In Memoriam, Dr. Paul Nighswonger

Dear OAS Members and Friends,

It is with sadness that I notify you of the death of Dr. Paul Nighswonger on March 23, 2014.  At the time of his death Paul was nearly 91 years old and was the longest serving member of the Oklahoma Academy of Science, having joined in 1942.  He was a botanist and served on the faculty at Northwestern Oklahoma State University from 1969 until his retirement in 1994. 

Dr. Nighswonger was a native of Woods County, Oklahoma, and grew up on land homesteaded by his grandfather.  He lived on the family land throughout most of his life, including his final years.  During WWII he enlisted in the U.S Army and rose to the rank of 1^st Lieutenant, serving as a B-17 co-pilot in the European Campaign.  After the war he returned to the Alva area and earned his undergraduate degree in 1949 at Northwestern State.  In 1951 he married Elaine Moore, with whom he had six children.

In 1964 he entered graduate school at the University of Oklahoma, where he earned a Ph.D. in Plant Ecology.  His plant specimens in the Bebb Herbarium at OU are still known for their natural and artistic presentation.  After graduating from OU he began his teaching career at Northwestern State.  He was a member of the faculty along with such other well-known faculty as Dr. Louis Bouchard, Dr. Anna Fisher, and Dr. Dan Shorter.  Many graduates from the biology program of those days went on to distinguished careers in science, medicine, and education.

Dr. Nighswonger was a strong supporter of OAS and was a frequent participant in field meetings and technical meetings.  He encouraged his students to become OAS members and to take part in OAS activities. I first met Paul in 1976 when I was a student at Northwestern State.  I fondly remember taking his classes, including general botany, genetics, plant kingdom, and plant taxonomy, and participating in his field trips.  In those days the faculty and students would gather next to the coffee pot between classes and many vigorous debates occurred during those breaks.  I still recall Paul’s mischievous grin when he confided to me that he had clipped out a discount coupon for coffee and left it in the coffee donation can instead of the usual ten cents, much to the chagrin of Dr. Shorter, the keeper of the coffee fund.  While Paul was a significant influence in my life as a teacher, he was also a mentor to me.  He taught me the importance of accepting people for who they are and keeping my mind open to ideas and change.  He had a profound and positive influence on my life when I was a young college student struggling to find my path, and his lessons on life guide me today. 

Paul is survived by his wife Elaine and by his children. A fuller account of his life is available online at: http://www.whartonfuneralchapel.com/sitemaker/sites/wharto0/obit.cgi?user=1274506Nighswonger. Memorial donations may be made to the Paul Nighswonger Scholarship fund at Northwestern State.

Reported by Terry R. Conley on March 27, 2014

Consumer Pressure

See below for the announcement about the Second Annual Oklahoma Evolution Road Trip.

Like most college instructors, I wish to give my students an experience that will make a real difference in their lives. Sometimes it is as simple as getting them to take a close look at the world around them, which they may never have done before. Once they have done it, the first step has been taken and they might continue the habit. Well, maybe half of them will.

But I think it is important for us to also participate in some form of activism. While I admire the work of Bill McKibben and www.350.org, I have all kinds of excuses why I do not personally undertake such activities. But it occurred to me that there might be something else I could do, which I have a specific ability to do, and which not everyone else has.

I teach classes. And I want my students to become activists on some issues. And students want extra credit. And voila, the perfect fit: have the students write letters.

I have to choose the issues carefully, so that they are related to my field (biology) and are not partisan. But there are plenty of such issues. I decided to start with something that is pretty straightforward: tobacco.  Nobody takes the position that “tobacco is a blessing to the world.” Well, I think, anyway. I realized that I could get students to write letters to tobacco corporations, expressing their disapproval (or horror, if they prefer) at what the tobacco corporations are doing, and their refusal to purchase products or invest in the corporations responsible for them.

This is not as easy as it might sound. A student might have no idea what to write, and almost certainly not how or to whom. So I did this work for them. I drafted a model letter (but I will require students to use some of their own words and insert their own feelings and experiences). I tracked down the contacts to which they could send physical letters or emails. This is not always easy. Some corporations very effectively insulate themselves from the public. Some of the tobacco corporation websites cannot be entered by anyone under 21 years of age, which covers most of my students. If nothing else, there may be media representative emails to which the students can write. The media reps do not want to be bombarded by activist emails, but, tough beans. If they get a lot of emails, maybe they will report this fact to management that is above them. If they don’t want emails, they shouldn’t put their email addresses on the website. I also encouraged students to direct their comments to the CEO, whose name I provided, for each of four major tobacco corporations. (This is down from seven in 1994 when the “seven dwarves” presented perjured testimony to Henry Waxman’s committee in the House.) I also provided the brand names marketed by each company.

