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4 | This figure from NASA's Dawn mission shows the varied minerals on the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta in false color. The colors, derived from data obtained by Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer, have been chosen to emphasize mineral differences on a half-mile (kilometer) scale. Data from the spectrometer also demonstrate that Vesta's surface and subsurface show localized areas of bright and dark hues.
Geological structures at scales of tens of miles (kilometers) often show mineralogical differences. The differences can be seen particularly around craters that are surrounded by ejected material and that have experienced landslides.Oppia Crater is highlighted in the white box.
Colors were assigned to ratios of particular infrared wavelengths to emphasize differences not visible to the human eye. In this color scheme, green shows the relative strength of a particular mineralogical characteristic -- the absorption of pyroxene, an iron- and magnesium-rich mineral. Brighter green signifies a higher relative strength of this band, which indicates chemistry involving pyroxene. On the other hand, reddish colors indicate a different mineral composition.
The data used to create this mosaic were collected in August 2011, at an average altitude of 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers). The visible and infrared mapping spectrometer data lie over a mosaic made by Dawn's framing camera.
The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The visible and infrared mapping spectrometer was provided by the Italian Space Agency and is managed by Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics, Rome, in collaboration with Selex Galileo, where it was built.
More information about Dawn is online at http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov. | http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15671 |
4.0625 | GLOBAL warming could cause the bottom layers of many deep freshwater lakes to stagnate, including the Great Lakes of North America, Scandinavian lakes and some of Scotland's lochs. If this happens, many deep-water fauna that have thrived in these lakes for 15,000 years could be in danger.
The lakes' thermal structure is such that the surface and deep water differ in temperature and density. To keep the bottom layers fresh, these layers have to mix, and for this to occur, they have to reach a similar temperature and density. This normally happens in winter, when the surface waters cool.
But Ulrich von Grafenstein of the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences (LSCE) in Gif-sur-Yvette, France, and his colleagues found that if the climate warms as predicted, the surface waters won't cool sufficiently for the layers to mix.
The researchers modelled how climate change would affect the circulation in two deep ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content. | http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18424751.400-warmer-lakes-will-face-deep-trouble.html |
4.21875 | Old English Poetry
Beowulf Is often referred to as the first important work of literature in English, even though it was written in Old English, an ancient form of the language that slowly evolved into the English now spoken. Compared to modern English, Old English is heavily Germanic, with little influence from Latin or French. As English history developed, after the French Normans conquered the Anglo Saxons in 1066, Old English was gradually broadened by offerings from those languages. Thus modern English is derived from a number of sources. As a result, its vocabulary is rich with synonyms. The word “kingly,” for instance, descends from the Anglo Saxon word Cyning, meaning “king,” while the synonym “royal” comes from a French word and the synonym “regal” from a Latin word.
Fortunately, most students encountering
Beowulf Read it in a form translated into modern English. Still, a familiarity with the rudiments of Anglo Saxon poetry enables a deeper understanding of the Beowulf Text. Old English poetry is highly formal, but its form is quite unlike anything in modern English. Each line of Old English poetry is divided into two halves, separated by a caesura, or pause, and is often represented by a gap on the page, as the following example demonstrates: Setton him to heafdon hilde randas. . . .
Because Anglo Saxon poetry existed in oral tradition long before it was written down, the verse form contains complicated rules for alliteration designed to help scops, or poets, remember the many thousands of lines they were required to know by heart. Each of the two halves of an Anglo Saxon line contains two stressed syllables, and an alliterative pattern
Must Be carried over across the caesura. Any of the stressed syllables may alliterate Except The last syllable; so the first and second syllables may alliterate with the third together, or the first and third may alliterate alone, or the second and third may alliterate alone. For instance:
Lade ne letton. Leoht eastan com.
Lade, letton, leoht, and Eastan Are the four stressed words.
In addition to these rules, Old English poetry often features a distinctive set of rhetorical devices. The most common of these is the
Kenning, used throughout Beowulf. A kenning is a short metaphorical description of a thing used in place of the thing’s name; thus a ship might be called a “sea rider,” or a king a “ring giver.” Some translations employ kennings almost as frequently as they appear in the original. Others moderate the use of kennings in deference to a modern sensibility. But the Old English version of the epic is full of them, and they are perhaps the most important rhetorical device present in Old English poetry.
Please do not pass this sample essay as your own, otherwise you will be accused of plagiarism. Our writers can write any custom essay for you!
How is Beowulf important to British Literature The epic poem Beowulf, whose author is unknown, not only captures a readerЎ¦s attention and opens up new doors to his imagination, it gives an extensive background to a significant period in history. Being one of the first major works of England, Beowul introduced British Literature. The epic tells the adventures of a courageous hero Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxon period began in 449 A. D. This period began the invasion and migration of the island of Britain by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. These groups that invaded the Roman Empire, now Great Britain, brought their own traditions, language, and religion. Many historical events during this period greatly influenced literary events. Battles and Sir Gawain and The Green Knight We can make special mention of only one other romance, which all students should read in modern translation, namely, 'Sir Gawain (pronounced Gaw' wain) and the Green Knight.' This is the brief and carefully constructed work of an unknown but very real poetic artist, who lived a century and more later than Laghamon and probably Middle English
One result of the Norman Conquest of 1066 was to place all four Old English dialects more or less on a level. West Saxon lost its supremacy and the centre of culture and learning gradually shifted from Winchester to London. The old Northumbrian dialect became divided into Scottish and Northern, although little is known of An Account of English History The history of the English language begins with the Celts, the first populace of England. The Celts were people who originated in central Europe from Indo-European stock and became a distinct people in the Iron Age. They are distinct from their predecessor peoples, archaeologically named the Urnfield cultures, principally in their use of iron, their
Need Book Reports, essays, lectures? Save to bookmarks - » Old English Poetry. Collections of essays on literature! | http://www.mannmuseum.com/old-english-poetry/ |
4.0625 | Arithmetic coding actually refers to half of an Arithmetic Coding data compression system.
It has two parts:
- An arithmetic coder
- A data model (e.g., Markovian model)
- There is a new data character (a fixed number of bits per character)
- There is a set of probabilities for each possible character
The larger the range, the less bits it takes to code the character. The smaller the range, the more bits it takes to code the character.
Typically, the model used to code the data changes based on the data input stream contents. This is known as adaptive coding.
An arithmetic encoder takes a string of symbols as input and produces a rational number in the interval [0, 1) as output. As each symbol is processed, the encoder will restrict the output to a smaller interval.
Let N be the number of distinct symbols in the input; let x1, x2 ... xN represent the symbols, and let P1, P2 ... PN represent the probability of each symbol appearing. At each step in the process, the output is restricted to the current interval [y, y+R). Partition this interval into N disjoint subintervals:
- I1 = [y, y + P1R)
- I2 = [y + P1R, y + P1R + P2R)
Note that at each stage, all the possible intervals are pairwise disjoint. Therefore a specific sequence of symbols produces exactly one unique output range, and the process can be reversed.
Since arithmetic encoders are typically implemented on binary computers, the actual output of the encoder is generally the shortest sequence of bits representing the fractional part of a rational number in the final interval.
Suppose our entire input string contains M symbols: then xi appears exactly PiM times in the input. Therefore, the size of the final interval will be
However, IBM and other companies own patents in the United States and other countries on algorithms essential for implementing an arithmetic encoder. But are those patent holders willing to license the patents royalty-free for use in open-source software? | http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/a/arithmetic-coding.html |
4.3125 | A research team led by Umar Mohideen, a physicist at the University of California, Riverside, has demonstrated in the laboratory that the Casimir force – the small attractive force that acts between two close parallel uncharged conducting plates – can be changed using a beam of light, making the remote operation of micromachines a possibility.
The Casimir force results when the properties of “virtual photons” are modified. While a photon is the carrier particle of electromagnetic interactions, a virtual photon is a particle that exists for so brief an instant as an intermediary in a process that it can never be directly observed.
Because virtual photons are ever-present in empty space, studying the Casimir force allows physicists to learn the properties of the quantum nature of space.
In their study, Mohideen and his colleagues used a ball and a flat plate to simulate two parallel plates. “Where the ball and plate are close to each other, the surfaces are considered to be almost parallel at microscopic distances,” said Mohideen, a professor of physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
In each of his experiments, the ball (diameter 200 microns) was made of gold, a chemically clean metal that does not tarnish; only the material that made up the flat plate varied from experiment to experiment.
In one such experiment, the researchers used a plate of silicon, a material commonly used in the semiconductor industry, and measured the “carrier density” or the number of electrons in the plate.
They then compared the Casimir force that arose each time between the gold ball and a series of silicon plates of different carrier densities. They found that the Casimir force was measurably different between the ball and any two silicon plates only when the carrier density of one plate was at least 10,000 times larger than the carrier density of the second plate.
“We then asked ourselves if it was possible to bring about this density difference in other ways,” Mohideen said.
The researchers next experimented with the gold ball and a silicon plate with identical carrier densities. Training a beam of light on the plate, they were able to change the plate’s carrier density by an amount that was enough to change the Casimir force between the plate and the ball.
When light is absorbed by silicon, photons are converted into positive and negative charges, Mohideen explained. It is the increase in the number of electrons (negative charges) that increases the Casimir force.
“Using this result, it should be possible now to make special probes that can check for changes in electron density,” he added. “It can be used, too, to make new micromachines that can be remotely operated simply by using light.”
Micromachines find applications in complex systems of tiny gears and levers. They are used to reroute light between optical fibers in optical communication. They also are used in accelerometers that can trigger an airbag in an accident.
“Because of the sensitivity associated with light, we can match theory with experiment with much more precision at a very small scale,” Mohideen said. “This would help physicists better understand how a theory called the Lifshitz theory should be applied in experiments on the Casimir force.”
The Lifshitz theory predicts that the strength of the Casimir force between two surfaces is dependent on the distance between the surfaces (the smaller the distance, the greater the force). The theory also predicts how the number of electrons in the surface changes the force, and gives an explanation of how virtual photons interact with electrons.
Next in their research, the physicists plan to improve the sensitivity of their experiments using more precise detection techniques. They will attempt, too, to understand exactly how electrons and virtual photons interact.
Source: University of California - Riverside
Explore further: How do cold ions slide | http://phys.org/news101407349.html |
4 | In this file:
-I <3 U Wh- Questions: Students pick a card and answer the questions on each card. Once they respond accurately, they can hold onto their cards. If they pick the “I <3 U” card, they get a bonus turn! The student with the most cards at the end is the winner!
-Noun & Adjective Sort: Students will sort the cards into the correct category. There is a worksheet to document the responses included.
-Color the Synonym: Once students respond by expressing the synonym of the word provided in a section of the coloring page, they may color the section!
-Color the Antonym: Once students respond by expressing the antonym of the word provided in a section of the coloring page, they may color the section!
-Color the Multiple Meaning Word: Once students respond by expressing the various meanings of the word provided in a section of the coloring page, they may color the section!
-Complete the Simile: Use the board game provided with the game cards. Each card game has a simile for the student to complete before taking a turn in the card game. They must use their knowledge of similes, adjectives, and vocabulary to complete this task!
-Combining Sentences: Each card has two sentences that need to be combined with either and, or, so, but. Students must express the combined sentences using the visual provided. Each card has a point value. Students may hold onto their cards once they respond correctly. At the end of the game, students can add up their points to determine a winner!
You can grab this pack filled download HERE! | http://speechtimefun.blogspot.com/2013/01/valentines-day-word-fun.html |
4.21875 | The First Focus Reading System incorporates phonics into helping children to learn to read. First Focus Reading teaches specific phonics and reading skills through a series of charts that is shared with students and parents. We welcome parent to participate in the program as we provide weekly updates on the progress and the current skills being taught in the classroom. By using phonics, we start by developing a solid foundation in reading and related language arts skills.
Using the First Focus Phonics System, the reader does not have to memorize long lists of words or have a photographic memory to read successfully. Each "Chart" focuses on one phonics-decoding concept. The First Focus Phonics Charts, Student Course Book, practice material and the Read and See Books provide the opportunity for a student to master each skill being taught and allow the student to apply the concepts successfully and quickly.
A brief outline of the First Focus skill set taught via the Chart system is as follows:
Chart 1 - Letters of the Alphabet
Chart 2 - Consonant sounds as described by the imaginary symbols
First Focus Reading Code:
Chart 3a - Reading Long Vowel words
Chart 3b -Reading Short Vowel Words
Chart 3 a/b - Reading Combined Long & Short Vowel Words
Chart 4 - Consonant Digraphs, such as sh, ch, bl,
Chart 5 -
Chart 4&5 combined digraphs and blends
The Kindergarten, Level 2, curriculum ends with Chart 5
The second part of the Course is designed to teach a student how to master the many exceptions and blended sounds in English.
For example, when a Y is the first letter of a word, the sound is consistent, such as yes, yesterday, yacht, yahoo, yawn, year, yellow, yogurt.
However, in words with a Y at the end of the word, we have some challenges. For example, listen to the sound of the Y in the word Cry and then the sound of the Y in the word Candy. In the first word, (cry) the y has the sound of an I, in the second word, (candy) the Y has the sound of an E or EE.
Students often struggle and are frustrated with the memorization involved in the many exceptions, such as the Y in the beginning of a word or at the end of a word.
First Focus has established a system of clues that complement the First Focus Reading Code and continue to allow the student to logically find the first vowel in a word and check if the word contains a clue which has a rule to determine the correct sound, the student then applies the clue or the standard reading code to obtain the correct sound and read the word.
The FIRST FOCUS Phonics System provides:
- A simple, safe and secure base for the beginning reader to build on.
- An easy, organized method of learning the decoding skills necessary to read.
- A consistent approach with practice materials which build competence and confidence.
Our Mission: Help every child learn to read quickly without frustration, fear or failure.
Lynne Hanson created the FIRST FOCUS approach to Phonics and has perfected it over 20 years of teaching reading and language arts in public and private schools. Her motivation was to help children overcome their feelings of frustration when they were asked to "Try!" but hadn't been taught "HOW". The result is a simple, efficient and very effective learning system from FIRST FOCUS Reading.
Lynne Hanson’s training, experience/accomplishments include:
* B.A. in Elementary Education, California Teaching Credential,
Reading Specialist Certificate State of California.
* Classroom Teacher, Resource Teacher, Reading Specialist -California Public Schools
* Director of Project CLINIC (Federally funded Cross-Age Tutoring Program)
E.S.E.A. Title 3 service team on Cross-Age Tutoring and Self Esteem
Classroom Teacher for Department of Defense Overseas DependentSchools
ESL Classroom teacher of immigrant children in Borough of Bedford, England
Owner/Director of Creekside Nursery School
Reading Consultant for Cupertino Union School District
Owner/Director/Tutor of Creekside Private School, private and small group tutoring
Owner/Instructor of Hanson’s Reading, FIRST FOCUS™, training reading teachers
Creator and Developer of FIRST FOCUS™ Phonics, a rapid-learning reading system
Author of Hanson’s READ AND SEE BOOKS (series of books) | http://firstfocus.com/v2_authorized_teacher.html |
4.4375 | August 30 - By observing the collision of two distant galaxies, scientists say that they now have direct evidence of dark matter's existence. For decades scientists have proposed the existence of dark matter as an explanation for how galaxies rotate at their observed velocities.
Dark matter emits no light and can only be detected by how it interacts with ordinary matter through gravity. One of the ways dark matter can be detected is by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing, which occurs when an object's gravitational field distorts light from background galaxies. However, dark matter is often embedded in galaxies, making it difficult to isolate the lensing it causes.
Researchers were able to directly detect dark matter by observing the collision between an enormous cluster of galaxies and a smaller galaxy cluster more than 3 billion light years away. The team reasoned that when the galaxies hit each other, the vast volumes of gas in each would slow down, but the dark matter would continue to speed along. Images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other instruments showed gravitational lensing in an area where there was no visible matter, indicating the presence of dark matter.
There are several National Research Council reports dealing with dark matter. Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos: Eleven Science Questions for the New Century examines 11 questions that need to be and can be answered in the next decade, including "what is the nature of dark matter and energy." Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium recommends further research into dark matter and into developing dark matter detectors. Revealing the Hidden Nature of Space and Time: Charting the Course for Elementary Particle Physics affirms how particle physics research is necessary to maintain the United States' position as a scientific world leader and recommends several frontiers for further research, including dark matter.
of News and Public Information
Science in the Headlines
|Copyright © 2006. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. 500 Fifth St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001.| | http://www.nationalacademies.org/printer/headlines/20060830.html |
4.15625 | Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
A winter storm is a storm in which the dominant varieties of precipitation are forms that only occur at cold temperatures, such as snow or sleet, or a rainstorm where ground temperatures are cold enough to allow ice to form. These storms are not restricted to the winter season, but may occur in the late autumn and early spring. The most powerful winter storms usually occur in March and, in regions where temperatures are cold enough, April.
Snowstorms are storms where large amounts of snow fall. Snow is less dense than liquid water, sometimes by a factor of 10. Therefore, an amount of water that would produce 2 cm (0.8 in) of rain could produce as much as 20 cm (8 in) of snow. Five centimeters of snow (2 in) is enough to create serious disruptions to traffic and school transport (because of the difficulty of maneuvering school buses on slick roads). This is particularly true in places not habituated to heavy snowfalls (e.g. Atlanta, Seattle, London). In places where snowfall is common, such as Buffalo, New York, and Minneapolis, such small snowfalls are rarely disruptive, though snowfalls in excess of 15 cm (6 in) usually are.
A massive snowstorm with heavy winds is known as a blizzard. A large number of heavy snowstorms, some of which were blizzards, occurred in the United States during the early and mid-1990s, and the 1993 "Superstorm" was manifest as a blizzard in most of the affected area.
Large snowstorms can be quite dangerous: a 15 cm (6 in) snowstorm will make some unplowed roads impassible, and it is possible for automobiles to get stuck in the snow. Snowstorms exceeding 30 cm (12 in) will cave roofs of some homes and cause the loss of power. Standing dead trees can also be brought down by the weight of the snow.
Snowstorms are usually considered less dangerous than ice or sleet storms. However, there are secondary dangers of the ambient snow that may result from a snowstorm. Mountain snowstorms can produce cornices and avalanches. An additional danger, following a snowy winter, is spring flooding if the snow melts suddenly due to a dramatic rise in air temperature.
Many factors influence the form precipitation will take, and atmospheric temperatures are influential as well as ground conditions. Sometimes, near the rain/snow interface a region of sleet or freezing rain will occur. It is difficult to predict what form this precipitation will take, and it may alternate between rain and snow. Therefore, weather forecasters just predict a "wintry mix". Usually, this type of precipitation occurs at temperatures between -2°C and 2°C (28-36 °F).
Freezing rain and ice storms
Freezing rain storms are one of the most dangerous types of winter storm. They typically occur when a layer of warm air hovers over a region, but the ambient temperature is near 0°C (32°F), and the ground temperature is sub-freezing. A storm when only roads freeze is a "freezing rain storm", one resulting in widespread icing of plants and infrastructure is an "ice storm".
While a 10 cm (4 in) snowstorm is somewhat managable, by the standards of the northern United States and Canada, a comparable 1 cm (0.4 in) ice storm will paralyze a region: driving becomes extremely hazardous, telephone and power lines are destroyed, and crops may be ruined. Because they do not require extreme cold, ice storms often occur in warm temperature climates (such as the southern United States) as well as cooler ones. Ice storms in Florida will often destroy entire orange crops.
Notable ice storms include an El Niņo-related ice storm, in January 1998 , that affected upstate New York and much of eastern Canada, including Montreal. Three million people lost power, some for as long as six weeks. One-third of the trees in Mount Royal park were destroyed, as well as a large proportion of the sugar-producing maple trees. The amount of economic damage caused by the storm has been estimated at Can. $3 billion. See also 1998 Ice Storm
In December 2002, an ice storm in North Carolina resulted in massive power loss throughout much of the state, and property damage due to falling trees. Snow and icy conditions are rare in North Carolina, even in the winter.
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details | http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Winter_storm |
4.375 | How it works
Tidal-power is the power achieved by capturing the energy contained in moving water mass due to tides. Two types of tidal energy can be extracted: kinetic energy of currents between ebbing and surging tides and potential energy from the difference in height (or head) between high and low tides. The former method - generating energy from tidal currents - is considered much more feasible today than building ocean-based dams or barrages, and many coastal sites worldwide are being examined for their suitability to produce tidal (current) energy.
Tidal power is classified as a renewable energy source, because tides are caused by the orbital mechanics of the solar system and are considered inexhaustible within a human timeframe. The root source of the energy comes from the slow deceleration of the Earth's rotation. The Moon gains energy from this interaction and is slowly receding from the Earth. Tidal power has great potential for future power and electricity generation because of the total amount of energy contained in this rotation. Tidal power is reliably predictable (unlike wind energy and solar power). In Europe, Tide Mills have been used for nearly 1,000 years, mainly for grinding grains.
The efficiency of tidal power generation in ocean dams largely depends on the amplitude of the tidal swell, which can be up to 10 m (33 ft) where the periodic tidal waves funnel into rivers and fjords. Amplitudes of up to 17 m (56 ft) occur for example in the Bay of Fundy, where tidal resonance amplifies the tidal waves.
As with wind power, selection of location is critical for a tidal power generator. The potential energy contained in a volume of water is
E = x**
where x is the height of the tide, M is the mass of water and g is the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface. Therefore, a tidal energy generator must be placed in a location with very high-amplitude tides. Suitable locations are found in the former USSR, USA, Canada, Australia, Korea, the UK and other countries (see below).
Several smaller tidal power plants have recently started generating electricity in Norway. They all exploit the strong periodic tidal currents in narrow fjords using sub-surface water turbines.
One method of extracting tidal energy involves building a barrage and creating a tidal lagoon. The barrage traps a water level inside a basin. Head is created when the water level outside of the basin or lagoon changes relative to the water level inside. The head is used to drive turbines. In any design this leads to a decrease of tidal range inside the basin or lagoon, implying a reduced transfer of water between the basin and the sea. This reduced transfer of water accounts for the energy produced by the scheme. The largest such installation has been working on the Rance river (France) since 1967 with an installed (peak) power of 240 MW, and an annual production of 600 million kWh (about 68 MW average power). this would provide a very useful power source to countries with a high budget on ecological matters
The basic elements of a barrage are caissons, embankments, sluices, turbines and ship locks. Sluices, turbines and ship locks are housed in caisson (very large concrete blocks). Embankments seal a basin where it is not sealed by caissons.
The sluice gates applicable to tidal power are the flap gate, vertical rising gate, radial gate and rising sector.
Modes of operation
The basin is filled through the sluices and freewheeling turbines until high tide. Then the sluice gates and turbine gates are closed. They are kept closed until the sea level falls to create sufficient head across the barrage and the turbines generate until the head is again low. Then the sluices are opened, turbines disconnected and the basin is filled again. The cycle repeats itself. Ebb generation (also known as outflow generation) takes its name because generation occurs as the tide ebbs.
The basin is filled through the sluices and turbines generate at tide flood. This is generally much less efficient than ebb generation, because the volume contained in the upper half of the basin (which is where ebb generation operates) is greater than the volume of the lower half (the domain of flood generation). This is compounded by the fact that there is usually a river flowing into the basin, filling the basin as the tide rises and making the difference in levels between the basin side and the sea side of the barrage (and therefore the available potential energy) less than it would otherwise be. This is not a problem with the lagoon model: the reason being that there is no current from a river to slow the flooding current from the sea. says George.
Turbines are able to be powered in reverse by excess energy in the grid to increase the water level in the basin at high tide (for ebb generation and two-way generation). This energy is returned during generation.
