Science in the Triangle

Graphic breakdown of the President's proposed 2012 fiscal budget. (via New York Times)

President Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget proposal aims to scale back spending in big-ticket areas like defense and homeland security. However, a lot of science and research-related sectors would see a boost in funding.

This stays in line with Obama’s January State of the Union promise for America’s “Sputnik moment” and his call for heightened investment in innovation. It also comes at a great time for North Carolina, which continues to place increasing focus on climate and alternative energy.

Still, not all research and development (R&D) programs would receive equal allotment. Some departments, like the Environmental Protection Agency, would see budget cuts if the president’s proposal passes through Congress.

Here’s a breakdown of how the budget proposal will affect two of the largest science and R&D-related fields: energy and the environment, both on a national and local level:

Energy

National: Clean energy and alternative fuel initiatives would reap a big boost from Obama’s budget pitch. The Department of Energy’s spending budget would climb a total of 12 percent. Discretionary spending would increase almost 40 percent from 2010 to $11.84 billion. That’s roughly $104.18 per household. Measures here would include investments in renewable sources of power like wind and solar—which would jump 70 percent from last year—and the push for all-electric vehicles.

Studies on hydrogen as a clean alternative to fossil fuels will incur significant cuts, losing $70 million. Federal energy assistance to low income homes would also be reduced.

Local: North Carolina will spend a total of $75.9 million on the state energy program, with $20.9 million for energy efficiency and conservation block grants. Within Orange County, grants include installing a new solar heat pump and a high-efficiency hand dryer at the Emergency Services building, improving lighting at Triangle Sportsplex, and adding a solar hot water heater at the Piedmont Food & Agriculture Center. Total project expenditures estimated at $451,350. A $1.4 million grant will go towards energy-efficient agricultural storage equipment.

So what is that money going towards, specifically?

“Right now, it’s solar and wind energy,” said Seth Effron, communications director for the North Carolina Energy Office. “You’re going to see very significant acceleration in the next year and a half.”

Effron said the federal government has just initiated a variety of steps to start leasing offshore sites for the development of wind energy. N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue has created a scientific panel on offshore energy for the eastern part of the state.

“People here are very interested in moving ahead,” said Effron. “Particularly with how it relates to an exploration of offshore petroleum.” He cited a June 2009 UNC study conducted by the General Assembly claiming North Carolina has the best offshore wind resources of any state on east coast.

Right now, almost all the State Energy Office’s budget comes from the Washington-led American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, but that expires in 2012.

Environment

National: As a whole, the president’s budget allocates $6.27 billion for Environmental and Other Defense Activities, down 4.6 percent from 2010. If the White House’s proposal passes, the EPA would lose 3.2 percent of its current research budget.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency will receive $8.97 billion, pending Congress’s approval, in a press conference Monday. More than $1.4 billion will be lost after an all-time high of $10.3 billion in federal funding last year.

Jackson said losses will include cuts to the Great Lakes Restoration Program and so-called “superfunds” which give the agency oversight of environmental repair on federal facilities.

These cuts would be offset in part by additional funding to the Science To Achieve Results (STAR) academic grants program.

Local: In tandem with Obama, Gov. Perdue included substantial reductions to environmental programs in her 2011-2013 budget proposition released Thursday. Among them comes the elimination of 224.5 Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) jobs. Meanwhile, her plan appropriates roughly $180 million over two years to pursue DENR’s outlined 2009-2013 goals: sustaining clean air and water for future, growing a green economy, conserving natural worklands, and responding to climate change.

The EPA has a satellite facility in the Research Triangle Park, but it’s still a limb of the national headquarters, said senior press officer Cathy Milbourn. Milbourn said the budget committee is only now beginning to assess the president’s proposal and how it will affect the agency. She also added that it needs to pass through the House and Senate before anything is set in stone.

Susan Massengale, spokeswoman for NCDENR’s Division of Water Quality, said all environmental agencies have had funding constraints over the last year, and hers is no exception.

