Grad Student Wins Alan Alda's Flame Challenge 161
eldavojohn writes "Scientists have long been criticized of their inability to communicate complex ideas adequately to the rest of society. Similar to his questions on PBS' Scientific American Frontiers, actor Alan Alda wrote to the journal Science with a proposition called The Flame Challenge (PDF). Contestants would have to explain a flame to an eleven-year-old kid, and the entries would be judged by thousands of children across the country. The winner of The Flame Challenge is quantum physics grad student Ben Ames, whose animated video covers concepts like pyrolysis, chemiluminescence, oxidation and incandescence boiled into a humorous video, complete with song. Now they are asking children age 10-12 to suggest the next question for the Flame Challenge. Kids out there, what would you like scientists to explain?"
Why is the sky blue? (Score:1, Interesting)
Where do babies come from?
How can I make this other person like me?
And why can't you explain flame without using a stupid video, in a manner that can be understood by those with crappy Internet connections and/or those with poor or non-existent eye sight? Another question, who the hell still uses frames in this day and age?
The whole concept is pretty damn cool though. Explaining science to kids. Perhaps explain evolution next. If you can make a small child understand, you've got some hope of making an adult creationist understand...
What I am interested in knowing, is did the children actually understand the explanation, or did they just pick the one that they understood the most of? Were they tested afterwards?