Wow, Whizzbang, and Wonder
One of the best parts of my current project is coming up with ideas for features in science books. I do a lot of this: a publisher will often outsource all of the chapter-openers or end-of-chapter features for a programme. I'll receive a table of contents, some samples, a bunch of curriculum documents, and a list of criteria, and I'll wander off and assemble a team of writers and editors. Then we all sit down with the table of contents and come up with ideas for things to write about:** maybe a spread on the Burgess shale to support a chapter on evolution or on the fossil record; maybe a feature on using MRI to learn about Egyptian mummies, to support a chapter on magnetism; or even a feature on pumpkin chuckin to illustrate a real-world application of Newtonian physics.
Basically, at this stage, I spend a bunch of time trawling the Internet for cool science stuff and assessing whether it will work with the content of the book, the grade level, and the curriculum expectations.
I visit Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, for ranting about quackery, poor reporting, crappy methodology, and other sins of science. I can't use a lot of what Ben writes, sadly, because much of it goes beyond the scope of a one-page illustrated feature, but every now and then he gives me a great jumping-off point.
For whizzbang and wow-factor (and robots!), Discover and Wired Science provide vast troves of cool. I also spend a lot of time hanging around NASA, learning about how to become an astronaut (there's always a feature on astronauts), moon landings, and various and sundry satellites.
Of course, we can't write about everything we think is interesting, important, or even cool. I stay away from certain topics, or at least treat them with great caution, and not always for the reasons you might think. I avoid stem cell research because of the [bogus] controversy surrounding it-while the classroom is indeed the right place to discuss the costs and benefits of controversial research, our books won't do anyone any good if school boards don't buy them.*** Instead, in a chapter on cells, for example, I might recommend a feature on bone marrow transplants. I avoid windmills because every blessed textbook I work on has something about windmills and how awesome they are, and I think students might just be tired of reading about them-you don't turn people onto a subject by boring them to death. Instead, I look at other sustainable energy sources. I might swap a historical feature about Chien Shiung Wu in place of a historical feature about Sir Ernest Rutherford, not because the latter's contribution to physics was less important, but because I'm pretty sure students will be unable to avoid learning about Rutherford, whereas they might easily never know that a female physicist who was born in China was the one to set up the experiment to debunk a former law of physics, winning the Nobel Prize, winning several significant honours, and working on the Manhattan Project before turning her attention to medical research.
Basically, I get paid to be a huge geek on the internet. It's awesome.
The great irony here?
I have no background in science. No formal scientific training. I dropped science as soon as I could in high school, and when I tried to pick it up again in university, I failed dismally.
So how can I presume to edit scientific material? Simple. Most of my readers-high school students-are working at the level I was working at when I stopped formally studying science. I have a pretty good idea of what they'll get and what will be beyond them. I have a fair bit of empathy for students, and a good sense of wow. Also, I have academic reviewers to check the science-my job is to provide the wow, whizzbang, and wonder, and I'm reasonably good at that.
* And other irrelevant truths.
** None of these features actually appears in one of my books, but this is the sort of thing that might.
*** Basically, we try to include information that illustrates and supports good science-we look at how hypotheses are tested and supported or debunked, we encourage scientific literacy, we explore what it means when an idea is theoretical and how theories are developed, we look at the impact of good and bad science on people's lives. Sometimes, though, we have to sneak controversial material past school boards and parents, so the more controversial material goes into the teacher's edition of a book, where we can give teachers a better idea of the nature of the controversy and recommend teaching approaches to them. In an ideal world, we could just create resources based on the most interesting and relevant science. In this world, we play the compromise game in order to get as much good science as we can into the hands of students. Yes, I'm repeating myself. It bears repeating: the best book in the world does nobody any good if it remains unread. Better to give students the tools to assess controversy themselves than to present controversial material in a way that will prevent them getting access to the tools.
Basically, at this stage, I spend a bunch of time trawling the Internet for cool science stuff and assessing whether it will work with the content of the book, the grade level, and the curriculum expectations.
I visit Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, for ranting about quackery, poor reporting, crappy methodology, and other sins of science. I can't use a lot of what Ben writes, sadly, because much of it goes beyond the scope of a one-page illustrated feature, but every now and then he gives me a great jumping-off point.
For whizzbang and wow-factor (and robots!), Discover and Wired Science provide vast troves of cool. I also spend a lot of time hanging around NASA, learning about how to become an astronaut (there's always a feature on astronauts), moon landings, and various and sundry satellites.
Of course, we can't write about everything we think is interesting, important, or even cool. I stay away from certain topics, or at least treat them with great caution, and not always for the reasons you might think. I avoid stem cell research because of the [bogus] controversy surrounding it-while the classroom is indeed the right place to discuss the costs and benefits of controversial research, our books won't do anyone any good if school boards don't buy them.*** Instead, in a chapter on cells, for example, I might recommend a feature on bone marrow transplants. I avoid windmills because every blessed textbook I work on has something about windmills and how awesome they are, and I think students might just be tired of reading about them-you don't turn people onto a subject by boring them to death. Instead, I look at other sustainable energy sources. I might swap a historical feature about Chien Shiung Wu in place of a historical feature about Sir Ernest Rutherford, not because the latter's contribution to physics was less important, but because I'm pretty sure students will be unable to avoid learning about Rutherford, whereas they might easily never know that a female physicist who was born in China was the one to set up the experiment to debunk a former law of physics, winning the Nobel Prize, winning several significant honours, and working on the Manhattan Project before turning her attention to medical research.
Basically, I get paid to be a huge geek on the internet. It's awesome.
The great irony here?
I have no background in science. No formal scientific training. I dropped science as soon as I could in high school, and when I tried to pick it up again in university, I failed dismally.
So how can I presume to edit scientific material? Simple. Most of my readers-high school students-are working at the level I was working at when I stopped formally studying science. I have a pretty good idea of what they'll get and what will be beyond them. I have a fair bit of empathy for students, and a good sense of wow. Also, I have academic reviewers to check the science-my job is to provide the wow, whizzbang, and wonder, and I'm reasonably good at that.
* And other irrelevant truths.
** None of these features actually appears in one of my books, but this is the sort of thing that might.
*** Basically, we try to include information that illustrates and supports good science-we look at how hypotheses are tested and supported or debunked, we encourage scientific literacy, we explore what it means when an idea is theoretical and how theories are developed, we look at the impact of good and bad science on people's lives. Sometimes, though, we have to sneak controversial material past school boards and parents, so the more controversial material goes into the teacher's edition of a book, where we can give teachers a better idea of the nature of the controversy and recommend teaching approaches to them. In an ideal world, we could just create resources based on the most interesting and relevant science. In this world, we play the compromise game in order to get as much good science as we can into the hands of students. Yes, I'm repeating myself. It bears repeating: the best book in the world does nobody any good if it remains unread. Better to give students the tools to assess controversy themselves than to present controversial material in a way that will prevent them getting access to the tools.