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Students play a timed game to locate guide words in a dictionary. - define the term guide words . - locate guide words on specific dictionary pages. - work together in cooperative groups. dictionary, guide words, game, timed dictionaries (one per pair of students), paper, pens or pencils, teacher-made work sheets that list words beginning with different letters of the alphabet, answer key - Ask students to describe the term guide words and give examples. - Organize students into pairs. Give each group one dictionary and a teacher-made work sheet that has a list of words beginning with different letters of the alphabet. - Tell students to look up each word on the list. Tell students they have X minutes to locate and write down the guide words that appear at the top of the page for each word and the page numbers the guide words fall on. (Vary time limit according to students' ages and abilities.) At the end of the time limit, give students the answers from the answer key and have them check their own work. Evaluate students' responses and abilities to work together in cooperative groups. Lesson Plan Source

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/00-2/lp2184.shtml

Like its cephalopod relatives, the cuttlefish contains an ink sac that it uses to escape predators ("NOVA," 2007). The cuttlefish is most commonly recognized for its ability to change its skin color and texture almost instantly. It does this for camouflage purposes as well as social purposes, such as mating displays. Cuttlefish are considered to have the most sophisticated form of camouflage in the Animal Kingdom (Chiao et al., 2005). Cuttlefish achieve their vast array of body patterns through the use of thousands of chromatophores located in their mantle ("NOVA," 2007). Cuttlefish are important to humans for several reasons. They are important in world fisheries, as 200,000 metric tons of cuttlefish are caught for human consumption each year. Furthermore, artists have used cuttlefish ink, sepia, for hundreds of years (Roper, 2008). Perhaps their most important contribution to humans is their usefulness in studying camouflage. They are model organisms for studying camouflage because they can quickly change their skin rapidly. The most common species of cuttlefish used for research is the European cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis (Shohet et al., 2007).

http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/midorcas/animalphysiology/websites/2010/Underwood/intro.htm

Warren King Moorehead, one of the first archaeologists to work on Hopewell sites, coined the term "Hopewell." It refers to Captain C. M. Hopewell, the owner of the property on which the first excavations of the cultural group occurred. There is no known single point of origin for the Hopewell culture. The universal features shared by all Hopewellian settlements include complex mortuary rituals associated with large mortuary mounds, diversified art, and extensive trade networks. The Hopewell people are considered hunter-gatherers as well as agriculturists, although it is believed that they placed a greater reliance on agriculture than on hunting and gathering. Evidence indicates that the Hopewell exploited a great number of local domesticates, including squash, marsh elder, goosefoot, sunflower, erect knotweed, may grass, little barley, sump weed, and chenopod. The Hopewell people also exploited local game and riverine resources. The Hopewell culture is believed to have been made up of multiple chiefdom settlements, the majority of which were clustered around major waterways and areas with plentiful resources. These settlements varied in size, though an average settlement had a population density between 1,290 and 4,500 people. Permanent settlements were created around the periphery of a central ceremonial complex and were often made up of single-family or extended-family communities. There is evidence of social stratification within Hopewellian societies, as illustrated through their mortuary rituals. The Hopewell people are known for their complex mortuary rituals consisting of monumental earthen mounds as well as funerary rituals that took a couple of months to years to complete. Hopewell people also had various types of funerary customs that appear to be reserved for certain status groups. Excavations of mortuary mounds have yielded information illustrating this practice as related to the status of the deceased through the evidence of differing burial treatment. The dead were interred in a variety of ways: primary burials, burial shortly after death, laid out in either an extended or flexed, or fetal, position; secondary bundle burials, burial after the removal of the flesh from the bones, be it from an extended period of time or intentional removal of the flesh from the bones; and cremations. Social stratification is illustrated in Hopewell burials through the diversity of burial goods, or the lack there of, found with the deceased. Many burials have been found with a rich assortment of grave items, including clothing, fabrics, costuming, household items such as cooking pots and grinding stones, and occupational items such as bone needles and projectile points of varying degrees of craftsmanship and material types. Items that are formed from rare or exotic materials are believed to be associated with higher-status individuals, and the lack of grave goods in a burial is believed to be associated with lower-status individuals, which is evidence of social stratification within the Hopewell culture. There is also a notable gender difference in the distribution of burial goods, with household items associated with women and hunting items associated with men. There do not appear to be any patterns associated with age and gender for burial type that are universal for the Hopewell culture. Burial mounds are geometric structures with a charnel house at the summit. The charnel houses were the locations for ritualized cremation ceremonies. It is also believed that both the charnel houses and the mounds were aligned with an astronomical body such as the moon. Given the diversity of mortuary rituals utilized by the Hopewell people, it is believed that it may have taken months to years for these rituals to be completed and they were undertaken by groups of people. It is further believed that the family of the deceased may have helped with these mortuary rituals. The monumental earthworks of the Hopewell are associated not just with mortuary ritual but with general ceremonial practices as well. Religion may have played a role in the creation of these earth-works. These mounds take the shape of various geometric designs and span wide areas. The most famous of these geometrically shaped mounds is Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio, although it is unclear if the Hopewell peoples or a previous cultural group built this mound structure. Other shapes include squares, circles, ovals, semicircles, and combinations of these. There is evidence outside of the mounds themselves that points to the presence of shamanistic religious practices within Hopewell culture. Such evidence includes animal effigies, the use of animal symbolism in Hopewell artworks, and household artifacts. A number of sacrificial caches have been found within Hopewell settlements that are associated with the dominant religious practice. These sacrificial caches included effigy pipe, flint disk, shell bead, pearl and copper celt caches. The effigy pipe and shell bead caches showed evidence of intentional ritual sacrifice as they were "killed"—that is, rendered useless by holes punched through them. Artifacts common in Hopewell culture include ceramic vessels, various types of smoking and effigy pipes, clay human figurines, conch shell artifacts, mica mirrors, panpipes, flint bladelets, nonutilitarian celts, awls, projectile points, modified human remains, jewelry, weaponry and armor, fabrics, buttons, beads, cutouts, and tinklers. These artifacts were created out of a variety of local and nonlocal materials, including animal and human bone, vegetation, and minerals such as copper, iron, galena, hematite, silver, gold, mica, quartz crystal, chalcedony, hornstone, pipestone, sandstone, steatite, gypsum, and cannel coal. Animal and human motifs are illustrated in many of the commonplace artifacts and are not limited to ceremonial artifacts. Hopewell pottery is known to have been cord-marked (imprinted with rope while the clay was still wet to leave a textured design upon firing); rocker-stamped (produced by rocking a sharp instrument back and forth across the wet clay before firing); and incised (geometric designs scratched into the wet clay). Although it appears that local resources were exploited most often, the use of nonlocal resources (such as obsidian, silver, and mica) for the creation of various artifacts supports the long-distance trading network that the Hopewell culture is known for: the Hopewell Interaction Sphere. The term was first coined by archaeologist Joseph R. Caldwell in 1964 and is defined as being a long-distance trade network that spanned from the Dakotas and Canada to Florida and Louisiana. This trade network is also credited for being the reason for the spread of Hopewell culture throughout the eastern Woodlands. It is also from this vast trade network that it is believed that the Hopewell peoples spoke either various dialects of the same language or different languages. This is unclear as there is no evidence of the Hopewell having any form of written language. Evidence of the fall of the Hopewell culture indicates that it started around 200 CE in some areas and that the culture had completely fallen everywhere by 400. Various hypotheses exist to explain the decline. One hypothesis states that the culture evolved into a more advanced version of itself due to the emergence and acceptance of maize agriculture. Another hypothesis states that the Hopewell peoples disappeared due to plagues, warfare, or drought. Presently there is not sufficient evidence to support either of these hypotheses. Christine Elisabeth Boston Dancey, William S., and Paul J. Pacheco. 1997. "A Community Model of Ohio Hopewell Settlement." In Ohio Hopewell Community Organization. Edited by William S. Dancey and Paul J. Pacheco, 3–40. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press.; Dancey, William. 2005. "The Enigmatic Hopewell of the Eastern Woodlands." In North American Archaeology. Edited by Timothy R. Pauketat and Diana Dipaolo Loren, 108–137. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.; Milner, George. 2004. The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America. London: Thames and Hudson.; Romain, William F. 2000. Mysteries of the Hopewell: Astronomers, Geometers, and Magicians of the Eastern Woodlands. Akron, OH: University of Akron Press.

http://www.historyandtheheadlines.abc-clio.com/ContentPages/ContentPage.aspx?entryId=1171736&currentSection=1161468&productid=5

Learners will be able to identify paintings, artists and art movements (genres) from 20th century Art History given representations or examples of paintings, or other information or clues telling them about artwork or an artist. The learners will reinforce what they have learned in their existing Art History class. Students will learn to distinguish the styles of the individual artists and the characteristics of the different genres and movements through a more social, entertaining method than that of traditional lecture and slide memorization. The Art Gallery Game will encourage collaboration and competition among students, as well as reinforce visual identification--sometimes the only time the students see a specific work of art is in class during the slide show lectures--many times the same artwork is not in their textbook and yet they will be tested on it. With repeated viewings of specific works the students will start to categorize certain styles within certain genres and associate certain artists with their style of work. Other information (biographical, philosophical, cultural, critical and art related to other disciplines) will assist students in their awareness of a more systematic "big picture" view of their world (art and beyond). Rationale: Memorization is the traditional way to learn art history. A board game will add fun to the memorization process and aid students in their classification skills. It will also be a way to discuss art with their peers. By seeing all the art throughout the game, they may recognize characteristics they had not noticed before or make new associations in their memory. This game also conforms to the National Educational Standards for Visual Arts, Grades 9 to 12 (NA-VA.9-12.3 Choosing and Evaluating a Range of Subject Matter, Symbols, and Ideas and NA-VA.9-12.3 Understanding Visual Arts in Relation to History and Cultures): target learner group(s) are junior high, high school or college Art History students (a number of Art History classes are required to earn a B.A. in art ). This game is also designed for individuals interested in Art Appreciation for personal enrichment. The game uses an Artist and Collector metaphor. Similar to "real life," artists try to "create" (compile) enough art work to have a gallery exhibition and art collectors also try to "collect" (compile) enough work from varied art periods to have a gallery exhibition. Whoever completes their collection first not only gets to have their own gallery exhibition, but they also gain recognition, fame and fortune. And, best of all, they win the game. Complete your art collection before your opponents. Your collection consists of one work of art from each of the 6 periods titled on your 1 board, 4 player pieces (cubes of primary colors), 1 die, 4 Collector easels and 4 Artist easels (2 sections each), 108 Gallery cards (includes 4 Wild cards and 4 Punishment cards), 100 Question cards, 18 Forgery cards and 7 artists Portrait cards (See Samples Images and Rules/Procedures for specific descriptions and detail) The game would take about 2 minutes to set up: Unfold the board, organize, lay out cards, shuffle cards, determine roles of the players, roll die and start moving around the board. Playing time varies from 30 minutes to 1 hour. See Alternative Rules for possible changes in adjusting the length of play. Our first thoughts were, let's learn more about games since that was our weak point. Two of us had not played a board game since we were very young. So we looked at existing games and searched the Internet for similar games (our Analysis phase). We, first, wanted to combine the Art History concept within a Mystery game. We took too much time trying to force the Mystery aspect. The best information was gathered by searching for "Boardgames" or "Mystery Boardgames" or "Bordgame Rules" then it took off from there following links within links etc. Unfortunately, after spending all that time searching, we had another brainstorming session and decided to drop the mystery aspect. There was too much information in the Art area to try to mix a mystery in with it--at least for now. Regarding the Art aspect, two of us already have Art backgrounds and have digital collections of artwork and other information piled up so that part would be easy (we thought). However, after about one week, we found we lacked needed artwork or information in certain movements or we still needed certain artist portraits or biographies, so we went back to the web and to books and downloaded or scanned. We wanted to use a work of art for the game board, but it had to not be too busy, loud or confusing and should have some sort of Path. Again, we thought, "Piece of Cake." WRONG! After some laborious searching nothing seemed right until we found the Josef Albers, "Homage to the Square." And we were glad to see that there were no copyright infringement problems since we would use this for educational purposes. We were so happy with our first draft of the game; it seemed just perfect. WRONG!!! again. After playing the game only once, we realized we had to make MANY major revisions. This continued throughout the weeks: Play, Revise, Play, Revise, Play. Revise. So the game today is very, very different from the original draft--many changes were made. Finally, when we started having Fun and didn't want to stop playing the game we knew we had a playable Prototype. Our biggest complaint: We spent way too much time and money (for paper and ink!) on production!!! We also never anticipated time-consuming technical difficulties (printer breakdown). Comments and Critiques from the Boardgame Exhibition 10/29: 1) The Board could use a START square. (We had one, but eliminated it--will put it back and maybe give a reward every time someone passes over it). 2) We forgot to put on the board a copyright/acknowledgement of the artist who painted the painting that IS the actual board: Color Theorist, Josef Albers: "Study for Homage to the Square." Books & Journals H. H., (1979). History of Modern Art, (2nd Edition), NY: Prentice-Hall. Ferrier, J.L., Pichon, Y.L. (1988). Art of our century: The chronicle of western art 1900 to the present. New York: Prentice Hall Press. Fineberg, J. (2000). Art since 1940: Strategies of being. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers. Gallwitz, K. (1985). Picasso: The heroic years. New York: Abbeville Press. M. (1987). Francis Bacon, Barcelona: La Poligrafa. Malone, T.W., Lepper, M.R. (1983). Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic motivations for learning (Unpublished report) Conference on Aptitude, Learning and Instruction: Conative and Affective Process Analysis, Stanford University. Seitz, W.C. (1983). Abstract Expressionist painting in America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Siegel, J. (1999). Painting after Pollock: Structures of influence. Netherlands: Overseas Publishers Association GB Arts International. Sylvester, D. (1975). Interviews with Francis Bacon. NY: Thames and Hudson. Thomas, D. (1976). Abstract painting. New York: E.P. Dutton. Wilson, S. (1994). Surrealist painting. London: Phaidon Press Limited. Boardgamegeek Home Page (2001). [On-line]. Available: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewitem.php3?gameid=118 Harden, M (2001) Artchive Home Page. [On-line]. Available: http://www.artchive.com Central connector Home Page (2001). [On-line]. Available:http://www.centralconnector.com/GAMES/GameCab.html Clue.net Home Page (2001). [On-line]. Available: http://www.theclue.net/games.shtml Education world Home Page (2001). [On-line]. Available: http:// www.education world.com/standards/national/arts/visual_arts/9_12.shtml Gamepile Home Page (2001). [On-line]. Available: http://www.gamepile.com Gamereport Home Page (2001). [On-line]. Available: http://www.gamereport.com/bookstore.shtml Last updated October xx 1999

http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec670/cardboard/Board/A/artgallerygame/index.htm

Almost every metazoan phylum with hard parts, and many that lack hard parts, made its first appearance in the Cambrian. The only modern phylum with an adequate fossil record to appear after the Cambrian was the phylum Bryozoa, which is not known before the early Ordovician. A few mineralized animal fossils, including sponge spicules and probable worm tubes, are known from the Vendian period immediately preceding the Cambrian. Some of the odd fossils of the "Ediacara biota" from the Vendian may also have been animals in or near living phyla, although this remains a somewhat controversial topic. However, the Cambrian was nonetheless a time of great evolutionary innovation, with many major groups of organisms appearing within a span of only forty million years. Trace fossils made by animals also show increased diversity in Cambrian rocks, showing that the animals of the Cambrian were developing new ecological niches and strategies -- such as active hunting, burrowing deeply into sediment, and making complex branching burrows. Finally, the Cambrian saw the appearance and/or diversification of mineralized algae of various types, such as the coralline red algae and the dasyclad green algae. This does not mean that life in the Cambrian seas would have been perfectly familiar to a modern-day scuba diver! Although almost all of the living marine phyla were present, most were represented by classes that have since gone extinct or faded in importance. The Brachiopoda for example, was present, but greatest diversity was shown by inarticulate brachiopods (like the one in the upper middle, from the Upper Cambrian of Iowa). The articulate brachiopods, which would dominate the marine environment in the later Paleozoic, were still relatively rare and not especially diverse. Cambrian echinoderms were predominantly unfamiliar and strange-looking types such as early edrioasteroids, eocrinoids, and helicoplacoids. The more familiar starfish, brittle stars, and sea urchins had not yet evolved, and there is some controversy over whether crinoids (sea lilies) were present or not. Even if present, crinoids were rare in the Cambrian, although they became numerous and diverse through the later Paleozoic. And while jawless vertebrates were present in the Cambrian, it was not until the Ordovician that armored fish became common enough to leave a rich fossil record. Other dominant Cambrian invertebrates with hard parts were trilobites (like the one on the upper left, Nevadella from the Lower Cambrian of southwest Nevada); archaeocyathids (relatives of sponges that were restricted to the Lower Cambrian), and problematic conical fossils known as hyolithids (like the one on the upper right, also from the Lower Cambrian of Nevada). Many Early Cambrian invertebrates are known only from "small shelly fossils" - tiny plates and scales and spines and tubes and so on. Many of these were probably pieces of the skeletons of larger animals. A few localities around the world that preserve soft-bodied fossils of the Cambrian show that the "Cambrian radiation" generated many unusual forms not easily comparable with anything today. The best-known of these sites is the legendary Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) in the British Columbian Rocky Mountains. Sites in Utah, southern China, Siberia, and north Greenland are also noted for their unusually good preservation of non-mineralized fossils from the Cambrian. One of these "weird wonders", first documented from the Burgess Shale, is Wiwaxia, depicted at lower left. Wiwaxia was an inch-long, creeping, scaly and spiny bottom dweller that may have been a relative of the molluscs, the annelids, or possibly an extinct animal group that combined features of both phyla. Read about the Cambrian Mass Extinction at the Hooper Virtual Paleontology Museum. See Strange Creatures - A Burgess Shale Fossil Sampler another website about these unusual critters, this one from the Smithsonian. Find out more about the Cambrian paleontology and geology of North America at the Paleontology Portal.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/camblife.html

Geometry is the cornerstone of computer graphics and computer animation, and provides the framework and tools for solving problems in two and three dimensions. This may be in the form of describing simple shapes such as a circle, ellipse, or parabola, or complex problems such as rotating 3D objects about an arbitrary axis. Geometry for Computer Graphics draws together a wide variety of geometric information that will provide a sourcebook of facts, examples, and proofs for students, academics, researchers, and professional practitioners. The book is divided into 4 sections: the first summarizes hundreds of formulae used to solve 2D and 3D geometric problems. The second section places these formulae in context in the form of worked examples. The third provides the origin and proofs of these formulae, and communicates mathematical strategies for solving geometric problems. The last section is a glossary of terms used in geometry.

http://www.amazon.de/Geometry-Computer-Graphics-Formulae-Examples/dp/1852338342

's description of the process of eutrophication is appropriate for estuarine and coastal zones , it is not strictly accurate for freshwater systems, where eutrophication has had its greatest impact. The limiting nutrient in lakes and rivers is not nitrogen, as it is in the ocean, but is instead phosphorus. As added nutrients leach into the water from the watershed (which may be rural or urban, not strictly agricultural), the added phosphorus drives (algal production through the roof. This increased primary production has a number of devastating consequences on the food web, such as: - Change to algal community structure: eutrophication not only increases the absolute concentration of plant matter in the water, but also changes the species composition. As eutrophication progresses, phytoplankton species tend to shift from chlorphytes (green algae) to cyanophytes (blue-gree algae, which are in fact prokaryotic and are sometimes classified as bacteria). This latter group produces a number of highly toxic chemicals which not only kill the aquatic fauna but can also harm humans (Brazil has had a number of mass-mortalities due to cyanobacterial build-up in their reservoirs). - Change to the zooplankton and benthic communities: as the algal community structure changes, the primary consumers also undergo a shift from larger bodied individuals (such as Daphnia for zooplankton and mayfly larvae for benthic invertebrates) to smaller bodied individuals. This affects the efficiency of transfer of energy from the primary producers up to the consumers, and ultimately results in a crash in the fish populations. With only smaller bodied prey available, top predator fishes (such as trout, perch, walleye etc.) become extinct, and minnows dominate the system. - As noted above, if eutrophication is sufficiently severe, an algal bloom will occur (a solid mat of vegetation that covers the water's surface) and when these algae die, they will sink to the bottom. As decomposition occurs, oxygen become depleted and a fish kill is a likely result. However, it should be noted that this is only problematic for cold-water fishes, as the oxygen depletion will only occur below the thermocline (read about epi-, meta- and hypolimnion for a more detailed discussion of thermal stratification in lakes). - Finally, sediments will become loaded with organic nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) to the point where even if terrestrial inputs are ceased (as a result of saner farming practises, sewage treatement etc.), nutrient loads in the lakes will not decline for years. In Denmark, for example, despite extensive efforts to reduce nutrient inputs, lake recovery has taken as many as twenty to thirty years in some instances. As an example of these phenoma, we need only look to Lake Erie . In the 1960s and -70s, Lake Erie became severly eutrophic as a result of industrial and agricultural activity in the western end (near Detroit ). This resulted in a tripling of nutrient concentrations and algal densities, and a crash in both the benthic invertebrate and zooplankton communities. As a result, the walleye and yellow perch populations suffered massive reductions in density (note that commercial overfishing hasn't helped), and the value of the resource declined significantly. Extensive treatment of effluent was undertaken in the 1970s, and only now is the lake reverting to a state similar to that prior to eutrophication.

http://everything2.com/title/eutrophication

Resembling giant lipsticks, tubeworms (Riftia pachyptila) live over a mile deep on the Pacific Ocean floor near hydrothermal vents. They may grow to about 3 meters (8 ft) long. The worms' white tube home is made of a tough, natural material called chitin Tubeworms have no mouth, eyes, or stomach ("gut"). Their survival depends on a symbiotic relationship with the billions of bacteria that live inside of them. These bacteria convert the chemicals that shoot out of the hydrothermal vents into food for the worm. This chemical- based food-making process is referred to as chemosynthesis. Since a tubeworm has no mouth, how do bacteria enter the worm? Scientists have found that, during its earliest stages, the tubeworm does have a mouth and gut for bacteria to enter. But as the worm grows, these features disappear! the tubeworm depends on the bacteria that live in its body for energy and food, sometimes tubeworms provide food for other deep-sea dwellers. Fish and crabs may nibble off the tubeworm's red plume.

http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/deepsea/level-2/creature/tube.html

The letters of the alphabet are abstract symbols with no real meaning until someone attaches a name and a sound to the symbol. Unfortunately, the names are abstract as well. For instance, the letter A is described as two angled lines converging at the top with a small horizontal line in the middle connecting the two converging lines. Confusing? Wait, it gets better. Now this symbol is given a name. That name is "A." Why is this symbol called A? And why does A look the way it does? These are difficult concepts to explain, especially to a child. Now add the fact that the symbol of two lines converging at the top with a small horizontal line in the middle connecting the two converging lines and that we call "A" makes the sound "aaa" (among others). Lost yet? Now, try to explain why A makes the sound that it does! The answer is usually, "It just does." No wonder so many children struggle with beginning reading. Learning a new concept is best achieved by relating the new material to previously learned concepts. The Amazing Action Alphabet is so successful because it takes the abstract alphabet-with its shapes, names, and sounds-and presents it to the learner in terms based on knowledge that most children already have and understand. Children recognize animals at a very early age. The Amazing Action Alphabet takes the already familiar look of an animal and bends it into the shape of an abstract letter. Now the shape of the letter is no longer abstract because the animal, which the child recognizes, makes the shape of the letter. This gives life to the letter, so it is no longer just black lines and circles on white paper. Once the child recognizes the letter as an animal, it makes sense to give it a name. And the name of the animal is the name of the letter; for example, the name of the alligator is A. Now that each letter has a name and the child can easily recognize the animal in the shape of a letter, an amusing story gives a legitimate reason for why the letter makes the sound that it does. Then we combine this with an approach that lets children see, hear, and do, engaging multiple senses and learning styles into the most powerful method for learning and retention we know. Experience has shown that children almost instantly catch on to this method of learning. The recall that a child will exhibit for identifying letters with their corresponding names and sounds will astonish anyone who uses this program. Amazing results often occur after only one experience; thus the name:

http://www.seeheardocompany.com/about.html

Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article. Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review. ...toward abandonment began in many areas of the South and West sides. The departing families were replaced by newly arrived minorities, whose poverty and race were disadvantages in an increasingly segregated city. ...the 1890s, when Republican factions began dispensing money to secure voter support and blacks were admitted to the polls, did the Democrats lose their exclusive hold on state politics. However, segregation in education, housing, and public accommodations remained the norm in Delaware until the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of... Because they are socially separated or segregated from the dominant forces of a society, members of a minority group usually are cut off from a full involvement in the workings of the society and from an equal share in the society’s rewards. Thus, the role of minority groups varies from society to society depending on the structure of the social system and the relative power of the minority... ...reasons. Seclusion or containment may also be symbolically effected by the use of veils or by the drawing of circles or other enclosures around the object in question. Under the general heading of segregation, groups of different grades of purity may retire to their respective parts of a town when their periods of contact with other members of their community are completed for the day. Men may... ...new constitutions in independent India and Pakistan, the untouchables were subjected to many social restrictions, which increased in severity from north to south in India. In many cases, they were segregated in hamlets outside the town or village boundary. They were forbidden entry to many temples, to most schools, and to wells from which higher castes drew water. Their touch was seen as... What made you want to look up "segregation"? Please share what surprised you most...

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/532730/segregation

House of Representatives A House of Representatives is a part of some legislatures, which are law-making bodies. In a House of Representatives, the members are called representatives. For example, the legislature of the United States, called Congress, is made up of two parts. One of these parts is called the House of Representatives and the other one is called the Senate. A representative in the United States Congress is a "U.S. Representative". Many state legislatures in the United States also have Houses of Representatives. A representative in one of those state houses is a State Representative.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives

Ancient Brits used skull-cups People used stone tools to make cups out of human skulls about 14,700 years ago in Britain. A recent study has revealed that the ancient inhabitants of today's southwestern England used human skulls as drinking cups and containers. Paleontologist Silvia Bello of London's Natural History Museum says people of the region cleaned the skulls and used them as containers during the Ice Age. According to the study published in PLoS ONE, scientists based their findings on the results of studies conducted on a collection of bones found in Gough's Cave in Somerset, England. The skull fragments belong to at least five people including a young child about 3 years old, two adolescents, an adult and an older adult. Researchers say the bones are the oldest examples of drinking cups made out of human skulls, ScienceNews reported. Carbon dating places the skulls places at about 14,700 years old when prehistoric cave dwellers shaped the upper parts of the brain cases into containers. Studies suggest that they might have belonged to victims of cannibalism, who were scalped and scraped clean with stone tools shortly after death. "Possibly the most surprising thing is how skilled at manipulating human bodies these early humans were," Bello said. "It was a very meticulous process that just proves how technologically advanced this population was. It also demonstrates a very complex funerary behavior." Scientists believe the skull-cups were used in some kind of ritual. "It's impossible to know how the skull cups were used back then, but in recent examples, they may hold blood, wine or food during rituals," said co-author of the study Chris Stringer adding that “a precise cast of the skull-cup from the adult individual will go on display at the Natural History Museum in London on March 1 for three months.”

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/166209.html

How to encourage children to more physical activity How can children be encouraged to take more exercise ? It is widely accepted that physical activity has important benefits for children's physical health and mental well-being but some studies indicate that many children do not meet recommended levels of physical activity. A recent study at Bristol University (England) into the factors that motivate UK children's active play has found that overall physical activity is increased when children have access to green spaces in their neighbourhood. The research, led by Rowan Brockman, Dr Russell Jago and Professor Ken Fox from Bristol University's Centre for Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences, involved eleven focus groups comprising 77 children, aged 10- to 11-years from four primary schools. The focus groups looked at factors that motivate, facilitate and limit children's active play, including social and environmental considerations. They found that children were motivated to engage in active play because they found it enjoyable. The children also valued active play (physical activity) to prevent boredom, to have physical and mental health benefits, and to provide freedom from adult constraint, rules and structure. In summary, the children who participated in the recent study in Bristol were motivated to get involved in physically active play and pursuits to: - enjoy themselves - avoid boredom - for physical and mental health benefits - for freedom from adult constraints, rules and structures. However, their active play was constrained or restricted by the following factors: - rainy weather - fear of groups of teenagers in play spaces. Some aspects of the physical environment encouraged and made it easier for children to engage in active play, for example the availability of green spaces and cul-de-sacs. Children's use of mobile phones when playing away from home was reported to alleviate parents' safety fears, and therefore indirectly help to enable and encourage children's active play. Rowan Brockman, a researcher in the Centre for Exercise, Nutrition and Health, said: " Preventing the decline in physical activity, which occurs around 10- to 11-years of age, is a public health priority. Understanding the factors that help motivate, facilitate and limit active play is fundamental in developing interventions to increase children's physical activity. _ These findings link in with the London 2012 legacy plans for the 'Places People Play' campaign, to secure future investment for protecting children's outdoor play spaces, such as parks and playing fields." This study has been funded by the British Heart Foundation and published in BMC Public Health. It is part of a larger project, the Active Play Project (TAPP), which examines the contribution of active play to the overall physical activity of primary school children in the UK. University, England (UK)

http://www.ivy-rose.co.uk/Health/encourage-children-to-more-physical-activity

Nuclear Forces Holding Protons Name: Matt J. How do protons within the nucleus stay so tightly packed if they have the same charge? The nucleus of atoms are held together by one of the four fundamental forces called The Strong Force. It is a very strong force but it acts over a very short range. It is an exchange force with exchange particles called pions and other heavy particles. The protons (and neutrons) in a nucleus are held together by the "strong force". This force is about 100 times stronger than the electromagnetic force which produces the repulsive force between objects with the same sign of charge. The range of the strong force, however, is very short -- about 1.0E-13m = 0.0000000000001 meters, which explains why all nuclei are this size or somewhat larger. The electromagnetic force has an infinite range, like gravity, though it falls off in strength rapidly as the charged particles get further apart. This explains why nuclei became less stable and some decay as the number of protons in the nucleus increases, Uranium, which has 92 protons and 146 neutrons in its nucleus is the most massive nucleus which is stable. The fact that it is barely stable explains why it gives up energy when it splits into smaller and more stable nuclei and so can be used to generate electrical power and to make nuclear bombs. Best, Dick Plano... Click here to return to the Physics Archives Update: June 2012

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00872.htm

This full HiRISE image shows a cliff-face that has been eroded into the ice-rich polar layered deposits at the head of the large canyon, Chasma Boreale. In a similar way to layers in the Earth's ice caps, these Martian layers are thought to record variations in climate, which makes them very interesting to scientists. This particular cliff-face is several hundred meters high and the layers exposed here are the deepest (and so the oldest) in the polar layered deposits. The lower layers exposed in this scarp appear to be rich in dark sand, and erosion of these layers has produced the sand dunes that cover sections of this cliff-face. A close examination of the layers in the center of the image shows they have curved shapes and intersect each other. Scientists call this cross-bedding and it may indicate that these sandy layers were laid down as a large dunefield before being buried. At the bottom of the image, the floor of Chasma Boreale in this area appears to have been swept clean of sandy material. There is a complex history of erosion and deposition of material at this location. On the right of the image one can see a smooth material that covers the lower layers and which must have been deposited after the main cliff face was initially eroded. Closer to the center of the image, this smooth mantling material is in turn being eroded away to once again expose the layers beneath it. Image PSP_001334_2645 was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on November 8, 2006. The complete image is centered at 84.4 degrees latitude, 343.5 degrees East longitude. The range to the target site was 317.4 km (198.4 miles). At this distance the image scale ranges from 31.8 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) to 63.5 cm/pixel (with 2 x 2 binning). The image shown here has been map-projected to 25 cm/pixel. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 1:38 PM and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of 67 degrees, thus the sun was about 23 degrees above the horizon. At a solar longitude of 132.3 degrees, the season on Mars is Northern Summer. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09374

When a river has been dammed, one of the most obvious changes is the disruption to the amount and timing of its flow. “Environmental flows” is a system for managing the quantity, timing, and quality of water flows below a dam, with the goal of sustaining freshwater and estuarine ecosystems and the human livelihoods that depend on them. The most ecologically important aspects of a river’s flow are extreme low flows, low flows, high flow pulses, small floods, and large floods. Environmental flows can be designed to restore any of these, with the goal of improving water quality, restoring sediment deposition, addressing the life-cycle needs of fish and wildlife, and restoring the livelihoods of river-based communities. Many governments and river-management agencies around the world have developed policies to protect environmental flows, and more are doing so all the time. Yet implementation of these policies remains weak. Learn more about efforts to ensure compliance with e-flow policies . While more effective management of dams can help to mitigate environmental impacts, it should be noted that many dams around the world presently lack the mechanisms needed to control water discharge. Learn more about how we can move Towards Restoring Flows Into the Earth's Arteries The Eflownet website gathers information on environmental flows Learn about the components of e-flows

http://www.internationalrivers.org/es/node/2062

What Has Been Learned About Future Climate Changes From Research On Past Climate Changes Over The History Of The Earth? A Warmer Climate Three Million Years Ago May Have Resulted In A Sea Level 30 Meters Higher Than Today's Reconstruction of marine and terrestrial records throughout the Northern Hemisphere during the middle Pliocene (about 3 to 4 million years ago) suggest that sea level was at least 25 meters higher than it is today. This is the last time period in the Earth's history when global temperatures were as warm as those predicted by climate models for the time when there has been a doubling of the CO2 concentration. Analytical and modeling studies of this period have been used to provide insights into the potential consequences of future climate change. One study indicated that 3 million years ago the northern forests extended to the margin of the Arctic Ocean, sea level was approximately 30 meters higher than today because of a reduction in ice volume in the polar regions, and the globally averaged temperature was 3.5°C warmer than it is today. Reference: Modeling of Middle Pliocene Climate with the NCAR GENESIS General Circulation Model, Sloan, L. C., T. J. Crowley, and D. Pollard, Global and Planetary Change, Vol. 9, pp. 169-195, 1994. Sediment Record From Central Asia Reveals That The Climatic Response As The Oceans And Ice Sheets For Over 250,000 Years The center of the Asian continent, far from oceans and ice sheets, plays a critical role in determining the global climate. The region generates important weather patterns in both winter and summer seasons, including the monsoons of Asia. Recent studies of the sediment record from Lake Baikal, including magnetic, radiochemical, and biogenic components, have clarified the response of this highly seasonal environment to solar forcing. Rather than a direct linear response to changes in solar radiation, the paleoclimate indicators from Lake Baikal show the same intricate pattern of climatic variation as the oceans and ice sheets. In particular, the indicators correlate extremely well with global ice volumes over the last 250,000 years, as indicated by the marine oxygen-isotope records. Reference: A Rock Magnetic Record from Lake Baikal, Siberia: Evidence for Late Quaternary Climate Change, Peck, J. A., J. W. King, S. M. Colman, and V. A. Kravchinsky, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Vol. 122, pp. 221-238, 1994. Massive Iceberg Discharges Linked To Past Global Climate Change Evidence has been found for episodic outflows of icebergs from continental ice sheets during the last ice age. These outflows flooded the North Atlantic, creating a significant freshening of the salt water as they melted. The six or so great iceberg discharges in the North Atlantic region were apparently not isolated events, but associated with other simultaneous environmental changes. These included surges in mountain glaciers in the Chilean Andes and in the Alps of New Zealand and changes in paleovegetation from Florida to British Columbia, in plankton records from the Sulu Sea, in ice core records from Greenland and Antarctica, and in lake levels in Africa. There is some evidence that these events may be linked to the precession of the seasons caused by changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. These massive iceberg discharges and associated releases of freshwater into polar oceans can rapidly disrupt the normal pattern of the thermohaline circulation that warms the North Atlantic, thereby causing rapid cooling of this region that can last for many centuries, disrupting the global climate. Reference: Massive Iceberg Discharges as Triggers for Global Climate Change, Broecker, W. S., Nature, Vol. 372, pp. 421-424, 1994. Past Climate Changes At The North Pole Tied To Climate Changes At The South Pole Over The Same Period Ice cores have been obtained from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets that have layers of snow spanning the period of the last ice age from 20,000 to 105,000 years ago. Past changes in the climate appear to have been more rapid and more numerous in Greenland than in Antarctica. By counting changes in a number of variables recorded in the layers of snow, 22 warming events of short duration have been identified in the Greenland ice cores and 9 warming events of short duration in the Antarctic ice cores. In the Greenland ice core records, the short warming events are characterized by very rapid warming and rapid cooling transitions at the beginning and end of the events. In Antarctica, related short warming events are characterized by slow warming at the onset of the warming period, and slow cooling at the end of the brief warming period. The preliminary results of this work suggest that warming events occurred in Antarctica whenever warming events in Greenland lasted longer than 2,000 years. The evidence suggests that partial melting of continental ice sheets (e.g., on North America) and changes in ocean circulation were, at least in part, responsible for the climatic teleconnection between the north and south polar regions. There is evidence that North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) production slowed or ceased during much of the Earth's last glacial period, stopping the transport of heat northward by the Gulf Stream to warm northern Europe. Resumption of NADW production during this cold period has been suggested as the immediate cause of rapid warming during the 22 warming events recorded in the Greenland ice cores. Reference: Climate Correlations between Greenland and Antarctica during the Past 100,000 Years, Bender, M., T. Sowers, M. Dickson, J. Orchardo, P. Grootes, P. A. Mayewski, and D. A. Meese, Nature, Vol. 372, p. 663-666, 1994. Greenland Ice Cores Suggest That Large Abrupt Shifts In Oxygen Isotope Ratios Occurred During Melting Of The Ice Sheets The termination phase of the last ice age was characterized by a series of abrupt returns to glacial climate, the best-known of which was the Younger Dryas event that lasted from about 11,000 to 10,000 years ago. Oxygen isotope data from the Greenland ice cores suggest that temperature shifts of 7 to 10°C occurred over only a few decades and that dust concentrations and the rate of snow accumulation in these cores show an even more rapid transition. A general circulation model that considered a complex variety of processes which could influence isotope ratios was used to attempt to reproduce the measured variability the ratio. The model results suggest that the variability cannot be explained by changes in the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation alone, and that a number of moisture sources contribute to snowfall over Greenland. In addition, evidence of climate change in the Southern Hemisphere during the same period suggests that any explanation must take into account a climatic change much more widespread than the North Atlantic region alone. Reference: Glacial-Interglacial Changes in Moisture Sources for Greenland: Influences on the Ice Core Record of Climate, Charles, C. D., D. Rind, J. Jouzel, R. D. Kaster, and R. G. Fairbanks, Science, Vol. 263, pp. 508-518, 1994. Increased Volcanism Linked To Climatic Cooling During The Period From 5000 To 7000 B.C. Sulfate concentrations measured in Greenland ice core samples suggest that there were up to three times as many volcanic events during the period of 5000 to 7000 B.C. as over the past two millennia. In addition, these eruptions appear to have produced up to five times higher concentrations of sulfate than the largest known historical eruptions. The results suggest that increased volcanism occurred at circum-arctic locations during the millennia following deglaciation. These findings support the suggestion that magma chambers respond to the release of crustal stresses following deglaciation and that this may lead to more explosive volcanism. The overall magnitude and duration of these effects is still uncertain. Reference: Record of Volcanism Since 7000 B.C. from the GISP2 Greenland Ice Core and Implications for the Volcano-Climate System, Zielinski, G. A., P. A. Mayewski, L. D. Meeker, S. Whitlow, M. S. Twickler, M. Morrison, D. A. Meese, A. J. Gow, and R. B. Alley, Science, Vol. 264, pp. 948-952, 1994. Evidence From The Great Basin Indicates A Much Moister Climate Thousands Of Years Ago Studies of changes in paleo-vegetation and the rise and fall of pluvial lakes (i.e., lakes filled by precipitation and run off) in the Great Basin indicate that the climate was much moister thousands of years ago and fluctuated significantly over past millennia. These results suggest that the lack of modern day climate fluctuations of the magnitude found in the historical record is unusual. The history of regional paleo floods in Arizona and Utah reveals that the largest floods clustered into distinct time intervals that coincided with periods of cool, moist climate and frequent El Niño episodes. Reference: A 30,000 Year Record of Vegetation Dynamics at a Semi-arid Locale in the Great Basin, Nowak, C. L., R S. Nowak, R. J. Tausch, and P. E. Wigand, Journal of Vegetation Science, Vol. 5, pp. 579-590, 1994.

