The Best of Our Knowledge on WAMC

If you were to look around and find yourself among some flattened, rotating disks of cool dust and gas extending for tens to hundreds of astronomical units, then congratulations, you’ve entered the neighborhood of an irradiated proto-planetary disk.  Today on The Best Of Our Knowledge, our Astrobiology series continues with a guided tour of that star studded neighborhood..

We’ll also spend an Academic Minute directing traffic in that neighborhood.

As parents, one of our biggest desires and challenges is for our children to be successful.  The thing is, sometimes we can be real pains in the neck about it and it’s not helping.  Today on The Best Of Our Knowledge, we’ll talk to the author of the book “Teach Your Children Well”, and try to find out how understanding and support beat so-called hyper-parenting any day of the week.

We’ll also spend an Academic Minute finding out what color are the plants on other worlds.

Schools are becoming more sensitive and proactive about the problem of bullying.  But there are places in schools where there is hidden bullying, or even worse, bullying that’s expected and accepted. Today on The Best Of Our Knowledge, we’ll talk about the issue of bullying on school sports teams.

Then we’ll head to Chapel Hill, North Carolina where a battle is brewing over a proposed charter school that hopes to raise test scores for minority students.

And we’ll also spend an Academic Minute hearing how going green is putting some companies in the black.

The Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa is the oldest and by far one of the most successful creative writing programs in the country.  How are we measuring success?  Graduates of the program have won virtually every major literary award, including 17 Pulitzer Prize winners, three recent U. S. Poets Laureate, and numerous winners of the National Book Award, MacArthur Foundation Fellowships, and other major honors.  Today on The best Of Our Knowledge, we’ll visit with the current director of the Iowa Writers Workshop.

Millions of students across the country are heading back to school.  In some regions, they already been back for a few weeks.  But in New York City, the new school year is just about to begin. High school can be a rough time even for people who speak English...but for kids who are new to the language and the country, well, you can imagine.  Today on The Best Of Our Knowledge, we’ll talk to author Brook Hauser about the year she spent at the International High School at Prospect Heights in Brooklyn...and the book that came from those experiences.

Do you know what a sedimentary scientist does?  If your answer is “not much”, you misheard me.  Not sedentary...sedimentary.  It’s someone who pretty much digs in the dirt and looks for answers. Today on The Best Of Our Knowledge, we’ll talk to a sedimentary scientist and geo-chemist who is searching for the origins on life on Earth..in the Earth.

We’ll also spend an academic minute with plants that don’t need an dirt at all...at least they didn’t a few million years ago.

OK, here’s a statement that reeks with obvious-ness: Students with diabetes have special needs.  The American Diabetes Association is working to train teachers and staff around the country to help with those needs.  Today on The Best Of Our Knowledge, we’ll hear about the association’s Safe at School program.

We’ll also hear about the scientist who figured out how to study cell division, meet the music man of Durham, North Carolina who keeps band students going with teaching or playing a single note...and spend an academic minute inside your brain.

Talking about race is never easy.  Talking about inequality among racial groups, and things start getting awkward.  Putting all that into the context of schools and education...congratulations you’ve started an argument.  The fact is that there is educational inequality in the US for many reasons.  Today on The Best Of Our Knowledge, we’ll have a conversation about race, culture and inequality in two countries with difficult racial histories: the US and South Africa.

We’ll also spend an academic minute in a galaxy far, far away.

Some parents dread the empty nest syndrome...that time in life when all their children have graduated school and moved off to make a life of their own.  Hey...some parents look forward to it!  One thing is certain...a whole lot of nests aren’t as empty as they thought.  Today on The Best Of Our Knowledge, we’ll college grads moving back in with the folks.

We’ll also spend some time with the new president of the University of Vermont...and spend an academic minute developing a social memory.

You learn from your mistakes.  That’s a little nugget of wisdom that’s been passed down through the years...and has the advantage of being true.  At least according to children’s author Barney Saltzberg. Today on The Best Of Our Knowledge, we’ll hear about Saltzberg’s book celebrating the well placed mistake: “Beautiful Oops”.

We’ll also celebrate the 65th anniversary of the best selling children’s books ever: The Little Golden Books.  And we’ll spend an Academic Minute with some young puzzlers.