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WHAT IS INSIDE THE FIBERS THAT MAKE UP BONE? For one, an odorless, tasteless chemical powder known as calcium phosphate is inside these fibers. There are also large amounts of the mineral, magnesium, as well as two types of salt: 1) carbonate, and 2) citrate sodium. Organic material makes up 25% of bone, whereas inorganic material makes up the other 75%. Organic material is that which is made of the element, carbon, and held together by bonds that are made by shared electrons (negatively charged atomic particles). Inorganic material is made of atoms other than carbon and is held together by forces other than bonds made by shared electrons. WHAT ABOUT BONE MARROW? The center of long bones are filled with a type of tissue known as marrow. If you want to get a sense of what bone marrow looks like, the next time you are eating chicken wings, break one of the bones in half and take a look at the pink stuff inside (bone marrow). The marrow inside the long openings of long bones is yellow. By contrast, red marrow (which makes blood cells) is present near in the ends of bones by the joints. Red marrow also fills the openings of bones that are short as well as bones that are flat. Other bones that red marrow fills are the ribs, the central part of the bones that make up the spinal column, and a long and flat bone that goes down the center of the chest (known as the sternum). WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD, BONE? Bone comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "ban" meaning "bone." Bone is a hard, somewhat flexible type of connective tissue that makes up the animal skeleton (see picture below). Any part of the skeleton is known as bone and the average person has a total of 206 bones. The inside of bone consists of loose, spongy tissue that is passed through by many types of blood vessels and nerves, as well as by vessels that transport a fluid called lymph. The spongy tissue inside bones is surrounded by closely packed bony tissue. This closely packed bony tissue is surrounded by a thin layer of tissue known as the periosteum. The connective tissue that makes up bones is closely enclosed in an area of collagen (a type of fiber) and a mineralized substance. HOW IS BONE TISSUE CREATED? The tissue that makes up bone are created by cells known as osteocytes. Osteocytes create bone tissue in a complex system of interconnecting canals and concentric rings, which means that the rings overlap and share a common center. The circular layers of bone are formed around a blood vessel canal in the center. "Where Medical Information is Easy to Understand"

http://www.medfriendly.com/bone.html

Austro-Hungarian immigrationAustria-Hungary was a large, landlocked dynastic state situated in central and southeastern Europe; it was partitioned following World War I (1914–1918). In the great wave of European migration between 1880 and 1919, Italy and Austria-Hungary each sent more than 4 million immigrants to the United States, totaling more than one-third of the 24 million total immigrants from that period. Migration to Canada was severely restricted by German travel requirements—from whose ports almost all Austrians traveled—which made migration to the United States vastly easier. Some 200,000 Austro-Hungarians nevertheless eventually made their way to Canada between 1880 and 1914, with the vast majority being Slavs. Austria-Hungary was a vast, multinational empire that lagged far behind western European countries in both economic development and individual freedom, thus providing impetus for the empire’s Poles, Czechs, Jews, Magyars (Hungarians), Slovenes, Croatians, Slovaks, Romanians, Ruthenians, Gypsies, and Serbs to seek new opportunities in North America. The exact number of immigrants from the Austro- Hungarian Empire cannot be determined, nor can the numbers within particular ethnic groups. Not only were official records not kept in Austria-Hungary during most of the period, the nomenclature used to classify immigrants frequently changed. Also, members of various central and eastern European ethnic groups arriving in the United States or Canada were often mistaken for one another. In the 18th century, what would become Austria-Hungary was usually referred to by its dynastic name, the Habsburg Empire, and increasingly in the 19th century as the Austrian Empire. Thus, all subjects of the Habsburg crown were properly referred to as “Austrians.” With the rise in nationalistic sentiment from the early 19th century, more Austrians began to identify themselves according to their native culture and language. This growing sense of nationalism led to a number of revolutions in 1848 and eventually in 1867 to the creation of a new federal system of government in which Hungarian Austrians were given legislative equality with German Austrians. Both partners discriminated against other ethnic groups, particularly the Slavs. Galician immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire at immigration sheds in Quebec province: Peasant families such as this were considered ideal immigrants by the Canadian government during the early 20th century. Galicia was a former Austrian Crown territory, now divided between Ukraine and Poland. Only a handful of Austrians immigrated to North America prior to the mid-19th century. When the Catholic bishop-prince of Salzburg exiled 30,000 Protestants from his lands in 1728, several hundred settled in Georgia. A few radical reformers fleeing the failed revolutions of 1848 settled in the United States as political refugees. Most were middle class and reasonably well educated and tended to cluster in New York City and St. Louis, Missouri, where there were already large German-speaking settlements. Although the official estimate that fewer than 1,000 Austrians were in America in 1850 is almost certainly wrong, it does suggest the limited migration that had taken place by that time. By the 1870s, however, several factors led to a rapid increase in immigration. The emancipation of the peasantry beginning in 1848 led to the creation of a market economy and the potential for wage earnings and individual choices about migration. Overpopulation also contributed to the rapid increase in immigration. With a rapidly growing population, laws and inheritance patterns reduced the majority of farms to tiny plots that could barely support a family. As more agricultural workers were uprooted from the land, it became more common for them to try their hand in North America when prospects in Austrian cities failed. Finally, a heightened sense of nationalism encouraged Austro-Hungarian minorities to escape the discriminatory policies of the Austrians and Hungarians. From 1870 to 1910, immigration increased dramatically each decade, despite restrictions on immigration propaganda. Many ethnic groups, including Poles, had high rates of return migration, suggesting immigration as a temporary economic expedient. On the other hand, German Austrians, Jews, and Czechs tended to immigrate as families and to establish permanent residence. With the United States and Austria-Hungary on opposite sides during World War I (1914–18), immigration virtually ceased. More than 100,000 Canadians of Austro-Hungarian origin were declared enemy aliens. At the end of the war, the anachronistic, multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire was dismembered and replaced by the successor states of Austria, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. See also Austrian immigration; Croatian immigration; Czech immigration; Hungarian immigration; Jewish immigration; Polish immigration; Romanian immigration; Serbian immigration; Slovakian immigration; Slovenian immigration.

http://immigration-online.org/28-austro-hungarian-immigration.html

They're Here, They're There, They're Everywhere! Gamma Ray Bursts! (A Double Feature) Gamma Ray bursts are the most powerful explosions which take place in the universe. They were first discovered in the late 1960's. For many years scientists puzzled over how far away they are and what causes them. The BATSE instrument on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory observes these bursts about once a day, uniformly distributed throughout the sky. This suggested that the bursts occur very far away, but how far still remained a mystery. In 1997, the Beppo-SAX satellite, along with ground based observatories, made the discoveries which transformed our understanding of these brilliant flashes of gamma rays. Beppo-Sax employed a technique using a special aperture mask to determine the location of the bursts. The first video of our double feature explains what scientists then discovered. Do you have a question, problem or comment about this web site? Please let us know. External links contain material that we found to be relevant. However they're not maintained by us and the content may have changed. If you find any external links that contain inappropriate material, please let us know!

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/features/movies/bursts.html

Introduction to the TCP/IQ Addressing Worksheet The TCP/IQ Addressing Worksheet is a list of valid TCP/IP addresses on a stand-alone network. If the TCP/IQ network is going to be shared with other people, check with the Network Administrator for their addressing scheme. Without getting into all of the networking rules, the table lists 40 network addresses out of a possible 65,534 addresses on this network. There are other addresses that are valid; these are just shown as a starting point. - The Subnet Mask for all components, including the computer, needs to be set to 255.255.0.0. - Each computer running IQwic software must have a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0. It also must be assigned one of the addresses listed on the following table. - A space has been left to the right of all the addresses. This area is for your notes, such as the IQ address or the component type. Go to TCP/IQ Addressing Worksheet (one-page example) Go to TCP/IQ Addressing Worksheet (Excel file) Microsoft Excel required to view. Return to How to set up TCP/IQ

http://www.crownaudio.com/united_kingdom/tcpiq2.htm

Nuclear fusion, although it was known theoretically in the 1930s as the process by which the sun and most other stars radiate their great output of energy, was not achieved by scientists until the 1950s. Fusion reactions are also known as thermonuclear reactions because the temperatures required to initiate them are more than 1,000,000°C. In the hydrogen bomb, such temperatures are provided by the detonation of a fission bomb. The energy released during fusion is even greater than that released during fission. Moreover, the fuel for fusion reactions, isotopes of hydrogen, is readily available in large amounts, and there is no release of radioactive byproducts. In stars ordinary hydrogen, whose nucleus consists of a single proton, is the fuel for the reaction and is fused to form helium through a complex cycle of reactions (see nucleosynthesis). This reaction takes place too slowly, however, to be of practical use on the earth. The heavier isotopes of hydrogen—deuterium and tritium—have much faster fusion reactions. For sustained, controlled fusion reactions, a fission bomb obviously cannot be used to trigger the reaction. The difficulties of controlled fusion center on the containment of the nuclear fuel at the extremely high temperatures necessary for fusion for a time long enough to allow the reaction to take place. For deuterium-tritium fusion, this time is about 0.1 sec. At such temperatures the fuel is no longer in one of the ordinary states of matter but is instead a plasma, consisting of a mixture of electrons and charged atoms. Obviously, no solid container could hold such a hot mixture; therefore, containment attempts have been based on the electrical and magnetic properties of a plasma, using magnetic fields to form a "magnetic bottle." In 1994 U.S. researchers achieved a fusion reaction that lasted about a second and generated 10.7 million watts, using deuterium and tritium in a magnetically confined plasma. The use of tritium lowers the temperature required and increases the rate of the reaction, but it also increases the release of radioactive neutrons. Another method has used laser beams aimed at tiny pellets of fusion fuel. If practical controlled fusion is achieved, it could have great advantages over fission as a source of energy. Deuterium is relatively easy to obtain, since it constitutes a small percentage of the hydrogen in water and can be separated by electrolysis, in contrast to the complex and expensive methods required to extract uranium-235 from its sources. In 2007 China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States formally established the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Organization to build an experimental fusion reactor at Cadarache in S France that would use the "magnetic bottle" approach. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility, based in Livermore, Calif., and dedicated in 2009, is exploring the use of high-energy lasers focused on hydrogen fuel to achieve nuclear fusion. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/science/nuclear-energy-nuclear-fusion.html

Learn something new every day More Info... by email Synchondroses are immovable, temporary joints that connect two bones with cartilage. By adulthood, the body converts the cartilage to bone through a process known as ossification or transforms it into fibrocartilage. In humans, these joints are found in the skull, connecting the long bones like the tibia and femur bones of the leg, and attaching the first rib to the breastbone. Anatomists classify joints as fibrous, cartilaginous or synovial. Synchondrosis joints are cartilaginous and initially, a type of cartilage known as hyaline connects the two bones. Hyaline cartilage contains less collagen than the denser fibrocartilage that may replace it. Once fibrocartilage replaces the hyaline cartilage, the joints are no longer referred to as synchondroses but are instead called symphyses. If the cartilage undergoes ossification, the joint disappears into the bone and loses its separate identity. Synchondroses in the skull ossify to form bone tissue. The first of these joints are normally ossified by the infant's first birthday. Other synchondroses take from 2 to 14 years to turn into bone, although rarely one or more synchondrosis may remain until early adulthood. Skull synchondroses are often associated with easing the passage of the infant through the birth canal, but they also allow room for the infant's brain to grow at a rapid rate. In the leg, the end of the femur and the end of the tibia are not fused at birth. The two ends actually have a synchondrosis separating them. This immovable joint is what permits the bones to continue to grow with the child. By approximately 25 years of age, the synchondrosis has ossified and the joint disappears into the bone. Unlike the synchondroses found in the skull and legs, the joint attaching the rib to the breastbone converts to fibrocartilage rather than bone. This is fibrous cartilage is tougher than hyaline and allows even less movement. The fibrocartilage acts to stabilize the upper thorax, which is the area of the chest containing the lungs and heart. Cartilaginous joints such as synchondroses have little similarity to synovial joints but share some of the same characteristics as fibrous joints. Synovial joints have a great range of movement, and the classification includes joints such as knees, shoulders and elbows. Fibrous joints have little ability to move and some of them disappear with age, just like synchondroses. Unlike a synchondrosis, however, a fibrous joint has ligaments that help maintain the connection between bones.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-synchondroses.htm

with Reading Fluency Activities You can bridge the gap from phonics to comprehension using reading fluency activities. These fun and effective reading strategies help students learn to read smoothly with more expression and better understanding. I know first hand that many students read slowly, robotically, and one word at a time. These students don’t understand the meaning, and you want strategies for reading comprehension. I suggest that you include some fluency lessons within your reading block. Fluency isn’t just reading fast. It includes accuracy in word recognition, automatic word recognition, and expressive, interpretive phrasing. Fluent oral reading sounds natural. When a student reads fluently, attention is on meaning instead of on decoding words. In order to read fluently, readers must read in meaningful phrases. They pause at appropriate places and at ends of sentences. They also emphasize certain words and vary the tone. Reading fluency isn’t a stage of development. It depends on the reading level of the text as well as how well a student is familiar with the words. Have you ever heard a fluent reader try to read highly technical words or even Old Testament biblical names? Somehow the reader isn’t quite as fluent! If you are looking for research based reading fluency activities or reading intervention programs, fluency has plenty of research backing. You can find research information from the 2000 National Reading Panel. And the research reveals the relationship between fluency and reading comprehension. Dr. Timothy Rasinski has conducted much research on fluency and has suggested many reading fluency activities. You can find some of his ideas on the web, including a list of good books for fluency practice. The main reading fluency activities involve Repeated reading . First, make sure that smooth, expressive reading is modeled to your students. Read aloud daily! Reading aloud improves comprehension, vocabulary, and builds motivation. Ask adult volunteers to come to the class and read aloud. Make sure parents and other family members are reading aloud to their children. The next important step with reading fluency activities is to model the reading of a text and then have the students reread it . Do you know the minimum number of times a student should read something in order to read fluently? FOUR TIMES. What should your students read for practice? Short, easy, independent level text are best for reading fluency activities. This means reading with 95% success, or no more than encountering 1 in 20 difficult words. Anything more difficult will cause the student to focus more on word decoding than on developing fluency. When doing paired reading with an adult, you can use instructional level text. This means reading with 90-95% success, or no more than 1 in 10 difficult words. It also means using passages with 50—200 words. Use fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with your reading fluency activities. Songs, skits, stories, and speeches all lend themselves well for practice reading and fluency. The following are types of repeated reading with some example lessons. 1. STUDENT-ADULT READING If you want an effective reading intervention strategy, use this type of paired reading for 6 straight weeks. Each session should be 10-20 minutes long. This type of reading helps with word recognition and provides feedback. The adult can be teacher, parent, classroom aide, or tutor. Basically, either the two read aloud together, or the adult reads first for modeling, then the student reads the same passage to the adult. The adult assists and encourages. The text is read 3-4 times. The two should sit side by side in chairs, sharing the text. As they read, it is important that the student read every word. Pointing to every word or using a card helps with this. The adult should read at the child’s rate or just slightly faster to gently lead the child. The adult can also change tone or volume to provide more vocal cues in harder parts. Conversely, a softer voice can be used when the text is easier or when less support is needed on repeated readings. When the student makes a mistake with a word, just say the word correctly and have the child reread the word. Then keep reading. Don’t stop for instruction on the word. Doing so would break up the fluency. Instead, come back to the word at the end and talk about the word or do some more in depth word work. You can show excitement and interest in what you’re reading and also discuss the text. Just don’t stop in the middle of a passage. This breaks the flow that you are trying to practice. I use a similar instruction when I meet one on one with my first grade students. This type of reading fluency activity is integrated into our reading intervention model. I find it effective for about 75% of my lower skilled students. The student reads aloud in unison with an accomplished reader. At a student signal, the higher reader stops reading, while the student continues reading. When the student makes a reading error, the higher reader begins again reading in unison. A 50-200 word selection from a reading text, poem, or song 1. Sit with student in a quiet location. Position the book selected for the reading session so that both you and student can easily follow the text. 2. Say,” Now we’re going to read aloud together for a little while. Whenever you want to read alone, just tap the back of my hand like this (demonstrate), and I will stop reading. If you come to a word you don’t know, I’ll tell you the word and begin reading with you again. 3. Begin reading aloud with student. If student misreads a word, point to the word and pronounce it. Have student repeat the word. When the student reads the word correctly, resume reading through the passage. 4. When child taps your hand, stop reading and follow along silently as the student continues with oral reading. Praise the student in specific terms for good reading. 5. If child makes a reading error, skips a word or line, or hesitates longer than 5 seconds, point to the error-word and pronounce it. Then tell the student to say the word. When the student pronounces the word correctly, begin reading aloud again in unison with the student. 6. Continue reading aloud with the student until he or she again signals to read alone. Reference: Toppng, K. (1987). Paired reading: A powerful technique for parent use. Reading Teacher 2. CHORAL READING In these reading fluency activities, students read in unison as a group along with an adult. Everyone is looking at the same text. This could be a big book, something on the overhead, or a copy handed out to each person. Choral reading provides support and scaffolding. It provides much more reading opportunity for each student than if each person read one at a time. It can also build community for both the low and high readers. Although this type of reading is often used at the primary level, don’t ignore it in the older grades. As an adult, I have attended workshops where we have had a lot of fun with choral reading of songs and interesting poetry. Just because you may teach high school doesn’t mean this is for “babies”! Your students would have a great time and learn something, too! The text should be at an independent to instructional level. It also shouldn’t be too long. Something that’s predictable or repetitious is always a good choice. First, read aloud for modeling. Then ask students to join you. Read 3-5 times, possibly spreading this over several days. Examples are reciting something like the Pledge of Allegiance while reading it or singing a patriotic song with the words. Here are some types of choral reading with SAMPLE LESSONS: One person reads most of the text and the rest of the group reads other key parts together. A song or poem with repeated choruses, such as “Things”, by Eloise Greenfield , “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service, “Look in a Book”, by Ivy O. Eastwick 1. Provide a way for every student to see all the words of the text, i.e. overhead, copies for each, etc. 2. Read through the entire text for the students. Model expression, volume, and other traits of fluent reading. 3. Have you and all students read the text in unison. 4. Ask students to find 3 unknown words or interesting words. Discuss the meaning and/or highlight these words. Write synonyms above the words or in the margins. 5. Ask a strong reader to read the “verses” alone. Then everyone join in on the refrain or repeated lines. 6. Reread on subsequent days. If you use a song, begin your day or possibly break up your day by singing the song in this fashion. 7. As students learn the poem, invite weaker readers to join the strong reader on the verses. Cumulative Choral Reading One student or several students reads a line or passage. Then another reader or readers join in on the next part. Continue adding readers until the end when everyone is reading. Use speeches or passages like the Preamble to the Constitution. A crescendo of voices creates a pretty cool effect! A variation is to begin with all voices, gradually eliminating groups. End with one or two students reading. This is like the choral reading. For these reading fluency activities, you can find songs that connect to units in social studies, times in history, or even math facts. It’s fun and gets the endorphins going for a happier learning environment. First teach the song. Repeat the reading/singing of the lyrics. Break up the verses and sing in a refrain repeated reading or cumulative choral reading. After the song is learned, just have the kids read the lines. You can use words in the songs as a basis for word work. 3. TAPE-ASSISTED READING Reading fluency activities that use tape-assisted reading allows students to work independently and have the benefit of hearing a fluent reader. A book and recording of the book that is at the student’s independent reading level. The fluent reader should be reading at about 80-100 words per minute. The tape shouldn’t have any sound effects or music. 1. Student listens to the tape while following along in the book. The student should point to words while following. 2. Student reads the book aloud along with the recording. 3. Repeat reading until the student can read the book without the support of the recording. 4. PARTNER READING Students read to each other from the same text. You can pair a more fluent reader with a less fluent one. The stronger reader reads a passage or part of it first. Then the less fluent reader reads the same passage aloud. The stronger reader can help by encouraging and by helping out with words. Repeat the reading until both students can read it independently. You can even pair up students who are at the same reading level. They can use a story that you have already instructed them on. After they’ve heard you read it fluently, they can continue the repeated reading with each other. 5. READERS' THEATER These reading fluency activities use scripts for the repeated readings. Your students rehearse and perform plays. It doesn’t involve costumes or sets. It’s just a rehearsed reading that is performed like an old radio show. Readers’ Theater gives the students a purpose for practicing fluency. It helps kids cooperate and makes reading fun. You can find scripts for Readers’ Theater on the web. Check out Aaron Sheperd’s website for some excellent scripts and ideas. Reading fluency activities can be fun and used as reading intervention strategies. Improve your students’ comprehension with teaching reading fluency activities! Return from Reading Fluency Activities to Reading Comprehension Activites Return from Reading Fluency Activities to Reading Intervention Strategies

http://www.reading-strategies-help.com/reading-fluency-activities.html

Grade Level/Subject: 3-4, Reading and Language Arts Overview: Students need to know how to write a greeting letter. Objectives: As a result of this activity, the students will: Better understand parts of a greeting letter and envelope. Be able to address an envelope. Be able to write a letter to a friend. Books: The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters, or The Jolly Pocket Postman Poster of a letter and envelope Labels to identify the parts of the letter and envelope Piece of paper and a envelope for each student in the class Activities and Procedures: Discuss if students have ever received any type of mail. Next show an example of a letter or an envelope that has already been prepared. Go over each part of the letter and describe what information is contained in each section. Call on different students to point out different parts of a letter and envelope. The class will write a letter together (e.g., the class could write to a solider overseas, the President of the United States, or Santa Claus). Have students write a greeting letter and address an envelope to anyone they would like to write. In the letter the students can use five of their spelling words for the week. Tying It All Together: Share the letter with the class and discuss if all parts were contained.

http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/730.html

I was wondering what differences are between "tone", "note", and "pitch"? A pitch is a particular frequency of sound, for example 440 Hz. Wikipedia goes into a lot of detail about how pitch is subjective, and frequency is objective; the frequency that you think you hear (the pitch) might not be the real frequency at all, due to overtones (see below) and other factors. You can read that article for more details, though for our purposes the definition as "a particular frequency" is sufficient. A note is a named pitch. Arbitrarily named, of course, by us humans. For example, Western music generally refers to the 440 Hz pitch as A, specifically A4. A note can refer to an occurrence of such a pitch as well. Playing A4 twice can either be talked about as "playing one note twice" or "playing two notes", depending on the context and how specific you want to be. Notes that are even multiples of other notes share the same name; for example, 880 Hz (double 440 Hz) is also called A, specifically A5. As Kos points out in the comments, a note can also carry temporal information. For example, given the same tempo, a whole note is held twice as long as a half note, which is in turn held twice as long as a quarter note, etc. When a sound consists of multiple pitches is when things get slightly messy. If a sound consists of multiple pitches, it could either be multiple notes played at once or a single note with overtones (see my answer here for more information on overtones and harmonics). You cannot determine the difference purely from the sound alone, you have to look at the actual physical action. Striking two strings on guitar will produce two notes; striking one will only produce one note, even if that single note consists of a fundamental frequency plus overtones. Timbre has to do with the other qualities of the sound. Only a sound produced electronically can have only one pitch; all other sounds consist of multiple pitches. The mix of frequencies in a sound results in the timbre. For example, playing A4 on a guitar will actually result in a sound composed of the following frequencies: 440 Hz, 880 Hz, 1320 Hz, 1760 Hz, etc. The particular strength, or amplitude, of the frequencies results in the timbre. One sound might have very little 880 Hz present in it while another has a lot, for example, and we can pick up on that difference. It's how we can tell that an A4 played on a piano and an A4 played on a guitar sound different. "Tone" is sometimes informally used as a synonym for "timbre", but more often "tone" is synonymous with "note". It can basically replace "note" any time you would say "note"; e.g. "playing two tones". Some would argue that it more commonly refers to a single pitch — e.g. a note is a tone plus overtones, and a tone does not consist of overtones — but unfortunately the usage is inconsistent. "Tone" can also be synonymous with "step": A half-tone is a half-step, and a whole-tone is a whole-step. For example, from C to C# is a half step or half tone, whereas from C to D would be a whole step. I don't like to use the term "tone" because of the possible confusion about its meaning. It's better to use timbre, pitch, note, or step when appropriate and leave tone out altogether. |show 9 more comments|

http://music.stackexchange.com/questions/3262/what-are-the-differences-between-tone-note-and-pitch

This material (including images) is copyrighted!. See my copyright notice for fair use When light is passed through a prism or a diffraction grating to produce a spectrum, the type of spectrum you will see depends on what kind of object is producing the light: is it a thick or thin gas, is it hot or cool, is it a gas or a solid? There are two basic types of spectra: continuous spectrum (energy at all wavelengths) and discrete spectrum (energy at only certain wavelengths). Astronomers usually refer to the two types of discrete spectra: emission lines (bright lines) and absorption lines (dark lines in an otherwise continuous spectrum) as different types of spectra. A rainbow is an example of a continuous spectrum. Most continuous spectra are from hot, dense objects like stars, planets, or moons. The continuous spectrum from these kinds of objects is also called a thermal spectrum, because hot, dense objects will emit electromagnetic radiation at all wavelengths or colors. Any solid, liquid and dense (thick) gas at a temperature above absolute zero will produce a thermal spectrum. A thermal spectrum is the simplest type of spectrum because its shape depends on only the temperature. A discrete spectrum is more complex because it depends on temperature and other things like the chemical composition of the object, the gas density, surface gravity, speed, etc. Exotic objects like neutron stars and black holes can produce another type of continuous spectrum called ``synchrotron spectrum'' from charged particles swirling around magnetic fields, but I will discuss them in another chapter later on. For now, let's look at a thermal spectrum. Sometimes astronomers use the term ``blackbody'' spectrum for a thermal spectrum. A ``blackbody'' is an object that absorbs all the light falling on it, reflecting none of it, hence, it appears black. When the ``blackbody'' object is heated, it emits light very efficiently without any gaps or breaks in the brightness. Though no object is a perfect ``blackbody'', most stars, planets, moons and asteroids are near enough to being ``blackbodies'', that they will produce spectra very similar to a perfect thermal spectrum. Some thermal spectra for objects of different temperatures are illustrated in the figure below. Some key features of a thermal (continuous) spectrum are as follows: - There is light from a dense object at all possible IF the object is above 0 K (absolute zero). Since everything in the universe is above 0 K, all dense objects (solids, liquids, thick gases) will produce a - The shape of a continuous spectrum depends on only the temperature of the object NOT its chemical composition. This allows you to determine the temperature of an object from a great distance away. - As the temperature of an object increases, more light is produced at all wavelengths than when it was cooler. You can see this effect with a light bulb wired to a dimmer switch. As you raise the current going to the bulb, the bulb's filament gets hotter and brighter. - As the temperature of an object increases, the peak of thermal spectrum curve shifts to smaller wavelengths (higher frequencies)---cool things appear red or orange, hotter things appear yellow or white, and very hot things blue or purple. This is opposite to what artists use for ``cool'' colors (blues) or ``hot'' colors (reds)! You can also see this effect with the light bulb wired to a dimmer switch. The dim bulb will have an orange color and as you make it brighter, the bulb will turn yellow and even white. Wilhelm Wien (lived 1864--1928) discovered that the peak of the thermal spectrum curve, peak in nanometers, is related to the temperature by peak = 2.9 × 106 / temperature (in K). This simple relation is now known as Wien's Law. Using this you will find that cool objects like cars, plants, and people radiate most of their energy in the infrared. Very cold objects radiate mostly in the radio band. - A small change in the temperature produces a HUGE change in the amount of energy emitted by every unit area of the object. If you add up all of the energy emitted every second by an area of one square meter on the object's surface, you find it is another universal constant of nature [= 5.67×10-8 J/(m2 K4 s)]. This relation is called the Stefan-Boltzmann law. Because the temperature is raised to the fourth power, a small rise in the temperature of an object will produce a HUGE increase in the amount of energy it emits. When you add up all of the energy of all of the square meters on the object's surface, you get the luminosity---the total amount of energy emitted every second by the object. The luminosity = (total surface area) × If our Sun were just twice as hot as it is now, it would produce 24 = 16 times more energy than it does now! The UNL Astronomy Education program's Blackbody Curves module lets you explore the relationship between temperature and the thermal spectrum by manipulating various parameters with a graphical interface (link will appear in a new window). It also introduces the concept of filters. Go back to previous section -- Go to next section August 20, 2007 Is this page a copy of Strobel's Author of original content:

http://www.astronomynotes.com/light/s4.htm

Yersinia enterocolitica and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis are bacterial infections that are uncommon, but can cause problems when they occur. Y enterocolitica causes a condition called enterocolitis, which is an inflammation of the small intestine and colon that occurs, and often recurs, mostly in young children. These infections appear to be acquired by eating contaminated food, particularly raw or inadequately cooked pork products, and drinking unpasteurized milk. They might also be contracted by touching an infected animal, drinking contaminated well water, or on rare occasions, from contaminated transfusions. The infections are increasing in frequency among children whose immune system is weakened. The incubation period is around 4 to 6 days. Signs and Symptoms When a Y enterocolitica infection is present, it not only causes an inflamed small intestine and colon, but also symptoms such as diarrhea and a fever. A child with this infection may have stools that contain blood and mucus. These symptoms may last for 1 to 3 weeks, sometimes longer. Along with these more common symptoms, very young children who have too much iron stored in their bodies, such as those who receive blood transfusions, or whose immune system is already suppressed or weakened because of another illness, may be susceptible to bacteremia (the spread of bacteria to the blood). Older youngsters may also have symptoms that mimic appendicitis (a pseudoappendicitis syndrome), with right-sided abdominal pain and tenderness. On rare occasions, this infection may be associated with conditions such as a sore throat, eye inflammation, meningitis, and pneumonia. In older youngsters, joint pain or a red skin lump (erythema nodosum) on the lower legs may develop after the infection itself has gone away. Children with Y pseudotuberculosis will likely develop a fever, a rash, and abdominal pain, including the pseudoappendicitis syndrome. Some children may also have diarrhea, a rash, and excess fluid in the chest region or spaces around the joints. When to Call Your Pediatrician Contact your pediatrician if your child’s stool is streaked with blood. Look for signs of dehydration that could be caused by your youngster’s diarrhea, including dry mouth, unusual thirst, and a decline in the frequency of urination. How Is the Diagnosis Made? Your pediatrician can order tests to detect the presence of Yersinia organisms in your child’s stool. Evidence of the infection may also be seen by taking throat swabs and evaluating them in the laboratory, examining the urine, or testing the blood for antibodies to the bacteria. Because these are relatively rare infections, most laboratories do not routinely perform tests looking for Yersinia organisms in feces. In most children, the infection will go away on its own. In some cases, Yersinia infections need to be treated with antibiotics. As with all cases of diarrhea, fluids are given to prevent or treat dehydration. Make sure your child does not consume raw or undercooked pork, unpasteurized milk, and contaminated water.Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water after handling raw pork intestines (chitterlings). No vaccine is available to prevent Yersinia infections.

http://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/abdominal/pages/Rare-Infections-Yersinia-Enterocolitica-and-Yersinia-Pseudotuberculosis.aspx

Digestion is the means by which ingested food is broken down into a form that can be absorbed and assimilated by the tissues of the body. The purpose of digestion is to break large pieces of food down into molecules small enough to pass into the bloodstream and further into individual cells throughout the body to be utilized. Structure and Function The digestive system comprises the digestive tract which extends from the mouth to the anus, with all of its associated organs and glands. The digestive tract is made up of the following organs: mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, rectum and anus, all of which contribute to the process of digestion. The lining found inside of these organs is called mucosa, which contains tiny glands that produce juices to help digest food. The digestive tract also contains a layer of smooth muscle that helps move food along the tract. Once food is chewed and swallowed, it is mixed with digestive juices and moved through the tract from one organ to the next through muscle action called peristalsis. Once in the stomach, the food is mixed with digestive juices by the stomach’s muscle action and then emptied into the small intestine. The contents of the intestine are then mixed and pushed forward to allow further digestion. Finally, the digested nutrients are absorbed continuously through the intestinal walls and transported throughout the body. The waste products and undigested parts of the food are pushed into the colon, where they remain until expelled by a bowel movement. Most of the absorption of nutrients occurs through the small intestine. Its mucosa contains many folds that are covered with tiny finger-like projections called villi. Microvilli are the microscopic projections which cover the villi and create a vast surface area through which nutrients can be easily absorbed. Some specialized cells allow absorbed materials to cross the mucosa into the blood, where they are carried off in the bloodstream to other parts of the body for storage or further chemical change. This process varies with each nutrient. There is also a hormonal and nerve component found within the digestive system. The three major hormones that control the functions of this system are gastrin, secretin, and cholecystokinin (CCK). They are synthesized and released by cells in the mucosa of the stomach and small intestine and help facilitate the production of acids and juices. Extrinsic and intrinsic nerves also help control the action of the digestive system by releasing chemicals that actively participate in all of these processes. The digestive process involves a series of complex actions from the digestive organs, hormones and nerves to facilitate adequate digestion and nutrient absorption. The digestive system is a complex one that can be disrupted by many factors including stress, diet, lifestyle or disease. Common digestive problems such as heartburn/GERD, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) can cause a wide variety of symptoms such as bloating, diarrhea, gas, constipation, stomach pain and stomach cramps. Learn more about Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Many ingredients have been clinically shown to play a role in digestive health: Probiotics play a critical role in achieving optimal digestive health by helping to maintain bacterial balance within the digestive tract. The digestive system naturally houses trillions of “good” bacteria that directly help the body digest, modify and convert the foods we eat, but disruptions to these populations of probiotics (good bacteria) are common. Probiotics must be kept at normal levels in order to overwhelm the other bacteria, which may begin to run rampant in the event the good bacteria levels decrease. There are numerous strains of probiotics, all of which work to maintain optimal bacterial balance, promote bowel regularity and stomach comfort, improve gastrointestinal health and support the digestive system. Some important strains are Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactobacillus salivarus, Bifidobacterium bifidum, Bifidobacterium longum, Bifidobacterium breve and Bifidobacterium infantis. Fibersol-2® is a soluble fiber which has a positive impact on the elimination of wastes and colon cleansing. It also helps to maintain balanced bowels, support normal bowel regularity and fecal volume, and support healthy digestive function. Physiologically, the ingredient has been shown to promote normal bowel regularity and stool volume. Fibersol-2 is also capable of increasing the amount of good bacteria (probiotics) within the large intestine due to the fact that most of this fiber is normally not metabolized by pancreatic enzymes and is transported to that specific area of the colon. Fibersol-2’s slow digestion helps maintain blood glucose levels. Digestive enzymes are a key component in the digestive system and collectively support the breakdown of complex macromolecules into energy sources and promote the release of the nutrient content from the foods we eat. Ingredients such as DigeZyme® (which is a multi-enzyme complex composed mainly of amylases, proteases and lipases) sucrase and maltase supplement the gastrointestinal tract with enzymes to adequately support the body’s ability to digest food. In addition to the physical discomfort caused by poor digestion, undigested food in the gastrointestinal tract serves as fuel to intestinal microbes, causing them to overpopulate and ferment. These fermenting microbes lower the pH of the colon and increase bacterial toxins in the gut. Supplementation with digestive enzymes provides the body with the additional support it needs for proper digestion. In addition to abdominal discomfort, there is also a connection between the function of the digestive system and the brain. Research suggests that promoting normal digestion may in turn support physical health. Aloe Vera Juice has been used for centuries for numerous health benefits, including those for digestive health. The anti-inflammatory actions of aloe vera gel provide support for the proposal that it may have a therapeutic effect in inflammatory bowel disease. Oral aloe vera taken for 4 weeks produced a clinical response more often than placebo when used as treatment for ulcerative colitis and appeared to be safe. Additionally, certain components of aloe may increase hydrochloric acid levels which provide a buffering effect on the GI tract. It also helps ease gastrointestinal discomfort and promotes mucus production and healthy gut flora.

http://www.exploresupplements.com/areas-of-health/digestive-health

Intense warm climate intervals warmer than scientists thought possible have occurred in the Arctic over the past 2.8 million years. That result comes from the first analyses of the longest sediment cores ever retrieved on land. They were obtained from beneath remote, ice-covered Lake El'gygytgyn (pronounced El'gee-git-gin) ("Lake E") in the northeastern Russian Arctic. The lake is of interest to scientists because it has never been covered by glaciers. That has allowed the uninterrupted build-up of sediment at the bottom of the lake, recording hitherto undiscovered information on climate change. Cores from Lake E go far back in time, almost 30 times farther than Greenland ice cores covering the past 110,000 years. The sediment cores from Lake El'gygytgyn reflect the climate and environmental history of the Arctic with great sensitivity. A team of British and American scientists has successfully deployed an autonomous robot submarine on six missions beneath an Antarctic ice shelf using sonar scanners to map the seabed and the underside of the ice as it juts out over the sea. The research is part of a larger, NSF-funded project to study the dynamic Pine Island Glacier and to understand how increasing ocean temperatures triggered by a warming climate may affect the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and global sea-level rise. Scientists hope to learn why the glacier has been thinning and accelerating over recent decades. Pine Island Glacier is in the Amundsen Sea, part of the Southern Ocean bordering West Antarctica. Changes in its flow have been observed since the early 1970s, and, together with neighboring glaciers, it is currently contributing about 0.25 millimeters (less than one-tenth of an inch) annually to global sea-level rise. But the ice shelf, like other ice shelves, serves to hold back movement of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. A five-nation scientific team has published new evidence that even a slight rise in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, one of the gases that drives global warming, affects the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The massive WAIS covers the continent on the Pacific side of the Transantarctic Mountains. Any substantial melting of the ice sheet would cause a rise in global sea levels. The research is based on investigations by a 56-member team of scientists conducted on a 1,280-meter (4,100-foot)-long sedimentary rock core taken from beneath the sea floor under Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf during the first project of the ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) research program the McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS) Project. The cores retrieved by ANDRILL researchers have allowed them to peer back in time to the Pliocene era, roughly 2 million to 5 million years ago. During that era, the Antarctic was in a natural climate state that was warmer than today and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were higher. Data from the cores indicate the WAIS advanced and retreated numerous times in response to forcing driven by climate cycles. An international research effort on the Greenland ice sheet set a record for single-season deep ice-core drilling in the summer of 2009, recovering more than a mile of ice core that is expected to help scientists better assess the risks of abrupt climate change in the future. The project, known as the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling, or NEEM, was undertaken by 14 nations. The goal was to retrieve ice from the last interglacial episode known as the Eemian Period that ended about 120,000 years ago. Researchers say the Eemian period is the best analog they have for future warming on Earth. A research team investigating the last 100,000 years of Earth's climate history reached an important milestone in January 2011 when they completed the main ice core to a depth of 3,331 meters (10,928 feet) at West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide. As part of the project, the team has been drilling deep into the ice at the WAIS Divide site and recovering and analyzing ice cores for clues about how changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have influenced the Earth's climate over time. The milestone was reached at a depth of 3,331 meters about two miles deep creating the deepest ice core ever drilled by the U.S. and the second deepest ice core ever drilled by any group, second only to the ice core drilled at Russia's Vostok Station as part of a joint French/U.S./Russian collaboration in the 1990s. The ice cores are 13-centimeter (5-inch) diameter cylinders of ice collected from deep in the ice sheet. Over time, the ice has formed when snow was compacted at the surface by subsequent snowfall. The compacted snow contains dust, chemicals and atmospheric gases, which are trapped in the ice. The U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) has drilled and recovered its longest ice core to date from the polar regions, officially hitting 3,331 meters. It took five years working from a lonely field camp in one of the stormiest regions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) to extract the ice, which contains clues about Earth's past climate from the last 100,000 years. The core drilled at a location dubbed WAIS Divide, a high point on the ice sheet where the ice begins to flow in different directions, akin to the Continental Divide in the United States is the second-longest ice core ever recovered anywhere. The Russians have the record for the deepest ice core, which they drilled in the 1990s at Vostok Station in East Antarctica, to a depth of 3,701 meters.

http://www.livescience.com/31782-inside-the-ice-core-laboratory.html

By Jodi Beggs, About.com Guide - Introduction to Economics - The Supply and Demand Model - Market Equilibrium - Changes in Equilibrium - Utility Maximization - Production and Profit Maximization - Types of Markets - Government Regulation - Externalities and Public Goods Introduction to Economics This category provides a very basic introduction to the field of economics and prepares students and readers to move on to the other sections of the site. - What Is Economics? - Microeconomics vs. Macroeconomics - Economics as the "Dismal Science?" - Positive Versus Normative Analysis in Economics The Supply and Demand Model This category goes through the basics of the supply and demand model that is widely used in economics. This category introduces the concept of demand and the demand curve. It also explains what shifts the demand curve and goes through some demand curve algebra. This category introduces the concept of supply and the supply curve. It also explains what shifts the supply curve and goes through some supply curve algebra. This category introduces the concept of market equilibrium and explains how equilibrium is calculated. - Supply and Demand Equilibrium - Calculating Economic Equilibrium - Supply & Demand Practice Question - 10 Supply and Demand Practice Questions - The Effects of a Black Market Using Supply and Demand Changes in Equilibrium This category introduces the concept of changes in equilibrium, or comparative statics, and explains how to calculate those changes both qualitatively and quantitatively. This category introduces the concept of elasticity and shows how it is calculated. It also outlines the different types of elasticity and illustrates an important application of the elasticity concept. - A Beginner's Guide to Elasticity - Price Elasticity of Demand - Price Elasticity of Supply - Income Elasticity of Demand - Cross-Price Elasticity of Demand - Arc Elasticity - Using Calculus To Calculate Price Elasticity of Demand - Using Calculus To Calculate Price Elasticity of Supply - Using Calculus To Calculate Income Elasticity of Demand - Using Calculus To Calculate Cross-Price Elasticity of Demand - Elasticity Practice Question - What's the Price Elasticity of Demand for Gasoline? - Adventures in Downward Sloping Demand Curves and Elasticity This category introduces the utility maximization framework and shows how consumers' demand is derived. Production and Profit Maximization This category introduces various measures of revenue, cost and profit and shows how firms make production decisions to maximize profit. - The Production Possibilities Frontier - What are Opportunity Costs? - Opportunity Costs and Tradeoffs - Baseball Players and Opportunity Costs - A Season Later: Baseball Players and Opportunity Costs - Introduction to Revenue - Understanding Costs - How to Understand and Calculate Cost Measures - Marginal Revenue and Marginal Cost Practice Question Types of Markets This category gives an overview of different types of market structures and describes how prices and quantities are set in each. - Introduction to Competitive Markets - What You Need to Know About Monopolies - Federal Efforts to Control Monopoly - Monopolies, Mergers, and Restructuring - Introduction to Monopolistic Competition This category analyzes the impact of various types of government intervention on the amount of value created in a market. - The Effect of Income Taxes on Economic Growth - How Good Intentions Lead to Crushing Marginal Tax Rates on the Working Poor - FairTax - Income Taxes vs. Sales Taxes - Should Income Tax Rates Depend on Lifetime Earnings? - Payroll Tax Reduction - One Approach to a Carbon Tax - Do Richer People Pay a Higher Proportion of Tax Under a Flat Tax? - Gas Tax and Carbon Tax FAQ - Oregon's Mileage Tax: A Truly Bad Idea - How Do High Small Business Corporate Tax Rates Hurt The Economy? - Should Governments Legalize and Tax Marijuana? Externalities and Public Goods This category introduces the concept of externalities, or market side effects, and discusses the effect of externalities on the value created by a market. It also introduces various types of goods that result in market failures.

http://economics.about.com/od/economics-basics/u/Microeconomics-101.htm

But how do they work? Inside there are several components, two magnets, an armature, an axle, a commutator and two brushes. The motor uses magnetism to create a rotating effect. As we know magnets have two poles, north and south. And the north pole will attract the south pole of another magnet but repel the north pole of the other magnet. So opposite poles attract and like poles repel. This works when the brushes give power to the commutator, which is divided into three sections, so only two sections are powered at one time. The commutator gives power to the wire that is wrapped around the armature (the armature is also divided into 3 sections), thus creating an electro-magnet with two poles north and south. This is where the two magnets come in; they are placed at either side of the armature. So when two of the sections in the armature are magnetised one magnet will pull the north pole and the other will pull the south pole. Then as the poles change because of the rotating commutator they will push away the two poles, then pull, then push… causing the axle (which the commutator and armature is fixed to) to spin.

