World Science Festival Highlights

It's been too long since I updated the science blog. These are just SOME of the fantastic guests that were featured at the World Science Festival in NYC the past couple weeks. A look at some creative ideas in science:

Jad Abumrad

Radio Journalist

Jad Abumrad is an award-winning radio journalist who has produced documentaries for a variety of local and national public radio programs including, On the Media, PRI's Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and WNYC's 24 Hours at the Edge of Ground Zero. He is co-host with Robert Krulwich on WNYC’s popular show Radio Lab. read more

Majora Carter

Urban Revitalization Strategist

Majora Carter is a leading environmentalist whose rallying cry is “Green the Ghetto.” A 2005 MacArthur fellow, she is the founder of Sustainable South Bronx, a community-based organization that is spearheading efforts to revitalize disadvantaged neighborhoods in New York City and beyond. read more

Mitchell Joachim

Architect & Urban Designer

Mitchell Joachim is an architect and urban designer as well as a partner in Terreform, a New York–based organization for philanthropic architecture and ecological design. His design of a compact, stackable “city car,” developed with the MIT Smart Cities Group, won the 2007 Time Magazine Best Invention of the Year. read more

M. Glen Kertz

Plant Physiologist

Plant physiologist and inventor M. Glen Kertz has been a global leader in the fields of molecular genetics, plant tissue and cell culture for over 35 years. He is president and director of research and development for Valcent Products Inc., a company aiming to bring to market algae-to-biofuel technology. read more

Ian Tattersall

Anthropologist

Ian Tattersall is a prominent anthropologist whose work focuses on the evolution of humans and other primates. He is a curator for the division of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and an adjunct professor at Columbia University and the City University of New York. read more

Edward Toth

Director, Greenbelt Native Plant Center, New York Department of Parks and Recreation

A leading authority on landscape management and plant conservation, Edward Toth is Director of the Greenbelt Native Plant Center, which collects and raises specimens of New York's indigenous flora and maintains a seed bank for preservation of local species. He has written extensively on ecological management of urban natural areas. read more

Carl Zimmer

Science writer

Award-winning science writer Carl Zimmer explores the frontiers of biology in his writing. His work appears regularly in the New York Times and many magazines. He is the author, most recently, of Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life. In 2007 he was awarded the National Academies' Science Communication Award.


It is a testament to the power of science that so many interdiscipinary innovations have developed from the rapidly expanding knowledge base. But I think one thing that the Festival illustrated so well is the need for a new morality in science - a human-developed, but not human-centric vision for how science will continue to shape and mold our way of life.

I will integrate some of these newer ideas into the classroom standards for environmental inquiry. One step towards making science a bit more relevant to today's high school students.