Opinion
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Reading is Key Science Skill
Opinion -How do scientists acquire most of their knowledge? Surprisingly, it's not by "observing," "measuring," or doing "hands-on" investigations. It's by reading. -
Reading Is Not Enough
Opinion -A new Canadian study has found that children do not learn to read simply by having their parents read to them. Parents must accompany reading with teaching the alphabet in order for children to grasp the mechanics involved in reading. -
Education and Choice: What Does America Think?
Opinion -Pollsters are working overtime these days, plumbing the public's attitudes towards Presidential candidates in upcoming primary states. But many other important polls have taken place. -
TAAS Tests Nudge Up Achievement
Opinion -In his January 7 ruling on the case involving the tenth-grade Texas Assessment of Academic Skills test, U.S. District Court Judge Edward C. Prado made it clear that "unequal education is a matter of great concern and must be eradicated. -
Texas Academic Standards Upheld
Opinion -Who should issue driver's licenses to teenagers? Should it be the driving instructors who are responsible for teaching teens to drive? -
Conservation bill faces rough road in 2000
Opinion -The embattled Conservation and Reinvestment Act of 1999 (H.R. 701/S. 25) will have a rougher road to travel on its way through the legislative process than its supporters expected. -
Medical scientists call proposed DDT ban unethical
Opinion -DDT--a pesticide known to kill birds and thought by some to endanger humans--has found new friends among the medical community whose responsibility it is to fight a disease once thought to be under control: malaria. -
Diesel or Natural Gas?
Opinion -Which fuel is the right choice for heavy trucks and buses? It’s a question facing policymakers in California, at the U.S. -
FDA loosens rules on labeling, claims by dietary supplements
Opinion -The Food and Drug Administration has issued a final rule to address the labeling and marketing of dietary supplements. Many health advocates are distressed about some of its content. -
Earth(worms) First
Opinion -Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to show that earthworms have important effects on the chemistry and physical structure of soils. -
Hot air for the millennium
Opinion -Any of you who don’t think the federal government is composed largely of alarmist gasbags obviously did not survive last December’s Y2K crisis. -
Idaho sues U.S. Forest Service
Opinion -“If the Clinton Administration has its way, many of our state’s public trust lands could be severely devalued--which directly affects the foundation for school funding in our state,” said Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne, announcing that -
EPA loses in court . . . again
Opinion -For the third time in less than a year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has had one of its air-quality regulations rejected by the District of Columbia Federal Appeals Court. -
President Clinton declares three new monuments
Opinion -In what western lawmakers called “a war on the West,” the Clinton-Gore Administration bypassed Congress and unilaterally declared three new national monuments and added acreage to a fourth, restricting public use on over a million acres of -
Virtual climate alert
Opinion -The United Nations and the Clinton-Gore administration seek to regulate all human activity under the Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. -
Millennium Survey judges public opinion on environment
Opinion -Americans are more or less satisfied with the state of the environment in the United States today, with 62 percent saying it is very or mainly satisfactory. -
The Rains of Ranchipur
Opinion -Do you fear the force of the wind, The slash of the rain? Go face them and fight them, Be savage again. —Hamlin Garland, “Do You Fear the Wind?” Changes in temperature and precipitation are linked in the climate system. -
The Great Windmill Scam
Opinion -Not all Scandinavians are enamored with wind energy. -
Smog-Eating Car Introduced
Opinion -According to Swedish car maker Volvo, car owners may soon be able to reduce smog by driving. -
Coalition challenges proposed vehicle scrappage program
Opinion -The Coalition for Auto Repair Equality (CARE), representing companies in the automotive parts, repair, and maintenance industries, has challenged as “unproven” a car/truck scrappage program proposed by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation -
Math Lite Feels Better
Opinion -A recent Wall Street Journal editorial noted that the Everyday Math program not only promotes the use of calculators from kindergarten on but also brings a new set of feelings to math classes. -
Why NASA Lost the Mars Probe?
Opinion -“What will be the effect on all of us when we must deal with the consequences of physicians, airplane designers, or architects who were indoctrinated in school with hostility to mathematical precision?” This question was raised recently by U.S. -
Time for Whole Language to Surrender?
Opinion -"Whereas speaking is natural, reading is not. Children do not automatically read. They have to learn how to do it. . . . There really is a difference in brain activation patterns between good and poor readers. -
Fast-forward ebb and flow
Opinion -The common description of global sea-level changes is a simple one. When most of the planet is cold (during an ice age, for example), a lot of water is locked up in the form of ice, and the regions of permanent ice expand.