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111135/howdotheywork-2.htm

The asteroid belt surrounds the inner solar system like a rocky, ring-shaped moat, extending out from the orbit of Mars to that of Jupiter. But there are voids in that moat, most notably where the orbital influence of Jupiter is especially potent; any asteroid unlucky enough to venture into one of those so-called Kirkwood gaps (named for mathematician Daniel Kirkwood) will be perturbed and ejected from the cozy confines of the belt, often winding up on a collision course with one of the inner, rocky planets (such as Earth) or the moon. But Jupiter's pull cannot account for the extent of the belt's depletion today or for the spotty distribution of asteroids across the belt—unless there was a migration of planets early in the history of the solar system, according to new research. Study co-authors David Minton and Prof. Renu Malhotra, planetary scientists at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, report in Nature today that an orbital migration of Jupiter and Saturn four billion years ago may explain the observed distribution of asteroids. The researchers designed a computer model of the asteroid belt under the influence of the outer "gas giant" planets, allowing them to test the distribution that would result from changes in the planets' orbits over time. A simulation wherein the orbits remained static, Minton says, did not agree with observational evidence. "There were places," he says, "where there should have been a lot more asteroids than we saw." On the other hand, a simulation with an early migration of Jupiter inward and Saturn outward, the result of interactions with lingering planetesimals (small bodies) from the creation of the solar system, fit the observed layout of the belt much better. The uneven spacing of asteroids "is readily explained by this planet-migration process that other people have worked on," says Minton, a graduate student. In particular, "if Jupiter had started somewhat farther from the sun and then migrated inward toward its current location," the gaps it carved into the belt would also have inched inward, leaving the belt looking much like it does now. Joseph Hahn, a specialist in planetary dynamics at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., says that the new research bolsters the case for early planetary migration. "The good agreement between the simulated and observed asteroid distributions," he says, "is actually quite remarkable." Jack Wisdom, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that most in the field buy into the planetary-migration theory in general. "The really interesting question, not addressed in this paper, is the pattern of migration," he says—whether the asteroid belt can be used to rule out one of the competing theories of migratory patterns. One issue raised by the new study, Hahn says, is the speed at which the planets' orbits changed. Minton and Malhotra's simulation presumes a rather rapid migration of a million or two million years, but "other models of Neptune's early orbital evolution tend to show that migration proceeds much more slowly," over tens of millions of years, Hahn says. "I suspect that follow-up studies of the solar system's early history will also have to reconcile these two very different timescales, which will hopefully lead to greater understanding of the solar system's early evolution."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=asteroid-belt-planet-migration

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2006 February 9 Explanation: A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation Eridanus. NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core. Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and cepheid stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe. Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in the sharp Hubble Space Telescope view. Authors & editors: NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply. A service of: EUD at NASA / GSFC & Michigan Tech. U.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060209.html

Students suggest possible structures for a molecule and the vote on which ones are correct. Then, two or three students can be selected to calculate the structure on the chalkboard, while the rest of the students do so with paper and pencil. They walk through the formal calculations and compare their answers to the results of the voting at the beginning of the class. This activity reinforces formal charge calculations, and gets the students talking to each other. Part of the goal is to understand that science is a process in which sometimes the answers are unpredictable, but using the skills from the class, they can figure out something that makes sense. For Katherine Phillips, one of her sections reacted more favorably to the activity than the other section. Use this activity if you think the students will enjoy the competition.

http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/ablconnect/book/voting-molecular-structures

Submitted: January 22, 2005 off your first day by establishing the responsibilities of all members of your class by asking the students to discuss what the best classroom in the world looks like, sounds like and feels like. Complete a Y-chart as a class and then come up with a list of 10 positive responsibilities from this list. e.g. We put up our hands to contribute an idea to the class. We show care and respect for everyone, etc. the list is completed, organize the students into pairs to illustrate a responsibility on A3 paper. The pairs discuss what it might look like and then draw using black pen only. Other children who choose not to draw could be given the responsibility of typing the sentences on a computer to match the pictures. Once the pictures and word processing are completed, match them together with the class and put them on the wall to be displayed throughout the year. This is a great tool for managing discipline and also to inform parents of expected standards of behaviour. can also have the students illustrate and display the steps of consequence. These are generally: Step 1 - Warning, Step 2 - Think time, Step 3 - Meeting with parents/guardians.

http://www.ilovethatteachingidea.com/ideas/050105_give_them_ownership.htm

Bubbling B and Emergent Lesson 1 Rational: For a child to be a successful reader he or she needs to be able to recognize letters instantly and the phoneme that it makes. Since b and d look so similar they are commonly confused this lesson will help the student in recognizing the correct letter, the characteristics that make each letter different and the phoneme it makes. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by book Index cards with letter and picture For this lesson we are going to go over the letters b, and d. This two letters are very similar and that is why we confuse them for each other. This letter is b (hold up card b with picture of a bumble bee) and this is the letter d (hold up card d with picture of a dog). Can someone raise their hand and tell me what letter this is (student holds up card -b). (correct response) Very good. Now as a class let's say the letter together b, b, b. Great participation. Now can someone tell me what sound b makes (hold up card with -b). (correct response) Good job. Now as a class let's say the sound /b/, /b/, /b/. Good. This time we are going to come up with words that have a -b in it. Can someone who is sitting quietly and is raising their hand tell us what word they thought of that starts with the letter b. Student's response bat, bubble, and bee. Terrific. Now we are going to work on the letter d. Can someone raise their hand and tell me what letter this is (student holds up card -d). (Correct response) Kiss your brain. Now as a class let's say the letter together d, d, d. Great job. Now as a class let's say the sound /d/, /d/, /d/. Good. This time we are going to come up with words that have a -d in it. Can someone who is sitting quietly and is raising their hand tell us what word they thought of that starts with the letter -d. Student's response dance, dog and draw. Kiss your brain. Now put away your cards. Do you hear the sound /b/ in baby or mom. Do you hear the sound /b/ lazy or busy. Do you hear the sound /b/ in slug or bug. Do you hear /d/ sound in dip or slip. Do you hear /d/ sound in fig or First I want you to listen to me as I say the tongue twister, and then I want us to say it together as a class. We are going to start with b. Benny's blue bunny bakes blue berries for breakfast. Now everyone emphasis the /b/ while saying the tongue twister: Benny's blue bunny bakes blue berries for breakfast. Good job. Now let's do -d. Remember to emphasize /d/. Debbie digs up daisies in the dirt during I while do an informal assessment on the student's as they write b and d I will make notes of who needs more practice and who is picking up on the difference. I will also make notes to see who is participating and who is not and compare that to who is getting the letters and who is not to see if they correlate. Murray, Bruce. Teaching Letter Recognition. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/letters.html Tate, Natalie. Emergent Literacy. Big, bad, b and d!

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/encounters/sheltonel.html

The basics.Amplifiers have an input impedance. That is the impedance by which it loads the signal source. The nominal impedance is something else. That is the source impedance that the amplifier is designed for. The input impedance may be much higher than the nominal inpedance. Amplifiers also have an output impedance. It may be much lower than the nominal impedance. (Consider an audio amplifier for example.) This page and sub-pages linked to from it discusses RF amplifiers that are designed for use in a 50 ohm system. In other words, the nominal impedance is 50 ohms for input as well as for output. For a power matched amplifier with input impedance as well as output impedance equal to 50 ohms the concept of gain is trivial. A power matched amplifier that provides 20 dB gain will deliver 100 times more power to the load than it absorbs from the source and the voltage on the output will be 10 times higher than the voltage on the input. There is no need for 50 ohm amplifiers to be matched however. Amplifiers vith very high input impedance may have attractive properties. Such an amplifier has a near infinite standing wave ratio on the input. Return loss close to zero. The voltage across the input is twice as large as for a matched amplifier since no energy is absorbed. Even negative impedances are possible. They provide return gain. (Negative return loss.) The gain when using unmatched amplifiers is defined as the power ratio in a 50 ohm load when driven from a 50 ohm source with respectively without the amplifier. Noise.A signal source can be the 50 ohm connector of an antenna, a signal generator or something else. All signal sources have a noise floor associated with the temperature of the source. Signal generators are typically at room temperature and have a noise floor of -174 dBm per Hz of bandwidth. An ideal amplifier just amplifies the signals presented by the source. Real world amplifiers also add noise. It is desireable to have amplifiers that add negligible noise compared to the noise present in the signal source itself. A room temperature source with the temperature 290 K will be degraded by as many dB as given by the noise figure of the system used to receive it. (This is the definition of NF.) It is often assumed that 1 dB is insignificant and for that reason a noise figure of 1 dB is usually considered adequate in terrestrial communication. An amplifier with NF=1dB has a noise temperature of 75 K. The ratio (290+75)/290 = 1.258 which is the power ratio when the actual amplifier that provides a noise power of (290+75) K is compared with an ideal amplifier that does not add any noise at all. 10 * log(1.258) = 1.00 That is the NF. A good microwave antenna for with a noise temperature of 10 K would need an amplifier with a noise temperature of 2.58 K to only cause a 1 dB degradation ( = loss of S/N.) That corresponds to a noise figure of about 0.0038 dB. Very low noise temperatures can be observed with good antennas that are used in space communication, radio astronomy and among radio amateurs for EME, signals reflected off the moon. Read this article AMPLIFIER NOISE TEMPERATURES by Chuck MacCluer W8MQW for a more stringent presentation of the noise problem in amplifiers. Chuck has also made this table available: Conversion for Noise Temperature Te (K) to Noise Figure de KB2AH Conventional measurements of amplifier noise figures.Automatic noise figure meters have been available since at least Jan 1961. That is the oldest description of the automatic Noise Figure Meter type 113B in my possession. It was manufactured in Sweden by Magnetic AB. At that time vacuum diodes or gas discharge tubes were used as noise sources. Today the automatic instruments use semiconductor diodes. This document by Chuck MacCluer W8MQW MEASURING NOISE FIGURES presents the basic theory for noise figure measurements. Automatic or manual. The measurement of a preamp's noise figure, or noise temperature, was discussed by Rainer Bertelsmeier, DJ9BV Myths and Facts about Preamp Tuning in Dubus long ago. Agilent has made this article available: http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5952-3706E.pdf In all, the use of a standard instrument such as an Agilent HP8970A NF measuring set in conjunction with a HP346A 6dB ENR Noise Source can give serious errors and tuning an amplifier for the optimum reading may not lead to the optimum noise figure. The most important error is caused by the variation of the source impedance between hot and cold states. This problem should be eliminated by use of isolators/circulators. The absolute accuracy could be lower, but different amplifiers would have the same error provided that they all have a bandwidth well above the bandwidth of the NF meter. Measurement of noise figures using Linrad.The most important measurement is the one we do while tweaking the amplifier for optimum performance. By measuring S/N for a signal that is sent through a room temperature attenuator one can totally eliminate the problem of impedance changes between hot and cold. There is only one temperature and the signal is present all the time. A similar method has been available since 50 years or more, but not much used. Tweak amplifiers for minimum noise in FM mode on a stable, but weak carrier. This is an old clever method. Much better than using NF meters. It guarantees the optimum result - but it will not give any information about the absolute NF value. It is useful for comparing amplifiers however although one has to take into account that real life FM detectors are not ideal so one has to make sure that the signal level is the same all the time. When using Linrad (version 03-41 or later) one can select to display S/N in the S-meter graph. S is computed with a narrow bandwidth using the baseband filter while N is computed from the full bandwidth of the hardware while excluding narrowband signals (spurs that may be present.) The signal can be evaluated in a narrow enough bandwidth to avoid any noise contribution. Since the noise is measured at the full bandwidth all of the time this method is a factor of four faster than conventional NF meters with a noise head because with them 50% of the time is spent on each of the noise head states and the result is a difference between two power levels. With a stable sine-wave, the power level can be evaluated with a very small uncertainty since very little noise would be present within the very small evaluation bandwidth for the signal. There is a pitfall however. One has to make sure that the frequency response is flat over the selected measurement bandwidth. When tuning selective preamplifiers one would tune for a narrower bandwidth rather than for a lower NF when comparing a signal at the passband center with the noise power over a wide bandwidth. For this reason one may need to use fairly small measurement bandwidths. When evaluating the noise floor by use of a weak signal it is of course essential that the amplitude of the test signal does not vary with time. With normal commercial signal generators this is not a problem. One can do absolute measurenments by sending the signal through an attenuator and by varying the temperature of the attenuator. The method and a first measurement of the NF of an amplifier using the PSA4-5043 MMIC from Minicircuits was presented here july 16 2012. using Linrad-03.41pre. This link A study of several low noise amplifiers with Linrad-03.41 discusses the method in more detail. It is repeated with better accuracy here: A study of several low noise amplifiers with Linrad-03.42 Tweaking low noise amplifiers.When tweaking amplifiers in a way that changes the frequency response one would get incorrect results if the noise bandwidth of the measurement system is larger than the flat bandwidth of the amplifier being optimized. It will not be a good idea to use the 1.8 MHz bandwidth of a rtl-sdr for optimizing the frequency determining components in LNAs. Tuning currents and voltages is fine - and fast however. By selecting a fairly narrow bandwidth for the noise measurement one can get NF directly on the S/N graph to use for tweaking amplifiers for optimum performance. For details, look here: Linrad as a NF meter. The differences in S/N directly give the system NF with a vey high accuracy but only if interferences can not leak into the test object or some other point in the signal path. The measurements with Linrad as a NF meter are not consistent with the results from using Linrad for hot/cold measurements. There are errors up to 0.1 dB which is far above the expected accuracy. Using water to keep the temperature constant requires some skill in water-proofing. These mesurements give the NF for a SWR of about 1.5 due to water inside the attenuator. Better screening in some cases and replacement of old cables having connectors with silvered center pins are other problems that affected the results. The link shows that accurate results are possible, and gives an idea on the problems one might encounter when trying to measure low noise figures very accurately. This link S/N differences at 50 ohms. is a repetition of the experiment in the previous link. Here the attenuator is a precision attenuator carefully matched to 50 ohms. S/N is also measured at SWR=1.5.

http://www.sm5bsz.com/lir/nf/nf.htm

Click on the image to enlarge it. Click again to close. Download PDF (1086 KB) This is a level 5 number activity from the Figure It Out series. It relates to Stage 8 of the Number Framework. solve problems that involve finding and comparing percentages Number Framework Links Use this activity to help students consolidate and apply their knowledge of fractions, decimals, and percentages (stages 7 and 8). Question 1 is designed to make students read all the information and think about it before getting into the detail. They should be able to look at 1/4 and 20% and say that 1/4 off is better than 20% off, so Bookz 4 U is never going to have the best deal. The easiest way to answer question 2 is to create a spreadsheet or draw up a table, using a column for each number of notebooks and a column for each of the shops except for Bookz 4 U, which has been eliminated. If the students create a computer spreadsheet, they can use formulae to speed up the calculations, but they will need to be careful to apply them correctly: it is very easy to make mistakes. The students can shade or highlight the cells on the spreadsheet that have the best price. The finished and highlighted spreadsheet organises the information in a way that makes it easy to answer question 3. Students may have difficulty interpreting the way the discounts are to be applied, and you may need to clarify these points by discussion: • One notebook at Mags & More will cost $5, but thanks to their discount, 2 books will also cost $5. Three or 4 books will cost a total of $10. All further books will cost a further $5. • The 1/4 off discount at Sam’s Stationery effectively means that the cost of each book is $3.75. • The 40% discount at Bargain Books means that for all books after the first 2, the cost is $3. (40% of $5 is $2.) The discount at Books & Stuff means a saving of $20 on every 10 books bought. $20 is the cost of 4 books at their regular price, so 10 end up costing the same as 6. Rather remarkably, it is cheaper to buy 10 books than it is to buy 7–9. When entering the information in a spreadsheet, the students should keep adding $5 for each book until they get to 10. At that point, they deduct $20 from the cost and then start adding $5 to this new total for every additional book. They deduct a further $20 when the number of books gets to 20 and 30. As long as the students have constructed a spreadsheet or table, question 3 becomes a matter of looking at some well-organised information. After 10 books, a pattern emerges: • For numbers that end in 0 or 1, Books & Stuff has the best price. • For numbers that end in 2, Books & Stuff and Bargain Books are equally the best. • For numbers that end in 3–9, Bargain Books has the best price. Students could cut out and collect newspaper advertisements or flyers illustrating different types of discount or different discounts being offered on the same or a similar item. They could then compare them, making a display of their findings. Answers to Activities 1. Bookz 4 U is never the best because its discount of 20% is always beaten by the 1/4 (25%) discount offered by Sam’s Stationery. 3. Answers will vary. You could make points similar to these: • The way the discount at Mags & More works means that no further discount is available after 4 items have been purchased. But if these were expensive items, the discount would save you quite a bit. • Sam’s Stationery offers an excellent discount on any number of items, but it can only beat the discount offered elsewhere for 1 item. • Bargain Books offers the best price most of the time – but only if you are buying quite a few of the same item. • Books & Stuff offers the best deal if the cost of your purchase is just a little over a multiple of $50.

http://nzmaths.co.nz/resource/discount-deals

This archived Web page remains online for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. This page will not be altered or updated. Web pages that are archived on the Internet are not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards. As per the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, you can request alternate formats of this page on the Contact Us page. Description of Project Students will learn more about the people who have made Canada one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. They will use a variety of organizers (student handouts) to help them collect and organize data from a number of primary and secondary documents. Creative and critical thinking skills are emphasized in the learning activities. Social Studies (History) and Language Arts, Grades 4-6 These activities will help your students to Each learning activity includes its own evaluation rubric. The handouts also include a unit evaluation rubric that can be used to evaluate the overall achievement of the students. Note: The suggested activities can be used as a unit or separately. Students can complete them independently or in small groups. The activities, other than the first one, can also be used as stations that groups can rotate through or each activity can be used by the entire class at the same time. This activity should be used before the students go to The Kids' Site of Canadian Settlement. It is meant to get students thinking about what a settlement is, the obstacles and challenges the people in Canada's early settlements faced and the ways they overcame these challenges. Students will complete creative thinking tasks using William's Taxonomy. The tasks may be completed individually or in small groups. The handouts and accompanying rubrics can be used as is or can be modified to delete, modify or add tasks. Before students begin the tasks the terms "settlement" and "challenges" should be discussed and the use of a PMI chart introduced or reviewed as needed. To ensure students stay on track and try all the activities the teacher should allow 10 to 15 minutes per task then remind students to move on. Before starting this activity students need to be introduced to The Kids' Site of Canadian Settlement and assigned a settlement group. Depending on the class and your objectives you may have all students work on one settlement group or divide the class into small groups and have each group study a different settlement group. If the class has never used a KWL (What you already know, What you want to learn, and What you learned) Chart before, introduce it. In order to streamline the research you may want to have students fill in the first column about what they already know* and then fill in the second column as a class so that all individuals or groups would be looking at the same research questions. *Teachers should point out to students that they may not be able to fill in anything in the first column. In order to focus the questions even more, have the students examine the content, especially the headings, on the site before creating their questions. As an extension or enrichment to this activity you may have students use other sources such as the Canadian Encyclopedia online at www.histori.ca to find additional information. Depending on the experience of your class, spend some time defining and examining primary sources. Then have the students go to The Kids' Site of Canadian Settlement and examine the pictures and other primary sources for their settlement group. Use the handout to direct their learning. In this activity students will make a graphic representation, on paper or using a computer, of their settlement group's history. They can write 1- or 2-sentence texts about important events and link these events using arrows to indicate chronlogical odrer. They can add pictures and symbols to show what life was like for the settlement group. Students could also choose to make their presentation into a game like snakes and ladders that other students could play to learn more about the settlement group. Students will display their final products or share them with the class. In this activity students will use The Kids' Site of Canadian Settlement to research their assigned settlement group and decide the major problems or challenges the people in their settlement group faced (for example, finding food, discrimination, or in the case of Aboriginal groups, contact with Europeans). Students will then find facts in the text that talk about these challenges and record them in the pyramid chart provided in the handout. Finally, students will look at the facts they have collected and draw a logical conclusion about their settlement groups' challenge based on the facts. You may want to use an example to demonstrate the use of the chart: Challenge: Finding food for their people To make this more interesting and to encourage students to complete more than one challenge, create a point system and turn the activity into a game. Give one point for each challenge, one point for each piece of evidence they find in the text, and bonus points for finding information in the site's primary sources or if they go outside the site for additional information. An interesting follow-up to this activity would be to share the challenges as a class and see if there are any patterns to the way different settlement groups solved their challenges. Encourage your students to be creative and to use a variety of media to communicate the results of their research. Have them create a poster to showcase the most important aspects of their settlement group. When completed the posters can be shared with and explaine to the class accompanied or they can displayed in the classroom or other appropriate venue. To provide enrichment and/or variety you might encourage students to create a multi-dimensional component -- play, video or model -- as an add-on or as a replacement for one of the paper activities. Introduce the students to a Venn diagram and explain how it can be used to compare two settlement groups. If your students worked in groups and studied different settlement groups pair them up with someone who studied a different settlement group and have them share their research findings and discover the ways their two groups are similar and different. If your entire class researched the same settlement group you may want them to look at another settlement group and compare the two. It would be interesting to compare an Aboriginal settlement group with a non-Aboriginal group. To enrich this activity have three students work together to compare three different settlement groups. They would look not only at similarities of each settlement group with each of the two other groups but also at similarities, if any, that all of the settlement groups studied shared. The six interactive computer games of The Kids' Site of Canadian Settlement can be used as an introduction to the unit, as a break between activities or at the end of the unit. The games are a lot of fun but they also include information that will help the students learn more about the early settlement groups of Canada.

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/settlement/kids/021013-1211-e.html

Well it turns out that it's more complicated than you'd think. First of all, sharing is an abstract term. When we're working with young children, we need to make such abstract ideas concrete. That means showing children what sharing is, not just using the word. So when you want to teach children how to share, you'll need to model, have them practice, and repeat (many times because this is difficult for them!) The second problem is that children often have a different concept of "sharing" than we do, because the term was not modeled well enough for them when they first learned it. Imagine this scenario: Rebecca has a toy that Justin wants, and she is happily playing with it. Justin tells Rebecca he wants the toy and she refuses. So Justin runs to the teacher screaming, "Rebecca's not sharing!!" Now what does he mean when he says "sharing"? Clearly he means, "She won't give me what I want." What's often missing from a young child's understanding of sharing is the idea of reciprocity - that we both (or all) get some of whatever it is that we want. This lack of understanding comes from a child's egocentrism, but it also comes for the circumstances in which they learned the word "sharing". If they were told they had to share, it was likely to be an instance in which they had to surrender what they had possession of. So that's how the child comes to see "sharing" as meaning "giving up what you have to someone else." So if you want your children to learn how to share, think of all the circumstances in which sharing would be appropriate and model what this should look like. These could be: - Sharing cups at snack time so everyone gets one. - Sharing unifix cubes in a math lesson so everyone gets 10. - Sharing time on the computer so that everyone gets a turn each week. - Sharing space on the carpet so everyone can see the book. - Sharing an extra pencil so you both have one to use. What problems have you seen with children sharing? And what have you done that helps children learn to share? Please let us know in the comments!

http://www.thepositiveclassroom.org/2011/10/teaching-children-to-share.html

HTML elements are the fundamentals of HTML. HTML documents are simply a text file made up of HTML elements. These elements are defined using HTML tags. HTML tags tell your browser which elements to present and how to present them. Where the element appears is determined by the order in which the tags appear. HTML consists of almost 100 tags. Don't let that put you off though - you will probably find that most of the time, you only use a handful of tags on your web pages. Having said that, I highly recommend learning all HTML tags eventually - but we'll get to that later. OK, lets look more closely at the example that we created in the previous lesson. Explanation of the above code: The <!DOCTYPE... > element tells the browser which version of HTML the document is using. The <html> element can be thought of as a container that all other tags sit inside (except for the !DOCTYPE tag). <title>tag is displayed in the browser's title bar (right at the very top of the browser). - The <body> tag is the main area for your content. This is where most of your code (and viewable elements) will go. - The <p> tag declares a paragraph. This contains the body text. Closing your tags As mentioned in a previous lesson, you'll notice that all of these tags have opening and closing tags, and that the content of the tag is placed in between them. There are a few exceptions to this rule. You'll also notice that the closing tag is slightly different to the opening tag - the closing tag contains a forward slash ( /) after the <. This tells the browser that this tag closes the previous one. UPPERCASE or lowercase? You can use uppercase or lowercase when coding HTML, however, most developers use lowercase. This helps the readability of your code, and it also saves you from constantly switching between upper and lower case. Lowercase also helps keep your code XML compliant (if you're using XHTML), but but that's another topic. In the next lesson, we learn about some of the more common formatting tags.

http://www.quackit.com/html/tutorial/html_elements.cfm

- Description of the risk - Tsunami history in the Mediterranean and Italy - National alert and monitoring system - Tsunami Warning System for the Mediterranean area - Tsunami Warning System. the Ocean Pacific model Tsunami history in the Mediterranean and Italy Tsunamis in the Mediterranean. The tectonic structure of the Mediterranean Sea resulting from the collision of the Eurasian and African plates is very complex. Historical information, sector studies and seismotectonic data allowed to identify the areas where tsunamis are more likely to start, showing that most of them are very close to the coast or only partially emerged; consequently, the time lapse between the generation of the tsunami and the arrival of the wave is rather short. The most dangerous tsunami sources of the Mediterranean area are placed along the Algerian-Tunisian structure (EW direction from Gibraltar to the Strait of Sicily), IIbleo-Maltese (50 km from the east coast of Sicily) Hellenic Arc (NW direction Kefalonia Rhodes-E). In history, there have been 127 tsnuamis that affected the Mediterranean coasts; 90 of them occured in the central area of the Mediterranean, i.e. Italy, eastern Greece, Albania, Croatia and Algeria. Most events had local and caused severe damage in the vicinity of the source area, while others have had catastrophic magnitude and regional impact. In particular, the most destructive tsunamis of the Mediterranean have occurred in Greece and Italy, where most of the tsunami are of seismic origin. Tsunamis in Italy. There have been tsunamis with origin in the Tyrrhenian and Ionian area throughout history. The latter has been affected by tsunamis triggered by seismic events in the Greek Aegean Islands and events in the Calabrian coast, in Crotone. Even the east coast of Sicily has been affected by tsunamis, including that caused by the earthquake of 11 January 1693 in Noto Valley. The quake, of magnitude 7.4, struck south-eastern Sicily and the tsunami wave that followed the quake caused extensive damage to the cities of Catania and Augusta, and, to a lesser extent, Messina. Victims of the earthquake and tsunami were estimated at around 35 thousand. Another example is the Messina earthquake of December 28, 1908, of magnitude 7.1, that caused a massive tsunami that swept the coasts of Sicily and Calabria. Around 85,000 people lost their lives, many of which as a result of the tsunami wave, about ten meters high. In addition to earthquakes, tsunami waves can also be caused by other causes, such as submarine landslides. This is demonstrated by the Stromboli experience of 2002.- Next Previous -

http://www.protezionecivile.gov.it/jcms/en/view_dossier.wp?contentId=DOS23711

1. Build Up Her Skills in Letter-Sound Recognition "'A' is for 'alligator'..." By the end of kindergarten, many children are able to associate letters with sounds and can identify and write uppercase and lowercase letters. Help your little one learn her alphabet sounds by letting her create her very own alphabet book. Staple together some blank sheets of paper, write down one alphabet letter on each page, then ask your child to draw pictures of items that begin with each letter. 2. Familiarize Her With Sight Words Many kindergartners learn to recognize whole words by sight. Sight words include words your child uses often, such as "the" or her name. Help build up your child's bank of sight words by creating and using flashcards. By the end of the year, your child may recognize and read sight words in books. 3. Improve His Print Recognition AbilitiesMany kindergartners develop a stronger concept of how letters mix and match to form words as well as how words string together to make sentences. Build up your child's print recognition abilities by letting him play with letter magnets. Read stories together to help him distinguish punctuation marks, letters from words, and when words start and end. 4. Show Him How to Read from Left to Right As you read with your child, use your finger to point to what you're reading. He'll learn that writing goes from left to right and that we read until we reach the end of a line and then return to the left to start a new line. 5. Aid Her Reading Comprehension Skills The plot thickens! Many kindergarteners can understand basic motivations for characters and events. Make reading an interactive experience for your child by asking her to make predictions about the plot or speculate about what she thinks various characters are feeling. When you're done with the story, ask her to relate the story to her own life. to see more on this article and other items click HERE

http://mrsmommybooknerd.blogspot.com/2012/01/5-goals-for-your-kindergartner-reader.html

Using Media to Enhance Teaching and Learning What is Using Media to Enhance Teaching and Learning? Media can be a component of active learning strategies such as group discussions or case studies. Media could be a a film clip, a song you hear on the radio, podcast of a lecture or newspaper article. Students can also create their own media. For example, student video projects can be a powerful learning experience. find more information about Using Media to Enhance Teaching and Learning Why Teach with Media to Enhance Teaching and Learning? The use of media to enhance teaching and learning complements traditional approaches to learning. Effective instruction builds bridges between students' knowledge and the learning objectives of the course. Using media engages students, aids student retention of knowledge, motivates interest in the subject matter, and illustrates the relevance of many concepts. find more information about the advantages of Using Media to Enhance Teaching and Learning How to Teach with Media to Enhance Teaching and Learning Media -- like all other teaching techniques -- should be used judiciously in the learning process. Media can be used to motivate discussions or lock in concepts. However, there are a number of important considerations for faculty before they integrate media or ask their students to use or develop media in their courses. This section explores tips for effectively using media, notes a number of common mistakes to be avoided and describes how to involve students in creating media on their own. The dramatic growth of social media creates new opportunities for engaging students. These include social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter along with blogs and wikis. find more information about how to teach with Media to Enhance Teaching and Learning

http://serc.carleton.edu/econ/media/index.html

GLIDING AND PARACHUTING As discussed previously, the difference between powered flight and gliding is the flight stroke, which produces thrust in true flyers. Gliders, then, do not produce thrust; they do not flap their wings. Indeed, a glider might compromise its lift production (i.e., fall) if it tried to do so its gliding membrane would be too small to maintain enough lift to keep the animal aloft. When looking at the structure of an animal, without knowing its behavior (whether it flies or not) we can note some common differences between typical flyers and gliders. Most importantly, flyers have an elongated distal wing, which is flapped to produce thrust. To flap the wings, they need strong shoulder muscles, so a keeled sternum (breastbone), large humerus (upper arm bone), and modified shoulder girdle are indicative of powered flight. Also, the forearms of flyers are more elongated than in gliders, although the hands exterior to the wing are usually small. Flyers need a rigid, confined power stroke to enhance stability, so motion of the arms should be limited by the joints that are involved in the flight stroke. And the wing should be stiffened by some structural elements (e.g., fibers in pterosaurs, feathers in birds, fingers in bats). In contrast, gliders usually retain the locomotory abilities of their ancestors, most notably climbing and leaping adaptations (which include mobile joints and large hands). Some gliders have elongated ribs which support the gliding membrane (no flyers do this). Aerodynamically, gliders are less maneuverable (although they can still be very maneuverable) and have a lower aspect ratio (wing length/wing breadth) than flyers. So, if we find the remains of an animal, we can be pretty sure whether it glided or flew. Some Examples of Gliders and Parachuters Parachuters: Few vertebrates simply parachute as a mode of aerial locomotion; most parachute when they are airborne, and normally get around using another form of locomotion. For example, cats normally walk, but if you drop a cat, it spreads out its body to maximize its drag forces, acting as a parachuter (please, don't try this at home). Gliding is in some senses a modified form of parachuting, in which lift forces are produced by an airfoil-type membrane, so most gliders could also be considered part-time parachuters. But true fliers, such as birds, often glide and parachute when this behavior is useful to them. Gliders: Gliding has evolved many times in vertebrates, but never has produced diverse lineages of gliders. You might think gliding is a good first step toward powered flight, but in fact we know of only one group (bats) that seems to have evolved from gliding ancestors, because bats retain many features of gliders. In contrast, the earlier birds and their theropod dinosaur relatives show no evidence of a gliding ancestry. And we don't know enough yet about the origins of pterosaurs. However, the many lineages of gliding animals today, including a host of lizards, squirrels (right), marsupials, and colugos show no signs of turning into flappers anytime soon. Some sample gliders: Draco volans, the "flying dragon" lizard: A small arboreal agamid lizard that has elongate ribs that support the gliding membrane. Convergent with such extinct diapsids as the Permian Weigeltosaurus and the Triassic Icarosaurus (pictured below). UC Berkeley professors Robert Dudley and Jim McGuire have made extensive studies of Draco, its taxonomy, relationships, ecology and flight styles. Cynocephalus, the colugo, or "flying lemur": As is customarily said when mentioning the colugo, it is neither a flyer nor a lemur, but a member of the clade Dermoptera, which may be closely related to bats. It is a medium-sized arboreal gliding mammal which hangs upside down in trees, leaping into the air to glide in search of fruit to eat. Exocoetus, a "flying fish": This interesting actinopterygian fish seems to be on an evolutionary borderline between flight and gliding: it flaps its enlarged pectoral fins when airborne, but still seems only to glide, as there is no hint of a power stroke. The flying fish seem to use gliding in air as a way to escape predation: they swim quickly underwater, then, with a flick of the tail, launch themselves into the air, where they can glide long distances (see the Physics of Flight section to try to deduce why they can glide further in air than in water). Rhacophorus: An arboreal frog with expanded toe membranes which help it fall more slowly after it leaps off of trees. Professor Mimi Koehl at UC Berkeley has done some research on these interesting animals, and found that the frog is not just a parachuter, but uses gliding, possibly to quickly get through the air to its breeding ponds. The frog can maneuver while it is airborne, even making turns. Next: The Evolution of Flight

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/flight/gliding.html

Our economic system is called capitalism, and its basic engine is called the market. A market economy is made up of buyers and sellers. Buyers try to get what they want for the lowest price possible, and sellers want to get the most money they can for the things they are selling. Together, this push-pull effect helps keep the market system in balance. One of the mechanisms that helps maintain this balance is called supply and demand. The central principle of supply and demand is that prices are determined by the levels of supply (amount of items available) and demand (degree to which an item is desired). If more people want to buy a particular kind of product, the price will increase. If fewer people want that kind of product, the price will decrease. Supply is quite similar. If there is a low supply of a particular product, the price will be higher than if there is a glut of similar resources on the market. How does this interaction of supply and demand affect pricing? What happens if supplies run low of something everyone needs in order to live? Let's find out more. In this lesson you will: - Learn about supply and demand, market forces, and price-gouging. - Debate the validity of extreme price increases by exploring a hypothetical post-disaster scenario. - Examine the reasons for price increases when supplies of a product are low. - Consider other ways of distributing limited supplies. Together, market forces of supply and demand help to keep the capitalist system in balance. Occasionally, however, events occur that appear to throw off that balance. Earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters often cause extreme shifts in the supply of and demand for certain items. Ready to learn more? If so, then it’s time to enter the THE DISASTER ZONE. Do you think Mr. Green's solution was fair? Can you think of other ways the water could have been distributed? Would you have purchased the water at the price Mr. Green charged? Some people would refer to Mr. Green's pricing as "price gouging." The term price gouging refers to cases in which people take advantage of a situation like the earthquake by charging much, much more than what would be considered "fair" in regular circumstances. Discuss with the class whether you think this is what Mr. Green did. - What are the advantages to a seller who uses this pricing strategy? - What are the disadvantages? - What do you think will happen to Mr. Green's business over the long-term, when the disaster is over and the water supply is restored? Think about some of the ideas you brainstormed for alternative methods of distribution during "The Disaster Zone" activity. Are any of your ideas more “fair” than charging extra money for the water? Do any of them favor one group over another? On a separate piece of paper, or together with your teacher and the rest of the class, make a list of all the alternatives you thought of for distributing the water. Next to each one, write down who is favored and who does worse in each distribution scenario. All things considered, which scenario do you think is the best? How might water suppliers be enticed to make an extra effort to increase the supply of water in this earthquake-stricken town, if water is distributed via the pricing mechanism? How will this cause the price of water to begin to decrease? In a market economy, supply and demand are the primary determinants of pricing. When the supply of a product outpaces the demand for that product, prices will naturally go down as sellers compete for consumers. When the supply of a product is not able to keep up with the demand for it, prices increase - sometimes dramatically - in response to the sellers' ability to attract consumers. Other methods of distribution of products can be considered, but none would be any more or less "fair" than exchange of money for goods or services - the dominant method of distribution in a market economy. If someone asked you to explain the principle of supply and demand, could you do it? Get together with the person sitting next to you and answer the following questions on paper (write one paragraph or less per question): Answer each question in one paragraph or less. - How do fluctuations in levels of supply and demand affect prices? - What can happen when demand for something is extremely high and the supply is extremely low? - What are some of the ways in which scarce supplies can be distributed? The charge of price-gouging is often leveled at the petroleum industry. Learn more about the complexities involved in determining whether a producer is price-gouging or simply responding to supply and demand in this “Marketplace” segment. Play through 2:50. The text of the discussion is available, or an audio version can be heard using Real Player.

