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The Science Pawdcast
The Science Pawdcast breaks down the latest science happening in the human world AND the pet world.
Each episode will also bring you a guest to enthral you with their area of knowledge.
You'll learn, be captivated, and laugh along with host Jason Zackowski.
Pets and Science, it's the pawfect mix.
You'll also get episodes of SciChat and PetChat which are the live shows from social audio.
SciChat has an interview and Q+A with a scientist, while PetChat is a live community gathering for games and stories about pets!
For Science, Empathy, and Cuteness!
The Science Pawdcast
Season 6 Episode 7: Mammal Size, Care Homes, and Educational Practices with Danielle Maxwell
Picture this: female beavers challenging the status quo of size dimorphism, proving that in science, as in life, there's always room for surprises.
Then, let the story of therapy dogs in senior care homes tug at your heartstrings—a touching reminder of the profound connections between humans and pets, inspired by visits with my own grandfather.
Joining us on this enlightening adventure is the passionate educator, Diane Maxwell, who shares her transformation from a chemistry undergrad to a doctorate in chemistry education research.
We delve into the vibrant world of culturally responsive science education and the ways it enriches our classrooms, welcoming all students' backgrounds into the scientific dialogue. It's a candid look at how family support shapes the scientific journey of Latina undergraduates, and a reflection on the importance of bringing diverse cultural narratives into the fold to empower a new generation of scientists.
Rounding out the episode, we get personal with tales of professorial teaching styles and the difference that genuine, thoughtful educator training makes. Ever wondered about the curious case of a cat's mistaken identity or what life is like in the extreme darkness of Utqiaġvik, Alaska?
Our pet stories and super facts are here to entertain and maybe even enlighten.
As we wrap up, our hearts are full of gratitude for our listeners and our Paw Pack community.
So, join us in this exploration of science, education, and the irreplaceable joy pets bring into our lives.
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Danielle on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Danielle_Maxwel
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Hello science enthusiasts. My name is Jason Zekowski. I'm a high school chemistry teacher and a science communicator, but I'm also the dog dad of Bunsen and Beaker, the science dogs on social media. If you love science and you love pets, you've come to the right place. Put on your lab coat, put on your safety glasses and hold onto your tail. This is the Science Podcast. Hello everybody, welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there.
Speaker 2:This is episode seven of season six. Some of the audio in this episode might sound a little different and that's because I'm recording in my classroom. This week has been bananas level crazy, and the podcast is delayed because of that. Remember, chris and I my wife and I are both teachers and this week has been a very busy, and this week has been a busy one and I found a little bit of time here and there to record in my classroom. Normally I'm at home, kind of in my studio, but I think it sounds okay, all right. Well, what's on the show? This week In science news there was a really fun study that looked at the sizes of mammals based on their sex male-female and the conclusion was kind of interesting.
Speaker 2:In pet science we're going to look at a really wholesome study that brought therapy dogs to senior care homes. Our guest and ask and expert is Diane Maxwell, who's working towards her PhD. She's a PhD candidate and we got to talk about something that's really to the heart of what I care about a lot, and that's teaching. It's a really interesting conversation and one that hopefully will hit home with a lot of people, because it's something that my wife and I are really passionate about, being school teachers. Okay, yesterday was Pi Day and I can't get enough of the Pi Day puns, so we've got two. What do you call it when someone gets a tattoo of Pi on their face? An irrational decision? What do you get when you divide a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?
Speaker 1:Pumpkin pie.
Speaker 2:Okay, on with the show, because there's no time like science time. This week in Science News we are going to talk about mammal sizes based on them being male or female. Male and female beavers are the same size. I thought we would be able to kind of tell if Norbert, our beaver that lives in our creek, is a male or female by the size of him on camera. And after checking beaver sources, it turns out you can't really tell a beaver's sex by looking at them, and if there are two beavers side by side you can't tell which one's male or female. You can, I guess, if they start getting jiggy with it on camera. So I guess that's what we're hoping for. Kind of inappropriate, but there you go. So this study popped up and I was like, hey, we should probably talk about this.
Speaker 2:Traditionally it's believed that most male mammals are larger than females and it's the idea of the males need to be big and strong to attract the attention of somewhat choosy females. We picture this with mammals because most of the mammals that we are around, the males are always bigger. Most male humans are bigger than females, most male dogs are bigger than female dogs, and so on and so forth. But scientists, led by Kaya Tomback, looked at over 400 mammalian species and in over half the females were equal to or larger than the males. This challenges that there's larger males in general than females. The narrative is kind of flipped on its side Now. It is true that carnivores, primates and hoofed mammals usually have larger males so dogs, cats, monkeys, chimpanzees, horses, cows but for rabbits and rodents either the size of male to female was identical or so similar there really wasn't much of a difference or the female was, on average, bigger than the male. One species that was really skewed was bats. There's a whole host of bats on earth, and that makes sense for beavers, because beavers are actually a rodent. They're one of the largest rodents on earth.
Speaker 2:Now, I don't know if you remember the movie the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or you've read the books, but there's two characters, mr and Mrs Beaver, in the show. I think they take refuge in their lodge and get fed some funny, you know, non-really human food down below, and I rewatched some clips on YouTube and they did a good job of making sure that the beavers were almost the same size. You can really only tell them apart by their voice. They made the male beaver have a male British voice and the female beaver have a female British voice. I just thought that was really cute.
Speaker 2:So the end of the study with over 400 mammal species identified, about 45% of them had heavier males and if you add up the heavier females to equal, that's where the 55% comes from. 55% of the mammals in the study, the females were either bigger or the same size. Now, if you get into the nitty gritty of those statistics, it was only 16% of all the mammal species looked at had the females being bigger. So I think that's where the stereotype comes from. Male and females are usually the same size and if they're not, the males generally are heavier than the females. Now, this study only looked at 5% of all mammal species and the team wants to look at more, but they're pretty confident because of the wide range of mammal species that they looked at. Obviously they didn't just look at dogs or primates because it would be skewed heavily towards the male. It's interesting school for thought and it's something that you know, I've taught in school before that the male mammal is generally bigger. But that's not the case. On average they're the same size and the females can be heavier than the males.
