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Albany, NY – DAILY LESSONS: INSIDE WESTERN GUILFORD HIGH SCHOOL
AP, OR NOT AP? -
In recent years, high schools across the U.S. have been swelling the ranks
of students taking higher level courses. Courses known as AP, or Advanced Placement courses. While this matches national educational goals, to have
more students taking more difficult classes in science and math as we hear
the policies are not universally supported.
This is another chapter in our multi-part documentary series called, Daily
Lessons: Inside Western Guilford High School. The public high school is
located in Greensboro, North Carolina. A team of reporters spent several
months at the school chronicling many of the same critical issues faced by schools all across the country. Today's episode is AP, Or Not AP?
Deborah George reports. (7:34)
ORIGINS OF LIFE - SCIENCE RESEARCH IN EDUCATION SERIES
SERINE: KEY MOLECULE IN BIOCHEMICAL EVOLUTION -
Many of those AP students in our first story will hopefully go on to careers
in the sciences. And it's critical that all students of life sciences know and understand the structure and chemistry of amino acids. Why? Because
amino acids are often referred to as the building blocks of life. They play
central roles, both as building blocks of proteins, and as intermediates in metabolism.
Our guest has several decades of experience researching this area. Dr. R. Graham Cooks is the Henry B. Hass Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Dr. Cooks says the amino acid Serine (one of the 20 amino acids) is
absolutely essential. Serine is required for the metabolism of fat, tissue
growth, and the immune system.
According to the Serine Deficiency Foundation, children with Serine deficiency could exhibit symptoms like cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and visual impairment.
Glenn Busby reports. (6:24)
The preceding material is supported by the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration.
**(Program Directors and Listeners please note. For more information about this story, or any of the other 140 stories featured in this exclusive
radio series, or if you would like to hear them again via your computer,
The website mentioned at the end of the above segments is:
www.origins.rpi.edu.)**
MASSIVE ASTEROID IMPACTS THE CRADLE OF LIFE:
ORIGINS IN THE CANADIAN HIGH ARCTIC -
As we've heard from other Origins of Life guests over the past nine years on this program, a large asteroid colliding into the Earth's surface, can be
a catastrophic event. But is this devastation always a bad thing?
Our next guest has found that rock-swelling micro-organisms do surprisingly well in the harshest conditions here on Earth, like the South and North Poles. And these findings also have interesting ramifications
for the prospects of finding life on other planets.
Dr. Charles Cockell is a Microbiologist with the British Antarctic Survey from Cambridge, UK. Dr. Cockell tells TBOOK about his recent investigation of a huge crater in the frozen waters of the Canadian high arctic, a place with a dramatic history.
Radio Netherlands, Laura Durnford reports. (4:50)