“We have very local budget issues with both the governor and the state legislature in town,” said Massengale. “In any case, we’ll use the money we have in the most efficient way and protect the state water quality to the best of our ability.”

Massengale’s division is working to establish a statewide water quality policy and to combat pollution with new wastewater infrastructure.

[Author's note: Wind technology--and specifically its non-immediate drawbacks--will be discussed further in the next article.]

Originally published: 2/10/11

A record 111 million people tuned in for Super Bowl XLV Sunday night, analyzing everything from the agility of the running backs to the facial theatrics of the coaches.

What many likely did not consider is how dangerous the hits and tackles can be to players’ heads. In many cases, it can result in concussions and permanent brain damage.

This is not uncommon, either. In fact, the average UNC football player sustains 950 hits to the head per season, says Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz, chair of the school’s exercise and sports science department. He and fellow neuroscientists at the Matthew A. Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center, located on UNC’s campus, are making it easier to monitor high impact head knocks on the field.

This could prove invaluable in learning how long-term exposure to hits can rupture the brain, said Guskiewicz.

What they’re doing, he said, is outfitting players’ helmets with small accelerometers: microsensors no bigger than a dime that measure the severity of the collision. There are six sensors scattered throughout each helmet. They provide instantaneous feedback to computers on the sidelines.

The accelerometers can gauge two forms of movement: linear acceleration and angula, or rotational, acceleration. Linear measures movement within one plane, or unidirectional motion. Rotational measures movement across several planes, generally in more of a diagonal.

“The lay way to describe it is the rate of change,” Guskiewicz said. “How quickly the head accelerates and decelerates upon impact.”

In effect, head collisions cause concussions, which harm brain cells and throw off the balance of ions important to brain function. It hurts, and it leaves its mark; memory can be lost, vision blurred, and blood flow reduced. In some cases, it could end up causing players’ brains to behave like those of Alzheimer’s patients.

Dr. Jason Mihalik, an assistant professor at the Gfeller Research Center, works closely with Guskiewicz on the project. He said there’s still much work to be done before any conclusions can be drawn. One thing that’s safe to say is that concussions come in all shapes, sizes, and severities.

“It’s not necessarily the bigger hits that cause the harshest or most permanent damage,” Mihalik said. “It might be other things like the number of hits. That’s what we’re still trying to figure out.”

However, some positions might be more liable to hard head injuries than others.

“What we do know,” said Guskiewicz. “Is there are more concussions on special teams plays than we see on regular plays. Also, there are more when they’re lowering their heads instead of hitting with the chest.”

The average acceleration of a head collision in football is about 23 gravitational force units (g). The mystery is where the threshold for injury lies. Some sustain concussions at 55g whereas some get up and walk away from blows at 100g.

Jason Freeman is the assistant equipment manager for the UNC football team. He said both offensive and defensive players wear helmets with the sensors. Quarterbacks, tight ends, linemen, safeties— any position can play with them, if they choose.

“It’s really just a comfort thing,” Freeman said. “Less whether they’re physically comfortably, but rather if they’re comfortable wearing them for the study. The players don’t actually feel the sensors at all.”

In total, Guskiewicz said, about 60 to 65 UNC players wear them each season. This is mainly because each unit can cost up to $1,000.

“Obviously we’d love to cover everybody,” he said. “But it’s just too expensive.”

When buying for the team in bulk, however, they’re able to get each unit for much less, somewhere between $350 and $450. A normal helmet costs $182. That money comes from various grant donors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Operating Committee for Standards in Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE).

Virginia Tech was the first school to utilize the sensor technology. The next was UNC, which has been using it since 2004. Other users include Dartmouth and Oklahoma.

Now it’s about to make its professional debut. This fall, the NFL will start outfitting players with collision sensors as part of the ongoing study. This is a big step forward to Guskiewicz, who’s the acting chair of the NFL subcommittee for safety equipment and rule changes.

“We’re looking at a number of issues with helmets,” he said. “We’ll start with trials of several players from different teams, looking at whether rules should be changed to minimize damage to head.”