http://www.gcrio.org/ocp96/hiliteb4.html

A new study concludes that fossil fuel emissions are likely contributors to a substantial amount of organic carbon found on glaciers in Alaska. Fossil fuel emissions, which contain organic carbon, can speed up the rate of glacier melt when deposited on glacier surfaces. In addition, the organic molecules associated with these deposits can be transported in rivers and streams, affecting downstream aquatic ecosystems. Knowledge of the source and age of organic carbon in glaciers allows for a better understanding of these and other impacts. Prior research suggested that the main sources of organic carbon in Alaska’s glaciers were from forests and peatlands overrun by glaciers as far back as ten thousand years ago. While old soil and plant material are still possible sources of glacial organic carbon, new research indicates that human-created, or anthropogenic, sources are also important. “We knew the organic carbon present in Alaska’s glaciers was old, but identifying the sources of this material has been difficult due to the lack of chemical data,” said USGS scientist George Aiken. While extensive burning of fossil fuels is, geologically speaking, a relatively modern practice, the fuels themselves and the resulting carbon emissions are ancient. This is because the fuels are formed from plants and microorganisms that lived millions of years ago. “Now we know that a substantial amount of ancient organic matter associated with these and other glaciers is of anthropogenic origin,” continued Aiken. Why Study Carbon Levels? When organic matter and other materials from the atmosphere are deposited on the surface of a glacier, less sunlight can be reflected and, therefore, more radiation and heat are absorbed. Having these materials on snow and ice surfaces causes them to melt faster. Another concern is impacts to ecosystems and species habitats. As an example, organic matter exported to coastal areas is a potential nutrient or food source for aquatic bacteria, phytoplankton, and small grazing zooplankton. Climate warming or other factors may change the amount and quality of organic carbon available to these organisms. These aquatic organisms are also the base of the food web for all aquatic communities. “When trying to understand climate change and decipher the carbon cycle puzzle, we need to make sure that we are using all of the right pieces,” said USGS scientist Rob Striegl. “As part of that puzzle, we are studying the source and amount of carbon flowing into the Arctic Ocean. An understanding of the complete picture allows for the most informed decisions to protect our environment.” “The Arctic is of special interest because what happens there, such as extensive glacier melt, has impacts on the rest of the world,” continued Striegl. “Glacier environments, especially those in the high latitudes of the Arctic, are also among the most sensitive to climate warming.” New Twist to Understanding Carbon in Glaciers “Our new paper describes, for the first time, the detailed chemical composition of dissolved organic matter associated with glaciers and glacial meltwater in coastal Alaska and in Wyoming,” said Aiken. “This study adds a twist to previous understandings, showing there is another source of organic carbon out there that needs to be considered,” said Striegl. This study, published in the journal Nature Geosciences, was a collaborative effort of many institutions led primarily by the University of Alaska Southeast, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, Woods Hole Research Center, and the USGS. The Role of USGS Science Earlier studies by the USGS, in collaboration with university researchers, found the presence of ancient organic carbon in the Yukon River and traced it back to meltwater from glaciers. For further analyses, USGS scientists continued those collaborations to sample meltwater from Mendenhall Glacier and Herbert Glacier in southeastern Alaska. The samples were then analyzed at USGS and university laboratories to develop the conclusions outlined in this new study. “This truly is a collaborative effort, taking the expertise of many scientists to put the story together on the source of the carbon,” said Striegl. “The original work of the USGS in the Yukon basin helped form the questions and lab results contributed to answering the questions; but it took specialized instrumentation and scientific expertise from several other organizations to determine the final answer.” Additional samples used for age dating and for other chemical characterization of the organic carbon of glaciers from other locations came from Gulkana Glacier in Alaska and from Fremont Glacier in Wyoming. The Big Picture of Aquatic Carbon The USGS has a long term goal of determining the source and fate of organic and inorganic carbon transported to coastal areas and oceans across the entire Nation. USGS research on the Yukon and other Arctic rivers is particularly focused on climate warming effects on mobilizing ancient carbon from permafrost to coastal regions and the Arctic Ocean. The USGS participates in the Arctic Great Rivers Observatory project, which is an international effort to study the six largest rivers, including the Yukon, which flow into the Arctic Ocean. Learn more about USGS Yukon River Basin studies. Contact: Jessica Robertson Receive news and updates:

http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_science_pick/fossil-fuel-emissions-found-on-alaska%E2%80%99s-glaciers/

Science Fair Project Encyclopedia The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, also known as the Hitler-Stalin pact or Nazi-Soviet pact and formally known as the Treaty of Nonaggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a non-aggression treaty between Germany and Russia, or more precisely between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. It was signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939, by the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The non-aggression treaty lasted until Operation Barbarossa of June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In a secret appendix to the pact, the border states Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania were divided in spheres of interest of the parties, that within a year would injure their sovereignty. In 1918, by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the new Bolshevik Russian state accepted the loss of sovereignty and influence over Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine (and parts of Armenia and Georgia) as a concession to the Central Powers. In accordance with the Mitteleuropa-policy, they were designated to become satellite states to, or parts of, the German Empire with dukes and kings related to the German emperor. As a consequence of the German defeat in the autumn of 1918, and not without active support from the democratic victors of the World War, most of them became democratic republics, but also proxies for France and Britain against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. With the exception of Belarus and Ukraine, all of these countries also became independent and fully sovereign — however, in many cases, independence was followed by civil wars related to the Russian. In the 1920s, fear of Russia and of Communism motivated attempts to foster political cooperation and defense treaties between these so called border states. The European balance of power established at the end of World War I was eroded step by step from the Abyssinia crisis (1935) to the Munich Agreement (1938). The dissolution of Czechoslovakia signaled increasing instability, as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and other countries (such as, for example, Hungary and Bulgaria) aspired to regain territories lost in the aftermath of World War I. The western democracies, Britain and France, notional guarantors of the territorial status quo, stood by until the March 1939 destruction of Czechoslovakia, maintaining a policy of "non-intervention" while the anti-democratic governments of Germany and Italy supported the victorious right-wing rebels in their destruction of the democratic Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. For the Soviet Union, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a much-needed response to the deterioration of the European security situation in the latter half of the 1930s, as Nazi Germany, aligned with Fascist Italy in the Axis Powers, aimed to reverse the disadvantageous Treaty of Versailles after World War I. For its part, the Soviet Union was not interested in maintaining a status quo, which it saw as disadvantageous to its interests, deriving as it did from the period of Soviet weakness immediately following the 1917 October Revolution and Russian Civil War. Soviet leaders adopted the position that conflict between what they characterized as rival imperialist countries was not only an inevitable consequence of capitalism, but would also enhance conditions for the spread of Communism. During 1938, the Soviet Union (as well as France) offered to abide by their defensive military alliance with Czechoslovakia in the event of German invasion, but the Czechoslovakian Agrarian Party was so strongly opposed to Soviet troops entering the country that they threatened a civil war might result if they did. The 1935 agreement between the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and France stipulated that Soviet aid could only come to Czechoslovakia if France came to their aid as well. The reluctance of the western democracies to form an anti-fascist alliance with the USSR, and France and Britain's pact with Hitler signed at Munich, was indicative of a lack of interest from the side of the West to oppose the growing fascist movement, already exemplified by the events of the Spanish Civil War. Franco-British negotiations with the Soviet Union Negotiations between the Soviet Union and France/Britain for a military alliance against Germany stalled, mainly due to mutual suspicions. The Soviet Union sought guarantees for support against German aggression and recognition of the right of the Soviet Union to interfere against "a change of policy favorable to an aggressor" in the countries along the western Soviet border. Although none of the affected countries had formally asked for protection by the Soviet Union, it nevertheless announced "guarantees for the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Turkey and Greece" (the so-called "sanitary cordon" erected around Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union). The British and French feared that this would allow Soviet intervention in neighboring countries' internal affairs even in the absence of an immediate external German threat. However, with the Third Reich now demanding territorial concessions from Poland in the face of Polish opposition, the threat of war was increasing. But although telegrams were exchanged between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union as early as April 1939, the military missions sent by the Western Powers (with a slow transport vessel) did not arrive in Moscow until August 11, and were given no authority to sign a treaty. The fundamental sticking-point was the question of Poland, lying mid-way between Germany and Russia; The Polish government rightly feared that the Soviet government sought to annex the former Russian provinces incorporated in Poland in 1920 — areas characterized by the Kremlin as irredenta ("Western Ukraine" and "Western Belarus"), since they were inhabited by ethnically Ukrainian and Belarusian majorities, respectively. Therefore, the Polish government refused to allow the Soviet military to enter its territory and establish military bases in preparation for the now-inevitable war with Germany — a situation that allegedly left the Red Army without any possibility of confronting the Germans before Poland was invaded. On the other hand, the Polish government also refused to ally with Nazi Germany in their plans to conquer the Soviet Union. Three weeks into August, the negotiations ground to a halt with each side doubting the other's motives, and the Kremlin suspecting that they were being led into a conflict limited to Russia and Germany. The Munich Agreement and Soviet foreign policy Defenders of the Soviet position argue that the Soviet Union entered the non-aggression pact after the September 1938 Munich Agreement had made it evident that the western democracies were pursuing a policy of appeasement and were not interested in joining the Soviet Union in an anti-fascist alliance promoted through their popular front tactic. Additionally, defenders of the Soviet position argue it was necessary to enter into a non-aggression pact to buy time since the Soviet Union was not in a position to fight a war in 1939, and needed at least three years to prepare. In addition, the possibility that France and Britain would stay neutral in such a war, hoping that the warring states would wear each other out and put an end to both the Soviet Union and the Nazis, was apparent. Biographers of Stalin point out that he believed the British rejected his proposal of an anti-fascist alliance because they were plotting with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, and that the western democracies were expecting the Third Reich to attack "Communist Russia" and were hoping that the Nazi forces would wipe out the Soviet Union — or that both countries would fight each other to the point of exhaustion and then collapse. These suspicions were reinforced when Chamberlain and Hitler met for the Munich Agreement. Critics of Stalin, however, claim that one reason why the Soviet Union was not in a position to fight a war was Stalin's Great Purge of 1936 to 1938 which, among other things, eliminated much of the military's most experienced leadership. They also point out that when German forces finally did attack the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Red Army was completely unprepared for the assault, despite multiple advanced warnings from foreign as well as from Soviet intelligence. Critics also question Stalin’s determination to oppose Germany’s growing military aggressiveness, since the Soviet Union began commercial and military cooperation with Germany in 1936 and grew these relationships until the German invasion began. After the British and French declaration of war on Germany, these economic relationships allowed Germany to circumvent its naval blockade. On May 3, 1939, the Soviet Secretary General Joseph Stalin replaced the Jewish Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov with Molotov, thereby opening for negotiations with Nazi Germany. Litvinov had been associated with the previous policy of creating an anti-fascist coalition, and was considered pro-Western by the standards of the Kremlin. During the last two weeks of August 1939, Soviet-Japanese Border War reached its peak. After concluding a German-Soviet trade agreement (establishing economic ties between the two states), Molotov proposed an additional protocol on August 19, "covering the points in which the High Contracting Parties are interested in the field of foreign policy". This was a direct reflection of Stalin's speech on Aug 19, 1939 (disputed), where he asserted that a great war between the western powers was necessary for the spread of World Revolution. There was a secret appendix to the pact, according to which the buffer states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet spheres of influence. In the North, Finland, Estonia and Latvia were apportioned to the Soviet sphere. Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its "political rearrangement"—the areas east of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San going to the Soviet Union while the Germans would occupy the west. Lithuania, adjacent to East-Prussia, would be in the German sphere of influence. In the South, the Soviet Union's interest and German disinterest in Bessarabia, a part of Romania, were acknowledged. The German diplomat Hans von Herwarth informed his U.S. colleague Charles Bohlen on the secret protocol on August 24, but the information stopped at the desk of President Roosevelt. The existence of a secret appendix was first speculated in Baltic intelligence organizations only few days after the signing of the pact, and speculations grew stronger when Soviet negotiators referred to its content during negotiations of military bases. The German original was presumably destroyed in the bombings, but its microfilmed copy was included in the archive of German Foreign Office documents Karl von Loesch, civil servant in Foreign Office, gave to British Lt. Col. R.C. Thomson in May 1945. The Soviet Union denied the existence of the secret protocols until 1988, when politburo member Aleksandr Yakovlev admitted the existence of the protocols, although the document itself was declassified only after the Soviet collapse in 1992. Soviet representatives and propaganda went to great lengths to minimize the importance of the fact that they had opposed and fought against the Nazis in various ways for the past 10 years. However, they never went as far as to take a pro-German stance; officially, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression treaty, not a pact of alliance. Still, it is said that upon signing the pact, Molotov tried to reassure the Germans of his good intentions by commenting to journalists that "fascism is a matter of taste". The extent to which the Soviet Union's earlier territorial acquisitions may have contributed to preventing its fall (and thus a Nazi victory in the war) remains a factor in evaluating the Pact. Soviet sources pointed out that the German advance eventually stopped just a few kilometers away from Moscow, so the role of the extra territory might have been crucial in such a close call. Others say that Poland and the Baltic countries played the important role of a barrier of buffer states between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a precondition not only for Germany's invasion of Western Europe, but also for the Third Reich's invasion of the Soviet Union. On September 1, barely a week after the pact had been signed, the partition of Poland commenced with the German invasion. The Soviet Union invaded from the east on September 17, practically concluding a fourth partition of Poland. The pact caused great shock in the West, among governments which had most feared such an outcome, and even more so among the communists themselves, many of whom found these Soviet dealings with their Nazi enemy incomprehensible. A famous cartoon by David Low from the London Evening Standard of 20 September 1939 has Hitler and Stalin bowing to each other over the corpse of Poland, with Hitler saying "The scum of the Earth, I believe?" and Stalin replying "The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?". On September 28th 1939, the three Baltic States were given no choice but to sign a so-called Pact of defence and mutual assistance, which permitted the Soviet Union to station troops in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The same day a supplementary German-Soviet protocol had transferred most of Lithuania from the envisaged German sphere to the Soviet sphere of interest. Finland resisted similar claims, and was attacked by the Soviet Union on November 30. After more than three months of heavy fighting and losses in the ensuing Winter War, the Soviet Union gave up its intended occupation of Finland in exchange for approximately 10% of Finland's territory, most of which was still held by the Finnish army. On June 15–17, 1940, after the Wehrmacht's swift occupation of Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and the defeat of France, it was time for the three Baltic states to be occupied, and soon annexed, by the Soviet Union. Finally, on June 26, four days after France accepted its defeat against the Third Reich, the Soviet Union requested in an ultimatum, Bessarabia, Bukovina and the Hertza region from Romania. Announced about this Soviet move, Ribbentrop had stressed on June 25 in his reply to the Soviet leaders, the strong German "economic interests" (oil industry and agriculture being nominated) in Romania, ensuring that Romanian territory wouldn't be transformed into a battlefield. Ribbentrop claimed that this unexpected German interest rose from his concern over the "faith" and "future" of what he pretended to be those 100,000 ethnic Germans of Bessarabia. In September almost all ethnic Germans of Bessarabia resettle to Germany as part of the Nazi-Soviet_population_transfers. The Soviet Union tended to consider Bessarabia's Jews as Ukrainians. Later, in the period of 1941-1942, when Bessarabia and Bukovina were re-annexed by Romania with German support, those Jews were deported by the Romanian military authorities onto the then-occupied Ukrainian territory. It is estimated that more than 100,000 Jews died, as a direct consequence of these deportations. With France no longer in position to be the guarantor of status quo in Eastern Europe, and the Third Reich pushing Romania to make concessions to the Soviet Union, the Romanian government gave in, following Italy's counsel and Vichy France's recent example. In the month of August 1940, the fear of the Soviet Union, in conjunction with German support for the territorial demands of Romania's neighbours, and the Romanian government's own miscalculations, resulted in more territorial losses for Romania. The second Vienna Award, orchestrated mainly by Ribbentrop, created a competition between Romania and Hungary for Germany's favour concerning Transylvania. In the end, the territory ceded to Hungary also had a large Jewish community, which suffered deportation by the Hungarian government to Germany in 1944. By September 1940, Romania's economic and military resources were fully dedicated to German interests in the East. The Soviet-occupied territories were reorganized into republics of the Soviet Union. In addition, the local population was often purged of anti-Soviet or potentially anti-Soviet elements, and hundreds of thousands were deported to far Asian regions and to Gulag work camps. Later, these territories were in the front line of the war, and also suffered from the Nazi terror behind the eastern front. By early 1941, the German and Soviet occupation zones shared a common border running through what is now Lithuania and Poland. Nazi–Soviet relations began to cool again, and the signs of a clash between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army began to show in German propaganda — a clash that was not without appeal to the populations in occupied Western Europe, where the anti-Bolshevism from the times of the Russian revolutions and the Russian Civil War twenty years before had not quite faded. By appearing as the unifying leader of the West against the East, Hitler hoped for boosted popularity at home and abroad, and an impetus for peace with Britain. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was supporting Germany in the war effort against Western Europe through the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement with supplies of raw materials (phosphates, chrome and iron ore, mineral oil, grain, cotton, rubber). These and other supplies were being transported through Soviet and occupied Polish territories and allowed Germany to circumvent the British naval blockade. The Third Reich ended the pact of August 1939 by invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941, together with Romania, and thus opening an Eastern Front that would ultimately lead to the defeat of Germany. After the launch of the German invasion, the territories gained by the Soviet Union due to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact were lost in a matter of weeks, and (for example) the Baltic countries ended up as German protectorates. The German attack was followed by a Soviet pre-emptive attack on Finland on June 25, starting the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union. The alternate terms Hitler-Stalin Pact and Nazi-Soviet Pact The most established term for the treaty is the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This term is, for example, used on more web pages than any other name. However, in the English speaking world, the term Nazi-Soviet Pact has always been popular, and has seemingly gained increasing popularity over time. This term is particularly widely used in journalism and school books on history. However, in some contexts, the term Hitler-Stalin Pact is more common and sometimes dominant: - Translations from German and Dutch. - Some textbooks on history. - In works aiming at a less condemning or more neutral view of Russia and the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, a usage sometimes denounced by critics as propagandist. The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details

http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Molotov-Ribbentrop_Pact

Back on January 4, the Moon moved in front of the Sun, almost completely blocking our view of the Sun back on Earth. The Japanese-American Hinode satellite snapped this absolutely incredible photo of the eclipse from up in space. This particular type of eclipse is known as an annular solar eclipse, which occurs when the Moon's relative size isn't quite big enough to blot out the Sun entirely. This leaves a bright ring visible, known as an annulus. NASA explains how they got the shot: On January 4, the Hinode satellite captured these breathtaking images of an annular solar eclipse. An annular eclipse occurs when the moon, slightly more distant from Earth than on average, moves directly between Earth and the sun, thus appearing slightly smaller to observers' eyes; the effect is a bright ring, or annulus of sunlight, around the silhouette of the moon. Hinode, a Japanese mission in partnership with NASA, NAOJ, STFC, ESA, and NSC, currently in Earth orbit, is studying the Sun to improve our understanding of the mechanisms that power the solar atmosphere and drive solar eruptions...Hinode, launched in September 2006, uses three advanced solar telescopes to further our understanding of the solar atmosphere and turbulent solar eruptions that can impact hardware and life on Earth.

http://io9.com/5749002/breathtaking-look-at-a-solar-eclipse-in-space

LESSON 2: Values and Barriers STUDENT PRINTABLE 2: "Values and Barriers" TIME REQUIRED: One 40-minute class period, with additional time for student presentations and/or writing essays about values and barriers. LESSON OBJECTIVE: Through reading and class discussion, students will understand what values are and how they are important in facing barriers. 1. Ask students what they think the word values means. Guide them to define values as: beliefs that are important to you and that help to guide your life. 2. Distribute copies of Printable 2, "Values and Barriers." 3. Ask for volunteers to read Jackie Robinson’s Nine Values aloud to the class. Review the definitions of each value to make sure that students understand them. 4. Have students revisit Printable 1, “About My Father.” Ask students to identify values that Jackie Robinson used when facing barriers and challenges. 5. Returning to Printable 2, “Values and Barriers,” explain to students that Jackie Robinson’s nine values can be useful in facing barriers today. For some examples, read the quotes from current baseball players on the printable. 6. Divide students into groups (ideally nine). Assign each group one or more of Jackie Robinson’s Nine Values. 7. Instruct each group to create a class presentation about the importance of the value they’ve been assigned and how it can be used to face a barrier. Encourage them to be creative, e.g., performing a skit, drawing a comic strip, writing a song, etc. Have each group make its presentation to the class. 8. Have students write essays about their own barriers, and how they have used values to face those barriers. Conduct Lesson 3: Essay Organizer to help students understand important steps in the essay-writing process. Encourage students to enter their essays in the “Breaking Barriers Essay Contest” in which they can write essays about barriers they have faced in their own lives, and how they used Jackie Robinson’s values to face those barriers. - Discuss the concept of character defined as features and traits of an individual that reflect the sort of person he or she is. How do values reflect a person’s character? How do a person’s actions display his or her values and character? What does it mean when a person is described as having “strength of character”? - Have students research the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., and report on barriers he faced and broke during the Civil Rights movement. What values did Dr. King rely upon to face barriers? - Have students research and discuss contemporary examples of individuals who have broken barriers, and values that they relied upon in facing barriers. - Encourage students to conduct interviews with family and friends to discuss any barriers they have faced, as well as values they have called upon to overcome these barriers. Mini-Poster: "Jackie Robinson's Nine Values": Download this printable featuring MLB players and Jackie Robinson’s Nine Values.

http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3751131

Check out our collection of songs, videos, games and activities that are suitable for Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-K) kids. Math resources to help your child or student learn the numbers from 1 to 20, counting objects, colors, shapes, same, different and opposites. Literacy resources to help your child or student learn to read the alphabet, to write the alphabet, to read some simple stories and nursery rhymes. There are lots of songs, stories and games to make learning fun and effective. Teach your child or student to read and recognise the numbers from 1 to 20 using songs and stories. They will also learn how to count from 1 to 20. |Learning Number 1||Learning Number 2||Learning Number 3| |Learning Number 4||Learning Number 5||Learning Number 6| |Learning Number 7||Learning Number 8||Learning Number 9| |Learning Number 10||Learning Numbers 1 to 10||Writing Numbers 1 to 10| |Learning Number 11||Learning Number 12||Learning Number 13| |Learning Number 14||Learning Number 15||Learning Number 16| |Learning Number 17||Learning Number 18||Learning Number 19| |Learning Numbers 1 to 20||Counting Games| Here are some videos to teach your child how to Write numbers from 1 to 10 Writing Numbers from 1 to 10 Counting Games Lots of Games to help your child learn to Count and Recognize Numbers Help your child learn about colors with songs and flashcards. |Red||Yellow||Black & White| |World of Colors||Color Games| Color Games Lots of Color Games: Click and Color Games, Learning Colors, Mixing Colors, Color by Numbers, Color Puzzles Teach your kids the basic shapes: Circles, Squares, Triangles and Rectangles |Rectangles||Learning Shapes I||Learning Shapes II| These are a series of games in videos to help the child look for the object that is different from the others. |Same and Different (Part 1)||Same and Different (Part 2)| |Same and Different (Part 3)| Games that will teach your child how to Sort Shapes and Objects |More or Less||None, some, more, all| |Small, smaller, smallest||Big, Bigger, Biggest| |The Sorting Game Sort Things into Groups||The Pattern Game Setting Up Patterns| |Alphabet Songs||Read and Write the Alphabet| |Letter Sounds (Phonics)| |Letter A||Letter B||Letter C||Letter D| |Letter E||Letter F||Letter G||Letter H| |Letter I||Letter J||Letter K||Letter L| |Letter M||Letter N||Letter O||Letter P| |Letter Q||Letter R||Letter S||Letter T| |Letter U||Letter V||Letter W||Letter X| |Letter Y||Letter Z| Teach the kids how to write or print the alphabet. |A, B, C, D||E , F, G, H||I, J, K, L||M, N, O, P| |Q, R, S, T||U, V, W, X||Y, Z| Nursery Rhymes and Songs for the kids to enjoy and learn. |Doctor Foster||Old Mother Hubbard||Baa Baa Black Sheep| |Humpty Dumpty||I'm A Little Teapot||Hey Diddle Diddle| |Jack And Jill||London Bridge Is Falling Down||Old MacDonald| |The Wheels on the Bus||Row Row Row Your Boat||This Old Man| |Nursery Rhymes 1||Nursery Rhymes 2||Nursery Rhymes 3| Help your child or student to listen and read familiar and new stories |Chicken Little||Cinderella||Goldilocks and the Three Bears| |Little Red Riding Hood||Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs||The Owl and The Pussycat| |The Three Little Pigs||The Elves and The Shoemaker||Albert and the Lion| Woof Squeak Meow (learn about animals) Letters, Letters, Letters Jack and the Green Sock (learn about colors) The 10 little Pigs (learn about numbers) Little Red Writing Hood (learn about alphabet) Rhyme Time Song |Above and Below||Big and Small||First and Last| |Happy and Sad||Heavy and Light||High and Low| |Hot and Cold||In and Out||Inside and Outside| |Light and Dark||Long and Short||Loud and Soft| |Near and Far||Open and Close||Over and Under| |Up and Down||Wet and Dry||Opposites| |Money Games Games to learn about money in a fun way.||Jigsaw Puzzles for Kids Cartoons, Disney Movie Characters| |Sudoku for Kids Use pictures instead of numbers||Mickey Games Mickey Adventure Games, Mickey Cooking Games, Sort My Tiles Mickey Games, Mickey Puzzles, Mickey Coloring Gamee, Minnie, Donald, Disney Games| |Cinderella and Snow White Games Sort My Tiles Cinderella and Snow White Games, Cinderella Puzzles, Cinderella Dress Up Games, Cinderella Adventure Games, Snow White Puzzles, Snow White Dress Up Games, Alice in Wonderland| We welcome your feedback, comments and questions about this site or page. Please submit your feedback or enquiries via our Feedback page.

http://www.onlinemathlearning.com/pre-k.html

Electricity: Electric Circuits Electric Circuits: Audio Guided Solution Voltmeters can be used to determine the voltage difference between two points on a circuit. An ammeter can be used to determine the current at any given location on a circuit. The circuit at the right is powered by a 12.0-volt battery and utilizes two voltmeters and two ammeters to measure voltage drops and currents. The resistor values are 1.28 Ω (R1) and 3.85 Ω (R2). Determine the ammeter readings and voltmeter readings. Audio Guided Solution Click to show or hide the answer! Ammeter readings: 2.34 A (for each) Top voltmeter reading: 2.99 V Bottom voltmeter reading: 9.01 V Habits of an Effective Problem Solver - Read the problem carefully and develop a mental picture of the physical situation. If necessary, sketch a simple diagram of the physical situation to help you visualize it. - Identify the known and unknown quantities and record them in an organized manner. Equate given values to the symbols used to represent the corresponding quantity - e.g., ΔV = 9.0 V; R = 0.025 Ω; I = ???. - Use physics formulas and conceptual reasoning to plot a strategy for solving for the unknown quantity. - Identify the appropriate formula(s) to use. - Perform substitutions and algebraic manipulations in order to solve for the unknown quantity. Read About It! Get more information on the topic of Electric Circuits at The Physics Classroom Tutorial. Return to Problem Set Return to Overview

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/calcpad/circuits/prob23.cfm

During Cytokinesis, the cytoplasm (the liquid center of the cell that holds the organelles into place.) splits into two equal halves, a cleavage point appears and the cell becomes two daughter cells. This occurs right after the beginning of anaphase (in mitosis and in meiosis I and II) and continues during telophase (in mitosis and in meiosis I and II) until the cell has completely divided and interphase (in mitosis and meiosis II only) has re-started. A new and complete nucleus forms in each of the two cells. Cytokinesis in plants [change] In plants cytokinesis is slightly different. As plant cells cannot move apart because of their rigid cell wall, a cell plate begins to form during late anaphase and throughout telophase. When the cytoplasm and organelles are divided evenly between the two new cells, the plate then becomes less flimsy and soon becomes another rigid cell wall separating the daughter cells. Cytokinesis splits the cell wall, unlike animal cells, where it splits in the cell membrane.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokinesis

This section contains 30 daily lessons. Each one has a specific objective and offers at least three (often more) ways to teach that objective. Lessons include classroom discussions, group and partner activities, in-class handouts, individual writing assignments, at least one homework assignment, class participation exercises and other ways to teach students about the text in a classroom setting. Use some or all of the suggestions provided to work with your students in the classroom and help them understand the text. Objective: Published in 1983, Curse of Lono is Hunter S. Thompson's account of his time in Hawaii. The aim of this lesson is to introduce the book. 1) 1. Class discussion. What do the students already know about Hunter S. Thompson? What can the students tell about the book by looking at its cover and reading the title? What do the students expect from the book? Why do they... This section contains 5,045 words| (approx. 17 pages at 300 words per page)

http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/the-curse-of-lono/lessons.html

Measurement: GED Test Prep (page 4) The GED Mathematics Exam emphasizes real-life applications of math concepts, and this is especially true of questions about measurement. This article will review the basics of measurement systems used in the United States and other countries, performing mathematical operations with units of measurement, and the process of converting between different units The use of measurement enables you to form a connection between mathematics and the real world. To measure any object, assign a number and a unit of measure. For instance, when a fish is caught, it is often weighed in ounces and its length measured in inches. The following lesson will familiarize you with the types, conversions, and units of measurement. Types of Measurements Following are the types of measurements used most frequently in the United States. - Units of Length - 12 inches (in.) = 1 foot (ft.) - 3 feet = 36 inches = 1 yard (yd.) - 5,280 feet = 1,760 yards = 1 mile (mi.) - Units of Volume - 8 ounces* (oz.) = 1 cup (c.) - 2 cups = 16 ounces = 1 pint (pt.) - 2 pints = 4 cups = 32 ounces = 1 quart (qt.) - 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups = 128 ounces = 1 gallon (gal.) - Units of Weight - 16 ounces* (oz.) = 1 pound (lb.) - 2,000 pounds = 1 ton (T) - Units of Time - 60 seconds (sec.) = 1 minute (min.) - 60 minutes = 1 hour (hr.) - 24 hours = 1 day - 7 days = 1 week - 52 weeks = 1 year (yr.) - 12 months = 1 year - 365 days = 1 year *Notice that ounces are used to measure both the dimensions of volume and weight. When you perform mathematical operations, it is necessary to convert units of measure to simplify a problem. Units of measure are converted by using either multiplication or division: - To change a larger unit to a smaller unit, simply multiply the specific number of larger units by the number of smaller units in only one of the larger units. - To change a smaller unit to a larger unit, simply divide the specific number of smaller units by the number of smaller units in only one of the larger units. - For example, to find the number of pints in 64 ounces, simply divide 64, the smaller unit, by 16, the number of ounces in one pint. - = 4 pints For example, to find the number of inches in 5 feet, simply multiply 5, the number of larger units, by 12, the number of inches in one foot: - 5 feet = how many inches? - 5 feet × 12 inches (the number of inches in a single foot) = 60 inches Therefore, there are 60 inches in 5 feet. - Change 3.5 tons to pounds. - 3.5 tons = how many pounds? - 3.5 tons × 2,000 pounds (the number of pounds in a single ton) = 6,500 pounds Therefore, there are 6,500 pounds in 3.5 tons. Therefore, 64 ounces are equal to 4 pints. Here is one more: - Change 32 ounces to pounds. - = 2 pounds Therefore, 32 ounces are equal to 2 pounds. Basic Operations with Measurement It will be necessary for you to review how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide with measurement. The mathematical rules needed for each of these operations with measurement follow. Addition with Measurements To add measurements, follow these two steps: - Add like units. - Simplify the answer. 4 pounds 25 ounces = 4 pounds + 1 pound 9 ounces = 5 pounds 9 ounces Subtraction with Measurements To subtract measurements, follow these three steps: - Subtract like units. - Regroup units when necessary. - Write the answer in simplest form. Sometimes, it is necessary to regroup units when subtracting. - Example: Subtract 3 yards 2 feet from 5 yards 1 foot. - From 5 yards, regroup 1 yard to 3 feet. Add 3 feet to 1 foot. Then, subtract feet from feet and yards from yards. Multiplication with Measurements To multiply measurements, follow these two steps: - Multiply like units if units are involved. - Simplify the answer. Example: Multiply 9 feet by 4 yards. First, change yards to feet by multiplying the number of feet in a yard (3) by the number of yards in this problem (4). 3 feet in a yard × 4 yards = 12 feet Then, multiply 9 feet by 12 feet = 108 square feet. (Note: feet × feet = square feet) Division with Measurements For division with measurements, follow these steps: - Divide into the larger units first. - Convert the remainder to the smaller unit. - Add the converted remainder to the existing smaller unit if any. - Divide into smaller units. - Write the answer in simplest form. The metric system is an international system of measurement also called the decimal system. Converting units in the metric system is much easier than converting units in the English system of measurement. However, making conversions between the two systems is much more difficult. Luckily, the GED will provide you with the appropriate conversion factor when needed. The basic units of the metric system are the meter, gram, and liter. Here is a general idea of how the two systems compare: Prefixes are attached to these basic metric units to indicate the amount of each unit. For example, the prefix deci- means one-tenth (); therefore, one decigram is one-tenth of a gram, and one decimeter is one-tenth of a meter. The following six prefixes can be used with every metric unit: - 1 hectometer = 1 hm = 100 meters - 1 millimeter = 1 mm = meter = .001 meter - 1 dekagram = 1 dkg = 10 grams - 1 centiliter = 1 cL* = liter = .01 liter - 1 kilogram = 1 kg = 1,000 grams - 1 deciliter = 1 dL* = liter = .1 liter *Notice that liter is abbreviated with a capital letter—L. The following chart illustrates some common relationships used in the metric system: Add your own comment Today on Education.com - Kindergarten Sight Words List - The Five Warning Signs of Asperger's Syndrome - What Makes a School Effective? - Child Development Theories - Why is Play Important? Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Creative Development - 10 Fun Activities for Children with Autism - Test Problems: Seven Reasons Why Standardized Tests Are Not Working - Bullying in Schools - A Teacher's Guide to Differentiating Instruction - Steps in the IEP Process

http://www.education.com/reference/article/measurement4/?page=4

This session will concentrate on the fundamentals of typography, and particularly on how typographic form and visual arrangement create and support a message. The class lecture will include an introduction to basic letter forms and typefaces, typographic terminology, and a brief history and theoretical overview of type. The project below shows letter forms found by Rhett Dashwood. He has created an entire alphabet composed of “letters” he found via Google Maps of Australia’s southeastern province of Victoria. - The art or process of printing with type. - The work of setting and arranging types and of printing from them - The general character or appearance of printed matter. A typeface refers to a group of characters, such as letters, numbers, and punctuation that share a common design or style. Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica and Courier are all typefaces. There are over 300,000 typefaces. My agency actively works with about 200 faces. I love this game: Cheese or Font. Fonts refer to the means by which typefaces are displayed or presented. Graphic designers choose typefaces for their projects but use fonts to create the finished art. Typefaces are selected. Fonts can be purchased at type foundries. Veer is a personal favorite for font purchasing. Character is the symbol representing an individual letter, numeral or punctuation mark. The capital letters are called caps, or uppercase (u.c.). Small letters are called lowercase characters (l.c.) Numbers are called numerals or figures. The actual shape or design of a letter form is called a glyphs. There may be more than one glyph for a single character, such as a superscript version. Type Families The different options available within a font make up a type family. Many fonts are at a minimum available in roman, bold and italic. Other families are much larger, such as Helvetica, which is available in options such Condensed Bold, Condensed Black, UltraLight, UltraLight Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, etc. The univers font comes in a large family of over 30 options. Example of Helvetica type family Classifications of type: There are several different classifications of type but I prefer the standard four - Serif (variations include old style, transitional, slab serif, modern) - San serif – typically uniform in stroke width. - Script – which mimic handwriting or calligraphy - Decorative or ornamental – which are generally not appropriate for body text but used for impact The language of typography and seven classic typefaces Here is an excellent interview with typeface designer Jonathan Hoefler, type designer and president of Hoefler & Frere-Jones and Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts and author of the VISUALS column for the New York Times Book Review, will explain how typefaces are created and why typography is important to communication and design. If you have time, I encourage you to watch the movie Helvetica. The trailer is here. Choosing the right typeface can be challenging. Consider the unique characteristics of the face and the goal of the piece the font will be used for. Some fonts carry baggage from over use such as the much-maligned comic sans. The recent creation of Clearview Hwt is a good example of the big impact that subtle changes in letter form can have on readability. Blogs and Websites Thinking with Type Designing with Type 15 Tips to Choose Good Text Type How to Make a Font NPR The Leonard Lopate Show, Please Explain: Typography NY Times: The Art of the Word Cheese or Font? Assignment: Set your name in 6 different typefaces including at least 2 serifs and 2 sanserif faces. Take the unique characteristics of the typeface in terms of letterform, weight, texture and spacing as it relates to the uniqueness of your name into account. Put each example on its own slide with a final slide that shows all 6 examples. For the second part of the assignment, create at least 3 expressive words. Each word should be its own slide. Here are some excellent examples of expressive words.

http://itp.nyu.edu/~kd49/viscomm/2010/07/typography/?pid=76

Beginning 400 million years ago, nautiluslike creatures known as ammonites—which sported dozens of tentacles and lived in spiral, conical, or helical shells—roamed the open ocean in search of fish and other prey. At least that's what paleontologists have long assumed. But a new study finds that some members of this ancient group—relatives of octopi, squid, and cuttlefish—were far more sedentary creatures, spending most of their lives at spots where methane bubbled up from the sea floor. Ammonites were one of the most long-lived groups of prehistoric animals, only dying out 65 million years ago, when they succumbed to the same mass extinction that claimed the dinosaurs. Scientists have typically found their fossils—shells that range from thumbnail-size to 2 meters across—in rocks derived from sea-floor sediments that contain no bottom-dwelling life, indicating that the creatures inhabited the open ocean and then sank to the barren sea floor after they died. But new analyses of fossils unearthed in southwestern South Dakota dispel the notion that all ammonites were nomadic. Researchers led by Neil Landman, an invertebrate paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, studied fossils embedded in a 13-meter-high, 20-meter-wide chunk of limestone that formed almost 75 million years ago, when South Dakota lay at the bottom of a shallow inland sea. In addition to ammonites, they found fossils of other marine creatures such as clams, sponges, corals, and fish. Measurements of the ratio of carbon isotopes—types of atoms that have different numbers of neutrons in their nucleus and, therefore, have different weights—in the limestone suggest that the site was a spot where methane-rich fluids rose to the sea floor from deep within Earth's crust. These "methane seeps" served as sea-floor oases, with methane-consuming microbes at the base of the food chain and creatures such as clams and marine snails either feasting on the microbes or hosting their own methane-munching bugs that allowed them to take advantage of the energy source directly. These creatures, and the predators that prey upon them, would have had higher-than-normal proportions of carbon-13 isotopes in their tissues than animals feeding on prey in ecosystems where the base of the food chain is composed of plants and photosynthetic organisms. Previous studies suggest that there were hundreds if not thousands of such ancient methane seeps in a swath of sea floor that stretched from what is now eastern Montana to south-central Colorado, says Landman. At the South Dakota site, he and his colleagues found fossils of juvenile and adult ammonites, and they even unearthed ammonites that had shell damage suggesting they'd been preyed upon and partially eaten. That's only circumstantial evidence that the creatures spent their lives at these sea-floor oases, he notes. But the team's detailed geochemical analyses of the ammonite fossils, including a series of samples from one individual, reveal that the creatures' shells contain much higher proportions of carbon-13 than those in ammonites of the same age found elsewhere in the region. That difference provides strong evidence that these ammonites spent much, if not all, of their lives at the methane seep, the researchers contend in a forthcoming issue of Geology. If the ammonites had been consuming prey in a food chain that didn't ultimately derive its energy from ancient methane—one based on photosynthetic organisms, for instance—then the proportions of carbon-13 in the creatures' shells would have been much higher than the team actually measured. "This is a really nice paper, and I like how the researchers made their case," says Ruth Martin, a paleontologist at the University of Washington, Seattle. The ancient methane seeps acted like modern-day reefs, she notes. "There was a good supply of food, and this would have been a nice place for the ammonites to hang out. ... It all makes sense." Royal Mapes, an invertebrate paleontologist at Ohio University in Athens, agrees. "Undoubtedly, the ammonites were there [at the seeps] to take advantage of an incredibly rich food source." And perhaps it's no surprise that researchers haven't previously suggested that ammonites and other marine predators were full-time inhabitants of sea-floor oases, he notes, because oceanographers first discovered thriving ecosystems based on chemosynthesis and not photosynthesis around hydrothermal vents only 35 years ago, and similar ecosystems around deep-sea methane seeps were discovered less than 30 years ago.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/04/hanging-out-at-an-ancient-oasis.html?ref=hp

Microbial fuel cells work through the action of bacteria, which can pass electrons to an anode of a fuel cell. The electrons flow from the anode through a wire to the cathode, producing an electric current. In the process, the bacteria consume organic matter in the wastewater and clean the water. The Penn State approach uses the bacteria that naturally occur in wastewater, requiring no special bacterial strains or unusual environmental demands. In the best test case, the researchers used a carbon fiber brush anode and two tubular cathodes of about .6 inches in diameter doped with a cobalt catalyst on the inside, the fuel cell produced 18 watts per 260 gallons of water and achieved a charge efficiency of more than 70 percent. An additional benefit to the microbial fuel cell is that while it generates electricity, it cleans up the wastewater, something that usually requires the consumption of energy. Lesser developed countries discharge approximately (the equivalent of) 100 trillion gallons (380×109 m³) of untreated sewage per annum This could potentially generate 7 Terawatts of power for them and clean up their waste water.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/03/microbial-fuel-cells-generate-power.html

All changes that you see can be broadly divided into physical and chemical changes. Some changes affect only the physical properties of the substance that is undergoing change. Physical properties include shape, size, colour and state of matter. - Some properties of physical changes are: A physical change is temporary. No new substance is formed when a physical change takes place. Forms of energy, such as heat, light and electricity, are neither emitted nor absorbed in a physical change. A physical change is generally reversible. Some changes are in the form of chemical reactions, which lead to the formation of new substances. These are called chemical changes. These changes may be accompanied by the emission of heat, light or sound, a change in colour, or the formation of a gas. - Some properties of chemical changes are: A chemical change is permanent. A new substance is formed. Forms of energy, such as heat, light or electricity, may be emitted or absorbed during a chemical reaction. A chemical change is generally irreversible. Crystallisation is a physical change, since the process involves a change in the state of matter. No new substance is created in the process of crystallisation. Water and oxygen in the air react with iron to create a new substance called rust. The properties of rust are different than that of iron. This is a chemical change. The rusting of iron can be prevented by coating iron with something else, such as paint, or with zinc through a process called galvanisation. The process of galvanisation is also used in many other places, such as to prevent the rusting of iron pipes that carry water to our homes. Crushing of a chalk piece Boiling of water Melting of ice-cream Evaporation of water Digestion of food Formation of calcium carbonate Rusting of iron Burning of magnesium ribbon

http://www.learnnext.com/lesson/CBSE-VII-Science-Physical-and-Chemical-Changes.htm

