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Conversations with History: Science and History

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Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes historian John Heilbron, the 2007 Hitchcock Lecturer, for a discussion of the history of science. He reflects on his contributions to the field, analyzes the challenges of studying science as a historian, and offers insight into the value of science history for society. John Heilbron also discusses his years as Vice Chancellor of the Berkeley campus. (51 minutes)

Material Type: Lecture

Course: Open for Insight

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This is an online course in experimentation as a method of the empirical social sciences, directed at science newcomers and undergrads. We cover topics such as: - How do we know what’s true? - How can one recognize false conclusions? - What is an experiment? - What are experiments good for, and what can we learn from them? - What makes a good experiment and how can I make a good experiment? The aim of the course is to illustrate the principles of experimental insight. We also discuss why experiments are the gold standard in empirical social sciences and how a basic understanding of experimentation can also help us deal with questions in everyday life. But it is not only exciting research questions and clever experimental set-ups that are needed for experiments to really work well. Experiments and the knowledge gained from them should be as freely accessible and transparent as possible, regardless of the context. Only then can other thinkers and experimenters check whether the results can be reproduced. And only then can other thinkers and experimenters build their own experiments on reliable original work. This is why the online course Open for Insight also discusses how experiments and the findings derived can be developed and communicated openly and transparently.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Rima-Maria Rahal

Cultural Anthropology/Globalization

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In this unit, you will explore globalization and development and its effects on indigenous peoples. Modern economic and political development is driven by the assumption that the results will be benefical for all people; however, cultural differences are not taken into consideration, leading often to the destruction of indigenous cultures. Understanding the context of modern development students become versant in the current debate about globalization. By the end of the unit, you should be able to answer the following questions: What is globalization? How did the modern era of globalization develop? What is the relationship between culture and globalization?

Material Type: Full Course

Authors: Tori Saneda of Cascadia Community College in Bothell, WA.

Data Resource Center for Child & Adolescent Health

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The mission of the Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health (DRC) is to advance the effective use of public data on the status of children’s health and health-related services for children, youth and families in the United States. The DRC does this by providing hands-on access to national, state, and regional data findings from large population-based surveys. Data are collected from parents and thus contribute a much needed voice in the drive to improve the quality of health care for children and youth.

Material Type: Lesson

Author: Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health

Defining Ethnicity

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Embedded mediamakers with the Race/Related team at the New York Times ask each other potentially awkward race-related questions as a way to start more open, personal conversations about race across our racial and ethnic lines. example of definition

Material Type: Reading

Author: Jessica Temple

Demography

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Demography is the science of populations. Demographers seek to understand population dynamics by investigating three main demographic processes: birth, migration, and aging (including death). All three of these processes contribute to changes in populations, including how people inhabit the earth, form nations and societies, and develop culture. While most of the discipline’s research focuses on humans, the MPIDR is also committed to the specialized field of biodemography.

Material Type: Assessment

Author: Binod Bhattarai

Economics of Disasters

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This set of lessons looks at a variety of natural disasters from the Black Death of the Middle Ages to Hurricane Katrina in our too-recent memory, to fears of avian flu pandemics that haunt the future through the lens of economic analysis. The contexts were chosen to facilitate the teaching of economic reasoning principles not only in economics courses, but also in history and the other social studies disciplines. Each lesson addresses a question that reflects people's compassionate reaction to news of disaster and develops one or two key tools of economic analysis in answering that question. Case studies of past disasters provide real-world illustrations. Mandated content standards and testing have kicked 'current events' days from the social studies classroom calendar, transforming disasters from 'teachable moments' to curricular inconvenience. Using the economic way of thinking to sift through the chaos of natural disasters, however, reveals threads of uniformity running through the litany of horrors and devastation unique to each event. Once identified, the common features of past disasters form a template for analyzing 'the next one,' allowing teachers to quickly incorporate today's unexpected news into the planned curriculum outline.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Case Study, Lesson Plan

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