With two basins, one is filled at high tide and the other is emptied at low tide. Turbines are placed between the basins. Two-basin schemes offer advantages over normal schemes in that generation time can be adjusted with high flexibility and it is also possible to generate almost continuously. In normal estuarine situations, however, two-basin schemes are very expensive to construct due to the cost of the extra length of barrage. There are some favourable geographies, however, which are well suited to this type of scheme.
A new scheme plans to use turbines similar to those found in wind farms to generate electricity via large current areas such as Cook Strait in New Zealand. There are two operational devices known worldwide, one developed by Hammerfest Strom in Norway, the other by Marine Current Turbines in the Severn Estuary, UK. Other device developers include Swanturbines, Lunar Energy and Open Hydro.
Tidal Energy Efficiency
Tidal energy has an efficiency of 80% in converting the potential energy of the water into electricity, which is efficient compared to other energy resources such as solar power.
Local environmental impact
The placement of a barrage into an estuary has a considerable effect on the water inside the basin and on the fish. A tidal current turbine will have a much lower impact.
Turbidity (the amount of matter in suspension in the water) decreases as a result of smaller volume of water being exchanged between the basin and the sea. This lets light from the Sun to penetrate the water further, improving conditions for the phytoplankton. The changes propagate up the food chain, causing a general change in the ecosystem.
Again as a result of less water exchange with the sea, the average salinity inside the basin decreases, also affecting the ecosystem. Again, lagoons do not suffer from this problem.
Estuaries often have high volume of sediments moving through them, from the rivers to the sea. The introduction of a barrage into an estuary may result in sediment accumulation within the barrage, affecting the ecosystem and also the operation of the barrage.
With turbine generation, taking its power from the flow of the tidal stream, there will likely be a swirl of water down stream of the turbine. If this horizontal vortex touches the bottom, it will cause erosion. While the amount of sediment added to the tidal stream will likely be insignificant, this could, over time, erode the foundation of the turbine. Turbines held down with pilings would be largely immune to this problem but turbines held by heavy weights sitting on the bottom could eventually tip over.
Again, as a result of reduced volume, the pollutants accumulating in the basin will be less efficiently dispersed. Their concentrations will increase. For biodegradable pollutants, such as sewage, an increase in concentration is likely to lead to increased bacteria growth in the basin, having impacts on the health of the human community and the ecosystem.
The concentrations of conservative pollutants will also increase.
Fish may move through sluices safely, but when these are closed, fish will seek out turbines and attempt to swim through them. Also, some fish will be unable to escape the water speed near a turbine and will be sucked through. Even with the most fish-friendly turbine design, fish mortality per pass is approximately 15% (from pressure drop, contact with blades, cavitation, etc.). This can be acceptable for a spawning run, but is devastating for local fish who pass in and out of the basin on a daily basis. Alternative passage technologies (fish ladders, fish lifts, etc.) have so far failed to solve this problem for tidal barrages, either offering extremely expensive solutions, or ones which are used by a small fraction of fish only. Research in sonic guidance of fish is ongoing.
Global environmental impact
A tidal power scheme is a long-term source of electricity. A proposal for the Severn Barrage, if built, has been projected to save 18 million tons of coal per year of operation. This decreases the output of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. More importantly, as the fossil fuel resource is likely to be eliminated by the end of the twenty-first century, tidal power is one of the alternative source of energy that will need to be developed to satisfy the human demand for energy. | http://www.worldofrenewables.com/page.php?pageid=57 |
4 | Incorporating oral history into the K–12 curriculum
Oral history techniques for use with students at all levels, from kindergarten through high school.
Oral history can deeply enrich the classroom experience, even if teachers don’t have time to launch a full-scale oral history project. At every grade level, there are ways in which social studies and, indeed, other academic disciplines can be enriched by the inclusion of oral sources and the perspectives on the past and on human interaction that can be gleaned from oral history.
Oral history in the primary curriculum (K–3)
The K–3 social studies curriculum is centered on the world that is familiar to young learners — their families, neighborhoods, and communities. Because the subject matter is already familiar and often comfortable for students in these grades, students may feel comfortable integrating oral history into their classroom experience.
Interviewing one another
As kindergartners learn that people are alike and different, and as older primary grade students expand that knowledge to include families, neighborhoods and communities, they can turn to one another as their first source of information. By interviewing each other about their own experiences, families, neighborhoods, and communities, students can expand their understanding of the world around them and also develop important social skills. Students might make lists of experiences and ideas that they shared with their interview partner, and experiences and ideas that were different in their two sets of experiences.
In primary grades, it makes sense to start the process of oral history in small ways — first inviting students to interview each other and slowly expanding to include communities in which they are comfortable. Their own school might provide an ideal setting for a small oral history project. For example, second graders could choose their school as a setting in which to analyze "multiple roles in families, work places, neighborhoods, and communities." The class might create a list of roles within the school and then find an interviewee for each role. Teams of students could develop questions and then interview their subjects about their roles and responsibilities on the campus and what they most like about their participation in the school community. Students could share what they learned in a bulletin board display for the whole school, group presentations, a short book about the school, or simple class discussion.
Interviewing guest speakers
Young children enjoy hearing from guest speakers in their community, whether on a field trip, in an assembly, or in the classroom. In discussing community services in a kindergarten class, for example, you might invite a firefighter, animal control officer, librarian, or nurse to come to your class. By talking with students about good oral history practice before the interviewee arrives, you can help them write good, open-ended questions and think about the need for attentive listening. With this preparation, students will be able to satisfy their curiosity about these community roles and also begin to practice the sometimes scary but also tremendously rewarding process of interviewing people they don’t know in a safe environment.
While students in the primary grades may lack the planning, writing, and social interaction skills required for a major oral history project — or even for isolated interviews — they can still benefit from oral history materials. Pre-made tapes from archives, or recorded by teachers or other community members, can be made available at listening stations where students can hear stories about their community’s past. Themes drawn from the curriculum, such as the relationship between people and their government (stories about voting, for example) or changes in families (stories about when families moved, added new members, etc.) could form the basis for these oral history narratives. After listening to stories, students could summarize them in writing, compare different experiences, or represent them in artistic form.
Consider interviewing guests or experts in front of the class yourself, then opening up the discussion for student questions. Your interviewing skills will model good oral history practice and encourage students to ask good questions — especially if you’ve spoken with the class about asking good questions prior to the guest’s arrival. If the interview is recorded as well as presented "live," it could be made available at a listening station for students who missed the activity or who would like to reflect on it further, perhaps using the tape as the basis for a writing assignment, role-playing activity, or art project. The tape could also go into your own private archive of classroom oral histories for use in future years.
Oral history in the elementary curriculum (4–5)
The elementary curriculum expands children’s understanding of social studies beyond what is already known and familiar to them, starting with the state of North Carolina and then learning more about the rest of the world. As students seek to understand a state, a nation, and a hemisphere that is largely outside their personal sphere of experience, oral history can make the unfamiliar seem less foreign and intimidating and make the experiences of people hundreds or even thousands of miles away seem more immediate and real. Numerous curriculum objectives for the 4th and 5th grades can be met using oral history as a teaching tool:
Many of the possible activities for use in primary classrooms will also work well with elementary grades, but students in the 4th and 5th grades may also be able to take on more responsibility for conducting interviews themselves, either in a classroom setting or at home with family members and friends of the family.
Students in elementary grades may be able to tackle more focused and complex projects, such as a series of topical interviews. For example, students could choose a controversial situation and interview adults in their lives about the ethical and moral dilemmas that those situations pose. These interviews could form the basis for a class discussion or class letter to a local leader about possible solutions to those dilemmas, or could result in a culminating paper, display, or performance.
Students in elementary grades might benefit from combining an oral history project in social studies with other kinds of classroom activities. When students are learning about the various ways people in the past have used, modified, or adapted to their physical environment and are analyzing the causes and consequences of the misuse of the physical environment, students could plan interviews with guest speakers from park services, farms, or environmental groups. In the process, they would be learning about soil conservation, erosion, soil fertility, ecosystems, and other related science and ecological issues. By coming into contact with issues across the curriculum, students can see firsthand the ways in which different academic disciplines approach the same problem, and may even make observations of their own about the benefits of approaching an issue from a variety of angles.
While the primary curriculum deals mostly with the familiar, the elementary curriculum challenges students to broaden their world view to include people as far away as Chile and Montreal. Oral history can help build bridges between students’ familiar world of home and family and the seemingly-distant lives of people outside their personal sphere by helping students connect to people different from themselves. Inviting guest speakers from other countries, speakers from other parts of the United States, or speakers who have traveled extensively can allow students to conduct oral history interviews in small groups. Advance preparation will allow students to read about the topic beforehand, prepare good questions, and enter an otherwise potentially intimidating situation more confidently.
Communities in transition
In communities that are rapidly changing, oral history can help students understand the issues at stake in those changes. By conducting interviews with family members or people in the community about changes such as the influx of people from other states, immigration from foreign countries, deindustrialization, and the increased availability of new products, entertainment, literature, art, and ideas through television and the Internet, fifth grade students not only achieve curriculum goals, but they also begin to make sense of the changes that they are seeing in their own lifetimes — changes that might otherwise seem, on one extreme, irrelevant to people their age or, at the other extreme, confusing, frightening, or overwhelming.
Oral history in the middle school curriculum
The middle school curriculum challenges students to relate to other cultures and countries around the world throughout history, and then it brings them figuratively "back home" to a more in-depth study of North Carolina through the state’s history. The following curriculum objectives seem especially well-suited to exploration through oral history:
Continuing the process begun in primary and elementary grades, middle school students are challenged to broaden their understanding of the world around them still further to include much of the rest of the world. They are also challenged to understand their home state on a much deeper level than their earlier exposure in the 4th grade required. To meet those challenges, some of the activities suggested for primary and elementary grades would be perfectly appropriate for middle school students as well, especially if they are paired with an exposure to other sources of historical information such as textbooks, maps, newspaper articles, online "digs" for additional information, or primary documents.
Making the distant relevant
Listening to oral testimonies, either recorded by students themselves or borrowed from archives, documentaries, or other sources, may make distant events like the fall of apartheid in South Africa or human rights issues in Asia become more real and urgent in the minds of students. Students could read about a particular issue in available newspaper coverage, listen to recordings of people from the relevant countries discussing life in their homelands, and then stage a debate or mock hearing on the central issues.
As students seek to understand the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, and other issues in North Carolina history, they could interview grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, or other family members about those topics to gain a more personal perspective on what can seem like "ancient history." Students may also find that the experience of interviewing a family member, while sometimes challenging, can also add a new dimension to their personal relationship with their interviewee.
As students undertake 8th grade curriculum goals, they could pursue a full-fledged oral history project. Of course, with eighth graders, issues of transportation may prohibit having students travel to meet with interviewees off-site, but inviting interviewees to come to the school or encouraging students to reach out to their own personal networks of possible interviewees (relatives, neighbors, friends of the family, church members, coaches, coworkers of their parents) could allow students to interview several people about the same event. Students could then compare the responses they received from interviewees and compile the results of their interview experiences in an exhibit, a volume of ethnopoetic transcriptions or monologues, a performance, analytical essays, or other presentations.
Oral history in the high school curriculum
The high school curriculum encompasses a variety of courses that broaden students base of knowledge well beyond their home communities. Generally, high school students are capable of tackling more complex, long-term projects and analyzing and presenting oral history materials (both those brought to class for their use and those that they create themselves) in more sophisticated ways than students in earlier grades. Using oral history in these grades can also prepare students for possible similar projects at the college level — many university faculty members use oral history in U.S. history survey courses. These competency goals give a sense of just a few of the many objectives that can be achieved through oral history at the high school level:
Again, the activities suggested for earlier grades may well be appropriate for high school students, but these more advanced learners may also be ready for more complex oral history assignments:
Life history interviews
Students could choose to interview someone much older than themselves, perhaps several times, using their interviewee’s life history as a window into a variety of past events in a U.S. History course. They might keep a journal that compares how their interviewee remembers various events such as World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, and Vietnam with the impressions they gather from other class stories. They might also use this life history interview (or interview series) as the basis of a term paper that makes an argument about what the student believes is the most significant theme in twentieth century American history.
Topical interviews demonstrating diverse viewpoints
Students could conduct interviews on closely-defined topics — for example, a World History class studying U.S.-Soviet relations might interview Americans about their views about the Soviet Union during the Cold War and then compare those views to what they know about the former Soviet republics from their studies. U.S. History students studying World War II might choose to develop a relationship with a local retirement community as a class and interview residents about the war, culminating in a slideshow/tape presentation, panel discussion, or other public event at the center. By zeroing in tightly on a given topic and interviewing a variety of people about that topic, high school students could begin to develop a sense of the subjectivity of historical experience, the complexities and challenges of human memory, and the ways in which variables such as race, class, region, gender, age, or political affiliation might shape both experience and memory.
Presentation options, in the classroom and outside it
Because of their more advanced age and academic achievement, high school students have available to them a broader range of possibilities for the presentation of oral history materials than their younger peers. High school students could use pre-recorded interviews or their own to develop analytical publications, creative writing projects, websites, performances, documentary films, PowerPoint presentations, slide shows, exhibits, ethnopoetic displays, and more. High school students often also have the confidence that might allow them to bring their presentations to a public audience — they might present their materials to parents, interviewees, and/or the general public in a culminating celebratory event, a public display in a library or their school, a presentation for their interviewees, a public performance, or a website accessible outside the school intranet. | http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/764 |
4.34375 | Germans migrated to the English colonies in North America. Most
of them settled in Pennsylvania. Others settled in New York,
Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. They formed
the largest non-English-speaking community in colonial North
1600s and 1700s, wars ravaged Germany. Marching armies trampled
down fields of grain, stole cattle, and burned down farmsteads.
In their wake, famines spread over the land. Taxes, levied to
pay for the war, added to the people's plight.
disputes also drove people to leave their homes. In Europe the
rulers chose what church they wanted in their lands. Many pious
Germans of strong convictions found this hard to bear. North
America, especially Pennsylvania, offered them religious freedom. | http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/soc_studies/namerica/read/ |
4.65625 | Part One (1-2 class periods):
Start off the lesson with an overview of different biomes of the world. Students should take notes with a KWL chart. There are several alternatives. If you have a Netflix account, I would recommend viewing all or a portion of Home, directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, or Understanding Science: Volume 4: Ecosystems by Dr. Science (this one’s on instant!). If you don’t have a Netflix account, you can use one of two PowerPoints, found here:
After they gain preliminary information, conduct a class discussion from these questions:
- Compare and contrast the climates of each biome. Which biomes had similar precipitation averages? Which biomes had similar average temperatures?
- Did students come across any plant or animals common in multiple biomes? Discuss why specific plants or animals can live in more than one biome.
- Choose an extreme environment of a specific biome we just looked at and think about type of plants live there. For example, look at plants that live on a rocky cliff or the frozen tundra. What adaptations help them survive these extreme climates?
- Consider the biome in which you live. What plants live in this biome? How are they affected by abiotic and biotic factors? What can humans do to protect the plant life in your biome?
- Compare and contrast the environmental factors that consistently threaten the population size of plants in each biome. Which plants are threatened? Suggest steps for protection. Is this plant population of concern for the entire world?
- Choose an area of the world for a road trip and describe the biomes that you would encounter during your trip. For example, you might start a road trip in Washington, D.C., and travel west to California and then up the Pacific coast to Alaska. How could you distinguish one biome from another? What characteristics set each biome apart?
Place students in groups of three for the duration of the project. Have them create and sign a contract for working successfully and receiving a satisfactory DAILY group participation grade. (Please see Group Work Rubic. ) Teacher can print out and staple multiple copies and have students tear off one rubric per class.
Part Two (2 class periods):
Students will generate research on a biome that the teacher provides. It is best for teachers to pick from the following (these biomes are easiest to recreate in the classroom without extra materials):
- Coastal desert
- Hot desert
- Temperate Forest
- Alpine or Arctic Tundra
Note: These biomes may be easily maintained depending on the natural climate in your region and time of year.
Students will be gathering all the information they need to recreate their biome. This is including, but not limited to: flora, fauna, topography, elevation, climate, and human influence. Designate one student at least two topics for research. Student research may be done in a variety of formats to suit the school and student resources, as well as time permitting for the teacher (computer carts, library, internet articles printed off and brought in, website suggestions below). After they have researched their environment, they will write up a one paragraph summary on each subject totaling AT LEAST 6 paragraphs (more if there are more group members).
Students will use the information from their research to create a materials list to build their biome. Pose questions (some found in materials list) to guide their materials list. Also consider what precautions will students set up for species? Sometimes, species will get sick, die, or escape. Have students explain how they would prevent/handle each of these situations in the most humane way possible. Show students examples of ways to construct biomes with photos. (I have some pictures from my class last year uploaded as well as other classroom biomes.) Have them explain what specific materials are feasible, affordable, and successful for their environment.
Print out or project the teacher anonymous blog, explaining how to make one particular type of biome to house an ecosystem at http://teacheranonymous.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-to-make-bottle-biome.html. Student groups will discuss how to make it differently depending on their biome. Then, draw up a blueprint of what their biome will look like on graph paper. Detail is important here. Have students write captions that explain how the blueprint will sustain the population. Be sure students do this before materials are purchased! A neighboring group will then critique draft of biome. Have students check to make sure that materials and construction make sense for their biome. Students critiquing work will give positive feedback, as well as one comment for improvement of the blueprint.
Note: Teachers will collect blueprints and materials list, OK the blueprints and create a shopping list for the following class period. | http://www.teacherstryscience.org/lp/build-biome |
4.09375 | Science Fair Project Resources
Web-Based How-to Guides & Ideas
How To Do A Science Fair Project The MSSEF Student Guide is now available for download as a PDF.
A Student's View on Creating a Science Fair Project There is another useful guide called (PDF), written by students for students.
Science Fair Project Development, by Bill Rigney, STEM Instructional Specialist Marlborough Public Schools District & Vice President, Massachusetts State Science & Engineering Fair
Resources for Independent Student Research. Published by the Society for Science & the Public, organizer of the INTEL International Science & Engineering Fair (ISEF) - (Please note that Massachusetts Laws are in a few cases more limiting than federal laws, thus ISEF may accept some research plans that MSSEF cannot.)
The Internet Public Library – Science Fair Project Guide - A resource guide providing a variety of excellent web resources. This site has excellent reour, "A Science Fair Project Resource Guide" which is available at: http://www.ipl.org/youth/projectguide. It has all kinds of information and links to many other sites and publication listings.
Science Buddies Website offers a variety of resources including: help with topic selection, how to do a science fair project, ask an expert, as well as additional resources.
Dr. Shawn's Science Fair Projects is an excellent source of science projects, complete science kits, and expert advice. The creator, Shawn Carlson, Ph.D. is the only person ever to win a MacArthur Fellowship for science education. This site has resources for parents, teachers and students, including a science club called LabRats that sends free science lessons to families every two weeks.
The Washington University School of Medicine sponsors this website. It is an interactive science teaching and community outreach tool. It fields questions in 26 different subjects.
Polymer-Search, the Internet search engine for polymers and plastics, maintains a Top Science Project Ideas page that has proved particularly useful to a middle school science teacher we know.
Videos & Vimeos
Broadcom MASTERS App The Broadcom MASTERS®, a program of Society for Science & the Public (SSP), is the premier science fair competition for 6th, 7th and 8th graders where they demonstrate their mastery of Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering as Rising Stars. Keep up on all the excitement with this free app! For iOS and Android. | http://massscifair.com/high-school-fair/resources/default.aspx |
4.21875 | Language is a means of communication. By using a language people can communicate with each other. Using a language is not as simply as we thought because there is a set of rules that must be followed, which is called Grammar. Actually grammar is used to mean the structure of a language. It is an essential part of the use of language process, both in spoken and written language. Based on Digital Library of PETRA University, the grammar of a language is a description of the ways in which the language uses patterns of structure to convey the meaning. It would be impossible to learn language effectively without knowing the grammar, because grammar helps learners to identify grammatical forms, which serve to enhance and sharpen the expression of meaning.
Having a good grammar system of a language, learners will be helpful in delivering their ideas, messages and feelings either to the listeners or readers. Language without grammar would be disorganized and causes some communicative problems, like grammatical errors in writing. Hence, learners need to know the grammatical system of language they can communicate with others in order to transfer the message properly.
In order to use a language well, learners should learn the rules of a language or to know how they work. They cannot avoid errors because errors mostly occur in learning process. It happens because they use different forms to deliver their ideas, fellings or messages so they need considerable amount of time to be able to master the target language well. Besides, by making errors, learners will build their new knowledge to use the target language as Littlewood stated that making errors during studying the second language can be considered as a means of building learners’ abilities because they can learn something from making errors (Littlewood, 1992)
According to Robert and Freida in Yulianti’s thesis (1972: 154), learning English is not easy, the language learners may have difficulties. The difficulties that are encountered by every student will vary according to his / her native language. Because of these, there will be errors that can be found in their learning.
These errors will influence their communication. Therefore, it is important to analyze the errors because by learning the errors there are many advantages such as (a) a device which the learner uses in order to learn ( Selinker in Soesanti’s thesis, 1992 : 150 ), (b) to fully grasp and understand the nature of errors, and (c) instead of just being able to recognize errors, the learners are now able to explain the rules and correct the errors ( Mei Lin Ho, 2003 : 1).
The errors usually occur in the productive skills, speaking and writing, but to analyze the errors in productive skills in short time is not easy. It takes much time, money, and requires a high ability of an analyst. Therefore, the writer decided to analyze only the grammatical errors in students’ writing.
The writer chooses the students of Writing IV class as the subject of the research because they are expected to make writings which are correct in grammar, so it is important to know whether the students make grammatical errors or not and what kind of grammatical errors that students make. The writer hopes the result of the research will be useful; not only for the students of Writing IV class, but also for the lectures.
The grammatical error that will be analyze are subject and verb; verb agreement, tense, and form; pronoun agreement, and reference.
1.2 Research Problem
The central problem of this research is: “What grammatical errors are made by the students taking Writing IV class at the English Department Academic Year 2009 / 2010?”
1.3 Objective Of The Study
Based on the problem above, this research intends to find out the grammatical errors which are made by students of Writing IV class at the English Department in their writing of argumentative essay academic year test 2009 / 2010.
1.4 Significances Of The Study
This research has significances as follows:
1. To help teachers of the English Department, by giving them an important contribution in the English teaching process which is part of grammar they should pay attention to.
2. To help students, by giving valuable input about errors they encounter and how to overcome them.
3. It hopes that this thesis will help other researchers to do the some related researches in deeper, further and better techniques.
The scope of this study is the grammatical errors made by students taking Writing IV class at the English department in their three assignments of argumentative essay Academic Year 2009 / 2010.
The errors which the researcher will analyze are only the errors which include in the following three categories of problem areas. Those are:
1. Subject and verb
e.g. There is some glasses on the table
2. Verb agreement, tense, and form
e.g. I will coming soon.
3. Pronoun, agreement, and reference
e.g. Julie likes the flower. He will buy it.
1.6 Definitions of Key Term
• Error is a part of conversation or a composition that deviates from some selected norm of mature language performance.
• Error analysis is identifying, clasifying errors of a foreign language and giving solution.
• Grammatical errors are errors which happen in writing
• Students of English Department Academic year 2007 regular A are the students who were registered in 2007 in English Department and particularly taking the course of Writing IV in their fifth semester.
• English Department is one of the departments in the Faculty of Teachers Training and Education of the Lambung Mangkurat University, Banjarmasin which is located on Jl. H. Hasan Bashri Kayu Tangi Banjarmasin.
