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| For more information on these science news and feature story tips, please contact the public information officer at the end of each item at (703) 292-8070. Contents of this Tipsheet:
CRITICAL THINKING BROUGHT "TO BORE" AT AAAS"Undergraduate students should be independent learners able to make reasoned decisions. Those who attended a demonstration of problem-based learning at the 1996 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting found just out how this concept works by participating in a highly active problem-solving role. The challenge? To determine the existence -- using critical thinking and analysis -- of a squawking, insect like (number of legs undetermined), penguin-eating ice borer that is found only in the Antarctic. Given an article written for the April, 1995 edition of Discover Magazine on this unique story, the role of the diverse audience was to validate it. The audience broke into small groups to determine the existence (or not) of the ice borer, using the same investigative skills and active group learning concepts now being explored by researchers to improve learning in undergraduate science disciplines. "Students just don't get the opportunity to critically think, analyze, hypothesize and evaluate the way they should," Dr. Hal White, a University of Delaware biochemist, said. White, through a NSF grant from the Division of Undergraduate Education heads a team of researchers in several disciplines who are working on problem-based learning in introductory undergraduate science courses. Part of this team was at the AAAS conference to conduct and monitor this exercise. The conclusion? The ice borer was an April Fool's joke. The lesson was learned, however. Problem-based learning is an effort to overcome the tendency by students to get a superficial and sometimes incorrect view of basic science concepts learned through traditional lecture-oriented science courses. Students need to be fully engaged with course material through active group learning methods to fully grasp concepts, researchers say. [Bill Noxon]
GO PLAY WHILE THE SNOW YET FLIESSnow cover has been below normal since the late 1980s, according to a team of researchers funded by the NSF. The scientists have also found that levels of Northern Hemisphere snow cover and sea ice in 1990 were the lowest since satellite records began in 1973, when record high temperatures were measured. Observations further showed that 1993 was the secondlowest year on record for sea ice. The scientists -- Mark Serreze, James Maslanik, Jeffrey Key, and Raymond Kokaly of the University of Colorado at Boulder, and David Robinson of Rutgers University in New Jersey -- studied observations from ships, satellites, weather stations, and buoys dropped by plane onto drifting pieces of sea ice. What do the group's studies mean? They're possible evidence of global warming, according to Serreze. His colleague Mark Meier, also at the University of Colorado, reports related findings. The volume of the world's glaciers outside of Greenland and the Antarctic has declined rapidly in the last century, and the rate of loss appears to be accelerating. Says Meier, "The total mass of small glaciers worldwide has apparently declined by about 11 percent since the late 19th century. In some places, the changes have been more dramatic, with the European Alps losing more than 50 percent of their ice." Annual changes in the volume of the world's glaciers appear to be related primarily to changes in air temperature, says Meier. Already, major winter resorts in the Alps have been severely affected. So in spite of this winter's snowy record along the U.S. East and West Coasts, these scientists may have a message for skiers and other winter sports lovers: get out there and enjoy it while you can. [Cheryl Dybas]
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