Speaker 2:That's science news for this week. This weekend, pet science, we're going to be talking about a study that brought therapy dogs into senior care homes. One of my favorite things when I went to go see my grandfather when he was still alive, he was in a senior care home. Diabetes had done a number on him and he was going blind and needed help. It was I would bring Bunsen and, like my grandpa, had dogs his whole life. I remember visiting my granny and grandpa and they had dogs and he loved when just touching Bunsen. I'm not sure how much he could see in his last couple of years, but I just remember how much he loved touching Bunsen and you always say you know how soft Bunsen was and he was such a good boy. And when I would bring Bunsen through the senior care home, all of the residents wanted to see Bunsen and he was more than happy to see people he really liked. He really liked the people in the senior care home.
Speaker 2:So the aim of this study is to investigate if bringing a therapy dog to these nursing homes had a physiological response on the folks interacting with them. There were higher hopes in the study to have a greater sample size, but over the course of time, they actually lost a couple of residents and the sample size of folks dwindled to 12 people. They visited these folks for 60 minutes twice a week over four weeks. All of the visits were videotaped, all of the interactions were recorded and three data points were recorded Finger tip temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. All three of those are regulated by your autonomic nervous system and during stress, when you're anxious and feeling sad or uncertain, your nervous system actually increases its sympathetic tone. This leads to an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. Your body thinks you're in danger and it acts to pump more blood around your body and have greater blood pressure so you can force your muscles to move faster. In addition to that, your peripheral blood vessels constrict, remember you're possibly in danger, and it wants to bring all of the blood from your extremities closer to your internal organs. It's way more complicated than that, but the peripheral circulation decreases. Therefore, under duress and anxiety and stress, your fingertip temperature will decrease.
Speaker 2:So over the four week period they tested different interactions with the dogs. Sometimes the residents just got to look at the dog. Sometimes the residents got physical contact with the dog. Then they were like you know what? What if they actually played with the dog like tugged rope or threw a ball. Then they had the resident have casual conversations with others and the dog handler was there and the person was able to have a chat with a bunch of people but also touch the dog if they wanted to. To nobody's surprise, the more physical contact that the residents had with the dog, the more positive benefits towards stress and anxiety seem to occur. That doesn't mean there is more stress. That means that the physiological responses seem to be less. In the first couple of weeks there wasn't a huge change in their blood pressure and heart rate. That wasn't seen till later and it was definitely seen in the residents that were interacting with the dogs for longer. There seemed to be an association with the duration of physical contact and all of those other physiological responses. Longer durations tended to increase fingertip temperature, so that meant possibly that the senior was under less stress. More blood was flowing to their extremities. Interestingly enough, in the group that was chatty, talking to the dog handler or folks around them, but also having contact with the dog, that had the greatest response to a decreased heart rate In the end.
Speaker 2:The conclusion of the study is interesting. It shows that minimal interactions with dogs in the study didn't seem to have any positive effect physiologically. It showed that over time there was an increased response. That could be concluded, decreased the residents' stress and, thirdly, a combination of human and animal contact seems to be the best. This is all super important because we're kind of past the point of dogs help people with stress. That's a conclusion that most scientists would agree with. We're now at the point of how do we use dogs best to decrease stress? That's a more interesting question for people who are still doing science.
Speaker 2:Some issues with the study, acknowledged by the actual authors themselves, was how small the sample size was. An issue that will always be. A problem is sample size, because limited dogs are trained to that therapy level and you need to have prolonged contact and these were people who were quite elderly and greater chance of some of those folks not making it through the study. All of this just brings back good memories of me talking to my grandpa he was in his chair, petting Bunsen just talking to him about the good old days Back when he was a kid no electricity, all his stories walking around with stilts. They went on stilts everywhere. They'd have to cut up ice from the slew for the summer. Good memories. That's science news for this week.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody, here's some ways you can keep the science podcast free. Number one in our show notes sign up to be a member of our Paw Pack Plus community. It's an amazing community of folks who love pets and folks who love science. We have tons of bonus Bunsen and beaker content there and we have live streams every Sunday with our community. It's tons of fun. Also, think about checking out our merch store. We've got the Bunsen stuffy, the beaker stuffy and now the ginger stuffy. That's right, ginger, the science cat, has a little replica. It's adorable. It's so soft, with the giant fluffy tail, safety glasses and a lab coat. And number three if you're listening to the podcast on any place that rates podcasts, give us a great rating and tell your family and friends to listen to. Okay, on with the show. Back to the interviews. It's time for Ask an Expert on the science podcast, and I have Daniel Maxwell with me today, a chemist and PhD candidate. Danielle, how are you doing?
Speaker 4:I'm doing pretty well. How are you doing, Jason?
Speaker 2:Good, I'm excited to chat with you. It's going to be a really interesting and unique conversation. But first off, where are you in the world? Where are you calling into the show from?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm calling from Ann Arbor, michigan, so it's about 45 minutes west of Detroit.
Speaker 2:Okay, like. Have you lived in where Detroit's like northeast United States? Have you lived in that area your whole life or ping-ponged around?
Speaker 4:I've lived it here my whole life. So I grew up actually about 45 minutes north of Detroit and then went to Detroit for undergrad and now I'm in Ann Arbor, so I've kind of just lived in this triangle of southeastern Michigan.
Speaker 2:What is that? Detroit Steel right, Detroit Rock City? There's lots of like little pop-cultury things from Detroit.
Speaker 4:Exactly, we have like Motown for music. You know we're known for the auto industry. We have some really cool brands and stuff that are out of Detroit. So it's a wonderful place to be.
Speaker 2:Cool, cool. Now I mentioned you're a chemist and you're working towards a doctorate, like you mentioned. Like, by the time somebody maybe listens to this, you might be done, but could you tell everybody a little bit about your training Of?
Speaker 4:course. So I received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Detroit, mercy, which is a small liberal arts school in Detroit. It was a wonderful experience, absolutely loved. You know the people that were there and I learned so much about chemistry and all the different things you can do with chemistry, and during my time there I got really involved in undergraduate teaching and went to several conferences and through that I learned about this discipline called chemistry education research, and every type of science has these disciplines. There's bioeducation research, there's physics education research, and essentially these are people that are trained in that discipline. So they usually have a bachelor's degree in chemistry or physics or biology and then they do research on the teaching and learning of that subject to make it better. And so I was like wow that's so cool.