http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/index.php?lid=508&type=student

Just few days ago I posted the news of the new Intel chip that keeps the Moore’s Law in good shape, and the expectations for the following three years. However, by the end of this decade (somewhere earlier actually), the present silicon will fail and if we want to keep Moore’s law going we need to look for something different. Many are betting on graphene, a carbon based substrate that can provide speedier chips. Now at the MIT a team of researchers have announced the creation of a thin film made of bismuth and antimony letting electrons flow at a speed hundred times faster than in today’s silicon. In the researchers own statement “electrons fly like a beam of light”! Obviously this is not exactly true but still it shows the progress made. Now, you know that the signal is not brought around in a chip by electrons (that are actually moving pretty slow, a few cm per second having to jump from one atom to the next) but by the electromagnetic signal (and this really flies at the speed of light). The fact is that the movement of electrons leads to energy dissipation (the chip gets hot) and there is only as much heat that can be dissipated before the chips stops working. So this invention is good because it radically decreases the heat generation and can therefore support ever denser transistors, hence the survival of the Moore’s Law for a few more years. The first application of this smart material, however, are likely to be in the area of solar cells, where what is important is the flow of electrons and therefore speedier electrons make for better panels. It is also expected to find application in several devices creating layers upon layers of this material, each one with specific property. Other scientist, in France at the Aix Marseille University with colleagues at the Technical University in Germany, have found a way to create a layer of silicon made by a single atom. It is done by blowing silicon vapor on a silver plate. This can also lead to cheaper and faster electronics. The material is shown in the figure above (the photo has been taken with an electron microscope) and has been called “silicine”. There are many research teams exploring new materials and among these we will probably find the successor to the silicon that has reigned in these last 60 years.

http://www.blog.telecomfuturecentre.it/2012/05/05/

What we call simply "manatees" and scientists call Trichechus manatus are actually the West Indian manatees that live in the rivers, lagoons, estuaries and coastal areas of tropical and subtropical regions of the northwest Atlantic Ocean ranging from the southeastern United States on the north to Brazil on the south. These big peaceful plant-eaters are an endangered species of marine mammal, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In fact, they are close to extinction, the World Conservation Union says. To make sure that manatees survive in the wild, scientists are studying them to understand how they live and tracking them to find out what they do. Some 500 to 1,000 manatees live in Belize on the eastern Caribbean Sea coast of Central America. The largest coral barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere is off the coast of Belize. It's 185 miles long. Just inland from the reef, the land rises 3,000 feet with large areas of tropical forest. The subtropical climate has summer highs seldom above 95 degrees Fahrenheit and winter lows rarely below 60 degrees. There is a rainy season in June, July and August. Tracking West Indian manatees in Belize Scientists have been tracking West Indian manatees in Belize. Two were observed in 1998 -- one adult male and one adult female. Then, two males and two females were followed in 1999. It turns out that the manatees spent most of their time in the Southern Lagoon Wildlife Sanctuary twenty miles south of Belize City. Tracking the manatees was accomplished by attaching small radio transmitters to the animals. The transmitters reported location information to satellites overhead which fed the ARGOS tracking system. [how satellite tracking works] Each day, scientists used data transmitted to them to draw maps of the animals' paths. The results increased their understanding of manatee behavior and assisted wildlife managers in Belize in protecting the animals. Florida Manatee Tracked from St. Johns River Manatees in Florida are the same West Indian manatee or Trichechus manatus species. The Florida manatee is an endangered species in the United States. Take the case of Xoshi, a manatee calf rescued in 1995 from a West Palm Beach canal after she was either orphaned or abandoned. The malnourished Xoshi had abscesses on her body, weighed only 120 lbs. and would have died if she hadn't been nursed back to health at Lowry Park Zoological Gardens in Tampa. Biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey helped release the now 1,300-lb. Xoshi into St. Johns River, northeast of Orlando, on Feb. 22, 2000. From November through March, manatees leave the colder waters of the St. Johns River for the safety and comfort of the 72-degree blue spring A conservation fund at an Ohio zoo paid for Xoshi's satellite tracking, which will signal an early warning if the manatee is injured or becomes sick. Visitors at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden follow Xoshi's path through Florida's freshwater rivers and lakes on a computer monitor at the zoo's exhibit known as Manatee Springs. [how satellite tracking works] The U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife supports critical care for manatees that are injured by boat propellers or that become tangled in fishing lines. Mapping migration patterns of manatees like Xoshi helps researchers know where to slow down boats passing through heavily inhabited areas. The Florida Caribbean Science Center Sirenia Project of Gainesville, Florida, is a team of scientists from the Florida Caribbean Science Center, Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Department of the Interior researching West Indian manatees in Florida. The Project also has studied the so-called sirenians elsewhere, including manatees and dugongs in other parts of the world. Dugongs are herbivorous marine mammals, known to scientists as Dugong dugon. They have flippers for forelimbs and a deeply notched tail fin. They live in tropical coastal waters of the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, and southwest Pacific Ocean. The West Indian Manatee The West Indian Manatee was first recorded by Europeans near Hispaniola in 1493. They thought manatees were mythical mermaids. West Indian manatees like tepid fresh and salt water around 70 degrees, shallow water plants and shallow slow flowing rivers and lagoons. Adult manatees are 10 to 12 feet long and weigh 1,000-2,000 pounds. They eat as much as 150 pounds of aquatic plants every day. Manatees rest frequently while submerged coming up to breathe every 3 to 5 minutes. Manatees probably live for 50 to 60 years. Two other branches of the species are the West African manatee and Amazonian manatee. The four closely-related species -- West Indian, West African and Amazonian manatees and dugongs -- are unique in that they are the only plant-eating marine mammals alive today. All four are threatened by poaching for food, collision with boats, entanglement in fishing nets and loss of feeding habitats. In the United States, thirty percent of the deaths are caused by humans. SOURCES: U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, Florida Caribbean Science Center Sirenia Project, Sirenia Project of the USGS /Biological Resources Division, World Conservation Union, Belize Ministry of Forestry, Save the Manatee Club, Wildlife Conservation Society, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Wildlife Preservation Trust International, Belize Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Coastal Zone Management, Wildlife Conservation Solution, Cincinnati Enquirer, and Space Satellite Handbook. Satellites main page ~~ Space Today Online cover ~~ Copyright 2000 Anthony R. Curtis

http://www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/Tracking/Animals/WestIndianManatees.html

This is one of the largest hailstones ever observed in the United States. The stone fell on June 22, 2003 in Aurora, Nebraska. Click on image for full size Courtesy of University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Hail is made in a cumulonimbus cloud where ice is tossed around by the wind. The ice crystals bump into each other and stick together making larger and larger pieces of ice. Very cold water droplets in a cloud freeze onto hailstones. When these pieces become too heavy, they fall to the ground. Most hailstones are about the size of peas. The heaviest one in the United States was the size of a cantaloupe and fell on Kansas in 1970. Large hailstones can break windows and dent cars. A farmerís crops can be destroyed from hail in minutes. Hail is transparent or partially opaque in color. Hailstones do not have a perfectly round shape because the warmer temperatures below a cloud cause some of the ice to melt. Hail can fall during violent thunderstorms in the summer. Even though the summer air is warm, hail can make its way to the ground as ice without melting completely if it is large enough. Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!Cool It! is the new card game from the Union of Concerned Scientists that teaches kids about the choices we have when it comes to climate changeóand how policy and technology decisions made today will matter. Cool It! is available in our online store You might also be interested in: Cumulonimbus clouds belong to the Clouds with Vertical Growth group. They are also known as thunderstorm clouds. A cumulonimbus cloud can grow up to 10km high. At this height, high winds make the top...more Wind is moving air. Warm air rises, and cool air comes in to take its place. This movement creates the winds around the globe. Winds move at different speeds and have different names based on their speed....more Thunderstorms are one of the most exciting and dangerous types of weather. Over 40,000 thunderstorms happen around the world each day. Thunderstorms form when very warm, moist air rises into cold air....more It takes the Earth one year to travel around the sun one time. During this year, there are four seasons: summer, autumn, winter, and spring. Each season depends on the amount of sunlight reaching the...more Sleet forms when a partially melted snowflake or raindrop turns back into ice as it is falling through the air. Sleet starts out in a cloud as a snowflake or a raindrop. It may be a snowflake or a raindrop,...more There are two main types of thunderstorms: ordinary and severe. Ordinary thunderstorms are the common summer storm. Ordinary thunderstorms last about one hour. Rain and small hail occur. Severe thunderstorms...more Below is a list of different weather advisories, watches, and warnings. Severe Thunderstorm Watch: A severe thunderstorm watch is issued when a thunderstorm with strong winds and/or hail the size of a...more

http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/precipitation/hail.html&edu=elem

Understanding Language Objectives - Language objectives are lesson objectives that are specifically designed to promote students' language development through all four language domains: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Language objectives can be taken from state or district language arts or ELD/ESL standards, or can be created based on student need. Language objectives often accompany a content objective when teaching content areas such as math, science or social studies. For example, the following content objectives and language objectives can be integrated within a lesson: . Content Objective: Students will compare and contrast the physical adaptations that whales and sharks have that aid in their survival. . Language Objective: Students will write a compare and contrast paragraph, using vocabulary associated with the language function of compare and contrast after completing a Venn Diagram with a partner. The following categories can be used as language objectives within lessons: One example of a language objective that can be included in a lesson is vocabulary. One type of vocabulary that can be emphasized is content-specific vocabulary that is associated with a topic, such as the words "plant", "seed" and "germinate" when studying about plants. A second dimension of vocabulary consists of teaching about language functions, or words that are associated with the purpose for using language. For example, language is used to compare, contrast, sequence and other language functions. When focusing on the morphology of English, including but not limited to: prefixes, suffixes, and rcomparison, contrast, or another language function, specific vocabulary associated with the language function must be explicitly taught and practiced by students. A third aspect of vocabulary is teaching aboutoot words. For additional information about teaching vocabulary, please visit the academic language section of this website. One example of a language objective that might be emphasized during a lesson are language functions. As mentioned in the vocabulary section, language functions are specific purposes that we use language for. Examples of language functions include: compare, contrast, sequence, persuade, retell, summarize, asking for help, making suggestions, and other language functions. Specific vocabulary and sentence structures are associated with each language function. Grammatical and Language Structures (Forms) - Grammatical structures, which are sometimes also called "forms", can be an example of a language objective to be taught in lessons. Grammatical structures can be emphasized in a lesson, such as: adjectives, sentence structure, verb conjugation, and other aspects of grammar. The following is an example of a content objective with a corresponding language objective that focuses on grammar: . Content Objective: Describe the daily activities of Native Americans in a California mission. . Language Objective: Using regular and irregular past tense verbs (i.e, grammar), orally describe the daily life of a Native American. . Language Objective: After orally describing life in the mission, students will write a paragraph about daily mission life that includes regular and irregular past tense verbs. Another type of language objective that can be included in lessons are literacy skills, which include reading, writing, speaking and listening. Reading skills such as main idea/detail, paraphrasing, monitoring/clarifying, and comprehension skill instruction can be emphasized. Writing skills such as paragraph writing and sentence structure might be another example of a language objective. Understanding Content Objectives Content objectives consist of the grade-level skills and content that English language learners are expected to learn in a lesson. A content objective might consist of learning about weather, dividing multi-digit numbers, or Native American nations. Content objectives are derived from the state and local grade-level content standards in different subject areas such as math, science, social studies, or language arts. Most grade-level content standards are too broad to be taught to English language learners in one lesson. Many grade-level content standards must therefore be broken up into manageable content objectives that can be taught to students in a smaller timeframe. For example, the third grade California content standard, "Students know examples of diverse life forms in different environments such as oceans, deserts, tundra, forests, grasslands and wetlands" is a broad standard and can't be taught in a single session. This standardch a will need to be broken into smaller content objectives to be taught each day, such as: "Students will learn about animals and plants that live off of the coast of California, such as.." or "Students will learn about animals and plants that live in the Atlantic Ocean, such as...". In order to identify content objectives to be taught, teachers should first choose a grade level standard from state or local content standards. Once a content standard has been identified, they can then be examined and "unpacked" into smaller, more manageable content objectives that can be taught in each lesson. A variety of content objectives might be required in order to meet the broad grade level standard.

http://languageobjectives.com/articles.html

1. How does Shelley’s treatment of nature differ from that of the earlier Romantic poets? What connections does he make between nature and art, and how does he illustrate those connections? 2. How and why does Shelley believe poetry to be an instrument of moral good? What impact does this belief have on his poems, if any? 3. Many of Shelley’s poems include a climactic moment, an instant when the poet’s feelings overwhelm him and overwhelm his poem. What are some of these moments? How do they relate to the poems as wholes? How are they typical of the poetic personality Shelley brings to his writing? 4. Think about Shelley’s use of the sonnet form in “England in 1819” and “Ozymandias.” How does he shape the form to his own purposes? How does his use of the sonnet form break from the established traditions of the early 1800s? 5. Shelley was a political radical who never shied away from expressing his opinions about oppression and injustice—he was expelled from Oxford in 1811 for applying his radicalism to religion and arguing for the necessity of atheism. What do we learn about Shelley’s ideal vision of the human condition, as based on his political poems? With particular attention to “Ode to the West Wind,” how might a sense of his social hopes emerge from even a non-political poem? 6. In some ways Shelley is a creature of contradictions: he was an atheist who wrote hymns, a scandalous and controversial figure who argued for ethical behavior, an educated aristocrat who argued for the liberation of humankind, and a sensuous Romantic poet whose fondest hope was that his poems would exert a moral influence over the human imagination. How can one resolve these contradictions? (Are they even resolvable?) How do they manifest themselves in his poetry? 7. Shelley lived a fascinating and turbulent life among fascinating and turbulent people, from Lord Byron, the most famous, controversial, and popular poet of the era, to his wife Mary, the author of Frankenstein. How does a knowledge of Shelley’s biography (and early death) affect your appreciation of his poetry? Or does it affect it at all? Is it necessary to know about Shelley’s life and times in order to fully understand the poetry? Readers' Notes allow users to add their own analysis and insights to our SparkNotes—and to discuss those ideas with one another. Have a novel take or think we left something out? Add a Readers' Note!

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/shelley/study.html

Localization refers to our ability to place a sound source in space. We use a number of audible cues for this purpose. One such cue is the interaural time difference or ITD. This refers to the difference in time it take a sound to reach one ear compared to the other. Sounds located directly in front of or behind us will reach both ear simultaneously. If the angle of the source is moved until the difference is greater than 20 microseconds (millionths of a second), a difference in location can be perceived. As a source moves more directly to one side of your head or the other, our ability to discriminate its location using the ITD method diminishes somewhat. A second mechanism, called the interaural intensity difference or IID uses the difference in amplitude caused by the head physically masking sounds coming from one side or the other. Because lower frequencies with longer wavelengths refract more easily around objects, this mechanism is more effective for higher frequencies. The shape of the pinna (outer ear flap) also filters frequencies depending on their angle of incidence. The pinna is also responsible for our ability to place sounds in the vertical plane using this filtering mechanism. Try folding your ear flap over and see how well you can still place sounds. Sound waves reflecting off the shoulder also provide some location cues. All of these mechanisms are useless below approximately 270 Hz. A phenomenon to keep in mind when placing loudspeakers is the precedence effect, in which a listener receiving the same signal from multiple speakers will place it at the closest speaker and not in between unless the time difference between the signals is less than a millisecond. This is why you should try to sit in a central location at an electronic music concert! In judging the apparent size of an acoustic space, the aural cues depend on many factors, including the time elapsed from hearing the source sound to hearing the earliest reflections, the onset of reverberation, the intensity and duration of reverberation, diffusion of high frequencies and the resonant frequencies of the reverberation. With multi-channel sound and control over artificial reverb, many interesting and novel spatial effects can be created.

http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/acoustics/localization.htm

Free Lesson Plans Multiple Human Rights Focus - Amnesty International has a variety of educational resources available. - Amnesty International – United States selection of film curriculum guides for Human Rights Education. - Centre for Education, Law & Society Provides a number of lesson plans on rights in Canada - CyberDodo A cartoon series for younger students featuring CyberDodo, a universal ambassador of the Environment (season 1) and the Rights of the Child (season 2). In season 2 (40 episodes), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has assigned CyberDodo the mission to inform and educate on the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. Topics include child trafficking, abuse, refugees, obesity, drugs, child abduction, famine, torture, and more. - Deal.org Toolkits and Presentations - Relationship Safety, Gangs, Bullying Grade-specific interactive presentations, activities, icebreakers and fact sheets on relationship safety, youth gangs and bullying for students of all ages. - Developing a Global Perspective Lessons from grade 1 to 12 on a variety of issues - Equitas - International Centre for Human Rights education- Play IT Fair Toolkit A user-friendly resource, available in English and French, which integrates informal human rights education and multicultural training into summer camp programming for children aged 6-12. Topics include: human rights, inclusion, anti-discrimination, intercultural relations and peaceful conflict resolution. Ideas for games and activities for campers are provided, as well as useful information for staff. - Free the Children A resource guide for the school year that fits into Ontario's curriculum and offers support for teaching secondary students about children's rights. The guide provides logistical information, activity ideas and lesson plans. Topics include: education, health, poverty, sustainable development, global citizenship and social issues. Classes are encouraged to participate in the Adopt a Village, Change the World program. Teachers can sign up to receive weekly lesson plans that accompany Craig and Marc Kielburger's column in the Toronto Star / Vancouver Sun. - Human Rights Here and Now Human Rights Educator’s Network's guide to Human Rights Education for elementary through high school students with lesson plans. - The United Nations Cyber School Bus has resources for students aged 5-18. - The United Nations Association of Canada (UNAC) - UNHCR-ABC: Teaching Human Rights - UNICEF selection of educational resources. Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Youth for Human Rights short videos and lesson plans on each of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. - Amnesty International - United States Understanding your Rights (The Rights of the Child) - Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children Resources on children's rights, including: a series of booklets on the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Canada for people who work for or with children; a curriculum resource on Children's Rights and Global Citizenship for Grade 11/12 students; and an information guide on children's rights in Canada. - The Educators Network - Child Rights Lesson Plans Lesson plans and activities for students in Grades 6-12 based on six core questions relating to child rights, such as: “How have children's roles and rights changed over time?” and “How can students become advocates for their peers?”. The activities include group brainstorming, discussion, reading and research. - Australian Human Rights Commission A series of activities on children's rights aimed at helping secondary students to: understand the difference between rights and wants; research important aspects of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. - Canadian Center for Diversity A film library (mainly DVDs) for teachers looking to borrow films on a range of topics, including different religions, the Holocaust, mental illness, prejudice, racism, diversity, homophobia, and more. Films are categorized by title and topic, and a brief description of each film is provided along with its rating (G, PG, R). - Canada's National History Society - Discover Your Community Lesson plans targeted at students in different Grades on themes in Canadian history such as the environment, First Nations, French Canada, national politics, immigration and women. Aims to make students more aware and appreciative of Canadian heritage. - Teaching Tolerance - A Project of the Southern Poverty Law Centre - Classroom Activities and Kits Easy-to-use teaching tools that can be implemented directly or adapted for specific classroom needs. Users can search for activities by grade, academic subject and tolerance topic (e.g., race, gender, health, etc.). Magazines, storybooks and activity kits are also available for teachers, librarians and others in the education community. Elections Canada Offers elementary, secondary and ESL teachers free educational resources, tools, activities, information and links. Human Rights Declarations and Conventions - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - French language version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Child Friendly Versions of the United National Convention on the Rights of the Child - Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - The Manitoba Human Rights Code - The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child available in English, French, Spanish and Arabic. - The Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment - The Declaration of Alma-Ata which expressed the urgent action necessary to promote the health and well-being of global citizens. - The Human Rights Education Handbook By Nancy Flowers of the Human Rights Resource Center. A complete handbook to teaching human rights, from ideas and resources for teaching elementary students to workshops for adults. - Human Rights Internet - A Canadian site with recommendations for teachers, such as textbooks and other resources related to human rights education. - The People's Movement for Human Rights Education - Dedicated to human rights learning for social and economic change. Provides excellent explanations of a variety of human rights issues, including: the aged, children, development, disability, discrimination, education, environment, ethnicity, food, health, housing, indigenous peoples, livelihood and land, minorities, peace and disarmament, poverty, race, refugees, religion, sexual orientation, women, work and workers. Good starting point for teachers looking to explore one or more of these issues. - The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights supports the World Program for Human Rights Education. - The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) has Four Pillars of Learning, learning to do, learning to know, learning to live together and learning to be. For more information on UNESCO’s Task Force for education in the 21st century see: (Link) - The Manitoba Education document entitled “Integrating Aboriginal Perspectives into Curricula”. - The Assembly of First Nations Call to Action for Educators - The Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba is a neutral body, created through a partnership between the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC) and Canada with a mandate to strengthen, rebuild and enhance the Treaty relationship and mutual respect as envisaged by the Treaty Parties. They have a speaker’s bureau which will provide information about Manitoba treaties. - The Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Center is a resource to help First Nations improve education for all learners to achieve. - The Manitoba Indigenous Cultural Education Center is a provincial, non-profit, charitable and education center that works to promote an awareness and understanding of First Nation culture to all Manitobans. They have a library and community connection program. - The First Nations Voice newspaper of Manitoba. - United Nations Youth Unit-Indigenous Children and Youth Leaflet - Math that Matters by David Stocker is a math book which incorporates math and social justice issues. It is available at a cost at this website. - Radical Math is a resource for teachers interested in teaching math and social justice. There are many lesson plans available on this website. - Statistics Canada provides resources to teach about math and social justice. - Amnesty International Poverty Video - Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Manitoba State of the Inner City 2009 It Takes All Day To Be Poor - This report is available free of charge from the CCPA website at (Link) - Social Planning Council of Winnipeg 2009 report - Winnipeg Harvest has a number of resources that include poverty and hunger statistics that can be used to create math lesson plans. - An Economic Tsunami; The Cost of Diabetes in Canada. A 2009 Report from the Canadian Diabetes Association. Retrieved on December 16, 2009 from: (Link) - Diabetes Report 2005 Retrieved on December 9, 2009 from: (Link) Links from this website to other websites are presented as a convenience to users. The Manitoba Association of Rights and Liberties does not accept any responsibility for the content found at these websites.

http://marl.mb.ca/toolkit/resources-5

History of Easter (Pascha) Easter is known as Pascha, Passover, Feast of the Resurrection, Sunday of the Resurrection and Resurrection Day. It is celebrated in late March to April in the western world and early April to early May in the Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Easter is the holiest holiday of the year for Christians around the world. It celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the Christian faith. Because the Bible says that Jesus rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion, Easter is celebrated by Western Christians on Sunday. Good Friday is recognized as the occurrence of His death by crucifixion around 33 A.D. The actual date of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection have been argued among Christians and Catholics. Some say it should be celebrated on the 14th of Nisan using the Old Testament's Hebrew calendar. This makes it difficult to celebrate because the 14th of Nisan is determined by the moon and could fall on any day of the week. Although the Passover at the time of Jesus' death was on the 14th of Nisan, Easter is always celebrated by Western Christians on a Sunday, the day of worship for modern Christians. Easter Sunday is the first Sunday following a full moon after March 21. Early Christians did not celebrate Easter. They followed Jewish customs and celebrated Passover. They also followed the Hebrew calendar. Most believe Easter was a celebration invented by the Church of Rome to transform a pagan holiday, Eostre, into a Christian celebration. The Church of Rome adopted the Julian calendar and some western churches adopted the Gregorian calendar to calculate the date. To this day, the date is celebrated on different dates by both eastern and western Christians. Because Jesus was crucified at the time of the Passover, a Jewish holiday, the holiday is derived from the the Hebrew, Pesach, which means Passover. However, the English name of "Easter" is taken from a Saxon goddess named Eostre who was celebrated at about that time. The legend is that Eostre gave a rabbit friend the power to lay eggs once a year on the Spring Equinox. The eggs symbolized new beginnings and the rabbit symbolized fertility. Initially, because the egg was a symbol of Eostre, the Catholic Church forbid the use of eggs during Lent. As was common, the Catholic Church took pagan holidays and transformed them into religious holidays in an attempt to convert pagans to Catholicism. To Roman Catholics, Easter marks the end of the forty days of Lent, a period of fasting and penitence in preparation for Easter. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. To all western Christians, the Sunday before Easter is called Palm Sunday, the Thursday before is called Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday), and the Friday before is called Good Friday. Palm Sunday celebrates the time when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. When he entered, people worshiped him and placed palm leaves on the ground before Him. Good Friday marks Jesus' crucifixion. To eastern Christians, preparation for Easter begins with Great Lent. After the fifth Sunday of Great Lent, the following week is called Palm Week and ends with Lazarus Saturday. Lazarus Saturday is the last day of Great Lent. The day after Lazarus Saturday is Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week. Pascha (Easter) marks the end of Holy Week. On that day, they end their fasting with a Divine Liturgy. The following week is called Bright Week. Roman Catholics celebrate Easter beginning on Holy Saturday with the Easter Vigil, the most important liturgy of the year. It begins in darkness with the blessing of the Easter fire, the lighting of the Paschal candle. The Paschal candle symbolizes the risen Christ. Easter is considered the perfect time to receive baptism and membership in the Church. The Easter Vigil ends with the celebration of the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. Protestants call the Eucharist "communion" and welcome anyone to celebrate. The morning of Easter, Catholics bring large statues of Jesus and Mary together to "meet." This represents Jesus' mother, Mary, meeting for the first time since the resurrection. They conclude with Easter Mass. Protestants usually begin celebrations with an Easter "Sonrise" service [A play on words for the Son of God]. It begins with a breakfast that represents the time the women came to visit Jesus' tomb at dawn. Many Easter Sunrise services are held outdoors on the church's lawn or a park. Easter Lillies decorate the church and festive hymns Many Christians dress up on Easter Sunday with women wearing hats and dresses with lace. Churches across America report that they have the highest church attendance of the year on Easter Sunday. Passover is observed by both Christians and Jews alike. In the Torah (Old Testament) or the book of Exodus, God told the enslaved Israelites to mark their door posts with lamb's blood in order to spare them the slaughter that was about to strike Egypt. When God would see the blood, he would "pass over" the home and spare the occupants. This was the final plague inflicted on Egypt as a result of Ramses II, the Pharaoh, refusing to free the Israelites. After the first-born Egyptians died, Ramses reluctantly released the Israelites. Later, the entire Egyptian army perished while crossing the Dead Sea as they were chasing the Israelites. To this day, Jews and many Christians remember this event in what is known as the Passover. Because the Israelites were in a hurry to leave Egypt, they didn't have time to take dough that would rise and later be baked. They took raw dough that was baked in the hot desert sun. These became like hard crackers and are called Matzohs. Matzohs are eaten during the Passover The most important part of the celebration is the Passover Seder. Seder means "order" in Hebrew and are observed the first two nights of the eight-day event. The Seder includes great meals, special foods, stories from the book of Exodus, songs, and prayers. Leavened foods are not allowed, and only kosher food is eaten. Three pieces of Matzohs are placed on the table. The middle one is broken before the meal. Half is returned to the table and the other half is hidden. Children hunt for the hidden piece after the meal and whoever finds it gets an award. Four cups of wine are drunk to represent the four states of Exodus. Pagan Easter Traditions Because Easter was originally a Pagan holiday, there are many non-religious traditions. Favorite Easter food includes chocolate Easter eggs, jelly beans, Peeps, and marshmallow and chocolate bunnies. In America, Easter eggs are typically decorated on Saturday and hunted on Sunday. Americans hide these eggs around their homes and gardens. Some locations have community Easter egg hunts. Some parents tell their children that the eggs have been hidden by the Easter bunny. Why the bunny would ever hide these eggs is unclear. Most historians say the the reason for the use of eggs and a bunny for Easter is because the egg represented the goddess Eostre. Eostre could also take the form of a hare. In the 17th century, people hunted rabbits on Good Friday. In Norway, they ski in the mountains and paint eggs. They love to solve murders on Easter and most of their television shows are crime and detective stories. Milk cartons have murder mystery stories on them. They like to play Yahtzee. In Finland and Sweden the children dress as witches and warlocks and collect candy door-to-door as with Halloween in the United States. In the Netherlands, fires are lit at sunset on Easter. |Here we see the Pomlazka in action. The men are whipping the legs of the women. Perhaps the most bizarre traditions on Easter are carried out by the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. Easter morning the young men and boys douse the girls with water and whip them with a handmade whip called the pomlazka (Called a korbac in Slovakia and Śmigus-dyngus in Poland). The purpose of this is for men to show their attraction to women and to have good luck with the upcoming harvest (No word on how whipping illustrates attraction toward women). The whipped female then gives a decorated egg called a kraslice to the male as a sign of thankfulness. (Perhaps thankful he quit whipping her) They then tie a ribbon to the boy's whip. The more ribbons on their whips, the prouder the boys are. The girls will save the best egg for the boy they have the most interest in. In some areas, the women get revenge in the afternoon by pouring a bucket of cold water on the men. Older men are given Třešňovice, a cherry brandy, instead of eggs. Easter Activity Books

http://www.incredibleart.org/links/easter.html

Tonsillitis is inflammation of the tonsils. The tonsils are lymph nodes in the back of the mouth and top of the throat. They normally help to filter out bacteria and other microorganisms to prevent infection in the body. They may become so overwhelmed by bacterial or viral infection that they swell and become inflamed, causing tonsillitis. The infection may also be present in the throat and surrounding areas, causing pharyngitis. Tonsillitis is extremely common, particularly in children. Symptoms of tonsillitis include a sore throat, (which may be experienced as referred pain to the ears), painful/difficult swallowing, coughing, headache, myalgia (muscle aches), fever and chills. Tonsillitis is characterized by signs of red, swollen tonsils which may have a purulent coating of white patches (i.e. pus). Swelling of the eyes, face, and neck may occur. It is also important to understand that symptoms will be experienced differently for each person. Cases that are caused by bacteria are often followed by skin rash and a flushed face. Tonsillitis that is caused by a virus will develop symptoms that are flu-like such as runny nose or aches and pains throughout the body. Acute tonsillitis is caused by both bacteria and viruses and will be accompanied by symptoms of ear pain when swallowing, bad breath, and drooling along with sore throat and fever. In this case, the surface of the tonsil may be bright red or have a grayish-white coating, while the lymph nodes in the neck may be swollen. The most common form of acute tonsillitis is strep throat, which can be followed by symptoms of skin rash, pneumonia, and ear infection. Extreme tiredness and malaise are also experienced with this condition with the enlargement of the lymph nodes and Chronic tonsillitis is a persistent infection in the tonsils. Since this infection is repetitive, crypts or pockets can form in the tonsils where bacteria can store. Frequently, small, foul smelling stones (tonsilloliths) are found within these crypts that are made of high quantities of sulfur. These stones cause a symptom of a full throat or a throat that has something caught in the back. A foul breath that is characterized by the smell of rotten eggs (because of the sulfur) is also a symptom of this condition. Other symptoms that can be caused by tonsillitis that are not normally associated with it include snoring and disturbed sleep patterns. These conditions develop as the tonsils enlarge and begin to obstruct other areas of the throat. A person's voice is generally affected by this type of illness and changes in the tone of voice a person A tonsillectomy is a surgical procedure in which the tonsils are removed from either side of the throat. The procedure is performed in response to cases of repeated occurrence of acute tonsillitis or adenoiditis, obstructive sleep apnea, nasal airway obstruction, snoring, or peritonsillar abscess. Sometimes the adenoids are removed at the same time, a procedure called adenoidectomy. Tonsillectomy remains one of the most common surgical procedures in children. Homeopathy medicines are effective in treating the recurrent attacks of acute tonsillitis as well as chronic tonsillitis. In a significant number of children, homeopathic treatment can help prevent recurrence of frequent tonsillitis, thus helping children avoid tonsillectomy. Homeopathic Remedies & Homeopathy Treatment for Tonsillitis Homeopathy treats the person as a whole. It means that homeopathic treatment focuses on the patient as a person, as well as his pathological condition. The homeopathic medicines are selected after a full individualizing examination and case-analysis, which includes the medical history of the patient, physical and mental constitution etc. A miasmatic tendency (predisposition/susceptibility) is also often taken into account for the treatment of chronic conditions. The medicines given below indicate the therapeutic affinity but this is not a complete and definite guide to the treatment of this condition. The symptoms listed against each medicine may not be directly related to this disease because in homeopathy general symptoms and constitutional indications are also taken into account for selecting a remedy. To study any of the following remedies in more detail, please visit Medica section. None of these medicines should be taken without #Baryta Carbonica. [Bar-c] Hughes places this remedy among the most prominent ones for acute tonsillitis, saying that, in his hands, it has been of almost unfailing efficacy; he uses the 6th. It is especially of use when the trouble is in the parenchyma of the glands, and suppuration rarely follows its use. It suits comparatively mild cases, who have an attack from any exposure. it removes the predisposition to attack. Belladonna is more superficial, and Apis has oedema. It is very useful in cases where every cold settles in the tonsils, especially in children who have a chronic enlargement of those glands. The chief use of Baryta has been, however in chronic enlargement of the tonsils and it undoubtedly has been very often wrongly prescribed here, as it corresponds to comparatively few cases. 372 In a tendency to tonsillitis in scrofulous children with enlargement of other glands it will be found useful. Like Belladonna it seems to have an affinity for the right side. Children requiring Baryta are backward Baryta iodide is preferred by Goodno, and Tooker mentions Fucus vesiculosus in chronic cases. #Calcarea phosphorica. [Calc-p] In chronic enlargement of the tonsils in strumous children this remedy stands well in typical Calcarea cases. The tonsils are flabby, pale, there is a chronic follicular inflammation and impaired hearing. It efficacy in adenoid hypertrophy is well known and attested. #Calcarea iodata. [Calc-i] Enlargement of the tonsils similar to Baryta. They are hard, red Red swollen tonsils covered with a network of capillaries. Chronic enlargement of the tonsils, which are covered with small #Ferrum phosphoricum. [Ferr-p] Chronic enlarged hyperaemic tonsils; smooth swelling. This remedy is the chief one at the commencement, it the case has passed the stage where Aconite or Ferrum phosphoricum would be indicated. There is redness and swelling, but the deeper the redness and the more the swelling, the less is Belladonna indicated. At the commencement of an attack it exceeds Apis in value, as Apis only involves the mucous surface. The neck is swollen and stiff externally, ulcers form rapidly and the right side is worse. In the acute paroxysms of the chronic from Belladonna is very useful. Gelsemium, painful spot deep in tonsil, hurting out of proportion on swallowing, red, inflamed throat, pain streaking to ear, rapid progress. The 2x will often abort, when in the chilly stage. Amygdala Persica has dark injection of the fauces, sharp pains, and difficult swallowing. Especially in the follicular form, with pain at the root of the tongue or extending to the ears when swallowing. The parts are dark blue; the tonsils are large and blue, and there is intense dryness, smarting and burning and in the throat. Ignatia. Raue says that Ignatia is almost specific in follicular tonsillitis. Small superficial yellowish white ulcers; plug in throat, worse when not swallowing. One of the most useful remedies at the commencement of an attack, especially of catarrhal tonsillitis. The characteristics are violent burning, headache, throat hot, chill and aching in back and limbs; abscesses form quickly. In the 1x frequently repeated it will often abort. Where there are lancinating pains, splinter-like and much throbbing with rigors showing that abscess is on the point of forming and it is desired to hasten it Hepar will be well indicated. Parts extremely sensitive to touch. Pain shoot into ears. Silicea. When the abscess has broken and refuses to heal, especially in rachitic children. Fistulous This remedy is rarely of service at the onset, but later in a more advanced stage than that calling of Hepar, when pus has formed; great swelling; whole fauces deep red; the tonsils darker than any other part; ulcers form; saliva tenacious; breath foul; pains less than Belladonna, but the general health is worse. Stinging pains and difficult breathing from the swelling. Pseudo membraneous deposit on tonsils and pharynx. #Apis mellifica. [Apis] Oedema is the watchword of this remedy. Useful in the simple form, not in the parenchymatous form, the throat is swollen both inside and outside. The superficial tissues alone are involved, not the parenchyma, which calls for Belladonna. Numerous points of beginning follicular secretion are present. Dark angry looking parts. Swelling is very great and there is much tenderness extremely. Left tonsil with tendency to go to right, pains shoot to ear on attempting to swallow, aggravation from hot drinks. Peri-tonsillar abscess. It is also a very useful remedy for a severe from of rheumatic pain following tonsillitis. The pus degenerates and becomes thin and offensive. #Kali muriaticum. [Kali-m] Almost a specific in follicular tonsillitis. No remedy has given the writer such satisfaction. The throat has a gray look spotted, with white. It is a valuable remedy in acute or chronic tonsillitis with much swelling. The 6x trituration is a reliable preparation.

http://health.hpathy.com/tonsillitis-symptoms-treatment-cure.asp

for National Geographic News Climate change could lead to stronger wind shear, a weather pattern that weakens hurricanes, a new study says. Some previous, widely publicized studies have linked global warming to stronger hurricanes. (See "Warming Oceans Are Fueling Stronger Hurricanes, Study Finds" [March 16, 2006] and "Global Warming Link to Hurricane Intensity Questioned" [July 28, 2006].) Previous simulations had found that as global atmospheric temperatures rise, sea surface temperatures rise as well. And because warm ocean waters fuel hurricanes, that temperature rise was predicted to increase hurricanes (interactive: how hurricanes form). The models, however, also project that the difference in wind speed and direction—an effect known as wind shear—will also increase due to rising temperatures. An increase in wind shear could counteract the effect of rising sea surface temperatures and actually inhibit hurricane formation. A Hundred Years of Hurricanes In the tropical Atlantic, near-surface winds generally blow from east to west while winds in the upper atmosphere blow from west to east. If the difference in the wind speed and direction between the two layers ramps up, the resulting mechanism could put the brakes on storms by tearing them apart. "The models project that that difference should get larger in a warming world," said Gabriel Vecchi, an oceanographer at the U.S. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, New Jersey. Vecchi is the lead author of a paper detailing the new hurricane model published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "We're not arguing at all that hurricanes are going to disappear under global warming," Vecchi said. SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070418-hurricanes.html

