Race

I'm on a mission to spread the word that the Internet need not only be used for messaging or posting photos of your vacation on Facebook. Indeed, it can give you access to thought-provoking, creative, and unusual stories produced in a variety of audio, text and visual formats. Formats, that, I dare say, might be very appealing to your students...if there are any teachers out there.

My friend Jack turned me on to Radiolab, self-described as a show about curiosity. It's a little like This American Life, but seems to focus on stories that are more science based.

The other day I listened to this episode. Here is the description:
Race
The U.S. Census defines five races, and an "other" category. When the human genome was first fully mapped in 2000, Bill Clinton, Craig Venter, and Francis Collins took the stage and pronounced that "The concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis."
Great words spoken with great intentions. But what does that mean and where does it leave us? It doesn't seem to have wiped out our evolving conversation about race.

Then, today when I was reading my blogs on Google Reader (yes I'm a total Google junkie), I came across a fantastic article on the genocide in Rwanda, as told by a survivor and the guy who chopped her hand off. Yeah, you read that right. Anyway, it's a pretty good article.
Read the full thing here.

Anyway, these are two good pieces on the construct and science (or lack of science) behind race, and I think they would make great fodder for a high school or college level discussion on the topic.