T^3 2014 Day 2: The Science of Zombies
Published by KermMartian 10 years, 1 month ago (2014-03-08T20:46:37+00:00) | Discuss this article

Day two of T^3 2014 in Las Vegas is well underway, and the morning has been full of everything from TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition calculators in the classroom to advanced Lua concepts with TI-Planet administrator Adrien "Adriweb" Bertrand. We just reached the end of one of the most well-attended sessions at the conference, "StEM Behind Hollywood: Adventure, Drama, and Mystery in Your Classroom". STEM Behind Hollywood has been "the most successful marketing program in the history of TI Education," and uses the science behind popular shows and pop culture phenomena to captivate students. The session was primarily taught by Dr. Steven Scholzman, MD, author of "The Zombie Autopsies", accompanied by Tom Reardon, a long-time T^3 instructor and the classroom advisor for Stem Behind Hollywood and Jeff Lukens, the science classroom advisor for the program.

Dr. Schlozman led a spirited session about the most popular of the stem Behind Hollywood units thus far, "Zombie Apocalypse". He talked about his experiences working with the program and teaching students about the math and science the module aims to teach. Dr. Schlozman spoke and his childhood attraction to horror movies and how that interest led him to eventually write "The Zombie Autopsies". He walked us through the progression of the typical zombie illness and how those symptoms could be clinically explained in terms of degradation of specific areas of the brain. This neurological perspective allowed him to bring the concept into his classroom at Harvard, and to even get medical students thinking about clinical thinking, differentiating between possible diagnosis and treatments. He showed some of the TI-Nspire screenshots from the activity, including the graphs and diagrams that students can generate while modelling the spread of a theoretical zombie outbreak. The session concluded with questions from the teachers present, many discussing their compliments and qualms in using the activity in their own classroom.

Dr. Steve mentioned that STEM Behind Hollywood will soon be introducing a new activity, "Zombie Apocalypse II: The Humans Strike Back." It will teach students about pH, and how understanding pH could save humanity from zombies. T^3 continues with just under one more day of talks, sessions, and meetings, and we will continue to bring you news about everything we discover at this cornerstone annual conference.

More Information
"Zombie Apocalypse" Activity from STEM Behind Hollywood"
"The Zombie Autopsies" by Dr. Steven Schlozman



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