1 Basic Electric Circuits Thevenins and Nortons Theorems Lesson 10 2 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Consider the following A Network 1 Network 2 B Figure 10.1 Coupled networks. For purposes of discussion at this point we consider that both networks are composed of resis tors and independent voltage and current sources 1 3 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Suppose Network 2 is detached from Network 1 and we focus temporarily only on Network 1. A Network 1 B Figure 10.2 Network 1 open-circuited. Network 1 can be as complicated in structure as one can imagine. Maybe 45 meshes 387 resistors 91 voltage sources and 39 current sources. 2 4 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM A Network 1 B Now place a voltmeter across terminals A-B and read the voltage. We call this the open-circuit voltage. No matter how complicated Network 1 is we read one voltage. It is either positive at A (with respect to B) or negative at A. We ca ll this voltage Vos and we also call it VTHEVENIN VTH 3 5 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM We now deactivate all sources of Network 1. To deactivate a voltage source we remove the source and replace it with a short circuit. To deactivate a current source we remove 4 6 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Consider the following circuit. Figure 10.3 A typical circuit with independent sources How do we deactivate the sources of this circuit 5 7 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM When the sources are deactivated the circuit appears as in Figure 10.4. Figure 10.4 Circuit of Figure 10.3 with sources deactivated Now place an ohmmeter across A-B and read the resistance. If R1 R2 R4 20 and R310 then the meter reads 10 . 6 8 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM We call the ohmmeter reading under these conditions RTHEVENIN and shorten this to RTH. T herefore the important results are that we can replace Network 1 with the following network. Figure 10.5 The Thevenin equivalent structure. 7 9 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM We can now tie (reconnect) Network 2 back to terminals A-B. Figure 10.6 System of Figure 10.1 with Network 1 replaced by the Thevenin equivalent circuit. We can now make any calculations we desire within Network 2 and they will give the same results as if we still had Network 1 connected. 8 10 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM It follows that we could also replace Network 2 with a Thevenin voltage and Thevenin resistance. The results would be as shown in Figure 10.7. Figure 10.7 The network system of Figure 10.1 replaced by Thevenin voltages and resistances. 9 11 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.1. Find VX by first finding VTH and RTH to the left of A-B. Figure 10.8 Circuit for Example 10.1. First remove everything to the right of A-B. 10 12 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.1. continued Figure 10.9 Circuit for finding VTH for Example 10.1. Notice that there is no current flowing in the 4 resistor (A-B) is open. Thus there can be no v oltage across the resistor. 11 13 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.1. continued We now deactivate the sources to the left of A-B and find the resistance seen looking in these ter minals. RTH Figure 10.10 Circuit for find RTH for Example 10.10. We see RTH 126 4 8 12 14 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.1. continued After having found the Thevenin circuit we connect this to the load in order to find VX. Figure 10.11 Circuit of Ex 10.1 after connecting Thevenin circuit. 13 15 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM In some cases it may become tedious to find RTH by reducing the resistive network with the source s deactivated. Consider the following Figure 10.12 A Thevenin circuit with the output shorted. We see Eq 10.1 14 16 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.2. For the circuit in Figure 10.13 find RTH by using Eq 10.1. Figure 10.13 Given circuit with load shorted The task now is to find ISS. One way to do this is to replace the circuit to the left of C-D with a Thevenin voltage and Thevenin resistance. 15 17 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.2. continued Applying Thevenins theorem to the left of terminals C-D and reconnecting to the load gives Figure 10.14 Thevenin reduction for Example 10.2. 16 18 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.3 For the circuit below find VAB by first finding the Thevenin circuit to the left of terminals A-B . Figure 10.15 Circuit for Example 10.3. We first find VTH with the 17 resistor removed. Next we find RTH by looking into termina ls A-B with the sources deactivated. 17 19 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.3 continued Figure 10.16 Circuit for finding VOC for Example 10.3. 18 20 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.3 continued Figure 10.17 Circuit for find RTH for Example 10.3. 19 21 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.3 continued Figure 10.18 Thevenin reduced circuit for Example 10.3. We can easily find that 20 22 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.4 Working with a mix of independent and dependent sources. Find the voltage across the 100 load resistor by first finding the Thevenin circuit to the left of terminals A-B. Figure 10.19 Circuit for Example 10.4 21 23 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.4 continued First remove the 100 load resistor and find VAB VTH to the left of terminals A-B. Figure 10.20 Circuit for find VTH Example 10.4. 22 24 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.4 continued To find RTH we deactivate all independent sources but retain all dependent sources as shown in Figu re 10.21. Figure 10.21 Example 10.4 independent sources deactivated. We cannot find RTH of the above circuit as it stands. We must apply either a voltage or curre nt source at the load and calculate the ratio of this voltage to current to find RTH. 23 25 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.4 continued Figure 10.22 Circuit for find RTH Example 10.4. Around the loop at the left we write the following equation From which 24 26 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.4 continued Figure 10.23 Circuit for find RTH Example 10.4. Using the outer loop going in the cw direction using drops or 25 27 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.4 continued The Thevenin equivalent circuit tied to the 100 load resistor is shown below. Figure 10.24 Thevenin circuit tied to load Example 10.4. 26 28 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.5 Finding the Thevenin circuit when only resistors and dependent sources are present. Consider the circ uit below. Find Vxy by first finding the Theveni n circuit to the left of x-y. Figure 10.25 Circuit for Example 10.5. For this circuit it would probably be easier to use mesh or nodal analysis to find Vxy. However the purpose is to illustrate Thevenins theorem. 27 29 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.5 continued We first reconcile that the Thevenin voltage for this circuit must be zero. There is no juice in the circuit so there cannot be any open circuit voltage except zero. This is always true when the circuit is made up of only dependent sources and resistors. To find RTH we apply a 1 A source and determine V for the circuit below. Figure 10.26 Circuit for find RTH Example 10.5. 30 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.5 continued Figure 10.27 Circuit for find RTH Example 10.5. Write KVL around the loop at the left starting at m going cw using drops 29 31 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.5 continued Figure 10.28 Determining RTH for Example 10.5. We write KVL for the loop to the right starting at n using drops and find or 32 THEVENIN NORTON THEVENINS THEOREM Example 10.5 continued We know that where V 50 and I 1. Thus RTH 50 . The Thevenin circuit tied to the load is given below. Figure 10.29 Thevenin circuit tied to the load Example 10.5. Obviously VXY 50 V 31 33 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM Assume that the network enclosed below is composed of independent sources and resistors. Network Nortons Theorem states that this network can be replaced by a current source shunted by a resistance R. 33 34 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM In the Norton circuit the current source is the short circuit current of the network that is th e current obtained by shorting the output of the network. The resistance is the resistance seen looking into the network with all sources deactivated. This is the same as RTH. 35 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM We recall the following from source transformations. In view of the above if we have the Thevenin equivalent circuit of a network we can obtain th e Norton equivalent by using source transformatio n. However this is not how we normally go about finding the Norton equivalent circuit. 34 36 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM Example 10.6. Find the Norton equivalent circuit to the left of terminals A-B for the network shown below. Conne ct the Norton equivalent circuit to the load and find the current in the 50 resistor. Figure 10.30 Circuit for Example 10.6. 35 37 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM Example 10.6. continued Figure 10.31 Circuit for find INORTON. It can be shown by standard circuit analysis that 36 38 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM Example 10.6. continued It can also be shown that by deactivating the sources We find the resistance looking into term inals A-B is RN and RTH will always be the same value for a given circuit. The Norton equivalent circuit tied to the load is shown below. Figure 10.32 Final circuit for Example 10.6. 37 39 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM Example 10.7. This example illustrates how one might use Nortons Theorem in electronics. the following circuit comes close to representing the model of a transistor. For the circuit shown below find the Norton equivalent circuit to the left of terminals A-B. Figure 10.33 Circuit for Example 10.7. 38 40 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM Example 10.7. continued We first find We first find VOS 39 41 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM Example 10.7. continued Figure 10.34 Circuit for find ISS Example 10.7. We note that ISS - 25IS. Thus 40 42 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM Example 10.7. continued Figure 10.35 Circuit for find VOS Example 10.7. From the mesh on the left we have From which 41 43 THEVENIN NORTON NORTONS THEOREM Example 10.7. continued We saw earlier that Therefore The Norton equivalent circuit is shown below. Norton Circuit for Example 10.7 42 44 THEVENIN NORTON Extension of Example 10.7 Using source transformations we know that the Thevenin equivalent circuit is as follows Figure 10.36 Thevenin equivalent for Example 10.7. 43 45 circuits End of Lesson 10 Thevenin and Norton PowerShow.com is a leading presentation/slideshow sharing website. 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Scientists are setting sail on August 25 to study ocean acidification in the Arctic and what this means for the future survival of marine and terrestrial organisms. The Arctic Ocean is one of the most vulnerable places on the planet for acidification, yet it is the least-explored ocean. Acidification can disturb the balance of marine life in the world’s oceans, and consequently affect humans and animals that rely on those food resources. Ocean acidification is particularly harmful to organisms such as corals, oysters, crabs, shrimp and plankton, as well as those up and down the food chain. Higher acidity decreases an organism’s calcification rate, meaning they lose their ability to build shells or skeletons. The USGS is leading this project, and this is the third consecutive year of research. On this year’s expedition, scientists will travel onboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy for four weeks, collecting water and ice samples. “Ocean acidification is a particularly vexing problem associated with the release of CO2 into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels because it interferes with the ability of marine organisms to build hard shells of calcium carbonate,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “Comparatively more research has been devoted to the tropics, where coral reefs are threatened. This important expedition focuses on polar latitudes, where the acidification effects can cascade from microscopic organisms up to our economy, as the organisms at risk form the base of the food chain for some of the world’s most productive fisheries.” Oceans currently absorb about one-fourth of the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Ocean acidification occurs when carbon dioxide (CO2) increases in the atmosphere and is absorbed by the ocean. Ocean acidity will continue to rise as CO2 levels are projected to increase. The Arctic Ocean’s cold surface waters absorb CO2 more rapidly than warmer oceans, thus contributing to its vulnerability. This vulnerability is increased as the warming climate causes sea-ice to retreat and melt, leaving less of a buffer and more exposure of surface water to the atmosphere. On the previous two cruises in 2010 and 2011, scientists collected more than 30,000 water samples and traveled throughout the Canada Basin up to very near the North Pole. Data from the cruises are currently being processed. “This cruise offers us an opportunity to collect more information over a vast spatial extent of the Arctic Ocean,” said USGS oceanographer and project chief Lisa Robbins. “These data will provide a better understanding of the current patterns of acidification and thus they will significantly contribute to society’s efforts to understand, forecast, and potentially mitigate impacts to the Arctic ecosystem and its many globally important resources.” USGS field experiments on ocean acidification are currently being run in tropical, temperate, and polar environments, including the Gulf of Mexico, Florida Keys, Virgin Islands, and the Arctic Ocean. “Sampling from a variety of environments is providing a robust dataset to give us an overall picture of ocean chemistry changes,” said USGS oceanographer Kim Yates. People interested will be able to track this year’s expedition and follow the research team’s cruise journal during their voyage. Additionally, a slideshow on USGS Arctic acidification research is available online. “This study is a collaborative effort and could not be accomplished without the strong partnership the USGS has with Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Jonathan Wynn and Dr. Robert Byrne from the University of South Florida,” said Robbins. U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey Office of Communications and Publishing 12201 Sunrise Valley Dr, MS 119 Reston, VA 20192 Phone: 727-803-8747 x3005 Phone: 727-803-8747 x3059 U.S. Geological Survey, 24 August 2012. Press release.

http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/scientists-explore-changing-arctic-ocean/

Missouri State Archives Progress Amidst Prejudice: Portraits of African Americans in Missouri, 1880-1920 This lesson, developed by the Missouri State Archives for ninth through twelfth grade students, is intended to instill in students an appreciation for original documents by introducing them to primary source portrait photography relevant to African Americans in Missouri in 1880-1920. This lesson plan, which may be presented in whole or divided into three parts, may also be adapted to suit eighth grade students. Students can explore the database of portraits, or the selected pictures of the Johnson family, and complete photograph analysis worksheets. They will also have the opportunity to complete a worksheet with census data, in order to trace the migration of African Americans within Missouri toward urban areas. An accompanying history of black Missourians in the period between the Civil War and the end of World War I will help students in their analysis of the photographs. - History: An Introduction to the Collection - Fact Sheet - African American Portrait Database - Census Worksheet: Missouri’s African American Population Shifts - Guided Discussion Questions - The Johnson Family: What can a picture tell us? - Four Portraits - Original Document Worksheet—Johnson Family Photographs - Original Document Worksheet—Exploring the African American Portrait - Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Social Studies Framework - To engage students in an age-appropriate discussion of the changes black Missourians faced in the decades between the Civil War Reconstruction period and World War I. - To help students understand why some records (in this case, photographs) are deemed to be of “permanent, historical value.” - To encourage students to use the data presented to them to hypothesize about the lives those in the Portrait Collection may have led. Students should read An Introduction to the Collection which will give them a history-based context for the lesson. Once this is completed, you may choose to have your students complete one of the following exercises, or all three. The Johnson Family Exercise: - Students should review the brief document The Johnson Family: What can a picture tell us?. - After this is completed, students should review the four selected portraits. - Students should refer to the Fact Sheet and the Census Worksheet to help them complete the Original Document Worksheet—Johnson Family Photographs. - Students should browse the portrait database and select one that they are interested in. - After this is completed, students should refer to the Fact Sheet and the Census Data Worksheet to help them complete the Original Document Worksheet—Exploring the African American Portrait. - Students should review the Census Data Worksheet. - Once they understand its format, students should visit the website of the United States Census, http://factfinder.census.gov - They will need to search for fact sheets from the 2000 census to complete the worksheet. - Once the worksheets are completed, you may ask your students to put their information into a different form, such as a chart or graph.

http://sos.mo.gov/archives/education/aapc/overview.asp

The Message Passing Interface (MPI) first appeared as a standard in 1994 for performing distributed-memory parallel computing. Since then, it has become the dominant model for high-performance computing, and it is used widely in research, academia, and industry. The functionality of MPI is extremely rich, offering the programmer with the ability to perform: point-to-point communication, collective communication, one-sided communication, parallel I/O, and even dynamic process management. These terms probably sound quite strange to a beginner, but by the end of all of the tutorials, the terminology will be common place. Before starting the tutorials, familiarize yourself with the basic concepts below. These are all related to MPI, and many of these concepts are referred to throughout the tutorials. The Message Passing Model The message passing model is a model of parallel programming in which processes can only share data by messages. MPI adheres to this model. If one process wishes to transfer data to another, it must initiate a message and explicitly send data to that process. The other process will also have to explicitly receive the other message (except in the case of one-sided communication, but we will get to that later). Forcing communication to happen in this way offers several advantages for parallel programs. For example, the message passing model is portable across a wide range of architectures. An MPI program can run across computers that are spread across the globe and connected by the internet, or it can execute on tightly-coupled clusters. An MPI program can even run on the cores of a shared-memory processor and pass messages through the shared memory. All of these details are abstracted by the interface. The debugging of these programs is often easier too, since one does not need to worry about processes overwriting the address space of another. MPI’s Design for the Message Passing Model MPI has a couple classic concepts that encourage clear parallel program design using the message passing model. The first is the notion of a communicator. A communicator defines a group of processes that have the ability to communicate with one another. In this group of processes, each is assigned a unique rank, and they explicitly communicate with one another by their ranks. The foundation of communication is built upon the simple send and receive operations. A process may send a message to another process by providing the rank of the process and a unique tag to identify the message. The receiver can then post a receive for a message with a given tag (or it may not even care about the tag), and then handle the data accordingly. Communications such as this which involve one sender and receiver are known as point-to-point communications. There are many cases where processes may need to communicate with everyone else. For example, when a master process needs to broadcast information to all of its worker processes. In this case, it would be cumbersome to write code that does all of the sends and receives. In fact, it would often not use the network in an optimal manner. MPI can handle a wide variety of these types of collective communications that involve all processes. Mixtures of point-to-point and collective communications can be used to create highly complex parallel programs. In fact, this functionality is so powerful that it is not even necessary to start describing the advanced mechanisms of MPI. We will save that until a later lesson. For now, you should work on installing MPI on your machine. If you already have MPI installed, great! You can head over to the MPI Hello World lesson. HAS MPITUTORIAL.COM HELPED YOU? Donate a small sum of 5 dollars today to help me out with my hosting costs. Thank you! No related posts.

http://www.mpitutorial.com/mpi-introduction/

If you have specific Questions/Numerical problems in which you need help please post them here: Electricity and Magnetism - What resistance must be placed in parallel with 20Ω to make the combined resistance 15Ω? - A heater is labeled 1600 W/120 V. How much current does the heater draw from a 120-V source? - We desire to measure the current through and the voltage across a resistor connected in a circuit. How should an ammeter and a voltmeter be connected to the resistor? - What is the current through an 8.0-Ω toaster when it is operating on 120 V? - Three resistors, of 8.0 Ω, 12 Ω, and 24 Ω, are in parallel, and a current of 20 A is drawn by the combination. Determine (a) the potential difference across the combination and (b) the current through each resistance. - What happens to the direction of the magnetic field about an electric current when the direction of the current is reversed? - Why there is more resistance when you attempt to move a magnet into a coil of 10 loops than a coil of 5 loops.? - What must change in order for electromagnetic induction to occur? - In addition to induced voltage, what does the current produced by electromagnetic induction depend? - What are the three ways that voltage can be induced in a wire? - How does the frequency of induced voltage compare to how frequently a magnet is plunged in and out of a coil of wire? - What is the basic similarity between a generator and an electric motor? - What is the basic difference between a generator and an electric motor? - Why does a generator produce alternating current? - Is electromagnetic induction a key feature of a transformer? - Why does a transformer require alternating current? - What is the principal advantage of ac over dc? - What are the characteristics of a step down transformer? - What will be the magnitude of currents in a secondary coil when steady current flows in a nearby primary coil? Explain. - What is Magnetic flux? - A bar magnet is inserted in a solenoid. Will the speed of movement of the bar magnet to and fro inside the solenoid effect the current induced? Heat and Calorimetry Questions - Why is water preferred in hot water bag than other liquids - Which material will have a quicker rise in temperature… a material A with high specific heat and the other material B with a low specific heat? - Can pressure be measured (approximately) by a mercury thermometer? - Is the specific heat of ice same as that of water? - What is the heat required when ice at -2 degC converted to water at 14 degC. - Why the melting point of water is lowered with rise of pressure? Give an example where melting point is increased with rise in pressure - Which is more injurious, water at 100 degC or steam at 100 degC? - Can the freezing point and boiling point of water be same? - Are melting point and freezing point same? - How do skates skid on ice? - What will be the effect of addition of salt on the freezing point and boiling point of water? - Why water stored in an earthen pitcher is cool? - Is it possible to boil water by passing steam at 100 degC over water? - A copper ball of mass 100 gm and temperature 100 degC is dropped in 50 gm of water at 30 degC. Find the final temperature of the mixture, assuming sp. Heat of copper is .1 and heat transmitted to container and surrounding is zero. - The ratio of densities of two metals A and B is 3:4 and the ratio of the sp. Heat is 5:4. Find the ratio of heat capacities of unit volume of two metals. Electricity and Magnetism Answers - 60.0 ohm - 13.3 A - The ammeter is connected in series and the voltmeter is connected in parallel with the resistor - 15 A - (a) 80 V (b) 10 A, 6.7 A, 3.3 A - The direction of the magnetic field gets reversed too. - Each loop creates an electromagnetic force. More the number of loops, the stronger the electromagnetic force. - The magnetic field must change for the electromagnetic induction. - The resistance of the coil and the circuit determines the current produced. - Three ways are by moving the loop near a magnet, moving a magnet near the loop, or by changing a current in a nearby loop. - The same, for the frequency of the alternating voltage induced equals the frequency of the changing magnetic field. - The construction of each is identical. They look the same. - The roles of input and output are reversed. In a motor, electric energy is the input and mechanical energy the output; in a generator, mechanical energy is the input and electric energy the output. - Because the changing magnetic field alternates, making the induced voltage alternate, this makes the current alternate. - Alternating current provides the necessary ingredient for induction–change. - The ease with which voltages can be stepped up or down with a transformer. - Primary coil has more loops than secondary, primary coil has more voltage than the secondary coil. - The current in the primary will be zero. This is because the steady current does not induce an emf. For induction of emf the current needs to vary with time. - Magnetic flux is the intensity or the number of magnetic lines of force passing through a plane. - Yes, the faster the rate of movement, the more emf will get induced. This is because the rate of change of magnetic flux induces emf. More rapid change of flux will generate stronger emf. Heat and Calorimetry Answers 1. The specific heat of water is highest among all the substances. Thus a certain mass of water heated to a certain temperature contains more heat than the same mass of any other liquid heated to the same temperature. So hot water will take longer time to cool than any other liquid heated to the same temperature .So hot compression can be continued for a sufficiently long time. 2. Specific heat of A is more than that of B, so A will require more heat for the same rise of temperature. Therefore for the same supply of heat the temperature rise of B will be higher than that of material A. 3. The boiling point of water decreases by 1 degC for per 27mm decrease of pressure (27mm decrease means 27mm of mercury). So, if water boils above 100 degC, atmosphere is above its normal value i.e. above 76 cm of mercury, if water boils at a temperature below 100 degC , the atmospheric pressure is below 76 cm of mercury. For instance , if the thermometer shows that the boiling point of water at a place is 102 degC, then at that time the atmospheric pressure is (76 cm + 27mm*2)or 81.4 cm of mercury. Similarly for a boiling point of 96degC the atmospheric pressure is (76 cm – 27 mm *4) or 65.2 cm of mercury. 4. No. Specific heat of ice is lower than that of water though they are chemically same. This is because they are of different phase. The specific heat of water is 1 cal/gm/degC. While that of ice is about 0.5 cal/gm/degC 5. When ice at -2 degC is being heated then the heat will be taken to increase the temperature of water from -2 degC to 0 degC. When the ice comes to 0 degC then the heat supplied is absorbed to change the state of ice i.e. to convert ice to water by taking the latent heat of fusion. When the whole mass of ice is converted to water then the heat supplied will increase the temperature of water by taking the specific heat . 6. Ice on melting decreases in volume.12 cc of ice on melting gives 11 c of water. That means the molecular distance decreases on melting. Increase of pressure creates the same effect thus lower latent heat energy is required for bringing the molecules closer. So melting point is lowered with increase in pressure. For substances which increase in volume on melting, like wax etc., the melting point increase with increase in pressure. In these cases the molecules distance each other on melting. Pressure creates reverse effect i.e. bring them closer. Thus extra latent heat is to be provided resulting in the rise of melting point. 7. Steam at 100 degC is more injurious than water at 100 degC. This because the same mass of steam will contain more heat than same mass of water. Steam at 100 degC contains the heat contained in water at 100 degC plus the latent heat required(540 cal/gm) for the conversion of water to steam. So steam will cause worse injuries. 8. Yes. The boiling point and the freezing point of water can be same. It is called triple point of water. At very low pressure (611 pa, at about .006 times atmospheric pressure) both boiling point freezing point is equal to .01 degC. 9. No. the freezing point and the melting point are not same. They are assumed and are approximately same for most of the materials. In case of pure mercury they are equal (-38.83 degC).for water at normal atmospheric pressure both are equal to 0 degC. For agar they are different. It melts at 85 degC and melts at about 30 to 41 degC. 10. Water has its melting point lowered due to increase of pressure. Water Liquefy under increased pressure and resolidify on removal of the excess pressure. When the skater skates the weight of the skater and the skates liquefy the ice under the skates. As soon as the skate has moved, the pressure over the ice is not there and it resolidifies. 11. On addition of salt in water the freezing point is dropped. The melting point is increased with the increase with addition of salt. Normal water boils in 100 degC but sea water boils at about 104 degC. 12. There are a large number of pores in an earthen pitcher. When water is poured in it, some of the water trickles out slowly through these pores. The water droplets on coming in contact with air start evaporating. The latent heat of evaporation is partly taken from the pitcher and mainly from the water inside the pitcher. Due to this loss of heat the water cools. 13. No. by passing steam at 100 degC into the water the temperature of water can be raised up to 100 degC at most, but each gram of water will require more 540 cals of heat to convert from water to steam. Now as both steam and water are at same temperature , so heat will not flow between them as principle of calorimetry says heat flows from a body at higher temperature to a body at lower temperature. Thus water will not boil. 14. 41.66 degC If you have specific Questions/Numerical problems in which you need help please post them here:

http://www.targeticse.co.in/articles/icse-revisions/physics-revision/physics-revision-ii

||This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. (January 2011)| Frost is the solid deposition of water vapor from humid air. It is formed when the temperature of a solid surface is below the freezing point of water and also below the frost point. The size of frost crystals varies depending on the time they have been building up and the amount of water vapour available. Frost crystals are translucent, but scatter light in many directions, so that a coating of frost appears white. There are many types of frost, such as radiation and window frost. Frost may damage crops or reduce future crop yields, hence farmers may take measures to prevent it forming. If a solid surface is chilled below the dew point of the surrounding air and the surface itself is colder than freezing, frost will form on the surface. Frost consists of spicules of ice which grow out from the solid surface. The size of the crystals depends on time, temperature, and the amount of water vapor available. Based on wind direction, "frost arrows" might form. In general, for frost to form the deposition surface must be colder than the surrounding air. For instance frost may be observed around cracks in cold wooden sidewalks when moist air escapes from the ground below. Other objects on which frost tends to form are those with low specific heat or high thermal emissivity, such as blackened metals; hence the accumulation of frost on the heads of rusty nails. The apparently erratic occurrence of frost in adjacent localities is due partly to differences of elevation, the lower areas becoming colder on calm nights. It is also affected by differences in absorptivity and specific heat of the ground, which in the absence of wind greatly influences the temperature attained by the superincumbent air. The formation of frost is an example of meteorological deposition. Hoar frost Hoar frost (also called radiation frost or hoarfrost or pruina) refers to the white ice crystals, loosely deposited on the ground or exposed objects, that form on cold clear nights when heat is lost into the open sky causing objects to become colder than the surrounding air. A related effect is flood frost or frost pocket which occurs when air cooled by ground-level radiation losses travels downhill to form pockets of very cold air in depressions, valleys, and hollows. Hoar frost can form in these areas even when the air temperature a few feet above ground is well above freezing. Nonetheless the frost itself will be at or below the freezing temperature of water. Hoar frost may have different names depending on where it forms. For example, air hoar is a deposit of hoar frost on objects above the surface, such as tree branches, plant stems, wires; surface hoar is formed by fernlike ice crystals directly deposited on snow, ice or already frozen surfaces; crevasse hoar consists of crystals that form in glacial crevasses where water vapour can accumulate under calm weather conditions; depth hoar refers to cup shaped, faceted crystals formed within dry snow, beneath the surface. The name hoar comes from an Old English adjective for showing signs of old age, and is used in this context in reference to the frost which makes trees and bushes look like white hair. It may also have association with hawthorn when covered in its characteristic white spring blossom. Surface hoar is a cause of avalanches when it forms on top of snow. Conditions are ideal for the formation of hoarfrost on cold clear nights, with a very light wind that is able to circulate more humidified air around the snow surface. Wind that is too abrupt will destroy the crystals. When buried by subsequent snows they may remain standing for easy identification, or become laid down, but still dangerous because of the weakness of the crystals. In low temperatures surface hoar can also be broken apart and blown across the surface forming yukimarimo. Hoar frost also occurs around man-made environments such as freezers or industrial cold storage facilities. It occurs in adjacent rooms that are not well insulated against the cold or around entry locations where humidity and moisture will enter and freeze instantly depending on the freezer temperature. Advection frost Advection frost (also called wind frost) refers to tiny ice spikes forming when there is a very cold wind blowing over branches of trees, poles and other surfaces. It looks like rimming the edge of flowers and leaves and usually it forms against the direction of the wind. It can occur at any hour of day and night. Window frost Window frost (also called fern frost or ice flowers) forms when a glass pane is exposed to very cold air on the outside and moderately moist air on the inside. If the pane is not a good insulator (such as a single pane window), water vapour condenses on the glass forming patterns. With very low temperatures outside, frost can appear on the bottom of the window even with double pane energy efficient windows. (Due to air convection between two panes of glass, the bottom part of the glazing unit is always colder than the top part.) The glass surface influences the shape of crystals, so imperfections, scratches, or dust can modify the way ice nucleates. If the indoor air is very humid, rather than moderately so, water will first condense in small droplets and then freeze into clear ice. White frost White frost is a solid deposition of ice which forms directly from water vapour contained in air. White frost forms when there is a relative humidity above 90% and a temperature below –8 °C (18 °F) and it grows against the wind direction, since arriving windward air has a higher humidity than leeward air, but the wind must not be very strong in order not to damage the delicately built icy structures. These structures resemble a heavy coating of hoar frost with big and interlocking crystals, usually needle-shaped. Rime is a type of ice deposition that occurs quickly, often under conditions of heavily saturated air and windy conditions. Technically speaking, it is not a type of frost, since usually supercooled water drops are involved, in contrast to the formation of hoar frost, in which water vapour condenses slowly and directly. Ships travelling through Arctic seas may accumulate rime on the rigging. Unlike hoar frost, which has a feathery appearance, rime generally has an icy solid appearance. Effect on plants Many plants can be damaged or killed by freezing temperatures or frost. This varies with the type of plant and tissue exposed to low temperatures. Tender plants, like tomatoes, die when they are exposed to frost. Hardy plants, like radish, tolerate lower temperatures. Hardy perennials, such as Hosta, become dormant after the first frosts and regrow when spring arrives. The entire visible plant may turn completely brown until the spring warmth, or may drop all of its leaves and flowers, leaving the stem and stalk only. Evergreen plants, such as pine trees, withstand frost although all or most growth stops. Frost crack is a bark defect caused by a combination of low temperatures and heat from the winter sun. Vegetation is not necessarily damaged when leaf temperatures drop below the freezing point of their cell contents. In the absence of a site nucleating the formation of ice crystals, the leaves remain in a supercooled liquid state, safely reaching temperatures of −4°C to −12°C. However, once frost forms, the leaf cells may be damaged by sharp ice crystals. Hardening is the process by which a plant becomes tolerant to low temperatures. See also cryobiology. Certain bacteria, notably Pseudomonas syringae, are particularly effective at triggering frost formation, raising the nucleation temperature to about −2°C. Bacteria lacking ice nucleation-active proteins (ice-minus bacteria) result in greatly reduced frost damage. Protection methods In New Zealand, helicopters are used in a similar function, especially in the vineyard regions like Marlborough. By dragging down warmer air from the inversion layers, and preventing the ponding of colder air on the ground, the low-flying helicopters prevent damage to the fruit buds. As the operations are conducted at night, and have in the past involved up to 130 aircraft per night in one region, safety rules are strict. An effective low cost method used in some small crop farms and plant nurseries, exploits a property of water known as latent heat of fusion. By use of a pulsed irrigation timer, existing overhead sprinklers may be used to deliver water at a low average precipitation rate ranging from 2.5 to 5ml/Hour for frosts down to -5deg. C. As the water is deposited on the foliage it freezes, giving off its latent heat and preventing the temperature of the foliage from falling below zero. English folklore tradition holds that Jack Frost, an elfish creature, is responsible for feathery patterns of frost found on windows on cold mornings. Hoar frost melting on grass in France Frost on branches (Image made using infrared photography techniques) Frost on plant leaves in the Himalayas Surface Hoar in Alaska Hoar frost crystals on fence in central Oregon, USA See also - Frost (temperature) - Ground frost - Black ice - Frost heaving - Frost line - Hard frost - Icing (nautical) - Needle ice - Rime: soft/hard - "What causes frost?". Retrieved 2007-12-05. - Maki LR, Galyan EL, Chang-Chien MM, Caldwell DR (1974). "Ice Nucleation Induced by Pseudomonas syringae". Applied Microbiology 28 (3): 456–459. PMC 186742. PMID 4371331. - Lindow, Stephen E.; Deane C. Arny, Christen D. Upper (October 1982). "Bacterial Ice Nucleation: A Factor in Frost Injury to Plants". Plant Physiology 70 (4): 1084–1089. doi:10.1104/pp.70.4.1084. PMC 1065830. PMID 16662618. - Selective Inverted Sink Rolex Awards site (won award in Technology and Innovation category) 1998. - Helicopters Fight Frost - Vector, Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, September / October 2008, Page 8-9 - "A practical method of frost protection". Retrieved 31 October 2011. - Selders, Arthur W. "Frost protection with sprinkler irrigation". West Virginia university. Retrieved 31 October 2011. |Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Frost| |Look up frost in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.|

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

René Descartes (1596–1650) Discourse on the Method Discourse on the Method is Descartes’ attempt to explain his method of reasoning through even the most difficult of problems. He illustrates the development of this method through brief autobiographical sketches interspersed with philosophical arguments. Part 1 contains “various considerations concerning the sciences.” First, all people possess “good sense,” the ability to distinguish truth from fiction. Therefore, it is not a lack of ability that obstructs people but their failure to follow the correct path of thought. The use of a method can elevate an average mind above the rest, and Descartes considered himself a typical thinker improved by the use of his method. Descartes benefited from a superior education, but he believed that book learning also clouded his mind. After leaving school, he set off traveling to learn from “the great book of the world” with an unclouded mind. He comes to the conclusion that all people have a “natural light” that can be obscured by education and that it is as important to study oneself as it is to study the world. In part 2, Descartes describes his revelation in the “stove-heated room.” Contemplating various subjects, he hits on the idea that the works of individuals are superior to those conceived by committee because an individual’s work follows one plan, with all elements working toward the same end. He considers that the science he learned as a boy is likely flawed because it consists of the ideas of many different men from various eras. Keeping in mind what he has learned of logic, geometry, and algebra, he sets down the following rules: (1) to never believe anything unless he can prove it himself; (2) to reduce every problem to its simplest parts; (3) to always be orderly in his thoughts and proceed from the simplest part to the most difficult; and (4) to always, when solving a problem, create a long chain of reasoning and leave nothing out. He immediately finds this method effective in solving problems that he had found too difficult before. Still fearing that his own misconceptions might be getting in the way of pure reason, he decides to systematically eliminate all his wrong opinions and use his new method exclusively. In part 3, Descartes puts forth a provisional moral code to live by while rethinking his views: (1) to obey the rules and customs of his country and his religion and never take an extreme opinion; (2) to be decisive and stick with his decisions, even if some doubts linger; (3) to try to change himself, not the world; and (4) to examine all the professions in the world and try to figure out what the best one is. Not surprising, Descartes determines that reasoning and searching for the truth is, if not the highest calling, at least extremely useful. For many years after his revelation, Descartes traveled widely and gained a reputation for wisdom, then retired to examine his thoughts in solitude. In part 4, Descartes offers proofs of the existence of the soul and of God. Contemplating the nature of dreams and the unreliability of the senses, he becomes aware of his own process of thinking and realizes it is proof of his existence: I think, therefore I exist (Cogito ergo sum). He also concludes that the soul is separate from the body based on the unreliability of the senses as compared with pure reason. His own doubts lead him to believe that he is imperfect, yet his ability to conceive of perfection indicates that something perfect must exist outside of him—namely, God. He reasons that all good things in the world must stem from God, as must all clear and distinct thoughts. Part 5 moves from discussion of a theory of light to theories about human anatomy. Descartes considers the fact that animals have many of the same organs as humans yet lack powers of speech or reason. He takes this difference to be evidence of humankind’s “rational soul.” He considers the mysterious connection of the soul to the body and concludes that the soul must have a life outside the body. Therefore it must not die when the body dies. Because he cannot conceive of a way that the soul could perish or be killed, he is forced to conclude that the soul is immortal. In part 6, Descartes cautiously touches on possible conflicts with the church over his ideas about physical science. Finally, he implores his readers to read carefully, apologizes for writing in French rather than Latin, and vows to shun fame and fortune in the name of pursuing truth and knowledge. Discourse on the Method (1637) was Descartes’ first published work. He wrote the book in French rather than Latin, the accepted language of scholarship at the time, because he intended to explain complex scientific matters to people who had never studied them before. Descartes’ education was based on the Aristotelian model of reasoning, which held that scientific knowledge is deduced from fixed premises. This model is based on the syllogism, in which one starts with a major premise (“Virtues are good”) and a minor premise (“kindness is a virtue”), then draws a conclusion from the two (“therefore, kindness must be good”). Descartes wondered whether he could be certain of the premises he had been taught. He was reasonably convinced of the certainty of mathematics (at which he excelled), but the other sciences seemed shaky to him because they were based on philosophical models rather than rational tests, which seemed to Descartes the only sound method of discovery. His revolutionary step was to attempt to solve problems in the sciences and philosophy by applying the rules of mathematics. His work, however, is remembered for his development of a method rather than his work in the physical sciences, which is now considered flawed and obsolete. Descartes initiated a major shift away from Aristotle with the notion that individuals should examine problems for themselves rather than relying on tradition. The four rules for individual inquiry he outlines in Part Two are a summary of the thirty-six rules he intended to publish as Rules for the Direction of the Mind (published posthumously). In essence, the first rule is about avoiding the prejudices that come with age and education. The second rule is a call for breaking every problem into its most basic parts, a practice that signals the shift from the traditional approach to science into an approach more in line with mathematics. The third rule is about working from simple elements to the more complicated elements—what math teachers call “order of operations.” The fourth rule prescribes attention to detail. Descartes’ imposition of this method on scientific inquiry signals the break between Aristotelian thought and continental rationalism, a philosophical movement that spread across parts of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of which Descartes is the first exemplar. Aristotelian science, like rationalism, proceeds from first principles that are assumed to be absolutely true. Aristotelians, like Descartes, proceed from those first principles to deduce other truths. However, the principle truths accepted by Aristotelians are less certain than the ones Descartes hopes to establish. By undertaking to doubt everything that cannot be deduced with pure reason, Descartes undermines the Aristotelian method. For centuries, scholars had based their philosophy on sense perception in combination with reason. Descartes’ new philosophy instead proceeds from doubt and the denial of sensory experience. Continental rationalism held that human reason was the basis of all knowledge. Rationalists claimed that if one began with intuitively understood basic principles, like Descartes’ axioms of geometry, one could deduce the truth about anything. Descartes’ method is now used most often in algebraic proofs, geometry, and physics. The gist of the method is that, when attempting to solve a problem, we have to formulate some sort of equation. Descartes’ moral rules demonstrate both his distrust of the material world and his confidence in his mind’s ability to overcome it. He has near-absolute faith in his ability to control his own mind and believes that he only needs to change it to change reality. If he wants something he can’t have, he won’t struggle to get it or be miserable about not having it. Instead, he’ll just decide not to want it. Descartes’ resolution to become a spectator rather than an actor in the events of the world around him amounts almost to a renunciation of his physical existence. Long after Descartes, scientific study was governed by the ideal of detached observation advanced by Descartes. Part Four of Discourse is a precursor to his later work, Meditations on First Philosophy, and the major ideas he provides here—that the self exists because it thinks and that God exists because the self is imperfect and there must be a source for the idea of perfection outside the self—are mere sketches of the detailed explanation he provides in Meditations. Readers' Notes allow users to add their own analysis and insights to our SparkNotes—and to discuss those ideas with one another. Have a novel take or think we left something out? Add a Readers' Note!

