October 2-3, 2008
Bonneville High School
3165 E. Iona Rd.
Idaho Falls, ID 83401
Conference
Program
Conference Overview
ISTA and ICTM would like to invite you to join your fellow science and math
teachers at the Fall ISTA/ICTM collaborative fall conference which will be held
at Bonneville High School in Idaho Falls ID, during state teacher in-service
days Oct 2-3, 2008.
As always the key to a successful conference is the tremendous number of
teachers who commit to presenting great teaching ideas and strategies to other
teachers. If you are coming to the conference please consider spreading your
expertise. Presenter forms can be filled out on-line in just a few minutes.
Featured Keynotes
Dr. Romney Duffey
Dr Romney Duffey is an internationally recognized scientist,
manager, speaker, poet, and author. He has published over 200 papers and
articles. Educated in the UK He graduated from the university of Exeter, and
also obtained his PhD there. He has over 30 years experience in the fields of
Nuclear Technology Development, Risk Assessment, Nuclear System design and
Safety and is the leading expert in commercial nuclear reactor studies and
advanced concepts in the UK Canada and the U.S.
Romney is a physicist by inclination He is a fellow of the American Society of
mechanical Engineers, A past chair of the Nuclear Engineering Division, An
active member of American and Canadian Nuclear Societies, and a past Chair of
the American Nuclear Society Thermal Hydraulics Division. He has Chaired and
helped organize numerous international conferences and meetings most recently in
China. He is also the designated expert in the 10-Nation Generation IV
International forum on advance nuclear systems.
He has been Principal Scientist, Atomic Energy of Canada since 1997, with a wide
range of responsibilities, including responsibility for advanced and future
concepts, advanced product development, advice on overall R&D directions,
analysis of global energy and environment scenarios and energy policy and market
competitiveness review. From 1967-77 he was a Section Leader/Research Officer at
the Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories, Central Electricity Generating Board, UK,
following which he held a series of senior research and management posts in the
USA and Canada. Romney is an very experienced speaker dedicated to Global
environment and energy studies. His 2008 Keynote address is titled “Snake oil
and Global Warming, dispelling the myths”
Dr. Doug Smith
Douglas W. Smith is currently project leader for the Yellowstone
Gray Wolf Restoration Project in Yellowstone National Park. Doug has studied
wolves for 27 years. Prior to Yellowstone, he worked on Isle Royale with wolves
from 1979-1992, and also with wolves in Minnesota in 1983. The dissertation
topic that earned him his Ph.D. was titled Dispersal Strategies and Cooperative
Breeding In Beavers. He has produced numerous publications on the subject of the
wolf and the beaver, as well as contributing many hours of lecture time on both
topics.
Some of the publications authored and co-authored by Smith include: Yellowstone
After Wolves, Wolf-Bison interactions in Yellowstone National Park, Winter
severity and wolf predation of a formerly wolf-free elk herd, Wolves in the
greater Yellowstone ecosystem: Restoration of a top carnivore in a complex
management environment, and Denning behavior of non-gravid wolves. He has
co-authored two books The Wolves of Yellowstone (1996) a chronology of the first
two years of the wolf recovery effort and Decade of the Wolf (2005) summarizing
the first ten years of wolf restoration in Yellowstone National Park. He has
participated in numerous media interviews including four National Geographic
specials and one BBC special. Doug will be speaking on the current status of
wolves and wolf reintroduction.
Dr Mary Higby Schweitzer
Dr Mary Schweitzer is Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University’s Paleontology department. Dr Schweitzer is currently working several fields of study Molecular diagenesis and taphonomy: Molecular Paleontology: Evolution of physiological and reproductive strategies in dinosaurs and their bird descendants. And Astrobiology. One of her greatest assets to science is non conventional thinking. Preconceived ideas are trappings of the modern scientific age. Mary tried something unheard of in Paleontology..dissololving fossilized bone. When Schweitzer showed Paleontologist Jack Horner, curator of Bozeman’s Museum of the Rockies the slide of soft tissue taken from a 65 million year old T-rex fossil, she recalls, "Jack said, 'Prove to me they're not red blood cells.' That was what I got my Ph.D.doing." At the same time, the contents of those T. rex bones have also electrified some creationists, who interpret Schweitzer's findings as evidence that Earth is not nearly as old as scientists claim. "I invite the reader to step back and contemplate the obvious," wrote Carl Wieland on the Answers in Genesis Web site last year. "This discovery gives immensely powerful support to the proposition that dinosaur fossils are not millions of years old at all, but were mostly fossilized under catastrophic conditions a few thousand years ago at most." Rhetoric like this has put Schweitzer at the center of a raging cultural controversy, because she is not just a pioneering paleontologist but also an evangelical Christian.
That article, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sparked a small flurry of headlines. Horner and others regarded Schweitzer's research as carefully performed and credible. Nonetheless, says Horner, "most people were very skeptical. Frequently in our field people come up with new ideas, and opponents say, 'I just don't believe it.' She was having a hard time publishing in journals." Dr. Schweitzer will be speaking about her discovery and her current research.