al-mofhariz

I asked my friend and colleague, Andrew Russell, to give us his take on Snowden, the NSA, and Internet politics, especially focusing on recent discussions amongst members of the Internet Engineering Task Force. Andy's book, Open Standards and the Digital Age: History, Ideology, and Networks, will be published by Cambridge University Press in early 2014. Readers can contact Andy at arussell@stevens.edu.
“Government and industry have betrayed the internet, and us. By subverting the internet at every level to make it a vast, multi-layered and robust surveillance platform, the NSA has undermined a fundamental social contract. The companies that build and manage our internet infrastructure, the companies that create and sell us our hardware and software, or the companies that host our data: we can no longer trust them to be ethical internet stewards.” -- Bruce Schneier, September 5, 2013
As details of the NSA PRISM program continue to be published, public interest advocates—a mix of civil…

Comment:
Looking for a way to kick off the year and teach students how to use observational skills along with concepts such as variables and inquiry projects? 

Several years ago, my colleague and I created a unit that was based on the great Steve Spangler's You Tube videos involving diet coke and mentos. 

I mean...what great fun!  My son and I first tried it several years ago in the back yard, then we did it for a birthday party for 7 year olds, and then I decided...I gotta do this in the classroom.
So, we decided to tie it into a unit on introducing scientific investigations. Many teachers like to do this at the beginning of the year as a way to introduce science vocabulary words and observation techniques. 
My students loved it!  Check out my blogs about the experience from last year by looking at the side posting labels.  You can see what it looked like in action. It is such a big hit it is now my student's #1 favorite activity (three years in a row!) as well as my #1 seller…