REVIEW OF LTERATURE
2.1 The Nature of writing
2.1.1 Definition of writing
According to Cohen and Riel in Yulianti’s thesis (1989), writing as a communicative act, a way of sharing observations, information, thought, or ideas with others. Meanwhile, Bryne in Yulianti’s thesis (1979) defined writing is transforming our thoughts into language. In other words, writing is transforming our thoughts into language. In other words, writing can be defined as a way of communication by transforming observations, information, thought, or ideas into language, so it can be shared with others. Also, Bryne (1979) added that it is neither easy nor spontaneous; it requires conscious mental effort. Writing is not only just transforming our thought or idea in written form but also it relays to the process of monitoring any single words or features that we have written and the process of rereading and revising our writing.
Voss and Keene (1992:2-3) write why we should bother with writing and purposes for writing as follows:
1. writng is a way of thinking and learning. Writing gives unique opportunities of explore ideas and enquire information. By writing, we come to know subjects well and make them our own.
2. Writing is a way of discovering. The act of writing allows us to make unexpected connections among ideas and language
3. Writing create reading. Writing create permanent, visible record of our ideas for others to read and ponder. Writing is powerfull means of communication for reading information and shapes human thought.
4. Writing ability is needed by educated people. Our skill writing is often considered to reflect our level of education.
Purpose for writing:
- To express yourself
- To provide information for your reader
- To persuade your reader
- To create a literary work
In Wikipedia’s website, it is stated that according to William Caslon, writing may refer to two activities:
1. The inscribing of characters on a medium, with the intention of forming words and other constructs that represent language or record information.
2. The creation of material to be conveyed trough written language (there are some expectation; for example, the use of a type writer to recard language is generally called typing, rather than writing).
Therefore, there are some writing components that should be considered by a writer before he begins to write because without considering the components we will not produce a good writing.
According to Raimes (1983), there are eight writing components that should be considered by a writer in order to produce good writing. The components are ;
1. Grammar : rules of verbs, agreement, pronouns.
2. Mechanics : handwriting, spelling, punctuation.
3. Organization : paragraphs, topics, and supports,
cohesion and unity.
4. word choice : vocabulary and idiom.
5. Purpose : reason for writing.
6. Audience : reader(s).
7. The writer’s purposes : getting ideas, getting started, writing
8. Content : relevance, clarity, originality, logic.
In order to get good result of writing, the writer should consider them in writing a paragraph or an essay.
Definition of a Paragraph and an Essay
A paragraph is a basic unit of organization in writing in which a group of related sentences develops one main idea. It can consist of one sentence or as long as ten sentences. However the number of sentences is unimportant but it should be long enough to develop the main idea clearly (Oshima and Ann Houge. 1999:16). A paragraph consists of several related sentences that develop one unit of content. A paragraph may stand alone as a brief work, but usually it functions as a part of a longer piece of writing (Dornan and Dawe. 1987:244).
A paragraph consists of one topic sentence and some support sentences. Some paragraph can create an essay, because an essay consists of some general statement and a thesis statement. Also, there is a concluding paragraph which concludes the main points in the body of the essay.
An essay is a piece of writing several paragraphs. It consists more than main idea, so it needs more than one paragraph to cover the ideas (Oshima and Houge. 1999:100)
In this research, the writer will analyze essays writing of students for their three writing assignments in argumentative essay academic year 2009 / 2010. They are required to write argumentative essays with the topics that have been prepared by the lectures. They developed the topics become essays writing.
2.2 The Nature of Error
2.2.1 Definition of Error
An error is different from mistake, so we have to be careful to differentiate. According to Yulianti (2007: 9):
- A mistake is a performance error, which is either a random guess or a ‘slip’, i.e. a failure to utilize a known system correctly.
- An error is a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker, reflecting the inter language competence of the learner.
She also clearly differentiated a mistake from an error. She stated:
- A mistake is a slip that a learner can self-correct.
- An error is what a learner can not self-correct.
From those definitions above, the writer concludes that a mistake is just a slip that the learner forgets the right form. While, an error is a deviation which is made by the learner because he does not know the rule and he /she will make it repetitively.
The Sources of Error Occurrence
The sources of error occurrence according to Ancker (2000: 1):
(1) Interference from the native language
The learner may assume that the target language and his native language are similar. Then, he will over generalize the rules of his native language and the target language.
(2) An incomplete knowledge of the target language
Because of the incomplete knowledge, the learner may make guesses. When he has something that he doesn’t know, he may guess what it should be there. Lengo (1995:1) added that foreign language learners commit errors largely because of the paucity of their knowledge of the target language whereas deviant forms produced by native speakers are dismissed as slips of the tongue or slips of the pen.
(3) The complexity of the target language
Certain aspects in English are difficult for some learners, it may be caused the rules of their native language are quite different from English and even more complex than their native language.
2.2.3 The Benefits of Analyzing Errors
Errors are normal and unavoidable during the learning process as Richard (1974: 95) mentioned that no one could learn without making errors. Meanwhile, Lengo (2003: 1) mentioned that errors are believed to be an indicator of the learners’ stages in their target language development. So, it is important to analyze the errors because there are many benefits in analyzing the errors, such as:
(1) a device which the learner uses in order to learn ( Selinker in Soesanti’s thesis, 1992: 150 )
(2) to fully grasp and understand the nature of the errors made, and
(3) instead of just being able to explain the rules and correct the errors ( Mei Lin Ho, 2003 : 1 ).
Grammar can be defined as a set of shared assumptions about how language works (Yulianti 2007:11). The assessment whether the learners have mastered some grammatical points should not be based on their ability to state the rules of grammar, but on their ability to use the grammatical points to share their ideas, emotions, feelings, or observations with other people. Especially in the context of the teaching English in Indonesia, the teaching of grammar should be integrated in the development of the four language skills.
Knowing about how grammar works is to understand more about how grammar is used and misused (Yulianti.2007:12). It means that there is a possibility of error occurrence in students learning. In this research, the term of error in grammar will be called a grammatical error. The writer has chosen only three catagories or problem areas in grammatical errors, they are:
1. Subject and verb
In a sentence, there are at least one subject and one verb. The subject may be a noun, a pronoun, and the predicate may be a verb or to be.
Some types of errors that might appear in this category are:
a. Subject missing
e.g., From the text above, can be concluded that book is important.
It should be: from the text above, it can conclude that book is important
b. Simple predicate missing be
e.g., Water very important for human being.
It should be: Water is very important for human being.
c. Wrong simple predicate missing be
e.g., There are student in the library.
It should be: There is student in the library.
d. Superfluous be
e.g. John and Taylor are do their homework.
It should be: John and Taylor do their homework.
2. Verb agreement, tense, and form.
Every sentence has at least one verb. It indicates number of the subject, the tense, etc wherever it stands in a sentence.
a. Misinformation of passive form
e.g., Andi was borrow it two days ago.
It shoul be: Andi was borrowed it two days ago
b. Passive order, but active form
e.g., The wedding will held tomorrow.
It should be: the wedding will be hold tomorrow
c. Active order, but passive form
e.g., The police is caught by the thief.
It should be: the police caught the thief
d. Misinformation of the next verbal word
e.g., We will coming soon
it should be: we will come soon.
e. The verb comes after the subject
e.g., Jane look at herself in a mirror.
It should be : jane looks at herself in a mirror
f. A form of have/ has
e.g., She have a book.
It should be: she has a book
g. A form of do / does
e.g., Andi do not know the rules
it should be: andi doesn’t know the rules.
3. Pronoun form, agreement, reference
Pronoun is a word that used to replace noun in a sentence or a paragraph. So, there is no repetition for the noun that may bore the audience, that is, the reader or the listener.
The example of the error that might appear in this area is:
e.g., He borrows the books. It will be returned soon.
It should be: he borrows teh books. They will be returned
METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH
3.1 The Research Method
This research uses a descriptive method to describe the grammatical errors in students’ writing for the final test made by the students taking Writing IV class at English Department academic year 2009 / 2010.
3.2 The Research Variable
The variable of this research is the grammatical errors which occur in the students’ writing for assignments of argumentative essay.
3.3 Data Sources
The population of this research is the students of Regular A who take Writing IV class at English Department academic year 2009 / 2010. The total numbers of the student are about 30 students.
According to Suharsimi Arikunto (2002:1200), untuk sekedar ancer-ancer maka apabila subjeknya kurang dari 100, maka lebih baik dianbil semua. Therefore, from the 30 students of writing IV class, the writer takes the entire student as samples.
3.4 Technique of Data Collection
The data which is used in this research is from the students’ writings of all English Department students taking Writing IV class for three assignments of argumentative essay academic year 2009 / 2010. In order to collect the data, the writer asks the lecturers of Writing IV class for their permission. Then, the writer borrows them to make the copies.
3.5 Technique of Data Analysis
The technique which is used in analyzing the data is qualitative. The data will be classified into three categories of problem areas: subject and verb; verb agreement, tense, and form; pronoun form, agreement, and reference. In which the first category is divided into four types of errors: surrogate subject missing; simple predicate missing; wrong simple predicate missing; superfluous. The second is divided into fives types of errors: misinformation of passive form; passive order but active form, active order but passive form; misinformation of verb after modal; the verb comes after the subject; a from of have / has; a form of do / does. And the third is only one type of errors: wrong pronouns.
3.6 Method of Drawing Conclusion
The writer uses inductive method in making final conclusion. The conclusion is from the data analysis as the result of the research and the answer of the problem.
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4 | Topics covered: Exceptions to Lewis structure rules; Ionic bonds
Instructor: Catherine Drennan, Elizabeth Vogel Taylor
Lecture Notes (PDF - 1.1MB)
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PROFESSOR: OK, let's get started here. Go ahead and take 10 more seconds on the clicker question, which probably looks all too familiar at this point, if you went to recitation yesterday. All right, and let's see how we do here.
OK. So, let's talk about this for one second. So what we're asking here, if we can settle down and listen up, is which equations can be used if we're talking about converting wavelength to energy for an electron. Remember, the key word here is electron. This might look familiar to the first part of problem one on the exam, and problem one on the exam is what tended to be the huge problem on the exam. I think over 2/3 of you decided on the exam to use this first equation, e equals h c over wavelength.
So I just want to reiterate one more time, why can we not use this equation if we're talking about an electron? C. OK, good, good, I'm hearing it. So the answer is c. What you need to do is you need to ask yourself if you're trying to convert from wavelength to energy for an electron, and you are tempted, because we are all tempted to use this equation, and if you were tempted, say, does an electron travel at the speed of light? And if the answer is no, an electron does not travel at the speed of light, light travels at the speed of light, then you want to stay away from using this equation. And I know how tempting it is to do that, but we have other equations we can use -- the DeBroglie wavelength, and this is just a combination of energy equals 1/2 m v squared, and the definition of momentum, so we can combine those things to get it.
You might be wondering why I'm telling you this now, you've already -- if you've lost points on that, lost the points on it, and what I'm saying to you is if there are parts of exam 1 that you did not do well on, you will have a chance to show us again that you now understand that material on the final. One quarter of the final is going to be exam 1 material, and what that means is when we look at your grade at the end of the semester, and we take a look at what you got on exam 1, and you're right at that borderline, and we say well, what happened, did they understand more at the end of the semester, did the concepts kind of solidify over the semester? And if they did and if you showed us that they did, then you're going to get bumped up into that next grade category.
So keep that in mind as you're reviewing the exam, sometimes if things don't go as well as you want them to, the temptation is just to put that exam away forever and ever. But the reality is that new material builds on that material, and specifically exam 1 a, question 1 a that deals with converting wavelength to energy for an electron. I really want you guys know this and to understand it, so I can guarantee you that you will see this on the final. Specifically, question 1, part a. You will see something very, very similar to this on the final. If you are thinking about 1 thing to go back and study on exam 1, 1 a is a really good choice for that. This is important to me, so you're going to see it on the final.
So if you have friends that aren't here, you might want to mention it to them, or maybe not, maybe this is your reward for coming to class, which is fine with me as well.
All right. So I want to talk a little bit about exam 1. I know most you picked up your examine in recitation. If you didn't, any extra exams can be picked up in the Chemistry Education office, that's room 2204.
So, the class average for the exam was a 68%, which is actually a strong, solid average for an exam 1 grade in the fall semester of 511-1. What we typically see is something right in this range, either ranging from the 50's for an exam 1 average to occasionally getting into the 70's, but most commonly what we've seen for exam 1 averages is 60, 61 -- those low 60's. So in many ways, seeing this 68 here, this is a great sign that we are off to a good start for this semester. And I do want to address, because I know many of you, this is only your second exam at MIT, and perhaps you've never gotten an exam back that didn't start with a 90 or start with an 80 in terms of the grades. So one thing you need to keep in mind is don't just look at the number grade. The reason that we give you these letters grade categories is that you can understand what it actually means, what your exam score actually says in terms of how we perceive you as understanding the material.
So, for example, and this is the same categories that were shared in recitation, so I apologize for repeating, but I know sometimes when you get an exam back, no more information comes into your head except obsessing over the exam, so I'm just going to say it one more time, and that is between 88 and 100, so that's 20% of you got an A. This is just absolutely fantastic, you really nailed this very hard material and these hard questions on the exam where you had to both use equations and solve problems, but also understand the concept in order to get yourself started on solving the problem.
The same with the B, the B range was between 69 and 87 -- anywhere in between those ranges, you've got a B, some sort of B on the exam. So again, if you're in the A or the B category here, this is really something to be proud of, you really earned these grades. You know these exams, our 511-1 exams, we're not giving you points here, there are no give me, easy points, you earned every single one of these points. So, A and B here, these are refrigerator-worthy grades, hang those up in your dorm. This is something to feel good about.
All right. So, for those of you that got between a 51 and a 68, this is somewhere in the C range. For some people, they feel comfortable being in the C range, other people really do not like being in this range. We understand that, there is plenty of room up there with the A's and the B's. You are welcome to come up to these higher ranges starting with the next exam. And what I want to tell you if you are in the C range, and this is not a place that you want to be in, anyone that's got below the class average, so below a 68 -- or a 68 or below, is eligible for free tutoring, and I put the website on the front page of your notes. This means you get a one-on-one tutor paid for by the Chemistry Department to help you if it's concepts you're not quite up on, if it's exam strategy that you need to work on more. Whatever it is that you need to work on, we want to help you get there.
So, if you have a grade that you're not happy with, that you're feeling upset or discouraged about, please, I'm happy to talk to all of you about your grades individually. You can come talk to me, bring your exam, and we'll go over what the strategy should be in terms of you succeeding on the next exam. You can do the same thing with all of your TAs are more than happy to meet with each and every one of you. And then in addition to that, we can set you up with a tutor if you are in the C range or below, in terms of this first exam.
All right. So 44 to 50, this is going to be in the D range. And then anything below a 44 is going to be failing on this exam. And also keep in mind, for those of you that are freshman, you need at least a C to pass the class. So, if you did get a D or an F on the first exam, you are going to need to really evaluate why that happened and make some changes, and we're absolutely here to help you do that. So the real key is identifying where the problem is -- is it with understanding the concepts, are you in a study group that's dragging you along but you're not understanding? Do you kind of panic when you get in the exam? There are all sorts of scenarios we can talk about and we want to talk about them with you.
Seriously, even if we had a huge range in this exam from 17 to 100, if you're sitting there and you're the 17, and actually there's more than 1 so don't feel alone, if you're a 17 or you're a 20, it's not time to give up, it's not time to drop the class and say I'm no good at chemistry, I can't do this. You still can, this is your first couple of exams, certainly your first in this class, potentially one of your first at MIT, so there's tons of room to improve from here on out. This is only 100 points out of 750. So, the same thing goes if you did really well, you still have 650 other points that you need to deal with. So, make sure you don't just rest on your high score from this first exam.
So, OK, so that's pretty much what I wanted to say about the exam, and in terms of there's tons of resources if things didn't work out quite as you wanted. If you feel upset in any way, please come and talk to me. We want you to love chemistry and feel good about your ability to do it. Nobody get into MIT by mistake, so you all deserve to be sitting here, and you all can pass this class and do well in it, so we can help you get there no matter what. You all absolutely can do this.
And then one more time, to reiterate, in case anyone missed it, 1 a, make sure you understand that, I feel like that's important. And actually all of 1 -- I really feel like the photoelectric effect is important for understanding all of these energy concepts. So, as you go on in this class, make sure you don't go on before you go back and make sure you understand that problem.
All right, so let's move on to material for exam 2 now, and we're already three lectures into exam 2 material. And I do want to say that in terms of 511-1, what tends to happen is the exam scores go up and up and up, in terms of as we go from exam 1, to exam 2, to exam 3. One of these reasons is we are building on material, the other reason is you'll be shocked at how much better you are at taking an exam just a few weeks from now. So this will be on, starting with the Lewis structures, so go back in your notes -- if this doesn't sound familiar, if you spent too much time -- or not too much time, spent a lot of time studying exam 1 and didn't move on here.
Today we're going to talk about the breakdown of the octet rule. Cases where we don't have eight electrons around our Lewis structures, then we'll move on to talking about ionic bonds. We had already talked about covalent bonds, and then we talked about Lewis structures, which describe the electron configuration in covalent bonds. So now let's think about the other extreme of ionic bonds, and then we'll talk about polar covalent bonds to end, if we get there or will start with that in class on Monday.
Also, public service announcement for all of you, voter registration in Massachusetts, which is where we are, is on Monday, the deadline if you want to register to vote. There's some websites up there that can guide you through registering and also can guide you through, if you need an absentee ballot for your home state. And I actually saw, and I saw a 5.111 student manning, there's some booths around MIT that will register you or get you an absentee ballot. So, the deadline's coming soon, so patriotic duty, I need to remind you of that as your chemistry teacher -- chemistry issues are important in politics as well. So make sure you get registered to vote.
I just remembered one more announcement, too, that I did want to mention, some of you may have friends in 511-2 and have heard their class average for exam 1. And I want to tell you, this happens every year, their average was 15 points higher than our average. Last year, their average was 15 points higher than our average. This is for exam 1. This is what tends to happen to 511-2 grades as the exam goes on. This is what happens to 511-1. You guys are in a good spot. Also, I want to point out that what's not important is just that number grade, but also the letter that goes with it.
So, for example, if you got a 69 in this class on this exam, that's a B minus. If you got a 69 on your exam in 511-2, that's a D, you didn't pass the exam. So keep that in mind when your friend might have gotten a higher number grade than you and you know you understand the similar material just as well. Similarly, an 80 in this class on the exam was a B plus, a very high B. An 80 in that class is going to be a C. So, just don't worry so much about exactly where that average lies, you really want to think about what the letter grade means. OK, I've said enough. I just -- I hate to see people discouraged, and I know that a few people have been feeling discouraged, so that's my long-winded explanation of exam 1 grades.
All right. So, let's move on with life though, so talking about the breakdown of the octet rule. The first example where we're going to see a breakdown is any time we have an odd number of valence electrons. This is probably the easiest to explain and to think about, because if we have an odd number that means that we can't have our octet rule, because our octet rule works by pairing electrons. And if we have an odd number, we automatically have an odd electron out.
So, if we look at an example, the methyl radical, we can first think about how we draw the Lewis structure -- we draw the skeletal structure here. And then what we're going to do is add up our valence electrons -- we have 3 times 1 for the hydrogen atoms, carbon has 4 valence electrons, so we have a total of 7. If we want to fill all of our valence shells in each of these atoms, we're going to need a total of 14 electrons. So, what we see we're left with is that we have 7 bonding electrons. So we can fill in 6 of those straightforward here, because we know that we need to make 3 different bonds. And now we're left over with 1 electron, we can't make a bond.
So, what we'll do is carbon does not have an octet yet. We can't get it one, but we can do the best we can and help it out with adding that extra electron onto the carbon atom, so that at least we're getting as close as possible to filling our octets.
This is what we call a radical species or a free radical. Free radical or radical species is essentially any type of a molecule that has this unpaired electron on one of the atoms. This might look really strange, we're used to seeing octets. But you'll realize, if you calculate the formal charge on this molecule, that it's not the worst situation ever for carbon. At least it's formal charge is zero, even if it doesn't have -- it would rather have an extra bond and have a full octet. But it's not the worst scenario that we can imagine. But still, radicals tend to be incredibly reactive because they do want to fill that octet.
So, what happens when you have a radical is it tends to react with the first thing that it runs into, especially highly reactive radicals that are not stabilized in some other way, which you'll tend to talk about it organic chemistry -- how you can stabilize radicals.
So the term free radical should sound familiar to you, whether you've heard it in chemistry before, or you haven't heard it in chemistry, but maybe have heard it, I don't know, commercials for facial products or other things. People like to talk about free radicals, and they're sort of the hero that gets rid of free radicals, which are antioxidants. So you hear in a lot of different creams or products or vitamins that they have antioxidants in them, which get rid of free radicals. The reason you would want to get rid of free radicals is that free radicals can damage DNA, so they're incredibly reactive. It makes sense that if they hit a strand of DNA, they're going to react with the DNA, you end up breaking the strands of DNA and causing DNA damage.
So, this is actually what happens in aging because we have a lot of free radicals in our body. We can introduce them artificially, for example, cigarette smoke has a lot of really dangerous free radicals that get into the cells in your lungs, which damage your lung DNA, which can cause lung cancer. But also, all of us are living and breathing, which means we're having metabolism go on in our body, which means that as we use oxygen and as we metabolize our food, we are actually producing free radicals as well. So it's kind of a paradox because we need them because they are a natural by-product of these important processes, but then they can go on and damage cells, which is what kind of is causing aging and can lead to cancer.
We have enzymes in our body that repair damage that is done by free radicals, that will put the strands of DNA back together. And we also have antioxidants in our body. So, you might know that, for example, very brightly colored fruit is full of antioxidants, they're full of chemicals that will neutralize free radicals. Lots of vitamins are also antioxidants, so we have vitamin A on the top there and vitamin E.
So, the most common thing we think of when we think of free radicals is very reactive, bad for your body, causes DNA damage. But the reality is that free radicals are also essential for life. So this is kind of interesting to think about. And, for example, certain enzymes or proteins actually use free radicals in order to carry out the reactions that they carry out in your body. So, for example, this is a picture or a snapshot of a protein, this is a crystal structure of ribonucleotide reductase is what it's called. It's an enzyme that catalyzes the reaction of an essential step in both DNA synthesis and also DNA repair, and it requires having radicals within its active site in order to carry out the chemistry.
So, this is kind of a neat paradox, because radicals damage DNA, but in order to repair your DNA, you need certain enzymes, and those enzymes require different types of free radicals. So, free radicals are definitely very interesting, and once we get -- or hopefully you will get into organic chemistry at some point and get to really think about what they do in terms of a radical mechanism.
We can think about radicals that are also more stable, so let's do another example with the molecule nitric acid. So we can again, draw the skeleton here, and just by looking at it we might not know it's a radical, but as we start to count valence electrons, we should be able to figure it out very quickly, because what we have is 11 valence electrons. We need 16 electrons to have full octets. So, we're left with 5 bonding electrons. We put a double bond in between our nitrogen and our oxygen, so what we're left over with is this single bonding electron, and we'll put that on the nitrogen here. And I'll explain why we put it on the nitrogen and not the oxygen in just a minute.
But what we find is then once we fill in the rest of the valence electrons in terms of lone pairs, this is the structure that we get. And if you add up all of the formal charges on the nitrogen and on the oxygen, what you'll see is they're both 0. So if you happen to try drawing this structure and you put the lone pair on oxygen and then you figured out the formal charge and saw that you had a split charge, a plus 1 and a minus 1, the first thing you might want to try is putting it on the other atom, and once you did that you'd see that you had a better structure with no formal charge.