Nov. 29, 2010 Giant pterosaurs -- ancient reptiles that flew over the heads of dinosaurs -- were at their best in gentle tropical breezes, soaring over hillsides and coastlines or floating over land and sea on thermally driven air currents, according to new research from the University of Bristol. Pterosaurs (also referred to as pterodactyls) were too slow and flexible to use the stormy winds and waves of the southern ocean like the albatrosses of today, the research by Colin Palmer, an engineer turned paleontology PhD student in Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, found. Their slow flight and the variable geometry of their wings also enabled pterosaurs to land very gently, reducing the chance of breaking their paper- thin bones. This helps to explain how they were able to become the largest flying animals ever known. Using his 40 years of experience in the engineering industry, Colin Palmer constructed models of pterosaur wing sections from thin, curved sheets of epoxy resin/carbon fibre composite and tested them in a wind tunnel. These tests quantified the two-dimensional characteristics of pterosaur wings for the first time, showing that such creatures were significantly less aerodynamically efficient and were capable of flying at lower speeds than previously thought. Colin Palmer said: "Pterosaur wings were adapted to a low-speed flight regime that minimizes sink rate. This regime is unsuited to marine style dynamic soaring adopted by many seabirds which requires high flight speed coupled with high aerodynamic efficiency, but is well suited to thermal/slope soaring. The low sink rate would have allowed pterosaurs to use the relatively weak thermal lift found over the sea. "Since the bones of pterosaurs were thin-walled and thus highly susceptible to impact damage, the low-speed landing capability would have made an important contribution to avoiding injury and so helped to enable pterosaurs to attain much larger sizes than extant birds. The trade-off would have been an extreme vulnerability to strong winds and turbulence, both in flight and on the ground, like that experienced by modern-day paragliders." The research is published November 24 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Other social bookmarking and sharing tools: - Colin Palmer. Flight in slow motion: aerodynamics of the pterosaur wing. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, November 24, 2010 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.2179 Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101124073902.htm

The Electromagnetic (EM) Spectrum is simply a name scientists use when referring to the entire range of radiation types. Radiation is energy that travels and spreads out as it moves. Examples include visible light and radio waves. Other examples of EM radiation are ultraviolet and infrared light, microwaves, X-rays and gamma-rays. Ultraviolet radiation is that part of the electromagnetic spectrum between visible light and x-rays. Ultraviolet, or UV light, is divided into three regions, based on wavelength. UVA, (know as longwave or blacklight), is radiation with wavelengths between 315nm and 400nm. UVB ( midrange) spans wavelengths from 280 to 315nm and UVC (shortwave) covers 280nm down to about 30nm. Shorter wavelengths of light are more energetic than longer wavelengths. Unlike x-rays, UV radiation has a low power of penetration, with effects on the body limited to skin and eyes. Direct and indirect exposure to UV, especially in the UVB and UVC range, include sunburn, aging and carcinogenic changes. UV protective eyewear, clothing and creams are recommended whenever exposure to UV is possible. An interesting characteristic of UV radiation occurs when it falls upon certain substances know as phosphors (phosphorescent substance), where it causes the phosphors to emit specific visible radiation which is known as fluorescence. A similar effect is phosphorescence in which the emission lasts longer after the UV source is removed. Many practical applications have been developed that take advantage of these unique properties triggered by UV light.

http://www.sciencecompany.com/Ultraviolet-or-UV-Light-An-Introduction-W103C2618.aspx

This is a drawing of the Earth's lithosphere. Click on image for full size Clues to Plate Movements Many kinds of surface features are clues that our lithosphere is sliding. Two types of features can form when plates move apart. At mid ocean ridges, the bottom of the sea splits apart and new crust is formed from molten rock, or magma, rising from the mantle. Continental rifts form when a continent begins to split apart. If a continental rift continues to split a continent apart it can eventually form an ocean basin. When two plates move towards each other, several features can form. Often, one of the plates is forced to go down into the hot asthenosphere at a subduction zone. Volcanoes may form when a subducted plate melts and the molten rock comes to the surface. If neither plate is subducted, the two crash into each other forming huge mountains. If these features are found on a planet's surface, they provide evidence that the planet's surface is in motion. The sliding lithosphere makes Earth special because there are only a few other planets that have a surface in motion. Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store! Our online store includes issues of NESTA's quarterly journal, The Earth Scientist , full of classroom activities on different topics in Earth and space science, as well as books on science education! You might also be interested in: The main force that shapes our planetís surface over long amounts of time is the movement of Earth's outer layer by the process of plate tectonics. This picture shows how the rigid outer layer of the...more When two sections of the Earth's crust collide, one slab of crust can be forced back down into the deeper regions of the Earth, as shown in this diagram. This process is called subduction. The slab that...more Mountains are built through a general process called "deformation" of the crust of the Earth. Deformation is a fancy word which could also mean "folding". An example of this kind of folding comes from...more Like the Earth's lithosphere, the Martian lithosphere is the not-so-rigid part of the crust of Mars which is cooler than the interior of Mars somewhat like the film on top of a cup of hot cocoa. On Earth,...more Ash is made of millions of tiny fragments of rock and glass formed during a volcanic eruption. Volcanic ash particles are less than 2 mm in size and can be much smaller. Volcanic ash forms in several ways...more Cinder cones are simple volcanoes which have a bowl-shaped crater at the summit and only grow to about a thousand feet, the size of a hill. They usually are created of eruptions from a single opening,...more Lava can move in broad flat lava flows, or it can move through tight channels or tubes. Lava flows tend to cool quickly and flow slowly. The fastest lava outside of channels moves at about 6 mi/hr an easy...more

http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/interior/lithospheric_motion.html

The magnitude scale began in 129 B.C., when the ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus classified the stars. He called the brightest stars "first magnitude," meaning "the brightest." He had six rankings in his classification system, meaning the faintest stars he could see were "sixth magnitude." When Italian scientist Galileo Galilei turned his telescope to the sky, he discovered stars fainter than the faintest stars visible to the naked eye. Since these stars were fainter than Hipparchus's faintest stars, Galileo called them "seventh magnitude." And so as astronomers with larger telescopes discovered fainter and fainter stars, they kept classifying them into higher and higher magnitude categories. In the 1800s, astronomers had so much data that the magnitude system confused them. They realized they needed to give the magnitude system a mathematical definition, so that two astronomers could agree on exactly how bright a star was. In 1856, Oxford astronomer Norman Pogson suggested that a star's magnitude should be defined in terms of the star's radiant flux. In Hipparchus's ancient system, first magnitude stars emitted about 100 times as much light as sixth magnitude stars. So Pogson defined his scale such that an increase of five magnitude numbers meant a 100-fold increase in radiant flux. By this definition, Vega's magnitude fell very close to zero, so astronomers chose Vega as the reference point for the magnitude system. Later, astronomers extended the magnitude scale to brighter objects by giving them negative numbers. Today, the magnitude system has been extended so far that there are now 56 magnitudes between the brightest thing we can see (the Sun, -26) to the faintest (faint objects in Hubble Space Telescope images, +30). In terms of amount of light received on Earth, the magnitude scale spans a factor of 2.5156, or 2.4 x 1022! The magnitude scale seems arbitrary and confusing, even to astronomers. But the scale gives a precise measurement of the brightnesses of stars, and pays tribute to the 4000-year history of astronomy as a science, so astronomers keep using it.

http://cas.sdss.org/DR7/pt/proj/advanced/color/maghistory.asp

Analysis of a rock sample collected by Nasa's Curiosity rover shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes. Scientists identified some of the key chemical ingredients for life -- sulphur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon -- in powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient streambed in Gale Crater. The sample comes from a site just a few hundred yards away from where the rover earlier found an ancient streambed in September 2012. "A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for Nasa's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "From what we know now, the answer is Data returned by the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments indicate the Yellowknife Bay area the rover has been exploring was the end of an ancient river system or an intermittently wet lakebed that could have provided chemical energy and other favourable conditions for The rock is made up of a fine-grained mudstone containing clay minerals, sulphate minerals and other chemicals. Unlike some others on Mars, this ancient wet environment was not harshly oxidising, acidic or extremely salty. The bedrock is also fine-grained mudstone and shows evidence of multiple periods of wet conditions, including nodules and veins. These clay minerals are a product of the reaction of relatively fresh water with igneous minerals, like olivine, also present in the sediment. This reaction could have taken place within the sedimentary deposit, during transport of the sediment, or in the source region of the sediment. The presence of calcium sulphate along with the clay suggests the soil is neutral or mildly The mixture of oxidised, less-oxidised, and even non-oxidised chemicals, provide an energy gradient that many microbes on Earth exploit to live. This partial oxidation was first hinted at when the drill cuttings were revealed to be grey rather than red. "The range of chemical ingredients we have identified in the sample is impressive, and it suggests pairings such as sulphates and sulphides that indicate a possible chemical energy source for micro-organisms," said Paul Mahaffy, principal investigator of the SAM suite of instruments at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in "We have characterised a very ancient, but strangely new 'grey Mars' where conditions once were favourable for life," said John Grotzinger, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. "Curiosity is on a mission of discovery and exploration, and as a team we feel there are many more exciting discoveries ahead of us in the months and years to come." Curiosity is on an initial two-year mission (one Martian year) to find evidence if Gale Crater was ever suitable for microbial life. The rover has ten scientific instruments at its disposal. Nasa's Mars Science Laboratory, also known as Curiosity, landed on Mars on 6 August. Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), based in Pasadena, California, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars Science Laboratory mission for Nasa. Original story (c) Sen. More space content from sen.com. Follow sen on twitter: @sen

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/13/curiosity-conditions-life-mars

This overview of the science necessary to understand groundwater issues is taken from Chapter 2 of the Washington State, Department of Ecology, Ground Water Resource Protection Handbook, Published December 1986. The hydrologic cycle is a constant movement of water above, on, and below the earth's surface. It is a cycle that replenishes ground water supplies. It begins as water vaporizes into the atmosphere from vegetation, soil, lakes, rivers, snowfields and oceans-a process called evapotranspiration. As the water vapor rises it condenses to form clouds that return water to the land through precipitation: rain, snow, or hail. Precipitation falls on the earth and either percolates into the soil or flows across the ground. Usually it does both. When precipitation percolates into the soil it is called infiltration; when it flows across the ground it is called surface runoff. The amount of precipitation that infiltrates, versus the amount that flows across the surface, varies depending on factors such as the amount of water already in the soil, soil composition, vegetation cover and degree of slope. Surface runoff eventually reaches a stream or other surface water body where it is again evaporated into the atmosphere. Infiltration, however, moves under the force of gravity through the soil. If soils are dry, water is absorbed by the soil until it is thoroughly wetted. Then excess infiltration begins to move slowly downward to the water table. Once it reaches the water table, it is called ground water. Ground water continues to move downward and laterally through the subsurface. Eventually it discharges through hillside springs or seeps into streams, lakes, and the ocean where it is again evaporated to perpetuate the cycle GROUND WATER AND SUBSURFACE WATER Most rock or soil near the earth's surface is composed of solids and voids. The voids are spaces between grains of sand, or cracks in dense rock. All water beneath the land surface occurs within such void spaces and is referred to as underground or subsurface water. Subsurface water occurs in two different zones. One zone, located immediately beneath the land surface in most areas, contains both water and air in the voids. This zone is referred to as the unsaturated zone. Other names for the unsaturated zone are zone of aeration and vadose zone. The unsaturated zone is almost always underlain by a second zone in which all voids are full of water. This zone is defined as the saturated zone. Water in the saturated zone is referred to as ground water and is the only subsurface water available to supply wells and springs. Water table is often misused as a synonym for ground water. However, the water table is actually the boundary between the unsaturated and saturated zones. It represents the upper surface of the ground water. Technically speaking, it is the level at which the hydraulic pressure is equal to atmospheric pressure. The water level found in unused wells is often the same level as the water table, as shown in Figure 2.2. AQUIFERS AND CONFINING BEDS All geologic material beneath the earth's surface is either a potential aquifer or a confining bed. An aquifer is a saturated geologic formation that will yield a usable quantity of water to a well or spring. A confining bed is a geologic unit which is relatively impermeable and does not yield usable quantities of water. Confining beds, also referred to as aquitards, restrict the movement of ground water into and out of adjacent aquifers. Ground water occurs in aquifers under two conditions: confined and unconfined. A confined aquifer is overlain by a confining bed, such as an impermeable layer of clay or rock. An unconfined aquifer has no confining bed above it and is usually open to infiltration from the surface. Unconfined aquifers are often shallow and frequently overlie one or more confined aquifers. They are recharged through permeable soils and subsurface materials above the aquifer. Because they are usually the uppermost aquifer, unconfined aquifers are also called water table aquifers. Confined aquifers usually occur at considerable depth and may overlie other confined aquifers. They are often recharged through cracks or openings in impermeable layers above or below them. Confined aquifers in complex geological formations may be exposed at the land surface and can be directly recharged from infiltrating precipitation. Confined aquifers can also receive recharge from an adjacent highland area such as a mountain range. Water infiltrating fractured rock in the mountains may flow downward and then move laterally into confined aquifers. Windows are important for transmitting water between aquifers, particularly in glaciated areas such as the Puget Sound region. A window is an area where the confining bed is missing. The water level in a confined aquifer does not rise and fall freely because it is bounded by the confining bed--like a lid. Being bounded causes the water to become pressurized. In some cases, the pressure in a confined aquifer is sufficient for a well to spout water several feet above the ground. Such wells are called flowing artesian wells. Confined aquifers are also sometimes called artesian aquifers. When a well is drilled into an unconfined aquifer, its water level is generally at the same level as the upper surface of the aquifer. This is, in most cases, the water table. By contrast, when a well is drilled into a confined aquifer, its water level will be at some height above the top of the aquifer and perhaps above the surface of the land-depending on how much the water is pressurized. If a number of wells are drilled into a confined aquifer, the water level will rise in each well to a certain level. These well levels form an imaginary surface called the potentiometric surface. The potentiometric surface is to a confined aquifer what the water table is to an unconfined aquifer. It describes at what level the upper surface of a confined aquifer would occur if the confining bed were removed. The most productive aquifers, whether confined or unconfined, are generally in sand and gravel deposits. These tend to have large void spaces for holding water. Rocks with large openings such as solution cavities or fractures can also be highly productive aquifers. Generally, the smaller the grain size or the less fracturing, the less water an aquifer will produce. This is because there are fewer void spaces for holding water. GROUND WATER RECHARGE AND DISCHARGE Recharge is the process by which ground water is replenished. A recharge area is where water from precipitation is transmitted downward to an aquifer. Most areas, unless composed of solid rock or covered by development, allow a certain percentage of total precipitation to reach the water table. However, in some areas more precipitation will infiltrate than in others. Areas which transmit the most precipitation are often referred to as "high" or "critical" recharge areas. As described earlier, how much water infiltrates depends on vegetation cover, slope, soil composition, depth to the water table, the presence or absence of confining beds and other factors. Recharge is promoted by natural vegetation cover, flat topography, permeable soils, a deep water table and the absence of confining beds. Discharge areas are the opposite of recharge areas. They are the locations at which ground water leaves the aquifer and flows to the surface. Ground water discharge occurs where the water table or potentiometric surface intersects the land surface. Where this happens, springs or seeps are found. Springs and seeps may flow into fresh water bodies, such as lakes or streams, or they may flow into saltwater bodies. Under the force of gravity, ground water generally flows from high areas to low areas. Consequently, high areas-such as hills or plateaus-are typically where aquifers are recharged and low areas-such as river valleys-are where they discharge. However, in many instances aquifers occur beneath river valleys, so river valleys can also be important recharge areas. Typical recharge and discharge areas are depicted in Figure 2.4. GROUND WATER MOVEMENT Gravity is the force that moves ground water which generally means it moves downward. However, ground water can also move upwards if the pressure in a deeper aquifer is higher than that of the aquifer above it. This often occurs where pressurized confined aquifers occur beneath unconfined aquifers. A ground water divide, like a surface water divide, indicates distinct ground water flow regions within an aquifer. A divide is defined by a line on the either side of which ground water moves in opposite directions. Ground water divides often occur in highland areas, and in some geologic environments coincide with surface water divides. This is common where aquifers are shallow and strongly influenced by surface water flow. Where there are deep aquifers, surface and ground water flows may have little or no relationship. As ground water flows downwards in an aquifer, its upper surface slopes in the direction of flow. This slope is known as the hydraulic gradient and is determined by measuring the water elevation in wells tapping the aquifer. For confined aquifers, the hydraulic gradient is the slope of the potentiometric surface. For unconfined aquifers, it is the slope of the water table. The velocity at which ground water moves is a function of three main variables: hydraulic conductivity, (commonly called permeability) porosity, and the hydraulic gradient. The hydraulic conductivity is a measure of the water transmitting capability of an aquifer. High hydraulic conductivity values indicate an aquifer can readily transmit water; low values indicate poor transmitting ability. Because geologic materials vary in their ability to transmit water, hydraulic conductivity values range through 12 orders of magnitude. Some clays, for example, have hydraulic conductivities of .00000001 centimeters per second (cm/sec), whereas gravel hydraulic conductivities can range up to 10,000 cm/sec. Hydraulic conductivity values should not be confused with velocity even though they appear to have similar units. Cm/sec, for example, is not a velocity but is actually a contraction of cubic centimeters per square centimeter per second (cm3/cm2-sec). In general, course-grained sands and gravels readily transmit water and have high hydraulic conductivities (in the range of 50-1000 m/day). Fine grained silts and clays transmit water poorly and have low hydraulic conductivities (in the range of .001-0.1 m/day). The porosity of an aquifer also has a bearing on its ability to transmit water. Porosity is a measure of the amount of open space in an aquifer. Both clays and gravels typically have high porosities, while silts, sands, and mixtures of different grain sizes tend to have low porosities. The velocity at which water travels through an aquifer is proportional to the hydraulic conductivity and hydraulic gradient, and inversely proportional to the porosity. Of these three factors, hydraulic conductivity generally has the most effect on velocity. Thus, aquifers with high hydraulic conductivities, such as sand and gravel deposits, will generally transmit water faster than aquifers with lower hydraulic conductivities, such as silt or clay beds. Ground water velocities are typically very slow, ranging from around a centimeter per day to almost a meter per day. However, some very rapid flow can occur in rock with solution cavities or in fractured rock. Very high flow rates (more than 15 m/day) are associated, for example, with some parts of the Columbia River basalt in eastern Washington. The volume of ground water flow is controlled by the hydraulic conductivity and gradient, and in addition is controlled by the volume of the aquifer. A large aquifer will have a greater volume of ground water flow than a smaller aquifer with similar hydraulic properties. But if the cross-sectional area-that is, the height and width-are the same for both aquifers, the aquifer with a greater hydraulic conductivity and hydraulic gradient will produce a greater volume of water. WATER SUPPLY WELLS How aquifers respond when water is withdrawn from a well is an important topic in ground water hydrology. It explains how a well gets its water, how it can deplete adjacent wells, or how it can induce contamination. When water is withdrawn from a well, its water level drops. When the water level falls below the water level of the surrounding aquifer, ground water flows into the well. The rate of inflow increases until it equals the rate of withdrawal. The movement of water from an aquifer into a well alters the surface of the aquifer around the well. It forms what is called a cone of depression. A cone of depression is a funnel-shaped drop in the aquifer's surface. The well itself penetrates the bottom of the cone. Within a cone of depression, all ground water flows to the well. The outer limits of the cone define the well's area of influence. Back to The GWAC Home Page

http://issaquah.org/comorg/gwac/Hydro.htm

© Copyright 2006 J. Banfill. All Rights Reserved.Legal Notice First Grade Hands-On Activities - Count and determine the value of a collection of the same type of coins (pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters) whose total value is $1.00 or less. - Count and determine the value of a mixed collection of coins (combinations of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters) whose total value is $1.00 or less. - Know the exchange value of coins. For example, how many nickels have the same value as a dime. - Measure weight and length with non-standard measurements. For example, how many paper clip lengths are the same as the length and width of a piece of paper. - Compare the capacities of two containers and describe the relative capacities as holding more, less or the same, or being larger, smaller or the same size. - Compare the weight of two objects using a scale or balance and describe the relative weight as heavier, lighter or the same weight. - Compare the length of two objects and describe the relative length as longer, shorter or the same length. Learn the terms taller, shorter, wider and narrower. - Describe how objects are located in space in relation to other objects such as near, far, close by, below, above, up, down, beside, next to, to the right of, to the left of etc. - Draw geometric figures such as circles, triangles, rectangles and squares. - Describe common geometric figures by the number of straight or curved sides, angles, corners and square corners. - Find geometric shapes in common objects (circles, squares, triangles, rectangles). - Display collected information in an object graph. Describe the categories by the relative terms more, less, fewer, greater than, less than and about equal. - Sort and classify objects by similar characteristics, e.g. circles, squares, - Sort and classify objects by two characteristics, e.g. blue triangles, large - Create, recognize, describe and extend a variety of patterns such as numbers, letters, shapes, colors, size, rhythmic and actions.

http://www.aaamath.com/B/handson1.htm

Medieval Europe: Early and Late Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages and the Romanesque Tradition I. The Syncretism that Created Medieval ("middle age") European Culture: A. Germanic - Roman. B. Northern Europe - Southern Europe. C. Tribal - Cosmopolitan. D. Heroic Deeds- Philosophical Thought. E. Pagan - Christian. II. Contributions of Northern European Cultures. A. Fealty (Feudalism). B. Marital Standards (Chivalry: Fidelity and/or Courtly Love). C. Heroism (Chivalry-- Loyalty to King and Country). D. Zoomorphic Forms (Metalwork, Woodwork). E. Illumination (Manuscripts). III. Charlemagne and the Carolingian Renaissance. A. Charlemagne (742-814 CE) Charles the Great. 1. United the various tribes and factions of Europe under the banner of one Holy Roman Empire. 2. Crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor in 800 CE. 3. Responsible for the Carolingian Renaissance-- from the Latin Carolus Magnus which means Charles the Great, or the French Charlemagne. a. Revitalization of arts, architecture, education, literacy, monastic development; example: minuscule handwriting. Literacy of Charlemagne himself? A. Upon Charlemagne's death in 814 CE, the resulting fragmentation of the Empire led to the development of a social-political-economic system known as feudalism. 1. People of all levels attached themselves to a lord-- an aristocratic landowner who was a part of the military nobility, usually a mounted, i.e., horseback, soldier. In French, a chevalier; in English, a knight.. 2. The attached persons (vassals) would work the land, offer military service to the lord, in exchange for security and eventual land ownership. Recall Germanic fealty. B. The decline of feudalism: see Crusades, below; many nobles and landowners who went to fight were killed. Many of those who worked for them migrated to towns, creating a new urban culture. A. The Rule of St. Benedict. B. The Monastery of St. Gall. C. Centers of education. VI. Medieval Literature. A. The chanson de geste (song of heroic deeds). 1. The Song of Roland. a. Two dimensional portrayal of Muslims and Christians. B. Courtly Love and the Medieval Romance. 1. Lancelot, by Chretien de Troyes. 2. The Nightingale, by Marie de France. 1. Mystery Plays (the entire Biblical cycle). a. From ministerium, referring to the guilds who were responsible for producing the plays. 2. Miracle Plays ( New Testament stories of Jesus). 3. Morality Plays (allegorical lessons for salvation). VII. The Christian Crusades (four successive waves: 11th-13th centuries CE). A. Initially, to rescue Jerusalem from the Muslims in Turkey who were threatening the Byzantine Empire (i.e., the Eastern church). B. Religious venture-turned-economic venture: merchants, financiers (particularly those in Italian city-states such as Florence, Genoa, Venice) encouraged the crusaders to become middle men in trade with the East. C. Trade between East and West was revived. D. Western exposure to Islamic knowledge (mathematics, science, philosophy, etc.). E. The recovery and transfer of sacred relics to the West. F. All of this cultural exchange- financial, intellectual, spiritual- set the ground work for what major European cultural phenomenon? VIII. Religion and the Medieval Mind. A. Memento Mori: the threat of condemnation; the promise of salvation. B. The centrality of the sacraments. C. The reverence for sacred relics. IX. The Romanesque Pilgrimage/Reliquary Church (11th - 12th centuries). A. The pilgrimage routes. B. The need for architectural expansion. C. The Romanesque: characteristics. 1. The barrel-vaulted nave: wider is better. 2. Heavily-buttressed walls. 3. Due to #2, very small windows, very little light. D. Socio-economic effects. 1. Increased mobility/multi-cultural exposure. 2. The growth of townships around monastic sites. 3. Rapid increase in the size and number of churches. 4. The growth of ecclesial influence. 5. Economic revitalization. Late Middle Ages and the Gothic Tradition: A Shift Toward Reason and Secularization X. The Gothic Cathedral (12th - 13th centuries). A. Gothic: originally a disparaging term applied by later neoclassical (18th century) artists who regarded this architectural style as heavy, dark and grotesque. B. The first Gothic architecture: the rennovation of the Church of St. Denis, orchestrated by the Abbot of St. Denis, Suger (Soo-zhay) ca. 1140 CE.. C. The pointed arch allowed one to build higher with less buttressing necessary on the outer walls. Hence the use of flying buttresses. D. The weight was held by ribs; hence the term ribbed vaulting. E. Walls seemed to disappear, replaced by tall, seemingly weightless, stained glass windows (light as divine substance in medieval philosophy). F. The Gothic cathedral: a metaphor for the synthesis of faith and reason. G. While the Romanesque pilgrimage church was rural, the Gothic church and/or cathedral was urban; it was the center of the life of the community, and a source of civic pride. XI. Scholasticism: Approaching Theology Through Reason. A. St. Anselm (1033-1109) and his Ontological Argument for the Existence of God: a logical approach attempting to prove divine existence as inherently self-evident to us (the flaw: analytical analysis is not the same as empirical analysis). Anselm is Platonic. B. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): Thomas worked from the premise that we need but draw logical conclusions from our own empirical observation and sensory experience. E.g., it is logical that God exists because we see the empirical evidence of divine intelligence all around us (the flaw: a "first cause" cannot be seen but only inferred). Thomas is Aristotelian. XII. Devotional Realism/Naturalism in Painting A. Giotto (1267-1336): his images are substantial, three dimensional and natural in appearance, as opposed to the elongated, iconic look of earlier devotional work (e.g., Cimabue). B. The Limbourg Brothers: their Book of Hours (painted 1413-16), traditionally a prayer book with religious artistic themes, presented everyday, secular activities on its monthly pages. XIII. Realism in Literature A. Boccaccio's Decameron: a collection of 100 tales related over a 10 day period. 1. A response to the Black Death, which had wiped out nearly half of Europe's population. Recall the Danse Macabre (the dance of death): death chose its victims without concern for social class or morality. Therefore even the church, already suspect, could offer no protection. 2. Written in the vernacular; in this case, Italian. 3. A celebration of the human; it focuses not upon virtue and heroic deeds but upon the wit, cleverness and shrewdness of its heroes. They are survivors. Back to Homepage | HUM 145 Syllabus

http://staff.jccc.edu/thoare/145middle.htm

The Toba eruption suspended volcanic gas and sulfuric acid in the stratosphere for years, reflecting warm sunlight away from Earth. Ice cores reveal that the world was cooler by 5.4 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 5 degrees Celsius) for several centuries following the event. "It would have been more challenging times," said Will Harcourt-Smith, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York who was not involved in the study. "My point is that humans were complex enough at this point to have dealt with that." In Africa at this time, humans were exhibiting early symbolism, complex toolmaking behavior, and sophisticated social behavior, he said. (Read related story: "Is Bead Find Proof Modern Thought Began in Africa?" [March 31, 2004].) "These people are not behaviorally like you or I, but they are modern humans and they have many of the vestiges of humanity," Harcourt-Smith said. Humans or Neandertals? Some experts caution that telling the difference between human-made stone tools and those made by the now extinct Neandertals (or Neanderthals) is tricky business. "Previous research on this subject has shown that South African and Neanderthal European [stone tool] assemblages are technologically and typologically indistinguishable," said Stanley Ambrose, an archaeologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Urbana who was not involved in the current study. "[The study authors] have a bagful of artifacts on which they're drawing conclusions that can only be confirmed by fossil evidence, and they don't have any fossils." Chris Clarkson, an archaeologist at Australia's University of Queensland and one of the study's authors, said a large piece of ground ochre was found below the ash with the stone tools. Ochre was used by early humans for art, symbols, curing hides, or helping to attach stone tools to build a wooden shaft. "All of these potential uses hint at more complex behaviors than are usually attributed to earlier extinct hominin species, although we know European Neanderthals also used ochre a lot," Clarkson said. "More excavation will help us resolve whether this assemblage belongs to modern humans or not." Free Email News Updates Sign up for our Inside National Geographic newsletter. Every two weeks we'll send you our top stories and pictures (see sample). SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070705-india-volcano_2.html

Water is the most important natural resources on our planet. Water for consumptive use is divided into surface and ground water sources. According to the USEA, 48% of the United States population now utilizes ground water for their residential supply. That number is expected to continue to grow in the future. As a ground water user, it is important to understanding the issues of ground water quality. Water quality is the composition of water as affected by natural processes and human activities. Water quality is the constituents dissolved or contained within the water. It is often thought that the chemical composition is the only factor involved. However, other conditions, such as biological, physical, and radiological factors should be considered when mentioning water quality. Ground water comes from the small percentage of precipitation that falls, infiltrates the ground, traveling downward, and fills the available pore spaces within rock, sand, gravel, and clay. This forms a large subsurface storage area of water that interacts with various rocks, minerals, microorganisms, and any manmade or natural materials that may seep from the surface. Any substance that comes in contact with the ground water can affect water quality. Numerous tests can be run to analyze ground water for its major and trace constituents. These tests are available at many laboratories for a moderate costs. Upon receiving results of sample analyses the homeowner can then decide what measures to take to eliminate any unwanted components within the ground water. The following sections briefly list a variety of common ground water constituents, their effects on human health, and ways in which to correct the water quality problem. Probably the most common problem identified with ground water quality is that of hardness. Hardness is defined as water that is rich in calcium (Ca+2) and/or magnesium (Mg+2). Hard water generally causes the formation of soap curd in pipes, sinks, and bathtubs. Calcium may precipitate as calcium carbonate within the plumbing and clog pipes. Detergents and soaps do not readily dissolve in hard water, which limits the formation of lather and soap suds. Calcium and Magnesium are primarily found in ground water due to the dissolving of limestone (primarily composed of calcium carbonates). The dissolving of limestone occurs when the limestone reacts with rainwater which has become slightly acidic through a reaction with carbon dioxide. Calcium and Magnesium ions are also released when the water reacts with naturally occurring gypsum. Although it is commonplace and has no ill effects on human health, hard water can be an annoyance. The primary preventive measure is to install a water softener. The results are that the water has a slight soda taste and the formation of soap curd and mineral deposits are eliminated. Total Dissolved Solids Total dissolved solids (TDS), is defined as the concentration of all dissolved minerals in the water. TDS are a direct measurement of the interaction between ground water and subsurface minerals. High TDS, greater than 1000 mg/L, is commonly objectionable or offensive to taste. TDS levels over 2000 mg/L are generally considered undrinkable due to strongly offensive taste. A higher concentration of TDS usually serves as no health threat to humans until the values exceed 10,000 mg/L. At this level the water is considered a brine and defined as undrinkable. A high TDS (levels above 1,000 mg/L) may cause corrosion of pipes and plumbing systems. To remove TDS to acceptable levels, a water softener with a reverse osmosis (R/O) system is usually effective. Iron (Fe+2,Fe+3) in ground water provides the typical well water "rust" taste. Not only is the taste unpleasant, iron can also stain plumbing fixtures, clothes, and dishes. Most ground water has at least trace amounts of iron because its presence in nature is so common. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends that domestic water not exceed 0.3 mg/L. Iron concentrations exceeding this level may cause the characteristic reddish staining. Iron is generally derived from minerals contained within the underlying bedrock. Limestone, shale, and coal which often contain the iron-rich mineral pyrite, are large contributors of iron. Acidic rainwater releases iron ions into solution. Treatment for the reduction of iron can be done by several methods depending upon the concentration and the pH of the water. Initially, a water softener can be used to eliminate iron to tolerable levels. Secondly, potassium permanganate or "green sand" filters are highly successful. Finally, aeration, the addition of oxygen to the water, can aid in the precipitation of iron, thus removing it from the water. Nitrogen typically is present in ground water in three forms: ammonia (NH3), nitrate (NO3-), and nitrite (NO2-2). Of the three, nitrite is the most toxic, yet usually occurs in the lowest concentrations. Most nitrogen compounds found in the ground water are partially derived from the atmosphere. Specific plants can "fix" nitrogen from the atmosphere onto their roots. Nitrogen not used by the plant is released into the soil. In the soil, free reactions with water, minerals, and bacteria takes place. Secondary sources of nitrogen compounds include fertilizers, manure and urine from feedlots and pastures, sewage, and landfills. Nitrates are especially toxic to children less than six months of age. Children who ingest nitrate may not have developed an immune system that can ward off the compound. The condition known as "blue-baby syndrome" may occur. A variety of methods can be employed to remove nitrogen compounds from water. An R/O system with a water softener can remove as much as 95% of nitrate and nitrite; however, ammonia may pass through. A negative ion-exchange method may also be used. This method is similar to the softening process and is also very effective in reducing nitrates and nitrites. Finally, if the origin is known, elimination of the source of nitrogen contamination may be the best corrective measure. Silica (SiO2), is a mineral commonly found in ground water. Not easily dissolvable in water, but held in suspension, silica is often found in concentrations as high as 100 mg/L. Concentrations lower than this are usually considered normal. Silica is derived from the weathering of silicate minerals. Its abundance in ground water depends upon the amount of silicate minerals contained within the bedrock. Excess silica in ground water causes no harmful health effects. In extreme cases, silica can precipitate from solution and cause scaling within pipes and impede the flow of water. Sulfur appears in two species, that of sulfide (S-2) and sulfate (SO4-2). Sulfide is generally in the form of dissolved hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S). Sulfides originate from areas such as marshes, oil wells, mines, and manure pits. Sulfates are principally derived from the dissolving of minerals such as gypsum (CaSO4*2H2O) and anhydrite (CaSO4). Secondary sources of sulfates are from the weathering of pyrite and the dissolving of ammonium sulfate fertilizers. Hydrogen sulfide gives the characteristic rotten egg smell that many people associate with sulfur. Sulfides can cause corrosion to plumbing, darken water, and create a foul odor and taste. Sulfates, at high levels, taint the taste of water and may create a laxative effect. Treatment for the removal of sulfur in water can be done through many methods. Aeration is very effective in removing H2S gas. Chlorination may be used to eliminate bacteria and the gas. Removal of sulfates may be conducted by an R/O system or a negative ion-exchanger. A pesticide is a general term used to identify any substance applied to destroy or inhibit the growth of unwanted animals or plants. Pesticides include insecticides, herbicides, repellents, and fumigants. Most pesticides are toxic, at some level, to humans. In Ohio, the two most widely used pesticides are atrazine and alachlor. Atrazine is the most common pesticide found in ground water. Although concentrations are usually in the part per billion range or less, continued consumption of these toxic compounds over a lifetime may be carcinogenic (cancer-causing). Studies throughout Ohio have shown that in most sites little or no amounts of pesticides are present in ground water. Microorganisms, more specifically bacteria, can be found virtually in any water sample. Most microorganisms contained within normal well water supplies do not pose a threat to human health. Bacteria are generally introduced into a well by foreign means. Foreign methods can range from contaminated drilling tools to an improperly sealed well casing. Bacteria thrive in environments which contain iron, nitrogen, or sulfur compounds. Sources of these compounds may be derived from sewage, animal manure, and leaky septic systems. Well water serves as excellent living environments for bacteria. For example, iron-rich water encourages growth of iron bacteria. Proliferation of the bacteria can be so rapid that clogging of pipes may occur due to the formation of bacterial mounds. Dark brown slimy masses within toilet holding tanks are diagnostic of the presence of iron bacteria in water. No health hazards exist for the presence of iron in water, however, a high concentration of iron bacteria may cause health risks. Wells high in nitrate (>10 mg/L) and sulfate levels should be bacteriologically tested. Bacteria can convert nitrate in water to the more dangerous nitrite. Water rich in sulfur could contain bacteria which may convert sulfate ions to potentially toxic sulfide ions. If it is determined that excessive amounts of bacteria are present in well water, a few corrections exist. Probably the least expensive method is that of chlorination. Chlorination is highly effective in destroying pathogenic (disease causing) organisms. Other more expensive methods include ultraviolet light radiation and physical filtration. Turbidity refers to any solid or organic material that does not settle out of water. This means that the material is not dissolved but is in suspension. Such material includes dust particles and colloidal organic matter. Suspended solids are rarely harmful, yet elimination of turbidity is important. Initially, it increases the aesthetic quality of the water. Clear water is more appealing to drink. Secondly, toxic contaminants can cling to suspended particles, which in turn may be ingested by humans and cause health problems. It is important to look for causes of the turbidity when trying to treat the water. Turbidity in a well is often caused by improperly installed well casing, damaged well casing or a missing well cap. One treatment method is a filtration system. Another common problem is that of low pH. Low pH water is acidic. The primary causes of low pH are the addition of acidic rain water or local mining activities. Other ions found in ground water such as nitrates and sulfates may result in lower pH. The negative effects of acidic water are many. Highly acidic water may result in pipe corrosion, causing the possible release of iron, lead, or copper into the tap water. A low pH may discolor the water and give it a bitter taste. The best method in which to reduce the acidity of ground water is to increase the pH by filtering the water through a neutralizer such as calcite chips. Running the water through the calcite raises the pH to a neutral level, thus reducing release of metals through pipe corrosion. Radon and radium have recently received much publicity regarding possible health risks to humans. Radium is a radioactive solid produced from the decay of uranium. Radon is a radioactive gas produced from the decay of radium. Naturally occurring radioactive material typically appears in trace amounts throughout Ohio. Radioactive material is found within the shale, as well as glacially deposited granitic and metamorphic rocks. Ohio has substantial reserves of shale that produces natural radioactivity. Ground water rarely contains radioactive matter. If radon or radium are discovered, treatment is simple. Dissolved radon gas can be released through aeration of the water. Radium is easily removed through a water softener or R/O system. Because our reliance on ground water is continuously increasing, the knowledge of our water quality is important. This knowledge is important because it affects our lives daily. Understanding the constituents contained within ground water and more important, how they affect us, is invaluable information. This publication was financed in part through a grant from Ohio Environmental Protection Agency under provisions of Section 319 of the Clean Water Act as amended in 1987.

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/water/pubs/fs_div/fctsht47/tabid/4134/Default.aspx

When predators are nearby, sand dollar larvae split--literally. The young marine invertebrates divide in half to become too small for hungry fish to detect. Researchers say this is the first time the strategy, known as cloning, has been documented as a form of defense. Scientists have long known that adult starfish are capable of cloning: They reproduce by breaking off a piece of themselves, avoiding the vulnerable larval stage altogether. But it was only 5 years ago that researchers discovered that the larvae of other members of the spiny-skinned, radially shaped echinoderm phylum, such as sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and sand dollars, could perform the same trick. If larvae of these species encounter temperatures that are conducive to growth, or if food is abundant, they will clone themselves, creating a horde of new identical twins that can take advantage of the favorable conditions. Now, marine ecologists Dawn Vaughn and Richard Strathmann of the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories have found that sand dollar larvae also employ this strategy when they detect fish nearby. Vaughn and Strathmann exposed sand dollar larvae to fish mucus in the laboratory. When they checked back 24 hours later, the larvae had cloned themselves. This behavior makes sense, the researchers speculate, because the immature sand dollars are just big enough for predatory fish to see. When the larvae clone themselves, they halve their size, effectively becoming invisible to their predators. Although cloning can take hours and has yet to be observed in the wild, it could be an effective strategy because the larvae begin to split as soon as they detect fish mucus in the water. That could give them enough lead time before the fish attack, the team reports in the 14 March issue of Science. The cloning may come with a cost, however. Smaller size makes larvae vulnerable to other enemies on the seabed, such as predatory crustaceans whose gape prevents them from handling larger prey, says marine biologist Jonathan Allen of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. "The rules of the game change." However, he notes that sand dollars tend to stick together in dense beds where smaller sand dollars may be protected by larger ones. So going small may be the safest strategy for juvenile sand dollars after all, Allen says.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2008/03/13-01.html

Frames of Reference and Newton’s Laws Michael Fowler University of Virginia 3/14/08 The cornerstone of the theory of special relativity is the Principle of Relativity: The Laws of Physics are the same in all inertial frames of reference. We shall see that many surprising consequences follow from this innocuous looking statement. Let us first, however, briefly review Newton’s mechanics in terms of frames of reference. A “frame of reference” is just a set of coordinates: something you use to measure the things that matter in Newtonian problems, that is to say, positions and velocities, so we also need a clock. A point in space is specified by its three coordinates (x, y, z) and an “event” like, say, a little explosion, by a place and time: (x, y, z, t). An inertial frame is defined as one in which Newton’s law of inertia holds—that is, any body which isn’t being acted on by an outside force stays at rest if it is initially at rest, or continues to move at a constant velocity if that’s what it was doing to begin with. An example of a non-inertial frame is a rotating frame, such as a carousel. The “laws of physics” we shall consider first are those of Newtonian mechanics, as expressed by Newton’s Laws of Motion, with gravitational forces and also contact forces from objects pushing against each other. For example, knowing the universal gravitational constant from experiment (and the masses involved), it is possible from Newton’s Second Law, force = mass × acceleration, to predict future planetary motions with great accuracy. Suppose we know from experiment that these laws of mechanics are true in one frame of reference. How do they look in another frame, moving with respect to the first frame? To find out, we have to figure out how to get from position, velocity and acceleration in one frame to the corresponding quantities in the second frame. Obviously, the two frames must have a constant relative velocity, otherwise the law of inertia won’t hold in both of them. Let’s choose the coordinates so that this velocity is along the x-axis of both of them. Notice we also throw in a clock with each frame. Suppose S′ is proceeding relative to S at speed v along the x-axis. For convenience, let us label the moment when O′ passes O as the zero point of timekeeping. Now what are the coordinates of the event (x, y, z, t) in S′? It’s easy to see t′ = t—we synchronized the clocks when O′ passed O. Also, evidently, y′ = y and z′ = z, from the figure. We can also see that x = x′ +vt. Thus (x, y, z, t) in S corresponds to (x′, y′, z′, t′ ) in S′, where That’s how positions transform; these are known as the Galilean transformations. What about velocities ? The velocity in S′ in the x′ direction This is obvious anyway: it’s just the addition of velocities formula How does acceleration transform? since v is constant. That is to say, the acceleration is the same in both frames. This again is obvious—the acceleration is the rate of change of velocity, and the velocities of the same particle measured in the two frames differ by a constant factor-the relative velocity of the two frames. If we now look at the motion under gravitational forces, for example, we get the same law on going to another inertial frame because every term in the above equation stays the same. Note that is the rate of change of momentum—this is the same in both frames. So, in a collision, say, if total momentum is conserved in one frame (the sum of individual rates of change of momentum is zero) the same is true in all inertial frames.

