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The Mythbusting Project

Excellent! Thank you very much, people! :)

This weekend I'll start mapping out the outline of worksheets and finalise a few 'starters' for a package for each student (like - if you're doing Zener cards, you might like to check out the film Ghostbusters where they feature at the beginning of the movie... and these sites... or look at these poems or borrow this ep of Bulls*&t on ouija boards and respond to it in your research journal...)
 
Stage one, introduced the task.

Went through the entry sheet. Ended up brainstorming likely topics to investigate and unlikely ones (it appears that the SF Sea Serpent/Loch Ness Monster investigation and going to see a John Edwards show is out... unless the school will chip in for travel costs!).

Some of the international students suggested tea leaf reading, runes and i-ching. Some said that they actually do feng shui with their family, 'but only the practical stuff, like, don't let the doors back into each other because they'll smash...' :) So I'll get a list on Friday of what they want to focus on and start helping collate resources. On Friday we'll look at 'Secrets of the Psychics', I think. The Science teacher who is helping us will pop in to introduce herself to the class, as not all the students know her. :)

Tonight one group is going to (they had already planned it as a fun activity before this topic was raised) play with an ouija board. They want to see if that can be their focus. I didn't catch whether the host of their party had their very own board though. Perhaps the investigating group could borrow it? I'll see.
 
Kiless said:
Intriguing. What qualities are attributed to magnets?

Is it just healing? I don't want to get students to hurt themselves and then put pads of magnets (or not magnets) around themselves!

This may indeed be left off my list.
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The "laundry magnets" (http://befreetech.com/laundryballs.htm) should be pretty easy to test, although you might have to purchases one to test it.
You could cut a sheet into 3 pieces; dunk the pieces into some kind of solution (maybe with food coloring or motor oil, something to give them a uniform stain).
Wash one of them with just water and the magnets, wash one of them with just water, and one of them with soap and water.
 
LordoftheLeftHand said:
The "laundry magnets" (http://befreetech.com/laundryballs.htm) should be pretty easy to test, although you might have to purchases one to test it.
You could cut a sheet into 3 pieces; dunk the pieces into some kind of solution (maybe with food coloring or motor oil, something to give them a uniform stain).
Wash one of them with just water and the magnets, wash one of them with just water, and one of them with soap and water.
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Ah ha! I wonder if the Home Economics dept would like to take part in this too! :) Thank you!
 
I don't know if it is too late to add things to your project, but testing some of those crazy audio devices might be fun for kids. Fowlsound could probably point you to some cheap ones.

LLH
 
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Stage two - research.

Students will be using the upcoming two-week holiday to investigate and collate everything they can find on the following topics that they've chosen:

Ouija boards (two groups wish to do this)
Zener cards/psychic ability
Tarot cards
I-ching/runes
Feng shui (I think they're going to feng shui my classroom... this will interest the other classes who use my room, if they get particularly creative...)

I'll be suggesting some sites, texts, poems and lending my Bull*&^t DVDs (with a note home to parents in regards to language/content...) to help start the search. I'll list what sites I have got here tomorrow.
 
What is the general attitude from the class towards the project, Kiless? I know you have a fairly enthusiastic mob to begin with, but what is the spectrum of impressions you get?

Athon
 
They are incensed after watching my 'introduction' to the entire project, the video 'Secrets of the Psychics' by James Randi. :) Literally foaming at the mouth about 'frauds'. :)

They've already started talking among themselves about how 'mum went to a psychic and took photos with her and she said our dog "bumped into things" and now I realise it was probably because we didn't trim his hair from his eyes in the photo rather than her realising the dog has cataracts'
and
'that Peter Poppof man is a fraud and he should be arrested and what about those poor people???'
and
'We thought of another way you can test that "charged water" by using three rooms well apart so he can't say he's "charging up the water" by merely testing it in one room....'
and
'Can we use the other class for these tests because we don't want to let our prejudices influence the results...'

So, yeah. And I have two groups who want to do Ouija boards after I mentioned that a fellow who writes an online magazine for skepticism has provided some links ready made for them...

And I didn't suggest Feng Shui initially; it came up in class conversation back in February when a student asked me about Chi (I think we were talking about The Matrix, led to martial arts, led to my mentioning my sister was a kung fu instructor, led to Chi... I end up talking about all sorts of things with students at times) and mentioned off-handedly that her family did a 'form' of Feng Shui - and now she's got a group of four all ready to investigate it.