I have to mention what nitric oxide does, because it's a very interesting molecule. Don't get it confused with nitrous oxide, which is happy gas, that's n o 2. This is nitric oxide, and it's actually much more interesting than nitrous oxide. It's a signaling molecule in your body, it's one of the very few signaling molecules that is a gas, and obviously, it's also a radical. What happens with n o is that it's produced in the endothelium of your blood vessels, so the inner lining of your blood vessels, and it signals for smooth muscle that line your blood vessels to relax, which causes vasodilation , and by vasodilation, I just mean a widening of the blood vessels. So, n o signals for your blood vessels to get wider and allow more blood to flow through. And if you think about what consequences this could have, in terms of places where they have high altitude, so they have lower oxygen levels, do you think that they produce more or less and n o their body? More? Yeah, it turns out they do produce more. The reason they produce more is that they want to have more blood flowing through their veins so that they can get more oxygenated blood into different parts of their body.
N o is also a target in the pharmaceutical industry. A very famous one that became famous I guess over 10 years ago now, and this is from a drug that actually targets one of n o's receptors, and this drug has the net effect of vasodilation or widening of blood vessels in a certain area in the body. So this is viagra, some of you may be familiar, I think everyone's heard of viagra. Now you know how viagra works. Viagra breaks down, or it inhibits the breakdown of n o's binding partner in just certain areas, not everywhere in your body. So, in those areas, what happens is you get more n o signaling, you get more vasodilation, you get increased blood flow. So that's a little bit of pharmacology for you here today.
All right, so let's talk about one more example in terms of the breakdown of the octet rule with radicals. Let's think about molecular oxygen. So let's go ahead and quickly draw this Lewis structure. We have o 2. The second thing we need to do is figure out valence electrons. 6 plus 6, so we would expect to see 12. For a complete octet we would need 8 electrons each, so 16. So in terms of bonding electrons, what we have is 4 bonding electrons. So, we can go ahead and fill those in as a double bond between the two oxygens.
So, what we end up having left, and this would be step six then because five was just filling in that, is 12 minus 4, so we have 8 lone pair electrons left. So we can just fill it in to our oxygens like this.
All right, so using everything we've learned about Lewis structures, we here have the structure of molecular oxygen. And I just want to point out for anyone that gets confused, when we talk about oxygen as an atom, that's o, but molecular oxygen is actually o 2, the same for molecular hydrogen, for example.
All right, so let's look at what the actual Lewis structure is for molecular oxygen, and it turns out that actually we don't have a double bond, we have a single bond, and we have two radicals. And any time we have two radicals, we talk about what's called a biradical. And while using this exception to the Lewis structure rule, to the octet rule for odd numbers of valence electrons can clue us into the fact that we have a radical, there's really no way for us to use Lewis structures to predict when we have a biradical, right, because we would just predict that we would get this Lewis structure here.
So, when I first introduced Lewis structures, I said these are great, they're really easy to use and they work about 90% of the time. This falls into that 10% that Lewis structures don't work for us. It turns out, in order to understand that this is the electron configuration for o 2, we need to use something called molecular orbital theory, and just wait till next Wednesday and we will tell you what that is, and we will, in fact, use it for oxygen. But until that point, I'll just tell you that molecular orbital theory takes into account quantum mechanics, which Lewis theory does not. So that's why, in fact, there are those 10% of cases that Lewis structures don't work for.
All right, the second case of exceptions to the octet rule are when we have octet deficient molecules. So basically, this means we're going to have a molecule that's stable, even though it doesn't have a complete octet. And these tend to happen in group 13 molecules, and actually happen almost exclusively in group 13 molecules, specifically with boron and aluminum. So, any time you see a Lewis structure with boron or aluminum, you want to just remember that I should look out to make sure that these might have an incomplete octet, so look out for that when you see those atoms.
So, let's look at b f 3 as our example here. And what we see for b f 3 is the number of valence electrons that we have are 24, because the valence number of electrons for boron is 3, and then 3 times 7 for each fluorine. For total filled octets we need 32, so that means we need 8 bonding electrons. So, let's assign two to each bond here, and then we're going to have two extra bonding electrons, so let's just arbitrarily pick a fluorine to give a double bond to. And then we can fill in the lone pair electrons, we have 16 left over. So thinking about what the formal charge is, if we want to figure out the formal charge for the boron here, what we're talking about is the valence number for boron, which is 3, minus because there are no lone pairs, minus 1/2 of 8 because there are eight shared electrons. We get a formal charge of minus 1.
What is our formal charge since we learned this on Monday for thinking about the double bonded fluorine in boron? So, look at your notes and look at the fluorine that has a double bond with it, and I want you to go ahead and tell me what that formal charge should be.
All right, let's take 10 more seconds on that. OK, so 49%. So, let's go look back at the notes, we'll talk about why about 50% of you are right, and 50% need to review, which I totally understand you haven't had time to do yet, your formal charge rules from Monday's class, there were other things going on. But let's talk about how we figure out formal charge. Formal charge is just the number of valence electrons you have. So fluorine has 7. You should be able to look at a periodic table and see that fluorine has seven. What we subtract from that is the number of lone pair electrons, and there are four lone pair electrons on this double bonded fluorine, so it's minus 4. Then we subtract 1/2 of the shared electrons. Well we have a double bond with boron here, so we have a total of 4 shared electrons. And when we do the subtraction here, what we end up with is a formal charge plus 1 on the double bonded fluorine.
Without even doing a calculation, what do you think that the formal charge should be on you single bonded fluorines? Good. OK, it should be and it is 0. The reason it's zero in terms of calculating it is 7 minus 6 lone pair electrons minus 1/2 half of 2 shared electrons is 0. The reason that you all told me, I think, and I hope, is that you know that the formal charge on individual atoms has to equal the total charge on the molecule. So if we already have a minus 1 and a plus 1, and we know we have no charge in the molecule, and we only have one type of atom left to talk about, that formal charge had better be 0.
OK. So this looks pretty good in terms of a Lewis structure, we figured out our formal charges. These also look pretty good, too, we don't have too much charge separation. But what actually it turns out is that if you experimentally look at what type of bonds you have, it turns out that all three of the b f bonds are equal in length, and they all have a length that would correspond to a single bond. So, experimentally, we know we have to throw out this Lewis structure here, we have some more information, let's think about how this could happen.
So this could happen, for example, is if we take this two of the electrons that are in the b f double bond and we put it right on to the fluorine here, so now we have all single bonds. And let's think about what the formal charge situation would be in this case here. What happens here is now we would have a formal charge of on the boron, we'd have a formal charge of on all of the fluorine molecules as well. So, it turns out that actually looking at formal charge, even though the first case didn't look too bad, this case actually looks a lot better. We have absolutely no formal charge separation whatsoever. It turns out again, boron and aluminum, those are the two that you want to look out for. They can be perfectly happy without a full octet, they're perfectly happy with 6 instead of 8 in terms of electrons in their valence shell. So that is our exception the number two.
We have one more exception and this is a valence shell expansion, and this can be the hardest to look out for, students tend to forget to look for this one, but it's very important as well, because there are a lot of structures that are affected for this . And this is only applicable if we're talking about a central atom that has an n value or a principle quantum number that's equal to or greater than three. What happens when we have n that's equal to or greater to three, is that now, in addition to s orbitals and p orbitals, what else do we have available to us? D orbitals, great. So what we see is we have some empty d orbitals, which means that we can have more than eight electrons that fit around that central atom.
If you're looking to see if this is going to happen, do you think this would happen with a large or small central atom? So think of it in terms of just fitting. We've got to fit more than 8 electrons around here. Yeah, so it's going to be, we need to have a large central atom in order for this to take place. Literally, we just need to fit everything around is probably the easiest way to think about it. And what happens is it also tends to have small atoms that it's bonded to. Again, just think of it in terms of all fitting in there.
So, let's take an example p c l 5. The first example is the more straightforward example, because let's start to draw the Lewis structure, and what we see is that phosphorous has five chlorines around it. So we already know if we want to form five bonds we've broken our octet rule. But let's go through and figure this out and see how that happens.
What we know is we need 40 valence electrons, we have those -- 5 from the phosphorous, and we have 7 from each of the chlorine atoms. If we were to fill out all of those octets, that would be 48 electrons. So what we end up with when we do our Lewis structure calculation is that we only have 8 bonding electrons available to us. So we can fill those in between the phosphorous and the chlorine, those 8 bonding electrons.
So, this is obviously a problem. To make 5 p c l bonds we need 10 shared electrons, and we know that that's the situation because it's called p c l 5 and not p c l 4, so we can go right ahead and add in that extra electron pair. So we've used up 10 for bonding, so that means what we have left is 30 lone pair electrons, and I would not recommend filling all of these in your notes right now, you can go back and do that, but just know the rest end up filling up the octets for all of the chlorines.
So, in this first case where you actually need to make more than for bonds, you will immediately know you need to use this exception to the Lewis structure octet rule, but sometimes it won't be as obvious. So, let's look at c r o 4, the 2 minus version here, so a chromate ion, and if we draw the skeletal structure, we have four things that the chromate needs to bond to.
So, let's do the Lewis structure again. When we figure out the valence electrons, we have total, we have 6 from the chromium, we have 6 from each of the different oxygens, and where did this 2 come from? Yup, the negative charge. So, remember, we have 2 extra electrons hanging out in our molecule, so we need to include those. We have a total of 32. 40 are needed to fill up octets. So again, we have 8 bonding electrons available, so we can go ahead and fill these in between each of the bonds. What happens is that we then have 24 lone pair electrons left, and we can fill those in like this. And the problem comes now when we figure out the formal charge.
So, when we do that what we find is that the chromium has a formal charge of plus 1, and that each of the oxygens has a total charge of minus 1. So we actually have a bit of charge separation here. Without even doing a calculation, what is the total charge of these that are added up? OK, it's minus 2, that's right. We know that the total charge of each of the formal charges has to add up to minus 2, because that's the charge in our molecule. We can also just calculate it -- the chromate gives us a plus 2, then we have 4 times minus 1 for each of the oxygens, so we have a minus 2.
So, we have some charge separation here, and in some cases, if we're not at n equals 3 or higher, there's really nothing we can do about it, this would be the best structure we can do. But since we have these d orbitals available, we can use them, and it turns out that experimentally this is what's found, that the length and the strength are not single bonds, but they're actually something between a single bond and a double bond.
So how do we get a 1 and 1/2 bond, for example, what's the term that let's us do that? Resonance. That's right. So that's exactly what's happening here. So, if we went ahead and drew this structure here where we have now two double bonds and two single bonds, that would be in resonance with another structure where we have two double bonds instead to these two oxygens, and now, single bonds to these two oxygens. We can actually also have several other resonance structures as well. Remember, the definition of a resonance structure is where all the atoms stay the same, but what we can do is move around the electrons -- we're moving around those extra two electrons that can be in double bonds.
So, why don't you tell me how many other resonance structures you would expect to see for this chromate ion? All right, let's take 10 more seconds on this.
All right. This is good. I know this is a real split response, but the right answer is the one that is indicated in the graph here that it's four. This takes a little bit of time to get used to thinking about all the different Lewis structures you can have. So, you guys should all go back home if you can't see it immediately right now and try drawing out those four other Lewis structures, for chromate, there are four others. You'll probably get a chance to literally do this example in recitation where you draw out all four, but it's even better to make sure you understand it before you get to that point. So, we can go back to the class notes.
So it turns out there's four other Lewis structures, so basically just think about all the other different combinations where you can have single and double bonds, and when you draw those out, you end up with four. So, for every single one of these Lewis structures, we could figure out what the formal charges are, and what we would find is that it's on the chromium, it's for the double bonded oxygens, and it's going to be negative 1 for the single bonded oxygens.
So, what you can see is that in this situation, we end up having less formal charge separation, and that's what we're looking for, that's the more stable structure. So any time you can have an expanded octet -- an expanded valence shell, where you have n is equal to or greater than 3, and by expanding and adding more electrons into that valence shell, you lower the charge separation, you want to do that.
I also want to point out, I basically said there's 6 different ways we can draw this in terms of drawing all the resonance structures. You might be wondering if you have to figure out the formal charge for each structure individually, and the answer is no, you can pick any single structure and the formal charges will work out the same. So, for example, if you pick this structure and your friend picks this structure, you'll both get the right answer that there's just the negative 1 on the oxygens and no other formal charges in the molecule.
All right. So those are the end of our exceptions to the octet rule for Lewis structures, that's everything we're going to say about Lewis structures. And remember, that when we talk about Lewis structures, what they tell us is the electron configuration in covalent bonds, so that valence shell electron configuration. So we talked a lot about covalent bonds before we got into Lewis structures, and then how to represent covalent bonds by Lewis structures.
So now I'll say a little bit about ionic bonds, which are the other extreme, and when you have an ionic bond, what you have now is a complete transfer of either one or many electrons between two atoms. So the key word for covalent bond was electron sharing, the key word for ionic bonds is electron transfer. And the bonding between the two atoms ends up resulting from an attraction that we're very familiar with, which is the Coulomb or the electrostatic attraction between the negatively charged and the positively charged ions.
So let's take an example. The easiest one to think about is where we have a negative 1 and a positive 1 ion. So this is salt, n a c l -- actually lots of things are call salt, but this is what we think of a table salt. So, let's think about what we have to do if we want the form sodium chloride from the neutral sodium and chlorine atoms. So, the first thing that we're going to need to do is we need to convert sodium into sodium plus.
What does this process look like to you? Is this one of those periodic trends, perhaps? Can anyone name what we're looking at here? Exactly, ionization energy. So, if we're going to talk about the energy difference here, what we're going to be talking about is the ionization energy, or the energy it takes to rip off an electron from sodium in order to form the sodium plus ion. So, we can just put right here, that's 494 kilojoules per mole.
The next thing that we want to look at is chlorine, so in terms of chlorine we need to go to chlorine minus, so we actually need to add an electron. This is actually the reverse of one of the periodic trends we talked about. Which trend is that this is the reverse of? Electron affinity, right. Because if we go backwards we're saying how badly does chlorine want to grab an electron? Chlorine wants to do this very badly, and it turns out the electron affinity for chlorine is huge, it's 349 kilojoules per mole, but remember, we're going in reverse, so we need to talk about it as negative 349 kilojoules per mole.
So if we talk about the sum of what's happening here, what we need to do is think about going from the neutrals to the ions, so we can just add those two energies together, and what we end up with is plus 145 kilojoules per mole, in order to go from neutral sodium in chlorine to the ions.
So, the problem here is that we have to actually put energy into our system, so this doesn't seem favorable, right. What's favorable is when we actually get energy out and our energy gets lower, but what we're saying here is that we actually need to put in energy. So another way to say this is this process actually requires energy. It does not emit energy, it does not give off excess energy, it requires energy.
So, we need to think about how can we solve this problem in terms of thinking about ionic bonds, and the answer is Coulomb attraction. So there's one more force that we need to talk about, and that is when we talk about the attraction between the negatively and the positively charged ions, such that we form sodium chloride. So this process here has a delta energy, a change in energy of negative 589 kilojoules per mole. So that's huge, we're giving off a lot of energy by this attraction. So if we add up the net energy for all of this process, all we need to do is add negative 589 to plus 145. So what we end up getting is the net energy change is going to be negative 444 kilojoules per mole, so you can see that, in fact, it is very favorable for neutral sodium and neutral chloride to form sodium chloride in an ionic bond. And the net increase then, is a decrease in energy.
So, I just gave you the number in terms of what that Coulomb potential would be in attraction, but we can I easily calculate it as well using this equation here where the energy is equal to the charge on each of the ions, and this is just multiplied by the value of charge for an electron divided by 4 pi epsilon nought times r, are r is just the distance in terms of the bond length we could talk about.
So, let's calculate and make sure that I didn't tell you a false number here. Let's say we do the calculation with the bond length that we've looked up, which is 2 . 3 6 angstroms for the bond length between sodium and chloride. So we should be able to figure out the Coulombic attraction for this.
So, if we talk about the energy of attraction, we need to multiply plus 1, that's the charge on the sodium, times minus 1, the charge on the chlorine, times the charge in an electron, 1 . 6 2 times 10 the negative 19 Coulombs, and that's all divided by 4 pi, and then I've written out epsilon nought in your notes, so I won't write it on the board. And then r, so r is going to be 2 . 3 6 and times -- what is angstrom, everyone? Yup, 10 to the negative 10. So 10 to the negative 10 meters. So, if we do this calculation here, what we end up with is negative 9.774 times 10 to the negative 19 joules.
So that's what we have in terms of our energy. That does not look the same as what we saw -- yup, do you have a question?
PROFESSOR: OK. Luckily, although, I did not write it in my own notes, I did it when I put in my calculator, thank you. So you need to square this value here and then you should get this value right here, negative 9.77.
All right, so what we need to do though is convert from joules into kilojoules per mole, because that's what we were using. So if we multiply that number there by kilojoules per mole -- or excuse me, first kilojoules per joule, so we have 1,000 joules in every kilojoule. And then we multiply that by Avagadro's number, 6.022 times 10 to the 23 per mole. What we end up with is negative 589 kilojoules per mole. So this is that same Coulombic attraction that we saw in the first place.
So, notice that you will naturally get out a negative charge here, remember negative means an attractive force in this case, because you have the plus and the minus 1 in here. So we should be able to easily do that calculation, and what we end up getting matches up with what I just told you, luckily, and thank you for catching the square, that's an important part in getting the right answer. So, experimentally then, what we find is that the change in energy for this reaction is negative 444 kilojoules per mole.
If we look experimentally what we see, it's actually a little bit different, it's negative 411 kilojoules per mole. So, in terms of this class, this is the method that we're going to use, and we're going to say this gets us close enough such that we can make comparisons and have a meaningful conversations about different types of ionic bonds and the attraction between them.
But let's think about where this discrepancy comes from, and before I do that I want to point out, one term we use a lot is change in energy for a reaction where, for example, you break a bond. Remember that the negative of the change in energy is what's called delta e sub d. We first saw this when we first introduced the idea of covalent bonds. Do you remember what this term here means, delta e sub d? A little bit and some no's, which this was pre-exam, I understand, you still need to review those notes, it's dissociation energy. So you get a negative energy out by breaking the bond. The dissociation energy means how much energy that bond is worth in terms of strength, so it's the opposite of the energy you get out of breaking the bond -- or excuse me, the energy that you get out of forming the bond. It's the amount of energy you need to put in to break the bond is dissociation energy. It takes this much energy to dissociate your bond, excuse me.
All right. So, let's take a look here at our predictions, so I just put them both ways so we don't get confused. The dissociation energy is 444. The change in energy for forming the bond is negative 444. We made the following approximations, which explain why, in fact, we got a different experimental energy, if we look at that.
The first thing is that we ignored any repulsive interactions. If you think about salt, it's not just two single atoms that you are talking about. It's actually in a whole network or whole lattice of other molecules, so you actually have some other chlorines around that are going to be having repulsive interactions with our chlorine that we're talking about. We're going to ignore those, make the approximation that those don't matter, at this point, in these calculations. And the result for that is that we end up with a larger dissociation energy than the experimental value. That's because the bond is going to be a little bit more broken than it was in our calculation, because we do have these repulsive interactions.
The other thing that we did is that we treated both sodium and the chlorine as point charges. And this is what actually allowed us to make this calculation and calculate the Coulomb potential so easily, we just treated them as if they're point charges. We're ignoring quantum mechanics in this -- this is sort of the class where we ignore quantum mechanics, we ignored it for Lewis structures, we're ignoring it here. We will be back to paying a lot of attention to quantum mechanics in lecture 14 when we talk about MO theory, but for now, these are approximations, these are models where we don't take it into consideration. And I think you'll agree that we come reasonably close such that we'll be able to make comparisons between different kinds of ionic bonds.
All right. So, the last thing I want to introduce today is talking about polar covalent bonds. We've now covered the two extremes. One extreme is complete total electron sharing -- if we have a perfectly covalent bond, we have perfect sharing. The other is electron transfer in terms of ionic bonds. So when we talk about a polar covalent bond, what we're now talking about is an unequal sharing of electrons between two atoms.
So, this is essentially something we've seen before, we just never formally talked about what we would call it. This is any time you have a bond forming between two non-metals that have different electronegativities, so, for example, hydrogen choride, h c l. The electronegativity for hydrogen is 2.2, for chlorine it's 3.2. And in general, what we say is we consider a difference in terms of a first approximation if the difference in electronegativity is more than 0. 5, so this is on the Pauling electronegativity scale. So what we end up having is we sort of have a kind of, and what we call it is a partial negative charge on the chlorine, and a partial positive charge in the hydrogen. The reason we have that is because the chlorine's more electronegative, it wants to pull more of that shared electron density to itself. If it has more electron density, it's going to have a little bit of a negative charge and the hydrogen's going to be left with a little bit of a positive charge.
So, we can compare this, for example to, molecular hydrogen where they're going to have that complete sharing, so there's not going to be a delta plus or a delta minus, delta is going to be equal to zero on each of the atoms. They are completely sharing their electrons.
And we can also explain this in another way by talking about a dipole moment where we have a charged distribution that results in this dipole, this electric dipole. And we talk about this using the term mu, which is a measurement of what the dipole is. A dipole is always written in terms of writing an arrow from the positive charge to the negative charge. In chemistry, we are always incredibly interested in what the electrons are doing, so we tend to pay attention to them in terms of arrows. Oh, the electrons are going over to the chlorine, so we're going to draw our arrow toward the chlorine atom.
So, we measure this here, so mu is equal to q times r, the distance between the two. And q, that charge is just equal to the partial negative or the partial positive times the charge on the electron. So this is measured in Coulomb meters, you won't ever see a measurement of electronegativity in Coulomb meters -- we tend to talk about it in terms of debye or 1 d, or sometimes there's no units at all, so the d is just assumed, and it's because 1 debye is just equal to this very tiny number of Coulomb meters and it's a lot easier to work with debye's here.
So, when we talk about polar molecules, we can actually extend our idea of talking about polar bonds to talking about polar molecules. So, actually let's start with that on Monday. So everyone have a great weekend. | http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemistry/5-111-principles-of-chemical-science-fall-2008/video-lectures/lecture-12/ |
4.21875 | Tidal energy or tidal power refers to the use of the oceans’ tides to generate electricity. Tides can be utilized as energy sources through the currents they cause or through the associated variations in ocean level. The most effective way of taking advantage of these vertical water displacements is through impoundment. Power stations that are producing electricity from tides are usually dams, converting tidal energy into electricity.
How Does Tidal Energy Work?
The gravity of the moon exerts a pull on the Earth every day. Since the oceans’ waters are fluid, so as the moon’s gravity pulls on them, they bulge outward. These bulges, which place along an axis (an imaginary line) that points toward the moon, are called lunar tides; on the other side of the Earth, the side away from the moon, the waters bulge out away from the gravitational pull of the center of the Earth. While the moon does most of this work, the sun helps out, but to a lesser extent. Although the sun is much bigger than the moon, the moon is much closer to the Earth, so it exerts a greater gravitational pull. Nonetheless, the sun’s gravitational pull also creates tides, called solar tides. Tidal energy is produced form both of these tides.
Tidal Energy Facts
When the Earth, moon, and sun are aligned in a straight line during a full or new moon, both the sun and moon are pulling together in the same direction. During a full moon the pull is greatest, creating large tides called spring tides. During half-moon periods, when the moon and sun are at right angles, or 90 degrees, to each other, the tides created, called neap tides, are lower. During these times the coasts have two low and two high tides over a period of less than twenty-four hours. At the same time, the Earth rotates beneath these bulges, passing under each one during a twenty-four-hour period. The result is that tides rise and fall rhythmically along the world’s coastlines approximately twice each day in predictable patterns. These flows of water are very like the flows of rivers, and their energy can be harnessed in much the same way that a river’s energy is by a hydroelectric dam.