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/lecture1.htm

One of the best ways to get your students interested in drama is to have them act out scenes for the class. You can choose the scenes or allow the students to pick their own. Remind them to pay close attention to both their vocal performances and their body language. To reinforce the play's themes, ask them to follow up their dramatic performances with analyses (including close readings) of the scenes that they acted out. Mamet has written many screenplays and many of his plays have been made into films. Choose a scene or two from one of these plays, and ask your students to analyze the characters' language. You might ask them to come up with a list of characteristics of Mamet's work that they can compare to Glengarry Glen Ross after they read the play. Also, after the students read Glengarry Glen Ross, you could show a scene from the movie and ask them to compare the reading experience to the viewing experience. What does the film bring to or take from the play? Many students have a hard time engaging with literature if they don't "like" any of the characters, and Mamet is famous for creating generally unsympathetic characters. Encourage students to find ideas in the text to which they can relate. Or, ask them if Mamet's representations seem "realistic." Do the students know people like this? Or, do the students know people who talk like this? This tool builds multimedia presentations for classrooms or assignments. An online collection of 3000 artifacts for classroom use.

http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit16/author_activ-7a.html

||This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2012)| The Kościuszko Uprising was an uprising against Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in the Commonwealth of Poland and the Prussian partition in 1794. It was a failed attempt to liberate Poland and Lithuania from Russian influence after the Second Partition of Poland (1793) and the creation of the Targowica Confederation. The First Partition of Poland and the War in Defence of the Constitution seriously weakened the reformist movement in the territory of the Commonwealth of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, supporting the May Constitution. However, after the second partition of Poland, the ruling partisans of Imperial Russia united in the Confederation of Targowica were also weakened. The people supporting Russia as the main guarantor of the golden freedoms after the second partition were seen as traitors to their country rather than heroes and opposition to their rule gained much support, both with the nobility and the burghers. To suppress the opposition, the governments of Prussia and Russia agreed to demobilise 50% of the Polish Army and draft the remaining Polish soldiers into their own armies. On 12 March 1794, General Antoni Madaliński, the commander of 1st Greater Polish National Cavalry Brigade (1,500 men) decided to disobey the order to demobilise, advancing his troops from Ostrołęka to Kraków. This sparked an outbreak of riots against Russian forces throughout the country. The Russian garrison of Kraków was ordered to leave the city and defeat the Polish forces. This left the city completely undefended. On 24 March 1794, Tadeusz Kościuszko, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, announced the general uprising and assumed the powers of the Commander in Chief of all of the Polish forces. He also vowed - not to use these powers to oppress any person, but to defend the integrity of the borders of Poland, regain the independence of the nation, and to strengthen universal liberties. In order to strengthen the Polish forces, Kościuszko issued an act of mobilisation, requiring that every 5 houses in Lesser Poland delegate at least one able male soldier equipped with carbine, pike, or an axe. Kościuszko's staff estimated that by mobilising all able males between 18 and 40 years of age the army of the uprising would soon reach 10,000. The difficulties with providing enough armament for the mobilised troops made Kościuszko form large units composed of people armed with scythes. To destroy the still weak opposition, Russian Empress Catherine the Great ordered the corps of Major General Fiodor Denisov to attack Kraków. On 4 April both armies met near the village of Racławice. In what became known as the Battle of Racławice Kościuszko's forces defeated the numerically and technically superior opponent. After the bloody battle the Russian forces withdrew from the battlefield. Kościuszko's forces were too weak to start a successful pursuit and wipe the Russian forces out of Lesser Poland. Although the strategic importance of the victory was close to none, the news of the victory spread fast and soon other parts of Poland joined the ranks of the revolutionaries. By early April the Polish forces concentrated in the lands of Lublin and Volhynia, ready to be sent to Russia, joined the ranks of Kościuszko's forces. On 17 April in Warsaw, the Russian attempt to arrest those suspected of supporting the insurrection and to disarm the weak Polish garrison of Warsaw under Gen. Stanisław Mokronowski by seizing the arsenal at Miodowa Street resulted in an uprising against the Russian garrison of Warsaw, led by Jan Kiliński, in the face of indecisiveness of the King of Poland, Stanisław II Augustus. The insurgents were aided by the incompetence of Russian ambassador and commander, Iosif Igelström, and the fact that the chosen day was the Thursday of Holy Week when many soldiers of the Russian garrison went to the churches for the Eucharist not carrying their arms. Finally, from the onset of the insurrection, the Polish forces were aided by the civilian population and had surprise on their side as they attacked many separate groups of soldiers at the same time and the resistance to Russian forces quickly spread over the city. After two days of heavy fighting the Russians, who suffered between 2,000 to 4,000 casualties out of an initial 6,000 strong garrison, were forced to leave the city. A similar uprising was started by Jakub Jasiński in Vilnius (Wilno) on 22 April and soon other cities and towns followed. The massacre of unarmed Russian soldiers attending the Easter service was regarded as a "crime against humanity" by Russians and was an argument for a vengeance later, during siege of Warsaw. On 7 May 1794, Kościuszko issued an act that became known as the "Proclamation of Połaniec", in which he partially abolished serfdom in Poland, granted civil liberty to all peasants and provided them with state help against the abuses by the nobility. Although the new law never fully came into being and was boycotted by much of the nobility, it also attracted many peasants to the ranks of the revolutionists. It was the first time in Polish history when the peasants were officially regarded as part of the nation, the word being previously equal to nobility. Despite the promise of reforms and quick recruitment of new forces, the strategic situation of the Polish forces was still critical. On 10 May the forces of Prussia crossed the Polish borders and joined the Russian armies operating in northern Poland. On 6 June Kościuszko was defeated in the Battle of Szczekociny by a joint Russo-Prussian force and on 8 June General Józef Zajączek was defeated in the Battle of Chełm. Polish forces withdrew towards Warsaw and started to fortify the city. On 15 June the Prussian army captured Kraków unopposed, but the Russian forces were defeated in a series of skirmishes near Warsaw and the defenders managed to finish the fortification efforts. Although it was besieged by Russo-Prussian forces on 22 July, the siege was unsuccessful. On 20 August, an uprising in Greater Poland started and the Prussians were forced to withdraw their forces from Warsaw. The siege was lifted soon afterwards, on 5 September. Russian forces commanded by Ivan Fersen were withdrawn towards the Pilica River. Although the opposition in Lithuania was crushed by Russian forces (Vilnius was besieged and capitulated on 12 August), the uprising in Greater Poland achieved some success. A Polish corps under Jan Henryk Dąbrowski captured Bydgoszcz (2 October) and entered Pomerania almost unopposed. Thanks to the mobility of his forces, General Dąbrowski evaded being encircled by a much less mobile Prussian army and disrupted the Prussian lines, forcing the Prussians to withdraw most of their forces from central Poland. Meanwhile, the Russians equipped a new corps commanded by General Aleksandr Suvorov and ordered it to join up with the corps under Ivan Fersen near Warsaw. After the battles of Krupczyce (17 September) and Terespol (19 September), the new army started its march towards the Polish capital. To prevent both Russian armies from joining up, Kościuszko mobilised his forces in Warsaw and on 10 October started the Battle of Maciejowice. Despite Kościuszko's plans, both Russian units entered the combat simultaneously and won the battle. Kościuszko himself was wounded in the battle and was captured by the Russians, who sent him to Saint Petersburg. The new commander of the uprising, Tomasz Wawrzecki, was not able to control the spreading internal struggles for power and ultimately became only the commander of weakened military forces, while the political power was held by General Józef Zajączek, who in turn had to struggle with both the leftist liberal Polish Jacobins and the rightist and monarchical nobility. On 4 November the joint Russian forces started an all-out assault on Praga, the right-bank suburb of Warsaw. After 4 hours of long hand-to-hand struggle, the 24,000 men strong Russian forces broke through the Polish defences and started to loot and burn the borough. The whole district was completely destroyed and approximately 20,000 of its inhabitants were murdered. The event became known as the massacre of Praga. Dispirited Wawrzecki decided to withdraw his remaining forces southwards and on 5 November Warsaw was captured. On 16 November, near Radoszyce, Wawrzecki surrendered. This marked the end of the uprising. The power of Poland was broken and the following year the third partition of Poland happened, after which Austria, Russia and Prussia annexed the remainder of the country. After the failure of the Kościuszko Uprising, the country ceased to exist for 123 years and all of its institutions were gradually banned by the partitioning powers. However, the uprising also marked the start of modern political thought in Poland and Central Europe. Kościuszko's Proclamation of Połaniec and the radical leftist Jacobins started the Polish leftist movement. Many prominent Polish politicians who were active during the uprising became the backbone of Polish politics, both home and abroad, in the 19th century. Also, Prussia had much of its forces tied up in Poland and could not field enough forces to suppress the French Revolution, which added to its success and briefly restored a Polish state. In the lands of partitioned Poland, the failure of the uprising meant economic catastrophe, as centuries-old economic markets became divided and separated from each other, resulting in the collapse of trade. Several banks fell and some of the few manufacturing centres established in the Commonwealth were closed. Reforms made by the reformers and Kosciuszko, aimed at easing serfdom, were revoked. All the partitioning powers heavily taxed their newly-acquired lands, filling their treasuries at the expense of the local population. The schooling system was also degraded as the schools in those territories were given low priority. The Commission of National Education, the world's first Ministry of Education, was abolished, because the absolutist governments of the partitioning powers saw no gain in investing in education in the territories inhabited by restless Polish minorities. The creation of educational institutions in the partitions became very difficult. For example, an attempt to create a university in Warsaw was opposed by the Prussian authorities. Further, in the German and Russian partitions, all remaining centers of learning were subject to Germanisation and Russification; only in territories acquired by Austria was there relatively little governmental intervention in the curriculum. According to S. I. Nikołajew, from the cultural point of view the partitions may have given a step forward towards the development of national Polish literature and arts, since the inhabitants of partitioned lands could acquire the cultural developments of German and Russian Enlightenment. The conditions for the former Polish elite were particularly harsh in Russian partition. Thousands of Polish szlachta families who supported Kościuszo's uprising were stripped of their possessions and estates, which were in turn awarded to Russian generals and favourites of the Petersburg court. It is estimated that 650,000 former Polish serfs were transferred to Russian officials in this manner. Some among the nobility, especially in Lithuanian and Ruthenian regions of the former Commonwealth, were expelled to southern Russia, where they were subject to Russification. Other nobles were denied their nobility status by Russian authorities, which meant loss of legal privileges and social status, significantly limiting any possibility of a career in administration or the military - the traditional career paths of Polish nobles. It also meant that they could not own any land, another blow to their former noble status. But for Orthodox Christian peasants of Western Ukraine and Belarus, the partition may have brought the decline of religious oppression by their formal lords, followers of Roman Catholicism. However, Orthodox Christians were only a small minority in Eastern Belarus at that time; the prevailing majority of the country's population was Eastern rite Catholics. Peasants were flogged just for mentioning the name of Kościuszko and his idea of abolishing serfdom. Platon Zubov, who was awarded estates in Lithuania, was especially infamous, as he personally tortured to death many peasants who complained about worsening conditions. Besides this, the Russian authorities conducted heavy recruiting for the Russian army among the population, which meant a practically lifelong service. Since the conditions of serfdom in former Poland due to the exploitation by nobility and arendators were already severe, discussion exists on how partitions influenced the life of common people. See also - Bartłomiej Szyndler. Powstanie kościuszkowskie (in Polish) (1994 ed.). Wydawn. Ancher. p. 455. ISBN 83-85576-10-X. - Henry Smith Williams, The Historians' History of the World, The Outlook Company, 1904, Google Print, p.418 - Grzegorz Reszka (2005). "Insurekcja kościuszkowska". polskiedzieje.pl. Retrieved 29 March 2006. - Anna Radziwił, Wojciech Roszkowski, Historia 1789-1871 Warsaw 2000 - Nikołajew, S. I. Od Kochanowskiego do Mickiewicza. Szkice z historii polsko-rosyjskich związków literackich XVII–XIX wieku / Tłum. J. Głażewski. Warszawa: Neriton, 2007. 319 s. (Nauka o Literaturze Polskiej za Granicą, t. X) - Kalik, Judith. The Orthodox Church and the Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Jewish history, Volume 17, Number 2. May 2003. P. 229-237 - Kula, Witold. An Economic Theory of the Feudal System: Towards a Model of the Polish Economy, 1500–1800. Translated by Lawrence Garner. New ed. London, 1976. |Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kościuszko Uprising| |Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tadeusz Kościuszko|

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko%C5%9Bciuszko_Uprising

Reviewed by Rita Hoots Those minuscule, invisible, whirling electrons possess amazing powers that enable them to bind elements together, however, their abstract imperceptibility sometimes makes their functions difficult for students to comprehend. In this straightforward presentation on chemical bonding, the narrative and illustrations clarify and contrast the characteristics of ionic, covalent, and metallic bonding. Using the periodic table, the elements are distinguished according to their electron patterns. Repeatedly citing Gilbert Lewis’ Octet rule from 1918, the different patterns of bonding in ionic compounds, metals, and covalent substances are explained and visually displayed. The topic of electronegativity is explored in the section of ionic bonds, delocalized valence electrons are dealt with in metallic bonding, and polarity is explained under covalent bonding. The physical characteristics of the three compound groups are adequately covered. Graphics continue to elucidate the energy levels or electron shells along with orbitals in the fourth or extra section. This is a helpful guide for the beginning student at the secondary level or in a beginner’s chemistry class who requires reinforcement and or clarification of chemical bonding, and interpretation of the placement of elements on the periodic table. In addition, the video is packaged with program support notes for both the student and teacher. Review posted on 1/16/2013

http://www.nsta.org/recommends/ViewProduct.aspx?ProductID=21235

Mauve was one of the first dyes derived from a synthetic process rather than from natural materials and its availability prompted a fad for purple in Europe in the 1850s. One of the most significant contributions of modern chemistry to a colorful world was the creation of synthetic dyes and colorants. The textile industry no longer had to rely on the availability of natural materials to dye fabric. The development of the color mauve is an excellent illustration. In the mid-1850s, as the Industrial Revolution surged and coal was king, a number of chemists explored the composition and use of coal tar, which was the by-product of converting coal to coke as a reducing agent for the production of iron from iron oxide ore. One of the extracts of coal tar was aniline, which showed promise as the basis for coloring agents since it was a known extract of indigo. William Henry Perkin, who at age 18 was already enrolled in the Royal College of Chemistry, was assigned to work with aniline, but rather than focusing on colorants, his goal was to find a synthetic route for the preparation of quinine, which was much in demand in Europe for the treatment of malaria. Working in the laboratory he set up in his family’s garden shed, Perkin treated aniline from coal tar with potassium dichromate, a strong oxidizing agent. Most experienced chemists would have viewed the resulting black solid as a failed reaction, but Perkin’s youthful optimism prompted him to investigate the product. He found that when the black product was dissolved in an organic solvent, it produced a purple solution. This discovery itself was not entirely new; rather, it was Perkin’s determination to commercialize this reaction that proved important and new. One of the biggest challenges Perkin faced was that while coal tar was abundant, extracting the aniline was expensive. Perkin had to find an economical method of synthesizing the colorant to keep the cost of the purple dye to a reasonable price. He also had to find the right mordant to allow the dye to color cotton effectively. Ultimately, Perkin was so successful at mastering these challenges that by 1859, mauve-colored textiles were all the rage in Europe. Aniline would go on to be the basis of a new class of synthetic dyes that provided brilliant shades of red and blue as well as Perkin’s popular purple, mauve. Even Queen Victoria made an appearance in a mauve-colored silk gown at the Royal Exhibition of 1862. More information about mauve can be found at http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/motm/perkin.html

http://iyc2011.acs.org/2011/12/01/365-contest-105/

Historians and archeologists know little about the first humans who saw and lived near the falls. By the time of European contact, the Dakota controlled the falls. St. Anthony Falls was a sacred spot for the Dakota. In 1680, Antonine Augalle and his traveling companion, Father Louis Hennepin, became the first Europeans to visit the falls, and Hennepin’s sensational account of their travels made St. Anthony Falls a landmark in the wilderness. Countless explorers travelled to the falls recorded their impressions of it. In 1805, the federal government signed a treaty with the Dakota and purchased a tract of land that included the falls to construct Fort Snelling. |1. First Humans at the Falls| |2. Dakota and Ojibwe| |3. First Europeans| Historians and archeologists know little about the first humans who saw and lived near the falls. After the last ice age, 12,000 years ago, humans moved northward, likely following the spread of plants and animals. They were probably nomadic, not staying in one place for more than a period of time and hunted now extinct mammals such as mammoths and camels. As the mammoth became extinct, early humans possibly turned to hunting bison, which lived throughout Minnesota in 8,000 B.C. Over time, a few small villages grew up along the corridor, specializing in fishing. By the time of European contact, the Dakota controlled the falls from a base camp near Lake Mille Lacs. By the time of European contact, the Ojibwe and the Dakota lived in Minnesota. As with the Dakota’s ancestors, Historians have relatively little information about how these two groups viewed and interacted with the falls. Both groups had many names for the falls. The Dakota referred to the falls as Minirara (curling water), Owahmenah (falling water), or O-Wa-Mni (whirlpool). In contrast, the Ojibwe took a more geological perspective, referring to the falls as Kababikah (severed rock) and Kichi-Kababikah (great severed rock). Although the Ojibwe travelled through the area and traded at Fort Snelling, the Dakota controlled the falls. Father Hennepin, the first European to see the falls and write about it, claimed the falls was a spiritual and historic place for the Dakota. Although many parts of Hennepin’s account are suspect (see below), other accounts also suggest the falls held special spiritual significance. One of those places was Spirit Island, a small tree covered, rocky island, which once stood downstream of the falls, whose name dates to a time long before Europeans settled the area. According to a seldom-followed Dakota custom, a man could marry more than one wife as long as he could support both families. Although it was a custom, this practice was not always acceptable to the first wife. When her husband took a second wife, one offended Dakota woman decided to use the falls to void his decision. When her tribe landed to portage around the falls, she propped her baby up in the canoe and continued to paddle towards the falls. Ignoring the frantic calls of her husband and tribe, she sang to her child and paddled right over the falls, vanishing into the mists below. The Dakota never recovered their bodies and believed the spirits of the mother and child came to the island downstream of the falls. The island became known as Spirit Island and it was said that at times the voice of the mother singing to her child can still be heard over the roar of the rushing water. The Army Corps of Engineers eventually removed Spirit Island when they installed the lock next to the falls. Spirit Island was also a limestone quarry. In the picture above (from the Minnesota State Historical Society), workers quarry away the rock. ca. 1895 According to oral traditions, the Dakota used Nicollet Island, just north of the falls, as a birthing place. The roar of the falls would drown out birthing cries and the large island also helped them defend themselves from Ojibwe who were their enemies at the time. Finally, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who traced the source of the Mississippi to Lake Itasca, also observed the Dakota collecting brownish red clay from underneath the falls, which they used to paint their bodies and baskets. Tepees set up near Bridge Square, where the streets of Nicollet, Hennepin, and Washington nearly meet today. In the background sits the John H. Stevens House, the first house built in what would become the city of Minneapolis. Image from the Minnesota Historical Society. (Photographer: Tallmadge Elwell, ca. 1852) In July of 1680, a Catholic missionary named Father Louis Hennepin and his traveling companion, Antonine Augalle, became the first Europeans to visit the falls. In February of that same year, the two had set out under the command of Michael Accault to explore the Mississippi for La Salle. In April, a Dakota war party captured the three and took them back to a village at Mille Lacs. In July, Accault accompanied a buffalo hunting party west while Hennepin and Augalle went with another Dakota party whose route took them past the falls. While there, Father Hennepin renamed the falls after his order's patron saint, Saint Anthony of Padua. Accault and Augalle may have traveled the same wilderness and faced the same perils as Hennepin, but Hennepin received most of the credit when he returned to Europe. He wrote a sensational account of his travels that went through numerous editions and translations. Although he based his account loosely on the real expedition, Hennepin did not mind embellishing events. For instance, he claimed the falls was 50 to 60 feet high, a slight exaggeration considering the actual height was about 16 to 20 feet. Father Hennepin names the falls, while Antonine Augalle sits with the Dakota in Douglas Volk's painting, Father Hennepin Discovers the Falls. Image from Minnesota State Historical Society. While Hennepin may have exaggerated the facts, his account made St. Anthony Falls a landmark in the wilderness. Countless explorers who saw the falls recorded their impressions of it. Jean Piccoult wrote a description of the falls when he visited in 1700, agreeing with Hennepin’s height approximation. Jonathon Carver drew the first picture of the falls in 1766 and halved the height of the falls to thirty feet. He declared the falls as providing a “pretty and picturesque view” which he believed could not “be found throughout the universe.” In 1805, Pike cut the height to sixteen and a half feet. Regardless of how they viewed the “discovery” of their falls by the Europeans, the Dakota might have been upset had they known the political implications of these visits. In 1805, the explorer Zebulon Pike signed a treaty with the Dakota, purchasing a tract of land that included the falls to construct a fort. The fort, known as Fort Snelling, was not built until the 1820s, and the Dakota did not receive payment for their purchase until the late 1830s. After constructing the fort, St. Anthony Falls became a tourist attraction. From 1820 to 1870, writers and artists toured the falls, often writing books about their experiences. Amongst them were Italian noblemen and political figure Giacomo Beltrami, artist George Catlin, writer Elizabeth Ellet, Swedish author Fredrika Bremer, historian and geographer Johann Georg Kohl, and theatre director Robert Watt of Denmark. All the authors commented on the beauty of the falls and lamented the encroachment by civilization on the primeval frontier. After 1880 and the taming of the falls by the Army Corps of Engineers (see “The Eastman Tunnel Collapse”), it would be nearly a century before people began to value the falls again for its beauty. Click the footnote number to return to the paragraph or click here to return to the top of the page. 1. Drew M. Forsberg “Early Native American Life in the MNRRA Corridor” in John O. Anfinson, River of History: A Historic Resources Study of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (St. Paul: Army Corps of Engineers, 2003), p. 39-40, 51 2. Anfinson, River, p. 118 3. Anfinson, River, p. 118 4. Lucile M. Kane, The Falls of St. Anthony: The Waterfall that Built Minneapolis (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987), p. 2-3, 177 5. Christopher and Rushika F. Hage Nicollet Island (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2010), p. 14 6. Anfinson, River, p. 118 7. Anfinson, River, p. 55 8. Anfinson, River, p. 119-120 9. Anfinson, River, p. 119, Carver’s account in Shannon M. Pennefeather Mill City: A Visual History of the Minneapolis Mill District (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2003), p. 6 10. Kane, The Falls, p. 5-6 11. See Giacomo Beltrami, George Catlin, Elizabeth Ellet, Fredrika Bremer, Johann Georg Kohl, and Robert Watt Carver Pennefeather Mill City, p. 14-21

http://www.geo.umn.edu/courses/1001/1001_kirkby/SAFL/WEBSITEPAGES/2.html

Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, interact with and contribute to the Internet. It encompasses all disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive and neurological conditions. Millions of people have disabilities that affect their use of the Internet. Many websites have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for people with disabilities to use them. Web accessibility can also benefit people without disabilities. For example, a key principle of Web accessibility is designing websites that are flexible enough to meet different user needs, preferences,and situations. This flexibility also benefits people without disabilities in certain situations, such as people using a slow Internet connection, people with "temporary disabilities" and people with changing abilities due to aging. The Internet is an increasingly important resource in many aspects of our life: in education, employment, consultation, commerce, health support, recreation, and more. It is essential that it is fully accessible in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to everyone. The Web offers the possibility of unprecedented access to information and interaction. That is, the accessibility barriers to print, audio, and visual media for many people with disabilities can be much more easily overcome through Web-based technologies. An accessible Internet can also help people with disabilities more actively participate in society. Another important consideration for organisations is that Web Accessibility is required by law and should be essential to comply with equal opportunity policies. All links open in a separate browser window One of the problems with making websites accessible is the push for accessibility came much later than online technology: browsers, programs and the like. Having the right design tools therefore does not ensure that you automatically produce accessible and compliant webpages. It has to be the responsibility of Web developers to produce and evaluate properly accessible websites, so they are fully usable by people with disabilities. We are specialists in designing fully accessible static and database-driven websites for the not-for-profit sector. Making a website accessible can be either simple or complex, depending on many factors such as the type of content, size and complexity of the site, and the tools and environment chosen. We specialise in creating fully accessible websites using fully compliant HTML and CSS. Many accessibility features are best implemented if they are planned from the beginning of website development or redesign. Fixing inaccessible websites can require considerable time and effort, especially sites that were not originally "coded" properly with standard HTML and CSS, or contain certain types of content such as multimedia. When developing or redesigning a site, evaluating and testing accessibility throughout the development process is necessary to identify potential accessibility problems early when it is easier to address them. Although there are tools that can help with evaluation, no tool alone can determine if a site meets all accessibility guidelines. Knowledgeable human evaluation is always required to determine if a site is fully accessible. DOT-COMmunICaTions carries out a comprehensive evaluation on all its sites to ensure that they meet all accessibility guidelines. If you would like to know more about having a fully accessible and browser-compliant website, then why not give us a call?

http://www.dot-communications.co.uk/accessibility_standards

Lamprey, often called eels because of their snake-like appearance, are native to the Pacific Northwest, where they have important cultural and economic significance. Three species have been identified in the Columbia River: Pacific, river and western brook lamprey. Pacific and river lamprey are anadromous and parasitic; western brook lamprey spend their lives in freshwater and are not parasitic. Lamprey have a special significance to Indian tribes, who use the fish in ceremonies and celebrations. Historically, tribes maintained large lamprey fisheries at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers and also a short distance downstream from that place at the mouth of the Walla Walla River. Lamprey also were harvested in great quantities at the base of Willamette Falls on the Willamette River. The tribes dried or roasted lamprey; the oil of the fish was used as a medicine and also as a hair grease. Lamprey also played an important role in the ecology of the Columbia River and its tributaries, contributing nutrients to the water as the fish died and decayed and serving as prey for other fish. Fish biologists discovered around the turn of the 20th century that ground eel was an ideal food for young salmon in hatcheries. Today, lamprey are significant for their bitter-tasting but protein-rich flesh and oil, which is processed into animal feed, and also used as a source of medicinal anticoagulants. While precise data is difficult to acquire, incidental evidence suggests the current populations are declining, apparently significantly, from historical numbers. The primary factors for the decline appear to be passage problems at dams for both juvenile and adult fish, destruction of spawning and rearing habitat, a coincident decline of prey fish for lampreys and intentional poisonings of streams to eliminate unwanted fish. Pacific Lamprey. Credit: Streamnet.

http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/Lamprey

- Read the instructions, texts and questions very carefully. - Work through the parts of the paper in the order that suits you best. - Read the sources, titles and subtitles of the texts where given; they are there to help you. - Read each text carefully before you answer the questions to get an overall impression and understanding of it. - Check the words around the gap carefully in Part 1. Remember, the missing word(s) may form part of an idiom, fixed phrase or collocation. - Read the complete sentence which contains the gap in Part 2. Remember that the missing word(s) are more likely to have a grammatical focus than a lexical one. - Check that the completed sentence makes sense in the passage as a whole. Remember, the missing word(s) must fit the context of the passage. (Parts 1 and 2) - Think about all the changes a word may require in Part 3: suffix, prefix, internal, more than one, singular, plural or negative, change of word class. - Read the questions carefully and check each option against the text before rejecting it. (Parts 1, 5, 6 and 7) - Keep an overall idea of the development of the text in Part 6. You will need to check that the extracts chosen to fit the gaps in the base text fit the progression of the argument or narrative as a whole. - Decide on one answer and avoid writing alternative answers to a question. - Check your spelling in Parts 2, 3 and 4 as correct spelling is essential. - Transfer your answers accurately from the question paper to the answer sheet before the end of the test. You will not have time after the test to do this. - Don't try to answer any questions without referring carefully to the text. - Don't spend too much time on any one part of the paper. - Don't forget to record your answers on the separate answer sheet. - Don’t leave any question unanswered – you don't lose marks for incorrect answers. - Don't assume that if the same word appears in the text as well as in an option, this means you have located the answer. (Parts 1, 5 and 7) - Don't alter the word given. (Part 4) - Don't write more than eight words, including the given word. (Part 4) - Don't write out the full sentence. (Part 4) - Don’t leave out any information from the prompt sentence. (Part 4) FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) What kind of tasks are there in the Reading and Use of English paper? The paper includes the following task types: multiple-choice cloze, open cloze, word-formation, key word transformation, multiple choice, gapped paragraph, and matching. What kind of texts appear in the Reading and Use of English paper? The texts come from a range of different sources and are written for different purposes. They are mainly contemporary and include non-specialist material from fiction and non-fiction books and journalism (a wide range of newspapers, magazines and journals). What aspects of reading are being tested in the Reading and Use of English paper? The paper tests comprehension at word, phrase, sentence, paragraph and whole text level. Each part tests different aspects of reading, including the use of vocabulary in context, such as idioms and collocations, understanding detail, opinion and attitude, text organisation and structure, global meaning and main idea, and cohesion and coherence. How can I best prepare myself for the Reading and Use of English paper? It is essential for you to engage with a substantial and varied range of written English and to read extensively (preferably for pleasure, not simply for the purposes of studying) as well as intensively. This enables you to become familiar with a wide range of language and text types, and is also helpful when you are working on the longer texts in Parts 5 and 6. You should also be familiar with the technique of indicating your answers on the separate answer sheet so that you can do this quickly and accurately. How many marks is the Reading and Use of English paper worth? The paper is worth 80 marks (after weighting) out of a total of 200 marks for the four Cambridge English: Proficiency papers. However, your overall grade is based on the total score gained in all four papers. It is not necessary to achieve a satisfactory level in all four papers in order to pass the examination. What if I make a mistake on the answer sheet? If more than one lozenge has been completed for one question, the computer rejects the answer sheet, which is then dealt with on an individual basis. Checks are in place to identify incomplete answer sheets, which are also then checked. Cases where all the answers have been entered incorrectly, e.g. by putting Answer 1 to Question 2, Answer 2 to Question 3, etc., cannot be identified. You should be careful when filling in your answer sheet. How long is each part of the Cambridge English: Proficiency Reading and Use of English paper? There is no fixed answer to this question. The overall time allowed for the Reading and Use of English paper is 90 minutes. Candidates in a class preparing for the exam will almost certainly find that, as each part is a different task and tests different skills, they do not all spend the same amount of time on each part. This is normal and you should practise extensively before the exam to see how you need to distribute your time. The paper has a standard structure and format so that you will know what to expect in each part of the paper. You should be aware that answers must be marked on the answer sheet within the time allowed. Some students prefer to transfer their answers at the end of each task rather than wait until they have completed the whole paper. Are marks deducted for incorrect answers? No, they are not. All marking is positive in the sense that you will get marks for your correct answers and nothing if the answer is incorrect. If I write two possible answers to a question, how are they marked? You must write one answer for each question. If you write more than one answer, you will not be given any marks. How important is spelling in the Reading and Use of English paper? In Parts 2, 3 and 4, all spelling must be correct. Do contractions count as one word or two? Contracted words count as the number of words they would be if they were not contracted. For example, isn’t, didn’t, I’m, I’ll are counted as two words (replacing is not, did not, I am, I will). Where the contraction replaces one word (e.g. can’t for cannot), it is counted as one word. What happens if I miss a negative in the transformations, thereby giving the opposite meaning to the original? The instructions state that the second sentence must have a similar meaning to the first. However, in the mark scheme the answer is divided into two parts (see below). The two parts of the sentence (either side of the dividing line) are always treated separately, so you will receive one mark for correctly completing one part of the sentence, even if a negative has been omitted from the other part. E.g. I've never thought of asking the hotel staff for advice about restaurants. It has ............. the hotel staff for advice about restaurants. Answer: never occurred to me (1) | to ask (1) - Read each question very carefully. - Remember that Question 1 is compulsory. - Choose Part 2 questions on the basis of what interests you the most but also bear in mind the task type. - Decide exactly what information you are being asked to give. - Identify the target reader, your role as writer and your purpose in writing. - Check which task type you are being asked to write. - Organise your ideas and make a plan before you write. - Use a pen, not a pencil. - Write your answers in the booklet provided. - Write in an appropriate style. - Identify the key points in each text in Part 1. - Deal with all parts of the question in Part 2. - Calculate how many words on average you write on a line and multiply this average by the number of lines to estimate how much you have written – don't waste time counting words individually. - Follow your plan and keep in mind your purpose for writing. - Use as wide a range of structure and vocabulary as you can but think carefully about when to use idioms. - Use paragraphs and indent when you start a new paragraph. - Check for spelling errors and the use of punctuation such as capital letters, apostrophes, commas, etc. - Cross out errors with a single line through the word(s). - Check structures: subject-verb agreement, tenses, word order, singular and plural nouns. - Make sure that your handwriting can be read by the examiner. - Don't attempt a set text question if you have not read the book. - Don't attempt a question if you feel unsure about the format. - Don't include irrelevant material. - Don't write out a rough version and then try to write a good copy – you will not have time. FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) There are some similarities between the writing tasks in Cambridge English: Advanced, also known as Certificate in Advanced English (CAE), and Cambridge English: Proficiency. What is different? Cambridge English: Proficiency questions are designed to generate language that requires you to use more abstract functions such as hypothesising, interpreting and evaluating and to move away from just factually based responses. This raises the expected language level not only in terms of structure but also range of vocabulary and appropriacy of style and register. Are there any differences in the way the Part 1 and Part 2 questions are assessed? Part 1 and Part 2 questions carry equal marks, and Writing Examiners apply the same assessment scales to them (Content, Communicative Achievement, Organisation and Language). Content focuses on how well the candidate has fulfilled the task; Communicative Achievement focuses on how appropriate the candidate's writing is for the task; Organisation focuses on the way the candidate puts together the piece of writing; and Language focuses on the range and accuracy of the candidate's vocabulary and grammar. How are extended responses in the Writing paper assessed? Examiners mark tasks using assessment scales developed with explicit reference to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The scales, which are used across the Cambridge English General and Business English Writing tests, are made up from four subscales: Content, Communicative Achievement, Organisation and Language: - Content focuses on how well the candidate has fulfilled the task – if they have done what they were asked to do. - Communicative Achievement focuses on how appropriate the writing is for the task and whether the candidate has used the appropriate register. - Organisation focuses on the way the candidate puts together the piece of writing, in other words, if it is logical and ordered. - Language focuses on vocabulary and grammar. This includes the range of language as well as how accurate it is. Each response is marked from 0 to 5 on each of the four subscales and these scores are combined to give a final mark for the Writing test. If I write in a text type, such as a letter, a report, or an essay, that is different from the one asked for in the question, how will the writing be assessed? The text type is a very important aspect of the Cambridge English: Proficiency Writing paper as it is a major factor in the choice of style and register for the piece of writing. For example, if you write an essay when the question has asked for an article, the register will not be totally appropriate for an article. This will have a negative effect on the target reader and will be penalised. Will I be penalised for writing an answer that is over the word limit stated in the question? You will not be penalised just because the text is over the word limit. However, over-length writing may lead to irrelevance, repetition and poor organisation. These factors have a negative effect on the target reader and will be penalised. How is the writing assessed if the candidate has obviously run out of time and the answer is incomplete? Examiners will only assess what is on the page and will not make assumptions about what you might have written. For example, if the conclusion is missing, this will affect the organisation and coherence and will be penalised. How severely are poor spelling and punctuation penalised? Spelling is one factor considered under the assessment scale for Language, and punctuation is one factor considered under Organisation. You do not lose a mark every time you make a spelling or punctuation mistake, so it is still possible to get a high band score with occasional native-speaker type lapses. However, spelling and punctuation are an important aspect of accuracy, and frequent errors may have a negative effect on the target reader, which is one factor considered under Communicative Achievement. Do I have to study all the set texts? The set text questions are optional. If you decide to answer on a set text, it is only necessary to study one of the texts as there is always a question on each of them. Information on what the set texts are for this year can be found above. Can any edition of the set texts be used for study? Any full-length edition can be used for study. At Cambridge English: Proficiency level, you should not be reading simplified editions. Will there always be a narrative question? There will sometimes be the opportunity to write a narrative, but it will be embedded in a letter or article, as in the sample papers. Such a question will not necessarily be on every paper. Are addresses to be omitted ONLY when stated in the task? As a matter of policy, where the genre is given as a letter, 'You do not need to include postal addresses' is added to the instructions. Where other genres are given (e.g. a report, an article), you could choose to use a letter format to answer the question, if appropriate to the task. In no case will the address, if you include it, be subject to assessment, either negative or positive. Is a report format obligatory for such questions in the Writing paper? Reports should be clearly organised and may contain headings. The report format is not obligatory, but will make a good impression on the target reader if used appropriately. The mark awarded for the report will, however, depend on how the writing meets the requirements. - Listen to and read the instructions. Make sure you know what kind of text you will hear, what it is about and what you have to do in each part. - Think about the topic, the development of ideas and the context as you read the questions. This will help you when you listen. - Answer all the questions. Even if you are not sure, you have probably understood enough to make a good attempt! - Be careful of 'word-spotting' (when answers in options appear in the recording but in a different context). - Pay attention to the role of stress and intonation in supporting meaning. - Write the actual word you hear. (Part 2) - Check your spelling. (Part 2) - Look carefully at what is printed before and after the gap and think about the words which could fit, both logically and grammatically. (Part 2) - Don't spend too much time on a difficult question. Move on to the next question and come back to the difficult one again later. - Don't complicate an answer by changing or adding extra information. (Part 2) FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) What aspects of listening are tested in the Cambridge English: Proficiency Listening paper? The range of texts and task types reflects the variety of listening situations which you need to be able to cope with at this level. Variety of accents: Recordings will contain a variety of accents corresponding to standard variants of native-speaker accent. Texts vary in terms of length and interaction. Text types used include: interviews, discussions, conversations, talks, speeches, lectures, documentaries, instructions. A variety of task types is used. These reflect the different reasons for, and focuses of, listening: understanding opinion, attitude, gist, detail, main idea, speaker's purpose; inferring meaning, agreement and opinion. Three- and four-option multiple-choice exercises, sentence completion and multiple matching are used. Will I have enough time to complete the paper? All Cambridge English Listening tests are trialled on students to see that they have enough time to answer and complete the answer sheet. The test is designed to be as user-friendly as possible but it is useful to remind yourself of the following points: The instructions for each task are heard in the recording and are followed by a pause for you to study the task for that section. You can and should use this time to study the questions printed on the page for this task to help you predict both what you will hear and what kind of information you will be required to identify and understand in order to be able to answer. The questions in the Listening paper follow the order of the information in the recording, and you should not waste time on a question you are having difficulty with as you might miss the answer to the following question. Each recording is heard twice. Five minutes are provided at the end of the recording for you to transfer your answers onto the answer sheet. How do I record my answers? You must write all your answers on a separate answer sheet. You may write on the question paper as you listen, but you must transfer your answers to the answer sheet. Five minutes are allocated at the end of the test for you to do this. Is spelling important? Part 2 is the only part of the Cambridge English: Proficiency Listening paper where you have to write words for your answers (in the other parts, you indicate your choice of answer by writing a letter). Answers for Part 2 (which are generally short) must be spelled correctly and must fit into the grammatical structure of the sentence. Both British English and American English spellings are accepted. Spelling must be correct for a mark to be given. How many marks are given in the Cambridge English: Proficiency Listening paper? There are 30 questions in this paper. The total score is adjusted once the paper has been marked to give a mark out of 40. Am I supposed to write the words I hear in the recording in answers to Part 2, or do I get more marks if I use my own words? You should try to use the actual words you hear in the recording. You do not get more marks for using your own words. Can I wear headphones for the Listening paper? Ask your centre whether you can use headphones or not – it depends how they choose to run the exam. - Make sure you know what you have to do in each part of the test and the timing involved. - Raise the level of the conversation and discussion above the everyday and purely descriptive. - Listen to the instructions carefully and focus on the task set. - Listen actively to your partner, develop their ideas and opinions and work with them. - Show interest in and respect for your partner's ideas and views. - Make use of the prompts in your long turn if you want to. - Respond as fully as possible and extend your ideas and opinions, giving reasons where possible. - Remember your partner's name and use it when referring to them. - Don't let your partner always 'take the lead' – you must also initiate. - Don't waffle – be direct, get to the point and say what you mean. - Don't speak during your partner's long turn. - Don't waste your opportunities to show the examiners what you can do. - Don't ask the examiners how you have done. - Don't monopolise the discussion. You must be sensitive to turn-taking. (Part 2) FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) Why can't I do the test alone? Research studies have shown that in order to test a wide range of language and interactive ability with different people (here the examiner and the candidate's partner), and where the test targets a particular level of ability (e.g. Cambridge English: Proficiency as opposed to IELTS), it is better to have pairs. Thus, the standard format is two candidates and two examiners. If there is an uneven number of candidates at the end of the session, the candidates will be asked to take the test in a group of three, never alone. Can I choose who will examine me? No. The centre decides which candidates will be assessed by which examiners. Examiners are specially recruited and trained to assess impartially and to the same standard, so it doesn't matter which examiner you have. Also, examiners are never allowed to assess their own students or anybody they know socially. And do remember there are always two examiners, both of whom make an assessment. Do I have to prepare a talk on a topic in advance? No. Just follow the instructions from the examiner. During your long turn, the examiner will give you a card with a question on it for you to talk about. Can I choose which topics to talk about? No. You will have to discuss several topics during the Speaking test and these will be ones which you should have covered when preparing for the exam. None of the topics require specialised knowledge – they will all be accessible. What should I do if I don't understand the examiner? You can always ask the examiner to repeat the question or the instructions. However, you should listen carefully and try to understand the first time.