At UNC, at least, it’s had a positive influence on players’ field strategies. Sometimes, Guskiewicz said, they will pull players aside and show them why lowering the neck or attacking with the crown of the head makes them more liable to long-term damage.

After they watch themselves on videotape, athletes tend to modify their behavior drastically. Also, when players complain of headaches and dizziness, it helps determine if it’s really concussive or simply dehydration.

Originally published: 2/3/11

Kelly Allen teaches biology and chemistry at East Chapel Hill High School. She runs the Science Olympiad program and brings her Science Days seniors’ club to perform live demonstrations at local elementary schools to spark an interest in young minds. But, she recognizes, most students in North Carolina do not get the science opportunities hers do.

“In some instances,” Allen said. “Teachers are told, ‘DO NOT waste your time teaching science. Only teach math and reading.’ It’s really disheartening.”

Allen said this has been an unintentional consequence of No Child Left Behind, the controversial 2002 federal education overhaul which places a heavy emphasis on teaching to standardized K-12 math and reading tests. Other classes, some say, fall by the wayside.

It has long been Allen’s hypothesis that this would take its toll on science test scores. Now, she’s found the data to support her claim. The U.S. Department of Education published this week the results of the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science test, finding less than half the nation’s youth have a ‘proficient’ understanding of science. North Carolina’s percentages were lower than the national average.

According to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, 30 percent of state students who performed at or above the NAEP proficiency level in 2009. The national percentage was 32. The state had 69 percent at or above a basic level of understanding, compared to 71 percent nationally.

Nick Cabot taught high school physics in Seattle for 15 years. Now he’s at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Education, teaching how to teach science. Cabot said he recognizes the state is not where it needs to be with regards to science education.

The way he sees it, students aren’t learning scientific thinking or reasoning skills.

“There’s too much emphasis on memorizing factoids,” he said. “But facts are no more science than a bunch of stones are a house. You need a conceptual framework to go with it.”

Cabot suggests more time spent teaching how to form a hypothesis, how to construct an experiment to test it, and how to reach a logical conclusion. Science is relevant to every student’s daily life, he said, and classroom lessons should reflect that.

This is a task DPI is actively undertaking, said Beverly Vance, section chief for K-12 science, curriculum and instruction. She said to expect more hands-on, interactive approaches to science in the future, inside and outside the classroom.

“One thing I’m really excited about is partnering informal education communities such as museums or Cub Scouts with the classrooms,” Vance said. “In class, you learn about ecosystems. In Cub Scouts, you’re out there seeing how an ecosystem works.”

Vance acknowledges the upward hike for science education in North Carolina, but holds high aspirations for the future. She thinks the best way to solve the big problem is to start with the small.

“Our goal is to be number one in the country,” she said. “However, to set a statewide goal, we really need to look at the data and make some target goals based on where they are, region by region.”

To Cabot, it’s more important to use new tactics to activate the students’ motivation. Foremost for him is an embrace of technology, even if the kids are literally playing games.

“I think we could use more video games to teach,” Cabot said. “They put us in that cognitive middle zone between what we can do now and what we can do with a little push. They also provide instant feedback.”

Cabot said he was one of the first science teachers to use technology in the classroom after he talked his school board into giving him $50,000 for Macintosh computers in 1994.

Cabot supports abolishing all standardized tests or at least significantly improving them. Tests, he says, are no good to students if they don’t teach what really matters.

“It’s not important to me that they don’t know a lithium ion has three protons and four neutrons,” Cabot said. “It’s that they don’t know what a legitimate argument is. What evidence is. How to get through their daily lives.”

Allen said she is not opposed to standardized testing, as long as it’s helpful and focuses on more than just math and reading. She even thinks math and science ought to be taught in concert.

“To be competitive in the world,” she said. “We need to have good scientists.”

North Carolina’s NAEP scores came in below 24 other states, better than nine other states, and on par with 13 more. Five states did not participate.

The test was given to fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade students around the country. Unlike many standardized tests, questions were both multiple choice and short-answer explanation boxes. Students were tested on physical, life, and space sciences.