This may seem to be a futile exercise. But if this idea spreads beyond my classroom, and if it is maintained over the years, it might make a difference. These comments may never be read—certainly not by the CEO—but they may be counted.

Once a student has written these letters, it will never be as difficult again to write an activist letter.

I had to think carefully about possible legal difficulties, and specifically mention them in the document I posted for my students. And I posted a PDF file rather than an alterable Word file. And I made this an extra credit activity rather than a requirement, for now.

And I hope you, my readers, may join in. And if you have students, get them involved also. You may access the PDF file at my website; the specific URL is here.

Let’s get our students over the activation energy that is preventing them from becoming participants in our economy and society, based on the things they are learning in our classes.

Stan Rice, President

Coming Right Up! The Second Annual Oklahoma Evolution Road Trip!

Posted by Stan Rice, President

Last summer we had the First Annual Oklahoma Evolution Road Trip, with ten participants and two instructors. Well, we have a Second Annual Oklahoma Evolution Road Trip scheduled for April 26-27 in Tulsa.

Oklahoma Academy of Science is one of the sponsors of this trip. Watch this space also for an announcement about the OAS Spring field meeting!

The Oklahoma Evolution Road Trips are open to anyone who is interested in learning more about evolution and the evidence for it that can be seen right here in Oklahoma. (Last year we included Texas as well.) You don’t need a science background, just a willingness to observe and learn. It is specifically intended for science teachers, who can receive a certificate of professional development credit. Registration cost is $95. Online registration will be available soon through the Oklahoma Science Teachers Association—I will keep you posted! If you are interested, block off these dates in your schedule now!

Because this is a serious learning experience, young children are not encouraged to participate, although there can always be exceptions. This sounds like the kind of trip I would have loved when I was twelve years old, but that few other twelve-year-olds would have appreciated.

The $95 cost covers transportation during the trip, refreshments on both mornings, and lunches on both days. It does not include accommodations (which most participants will not require) or the evening meal for those who wish to participate in it. Participants who need accommodations can let me know as soon as possible and, if there are enough of you, I will try to get a group discount.

Last summer, the trip was longer and more expensive because it was in a location more distant from Oklahoma metropolitan areas. I believe we would have had more teachers in the group had the cost and location been more convenient. Well, we have solved that problem for 2014.

The two instructors will be myself (Dr. Stanley Rice), a biology professor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, and Cora James, the science curriculum director for Putnam City Schools and a good amateur geologist. I am the author of four nationally and internationally published science books, two of which are about evolution. Both instructors bring a lot of experience with how to make science, and especially evolution, interesting and relevant to the school classroom in such a way as to highlight the positive learning experiences rather than to create tension and conflict.

The Second Annual Oklahoma Evolution Road Trip now has four professional organizations sponsoring it! The sponsors are:

·         Society for the Study of Evolution (Education Committee)

·         Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education

·         Oklahoma Science Teachers Association

·         Oklahoma Academy of Science

The first of the organizations is one of the leading scientific societies in the world and has sponsored and provided financial support for this trip through a competitive grant. The other three organizations are the major professional organizations for science education in the state.

Here are the things we are going to do on this trip:

Saturday morning, April 26. We will meet at the Martin Regional Library in Tulsa (2601 S. Garnett) for a discussion about what the participants know, and what they want to know, about evolution, including: the rapid evolution that is now going on in viruses and bacteria; the new DNA evidence for the evolutionary ancestry of organisms, including humans; and the ongoing discovery of geological evidence (especially fossils) for evolution. We will also learn about the geological history of what is now Tulsa, right up to the last Ice Age, and how fossils form.

Saturday afternoon, April 26. After a catered light lunch, we will get into vans to go find our own fossils. (Participants can leave their vehicles at the library.) Bring plastic bags for collecting fossils (the instructors will have some for you also). We will go out rain or shine, unless the weather is actually dangerous. Individual vehicles are discouraged because of limited parking in some places. Our destinations are:

1. A location on Highway 51 where Ordovician fossils are washing out of loose rock. You can find mostly crinoids but also an occasional trace fossil (fossilized track). A crinoid is a stalked echinoderm. The traffic can be heavy but where is plenty of space to keep away from the vehicles. This is public easement and you can collect fossils.