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams-and-qualifications/proficiency/how-to-prepare/

Teaching materials : 9-12 teachers' lounge : Focus on the fundamentals One of the most important messages we can convey to our students is evolutionary theory's role as an organizing principle across all of biology. To effectively communicate and reinforce this message, you can integrate evolution throughout your biology teaching, rather than isolating it as a discrete unit at the beginning or end of the semester. One approach would be to introduce basic evolutionary concepts at the beginning of the school year and then to refer back to these concepts in other units throughout the semester, so that students come away with the understanding that evolution helps explain phenomena in areas as diverse as respiration, photosynthesis, ecology, and human physiology. In addition, students at the high school level are ready to begin to explore the many applications of evolutionary theory in addressing practical problems in medicine, conservation, and agriculture. These topics should also be integrated throughout the semester. The evolutionary concepts that are most important at this level are the four essential components of natural selection an important mechanism of evolution: Variation: All life forms vary genetically within a population. Inheritance: Genetic traits are inherited from parents and are passed on to offspring. Selection: Organisms with traits that are favorable to their survival and reproduction are more likely to pass on their genes to the next generation. Time: Evolutionary change can happen in a few generations, but major change, such as speciation, often takes many thousands of generations. By the end of twelfth grade, students should understand all the components of natural selection described above, as well as how these components work together, resulting in evolutionary change. At this level, students are also prepared to understand how small changes in populations caused by natural selection can accumulate into macroevolutionary change over geological timescales. In grades 9-12, students should continue to be engaged in activities that reinforce the nature and process of science. This will help them differentiate between science and non-science, recognize the validity of evolution as science, and appreciate the explanatory power of evolutionary theory. To find resources for teaching these topics, visit the grades 9-12 teachers' lounge on our sister site, Understanding Science. To learn more about research on the developmental, conceptual, pedagogical, social, and emotional challenges to teaching and learning about evolution, visit the Evolution Challenges website.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/teach/912fundamentals.php

The MESH_MERGE function merges two polygonal meshes. Result = MESH_MERGE (Verts, Conn, Verts1, Conn1 [, /COMBINE_VERTICES] [, TOLERANCE=value] ) The function return value is the number of triangles in the modified polygonal mesh connectivity array. Input/Output array of polygonal vertices [3, n]. These are potentially modified and returned to the user. Input/Output polygonal mesh connectivity array. This array is modified and returned to the user. Additional input polygonal vertex array [3, n]. Additional input polygonal mesh connectivity array. If this keyword is set, the routine will attempt to collapse vertices which are at the same location in space into single vertices. If the expression is true, the points (i) and (i+1) can be collapsed into a single vertex. The result is returned as a modification of the Verts argument. This keyword is used to specify the tolerance value used with the COMBINE_VERTICES keyword. The default value is 0.0. This example merges two simple meshes: a single square and a single right triangle. The right side of the square is in the same location as the left side of the triangle. Each mesh is originally its own polygon object. These objects are then added to a model object. The model is displayed in the XOBJVIEW utility. The XOBJVEW utility allows you to click-and-drag the polygon object to rotate and translate it. See XOBJVIEW for more information on this utility. When you quit out of the first XOBJVIEW display, the second XOBJVIEW display will appear. The meshes are merged into a single polygon object. After you quit out of the second display, the final display shows the results of decimating the merged mesh to obtain the least number connections for these vertices. Decimation can often be used to refine the results of merging. PRO MergingMeshes ; Create a mesh of a single square (4 vertices ; connected counter-clockwise from the lower left ; corner of the mesh. vertices = [[-2., -1., 0.], [0., -1., 0.], $ [0., 1., 0.], [-2., 1., 0.]] connectivity = [4, 0, 1, 2, 3] ; Create a separate mesh of a single triangle (3 ; vertices connected counter-clockwise from the lower ; left corner of the mesh. triangleVertices = [[0., -1., 0.], [2., -1., 0.], $ [0., 1., 0.]] triangleConnectivity = [3, 0, 1, 2] ; Initialize model for display. oModel = OBJ_NEW('IDLgrModel') ; Initialize polygon for the square mesh. oPolygon = OBJ_NEW('IDLgrPolygon', vertices, $ POLYGONS = connectivity, COLOR = [0, 128, 0], $ STYLE = 1) ; Initialize polygon for the triangle mesh. oTrianglePolygon = OBJ_NEW('IDLgrPolygon', $ triangleVertices, POLYGONS = triangleConnectivity, $ COLOR = [0, 0, 255], STYLE = 1) ; Add both polygons to the model. oModel->Add, oPolygon oModel->Add, oTrianglePolygon ; Display the model in the XOBJVIEW utility. XOBJVIEW, oModel, /BLOCK, $ TITLE = 'Two Separate Meshes' ; Merge the square and triangle into a single mesh. numberTriangles = MESH_MERGE(vertices, $ connectivity, triangleVertices, $ triangleConnectivity, /COMBINE_VERTICES) ; Output number of resulting vertices and triangles. numberVertices = SIZE(vertices, /DIMENSIONS) PRINT, 'numberVertices = ', numberVertices PRINT, 'numberTriangles = ', numberTriangles ; Cleanup triangle polygon object, which is no longer ; needed. OBJ_DESTROY, [oTrianglePolygon] ; Update remaining polygon object with the results from ; merging the two meshes together. oPolygon->SetProperty, DATA = vertices, $ POLYGONS = connectivity, COLOR = [0, 128, 128] ; Display results. XOBJVIEW, oModel, /BLOCK, $ TITLE = 'Result of Merging the Meshes into One' ; Decimate polygon to 75 percent of the original ; number of vertices. numberTriangles = MESH_DECIMATE(vertices, connectivity, $ decimatedConnectivity, PERCENT_POLYGONS = 75) ; Output number of resulting triangles. PRINT, 'After Decimation: numberTriangles = ', numberTriangles ; Update polygon with results from decimating. oPolygon->SetProperty, DATA = vertices, $ POLYGONS = decimatedConnectivity, COLOR = [0, 0, 0] ; Display decimation results. XOBJVIEW, oModel, /BLOCK, $ TITLE = 'Decimation of Mesh' ; Cleanup object references. OBJ_DESTROY, [oModel] END The results for this example are shown in the following figure: original, separate meshes (left), merged mesh (center) and decimated mesh (right). MESH_CLIP, MESH_DECIMATE, MESH_ISSOLID, MESH_NUMTRIANGLES, MESH_OBJ, MESH_SMOOTH, MESH_SURFACEAREA, MESH_VALIDATE, MESH_VOLUME

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/grierlab/idl_html_help/M27.html

Volcanoes, the Dangerous Landform They are a dangerous but amazing sight. Magma flowing in and out with a bright color. Mountains? No, these landforms unleash their magma violently but when not, they are calmer than the ocean. Volcanoes. Why do they erupt, how are they formed, that’s some of the things that make them fascinating, what make them truly unpredictable. Volcanoes are landforms with rather similar forming to mountains, with tectonic plates; The gigantic chunks of crust that move constantly but over time by convection currents; the hottest places in the mantle which was first suggested by Alfred Wegener, a geology scientist. The plates were formed more than 900 million years ago after the earth being at blazing temperatures, cooling down. That made the Earth’s crust shrink and crack. Which is what made what we now call the plates. For a volcano to be formed there would have to be 2 types of plates; An Oceanic Plate and a Continental plate; An Oceanic plate is a plate that’s thin (9-15 miles) and most of the plate is underwater while Continental Plates are thick (20-50 miles) and hardly anything underwater. The Oceanic Plate, because it is thinner, would have to go under the Continental Plate and bits of the Oceanic Plate would make huge mounds. The mounds would start looking into a mountain-like landform. The Oceanic Plate would later reach the mantle and melt. Even later small vents would form that lead to the surface to the peak and around of the mountain-like landform, making it a volcano. This process takes thousands of years. Volcanoes can go extinct in a few hundred centuries. While they’re active, they can be dangerous. Some volcanoes need and oceanic plate and a continental plate, but some have a different forming; by a hole around the middle of an oceanic plate. That holes is formed by an even hotter area in the mantle. (This area is called a hotspot) This makes a hole. From that hole would come magma cooling down quickly, (because this happens underwater) Making it turn solid, but more magma would come out making it gradually a mount that keeps growing. But the oceanic plate is moving, so at some point the volcano will stop growing and a volcano next to it will start growing. And will happen the same thing over again until the plate moves from the hot spot. LOCATIONS OF THEM Volcanoes are found around the borders of continental plates and oceanic plate (where they collide) and even in the middle of an oceanic plate. Most volcanoes that are known are on land but many are under water (most are on land because they are easier to find). Volcanoes are landforms with a crater where the peak should be. . That is where boiling magma comes out. When a volcano erupts the magma that goes out is then called lava. Sometimes when a volcano erupts it could basically remodel the top half of the volcano. MOST FAMOUS VOLCANO Mount Vesuvius is one of the most famous volcanoes, killing 2000 people in 79 AD, wrecking 3 cities. What would happen in the future? I think that the volcanoes we now have will stay active, dormant, or extinct. And new ones will come to life. Constantly as well as some going extinct at the same time.

http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=222284&user_id=222284&blog_id=1292326&position2=6

Learning About Insect and Mite Galls DEFINITION: Insect galls are growths that develop on various plant parts in reaction to the feeding stimulus of insects and mites. Galls may be simple enlargements or swellings of stems or leaves, or highly complex novelties of plant anatomy, but they are always specific to the gall former. Galls are formed mainly by gall midges and some other flies (Diptera), gall wasps (Hymenoptera), and mites (Acarina), but are also caused by aphids (Homoptera), sawflies (Hymenoptera), and a few moths (Lepidoptera) and beetles (Coleoptera). Sometimes, complexity is added by nature to the pattern of insects emerging from galls. The original egg-laying insect may be eaten by another parasite or starved when the invader eats its food. Thus, the emerging insect may not be the causes of the original gall. A collection of galls may be made to show the diversity included in this interesting subject. Nearly 1,500 insect species in the U. S. produce galls, creating a real challenge. Eight hundred species of gall insects are known just from the oaks in North America. The identity of the gall maker is usually possible by examining the structure and form of the gall. Some from a collection should be cut in half to show the internal structures, and the insects that have emerged can be glued on paper points next to the galls. Save not only the adult stage of the insect but any immature forms also. One of the plants most commonly harboring galls is the goldenrod. In the winter, one may find two kinds of goldenrod galls. One is caused by caterpillars on stems of the plant, and has a spindle shape of an inch or so. Exit holes will be seen on this kind of gall, where the caterpillar prepared its escape before pupating into a moth in the fall of the year. The other goldenrod gall is caused by fly maggots (Eurosta solidaginis) of the Family Trypetidae, and is a round swelling about an inch in diameter. Inside is a maggot that is fully grown, waiting in a suspended state of animation [diapause] until the spring when it will pupate into a fly and leave the gall. People who fish during the winter sometimes break open these goldenrod galls and use the fly maggot as bait. Close to the base of the stem can be found at least two kinds of galls formed by gall midges, one woody, the other soft and spongy. These also diapause through the winter and emerge as adults in spring when goldenrod begin to grow. Rearing insects from galls is fun and relatively easy. The galls should be kept in a jar or similar enclosure, with some moisture. An option, especially for galls on twigs, is to tie a sleeve of cheese-cloth or muslin around the area to capture the insects that emerge from the galls. Some galls must be kept through the winter because the larvae require winter diapause. Some gall makers leave the galls as immature forms and drop to the soil where they may live out the winter. One can trap these in plastic bags and transfer them to small containers of peat moss that can be left outdoors for the winter and brought indoors in spring to catch the emerging adults. Part of the fun of studying galls is learning about the diverse life histories of the gall makers. Damage caused. Some galls that cause leaf distortion can be damaging to trees and shrubs if they occur in large numbers, but most do not do so every year or appear to cause great plant damage or be economically important. Certain trees in a planting may be more susceptible than their neighbors. Most plants and gall makers have evolved together for many years and appear to have developed an equilibrium. Some slight unsightliness after gall formers have left some of the more succulent galls is counterbalanced by their interesting presence. Benefits of galls. Many products are gained from galls. Tannic acid is a primary product, and is used in a certain kind of insecticide. Inks of best quality have been made from galls, the most prominent coming from the Aleppo gall from oaks in Europe and Asia. Galls are interesting to study, have a fascinating diversity, and make good teaching subjects. Sometimes, galls have been used as food. The "pomme de sauge," in the Near East, is valued as food due to its aromatic and acid flavor. In the Ozarks of the United States, a tiny black gall fed to livestock contains 64% carbohydrates and more than 9% protein. Felt, E. P. 1940. Plant Galls and Gall Makers. Comstock Publishing Co., Ithaca, New York. Gagne, R. J. 1989. The Plant-Feeding Gall Midges of North America. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York. Russo, R. A. 1979. Plant Galls of the California Region. Boxwood Press, Pacific Grove, California. Prepared by the Department of Systematic Biology, Entomology Section, Information Sheet Number 171 NOTE: This publication can be made available in Braille or audio cassette. To obtain a copy in one of these formats, please call or write : Entomology || Natural History || Encyclopedia Smithsonian Office of Visitor Services Public Inquiry Services

http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/buginfo/galls.htm

Plotting Complex Numbers Complex numbers may easily be plottedin the complex plane. Pure imaginaries are plotted along the vertical axis, the axis of imaginaries, and real numbers are plotted along the horizontal axis, the axis of reals. It follows that other points in the complex plane must represent numbers that are part real and part imaginary; in other words, complex numbers. If we wish to plot the point 3 + 2i, we note that the number is made up of the real number 3 and the imaginary number 2i. Thus, as in figure 15-8, we measure along the real axis in a Figure 15-7. -The complex number system. Figure 15-8.-Plotting complex numbers. positive direction. At point (3, 0) on the real axis we turn through one right angle and measure 2 units up and parallel to the imaginary axis. Likewise, the number -3 + 2i is 3 units to the left and up 2 units; the number 3 - 2i is 3 units to the right and down 2 units; and the number -3 -2i is 3 units to the left and down 2 units. Complex Numbers as Vectors A vector is a directed line segment. A complex number represents a vector expressed inthe RECTANGULAR FORM. For example, the complex number 6 + 8i in figure 15-9 may be considered as representing either the point P or the line OP. The real parts of the complex number (6 and 8) are the rectangular components of the vector. The real parts are the legs of the right triangle (sides adjacent to the right angle), and the vector OP is its hypotenuse (side opposite the right angle). If we merely wish to indicate the vector OP, we may do so by writing the complex number that represents it along the segment as in figure 15-9. This method not only fixes the position of point P, but also shows what part of the vector is imaginary (PA) and what part is real (OA). If we wish to indicate a number that showsthe actual length of the vector OP, it is necessary ’ to solve the right triangle OAP for its hypotenuse. This may be accomplished by taking the square root of the sum of the squares of Figure 15-9. -A complex numbershown as a vector. the legs of the triangle, which in this case arethe real numbers, 6 and 8. thus, However, since a vector has direction as well as magnitude, we must also show the direction of the segment; otherwise the segment OP could radiate in any direction on the complex plane from point 0. The expression10. 10 indicates that the vector OP has been rotated counterclockwise from the initial positibn through an angle of 53.1°. (The initial position in a line extending from the origin to the right along OX.) This method of expressing the vector quantity is called the POLAR FORM. The number represents the magnitude of the quantity, and the angle represents the position of the vector with respect to the horizontal reference, OX. Positive angles. represent counterclockwise rotation of the vector, and negative angles represent clockwise rotation. The polar form is generally simpler for multiplication and division, but its use requires a knowledge of trigonometry.

http://www.tpub.com/math1/16c.htm

Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution(1870) The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) was the third and last amendment adopted in the era immediately following the Civil War. For the first time in American history, it prohibited states from denying the right to vote to individuals on the basis of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Section 2 of the amendment further vested Congress with power to enforce it. The Fifteenth Amendment bears elements of both continuity and discontinuity with earlier American history. Consistent with earlier history, it did not make voting an affirmative right for African Americans or other citizens, but rather it prohibited denying or abridging such groups the right to vote. Because it was the first specific prohibition to be incorporated into the Constitution, it served as a model for the Nineteenth Amendment (1920), which prohibited similar denials based on sex, and the Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971), which prohibited such denials to those who were eighteen years of age or older.... The Fifteenth Amendment (National Archives and Records Administration)View Full Size

http://www.milestonedocuments.com/documents/view/fifteenth-amendment-to-the-us-constitution

Justified text is a block of text that is even on both the left and right sides. In standard English text, the right side of a block of text is ragged. This is called the rag. And the left side of the text block is lined up evenly along the left edge. If you want to justify the text, you want the left and right sides to be lined up evenly. This is called full justification. How Does Justification Work? The reason there is a ragged edge on one side of a block of text is because lines of text do not automatically end up the same length. Some have more or longer words while others have fewer or shorter words. So when a block of text is justified, the spaces that would otherwise have ended up in the rag need to be distributed through the line. Every web browser maker has its own algorithm for how to apply the extra spaces within a line. They look at word length, hyphenation, and other factors to determine where to put the spaces. This means that justified text is not going to look identical from one browser to the next. But browser support is good for justifying text with CSS. It works in IE 4+, Safari 1+, Chrome 1+, and Opera 3+. How to Justify Text Justifying text with CSS requires two things: a section of text to justify that is inside a block with a set width. That second bit is important. If the width on the container element is not set, justification will still work, but it will be more difficult to maintain because you won't know how much text you need to create a block of text to be justified. Once you have a block of text to justify, it's just a matter of setting the style to justified with the text-align style property. Here is an example of a block of justified text. When to Justify Text Justified text can be hard to read. When you justify text, lots of extra space is added between words on the line. And those inconsistent gaps makes the text a lot more difficult to read. This is especially important on web pages which can be more difficult to read because of monitor issues, lighting, resolution, or other hardware issues. Those spaces can line up with one another to create rivers of white space within the middle of your text. And on extremely short lines, justification can cause awkward lines that contain one word with extra spaces between the letters themselves. The only time that you can safely justify text is when the lines are long and the font size is small. There is no hard and fast number for the length of the line or the size of the text, use your best judgement. But remember that justifying text is relatively new in typography because it was so difficult to do. Once you've justified text, you should test it to make sure that it doesn't have a lot of rivers of white space. The easiest way to do this is to print out the text block (or the whole page), turn it upside down and squint at it. The rivers will stand out as blotches of white in an otherwise gray block of text. If you see rivers, you should make changes to the text or the width of the text block to get rid of them. My recommendation: only use justification after you've compared it to left-aligned text. You should justify text because you've chosen to justify the text, and because you have good reasons to. Don't justify text simply because you can.

http://webdesign.about.com/od/csstutorials/a/justified-text-css.htm

Students will demonstrate movements as directed by the instructor. - “Medal of Honor” or other prize created by the teacher Explain to the students that a component of being in the military is being able to follow commands quickly and accurately. Explain that they will be playing a game that has the same rules as Simon Says, with the exception that Simon will be called Sergeant. Explain that during training, military men and women follow the drills commanded by a drill sergeant. The drill sergeant expects the trainees to listen carefully to commands and demonstrate the movements quickly and accurately. Explain to the students that you will expect the same as you play the game. The teacher will call out commands for students to demonstrate. Optional: Have students research drill commands and play sergeant says using military movements such as about face. Optional: The winner may be presented with a “Medal of Honor” or other prize created by the teacher. Use a checklist to determine student accuracy of each drill.

http://libertyslegacy.com/programs/program-resource-center/for-teachers-lessons-and-extension-activities/item/76-sergeant-says

Wind Energy Curriculum for K-12 Please find various wind energy curriculum guides and lesson plans below. These curriculum guides and lesson plans cover K-12 education and provide both classroom material and hands-on activities. For more information on each, please browse the suggestions below and each website linked. Through the organization of the National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project and in cooperation with the American Wind Energy Association, we are pleased to provide "Wind Energy Curriculum" for Kindergarten through the 12th grade. The material has been developed and organized into four separate grade levels to ensure that the information is appropriate for each age group in K-12. Included in the material is background information and hands-on activities to explore motion, weather, the history of wind, and modern wind technology. Primary (Grades K-2) The primary Wind Is Energy Kit (Grades K-2) has a Teacher Guide, student information in a storybook format, and suggested hands-on activities, with pinwheels, bubbles, a mini wind turbine, and a fan. Elementary (Grades 3-5) The elementary Wonders Of Wind Kit (Grades 3-5) comes with Teacher Guide, class set of Student Guides, and equipment to conduct hands-on experiments, including pinwheels, bubbles, materials to construct pinwheels and wind indicators, a mini wind turbine, and fan. Intermediate (Grades 5-8) / Secondary (Grades 9-12) The Intermediate/ Secondary Wind For Schools Kit (Grades 5-8/9-12) comes with Teacher Guide, class set of Student Guides, and equipment to conduct hands-on experiments, including blade design, materials to construct anemometers, calculating wind power, and more. NEED's Wind Infobooks are provided on primary, elementary, intermediate, and secondary reading levels. The guides provide resource information on wind energy, electricity, transportation, conservation and efficiency, and consumption. The Infobooks are used in the classroom as resources for many NEED activities and class sets of the elementary, intermediate, and secondary versions are available. The primary version is designed for teachers to read to students. The infobooks are revised every year to provide complete, up-to-date information. As a companion to the NEED Wind Infobooks, the Elementary School and Intermediate School Wind Infobook Activities are quick lessons to help students retain the content provided in the Wind Infobooks. KidWind Science Snacks are a fun way to facilitate learning through energy related activities and math problems. These twelve downloadable lessons (6 hands-on activities and 6 math problems) cover everything from determining the speed and direction of the wind to discovering why wind turbine blades are shaped as they are. The math problems cover turbine rotor swept area and Albert Betz's power coefficient of wind, and much more. Please visit the KidWind website today and download these free lessons. KidWind also provides wind energy focused PowerPoint presentations. Please click here for these free downloads. WindWise Education is produced by a partnership of the KidWind Project and Normandeau Associates. WindWise Education is a comprehensive interdisciplinary wind energy curriculum that fosters critical thinking skills at both the middle and high school levels. Every lesson has an inquiry-based introduction and a hands-on activity to develop analytical skills. Try their innovative curriculum and teacher training program for grades 6-12 that provides answers to today's real world energy questions. To try each lesson or to buy the full kit, please visit the WindWise Wind Energy Curriculum website. The Power of the Wind Curriculum is part of the National 4-H Curriculum Collection and is designed for middle school aged youth to learn about the wind and its uses. This curriculum is a joint project of the Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education (MSTE) , the College of Engineering and University Extension at the University of Illinois. Youth work with members of a team to design, create, build, and test a wind powered devices and are given opportunities to explore wind as a potential energy source in their community. The Power of the Wind activities involve young people in the engineering design process as they learn about the wind and its uses. The Power of the Wind Youth Guide / The Power of the Wind Facilitator Guide To download the Power of the Wind overview, please click here. To download any or all of nine two-page Grab and Go activities that can be printed and used in your program, please click here. A team of educators and scientists from the Idaho National Laboratory have worked together to develop a energy curriculum, dedicated to helping teachers integrate the energy curriculum of other organizations into their classrooms. The team is also working to make hands on learning experiences available to students through the installation of wind turbines. For wind energy lesson plans, please click here.

http://awea.org/learnabout/education/Wind_Energy_Curriculum_for_K-12.cfm

Despite the fact that the bulk of the navy was based in the Pacific, the initial deployment of U.S. naval forces in World War II was in the Atlantic theater and took place while the United States was still technically neutral. President Roosevelt aligned the United States with the European Allied powers, and following the fall of France, he sent material aid to Great Britain. The transport of these supplies across the Atlantic via merchant convoys led to the need to protect them against German submarines. By mid-1941, U.S. naval forces were engaged in escorting convoys to Iceland, where they then became Britain's responsibility. This situation led to an escalation of hostilities with the September 1941 German torpedo attack on the escorting destroyer Greer. Roosevelt responded with a "shoot on sight" order regarding Axis warships threatening convoys. On 31 October 1941, a German submarine torpedoed and sank the U.S. destroyer Reuben James, the first American warship lost in World War II. Yet war for the United States came not in the Atlantic but in the Pacific. With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the nation formally joined the Allied side. The U.S. Navy, which by late December was under the direction of the commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet, Admiral Ernest J. King, faced a multiple-theater conflict. In the Atlantic, the war at sea centered on the protection of Allied supply lines to Great Britain. Although the Battle of the Atlantic was fought primarily by British and Canadian forces, the United States contributed through the deployment of convoy escorts largely under the direction of the Atlantic Fleet commander, Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll. In early 1943, the United States assumed responsibility for the protection of convoys in the Central Atlantic. In addition to the destroyer forces deployed for this duty, "hunter-killer groups" based around escort carriers executed search-and-destroy operations against Axis submarines. Through the use of radar and sonar, these forces played an important role in the Allied victory in the critical Battle of the Atlantic. By the close of the war, U.S. naval units had accounted for 25 percent of the 781 German U-boats sunk during the conflict. In addition to commerce protection, the U.S. Navy also contributed warships to aid the Royal Navy in fleet surface operations in the Atlantic. In March 1942, the United States sent its first naval task force, centered on the aircraft carrier Wasp, into the Atlantic. The U.S. Navy provided critical gunfire support and sealift in all the Allied amphibious operations of the war, beginning with Operation torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, and extending through Operation overlord, the Normandy Invasion. As with the U-boat war, the British provided the lion's share of the vessels required for this task. Initial American involvement in the Mediterranean Theater was the result of Allied disagreement over the strategy to attack the European Axis powers. Although the United States favored an attack on German-held France via the English Channel, to take place in mid-1943, the prevailing British view called for a peripheral attack via the Mediterranean. This attack took the form of the November 1942 Operation torch, the amphibious invasion of North Africa. The Royal Navy conducted assaults on the Mediterranean beachheads of northern Africa, and the United States had responsibility for the Atlantic coast. The majority of the naval units covering the landing forces and providing fire support were British, and overall command of the naval force rested with the Royal Navy, but the U.S. Navy employed a task force under Rear Admiral H. Kent Hewitt that included 1 fleet carrier, 3 battleships, and 4 converted escort carriers. Following this operation, U.S. involvement increased through the mid-1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Hewitt once again commanded an American squadron under the direction of the Royal Navy. This arrangement was repeated in the Allied invasion of mainland Italy. In the June 1944 Normandy Invasion, of all the Allied gunfire support ships—7 battleships, 23 cruisers, and 80 destroyers—the United States supplied 3 battleships, 3 cruisers, and 31 destroyers. These vessels provided invaluable covering fire for amphibious forces landing on the beaches. The final major Allied landing in the Atlantic theater, Operation dragoon—the August 1944 invasion of southern France—was predominantly composed of U.S. units and under the command of Admiral Hewitt. The U.S. gunfire support ships included 3 battleships, 3 heavy cruisers, and numerous destroyers. Although the involvement of the U.S. Navy in both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean was eclipsed by that of the Royal Navy, the chief reason for this was that the United States bore the brunt of the naval war in the Pacific. This effort faced great challenges from the outset, as the U.S. Pacific Fleet, under the command of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, was gravely wounded by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which put all of the fleet's battleships out of commission. In any case, the initial American effort in the vast Pacific centered on U.S. Navy's carriers, which had not been in Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. The denuded U.S. Pacific Fleet was further weakened following the loss of the British capital ships Prince of Wales and Repulse on 10 December 1941 and the February 1942 destruction of the American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command, a collection of Allied warships. As a result of these blows, the U.S. Navy was, for most of the war, the sole Allied naval force pitted against the Japanese, who seized the U.S. possessions of Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines. Amid these disasters, U.S. and British military officials met in early 1942 and resolved that the United States would assume responsibility for the Pacific Theater. American strategists realized that, to defeat Japan, it was necessary to recapture lost American possessions and take Japanese Pacific holdings, thus isolating the Japanese home islands and starving their war machine of supplies. Command of the Pacific was divided into two theaters to achieve this end. The Southwest Pacific was under General Douglas MacArthur, who pursued an advance from Australia through the Netherlands East Indies to the Philippines. The North, Central, and South Pacific areas were assigned to Admiral Chester Nimitz, who succeeded Admiral Kimmel as commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Consequently, Nimitz was in charge of the majority of U.S. naval forces in the Pacific. He pursued War Plan Orange, a prewar strategy that called for an advance toward Japan through the Central Pacific. These operations, however, could not take place until the country's industrial strength produced more warships to augment the force that remained after Pearl Harbor. War Plan Orange saw the role of submarines as scouts for the U.S. battle line, but after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy deployed its submarines with the destruction of Japanese overseas commerce as a key mission. Surface units were charged with preventing further Japanese expansion. While the submarine war unfolded, a critical concern was the threat posed to Australia, which was both a vital naval base and an area to station troops. The need to protect Australia led to the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942. This engagement aborted a Japanese landing at Port Moresby in New Guinea. A Japanese attempt to take Midway Island and draw out and destroy the U.S. carriers led to the pivotal Battle of Midway in June 1942. The loss of four of Japan's finest carriers in this battle was a great blow to further Japanese expansion in the Pacific and, in a very real sense, the turning point in the Pacific war. The U.S. Navy subsequently implemented its plan to defeat Japan. The amphibious operations that ensued were made possible by the tremendous wartime naval production of the United States. By 1944, the U.S. Navy was larger than all other navies of the world combined, and the Pacific Fleet comprised 14 battleships, 15 fleet carriers, 10 escort carriers, 24 cruisers, and hundreds of destroyers and submarines. The Japanese, whose industrial base was much smaller than that of the United States, could not match this production. One of the keys to Allied victory in the war was the ability of U.S. Navy task forces to operate at great distances across the vast Pacific. To support this effort, the navy created an extensive logistics network. This Service Force Pacific Fleet, known as the "fleet train," included tankers and supply and repair ships moving in the wake of the combat ships. A massive system of reprovisioning and repair, the fleet train markedly reduced the need for combat ships to spend precious time moving to and from their home bases and thus greatly increased the number of combat ships deployed. In the Central Pacific, the navy lifted army and marine elements to take Japanese-held islands in the Marshall, Caroline, Mariana, and Philippine Islands. In the Battle of Leyte Gulf from 23 to 26 October 1944, the U.S. Navy eliminated the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) as a cohesive fighting force and cut the Japanese off from their southern resources area. The Allied conquest of Okinawa in mid-1945 signaled to American amphibious forces the completion of Plan Orange. With the destruction of the IJN and the seizure of bases within striking distance of Japan, the home islands were both isolated and subjected to the strategic bombing of cities and the devastation of coastal trade. Equally important in the isolation of Japan was the submarine campaign, the most successful guerre de commerce (war against trade) in modern history. Of Japan's total of 8 million tons of merchant shipping (at best marginal for meeting Japanese requirements in peacetime), U.S. submarines sank almost 5 million tons, thus crippling Tokyo's ability to supply the home islands, especially with oil. By the end of World War II, the U.S. Navy had participated in every major theater of the naval war. The cost was high, as the navy lost 36,674 officers and enlisted personnel. In the Battle of Okinawa alone, Japanese kamikaze attacks caused the navy more casualties than it had suffered in all its previous wars combined. Materially, the navy lost 2 battleships, 4 fleet aircraft carriers, 1 light carrier, 6 escort carriers, 12 cruisers, 68 destroyers, and 47 submarines in the course of the war. Nevertheless, the manpower and industrial strength of the United States had not only made good the losses but also augmented the navy to the point that its size in both personnel and ships eclipsed that of all the other naval powers of the world combined. This force was pivotal to the Allied victory in World War II. Eric W. Osborne Blair, Clay. Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975.; Howarth, Stephen. To Shining Sea: A History of the United States Navy, 1775–1998. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.; Hoyt, Edwin. How They Won the War in the Pacific: Nimitz and His Admirals. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1970.; Miller, Nathan. The United States Navy: A History. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.; Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II. 15 vols. Boston: Little, Brown, 1947–1962.; Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963.; Muir, Malcolm, Jr. "The United States Navy." In James J. Sadkovich, ed., Reevaluating Major Naval Combatants of World War II, 1–17. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990. Eric W. Osborne

http://www.historyandtheheadlines.abc-clio.com/ContentPages/ContentPage.aspx?entryId=1146241&currentSection=1130224&productid=3

Have children grab a handful of coins (or assign them a quantity of coins) to complete this worksheet. Math concepts covered include time, coin recognition and counting, estimating, coin values, tally marks, place value, written form, even and odd, place values, adding, subtracting, multiplying, fractions and rounding. Laminate a copy to save on printing and track the amount of time it takes to complete each day on a graph. Kids love money...and they love to beat the clock and work to improve their time! Ask Tracy Walters a question. They will receive an automated email and will return to answer you as soon as possible. Please Login to ask your question. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: I love this sheet. It looks to me like the "number of the day" is the number of cents. That makes sense. However, the webs at the bottom say to use digits from the ones, tens and hundredths. Do you mean "tenths" or "hundreds" or am I missing something?

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Basic-Math-Concepts-Daily-Worksheet-255421

first amendment: an overview The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference. See U.S. Const. amend. I. Freedom of expression consists of the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the implied rights of association and belief. The Supreme Court interprets the extent of the protection afforded to these rights. The First Amendment has been interpreted by the Court as applying to the entire federal government even though it is only expressly applicable to Congress. Furthermore, the Court has interpreted, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting the rights in the First Amendment from interference by state governments. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV. Two clauses in the First Amendment guarantee freedom of religion. The establishment clause prohibits the government from passing legislation to establish an official religion or preferring one religion over another. It enforces the "separation of church and state." Some governmental activity related to religion has been declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. For example, providing bus transportation for parochial school students and the enforcement of "blue laws" is not prohibited. The free exercise clause prohibits the government, in most instances, from interfering with a person's practice of their religion. The most basic component of freedom of expression is the right of freedom of speech. The right to freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without interference or constraint by the government. The Supreme Court requires the government to provide substantial justification for the interference with the right of free speech where it attempts to regulate the content of the speech. A less stringent test is applied for content-neutral legislation. The Supreme Court has also recognized that the government may prohibit some speech that may cause a breach of the peace or cause violence. For more on unprotected and less protected categories of speech see advocacy of illegal action, fighting words, commercial speech and obscenity. The right to free speech includes other mediums of expression that communicate a message. The level of protection speech receives also depends on the forum in which it takes place. Despite popular misunderstanding the right to freedom of the press guaranteed by the first amendment is not very different from the right to freedom of speech. It allows an individual to express themselves through publication and dissemination. It is part of the constitutional protection of freedom of expression. It does not afford members of the media any special rights or privileges not afforded to citizens in general. The right to assemble allows people to gather for peaceful and lawful purposes. Implicit within this right is the right to association and belief. The Supreme Court has expressly recognized that a right to freedom of association and belief is implicit in the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. This implicit right is limited to the right to associate for First Amendment purposes. It does not include a right of social association. The government may prohibit people from knowingly associating in groups that engage and promote illegal activities. The right to associate also prohibits the government from requiring a group to register or disclose its members or from denying government benefits on the basis of an individual's current or past membership in a particular group. There are exceptions to this rule where the Court finds that governmental interests in disclosure/registration outweigh interference with first amendment rights. The government may also, generally, not compel individuals to express themselves, hold certain beliefs, or belong to particular associations or groups. The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances guarantees people the right to ask the government to provide relief for a wrong through the courts (litigation) or other governmental action. It works with the right of assembly by allowing people to join together and seek change from the government. Definition from Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary The amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guarantees freedom of religion, freedom of expression (including speech, press, assembly, association, and belief), and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Definition provided by Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary. August 19, 2010, 5:27 pm

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment

Too Many Tamales Discussion Guide Too Many Tamales is a Christmas story that features a Hispanic family. It's also a tale about why it's better to tell the truth than to panic and try to cover up a problem. In the story, a girl named Maria helps her mother make tamales for the Christmas meal. When her mother leaves the kitchen for a few minutes, she tries on her mother's ring. Later, after her uncles, aunts and cousins have arrived, Maria realizes the ring is missing. She panics, and gets her cousins to help her eat all the tamales, trying to find the ring. When they find nothing, Maria realizes she has to confess to her mother—who, it turns out, has been wearing the ring all along. As the family cooks up another batch of tamales, Maria learns to laugh at herself and at what has happened. - Children will read a Christmas story about a Hispanic family. - Children will appreciate the importance of telling the truth and not covering up mistakes. Before Reading Activities Introduce the book and make sure that children know what a tamale is (a food made from corn meal, or masa, and meat). Explain that in Mexican-American and other Hispanic families people often eat tamales on holidays like Christmas. Ask them to remember the title as they read the story. After Reading Activities Ask children to explain the title of the book. Who thought there were too many tamales? Why were there too many? Go back through the story, pausing at the clues that Maria should have remembered, before she started eating the tamales. (Maria's mother takes the bowl from her before the tamales get made, and Maria's mother and father, not Maria, are the people who put the tamales together.) Ask children to share how they think Maria should have handled the situation. Connect the story to social studies by talking about different kinds of Americans and the different ways they celebrate holidays. Review what children saw in the program. Ask them to identify ways in which Maria's family Christmas is like, and different from, their own. Have children list foods that are served at holidays in their families. If possible, arrange for children to taste tamales and other ethnic holiday foods. Connect the story to math by having students make "tamales" from twists of paper. Have students take turns counting the paper tamales and using them in story problems. To illustrate the idea of probability, place a picture of a ring inside one of the twists of paper. Ask students to identify their chances of drawing the tamale with the ring out of a bowl of all the tamales. Connect the story to communications arts by having children present the story as a class play. Encourage children from non-Hispanic cultures to rewrite the story, using foods from their own families instead of tamales. Videos about folktales available from Weston Woods include: Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto, ill. by Ed Martinez Chato and the Party Animals by Gary Soto, ill. by Susan Guevara Chato's Kitchen by Gary Soto, ill. by Susan Guevara The Doughnuts by Robert McCloskey In The Month Of Kislev by Nina Jaffe, ill. by Louise August Seven Candles for Kwanzaa by Andrea Davis Pinkney, ill. by Brian Pinkney TO ORDER: For Public Library sales call 800-243-5020 / For School Library sales call 800-621-1115 This guide may be photocopied for free distribution without restriction. Copyright 2008 Weston Woods. - Teacher Store The Teacher Store Too Many Tamalesby Gary Soto and Blanca Camacho Everyone is coming for Christmas dinner at Maria's house. She and her mother prepare by kneading the "masa" to make tamales. When her mother takes off the ring, Maria tries it on - and is beside herself, when hours later, she thinks it has been kneaded into the tamales. How many can you eat?$18.95 Paperback Book and CD | Grades PreK-4 Grades PreK-4 $18.95 - Teacher Store The Teacher Store ¡Qué montón de tamales! - Activity Sheetby Gary Soto and Ed Martinez Scholastic’s downloadable worksheets for students offer a varied selection of tasks that require reading for meaning through many fun and strategic activities. The rich content of our title-specific blackline masters incorporates writing exercises, graphic organizers, deductive reasoning, critical thinking, vocabulary development, and much, much more. Through innovative exercises, students will enjoy a range of activities that require them to engage in post-reading reflec$2.95 Literature Guide | Grade 3 Grade 3 $2.95

http://www.scholastic.com/browse/collateral.jsp?id=36802_type=Book_typeId=175

Over the past six weeks, scientists aboard the research vessel "Polarstern" of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research have been investigating changes in ocean temperature and sea ice cover in the area of Fram Strait between Spitsbergen and Greenland. In this area significant exchange of water masses between the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean takes place. The ongoing process of global warming throughout the past years has also altered conditions in Fram Strait and the North Polar Sea. Recordings of temperature measurements in Fram Strait at various water depths indicate a rise in temperature since 1990 in the West Spitsbergen Current, which carries warm Atlantic Ocean water into the Arctic Ocean. The recent measurements by oceanographers aboard "Polarstern" point towards a further warming tendency. Compared to the previous year, temperatures recorded in the upper 500 metres of ocean current were up to 0.6 °C higher this year. The rise in temperature was detectable to a water depth of 2000 metres, representing an exceptionally strong signal by ocean standards. Consequently, the influx of warmer water causes a change in sea ice cover. Satellite images have documented a clear recession of sea ice edges in the Fram Strait region and in the Barents Sea over the last three years. Climate processes are not only affected by the horizontal extent of sea ice, but also by its thickness. In order to determine ice thickness, the sea ice research group of the Alfred Wegener Institute has, over the past years, developed an airborne ice thickness sensor. It is towed by helicopter approximately 30 metres above ground and can cover up to 100 kilometres distance within one hour. This method allows construction of a representative picture of sea ice thickness. The thickness sensor is validated by flying the helicopter over a series of drilled ice holes (of known depth) arrayed along a transect line. In this way the precision of the sensor can be confirmed. An exceptional type of comparison between measurements was carried out on Wednesday off the East Greenland coast, where "Polarstern" met the British research icebreaker "James Clark Ross": for the very first time in the history of sea ice research, sea ice topography was measured simultaneously from above and below. For this purpose, a British autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) scanned the underside of the sea ice using sonar, while the sea ice physicists of the Alfred Wegener Institute evaluated the ice surface as well as its thickness from above, using the helicopter-towed ice thickness sensor. These activities served as preparation for the calibration of the satellite "CryoSat". Starting in March 2005, "CryoSat" will measure sea ice thickness continually from a height of 700 kilometres in both polar regions. The quantification of sea ice thickness and its changes are of great importance in international climate research. Sea ice has a key role in climate systems and is considered a sensitive indicator of climate fluctuations. "CryoSat" will be used to investigate whether regional changes occur in all polar regions as a consequence of global warming. Presently, "Polarstern" is on her 20th Arctic expedition. Since July 16th, scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research have been working as part of an international team carrying out atmospheric chemical measurements, gathering data from the ocean and sea ice and collecting rock samples from the sea floor. On Sunday, "Polarstern" will reach Tromsø. Explore further: Field tests in Mojave Desert pave way for human exploration of small bodies

http://phys.org/news971.html

C Programming/C Reference/stdio.h/fgetc The fgetc function in the C standard library stdio.h is used to read a character from a file stream. int fgetc(FILE *stream) FILE *stream is an initialised pointer to a file. If successful, fgetc returns a character from the file at it's current position. If unsuccessful, fgetc returns an error code. For text files (as opposed to binary files), the characters with values 25 and 26 (the Substitute character and the escape character) may render the input stream inoperable afterward, instead returning a single maximal value. - -1: Bad argument: not integer - -2: Bad argument: out of range - -3: File was not open

http://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/C_Programming/C_Reference/stdio.h/fgetc