Speaker 4:You know I loved teaching, I loved working with people in undergrad, and I saw like this was one way to bring those two things together and continue in chemistry, and so I looked for programs across the country and applied to several of them and ended up deciding to go to University of Michigan to work with Dr Ginger Schultz, who is the only chemistry education researcher at the University of Michigan, and I've been here for five years now, so I'm getting close to defending my dissertation and then moving on to whatever is next in life.
Speaker 2:I'm an educator myself, my wife's an educator, so like deep within our like whatever you call it what we care about most is teaching. So it's wonderful that to talk to somebody who also has that passion.
Speaker 4:Yes, it's so important, right, like everyone has those influential teachers that really make an impact on them, and even though we see, you know, kids or in college, young adults, for maybe only a year at a time, we can have such a huge impact on their lives, and so it's such an important thing to think about going into as a career.
Speaker 2:When you were young, daniel, did you, were you a science kid Like? Were you like loving the chemistry, mixing up stuff and getting into trouble, or did that come out a little bit later?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was definitely a science kid growing up. I was, you know, involved in Science Olympiad in high school. Yeah, I was also pretty passionate about like photography and multimedia as well, though, so my high school experience was really unique, where, for half the day, I went to, you know, a very typical public high school in the United States. In the other half of the day, I went to a program called the Utica Center for Science and Industry, where I took classes in photography and filmmaking and digital design, and so I also have a lot of passion in that area as well, and I bring a lot of those skills to my work, too as a chemist, which is pretty cool to kind of blend, you know, the sciences and the arts together.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of creativity in science that's required, right Like that's one. I teach interbaccalaureate chemistry and that's one thing that I always tell kids like you would not believe how creative you have to be as a, because creativity is part of problem solving and there's. That's basically what science is. Science is just problem solving.
Speaker 5:It's like an invisible thing.
Speaker 2:You can't, because chemistry most of it's invisible. Here's something invisible that you can't really see happen. So you got to devise a thing to make you see what's happening, which is which is really cool for kids to kind of wrap their head around.
Speaker 4:Exactly. I mean, there's so many different ways to think about different reactions and chemistry and whatnot, and it requires a lot of creativity and how you can think about these concepts. And how do you teach kids you know, who might not be able to imagine it in their brain like, what types of models and other representations can you use to get across these ideas that are super complex but can be taught in a variety of different ways? So it's really interesting to see how creativity is central to doing any type of science.
Speaker 2:I love that. Now here's the big question what you're currently working on and, like you mentioned, science education, like you're doing some really interesting research on something that's on something like it's called culturally responsive science. So now I was doing my background on you, I saw that and I was like I don't really understand. I'm so sorry, I don't understand what that is. Could you talk to us about what that is?
Speaker 4:Of course and yeah, that's totally fair. A lot of people aren't familiar with what cultural responsive education or cultural responsive teaching there's many different words to describe what it is but it's a way of bringing students' culture into the classroom and shifting norms of how people have traditionally taught science or other types of education, to be more inclusive of students in the way that they might think and know about things and recognizing that as assets in the classroom.
Speaker 2:Okay, I get it now. Gotcha With me and Alberta. We take training on FMNI First Nations Made in New it in Canada. So through that lens there are some very, very interesting ways that you can approach education, but those approaches benefit everybody too as well. Exactly, but you're not necessarily looking at the FMNI perspective. What are you looking at yourself?
Speaker 4:So we actually have a collaboration with an indigenous community in northern Alaska.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm wrong. Then I'm sorry.
Speaker 4:No, that's totally okay. So we do work with indigenous communities. It's just we're much further away than where we currently are at and that's a very long story as to how we develop that partnership there. So we don't use the term FMNI like Canada does. We usually say like indigenous communities in the United States or native Alaskans, but it's a very similar approach right where we bring we work with this community to, you know, recognize and honor their culture and work with teachers who may not be familiar with this, and figure out ways to bring their culture into the classroom and integrate that with science. So it's not just you know, we're not teaching science from just a Western perspective.
Speaker 2:Right it? No, you're not. Is that your focus, the Alaskan folks, or is that close, focusing on more stuff more closer to home?
Speaker 4:So a portion of my dissertation is focused on this project that we are doing in northern Alaska. Another portion of it is focused on the science identity development of Latina undergraduate students at Hispanic serving institutions in the Southwest, which has some connections to culturally relevant education and definitely some implications as to why we should be centering culturally relevant education in higher education. So multiple different populations. It's actually quite interesting to see how my dissertation does focus on people's experiences across cultures, but some of the implications that are from these two very different projects are relevant and beneficial for everyone, regardless of their cultural identity.
Speaker 2:Okay, I got it. I got a great picture now so my next question is could you talk to us a little bit about what you're finding, like what are some of the things that misconceptions or like aha moments that you'd like the public to know from what's going on so far with your research?
Speaker 4:Yes. So something that was like an aha moment for me was when I was working up in Alaska with the indigenous community. We, you know, did a lot of this on zoom. It was, you know, the middle of the pandemic. We are located in Michigan, there in Alaska, and so when we first started this project, we worked with a college instructor to design a course that would integrate students is native Alaskan knowledge into the classroom.
Speaker 4:And when we were working with them, we talked a lot about like how do we want students to reflect on what they're learning and how do we want them to reflect on the ideas that they're hearing?
Speaker 4:We would bring elders into the classroom and they would share their stories and students would interview people in the community to learn about their knowledge.
Speaker 4:And at first we started, you know very typical Western science approach of reflection, like let's have them, you know, write down these ideas and provide us with a written reflection.
Speaker 4:And we noticed, as we engaged with the students and engaged with the community, that this community prioritizes, you know, a lot of verbal communication and they passed down stories through storytelling, and so storytelling, rather than written writing, was something that was so integral to this community, and so we took aspects of that and said, okay, let's shift from the written writing.
Speaker 4:You know students are reflecting, but we see that they reflect and have deeper discussions when they're able to just talk to one another about these ideas. And so we shifted reflections from being just a written aspect to more of a verbal reflection and it was just amazing to see, you know, how deep they got into these reflections, talking about the things that they learned from community members and things that they learned from elders from their interviews, and how that was related to what they were learning in the class and how that was going to inform their research questions as they went out into the tundra and collected snow samples for analysis. So that was just really mind blowing to me was to see, you know, the impact that shifting assessment design can have on facilitating students is like deeper reflection.
