Alan Alda's Flame Challange

[sukumvit boy]

Actor and educator Alan Alda remembers that when he was an 11 year old in 6th grade he was fascinated by flames . But when he asked his teachers to explain what a flame was ,they were not up to the challenge .
So in 2012 he issued a challenge to scientists and educators to explain what a flame was so that an 11 year old could understand it. Hundreds of scientists took part and they were judged by thousands of 11 year old school children .
Since than it has grown into a yearly tradition, the 2016 question was "What is sound?", and the 2017 question is "What is energy?"


http://www.centerforcommunicatingsci...&submit=Search
http://www.centerforcommunicatingsci...rk-times-2012/

[Stavros]

Flames...transcendence...the transfiguration of water and time...

[sukumvit boy]

Interesting work by Bill Viola . My first exposure to him , thanks , certainly bears further exploration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Viola
However , I was hoping to spark some interest about the art and beauty of explaining basic science to inquisitive 11 year olds , and the rest of us.

[trish]

At least adults (at the very least chemists) think they know what a flame is. Time stumps us all. Time is the order of events. They are strung out along time like beads on an ineffable chain. The ones we don't remember yet are in the future; the ones we do are in the past.

[hippifried]

At least adults (at the very least chemists) think they know what a flame is. Time stumps us all. Time is the order of events. They are strung out along time like beads on an ineffable chain. The ones we don't remember yet are in the future; the ones we do are in the past.

Uh... I'm in my second childhood, & about 11.

So...

What???? 🙄

[Stavros]

Interesting work by Bill Viola . My first exposure to him , thanks , certainly bears further exploration.
However , I was hoping to spark some interest about the art and beauty of explaining basic science to inquisitive 11 year olds , and the rest of us.

I agree with you, but when I was eleven years old I was not interested in science but the arts- learning to play the piano, going to the opera for the first time, singing in the church choir. I have tried to engage with science and in most cases need explanations at the level of an 11 year old, although I have tried to engage with geology, physics and the environment at a 'higher level' and am grateful to some well-informed tv programmes on science as well as popular books in this endeavour.
One weakness may be with those scientists who use unpopular language to preserve its mysteries and their roles as the Shamans of knowledge, but what is more important is that young people be brought into science as something that is fun, useful and important to know, whereas when I was in school the teachers wanted to get rid of us rather than to teach us, in fact in our fourth year the science teacher gave up and we spent the lessons discussing political issues such as 'should smoking be banned'? -and most us left school in the fifth year. I think there is a long term crisis in education in the UK because we are producing fewer graduates in the hard sciences than we were 25 years ago, I don't know if this is the case in the USA.

As for the questions, what is water?
Bill Viola's work is fascinating for the way he probes time and perception, using art to turn them inside out, and if anything, to provoke more questions than he can answer, but in the most beautiful way.

[sukumvit boy]

At least adults (at the very least chemists) think they know what a flame is. Time stumps us all. Time is the order of events. They are strung out along time like beads on an ineffable chain. The ones we don't remember yet are in the future; the ones we do are in the past.

Yes "What is time?" was the 2013 question . Here's one of the finalists , I like his answer better than the winner's .
Exactly as Trish said,"Time is the order of events." , but with some cute artwork and history of science thrown in.