Cafe Sci Orlando announcement update for 2009-02
Chad MILLER
* We're moving!
* Feb topic, "Evolution in School" in the news
This is our first special announcement, sent because of a significant
change in how we will meet for Café Scientifique Orlando. Additionally,
there's news about the same topic as our last event.
We're moving
We love Stardust, but it's not working very well to meet there. For the
event of March 4th, we will meet at Taste, in College Park.
Meeting at Taste gets us a dedicated room with less noise, a P-A system
if we need it, and waiters at the tables to take orders. The parking
should be better too, especially in comparison to (literally) no
parking at Stardust on those farmers'-market Wednesdays.
Directions
Taste is near the corner of Princeton St (really Smith St after the
fork) and Edgewater Drive, so about 2 minutes from I-4 to parking. One
can park on the street or in the parking lot behind Taste.
* From Downtown and south, drive north ("east") on I-4 through
downtown. At the exit for Princeton Street, exit and turn
left/west.
* From Altamonte Spring and north, drive south ("west") on I-4 toward
downtown Orlando. At the exit for Princeton Street, exit and turn
right/west.
From I-4, drive 0.2 miles to Edgewater Drive. At the intersection, you
should see a orange building ahead of you, labled "Taste". Park on the
street or behind Taste.
"Evolution in School" follow-up
Fresh on the heels of our COPUS-themed February topic, Evolution in
School, [1]The Florida Times-Union reports that State Sen. Stephen
Wise, from Jacksonville, plans to require science teachers to spend
time teaching intelligent-design creationism. Last year, a similar bill
failed to be enacted only because the two legislative bodies couldn't
reconcile the already-passed versions.
For those unfamiliar with "intelligent-design", the television series
"Nova" (incidentally, a supporter of Cafés Scientifique in the U.S.)
produced [2]a fascinating program chronicling a I-D creationism
disaster in Pennsylvania. (Science won, but at great cost to the
state.)
The latest effort to leapfrog state education standards seems to be to
ignore the Department of Education and legislate that on the single
topic of evolution, no teacher would be held responsible for what they
teach. Its proponents call this "academic freedom." Expect to see this
in this year's legislative session.
For ongoing information about promoting science in local education and
how you can help, consult [3]Florida Citizens for Science and its
[4]web-log.
References
1. http://www.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-02-08/story/wise_to_introduce_intelligent_design_bill
2. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/
3. http://www.flascience.org/
4. http://www.flascience.org/wp/