Speaker 2:Right, so instead of paper and pen, it's a different way to get summative assessment, like the assessment at the end, or formative, as you go.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Yes, that's something I learned from that project and something I'll take forward with me as an educator is to kind of be more creative in the ways that I want to assess and how students learn and provide them moments to express some creativity in sharing what knowledge they have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the best you know in teacher education, not to get to teacher education with our listeners. I mean you do. You should, as a good educator, vary your assessment. There's a place for paper and pen tests, obviously, but you know there's other ways you can assess what kids know and their strengths may lie elsewhere. And that's very cool that it was more of a verbal strength for that group.
Speaker 4:Exactly, and I feel like in higher education, especially with, you know, large enrollment courses, sometimes assessment is only seen on, you know, an exam which is written paper. So it makes me think about the ways that we can push science education in higher education spaces to incorporate different modes of assessment, to be more inclusive of how people learn and how people engage with one another.
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:All right. So that's one really cool aspect, and maybe you know that will. If there's parents listening I'm sure there's parents listening to the podcast. It's something to put in your back pocket too, right. Not every kid especially like as your kid starts to write very, very big and challenging tests. It's not, maybe, their strong suit. They may be very, very good in other aspects, and it's just as valid if you can retell a great story about science as answering a multiple choice question 100%.
Speaker 2:The sad thing for us in Alberta and I know it's probably similar in other places around the world are grade 12. So that would be our seniors in American talk. Before they go to university, college, they have to take these diploma exams, their government tests, maybe like SATs, like the Americans have yes, right, so yeah, and you have to take it and it's worth a significant portion of your final grade. So, sadly, we do spend an awful lot of time prepping our kids to do well on these tests Absolutely.
Speaker 4:United States, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:And a lot of educators are like well, you know that's important, but a paper and pen test in science doesn't tell the whole picture, because science is so hands-on, right Like. Think about all of those hands-on skills you can't test with a paper and pen test.
Speaker 4:Yeah, 100%. I mean there's so many things that we don't capture on these standardized exams that can really demonstrate students' strengths. I mean some students are very musically inclined or they're very artistic or they're very deep thinkers and they cannot demonstrate that knowledge on a paper and pencil kind of test. And so that's the importance of having these multiple types of assessments in education.
Speaker 2:Cool, cool. So you also mentioned you were looking at Latina education as well. I'm sorry if I got the term wrong there.
Speaker 4:You're close Latina. Latina it's like L-A-T-I-N-E, so an E at the end to be gender neutral Latina.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll rephrase the question you also mentioned. You were looking at Latina education. What did you find? There Is anything you could tell us?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so this is actually the core of my dissertation, so I am writing all of this up right now, and what we're noticing from this study are a few things.
Speaker 4:One for these students I interviewed 18 students at various Hispanic serving institutions in the Southwestern United States, and for those of people that don't know what a Hispanic serving institution is, it's a college institution, so a higher education institution, that has at least 25% Hispanic students enrolled at those institutions, and so that's really the only requirement to be a Hispanic serving institution is just that enrollment number.
Speaker 4:And so when I interviewed these students, we talked a lot about the role of their family and supporting their identities within science, recognizing that for many minoritized communities, family is a central part of that community and a central part of who they are as individuals. And so what we noticed is that when I was talking to these students and I was like, tell me about the people who support you in your life, every single student started by saying my family is my number one support system, and they talked about how important it was for their parents to recognize them as science people. They said that they would go home and tell their parents. This is what I'm learning and this is what I want to do, and their parents are just so proud of them.
Speaker 4:It was just right, the most wholesome thing ever.
Speaker 2:That is a wholesome conclusion.
Speaker 4:It is, and I love that conclusion so much and recognizing like so. There are so many things beyond the classroom that are so important for people's science, identity formation and a lot of literature. There's not many studies that have focused on this population, so Latina undergraduate students in particular but a lot of the studies will focus on constructs like recognition and performance, interest, having the knowledge of science, and so what this work is really showing is that there's this whole other part of it and that's like the familial recognition that a lot of the times it's like recognition from professors or maybe your peers, meaningful others academic space, but there's this whole other space outside of academia that we should be looking towards as well, because their families are just so influential.
Speaker 4:And that's just one outcome of the study. There's so many more, but that to me, is like the most wholesome one of all the findings that I'm noticing.
Speaker 2:And you found that like that was across all of the interviews, that was like super, super consistent.
Speaker 4:Super consistent. Sometimes you know it was one parent over another, Like maybe my mom was more supportive, but there was always some sort of parental figure that was very supportive, whether that was like emotionally or financially. There's always someone there, that's, you know, rooting for them in the background that you might not see in that higher education space day to day.
Speaker 2:I wonder, like, if that was. I don't know how to really phrase what I'm trying to say here. Yes, okay, it would be very curious to look at different cultures to compare that to. Or has that been done Like? Is that more prevalent in this culture versus another? Do you hear what I'm saying? Am I making sense?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I totally get what you're saying. I'm sure there are studies you know that have definitely looked into that across different cultures. I'm not able to recollect any off the top of my head right now. A lot of the science identity work has been done in K-12 education or with people who we describe as like science professionals. So people have already gotten a degree and then are now working within their discipline Right. So there's a lot of room to explore that and see the role of family and familial support in science identity development.
Speaker 2:So sorry, excuse me, okay. So my next question is is that, now that you know this right, if this is like consistent, how can that be harnessed? That's a very tough question, but I think it's important. If there's like this big, hugely relevant, consistent thing within a culture, how do you harness that?
Speaker 4:Yes, and I think that is the hardest question, right is how do we prepare educators and teachers to recognize the assets that their students have in the classroom? And I think that's the recurring idea throughout my dissertation, going back to that idea of culturally relevant education where teachers are engaging students in cultural competence, so creating a classroom where students can learn about their own cultures and other people's cultures as well, to develop pride in their cultures and others cultures. I think that requires a lot of self-reflection on the teacher to recognize their power within that space, the identities that they bring to that space as well, and to recognize the communities that they're working and serving in that moment and to learn about that community. So to actively go out into that community, learn about that culture, intentionally, bring those components into the classroom to develop those moments for critical reflection and cultural competence. And when you do that you learn so much about your students.