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Mammoth Origins, Species, Heights & Weights, Teeth, and Tusk Information The Columbian Mammoth, (Mammuthus columbi) was a descendent of Mammuthus meridionalis (Mammuthus meridionalis) the ancestral mammoth that entered North America via the Bering Land Bridge about one million years ago. The Columbian mammoth ranged from Alaska, and the Yukon, across the mid-western United States south into Mexico and Central America. Huge, standing almost 14 foot at the shoulder (420 cm), and weighing 8-10 tons, the Columbian mammoth could consume about 700 pounds of vegetation a day. The life span for a Columbian mammoth was 60 to 80 years. To date, 52 Columbian mammoths have been found at the Mammoth Site. Two species of mammoths, the Columbian and woolly, were trapped in the Hot Springs Mammoth Site pond. Identified by its hairy coat and large curved tusks, the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) was a descendent of the steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii). The woolly mammoth, living south of the ice sheets, ranged from northern Europe, across Siberia, and into North America. Smaller in comparison with the Columbian mammoth, the woolly stood 11 foot at the shoulder (330 cm), and weighed 6-8 tons. Scientists believe that huge glaciers, advancing from the north and east, forced the woolly mammoths to the western area of what is now the state of South Dakota.Three woolly mammoths have been discovered in the Hot Springs sinkhole. Mammoths, mastodons, and elephants emerged from a group of mammals with developed trunks and tusks. This group, called proboscideans, is traced back to 55 million years ago. Although related, mammoths, mastodons, and elephants are from different branches of this proboscidean ancestral tree. The first mammoths developed in Africa, and soon ranged into Europe and Siberia. The ancestral mammoth, M. meridionalis, reached North America about 1.7 million years ago. Over thousands of years, adapting to the North American environment, the ancestral mammoth evolved to become the Columbian mammoth (the American mammoth). North American Mammoth Locations Mammoth species included: M. meridionalis (the ancestral mammoth that entered the new world 1.7 million years ago), M. columbi (the Columbian mammoth), M. primigenius (the woolly mammoth) and M. exilis (the pygmy mammoth of the California Channel Islands). Mammoth Teeth (Molars) Imagine teeth as big as a shoe box.....and six sets of teeth over a lifetime! Mammoth teeth are fascinating, revealing the animal's age and specie. With four functional shoe-box sized teeth in their mouth, two upper and two lower, a mammoth chewed approximately 500 pounds of vegetation daily. Over the years, these molars began to wear and break apart. Behind the worn teeth, in both the jaw and skull, new teeth formed. Slowly advancing, the new teeth gradually pushed out the old set. Similar to a forward moving conveyor belt, the new teeth moved into position. Like the elephants of today, mammoths grew six sets of teeth over a lifetime. By the age of six, mammoths had acquired their first three sets of teeth. The fourth set of molars arrived by the age thirteen, the fifth set by age twenty-seven and the last set of molars came in when the mammoth was approximately forty-three years old. Eventually, when the mammoth's last set of teeth worn away, the mammoth died through reduced ability to feed. Average life expectancy of the average mammoth was 60 to 80 years. Researchers determine the approximate age of the mammoth by measuring the length and width of its molars. Using molar measurement and age charts of modern day elephants, the scientists calculate the mammoth's age at death. The number of ridges that occur in the first four inches of the chewing surface of the tooth reveals the species of mammoth. These teeth have been identified as Columbian mammoth, (Mammuthus columbi). The new tooth is a series of enamel tubes, filled with dentin and bonded by cementum. The tubes, compressed into ovals as the tooth grew, formed the ridges on the tooth's occlusal (chewing) surface. Mammoth Jaws & Chewing The average Columbian mammoth consumed approximately 700 pounds of vegetation daily. Like an elephant, a mammoth would feed by wrapping its trunk around large clumps of grass, then, after tearing the grass loose, would place the food in its mouth. With sensitive tips of its trunk, a mammoth could also delicately pick buds, flowers, and shorter grasses. TusksThe tusks of all elephant-relatives, including mammoths, are enlarged incisor teeth. They began to form at birth and continue growing throughout life. A thin layer of enamel is present initially at the tip of the tusk, but soon wears away. Most of the tusk is composed of dentin, which is deposited in layers, usually in thicknesses of 6mm or 1/4 inch a year. The annual layers of tusks are somewhat like tree rings, but the tusks outdo trees in offering the finer scale of weekly and daily records. Changes in tusk growth rate generally reflect changes in the animal's nutritional condition. Relatively thick dentin increments imply rapid growth and favorable conditions (summer months), while thinner increments imply slower growth and more stressed conditions (winter months). Tusks were used for a variety of activities; such as digging up vegetation, fighting, snow plowing for food, a deterrent to predators, and a sexual attraction during mating.The flattened areas of a tusk may indicate if the mammoth was "right tusked" or "left tusked", similar to us being right or left handed! Longest tusk found at the Mammoth Site is 10 1/2 feet (over 3 m) and is estimated to weigh approximately 148 lb. (almost 67 kg). It can be viewed at the southeast section of the sinkhole. The longest Columbian mammoth tusk was found in Texas and is 16 feet (almost 5 m) and weighs 208 lb. (almost 94 kg) and is at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

http://www.mammothsite.com/mammoth_info.html

Let us study fractions with denominator 10. Look at the following figure. In the above figure, the blocks are 1 black, 2 green, 3 blue, 4 red. So, the portion of each colour compared to the whole is black = 1⁄10; green = 2⁄10; blue = 3⁄10; red = 4⁄10; black + red = 1⁄10; + 4⁄10; = 5⁄10; green + red = 2⁄10; + 4⁄10; = 6⁄10; blue + red = 3⁄10; + 4⁄10; = 7⁄10; black + blue + red = 1⁄10; + 3⁄10; + 4⁄10; = 8⁄10; green + blue + red = 2⁄10; + 3⁄10; + 4⁄10; = 9⁄10; These fractions with denominator of 10 have a speciality. The fractions with 10 as denominator are called tenths. We know 10 milli metres (mm) = 1 centi metre (cm) or 1 mm = 1⁄10 cm or one-tenth cm ; or 3 mm = 3⁄10 cm or three-tenth cm We also write the fractional number 1⁄10 (one-tenth) as .1 read as decimal one or point one. Similarly, we write the fractional number 2⁄10 (two-tenth) as .2 read as point two. Like wise, 3⁄10 (three-tenth) = .3 read as point three. 4⁄10 (four-tenth) = .4 read as point four. 5⁄10 (five-tenth) = .5 read as point five. 6⁄10 (six-tenth) = .6 read as point six. 7⁄10 (seven-tenth) = .7 read as point seven. 8⁄10 (eight-tenth) = .8 read as point eight. 9⁄10 (nine-tenth) = .9 read as point nine. The fractions with 100 as denominator are called hundredths. We know 100 centi metres (cm) = 1 metre (m) or 1 cm = 1⁄100 m or one-hundredth m ; or 73 cm = 73⁄100 m or seventy three-hundredth m 100 cents = 1 dollar or 1 cent = 1⁄100 dollar ; or 37 cents = 37⁄100 dollar We denote hundredths by two digits after the point We write the fractional number 1⁄100 (one-hundredth) as .01 read as decimal zero one or point zero one. Similarly, we write the fractional number 2⁄100 (two-hundredth) as .02 read as point zero two. Like wise, 23⁄100 (twenty three-hundredth) = .23 read as point two three. 54⁄100 (fifty four-hundredth) = .54 read as point five four. 35⁄100 (thirty five-hundredth) = .35 read as point three five. 96⁄100 (ninety six-hundredth) = .96 read as point nine six. 47⁄100 (forty seven-hundredth) = .47 read as point four seven. 88⁄100 (eighty eight-hundredth) = .88 read as point eight eight. 19⁄100 (nineteen-hundredth) = .19 read as point one nine. The fractions with 1000 as denominator are called thousandths. We know 1000 metres (m) = 1 kilo metre (km) or 1 m = 1⁄1000 km or one-thousandth km ; or 573 m = 573⁄1000 km or Five hundred seventy three-thousandth km 1000 grams (g) = 1 kilo gram (kg) or 1 g = 1⁄1000 kg ; or 337 g = 337⁄1000 kg We denote thousandths by three digits after the point We write the fractional number 1⁄1000 (one-thousandth) as .001 read as decimal zero zero one or point zero zero one. Similarly, we write the fractional number 2⁄1000 (two-thousandth) as .002 read as point zero zero two. Like wise, 923⁄1000 (923 thousandth) = .923 read as point nine two three. 854⁄1000 (854 thousandth) = .854 read as point eight five four. 35⁄1000 (35 thousandth) = .035 read as point zero three five. 696⁄1000 (696 thousandth) = .696 read as point six nine six. 47⁄1000 (47 thousandth) = .047 read as point zero four seven. 488⁄1000 (488 thousandth) = .488 read as point four eight eight. 19⁄1000 (19 thousandth) = .019 read as point zero one nine. The idea of tenths, hundredths, thousandths can be extended to ten thousandths, hundred thousandths (lakhths), millionths (ten lakhths) etc. Tenths, Hundredths, Thousandths with Whole Number So far what we have seen are less than one. Consider the mixed fractions 3 1⁄10,8 81⁄100,98 763⁄1000. With the knowledge of Mixed fractions and what we have learnt so far, we can write 3 1⁄10= 3 + 1⁄10 = 3 + .1 = 3.1 8 81⁄100= 8 + 81⁄100 = 8 + .81 = 8.81 98 763⁄1000= 98 + 763⁄1000 = 98 + .763 = 98.763 The idea of tenths, hundredths, thousandths with whole numbers can be extended to ten thousandths, hundred thousandths (lakhths), millionths (ten lakhths) etc.with whole numbers. This form (point form) of writing the tenths, hundredths, thousandths can be extended to ten thousandths, hundred thousandths (lakhths), millionths (ten lakhths) etc. and is called decimal form and the numbers written in this form are called Decimal numbers or simply Decimals. A Decimal has two parts : Whole Number part and Decimal part. The two parts are seperated by a dot (.), called decimal point. The Whole Number part is to the left of the point and the Decimal part is to its right. For example, in 98.763, we have : Whole Number part = 98 and Decimal part = .763 The absence of any of these parts indicate that the part is 0. For example, .79 can be written as 0.79 and 32 can be written as 32.0 Recently, I have found a series of math curricula (Both Hard Copy and Digital Copy) developed by a Lady Teacher who taught everyone from Pre-K students to doctoral students and who is a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education. This series is very different and advantageous over many of the traditional books available. These give students tools that other books do not. Other books just give practice. These teach students “tricks” and new ways to think. These build a student’s new knowledge of concepts from their existing knowledge. These provide many pages of practice that gradually increases in difficulty and provide constant review. These also provide teachers and parents with lessons on how to work with the child on the concepts. The series is low to reasonably priced and include

http://www.math-help-ace.com/Decimals.html

is Guided Reading? Students l Leveled Texts l What Others Do l Teacher Resources reading is a strategy that helps students become good readers. The teacher provides support for small groups of readers as they learn to use various reading strategies (context clues, letter and sound relationships, word structure, and so forth). Although guided reading has been traditionally associated with primary grades it can be modified and used successfully in all grade levels. For example, older students may need to learn new strategies to understand how to read an information book in a way that is going to give them access to the information they are seeking. "In primary grades children are learning to read and in upper grades they are reading to learn." Anonymous is its purpose? the proper books are selected, students are able to read with approximately 90% accuracy. This enables the students to enjoy the story because there is not an overwhelming amount of "road blocks" that interfere with comprehension. Students focus on the meaning of the story and application of various reading strategies to problem solve when they do hit a road block in their knowledge or reading ability. By providing small groups of students the opportunity to learn various reading strategies with guidance from the teacher, they will possess the skills and knowledge required to read increasingly more difficult texts on their own. Independent reading is the GOAL - guided reading provides the framework to ensure that students are able to apply strategies to make meaning from print. do I do it? the approach to guided reading is going to depend somewhat on your class size and grade level, the following suggestions can be used to provide an initial framework. Students should be divided into small groups (4-6 students). The younger the students the smaller the groups. (Learn more about grouping students). reading lessons are to be about 15-20 minutes in duration. leveled reading materials must be selected for the group and each child should have his/her own copy of the literature. Learn more about reading levels/leveled materials. The teacher establishes a purpose for reading through prediction making, vocabulary introduction, or discussing ideas that will provide the readers with the background knowledge required for The teacher observes the students as they read the text softly or silently to themselves. The teacher provides guidance and coaching to individuals based on her/his observations by providing prompts, asking questions, and encouraging attempts at reading strategy Reading: The teacher asks questions to ensure that the text has been comprehended by the readers and praises their efforts. Further, the teacher may observe gaps in strategy application and address these gaps following the reading in a mini-lesson format. do all the other students do during the guided reading lesson? When you teach guided reading you are busy observing and instructing a small group of students. The other students in your class must be kept engage in a literacy activity while you are with your GR group. To ensure success of guided reading, be prepared to invest time upfront teaching your students the procedures you would like them to follow while you are busy with the GR groups. Once you are certain that the students can follow the procedures THEN focus on actually teaching guided reading. can I adapt it? are many ways to adapt guided reading to meet the needs of specific learners. Leveled reading materials, personalized spelling lists, multilevel literacy centers, and opportunities for independent projects all contribute to making the program fairly adaptable. one grade-level text and one easier than grade level to read each week so that your weaker students have the opportunity to read with greater ease & confidence alternative grouping (interest, social, ability) rereading of selections to increase fluency each time selection reading partners, parent volunteers, and care partners to support the struggling readers and challenge the strong readers reading time to provide more practice time a parent volunteer reading program (study buddy) & Evaluation Considerations ensure students are grouped and regrouped in the proper instructional groups ongoing observation and assessment is essential. you are interested in implementing guided reading into your classroom, please view our teacher resources page for more in-depth information on the guided reading approach. This page also contains links to valuable Web sites and

http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/pd/instr/strats/guided/guided.html

A high-level programming language translator that translates and runs the program at the same time. It converts one program statement into machine language, executes it, and then proceeds to the next statement. This differs from regular executable programs that are presented to the computer as binary-coded instructions. Interpreted programs remain in the source language the programmer wrote in, which is human readable text.| Slower, But Easier to Test Interpreted programs run slower than their compiler counterparts. Whereas the compiler translates the entire program before it is run, interpreters translate a line at a time while the program is being run. However, it is very convenient to write an interpreted program, since a single line of code can be tested interactively. Some languages can be both interpreted and compiled, in which case a program may be developed with the interpreter for ease of testing and debugging and later compiled for production use. See JIT compiler. The Runtime Interpreter Must Be Present Interpreted programs must always be run with the interpreter, commonly called a runtime module. For example, in order to run a BASIC or Foxbase program, the BASIC or Foxbase interpreter must be running as well. Interpreted Vs. Intermediate Languages Interpreted languages also differ from intermediate languages such as Java, which are partially converted but still require a runtime module (see Java and Java virtual machine). Unlike compiled languages which are translated into machine language ahead of time (right), interpreted languages are translated at runtime. dBASE and BASIC interpreters (middle) translate the original source code. Java and Visual Basic (left) interpreters translate "bytecode," which is an intermediate language compiled from the original source code.

http://www.crn.com/channel-encyclopedia/definition.htm?term=interpreter

In the last post we discussed the four main drivers that determine the structure and composition of savannas such as the Kruger National Park. All savanna landscapes on the African continent can broadly be classified into two groups, irrespective of the interactions of the four drivers: Broad-leaved savannas and Fine-leaved savannas You will remember from the previous post that climate (and more specifically rainfall) has a major influence on savanna areas. This is especially true for areas at the extreme ends of the rainfall gradient. Very dry areas (close to 350 mm per annum) tend to develop into fine-leaved savannas. Similarly, wet savannas (above 700 mm per annum) normally fall within the broad-leaved group. The reason for this is the different physiological adaptations and ancestral origins of fine-leaved and broad-leaved trees. trees probably originated in hot and dry climates . Small leaflets may have evolved to prevent excess water loss through transpiration. Due to sufficient access to the sun in their dry habitats, they also did not need large leaves for sufficient photosynthesis. You will also find that many fine-leaved trees have thorns for defense against herbivores. This has to do with the fact that drier environments are often associated with nutrient-rich soils. (The reasons for this will be discussed in more detail in future posts). In contrast, broad-leaved trees probably evolved in wetter environments where sufficient available water did not make it necessary to decrease leaf size significantly. Wet environments normally go hand-in-hand with lots of cloudy days. Logically, a larger leaf size would also provide a tree with a larger surface area for sufficient photosynthesis. Broad-leaved trees normally rely on chemical defenses against herbivores. Once again, this type of defense is linked to the nutrient-poor soils normally found in moist areas. Please keep in mind that abovementioned description of the origins of broad- and fine-leaved savanna trees are over-simplified, as there are never just a few simple explanations for the way things work in nature. But let us not get bogged down in too much technical detail and rather continue with the topic. Most of Kruger falls in a rainfall zone which lies in-between the dry and wet extremes mentioned above. Therefore the soil properties take on a more important role in determining the savanna group that will develop in an area. At average rainfall levels, a landscape can develop into either broad-leaved or fine-leaved savanna depending on the underlying soil characteristics. Savannas in Kruger are therefore divided into nutrient-rich and nutrient-poor savannas In general, nutrient-rich areas consist of clay soil made up of very small particles which tend to prevent water from filtering through to underlying soil levels. The deeper soil conditions are therefore similar to arid environments due to little moisture availability. Logically, clay soils therefore tend to produce fine-leaved trees. Fine-leaved savanna near Satara, KNP Nutrient-poor areas consist of sandy or shallow rocky soils with courser particles which allow water to filter through to deeper levels, resulting in higher moisture levels. The deeper soil conditions are therefore similar to the wet savannas and therefore produce more broad-leaved trees. Broad-leaved savanna at Jones' Dam, KNP Once again, this is an over-simplified description of the split between fine-leaved and broad-leaved landscapes in Kruger, but you get the idea Of course, in nature there are always exceptions to the rule. Just when you think you know exactly which plants will grow where, along comes the Mopane to challenge your logic. In later posts we will discuss why the broad-leaved Mopane dominates areas where you should expect to find fine-leaved trees… A last important concept worth mentioning in this post is the Catena . All landscapes undergo weathering through the passage of time but in some landscapes the effect of the weathering is more pronounced. In areas underlain by very old rocks such as granite (like the western portion of Kruger) you find an undulating landscape with endless crests, slopes and valleys. The working of wind, rain and gravity over millions of years has resulted in rock minerals moving and leaching from the crests, down the slopes and into the valley bottoms. Therefore you normally find sandy, nutrient poor soils on crests and clayey, richer soils in the valleys. You guessed it: the result is broad-leaved trees on the crests and fine-leaved trees in the valleys . This sequence from crest, down the slopes to the valley bottom is called a Catena. All Kruger landscapes and indeed all savannas, exhibit the catena sequence. However, as mentioned earlier, the catenas in areas underlain by granites are more pronounced and more clearly visible. Diagram of Catena in Kruger The different ecological implications and workings of broad-leaved and fine-leaved savannas makes for very interesting reading. Therefore I will focus more on this when discussing specific Kruger landscapes in upcoming posts. Your homework: Try to identify Catenas during your drives in Kruger. There are many good examples in the Park, for instance the H1-2 from Skukuza towards Tshokwane (the first section of road before the S36 turn-off). References: Eckhardt, Holger & Scholes, Robert & Venter, Freek. The Kruger Experience: Ecology and Management of savanna heterogeneity, Chapter 5: The abiotic template and its associated vegetation pattern. Washington DC-USA: Island Press, 2003. Print. Hendry, O. Kruger Ecozone Map (drawing of Catena). Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2004. Print Scholes, Robert and Walker, B.H. An African Savanna: Synthesis of the Nylsvley study. . Cambridge-UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.

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POGIL is an acronym for Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning. POGIL originated in college chemistry departments in 1994; there are now well over 1,000 implementers in a wide range of disciplines in high schools and colleges around the country. POGIL uses guided inquiry – a learning cycle of exploration, concept invention and application is the basis for many of the carefully designed materials that students use to guide them to construct new knowledge. POGIL is a student-centered strategy; students work in small groups with individual roles to ensure that all students are fully engaged in the learning process. POGIL activities focus on core concepts and encourage a deep understanding of the course material while developing higher-order thinking skills. POGIL develops process skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and communication through cooperation and reflection, helping students become lifelong learners and preparing them to be more competitive in a global market. POGIL is a classroom and laboratory technique that seeks to simultaneously teach content and key process skills such as the ability to think analytically and work effectively as part of a collaborative team. A POGIL classroom or lab consists of any number of students working in small groups on specially designed guided inquiry materials. These materials supply students with data or information followed by leading questions designed to guide them toward formulation of their own valid conclusions—essentially a recapitulation of the scientific method. The instructor serves as facilitator, observing and periodically addressing individual and classroom-wide needs. POGIL is based on research indicating that a) teaching by telling does not work for most students, b) students who are part of an interactive community are more likely to be successful, and c) knowledge is personal; students enjoy themselves more and develop greater ownership over the material when they are given an opportunity to construct their own understanding. We have found that a discovery-based team environment energizes students and provides instructors with instant and constant feedback about what their students understand and misunderstand. Students quickly pick up the message that logical thinking and teamwork are prized above simply getting “the correct answer.” This emphasizes that learning is not a solitary task of memorizing information, but an interactive process of refining one’s understanding and developing one’s skills. There are a number of student-centered instructional techniques that can be effective for achieving valid learning goals in the classroom. POGIL differs from other approaches in its use and design of distinct classroom materials. Three characteristics of POGIL materials are as follows:

http://new.pogil.org/about

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia Vulgar Latin (in Latin, sermo vulgaris, "common speech") is a blanket term covering the vernacular dialects and sociolects of the Latin language until those dialects, diverging still further, evolved into the early Romance languages — a distinction usually made around the ninth century. It includes late Latin and the terms are often used synonymously. However, Vulgar Latin is also used to refer to vernacular speech from other time periods including the Classical period. This spoken Latin came to differ from Classical Latin in its pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. What was Vulgar Latin? The name "vulgar" simply means "common"; it is derived from the Latin word vulgaris, meaning "common", or "of the people". Vulgar Latin led to vernacular literature The Italian poet Dante Alighieri, in his De vulgari eloquentia, was possibly the first European writer to argue cogently for the promotion of literature in the vernacular. Important early vernacular works include Dante's Divine Comedy, Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (both written in Italian) and Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (written in English). Indeed Dante's work actually created in part the Italian language. Medieval vernacular literature One of the features of the renaissance which marked the end of the medieval period is the rise in the use of the vernacular or the language of the common people for literature (as opposed to Latin). The compositions in these local languages were often about the legends and history of the areas in which they were written which gave the people some form of national identity. Epic poems, sagas, chansons de geste and acritic songs (songs of heroic deeds) were often about the great men, real or imagined, and their achievements like Arthur, Charlemagne and El Cid. The earliest recorded European vernacular literature is that written in the Irish language. Given that Ireland had escaped absorption into the Roman empire, this had time to develop into a highly sophisticated literature with well-documented formal rules and highly organised Bardic schools. The result was a large body of prose and verse recording the ancient myths and sagas of the Gaelic-speaking people of the island, as well as poems on religious, political and geographical themes and a body of nature poetry. The formality which Latin had gained through its long written history was often not present in the vernaculars which began producing poetry, and so new techniques and structures emerged, often derived from oral literature. This is particularly noticeable in the Germanic languages, which, unlike the Romance languages, are not direct descendants from Latin. Alliterative verse, where many of the stressed words in each line start with the same sound, was often used in the local poetry of that time. Other features of vernacular poetry of this time include kennings, internal rhyme, and slant rhyme. Indeed Latin poetry traditionally used meter rather than rhyme and only began to adopt rhyme after being influenced by these new poems.

http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Vulgar_Latin

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in 1770 in Stuttgart, Wurttemberg, which was then one of numerous autonomous German principalities that would become the German state in 1871. His eventual preoccupation with the link between human experience and history can be traced to the uncertainties of the time and place in which he lived. The German urban middle class, which made up his early social environment, expressed Enlightenment optimism and faith in human progress, but it was numerically and politically weaker than the middle class elsewhere in northwestern Europe. Many young, cosmopolitan Germans viewed England and France with envy and resentment as their hopes for German progress and reform were consistently thwarted by an aristocracy that clung to old feudal privileges and institutions and suppressed criticism whenever it felt threatened. The old order was especially anxious after the French Revolution began in 1789, a war that would lead to the dissolution of aristocratic institutions and the execution of many aristocrats, including the French monarch. These events would have a profound impact on the worldviews of Hegel and other intellectuals of his generation. In 1788, when he was eighteen, Hegel entered the protestant theological seminary in Tuebingen, following in the footsteps of the several generations of Lutheran pastors from whom he had descended. However, he never really acclimated to seminary life. He learned more from his studies outside of official theology and, above all, from the friendships he made there with fellow students Friedrich Hoelderlin, who would become one of Germany’s great Romantic poets, and Friedrich Shelling, the future idealist philosopher. The three friends exchanged ideas, excitedly watched the events in France unfold, and participated in societies in which students discussed and promoted revolutionary ideals. Following his graduation, Hegel did not become a pastor. Instead, he worked as a private tutor for wealthy families in Berne and Frankfurt, devoting his free time to the study of philosophy and theology. Much of his writing represents an attempt to come to grips with Christianity, to wrestle with the significance of Christ and his teachings, and to outline the historical legacy of the Christian Church and its cultural and social implications as an institution. Hegel’s lifelong claim that he was an orthodox Lutheran may be subject to question, as it could have easily been motivated by the religious intolerance of the Prussian state, but his philosophy is heavily influenced by theological language, and a theological outlook colors his vision of human experience. When Hegel’s father died, Hegel received a modest inheritance, which allowed him to pursue his academic career. In 1801, he went to the city of Jena to work as a private professor. At the time, Jena was a center of intense intellectual and artistic creativity and one of the epicenters of German romanticism, a diverse movement that challenged the rationality and sober-mindedness that characterized the Age of Enlightenment. Hegel consorted with philosophers and poets and began to envision his own unique philosophical approach. He sought to combine his diverse influences, including Kantian idealism, theology, romanticism, and contemporary political and social theory, which all contribute to his philosophical voice. Early examples of this emerging voice include The Difference Between the Philosophical Systems of Fichte and Shelling (1801), in which he begins to critique some of the basic assumptions of Kantian idealism, and an 1802 essay on Natural Law, in which he formulates a philosophical approach to the analysis of culture, modernity, and modern institutions. In 1807, the year after Napoleon marched into Prussia, Hegel published the Phenomenology of Spirit, an ambitious and difficult philosophical treatise. Here, Hegel fully elaborates some of his most striking and innovative concepts, such as the idea of Spirit, or collective consciousness, and his view that consciousness and knowledge develop dialectically, in a repeating pattern. After teaching in Bamberg and Nuremberg, where he met his wife, Hegel took up a professorship in Heidelberg and, later, took another at the new university in Berlin. Hegel’s output from this period includes the three-volume Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Science (1817), in which he systematizes his approach to philosophy, and Elements of a Philosophy of Right (1821), which combines his philosophical insights with analysis and critique of modern society and modern political institutions. Hegel’s students of this period include liberal civil servants in Prussian government, a fact that points to the widening and influential audience Hegel commanded in the years leading up to his death in 1831. Although Hegel’s status in the field of philosophy has varied in the nearly two centuries since his death, his reflections have considerably influenced other disciplines as well, including literary and cultural theory, theology, sociology, and political science. His lifespan roughly coincides with the German composer Beethoven (1770–1827), whose greatness rests partly in the way he took neoclassical musical conventions in new directions and incorporated diverse influences into his music in novel and idiosyncratic ways. Similarly, the originality of Hegel’s insights stems partly from his adaptation of the available philosophical language to describe aspects of human experience that were beyond the immediate concerns of his philosophical predecessors. Like them, Hegel would devote a great deal of intellectual effort wrestling with the nature and possibilities of human knowledge. However, he also sought to understand his rapidly changing world and to describe the social, institutional, and historical dimensions of human experience. Readers' Notes allow users to add their own analysis and insights to our SparkNotes—and to discuss those ideas with one another. Have a novel take or think we left something out? Add a Readers' Note!

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/hegel/context.html

Mirrors and Images Based on their experience with Activity 6, your students should have some understanding of incident rays, reflected rays, and the general behavior of mirrors. At this point, therefore, your students should be ready to be introduced to the different types of reflection that may occur. Explain to your students that reflection of light from a smooth mirror-like surface, such as water, results in a clear image and is known as specular reflection. When the surface of a lake or pond is wind-blown, however, the incident rays strike the surface of the water at many different angles. As a result, the reflected rays produce an unclear image. The reflection of light from such a surface is called diffuse reflection. To illustrate this concept, have students, take a piece of aluminum foil that is smooth and observe the clarity of the image. Then ask them to roll the aluminum foil into a tight ball, open it back up, and observe the image. Have students record their observations in their science notebooks. You may also want to carry out a brainstorming session before beginning the main activity. Place students in small groups and have them list uses of mirrors, types of mirrors, or places they have seen mirrors. This is a good warm-up activity to encourage students to clarify what they learned in Activity 6 and to further extend their understanding of mirrors. Creating a K-W-L chart (see Activity 2) is another good warm-up option. What will the students do? Before beginning, have students "hinge" two mirrors using masking tape on the back or clear tape on the front. Once this is completed, students will observe the relationship between the angles of the two hinged mirrors and the number of images produced. On a piece of paper or cardboard, have students mark angles of 180 degrees, 90 degrees, 60 degrees, 45 degrees, 36 degrees, 30 degrees and 20 degrees. Students will open the hinged mirrors to each of the specified angles and place an object (for example, a paper clip or a coin) between the two mirrors. Students will then count the number of images they see and record their data. Afterwards, carry on a group discussion about what occurred. Explain that when you put an object between the two hinged mirrors, light from the object bounces back and forth between the mirrors before it reaches your eyes. An image is formed each time the light bounces off a mirror, and the number of images that you see in the mirrors depends on the angle that the mirrors form. As you make the angle between the mirrors smaller, the light bounces back and forth more times and you see more images. Activity - A spoon is a good example of both a concave mirror and a convex mirror. Have students look at one side of a spoon and then write down in their science notebook what they see. For example, they might say that the reflection is upside down or right side up or that it is smaller or larger than their face. Then have them turn the spoon around and make the same observations regarding the other side. Explain to them that the side of the spoon that caves in is called a concave mirror, and the side that curves outward is called a convex mirror. Writing - Have students create a science fiction story that addresses science facts about mirrors, reflection, or lenses, and includes strange and unusual happenings. For example, a student could create a tale about an alien that lands on Earth and sees its reflection for the first time when it lands near a clear pool of water. Or, a young person could find a "magic mirror" that shows what life was like at different eras in history. The variations are endless! Reading - Read The Face in the Mirror (ISBN 0688153941) by Stephanie Tolan as a class or require students to read it on their own. The book for young adults blends Shakespeare, a ghost story, and life in the theater. It is about a 15-year-old boy who is sent to live with his father who works in the theater. An alternate book choice could be The Secret of Mirror Bay (ISBN 0448095491) by Carolyn Keene. The tale is a Nancy Drew mystery in which Nancy and her friends investigate reports of a mystery woman gliding over the water at Mirror Bay. Historical Vignette: Caroline Herschel Caroline Herschel was born in 1750 to a working class family in Germany. When she was ten she became sick with typhus. The disease stunted Herschel's growth, and she never grew past four feet three inches. Her father thought her condition made her unattractive and was sure that she would never marry. To her family, she could amount to nothing more than a housemaid, which she soon became. After a few years of acting as a maid, Herschel went to live with her brother, William. He felt sorry for her and needed a housekeeper. William was a musician for some time, but had been progressively developing a love for astronomy. He desired to see into the depths of space and eventually did so by constructing powerful telescopes to aid his vision. After receiving a pension from King George III, William quit music to devote all of his time to making and selling telescopes. In time, Herschel began to help him in his business. She spent long hours grinding and polishing the mirrors they used to collect light from distant objects. At the age of 32, Caroline Herschel became an apprentice to her brother. As she gained confidence, she became more and more of a help to William. Frequently when he would leave on business, Herschel would take over in his place. Visitors began to recognize her authority, and King George III gave her an annual pension of fifty pounds. This was the first time that a woman was formally recognized for a scientific position. While Herschel lived and worked with her brother, she discovered eight comets, which was a great accomplishment in the late 1700s. Herschel received the Gold Medal of Science for her life's work from the King of Prussia and became an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Irish Academy. Writing - Have students imagine a letter that Caroline Herschel would have written to her brother after she took over his work. What kinds of things would Caroline write about? Would she discuss household matters? Would she want to share her latest news about looking for comets? As an extension to this, you could have students imagine that Caroline and William had e-mail and could communicate regularly. Have them think about how their correspondence would be different. Artist Vignette: Leonard da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), known as a genius of the Renaissance, was an artist, inventor, engineer, theatre designer, and architect. He is also well known for keeping notebooks and sketchbooks, which continue to be used for study today. Da Vinci's notebooks are significant because he did not only record his observations of natural phenomena in them, but attempted to figure out how things work. To explain his work, da Vinci wrote long descriptions that included diagrams of his scientific and mechanical projects. Da Vinci wrote in Italian using a special kind of shorthand that he invented himself. He also used "mirror writing" in his notebooks, a habit that has puzzled people for a long time. His notes started at the right side of the page and moved to the left. Only when he was writing something intended for other people to read did he write left to right. Contemporaries of da Vinci recorded that they saw him write and paint left-handed. He also made sketches showing his own left hand at work. Being a lefty was highly unusual in da Vinci's time. Because people were superstitious, children who naturally started using their left hands to write and draw were forced to use their right hands. No one knows the true reason da Vinci used mirror writing, though several possibilities have been suggested. Some believe he was trying to make it harder for people to read his notes and steal his ideas, while others more specifically state that he was hiding his scientific ideas from the powerful Roman Catholic Church, whose teachings sometimes disagreed with what he observed. It has also been noted that writing left handed from left to right was messy because the ink just put down would smear as his hand moved across it. Thus, some argue that da Vinci chose to write in reverse because it prevented smudging. Activity - Distribute paper and pencils and encourage students to try writing their signatures in cursive from right to left. If students have difficulty forming these letters in reverse, have them hold a pencil in each hand and write backwards with the usual writing hand while writing forwards with the opposite hand. Have students write backward with pens and markers to make comparisons. Is one kind of writing tool easier to use this way than another? Distribute mirrors and show students how to position them to one side of their backwards writing to read it normally. A mirror also lets them check to see if they actually reversed all letters. Have students try writing reverse messages to a partner who can then decipher them with a mirror. Discussion - In a follow-up discussion, ask students if the type of writing implement made a difference in the ease of mirror writing. You may also see if anyone is left handed in the class and whether it was easier or harder for them to do the mirror writing. Have students hypothesize why they think that da Vinci used this technique in his notebooks. Questions or comments? Send us an email. © 1995-2013 by Michael W. Davidson, the Center for Integrating Research and Learning, and The Florida State University. All Rights Reserved. No images, graphics, software, scripts, or applets may be reproduced or used in any manner without permission from the copyright holders. Use of this website means you agree to the Legal Terms and Conditions set forth by the owners. This website is maintained by our

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/activities/teachers/mirrorsandimages.html

Key Constitutional Issues of the Abortion Debate - Understand the balance of power that is at the heart of our federalist system - Evaluate which level of government -- state or national -- should have authority over social and legal issues Copies of Discussion Questions Copies of the Student Handout: "Who Should Decide What?" 10 to 20 minutes for class discussion 40 minutes for the classroom activity The teacher writes the 10th Amendment on the board and conducts a class discussion. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 10th Amendment, United States Constitution - Why do you think the framers of the Constitution included this amendment in the Bill of Rights? What were their concerns? - After their negative experiences under British control, many Americans were concerned about creating a national government that was too powerful. - Differences about the size and role of the federal government created a lot of conflict over the Constitution. The anti-Federalists insisted on enumerated protections (the Bill of Rights) to limit the national government. - In your own words, what does this amendment protect? - What powers do you know of that are solely delegated to the national government? - A Venn diagram of two overlapping circles on the chalkboard can help to illustrate separate vs. shared powers. - Federal powers include: the power to coin money; regulating interstate or foreign commerce; making treaties; declaring war; regulating the post office. - How do we know that these powers are delegated to the national government? - They are enumerated in the Constitution. - What powers do you know of that are "reserved" to the states? - Powers delegated to the states include: education; intrastate commerce; licenses for driving, the professions, and marriage. - What powers are shared between the federal and state governments? - Shared powers include: taxes; enforcement of laws; protection. - Think about how much society has changed since the framers ratified the Constitution in the 18th century. What issues exist in our society today that the framers did not designate as a federal power, a state power or a shared power? - Responses should be as exhaustive as possible. Encourage students to think about their own lives. For example, if they are taking a driving exam, which level of government administers it? If you are driving through several states, does the speed limit change? - Divide the class into groups of four to six students and distribute the "Who Should Decide What?" list. - Assign half of the groups to create arguments that states should have authority over particular issues and assign the other half to create arguments that authority should rest with the federal government. Remind students to avoid debates about whether or not these behaviors should be legal. Topics they will discuss include: the driving age, the drinking age, euthanasia, marriage, the death penalty, marijuana for medical use, and abortion. - After 10 to 15 minutes of preparation, reconvene as a class. Call out an issue from the "Who Should Decide What?" list. Still in either state or federal character, the groups will debate with each other. After three minutes, call out another issue. Continue working your way down the list. As a final activity, invite students to be themselves. Again, go through the "Who Should Decide What?" list and conduct a hand vote for each issue as to whether it falls under state or federal authority. (Now students can vote according to their personal opinions.) The last vote should concern abortion. Finally, encourage students who have seen the film to think about The Last Abortion Clinic. After voting, elicit class responses as to whether the states or the federal government should determine the parameters and/or restrictions for abortion and why. Method of Assessment: Students will take one debatable topic from the class activity for further research. Students will prepare a two page "brief" outlining how the federal government and state(s) government came into conflict over this issue and how it was resolved.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/teach/clinic/lesson.html

II. SOIL AND LANDSCAPE PROPERTIES Color Next Section>> Soil color is important because it reflects or indicates several other important properties of the soil. In surface horizons, a dark color indicates high organic matter content. Organic matter, in turn, is responsible for many desirable physical and chemical soil properties. Compared to a soil with low organic matter, one high in organic matter takes up water faster, stores more water, is more resistant to erosion, has less tendency to form surface seals and crusts, and is easier to till. High organic matter soil also holds more plant nutrients. In subsoil horizons, color reflects the natural drainage conditions and degree of development of a soil. For instance, in well and moderately well drained soils, soil development is indicated by more reddish or brownish colors in the B horizon than in the C horizon. Grayish colors in the subsoil reflect wet soil conditions. In poorly drained soils the subsoils are dominantly gray. In somewhat poorly drained soils, the subsoils are dominantly brownish with gray mottles. Mottles are flecks or spots of one soil color in a background or matrix of another color (see Plate 14). The gray of a soil horizon is caused by reduction that occurs when the horizon is below the water table, thus saturated. Water tables are held up by very slowly permeable horizons that may be visible in a pit or may be deeper. In poorly and somewhat poorly drained soils, water tables may be near the surface in late winter and early spring but more than six feet deep in late summer and fall. Water table levels also vary greatly from year to year. Soil colors are determined by comparing the soil with standard Munsell soil color charts (Fig. 11). In that system, color samples are arranged according to three properties—hue, value, and chroma. Hue refers to the spectral color, or colors of the rainbow; value represents the degree of lightness or darkness of the color; and chroma represents the strength or purity of the spectral color. (See Chapter 7 for information about obtaining Munsell color charts and books). Fig 11. Determining soil color using a Munsell card. The system is best illustrated by looking at several pages from a Munsell color book. Hue is represented by numbers and letters like 10YR, 5R, 2.5Y, which indicate the spectral colors, such as Y for yellow, R for red or YR for a mixture of yellow and red. Different hues are on separate pages of the color book. Value changes up and down the page, with darker colors toward the bottom and lighter colors toward the top. Chroma is measured across the page, with neutral colors (black, gray, or white) to the left and more pure spectral colors (red,brown, yellow) to the right. The most commonly used chart in Indiana is for the 10YR hue. The next most common hues are 7.5YR which is redder than 10YR, and 2.5Y which is yellower, or more olive than 10YR.back to top In soil evaluation, colors are divided into three classes (dark, gray, and brownish) which correspond closely to those used in soil classification. These classes are shown in Fig. 12 for the 10YR hue, but these same classes also apply to all hues. Some brownish colors may appear to be on the red side of brown (5YR and 2.5YR hues), and some may appear to be on the olive side of brown (2.5Y and 5Y hues). Fig 12. Classes of soil color used in soil evaluation. back to top In some surface horizons, the outside of a soil structural unit or ped is a different color than the inside. In determining the color of the surface horizon, official judges crush a moist soil sample between their thumb and forefinger before determining soil color, and contestants should do the same. Also, in some soils, especially those in grass, the color may be darker at the surface than it is a few inches deeper. The convention is to select a sample for color determination from the center of the surface horizon. The official judges may also designate a depth at which to make the determination, or, if the color is close to a boundary, they should give the Munsell designation on the site card. |To determine surface soil color, select a sample from the center of the surface horizon unless a different depth is listed on the site card. Crush moist soil material between your fingers and compare it with a Munsell color chart. Mark Gray, Brownish, or Dark on the scorecard according to Fig. 12.| |Many Indiana surface horizons have colors between 10YR 3/3 and 10YR 4/3. If the color is near this class boundary, or other boundaries, official judges should give the Munsell designation on the site card.| Subsoil color is used to determine natural soil drainage. Soil samples should not be crushed as they are for surface color. Instead, contestants should first look at the inside of a ped (or soil structural unit, see Fig. 6). To see the inside, they can break a ped apart, cut through it with a knife or spatula, or look at the face of the pit that has been cut with a spade (Fig. 13). Up to three colors should be noted: 1) the dominant or main color, 2) a minor color, if it is present; especially look for gray color, 3) clay films, if present. The depth of these colors is also important, as explained in the Natural Soil Drainage section.back to top

http://www.agry.purdue.edu/soils_judging/new_manual/Ch2-color.html

Keep your class warm and engaged with these math activities featuring mittens. There are five activities in this packet. Addition to 10 - There are three sets of mittens to help students practice addition to 10. Patterns - Students can extend and make their own patterns using the mitten picture cards. A patterns skills sheet is included as an extension activity. Number Words - Student match the mitten and number word and then complete a book about colorful mittens. Writing Numbers 0-20 - Students pull a mitten card and write that number on their paper. Mittens with numbers are in color and black/white. There are two skills sheets to differentiate the activity. Counting by 10s - Students put the mitten cards in order by 10s. Students then get a set of their own cards to cut and glue in the correct order. Mittens with numbers are in color and black/white.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mitten-Math-Math-activities-for-Winter-180007

Geology and Topography of the Continents Geologically and topographically the continents are exceedingly complex and variable in detail, yet certain large-scale structural and topographic features appear to be common to all. The continents are composed mainly of granitic rocks and measure an average of 25 mi (40 km) thick. Underlying the ocean are denser basaltic rocks measuring about 4 mi (7 km) thick. Basaltic rocks may also form the lower portions of the continental crust in many regions. The upper and lower crust zones deform by different mechanisms; the upper crust is brittle and deforms by faulting (see fault) while the lower crust is ductile and capable of flow. The crust and the solid upper mantle form the lithosphere.Plateaus, Shields, and Mountains Generally, the continents contain vast interior plains or plateaus, underlain by a basement complex of igneous and metamorphic rocks of Precambrian age. In some places, the basement complex is exposed at the surface, where it is often called the shield, or craton. The interior of shield areas contain some of the oldest rocks known on the earth's surface. The Canadian Shield area of E Canada is the exposed basement complex of North America. Portions of shield areas are covered with veneers of flat-lying sedimentary rocks of younger age. The interior plains of the continents are frequently bounded on one or more sides by ranges of mountains. These mountains have been intricately folded and faulted. They also display abundant evidence of volcanic activity, large-scale igneous intrusions, and deformation structures associated with convergent plate movement. In the United States the folded Appalachian Mts. lie to the east of the interior plains and were caused mainly by the collision of two continents. The Rocky Mts. are to the west, formed by huge igneous masses that pushed upward through overlying sedimentary rocks, which were then eroded away. Evidence indicates that part of the mantle below the crust consists of semifluid rocks on which the continents and ocean basins, in effect, are floating. A condition of gravitational balance, called isostasy, exists between different parts of the earth's crust. The theory of isostasy claims that the continental crust floats higher than the oceanic crust because the former is composed of a thick layer of lower density rocks while the latter is composed of a thin layer of higher density rocks. Isostatic adjustments to changes in mass distribution on the earth's surface associated with plate interactions may occur through flow of semifluid materials deep in the earth. These materials cause a compensatory uplift of mountains and plateau areas as erosion wears them down. The mass of eroded material is added to and thus depresses the continental shelves and the ocean floor. Adjustments also accompany such changes as the growth and melting of continental ice sheets. Sections in this article: The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. More on continent Geology and Topography of the Continents from Fact Monster: See more Encyclopedia articles on: Geology and Oceanography

http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/science/continent-geology-topography-continents.html

DNA, also known as deoxyribonucleic acid, is a fundamental molecule found in all living things. It serves as the basis for heredity, specifying which traits are passed on from parents to children through the generations. It also contains instructions for our body cells to perform their specific functions. In humans, most of the DNA is in the form of tightly coiled strands called chromosomes, found inside the cell nucleus. There are 46 chromosomes in a human cell. If you unwind each chromosome and place them end-to-end, you will have a long, double-stranded helix that is about 3 meters in length—all from one microscopic human DNA helix looks like a twisted ladder. The two sides are composed of the four bases: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C), and the rungs of the ladder represent hydrogen bonds that connect specific pairs of these molecules together: A–T and G–C. The arrangement of these molecules, called the DNA sequence, spell out the instructions for our physical characteristics and body functions. These instructions are found in units called The specific pairing of DNA molecules presents a simple mechanism for their replication. Replication occurs whenever a cell divides in two during growth and development. During replication, the helix unwinds and an enzyme separates the two strands. Another enzyme, DNA polymerase, adds the four molecules A, T, C, and G to each strand based on the strands sequences: A is added to a T on the strand, and C is paired with The products of replication are two sets of double-stranded DNA molecules that have exactly the same sequence as the original. During cell division, each cell receives one set of DNA. In this way, all the cells of the body have the same DNA molecules. In the laboratory, scientists use an artificial method for replication to examine specific portions of DNA. To learn more, please visit the Polymerase Chain Reaction page.

http://www.dnacenter.com/science-technology/dna-biology.html

reading this section you will be able to do the following: - Explain what a radioisotope is and what it is used for. why artificially produced radioisotopes are used by industry instead of naturally occurring radioisotopes. the three principle ways to produce radioisotopes. As you know, there are a number of sources of radiation, ranging from naturally occurring radioisotopes to X-ray machines, and other forms of particle accelerators. In this section we are going to take a look at the different sources of gamma radiation commonly used today. Remember from our previous discussion, that radioisotopes are elements that are atomically unstable and radioactive. Radioisotopes stabilize by releasing energy and matter. Natural radioisotopes, which have relatively low radioactive energy, have been largely replaced by artificially produced radioisotopes. Artificially produced radioisotopes are widely utilized as sources of radiation for radiography, gauging, and as tracers for a multitude of measurements that are not easily made by other methods. How are radioisotopes Present day production of radioisotopes includes three principle categories, which are (1) neutron activation (bombardment), (2) fission product separation, and (3) charged particle bombardment. Nuclear bombardment constitutes the major method for obtaining industrially important radioisotope materials. Radioisotopes may exist in any form of matter, with solid materials comprising the largest group. To learn more see below! - Take this link to learn about what the study of radioactive decay led scientists to believe: - Take this link to learn about neutron - Take these links to learn about the uses of fission and fusion: produced radioisotopes are primarily used by industry because they can be produced so as to have much more radioactive energy that natural types. - The three ways to produce radioisotopes are neutron activation, fission product separation, and charged particle bombardment. that are atomically unstable and radioactive are called radioisotopes.

http://www.nde-ed.org/EducationResources/HighSchool/Radiography/radiationsources.htm

History of the Louvre: Modern History The Louvre grew in reputation and fame in the 19th century. Many of the great painters of the Impressionist movement spent time studying and practicing at the Louvre, including Edgar Degas, who was licensed to create copies of the museum's paintings. Leaders of the Impressionist movement grew in popularity elsewhere in Europe, although the Louvre's governors largely ignored them until the 20th century, when the museum began acquiring and accepting donations of Impressionist works. The pieces by the Impressionists and other movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries would hang in the Louvre only until 1986, when the Musée d'Orsay opened across the River Seine. The Louvre divided its collection, sending all work created after 1848 to the d'Orsay and maintaining its collections of Renaissance, Hellenic, Egyptian, Asian, and Roman art and antiquities. Eventually these collections would be expanded to include cultural artifacts from indigenous peoples from the Americas and Oceania as well. The Louvre suffered two major strains during the modern era. In 1871, the Paris Commune, a revived socialist group seeking to protect the rights of workers, revolted and turned its ire against the Palais des Tuileries, which had long served as residence for the monarchy. The palace burned completely, along with its contents. World War II posed another challenge to the museum's directors. As the Nazi armies invaded Paris, the Louvre was emptied of its contents, except for the heaviest pieces. The Louvre's collections were secretly distributed among wealthy French citizens, who hid pieces in their châteaux around the country. Eventually, the Louvre reopened under Nazi occupation. It served as a clearing center for art looted by the Nazis, called the Louvre sequestration, both from conquered territories and from the collections of Jews and other groups executed by the Nazi war machine [source: The Louvre]. The Louvre closed from 1945 to 1947 following the liberation of France. Once again, it entered a period of revitalization. In 1989, the glass pyramid entrance designed by Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei opened to the public. It has become a symbol of the modern Louvre, but trails back to the origins of the building. During excavation for the project, the moat and a keep from the first medieval incarnation of the building was uncovered and is preserved for display for visitors today.