3rd Grade, Research and Inquiry Activities 2. Click on Learn what different wolf postures mean! Look at the pictures of different tail postures and read about what they mean. 3. Draw pictures of how a wolf's tail would look in these different situations: (A) A wolf is greeting an old friend. (B) A wolf is afraid of a stronger wolf. (C) A wolf is about to pounce on a rabbit. 4. Scroll down further and look at the pictures of wolves' body postures. Read the descriptions of what these postures mean. Draw pictures of how a wolf's body would look in these different situations. (A) A wolf is running away from humans who are shooting at it. (B) A wolf is playing with its friends. (C) A wolf is attacking another wolf. For additional information on wolves go to http://www.kidsplanet.org/www.

http://treasures.macmillanmh.com/michigan/families/activities/grade3/book1/unit2/wolf/wolves

Everyone has their own learning style. This comes about as a result of our natural preferences and successes. Information about learning styles will be placed here as we find or develop it. Characteristics of Visual Learners: Visual learners learn best by seeing information. The following characteristics are typical of many individuals with strong visual processing skills: 1. Information presented in pictures, charts, or diagrams is easily remembered. 2. Visual learners have strong visualization skills. They can look up (often up to the left) an "see" the information invisibly written or drawn. 3. Visual learners can make "movies in their minds" of information they are reading. Their movies are often vivid and detailed. 4. Visual-spatial skills such as sizes, shapes, textures, angles, and three-dimensional depths are strong. 5. Visual learners often pay close attention to the body language of others (facial expressions, eyes, stance, etc.) 6. Visual learners have a keen awareness of the aesthetics, the beauty of the physical environment, visual media, or art. Characteristics of Auditory Learners: Auditory learners learn best by hearing information. They can usually remember information more accurately when it has been explained to them orally. The following characteristics are typical of individuals with strong auditory processing skills: 1. Auditory learners can remember quite accurately details of information they hear during conversations or lectures. 2. They have strong language skills, which include a well developed vocabulary and an appreciation for words. 3. The strong language skills often lead to strong oral communication skills. They can carry on interesting conversations and can articulate their ideas clearly. 4. Because of a "fine tuned ear," auditory learners may find learning a foreign language to be relatively easy. 5. Auditory learners often have musical talents. They can hear tones, rhythms, and individual notes with their strong auditory skills. Kinesthetic of Auditory Learners: Kinesthetic learners learn best by moving their bodies, activating their large or small muscles as they learn. These are the "hands-on learners" or the "doers" who actually concentrate better and learn more easily when movement is involved. The following characteristics are often associated with kinesthetic learners. 1. Kinesthetic learners often wiggle, tap their feet, or move their legs when they sit. 2. Kinesthetic learners were often labeled "hyperactive" as children. 3. Because they learn through movement, kinesthetic learners often do well as performers: athletes, actors, or dancers. 4. Kinesthetic learners work well with their hands. They may be good at repairing work, sculpting, art, or working with various tools. 5. Kinesthetic learners are often well coordinated and have a strong sense of timing and body movement. To learn more about learning styles click on these links:

http://www2.yk.psu.edu/learncenter/LearningStyle.html

The Emancipation Proclamation is perhaps the most misunderstood of the documents that have shaped American history. Contrary to legend, Lincoln did not free the nearly four million slaves with a stroke of his pen. It had no bearing on slaves in the four border states, since they were not in rebellion. It also exempted certain parts of the Confederacy occupied by the Union. All told, it left perhaps 750,000 slaves in bondage. But the remaining 3.1 million, it declared, “are, and henceforward shall be free.” The proclamation did not end slavery in the United States on the day it was issued. Indeed, it could not even be enforced in most of the areas where it applied, which were under Confederate control. But it ensured the eventual death of slavery — assuming the Union won the war. Were the Confederacy to emerge victorious, slavery, in one form or another, would undoubtedly have lasted a long time. A military order, whose constitutional legitimacy rested on the president’s war powers, the proclamation often disappoints those who read it. It is dull and legalistic; it contains no soaring language enunciating the rights of man. Only at the last minute, at the urging of Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, an abolitionist, did Lincoln add a conclusion declaring the proclamation an “act of justice.” Nonetheless, the proclamation marked a dramatic transformation in the nature of the Civil War and in Lincoln’s own approach to the problem of slavery. No longer did he seek the consent of slave holders. The proclamation was immediate, not gradual, contained no mention of compensation for owners, and made no reference to colonization. In it, Lincoln addressed blacks directly, not as property subject to the will of others but as men and women whose loyalty the Union must earn. For the first time, he welcomed black soldiers into the Union Army; over the next two years some 200,000 black men would serve in the Army and Navy, playing a critical role in achieving Union victory. And Lincoln urged freed slaves to go to work for “reasonable wages” — in the United States. He never again mentioned colonization in public.

http://www.philipvickersfithian.com/2013/01/eric-foner-on-emancipation-proclamation.html

Idea from www.interventioncentral.org Math Computation: Motivate With ‘Errorless Learning’ Worksheets (Caron, 2007) Reluctant students can be motivated to practice math number problems to build computational fluency when given worksheets that include an answer key (number problems with correct answers) displayed at the top of the page. In this version of an ‘errorless learning’ approach, the student is directed to complete math facts as quickly as possible. If the student comes to a number problem that he or she cannot solve, the student is encouraged to locate the problem and its correct answer in the key at the top of the page and write it in. Such speed drills build computational fluency while promoting students’ ability to visualize and to use a mental number line. TIP: Consider turning this activity into a ‘speed drill’. The student is given a kitchen timer and instructed to set the timer for a predetermined span of time (e.g., 2 minutes) for each drill. The student completes as many problems as possible before the timer rings. The student then graphs the number of problems correctly computed each day on a time-series graph, attempting to better his or her previous score. Caron, T. A. (2007). Learning multiplication the easy way. The Clearing House, 80, 278-282. Copyright ©2013 Jim Wright

http://www.jimwrightonline.com/php/interventionista/interventionista_random.php?intv_ID=316

100 BC-AD 500 Middle Woodland people continued the basic lifestyle of their Early Woodland ancestors, living in small communities scattered through the river valleys and supporting themselves by cultivating crops, hunting, fishing, and collecting wild plant foods. Their flint tools and pottery, however, are distinctive in their form and, with regard to the pottery, decoration. Some Middle Woodland groups had contacts, perhaps through trade connections, with the flamboyant Hopewell culture of southern Ohio. The Hopewell culture occupied the major river valleys of southern Ohio during the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell people produced some of the most elaborate artifacts and large-scale earth constructions of all the prehistoric cultures of the eastern United States. They participated in trade networks that brought to central Ohio a variety of exotic materials from far-flung sources (copper from Lake Superior, mica from the southern Appalachians, marine shells from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, among others). Skilled artisans fashioned these materials into ornaments and objects apparently used for special occasions and to symbolize personal social status. The Hopewell constructed earthen burials mounds and complex earthworks enclosing hundreds of acres of land. They built some earthworks in geometric shapes-circles, squares, octagons-in the broad valleys of the Scioto, Licking, and Miami river valleys. The largest of these sites, the Newark Earthworks on the Licking River, covered four square miles. On other occasions, they ringed the tops of high hills with walls of earth. Both types of sites, the geometric and the hilltop enclosures, required considerable planning and organization of labor.

http://www.oplin.org/point/people/mdwdpeop.html

Moonlight is not light generated by the moon, but reflected sunlight. First astronauts on the moon were amazed by the brightness of Earth when it appeared over the lunar horizon. What they saw was Earthlight, which is also reflected sunlight. It’s sunlight that does little to heat the Earth because it goes directly back out to space. The amount reflected varies with changes to the surface and atmosphere. These changes are significant, yet poorly measured or understood and pushed aside by the fanatic focus on CO2. Global warming due to humans is based on the hypothesis that our addition of CO2 has changed the balance of energy entering and leaving the Earth’s atmosphere. There are a multitude of factors that can change this balance, many ignored or underplayed by climate science. They get away with this because the public is unaware. Incoming Energy Inadequacies It begins with measures of the amount of energy entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only consider changes in the irradiance portion of incoming solar energy (insolation). They claim that, up to 1950, it explained over 50 percent of temperature variation; then, CO2 became 90 percent of the cause of change. Part of the reason for downplaying irradiance is the low percentage of change in modern records. The earliest record from outside the atmosphere from a manned observatory was Skylab (1973–1979). Skylab showed a change of 0.14% in the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI). An average over time shows a variation of 0.1% for an 11 – year sunspot cycle. This seems like a very small number, and therefore of little consequence. The difficulty is that by varying TSI by 6% in a computer model, you can ‘explain’ all temperature change for the entire history of the Earth. There is also no agreement about the TSI at the Top of the Atmosphere (TOA). As Raschke explained, Solar radiation is the prime source for all processes within our climate system. Its total amount, the total solar irradiance (TSI) reaching the top-of-atmosphere (TOA), and its variability are now quite accurately known on the basis of multiple satellite measurements and extremely careful calibration activities (Fröhlich and Lean, 2004)… Computations, therefore, should be relatively easy. However, he shows there is no agreement. He compared 20 models and their input values for TOA (Figure 1), He concludes, It can be speculated that such different meridional profiles of the solar radiative forcing at TOA should also have impact on the computed atmospheric circulation pattern, in particular when simulations over periods of several decades to several centuries are performed. Therefore, related projects within the World Climate Research Program should take appropriate steps to avoid systematic discrepancies as shown above and to estimate their possible impact on the resulting climate and circulation changes. IPCC are projecting climate change for the next 50 years or more. So we have problems with the amount of incoming energy, but there are more problems with what happens to the energy once it enters the atmosphere. One of these is change in albedo. Some believe it’s more important than CO2 in affecting balance. The most interesting thing here is that the albedo forcings, in watts/sq meter seem to be fairly large. Larger than that of all manmade greenhouse gases combined. When sunlight strikes a surface the color, texture and angle of the light (known as the angle of incidence) determines how much is reflected or absorbed. The difference between them, as a percentage, is called the albedo (from the root Latin word albus for white). With a pure white shiny surface, 100 percent of the light is reflected, so the albedo is 100. On a matte black surface, 100 percent is absorbed, and the albedo is zero (Figure 2). A solar collector needs to absorb as much solar energy as possible so is matte black and set at right angles to the solar rays. The moon’s albedo is 7, which means 93 units of 100 are absorbed and 7 units reflected. On average, Earth’s albedo is 30 for the entire globe. The amount varies from a high of 75-95 percent for fresh snow down to 8-9 percent for coniferous forest. Seasonal variation in snow and ice cover is important as it affects global energy and therefore the weather from year to year. However, the major factor is variability in the type and amount of cloud cover. Thick cloud varies from 60-90 and thin cloud from 30-50. This variability explains most of the change in albedo shown in Figure 3. The right side scale shows changes in energy with a range of about 9 watts per square meter. Compare this with the 2.5 watts per square meter change estimated to be due to human activities. IPCC reject irradiance as a cause of temperature change since 1950, but they also reject variations in sun/earth relationships (known as the Milankovitch Effect) and the relationship between sunspots and temperature hypothesized by the Svensmark Cosmic Theory. The latter shows a relationship between changes in solar magnetism evidenced by sunspots. As the magnetism varies, it determines the amount of galactic cosmic radiation reaching the Earth, which creates low cloud. As low cloud varies, albedo varies. The Earthshine project of the California Institute of Technology that produced Figure 3 concluded in 2004. Earth’s average albedo is not constant from one year to the next; it also changes over decadal timescales. The computer models currently used to study the climate system do not show such large decadal-scale variability of the albedo. Sadly, there are many factors affecting climate change that the IPCC ignore or underplay to achieve the political result that human CO2 is the sole cause. They only acknowledge “cloud albedo effect” (Figure 4), but correctly admit their level of scientific understanding (LOSU) is low. It is low or medium-low for seven of nine items. Low means 2 out of 10 confidence level; medium-low is less than 4 out of 10. They incorrectly claim a high LOSU for CO2, or 8 out of 10, but that is politically necessary. So they ignore many variables and admit they know little about the ones they study. It is a total abrogation of scientific and social responsibility to let these results form the basis for draconian and destructive energy and environmental policies. They shouldn’t have won a Nobel Peace Prize. They couldn’t have won a Science Prize.

http://drtimball.com/2011/reflected-sunlight-shines-on-ipcc-deceptions-and-gross-inadequacies/

‹ World Map Early History | 1900's | Post WWII | Modern Japan | Relations with Israel | Jewish Sites Continue Tour › When representatives from Japan and the United States signed a historic treaty in March 1854, Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U.S. Navy had successfully opened the doors of trade with Japan. With this new enterprise came a small number of Jewish merchants settling down in the principal port cities of the islands. The first Jews to arrive were Alexander Marks and his brother in Yokohama in 1861. They were followed by American businessman Raphael Schover. Though primarily involved with trade and commerce, Schover also became the publisher of the Japan Express, the first foreign-language newspaper in Japan. The first Jews to immigrate to Japan were primarily from Poland, the United States and England. Most made their homes in Yokohama, just south of present-day Tokyo. They establsihed a synagogue, school, cemetery and burial society. Even today, Yokohama continues to be the main hub of Japanese Jewish life. In the late 1860s, approximately 50 Jewish families lived in Japan. The earliest Jewish tombstone dates 1865. By 1895 this community, dedicated Japan's first synagogue. In 1882, after many years of careful planning and hard work, a committee of Protestant missionaries and Japanese Christian converts completed a Japanese translation of the Old Testament. In the late 19th century, a Jewish settlement was founded in Nagasaki. It was mainly composed of Jews of Russian origin who came to Nagasaki because it had long been used by the Russian Far Eastern Fleet as a base for rest and relaxation. This community maintained a synagogue, community center and cemetry, which was uncovered post-World War II. It was considerably larger than the settlement in Yokohama, with about 100 families. In Nagasakis, the Beth Israel Synagogue was built in 1894. One of the more popular and notable members of this congregation was Joseph Trumpeldor, who lost an arm during the Russo-Japanese War. Trumpeldor later became a hero of the Zionist movement, contributing in the formation of the Jewish defense forces in Palestine. After the earthquake of 1923, this settlement moved to the rising port of Kobe. Around the time of World War I, Jewish immigration to Japan increased. Many Russian Jews fleeing the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 traveled through Manchuria and China, eventually settling in Japan. Some settled permanently in Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kobe, but many others eventually found haven in the United States and Latin America. After World War I, there were only a few thousand Jews living in Japan. Most of the Jewish population was concentrated in the cities. Ironically, most of the Japanese population was unaware of the Jews and the Jewish faith. Many actually percieved Judiasm as a Christian sect. In the 1920s, however, anti-Semitism first surfaced. This hatred stemmed from soldiers who were a part of Japan's Siberian Expedition (1918-1922). These soldiers had been infected with anti-Jewish thoughts from extremely anti-Semitic White Russians. Although prejudice existed, it was not widespread. In 1931, the Japanese attacked Chinese troops in Manchuria. As Japan looked to expand it's military power, the fortunes of thousands of Jews were both directly and indirectly affected. During the early years of World War II, many Jewish refugees found haven in the Far East. Many settled in Shanghai. However, in 1941 the Japanese occupied the Settlement and about 50,000 Jews came under Japanese military rule. Refugees were placed to internment camps for the rest of the war, far better than the concentration camps back in Europe. As Japan developed a closer relationship with Nazi Germany, anti-Semitic literature was introduced in Japan. After 1937, many anti-Semitic works were translated into Japanese from German. These books had limited circulation and people were unaffected by them. Despite being allied to Nazi Germany, the Japanese did not adopt the anti-Semitic attitude of the Nazis, and even helped the Mir Yeshivah escape from occupied Europe. The United States occupied Japan from 1945 to 1952 and it was in these seven years that the Jewish population reached its zenith. This population consisted of Jewish officials of General MacArthur's regime and many Jewish G.I.'s. When the occupation ended, the number of Jews dissipated. history and culture. Even Prince Mikasa of the imperial family was drawn to Judaism. Converting to Judaism was not very common. The majority of converts were Japanese women who had married American-Jewish servicemen, eventually moving to the United States. Setsuzo Kotsuji was one of the few male converts to Judaism. He was a descendant from a long line of Shinto priests, on a quest for faith that led him to Judaism. By 1970, approximately 1,000 Jews lived in Japan, mostly in Tokyo and Yokohama. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was an influx of foreign workers that justify increased the number of Jews living in Japan. The Tokyo community began development post-World War II. The community established a synagogue and religous school, a Judaica and general library, a restaurant, a mikveh, and a hevra kaddisha. Services are held every Sabbath and on holidays. The community is a member of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Southeast Asia and the Far East. It also recieved an award from the Japanese government for creating "mutual understanding and goodwill between the Japanese and Jewish peoples." Tokyo served as the home of the Japan-Israel Women's Welfare Organization (J.I.W.W.O.), the Japan Israel Friendship Association (J.I.F.A.) and the Society for Old Testament Students. The annual J.I.W.W.O Hanukkah bazaar is always attended by a member of the Japanese imperial family. J.I.W.W.O also finances and sends students to Israel each year. The Kobe Community consists of about 30 families. Most of these familes are of Sephardi origin. Its Ohel Shelomo Synagogue was completed in 1969. There are approximately 1,000 Jews in Japan, today excluding American armed forces personnel and staff. Most reside in the Tokyo area. About 60 percent come from the U.S., 25 percent from Israel, and the rest from all over the world. There are only about a dozen Japanese converts. Professionally, most represent major businesses, banks and financial institutions, or are journalists and students. The number who are active in synagogue or community affairs is considerably fewer. It is rare for these communities to have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah or a Jewish wedding. The Kibbutz Society publishes the Kibbutz Monthly in Japanese. Since 1986, a number of books about the Jewish faith have been published and distributed throughout Japan. Jewish subjects are occasionally taught in schools. At the Institute of Social Sciences at Waseda University there is a Jewish Studies Program. There is also the Studies on Jewish Life and Culture (Yudaya-Isuraeru Kenkyu), a journal by the Japan Society for Jewish Studies, which has published several issues since its establishment in 1961. The average Japanese still have very little knowledge of the Jews. Information is very limited if not misleading. The Jewish community in Japan is working hard to make accurate information about Jews more accessible. Formal diplomatic ties were established in 1952. The Japanese government did, however, cooperate with the Arab boycott of Jewish products and manufactured goods, hindering for decades Israel's capacity to reach it's full economic potential. Since the signing of peace agreements between Israel and the PLO and Jordan, the boycott has gradually crumbled. Japan has exponentially increased its trade with Israel since the peace process began. Still, the boycott remains technically in force and several countries, most notably, Saudi Arabia, continue its enforcement. Today, Israel and Japan continue to maintain friendly relations. These relations lie primarily in the areas of trade and culture. From 1965 to 1998, Israel's exports to Japan rose from $16 million to $31 million and imports also increased considerably from $18 million to $41 millions. Since the mid-1980s, Israel and Japan have steadily expanded bilateral cooperation, reflected inter alia in the signing of several agreements, reciprocal visits of prime ministers and ministers and Japan's contribution to the multilateral peace process. During 2002, Israel and Japan celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. The Makuya and the Christian Friends of Israel, two relatively new religious sects, continue in their strong support of the State of Israel and in their friendly ties to the Jewish community. Makuya is a pro-Israel Christian group with about 60,000 members, Every year three groups consisting of 50-70 Japanese youth spend time on a Kibbutz in Israel through Makuya. Christian Friends of Israel has about 10,000 members. Its headquarters, Beit Shalom (House of Peace), is located in Kyoto. The group's focus is on supporting Israel and includes prayers for the coming of the Messiah. The Holocaust Education Center Rev. Makoto Otsuka, 866 Nakatsuhara, Miyuki, Fukuyama 720 Tel/Fax : 0849 558001 The Ohel Shelomoh Synagogue (Orthodox) and community centre 4-12-12 Kitano-cho , Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0002. Tel: (078) 221 7236. There is a mikva on the premises. Shabbat morning services start at 9:30 a.m., followed by a full kiddush meal. There are no Jews living in Nagasaki. The old Jewish cemetery is located at Sakamoto Gaijin Bochi. The site of the first synagogue in Japan is Umegasaki Machi. While there is no native Jewish community. on Okinawa, there are normally 200-300 Jews serving with the U.S. military on the island. Regular services are conducted by the Jewish chaplain at Camp Smedley D. Butler, and visitors are welcomed. Jewish Community Center, 8-8 Hiroo, 3-Chome, Shibuya-ku, 150. Tel: 3400-2559 Fax (03) 3400-1827. Pres.: E. Salomon. Synagogue: Beth David Synagogue is in the Community Centre premises. Services held Fri. evening., 6.30 p.m. (7.00 summer); Shabbat morning, 9.30 a.m., and on Holy days & festivals. Rabbi James Lebeau. Kosher: Kosher meals availlable in the Community Centre premises, Advance notification requested. Israel Embassy, 3 Niban-cho Chiyodaku. Tel: 3264-0311. There is a Jewish chapel at the United States naval base here, and some religious services at the base are open to visitors. The Jewish Communities of Japan Photographs of JCC Tokyo courtesy of Lior Jacobi Photographs of Ohel Shelomo courtesy of Tamar Engel Photograph of Byodoin Phoenix Hall courtesy of Wiiii

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Japan.html

Manipulating files is an essential aspect of scripting in Python, and luckily for us, the process isn’t complicated. The built-in open function is the preferred method for reading files of any type, and probably all you’ll ever need to use. Let’s first demonstrate how to use this method on a simple text file. For clarity, let’s first write our text file string in a standard text editor (MS Notepad in this example). When opened in the editor it will look like this (note the empty trailing line): To open our file with Python, we first have to know the path to the file. In this example the file path will be relative to your current working directory. So we won’t need to type the full path into the interpreter. >>> tf = 'textfile.txt' Open a File in Python Using this variable as the first argument of the open method, we’ll have our file saved as an object. >>> f = open(tf) Read a File with Python When we reference our file-object f, Python tells us the status (open or closed), the name, and the mode, as well as some info we don’t need (about the memory it’s using on our machine). We already knew the name, and we haven’t closed it so we know it’s open, but the mode deserves special attention. Our file f is in mode r for read. Specifically, this means we can only read data from the file, not edit or write new data to the file (it’s also in t mode for text, though it doesn’t say this explicitly —it’s the default mode, as is r). Let’s read our text from the file with the >>> f.read() 'First line of our text.\nSecond line of our text.\n3rd line, one line is trailing.\n' This doesn’t exactly look like what we typed into the notepad, but it’s how Python reads the raw text data. To get the text as we typed it (without the \n newline characters, we can print it): >>> print(_) First line of our text. Second line of our text. 3rd line, one line is trailing. Note how we used the _ character in the Python IDLE to reference the most recent output instead of using the read method again. Here’s what happens if we try to use >>> f.read() '' This happens because read returned the full contents of the file, and the invisible position marker (how Python keeps track of your position in the file) is at the end of the file; there’s nothing left to read. Partial Reading of Files in Python Note: You can use an integer argument with read if you don’t want the full contents of the file; Python will then read however many bytes you specify as an integer argument for To get back to the start of the file (or anywhere else in the file), use the seek(int) method on f. By going back to the start you can read the contents from the beginning again with >>> f.seek(0) # We only read a small chunk of the file, 10 bytes print(f.read(10)) First line Also, to tell where the current position of the file is, use the tell method on f like so: >>> f.tell() 10L If you don’t know the size of your file or how much of it you want, you might not find that useful. Reading Files Line by Line in Python What is useful, however, is reading the contents of the file line-by-line. One way we can do this with the readlines methods—the first reads one line at a time, the second returns a list of every line in the file; both have an optional integer argument to indicate how much of the file (how many bytes) to read: # Make sure we're at the start of the file >>> f.seek(0) >>> f.readlines() ['First line of our text.\n', 'Second line of our text.\n', '3rd line, one line is trailing.\n'] >>> f.readline() 'First line of our text.\n' >>> f.readline(20) 'Second line of our t' # Note if int is too large it just reads to the end of the line >>> f.readline(20) 'ext.\n' Another option for reading a file line-by-line is treating it as a sequence and looping through it, like so: >>> f.seek(0) >>> for line in f: >>> print(line) First line of our text. Second line of our text. 3rd line, one line is trailing. Python File Writing Modes That covers the basic reading methods for files. Before looking at writing methods, we’ll briefly examine the other modes of file-objects returned with We already know mode r, but there are also the w and a modes (which stand for write and append, respectively). In addition to these there are the options + and b. The + option added to a mode makes the file open for updating, in other words to read from it or write to it. With this option it might seem like there’s no difference between an r+ mode and w+ mode, but there’s a very important difference between these two: in w mode, the file is automatically truncated, meaning its entire contents are erased — so even in w+ mode the file will be completely overwritten as soon as it’s opened, so be careful. Alternatively, you can truncate the open file yourself with the If you want to write to the end of the file, just use append mode (with + if you also want to read from it). The b option indicates to open the file as a binary file (instead of the text mode default). Use this whenever you have data in the file that is not regular text (e.g. when opening an image file). Now let’s look at writing to our file. We’ll use a+ mode so we don’t erase what we have. First let’s close our file f and open a new one # It's important to close the file to free memory >>> f.close() >>> f2 = open(tf, 'a+') We can see that our f file is now closed, meaning it isn’t taking up much memory, and we can’t perform any methods on it. Note: If you don’t want to have to call close explicitly on the file, you can use a with statement to open the file. The with statement will close the file automatically: # f remains open only within the 'with' >>> with open(tf) as f: >>> print(f.read()) First line of our text. Second line of our text. 3rd line, one line is trailing. # This constant tells us if the file is closed >>> f.closed True With f2, let’s write to the end of the file. We’re already in append mode so we can just call f2.write('Our 4th line, with write()\n') Writing Multiple Lines to a File in Python With this we’ve written to our file, and we can also write multiple lines with the writelines, which will write a sequence (e.g., a list) of strings to the file as lines: f2.writelines(['And a fifth', 'And also a sixth.']) f2.close() Note: The name writelines is a misnomer, as it does not write newline characters to the end of each string in the sequence automatically, as we’ll see. Ok, now we’ve written our text and we’ve closed f2 so the changes we’ve made should be seen in the file when we open it in our text editor: We can see the writelines method didn’t separate our fifth and sixth lines for us, so keep that in mind. Now that you have a good starting point, get scripting and discover what you can do when reading and writing files in Python — and don’t forget to utilize all of the extensive formatting methods Python has for strings!

http://pythoncentral.org/reading-and-writing-to-files-in-python/

|Sri Lanka Table of Contents The Dutch became involved in the politics of the Indian Ocean in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Headquartered at Batavia in modern Indonesia, the Dutch moved to wrest control of the highly profitable spice trade from the Portuguese. The Dutch began negotiations with King Rajasinha II of Kandy in 1638. A treaty assured the king assistance in his war against the Portuguese in exchange for a monopoly of the island's major trade goods, particularly cinnamon. Rajasinha also promised to pay the Dutch's war-related expenses. The Portuguese fiercely resisted the Dutch and the Kandyans and were expelled only gradually from their strongholds. The Dutch captured the eastern ports of Trincomalee and Batticaloa in 1639 and restored them to the Sinhalese. But when the southwestern and western ports of Galle and Negombo fell in 1640, the Dutch refused to turn them over to the king of Kandy. The Dutch claimed that Rajasinha had not reimbursed them for their vastly inflated claims for military expenditures. This pretext allowed the Dutch to control the island's richest cinnamon lands. The Dutch ultimately presented the king of Kandy with such a large bill for help against the Portuguese that the king could never hope to repay it. After extensive fighting, the Portuguese surrendered Colombo in 1656 and Jaffna, their last stronghold, in 1658. Superior economic resources and greater naval power enabled the Dutch to dominate the Indian Ocean. They attacked Portuguese positions throughout South Asia and in the end allowed their adversaries to keep only their settlement at Goa. The king of Kandy soon realized that he had replaced one foe with another and proceeded to incite rebellion in the lowlands where the Dutch held sway. He even attempted to ally the British in Madras in his struggle to oust the Dutch. These efforts ended with a serious rebellion against his rule in 1664. The Dutch profited from this period of instability and extended the territory under their control. They took over the remaining harbors and completely cordoned off Kandy, thereby making the highland kingdom landlocked and preventing it from allying itself with another foreign power. This strategy, combined with a concerted Dutch display of force, subdued the Kandyan kings. Henceforth, Kandy was unable to offer significant resistance except in its internal frontier regions. The Dutch and the Kingdom of Kandy eventually settled down to an uneasy modus vivendi, partly because the Dutch became less aggressive. Despite underlying hostility between Kandy and the Dutch, open warfare between them occurred only once--in 1762--when the Dutch, exasperated by Kandy's provocation of riots in the lowlands, launched a punitive expedition. The expedition met with disaster, but a better-planned second expedition in 1765 forced the Kandyans to sign a treaty that gave the Dutch sovereignty over the lowlands. The Dutch, however, maintained their pretension that they administered the territories under their control as agents of the Kandyan ruler. After taking political control of the island, the Dutch proceeded to monopolize trade. This monopoly was at first limited to cinnamon and elephants but later extended to other goods. Control was vested in the Dutch East India Company, a joint-stock corporation, which had been established for the purpose of carrying out trade with the islands of Indonesia but was later called upon to exercise sovereign responsibilities in many parts of Asia. The Dutch tried with little success to supplant Roman Catholicism with Protestantism. They rewarded native conversion to the Dutch Reformed Church with promises of upward mobility, but Catholicism was too deeply rooted. (In the 1980s, the majority of Sri Lankan Christians remained Roman Catholics.) The Dutch were far more tolerant of the indigenous religions than the Portuguese; they prohibited open Buddhist and Hindu religious observance in urban areas, but did not interfere with these practices in rural areas. The Dutch banned Roman Catholic practices, however. They regarded Portuguese power and Catholicism as mutually interdependent and strove to safeguard against the reemergence of the former by persecuting the latter. They harassed Catholics and constructed Protestant chapels on confiscated church property. The Dutch contributed significantly to the evolution of the judicial, and, to a lesser extent, administrative systems on the island. They codified indigenous law and customs that did not conflict directly with Dutch-Roman jurisprudence. The outstanding example was Dutch codification of the Tamil legal code of Jaffna- -the Thesavalamai. To a small degree, the Dutch altered the traditional land grant and tenure system, but they usually followed the Portuguese pattern of minimal interference with indigenous social and cultural institutions. The provincial governors of the territories of Jaffnapatam, Colombo, and Trincomalee were Dutch. These rulers also supervised various local officials, most of whom were the traditional mudaliyar (headmen). The Dutch, like the Portuguese before them, tried to entice their fellow countrymen to settle in Sri Lanka, but attempts to lure members of the upper class, especially women, were not very successful. Lower-ranking military recruits, however, responded to the incentive of free land, and their marriages to local women added another group to the island's already small but established population of Eurasians--the Portuguese Burghers. The Dutch Burghers formed a separate and privileged ethnic group on the island in the twentieth century. During the Dutch period, social differences between lowland and highland Sinhalese hardened, forming two culturally and politically distinct groups. Western customs and laws increasingly influenced the lowland Sinhalese, who generally enjoyed a higher standard of living and greater literacy. Despite their relative economic and political decline, the highland Sinhalese were nonetheless proud to have retained their political independence from the Europeans and thus considered themselves superior to the lowland Sinhalese. Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://countrystudies.us/sri-lanka/9.htm

Seafloor drilling in the Bering Sea From July to September 2009, the scientific drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution undertook a nine-week expedition in the Bering Sea. (JOIDES stands for “Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling.”) Led by co-chief scientists Christina Ravelo and Kozo Takahashi, aboard the ship was an international team of about 35 scientists, 25 technicians, and high school science teacher Doug LaVigne, who was the Ice Stories correspondent for the project. The team drilled more than 600 meters (2,000 feet) into the sea floor to extract sediment cores that will provide the first comprehensive records of environmental and oceanographic conditions in the Bering Sea over the past 5 million years. The scientists hope to reconstruct the history of this shallow sea, which acts as a fence between the North Pacific and the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean. So what can be learned from sediment cores? Fossils of microscopic shelled organisms can tell scientists a lot about ocean temperatures in the past, which can help scientists understand climate shifts. The earth’s climate has alternated between colder glacial periods and warmer interglacial periods. From sediment cores and other evidence gathered from places around the world, scientists have a global picture of the earth’s climate history. What causes glaciation, however, is not understood. While various conditions seem likely to contribute to glaciation, it appears that there must be a number of factors interacting in complex ways. Learning the local climate history of the Bering Sea and how it may have affected other regions, particularly the North Pacific, may help solve the mystery of why glaciers advance and retreat. And if scientists can understand the mechanisms of past climate change, they’ll be better able to predict what might happen to our climate in the future.

http://icestories.exploratorium.edu/dispatches/arctic-projects/digging-deep-for-climate-history/

Fun Classroom Activities The 20 enjoyable, interactive classroom activities that are included will help your students understand the text in amusing ways. Fun Classroom Activities include group projects, games, critical thinking activities, brainstorming sessions, writing poems, drawing or sketching, and more that will allow your students to interact with each other, be creative, and ultimately grasp key concepts from the text by "doing" rather than simply studying. Create a 3D recreation of Einstein's Mercer Street. Include the people with whom he speaks and the places mentioned in Chapter One, and don't forget to include Einstein! 2. Art Gallery There are many photographs of Einstein in circulation, but not many representations of him in other mediums. Pick an artistic medium (paint, charcoal, sculpture, etc.) and bring Einstein to life. 3. Mileva's Plight Dress up as Mileva Maritsch and give a soliloquy detailing her unhappiness. The speech should address her... This section contains 750 words| (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)

http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/albert-einstein/funactivities.html

1.3 Real Numbers versus Floating-Point Numbers Roundoff errors do not occur with pure mathematics. They are a by-product of computation, whether by hand or by computer. Since we're working with computers, let's see what some of the differences are between pure math and computer math in order to understand why roundoff errors happen. In pure math, the real numbers are infinite. There is Now let's consider the numbers of computer math?aspecifically, Java's floating-point numbers. Chapter 3 examines these numbers in detail, but we already know enough to point out some of their major differences with the real numbers. First and foremost, the floating-point numbers are not infinite. There is a smallest one, and there is a largest one. There is only a fixed number of floating-point numbers, and so there are gaps between them. Single-precision floating-point numbers (type ) have about eight significant decimal digits, and double-precision floating-point numbers (type ) have about 17 significant decimal digits. We have to use the word because, internally, the numbers are represented in base 2, not base 10, and the conversion between the internal binary form and the external decimal text form introduces some How are the floating-point numbers distributed along the number line? Again, Chapter 3 goes into this with much greater detail, but it suffices to say for now that a floating-point number is stored internally in two To answer the distribution question, let's simplify matters by In Table 1-1, note that most of the 0 row is empty. The special case is when the significand and the exponent are both 0?athe value is 0 itself. A similar table with negative significand values along the left would list all of the negative values we can represent. Table 1-1. All of the positive values (and 0) that we can represent when we limit the significand to a single decimal digit and we restrict the exponent to only the values -1, 0, and 1. The positive significand values are on the left at the head of each row, and the exponent values are on top at the head of each column. The representable values are in bold within the table. Figure 1-1 plots the represented positive values on the number line. In (a), we see the numbers from 0 through 1; in (b), we see the numbers from 0 through 10; in (c), we see the numbers from 0 through 90. Thus, it is apparent that the numbers are not evenly distributed?athe gaps between numbers widen by a factor of 10 with each increase in the exponent value. There are infinitely many numbers we cannot represent, such as 0.25 or 48. Figure 1-1. The representable floating-point numbers plotted on the number line. (a) From 0 through 1, (b) from 0 through 10, and (c) from 0 through 90. Of course, we would be able to represent more numbers if we allowed more digits in the significand, and their range would be wider if we allowed more exponent values. But the key facts So let's return to our original question of where roundoff errors come from. Whenever a computed value lies between two representable values (and, more likely, it will not land right a representable value), the computed value is

http://flylib.com/books/en/2.758.1.11/1/

Scientists at ETH Zurich and MIT have collaborated to create the first prototype of what will undoubtedly become the new frontier for medical technology. They have designed a biological computer than functions within a single cell. The system is a simple circuit that has detectors capable of sensing the presence of molecules within the cell than would increase in concentration under circumstance where the cell has turned cancerous. The circuit then uses a logical structure to determine if a sufficient number and combination of these substances are detected to indicate a high probability of cancer. If the computer concludes the cell is likely cancerous it then triggers a response leading to the death of the cell. To achieve this unfathomably important result the researchers fabricated the biological computer to detect an array of 5 possible RNA snips that code for cancer-related molecules. They placed the computers in a population of laboratory cancer cells called HeLa and several non-HeLa control cell lines and were able to show the computers effectively killed only the HeLa cancercells. The computers were made out of DNA and were transfected into the cells using viruses. They killed he cells through activation of a gene that makes a protein which causes the cell to die (apoptosis). The researchers concluded:

http://extremelongevity.net/2011/09/09/intracellular-cancer-detecting-and-destroying-biological-computer-created/

- slide 1 of 6 Basic Parts of Speech Although explicit grammar instruction will not begin for most students until elementary school, preschoolers can begin to learn about the most basic parts of speech, or grammatical forms, which will form a strong foundation for future grammar study. This lesson plan outlines activities to teach preschool students that verbs are words that show actions and states of being. - slide 2 of 6 Discussion and Prior Knowledge The teacher introduces the topic of verbs to the preschoolers by discussing the following questions and points with the entire class: - Do you know what a verb is? - Do you know what an action is? - Do you know what a state of being is? - Name something you do. - Name something you are. Most preschoolers will probably answer no to the first question, may or may not know the answers to the second and third questions, and should be able to talk about the fourth and fifth points. The students must have prior knowledge about the concept of doing things (actions) and being things (states of being). For example, a preschool aged boy should be able to say that he plays with his toys and that he is a boy. If the students do not understand the last two points, then the teacher should review the ideas of doing things versus being things. - slide 3 of 6 After the introductory discussion, the teacher can read a book about verbs to the preschool students. The book, To Root to Toot to Parachute: What Is a Verb? by, Brian P. Cleary introduces young children to verbs as words that show action or being. Preschoolers will love the silly rhymes in the book including "So are holler, help, and hold. Whack and stack and pack and fold. Fix and finish, load and lift. Hurry, scurry, shake, and sift." The illustrations of a pack of silly cats doing and being things will help the children associate verb words with actions and states. - slide 4 of 6 Verb Sorting Activity The Verb Sorting, or "Is It an Action or State of Being," activity helps preschoolers learn to categorize verbs as actions and states of being. The children will learn to place known verbs into two categories. The materials needed for this preschool activity are: - Verb photo flashcards - Two baskets The verb flashcards should have both images and writing of preschool vocabulary words. Some printable sample flashcards are available for download at Preschool Verb Photo Flashcards: Action Verbs (Part 1), Preschool Verb Photo Flashcards: Action Verbs (Part 2), and Preschool Verb Flashcards: State of Being Verbs. The students can also make their own verb flashcards by coloring their own pictures or by cutting pictures out of magazines and gluing the images onto large index cards. The teacher should then write the verb on the flashcard under the picture. The teacher should also label each of the baskets—one as action and one as state of being—prior to doing the activity in class. To play the Verb Sorting activity, the teacher should first place the two baskets on a table in front of the preschoolers and then explain the labels to the students. The teacher will then hold a verb flashcard up and ask the class, "Is it an action or state of being?" For example, if the teacher selects the be card, the students should answer, "Be is a state of being." After the student correctly identifies the type of verb, the teacher should place the flashcard in the corresponding basket. Optional: If the preschool students solidly understand the difference between action verbs and state of being verbs, the teacher can also introduce the handful of verbs that can show both action and state of being: appear, feel, get, grow, look, prove, remain, smell, sound, stay, taste, and turn. For example, the verb smell is an action verb in The boy smelled the cookies but is a state of being verb in The cookies smell delicious. In the first sentence, the boy is doing something (smelling the cookies). In the second sentence, the cookies are being something (delicious). To add this third category of verbs to the activity, simply create additional verb flashcards and label a third basket. - slide 5 of 6 Simon Says Verbs The Simon Says Verbs game is another fun verb activity that will help preschoolers both identify verbs from other parts of speech and distinguish action verbs from state of being verbs. The students will also get some healthy exercise while playing this game. Have the children all stand up in an area large enough for each child to move around safely such as in the school gym or outside on the playground. The teacher will stand in front of the class and say, "Simon says..." followed by a verb. The students should then do or be what Simon said. For example, if the teacher says, "Simon says dance," then all the preschoolers should dance. If the teacher says, "Simon says be excited," then the students should be excited. The teacher can also include some words that are not verbs. For example, if the teacher says, "Simon says table," the students should stop moving because table is a noun, not a verb. Optional: Instead of the teacher making all the commands, individual students can take turns playing Simon. Each preschooler should get a change to stand at the front of the class and say, "Simon says." - slide 6 of 6 At the end of the verb lesson, the teacher should review what the students learned by asking the following questions: - What is a verb? - What is an action? Name an action. - What is a state of being? Name a state of being. The preschoolers should be able to correctly answer all three questions after reading the verb book To Root to Toot to Parachute: What Is a Verb? by Brian P. Cleary and after playing the Verb Sorting and Simon Says Verbs activities. By learning about verbs as actions and states of being at an early age, preschoolers will be better prepared for more in-depth grammar education in elementary school and beyond. - All ideas courtesy of the author, Heather Marie Kosur Teaching Preschoolers About Verbs as Actions and States of Being Preschoolers can develop a strong foundation for future grammar study by learning the basics about the parts of speech. This series of pre-K lesson plans suggests books, discussion questions, and activities for preparing students for later grammar education.