Speaker 4:And even if every student doesn't share that same cultural identity, it's beneficial for everyone to engage in a classroom that is culturally responsive, because you're engaging everyone in these critical conversations about the way that science is taught and pushing our understanding of multiple ways of knowing, so recognizing the knowledge that students hold and that's not an easy task. I mean, it's not something that you can just decide to do one day and then you're going to do it in your classroom Definitely requires a strong support network, whether that's with other people who are also dedicated to this or administrators. But it's a movement you have to engage in this. It's a lot of reflexive identity exploration on your behalf, so it's not easy. There's a lot of literature out there. Some of it's not accessible, so I'd be happy to send you some references for things that might be a little bit more accessible for people who are like maybe I want to look into that a little bit more, because it is a wonderful way to promote equity in science education.
Speaker 2:I love that. I'm just thinking like when we teach science in high school, for example. I have to use my high school and I don't teach post-secondary.
Speaker 4:Of course I don't know anything about high school, so it's totally fine.
Speaker 2:I'm sure anybody listening understands that, like part of any curriculum in science is you learn about some of the scientists that propose different theories and came up with different things throughout time and, like 95% of them, are white guys 100% Yep.
Speaker 2:I think I'm just thinking of Michael Faraday, for example, when we talk about Faraday's constant in chemistry and electrochemistry. This guy, like Faraday, wasn't classically trained and he had extremely strong ties to his family who cheered him on as he went through all of the different parts of his life. So perhaps, like that storytelling, ism could help make that more culturally, culturally significant for people that connect with that in my on the right track.
Speaker 4:Exactly so, you know, bring in counter stories. So sharing stories in the science classroom that are not commonly told within those spaces and elevating those voices, that is one way to kind of engage in this culture. Responsive Teaching, these practices and going beyond also just introducing that, provide opportunities for students to talk about this and to engage and reflect on what they're learning and how that Relates to what they're learning in the classroom. Like that is the core of culturally responsive education.
Speaker 2:We had a brilliant Indigenous teacher that came into do workshop with our science department Going through different ways that we could change how we presented material that would maybe connect more with our FM and I kids In. One thing that he said that was really powerful was using a lot more flow charts in education and using a lot more circular diagrams like this becomes this, becomes this and then it comes back to the beginning, because culturally things flow in conversations and culturally there's a lot of like circle legends and circle storytelling. So I started to adopt that and it definitely helps all kids, which is really cool, if you bring in.
Speaker 2:I guess the point of making like learning more about one other culture and how they learn only makes your instruction stronger. I mean it works for one culture for a reason.
Speaker 4:Exactly, and you mentioned it like the circle is really important for a lot of indigenous communities. When I was first starting on this project, so way back to my first year of graduate school, I was listening to this indigenous scholar speak as well and she was talking about how, in science, we portray the food web, usually with, like, people on the top of the food web, you know, and it's like all the people eat certain animals and those animals will eat certain animals, eat certain plants, but we're at the top of the food web and that's across most science textbooks.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, I teach that. I taught that, like three weeks ago, guaranteed.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and we teach that all the time, and she's like from an indigenous perspective. You know, humans are a part of these ecological system. They're not the center, they're not the top. We are just one part of this whole system and so it's very much relationally based and it's a much more holistic way of viewing the world. Rather than people at the top of this food chain or you know, the apex predator is someone who's more caring for the planet and everything works with one another, and when everything is working well together, that is when the planet rise and it's just a more, such a beautiful way of thinking about the world. And so I thought about that and I was like, wow, imagine if we taught science education that way, where it's, you know, instead of the food web where there's someone right at the top and we're learning about it in that way, but considering more indigenous perspective, about how everything works together to create that harmony in our ecosystems.
Speaker 2:I like that. I like that. In chemistry, I use the, the very classic Carl Sagan line like we are all stardust.
Speaker 5:Yes, we are yes we are, we exist.
Speaker 2:we're part of this universe, but even more profound than that is, the universe is within us and that makes kids, like, really connect. They may not be from whatever religion. They're part of that. Really. You can find that you know. Come to grips with it, within whatever belief system you have.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I love that quote myself. When I started moving into the space of chemistry education research, one of the things that I learned was that a lot of the professors and instructors in higher education Are not provided opportunities where they receive formal teacher training like our K12 teachers do. Instead, most higher education professors are people who have received a PhD in their discipline from doing usually like bench research or you know, some computational research, and they're very passionate about teaching, but a lot of this is coming from you know their own experiences of the teacher or their experiences of student, and they bring that knowledge To their classrooms and maybe they receive some professional development opportunities along the way, but they've never received that formal instruction as to like what are some best practices for teaching science education, and so I am someone who really wants to pursue a career in teaching after graduate school. I would love to go into teaching, probably like a smaller university where I can teach primarily undergraduate students, maybe do a little bit of research on the side as well.
Speaker 4:But I knew that I wanted some formal training before I step into a classroom, and so I decided to do a master's in post secondary science education to learn more about the art of teaching and so I've been taking coursework at least one class every semester since I started graduate school, so it's been about like a five year process to get this master's degree. But it has been so wonderful just to learn about theories, about how people learn and how can we leverage that and how can we make science more equitable and what are implications are there for higher education that we can learn from those in K-12. So it was just a wonderful program. I'm so happy to have had that training before I go into a classroom myself. That's cool.
Speaker 2:You know I knew that I may shock some of our listeners that generally your professors have no training how to teach. They just are like hey, you want to do some research and get funding, you got to teach five classes, kind of thing, right, exactly.
Speaker 4:And I mean like there are some centers for like teaching and learning and stuff that will provide workshops here and there and some professors will go to them. It's not required for most of them, so it really takes that initiative on the behalf of that person, but for most of them, yeah, not a lot of formal teacher training there, which is kind of scary to think about, but they are experts in the field. So there is some you know content knowledge there. But I'm glad that programs like this exist for people who do want that training before teaching. You know, the next generation of scientists?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've had amazing professors like, just like inspiration from the students.