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/destinations/landmarks/museums-tours/louvre3.htm

IUPAC Nomenclature Organic Chemistry: The IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry is a systematic method of naming organic chemical compounds as recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Ideally, every organic compound should have a name from which an unambiguous structural formula can be drawn. There is also an IUPAC nomenclature of inorganic chemistry. See also phanes nomenclature of highly complex cyclic molecules. The main idea of IUPAC nomenclature is that every compound has one and only one name, and every name corresponds to only one structure of molecules (i.e. a one-one relationship), thereby reducing ambiguity. For ordinary communication, to spare a tedious description, the official IUPAC naming recommendations are not always followed in practice except when it is necessary to give a concise definition to a compound, or when the IUPAC name is simpler (viz. ethanol against ethyl alcohol). Otherwise the common or trivial name may be used, often derived from the source of the compound. Straight-chain alkanes take the suffix "-ane" and are prefixed depending on the number of carbon atoms in the chain, following standard rules. The first few are: For example, the simplest alkane is CH4 methane, and the nine-carbon alkane CH3(CH2)7CH3 is named nonane. The names of the first four alkanes were derived from methanol, ether, propionic acid and butyric acid, respectively. The rest are named with a Greek numeric prefix, with the exceptions of nonane which has a Latin prefix, and undecane and tridecane which have mixed-language prefixes. Alkenes and Alkynes Alkenes are named for their parent alkane chain with the suffix "-ene" and an infixed number indicating the position of the double-bonded carbon in the chain: CH2=CHCH2CH3 is but-1-ene. Multiple double bonds take the form -diene, -triene, etc., with the size prefix of the chain taking an extra "a": CH2=CHCH=CH2 is buta-1,3-diene. Simple cis and trans isomers are indicated with a prefixed cis- or trans-: cis-but-2-ene, trans-but-2-ene. More complex geometric isomerisations are described using the Cahn Ingold Prelog priority rules. Alcohols (R-OH) take the suffix "-ol" with an infix numerical bonding position: CH3CH2CH2OH is propan-1-ol. The suffixes -diol, -triol, -tetraol, etc., are used for multiple -OH groups: Ethylene glycol CH2OHCH2OH is ethane-1,2-diol. |Courses/Topics we help on| |Qualitative Analysis||Confidence Interval for Mean & Proportions||Nomenclature of Inorganic Compounds| ||Inter Molecular Force| |Lewis Structure-VSEPR Theory-Shapes of Molecular Models||Chemical Kinetics||Concentration of Solution: Molarity, Molality and Normality| |Clausius-Clapeyron Equation||Nomenclature of Organic Compounds||Fundamentals of Organic Chemistry| |Balancing the Chemical Equation by Ion-Electron Method or Redox Method||Classification of Chemical Reactions||Chemistry of Transition Elements| |Coordination Chemistry||Molecular and Empirical Formula of Organic and Inorganic Compounds||Gas Laws, Charles Law, Boyle's Law, Ideal and Real Gas Equation| |Periodic Properties of Elements||Substitution and Elimination Reaction||ThermoChemistry| |Chemical Equilibrium||Rate Law, Order and Molecularity||Nuclear Chemistry| |Fundamentals of Inorganic Chemistry||Chemistry of Representative Elements||Isomerism in Organic and Inorganic Compounds| |Electronic Configuration of Elements||Parametric Equations||IB Chemistry| |IUPAC nomenclature||Chemical bonding||Isomerism| |Chemical kinetics||Chemical equilibrium||Reward Management| |Co-ordination chemistry||Nuclear chemistry||Stereochemistry| |Group theory||Organic reaction mechanism||Organometallic complexes| |Reagents in organic synthesis||Natural products||Quantum chemistry|

http://classof1.com/homework_answers/chemistry/organic_chemistry/nomenclature_organic_chemistry/

New Supercontinent Dubbed Columbia Once Ruled Earth In 1912, German meteorologist Alfred Wegener proposed a theory that first angered and then intrigued scientists and others ever since. Continents shifted around at far slower than a snail's pace throughout Earth's history like pieces of a puzzle, drifting together and pulling apart to form oceans, he said. Part of the eventual fascination with his idea came from globe-gazers' observation that continents such as Africa and South America look like they could fit together snugly. Following up on Wegener and others' work, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill geologist believes he has discovered a new, long-vanished supercontinent. That early amalgamation of most of the world's continents in one vast land area later split up several times, reformed and divided again to begin shaping Earth's current continents. The primeval supercontinent, which Professor John J.W. Rogers named Columbia, existed more than 1.5 billion years ago and is older than any of several giant landmasses previously proposed. "I named the supercontinent Columbia because some of the best evidence for its existence is in the Columbia River region of western North America," Rogers said. "Starting at about 1.8 billion years ago, all of the continents existing at that time began to collide into a single land area." Rogers describes his ideas in a scientific paper with fellow geologist Dr. M. Santosh of Kochi University in Japan published in the current issue of the Gondwana Research, a quarterly journal devoted to studies of Earth's early land masses. The east coast of India became attached to western North America, with southern Australia against western Canada, he said. Most of present South America rotated so that the western edge of Brazil lined up with eastern North America, forming a continental margin that extended into the southern edge of Scandinavia. "This formed an area that stretched about 8,000 miles from southern South America to northern Canada and was about 3,000 miles across at its widest part," Rogers said. Columbia began to break up about 1.5 billion years ago, and its fragments moved around the Earth independently for several hundred million years, he said. About a billion years ago, the fragments came together again to form a new supercontinent, called Rodinia. Rodinia lasted until about 700 million years ago before it too broke into several fragments. These chunks moved independently until 250 million years ago, when the supercontinent Pangea formed, Rogers said. Pangea then began to break up almost immediately to form the world's present continents. "This sequence of formation and dispersal of supercontinents is clearly caused by movements deep within the Earth in a layer scientists call the mantle," he said. "The exact mechanism is still being worked out, and hopefully the discovery of Columbia will contribute to understanding it." Magnetic and geologic evidence for supercontinents becomes less certain and more controversial as the age of the supercontinent increases, Rogers said. For that reason, the shape of Columbia and even its existence is less certain than that of Rodinia. Originally trained as petrologist and geochemist, the UNC scientist came up with his ideas while traveling in the Orkney Islands off Scotland's north coast. He based them on data he collected in India, East Africa and Saudi Arabia as U.S. leader of a joint Indian and U.S. cooperative study of the Precambrian evolution of southern India and on data published by other scientists. Geologists date ancient rocks by measuring radioactive decay of uranium and lead isotopes. Comparisons of such information and rock types around the world reveal what regions used to be connected. Geologists Locate Boundary Between African Plates The northern boundary between the west African (Nubian) plate and the east African (Somalian) plate has long been identified as the East African Rift Valley. From the time plate tectonics was proposed in the mid-1960s, geologists have speculated about whether, and in what direction, the boundary continues from the south end of the rift valley, beyond which seismic and volcanic activity disappear. Rice geologists Richard G. Gordon and James Lemaux II, along with geologist Jean-Yves Royer of the Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer (France), report their findings in the April issue of the journal Geology. Comparing records of magnetic variations in the seafloor of the southern Indian Ocean, they located the intersection of the Nubian, Somalian and Antarctic plates within a 100-kilometer-wide region known as the Andrew Bain Fracture Zone Complex. The submarine complex, located south of Africa, is more than 1,000 miles long and, at its southern end, intersects the northern boundary of the Antarctic plate. "This boundary has been elusive because there is very slow movement between the Somalian and Nubian plates," said Gordon, the W.M. Keck Professor of Geophysics. "Both plates are moving away from Antarctica, but the Somalian plate is moving slightly slower, so the relative movement between the African plates is only about two millimeters per year." Gordon, Royer and Lemaux, now with BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., determined movement rates for the African plates by studying the magnetic profile of the seafloor on both sides of the slowly slipping fault zone. New seafloor is continuously created as the African plates pull away from Antarctica. Because the Earth's magnetic field changes polarity about every 500,000 years, the seafloor appears as a series of bands, each with reverse polarity from the next. Like rings of a tree, these bands can be used to date the creation of seafloor, and they can be matched up from opposite sides of the fault zone to gauge how far plates have moved relative to one another. The Rice researchers compared the magnetic signature of a single band in 237 locations — six times as many as in prior studies of the region — to determine the relative movement of the plates and to pinpoint the location of the boundary zone between the two African plates. The research, funded by the National Science Foundation and the French National Scientific Research Center, allows geologists to better understand the relationship between the African plates, including the tectonic processes that created the East African Rift. The findings should also allow geologists to improve software models that predict the tectonic motion, giving a clearer picture of what's likely to happen not only in the rift valley, but also in other areas such as the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, where the Indian and Eurasian plates collide. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express A Rising Force: New Study on Ancient Mantle Plumes Boulder - Jan 25, 2002 The subject of mantle plumes -- bodies of hot buoyant material that rise through Earth's mantle -- has become increasingly popular as scientists explore new links between mantle plumes and other Earth processes.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/tectonics-02b.html

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Capture the Penguin Game Students toss two dice (one regular and one A-F) in this fun game that introduces students to coordinate graphing in the spaces. Students form a coordinate pair based on the dice toss and capture a penguin, if possible. If the space holds a penguin, they capture the penguin for quick points. Create A-F dice using plain dice or purchase small wooden cubes at a craft store to make the dice. The penguins shown in the picture were created by painting clothespins and clothespin stands, found at craft stores. Download the Capture the Penguin Game, a PDF which includes directions, game mat, penguin markers and a recording sheet.

http://mathwire.blogspot.com/2009/12/capture-penguin-game.html

Resources for Teachers More on Money - Money, Money, Money - More about the history of money from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s “American Currency” exhibit. - Our Money - Teaching unit on U.S. currency developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. - The Story of Money - Exhibits from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Monetary Museum. The story of money told through artifacts, coins, and currency. - Money Facts - Tidbits and trivia about U.S. currency from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Education, Curricula, and Classroom Activities - Money Math: Lessons for Life - How can you connect math to the real world? Money Math: Lessons for Life, now in its second printing, is a four-lesson curriculum supplement for middle school math classes, teaching grade 7 to 9 math concepts using real-life examples from personal finance. The 86-page book is a teacher’s guide with lesson plans, reproducible activity pages, and teaching tips. - Links to free print and audiovisual materials to increase understanding of the Federal Reserve, economics, and financial education. - Board of Governors Kids Page - Site designed to educate middle-school students about the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. Information presented in a question-and-answer format, including a quiz. (Federal Reserve Board of Governors). - Ohio Council on Economic Education - This organization strives to help teachers learn about market economics. Site includes information on teachers’ professional development and the Economics Challenge, a competition for high school students. - AskERIC Lesson Plans - Economics-based lesson plans and activities for students in grades 4-12, developed by the Educational Resources Information Center.

http://clevelandfed.org/learning_center/For_Teachers/resources_for_teachers/index.cfm

Ridges and Island Geology you see in the panorama is the outermost beach facing the Atlantic Ocean where the water is very shallow. If you pan to the left you will observe a clearly demarcated beach ridge. You can observe the differences on the ocean side where the wave energy was stronger and left large shell deposits while on the island side the water left darker low energy sediments as the tide receded. Can you see other geological features on this vast beach front that can be explained by tidal water flow? Island geology is a very important and ever changing component of estuary ecology. For example, there have been over a dozen inlets mapped this century yet only a few are currently observable? What do you think happened to them? Students can observe current and historical NC maps to see which major inlets are currently observable. Erosion and island migration are natural processes. Should man try to intervene? One current effort to combat the natural geologic processes is the transportation of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. Explore the available documentation on the massive efforts to save the 300 foot lighthouse from falling into the sea. How long do you predict it will be could also be engaged in discussions about ways to insure the current geologic features of the Barrier Islands. For example, it is illegal for 4x4's to drive on beach ridges or dunes. Can you imagine why? Students can discuss common themes for regulated use including: 1) camping, 2) fire safety, 2) pillaging, 4) fish and crustacean harvesting, 5) littering, 6) clearing, and 7) other general use. Students can compare the uniqueness of some NC beach regulations and create advertising campaign posters or web pages.

http://edweb.sdsu.edu/sciencetg/estuary/ridge.html

Reading instruction is designed to teach two elements of reading: mechanics and comprehension. While the foundation for reading begins at birth, the focus of instruction from preschool through third grade is reading mechanics, and reading comprehension is the focus from the third grade into early adulthood. It cannot be assumed that a child with learning disabilities will master the mechanics of reading by third grade. Thus, it is critical that appropriate reading instruction is available throughout his/her school career. Reading mechanics and comprehension comprise various skill levels that are typically taught in a progressive fashion. Skill levels involved in reading mechanics include pre-reading, decoding and fluency. Pre-reading skills build upon an individual's growing range of experiences that develop awareness and appreciation of printed words. Individuals should be encouraged to be aware of words wherever they appear, e.g., on grocery labels, household objects, billboards, and the like. Individuals can acquire a more sophisticated understanding of written language by learning: - the alphabet, including the names, sounds, and shapes of letters, and how to write them; - that English has a left to right directionality; - that words are made up of letters and syllables; - that words are made up of sound elements or phonemes, and by learning the practical application of the relationship between sounds and their representative letters by counting the sounds in a word, through rhyming games and exercises, phonemic substitutions, and creating nonsense words by substituting or rearranging phonemes Decoding is the process translating a written word into a spoken word ("cracking the code"). An individual who has developed adequate decoding skills can begin to acquire fluency when reading no longer requires a conscious, deliberate effort. When fluent, reading becomes automatic and consists of word recognition rather than sounding out and combining syllables necessary to decode words. Teaching decoding provides students with the keys to unlock new words. Teaching the regular phonetic patterns of English can do this. These rules can be applied to words with which the student is already familiar. New words are then introduced beginning with simple words and working through more complex words. Finally, irregular phonemic patterns can be introduced and eventually mastered. Individuals typically shift their attention to reading comprehension once they have established appropriate mechanical skills (decoding). Comprehension skills, like mechanical skills, usually build progressively from fundamental to more sophisticated levels. Therefore, it has traditionally been helpful for individuals to learn to read for factual information before they begin to compare and evaluate the information they read. It will normally be easier for an individual to learn to read and comprehend material at these two levels before learning analysis and synthesis. Reading for factual information requires that the sequence of events and the details of a story be followed so that, for example, it is possible to read a murder mystery and solve the story's dilemma or to understand how it was resolved. Learning to compare and evaluate information from different sources requires the reader to be able to derive the main ideas from a text and isolate its organizing idea or thesis. This fundamental level of critical reading allows the reader to apply evaluative techniques like comparing and contrasting what was read in order to solve and The more advanced critical reading skills of analysis and synthesis allow the reader to draw salient conclusions and to make reasonable inferences from the information contained in the text. In addition, these skills allow the reader to engage the text with greater sophistication and to evaluate materials for relevance, consistency, and bias. Reading: A Problem for Many Persons with Learning For the person with learning disabilities, the process of learning to read can break down with reading mechanics or comprehension, and at any of the specific skill levels. It is also important to note that children with learning disabilities do not always acquire skills in the normal developmental sequence. If an individual does not develop adequate phonemic awareness during the pre-reading period, effective decoding may not be possible, which influences the development of fluent reading and comprehension skills. Also, children with learning disabilities often come to the reading task with oral language comprehension problems. When assessing and planning for instruction, consideration of these oral language comprehension problems may facilitate acquisition of reading comprehension. No single reading method will be effective for all students with learning disabilities. Most individuals with learning disabilities will benefit from the application of a variety of methods. Instructors need a repertoire of instructional methods. Teachers should be able to appropriately and systematically modify or combine methods, and utilize different methods in order to meet an individual's changing needs. Selecting the appropriate program to apply to the student is not a simple matter, and requires a careful assessment of where the student is in the developmental process. It is not uncommon, for example, to observe an individual with all the pre-reading skills, numerous comprehension skills, and simple decoding skills acquired during the student's progression through mechanical reading instruction. Because there may be a lack of understanding of the sophisticated decoding skills needed, reading with fluency suffers. Students with learning disabilities should be provided with sound strategic approaches that empower them as readers, rather than be allowed to learn and internalize incorrect practices. Selecting the appropriate method A significant part of selecting appropriate instructional approaches is understanding the learning profile of an individual. A diagnostic program is necessary to identify students with learning disabilities. A cognitive profile is also necessary to determine precisely what students' needs are, their strengths and weaknesses, whether they have difficulty with working memory, if they have inadequate language skills, etc. Students with learning disabilities need to be taught strategic approaches explicitly. They need to have ideas made conspicuously clear to them. Persons with learning disabilities who need to work on reading mechanics frequently respond to explicitly taught code-emphasis developmental reading methods such as phonic, linguistic, or multisensory approaches. Some of the more popular approaches are briefly described Phonics approach. The phonics approach teaches word recognition through learning grapheme-phoneme (letter-sound) associations. The student learns vowels, consonants, and blends, and learns to sound out words by combining sounds and blending them into words. By associating speech sounds with letters the student learns to recognize new and Linguistic method. This method uses a "whole word" approach. Words are taught in word families, or similar spelling patterns, and only as whole words. The student is not directly taught the relationship between letters and sounds, but learns them through minimal word differences. As the child progresses, words that have irregular spellings are introduced as sight words. Multisensory approach. This method assumes that some children learn best when content is presented in several modalities. Multisensory approaches that employ tracing, hearing, writing, and seeing are often referred to as VAKT (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile) methods. Multisensory techniques can be used with both phonics and Neurological Impress Technique. This is a rapid-reading technique. The instructor reads a passage at a fairly rapid rate, with the instructor's voice directed into the student's ear. The teacher begins as the dominant reading voice, but gradually the student spends more time leading these sessions. Students who have learned mechanics without adequately learning reading fluency frequently benefit from this, as do students who read slowly or who hesitate over a number of words but are able to identify most of the words in a sentence. A student is directed to read a passage without errors. This method functions most effectively when it is practiced for short periods every day. Language experience approach. The language experience approach uses children's spoken language to develop material for reading. This approach utilizes each student's oral language level and personal experiences. Material is written by the child and teacher for reading using each child's experience. This can be done in small groups and individually. Familiarity with the content and the vocabulary facilitate reading these stories. Each child can develop a book to be read and re-read. This approach helps children know what reading is and that ideas and experiences can be conveyed in print. Reading comprehension support. Persons with learning disabilities who need work on reading comprehension often respond to explicitly taught strategies which aid comprehension such as skimming, scanning and studying techniques. These techniques aid in acquiring the gist, and then focus is turned to the details of the text through use of the cloze procedures. The cloze procedure builds upon a student's impulse to fill in missing elements and is based upon the Gestalt principle of closure. With this method, every fifth to eighth word in a passage is randomly eliminated. The student is then required to fill in the missing words. This technique develops reading skills and an understanding not only of word meaning but also of the structure of the language itself. Persons with learning disabilities will typically require a variety of instructional approaches in order to make their educational experiences more productive. There is no one best approach to teach reading to students with learning disabilities. There are many reading methods available with ongoing debate about which one is preferable. It is critical that instructors understand both the student and the various reading methods available if the student is to have the best possible learning experience. The importance of a comprehensive evaluation that will result in prescription for intervention cannot be over-emphasized. As important, is the notion that teachers must have the ability to effectively and systematically alter various methods to meet the needs of individual children with learning disabilities. This article appeared in the March/April 1998 issue of LDA Newsbriefs (Volume 38, No.4), the newsletter of the Learning Disabilities Association. Newsbriefs is published six times a year and is a benefit of LDA membership.

http://www.ldanatl.org/aboutld/teachers/teaching_reading/reading_methods.asp

Reading to Learn Design When students read text, it is essential that they are able to comprehend it through various strategies. For better comprehension when reading, children should be able to visualize what they are reading. There is consistent evidence that visualization, or constructing images in the mind, smoothes the progress of children's learning of text. After visualizing material, it makes it easier to commit it to memory for later use. In this lesson, children will learn how to and practice constructing images from their reading by drawing illustrations. - Copies of the poem "Messy Room" by Shel Silverstein http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/shel_silverstein/poems/14818 - Copies of the poem "My New School" by Kenn Nesbitt http://www.gigglepoetry.com/poem.aspx?PoemID=487&CategoryID=37 - 2 pieces of white paper for each student - Copies of the chapter book Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt for each student - Assessment checklist: Did the student draw a picture? ___Y___N Were the drawings accurate for the poem? ___Y___N Were the drawings accurate for assigned reading(s)? __Y___N Were the drawings detailed? ___Y___N Did the student describe in detail the events? ___Y___N (if some can't draw as well you can let students describe what they are picturing; it is important not to grade the level of the art work) 1) "First, we're going to review how to read a sentence with fluency." Write the sentence: Cam and Pat play all day long, on the board. "First, I am going to read the sentence without fluency. Cccaaammm and pppaatt ppplllaaaayyyy all dddaaayyy lllooonnnggg . Next, I am going to read the sentence with fluency. Cam... and... Pat... play... all... day... long. Do you hear the difference between reading with and without fluency?" Read sentence again. "Cam and Pat play all day long." This time I read the sentence with fluency. Remember, the more that you read the more fluent you will become 2) Explain to the class the importance of constructing images while reading. "When we create pictures in our heads about what we read, we are more likely to remember what we read and understand it better." 3) Model visualization for the students: "I am going to read the poem 'My New School' by Kenn Nesbitt aloud. As I read, I am going to picture in my mind what is going on." Read poem aloud to class. "Ok as I read, I pictured a person with many different talents like juggling and twisting balloons. I also saw a person with different color hair and big floppy shoes. Then, at the end, I found out that it was a clown! Now I am actually going to draw this picture on the board so that you can see what I was visualizing in my mind." Explain why you are drawing what you are drawing as you go. "Most of you probably pictured the scene a little differently in your head, because each one of us is unique. It is just important that you make some type of picture in your mind to help you understand and remember what you are reading." 4) Give each student a copy of "Messy Room" by Shel Silverstein. Say: "Remember how we learned to read silently? I want you guys to be doing that while I read this poem aloud". Read it once to the class aloud and then have the students read the poem silently. 5) Instruct the students to draw the image that they have in their head onto their papers as best they can. Have students quietly discuss with their neighbor what they see or picture in their minds and share their drawing. After a few minutes, ask for volunteers to share what they imagined the messy room looked like. 6) "You are doing a great job visualizing the poems that we have read! Now we are going to move on to a chapter book that does not have any pictures: Tuck Everlasting." Give book talk: "Tuck Everlasting is about a young girl who one day runs away from home. She finds herself lost in the woods and extremely thirsty. She sees a small stream of water and decides to take a drink. Suddenly she hears a boy yelling, telling her not to drink the water. Who was this strange boy and why can't she drink the water? Let's read this story to find out!" 7) "Today, I want you to read chapter one silently. As you read, use your visualization strategy to help you comprehend the story. It is important to picture what is happening as you read to help you remember and understand the text." 8) After they read chapter one, have the students draw on a piece of paper what they visualized as they read. Also write a short description of what they drew and why, which shows comprephension. 9) I will assess students comprehension by their drawings from chapter one as well as their written descriptions of their drawing. (i.e. Did it accurately depict a scene from chapter one? Is there attention to detail? etc.) And ask questions about the text (i.e. How would you feel if you were in Wenny's situation?) - Babbitt, N. (1975). Tuck Everlasting. -Nesbitt, Kenn. "My New School". http://www.gigglepoetry.com/poem.aspx?PoemID=487&CategoryID=37 -Silverstein, Shel. "Messy Room". http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/shel_silverstein/poems/14818 -Cabray Rauschenberg. " Click! Creating a Picture From the Text" http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/projects/rauschenbergrl.html - Marguerite DeWitt. "Visualization is Picture Perfect" -http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/projects/dewittrl.html Return to the Return to the Realization index.

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/realizations/frasierrl.htm

If you dropped a wineglass, you’d expect it to shatter, not skitter across the floor like a silver goblet would. But research published in the 21 February print issue of PRL suggests that glass does in fact break like a metal–at least at the nanometer scale. The research may help explain some of the fracture properties of glass, and may someday lead to stronger versions of the material. Researchers generally categorize fracture modes into two classes. Ductile fracture occurs in metals, which can bend before they shatter. Brittle materials like glass can’t bend, and so they break more easily. Researchers have traditionally thought that cracks in brittle materials grow because applied stress causes atomic bonds to stretch and pull apart at the tip of the crack. This process would produce sharp crack tips and smooth fracture surfaces. In contrast, ductile fractures occur because stress causes pockets of empty space called damage cavities to form ahead of the crack tip. These cavities grow and coalesce to propagate the crack, a process which leads to rough, uneven fracture surfaces. At the millimeter and micrometer scales, the difference between glass’s smooth fracture surface and metal’s rough one is clear. In recent years, though, researchers have looked more closely at broken glass and noticed that its fracture surface is rougher than they had previously thought. Using an atomic force microscope (AFM), researchers examined fractured glass at the nanometer scale and found rough, metal-like surfaces. That prompted some to wonder whether the ways in which glass and metal break are really so different after all. “It seemed that the topographic features of metals and glass were not so different,” says Christian Marlière of Montpellier University in France. “Why not think that the fracture processes are also equivalent?” To test this theory, Marlière’s group collaborated with colleagues at France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Saclay. The researchers placed a 4 x 4 x 40-millimeter block of glass vertically inside a chamber and slowly squeezed on the small top and bottom faces with a compression machine. A one-millimeter-diameter hole went horizontally through the middle of the block. The squeezing pressure caused it to bow apart in the middle, and cracks slowly propagated vertically up and down from the hole. The team used an atomic force microscope (AFM) to watch one resulting crack as it developed. The AFM, which measures the topography of a surface, revealed tiny valleys ahead of the crack tip, and the team showed that these were nanoscale damage cavities. “So the way glasses and metals rupture is very similar,” says Marlière, but at a thousand times smaller scale for glasses. Elisabeth Bouchaud, head of the CEA group, says the research may have implications for glass manufacturers. Right now, she says, manufacturers have a good understanding of glass’s empirical fracture properties–how much stress a certain type of glass can withstand before cracking, for example. “What we hope,” she says, “is that we can give them a better understanding of the effect of glass composition on damage properties.” That might help manufacturers develop different types of glass particularly suited for different jobs. James Rice of Harvard University says that fracturing glass has never before been carefully examined at the nanometer scale. “This study is certainly significant,” he says, “because it presents evidence that the actual way extremely brittle materials fracture is different from what has commonly been imagined.” Lea Winerman is a freelance science writer.

http://physics.aps.org/story/v11/st9

Clay is a term used to describe a group of fine-grained, silicate minerals known as aluminum phyllosilicates, containing variable amounts of chemically associated water. Clay is plastic when wet, which means it can be easily shaped. When dry, it becomes firm, and when subject to high temperature, known as firing, permanent physical and chemical changes occur. These changes cause the clay to be hardened. A fireplace or oven specifically designed for hardening clay is called a kiln. Clay soils are distinguished from other types of soil such as silt by the small grain size, flake or layered shape, affinity for water, and high degree of plasticity. The grain size of clay is typically less than two micrometers (μm) in diameter. Depending on the content of the soil, clay can appear in various colors, from a dull gray to a deep orange-red. People discovered the useful properties of clay in prehistoric times, and one of the earliest artifacts ever uncovered is a drinking vessel made of sun-dried clay. Clays remain among the cheapest and most widely used materials, to make items ranging from art objects to bricks and cookware. They are also used in industrial processes such as papermaking and cement production. An open mine for extracting clay is called a clay pit. Clay minerals are rich in silicon and aluminum oxides and hydroxides, and sometimes contain variable amounts of iron, magnesium, alkali metals, alkaline earths, and other cations. Clays have structures similar to the micas and therefore form flat, hexagonal sheets. Clays are generally formed by the chemical weathering of silicate-bearing rocks by carbonic acid, but some are formed by hydrothermal activity. Clay minerals are common in fine-grained sedimentary rocks such as shale, mudstone, and siltstone, and in fine-grained metamorphic slate and phyllite. Clay minerals include the following groups: - Kaolinite group, which includes the minerals kaolinite, dickite, halloysite, and nacrite. - Some sources include the serpentine group, based on structural similarities (Bailey, 1980). - Smectite group, which includes pyrophyllite, talc, vermiculite, sauconite, saponite, nontronite, and montmorillonite. - Illite group, which includes the clay-micas. Illite is the only common mineral in this group. - Chlorite group, which includes a wide variety of similar minerals with considerable chemical variation. This group is not always considered a part of the clays and is sometimes classified as a separate group within the phyllosilicates. There are about 30 different types of 'pure' clays in these categories, but most clays in nature are mixtures of these different types, along with other weathered minerals. Varve (or varved clay) is clay with visible annual layers, formed by seasonal differences in erosion and organic content. This type of deposit is common in former glacial lakes from the Ice Age. Quick clay is a unique type of marine clay, indigenous to the glaciated terrains of Norway, Canada, and Sweden. It is a highly sensitive clay, prone to liquefaction, and it has been involved in several deadly landslides. Like all phyllosilicates, clay minerals are characterised by two-dimensional sheets of corner-sharing tetrahedra made of SiO4 and AlO4. Each tetrahedron shares three of its vertex oxygen atoms with other tetrahedra. The fourth vertex is not shared with another tetrahedron and all of the tetrahedra "point" in the same direction—in other words, all the unshared vertices lie on the same side of the sheet. These tetrahedral sheets have the chemical composition (Al,Si)3O4. In clays, the tetrahedral sheets are always bonded to octahedral sheets. The latter are formed from small cations, such as aluminum or magnesium cations, coordinated by six oxygen [atom|atoms]]. The unshared vertex from the tetrahedral sheet also forms part of one side of the octahedral sheet, but an additional oxygen atom is located above the gap in the tetrahedral sheet at the center of the six tetrahedra. This oxygen atom is bonded to a hydrogen atom forming an OH (hydroxide) group in the clay structure. Clays can be categorized according to the way that the tetrahedral and octahedral sheets are packaged into "layers." If each layer consists of only one tetrahedral and one octahedral group, the clay is known as a 1:1 clay. Likewise, a 2:1 clay has two tetrahedral sheets, with the unshared vertex of each sheet pointing toward each other and forming each side of the octahedral sheet. Depending on the composition of the tetrahedral and octahedral sheets, the layer will have no electric charge or will have a net negative charge. If the layers are charged, this charge is balanced by interlayer cations such as Na+ or K+. In each case the interlayer can also contain water. The crystal structure is formed from a stack of layers interspaced with the interlayers. Uses of clay The properties of clay make it an ideal material for producing durable pottery items for both practical and decorative purposes. By using different types of clay and firing conditions, one can produce earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. Clays sintered in fire were the first type of ceramic. They continue to be widely used, to produce such items as bricks, cooking pots, art objects, and dishware. Even some musical instruments, such as the ocarina,are made with clay. Industrial processes that involve the use of clay include papermaking, cement production, pottery manufacture, and chemical filtration. - Clay mineral nomenclature American Mineralogist. - Clay Mineral Group Mineral Galleries Accessed Jan. 2, 2006 - Bailey, S. W., 1980, Summary of recommendations of AIPEA nomenclature committee on clay minerals, American Mineralogist Volume 65, pages 1-7. Accessed Jan. 2, 2006 - WHO (2005), Bentonite, kaolin, and selected clay minerals, number 231 in ‘Environmental Health Criteria’, WHO. Available from: http://www.who.int/entity/ipcs/publications/ehc/ehc231.pdf - Clay used as building material. Building with clay New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here: Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.