http://www.brighthubeducation.com/preschool-lesson-plans/45639-preschool-verb-lesson-teach-preschool-or-kindergarten-students-about-verbs-with-downloads/

This term, borrowed from French (also laisser-faire), means ‘Let (people) do (as they think best)’. This phrase expresses the ‘principle that government should not interfere with the actions of individuals especially in industrial affairs and in trade’ (Oxford English Dictionary). Much of the Government’s attitude to the Irish situation was determined by this fashionable philosophy of ‘political economy’ rather that by the facts. Ministers invoked the principles of laissez-faire, but in fact they did intervene, and often crudely. In the Government’s model of political economy, Ireland was an over-populated country where sub-division of land and dependence on the potato left peasant and landlord alike with too much idle time. Property owners should undertake the responsibilities of property. The lack of economic progress was seen as failure. Consequently, the solution to the Irish problem was to end the system of ‘easy existence’ by diversifying economic activity, stopping sub-division, reducing the role of the potato, and bringing men of energy and capital into the country. In a period of crisis, such as the Famine, prejudice and fear were easily turned into policies. Ireland was caricatured for its poverty and seen as a possible threat to the economic prosperity of the United Kingdom. Britain was at this stage on the verge of industrial and imperial ascendancy and its leaders may have felt that it could be hampered by its closeness, geographically and politically, to an impoverished, over-populated, potato-fed, and priest-ridden Ireland. Inquiries into the condition of Ireland in the nineteenth century focussed mostly on its poverty, its system of landholding, the size of its population and the backwardness of its agriculture, especially the continuing dependence on the potato. The debates that followed were shaped by the writings of some leading economists. One of the most influential doctrines was ‘political economy’; Adam Smith was its principal proponent; and he set out his principles in his influential book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. He believed that the wealth of a nation could be increased if the market was free from constraints and Government intervention was kept to a minimum. He applied the same principle to the relationship between the Government and the individual and he used it to justify individualism and self-help. Adam Smith’s ideas were complex, but they were often reduced to the simple slogan, laissez-faire, meaning no Government interference. Smith’s ideological heirs included Thomas Malthus, Edmund Burke, David Ricardo, Nassau Senior, Harriet Martineau and Jeremy Bentham.These writers developed their individual and frequently contradictory interpretation of ‘political economy’. Bentham summed up his principles: ‘Laissez-faire, in short, should be the general practice: every departure, unless required by some great good, is certain evil’. Government ministers from William Pitt to Lord John Russell were inspired by this philosophy. Burke in a memorandum to Pitt on the duty of Government not to intervene during a period of scarcity assured the Prime Minister that even God was on their side. Paradoxically ‘political economy’ existed in a period of increasing government action. Government intervention was frequent, piecemeal, and measured. In the case of the 1834 English Poor Law the Government intervened to reduce costs. When it suited Government, laissez-faire could be doctrine; when it did not, as in the case of the Corn Laws and the Navigation Acts, it was ignored. One of its main attractions was that ‘ministers could take whatever suited them from political economy and reject whatever did not’. During the Famine, political economy was invoked to justify non-interference in the grain trade, following the disastrous blight of 1846–7. It had the strong support of political economists in the Whig Cabinet including Charles Wood and the Colonial Secretary, Earl Grey. At the height of the distress, the writings of Smith and Burke were sent to relief officers in Ireland, and they were encouraged to read them in their spare time. During the decades before the Famine, much attention was focussed on Ireland’s poverty and its fast-growing population. The problems of the country were being reduced to the fashionable Malthusian equation of a fast-growing population and heavy dependence on a single resource—the potato—that made vice and misery inevitable. Not even the most pessimistic observers thought a major famine was imminent and some were optimistic about the prospects of the country. Official observers in Britain, many influenced by Malthus’s ideas, were pessimistic about Ireland. The Census returns and other Government inquires confirmed that the country was suffering the many evils of heavy dependence on one crop, extensive poverty, and a fast-growing population. It was perhaps convenient and pragmatic to see Ireland, in Malthusian terms, as a society in crisis. To see Ireland as an economy trapped in a spiral of poverty, and social disaster as inevitable, was convenient: it made the Government and its officials appear blameless. Bibliography. T. R. Malthus, Occasional papers of T.R. Malthus on Ireland, population and political economy (New York 1963). J. M. Goldstrom & L. A. Clarkson (ed), Irish population economy and society: essays in honour of the late K. H. Connell (Oxford 1981). Joel Mokyr, Why Ireland starved: a quantitative and analytical history of the Irish economy, 1800–1850 (London 1983). Cormac Ó Gráda, Ireland: a new economic history, 1780–1939 (Oxford 1994).

http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Laissez-Faire

Atmospheric Temperature Profile This is the lowest layer of the atmosphere and varies in height in different parts of the world from roughly 8km above sea level at the poles, to 16 km at the equator. Within the troposphere the pressure, density and temperature all decrease rapidly with height. Most of the "weather" occurs in the troposphere because of the presence of water vapour and strong vertical currents produced by the radiation of the sun's rays from the Earth's surface. In the upper regions of the troposphere, very strong, fast-moving and complex winds occur called jet streams. The top layer of the troposphere is known as the tropopause. Within the troposphere the temperature drops to a low of -56ºC which marks the beginning of the tropopause. Through the tropopause, the temperature reverses and begins to increase. The height of the tropopause varies, as already stated, from the poles to the equator, but also from the summer to winter. For a distance of about 18 km above the tropopause, there is a layer known as the stratosphere in which the pressure continues to decrease but in which the temperature continues to increase gradually to 0ºC. This layer also varies in thickness, being quite deep over the poles and thinner over the equator. Water vapour is almost non-existent and air currents are minimal. A layer of ozone is present in the stratosphere which absorbs the sun's ultraviolet rays and, hence, creates the rise in temperature. The top layer of the stratosphere is called the stratopause wherein the temperature, once again, beings to fall. The mesosphere is characterized by a marked decrease in temperature that is carried through from the stratopause. It is in the mesosphere that meteorites typically burn up as they enter the atmosphere. In the top layer of the mesosphere, called the mesopause, the temperature bottoms out at a low of about -100ºC at 80 km above the Earth, then begins to rise again with greater altitude. Temperature continues to rise in the thermosphere and beyond, increasing for an indefinite distance into space. Air molecules are few in this layer which extends upwards from a point 80-100 kilometres above the Earth's surface. Beyond the thermosphere lies a layer wherein pressure drops to little more than a vacuum. Under these conditions, the concept of temperature has little meaning and is usually replaced by definitions of the energy states of individual molecules. The spectacular auroras form in the regions of the exosphere, the bottom of which is found at 500 kilometres above the Earth's surface. - Date modified:

http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/educators/resources/scisat/grade-factsheets-atmospheric.asp

Affricates – an affricate is a consonant which begins as a stop (plosive), characterized by a complete obstruction of the outgoing airstream by the articulators, a build up of air pressure in the mouth, and finally releases as a fricative, a sound produced by forcing air through a constricted space, which produces turbulence when the air is forced trough a smaller opening. Depending on which parts of the vocal tract are used to constrict the airflow, that turbulence causes the sound produced to have a specific character (compare pita with pizza, the only difference is the release in /t/ and /ts/). There are two types of affricate in English. For an interactive example of each sound (including descriptive animation and video), click this link, then in the window that opens, click affricate, and select the appropriate sound. /ts/ /dz/ lingua-alveolar affricates A lingua-alveolar (from lingua tongue and alveola the ridge just behind the front upper teeth) affricate is a sound which the flow of air out of the body is initially interrupted in the same manner as a lingua-alveolar stop /t/ or /d/, then immediately released in the same manner as a lingua-alveolar fricative /s/ or /z/, constricted by touching the tongue to the alveolar ridge — the part of the roof of the mouth, just behind the upper front teeth, creating a narrow opening through which the air passes. English has two lingua-alveolar affricates — voiceless /ts/ as in pizza and its, and /dz/ which is voiced as in ads and adze. /t∫/ /dʒ/ postalveolar affricates A postalveolar (from post- after and alveola the ridge just behind the front upper teeth) affricate is a sound which is a combination of a lingua-alveolar stop /t/ or /d/ and a lingua-palatal fricative /∫/ or /ʒ/. Because a postalveolar afficate is a combination of two sounds with different points of articulation (in this case, the spot where the tip of the tongue contacts the top of the mouth), its point of articulation falls between that of its two component sounds. In a lingua-alveolar stop, the tongue interrupts the flow of air by pressing against the alveolar ridge — the part of the roof of the mouth, just behind the upper front teeth. In a lingua-palatal fricative, the flow of air out of the body is constricted by very nearly touching the tongue to the hard palate — the part of the roof of the mouth, just behind the alveolar ridge, creating a narrow opening through which the air passes. In a postalveolar affricate, the point of articulation for both the stop and fricative release occurs between these two positions, just behind the alveolar ridge but not quite on the hard palate. English has two postalveolar affricates — voiceless /t∫/ as in cheese, catch, and ligature, and /dʒ/ which is voiced as in judge, magic, and jam.

http://calleteach.wordpress.com/tag/affricate/

Lesson Plans and Worksheets Browse by Subject - Lynn C., Teacher - Wakefield, RI Letter from Birmingham Jail Teacher Resources Find teacher approved Letter From Birmingham Jail educational resource ideas and activities Tenth graders develop a website documenting poetry integral during the civil rights movement in the United States. Working in pairs, 10th graders research the people and poetry of that was prevalent during the civil rights movement. They analyze the poetry for content and theme. Taking their research, student pairs create a website featuring their information and analysis. Tenth graders evaluate the role and consequences of civil disobedience compared to other forms of protest in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. They use Henry David Thoreau's essay, "Civil Disobedience," to delvelop their knowledge of the concept. Pupils define the term "civil disobedience" and give an example. Students locate the literary devices used in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. In this figurative language lesson plan, students first distinguish between similes, metaphors, analogies, personification, etc. Students watch a video of Dr. King's speech and work in groups work to locate any figurative language included in the speech. Students create a presentation to share with the class what they learned. Students identify what makes American citizenship valid and how the rights were obtained by answering lesson plan questions. In this U.S. history lesson plan, students discuss people who's rights have been violated such as blacks and women, and write about their own views. Students utilize their own words to summarize a letter by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Learners analyze Dr. King's public addresses and Langston Hughes' poetry as a study of the Civil Rights' nonviolent approach to making an impact. In this protesting lesson, students read poetry of Hughes and speeches by Dr. King as a study of ways to productively and nonviolently impact change. Students discover the accomplishments of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. In this social justice lesson, students watch "Freedom Fighters," and then read speeches or writings made by each of the men. Students write compare and contrast essays about Mandela and King.

http://www.lessonplanet.com/lesson-plans/letter-from-birmingham-jail/3

After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War, the majority of the German speaking people in Austria wanted to unite with the new German Republic. However, this was forbidden by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Demands for the union (Anschluss) of Austria and Germany increased after Adolf Hitler became German Chancellor. In February, 1938, Hitler invited Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor, to meet him at Berchtesgarden. Hitler demanded concessions for the Austrian Nazi Party. Schuschnigg refused and after resigning was replaced by Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the leader of the Austrian Nazi Party. On 13th March, Seyss-Inquart invited the German Army to occupy Austria and proclaimed union with Germany. Austria was now renamed Ostmark and was placed under the leadership of Seyss-Inquart. The Austrian born Ernst Kaltenbrunner was named Minister of State and head of the Schutz Staffeinel (SS). After the defeat of Nazi Germany a Second Republic was established in Austria in December, 1945. The withdrawal of the armies of occupation in 1955 was followed by a period of rapid industrialization. In 1970 Bruno Kreisky and his Social Democratic Party were able to form a minority government. In doing so, he became the first ever Jewish politician to gain power in central Europe since the beginning of the human race. Kreisky steadily increased his majority in subsequent elections. He remained in power until he lost the general election in 1983.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWaustria.htm

The concept of an umbrella species has been used by conservation practitioners to provide protection for other species using the same habitat as the umbrella species. As the term implies, a species casts an “umbrella” over the other species by being more or equally sensitive to habitat changes. Thus monitoring this one species and managing for its continued success results in the maintenance of high quality habitat for the other species in the area. Animals identified as umbrella species typically have large home ranges that cover multiple habitat types. Therefore, protecting the umbrella species effectively protects many habitat types and the many species that depend on those habitats. Although the effectiveness of this conservation approach is debated, it is often used by practitioners to select a minimum size for protected areas. Although the exact origin of the term is difficult to pin down, the word “umbrella” was first used in conjunction with conservation measures by Frankel and Soule in 1981. They suggested that directing conservation measures at large species could provide protection to other species that were not the focus of the conservation efforts. Thus, the concept of an “umbrella” was discussed and used by conservationists before the phrase “umbrella species” was in common use. Wilcox (1984) defined an umbrella species as one whose minimum area requirements are at least as large as the rest of the community for which protection is sought. This protection is obtained through the establishment and management of protected areas. The umbrella species concept is often applied to conservation efforts, both to create and to maintain protected areas. In some land conservation cases, a species is identified as an umbrella species, the minimum land required for their survival is calculated, and then the project seeks to protect this area. It is important to clarify that although the name implies that this conservation technique is focused on the selected wildlife species, it is inherently an approach focused on selection of quality habitat. This requires conservation practitioners to have a clear understanding of the actual habitat requirements of the umbrella species or of other species under the umbrella. Scientists do not agree on what characteristics identify a species as an umbrella species. Most often, umbrella species have large ranges; more specifically they are often large, terrestrial mammals. These animals are typically used because adequate protection efforts for them generally require that large areas of land be protected. Examples of umbrella species include grizzly bears in British Columbia, Canada and black rhinos in Namibia, Africa. Smaller animals that have been used as umbrella species include the hooded robin (a songbird in Australia) and the bay checkerspot butterfly in California (United States). Alternatively, some conservationists will choose an animal as an umbrella species based upon its rarity and sensitivity to human disturbance. Using the umbrella species concept as a conservation tool is not always perceived as effective. Today, there is some question about the usefulness of conservation projects that have been based on the umbrella species concept. Some conservationists feel that no single species can adequately encompass all habitat requirements for all the species that share its habitat. A commonly cited example of this controversy is the conservation effort based on the California gnatcatcher (a songbird). Researchers found that areas where the gnatcatcher lived did not necessarily support populations of three insect species that share habitat with the bird. Therefore, using the gnatcatcher as an umbrella species did not offer enough protection for all three of those insect species. Similar conservation terms Several other conservation concepts are also based on a single-species approach to conservation. A few examples are listed below: - Indicator species: a single species (or more often, a suite of species) is identifiied as an indicator species because (their) presence, absence or abundance reflects a specific environmental condition. For example, the Northern Spotted Owl is used to indicate old growth forest in the United States, or amphibian species are used as indicators of freshwater ecosystem health. - Flagship species: a species that has become a symbol and leading element of an entire conservation campaign, often a large charismatic mammal. For example, the Florida panther in the United States or the polar bear which has come to symbolize the perils of climate change. - Keystone species: a species whose presence contributes to ecosystem function and whose elimination would lead to the disappearance of other species in the ecosystem. For example, black-tailed prairie dogs in the United States, or elephants in Asia or Africa. - Fleishman, E.D., D. Murphy, and P.F. Brussard. 2000. A new method for selection of umbrella species for conservation planning. Ecological Applications 10:569-579. - Frankel, O.H., and M.E. Soule. 1981. Conservation and evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom. - Roberge, J-M., P. Angelstam. 2004. Usefulness of the umbrella species concept as a conservation tool. Conservation Biology 18:76-85. - Rubinoff, D. 2001. Evaluating the California Gnatcatcher as an umbrella species for conservation of southern California coastal sage scrub. Conservation Biology 15:1374-1383. - Wilcox, Bruce A. 1984. "In situ conservation of genetic resources: Determinants of minimum area requirements." In National Parks, Conservation and Development, Proceedings of the World Congress on National Parks. J.A. McNeely and K.R. Miller, Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 18-30. This article created as part of the Student Science Communication Project. Graduate student authors: Nathaly Filion and Kim Hoffmann, Reviewer: Therese Donovan. Class: Conservation Techniques and Approaches. See: EoE in the Classroom

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Umbrella_species?topic=58074

chondruleArticle Free Pass chondrule, small, rounded particle embedded in most stony meteorites called chondrites. Chondrules are usually about one millimetre in diameter and consist largely of the silicate minerals olivine and pyroxene. From textural and chemical relationships, it is clear that they were formed at high temperatures as dispersed molten droplets, which subsequently solidified and aggregated into chondritic masses. This process occurred in space in earliest times before the planets accreted. How the chondrules were melted, however, is not understood. It seems likely that dust particles or planetesimals already in existence were melted by high-energy events such as high-velocity collisions and splashed about as droplets that quickly cooled and crystallized. What made you want to look up "chondrule"? Please share what surprised you most...

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/114321/chondrule

for National Geographic News Ripples in the early universe following the big bang 13.7 billion years ago caused gases to coalesce into the luminous seeds of the first stars, a new computer simulation reveals. Such stellar embryos, or protostars, were the universe's first astronomical objects and its first sources of light. Previous telescope observations have shown that very distant—and thus very old—cosmic objects contain heavy elements such as carbon and iron, which are formed only by the nuclear reactions inside full-grown stars. This suggests that massive stars must have existed even earlier in the universe's history than telescopes can see. Until now, the earliest stages of primordial star formation had not been modeled in detail. "Previous works probed up to only intermediate stages where only gas blobs or dark matter clumps are formed," said lead study author Naoki Yoshida of Nagoya University in Japan. The new research brings astronomers a step closer to simulating the entire birth of an early star all the way up to nuclear ignition. Understanding such processes is vital to figuring out how subsequent stars developed and seeded the cosmos with the elements that eventually gave rise to life. (Related: "Dark Matter May Have Powered Universe's First Stars" [December 6, 2007].) "If we want to understand how things came about and why they look the way they do now, we have to go back in time and understand how stars looked when they first began to form," said study co-author Lars Hernquist of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The first adult stars were bright, short-lived behemoths that ended the so-called cosmic dark ages—a 200-million-year period beginning shortly after the big bang when there was no visible light. When some of these first stars died in explosive events called supernovae, they bequeathed a valuable inheritance of heavy elements to the rest of the universe. SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/07/080731-early-stars.html

The National Aerospace and Space Administration (NASA) declared on Tuesday that Mars could support life. The basis of NASA was an analysis of rock samples that the Curiosity crew drilled from the red planet. The analysis found evidence of water and basic elements that small organisms could thrive on. "We have found a habitable environment that is so benign and supportive of life that probably if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it," AP quoted John Grotzinger, the chief scientist of the California Institute of Technology. Curiosity used its robotic arms to drill into a fine-grained, veiny rock to get powder samples which were tested by the crew on its onboard laboratories. While previous NASA missions discovered evidence that the red planet was more tropical billions of years ago, the belief is that Mars is now a frigid desert often hit by radiation. The analysis specifically found sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous and simple carbon which are essential chemical ingredients for life. It also found clay and sulfate minerals which are indicators that the rock was formed in a watery environment. Curiosity landed near the Mars equator in August 2012 as part of its two-year mission. Interest in Mars has spiked following the Curiosity landing that an American billionaire is organising a 501-day journey to Mars in 2018 using a space vehicle covered with hydrated human feces to serve as protection against radiation.

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/445424/20130313/nasa-mars-rock-test-shows-red-planet.htm

|Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute||Home| The unit's content will cover transmission, replication process of bacteria and viruses, genetic variability, human immunity defense and evolutionary defense mechanisms, and medical treatment. The unit will be useful in comparing bacteria and viruses, demonstrating the importance of evolution, displaying the relationships between humans and microbes, and illustrating the importance of genetic variability. Students will be engaged in a hands-on approach to learning through student-driven discussions, laboratories, debates, and independent research projects. The strategies for teaching this unit must coincide with the 5 E's of learning: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. The unit also seeks to teach science by incorporating other subjects such as history, reading and literacy, and math. (Recommended for Biology, grade 10)

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/guides/2009/5/09.05.02.x.html

Over the years, NASA has collected a great deal of Earth science data from dozens of orbiting satellites. With time, these data collections have scattered among many archives that vary significantly in sophistication and access. NASA risked losing valuable, irreplaceable data as people retired, storage media decayed, formats changed and collections dispersed. Scientists began to spend more time searching for data than performing research. Today, NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth, which leads the agency's Earth science research, continues to collect data. This office operates 11 active satellites and instruments, which together produce 450 gigabytes (Gb) of data each day. Landsat alone, one of NASA's most popular sources of remote sensing data, produces 200 Gb of raw data per day. In 1997, NASA will launch the first of many Earth Observation Systems (EOS) satellites and instruments that will double the daily production of raw data. EOS will produce 15 years of global, comprehensive environmental remote sensing data. To handle the size and variety of data now available and to promote cross-discipline research, NASA created EOSDIS, which drastically reduces the time spent searching for relevant data, allowing scientists to focus their research efforts on changes in the Earth's environment. EOSDIS allows scientists to search many data centers and disciplines quickly and easily, quickening the pace of research. The faster the research, the more quickly scientists can identify causes of detrimental environmental effects, opening the way for policy- and lawmakers to act at international, national and local levels. The well-known hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic illustrates the process from research to policy to law. Researchers first discovered the ozone hole when lofting a weather balloon from an Antarctic research station. But NASA's NIMBUS 7 satellite had the necessary instruments, so why hadn't it detected the hole? Scientists quickly discovered that the calibration algorithm routinely dropped low ozone values as "noise." When they retrieved 12 years of original NIMBUS 7 data, scientists verified the existence of the hole and indicated that it had grown over the last decade. Data from additional instruments revealed that CloroFloroCarbons (CFCs), such as Freon, destroyed the ozone layer and created the hole. Armed with this knowledge, the United States signed several international treaties restricting the production of CFCs. Congress passed regulations on the production, distribution and recovery of CFCs in the United States. As a direct result, worldwide production of CFCs has plummeted. Today, consumers cannot openly buy Freon. Given time, the CFCs already in the atmosphere will disperse and the ozone layer will heal itself. Another example of the benefits of multiple-discipline Earth science research lies in the work of the EOSDIS Pathfinder projects, which recycle old data from past and current satellites into new products for scientific research. One project used old Landsat data to assess deforestation in the Amazon basin, indicating that the true rate of deforestation closely matches that cited by the Brazilian government, thus ending a long standing, international debate. Now that scientists have settled the extent of deforestation, policy- and lawmakers can act to fix it. In yet another result of the EOSDIS philosophy, ocean dynamists recently discovered a huge, low-amplitude wave that propagates back and forth across the Pacific Ocean. Only a few inches high, but a thousand miles long, the wave bounces back and forth between South America and Asia. The same scientists also found that sea level has risen slightly over the last few years, while other researchers detected a slight decline in total ice coverage. Are these three phenomena related? If so, why? Only collaborative research between atmospheric physics, ocean dynamics, meteorology and climatology can answer these questions. The same principles apply to regional and local, as well as national and international, policy and law. Through EOSDIS, state and local governments can obtain accurate data and information about water tables, flood plains, ground cover and air quality. For example, the state of Ohio has begun using NASA remote sensing data to monitor reclamation of strip mining sites, a task for which the state does not have enough personnel to perform on-site inspections. EOSDIS does a lot more than just store and distribute Earth science data. It also provides the operational ground infrastructure for all satellites and instruments within the Mission to Planet Earth office at NASA. It contains Earth science data from EOS satellites, other MTPE satellites, joint programs with international partners and other agencies, field studies and past satellites. It receives and processes the raw data from the satellites. After initial processing, EOSDIS delivers the data to the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) for further processing, storage and distribution. EOSDIS also includes mission operations and satellite control. The Science Data Processing Segment handles all data production, archive and distribution through the Information Management Service, the Planning and Data Processing System, and the Data Archival and Distribution Services. The Information Management Service performs data search, access and retrieval for the EOSDIS. The Planning and Data Processing System processes the raw data into the standard products offered by the EOSDIS. The Data Archival and Distribution Service permanently stores all data received or produced by EOSDIS. The Flight Operations Segment, consisting of the EOS Operations Center, the Instrument Support Terminals and the Spacecraft Simulator, supports the EOS satellites and instruments. The Operations Center commands and controls the operation of EOS satellites. The Instrument Support Terminals consist of a few generic workstations dedicated to the command and control of specific instruments. Generally, each instrument will have its own Instrument Support Terminal. The Spacecraft Simulator analyzes general satellite information stripped off the main data stream, searching for trends and problems. The Communications and Systems Management Segment, consisting of the Systems Management Center and the NASA Internal Network, manages schedules and operations among the DAACs and other elements of the EOSDIS. The Systems Management Center manages network loading, data transfer and overall processing to optimize EOSDIS performance. The Internal Network connects all of the permanent archives, transferring data among all of the DAACs and Science Computing Facilities via a dedicated fiber network utilizing the asynchronous transfer mode. The NASA Science Internet (or Internet for short) links the general user to the EOSDIS. The Internet also links EOSDIS to data centers outside NASA. The EOSDIS Data and Operations System (EDOS), consisting of the Data Interface Facility, the Data Production Facility and the Sustaining Engineering Facility, handles all telemetry to and from the satellite and performs the initial data processing. The Data Interface Facility is the primary communication and data link between the ground and the satellites. The Data Interface Facility separates the main data stream into the scientific and system information. The scientific information goes to the Data Production Facility, while the system information goes to the EOS Operations Control Center and the Spacecraft Simulator. The Data Production Facility separates the scientific data by instruments, calibrates it and attaches any ancillary data (orbit information, for example). All data then gets transferred to the DAACs for permanent storage. The Sustaining Engineering Facility maintains equipment, identifies hardware trends and plans for future upgrades. The DAACs process the data from each instrument on each satellite into approximately 250 products. Among the many satellite projects from which products are developed are the Tropical Rain Measurement Mission, the Ocean Topography Experiment and Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer. Through EOSDIS, data products can come from field campaigns, such as the Boreal Ecosystem Atmosphere Study; from satellites operated by other agencies, such as NOAA's Geostationary Orbit Environmental Satellite; and from past NASA missions and programs. Users can locate data products by discipline, DAAC, Earth location, instrument, satellite or time. EOSDIS allows any data format, but uses the Hierarchical Data Format, developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, as the standard. NASA released Version 0 of the EOSDIS to the general public in 1994. Version 0 connects all the DAACs with some elements of the Science Data Processing Segments, primarily the Information Management Service. Version 0 consolidates 12 distinct data systems and allows users to locate and order data products at eight DAACs (SEDAC will come on line later this year). Through Version 0, users can also link to NOAA's Satellite Active Archive. Version 1, due for release in February 1996, will include all functional elements of the EOSDIS, but not at full capacity. Version 2, due for release in November 1997, will bring the EOSDIS up to full capacity. Minor upgrades between versions will fix small problems, improve specific services and add new products. Anyone can access the EOSDIS via the Internet with telenet or via modem. One can access Version 0 from a computer that runs UNIX, X-Windows or VT100. Users can search through the EOSDIS archives in a variety of ways: by scientific discipline, satellite or product name. One can limit the search to specific regions on the Earth or specific dates. To help in selection, EOSDIS allows users to preview low-resolution browse images before ordering the data product. Data set descriptions also help users choose applicable products. A help desk at each DAAC takes data orders and troubleshoots problems. Kevin Schaefer is with NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.

http://asis.org/Bulletin/Apr-95/schaefer.html

The First Treaty of Washington, more formally known as the Treaty with the Creeks 1805, was an agreement between the U.S. government and the Creek Nation in which the latter ceded a large swath of territory in central Georgia. More important to the future of what was then known as the Old Southwest, the treaty allowed the United States to construct a horse path from the Ocmulgee River to the Mobile River, which would evolve into the Old Federal Road. By this route, thousands of settlers would enter the Mississippi Territory (present-day Alabama and Mississippi), creating tensions with the Creeks in east Alabama that resulted in conflict and their eventual removal west. The treaty's purpose was to acquire territory for a postal route from Washington, D.C., to Mobile, Mobile County, and New Orleans, Louisiana, which recently had been acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. The only existing route, the Natchez Trace, was longer and ran through north Alabama. The route that would become the Federal Road was surveyed by Isaac Briggs and Thomas Robertson in 1804 and approved by Congress in March 1805, ultimately resulting in a road from Athens, Georgia, to Fort Stoddert on the Tombigbee River. The treaty was signed in Washington on November 14, 1805, by a number of Lower Creek leaders, including William McIntosh, who correctly warned that the road would anger some Creeks. Representing the United States was Henry Dearborn, the U.S. secretary of war, with then-Secretary of State James Madison and Federal Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins also present. Stating that the horse path was to be constructed at the discretion of the president, the agreement allowed for the laying of logs over creeks and provided for the peaceful passage of U.S citizens as authorized by the federal government. Also, Creek chiefs were directed to have boats available on rivers with which to convey travellers and horses and to maintain accommodations for travellers, such as inns, stagecoach stops, and taverns, with prices to be regulated by Benjamin Hawkins or his successor. The treaty also ceded to the United States a narrow strip of land in Georgia between the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers in central Georgia. It stretched from Watkinsville south-southwest to the banks of the Ocmulgee and south along that river to its confluence with the Oconee in the southeast portion and then northwest just east of the Oconee to Watkinsville. The treaty stipulated that the federal government had the right to establish a military post and a factory, or trading house, on the tract and afforded navigation and specific fishing privileges to whites on the Ocmulgee. It also provided two blacksmiths and strikers, or assistants, to the Creek Nation for eight years. (Congress would appropriate $6,400 in April 1806 for the construction and widening of the path into a road, which required the clearing of brush, felling of trees, and building of boardwalks over swampy ground.) In return, the federal government agreed to pay the Creek Nation annually $12,000 in cash, goods, or farm tools, for eight years. After that period, $11,000 was to be paid annually over 10 years. The Creeks also retained a small piece of land on the Ocmulgee that was later handed over in the 1826 Treaty of Washington, in which all Creek land in Georgia was ceded to the United States. Most Upper Creek chiefs opposed the treaty and the road, adding to the tensions among them and between them and the Lower Creeks; the dispute would be among the reasons for a split in the Creek Nation that would escalate into the Creek War of 1813-14. Profit certainly motivated some actors in supporting the treaty. McIntosh, for instance, did not have the authority to sign the treaty but later built an inn and tavern along the route. In addition, trader John Forbes, who took over the firm Panton, Leslie & Company and encouraged the treaty among the Creeks, hoped the payments for the land cession would enable the Creeks to repay debts owed to the company. Some Upper Creeks, principally Big Warrior, also profited despite opposing the bargain. Overall, though, the treaty was an early step by the federal government to open the Old Southwest to settlement, leading to the eventual removal of southeastern Native Americans to the West. Green, Michael D. The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Griffith, Benjamin w. Jr. McIntosh and Weatherford, Creek Indian Leaders. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988. Kappler, Charles J., ed. Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties. 7 vols. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904. Available online at http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler Southerland, Henry deLeon, and Elijah Brown. The Federal Road through Georgia, the Creek Nation and Alabama, 1806-1836. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989. Published May 6, 2011 Last updated May 6, 2011

http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-3070

The main sources of river pollution worldwide are sewage, effluent from livestock farms, manufacturing and industrial discharges, mining wastes, materials from housing and road construction, and the myriad wastes carried in rain runoff, including gasoline and oil. Urbanization adds its own mixture of eroded soil, solid wastes, rubbish, and organic matter. The relative amounts of these pollutants differ between developed and developing countries, but each of these pollutants represents worldwide problems in riparian health. Four factors cause riparian destruction in addition to pollution: physical alterations; destruction of catchment areas; mismanagement of fish resources; and invasive species. Physical alterations include structures built into or near waterways for the purpose of flood control, landscaping, or power generation. Some urban centers alter waterways simply because the city wants the water to pass through it in a more convenient way. Altering riparian areas is not confined to large cities, as a Glenwood Springs, Colorado, resident pointed out in a 2008 letter to the Glenwood Springs Post Independent: “There are large subdivisions all over the [Roaring Fork] Valley where the prime riparian has been ripped up entirely to support exclusive subdivisions, malls and golf courses. . . . I don’t find golf courses, shopping centers and parking lots a positive addition to the environment. All that manicured green grass, asphalt and chemical warfare has replaced the oak brush, sagebrush and the natural habitat. The irony is the new pavement is named Heron Circle, Eagle Court, Hawk Lane, yet we’ve destroyed the birds’ actual habitat.” Construction that was once well-meaning has turned into a hazard for habitat and biodiversity. Some of the major restructuring projects that have been completed on rivers and streams that cause major impact on riparian environments are the following: » dams for flood control, drinking water reservoirs, or power generation » clearing of riparian vegetation for landscaping » constructed channelization through urban areas » river diversion in urban areas » deepening, straightening, or widening rivers for ship use » docks and boardwalks for recreation Physical alterations change waterways’ normal routes, sediment settling, water temperature, and water chemistry. All these factors affect biota from microbes to old-growth trees that live in the catchment area. Catchments consist of mountain lakes, ponds, and streams as well as the moisture stored in trees and soil. New developments on mountaintops that cut down trees and landscape the area for roads and views change the catchment’s capacity to store water for later use downstream. Clear-cutting, mining, and agriculture impose similar effects on catchments. Mismanagement of fish resources in natural rivers and streams also damages riparian habitat. Illegal fishing, overharvesting, or fishing without regard for the environment affects these habitats as does the use of poisons, nets, and even explosives. Other ills brought by irresponsible fishing are the waste pollution and overuse of the same riparian location. Overuse causes three main damages to the riparian habitat: destroyed terrain; trampled vegetation on the banks; and alteration of wildlife’s normal patterns. Riparian habitats also receive damage from invasive vines or bushes that people plant along waterways. These plants have the potential to displace native vegetation that serves as food, shelter, and nesting sites for wildlife. Invasive fish species also alter the natural ecosystem in ways that may affect biota far downstream, particularly by interfering with normal food chains. Source of Information : Green Technology Conservation Protecting Our Plant Resources

http://bookbanks.blogspot.com/2012/05/threats-to-waterways.html

Uniform resource locator A uniform resource locator, abbreviated URL, also known as web address, is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to a resource. In most web browsers, the URL of a web page is displayed on top inside an address bar. An example of a typical URL would be "http://en.example.org/wiki/Main_Page". A URL is technically a type of uniform resource identifier (URI), but in many technical documents and verbal discussions, URL is often used as a synonym for URI. The Uniform Resource Locator was created in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee and the URI working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as an outcome of collaboration started at the IETF Living Documents "Birds of a Feather" session in 1992. The format combines the pre-existing system of domain names (created in 1985) with file path syntax, where slashes are used to separate directory and file names. Conventions already existed where server names could be prepended to complete file paths, preceded by a double-slash (//). Berners-Lee later regretted the use of dots to separate the parts of the domain name within URIs, wishing he had used slashes throughout. For example, http://www.example.com/path/to/name would have been written http:com/example/www/path/to/name. Berners-Lee has also said that, given the colon following the URI scheme, the two forward slashes before the domain name were also unnecessary. Every URL consists of the following: the scheme name (commonly called protocol), followed by a colon, two slashes,[note 1] then, depending on scheme, a server name (exp. ftp., www., smtp., etc.) followed by a dot (.) then a domain name[note 2] (alternatively, IP address), a port number, the path of the resource to be fetched or the program to be run, then, for programs such as Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts, a query string, and an optional fragment identifier. The syntax is: - The scheme name defines the namespace, purpose, and the syntax of the remaining part of the URL. Software will try to process a URL according to its scheme and context. For example, a web browser will usually dereference the URL http://example.org:80 by performing an HTTP request to the host at example.org, using port number 80. The URL mailto:email@example.com may start an e-mail composer with the address firstname.lastname@example.org in the To field. Other examples of scheme names include https:, gopher:, wais:, ftp:. URLs with https as a scheme (such as https://example.com/) require that requests and responses will be made over a secure connection to the website. Some schemes that require authentication allow a username, and perhaps a password too, to be embedded in the URL, for example ftp://email@example.com. Passwords embedded in this way are not conducive to secure working, but the full possible syntax is - The domain name or IP address gives the destination location for the URL. - The domain google.com, or its IP address 18.104.22.168, is the address of Google's website. - The domain name portion of a URL is not case sensitive since DNS ignores case: - http://en.example.org/ and HTTP://EN.EXAMPLE.ORG/ both open the same page. - The port number is optional; if omitted, the default for the scheme is used. - For example, http://vnc.example.com:5800 connects to port 5800 of vnc.example.com, which may be appropriate for a VNC remote control session. If the port number is omitted for an http: URL, the browser will connect on port 80, the default HTTP port. The default port for an https: request is 443. - The path is used to specify and perhaps find the resource requested. It is case-sensitive, though it may be treated as case-insensitive by some servers, especially those based on Microsoft Windows. - If the server is case sensitive and http://en.example.org/wiki/URL is correct, then http://en.example.org/WIKI/URL or http://en.example.org/wiki/url will display an HTTP 404 error page, unless these URLs point to valid resources themselves. - The query string contains data to be passed to software running on the server. It may contain name/value pairs separated by ampersands, for example - The fragment identifier, if present, specifies a part or a position within the overall resource or document. - When used with HTML, it usually specifies a section or location within the page, and used in combination with Anchor Tags the browser is scrolled to display that part of the page. List of allowed URL characters May be encoded but it is not necessary A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - _ . ~ Have to be encoded sometimes ! * ' ( ) ; : @ & = + $ , / ? % # [ ] URLs as locators Internet hostnames On the Internet, a hostname is a domain name assigned to a host computer. This is usually a combination of the host's local name with its parent domain's name. For example, en.example.org consists of a local hostname (en) and the domain name example.org. The hostname is translated into an IP address via the local hosts file, or the domain name system (DNS) resolver. It is possible for a single host computer to have several hostnames; but generally the operating system of the host prefers to have one hostname that the host uses for itself. Any domain name can also be a hostname, as long as the restrictions mentioned below are followed. For example, both "en.example.org" and "example.org" can be hostnames if they both have IP addresses assigned to them. The domain name "xyz.example.org" may not be a hostname if it does not have an IP address, but "aa.xyz.example.org" may still be a hostname. All hostnames are domain names, but not all domain names are hostnames. Modern usage Major computer manufacturers such as Apple have begun to deprecate APIs that take local paths as parameters, in favour of using URLs. This is because remote and local resources (via the file:// scheme) may both be represented using a URL, but may additionally provide a protocol (particularly useful for remote items) and credentials. See also - CURIE (Compact URI) - Fragment identifier - Internationalized Resource Identifier (IRI) - URL normalization - Clean URL - Berners-Lee has said that, given the colon following the URI scheme, the two slashes before the domain name were unnecessary. - Berners-Lee also later regretted the use of dots to separate the parts of the domain name, wishing he had used slashes throughout. For example, http://www.example.com/path/to/name would have been written http:com/example/www/path/to/name - RFC 3305 "URI Partitioning: There is some confusion in the web community over the partitioning of URI space, specifically, the relationship among the concepts of URL, URN, and URI. The confusion owes to the incompatibility between two different views of URI partitioning; the 'classical' and 'contemporary' views." - RFC 1738 Uniform Resource Locators (URL). This RFC is now obselete. It has been superseded by a newer RFC (see the RFC Index) - "Living Documents BoF Minutes". W3.org. Retrieved 2011-12-26. - "URL Specification". Retrieved 2011-12-26. - Berners-Lee, Tim. "Frequently asked questions by the press". Retrieved 2010-02-03. - "Technology | Berners-Lee 'sorry' for slashes". BBC News. 2009-10-14. Retrieved 2010-02-14. - RFC 1738 - "PHP parse_url() Function". Retrieved 2009-03-12. - "URL Syntax". Pangea.stanford.edu. 2004-07-20. Retrieved 2011-12-26. - "RFC 3986: Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax". Network Working group of the IETF. 2005-01. p. 40. Retrieved 2013-04-24. "[...] the scheme and host are case-insensitive [...] The other generic syntax components are assumed to be case-sensitive unless specifically defined otherwise by the scheme [...]" - Tim Berners-Lee, Roy T. Fielding, Larry Masinter. (January 2005). "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax". Internet Society. RFC 3986; STD 66. - "Deprecated NSOPenPanel Methods". Apple Inc. Retrieved 7 October 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Locator