Speaker 2:Like just like inspirational. They're freaking geniuses at whatever they're teaching, you know, and. But I often reflect I've reflected as a teacher myself like the things they did Wouldn't necessarily work for everybody. You'd have to, like, be totally into what they're saying and of course when you're going to university you're paying quite a bit of money to be there, so you have an invested interest to pay attention. But then I've had some professors that are, you know, just as at the top of their field but really struggled with teaching and maybe some of that education would help a bit.
Speaker 4:Exactly. I know some of my chemistry classes. They were taught you know very much like we're doing lecture every day kind of thing. And then you have your exams and I personally did not learn best that way. I know some people thrive in that kind of environment, but I don't. So seeing you know, having teachers who had some knowledge about that and instead did more like active learning in their classroom and whatnot, those were sometimes some of my favorite teachers because I was able to engage with material in a different way than I would in a traditional science classroom.
Speaker 2:And in my guess is you remember the teachers that told stories with the curriculum that they were teaching? All of my professors were that I remember the content to this day were great storytellers.
Speaker 4:Exactly Like if they were able to connect what we were learning in class to something that was relevant to me. It makes me remember it so much more than just like here's another reaction or here's another thing, some random facts. So you know, teachers that are able to connect to their students make a total difference, I think, and like the overall understanding of that student as they move through that class.
Speaker 2:I've told this story before and I'll just quickly recap it because it's kind of pernient. The professor I remember the most from all of my two degrees was a sociology professor. I had to take a sociology elective in my science degree and I think any scientist whose training should probably take a psychology or sociology. I think it's important to have a base knowledge there. But this guy was an incredible storyteller. Give us hardly any notes but his notes were stories and anecdotes and things like that.
Speaker 2:My favorite story that I tell kids is the psychology, how men urinate, how western cultures urinate, and he would put up he drew like a picture on the board of like five urinals and he said okay, a man comes in and uses stall one, where does the next man urinate? And all of the men who were from western society was like all the man's, the man walks in, is gonna urinate, install five. And all of the women were totally perplexed and Bambuzled how all the men knew this instantaneously and it was part of you know this sociology. If you don't want to be too close to another man and it's kind of an awkward situation so you want to be as far away as possible. But there are situations where that rule goes out.
Speaker 2:And he asked the classic like when, when is it okay to go break install two? And the answer is when there's no other stall to go to, or after a hockey game, because this is Canada, anyways, it was just this crazy conversation about a really important point, point, point in some sociology and it was, and everybody remembered that point. You didn't even have to study it was so they'll give it, and such great funny storytelling. So anyways, I just thought I'd mention that.
Speaker 4:No, I love that. And then you mentioned a bit about hockey and I mean that is something that is 100% relevant to Canadian culture, right? So there's that cultural relevance coming right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, brilliant. So, daniel, we have two standard questions we asked our guests on the podcast to to kind of field, and one is a fun one. It's the pet story. Could you share a pet story from your life with us?
Speaker 4:Of course, I've had pets since I like was born mostly dogs, but in graduate school I started embracing cats and I love cats. So I currently have two cats a black, a very large black cat. She's like 14 pounds and her name is Luna. And then I have a gray tabby cat and his name is Lulu and he's about one. So, yeah, he's so, he's so cute. We got Lulu actually right before Christmas in 2023.
Speaker 4:So we've had her for just over a year now and I found him by, you know, scrolling on Facebook and I saw someone that went to high school with post a photo, and she was like I found this cat and she needs a home and I was like, oh my goodness, I have a female cat already and I know she would love to have a playmate, and so I was like I was asking my husband, I'm like can we get this cat? He was like, yeah, let's go get her. And so we picked her up. We took her to the vet and this was her second visit and so the second bet, you know, confirming like yep, she's a girl and got all of her boosters and stuff and was like you're going to have to come back in the next few months to get her fixed and stuff. You'll know when it's time to show going to heat.
Speaker 4:And I'm like, okay, yeah, that's fine, we can, we can schedule that. And so I'm just waiting for this, for this cat to go into heat. And like she never did, and so I was like you know, I'm just going to schedule it. It's been a few months. And so I take our cat up to the Humane Society to get fixed and they were like, oh, when did she go into heat? And I'm like you know she's just chaotic, she's a kitten, haven't really noticed. And so she gets fixed and I get the phone call saying you know, I have everything went well. One thing your cat is not a female cat's a male.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so you're going to bring a little boy home. And I was just so shocked because multiple vets had determined that this cat was a female cat and so I called my husband and I'm like, yeah, everything went well. I was like one little minor thing. I was like our cat's a boy, so we're going to go get him and I mean, we love Oulu so much, it's been great to have him. He's my first male cat ever. He's super, super cuddly. But I've talked to other cat parents and there's a few people that are like that same thing happened to me, like it's so hard to tell their sex when they're kitten. But yeah, we're so grateful to have him.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously, when you go to do the fixing you're going to be a little bit closer to the genitalia area than maybe a quick glance through. So Exactly.
Speaker 4:I was just so surprised. I was like, well, that's okay. I was like I don't really care, but it's good to know what his actual sex is.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Cats are so cool.
Speaker 4:Cats are awesome. I love my cats. I'm definitely still a dog person. I told my husband you know, as soon as we're out of grad school, we're going to adapt a dog. I love dogs. I have a definitely special place in my heart for dogs, though. Cats are pretty cool, relaxed little creatures.
Speaker 2:Does it does mean a thing? I apologize if it's like common knowledge and I don't know.
Speaker 4:No, totally not. Common knowledge. So Oulu actually chose that name after reflecting on a lot of the work that I've done in Northern Alaska and so the community that we worked with they're called the Anupiat community and they have this special type of knife to cut up meat. I noticed it when they were cutting up whale meat and the knife is called an Oulu and it's a curved knife and the curve kind of reminded me of like a cat's claw, like the curve on the cat's claw, and so I named Oulu after that knife. And then my husband and I went to Hawaii for a honeymoon and Oulu is also I believe it's a fruit in Hawaii and there was a few places on the island that we noticed for like called like Oulu's cafe, so just loved his name. And then Luna being a black cat you know very basic black cat name but he has a pretty unique name and we gave him that name, you know, when he was a girl and we just kept it going forward. So kind of a gender neutral name for our cat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that works, it works. What a cool story. Thanks, daniel. Yeah, the other question we asked our guests about is the super fact. It's something that you know that if you tell people might blow their minds a bit. Did you have a super fact for us?
