by Lev Horodyskyj | 28 September 2021 | News
28 September 2021 Lev Horodyskyj Founder As we kick off fall here in the northern hemisphere, it’s time for some updates on a slew of projects, including Agavi, Greenworks, and our recently re-awakened public outreach projects. Agavi On the Agavi front, we...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 3 August 2021 | Field Notes, University of the Virgin Islands
Lack of Curiosity Killed Schrödinger’s Cat Tags: US Virgin Islands | USA The grand finale of my modeling lab sequence at the University of the Virgin Islands in spring 2021 was going to be a 3D model of the orbitals of the hydrogen atom. Although often...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 15 June 2021 | Field Notes, University of the Virgin Islands
@Home Modeling Tags: US Virgin Islands | USA Imagine that you’re taking a movie-making course. On the first day, you learn that movie-making requires writing a script, auditioning actors, framing your shots, editing, audio remixing, special effects,...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 8 June 2021 | News
8 June 2021 Lev Horodyskyj Founder We’ve been busy behind the scenes over the past few months. First, a heartfelt thank you to all our new donors who joined us for the GlobalGiving Climate Action Campaign 2021 (we finished number 34) to help fund our Indonesian...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 8 June 2021 | Course Design
Rethinking Explaining Science One of the most aggravating statements for a scientist to hear is that any scientific idea is “just a theory”, as if a theory is a random half-baked guess. Of course, we jump to correct anyone who says this by describing how...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 24 March 2021 | News
24 March 2021 Lev Horodyskyj Founder This week, we’ve kicked off the next iteration of our Greenworks program. In this program, students from multiple universities work together to learn about the science behind various environmental challenges as well as...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 31 January 2021 | News
31 January 2021 Lev Horodyskyj Founder Today we celebrate Science Voices’ 2nd birthday! Over the past couple of years, we’ve completed teacher training in Ukraine and public outreach events with the Ak-Chin Indian Community in Arizona, USA. In the past tumultuous...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 12 January 2021 | Field Notes, University of the Virgin Islands
Home Labs Tags: US Virgin Islands | USA Labs. They are often a dreaded component of science courses. They tend to be long, highly technical, and not particularly creative either in terms of experimental approaches or report write-ups (not if you want a good grade,...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 5 January 2021 | News
5 January 2021 Lev Horodyskyj Founder Happy new year everyone! I hope the new year treats you better than the previous one did. This year as we work to develop our Agavi and Greenworks projects, we’ll also be working on building their associated communities. ...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 5 January 2021 | Field Notes, University of the Virgin Islands
Observation Journals Tags: US Virgin Islands | USA A new chapter begins at the University of the Virgin Islands on St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Quality online science teaching has always been difficult, even more so during a global health emergency. What can make...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 1 December 2020 | News
1 December 2020 Lev Horodyskyj Founder Welcome to the revamped Science Voices website! We’ve been hard at work during the past year on pivoting in the face of global crisis. In our earlier incarnation, we were focused on training teachers in the developing...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 21 April 2020 | Field Notes, Universitas Khairun
Infrastructure Gap Tags: Indonesia My Fulbright field location, Khairun University in North Maluku, Indonesia, was a deliberate choice. When I initially applied for the program, I had intended to work on an island on the outskirts of mainstream Indonesian society,...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 14 April 2020 | Field Notes, Universitas Khairun
Eastern Indonesian Classroom Experience Tags: Indonesia I discovered I would be teaching my first class at Khairun University about twenty minutes after it started. “Sometimes the teachers just don’t show up,” my host, Dr. Halikuddin Umasangaji told...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 7 April 2020 | Field Notes, Universitas Khairun
Island Time Tags: Indonesia Flexibility. That is the key to surviving Indonesia, I was told at my Fulbright Scholar orientation in Jakarta in early February. Things operate at their own pace and in their own time. I was familiar with this concept based on traveling...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 25 February 2020 | Course Design
Working Around Innumeracy Scientists love their numbers. Numbers and equations are an easy way of representing our understanding of the universe and extending it to places we can’t directly observe. Scientists are so comfortable with mathematical language that...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 18 February 2020 | Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Field Notes
Major-Based Projects Tags: Arizona | USA Victoria presents on sign language for aliens, with Taylor (left) and Lauren (right) It is no secret that many students in general education science courses aren’t there because they want to be, or if they are, quickly...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 11 February 2020 | Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Field Notes
Puzzle Projects Tags: Arizona | USA Successfully engaged students who definitely are not faking their enthusiasm. My favorite course that I have ever taught was the lab component of the Introduction to Cosmology course at Chandler-Gilbert Community College last...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 4 February 2020 | Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Field Notes
Digitizing Labs Tags: Arizona | USA Now entering the field site (architecture at the Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Chandler, Arizona) This past fall, I had the opportunity to teach two classes of Introduction to Solar System Astronomy at Chandler-Gilbert...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 17 September 2019 | First Person
Tracing Roots Tags: Ukraine Twelve years ago, I had the stunning revelation that my grandmother, already in her 90s, wouldn’t be around forever. She was born in 1914 and was my deepest living link to the past. So I began to speak with her about her life, and...
by Lev Horodyskyj | 10 September 2019 | Course Design
Education for the Anthropocene About two weeks ago, I found myself in a world of unfamiliar acronyms and jargon. CM and PLM and CAD were thrown around casually and I had difficulty decoding what was going on, as it’s not jargon I usually work with. During...
