel sound thus combining both of the signals that make stereo into a single mono visualization. Unless, the z-axis phenomenon is involved. Hmmm. More questions.
In the end, however, I think the main takeaway from this 30 minute desktop science exploration is that devices like the iPad have tremendous potential in the science classroom. Far beyond the keyboards and covers that often dominate tablet discussions in education.