There are two ways to harness energy in tidal power-generating stations: the tidal barrage and tidal streams. A tidal barrage, also called an ebb generating system, is very similar to a dam. The barrage is constructed at the mouth of a bay or estuary (a water passage where the tide meets the lower end of a river). A barrage works, when the difference in water elevation between low tide and high tide is at least 16 feet (5 meters).
Tidal Energy Companies
Currently, only one major tidal power station is in operation throughout the world. This station is located on the estuary of the La Rance River in France. Construction of the barrage began in 1960 and was completed in 1966. The barrage is almost 1,100 feet (330 meters) long with a 13.7-square-mile (22-square-kilometer) basin. Twenty-four turbines, each of 17.7 feet (5.4 meters) diameter are being used by the station. Each turbine is engineered to produce about 10 megawatts of power, so the station can produce a maximum of 240 megawatts.
Also, the other nations have explored the possibility of harnessing tidal power. Australia’s Renewable Energy Commercialisation Program awarded a grant to develop a 50-megawatt plant in the Derby region of Australia. Scotland, too, has explored tidal energy, and proposals have been made for the construction of a tidal station on Solway Firth in southwest Scotland; in the 1970s Scotland built a 15-kilowatt experimental tidal turbine on Loch Linnhe. In England, the Severn River has been identified as a promising site for a tidal power station. The most promising site for tidal power plant in the world is the Bay of Fundy in Canada, which, at up to 56 feet (17 meters), has the highest tides in the world.
Advantages of Tidal Energy
Using tides for energy have some benefits. The chief benefits of tidal energy, as of most forms of alternative energy, are that it is clean, renewable, and does not consume resources such as coal or oil. In addition, it does not discharge pollutants into the water or atmosphere, so it does not contribute to acid rain or global warming. Further, the energy source is free. There is a secondary benefit of tidal power barrages. They can function as bridges linking communities on opposite sides of an estuary, making travel quicker.
Tidal Energy Pros and Cons
The chief disadvantage of tidal power stations is their expense. It has been estimated, for example, that construction of a tidal power station on the Severn River in England would cost about $15 billion. A second drawback is that not every coastal region is suitable for tidal power. Generally, a difference between high and low tides of about 16 feet (5 meters) is necessary for a tidal power station to be cost-effective. Only about forty such sites in the world have been identified. Another drawback is that the tides are in motion only about ten hours per day. This means that tidal energy cannot be provided consistently throughout the day and would have to be supplemented with other forms of energy. | http://expert-energy.com/tidal-energy-what-is-tidal-energy/ |
4.125 | The adaptive behavior can be defined as a type of behavior that is used to adjust to another type of behavior or situation. This is over and over again characterized by a sort of behavior that allows an individual to transform a negative or disturbing behavior to something that is more helpful. These behaviors are most often social or personal behaviors.
Adaptive behavior can also be defined as “the effectiveness or degree with which the individual meets the standards of personal independence and social responsibility expected of his age and social group”.
A maladaptive behavior is a behavior or mannerism that is not adaptive — it is counterproductive to the individual. Maladaptivity is often used as an indicator of irregularity or mental dysfunction, in view of the fact that its evaluation is moderately free from subjectivity. On the other hand, many behaviors are considered to be moral and can be apparently maladaptive, such as opposition or self-denial.
The adaptive behavior also refers to the archetypal performance of individuals without any disabilities in meeting the ecological potentials. Adaptive behavior changes according to a person’s age, cultural expectations, and environmental demands.
Behavior scales: For example: to determine a student’s adaptive behavior capacities, professionals have their center of attention on the student’s theoretical skills, societal skills, and practical skills. To measure the adaptive skills, professionals make use of the adaptive behavior scales that have been normed on individuals with and without disabilities. The majority adaptive behavior scales are accomplished by interviewing a blood relation (i.e. parent), a tutor, or one more individual who is well-known with the student’s day to day activities. Students may have a combination of strengths and needs in any or all of the areas regarding theoretical, societal and practical skills.
The adaptive skills that are being exhibited by a person with mental disability are vital factors in shaping the supports he/she requires for achieving victory in school, work, community, and home environments. The mentally retarded children have a tendency to contain substantial deficits in adaptive behavior. | http://classof1.com/homework_answers/psychology/adaptive_behavior/ |
4.5625 | The use of onomatopoeia and alliteration are abundant in children's literature and can easily be identified by our youngest learners so they are both perfect crafts to start with when teaching writing. Begin by selecting mentor texts containing onomatopoeia- some books may be filled with onomatopoeia while others may contain just one or two choice examples.
possible mentor texts for this craft...
Encourage your students to find differences in the ways the different books use onomatopoeia. Guide them to see the various distinctions between the kinds of onomatopoeia used in books such as animal sounds, indoor sounds, nature sounds, action sounds, etc. A Tree Map would be a great way to chart these different types of sound words.
Have students close their eyes and listen for the different sounds around them for 30 seconds. Then have them share the sounds they heard. Chart their ideas. As a class come up with an onomatopoeic word to describe the sound. For example: "tap, tap, tap" or "scratch, scratch" or "eeek, eeek, eeek", etc. Chart the new words with pictures that match the sounds. Take students outside the classroom to find new sounds. Stop periodically and draw their attention to new sounds.
As a class, create a shared writing piece based on a class listening walk. Use the book The Listening Walk as a model for the piece. Invite students to give onomatopoeic words to fill in the sentences. Transfer the story to smaller sheets of paper. Then have students work together to illustrate the sentences.
This is a kindergarten example from the book.
This craft is a great place to start because it is so readily found in children's books, children can relate to it, and it brings the writing down to 1-3 words. If you know of other great mentor texts for teaching onomatopoeia please share them in a comment below. | http://larremoreteachertips.blogspot.com/2012/07/wild-about-writing-wednesday_31.html |
4.03125 | Plants, Poles and Plugs
Electricity Is Measured In Watts.
Electricity is measured in units of power called watts. One watt is such a small amount of power, however, that the more commonly used measurement is the kilowatt, representing 1,000 watts. The higher the watt or kilowatt rating of a particular electrical device, the more electricity it requires.
The amount of electricity a power plant generates or a customer uses over a period of time is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). Kilowatt-hours are determined by multiplying the number of watts required by the number of hours of use, and then dividing by 1,000. For example, if you use a 60-watt light bulb five hours a day for 30 days, you have used 60 watts of power for 150 hours, or nine kWh of electrical energy. Although electricity use varies widely depending on the season and the region of the country, a typical household uses about 938 kWh of electricity a month.
U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual 2005, October 2006. | http://www.southerncompany.com/learningpower/powerinfo_4.aspx |
4.09375 | Even a log raft with a goatskin tied to a pole will sail before the wind. To sail in other directions, a boat must be designed and rigged so that the force of the wind moves it across the wind or into the wind, as well as moving it with the wind.
Controlling Direction. A boat with no means of control will travel straight downwind (in the direction toward which the wind is blowing). It will do this no matter which direction its bow or stern is pointing. It may even go sideways. Using a rudder is the first step in controlling a boat. With a rudder, the bow of the boat can be pointed in the desired direction.
But a rudder is not enough to control a boat. A boat must also have something to keep it from sliding sideways when moving across the wind. This is done with a keel, centerboard, bilge boards, or leeboards. Boats with keels can sail only in water deeper than the keel. Boats with centerboards and bilge boards can sail in shallower water, because the centerboard or bilge boards can be raised or lowered as needed. Leeboards are a simple way of changing a canoe or rowboat into a sailboat. They can be swung out of the water when not needed.
With a rudder for steering and a keel or centerboard to prevent sideward movement, a sailboat can travel in many directions. The bow of a sailboat is usually sharply pointed, so it can cut through the water easily.
Why a Boat Sails. A sail has curved panels sewn into it so it will be shaped like the wing of an airplane when the wind fills it out. The side of the sail to leeward (away from the wind) corresponds to the top of an airplane wing. The action of the wind blowing across this curved surface creates a lift similar to the force that enables an airplane to stay in the air. In a sailboat, this lifting force becomes a pull away from the sail and toward the bow of the boat. At the same time, the wind also exerts a push against the other side of the sail. In this way, the action of the wind on the sail combines in two ways to force the boat forward. These forces make it possible to sail a boat in almost any direction, except directly into the wind and up to 45 degrees on each side of the wind direction.
Basic Sailing Maneuvers. There are three basic sailing maneuvers: (1) sailing into the wind, (2) sailing across the wind, and (3) sailing with the wind. | http://library.thinkquest.org/5705/page2.html |
4.1875 | July 3 2012
The Declaration of Independence Was Key to Women's Liberation
Almost two years ago, Time magazine published an article entitled, “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.” The article highlighted the plight of a young woman named Aisha, whose uncle -- under orders from the Taliban -- sliced off her ears and nose because she had attempted to escape from her abusive husband.
Aisha’s story exemplifies the grave injustices that so many women around the world endure at the hands of despotic rulers. From forced sterilizations and abortions in China to a lack of fundamental political and legal rights in Saudi Arabia, women continue to suffer under oppressive governments that refuse to recognize the inherent equality and freedom of all human beings.
Throughout world history, injustice and political oppression have been more of a rule than an exception; however, the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution represented a historical turning point for women, as well as men.
In contrast with past revolutions, which were fought merely to exchange one set of rulers for another, the American Revolution embodied a revolution in the general principles of governance. In essence, the Declaration of Independence was not simply a defense of the revolution of 1776 or a critique British rule; rather, it was a manifesto setting forth a universal standard of justice that could be used to evaluate any government.
The standard of justice set forth in the Declaration of Independence and other Founding documents, was rooted in the notion of a “transcendent law of nature” that can be discovered from a self-evident or common sense view of nature. That is, in observing one man in relation to others, there is no inequality between men so great as to mark out one man as the natural ruler over another. In other words, although many inequalities exist, all human beings are equal in their freedom.
Although women did not immediately enjoy legal recognition of their fundamental rights, the establishment of the equality principle as the foundation of the American regime and the system limited constitutional government that arose from the Declaration of Independence has proved invaluable for women. Early women’s rights advocates were able to contend that, because women share with men the common humanity that justifies natural equality and liberty, they were being unjustly deprived of their inalienable rights and deserved recognition of their right to own property, participate in the political affairs of the nation, and receive equal protection of the laws.
Women’s call for justice on this basis was first widely promulgated in the 1848 Seneca Falls’ Declaration of Sentiments. This proclamation began by appealing to the same transcendent “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” that inspired and provided justification for the American Revolution.
Echoing the original Declaration, the Seneca Falls organizers proclaimed that women are created into the same state of equality and freedom as men and thereby possess the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They also provided a list of grievances detailing the injuries to their natural equality and rights suffered at the hands of men. Among these grievances: “He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice…He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law civilly dead. He has taken away from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns…” Thus, in attempting to overturn intrusive government regulations that limited their freedom and opportunities, the Seneca Falls women appealed to the principles behind the law.
The United States is now facing a critical moment, however, in which those advocating for the advancement of women’s rights are doing so by attacking the very principles of limited government and individual rights that allowed women to secure influence in the past. While early women’s rights advocates fought to address unjust applications of the law to protect women in the enjoyment of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, modern feminists have challenged the fundamental principles of liberty and equality by advocating for bigger and more intrusive government.
This antagonism to the principles of liberty stems from a monolithic view of what it means to be a fulfilled woman and a redefinition of what the realization of freedom requires. The principles of natural equality and liberty allow women to make decisions regarding their own lives and the pursuit of happiness, even if this often results in women choosing fulfillment as wives and mothers.
On the other hand, modern feminists have rejected the idea that women can be free within the confines of family life and have argued that women can only find fulfillment in careers outside of the home. This singular vision requires redistributive and regulatory policies to ensure that family life is no longer an impediment to self-actualization, and it ultimately takes away from individual women the liberty to make genuine choices regarding their own felicity.
As Fourth of July celebrations commence, women should pause and consider that the ultimate consequence of dismantling the pillars of liberty is tyranny and that the principles of equality and freedom outlined in the nation’s creed provide the true basis for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for men and women alike. | http://www.iwf.org/news/2788399/The-Declaration-of-Independence-Was-Key-to-Women's-Liberation |
4.0625 | for National Geographic News
Rhea, Saturn's second largest moon, may be the first known moon with its own small system of rings, astronomers announced.
Although no one has actually seen Rhea's rings, scientists say that odd data collected during a 2005 flyby of the Cassini spacecraft provides strong clues.
"We can't say definitely that there are rings surrounding Rhea," said planetary scientist Geraint Jones.
"But the data we have are a real puzzle, and the only reasonable explanation we've been able to come up with is the debris disk proposal."
Jones, of University College London, led a study on the Cassini data to be published in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.
Rhea sweeps through Saturn's magnetic field, which traps charged particles in a bubble zone that includes the tiny moon's orbit.
Jones' team had expected to see a dip in the amount of electrons in Rhea's wake as the surface of the 950-mile-wide (1,529-kilometer-wide) moon intercepted the particles.
The researchers also expected Cassini to find a thin halo of dust kicked up by the micrometeorites that constantly bombard Rhea's surface.
The team did detect these features, but they also found a surprise: The amount of charged particles decreased along a region extending outward on each side to about eight times the moon's diameter.
The electron decrease was far too much to be accounted for by the dust attributed to meteorite impacts.
"About 70 percent of all the electrons had gone before we entered the wake itself," Jones said. "This was a real puzzle."
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES | http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080306-moon-rings.html |
4.25 | The FOSS program uses several instructional pedagogies to make science more efficient for teachers and more productive for students.
Inquiry. FOSS investigations are guided by questions. The overarching questions of science are "what's in this world?", and "how does it work?" In FOSS we break them down into discrete subquestions as scientists must, that can be explored effectively. In pursuing answers, students usually start with free exploration of materials, followed by a discussion of their discoveries. Often new questions arise while students seek answers, leading to additional student-motivated inquiries with materials to reinforce and extend concepts.
Hands on Active Learning. It is widely accepted that children learn science concepts best by doing science. Doing science means hands-on experiences with objects, organisms, and systems. Hands-on activities are motivating for students, and they stimulate inquiry and curiosity. For these reasons FOSS is committed to providing the best possible materials and the most effective procedures for getting students deep into scientific concepts. FOSS students investigate, experiment, gather data, organize results, and develop conclusions based on their own actions. The information gathered in such activities enhances the development of scientific ways of thinking.
Multisensory Methods. Observing is often equated with seeing, but in the FOSS, program all five senses are used to promote greater understanding. FOSS evolved from pioneering work done in the 1970s with students with physical disabilities. The legacy of that work is that FOSS investigations naturally use multisensory methods, not only to accommodate students with physical and learning disabilities, but also to maximize information gathering for all students. A number of tools used in the FOSS program, such as the FOSS balance, were originally designed to serve the needs of students with disabilities.
Student-to-Student Interaction. Collaboration is central to the enterprise of science. In FOSS investigations for grades 3-6, students work in groups of four with each member contributing to management, data collection, data analysis, and reporting of results. Individual students' observations and ideas are always incorporated into group decisions. Hands-on science, where students collaborate in planning, action, and information processing, gives students opportunities to develop deep understanding and rich, thoughtful interactions with other points of view.
Students in the early grades are just beginning to work cooperatively toward group goals. They do not always share materials gracefully. We have found that in grades K-2 it is usually best for each student at a table to have his or her own materials to work with. But working in close proximity to other students is important; it allows for easy interchange of ideas and communication of discoveries. We refer to this early-elementary organization as working alone...together.
Discourse and Reflective Thinking. Discourse is tremendous exercise for the mind. Have you considered the immense complexity of converting experiences and ideas into words to be spoken or written? An idea or concept must be synthesized from the innumerable bits of stored information and that concept must then be constructed into a string of symbols we call words, and output in a sequence that conveys information. An awesome cognitive process.
This is the essence of discourse - putting ideas and experiences into words. The process requires a tremendous amount of information processing, internal verification, and validation of what is known. This dimension of elementary science is sometimes referred to as the minds-on approach to science. It simply means science. It simply means that it is not enough just to work with materials—you have to think about what the experience with materials tells you about the world.
Discourse takes several forms in FOSS.
- Focused discussions take place in collaborative
- Traditional whole-class question-and- answer
sessions summarize a lesson and put important points in
front of the class.
- Content/inquiry sessions wrap up each part
of each investigation.
- Student sheets help students collect and
organize data and discuss the results in thoughtful ways.
(Student-sheet discourse may be an individual or a group
- Response sheets elicit individual discourse on specific topics for assessment purposes.
Reading and Research. In science, reading and research extends their experience beyond the limits of the classroom and the FOSS kit; they can enhance their understanding of concepts by exposure to related ideas and they can share in the lives of real and fictitious people who played roles in scientific discovery or applied scientific ideas to life situations. FOSS Science Stories were written to add this dimension to the FOSS program. However, we believe strongly that reading should not be the primary source of science information in the elementary curriculum. The primary source should be personal experience. Carefully selected reading materials, provided after an activity-based foundation is in place, can add a very effective dimension to science learning.
Other research tools recommended in the context of the hands-on activities for students include video excursions, computer software, and the World Wide Web. | http://www.deltaeducation.com/science/fossms/Pedagogy.shtml |
4 | You are here
Color-coding Revision - Visualizing the Process
Following a detailed set of instructions, students use crayons (or other multi-colored writing utensils) to visually distinguish between certain elements of their papers. The result is a colorful paper that visually demarcates areas of text that may require revision.
*Having attempted this exercise on computers, I highly recommend a low-tech approach. Using hard copies and forcing students to interact with the material pages themselves both allows for more freedom in marking up the papers and helps the visualization process. Additionally, my students loved playing with crayons.
So, all you will need are:
- hard copies of the papers to be revised
- crayons, highlighters, or variously colored pens
This exercise will work in any course requiring writing and revision. I've used it in both rhetoric and literature classes, but it was originally designed for an introductory rhetoric class.
Rhetoric 306 is a course designed to introduce students to the principles of rhetoric, responsible civil discourse, and college writing. Students are asked to select a contemporary controversy to explore through research, rhetorical analysis, and ultimately to advocate their own position.
Students are asked to peer review each other's papers using crayons (my personal favorite tool) or other colorful writing utensils. Using three differently colored crayons, they look for very specific aspects of the paper to underline, circle, or cross-out. The particular parts of the paper they should attend to are easily adaptable to an instructor's needs and the common issues arising in a given class. The important thing is that students mark up the papers with different colors and different types of annotation.
This workshop is incredibly helpful to students who are more visually-oriented learners. It is also an extremely helpful editing process for students to practice. By giving them extremely detailed instructions and asking them to pay close attention to more minute aspects of their peers' papers, they often leave the workshop feeling more attuned to these issues in their own papers.
Adapt the workshop instructions to your own needs. This is particularly helpful once you've already seen the students' writing and can gauge the issues that need addressing. For example, in my rhetoric/composition class, I find that students often rely too heavily on quotations in their first papers (which involve a lot fo summary), so I have them underline all of the quotations. This makes it immediately clear to most of the students just how much of their paper is quoted and how much is their own writing. On the other hand, in my literature class my students might not be providing enough evidence from the text, so underlining quotations have the inverse effect of highlighting a paucity of quotation.
My own teacherly pet-peeve is vague pronouns and distant referents, so this usually turns up regardless of the course I'm teaching. But as you'll see in the instructions below, it's fairly easy to tweak the worksheet to fit your needs.
Other than that, make sure to tell students to bring a hard copy of their papers. It's also important to provide writing utensils in a variety of colors (at least three per student). I tend to bring a giant box of crayons to class - both because crayons are less expensive than colored pencils or other options, and because my students get a kick out of playing with crayons in a college classroom.
(You will probably want to re-format this before giving it to students, but for accessibility reasons, I am not retaining the original Word document's formatting)
This exercise is designed to help with the revision process by making certain aspects of your papers stand out visually. For those of you that are visual learners this might be really useful in that it literally highlights the way you use language. For others of you this might just be an easy in-class exercise where you get to play with crayons.
1. Select three different colored crayons. This will work best if they are distinctly different colors.
2. Assign each color a function by creating a color key here:
a. PRONOUNS ___________________
b. TOPIC SENTENCES ______________
c. QUOTATIONS __________________
3. As you read through the paper,
a. With the color assigned to pronouns,
i. Circle every: THEY, THEIR, THOSE, THESE, THIS, IT, ITS,
ii. Cross out any: I, YOU, YOUR, WE, OUR, US, (and any contractions you come across ‘cause they shouldn’t be there either)
b. With the color assigned to topic sentences, underline the first sentence of every paragraph
c. With the color assigned to quotations, underline every quote you come across (make a second line if quotes are used in the fist sentence)
4. Once you have worked through the entire paper, go back through it a second time. Do the following exercises with a pen or pencil.
a. For every pronoun you circled, identify the referent (i.e. who is the “they,” what is the “this” or “it”), and write your answers on the line below each pronoun.
b. Read through each paragraph again, and in the margin write a few words identifying the subject of the paragraph. Does the content match the topic sentence? If not, make a single, neat X across the entire paragraph.
c. For each quotation, assess whether the quote is one of the following and label each quote accordingly:
i. Rhetorically effective (i.e. uses powerful/evocative language) [RE]
ii. Highly specific (statistics or technical language) [HS]
iii. Could probably be paraphrased or seems unnecessary [PARA]
As it's purely for the students' benefit, this assignment is not graded. I simply use this as an in-class exercise and send them home with their marked-up papers.
My students generally really enjoy this exercise - in part because I have them playing with crayons in a college classroom. What I have found is that the actual process of doing the workshop is more helpful than the feedback they receive - so, in doing this to someone else's paper, it helps them to notice the trend in their own papers. The exercise can be adapted to any number of common problems, these are just three things that my students tend to consistently have issues with in the first paper (no matter how much we've gone over these things in class).
I do think it's important to use hard copies of their papers. I've tried this in a computer-classroom, and using highlighting in Word just doesn't have the same impact. It also makes it more difficult to visualize all together and doesn't have the same tactile effect. | http://lessonplans.dwrl.utexas.edu/content/color-coding-revision-visualizing-process |
4.1875 | Dysentery is an intestinal disorder characterized by inflammation of the intestine, pain, and severe diarrhea, with the frequent stools often containing blood and mucus. It is most often caused by infection due to bacteria, viruses, protozoa, or intestinal worms. Other causes include chemical irritants and certain medications, such as some steroids, that can affect bowel movements (Apel 2003). Dysentery formerly was known as flux or the bloody flux.
The most common types of dysentery are bacillary dysentry, due to infection with particular bacteria, or amebic dysentery (or amoebic dysentery), caused by an amoeba, Entamoeba histolytica. Amebic dysentery is a subcategory of an infectious disease known as amebiasis caused by this protozoan, with amebic dysentery being specific for a severe case of intestinal amebiasis (Frey 2004).
Dysentery is a preventable disease. Typically, it is spread through unsanitary water or food that contains microorganisms that damage the intestinal lining. Preventive measures include practicing good hygiene, such as washing of one's hands and proper disposal of human waste, as well as purification of drinking water and proper cooking and handling of food. Extra precaution should be followed regarding contact with infected persons and oral-anal sexual practices, even if indirect, are risky for transmission.
Amebic dysentery, or amebic dysentery, is caused by the amoeba Entamoeba histolytica. More generally, this amoeba causes amebiasis or amoebiasis, an infectious disease that may affect various parts of the body (intestines, liver, lungs, brain, genitals, and so on) and may have a wide range of symptoms (diarrhea, fever, cramps, and so on) or be asymptomatic. Amebiasis is one of the most common parasitic diseases, with an estimated 500 million new cases each year and with as many as 100,000 people dying each year (Frey 2004). Although amoebiasis sometimes is known as amebic dyssentery, more specifically amebic dysentery refers to a type of intestinal amebiasis in which there are symptoms such as bloody diarrhea and inflammation (Frey 2004).