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Native Americans in the Civil War Despite decades of scholarship, many misperceptions persist concerning the Civil War. The war is often viewed, for example, as solely a white man's war; it is also often thought to have taken place solely in the East and South. Modern historians are attempting to dispel these notions, both of which serve to obscure the participation of Native Americans in the Civil War. During the period of 1861 to 1865, Native Americans all over the continent were struggling for autonomy, as peoples with their own organization, culture, and life-style. Some tribes, like the Cherokees, were directly involved in the war. Other Native Americans living in the war-torn areas of the East made individual decisions as to whether they wished to have anything to do with the situation. Still others, living in the mountains, prairies, and deserts of the rest of the country, suddenly realized they had a chance to take back some of their own land, as they saw fewer and fewer U.S. Army soldiers assigned to forts in their tribal areas. Statistics show that just under 3,600 Native Americans served in the Union Army during the war. Perhaps the best known of their number was Colonel Ely Parker, who served as an aide to General U. S. Grant, and was present at Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Statistics for the Confederacy are not reliably available, but most scholars of Native American involvement in the actual fighting of the war are very well acquainted with the major Southern figure among them: Brigadier General Chief Stand Watie, a three-quarter blood Cherokee who was born in December 1806 near what would become Rome, Georgia. Stand Watie was one of the signers of a treaty that agreed to the removal of the Cherokee from their home in Georgia to what was then the Oklahoma territory; this split the tribes into two factions, and Stand Watie became the leader of the minority party. At the outbreak of the Civil War, the minority party gave its allegiance to the Confederacy, while the majority party went for the North. Watie organized a company, then a regiment known as the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles; the regiment fought at Wilson's Creek, Elkhorn, and in numerous smaller fights and skirmishes along the border with what was known as Indian Territory. The warriors found curious the white man's strategy of standing still and allowing people to shoot at them, or lob artillery shells at them; the Cherokee tended to be spectacular at wildly brave mounted charges, but once the artillery began to fire, the warriors wanted nothing to do with it. Stand Watie was unreconstructed to the end; it is believed he never surrendered until June 23, 1865, well after other Confederate commanders had given up. He died in 1871 and is buried in the Old Ridge Cemetery in Delaware County, Oklahoma. While the war was raging back East, out in the West things were seldom quiet or peaceful. Statistics show that nearly 90 engagements were fought by U.S. troops in the West during the war, most of them involving Native American tribes people. From January to May 1863, there were almost continuous fights in the New Mexico territory, as part of a concerted effort by the Federal government to contain and control the Apache; in the midst of all this, Abraham Lincoln met with representatives from several major tribes, and informed them he felt they would never attain the prosperity of the white race unless they turned to farming as a way of life. In July 1864, there was fighting against Native Americans in Minnesota; fighting continued throughout the year in New Mexico, as well. Then in November, on the twenty-ninth, there occurred what some historians have called the first major blot of the so-called Indian Wars: the Sand Creek Massacre. Frightened by raids made by warriors in the area around Denver as a result of a reduced military presence in the West, Colorado settlers asked Colonel J. M. Chivington to punish the raiders. Chivington, with 900 volunteer militiamen, attacked a peaceful village of some five hundred or more Arapaho and Cheyenne natives, killing women and children as well as warriors. In his report, Chivington chillingly stated: "It may perhaps be unnecessary for me to state that I captured no prisoners." Some of the people escaped, however, and at least one of them was pursued by irony in the years to come: Chief Black Kettle of the Cheyenne survived the massacre at Sand Creek, only to die at the hands of George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry in a second attack on a peaceful village some three years later, at a place called the Washita River. After the Civil War, the white presence in the West rose to new levels. Numerous financial crises and depressions hit the East after the boom of the war years, and many families chose to move onward in hopes of finding gold, or purchasing cheap land to start a farm. Men unable to find work in the cities joined the army. As the tribal peoples fought to defend their sacred places, hunting grounds, and even their very way of life, they attacked crews building railroads and sought to drive off hunters and gold prospectors. Conflicting views of what ownership of the land meant ' as well as numerous other cultural misunderstandings, led to bloodbath after bloodbath; at Little Big Horn and Beecher's Island, the tribes defeated the white man, only to be battered into defeat themselves at places like Wounded Knee. The official army policy was to provide necessities for the tribes during the winter, then to face the reality of fighting the same people when the weather cleared and they wished to change hunting grounds; this policy was known ironically to the common soldier as "feed 'em in winter, fight 'em in summer." The unofficial government policy, however, was summed up curtly by General Philip Sheridan, the man who in 1864 stated he would so devastate the Shenandoah Valley, breadbasket of the Confederacy, that a crow flying through it would have to "carry his own rations." Sheridan, appointed to command of one of the major administrative departments of the territories in the years after the war, made the now-infamous statement: "The only good Indian I ever saw was dead." With an attitude such as this, it was only a matter of time and attrition before the Native Americans saw their way of life taken from them-not forever, though, as the descendants of those who fought to save the Way are even today striving to bring back the old knowledge and customs. Source: The Civil War Society's "Encyclopedia of the Civil War." This Page last updated 02/16/02 RETURN TO ETHNIC COMPOSITION OF THE CIVIL WAR FORCES PAGE

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Home | Writing | Reading | Social Studies | Math | Science Before we get into the lessons, let's take a look at some important tips for taking the math section of the GED test. As with all sections of the GED, remember to: - Pace yourself - Answer every question - Eliminate answer choices whenever you can And, above all, If you ever feel like you are struggling, relax. Be realistic. Be patient enough to get it right, and focused enough that you work out as many problems as you can to the best of your ability. BEFORE THE TEST 1. Read and understand the directions: The Mathematics test consists of multiple-choice questions intended to measure general mathematics skills and problem-solving ability. The questions are based on short readings that often include a graph, chart, or figure. Work carefully, but do not spend too much time on any one question. Be sure to answer every question. Only some of the questions will require you to use a formula. Not all the formulas given will be needed. Some questions contain more information than you will need to solve the problem; other questions do not give enough information. If the question does not give enough information to solve the problem, the correct answer choice is “Not enough information is given.” [Interpret this piece of information as meaning that you need to focus on the key elements necessary for calculating the problem. Rarely is there information that you don’t need. Even rarer is a problem that does not contain enough information for you to solve it.] Part I: Calculators are allowed. Part II: Calculators are not allowed. Do not use the test booklet as scratch paper or as an answer sheet. The test administrator will give you blank paper for your calculations. Record your answers on the separate answer sheet provided. Be sure all information is properly recorded on the answer sheet. To record your answers, fill in the numbered circle on the answer sheet that corresponds with the answer you selected for each question in the test booklet. If a grocery bill totaling $15.75 is paid with a $20.00 bill, how much change should be returned? The correct answer is “$4.25”. Therefore, Answer 3 would be filled in on the answer sheet. Do not rest the point of your pencil on the answer sheet while you are considering your answer. Make no stray or unnecessary marks. If you change an answer, erase your first mark completely. Mark only one answer for each question; multiple answers will be scored as incorrect. Do not fold or crease your answer sheet. All test materials must be returned to the test administrator. 2. Know the formulas Even though you will have a sheet of formulas to refer to, you should know these formulas well beforehand. Your goal should be to memorize as many formulas as possible to cut down on time spent looking for or figuring out a formula during the test. -Problems often require some insight and adaptation beyond just using the formula in front of you. -Knowing formulas by heart will save time Start with the Geometry formulas (Area, Circumference, Volume, Pythagorean Theorem.) The best way to memorize the formulas is by applying them to practice problems. Additional important formulas will also be highlighted in the lessons. DURING THE TEST 1. Skim the directions at the beginning From this course and your many practice sessions, you will already know the directions. You should still read the directions within the test, but the longer directions at the beginning are basically the same as what you just read above. Know what to do, and you won't have to waste time! 2. Complete the picture If a diagram is not fully labeled with the numbers that are contained in the question, label them yourself in the appropriate places. If a problem describes a shape or form but does not provide a picture, draw it and label the dimensions. The perimeter of a square flower bed is 12 feet. What is the area of the flower bed in square feet? E) There is not enough information to solve the problem. First, draw your square. You see that it has four sides of the same length. (Your drawing may not have all sides exactly the same length, but by simply sketching it, you have captured the idea.) Since it has four equal sides, the perimeter must be divided equally among those sides. 12/4 = 3. Now label those sides. The area can be represented by imagining grid lines. You don’t have to draw the lines. Simply having a square in front of you provides a much clearer framework by which to consider the problem. Supplying a picture for the problem also lets you know if enough information has been provided. 3. Narrow down your answer choices For multiple-choice format questions, when finding a distinct answer escapes you or is too time-consuming, you can use the strategy of eliminating answer choices. a. Eliminate impossible choices Eliminate answer choices that obviously don’t fit. A 5-foot ladder is leaning against a 20-foot wall. The bottom end of the ladder is 3 feet from the wall. How many feet above the ground does the ladder touch the wall? A 5-foot ladder leaning against a wall does not touch the wall at a height of greater than five feet. So you can immediately eliminate D) and E) b. Eliminate answer elements An answer choice can be eliminated on the basis of only part of it being wrong. Which of the following pairs of points both lie on the line whose equation is 3x-y= 2? A) (3,-2) and (1,5) B) (2,4) and (1,5) C) (2,-2) and (1,5) D) (3,7) and (3,-2) E) (2,4) and (3,7) You start by plugging in (3,-2) from Answer A. It doesn't work, so you can eliminate it. (Don't bother trying the second coordinate pair. Even if it works, you can't choose A.) Next, try (2,4) from B. It works. Circle it. Also notice that it is part of E, so circle it there, too. Next, try (2,-2) from C. It does not work. Cross C out. You are left with B and E, so you must try (1,5) or (3,7). You only need to try one of them. If it works, that's your answer. If not, the other choice is the right answer because there are no other choices left. 4. Estimate and round off Again, this applies only to multiple-choice format questions. You can approximate and get close enough to identify the right answer without spending lots of time working out an exact figure. A daredevil is shot out of a cannon a distance of 55 meters. His assistant’s stopwatch times him as being airborne for 12.5 seconds. At what speed did he travel? You can safely approximate, for example, that 12 goes into 50 at least 4 times and less than 5 times, so the answer is most likely C. Back: Math Introduction | Next: Math Lesson 1A Signup! It's Free! | Language Arts | Reading | Social Studies | Math | Science

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Venn diagram work sheet Readiness/Motivation for Lesson Ask students, Who has heard the story of Cinderella? Ask a student to share his or her own short version of Cinderella. Explain to students that the class will be reading two books today. One is Cinderella, a famous fairytale that is known throughout America. The other is The Rough-Face Girl, which is a legend from the Eastern Woodland tribes. Reading the Stories Read aloud The Rough-Face Girl. After reading, ask students to tell you what they learned from the story about the culture of the Eastern Woodland Indians. Ask them to define terms such as wigwam, buckskin, runner of his sled, leggings, and lakeshore. Then read the classic tale of Cinderella. Ask students to look for things that the story of Cinderella has in common with The Rough-Face Girl. Older students might make notes of some of those commonalities as you read. Comparing the Stories Next, draw a Venn diagram on a board or chart. Ask students to identify one thing that was different between the stories. For example, students might point out that Cinderella had yellow hair and the Rough-Face Girl had black hair. Write black hair in the circle devoted to The Rough-Face Girl and write yellow hair in the circle devoted to Cinderella. Ask students to identify one thing that the stories Cinderella and The Rough-Face Girl have in common. Students might say both girls had mean sisters. Write mean sisters in the area where the two circles intersect. Challenge students to continue the work the class has started. They might work on their own, with a partner, or in small groups to list on the Venn diagram work sheet least five things in each of the three areas of the diagram (the area devoted to elements that are unique to The Rough-Face Girl, the area devoted to things that are unique to Cinderella, and the area where the two circles intersect that includes things the two stories have in common. Note: Use this lesson to teach/employ technology. The Venn diagram work sheet (which might take a moment to load) is an editable work sheet; that means that students can save a copy of the work sheet to a disk or computer hard drive and use their keyboards to type inside the circles of the diagram. Or you can simply print out the work sheet and let students use pencils or pens to complete it. Alternative work sheet sources: Venn work sheet 2 Venn work sheet 3 Venn work sheet 4 Students will use their completed Venn diagrams to write a few statements that compare or contrast the two stories they read or heard in this lesson. Kellie Replogle, Martin Luther King Jr., Elementary School in Toledo, Ohio Originally published 11/14/2002 Last updated 08/21/2010 To help us keep our Lesson Plan Database as current as possible, please e-mail us to report any links that are not working.

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Put the VT to work in your classroom The Mighty Elements Lesson Question:How can students use the Visual Thesaurus to investigate chemical elements and their properties? Lesson Overview:This lesson introduces students to the Periodic Table and to the Visual Thesaurus as reference tools they can use to learn more about the elements and their properties. Groups of students will investigate a small group of elements, determine their common traits, and create original trading cards to represent these elements and their unique properties. Length of Lesson:One hour to one hour and a half Instructional Objectives:Students will: - learn the relationship between matter and the elements - share their associations with different elements - understand the purpose of the Periodic Table of Elements and its patterns of organization - investigate the properties of particular elements - synthesize their knowledge of the elements by creating and sharing element trading cards - white board - computers with Internet access - "Elements to Investigate" sheet [click here to download] - small index cards - colored pencils or markers (enough for each group to use a set) Recognizing and defining different chemical elements: - Distribute the "Elements to Investigate" sheet [click here to download] and give students a few minutes to read through the element names on the sheet, placing small checks next to those elements whose names they recognize. Ask students to write a brief list in their notebooks where they may have encountered those familiar elements in their lives. - In a large group discussion, elicit students' notebook entries and list the elements that they recognize on the board, along with examples of where they may have encountered them. - Establish that although they may only recognize some of these elements (e.g., the oxygen we breathe, the gold and silver jewelry that we wear, the chlorine we use to cleanse pool water, etc.), they encounter many more of the elements than they are aware of. - Explain to students that all matter is composed of elements—either single elements or combinations of elements called compounds. - Display the VT word map for element on the white board and point out the definition that extends to "chemical element"—"substances that cannot be separated into simpler substances." And by clicking on this meaning, you can display all the different chemical elements contained in the VT. - Click on a particular element in the array of elements to demonstrate how each element is defined. For example, the element silicon is "used as a semiconductor in transistors" and is associated with the atomic number 14 and the symbol "Si." Inform students that every time they use a computer, they are taking advantage of the properties of silicon since computer chips are made of this element. Introducing the Periodic Table of Elements: - Display a Periodic Table on the white board and have students try to find "silicon" on the table by looking for its atomic number 14 or for its symbol "Si." (A great online periodic table can be found at www.chemicool.com or at www.periodictable.com.) Students should recognize that the elements on the Periodic Table are arranged by atomic number. - Explain that the Periodic Table of Elements arranges all the elements that have been identified in a pattern that groups elements with similar properties in the same area of the chart. - Inform students that they will be using the VT and the Periodic Table to help them investigate some of the more well-known elements, to research their extraordinary properties, and to then personify them as "element super heroes" on trading cards. - Organize the class into eight small groups (Groups A through H) and assign each group its own set of five elements to investigate --see "Elements to Investigate" sheet [click here to download] - Inform groups that their first task is to figure out what their set of five elements has in common. Groups should look each element up on the VT (or on www.chemicool.com) in order to come up with a common trait among their assigned elements. - Next, have groups come up with an original title for their set of elements, based on the commonality they find in their investigation. Groups should remember that their ultimate goal will be to represent their elements as "element super heroes" that have extraordinary properties. For example, Group B could be called "The Harrowing Halogens" or Group C could be called "The All Mighty Alkali" (due to their status as Alkali and Alkali Earth Metals). Groups should write their original titles on the "Elements to Investigate" Sheet. Creating trading cards: - Distribute five small index cards to each group and instruct students to create an individual trading card for each of their elements. - Each trading card should contain the following information about its element on the lined side of the card: name, two-letter symbol for element, team name, group classification on the periodic table, and description of properties according to the VT or according to another online source. - On the unlined side of the index card, students should include the element's name and an image that portrays the element as a "superhero element" with some type of extraordinary property. The image could be directly associated with the element's physical description or it could be based on one of the more common uses of that element. Presenting the elements: - Have each group briefly present its group of elements by summarizing the information they discovered about their elements through the VT and other online sources. - Since the trading cards are small, students may wish to pass them around the class during the presentations. - While each group is presenting its set of elements, other groups should be taking brief notes on the elements as they are presented. Extending the Lesson: - If time permits, groups could trade their cards with other groups with the goal of creating as many "reactions" as they can, being careful not to jeopardize their current potential for reactions. For example, Group B may wish to acquire hydrogen from Group D to form hydrogen chloride, but Group D may want to keep hydrogen since it forms so many reactions with its other Group D elements (e.g., hydrogen and oxygen react in forming water, hydrogen and nitrogen react in forming ammonia). - Each group's title should be assessed to determine if it accurately reflects a commonality among its set of elements. - Each group's set of element trading cards should be assessed to determine if they were completed accurately and creatively. Standard 8. Understands the structure and properties of matter Level II (Grades 3-5) 1. Knows that matter has different states (i.e., solid, liquid, gas) and that each state has distinct physical properties; some common materials such as water can be changed from one state to another by heating or cooling 2. Knows that the mass of a material remains constant whether it is together, in parts, or in a different state 3. Knows that substances can be classified by their physical and chemical properties (e.g., magnetism, conductivity, density, solubility, boiling and melting points) 4. Knows that materials may be composed of parts that are too small to be seen without magnification Level III (Grades 6-8) 1. Knows that matter is made up of tiny particles called atoms, and different arrangements of atoms into groups compose all substances 2. Knows that elements often combine to form compounds (e.g., molecules, crystals) 3. Knows that states of matter depend on molecular arrangement and motion (e.g., molecules in solids are packed tightly together and their movement is restricted to vibrations; molecules in liquids are loosely packed and move easily past each other; molecules in gases are quite far apart and move about freely) 4. Knows that substances containing only one kind of atom are elements and do not break down by normal laboratory reactions (e.g., heating, exposure to electric current, reaction with acids); over 100 different elements exist 5. Knows that many elements can be grouped according to similar properties (e.g., highly reactive metals, less-reactive metals, highly reactive nonmetals, almost completely nonreactive gases) 8. Knows that substances react chemically in characteristic ways with other substances to form new substances (compounds) with different characteristic properties Level IV (Grades 9-12) 2. Understands how elements are arranged in the periodic table, and how this arrangement shows repeating patterns among elements with similar properties (e.g., numbers of protons, neutrons, and electrons; relation between atomic number and atomic mass) Standard 8. Uses listening and speaking strategies for different purposes Level II (Grades 3-5) 7. Makes basic oral presentations to class (e.g., uses subject-related information and vocabulary; includes content appropriate to the audience; relates ideas and observations; incorporates visual aids or props; incorporates several sources of information) Level III (Grades 6-8) 1. Plays a variety of roles in group discussions (e.g., active listener, discussion leader, facilitator) 6. Makes oral presentations to the class (e.g., uses notes and outlines; uses organizational pattern that includes preview, introduction, body, transitions, conclusion; uses a clear point of view; uses evidence and arguments to support opinions; uses visual media) Level IV (Grades 9-12) 5. Makes formal presentations to the class (e.g., includes definitions for clarity; supports main ideas using anecdotes, examples, statistics, analogies, and other evidence; uses visual aids or technology, such as transparencies, slides, electronic media; cites information sources)

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By observing wild orangutans, a research team has found that walking on two legs may have arisen in relatively ancient, tree-dwelling apes, rather than in more recent human ancestors that had already descended to the savannah, as current theory suggests. These findings appear in the 1 June 2007 issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society. Upright walking, or bipedalism, has long been considered a defining feature of humans and our closest ancestors. One of the most popular explanations, known as the savannah hypothesis, suggests that the ancestors to chimps, gorillas and humans descended from the trees and began walking on the ground on all fours. Over time, this four-legged gait would have evolved into the "knuckle-walking" that chimps and gorillas still use today and then into upright, two-legged walking in humans. Paleontologists have conventionally used signs of bipedalism as key criteria for distinguishing early human, or "hominin," fossils from those of other apes. But, this distinction is complicated by recent fossil evidence that some early hominins, including Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), lived in woodland environments, while even earlier forms such as Millennium Man (Orrorin) appear to have lived in the forest canopy and moved on two legs. "Our findings blur the picture even further," said Robin Crompton of the University of Liverpool in Liverpool, Great Britain, who is one of the study's authors. "If we're right, it means you can't rely on bipedalism to tell whether you're looking at a human or other ape ancestor. It's been getting more and more difficult for us to say what's a human and what's an ape, and our work makes that much more the case." Crompton and his colleagues, Susannah Thorpe and Roger Holder of the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, Great Britain, came to their conclusions by observing wild orangutans in Sumatra, Indonesia. Orangutans spend almost their whole lives in trees, making them useful models for how our ancestors moved around several million years ago. To collect the data, Thorpe spent a year living in the Sumatran rainforest and recording virtually every move the orangutans made. Then, she and her colleagues used these observations to test the hypothesis that bipedalism would have benefited tree-dwelling ape ancestors. Because these ancestors were probably fruit-eaters, as orangutans are, they would have needed a way to navigate the thin, flexible branches at the tree's periphery, where the fruit typically is. Moving on two legs and using their arms primarily for balance, or "hand-assisted bipedalism," may have helped them travel on these branches. The researchers analyzed nearly 3,000 examples of observed orangutan movement, and found that the orangutans were more likely to use hand-assisted bipedalism when they were on the thinnest branches. When bipedal, the animals also tended to grip multiple branches with their long toes. On medium-sized branches, the orangutans used their arms more to support their weight, changing their moving style to incorporate hanging. They only tended to walk on all fours when navigating the largest branches, the researchers found. Hand-assisted bipedalism may have offered several advantages that allowed our arboreal ancestors to venture onto thin branches. They could have gripped multiple branches with their toes and distributed their center of gravity more effectively, while keeping one or both of their long arms free to reach for fruits and other supports. Orangutans also keep their legs straight while standing on bending branches, the authors report. The exact benefit of the straight legs is still unclear, but when humans run on springy surfaces, we also keep our weight-bearing legs relatively straight, so this may have an energy-related advantage. "Our results suggest that bipedalism is used to navigate the smallest branches where the tastiest fruits are, and also to reach further to help cross gaps between trees," said Thorpe. The authors propose an evolutionary scenario that begins as other researchers have envisioned. Somewhere toward the end of the Miocene epoch (24 to 5 million years ago), climate in East and Central Africa became alternately wetter and drier, and the rainforest grew increasingly patchy. Apes living in the forest canopy would have begun to encounter gaps between trees that they could not cross at the canopy level. The Science authors suggest that early human ancestors responded to this by abandoning the high canopy for the forest floor, where they remained bipedal and began eating food from the ground or smaller trees. The ancestors of chimps and gorillas, on the other hand, became more specialized for vertical climbing between the high canopy and the ground and thus developed knuckle-walking for crossing from one tree to another on the ground. "Our conclusion is that arboreal bipedalism had very strong adaptive benefits. So, we don't need to explain how our ancestors could have gone from being quadrupedal to being bipedal," Thorpe said. Observations of orangutan movement should be useful for conservation efforts, according to Thorpe. These animals are seriously endangered, primarily due to habitat destruction. "If you can understand how they cross gaps in the forest, you can learn about effects that living in logged or degraded habitat would have on their locomotion. These could affect energy levels, for example, if they have to go to the ground, which is incredibly risky because the Sumatran tiger is down there licking its lips. The Sumatran orangutan population is predicted to be extinct in the next decade if habitat degradation continues. Our research further highlights the need for protecting these animals," she said. Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science Explore further: Navy dolphins discover rare old torpedo off Calif. coast near Coronado

http://phys.org/news99843618.html

|Online Musical Encyclopedia: Lutes are the direct descendants of the Persian and Arabian instrument called the "Ud". The ud was first introduced to the Spanish by the Moors. It spread throughout Europe and grew in popularity during the Crusades. Shaped like an By the fifteenth century, the lute came to be plucked by the fingers than a plectrum. By the end of the The lute is held across the body, much like a guitar is placed when playing. A lutist places his thumb on the fingerboard and places his fingers on or in between the frets to change pitch. The strings are plucked with the right thumb, index finger, middle finger and the ring finger. Lutenists play a note as long as possible. Lute music normally never has rests in them - the lute player holds the pitch as long as the next note should be played. The lute was extremely popular during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The popular English lute composer John Dowland produced solo lute music that is considered unsurpassed even today. - Look at More Information About The Lute - Add Information About The Lute

http://library.thinkquest.org/15060/data/reference/instruments/strings/lute.html

August 18, 2010 On this day in 1920, the ratification of the 19th amendment granted American women the right to vote. It’s a freedom that many people—regardless of gender—seem to take for granted nowadays. (Especially after the 2000 election when a lot of voters began to question how much their ballot really mattered and began to fully understand the quirks of our electoral system.) But it’s easy to forget about such liberties when they’re a birthright. It’s a different issue entirely when you have to fight for equal rights. And there was a time when America’s women had to fight tooth and nail in order to secure the right to cast their ballots. It was an issue as old as the nation itself. In March 1776, Abigail Adams, wife of founding father and second president of the United States John Adams, wrote the following to her husband and a congress of delegates went about breaking from England to create a new nation: “I long to hear that you have declared an independency—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.” Sadly, tyranny prevailed and social customs kept women manacled in domestic roles and deprived of legal rights to protect their interests—namely the right to vote. And by the mid-1800s the ladies did indeed begin to foment a rebellion. In 1848, a congress of some 300 people—predominantly women, though a cluster of men were in attendance as well—gathered in Seneca Falls, New York. There, they outlined the main goals of the women’s rights movement in a document dubbed The Declaration of Sentiments. Penned by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the declaration detailed the wrongs men routinely committed against women and asserted not only a woman’s right to vote, but also the right to own personal property, engage in free enterprise and secure an education. Stanton was one of the early feminist movement’s power players but it was her partnership with fellow activist Susan B. Anthony that proved to be especially fruitful, between Anthony’s head for tactics and business and Stanton’s grace with words. Separately, they were both activists for social reforms including the abolition of slavery and the temperance movement. Together they were formidable champions of women’s rights and edited Revolution, a feminist newspaper, formed the National Women’s Suffrage Association and traveled the world over promoting women’s rights. Although they never saw the passage of the 19th amendment, they laid the groundwork and provided organizational structure for the modern feminist movement. Only one attendee of the 1848 Seneca Falls convention lived to see the day. (Ironically, that same year, 1920, an amendment was passed banning the sale of alcohol in the United States. You can read more about prohibition and the temperance movement in this article that appeared in the May 2010 issue of Smithsonian.) The above portrait of Stanton and Anthony is currently on view in the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibit The Struggle for Justice. If you would like to learn more about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, go to your local library (or whatever video rental service you use) and try to find Not For Ourselves Alone, a Ken Burns film that gives a close look at their 50-year friendship. I also recommend reading The Oxford Book of Women’s Writing in the United States. This anthology covers a lot of territory—from the birth of the United States to the late 20th century—and is a wonderful collection of female voices that contributed to our nation’s cultural landscape by way of fiction, plays, poetry and political statements. Sign up for our free email newsletter and receive the best stories from Smithsonian.com each week.

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2010/08/celebrating-90-years-since-women-won-the-right-to-vote/

There are many measures of association used to measure the strength of relationship. Each has advantages and disadvantages. In this module, we have used two--Cramer's V and Goodman and Kruskal's Gamma. This appendix describes how to compute these measures. However, you will use a statistical package such as SPSS for Windows to do the actual computations for the exercises. Cramer's V is one of several measures based on chi square. Chi square itself is not a measure of association, but a test of the hypothesis that two variables are unrelated. V is equal to the square root of the following value--chi square divided by the product of the number of cases in the table and the smaller of two values--the number of rows minus one and the number of columns minus one. The chi square for table 3.2 was equal to 12.52. V would be equal to 12.52 divided by the square root of the product of 900 and 1 or 12.52 divided by 30 or 0.42. Cramer's V should be used when one or both of the variables consist of an unordered set of categories. It varies from 0 to 1. The closer it is to 0, the weaker the relationship and the closer to 1, the stronger the relationship. V can never be negative. Gamma assumes that both of the variables consist of ordered categories. To understand the computation of Gamma, you must think of pairs of cases. Imagine four individuals. We'll just call them A, B, C, and D. For each person, we know their income and education which has been categorized as low, medium, and high. The table below displays these values. Education of Respondent Income High Medium Low High A . . Medium . C . Low B . D These four individuals form six possible pairs. A can be paired with B, A with C, A with D, B with C, B with D, and C with D. Notice that the AB pair is the same as the BA pair since they involve the same two individuals. A has more education and income than C. This is what we call a concordant pair. A is higher on both variables (i.e., income and education) than C. The AD pair is also concordant. A is higher on both education and income than D. And the CD pair is also concordant. C has more education and income than D. However, C has more income than B, but C has less education than B. This is what we call a discordant pair. C is higher on one variable (i.e., education), but lower on the other variable (i.e., income). When we look at the AB pair we see another possibility. A has more income than B, but A and B are tied on education. This is what we call a tied pair. The BD pair is also tied. B has more education than D, but B and D have the same income. Gamma ignores all tied pairs. Since two of the six possible pairs are tied, Gamma would be based on the remaining four untied pairs. Gamma is equal to the number of concordant pairs (C) minus the number of discordant pairs (D) divided by the sum of the number of concordant pairs and discordant pairs. In this example, Gamma would equal (3-1)/(3+1) or 2/4 or 0.50. Since there are more concordant pairs than discordant pairs, we can observe that it is more common for pairs to have the same order on both variables than to have different orders. In other words, large amounts of education tend to go with large amounts of income and small amounts of education tend to go with small amounts of income. This is what we call a positive relationship. Gamma has a positive sign if the relationship is positive [Note 1]. If the number of discordant pairs had been greater than the number of concordant pairs, the relationship would have been negative and the sign of Gamma would have been negative. This would have meant that large values of one variable would tend to go with small values of the other variable and that small values of one variable would tend to go with large values of the other variable. The numerical value of Gamma tells us the strength of the relationship. The closer the value of Gamma to 0, the weaker the relationship and the closer to 1, the stronger the relationship [Note 2]. 1. This will be true only if the columns are arranged from high to low (left to right) and the rows are arranged from high to low (top to bottom). 2. The fact that Gamma ignores all tied pairs tends to inflate the value of Gamma. For this reason, Gamma produces a larger measure of association than other measures. REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READING Norusis, Marija J. 1997. SPSS 7.5 Guide to Data Analysis. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Knoke, David, and George W. Bohrnstedt. 1991. Basic Social Statistics. Itesche. IL.: Peacock.

http://www.csub.edu/ssricrem/modules/cowi/D.htm

"Well, how did they get on?" Here is a typical enquiry between professionals. On this particular occasion, it came just after the 1998 round of National Curriculum Key Stage 2 Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs) for pupils aged 10 to 11 years in England and Wales. One teachers response gave us much to ponder. "Oh, I think they held their own. It was the written explanation in mathematics that they felt uneasy with." Now, why should that be? What is difficult about written explanation? What thought do we give to helping pupils develop their skills in this aspect of the mathematics curriculum? These are the kinds of questions that we have been considering for some time with a group of teachers in Devon. According to Reynolds (1998, para. 39) Good whole class teaching is an effective and efficient way of maximising the amount of interaction between the teacher and all the pupils. No doubt during this interaction, many pupils are challenged to explain their reasoning verbally. However, we are concerned with childrens written explanations because of the significant differences between verbal and written explanation. For example in a spoken explanation, the voice can be used to give emphasis to certain points or details. Alternatively, body language or gesture can be used leaving the listener to infer, and possibly voice the critical features of the explanation. The prompts that are available to children in conversation or discussion with the teacher are not normally available in writing. It is important, therefore, to consider the opportunities pupils are given to experiment with this specific form of writing. What, in fact, are we expecting of 11 year-old children in their explanations? The guidance for marking childrens responses to the SATs questions, may give us some idea of the official view for this kind of question. We look to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) mark schemes. In their 1998 booklet for mathematics, the advice to teachers is embedded in such phrases as: explanations which identify all the discrepancies '; explanation which explains the Why? of a situation ; explanation which refers to the fact that ; explanation which indicates that; explanation which implies that . Of course, these terms relate closely to the Programme of Study Using and Applying Mathematics (DFE, 1995). In section 4d, it states that Pupils should be taught to explain their reasoning. Judging from the advice that is given in the QCA mark schemes, pupils are to deal with the Why? of a situation. To do this, they need to observe and perceive patterns, describe these and justify any conclusions they make about mathematical phenomena. They need to practice challenging their thinking, be aware of the intuitive leaps that they make, look out for any circular arguments, review their guesses and confront any of the dead ends that they encounter. Now, is this reading too much into the assessment criteria? We think not. However, when we looked at some of the every-day expectations of pupils written mathematics, we found that what they often write is a direct response to imperatives such as: copy and complete, How many ? How much ?, Find the missing number. More often than not, children are simply practising skills and rehearsing facts. We are concerned to pursue alternative patterns of pedagogy which would expand the range of writing genres available to children and to explore the effect on developing childrens reasoning skills. Consequently, we are enquiring into ways in which we can support our pupils as they progress in their ability to provide written explanations. Demonstrating a high level of ability to explain orally does not necessarily indicate a similar level when working on written explanations. We use writing frames researched by Lewis and Wray (1998) based on their conjecture that childrens early attempts at non-fiction writing might successfully be assisted by framing structures. These writing frames consist of skeleton outlines that help children use the generic structures and language features of recount, report, procedure, explanation, exposition and discussion. Writing frames provide teachers with a scaffolding strategy to support children in their writing development without an adult necessarily being along side them. This model can be represented as follows: teacher modelling joint activity (developing a frame) scaffolded activity (children working with the frame) - independent activity (eventually dispensing with the frame). One of the teachers in our group wanted to help the children in her class (Year 5/6) to explain how they had arrived at a particular result in their mathematics. Here is a frame that her class developed to help them with their work on mathematical investigations: My task is . I think that .. One reason for thinking that .. Another reason is .. In addition to this This is why I think that We have collected numerous examples of pupils engagement with this particular genre of writing. These results are encouraging. They provide evidence of Key Stage 1 and 2 children working with logical connectives in their attempt to sustain an argument throughout their explanation. The following piece of writing from a year-3 class working on odd and even numbers shows the relationship that this pupil had made between multiples of 3, 6 and 9: Another reason is dont forget 9s because if it will go in 3s then it will go in 9s. Similarly, while working on a task with 2-dimensional shape, a year-6 child wrote: Another reason is if angle D was made into 90º, 90º 55º = 35º. Therefore, angle Y is 180º 35º which equals 145º. Now, these must be worth a mark each. Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs) Externally prescribed assessments which incorporate a variety of assessment methods. These complement teachers own assessments. Key Stage The periods in each pupils education to which elements of the National Curriculum apply. There are four key stages, normally related to the age of the majority of pupils in a teaching group. They are: to 7; 7-11; 11-14; 14 to end of compulsory education. Lewis, M. and Wray, D. (1998) Writing across the curriculum. Reading: Reading and Language Information Centre. Reynolds, D. (Chair) (1998) Numeracy Matters. The Preliminary Report of the Numeracy Task Force. London: DfEE Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (1998) Mathematics Tests Mark Schemes. London: QCA/DfEE. Department for Education (1995) Key Stages 1 and 2 of the National Curriculum. London: HMSO Bill Rawson and Christine Mitchell School of Education, University of Exeter. Exeter EX1 2LU

http://people.exeter.ac.uk/PErnest/pome12/article5.htm

The Internet is a world wide network of computer networks. Millions of people rely on it to exchange information. Different Internet connections can have different performance reflecting how fast and reliable information can be exchanged between two end-points. Measuring the performance of the connection between two Internet end-points is called end-to-end Internet performance measurement, which plays an important role in the development of the Internet. End-to-end Internet performance measurement is a measurement technique that injects probe packets into the Internet from a source end-point to a destination end-point. Upon receiving probe packets, the destination end-point decides how to respond to them. If it decides to reply, then some reply packets are sent back to the source. As probe packets travel along a forward path and reply packets travel along a reverse path they experience delay and loss. By measuring these factors we evaluate the performance of the connection between the two end-points. There are two ways to measure delay and loss: at the source end-point only or at both of the end-points. The former is known as two-way measurement, and examines the performance of the round-trip connection as a whole. The latter is known as one-way measurement, and measures the performance of the connection in the two directions separately. A popular two-way measurement tool is the ping utility. Ping sends Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP; ) request packets to an Internet host and receives ICMP reply packets from that host. The time at which ping sends an ICMP packet and the time at which it receives the reply packet are recorded. The packet Round-Trip Time (RTT) is then calculated by subtracting the time the request packet was sent from the time the reply packet was received. In this thesis I present a study in which ping packets were sent at high speed to various Internet addresses and their round-trip times were measured by ping and tcpdump , a network monitoring tool. The time ping takes to send ICMP request packets out and get reply packets back in one task is at most several seconds and is considered short. Two major topics are included in the study: (1) the accuracy of ping and tcpdump, as tools for measuring Round-Trip Times (WRTTs); and (2) patterns of short term high density ping traffic. This chapter is continued as follows. Section 1.1 states the purposes of the study. Section 1.2 presents the limitations of the study. Section 1.3 defines some important terms used in the thesis. Finally, Section 1.4 outlines the structure of the thesis.

http://wand.cs.waikato.ac.nz/pubs/22/html/node7.html

Christopher Columbus is best known for his discovery of the Americas in 1492. He was a man who was born into a world that was eager for exploration. In his early years, he followed his father's trade. However, the sea always seemed to be calling to him. In Christopher Columbus's early years, he attended a school in Italy for the craft guild. These schools were intended to teach the sons of craftsmen about the trades, and a little reading and writing for good measure. Columbus's father was in the wool business. After completing school, Columbus worked with his father in processing and selling wool. It is also thought that he worked in a bookstore. Even at a young age, though, Columbus, who lived in a port town, found the sea appealing. Obsession with the Sea At the age of 14, Columbus left his work on land to work on a ship. While working on various ships traveling among the European nations and Africa, Columbus served in many capacities, including messenger and sailor. In 1476, Columbus sailed on a ship to England, taking him out onto the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. During this excursion, French privateers attacked his ship off the coast of Portugal, and Columbus survived by clinging to wreckage and swimming six miles to shore. Around 1478-1479, Columbus met and married a Portuguese woman by the name of Felipa. Her family was of noble blood, but was poor. Her father had been governor of Porto Santo, but had died before Columbus met Felipa. About a year after the marriage, Felipa gave birth to a son and died shortly after. Around 1488, Columbus became a father to another son. This son was born out of wedlock to Beatriz Enriquez de Harana. After the birth of his first son, Columbus set out on a voyage to Ghana and the Canary Islands. Here he took note of the strong currents flowing away from the Canary Islands. He later used these currents on his journey to the Americas. Upon his return, he found documents among his wife's family's belongings that contained maps, charts and other information important to his voyage. He continued his trips on the sea, absorbing information about the Atlantic Ocean. When he had formulated a plan and calculated distances, he was ready to present his plan for crossing the Atlantic Ocean to reach the East Indies. Presenting the Plan Columbus began by presenting his plan to the Portuguese royalty. They were in favor of the idea, but their Council of Geographical Affairs felt the trip was too costly and that the calculations were incorrect. Columbus then moved on to Spain. In Spain, he found a monastery that was willing to keep his son for him. There, a monk by the name of Friar Antonio Marchena helped him with his geography and supported his idea. The monastery also led him to connections that would grant him access to the king and queen of Spain. In 1487, Columbus first pitched his idea to Spain. It was rejected several times before he was granted permission in 1492. - Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images

http://entertainmentguide.local.com/did-christopher-columbus-before-set-sail-new-land-1873.html

Volcanic coneVolcanic cones are among the simplest volcano formations. They are built by fragments erupted from a vent, piling up around the vent in the shape of a cone with a central crater. Volcanic cones are of different types, depending upon the nature and size of the fragments ejected during the eruption. Types typically differentiated are spatter cone, cinder cone, ash cone, and tuff cone. - An ash cone is comprised of particles of silt to sand size. Explosive eruptions from a vent where the magma is interacting with groundwater or the sea (as in an eruption off the coast) produce steam and are called phreatic. The interaction between the magma, expanding steam, and volcanic gases results in the ejection of mostly small particles called ash. Fallen ash has the consistency of flour. The unconsolidated ash forms an ash cone which becomes a tuff cone (see tuff) once the ash consolidates. - A cinder cone is a volcanic cone built almost entirely of loose volcanic fragments called cinders (pumice, (pyroclastics, or tephra). They are built from particles and blobs of congealed lava ejected from a single vent. As the gas-charged lava is blown violently into the air, it breaks into small fragments that solidify and fall as cinders around the vent to form a circular or oval cone. Most cinder cones have a bowl-shaped crater at the summit. Cinder cones rarely rise more than a thousand feet or so above their surroundings. Cinder cones are numerous in western North America as well as throughout other volcanic terrains of the world. Schonchin Butte in northern California is an old cinder cone

http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/v/volcanic-cone.html

The Online Teacher Resource Receive free lesson plans, printables, and worksheets by email: About This Worksheet: This seems like a simple concept, but many children don't understand the difference between using "ee" or "ea" with root words. This one also reinforces spelling skills. How Long?: 3 - 5 minutes Standards Met: Working With Double Vowels

http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/language_arts/phonics/vowels/draw/ee/

Mar. 13, 2008 Healthy streams with vibrant ecosystems play a critical role in removing excess nitrogen caused by human activities, according to a major new national study published in Nature. The research, by a team of 31 aquatic scientists across the United States, was the first to document just how much nitrogen that rivers and streams can filter through tiny organisms or release into the atmosphere through a process called denitrification. "The study clearly points out the importance of maintaining healthy river systems and native riparian areas," said Stan Gregory, a stream ecologist in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University, an a co-author of the study. "It also demonstrates the importance of retaining complex stream channels that give organisms the time to filter out nitrogen instead of releasing it downstream." The scientists conducted experiments in 72 streams across the United States and Puerto Rico that spanned a diversity of land uses, including urban, agricultural and forested areas. They discovered that roughly 40 to 60 percent of nitrogen was taken up by the river system within 500 meters of the source where it entered the river -- if that ecosystem was healthy. Tiny organisms such as algae, fungi and bacteria that may live on rocks, pieces of wood, leaves or streambeds can "take up," or absorb about half of the nitrogen -- on average -- that humans currently put into the sampled river sites, according to Sherri Johnson, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service, and a courtesy professor of fisheries and wildlife at OSU. "Streams are amazingly active places, though we don't always see the activity," Johnson said. "When you have a healthy riparian zone, with lots of native plants and a natural channel, the stream has more of an opportunity to absorb the nitrogen we put into the system instead of sending it downriver." The study is important, scientists say, because it provides some of the best evidence of the extent to which healthy rivers and streams can help prevent "eutrophication" -- the excessive growth of algae and aquatic plants fueled by too much nitrogen. Eutrophication has been linked to harmful algal blooms and oxygen depletion in such places as the Gulf of Mexico, where the Mississippi River empties its nitrogen-rich waters, adversely affecting fishing and shrimp industries. In their study, the scientists added small amounts of an uncommon, non-radioactive isotope of nitrogen -- N-15 -- to streams as a nitrate, which is the most prevalent form of nitrogen pollution, Gregory said. By adding the isotope, they were able to measure how far downstream the nitrate traveled, and analyze what processes removed it from the water. In addition to the 40 to 60 percent taken up by tiny organisms, the researchers found denitrification accounted for about 19 percent of the nitrogen uptake across all the sites. Denitrification takes place through an anaerobic metabolic process that converts the nitrogen to a harmless gas and releases it into the atmosphere. Slower moving streams with little oxygen have higher rates of denitrification, though they have other pitfalls, including increased risk to fish and humans because of the "microbial stew" they foster, Gregory pointed out. "The overall amount of denitrification by streams and rivers was lower than what many scientists had anticipated," he said. "We had hoped it would be higher. That makes it even more essential to maintain healthy riparian zones so the organisms have the opportunity to process the nitrogen." Oregon had even lower levels of denitrification than the national average. Johnson said the combination of high-gradient streams, oxygenated water and porous stream beds is not conducive to the denitrification process. "A lot of streams in Oregon have subsurface water flowing beneath the streambed through the gravel," she pointed out. "This 'hyporheic' flow intermixes with the river water and limits the anaerobic processes. It also underscores the importance of maintaining healthy in-stream communities so the nitrogen is taken up by the ecosystem in other ways." Gregory says too many river systems have lost their natural channels to human activities and have essentially become "pipelines" for drainage. The original, braided channels many rivers had were complex, played a major role in slowing and filtering the river water, and provided natural habitat for native and migrating fish. Past studies by Gregory and others have pointed out how these pipeline river channels harm fish and their eggs during floods. The new study suggests that these pipelines also limit the potential of the river to absorb nitrogen that humans add to the system through a variety of activities. The Oregon studies focused on Oak Creek basin in Corvallis, the Calapooia River near Albany, and the McKenzie River near Eugene. Each study basin looked at the streams in forested, agricultural and urban areas. Among the other authors were Linda Ashkenas, a senior research assistant at OSU, and Dan Sobota, who did his doctoral work at Oregon State. Other social bookmarking and sharing tools: Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080312140118.htm

