{"id":7587,"date":"2011-01-09T03:00:59","date_gmt":"2011-01-09T08:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/?p=7587"},"modified":"2011-01-09T03:00:59","modified_gmt":"2011-01-09T08:00:59","slug":"doctor-obvious-goes-to-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/7587","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Obvious Goes to College"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.medicaldaily.com\/news\/20110107\/5039\/college-students-lack-scientific-literacy-study-finds.htm\">College students lack scientific literacy, study finds<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Students trying to explain weight loss, for example, could not trace matter once it leaves the body; instead they used informal reasoning based on their personal experiences (such as the fat &#8220;melted away&#8221; or was &#8220;burned off&#8221;). In reality, the atoms in fat molecules leave the body (mostly through breathing) and enter the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and water.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Rough calculation:  Assume you breathe in around a liter each time at 20 breaths per <del datetime=\"2011-01-09T17:50:43+00:00\">second<\/del> minute.  To make the math a little easier, let&#8217;s make that 22.4 L of an ideal gas per minute, which is one mole.  Increase the CO2 by 1.5% in each cycle, which takes a Carbon atom out of your body.  That&#8217;s 0.015*12g*60*24 = 260 g.  You lose more than half a pound just breathing each day.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Most students also incorrectly believe plants obtain their mass from the soil rather than primarily from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. &#8220;When you see a tree growing,&#8221; Anderson said, &#8220;it&#8217;s a lot easier to believe that tree is somehow coming out of the soil rather than the scientific reality that it&#8217;s coming out of the air.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/6601\">Feynman told us this<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/news\/2011\/01\/college-upperclassmen-still-fail-at-scientific-reasoning.ars\">College upperclassmen still fail at scientific reasoning<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Related to\/based on the first article; it adds a few other points. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>College students lack scientific literacy, study finds Students trying to explain weight loss, for example, could not trace matter once it leaves the body; instead they used informal reasoning based on their personal experiences (such as the fat &#8220;melted away&#8221; &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/7587\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-science-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}