Amebic dysentery may be severe, in which the organisms invades the lining of the intestine and produces sores, bloody diarrhea, vomiting, chills, fevers, and abdominal cramps. An acute case of amebic dysentery may cause such complications as inflammation of the appendix (appendicitis), a tear in the intestinal wall, or a sudden severe inflammation of the colon. Of course, the amoebas may spread in the circulatory system to other parts of the body and cause amebic abcesses of the liver or brain or other serious complications. Extraintestinal amebiasis, such as involving the lungs, brain, or liver, have a relatively high mortality rate (Frey 2004).
Amebic dysentery is transmitted through contaminated food and water. Entamoeba histolytica is an anaerobic parasitic protozoan. Amoebae spread by forming infective cysts, which can be found in stools and spread if whoever touches them does not sanitize his hands. There are also free amoebae, or trophozoites, that do not form cysts.
Amoebic dysentery is well known as a cause of "traveler's dysentery" because of its prevalence in developing nations, or may be known as "Montezuma's Revenge," although it is occasionally seen in industrialized countries. About one to five percent of the general population in the United States develop amebiasis every year, but not all of these infect the intestine and many are asymptomatic; the highest rates of infection are in male homosexuals, institutionalized people, migrant workers, and recent immigrants (Frey 2004).
Bacillary dysentery is mostly commonly associated with three bacterial groups:
- Shigellosis is caused by one of several types of Shigella bacteria.
- Campylobacteriosis is caused by any of the dozen species of Campylobacter that cause human disease
- Salmonellosis is caused by Salmonella enterica (serovar Typhimurium).
Shigellosis, which is often known as bacillary dysentery, is an infection of the intestinal tract by a group of bacteria called Shigella. Shigellosis rarely occurs in animals other than humans and other primates like monkeys and chimpanzees. Humans are infected by four different groups of Shigella, with the most severe attacks caused by S. dysenteriae, and the mildest attacks by S. sonnei (Kaminstein 2004). Shigellosis is another well-known cause of "traveler's diarrhea" and illness worldwide. The major symptoms are diarrhea, fever, severe fluid loss, and abdominal cramps (Kaminstein 2004).
Shigellosis's most extreme form is known as dysentery, and is characterized by very watery diarrhea (which is often blood- and mucous-streaked), rectal pain, fever, and abdominal cramping (Kaminstein 2004). Although several bacteria can cause dysentery, the term bacillary dysentery often is used interchangeably with shigellosis (Kaminstein 2004).
Shigella bacteria are extremely infectious and ingestion of only ten organisms is sufficient to result in severe diarrhea and dehydration (Kaminstein 2004). The causative organism is frequently found in water polluted with human feces, and is transmitted via the fecal-oral route. The usual mode of transmission is directly person-to-person hand-to-mouth, in the setting of poor hygiene among children.
Shigella is responsible for ten to twenty percent of all cases of diarrhea worldwide (Kaminstein 2004). In the developing world, Shigella causes approximately 165 million cases of severe dysentery and more than 1 million deaths each year, mostly in children in the developing world. Shigella also causes approximately 580,000 cases annually among travelers and military personnel from industrialized countries (WHO 2008). Shigellosis accounts for less than 10% of the reported outbreaks of foodborne illness in the United States.
Among serious complications of shigellosis is movement of the infection to areas outside of the intestine, such as the nervous system (meningitis, encephalitis) and kidneys (hemolytic uremic syndrome or HUS, which leads to kidney failure) (Kaminstein 2004).
Treatment and prevention
The first and main task in managing any episode of dysentery is to maintain fluid intake using oral rehydration therapy. If this can not be adequately maintained, either through nausea and vomiting or the profuseness of the diarrhea, then hospitalization may be required for intravenous fluid replacement. Ideally, no antimicrobial therapy is started until microbiological microscopy and culture studies have established the specific infection involved. Where laboratory services are lacking, it may be required to initiate a combination of drugs including an amoebicidal drug to kill the parasite and an antibiotic to treat any associated bacterial infection.
Amoebic dysentery can be treated with metronidazole. Mild cases of bacillary dysentery are often self-limiting and do not require antibiotics (BNF 2007), which are reserved for more severe or persisting cases. Campylobacter, shigella, and salmonella respond to ciprofloxacin or macrolide antibiotics (BNF 2007).
Once recovery starts, early refeeding is advocated, avoiding foods containing lactose due to temporary (although it can persist for years) lactose intolerance (DuPont 1978; DeWitt 1989).
There are several Shigella vaccine candidates in various stages of development that could reduce the incidence of dysentery in endemic countries, as well as in travelers suffering from traveler's diarrhea (Girard et al. 2006).
Since the infectious forms are spread through food or water contamination, preventive measures include good hygiene, purification of drinking water, proper food handling and cooking, washing of hands, and proper disposal of human feces. Children at day care centers and schools should be encouraged to wash their hands. Contact with individuals infected with dysentery should be proceeded in a careful manner, and one should be careful of contaminated milk, ice cream, and vegetables. Any sexual practices involving oral-anal contact, whether directly or indirectly, carry risks of the transmission of the disease (Kaminstein 2004; Frey 2004).
- Apel, M. A. 2003. Amebic Dysentery (Epidemics), 1st edition. Rosen Publishing Group. ISBN 0823941965.
- British National Formulary. 2007. Antibacterial drugs: Summary of antibacterial therapy. Page 276 in British National Formulary, Ed. 53. BMJ Group and RPS Publishing (Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain).
- DeWitt, T. G. 1989. Acute diarrhoea in children. Pediatr Rev 11(1): 6–13. PMID 2664748. Retrieved October 7, 2008.
- DuPont, H. L. 1978. Interventions in diarrheas of infants and young children. J. Am. Vet. Med. Assoc. 173 (5 Pt 2): 649–53. PMID 359524. Retrieved October 7, 2008.
- Frey, R. J. 2004. Amebiasis. Pages 143-146 in J. L. Longe (ed.), The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine, 2nd edition, volume 1. Detroit, MI: Gale Group/Thomson Learning. ISBN 0787654906.
- Girard, M. P., D. Steele, C. L. Chaignat, and M. P. Kieny. 2006. A review of vaccine research and development: Human enteric infections. Vaccine 24(15): 2732-2750. Retrieved October 7, 2008.
- Kaminstein, D. 2004. Shigellosis. Pages 3027-3030 in J. L. Longe (ed.), The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine, 2nd edition, volume 4. Detroit, MI: Gale Group/Thomson Learning. ISBN 0787654930.
- World Health Organization (WHO). 2008. Shigellosis. World Health Organization. Retrieved October 7, 2008.
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4.03125 | news & tips
A collection of helpful articles on teachers and teaching
Grounding Experiences in Language: Expanding a Child’s World
Children’s language development is dependent upon exploration and their growing ability to understanding the world they inhabit. It is when children learn to listen, question, and to formulate and test their own assumptions that learning occurs.
By actively engaging with new experiences, children deepen their knowledge about the world and, in addition, expand their vocabulary and understanding of previously acquired words and knowledge. Not all experiences are created equally, however, and an important component of a quality early childhood literacy program is to include a variety of experiences that children can engage in throughout the year.
While every experience a child has contains the potential to deepen their knowledge, it is not enough to simply expose a child to new experiences. It is essential to immerse and ground these experiences in conversation.
Hart & Risley (1995), in their landmark study on vocabulary differences amongst children, talk about the concept of “parent talk.” “Parent talk” is when “a parent defines and labels what children should notice and think about the world, their family, and themselves and suggest how interesting and important various objects, events, and relationships are.”
In this same vein, it is important that teachers engage in this kind of “discovery talk” with young children. It is not enough to have a block corner in the classroom or to take a class trip to a museum without first helping children identify and understand the experiences they will have or help them label the work they have created.
Have conversations with children about what they might experience. So many times, we give children instructions and expectations about their behavior, but we don’t take the time to talk about what the child might see, hear, or touch. If you add a new art material to the classroom, take time to brainstorm with the children about what kind of magical objects they might create!
Help children talk about their experiences. Whether they choose to spend choice time at the sand table, or you’re heading out as a class to the local science center, each experience has specific words that help the child build a better understanding of what is occurring. They’ll also be able to better anchor the experience as a reference for the next time it occurs.
A variety of experiences will help children learn new vocabulary, give them practice talking about new things, and help to connect their thoughts in meaningful ways so they are able to interact with parents, with other adults, and with other children.
- – -
Krystyann Krywko specializes in education research, and focuses on literacy, and on hearing loss and the impact it has on children and families. She holds an Ed. D in International Education Development from Teachers College, Columbia University; where she was a Spencer Fellow for the 2005 cohort. She has more than 10 years of early childhood teaching experience. | http://lessonplanspage.com/grounding-experiences-in-language-expanding-a-child%e2%80%99s-world/ |
4.1875 | CHALCOLITHIC ERA in Persia. Chalcolithic (< Gk. khalkos “copper” + lithos “stone”) is a term adopted for the Near East early in this century as part of an attempt to refine the framework of cultural developmental “stages” (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages) and used by students of western European prehistory (E. F. Henrickson,1983, pp. 68-79). In Near Eastern archeology it now generally refers to the “evolutionary” interval between two “revolutionary” eras of cultural development: the Neolithic (ca. 10,000-5500 b.c.e., but varying from area to area), during which techniques of food production and permanent village settlement were established in the highlands and adjacent regions, and the Bronze Age (ca. 3500-1500 b.c.e., also varying with the area), during which the first cities and state organizations arose.
Although archeologists have devoted less attention to the Chalcolithic, it was an era of fundamental economic, social, political, and cultural development, made possible by the economic advances of the Neolithic and providing in turn the essential basis for the innovations of the Bronze Age. The era can be divided into three general phases, Early, Middle, and Late Chalcolithic, approximately equivalent respectively to the Early, Middle, and Late Village periods identified by Frank Hole (1987a; 1987b; for more detailed discussion of the internal chronology of the Persian Chalcolithic, see Voigt; idem and Dyson). Those aspects most directly attested by archeological evidence (primarily demographic and economic) will be emphasized here, with some attention to less clearly identifiable social, political, and ideological trends. Persia is essentially a vast desert plateau surrounded by discontinuous habitable areas, limited in size and ecologically and geographically diverse, few of them archeologically well known, especially in the eastern half of the country. The evidence is highly uneven and drawn primarily from surveys and excavations in western and southwestern Persia.
Settlement patterns. It is remarkable that in so geographically diverse and discontinuous a country a single distinctive pattern of settlement development characterized the Chalcolithic era in most of the agriculturally exploitable highland valleys and lowland plains that have been surveyed. During the early phase most habitable areas were sparsely settled; small, undifferentiated village sites were located near streams or springs. This pattern was essentially an extension of the prevailing Neolithic settlement pattern and in a few areas (e.g., northwestern Iran; Swiny) appears to have continued throughout the Chalcolithic. In the great majority of the arable mountain valleys and lowland plains, however, it developed in several significant ways through the Middle and Late Chalcolithic. The number of villages increased substantially (in many areas strikingly so) at the end of the Early and especially in the Middle Chalcolithic; then, in the Late Chalcolithic the trend was abruptly reversed, and the number of permanent settlements had dropped precipitously by the end of the era. On the Susiana plain, an eastern extension of the Mesopotamian lowlands in southwestern Persia, Hole (1987a, p. 42) recorded sixteen sites of the Early (= Susiana a) and eighty-six of the Middle Chalcolithic (= Susiana d). In the Late Chalcolithic the number declined to fifty-eight (= early Susa A), then thirty-one (= later Susa A), and finally eighteen (= terminal Susa A). In the much smaller and slightly higher adjacent Deh Luran (Dehlorān) plain the pattern was similar but developed somewhat earlier. Fewer than ten settlement sites were recorded from the early phase of Early Chalcolithic (Chogha Mami Transitional phase 5, Sabz phase 8), approximately twenty from the later Early and early Middle Chalcolithic (Khazineh [Ḵazīna] phase 20, Mehmeh 18), and a steady decline through later Middle and Late Chalcolithic, with only a few permanent settlements by the end of the era (Bayat 14, Farukh [Farroḵ] 12, Susa A 5, Sargarab [Sargarāb]/Terminal Susa A 2; Hole, 1987a; idem, 1987b, p. 100). The best survey data available from southern Persia come from the Marvdašt plain in the broad Kor river drainage basin (Sumner, 1972; idem, 1977) and the smaller Fasā and Dārāb plains (Hole, 1987a, pp. 52-55; idem, 1987b, p. 101). In all three areas the overall settlement pattern was the same: The number of villages increased gradually through the Neolithic and the Early Chalcolithic to an impressive peak in the Middle Chalcolithic Bakun (Bakūn) period (e.g., 146 sites in the Kor river basin), only to drop off dramatically during the Late Chalcolithic and Bronze Age levels. In a survey of the Rūd-e Gošk (Kūšk) near Tepe Yahya (Yaḥyā) Martha Prickett (1976; 1986) found a similar pattern, with the peak in the Yahya VA phase and the sharp drop immediately afterward in the Aliabad (ʿAlīābād) phase (both Late Chalcolithic). In the central Zagros highlands of western Persia the three most comprehensively surveyed valleys revealed a generally similar settlement pattern, though the timing of the peak differed somewhat. In the Māhīdašt, one of the broadest and richest stretches of arable level land in the Zagros, alluviation has added as much as 10m to the late prehistoric land surface, and many Chalcolithic sites are undoubtedly still buried (Brookes et al.). Nevertheless, the number of known villages shows a marked increase from the Neolithic (ten in Sarāb) to the Early Chalcolithic; an abrupt and complete change in the ceramic assemblage, with the appearance at seventy sites of J ware, showing definite generic influence of Halaf (Ḥalaf) pottery in neighboring Mesopotamia (See ceramics iv. the chalcolithic period in the zagros), suggests that the increase may have been caused by an influx of people from the north and west. In the Middle Chalcolithic the number of sites at which black-on-buff and related monochrome-painted wares were found rose sharply to a prehistoric peak of 134. A small number of sites yielded pottery from the purely highland Dalma (Dalmā) tradition, indicating another source of external cultural influence (E. F. Henrickson, 1986; idem, 1990; idem and Vitali). Some degree of indirect outside influence from the Ubaid (ʿObayd) culture of lowland Mesopotamia is also apparent in several of the locally made monochrome-painted wares (E. F. Henrickson, 1986; idem, 1990). In the Late Chalcolithic the flourishing village life in the Māhīdašt seems to have declined; only a handful of sites have yielded pottery characteristic of this period (E. F. Henrickson, 1983, chap. 6; idem, 1985b). Either the settled population dropped considerably at this time, owing to emigration, increased mortality, or adoption of a more mobile and less archeologically visible life style like pastoralism, or the monochrome-painted buff-ceramic tradition persisted until the end of the Chalcolithic. Definitive answers await further investigations in the field. In the Kangāvar valley, 100 km east of the Māhīdašt on the great road to Khorasan, the pattern was noticeably different from that in the western and southern Zagros. The number of villages rose from a single Neolithic example, Shahnabad (Šahnābād) on mound C at Seh Gabi (Se Gābī; McDonald) to twenty in the early Middle Chalcolithic (Dalma phase), located almost exclusively near the streams crossing the central valley floor. All these villages were small, typically covering about 0.5 ha. In the Middle and early Late Chalcolithic the number and location of sites remained relatively stable (seventeen in the Seh Gabi phase, twenty-three contemporary with Godin [Gowdīn] VII), even though the ceramics and other aspects of material culture changed abruptly between these two phases. This stability probably reflects a similar stability in subsistence strategy, as well as greater isolation from external cultural influences. Only toward the end of the Late Chalcolithic was there a notable increase in the number of villages (thirty-nine sites contemporary with Godin VI). The delayed and less marked population increase in Kangāvar, anomalous compared to most well-surveyed areas of western Persia, may have resulted from the cooler, drier climate, established from both ancient and modern ecological data and from the marked clustering of sites on the valley floor near sources of irrigation water (E. F. Henrickson, 1983, pp. 9-36, 466-68). Sociopolitical developments and external connections with the lowlands may also have accounted for a local increase or influx of population during the Godin VI period (E. F. Henrickson, forthcoming; Weiss and Young). The smaller and more marginal Holaylān valley south of the Māhīdašt has been more intensively surveyed. Permanent settlement peaked there in the Middle Chalcolithic; subsistence strategies appear to have become more diversified in the Late Chalcolithic, followed by a marked decline in preserved sites of all types. Peder Mortensen (1974; 1976) found three cave sites, one open-air site, and five village settlements dating to the Neolithic, reflecting a diverse and not completely sedentary system in which both the valley floor and the surrounding hills were exploited economically. Neither J nor Dalma wares were found that far south, and the developments in the Early and early Middle Chalcolithic are thus unclear. Eleven sites with Middle Chalcolithic black-on-buff pottery resembling Seh Gabi painted and Māhīdašt black-on-buff wares were recorded, all on the valley floor (Mortensen, 1976, fig. 11). By the early Late Chalcolithic settlement had again been diversified to include two open-air and two village sites in the hills, as well as seven villages on the valley floor, all yielding ceramics related to generic Susa A wares, including black-on-red; the number of sites remained quite stable (Mortensen, 1976, fig. 13, legend erroneously exchanged with that of fig. 12). The sharp decline in settlement occurred later; only two villages on the valley floor, two cave sites, and two open-air camps, all yielding ceramics related to those of Sargarab and Godin VI, are known (Mortensen, 1976, fig. 12), suggesting a destabilization of village life and a concomitant increase in pastoralism in this area, as in others where the same general pattern has been observed (E. F. Henrickson, 1985a).
Modest settlement hierarchies seem to have developed in some highland valleys during the Chalcolithic, though such geological processes as alluviation and water and wind erosion have undoubtedly obscured the evidence in some areas. Normally a few larger villages seem to have grown up among a preponderance of small villages. In the Māhīdašt the average size of sites without heavy overburden was 1.6 ha in the Early and just over 1 ha in the Middle Chalcolithic, but several sites covering more than 3 ha existed in both phases (E. F. Henrickson, 1983, pp. 458-60). Nothing more is known about these sites, as none have been excavated. Tepe Giyan (Gīān) in the Nehāvand valley was a relatively large highland site (in the 3-ha range) from Early Chalcolithic times; seals and copper objects were found there (Contenau and Ghirshman; Hole, 1987a, pp. 87-89). At Godin Tepe, a small town in the Bronze Age (R. Henrickson, 1984), the Chalcolithic is buried under deep Bronze and Iron Age overburden, and it is not known how large or important it was in relation to the rest of Kangāvar during most of that era (Young, 1969; idem and Levine). During the Late Chalcolithic, however, an oval enclosure (Godin V) was located there, the seat of an enclave of people from the lowlands apparently involved in long-distance commodity exchange, contemporary with the latter part of the prosperous period VI occupation at Godin and in Kangāvar generally (Weiss and Young; Levine and Young). Elsewhere in the central Zagros, especially in northeastern Luristan, several large and strategically located Late Chalcolithic sites developed just at the time when the number of smaller settlements was abruptly declining (Goff, 1966; idem, 1971). In the southwestern lowlands of Ḵūzestān the evolution of a settlement hierarchy progressed farther than anywhere else in Chalcolithic Persia. In Dehlorān two settlement centers grew up. In the Farukh phase of the Middle Chalcolithic Farukhabad (Farroḵābād), estimated to have originally covered approximately 2 ha, contained at least one thick-walled, elaborately bonded brick building, constructed on a low platform (Wright, 1981, pp. 19-21), and in the Susa A period of the Late Chalcolithic the large site of Mussian (Mūsīān; Gautier and Lamprey dominated Dehlorān. Farther south, on the Susiana plain, two “primate” settlement centers developed during the Chalcolithic. Chogha Mish (Čoḡā Mīš, q.v.) in the east flourished in the Middle Chalcolithic, when the number of sites on the plain reached its peak; it covered an area of 11 ha and included domestic architecture and at least one large, thick-walled monumental public building with buttresses, containing many small rooms, including a pottery storeroom and a possible flint-working room (Delougaz; Delougaz and Kantor, 1972; idem, 1975; Kantor, 1976a; idem, 1976b). The contemporaneous settlement at Jaffarabad (Jaʿfarābād) was a specialized pottery-manufacturing site with many kilns (Dollfus, 1975). After the demise of Chogha Mish the settlement on the acropolis at Susa in western Susiana gained prominence, developing into the most impressive Chalcolithic center yet known in Persia, with an area of approximately 20 ha. The high platform was about 70 m2 and stood more than 10 m high. Its brick facing was adorned with rows of inset ceramic “nails,” cylinders with flaring heads (Canal, 1978a; idem, 1978b). Fragmentary architectural remains atop the platform suggest storage rooms and a larger structure that may have been a temple (Steve and Gasche) but the evidence for its function is inconclusive (Pollock). Beside one corner of the terrace was a mortuary structure analogous to a mass mausoleum (de Morgan; de Mecquenem; Canal, 1978a), containing an unknown number of burials, recently estimated at 1,000-2,000 (Hole, 1987a, pp. 41-42; idem, 1990). This burial facility was apparently not intended only for the elite: Only some of the burials were in brick-lined tombs, and a wide range of grave goods were included with individual bodies, from ordinary cooking pots to luxury objects, particularly eggshell-thin Susa A fine painted-ware goblets and copper axes (Canal, 1978a; Hole, 1983). The acropolis at Susa was thus a unique multipurpose Chalcolithic settlement and ceremonial center, a focal point for the region. It may not have had a large resident population, but it nevertheless served a series of complex centralizing sociopolitical functions, presumably both religious and secular. Centers like Chogha Mish and Susa, like the late Ubaid center at Eridu, presaged the rise of the first true cities in the Mesopotamian lowlands in the subsequent Uruk period.
Strategies for subsistence. Irrigation appears to have been utilized throughout the arable highland valleys and lowland plains of Persia for the first time during the Middle Chalcolithic. The best-documented area is Dehlorān, where careful collection and interpretation of botanical, settlement, and geomorphological data by several different expeditions have resulted in an unusually clear picture both of flourishing irrigation agriculture and the subsequent abuse of the land and decline of permanent agricultural settlement in the Late Chalcolithic (Hole, Flannery, and Neely; Hole, 1977; Wright, 1975). Direct botanical evidence of Chalcolithic irrigation is not as rich for other sites in Persia, but in surveys of the Māhīdašt (Levine, 1974; idem, 1976; idem and McDonald), Kangāvar (Young, 1974), Susiana (Hole, 1987a; idem, 1987b), Kāna-Mīrzā (Zagarell), the Kor river basin (Sumner, 1983), and elsewhere linear alignment of contemporaneous sites along ancient watercourses provides strong indirect evidence. In the Rūd-e Gošk survey Prickett (1976) also noted a strong association between many Middle Chalcolithic (Yahya VB and VA) sites, on one hand, and alluvial fans and ancient terraces used for flood irrigation. Of course, not all Middle Chalcolithic villages required irrigation; many were located in areas with sufficient rainfall for dry farming.