Speaker 4:I do have a super fact Also for my time working in Alaska. So the first time I went to Alaska it was complete darkness and I was so shocked to see, like exactly how dark. Like people tell you it gets dark in Alaska, but when you're in the community we're in we worked in Udgale Vega, alaska. They are as far north as you can go in Alaska, so right on the Arctic Ocean up there, and I didn't. I knew it was going to be dark, but it was a totally different type of darkness and so I was like exactly how many days of darkness is this community experience each year?
Speaker 4:And so I looked into it and the sun will set on November 18th and it does not rise again until January 23rd. So, like four days ago, they just got the sun back and then it starts rising a little bit more and more each day and it's a wonderful and beautiful celebration for them when the sun does come back up. It's a very big moment, very culturally significant for them, and then recognize that there's so many days of darkness during the winter. I also wanted to know how many days of like bright sunlight are there during the summer, and so there are 80 days of daylight, nonstop daylight during the summer, during the peak of the summer, so it can be, you know, midnight and it is bright and sunny outside, which is just so like wild to me that you can have that much darkness and that much daylight. And it happens in many places around the world that are closer to either the North Pole or the South Pole.
Speaker 2:That is. I instinctively knew that, like I know the further, like in Canada, we have northern tips of places just like Alaska, right, and where, like the sun doesn't come back for a month or something like that, I just can't imagine being in absolute darkness that long. Like there's no sunlight, right, the sun does not rise.
Speaker 4:It does not rise. When we were there in darkness, it's just dark the whole time. And I was talking to people. I was like how do you cope with this? I live in Michigan and in Michigan, you know, we joke a lot like, oh, it's the day of winter, it's another gray day, you know, it's actually like you can have some seasonal depression because you don't see the sun for several months, but up there it's like pitch black darkness. And so I was asking people like how do you cope with this? And this one person brought out a happy light and they're like I sit in front of my happy light and I get some like artificial sunlight that way, just because it is so long. And I just I knew, I knew that there was darkness and like periods of darkness and periods of light, but I didn't realize how long it was for this community. And it's just, it's amazing to think about like this community has been up there for thousands of years and they experience this every single year and it's just a normal part of their everyday being.
Speaker 2:They just deal with it. That's just. That's. It's just like they deal with anything else of wherever you live in the world, you deal with the hand. You've dealt with where you live.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and most people I talk to like they're aware like oh yeah, like it'll be dark in some areas and I'm like do you realize how long they're sitting in darkness, or like sitting in sunlight? I was like it's a lot longer than I ever thought it would be.
Speaker 2:Not for me. I, you know, we were more north than you and we get less light in the winter, definitely. So, yeah, when that stuns, when it starts to get sunnier for longer, oh joy.
Speaker 4:Oh yes.
Speaker 2:That is a cool fact. That is a cool fact. I believe there was some horror movie based upon that fact where vampires moved into a town in the very, very North Alaska because there was no sun. I forget that 30 days of darkness or something it was called.
Speaker 4:I love that movie idea because I mean that that would be the place to go if you were looking for no sunlight.
Speaker 2:Got to move out in the summer, though you get. You're just hooped.
Speaker 4:Oh yes.
Speaker 2:Thanks for your super fact, Daniel. We're at the end of our chat. This has been so fun. Are you on social media? Anywhere Can people follow you or connect?
Speaker 4:Yeah, they totally can. I'm on Twitter. Let me look up my Twitter account because I don't have it memorized. So my Twitter profile is at Daniel underscore Maxwell, just one L, though you know Twitter cut that off. I'm also on Instagram as well. Don't post as much there, so usually you'll find me on Twitter and I believe on Instagram it's at Daniel Maxwell Curtis, which is my full married name.
Speaker 2:Perfect. We'll make sure there's some links in our show notes so folks can check out and follow you.
Speaker 4:Sounds good. I can also send you a link.
Speaker 2:Let's look at your pretty big football fan. I was doing my research and it was like looks like something's going on with football down there.
Speaker 4:Yes, I'm a big Detroit sports fan. You know, growing up here definitely been a Lions fan. My husband is also a Lions fan, so he has made me to be a huge Lions fan over the last several years. And it's a big year for the Lions. The Lions are playing tomorrow actually, and this is for the NFC championship. So if they win they will be going to the Super Bowl and that'll be the first time ever that the Lions have gone to the Super Bowl, which is huge. I was actually just at my first hockey game on Thursday, which now love hockey. It's an amazing sport. I can see why the Canadians love it.
Speaker 2:It's wild. Just put knives on your feet and beat up people when you get angry. It's a whole thing.
Speaker 4:I was talking to my husband and I was like who came up with this idea? It's just so crazy to think like let's put knives on people's feet and have them hit pucks at ridiculously high speeds with sticks and they're going to run around the court and then when they get mad they can beat each other up.
Speaker 2:It's why we're so polite. We just, you know when we just all of our anger and frustration comes out in hockey.
Speaker 4:No, but I loved it. And when I was at this hockey game, they started cheering Jared Goff, which is the name of the Lions quarterback, and so you can really see, like how this whole area is coming together over the Lions, which is awesome to see Because, you know, in 2008, they lost every single game Like that was the darkest of darkest times for the Detroit Lions. But you know we are back and I hope they do it really well tomorrow.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. All you need is a megastar to start dating one of the players, and then you'll be able to compete with Kansas City on that venue.
Speaker 4:I'm a big Taylor Swift fan, so you know like if Kansas City plays in the Super Bowl and the Detroit Lions don't make it there, kansas City has my vote.
Speaker 2:I love it. Well, danielle, thank you for being a guest today and, you know, maybe the next time we chat I'll be calling you Doc.
Speaker 4:Yes, thank you so much for having me. It was so wonderful to talk with you, jason.
Speaker 3:Okay, it is time for Storytime with me. Adam, if you don't know what the storytime is, storytime is when we talk about stories that have happened within the past one or two weeks. I have, I have a little tidbit of information. Annalisa's here and we just gave Ginger a popcorn. She put her paw on it and then now she's just looking at it and looking at it. Anyway, that's something that happened within the past one or two seconds.