More to Explore People and Groups This Day in History World War II On this day in 1939, Italy and Germany agree to a military and political alliance, giving birth formally to the Axis powers, which will ultimately include… German World War II Field Marshal Erwin Rommel gained immortality in the North African campaign of 1941-1943. The Second Battle of Sedan began on May 10, 1940, when German forces advanced into Luxembourg and Belgium. In September 1944, after the victorious end of the Normandy campaign, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery devised a daring operation to open the way to the Ruhr by seizing a bridgehead north of the Rhine, at Arnhem. The Tuskegee Airmen were black servicemen of the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II and constituted the first African-American flying unit in U.S. history. Conventional wisdom traces blitzkrieg, "lightning war," to the development in Germany between 1918 and 1939 of a body of doctrine using mobility to prevent repetition of the attritional deadlock of World War I. Soldiers such as Hans von Seeckt and Heinz Guderian allegedly perceived more clearly than their counterparts elsewhere in Europe the military potential of the internal-combustion engine combined with modern communications technology. Large formations moving on tracks and wheels, directed by radios, could rupture an enemy's front and so disorganize its rear that countermeasures would be paralyzed. First tested in Poland, the concept reached perihelion in France and the Low Countries in 1940, when in less than six weeks the German army crushed the combined forces of four nations. Applied a year later against the Soviet Union, blitzkrieg purportedly brought the Wehrmacht to the gates of Moscow in six months. Some accounts insist that only Adolf Hitler's incompetent interference tipped the war's balance so far against Germany that even blitzkrieg's most sophisticated refinements could do no more than stave off the Reich's collapse. Seldom in the history of military thought have such elaborate interpretive structures been built on a more limited foundation. The term blitzkrieg was in fact never used in the title of a German military manual or handbook. Nor is it to be widely found in the memoirs or correspondence of German generals. The word was used in the Wehrmacht during World War II but was commonly considered to be of foreign origin. Guderian wrote in Panzer Leader that "our enemies coined the word." The first known use of the word blitzkrieg in an English publication occurred in an article in Time magazine in September 25, 1939, discussing the Polish campaign. From there the word came into general circulation as a shorthand description of a form of war that seemed to have no convenient existing frame of reference. From Western sources it expanded into German popular military literature, and from there into history. The transmission process was facilitated by the British theorists J. F. C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart, who insisted that their concepts of mobile war were fundamental to the German victories of 1939-1941. Reality is at once more limited and more complex. On one level, mobile warfare was a faute de mieux improvisation that arose from the restrictions on conventional forces stipulated by the Treaty of Versailles. The German high command in the 1920s and 1930s also sought inspiration for the future in its own past--specifically in the ideas of Helmuth Karl von Moltke and Alfred von Schlieffen. Tanks, aircraft, and motor trucks were regarded as force multipliers facilitating traditional operational approaches. The aim of German military planners in both the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich was to achieve victory by enveloping enemy armies, threatening their lines of supply and communications, and forcing them to fight in an unexpected direction. The anticipated result would be quick, decisive victories for a state that since the days of Frederick the Great had been convinced of its inability to win a drawn-out war of attrition. These concepts remained tactical and operational. Grand-strategic and economic planning in Adolf Hitler's Reich were not shaped by a doctrine of lightning war. A familiar argument is that Nazi Germany deliberately rearmed in breadth rather than depth, proposing to tailor its force mix to specific situations in the context of a diplomatic strategy designed to keep Germany's enemies isolated from one another. However, no significant data support such a grand design. Instead, the best evidence indicates that Hitler sought rearmament in both breadth and depth, with an economy oriented to military needs as completely as possible. Instead, far from coordinating their specific preparations, the army, navy, and air force competed so intensely for scarce raw materials that as early as 1938 their demands seriously overheated the ramshackle Nazi economy. Throughout the war the Wehrmacht's inability to cooperate internally was one of Germany's most significant military weaknesses--a far cry from the smoothly working machine that is the essence of blitzkrieg in popular myths. Revisionism must not be taken to extremes. German operational successes in the early years of World War II were by no means the product of sheer good fortune. But neither did they reflect a coherent, planned approach to the diplomatic, economic, and military challenges that after 1918 confronted a state unwilling to accept the consequences of its defeat in World War I. What are commonly called blitzkrieg operations developed out of experiences gained on the field between 1939 to 1941. In that sense blitzkrieg is best understood as a post facto construction for explaining a complex structure of events and ideas. DENNIS E. SHOWALTER James S. Korum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and the German Military Reform (1992). The Reader's Companion to Military History. Edited by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Keep up with the latest History shows, online features, special offers and more.Sign up Classroom Study Guides Classroom companion for the new HISTORY series Vietnam in HD.

http://www.history.com/topics/blitzkrieg

Study of Glacial Earthquakes Shakes Up Idea of How Ice Streams Move News story originally written on June 5, 2008 New research shows that a 7,000-square-mile region of the Whillians Ice Stream in West Antarctica moves more than two feet twice every day in an earthquake-like pattern equal to a Magnitude 7 earthquake. Seismologists use the magnitude scale to describe the seismic energy released by an earthquake. An earthquake that measures between 7.0 and 7.9 on the scale is considered "major," and can cause serious damage over large areas of the world. In an earthquake, stress builds between two plates on the Earth's crust as the energy of their movement accumulates. Finally, one plate or the other moves, causing shudders and jolts at the Earth's surface. A similar movement was observed in the Whillians Ice Stream by the research team. Using GPS sensors and seismic sensors, the researchers say they have measured what they are calling a "stick-slip" interaction on the massive ice stream. The "stick-slip" pattern in the ice sheet is very different that the way scientists usually think of ice streams as flowing at a constant speed. "Glaciologists model the flow of glaciers using the assumption that it's basically a kind of creeping kind of motion. But recently we've been seeing seismic signals coming from a number of ice streams and glaciers, and no one's been able to interpret them," said Douglas Wiens, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the research team. The "stick-slip" events on the Whillians Ice Stream occur twice a day and seem to be related to the daily tidal action of the Ross Sea. During each slip, a 96 by 193 kilometer (60 by 120 mile) region of the the ice stream moves as much as .67 meters (2.2 feet). The ice is 609 meters (almost 2000 feet) thick. The slip takes place over about 25 minutes, so scientists standing right on the slipping ice stream don't feel anything. In contrast, most rock earthquakes, which can take place in as little as a few seconds, are felt strongly by people in the area. The new findings don't say if these ice movements have anything to do with global warming. But they are significant, because they add another piece to the mosaic of scientific understanding of ice dynamics.

http://www.windows2universe.org/headline_universe/olpa/GlacialQuake_05june08.html&edu=mid

learning to talk by Fiona Marshall Learning to speak is a natural process, which follows a certain pattern. But, around 14-20% of pre-school children, and 5% of school-age children have problems with language though usually these are temporary and nothing to worry about. putting it into words 'It is terribly important that children feel they're understood,' says Jayne Comins, speech and language therapist at the Queen Elizabeth hospital and the Wellington hospital, London. 'If they feel that parents and others are focussing not on what they say, but how they say it, they may come to feel they're being attacked for expressing their feelings and thoughts, which can have negative emotional consequences.' Normal speech development covers a wide range of styles. Some children speak clearly but say very little; others chatter away but in a language which others may find hard to understand. In general, if your two-year-old child understands what is said to her, uses gestures and facial expressions to communicate, and uses some words, she's well on track. what to look out for You can assess how well your child speaks in a number of ways, says Jayne Comins. - speech sounds made and their clarity - language sentences and understanding of language - fluency whether your child speaks easily or has a tendency to stammer - language how wide her vocabulary is - articulation how clear her pronunciation is - voice whether she speaks easily or has to force her voice or shout - comprehension how well she understands. type of problems 'Children are constantly experimenting with sounds and languages which means making errors, and indeed they need to do so in order to work out how to use words properly,' says Jayne Comins. Most children do grow out of initial speech problems but parents tend to have a good instinct when something isn't right, so contact your health visitor or GP if you have concerns about your child's speech and keep in contact with them. Your health visitor will also check your child's hearing at different stages, and any concerns with this will be followed up with a referral to a specialist service. - Delayed language development. Your child speaks later or uses fewer words than expected. Don't worry, a number of studies have shown that children who learn no language at all in their early years can still learn it perfectly well later. However if your 18-month-old has fewer than 10 words or appears not to understand simple commands, such as 'bring me teddy', contact your health visitor or GP and ask for a referral to a speech and language therapist. - Difficult-to-understand speech, for example a lisp. This is when a child has problems pronouncing sounds or words (delayed phonological development). Some children have trouble with sounds such as S, R and SH, which are among the last to be learned. 'The organisation of these sounds is quite sophisticated as they are made with the groove of the tongue and many adults cannot pronounce their Rs and Ss properly,' says Jayne Comins. Referral to a speech and language therapist can help but often it's a question of allowing your child time to develop the muscles they use for speech. - Stammering or stuttering. Stammering is normal between two and five. It is four times more common in boys than girls and often runs in families. Usually they just cannot match their words to their fast-moving brains and think quicker than they can talk. Your child may repeat words or phrases or use lots of 'ums' and 'ers'. Children usually grow out of it but you may want to seek help for them sooner from a speech and language therapist. For more on stammering, check out the help for stammerers feature. - Playground /screamers voice. When your child speaks or shouts with a hoarse or breathy voice. This is not usually something to worry about unless it becomes a prolonged problem when there is a risk of the screaming damaging the throat. If you're concerned talk to your health visitor or GP. - Baby talk. Your child regresses and starts to use baby talk quite common when there's a new baby in the family - Accent. Children may imitate a friend's speech mannerisms or accent. why does it happen? 'It can sometimes be hard to establish an exact cause for variations in speech,' says Jayne Comins. 'It may be emotional, linked with physical disability, or just due to normal delay, which simply means that some children naturally develop later than others.' - Genetic. Some children inherit a tendency to later maturation of the speech-processing parts in the left hemisphere of the brain. - Social/environmental. Children whose parents talk and listen to them tend to have more advanced speech. - Emotional trauma. Stress at home, nursery or school may affect your child's speech. - Neurological. Occasionally late development may be related to a neurological disorder such as autism, or to specific brain damage. - Deafness. Repeated ear infections can cause glue ear a build-up of mucus that blocks hearing. If your baby suddenly stops babbling at around seven to nine months, ask for his hearing to be checked. - Dyspraxia. This is when a child is disorganised in her speech. This may go with the 'clumsy child' syndrome in which the child also has difficulty organising motor movements. See the abc of children under 'dyspraxia'. - Playground voice is due to enlarged or roughened vocal chords caused by constant shouting. This happens in a noisy family where the child literally has to shout to be heard. - A child may speak late because she is focussing on some other aspect of her development for example a child absorbed in motor development may spend all day running and climbing. Routine developmental checks as a toddler, may pick up or help prevent early speech problems. Developmental reviews are carried out at different stages by different health authorities, but guidelines suggest that one takes place around 18 months, and another between three to four years. Your health visitor can use these reviews to assess your child's emerging speech its clarity, how well she understands language, the range of her vocabulary, and the complexity of her sentences. Tell her if you have any concerns. where to get help 'Apparent speech problems can cause distress, so do consult someone you trust, such as the practice nurse or nursery nurse teacher, to chat things over and find out what the local services offer,' says Jayne Comins. Your health visitor or GP may refer you to a speech and language therapist, or you can contact a speech therapist directly at your local health centre or hospital. Speech and language therapy is available on the NHS, though you may have to wait several weeks; or you can arrange private treatment. With your help, the therapist can assess your child's fluency in the context of her general health and development. As well as speaking and listening with your child, she may also look at other aspects of your child's communication, such as how she interacts and plays with others. She may then suggest ways you can help at home. what parents can do - Talk to your child when you are playing together. - Enjoy songs and nursery rhymes together, especially those with actions. - Gain your child's attention when you want to talk together. - Listen to her carefully and give her time to finish. Take turns to speak and encourage other members of the family to take turns too. - Slow down your own rate of talking. - Talk about things as they happen, for example as you run the bath or unpack the shopping. - Increase her vocabulary by giving choices, for example, 'would you like orange or blackcurrant to drink'? Selective mutism, which affects 1% of children, is when a child can speak but does not do so in certain circumstances. The child is usually normal, though some may have disabilities. For a real life story, see the Rose family box below. 'Mutism frequently happens at school after a traumatic start, and in children who have had little previous separation from their mothers,' says Maggie Johnson, speech and language therapist based in East Kent specialising in childhood communication disorders. 'Usually the child can speak at home and sometimes in other selected situations, but not at school or where she feels threatened or overwhelmed.' Mutism is thought to be a form of extreme anxiety or social phobia, and parents of such a child may suffer some form of social phobia themselves. It's most common in the first two years of school and more common among girls than boys. It's rare after that age, although in some cases it can persist among older children the rate drops to around one in 1,000. There is much to be said for accepting the problem, along with the child's nonverbal efforts at communication. In older children, or where the problem is more persistent, some types of behavioural therapy may reduce the child's anxiety about speaking. - Stimulus fading, which involves the child in a relaxed situation with someone they talk to freely, and then very gradually sliding a new person into the room. - Shaping, where a helper (speech therapist or another adult) gradually reduces the anxiety associated with speech by encouraging your child to work through a number of challenges. She may then start to communicate using gestures, mouthing or whispering until finally speaking aloud. - Anti-depressants selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) including Prozac may help some children, particularly when associated with a behavioural programme. However, they're rarely used for this in the UK. the Rose family Edward Rose is 15 years old. He and sisters, Sarah aged 12 years and Catrina aged nine years, all have selective mutism. Edward stopped talking about seven years ago when his dyslexia went unrecognised at school and he became more and more withdrawn. His two sisters copied Edward out of a sense of loyalty. At home they chat happily with their mother, Jane, but will not talk to anyone outside the family. She particularly worries about Edward who will leave school next year and has to find a job. 'Edward doesn't see himself as somebody who speaks outside the home, so he's got to change his whole personality, in a way. He's got to see himself as a speaking person,' she says. help and info The following features on this site might also be of interest: help for stammerers, autism, dyslexia and children with special educational needs. Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third party sites. Afasic (Association for all Speech Impaired Children) 50-52 Great Sutton Street London EC1V 0DJ Helpline: 0845 3 55 55 77 (local call rate) (Mondays to Fridays 11am-2pm) UK charity representing children and young adults with communication impairments, working for their inclusion in society and supporting their parents and carers. The helpline can give information on all aspects of speech impairment, from therapy to choosing a school for a child with speech and language impairments. Also has a range of publications aimed at parents, young people and professionals. British Stammering Association Helpline: 0845 603 2001 (Mondays to Fridays 10am-4.30pm and Mondays 7-9pm) A confidential helpline offering callers the opportunity to ask, talk about and explore any issues of concern in the context of stammering. Run by staff who appreciate the difficulties of talking and stammering on the telephone. Provides free information packs for parents of children under five, primary- and secondary-school-aged children, teenagers and young adults, adults who stammer, speech and language therapists, and teachers. 4 Dyer's Buildings London EC1N 2QP Tel: 0845 225 4071 Fax: 0845 225 4072 The national educational charity for children with speech and language difficulities. The main aim is to ensure that the special educational needs of these children are met. The site holds details of local special schools, publications for parents and other useful organisations. The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) 2 White Hart Yard London SE1 1NX Tel: 020 7378 1200 (Mondays to Fridays 9am-5pm) Fax: 020 7403 7254 The professional body of speech and language therapists in the UK and Ireland. Concerned with all types of communication problems including delayed language, stammering, aphasia, and voice problems. Works to improve understanding of all aspects of communication impairment. Produces leaflets, runs an information service and can provide parents with details of speech and language therapists. SMIRA (Selective Mutism Information and Research Association) c/o Lindsay Whittington, SMIRA Secretary 13 Humberstone Drive Leicester LE5 0RE Tel: 0116 212 7411 (Mon-Wed and Fri 2-8pm) A support group for both parents and professionals (teachers, speech therapists, psychologists etc.) across the UK. Smira holds regular meetings in Leicester and has regional parent representatives. It publishes a twice yearly newsletter and has further information on Selective Mutism available, details on request. A wide range of publications are available to provide important information to parents and young people with speech and language difficulties. Also offers support and guidelines for good practice to professionals. Selective Mutism and Childhood Anxiety Disorders Large US site from the Selective Mutism Group (Childhood Anxiety Network). Offers a facility to share experiences and knowledge of selective mutism, aiming to promote public awareness and to speak out for children who can't speak for themselves. Speech Teach UK UK site for parents and professionals supporting children with speech and learning difficulties. Good source of information including notice boards, chat room and links to other websites specialising in these areas. Information about all aspects of speech, language and communication difficulties in children. The website has details of organisations and professionals who can help, and provides the opportunity to share information and access frequently asked questions, factsheets and news. If you have further questions, why not search the extensive bank of answers provided by our trained advisors? Check out just ask. For further information about organisations, websites and reading go to our get help directory. (April 2002, resources updated September 2003)

http://www.channel4.com/health/microsites/H/health/magazine/children/speech.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. function in chloroplasts ...These disks are necessary for the formation of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an energy-rich storage compound. In the chloroplasts of most higher plants are regions called grana (singular granum), in which the thylakoids are tightly stacked. role in photosynthesis ...the electron microscope shows that their edges are joined to form closed hollow disks that are called thylakoids (“saclike”). The chloroplasts of most higher plants have regions, called grana, in which the thylakoids are very tightly stacked. When viewed by electron microscopy at an oblique angle, the grana appear as stacks of disks. When viewed in cross section, it is apparent that... ...inner membrane of the chloroplast is folded into flat tubes, the edges of which are joined to hollow sacklike disks called thylakoids. Stacks of thylakoids embedded with pigment molecules are called grana. The inner matrix of the chloroplast is called the stroma. What made you want to look up "granum"? Please share what surprised you most...

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/241903/granum

In 1817, the American Colonization Society established the settlement of Liberia on the west coast of Africa. This colony was created in part for free African Americans to enjoy the civil rights denied to them in the United States. While some documents in the American Memory collection, From Slavery to Freedom, question whether Liberia was a land of opportunity or an opportunity to avoid civil rights issues in the United States, it is clear that many African Americans moved to the colony to start a new life. The American Memory collection, Maps of Liberia, 1830-1870, features a timeline history of Liberia from its early days as a colony to its recognition as an independent nation in 1847. A search on Liberia in this collection yields a number of portraits from the American Colonization Society. Images include Liberian presidents Joseph Jenkins Roberts and Stephen Allen Benson, senators Edward Morris and Edward Roye, Senate Chaplain Philip Coker, and a number of anonymous colonists. - Many daguerreotype galleries showcased portraits of United States politicians to attract interest from the public. Do you think that it was likely that portraits of Liberian politicians were used in the same manner? Why or why not? - Are there any other images of African Americans in this collection? - What do you think the relationship of the Liberian portraits to the rest of the collection suggests about how they may have been used? What does it suggest about the status of African Americans in the early nineteenth-century? - Senator Edward Roye appears with his left hand raised in the air. What do you think might be the significance of this pose? - How do the clothing, facial expressions, and poses of these Liberian politicians compare to those of white politicians featured in this collection? - Why might differences in these aspects of the portraits exist? - What might such differences imply about the efforts of the American Colonization Society? - How do you think that the American Colonization Society might have used these images?

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/daguerreotype/history3.html

Particles in the air (smoke, dust, soot, haze) are more dangerous to humans as the size of the particles decreases. Particles are produced by the combustion of fossil fuels (especially coal, but also oil and gasoline), and by burning garbage or hazardous waste. In July, 1987, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officially recognized that small particles are more dangerous than larger particles when the agency established air quality standards for particles smaller than 10 micrometers in diameter. A micrometer is a millionth of a meter and a meter is about 39 inches. Now, just two years later, an extensive medical study has shown that human illness can result from particles in the air at levels that fall within EPA guidelines. In other words, an area may meet the federal requirements and yet still make residents sick. The EPA standard is called PM-10, meaning it is an air quality standard for "Particulate Matter" 10 micrometers or less in diameter. (See FEDERAL REGISTER July 1, 1987, pgs. 24634-24669.) The older standard was for total suspended particulate [TSP] and it did not take into account the size of particles. The new standard specifically recognizes that particles smaller than 10 micrometers in diameter are not filtered out by the nose and throat and can pass into the large airways below the trachea. The smallest particles, which are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, are known as fine particles and they are the most dangerous because they pass all the way to the bottom of the lungs where they can move directly into the blood stream. (See RHWN #131 [revised] and #132.] The federal air quality standard does not distinguish fine particles from others, though the existence of the PM-10 standard is recognition that small particles are more dangerous than large ones. The federal standard says that, averaged over a year's time, an area's air should not contain more than 50 micrograms of PM-10 particles in each cubic meter of air; the 24-hour average is not supposed to exceed 150 micrograms per cubic meter of air. A microgram is a millionth of a gram and there are 28 grams in an ounce. For the past decade, researchers at Harvard University have been studying the relationship of human health to particles in air; their work has been supported by the federal Department of Energy (DOE) which plans to burn coal on a massive scale (since nuclear power is, deservedly, on the ropes). The Harvard researchers have issued periodic reports on their work; the most recent one appeared in March, 1989. This study examined 8131 grade school students in six U.S. cities during the period 197479, and examined the same students again in 1981-82. To avoid complexities of age and race, only 5422 white students aged 10 to 12 were the final subjects of study. The cities were Steubenville, Ohio; St. Louis, Missouri; Kingston, Tennessee; Portage, Wisconsin; Topeka, Kansas; and Watertown, Massachusetts. The students were asked about bronchitis, persistent cough, chest illness, wheeze and asthma. Bronchitis required a doctor's diagnosis within the last year; chronic cough was defined as being present for three months during the past year; chest illness required restriction of activity for 3 days or more; wheeze was defined as wheeze apart from colds or for most days and nights during the past year; asthma required the reporting of a doctor's diagnosis. The Harvard researchers also asked about three symptoms they didn't expect to be related to air pollution: earache, hay fever, and nonrespiratory illness or trauma that restricted activities for 3 days or more. The Harvard researchers did not collect data specifically on particules below 10 micrometers in diameter; they collected data (starting in 1978) on PM-15 (particulate matter less than 15 micrometers in diameter). The annual average PM-15 readings were as follows: The least polluted city was Portage, WI (10 micrograms, or ug); then came Watertown, MA (26 ug), Topeka, KS (33 ug), St. Louis, MO (38 ug), Kingston, TN (42 ug), and finally Steubenville, OH (59 ug), the most polluted. Boys and girls in the more polluted cities were twice as likely to have bronchitis, compared with youngsters in the less polluted cities. Similar results were apparent for chronic cough and chest illnesses. These results are important because in the most polluted city (Steubenville) the annual average particle count was 59 micrograms per cubic meter and this was a PM-15 measurement; if only particles 10 micrometers or smaller had been counted, the readings would have been substantially lower. In every other city in the study, the measured [PM-15] pollution levels were below the allowable federal PM-10 standard, yet children in those cities reported excessive disease rates. "We found health effects occurring at levels below the current annual average PM-10 standard," of 50 micrograms per cubic meter, says Douglas Dockery, leader of the Harvard study. This study provides unmistakable evidence that the federal standard for particles is inadequate to protect public health and safety. The Harvard researchers say their results are important for another reason: there is some evidence that chest ailments during childhood predispose a person to permanent, serious breathing problems, like emphysema, in later life. The study revealed that the 571 students (10.5% of the total) with asthma or persistent wheeze were particularly susceptible to bronchitis. Bronchitis was reported among 25.5% of the children with asthma or wheeze versus 4.0% of those without; for chronic cough the rates were 29.5% versus 3.2% and for chest illness 36.5% versus 7.6%. When compared separately, those children without asthma or wheeze in the most polluted city were 2.2 times as likely to have bronchitis as non-asthmatics in the least polluted city; those children with asthma or wheeze in the most polluted city were 3.8 times as likely to have bronchitis, compared to asthmatics in the least polluted city. An important point of this study is that it confirms that the relationship between particles in the air and childhood disease is "linear," which means that the more particles in the air, the more disease there is. This means that ANY increase in particles in the air is likely to cause disease in someone, somewhere. Thus, an incinerator proposing to spew particles into the air is very likely doing so at the expense of some innocent bystander somewhere. The defense, "I'm meeting all applicable state and federal standards" isn't sufficient to prevent illness. Even when a polluter meets those standards, someone will most likely get sick. Who gave polluters the right to make us sick? We, the people, didn't. It must have been someone else. Let's find out who and go after them. Get: Douglas W. Dockery and others, "Effects of Inhalable Particles on Respiratory Health of Children." AMERICAN REVIEW OF RESPIRATORY DISEASE, Vol. 139 (March, 1989), pgs. 587-594. For a free reprint, write: Dr. D.W. Dockery, Department of Environmental Science and Physiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115. --Peter Montague, Ph.D. Descriptor terms: epa; pm-10; children; regulations; health effects; air pollution; air quality standards; asthma; lung diseases; particulates;

http://www.ejnet.org/rachel/rhwn134.htm

On This Day in History--January 31st: Congress passed the 13th Amendment in 1865, for the abolition of slavery The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude, was finally passed through Congress on January 31, 1865. Throughout the 1860’s the number of proposals for legislation that abolished slavery began to grow, until finally the Senate Judiciary Committee combined three proposals made by Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri, Representative James Mitchell Ashley of Ohio, and Representative James F. Wilson of Iowa, and introduced the resulting amendment proposal to the Senate. The Senate passed the amendment on April 8, 1864, by a vote of 38 to 6, but the House of Representatives took much longer to make a decision. Its passage was due in large part to President Lincoln, who made it part of his campaign platform for the 1864 presidential election. It was finally passed by the House on January 31, 1865, and then sent to the state legislatures to be ratified. On December 6th, when Georgia became the 27th of the then 36 states to ratify it, it was finally adopted into the constitution. The 13th Amendment was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments to be adopted after the end of the American Civil War. The 14th Amendment gave African-Americans citizenship, equal rights, and equal protection, and the 15th Amendment gave them the right to vote. Follow the links to AADL’s collection for more about the Civil War and the 13th Amendment! Civil War - Comrades in Arms

http://www.aadl.org/node/220950

With a political solution to climate change still appearing distant and unlikely, other solutions, such as reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface, known as geo-engineering, become tempting. However, a team of European researchers warn, the effects of geo-engineering might dramatically alter the world's rainfall patterns. The scientists studied the effects of reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface in a CO2-rich and warm world, resembling one of the Earth's scenarios for 2100. In this prognosis, desertification might become a serious threat for Europe, North America and the Amazon. Their results are published in Earth System Dynamics, an Open Access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). Geoengineering mimics the effects of mayor volcanic eruptions by sending sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere and releasing enormous mirrors in space, creating an effect called global dimming. Volcanic eruptions, such as the one of the Krakatau volcano (Indonesia) in 1883, release giant amounts of sulphur dioxide to the atmosphere, which has a cooling effect. The same effect on a smaller scale can be seen on a daily basis in the clouds created by commercial airplanes. This is why geo-engineering is being studied as a potential solution to stop global warming. The scientists studied four models of climate engineering under a potential future scenario. Hauke Schmidt, lead author of the paper, and his team, state that the study is not intended for future application, but it helps to identify and compare the responses of the Earth's climate to geoengineering and creating a fundament for future research. So what would an engineered climate look like? In this scenario the CO2 concentration is four times higher than the pre-industrial level, a high estimation but certainly possible at the end of the 21st century, according to Smith. The heat created from such an increase is balanced by the reduction of radiation from the Sun through geo-engineering. Major impact on climate In the studied scenario rainfall strongly decreases, up to fifteen percent in large areas in northern Eurasia and North America. In the Amazon Basin, the amount of rainfall might even drop by twenty percent. In other tropical regions similar changes can be seen, both positive and negative. In all four models the global rainfall is reduced by five percent. The implications are still uncertain, but it is clear reducing the amount of solar radiation that reaches the earth's surface will lead to a climate different from any in the Earth's past. Even if the global mean temperature is equal to an earlier age, the global climate is different from any climate before. This research is the first study to compare the different climate models used in the Fifth IPCC Report and estimate the robustness of their results. In their paper the researchers conclude: "Climate engineering cannot be seen as a substitute for a policy pathway of mitigating climate change through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions." The scientists used climate models developed by the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre, the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace in France, and the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Norwegian scientists developed the fourth Earth model used. For direct link to the article by Smith et. al (2012), click here.

http://www.scienceguide.nl/print.aspx?id=25865

What is HTML? HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. Thats the name that web documents are given. And equivalent would be the ".txt" that you see after text files. That's why a majority of web documents are ".html" or ".htm". It's just the type of file that are used for the web. The document is transfered from a web server to your internet service provider, and to your computer. Your computer has a "broswer" which "decodes" the document. An example of a browser would be Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. These applications will decode the html coding and translate it to the document that you see. The browser also transfers images and other files from your server. You start a HTML document by opening a text editor and saving the document as a ".html" or ".htm" file. HTML code consists of "tags". Tags look like this: <html>. Basically its a "<" followed by a ">", with certain words in between. A start tag looks like this: "<html>" and an end tag looks like this: "</html>". The only difference between a start tag and an end tag is the slash. Whatever occurs between the two tags will take the properties of the tag. So whatever occurs between <b> and </b> will be bolded, because the <b> tag is the tag used to bold text. Like this. That code, written in HTML, would be: "Like <b>this</b>." Notice the word "Like" appears normal, because it is not withing the <b> tag. The word "this" is bolded because it is surrounded by a <b> and </b>. A general rule of thumb, always start your HTML document with <html> and always end it with </html> You're also supposed to start the document with <!DOCTYPE HTML idString> But it isn't always necessary. There really isn't anyone to "enforce" these rules. They aren't necessary, and many browsers will work fine with out them, but it's proper syntax. Within the <html> and </html> tags, there are two sections, the <head> (header) section and the <body> (body) section. They will be discussed in future lectures.

http://library.thinkquest.org/15887/both/beginner/html.html

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an observatory in low Earth orbit that the Agency uses to study some of the most high-energy sources of radiation in the Universe. Its wide-eyed Large Area Telescope (LAT) makes a sweep of the entire sky every three hours, soaking up gamma rays that emanate from cosmic entities ranging from supernovae to pulsars. Among the most famous subjects of LAT’s scrutiny is a pulsar by the name of Vela — according to NASA, it’s the brightest, most persistent source of gamma rays the LAT sees. The video above, created by NASA’s Goddard Visualization team, transforms 51 months of LAT position and exposure data on the Vela pulsar into a gorgeous spirographical pattern, reflecting a variety of the spacecraft’s maneuvers, including its orbit around Earth, the precession of its orbital plane, the north-south sway of the telescope’s gaze from orbit-to-orbit, and more. It is positively spellbinding — hands down one of the most unique space visualizations we’ve seen in ages. The image below compresses eight individual frames from the entire animation [click here for hi-res]. Below that, the effective limit to the LAT’s field of view (78.5 degrees from its center, denoted with a red circle) is charted over swirls of transformed observational data [click here for hi-res]. Really beautiful stuff. Source: io9. Written by Robert T. Gonzalez. More, including hi-res video and image downloads at Goddard Multimedia.

http://theswash.com/video-clips/nasa-fermi-traces-a-celestial-spirograph

Lesson Plans and Worksheets Browse by Subject Literary Analysis Teacher Resources Find teacher approved Literary Analysis educational resource ideas and activities Introduce literature circles with Roland Smith's novels. Your seventh graders will see the activity modeled as you read The Three Little Pigs together and apply the format to a Roland Smith novel of their choice. The lesson includes synopses of novels to pass out to your class, as well as a link to The Three Little Pigs. Not all materials mentioned are attached here. Response to literature and collaborative group discussion are the key foci of this thorough guide to teaching Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Newbery-winning novel Shiloh. Detailed sections enable readers to examine each chapter in depth. Activities that reinforce literary analysis and vocabulary are listed by chapter, helping you efficiently plan your unit. Analyzing Island of the Blue Dolphins, elementary readers discuss the main characters, setting, and plot of the story. Individuals then write a short summary, illustrate, and choose a piece of music to enhance one chapter. Each individual's work is compiled in a class movie. Explore communication through media by analyzing different advertisements and artwork. Budding artists view videos, websites, plays, and other artistic endeavors while discussing the true meaning of the work with their classmates. They utilize charts to break down the specific characteristics of each artistic piece. Analyze layers of meaning by exploring denotation and connotation. By examining a photograph of the famously controversial Marilyn Monroe, high schoolers interpret the connotative and denotative meanings of the given information. Then they choose images of their own to analyze! This plan has learners use the Internet to find images, but consider bringing in magazines and images of your own. Examine the contributions of African-Americans in the worlds of art and literature. Over the course of a few days, young scholars will read and analyze a poem, a short story, and a piece of art. They complete a range of comprehension-building activities, including writing poetry based on their reflections, comparing different people groups through a graph, and creating a class mural. Groups of high school learners conduct research on a particular era of African-American history, focusing on events, people, and places important to that era. Next, they review children's literature in four different genres. As a culminating activity, group members combine what they have learned in their research and readings to create their own piece of children's literature based on African-American history. Investigate Native American literature and culture by reading the biblical story of creation in Genesis. Afterward, small groups research an assigned tribe, focusing on culture, famous members, literature, and myths. As they research, they must evaluate sources and record information on an evaluation form. After each group creates and presents a PowerPoint on their tribe, individuals write a comparison essay on two Indian myths, or one Indian myth and the biblical creation story. Define figures of speech with your high schoolers. They listen to you read aloud the Alice Walker poem "Did This Happen to Your Mother? Did Your Sister Throw Up a Lot?" Then they identify and analyze any figures of speech found in the reading. An essay writing prompt and a rubric are included. Designed for use with Texas Instruments learning tools, but it is easily usable with no such technology.

http://www.lessonplanet.com/lesson-plans/literary-analysis

On September 14, 1916, Italian troops during World War I launch a short, concentrated attack on Austro-Hungarian positions on the Italian Front, near the Isonzo River. Italy’s entrance into the Great War on May 23, 1915, had opened up a new front stretching 600 kilometers—most of them mountainous—along Italy’s much-contested border with Austria-Hungary in the Trentino region. Upon declaring war, the relatively ill-equipped Italian army immediately advanced into the South Tyrol region and to the Isonzo River, where Austro-Hungarian troops met them with a stiff defense. The snowy and treacherous terrain made the region poorly suited for offensive operations, and after several quick Italian successes, combat settled into a stalemate. Luigi Cadorna, the chief of staff of the Italian army, determined that his forces could most easily make territorial gains against the enemy in the region of the Isonzo, a 60-mile-long river running north to south just inside the Austro-Hungarian border with Italy (present-day Slovenia) and flanked on either side by mountains. The Italians launched their first offensive in the region, known as the First Battle of the Isonzo, in June 1915. The Seventh Battle of the Isonzo, fought between September 14 and 17, 1916, attempted to repeat the successes of the sixth and most successful Italian offensive, fought one month earlier. In that battle, the Italians had forced the Austrian forces back some five kilometers before Cadorna called off the offensive, claiming success. Unfortunately for the Italians, the follow-up attack in September was less effective: though the Italians captured several mountain peaks, including the 7,723-foot Mount Cardinal in the Trentino, the Austrians managed to hold the line, and actual Italian advances were minimal, at a cost of heavy casualties. The treacherous terrain surrounding the Isonzo River would see no fewer than 12 battles from June 1915 to November 1917; these battles, culminating in the disastrous Battle of Caporetto, or the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, cost the Italians some 300,000 casualties—fully half their casualty total during the entire war.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/seventh-battle-of-the-isonzo?catId=16

"Civic education" describes efforts to prepare students for effective, principled citizenship. Civic education can include instruction in history and government, civics lessons on the rights and duties of citizens in a democracy, discussion of current events, service-learning, mock trials and elections, character education and other approaches. Civic education can also take place through student government, extracurricular and co-curricular activities, and by involving students in school, district and community decisionmaking. While most Americans agree on the importance of preparing young people for citizenship in a democracy, civic education has received less and less attention in schools over the past few decades. During that time, schools have focused their attention first on preparing students for college and jobs, and more recently on responding to increasing accountability demands, primarily in mathematics, reading and writing. Experts believe a decline in civic engagement - such as the decline in voting rates among young voters since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote in 1972 - may be a direct result of the decrease in emphasis placed on civics. In one response to this decline in civic engagement, most states developed content standards in civics or government in the 1990s and early 2000s to ensure that students acquired a basic understanding of how government works, of the documents on which American democracy is based and of basic democratic values. Unlike state efforts to improve instruction in the core academic disciplines, however, most states have not established statewide assessments aligned with their civics standards. A number of states recently have established legislative committees or task forces to examine their civic education practices and make recommendations to the legislature, the state education agency and their public schools.

http://www.ecs.org/html/IssueSection.asp?issueid=19&s

Fruit Fly Genetics In the year 1930, fruit flies had already been recognized as indispensable to genetic study and research and they remain so today. Fruit fly populations are inexhaustible, simple to breed and are not costly subjects. Their genetic makeup is also incredibly simple. Fruit Fly Chromosomes Their chromosomes are large and undivided, allowing for easy observation. When the chromosomes of a fruit fly are stained with chemicals, they reveal straight, dark bands along their length. These bands match the locations of particular genes. The chromosomes of fruit flies gave scientists their first glimpse of genetic variations between species and individuals. The Drosophila melanogaster is the most well known of fruit flies. It has four chromosomal pairs: one that determines sex and three autosomal chromosomes. Each chromosome has two arms, referred to as the left and the right. The chromosomal localities of individual genes are identified either by recombination units or numerical locations on each of these arms. This allows for prediction and comprehension of recombination frequencies between two genes located in the same chromosomal arm. Because female fruit flies often mate with more than one male during mating sessions, virgin fruit flies are necessary for scientific study. Using fruit flies that have previously mated may result in mixed offspring, which skews experiment results. As a result, students can mate red- and sepia-eyed fruit flies in order to learn firsthand about dominant and recessive genes. Fruit flies are also helpful in studying mutation. Studying the genetic makeup, transcription and replication of the fruit fly can assist in better understanding these processes in other eukaryotic organisms, such as humans. Fruit flies have been used as research subjects since 1910, when Thomas Hunt Morgan studied them at Columbia University to better understand matters of heredity. Fruit flies also make excellent research subjects because of their rapid life cycle. This allows scientists to study the effects of stimuli over the course of hundreds of generations within a matter of months. Mutant Fruit Fly Fruit flies have a very simple genetic structure, which makes them ideal for genetic research. It is useful to study mutant fruit flies, as their quick reproduction rate allows scientists to observe the advantages and disadvantages of certain mutations. These fruit flies are also helpful in determining whether certain stimulants cause mutation. Some common mutations seen in fruit flies include wing structure and eye color variations. Mutant wings may be short or backward. Fruit flies are known for their red eyes, although mutations cause certain specimens to have golden or white eyes. Mutations also sometimes result in eyeless flies. Mutants may exhibit yellow and black bodies, while the standard fruit fly is light tan in color.

http://www.orkin.com/flies/fruit-fly/fruit-fly-genetics/