What are Immunizations? Immunizations, also referred to as vaccinations are specifically designed to help protect you and your child from certain diseases. These immunizations are administered as shots which consist of tiny amounts of dead, weakened organisms (viruses or bacteria) that cause the disease. It causes the immune system to produce antibodies that will attack the organism if you are exposed to it. While immunizations do not completely prevent disease, if you have been vaccinated, you will experience milder symptoms. Benefits of Immunization Immunizations have a number of benefits and these include: - Protects you and your child against certain diseases - Helps the immune system build resistance against disease - Minimizes the spread of disease to others and prevents epidemics - Cost effective way of getting treated for diseases - Often required for entrance into daycare facilities, school, college, employment or travel to another country - If you are planning to get pregnant or if your partner is pregnant, it is necessary that your vaccinations are up to date to protect the baby - Fewer side effects The childhood immunization schedule outlines the following immunizations and booster shots and these include: - Diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (also known as whooping cough) - Measles, mumps, and rubella. - Hepatitis B. - Hepatitis A. - Bacterial meningitis - Human papillomavirus (HPV) - Haemophilus influenzae type b disease, or Hib disease - Pneumococcal disease - Flu (influenza) When should Immunizations be administered to my child? A series of immunizations and booster shots are given at 2, 4 and 6 months of age and then again, at 15 and 18 months. Children between the ages of 4 and 6 years of age will also receive vaccinations. Although fewer immunizations are needed after the age of 6, older children and adolescents should also receive vaccines. A specific childhood immunization schedule is outlined every year and it is recommended that children are given their vaccinations as soon as possible so that they are protected against diseases. Very often it is a pre-requisite to produce proof of your child’s immunizations when enrolling them in a day care environment or school. Proof of immunizations may also need to be produced when traveling or enrolling at a college. Adults are often unaware of the importance of immunization and believe that it ends at childhood. Immunization that is needed as an adult depends on factors such as age, gender, lifestyle, type and locations of travel, overall health, and previous vaccines you had as a child. An adult immunization schedule is available each year from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or your physician will review your medical and immunization history to decide what shots you may need. Immunization administered during adulthood includes: Additional immunizations may be necessary for people whose risk of exposure to disease may be increased and these include: - Meningococcal (MCV4 or MPSV4, depending on your age) - Human papillomavirus (HPV) for women What are the side effects of Immunizations? There can be side effects from immunizations as it entails injecting a virus into your body. If serious side effects such as severe allergic reactions, difficulty breathing or a fever over 104.5F do develop, it is important that you consult with your health practitioner immediately. Common reactions that may occur include: - Mild pain - Swelling, soreness or redness on the area where the injection was given - Muscle ache or joint pain after a measles-mumps-rubella shot - Mild rash after chickenpox or measles-mumps-rubella shots for about 7 to 14 days - Slight fever - Fussiness (often seen in babies) - Loss of appetite Problems with immunization There has been great controversy with regards to conventional immunization due to the possible link between immunization and autism in young children. People have expressed concern that mercury-containing thimerosal (used as a preservative) may be responsible for causing autism. Preliminary studies indicate that there is no link between immunization and autism, but more research is needed. Natural remedies can go a long way to provide a safer and gentler alternative to conventional immunizations by strengthening the body’s natural resilience to disease. Certain herbs and homeopathic ingredients help protect against viruses and bacteria, and with regular use can also prevent certain diseases. Herbs such as Hypoxis Rooperi, Agathosma Betulina (buchu), Mentha Piperita, Solidago Virgaurea (Goldenrod) and Viscum Album boosts the immune system, overall health and vitality. Echinacea purpurea, Astragalus membranaceous, Inula helenium and Withania somnifera also support a developing immune system, especially in children, and promotes circulation and good health. In addition, the homeopathic version of the flu vaccine contains ingredients such as Influenzinum, Bacillinum, Gelsemium and Nux vomica to protect the body against the current flu viruses. There are several preventative measures that can be taken together with the recommended immunizations to reduce your risk of contracting certain diseases: - Eat a healthy well balanced diet containing fresh fruit, vegetables, lean meat and fish - Drink plenty of water – at least eight glasses per day flush to detox your system and flush toxins from the body and keep it hydrated - Practice good hygiene habits such as washing your hands thoroughly before eating, preparing food, handling pets and being outside - Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze to prevent germs from spreading - Exercise regularly to benefit your overall health - Avoid sharing personal items such as eating and drinking utensils with someone who has the flu - Increase your intake of multivitamin supplements - Ensure that you have a good night’s rest - Manage your stress effectively by going for a brisk walk, playing a sport, listening to soothing music, meditating or practicing deep breathing exercises - Stop smoking and cut back on excessive alcohol consumption

http://m.nativeremedies.com/ailment/adulthood-and-childhood-immunizations.html?mobile=1

Retrieved from the Akron Global Polymer Academy at http://www.agpa.uakron.edu/p16/lesson-plans.php Author: Dave Reber, Mary Harris, Sandy Van Natta Source: Gene Easter Streetsboro Ohio Students will design a pair of shoes using plastics that will enable them to walk on eggs without breaking them. What should the students know as a result of this lesson? What should the students be able to do as a result of this lesson? Plastics of various kinds: sheets, cups, plates, etc., dozens of eggs in cartons, (ask each student to bring 1 dozen eggs) tape, razor knives,old shoes, any plastic materials you have available, measuring tape. Engagement Present the problem: I present the egg walk as a part of my motion unit. The students are to imagine they have landed on an imaginary planet and must develop a pair of shoes to obtain supplies. The surface of this planet has a very brittle thin crust. Students are then told “You are going to build a pair of shoes to walk on eggs using only these materials”. The materials are various types of plastic and tape. Ask how this problem relates to the real world. Assessment: Informally monitor the students responses to see if they are logical. The students should exchange ideas as to how the shoe should look, be made, and who should walk on the eggs. Let the students handle the various plastics to examine properties.The teacher can ask such guiding questions as: Which materials would be best suited to for the project? Why? Are force and pressure the same? (Clarify force and pressure are not the same.) What are other factors you need to consider to be successful? (weight, Surface area, graceful gate, smooth surface, nonsticky bottom) Have the students develop test to determine why they chose certain materials and experiment by walking on eggs. (Eggs remain in the carton spaced approximately 2 feet apart) Assessment Review the test and the student generated data to determine important plastic properties.This can be done as an informal observation of students.. Explanation: The students tell the rest of the class why they built the shoe the way they did. Why did they use certain materials and not others? Assessment A rubric can be designed to see if students used the proper terminology and logic to explain their results. Teacher directed instruction: How to calculate PSI Pressure = Force / Area Force = Body Weight Area = is the surface area of the new shoe Collect and check student calculations for assessment of this section. Ask students “How can this project be extended, what is possible future application?” Assessment Have students design and calculate a shoe for a person of twice their body weight to successfully walk on eggs. Direct Instruction: The teacher will define relevant terms such as Pressure, and PSI. Cooperative Learning: Students can work in as group of four to design and build the shoes. Students should have an understanding of pressure and how it is calculated and measuring skills. Frequently students do not distinguish between pressure and force. Students will be using razor knives, and other sharp objects to construct the shoes. The Teacher should provide a cutting area to monitor the number of students in the area. There are many real life examples dealing with pressure. The following is a short list: walking on ice safely, removing a car from a muddy ditch, SCUBA diving, how snow shoes work, why athletes typically wear cleats, why walking on gravel is so painful as you get bigger. Each student should be given a task or job in the group. One student obtains all the materials, one draws the design, one cuts the materials, and all help assemble. Two class periods. Day 1 The students are shown the materials from what they have available and must design the shoes. with only those materials in mind. Day 2 The students are to build their shoes to match their design. Once completed the testing begins. Testing can be done in the form of a competition. The University of Akron is an Equal Education and Employment Institution. Safety Disclaimer. Copyright © 2013

http://agpa.uakron.edu/p16/lesson-print.php?id=egg_walk

Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 9: Instructional Planning/Creating Bridges with Students' Experiences Creating Bridges Among Curriculum Goals and Students’ Prior Experiences To succeed, then, instructional plans do require a variety of resources, like the ones discussed in the previous section. But they also require more: they need to connect with students’ prior experiences and knowledge. Sometimes the connections can develop as a result of using the Internet, taking field trips, or engaging in service learning, particularly if students are already familiar with these activities and places. More often than not, though, teachers need to find additional ways to connect curriculum with students’ experiences—ways that fit more thoroughly and continuously into the daily work of a class. Fortunately, such techniques are readily at hand; they simply require the teacher to develop a habit of looking for opportunities to use them. Among the possibilities are four that deserve special mention: - modeling behavior and modeling representations of ideas, - activating prior knowledge already familiar to students, - anticipating preconceptions held by students, and - providing guided and independent practice, including its most traditional form, homework. The term modeling can mean either a demonstration of a desired behavior or a representation of an important theory, idea, or object. Each of these meanings can link curriculum goals with students’ prior knowledge and experience. Modeling as a Demonstration In the first meaning, modeling refers to performing or demonstrating a desired new behavior or skill, as when a teacher or classmate demonstrates polite behaviors or the correct solution to a math problem. In this case we say that the teacher or classmate models the desired behavior, either deliberately or in the course of other ongoing activity. Students observe the modeled behavior and (hopefully) imitate it themselves. Research repeatedly shows that modeling desired behaviors is an effective way to learn new behaviors, especially when the model is perceived as important (like the teacher), similar to the learner (like a student’s best friend), or has a warm, positive relationship with the learner (like the teacher or the student’s friend) (Bandura, 2002; Gibson, 2004). Modeling in this sense is sometimes also called observational learning. It has many of the same properties as the classic operant conditioning discussed in Chapter 2, except that reinforcement during observational learning is witnessed in others rather than experienced by the learner directly. Watching others being reinforced is sometimes called vicarious reinforcement. The idea is that if, for example, a student observes a classmate behave politely with the teacher and then sees the classmate receive praise for the behavior (vicarious reinforcement), the student is more likely to imitate the polite behavior that he saw. As in classic operant conditioning, furthermore, if the student observes that politeness by classmates is ignored (extinction or no reinforcement), then the student is much less likely to imitate the politeness. Worse yet, if the student observes that negative behaviors in others lead to positive consequences (like attention from peers), then the student may imitate the negative behaviors (Rebellon, 2006). Cursing and swearing, and even bullying or vandalism, can be reinforced vicariously, just as can more desired behaviors. Modeling—in this first sense of a demonstration—connects instructional goals to students’ experiences by presenting real, vivid examples of behaviors or skills in a way that a student can practice directly, rather than merely talk about. There is often little need, when imitating a model, to translate ideas or instructions from verbal form into action. For students struggling with language and literacy, in particular, this feature can be a real advantage. Modeling as Simplified Representation In a second meaning of modeling, a model is a simplified representation of a phenomenon that incorporates the important properties of the phenomenon. Models in this sense may sometimes be quite tangible, direct copies of reality; when I was in fourth grade growing up in California, for example, we made scale models of the Spanish missions as part of our social studies lessons about California history. But models can also be imaginary, though still based on familiar elements. In a science curriculum, for example, the behavior of gas molecules under pressure can be modeled by imagining the molecules as ping pong balls flying about and colliding in an empty room. Reducing the space available to the gas is by making the room smaller, causes the ping pong balls to collide more frequently and vigorously, and thereby increases the pressure on the walls of the room. Increasing the space has the opposite effect. Creating an actual room full of ping pong balls may be impractical, of course, but the model can still be imagined. Modeling in this second sense is not about altering students’ behavior, but about increasing their understanding of a newly learned idea, theory, or phenomenon. The model itself uses objects or events that are already familiar to students—in this example simple balls and their behavior when colliding—and in this way supports students’ learning of new, unfamiliar material. Not every new concept or idea lends itself to such modeling, but many do: students can create models of unfamiliar animals, for example, or of medieval castles, or of ecological systems. Two-dimensional models—essentially drawings—can also be helpful: students can illustrate literature or historical events, or make maps of their own neighborhoods. The choice of model depends largely on the specific curriculum goals which the teacher needs to accomplish at a particular time. Activating Prior Knowledge Another way to connect curriculum goals to students’ experience is by activating prior knowledge, a term that refers to encouraging students to recall what they know already about new material being learned. Various formats for activating prior knowledge are possible. When introducing a unit about how biologists classify animal and plant species, for example, for example, a teacher can invite students to discuss about how they already classify different kinds of plants and animals. Having highlighted this informal knowledge, the teacher can then explore how the same species are classified by biological scientists, and compare the scientists’ classification schemes to the students’ own schemes. The activation does not have to happen orally, as in this example; a teacher can also ask students to write down as many distinct types of animals and plants that they can think of, and then ask students to diagram or map their relationships—essentially creating a concept map like the ones we described in Chapter 8 (Gurlitt, et al., 2006). Whatever the strategy used, activation helps by making students’ prior knowledge or experience conscious and therefore easier to link to new concepts or information. Anticipating Preconceptions of Students Ironically, activating students’ prior knowledge can be a mixed blessing if some of the prior knowledge is misleading or downright wrong. Misleading or erroneous knowledge is especially common among young students, but it can happen at any grade level. A kindergarten child may think that the sun literally “rises” in the morning, since she often hears adults use this expression, or that the earth is flat because it obviously looks flat. But a high school student may mistakenly believe that large objects (a boulder) fall faster than small ones (a pebble), or that a heavy object dropped (not thrown) from a moving car window will fall straight down instead of traveling laterally alongside the car while it falls. Because misconceptions are quite common among students and even among adults, teachers are more effective if they can anticipate preconceptions of students wherever possible. The task is twofold. First the teacher must know or at least guess students’ preconceptions as much as possible in advance, so that she can design learning activities to counteract and revise their thinking. Some preconceptions have been well-documented by educational research and therefore can in principle be anticipated easily—though they may still sometimes take a teacher by surprise during a busy activity or lesson (Tanner & Allen, 2005; Chiu & Lin, 2005). Table 9-8 lists a few of these common preconceptions. Others may be unique to particular students, however, and a teacher may only by able to learn of them through experience—by listening carefully to what students say and write and by watching what they do. A few preconceptions may be so ingrained or tied to other, more deeply held beliefs that students may resist giving them up, either consciously or unconsciously. It may be hard, for example, for some students to give up the idea that girls are less talented at math or science than are boys, even though research generally finds this is not the case (Hyde & Linn, 2006). The second task when anticipating preconceptions is to treat students’ existing knowledge and beliefs with respect even when they do include misconceptions or errors. This may seem obvious in principle, but it needs remembering when students persist with misconceptions in spite of a teacher’s efforts to teach alternative ideas or concepts. Most of us—including most students—have reasons for holding our beliefs, even when the beliefs do not agree with teachers, textbooks, or other authorities, and we appreciate having our beliefs treated with respect. Students are no different from other people in this regard. In a high school biology class, for example, some students may have personal reasons for not agreeing with the theory of evolution associated with Charles Darwin. For religious reasons they may support explanations of the origins of life that give a more active, interventionist role to God (Brumfiel, 2005). If their beliefs disagree with the teacher’s or the textbook, then the disagreement needs to be acknowledged, but acknowledged respectfully. For some students (and perhaps some teachers), expressing fundamental disagreement respectfully may feel awkward, but it needs to be done nonetheless. Guided Practice, Independent Practice, and Homework So far, we have focused on bridging the goals or content of a curriculum to events, beliefs, and ideas from students’ lives. In studying human growth in a health class, for example, a teacher might ask students to bring photos of themselves as a much younger child. In this case a concept from the curriculum—human growth—then gets related to a personal event, getting photographed as a youngster, that the student finds meaningful. But teachers can also create bridges between curriculum and students’ experiences in another way, by relating the process of learning in school with the process of learning outside of school. Much of this task involves helping students to make the transition from supervised learning to self-regulated learning—or put differently, from practice that is relatively guided to practice that is relatively independent. When students first learn a new skill or a new set of ideas, they are especially likely to encounter problems and make mistakes that interfere with the very process of learning. In figuring out how to use a new software program, for example, a student may unknowingly press a wrong button that prevents further functioning of the program. In translating sentences from Spanish into English in language class, for another example, a student might misinterpret one particular word or grammatical feature, and this one mistake may cause many sentences to be translated incorrectly. And so on. So students initially need guided practice—opportunities to work somewhat independently, but with a teacher or other expert close at hand prevent or fix difficulties when they occur. In general, educational research has found that guided practice helps all learners, but especially those who are struggling (Bryan & Burstein, 2004: Woodward, 2004). A first-grade child has difficulty in decoding printed words, for example, benefits from guidance more than one who can decode easily. But both students benefit in the initial stages of learning, since both may make more mistakes then. Guided practice, by its nature, sends a dual message to students: it is important to learn new material well, but it is also important to become able to use learning without assistance, beyond the lesson where it is learned and even beyond the classroom. Guided practice is much like the concepts of the zone of proximal development (or ZPD) and instructional scaffolding that we discussed in Chapter 2 in connection with Vygotsky’s theory of learning. In essence, during guided practice the teacher creates a ZPD or scaffold (or framework) in which the student can accomplish more with partial knowledge or skill than the student could accomplish alone. But whatever its name—guided practice, a ZPD, or a scaffold—insuring the guidance is successful depends on several key elements: focus on the task at hand, asking questions that break the task into manageable parts, reframing or restating the task so that it becomes more understandable, and giving frequent feedback about the student’s progress (Rogoff, 2003). Combining the elements appropriately takes sensitivity and improvisational skill—even artfulness—but these very challenges are among the true joys of teaching. As students gain facility with a new skill or new knowledge, they tend to need less guidance and more time to consolidate (or strengthen) their new knowledge with additional practice. Since they are less likely to encounter mistakes or problems at this point, they begin to benefit from independent practice—opportunities to review and repeat their knowledge at their own pace and with fewer interruptions. At this point, therefore, guided practice may feel less like help than like an interruption, even if it is well-intentioned. A student who already knows how to use a new computer program, for example, may be frustrated by waiting for the teacher to explain each step of the program individually. If a student is already skillful at translating Spanish sentences into English in a language class, it can be annoying for the teacher to “help” by pointing out minor errors that the student is likely to catch for herself. By definition, the purpose of independent practice is to provide more self-regulation of learning than by definition happens in guided practice. It implies a different message for students than is conveyed by guided practice, a message that goes beyond the earlier one: that it is now time to take more complete responsibility for own learning. When all goes well, independent practice is the eventual outcome of the zone of proximal development created during the earlier phase of guided practice described above: the student can now do on his or her own, what originally required assistance from someone else. Or stated differently, independent practice is a way of encouraging self-determination about learning, in the sense that we discussed this idea in Chapter 6. In order to work independently, a student must set his own direction and monitor his own success; by definition, no one can do this for him. The chances are that you already have experienced many forms of homework in your own educational career. The widespread practice of assigning review work to do outside of school is a way of supplementing scarce time in class and of providing independent practice for students. Homework has generated controversy throughout most of its history in public education, partly because it encroaches on students’ personal and family-oriented time, and partly because research finds no consistent benefits of doing homework (Gill & Schlossman, 2004). In spite of these criticisms, though, parents and teachers tend to favor homework when it is used for two main purposes. One purposes is to review and practice material that has already been introduced and practiced at school; a sheet of arithmetic problems might be a classic example. When used for this purpose, the amount of homework is usually minimal in the earliest grades, if any is assigned at all. One educational expert recommends only ten minutes per day in first grade at most, and only gradual increases in amount as students get older (Cooper & Valentine, 2001). The second purpose for supporting homework is to convey the idea of schoolwork being the “job” of childhood and youth. Just as on an adult job, students must complete homework tasks with minimal supervision and sometimes even minimal training. Doing the tasks, furthermore, is a way to get ahead or further along in the work place (for an adult) or at school (for a child). One study in which researchers interviewed children about these ideas, in fact, found that children do indeed regard homework as work in the same way that adults think of a job (Cornu & Xu, 2004). In the children’s minds, homework tasks were not “fun,” in spite of teachers’ frequent efforts to make them fun. Instead they were jobs that needed doing, much like household chores. When it came to homework, children regarded parents as the teachers’ assistants—people merely carrying out the wishes of the teacher. And like any job, the job of doing homework varied in stressfulness; when required at an appropriate amount and level of difficulty, and when children reported having good “bosses” (parents and teachers), the job of homework could actually be satisfying in the way that many adults’ jobs can be satisfying when well-done. - Bandura, A. (2002). Social cognitive theory in cultural context. Journal of Applied Psychology: An International Review, 51, 269-290. - Gibson, S. (2004). Social learning (cognitive) theory and implications for human resources development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 6(2), 192-210. - Rebellon, C. (2006). Do adolescents engage in delinquency to attract the social attention of peers? An extension and longitudinal test of the social reinforcement hypothesis. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 43(4), 387-411. - Gurlitt, J., Renkl, A., Motes, M., & Hauser, S. (2006). How can we use concept maps for prior knowledge activation? Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Learning Sciences, 217-220. - Tanner, K. & Allen, D. (2005). Approaches to biology teaching and learning—understanding the wrong answers: Teaching toward conceptual change. Cell Biology Education, 4, 112-117. - Chiu, M. & Lin, J. (2005). Promoting 4th-graders’ conceptual change of their understanding of electrical current via multiple analogies. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 42(4), 429-464. - Hyde, J. & Lynn, M. (2006). Gender similarities in mathematics and science. Science, 314(5799), 599-600. - Brumfiel, G. (2005). Intelligent design: Who has designs on your students’ minds? Nature, 434, 1062-1065. - Bryan, T. & Burstein, K. (2004). Improving homework completion and academic performance: Lessons from special education. Theory into Practice, 43(3), 213-219. - Woodward, J. (2004). Mathematics education in the United States: Past to present. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 37, pp. 16 - 31. - Rogoff, B. (2003). Cultural nature of human development, Chapter 7, “Thinking with the tools and institutions of culture,” pp. 236-281. - Gill, B. & Schlossman, S. (2004). Villain or savior? The American discourse on homework, 1850-2003. Theory into practice, 43(3), 174-181. - Cooper, H. & Valentine, J. (2001). Using research to answer practical questions about homework. Educational Psychology, 36(3), 143-153. - Corno, L. & Xu, J. (2004). Homework as the job of childhood. Theory into Practice, 43(3), 227-233.

http://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Contemporary_Educational_Psychology/Chapter_9:_Instructional_Planning/Creating_Bridges_with_Students'_Experiences

Return to main page. By Ruby Brendlin 1. Ask students to list what and when they watch TV on any given day; what they are going to watch on the current day; or what they watched last night ( for past ). Ask them to list what their parents watch, and what they watch together. Ask them to list likes and dislikes. Then ask students to share their viewing habits. 2. Ask students where one finds TV programming and what other specific information is also given? 3. Have students look at a current day TV guide page from the internet or a xeroxed copy. 4. Have students look at times to practice and review 24 hour clock and check when TV programming begins and ends in Europe or France. 5. Have students look at the number of channels available. 6. Have students look for cognates or words they already know to make educated guesses as to what types of programs are available. 7. Ask students to list words they don't understand and think they need to know. Then have them check with a partner to see if others know any of these words. Finally discuss this material with the class. Extension: The student has been living in Paris and needs to take a day and view French TV as an added language and cultural part of their learning. Have them set up a one day TV viewing schedule with variety. In this activity we will be visiting web sites for TV viewing in France. 1. List below the times and programs for the following situations: What I watch on TV (day)_____________(time)________________: What my parents watch: What we watch together: Our basic likes and dislikes: 2. List the basic information one finds on a T.V. guide page. 3. Go to the T.V. guide web sites. 4. What are the beginning and ending times for programming (using B)? Give the starting time for three programs in both 24 hour and regular time (A or B). 5. List 2-3 of the channels for which you think you can already comprehend their type of programming. How many channels are available? 6. List words that are similar to English words that you find in the listed programs. 7. List words that not like English that you already understand. 8. List five words that you don't understand and would like to know. Check with others to see if they know these words. How many could you learn in this way? 9. You are interested in sports, list one program and the time. 10.You are interested in music, list one program and the time. 11. You are interested in programs from home, what is one program and time? 12. Be ready to discuss French TV with the class sharing some of your information. 13. You are studying and living in Paris and have been assigned a one day TV viewing immersion. Using the web site, set up a viewing schedule with times, programs, and include one sentence on why you chose the program. Return to main page. This page is maintained by Lewis Johnson. For question or comments, please write to firstname.lastname@example.org

http://cltaneta.ipower.com/lessons/french/alatele.html

ARCHIVED: What are binary, octal, and hexadecimal notation? All data in modern computers is stored as series of bits. A bit is a binary digit and can have one of two values; the two values are generally represented as the numbers 0 and 1. The most basic form of representing computer data, then, is to represent a piece of data as a string of 1s and 0s, one for each bit. What you end up with is a binary or base-2 number; this is binary notation. For example, the number 42 would be represented in binary as: 101010 Interpreting binary notation In normal decimal (base-10) notation, each digit, moving from right to left, represents an increasing order of magnitude (or power of ten). With decimal notation, each succeeding digit's contribution is ten times greater than the previous digit. Increasing the first digit by one increases the number represented by one, increasing the second digit by one increases the number by ten, the third digit increases the number by 100, and so on. The number 111 is one less than 112, ten less than 121, and one hundred less than the number 211. The concept is the same with binary notation, except that each digit is a power of two greater than the preceding digit, rather than a power of ten. Instead of 1s, 10s, 100s, and 1000s digits, binary numbers have 1s, 2s, 4s, and 8s. Thus, the number two in binary would be represented as a 0 in the ones place and a 1 in the twos place, i.e., 10. Three would be 11, a 1 in the ones place and a 1 in the twos place. No numeral greater than 1 is ever used in binary notation. Octal and hexadecimal notation Because binary notation can be cumbersome, two more compact notations are often used, octal and hexadecimal. Octal notation represents data as base-8 numbers. Each digit in an octal number represents three bits. Similarly, hexadecimal notation uses base-16 numbers, representing four bits with each digit. Octal numbers use only the digits 0-7, while hexadecimal numbers use all ten base-10 digits (0-9) and the letters a-f (representing the numbers 10-15). The number 42 is written in octal as: 52 In hexadecimal, the number 42 is written as: 2a Knowing whether data is being represented as octal or hexadecimal is sometimes difficult (especially if a hexadecimal number doesn't use one of the digits a-f), so one convention that is often used to distinguish these is to put "0x" in front of hexadecimal numbers. So you might see, for example: 0x2a This is a less ambiguous way of representing the number 42 in hexadecimal. You can see an example of this usage in the Character set comparison chart. Note: The term "binary" when used in phrases such as "binary file" or "binary attachment" has a related but slightly different meaning than the one discussed here. For more information, see ARCHIVED: What is a binary file? Last modified on January 07, 2013.

http://kb.iu.edu/data/agxz.html

In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in Proto-Indo-European (PIE) that has far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages. An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb sing, sang, sung and its related noun song. The term ablaut (from German ab- in the sense "down, reducing" + Laut "sound") was coined in the early nineteenth century by the linguist Jacob Grimm. However, the phenomenon itself was first observed more than 2,000 years earlier by the Sanskrit grammarians and codified by Pāṇini in his Ashtadhyayi, where the terms guṇa and vṛddhi were used to describe the phenomena now known as the full grade and lengthened grade, respectively. In the context of European languages, the phenomenon was first described in the early 18th century by the Dutch linguist Lambert ten Kate in his book Gemeenschap tussen de Gottische spraeke en de Nederduytsche ("Commonality between the Gothic language and Lower German (Dutch)", 1710). Vowel gradation is any vowel difference between two related words (e.g. photograph [ˈfəʊtəgrɑːf] and photography [fəˈtɒgrəfi]) or two forms of the same word (e.g. man and men). The difference need not be indicated in the spelling. There are many kinds of vowel gradation in English and other languages, and these are discussed generally in the article apophony. Some involve a variation in vowel length (quantitative gradation: photograph and photography), others in vowel colouring (qualitative gradation: man/men), and others the complete disappearance of a vowel (reduction to zero: could not → couldn't). For the study of European languages, one of the most important instances of vowel gradation is the historical Indo-European phenomenon called ablaut, remnants of which can be seen in the English verbs ride, rode, ridden, or fly, flew, flown. For many purposes it is enough to note that these verbs are irregular, but understanding why they are irregular (and indeed why they are actually perfectly regular within their own terms) requires digging back into the grammar of the reconstructed proto-language. Ablaut is the oldest and most extensive single source of vowel gradation in the Indo-European languages, and must be distinguished clearly from other forms of gradation which developed later, such as Germanic umlaut (man/men, goose/geese, long/length) or the results of English word-stress patterns (man/woman, photograph/photography). Confusingly, in some contexts, the terms 'ablaut', 'vowel gradation', 'apophony' and 'vowel alternation' may be used synonymously, especially in synchronic comparisons, but historical linguists prefer to keep 'ablaut' for the specific Indo-European phenomenon, which is the meaning intended by the linguists who first coined the word. Since ablaut was a regular system in Proto-Indo-European, but survives only as irregular or partially regular variations in the recorded languages, any explanation of the topic has to begin with the prehistoric origins. Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the hypothetical parent language from which most of the modern and ancient European languages evolved. By comparing the recorded forms from the daughter languages, linguists can infer the forms of the parent language. However, it is not certain how PIE was realised phonetically, and the reconstructions are to be understood as an encoding of the deduced phonemes; there is no correct way to pronounce them. All PIE forms are marked with an asterisk to indicate that they are hypothetical. For more details on these reconstructions, see Proto-Indo-European, Laryngeal theory and Comparative method. Proto-Indo-European (PIE) had a regular ablaut sequence that contrasted the five vowel sounds e/ē/o/ō/Ø. This means that in different forms of the same word, or in different but related words, the basic vowel, a short /e/, could be replaced by a long /ē/, a short /o/ or a long /ō/, or it could be omitted (transcribed as Ø). zero short long Ø e ē o ō When a syllable had a short e, it is said to be in the "e-grade"; when it had no vowel, it is said to be in the "zero grade", etc. Note that when we refer simply to the e-grade or o-grade, the short vowel forms are meant, unless the lengthened grades are specified. The (short) e-grade is sometimes called the full grade. A classic example of the five grades of ablaut in a single root is provided by the different case forms of two closely related Greek words: Ablaut grade PIE (reconstruction) Greek (Greek transliterated) Translation e-grade or full grade *ph2-tér-m̥ πα-τέρ-α pa-tér-a "father" (noun, accusative) lengthened e-grade *ph2-tḗr πα-τήρ pa-tḗr "father" (noun, nominative) zero-grade *ph2-tr-és πα-τρ-ός pa-tr-ós "father's" (noun, genitive) o-grade *n̥-péh2-tor-m̥ ἀ-πά-τορ-α a-pá-tor-a "fatherless" (adjective, accusative) lengthened o-grade *n̥-péh2-tōr ἀ-πά-τωρ a-pá-tōr "fatherless" (adjective, nominative) The syllable in bold is the one being considered. It is crucial also to notice which syllable carries the word stress: the one with the accent mark. In this unusually neat example, a switch to the zero-grade can be seen when the word stress moves to the following syllable, a switch to the o-grade when the word stress moves to the preceding syllable, and a lengthening of the vowel when the syllable is in word-final position. However, as with most PIE reconstructions, scholars differ about the details of this example. It must also be noted that the lengthening of the vowel in the nominative forms listed above is not directly conditioned by ablaut, but is rather a result of Szemerényi's law, in which the older sequences *ph2-tér-s and *n̥-péh2-tor-s became *ph2-tḗr and *n̥-péh2-tōr. The lengthened grade in these forms is therefore a result of sound change rather than grammar (and the forms themselves were originally in the regular, unlengthened e- and o-grade), although it was later grammaticalised and spread to other words in which the change did not occur. One way to think of this system is that Proto-Indo-European originally had only one vowel, /e/, and that over time this vowel changed according to phonetic context, so that the language started to develop a more complex vowel-system. Thus it has often been speculated that an original e-grade in pre-Indo-European underwent two changes in some phonetic environments: under certain circumstances it changed its colouring to (long or short) o (the o-grade), and in others it disappeared entirely (the zero-grade). However, this is not certain: the phonetic conditions that controlled ablaut have never been determined, and the position of the word stress may not have been a key factor at all. There are many counterexamples to the proposed rules: thus *deywó- and its nominative plural *-es show pretonic and posttonic e-grade, respectively. (For these reasons, there has been a recent attempt to analyse Early PIE ablaut in terms of introflexion and root-and-pattern-morphology. It has been shown that it seems to be highly likely that Early PIE was of the root-inflexional morphological type, as was Proto-Semitic (see also Proto-Indo-European language).) The zero grade of ablaut may appear difficult. In the case of *ph2trés, which may already in PIE have been pronounced something like [pɐtrés], it is not difficult to imagine this as a contraction of an older *ph2terés, pronounced perhaps [pɐterés], as this combination of consonants and vowels would be possible in English too. In other cases, however, the absence of a vowel strikes the speaker of a modern western European language as unpronounceable. To understand this, one must be aware that PIE had a number of sounds which in principle were consonants, yet could operate in ways analogous to vowels. These are the four syllabic sonorants, the three laryngeals and the two semi-vowels: - The syllabic sonorants are m, n, r and l, which could be consonants much as they are in English, but could also be held on as continuants and carry a full syllable stress; when this happens, they are transcribed with a small circle beneath them. - The laryngeals could be pronounced as consonants, in which case they were probably variations on the h sound, hence they are normally transcribed as h1, h2 and h3. However they could also carry a syllable stress, in which case they were more like vowels, hence some linguists prefer to transcribe them ə1, ə2 and ə3. The vocalic pronunciation may have originally involved the consonantal sounds with a very slight schwa before and/or after the consonant. - In pre-vocalic positions, the phonemes u and i were semi-vowels, probably pronounced like English w and y, but they could also become pure vowels when the following ablaut vowel reduced to zero. When u and i came in postvocalic positions, the result was a diphthong. Ablaut is nevertheless regular, and looks like this: |eh1||oh1||h1 or ə1| |eh2 (/ah2/)||oh2||h2 or ə2| |eh3 (/oh3/)||oh3||h3 or ə3| Thus any of these could replace the ablaut vowel when it was reduced to the zero-grade: the pattern CVrC (e.g. *bʰergʰ-) could become CrC (*bʰr̥gʰ-). However, not every PIE syllable was capable of forming a zero grade; some consonant structures inhibited it in particular cases, or completely. So for example, although the preterite plural of a Germanic strong verb (see below) is derived from the zero grade, classes 4 and 5 have instead vowels representing the lengthened e-grade, as the stems of these verbs could not have sustained a zero grade in this position. Zero grade is said to be from pre-PIE syncope in unaccented syllables, but in some cases lack of accent does not cause zero grade: *deywó-, nominative plural *-es "god". There does not seem to be a rule governing which unaccented syllables take zero grade and which take stronger grades. Some Indo-Europeanists[who?] reject the syncope hypothesis, and instead understand early PIE as a Semitic-type language with discontinuous consonant roots and vowel transfixes. It is still a matter of debate whether PIE had an original a-vowel at all. In later PIE, the disappearance of the laryngeal h2 could leave an a-colouring and this may explain all occurrences of a in later PIE. However some argue that the e-grade could sometimes be replaced by an a-grade without the influence of a laryngeal. This is controversial, but might help to explain the vowels in class 6 Germanic verbs, for example. Although PIE only had this one, basically regular ablaut sequence, the development in the daughter languages is frequently far more complicated, and few reflect the original system as neatly as Greek. Various factors such as vowel harmony, assimilation with nasals, or the effect of the presence of laryngeals in the Indo-European (IE) roots and their subsequent loss in most daughter languages, mean that a language may have several different vowels representing a single vowel in the parent language. In particular the zero grade was often subject to modification due to changes in the pronunciation of syllabic sonorants. For example in Germanic, syllabic sonorants acquired an epenthetic -u-, thus converting the original zero grade to a new "u-grade" in many words. Thus while ablaut survives in some form in all Indo-European languages, it becomes progressively less systematic over time. Ablaut explains vowel differences between related words of the same language. For example: - English strike and stroke both come from the same IE root *streyg-. The former comes from the e-grade, the latter from the o-grade. - German Berg (hill) and Burg (castle) both come from the root *bʰergʰ-, which presumably meant "high". The former comes from the e-grade, the latter from the zero-grade. (Zero-grade followed by r becomes ur in Germanic.) Ablaut also explains vowel differences between cognates in different languages. - English tooth comes from Germanic *tanþ-s (e.g. Old English tōþ, Old High German zand), genitive *tund-iz (Gothic tunþus, but also aiƕa-tundi "thornbush", literally "horse-tooth"). This form is related to Latin dens, dentis and Greek ὀδούς, ὀδόντος (same meaning), reflected in the English words dentist and orthodontic. One reconstructed IE form is *dónts, genitive *dn̥tés. The consonant differences can be explained by regular sound shifts in primitive Germanic, but not the vowel differences: by the regular laws of sound changes, Germanic a can originate from PIE o, but un usually goes back to a syllabic n̥. The explanation is that the Germanic and Greek nominative forms developed from the o-grade, the Latin word and the Germanic genitive from the zero-grade (where syllabic n̥ developed into en much in the same way as it became un in Germanic). Going a step further back, some scholars reconstruct *h1dónts, from the zero grade of the root *h1ed- 'to eat' and the participal -ont-, so explaining it as 'the eating one'. - English foot comes from the lengthened o-grade of *ped-. Greek πούς, ποδός and Latin pes, pedis (cf. English octopus and pedestrian), come from the (short) o-grade and the e-grade respectively. For the English-speaking non-specialist, a good reference work for quick information on IE roots, including the difference of ablaut grade behind related lexemes, is Calvert Watkins, The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd edition, Boston & New York 2000. (Note that in discussions of lexis, IE roots are normally cited in the e-grade and without any inflections.) In PIE, there were already ablaut differences within the paradigms of verbs and nouns. These were not the main markers of grammatical form, since the inflection system served this purpose, but they must have been significant secondary markers. An example of ablaut in the paradigm of the noun in PIE can be found in *pértus, from which the English words ford and (via Latin) port are derived (both via the zero-grade stem *pr̥t-). root (p-r) suffix (t-u) Nominative *pér-tu-s e-grade zero-grade Accusative *pér-tu-m e-grade zero-grade Genitive *pr̥-téw-s zero-grade e-grade Dative *pr̥-téw-ey zero-grade e-grade An example in a verb: *bʰeydʰ- "to wait" (cf. "bide"). e-grade Perfect (3rd singular) *bʰe-bʰóydʰ-e o-grade (note reduplicating prefix) Perfect (3rd plural) *bʰe-bʰidʰ-ḗr zero-grade (note reduplicating prefix) In the daughter languages, these came to be important markers of grammatical distinctions. The vowel change in the Germanic strong verb, for example, is the direct descendant of that seen in the Indo-European verb paradigm. Examples in modern English are: It was in this context of Germanic verbs that ablaut was first described, and this is still what most people primarily associate with the phenomenon. A fuller description of ablaut operating in English, German and Dutch verbs and of the historical factors governing these can be found at the article Germanic strong verb. Ablaut can often explain apparently random irregularities. For example, the verb "to be" in Latin has the forms est (he is) and sunt (they are). The equivalent forms in German are very similar: ist and sind. The same forms are present in Slavic languages – est and sut' . The difference between singular and plural in these languages is easily explained: the PIE root is *h1es-. In the singular, the stem is stressed, so it remains in the e-grade, and it takes the inflection -ti. In the plural, however, the inflection -énti was stressed, causing the stem to reduce to the zero grade: *h1es-énti → *h1s-énti. See main article: Indo-European copula. Some of the morphological functions of the various grades are as follows: - Present tense of thematic verbs; root stress. - Present singular of athematic verbs; root stress. - Accusative and vocative singular, nominative/accusative/vocative dual, nominative plural of nouns. - Verbal nouns — (1) stem-stressed masculine action nouns (Greek gónos "offspring", Sanskrit jánas "creature, person"; Greek trókhos "circular course" < "*act of running"); (2) ending-stressed feminine, originally collective, action nouns (Greek gonḗ "offspring", Sanskrit janā́ "birth"); (3) ending-stressed masculine agent nouns (Greek trokhós "wheel" < "*runner"). - Nominative/vocative/accusative singular of certain nouns (acrostatic root nouns such dṓm, plural dómes "house"; proterokinetic neuter nouns such as *wódr̥ "water" or dóru "tree"). - Present tense of causative verbs; stem (not root) stress. - Perfect singular tense. - Present dual and plural tense of athematic verbs; ending stress. - Perfect dual and plural tense; ending stress. - Past participles; ending stress. - Some verbs in the aorist (the Greek thematic "second aorist"). - Oblique singular/dual/plural, accusative plural of nouns. - Nominative singular of many nouns. - Present singular of certain athematic verbs (so-called Narten-stem verbs). - Some verbs in the aorist. - Some derived verbal nouns (so-called proto-vrddhi). Note that many examples of lengthened-grade roots in daughter languages are actually due to the effect of laryngeals, and of Szemerényi's law and Stang's law which operated within Indo-European times. - Germanic umlaut - Guna (in grammar) - Inflected language ||This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. (July 2009)| - Tremblay, X. (2003): "Interne Derivation: 'Illusion de la reconstruction' oder verbreitetes morphologisches Mittel? Am Bsp. des Av.", Indogermanisches Nomen: Derivation, Flexion und Ablaut, ed. by E. Tichy, D. S. Wodtko, B. Irslinger, Bremen, pp. 231-59; Pooth, R. A. (2004): "Ablaut und autosegmentale Morphologie: Theorie der uridg. Wurzelflexion", Indogermanistik - Germanistik - Linguistik, ed. by M. Kozianka, R. Lühr & S. Zeilfelder, Hamburg, pp. 401-71 - Beekes, Robert S. P. (1995). Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ISBN 90-272-2150-2 (Europe), ISBN 1-55619-504-4 (U.S.) Check - Coetsem, Frans van (1993). Ablaut and Reduplication in the Germanic Verb (=Indogermanische Bibliothek. vol 3). Heidelberg: Winter Verlag. ISBN 3-8253-4267-0. - Kuryłowicz, Jerzy; Manfred Mayrhofer (1968/9). Indogermanische Grammatik. Heidelberg: Winter Verlag. ISBN 3-533-03487-9. - Meier-Brügger, Michael (2002). Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft. de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-017243-7. - Szemerenyi, Oswald J. L.. Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics. Clarendon: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-824015-5. - Watkins, Calvert (2000). The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (2nd edition ed.). Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-08250-6.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_grade

Peace and After Even with U.S. troops occupying their capital city, Mexican leaders hesitated to surrender territory and negotiations dragged on for months. At last, however, on February 2, 1848, the United States and Mexico came to terms. In the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Mexico agreed to surrender all claims to Texas and accept the Rio Grande as the boundary of that state. Mexico also agreed to sell its New Mexico and Upper California territories to the United States at a price of $15 million. The treaty effectively halved the size of Mexico and doubled the territory of the United States. This territorial exchange had long-term effects on both nations. The war and treaty extended the United States to the Pacific Ocean, and provided a bounty of ports, minerals, and natural resources for a growing country. The abundance of lands also produced debates about extending slavery into the West, a dispute that would help spark a nation-defining civil war. In Mexico, the loss of battles and territories was a national trauma. As political and military leaders challenged each other on the best way to revive their troubled country, Mexico also descended into a long period of turmoil, civil war, and foreign intervention. But the war also inspired new leaders who were determined to avoid additional humiliation for their country. The new generation eventually united Mexico, forced out foreign invaders, and established the foundations of a modern state. Perhaps the most enduring effect of the war, however, is on U.S.-Mexican relations. While the war is recalled with passion south of the border, it is often overlooked to the north. And, although the two countries have developed strong bonds and friendly ties since 1848, these neighbors continue to struggle with distrust and misunderstandings created by the war, its effects, and the differing approaches to remembering the conflict. Did You Know? In 1846, the U.S. army marched from Corpus Christi on March 8 and arrived at the Rio Grande on March 28. Today, travelers commonly cross the area in about 3 hours.

http://www.nps.gov/paal/historyculture/overview_4.htm