Oh, one of the Ouija board groups wants to do an additional investigation into 'superstition in general' and want to put a ladder above my class door to test whether people will walk under it or something.... I think they'll have to get some thinking done on that or I'll be contacting Maintenance for a rather odd request and talking to the Deputy about classroom safety if I have ladders blocking my classroom door.... :D
 
Right, just uploaded the txt version here (I had it written out beautifully with pics and everything on a word document, but it was just too large to host here! :( ) of the task sheet the students are taking with them for the holidays

Each one of the groups also has a folder with:
  • The Skeptic's Dictionary definition of their area of research (e.g. Feng Shui)... I hope this isn't poisioning the well, but this was suggested by the Science teacher - she's worried they'll be converted to believe the issue they're investigating... any critiques of this? I don't really have much of a problem with it as it's the best brief straight-forward summation of the topics that I've found.
  • A sheet entitled 'Analysing the Task' which prompts them to write in point form 'Content words - What do I have to find out' and 'Instruction words - What do I have to do?' and an outline of the task requirements: Final product is to produce a group report and class oral on the topic (29th May, report is due, sent off to be in the Comp which is on 31st May). During that week, they'll do their oral report. They'll hand in their bibliography, survey results and final copy to the comp; the drafts and an additional copy will go to me (so, one to the comp, one to me). The oral they'll produce separately, naturally drawing on the elements they've used to make the report. They'll probably be quite imaginative in presenting their topic to the class... I've had everything from dramatic interpretations to quasi-dance extravaganzas in the past.... :D
  • Web page evaluation checklist
  • Info sheet on 'Searching Online Databases and the Internet'
  • Draft bibliography for all the forms of texts
  • Planning outline - just a basic sheet to help guide their ideas (keywords in this box, put your focus questions in this box...)
  • A 'For and Against' chart to fill in
  • and several pages of blank 'Research Notes' pages so they can keep all their info together.
 

Attachments

Where were you when I was designing bloody worksheets? Hm? These kick arse, Kiless.

I wouldn't worry too much about these kids being 'converted' to the 'dark side' or anything. The entire point is that they should be getting the tools to evaluate effectively the information they're receiving. By the very nature of the task, if the focus is on applying these skills they won't be using the emotional reasoning and logical fallacies that causes people to believe in them in the first place.

Of course, there's always the chance that the process will fall down, as in any group of students with any topic. But I don't see it as a risk.

Standing ovation on efforts to date. If this workshop goes ahead next year, you're definitely presenting something on the results of this.

Athon
 
athon said:
Where were you when I was designing bloody worksheets? Hm? These kick arse, Kiless.
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Thanks! :) I seem to do nothing but design worksheets for English.

Er, in fact I still owe you something on connotative/denotative, I think.... um. I'll go dig that up now, actually, because you've just given me an idea about my Year 11 class and their problem with understanding the concept in advertising.... brb.

I've got another practicum student this year and I've given him all of the stuff so far. He was very enthusiastic about cross-curricular teaching and will be 'sitting in' on what I'll be doing for next term. I'll see if he can make any suggestions or criticisms as well, being a recent graduate and probably more au fait with recent studies on cross-curricular advantages and disadvantages.

I'll be doing some more units this year on action research, so what I may end up doing is repeating this unit during Term 3 with my other Year 10 class so I can contribute that to my thesis.

I wouldn't worry too much about these kids being 'converted' to the 'dark side' or anything. The entire point is that they should be getting the tools to evaluate effectively the information they're receiving. By the very nature of the task, if the focus is on applying these skills they won't be using the emotional reasoning and logical fallacies that causes people to believe in them in the first place.
Click to expand...

Which reminds me, I'll have to start doing some worksheets on emotional reasoning and logical fallacies if I really want that 'Secrets of the Psychics' to have any benefit beyond intriguing them and prompting debate in the classroom. What I may do is go over it again and create a worksheet and make a class debate on it - and then do it with the other Year 10 class (Term 3, as mentioned before).

And here I was thinking that having two Year 10 classes this year was going to be a little dull if I just did the same thing for both! :)

Of course, there's always the chance that the process will fall down, as in any group of students with any topic. But I don't see it as a risk.
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I think if it ends up in a class discussion and debate, that will be nice.

One of the best things about showing the 'Secrets of the Psychics' video first? There's a fellow, on the segment about showing horoscopes to be made up, who passionately challenges James Randi on 'but you can't know everything, there may be something to it' and he's freely admitting that maybe yes, maybe no - we have to keep testing and trying and finding out. :)

Actually, I should transcript that section properly and make it the basis for a debate. Thanks, I'll get moving on that this holiday. :)

We have 'movonline' (or something like that) which enables the school to have film and video for airing for educational purposes on our computers. Students can watch them independently and even download them for watching on their computers at home. I should get 'Secrets of the Psychics' onto the system but I think I have to get copyright permission since it's a published documentary, not something I've taped at home (don't ask me about the legals involved, it's something the library have said to me and I don't want to do the wrong thing by the group who produced 'Secrets of the Psychics'.) In fact, if I contact them officially, they'll know there's still an interest in the documentary. So, that'll be another thing to do.

Standing ovation on efforts to date. If this workshop goes ahead next year, you're definitely presenting something on the results of this.
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If this goes ahead next year, I'll pass you the pens and the stickytape in the background and you can use it as illustration for your theories!! :o We'll have to sort this out post-Term 3, as by then I should have at least one, probably two classes who have done the task and something formally written up about it for an action research assignment for my degree. :)
 
Tch. Don't I feel like a total duffer. :blush: There's a site already:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/programs/2012_psychics.html
One activity there, that doesn't need the video to do.