In the western highlands there is strong evidence of specialized mobile pastoralism, apparently distinct from settled village farming, during the Middle and especially the Late Chalcolithic (E. F. Henrickson, 1985a). It includes the isolated Paṛčīna and Hakalān cemeteries in the Pošt-e Kūh, located far from any ancient village site (Vanden Berghe, 1973; idem, 1974; idem, 1975a; idem, 1975b; idem, forthcoming); an increased number of open-air and cave sites located near sometimes seasonal sources of fresh water, in Holaylān, Ḵorramābād (Wright et al.), the Pošt-e Kūh (Kalleh Nissar [Kalla-Nesār]; Vanden Berghe, 1973), the hinterlands south and east of Susiana, including Īza and Qaḷʿa-ye Tal (Wright, 1987), and the Baḵtīārī region (Zagarell); and the appearance of at least one distinctive pottery type, black-on-red ware, which was widely but sparsely distributed in Luristan, Ḵūzestān, and adjacent areas, probably carried by mobile pastoralists (E. F. Henrickson, 1985a). The pervasive Late Chalcolithic decline in the number of villages provides indirect support for the hypothesis of increased diversification and mobility in subsistence strategies. In areas like the Kor river basin, where this decline appears to have been more gradual, many of the remaining sites are adjacent to natural grazing land, suggesting increased reliance on herding even among villagers (Hole, 1987a, pp. 54-55). Some degree of ecological or climatic deterioration may have contributed to this shift in certain areas, and political and economic pressures from the adjacent lowlands may also have increased (Lees and Bates; Bates and Lees; Adams; E. F. Henrickson, 1985a).
Crafts and “trade.” The Chalcolithic era was distinguished from other eras of prehistory by the variety of painted pottery that was produced, most of it utilitarian and probably made in village homes or by part-time potters who did not earn their livelihoods entirely from their craft. With a few notable exceptions, each highland valley system and lowland plain produced a distinctive ceramic assemblage over time; although there was some resemblance to pottery from nearby areas, typically each assemblage was recognizable as the work of a separate community, with different approaches and expectations. Technical and aesthetic quality, though variable, tended to improve over time, culminating in the Bakun painted ware of the Middle Chalcolithic and the Susa A fine ware of the Late Chalcolithic. Both were produced in prosperous and heavily populated areas during phases in which village settlement had reached or just passed its prehistoric zenith and pronounced settlement hierarchies had developed; their demise was associated with the subsequent rapid decline in permanent village settlement. Both were of extremely fine buff fabric without inclusions, skillfully decorated with a variety of standardized geometric patterns in dark paint; each, however, was characterized by a unique “grammar,” “syntax,” and symbolic “semantics” of design (Hole, 1984). It is not yet clear, however, that either or both of these wares resulted from occupational specialization. Archeological evidence for specialized ceramic production in the Persian Chalcolithic is extremely rare. At Tal-e Bakun, the type site for Bakun painted ware, one Middle Chalcolithic residential area of twelve buildings was excavated (Langsdorff and McCown). Several appear to have been potters’ workshops, in which work tables with nearby clay supplies and storage boxes for ash temper were found. In addition, three large kilns were associated with this group of houses (Langsdorff and McCown, pp. 8-15, figs. 2, 4). Hole (1987b, p. 86) has pointed out that the published plans imply that only one of the kilns was in use at any one lime, which suggests specialized production, most likely of Bakun painted ware, perhaps partially for export: The ware was quite widespread in the Kor river basin and adjacent areas of southern Persia. The technical prowess and artistic sophistication involved are arguments for specialized production, possibly involving full-time artisans. From Susa itself there is no direct evidence of specialized ceramic production in the Susa A period, but many of the sites surveyed in Susiana have yielded remains of kilns and many wasters, evidence of widespread localized pottery production in Middle and Late Chalcolithic times. Although some excavated sites have also revealed houses with kilns (e.g., Tepe Bendebal [Band-e Bāll]; Dollfus, 1983), only one is known to have been devoted exclusively to ceramic production: Middle Chalcolithic (Chogha Mish phase) Jaffarabad (Dollfus, 1975). As with Bakun painted ware, however, the exceptionally high technical and aesthetic quality of Susa A fine ware strongly suggests production by full-time specialists at Susa itself and perhaps at other sites as well.
Wide geographic distribution of a distinctive ware or pottery style does not automatically indicate a centralized network of commodity distribution. The absence of efficient transportation in the Chalcolithic, especially in the highlands, must have precluded Systematic, high-volume ceramic exchange, even between the few relatively highly organized centers. For example, in the early Middle Chalcolithic the full Dalma ceramic assemblage, characterized by painted and impressed wares, was remarkably widespread, dominating the Soldūz-Ošnū area of Azerbaijan and the Kangāvar and Nehāvand valleys of northeastern Luristan. The latter ware also occurred in conjunction with Dalma plain red-slipped ware in the Māhīdašt. This distribution pattern was almost certainly not the result of organized long-distance trade in Dalma pottery, which was not a “luxury” ware and was far too heavy and bulky to have been transported economically through the Zagros mountains, especially in the absence of wheeled vehicles and beasts of burden. Furthermore, Dalma settlement data reveal a strictly village economy with no sociopolitical or economic settlement hierarchy. The wide distribution of the pottery must therefore be explained sociologically, rather than economically, as reflecting the distribution of a people, probably a kin-based ethnic group that may have shared a common dialect or religion and produced a distinctive utilitarian pottery, as well as other visible but perishable items of material culture; these items would have served as group markers, analogous to the distinctive dress and rug patterns of today’s Zagros Kurds (E. F. Henrickson and Vitali). Similar situations in the Early Chalcolithic include the spread of Chogha Mami (Čoḡā Māmī) transitional pottery from eastern Mesopotamia into Dehlorān (Hole, 1977) and probably the appearance of J ware in the Māhīdašt (Levine and McDonald). Any pottery “exchange” over a considerable distance was probably a coincidental result of contact for other reasons; late Middle Chalcolithic-Late Chalcolithic black-on-red ware is a good example (E. F. Henrickson, 1985a). In other instances “related” pottery assemblages from adjacent areas are not identical, which implies that, instead of actual movement of vessels, indirect “exchange” took place involving assimilation of selected elements from an external ceramic style into local tradition. One example is the diluted and locally “edited” influence of Ubaid ceramics on otherwise diverse highland Māhīdašt pottery (E. F. Henrickson, 1983; idem, 1986; idem, 1990) in the Middle and Late Chalcolithic. In the eastern central Zagros and adjacent plateau area a different ceramic tradition, labeled Godin VI in the mountains and Sialk (Sīalk) III/6-7 (Ghirshman, 1938) and Ghabristan (Qabrestān) IV (Majidzadeh, 1976; idem, 1977; idem, 1978; idem, 1981) farther east, developed in the Late Chalcolithic. Other archeological evidence suggests that this particular phenomenon may have coincided with an attempt at organizing a regional economic or sociopolitical entity (E. F. Henrickson, forthcoming). The broad distribution of these distinctive ceramics, taken together with glyptic evidence (E. F. Henrickson, 1988) and the remains in several eastern Luristan valleys of large settlements (Goff, 1971), at least one of which permitted the apparently peaceful establishment of a lowland trading enclave in its midst (Weiss and Young), supports an economic explanation.
The special cases of Susa A fine and Bakun painted ware have been discussed above; as true “art” wares, they are probably the best candidates for medium- to long-distance ceramic exchange in Iranian Chalcolithic, but available data are inconclusive, and strictly local production (probably by specialists at a few sites in each area) cannot be ruled out.
There are almost no archeological data for craft production other than ceramics in Chalcolithic Persia.
Only a few widely scattered examples of copper, stone, and glyptic work have been excavated. There are a number of sources for copper (q.v.) in central Persia, but copper processing is known from only one site of this period, Tal-i Iblis (Tal-e Eblīs) near Kermān (Caldwell, 1967; idem and Shahmirzadi). In Iblis I (Early Chalcolithic) and II (late Middle-Late Chalcolithic) hundreds of slag-stained crucible fragments were recovered, along with chunks of slag and rejected copper ore. Although the accompanying ceramics do not reflect outside contact, the presence of large quantities of pyrometallurgical debris and the remote location near copper sources strongly suggest that the site was established specifically to process locally mined copper ore in quantity for export (Caldwell, p. 34). Sialk, from which copper artifacts were recovered in various Chalcolithic levels (Ghirshman, 1938), was also located in a copper-bearing area, near Kāšān; there is no known direct evidence of copper processing at the site, but cast copper tools and ornaments (e.g., round-sectioned pins) were found (Ghirshman, 1938, pl. LXXXIV). In Chalcolithic Giyan V, west of Sialk in northeastern Luristan, copper objects included borers, small spirals, tubes, rectangular-sectioned pins, and a rectangular axe (Contenau and Ghirshman, pp. 16-45, 64ff.). Only a few other sites have yielded copper objects, including the axes from burial hoards at Susa. Copper thus seems to have been a rare and presumably expensive material throughout the Persian Chalcolithic. Direct, unequivocal evidence for other craft production and exchange (e.g., stone, glyptic, and textile work) is either rare or lacking altogether, though scattered small finds from various houses and graves suggest at least a low level of such craft activity in certain areas during certain phases. The exception is obsidian, which was obtained from Anatolian sources in small quantities throughout the Neolithic and Chalcolithic (see Hole, 1987b, pp. 86-87).
Burial practices. Outside the realm of economics and subsistence available archeological data and their interpretation are extremely problematic. The only evidence consists of sparse and unevenly preserved burials and associated structures and goods (for detailed discussion, see Hole, 1987b; idem, 1990). In the Early Chalcolithic all known highland and lowland burials (fewer than a dozen, from three sites: Seh Gabi, Jaffarabad, and Chogha Mish) are of infants or children, who were deposited under the floors of houses, a possible indication of family continuity and settlement stability. As in the Neolithic, grave goods were limited to a few modest personal items, mainly pots and simple jewelry, suggesting a relatively egalitarian society. These data reflect continuation of the predominant Neolithic pattern in southwestern Persia and in lowland Mesopotamia as well. Burying customs for adults are unknown; the burials must have been extramural, but no Early Chalcolithic cemetery has been identified. In the northern and central Zagros the Early Chalcolithic pattern continued to evolve in the next phase. At Dalma Tepe, Seh Gabi, and Kozagaran (Kūzagarān) children were buried under house floors but were first placed in pots or bowls. In contrast, a completely new burial form developed in Ḵūzestān. At Jaffarabad, Chogha Mish, Jowi (Jovī), and Bendebal infants (and a very few adults out of a relatively large sample) have been found in brick tombs outside the houses. Grave goods still consisted of a few simple utilitarian objects, primarily pots, with nothing to indicate differences in status. In the Pošt-e Kūh just north of Dehlorān abundant data have been recovered from almost 200 stone-lined tomb burials, mostly of adults, in the two pastoralist cemeteries, Parchineh and Hakalan. These cemeteries appear to reflect the adoption of lowland burial customs in the outer ranges of the Zagros, lending support to speculation about migration routes between the two areas and interaction between pastoralists and villagers. Grave goods were limited almost entirely to utilitarian ceramics and a few stone tools, weapons, and pieces of jewelry, insufficient to suggest significant differences in status.
The Late Chalcolithic burial sample is very small, except for the large mortuary at Susa. The few known burials were all of children or infants and generally continued the two Middle Chalcolithic patterns: Those from Seh Gabi and Giyan in the central highlands were in jars or pots without burial goods, though architectural context was unclear at both sites. Two infant burials from lowland Jaffarabad were in mat-lined mud “boxes,” accompanied only by pottery and a single seal; it is impossible to interpret this one instance as a status item. Although the large Susa A burial facility appears to have been unique in Chalcolithic Persia, it nevertheless reflected the Middle-Late Chalcolithic lowland custom of burial in brick tombs, demonstrating a formal standardization in the treatment of the dead: one corpse to a tomb, supine in an extended position. Grave goods were much more elaborate than elsewhere, but, with a few striking exceptions (hoards of copper objects), they, too, seem to have been standardized, consisting primarily of ceramics vessels ranging in quality from utilitarian “cooking pots” to distinctive Susa A fine painted goblets (often in the same tombs). The absence of an excavation record for this part of Susa is frustrating, but, even though the size and architectural elaboration of the site are evidence of its function as a regional center, the burials do not seem to reflect a society in which status differences were structurally the most important; rather, an emphasis on the unity of the regional “community” is suggested. It is possible, however, that only individuals or families of high status were buried at Susa and that the majority of those in the economic “sustaining area” were buried elsewhere, probably near their own homes. If so, then the simple fact of burial at the regional center, rather than elaborate individual tombs or grave goods, would have been the primary mark of high status. The rest of the population of Chalcolithic Persia seems to have lived in egalitarian villages or pastoral groups. Larger local settlement centers, involving development of sociopolitical and economic differences in status, were clearly the exception.
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Idem, “Survey in the Province of Kermanshahan 1975.
Mahidasht in the Prehistoric and Early Historic Periods,” in Bagherzadeh, ed., 1976, pp. 284-97.
Idem and M. M. A. McDonald, “The Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods in the Mahidasht,” Iran 15, 1977, pp. 39-50.
L. D. Levine and T. C. Young, Jr., “A Summary of the Ceramic Assemblages of the Central Western Zagros from the Middle Neolithic to the Late Third Millennium B.C.,” in J. L. Huot, ed., Préhistoire de la Mésopotamie. La Mésopotamie préhistorique et l’exploration récente du Djebel Hamrin, Paris, 1987, pp. 15-53.
M. M. A. McDonald, An Examination of Mid-Holocene Settlement Patterns in the Central Zagros Region of Western Iran, Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1979.
Y. Majidzadeh, The Early Prehistoric Cultures of the Central Plateau of Iran. An Archaeological History of Its Development during the Fifth and Fourth Millennia B.C., Ph.D. diss., The University of Chicago, 1976.
Idem, “Excavations in Tepe Ghabristan. The First Two Seasons, 1970 and 1971,” Marlik 2, 1977, pp. 45-61.
Idem, “Corrections of the Chronology for the Sialk III Period on the Basis of the Pottery Sequence at Tepe Ghabristan,” Iran 16, 1978, pp. 93-101.
Idem, “Sialk III and the Pottery Sequence at Tepe Ghabristan,” Iran 19, 1981, pp. 141-46.
R. de Mecquenem, “Fouilles préhistoriques en Asie occidentale. 1931-1934,” l’Anthropologie 45, 1935, pp. 93-104.
J. de Morgan, “Observations sur les couches profondes de l’Acropole de Suse,” MDP 13, 1912, pp. 1-25.
P. Mortensen, “A Survey of Prehistoric Settlements in Northern Luristan,” Acta Archaeologica 45, 1974, pp. 1-47.
Idem, “Chalcolithic Settlements in the Holailan Valley,” in Bagherzadeh, ed.,1976, pp. 42-62.
S. Pollock, “Power Politics in the Susa A Period,” in E. F. Henricksen and I. Thuesen, eds. (forthcoming).
M. E. Prickett, “Tepe Yahya Project. Upper Rud-i Gushk Survey,” Iran 14, 1976, pp. 175-76.
Idem, Man, Land, and Water. Settlement Distribution and the Development of Irrigation Agriculture in the Upper Rud-i Gushk Drainage, Southeastern Iran, Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1986.
M. J. Steve and H. Gasche, L’Acropole de Suse, MDAFI 46, 1971.
W. Sumner, Cultural Development in the Kur River Basin, Iran. An Archaeological Analysis of Settlement Patterns, Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1972.
Idem, “Early Settlements in Fars Province, Iran,” in L. D. Levine and T. C. Young, Jr., eds., Mountains and Lowlands. Essays in the Archaeology of Greater Mesopotamia, Malibu, Calif., 1977, pp. 291-305.
S. Swiny, “Survey in Northwest Iran, 1971,” East and West 25/1-2, 1975, pp. 77-96.
L. Vanden Berghe, “Excavations in Luristan. Kalleh Nissar,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute of Pahlavi University 3, 1973a, pp. 25-56.
Idem, “Le Luristan avant l’Age du Bronze. Le nécropole du Hakalan,” Archaeologia 57, 1973b, pp. 49-58.
Idem, “Le Lorestan avant l’Age du Bronze. La nécropole de Hakalan,” in Bagherzadeh, ed., 1974, pp. 66-79.
Idem, “Fouilles au Lorestan, la nécropole de Dum Gar Parchineh,” in Bagherzadeh, 1975a, pp. 45-62.
Idem, “La nécropole de Dum Gar Parchinah,” Archaeologia 79, 1975b, pp. 46-61. Idem, Mission
Archéologique dons le Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan. IXe Campagne 1973. La nécropole de Dum Gar Parchinah (Rapport préliminaire), 2 vols., forthcoming.
M. Voigt, “Relative and Absolute Chronologies for Iran between 6500 and 3500 cal. B. C.,” in O. Aurenche, J. Evin, and F. Hours, eds., Chronologies in the Near East. Relative Chronologies and Absolute Chronology. 16,000-4,000 B.P., British Archaeological Reports International Series 379, Oxford, 1987, pp. 615-46.
Idem and R. H. Dyson, Jr., “The Chronology of Iran, ca. 8000-2000 B.C.,” in R. W. Ehrich, ed., Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, Chicago, forthcoming.
H. Weiss and T. C. Young, Jr., “The Merchants of Susa. Godin V and Plateau-Lowland Relations in the Late Fourth Millennium B.C.,” Iran 13, 1975, pp. 1-18.
H. T. Wright, An Early Town on the Deh Luran Plain. Excavations at Tepe Farukhabad, The University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Memoirs 13, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1981.
Idem, “The Susiana Hinterlands during the Era of Primary State Formation,” in F. Hole, ed., 1987, pp. 141-56.
Idem et al., “Early Fourth Millennium Developments in Southwestern Iran,” Iran 13, 1975, pp. 129-48.
T. C. Young, Jr., Excavations at Godin Tepe, Royal Ontario Museum Art and Archaeology Occasional Papers 17, Toronto, 1969.
Idem, “An Archaeological Survey in Kangavar Valley,” in Bagherzadeh, ed., 1975, pp. 23-30.
Idem and L. D. Levine, Excavations at the Godin Project. Second Progress Report, Royal Ontario Museum Art and Archaeology Occasional Papers 26, Toronto, 1974.
A. Zagarell, The Prehistory of the Northeast Baḫtiyari Mountains, Iran, TAVO, Beihefte B42, Wiesbaden, 1982.
(Elizabeth F. Henrickson)
Originally Published: December 15, 1991
Last Updated: October 13, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. V, Fasc. 4, pp. 347-353 | http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chalcolithic-era-in-persia |
4 | Learn how to write the hiragana character for "sa" in this simple lesson. Please remember, it is important to follow the stroke order when writing Japanese characters. Learning the proper stroke order is also a great way to help you to remember how to draw the character.
Example: さかな (sakana) --- fish
Please check out the instinctual video, How to Pronounce Hiragana: sa, shi, su, se, so to learn the pronunciation of hiragana "sa". Click this link to learn how to write the word, Sadou, which also starts with the hiragana "sa" character.
To learn more about Japanese writing, try Japanese Writing for Beginners. | http://japanese.about.com/od/howtowritehiragana/ss/hiraganalesson3.htm |
4.03125 | Note: This lesson was originally published on an older version of The Learning Network; the link to the related Times article will take you to a page on the old site.
Teaching ideas based on New York Times content.
Overview of Lesson Plan: In this lesson, students explore many of the countries in the Middle East, developing research-based posters and a “spider web” illustrating the relationships among the countries. They then write letters to fictional peers in Middle Eastern countries.
Michelle Sale, The New York Times Learning Network
Yasmin Chin Eisenhauer, The Bank Street College of Education in New York City
Suggested Time Allowance: 1 hour
1. Identify countries in the Middle East on a map; discuss the reasons for their different levels of knowledge, as well as current events occurring in this region.
2. Develop an understanding of why Syria might become the target of United States’ military attention by reading and discussing, “Syria Fears the Unknown: What’s Behind U.S. Threats.”
3. Research the political, religious and ethnic histories of various Middle Eastern countries; develop posters reflecting their research; discern connections among the countries.
4. Compose letters to fictional peers in the Middle Eastern countries researched in class, synthesizing their learning.
Resources / Materials:
-copies of blank maps of the Middle East, found online at http://www.yourchildlearns.com/middle_east_map.htm (one per student)
-larger copy of the blank map for display for the entire class (such as on a transparency or drawn onto the board)
-copies of “Syria Fears the Unknown: What’s Behind U.S. Threats ” (one per student)
-computers with Internet access
-poster board or large sheets of construction paper (one per group)
-markers or colored pencils (enough for students to share)
-balls of different colors of yarn (one color for each student group)
Activities / Procedures:
1. WARM-UP/DO-NOW: Prior to class, place a copy of a blank political map of the Middle East on each desk. Upon entering class, ask students to label the countries on the map to the best of their abilities. After a few minutes, allow students to share their answers, and put their correct responses on a larger image of their photocopied maps (an overhead, for example). What do students know about the countries that they were able to identify? Which countries were most students able to identify? Which did very few or no students identify? Why do students think that is? What current events are taking place in and among these countries? What similarities exist among the peoples of these countries? How much do students feel they know about this region of the world, and why?
2. As a class, read and discuss the article “Syria Fears the Unknown: What’s Behind U.S. Threats,” focusing on the following questions:
a. According to the article, what did Syria’s main scientific research institute do during the week prior to the article’s publication?
b. What are the people of Damascus wondering, according to the article?
c. Of what does Damascus pride itself on being the capital?
d. Who is the president of Syria?
e. What did the president of Syria do to gain widespread Arab support?
f. What warnings did President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld give to Syria, and why?
g. How many Iraqi political officials are on the United States’ most wanted list?
h. What suggests that members of Saddam Hussein’s family or government might be in Syria?
i. Why wouldn’t Iraqi officials be welcome in Syria?
3. Divide students into groups of four. Explain to students that they will be researching countries in the Middle East to discover their religious and political histories and their ethnic diversity. They will then create posters illustrating their findings. Have each group select a different country for research.
Using all available resources, groups should research their countries, using the following questions to guide their research (written on the board for easier student reference):
–Where is this country located?
–What natural resources does this country have?
–What is the population of this country?
–What is the system of government?
–Who is the current head of this political structure? To what, if any, political party does he or she belong?
–What kind of power does this person have?
–If applicable, list other members of this leader’s family who have held power in this or another Middle Eastern country.
–What are the popular political parties? What are their platforms?
–What religious groups exist in this country? (Be sure to include different religious sects, such as Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims.)
–What connection, if any, does religion have to the government?
–What key events helped to shape the political and religious make-up of this country?
–What are the major ethnic groups in this country?
–If applicable, how did these ethnic groups end up in this country?
–Describe the relationships that this country has had with other Middle Eastern countries in the past and the present, especially Iraq, as well as the United States. Include information such as motivations for this particular relationship and the strains that have been put on this relationship in recent times.
After research is completed, students should compile their work into a poster entitled “Who’s Who in the Middle East: (Country Name).” Posters should be presented in a future class for a discussion about Middle Eastern political relationships. After presentations, provide each group with a different colored ball of yarn. Each poster should be displayed on a different part of a wall in the classroom. Each group will work to physically “attach” their country to all the other countries that they have political, religious or ethnic relationships with by stringing their assigned colored yarn from their poster to the related country’s poster, taping the yarn in the related places between posters. At the end of this process, the classroom should be “spider-webbed” with yarn. Each group should then discuss their researched country’s “attachments” to the other countries in the room.
4. WRAP-UP/HOMEWORK: Individually, each student writes a letter to someone his or her age who lives in the Middle Eastern country researched in class. Students should explore issues and questions that came up during their research and draw political, religious and ethnic connections between their assigned country and their home nation. Finally, students should highlight the need for knowing about this particular Middle Eastern country in light of current events. Letters can be shared in a future class.
Further Questions for Discussion:
–What type of scientific research does Syria conduct?
–What is the Baath political party?
–What connection does the Baath party have with Syria? With Iraq?
–How far is Damascus from Baghdad?
Evaluation / Assessment:
Students will be evaluated based on initial class map activity, participation in class discussions and group research, thoughtful and accurate completion of posters and “spider-webbing” activity, and thoughtful completion of a letter to a fictional Middle Eastern peer.
bemoaning, bewilderment, barrage, burnishing, flex, contemplating, preemptive, broadsides
1. Create a guidebook or travel brochure to be used by your community’s local tourism board. Gather information using similar questions that were used to guide the research conducted in class, focusing on the political, religious and ethnic make-up of your community. Highlight local landmarks and noteworthy events.
