U.S. Students Not Doing So Well

Or...so good?
This is the kind of news story that seems to be in front of us perpetually. There's no surprise in it, or even a sense of newness, but its importance cannot be questioned. Here's msnbc's report on the U.S.'s poor performance on the 2009 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).

FOR for week of Nov. 15

Featured Online Resource
Nov 15, 2010

Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

THIS WEEK'S Featured Online Resource

The Cassiopeia Project

The Cassiopeia Project is an effort to make intelligent but easily digestible videos on all manner of science topics. The project, operating under the slogan “No science teacher left behind,” is funded by an adamantly anonymous retired scientist. The project is named after the Cassiopeia Constellation at the edge of the Milky Way, known for its wayfinding capcaity; once you find Cassiopeia, you can easily locate all other constellations in the Northern hemisphere — a beautiful metaphor for the illuminating mission of the project

With more than 100 videos to date available on iTunesU, YouTube, and in the Video Library the project offers an invaluable resource on everything from quantum mechanics to evolution to the theory of relativity. Most videos also include a print transcript that is free to download as a .pdf file. All the content is open-source and educators and students are encouraged to edit, remix and otherwise customize the footage.

MAGAZINE SAMPLER for June, Part II

from June issues of our magazines:

Maclean's AP 5 M2

• an interview with Harvard psychologist Gene Heyman, who argues that drug or alcohol addiction is "a matter of personal choice, not a sickness (p. 19).


• Nicholas Kohler illuminates the trend of Canadians buying foreclosed properties in the U.S.'s Southwest (p. 36).

ARTnews N1 A6

• a report on interactive performance art, "You Had to Be There," (p. 70).


• a report on new strategies museum directors are implementing to "help people feel welcome, engaged, and emotionally fulfilled" (p. 76).

The New Republic June 17 AP 2 N624

• The cover story is actually a book review: Isaac Chotiner roughs up Ariana Huffington's Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, And Made us All Less Safe (And What You Need to Know to End the Madness (p. 29).


• "Spent: America After Consumerism"--Amitai Etzioni discusses the role of conspicuous consumption in our current economic malaise (p. 20).

Science June 5 P1 S35

• features on the origin of sexual reproduction (p. 1254), hydrogen cars (p. 1257), and farm-bred tuna (p. 1260).