2. Lake Skiatook. At one location on this lake maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, there are numerous fossils of crinoids and brachiopods. Brachiopods have been rare for the last 250 million years but were common during the Ordovician period. They looked a lot like mollusks. Fossil collecting is also allowed here.

Arkansas River. The bed of the Arkansas River, usually mostly dry, contains a lot of things washed in from surrounding places; you can never be sure where they have come from. Most of it is garbage, but once in a while you can find coal, or even fossils such as this crinoids that got washed downstream from some unknown source. Of course, you can keep whatever you find.

For those who wish to continue discussion on Saturday evening, we can meet at a restaurant. (The registration fee does not cover this cost.)

On Sunday morning, April 27, we will meet again at the parking lot of the library (which will be closed at that time), but where participants can leave their vehicles. We will go by van out to Red Bud Valley northeast of Tulsa where we will walk around most of the morning on the bluff trails.

If you know where to look, you can find fossils, such as this amazing brachiopod fossil I found last summer. Collecting is not permitted here, although if you find something interesting the visitors’ center will be happy to get it for their displays.

We will also learn about tree adaptations. There are many, many different evolutionary adaptations, each one appropriate for its own set of conditions. For cottonwoods, living in flood plains, this means rapid growth, cheap wood, and a short life. For oaks, living in stable forests, this means slow growth, strong wood, and a long life. Tree ranges also shift during evolutionary time, and in Red Bud Valley there are some trees, such as sugar maples, smoke trees, and blue ashes, that were very common in Oklahoma thousands of years ago but have mostly died off—except in this little sheltered spot. You see, evolution is not just something that happened in the past and that you can study with fossils; it is ongoing, and you can see it in the trees around you.

During a catered light lunch in the shaded parking lot at Red Bud Valley, we can discuss what we have seen, and then go back to the library parking lot. Participants will be able to leave by 3:00 at the latest on Sunday afternoon.

A word about next year’s Third Annual Oklahoma Evolution Road Trip: Plans are underway for this trip to be offered for college credit through the Oklahoma Scholar Leader Enrichment Program (OSLEP) during Spring Break 2015, housed (like the 2013 trip) at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station on Lake Texoma. Depending on the success of this year’s trip, we hope to offer the cheap and short version of the trip on alternate years, so the next two-day trip in an Oklahoma metropolitan area should take place in 2016.

Please watch this spot for announcements about online registration, which we hope to begin (along with public radio announcements) about March 17.

How to Celebrate Darwin Day

At least in Oklahoma.

It has become something of an annual ritual. The Bible uses a phrase something like, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to battle,” (1 Chronicles 20:1). It is as reliable as the opening of tree buds. Every winter, state senator Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma (I am in his district) introduces a creationist bill. It is not worded as a creationist bill, but that is its intent. It is called the Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act (SB 1765). Its stated purpose is to prevent science teachers from penalizing students for their religious views. Therefore, an evolutionist teacher cannot penalize a creationist student. In literal fact, this would mean that a creationist teacher could not penalize a non-creationist student either. Brecheen claims that evolution is a religion, the establishment of which is unconstitutional.

This bill is a solution to a problem that does not exist. The bill specifically states that the student needs to know the scientific concepts. But I have never heard of a case of a creationist student in Oklahoma getting penalized for creationist viewpoints.

So I celebrated Darwin’s birthday by sending emails to the members of the Senate Education Committee. Those of you in Oklahoma might consider doing this also. Here is what I sent to the chair of the committee. I used my AOL email rather than my university email.

Dear Senator Ford,

I wish to express my opposition to Senator Brecheen's bill, SB 1765. I have written to this committee almost every year in the past about this bill each time it recurs. I am a professor and science writer, but am writing this letter as a citizen and using my private email. I am president of the Oklahoma Academy of Sciences, but my views are my own.

The bill is unnecessary, as its main points are effectively covered by existing Oklahoma curriculum standards. Nothing in the bill explains why we need a new state law specifying what teachers already (are required to) do and have been doing for decades. Teachers already teach strengths and weaknesses as part of inquiry-based learning. The state of Oklahoma faces numerous challenges and I do not believe the Senate needs to take its time to debate and enact unnecessary legislation.

I realize that Senator Brecheen considers evolution to be a religion, but it is not. It is a scientific theory based on a great amount of evidence, which I have outlined in my Encyclopedia of Evolution and other books. When I teach and write about evolution, I never present it as a dogmatic belief and never require my students to agree with me. In fact, my best student in 2012 (she got 103% on the final grade) was our Southeastern valedictorian and a literal creationist. I did not penalize her for her beliefs, just as I do not penalize my atheist students. I consider this bill to be more of a political statement than an attempt to address any real problem. Have any teachers or students brought up cases of discrimination?

