Flame!

By Bora Zivkovic | June 13, 2012 | 2

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Video of the Week #47 June 13th, 2012:

The Fabulab’s Flame Challenge from The Fabulab on Vimeo.

From: Flame Challenge Fails to Challenge Negative Stereotypes of Scientists by Marc Kuchner at Guest Blog.

Source: The Fabulab on Vimeo (Jeanne Garbarino, Perrin Ireland and Deborah Berebichez)

The Flame Challenge, launched with help from Alan Alda, dared scientists and educators to submit videos explaining what a flame is—a subtle concept touching on many subfields of physics and chemistry. What set this contest apart from other science communication contests is that the judges were roughly 6000 11-year old students at 130 schools. Members of the Fabulab earned an Honorable Mention in the challenge, and it’s our favorite video this week.

About the Author: Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web. Follow on Twitter @boraz.

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The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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2 Comments

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1. GarthGamma 9:10 am 06/14/2012

As a pretty grown and old 11-year-old (who’s not in the scientific field), I thank you for the very easy to understand video. I can finally understand that.
Link to this
2. themdw 10:58 am 06/14/2012

Apparently these people are not familiar with the concept of “the molecule”; giving it no mention in the process of a fire.
It’s like saying Shakespeare was a master of the ABCs.
Link to this

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