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Dr. Keller received her Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from the University of New Mexico in 1992.
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Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Music boxes
When I was little, a relative gave me a music box for Christmas. It had a small steel drum inside a plastic case and a crank that turned a gear that turned the drum. The drum had several nubs sticking up at various distances. Tthe nubs would get dragged under a set of long thin metal strips as the drum turned. Voila! Out came a short, metallic tune.
Read the rest of this entryPreserving the Art of Science
As a science book writer and former scientist, I keep up with the changing trends in science and science education. One such trend is the movement towards “digital experiments.” Students can now do virtual dissections on frogs and perform virtual chemistry experiments. I understand the excitement over exploiting the digital age for classroom education. Instead of having to invest in costly equipment, all a school, classroom, or homeschool needs is a computer and an account with the virtual lab provider.
Read the rest of this entryJust the facts please
About twelve years ago I sat down to write a science curriculum. I was homeschooling my children and wanted to teach them science. At that time I was working on a post-doctoral project in molecular biology and fell in love with molecular machines. Molecular machines were a “new” concept in biology, and having received my Ph.D. in biophysics a few years earlier, the idea captivated me. I was mesmerized by the work of Michael O’Donnell and the transcription machinery his lab was just beginning to discover 1.
Read the rest of this entryScience and play
We are headed into the final weeks of our online classes. I have really enjoyed teaching my Level I Chemistry and Level 2 Biology students. They are smart and dedicated and genuinely interested in the subject material. It has been a real treat for me since my own children are grown and almost out of the house.
Read the rest of this entryHot Seat for Biology Teachers
On January 28, 2011, the journal Science published an article called “Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom.” They reported results by the National Survey of High School Biology teachers which found that of 926 “nationally represented participants” 13% of high school biology teachers advocated the teaching of creationism. In the same survey, it was reported that only 28 percent followed the guidelines for teaching evolution. The rest of the article is dedicated to the “cautious 60%” who “are neither strong advocates for evolutionary biology nor explicit endorsers of nonscientific alternatives.” The authors conclude that this undecided 60% is “undermining science” and “hindering scientific literacy in the United States.” In my opinion, this is completely unfair, and places biology teachers in the hot seat. It burdens them with the responsibility of having to wade through the political mud fights currently obscuring authentic scientific discourse. It also illustrates just how little awareness the scientific community has about the nature of real scientific investigation and demonstrates an ignorance about how to give our kids a “good” science education.
Read the rest of this entryLevel I Astronomy and the Age of the Earth
The new Level I Astronomy Student Textbook is finished and ready to hit the shelves! The softcover edition will be available in a few days, and the hardcover edition will arrive in a few weeks. As of today, we at Gravitas Publications Inc. are taking pre-orders. 
The question I’m often asked is how the age of the Earth will be addressed in this book. What people are really asking is whether the new Level I Astronomy Textbook takes an old Earth or a young Earth point of view–an important question I’d like to take the time to answer.
Read the rest of this entryPersonal Responsibility
Personal responsibility doesn’t get much media attention these days. I mean real personal responsibility. The kind of real personal responsibility that acknowledges that we, as individuals, are 100% responsible for our own actions, thoughts, behaviors, words, deeds, perspectives, and feelings. What we get instead is either finger-pointing or censorship.
Read the rest of this entryThe real reason I homeschooled my children
Recently, there was a comment on one of my blog posts asking for the real reason I homeschooled my children. I did post a reply, but I thought it was an interesting enough question to respond to in full with another blog post.
Read the rest of this entry“Mom, I’m Bored”
I remember when my daughter was three years old. We had just purchased a dishwasher, and she was fascinated by the large box. She wanted to climb inside, then outside, then inside again. We cut windows and a little door, and the cardboard playhouse sat in the kitchen for several months. She was never bored and seemed to find endless activities to keep herself occupied. But when she got a little older, I started to hear the familiar refrain, “Mom, I’m bored.” Somehow, she lost her fascination with the infinite possibilities that she once knew how to create with a simple box.
Read the rest of this entryEducation or Edutainment
I can remember my first high school chemistry class. I was a nervous 9th grader and, desperate to become an oceanographer, I signed up for Mrs. Sontag’s chemistry class. In those days our high school offered little chemistry and physics, and Mrs. Sontag’s class was an elective that lasted only nine weeks.
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