Thank you for considering my request.

Stanley Rice

I got the following response, apparently a form letter, from the assistant of one of the senators:

Thank you for your email expressing opposition to SB1765. Senator Jolley welcomes the input from constituents of all backgrounds and opinions. Hearing your perspective based on the combination of your professional expertise and faith is very much appreciated.

Should this bill receive a hearing this Session, Senator Jolley will certainly apply a sense of balance to his deliberations prior to casting a vote. Thank you for taking the time to write and please feel free to contact me any time I might be of assistance.

Now, I have nothing against a sense of balance, but this is often creationist code for creationism.

For those of you in Oklahoma, here is a list of committee members and contact information:

Name, Room #, Phone, Email
John Ford, 424A, 521-5634, fordj@oksenate.gov
Gary Stanislawski, 427A, 521-5624, stanislawski@oksenate.gov
Earl Garrison, 528A, 521-5533, whitep@oksenate.gov
Jim Halligan, 425, 521-5572, halligan@oksenate.gov
David Holt, 411A, 521-5636, holt@oksenate.gov
Clark Jolley, 519, 521-5622, jolley@oksenate.gov
Susan Paddack, 533B, 521-5541, paddack@oksenate.gov
Wayne Shaw, 513A, 521-5574, shaw@oksenate.gov
Ralph Shortey, 514A, 521-5557, shortey@oksenate.gov
John Sparks, 529B, 521-5553, sparks@oksenate.gov
Ron Sharp, 533, 521-5539, sharp@oksenate.gov

Meanwhile, enjoy celebrating Darwin’s 205^th birthday.

So Where Is Global Warming Now?

It’s cold here in Oklahoma, though not as cold as in many other parts of the country. Of course this would be the day on which I began teaching my general bio class about global warming. Could I have chosen a worse time?

Actually, it was a good time to teach about this subject. Yesterday (Sunday January 26) it was quite balmy, in the 70s F. Overnight the temperature dropped 40 degrees F. So the weather of these last two days perfectly illustrated my point that weather is not climate. You can’t just stick your head out the window and tell whether global warming is occurring or not. You need long-term and large-scale temperature data, which is what the IPCC has accumulated and continues to accumulate.

So where is global warming now? I told my students that this is a good question, one that critical thinkers should be asking, but I have two answers. First, it’s somewhere else at the moment. Down in Australia, where they are having a big tennis competition, some of the tennis shoes of the participants started to melt on the court. Australia is having a record heat wave. Second, it’ll be back. Oklahoma had record heat waves in 2011 and 2012, but not 2013. But the high temperatures will be back. With global climate as well as local weather, the temperatures go up and down and up and down…but they go up more than they go down, and they go up more often than they go down.

Also, I showed the students some of my data regarding tree budburst times in southern Oklahoma. During the period of 2008-2012, the buds of some tree species opened between 2 and 3 days earlier each year. This period is not necessarily typical of all recent time periods, but it really did happen. I have data from lots of trees of numerous species. The advantage of using budburst times is that the plants integrate the weather conditions. They open their buds in response to the overall effect of warm and cold days in the winter, and also in response to lots of other factors, such as drought damage or disease that may have affected them the previous summer. Four hundred budburst data can integrate the effects of thousands of meteorological data for any given year.

So the “polar vortex” created a teachable moment for me today.

This essay will also appear on my blog.

Stan Rice, president

OAS has 102nd Technical Meeting

The Oklahoma Academy of Science met at Cameron University in Lawton for its 102^nd Annual Technical Meeting on November 8 and 9, 2013. Think about that. Oklahoma is not a very old state, yet its Academy of Science has had 102 technical meetings. (Technical meetings are for presentations and posters, as opposed to the spring and fall field meetings.) According to Executive Director David Bass, OAS is one of the most active state academies in the United States.

The Executive Council met on Thursday evening, November 8. The Executive Council consists of the Executive Director, the officers, and section chairs. The Council reviewed the (very good) financial condition of OAS, locations of future meetings (watch the OAS website and this blog for updates), participation in the Collegiate Academy (undergraduate papers), and the Junior Academy of Sciences (high school posters in conjunction with the state science fair). The Council also unanimously approved a statement affirming global climate change, which was based on the most recent IPCC report and which affirmed the right and responsibility of Oklahoma scientists to speak out and to teach about global climate change. The Council also agreed to sponsor (in name) another Oklahoma Evolution Road Trip in the summer of 2014. (You can read here about the 2013 road trip, organized by Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education and sponsored in name by OAS. The permalink is in reverse chronological order; scroll down to the five road trip entries.)