Damn - you can win free videos if you send in suggestions on a text they have but it's only for US residents. Eh, if anyone wants to adapt and win stuff, go ahead. :) And double damn - it was produced in 1993, so there's no pre-existing transcript. Well, I can write up parts if not all.

Heh. It's mentioned on a psychology exam.

And this is good for images: http://www.csicop.org/webmaster/randi/
Available on amazon, natch.
 
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Excellent. I now have it on order. Thank you!

Thanks to the marvellous Slingblade (thank you!!) I also now have:
The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal
:)

Again - because I haven't linked to it except for mentioning it in my worksheet - I'd like to suggest that anyone thinking of trying the same sort of project in their classes to try Lynne Kelly's The Skeptic's Guide to the Paranormal as a useful reference.

In other news, another teacher who is teaching a year younger than mine is hoping to do the same project. In a survey of 'likely topics' that the students want to try, they came up with a few different ideas to what I've already listed:
  • The Cottingley Fairies
  • 'Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board'
  • Nigerian spam scam
So I think I'll be helping collate a few resource ideas for that teacher too. :)
 
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Can't write much due to injury but wanted to update at the end of Week 1.

* students researched over the holiday break - the tarot card group found this recently published fiction book: The Tarot Card Reader's Daughter.

* science teacher H summed up the scientific method using the overview sheet that I got from the department; apparently the notion of an abstract isn't common in producing reports in high school so she was impressed by the outline given by the WA skeptics group

* suggested resources for any teachers:
- The Mythbusters ep on 'talking to plants' (found on the 'exploding house' dvd, here) was good as an overview to scientific method - pleased to say that some of the errors reported on this site were also noted by students who happily questioned how they might improve the experiment. :)
N.B, their book called 'the explosive truth' isn't that useful a resource but a fun read.
- Dr Kruszelnicki's 'Q & A with Dr K' has a nice overview of his studies into bellybutton fluff that won him an Ig Nobel award back in 2002. I gave a copy of that to students as an example of surveys and research into your topic before engaging in an experiment.

Experiments and writing up for the next three weeks. I'd attach word documents but they're a bit too big to upload here unless they're txt files, so I'll do it when I'm better.
 
since skeptic.com, the website of Michael Shermer, now has a forumwhich has an educational section, I'll be taking all future details of my progress on this to there.

I do not see any active support by JREF that specifically aims to consider young people - students especially - either in their forum structure or even in their advertising.

I don't see any forum that has child-friendly structures in place, such as recognising the need for anonymity for young people. I don't see in promotional material for any of the popular skeptical sites like JREF, skepchicks or skeptic.com a concerned effort to bring in the thoughts of young people on skepticism. No books aimed specifically at encouraging reading for young people that weren't prompted by myself on two of those forum boards in a similarly-worded post - only skeptic.com has a links for further reading for young people. Athon prompted the sticky on this board, but it has remained static here. :( i have outlined the same suggestion in a PM about a section for education on two of the non-JREF forums I mentioned and only skeptic.com was amendable to seeing the value of encouraging more on that line. Political gesture or no - this goal of mine and some others seems to be unimportant on JREF and it should be better supported :(

So - I'm going to change to skeptic.com to write more. It will take a while, i know and I always had the dream of writing a book of collected essays and lesson plans, by many people focusing on just the educational experience of skepticism and critical thinking. Maybe, as I suspeced long ago, I'm not the best person to be heading this, but I don't see anyone else prompting that idea of publication openly as a real goal. I know of many who probably have thought similiar - but I think action beyond forum posts are long overdue. No,. not a dig. It;s something that deserves more focus beyond mere forum members and we have to do it ourselves if the 'big names' are more focused on other concerns. :(

But I'll start by taking this outline of action research that I've done in this thread to another forum that I believe shows more of a consideration for the rights of young people, simply in not implementing a rule that denies them their right to safety - by not asking for a 'real name'.

See it as 'taking my ball and leaving;, if you want. I'll still be more than willing to share any and all of my research with any teacher, as i don't think that presenting educational findings is the propertyor even 'hero worship' of one person is acceptable. We are all able to contribute, even in a small way, to the education of young people. And should do so.

Students are not so easily reached by commentaries, blog entries and forum boards that are not young-people focused, I find. But their teachers may want content beyond just skepti musings and debunking. practical application should be a goal and I haven't seen that - just look at the sticky on the top of this forum where many voiced and worked towards outlining, and how it stalled. :( Yes, it;s probably because there are so few teachers with somany other demands, mysef included in that.

But if it really meant anything to people outside of the teaching profession, why haven't they done anything themselves to highlight it? I'm tired of being in the wilderness, myself, seeing what prgress can and is being done - being overlooked in favour of adult-content aimed promotion of skepticism. The practical is lost amongst the debunking.

Call me cynical, maybe. But I'm done here. :(
 
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