Speaker 3:Storytime is when we talk about stories that have happened within the past one or two weeks. I have a story, I have a. I have a little story. It's a continuation on the beaker not letting me leave the house saga. So if you guys haven't listened to the podcast recently, I've been telling you about it.
Speaker 3:I've been telling stories about how beaker has progressively not let me leave the house more and more Because in the morning I'm the last one to leave because my school starts at nine and mom and dad starts at like 8.30. So they're gone by eight and I'm gone by 8.30. And Beaker never wants me to leave, ever. She'll start crying at the gate while I'm in the bathroom and I can hear her from downstairs and I'll look up and then she's like she's like hitting the gate with her paw, and I always get so sad and I cuddle with her and no cuddling is enough for her, so it makes me feel extra sad.
Speaker 3:Anyway, I had to print off my lab on mom's computer and I was trying to print it off and then Beaker jumped on top of me. Like while I was at mom's computer typing in the stuff to print off my labs, beaker jumped on top of me while I was typing into mom's computer and was licking my face and then she would get down and like nudge my hand really aggressively. So then I had to pet her and then when I would stop she would jump. She would jump on top of me again. She's kept on jumping on top of me and then I got her to go on the couch and we had a little hug and then she was wriggling around like a wiggle worm. Anyway, beaker is taking greater strides to make me stay home, I guess. So maybe I don't know what she's gonna do next. I don't know how I'm gonna prepare myself for the next Beaker development. Anyway, that's my story. Dad, do you have a story?
Speaker 2:I do so. I was out on a walk with the dogs today and we crossed the creek and the creek is getting melty all the way up to the top, which is the north side of the creek. The dogs were playing in the snow and I looked down into the forest and guess what I saw, or guess who? I saw Norbert the Beaver was out and on the shore of the creek doing whatever Beavers do. It took me a second to just recognize that it was Norbert. It looked at me and then it dove back into the Beaver hole and that was. I was like I couldn't believe it actually happened, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And I have a video I was shooting of Beaker playing in the snow and it's like a conspiracy theory bigfoot video where I was showing Chris when she got home from work. I'm like look, that's Norbert right there. When I zoomed in on like this grainy far right hand side of the shot, out of focus thing, I'm like that's Norbert and she's like I don't think so and I'm like no, it's Norbert. So now I know how all the bigfoot people feel. Sorry, now I know how all the bigfoot people feel. They see bigfoot and in their camera because they weren't filming right bigfoot is a blurry, pixelated goo off to the side, but I swear I saw Norbert and Norbert looked at me and that's my story.
Speaker 3:All right, mum is filling up a thing with water, so it is. It is Annalisa's turn. Annalisa, do you have a story? We have a special guest this episode, and it's Annalisa.
Speaker 1:Hello. So I had a wonderful thing happen to me today with one of the farm cats, which was Larry, and I was just on my bed sitting watching videos on my computer and next thing I know, he curls up to me. He's being lovey. And then I was like, hmm, I wonder if I can get away with him sleeping in my arms. And so I pick him up and he stayed for like half an hour and I was like, oh my gosh, this is the cutest being ever. I was like so happy. But then I remembered the other day I put like the little mouse videos on my computer and it really got him, like you know, his eyes following the mice on the screen. And so I did it again today. And today he got way more into it, where he was like pying at the screen a lot more. And then when I'd finally turned it off, he didn't stop and I was just watching normal videos and he kept lying at the computer, which I thought was just really cute. But yeah, that's my story.
Speaker 3:Larry's a funny cuddly guy. I love Larry. He's cute. Mom, do you have a story?
Speaker 5:I sure do. Bunsen and Beaker decided to play together like they did when Beaker was a little puppy and this happened the other day and Beaker was having zoomies all around the living room and Bunsen was having zoomies after her and he was running around. But there's not a lot of room because they're both large mammals now. But Bunsen was play-bowing and Beaker was kind of pawing at his face Very similar to where Jason just posted a video on social media when Beaker was tiny, tiny, tiny, and she came like a little troll through the stairs.
Speaker 2:And I love that. That video is one of my favorite. Oh my God, that is so funny. It gets me in the heart.
Speaker 5:And then she whips around and then she would hide underneath the hammock where Bunsen couldn't get her. And then she it was just so cute so you made a compilation of the video that I took of the dogs playing in our living room and put it with the little puppy video with Bunsen and Beaker. And I just love them and I love that they love each other. And yesterday I may or may not have put ginger on Bunsen's back.
Speaker 2:No, why did you do that?
Speaker 5:Because he was standing there and I was holding ginger because she is still a little troll, little gremlin, trying to go outside every chance that she gets and so I had picked her up because you had taken the dogs out. And you came in and Bunsen was just standing right there and I thought, hmm, and I put ginger on his back. It didn't last for very long, bunsen was like what, and ginger was like, and then it was over, and that was that is the moment that I shared with the dogs and cat, and that's my story.
Speaker 3:All right, that is it for story time for this podcast episode, and that is the end of my section. Thank you so much for listening to my section of the podcast, as always, and I hope to see you in the next one. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2:That's it for this week's show. I really appreciate everybody coming back week after week to listen to the science podcast. Special thanks to our guest Diane Maxwell, and also to the Top Dogs. That's the top tier of our Paw Pack community. We would love your support, so check the show notes for a way to sign up and keep the science podcast free. Chris, let's give them a shout out, go for it.
Speaker 5:Bianca Hyde, Mary Ryder, Tracy Domingu, Susan Wagner, Andrew Lynn, Helen Chin, Tracy Halberg, Amy C, Jennifer Smathers, Laura Stephenson, Holly Birch, Brenda Clark, Anne Yuchita, Peggy McKeel, Terry Adam, Debbie Anderson, Sandy Brimer, Tracy Linebaugh, Mary Ann McNally, Fun Lisa, Shelly Smith, Julie Smith, Diane Allen, Breanne Haas, Linda Sherry, Carol McDonald, Catherine Jordan, Courtney Proven, Donna Craig, Wendy, Diane Mason and Luke Liz Button, Kathy Zerker and Ben Rathart.
Speaker 2:For science, empathy and cuteness. Ben on the front, oh.