Most of the presentations were on Friday morning, November 9. There were 264 registrants, of which about 240 were present, plus Cameron University undergraduates. Out of the 81 presentations and posters, there were at least 26 undergraduate oral presentations and at least nine undergraduate posters, and five graduate student presentations. There was also a presentation by a high school student.

Since each section independently scheduled presentations, some of us discovered that almost everything happened between 10:00 and 11:00, which included not only presentations but judging. This may explain why some of the sections had very small audiences. As the new president, I would like to consider ways in which this intense concentration of riches into one time period could be spread out a little. If you have ideas, send them to me (srice@se.edu) or to the Executive Director (dbass@uco.edu).

In particular, there were very few participants in the Science Communication and Education section, which should be of interest to everyone in the Academy, since we all teach students and communicate with the public even if we do not have education degrees. One possible reason was that this section conflicted with all the others. This section sponsored a discussion about online courses. The participants agreed that online courses for credit and MOOCs are two very different things, but we need to have a coordinated response to how to use them constructively. Administrators may be open to our ideas rather than just imposing them on us, but we need to present these ideas to them; and what better way to do this than for our statewide Academy of generate these ideas rather than individual faculty or institutions? I would like to have this conversation continue, since the four of us who discussed them represent only a tiny slice of the Academy.

At the Academy business meeting, updates from the Executive Council were announced, and the membership unanimously approved the same statement on global climate change as the Executive Council had approved. This statement will be on the Academy web page soon, and is expected to be endorsed by Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education (OESE). OESE is more of an activist organization and will be promoting the awareness of global climate change; OAS, as an academy of scientists, has simply gone on record regarding the scientific reality of global climate change.

After the noon banquet, the new president of Cameron University, Dr. John McArthur (a former colleague of mine at Southeastern Oklahoma State University), welcomed the academy. The symbolic gavel of presidency was transferred from outgoing president Craig Clifford to new president Stan Rice; Terry Conley, dean at Cameron, was announced as the president-elect. Left to right: Craig Clifford, Terry Conley, John McArthur.

Terry will take over as president after fall 2015. Dr. Darrin Akin of the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, told the Academy about the work of INBRE and the importance of Individual Development Plans for student success at every level, including medical school.

Dr. Terry Conley organized a day-long symposium in which eleven speakers examined the Wichita Mountains from many different academic perspectives, whether scientific, social, or artistic. The OAS leadership hopes that such symposia will become a regular part of OAS Technical Meetings. I have organized cross-disciplinary symposia for the national meeting of the Botanical Society of America twice, both times with qualified success: cross-disciplinary symposia are not necessarily the best things for narrowly disciplinary society meetings. But OAS should be the perfect place to have symposia that draw interest from across the sciences and beyond.

Every year, the OAS Technical Meeting is an important event for all of us. For many students, it provides an opportunity to jump into the world of scientific presentations. For many professionals, it provides an opportunity to exchange ideas and hear new perspectives. I know that is what I look forward to most at OAS meetings, including the field meetings. (In photo above, left to right: Ken Hobson, Bill Caire, Gloria Caddell.)

If you missed the meeting, there's always next year, at the Broken Arrow campus of Northeastern Oklahoma State University!

Stan Rice, president

Climate Change Workshop blog

I hope as many of you as possible will be able to participate in the Field Meeting. Beavers Bend is a wonderful place and you will love seeing colleagues new and old. I won't be there because I an participating in a workshop this weekend. The Climate Change Workshop this weekend at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station. Sponsored by Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education (OESE) and the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, this workshop will acquaint high school teachers with the basic facts about climate change and introduce active learning experiences they can use with their students. For many years OESE has held evolution workshops, but we recognized that climate change is just as controversial a topic as evolution, if not more so, and teachers really want some help in approaching this topic. I plan to "live-blog" from the event on my science blog. Last year I "live-blogged" from the OESE evolution workshop; see here. Want some straight and clear information about climate change? Check us out starting Friday evening September 20. Or, for those of you at the field meeting, check us out afterward--or during the meeting, if the sound of the frogs keeps you awake at night and you can find a connection. Stan Rice, president-elect