2. Create a topographical map of the Middle East. Include mountains, rivers, deserts, other landforms, natural resources and bodies of water.
3. Write a report exploring an ancient Middle Eastern civilization, such as the Sumerians, Babylonians, Hebrews or Egyptians. How are their influences still seen today in the Middle East and around the world?
4. Create a Middle Eastern cookbook highlighting national dishes from countries such as Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. Explain how each dish is representative of the people and/or culture in this particular country.
Fine Arts- Collect examples of Middle Eastern music and share them with the class, along with a poster illustrating the types of instruments used to make the music you are sampling.
Mathematics- Create a bar graph or pie chart illustrating the religious and ethnic populations of each Middle Eastern country researched in class. Write a brief statement analyzing your findings.
Teaching with The Times- Create a news diary following the political developments between Syria and the United States regarding Saddam Hussein and global terrorism. Alternately, create a news diary that explores news about the country researched in class.
Other Information on the Web:
Standoff with Iraq (http://www.nytimes.com/learning/iraq) provides lesson plans, multimedia and other resources for the classroom from The Learning Network and NYTimes.com.
U.S. State Department: Iraq Update (http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/) includes special reports, fact sheets, and official statements.
Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs (http://www.uruklink.net/mofa/epage.htm) includes statements by officials, policy positions, and more.
Academic Content Standards:
World History Standard 44- Understands the search for community, stability, and peace in an interdependent world. Benchmarks: Understands influences on economic development around the world; Understands in stances of political conflict and terrorism in modern society; Understands the emergence of a global culture
(CTSS – ‘social’, ’6-8’, ‘wh10’)
Geography Standard 13- Understands the forces of cooperation and conflict that shape the divisions of Earth’s surface. Benchmarks: Understands factors that contribute to cooperation or conflict; Knows the social, political, and economic divisions on Earth’s surface at the local, state, national, and international levels; Understands the factors that affect the cohesiveness and integration of countries
(CTSS – ‘social’, ’6-8’, ‘geo4’)
Civics Standard 22- Understands how the world is organized politically into nation-states, how nation-states interact with one another, and issues surrounding U.S. foreign policy. Benchmarks: Knows the most important powers the United States Constitution gives to the Congress, president, and federal judiciary in foreign affairs; Knows various means used to attain the ends of United States foreign policy
(CTSS – ‘social’, ’6-8’, ‘civ4’)
Historical Understanding Standard 2- Understands the historical perspective. Benchmarks: Understands that specific individuals and the values those individuals held had an impact on history; Analyzes the influence specific ideas and beliefs had on a period of history; Analyzes the effects specific decisions had on history
(CTSS – ‘social’, ’6-8’, ‘hu2’)
World History Standard 44- Understands the search for community, stability, and peace in an interdependent world. Benchmarks: Understands rates of economic development and the emergence of different economic systems around the globe; Understands the role of political ideology, religion, and ethnicity in shaping modern governments; Understands the role of ethnicity, cultural identity, and religious beliefs in shaping economic and political conflicts across the globe
(CTSS – ‘social’, ’9-12’, ‘wh10’)
Geography Standard 13- Understands the forces of cooperation and conflict that shape the divisions of Earth’s surface. Benchmarks: Understands how cooperation and/or conflict can lead to the allocation of control of Earth’s surface; Knows the causes of boundary conflicts and internal disputes between culture groups; Understands the changes that occur in the extent and organization of social, political, and economic entities on Earth’s surface
(CTSS – ‘social’, ’9-12’, ‘geo4’)
Civics Standard 22- Understands how the world is organized politically into nation-states, how nation-states interact with one another, and issues surrounding U.S. foreign policy. Benchmarks: Understands the significance of principal foreign policies and events in the United States’ relations with the world; Understands the major foreign policy positions that have characterized the United States’ relations with the world; Knows how the powers over foreign affairs that the Constitution gives to the president, Congress, and the federal judiciary have been used over time and understands the tension between constitutional provisions and the requirements of foreign policy; Understands the idea of the national interest and how it is used as a criterion for shaping American foreign policy; Understands the influence of American constitutional values and principles on American foreign policy, and understands the tensions that might arise among American values, principles, and interests a the nation deals with the practical requirements of international politics
(CTSS – ‘social’, ’9-12’, ‘civ4’)
Historical Understanding Standard 2- Understands the historical perspective. Benchmarks: Analyzes the values held by specific people who influenced history and the role their values played in influencing history; Analyzes the influences specific ideas and beliefs had on a period of history and specifies how events might have been different in the absence of those ideas and beliefs; Analyzes the effects specific decisions had on history and studies how things might have been different in the absence of those decisions; Understands that the consequences of human intentions are influenced by the means of carrying them out
(CTSS – ‘social’, ’9-12’, ‘hu2’) | http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2003/04/16/unmasking-the-middle-east/?scp=1&sq=unmasking%20the%20middle%20east&st=cse |
4.09375 | distribution of wealth and incomeArticle Free Pass
distribution of wealth and income, the way in which the wealth and income of a nation are divided among its population, or the way in which the wealth and income of the world are divided among nations. Such patterns of distribution are discerned and studied by various statistical means, all of which are based on data of varying degrees of reliability.
Wealth is an accumulated store of possessions and financial claims. It may be given a monetary value if prices can be determined for each of the possessions; this process can be difficult when the possessions are such that they are not likely to be offered for sale. Income is a net total of the flow of payments received in a given time period. Some countries collect statistics on wealth from legally required evaluations of the estates of deceased persons, which may or may not be indicative of what is possessed by the living. In many countries, annual tax statements that measure income provide more or less reliable information. Differences in definitions of income—whether, for example, income should include payments that are transfers rather than the result of productive activity, or capital gains or losses that change the value of an individual’s wealth—make comparisons difficult.
In order to classify patterns of national wealth and income, a basis of classification must be determined. One classification system categorizes wealth and income on the basis of the ownership of factors of production: labour, land, capital, and, occasionally, entrepreneurship, whose respective forms of income are labeled wages, rent, interest, and profit. Personal distribution statistics, usually developed from tax reports, categorize wealth and income on a per capita basis.
Gross national income (GNI) per capita provides a rough measure of annual national income per person in different countries. Countries that have a sizable modern industrial sector have a much higher GNI per capita than countries that are less developed. In the early 21st century, for example, the World Bank estimated that the per-capita GNI was approximately $10,000 and above for the most-developed countries but was less than $825 for the least-developed countries. Income also varies greatly within countries. In a high-income country such as the United States, there is considerable variation among industries, regions, rural and urban areas, females and males, and ethnic groups. While the bulk of the U.S. population has a middle income that is derived largely from earnings, wages vary considerably depending on occupation. (See also gross national product, gross domestic product.)
A significant proportion of an economy’s higher incomes will derive from investment rather than earnings. It is often the case that the higher the income, the higher the investment-derived portion tends to be. Because most fortunes require long periods to accumulate, the existence of a class of very wealthy persons can result from the ability of those persons to retain their fortunes and pass them on to descendants. Earned incomes are influenced by a different kind of inheritance. Access to well-paid jobs and social status is largely the product of education and opportunity. Typically, therefore, well-educated children of wealthier parents tend to retain their parents’ status and earning power. A dynamic economy, however, increases the likelihood of attaining wealth and status through individual effort alone.
What made you want to look up "distribution of wealth and income"? Please share what surprised you most... | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/638235/distribution-of-wealth-and-income |
4.03125 | ReadWriteThink couldn't publish all of this great content without literacy experts to write and review for us. If you've got lessons plans, activities, or other ideas you'd like to contribute, we'd love to hear from you.
Find the latest in professional publications, learn new techniques and strategies, and find out how you can connect with other literacy professionals.
Teacher Resources by Grade
|1st - 2nd||3rd - 4th|
|5th - 6th||7th - 8th|
|9th - 10th||11th - 12th|
Family Ties: Making Connections to Improve Reading Comprehension
|Grades||K – 2|
|Lesson Plan Type||Standard Lesson|
|Estimated Time||Five 50-minute sessions|
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
How does the story connect to your own life, another text your have read, or the world around you? In this lesson, students will read books about families and make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections using those books. Students gain a deeper understanding of a text when they make authentic connections. Beginning with a read-aloud of Donald Crews' Bigmama's, the instructor introduces and models the strategy of making connections. Read-alouds of The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant are followed by activities that help students learn to apply each type of text connection when responding to texts. After sharing and discussing connections in a Think-Pair-Share activity, students plan and write a piece describing a personal connection to one of the texts.
Planning Web: Students can use this printout to record details about the text connections they have made and use those details in their own stories.
Ketch, A. (2005). Conversation: The comprehension connection. The Reading Teacher, 59(1), 8-13.
- As readers respond to text, they make connections. It is these connections to the text, to the world, to background information, and to experiences (schema) that make readers feel like the characters, connect to the story, or remember similar experiences.
- Connecting to emotions and senses enhances comprehension skills because the reader can identify with the characters or situations in the text in extremely personal ways and make comparisons.
Pardo, L.S. (2004). What every teacher needs to know about comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 58, 272-280.
- Teachers show students how to make text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections so that readers can more easily comprehend the texts they read.
- Teachers model for students how to activate schema and make connections that help make meaning of a text.
- Teachers help students understand basic story grammar (including plot, characters, and setting) and expository text structures such as sequence, description, comparison, and cause and effect. | http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/family-ties-making-connections-1070.html |
4.0625 | US History/War, Nationalism, and Division
The War of 1812
Precursors to the War
By the time James Madison took office as president in 1809, the U.S. was still a young nation. Though the war for independence was fought and won, culminating in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, problems revolving around U.S. sovereignty continued to be a source of contention between the United States and Great Britain. By 1812, the U.S military Academy at West Point, founded in 1802, had produced only eighty-nine regular officers. Senior army officers were aged Revolutionary War Veterans or political appointees. Nor did the United States succeed at mustering sufficient forces. The governments efforts to lure recruits, with sign up- bonuses and promises of three months pay and rights to purchase 160 acres of western land upon discharge, met with mixed success. This was especially true on the American frontier (remember, the British had agreed to recognize all of the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River, except for Spanish Florida) and on the high seas, where American sailors were pressed into service in the British Royal Navy, as the British were waging war against Napoleonic France. The reason for doing this was so the British could find and recover seamen who had defected from the British Navy to join (a relatively easier) life on the High Seas with the Americans. The British would raid American ships (such as the Chesapeake) claiming to look for British deserters. When American refused to allow the British to seize ships this resulted in 18 Americans wounded. This upset a lot of Americans who pressed Jefferson by anonymous letter for the war with Britain. Further, the British had recruited Indians, such as Tecumseh, to aggravate American settlers and even continued to maintain forts on American soil. The British encouraged Native American tribes to harass American settlers. The British took interest in the Ohio Valley and Kentucky region due to the fur trade with the western world.
The British further enraged the Americans with their refusal to recognize U.S. neutrality in Britain's war with France. The British did not want the United States to engage in trade with France, even though Americans believed that they had the right to trade with whomever they wished.
In addition, many Americans wanted to push the British Empire off of the North American continent altogether. President Madison and his advisers believed a conquest of Canada would be quick and easy, believing that the British would hand the Americans the land because of their war with Napoleon. Former President Thomas Jefferson himself even stated that "the acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us the experience for the attack on Halifax, the next and final expulsion of England from the American continent.
Politics of the War
As was stated above, former President Jefferson and current President Madison, both Democratic-Republicans, supported the war to end British aggravation on both the frontier and the high seas, with the hope of taking over Canada from the British. However, New England Federalists opposed the war, which was driven by Southern and Western desires for more land. The war was highly unpopular in New England because the New England economy relied heavily on trade, especially with Great Britain.
A Declaration of War was passed by Congress by an extremely small margin in the summer of 1812. Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, Prime Minister Spencer Perceval had been shot and killed, putting Lord Liverpool, who wanted to improve relations with the United States, in charge of the government. He repealed the orders of impressment, but by then, it was already too late. The war had begun.
War of 1812
The war of 1812 did not begin badly for the Federalists, who benefited from anti-war sentiment. They joined renegade Democratic Republicans in supporting New York City mayor Dewitt Clinton for president in the election of 1812. Clinton lost to President Madison by 128 to 89 votes--a respectable showing against a wartime president and the federalists gained some congressional seats and carried many local elections. But the south and the west areas that favored the war remained solidly Democratic Republican. Both sides were rather unprepared to wage a war. The British did not have many troops in British North America at the time (some 5,000 or so), and meanwhile the British war against Napoleon continued in continental Europe as the British blockaded most of the European coastline.
The American military was still unorganized and undisciplined compared to the British military. Militias in New England and New York often refused to fight outside their own states. Desperate for soldiers, New York offered them to free the slaves who enlisted, and compensation to their owners, and the U.S Army made the same offer to slaves in the Old Northwest and in Canada. In Philadelphia black leaders formed a black brigade to defend the city, but in the deep south fear of arming slaves kept them out of the military in New Orleans, where a free black militia dated back to Spanish control of Louisiana. The British on the other hand recruited slave by promising freedom, and exchange for service. The regular army consisted of around 12,000 men, but the state militias were often unwilling to fight outside state lines (and often retreated when they did). This, combined with some difficult losses early on and the war's high level of unpopularity in New England made the war effort much more difficult than President Madison originally imagined.
The Atlantic Theater
The British navy was by far the preeminent naval force in the world. They dominated the high seas. By contrast, the U.S. Navy was not even 20 years old yet and had a mere 22 vessels. The British plan was to protect its shipping in Canada while blockading major American ports.
However, there were a series of American naval victories on the Atlantic at this early stage of the war. On August 19, the USS Constitution engaged HMS Guerriere. The battle was held off the coast of Nova Scotia became the first naval encounter. The HMS Guerriere was led by Captain Dacres who states who was really confident that the British navy could take the U. S Constitution, "There is a Yankee frigate in 45 minutes she surely ours take her in 15 minutes and I promise you 4 months pay." After being 25 ft in distance USS Constitution opened fire with cannon and grape shots. In the midst of the battle, a cannonball fired from Guerriere hit the Constitution's in the side, causing one American seaman to exclaim "Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!" The Guerriere, which had been instrumental in enforcing the British blockade, lost decisively. Her crew was brought on board as prisoners. When it was realized that Guerriere could not be salvaged, it was set fire and blown up. When Captain Hull of the USS Constitution reached Boston with the news, joy broke out. In October of the same year, Constitution sailed under Captain William Bainbridge and won another victory off the coast of Brazil against HMS Java, which was also rendered unsalvageable while the Constitution remained unharmed. The USS Constitution won the nickname "Old Ironsides" in some of the first victories against Great Britain on the high seas. The victory led from General Hull sparked new hope to the Americans and also redeemed them from the lost at the battle at Fort Dearborn, Ohio leaving General Hull wounded and force to surrender August 15, 1812.
Captain Stephen Decatur, who gained fame during the Barbary War, was also responsible for early naval victories. On October 25, 1812, Captain Decatur, commanding the USS United States, captured the HMS Macedonian. And in January 1813, Captain David Porter sailed the USS Essex into the Pacific to aggravate British shipping in retaliation for harassment of British whaling ships on the American whaling industry. Essex inflicted some $3 million in damages to the British whaling industry before finally being captured off the coast of Chile on March 28, 1814.
Back in on the Atlantic Coast, meanwhile, Sir John Coape Sherbrooke embarked on what was known as the Penobscot Expedition in September 1814 with 500 British sailors off the coast of Maine (then part of Massachusetts), a main hub for smuggling between the British and Americans. During this period, lasting 26 days, Sir Sherbrooke raided and looted several cities and destroyed 17 American vessels, won the Battle of Hampden and occupied Castine for the remainder of the war.
The Great Lakes/Canadian/Western Theater
The Western theater of the war was mostly fought in the Michigan, Ohio, and the Canadian border area. Geography dictated the military operations that would take place in west. Primarily around Lake Erie, Niagara River, Lake Ontario, Saint Lawrence River, and Lake Champlain.
Chesapeake Campaign
The Chesapeake Bay Region was a center of trade, commerce and government during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It became a target of British Military strategy during the War of 1812.The British brought war into the Chesapeake area in 1813 and 1814. On July 4, 1813 Joshua Barney convinced the Navy Department to build twenty barges to protect the Chesapeake Bay. These barges were successful at harassing the Royal Navy, but in the end proved useless in the British campaign that led to "Burning of Washington". The White House and other structures were left ablaze all night and the President and his Cabinet fled D.C. This attack was a diversion by the British and the major battle would take place in 1814 in Baltimore. . This battle is where Francis Scott Key who was detained on a British ship watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry, aboard the British ship Key wrote the verses to The Star Spangled Banner the next morning, this song would become the National Anthem in 1931. What the Chesapeake campaign did was make the Americans realize that they were not a global super power and now they were losing a war because of their arrogance.Despite some victories on the Atlantic by the USS Constitution, USS Wasp, and USS United States of the U.S. Navy could not match the powerful British Royal Navy. The British blockaded nearly every American port on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The British had America so blockaded that that U.S. trade declined to nearly 90% in 1811. This major loss of funds threatened to bankrupt the federal government and cut off New England from British Embargo.
The Southern Theater
Connected to the War of 1812 was the Creek War in the South. The Creeks were supported by the British, and in March 1814, General Andrew Jackson and General John Coffee led a force comprised of about 2,000 Tennessee militiamen, Choctaw, Cherokee, and U.S. regulars in a war against the Creek Indians. Out of 1,000 Creeks, led by Chief Menawa, 800 were killed at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Only 49 of Jackson's forces were killed. Jackson pursued the remaining Creeks until they surrendered.
At the end of the year 1814, General Jackson was on the move again, this time to New Orleans, Louisiana, to defend against invading British forces. In one of the greatest battles of the war, Jackson decisively routed the British forces. The British army took a hit of 1,784 killed; the Americans lost merely 210. The British forces left New Orleans, and the battle propelled General Jackson to hero status, despite the fact that the war was over. Word had not yet reached the combatant forces that a peace had been signed.
Hartford Convention
New England merchants and shippers had already been upset about the trade policies of the Jefferson administration (Embargo Act of 1807) and the Madison administration (Non-Intercourse Act of 1809), and had wholly opposed going to war with Great Britain in the first place due to the potential damage to New England industry. Thus, the Federalist Party, which had been weakened at the end of the Adams administration, found resurgence in popularity among the citizens of New England states.
With trade illegalized and a British blockade, New England states, particularly Massachusetts and Connecticut, felt the brunt of President Madison's war-time policies. This includes what many New Englanders may have perceived as an attack on their states' sovereignty, as Madison maintained executive control over the military defense of New England rather than allowing governors to take control.
On October 10, 1814, the Massachusetts legislature voted for delegates from all five New England states to meet on December 15 in Hartford, Connecticut, to discuss constitutional amendments pertaining to the interests of New England states.
Twenty-six delegates gathered in Hartford. The meetings were held in secret and no records were kept. The Hartford Convention concluded with a report stating that states had a duty and responsibility to assert their sovereignty over encroaching and unconstitutional federal policy. In addition, a set of proposed Constitutional amendments was established, including:
- Prohibition of trade embargos lasting longer than 60 days;
- 2/3rds majority in Congress for declaration of offensive war, admission of new states, and interdiction of foreign commerce;
- Rescinding 3/5ths representation of slaves (perceived as an advantage to the South);
- One-term limit for the President of the United States; and
- A requirement that each succeeding president be from a different state than his predecessor.
While some delegates may have desired secession from the Union, no such proposal was adopted by the Convention.
Three commissioners from Massachusetts were sent to Washington, DC, to negotiate these terms in February 1815, but news that the war had ended and of General Jackson's victory at New Orleans preceded them. The act was perceived by many as disloyal, and the commissioners returned to Massachusetts. The Hartford Convention added to the ultimate decline of the Federalist Party.
Second Barbary War
Following the First Barbary War, the United States focused on the situation developing with Great Britain, giving the pirate states of the Barbary Coast opportunity to not follow the terms of the treaty ending that war. The U.S., not having the military resources to devote to the region, was forced to pay ransoms for the crew. The British expulsion of all U.S. vessels from the Mediterranean during the War of 1812 further emboldened the pirate states, and Umar ben Muhammad, the Dey of Algiers, expelled U.S. Consular Tobias Lear, declaring war on the United States for failing to pay tribute. Again, the situation went unaddressed due to the lack of U.S. military resources in the area.
After the end of the War of 1812, however, the U.S. was able to focus on American interests in North Africa. On March 3, 1815, Congress authorized use of naval force against Algiers, and a force of ten ships was deployed under the commands of Commodores Stephen Decatur, Jr. and William Bainbridge. Decatur's squadron was the first to depart to the Mediterranean on May 20.
Commodore Decatur quickly led the squadron to decisive victories over the Algiers, capturing two Algerian-flagged ships en route to Algiers. By the end of the month of June, Decatur reached Algiers and demanded compensation or threatened the Dey's destruction. The Dey capitulated, and a treaty was signed in which the Algerian ships were returned in exchange for American captors (of which there were approximately ten), several Algerian captors were returned in exchange for several European captors, $10,000 was paid for seized shipping, and guarantees were made to end the tribute payments and grant the United States full shipping rights.
James Monroe Presidency and The Era of Good Feelings
Opposition to the War of 1812 and the Hartford Convention terminally damaged the Federalists as a viable political party, even portraying the party as traitorous. The last serious Federalist candidate Rufus King ran for the presidency in 1816, losing to James Madison's Secretary of State James Monroe. The party disbanded in 1825.
Indeed following the war, a new wave of nationalism spread across the United States. Previously, citizens of the United States tended to view themselves as citizens of their individual states (i.e. New Yorkers or Georgians) before they viewed themselves as Americans.
The wave of national pride and the lull in partisanship in the wake of defeating the British Empire led to what journalist for Boston's Columbian Sentinal Benjamin Russell perceived to be an Era of Good Feelings as the newly elected President Monroe came through on a good will tour in 1817.
American System
Riding on the wave of newfound national pride, politicians such as Henry Clay of Kentucky, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, and John Q. Adams of Massachusetts, following in Alexander Hamilton's footsteps, pushed an agenda to strengthen and unify the nation. The system, which came to be known as the American System, called for high tariffs to protect American industry and high land prices to generate additional federal revenue. The plan also called for strengthening the nation's infrastructure, such as roads and canals, which would be financed by tariffs and land revenue. The improvements would make trade easier and faster. Finally, the plan called for maintaining the Second Bank of the United States (chartered in 1816 for 20 years) to stabilize the currency and the banking system, as well as the issuance of sovereign credit. Congress also passed a protective tariff to aid industries that had flourished during the war of 1812 but were now threatened by the resumption of over seas trade. The Tariff of 1816 levied taxes on imported woolens and cottons, as well as on iron,leather,hats, papers,and sugar.
Although portions of the system were adopted (for example, 20-25% taxes on foreign goods, which encouraged consumption of relatively cheaper American goods), others met with roadblocks. Namely, this was true of the infrastructure proposals. The Constitutionality was called into question on whether or not the federal government had such power. Despite this, two major infrastructure achievements were made in the form of the Cumberland Road and the Erie Canal. The Cumberland Road stretched between Baltimore and the Ohio River, facilitating ease of travel and providing a gateway to the West for settlement. The Erie Canal extended from the Hudson River at Albany, New York, to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, thus vastly improving the speed and efficiency of water travel in the northeast.
Opposition to the American System mostly came from the West and the South. Clay argued, however, that the West should support the plan because urban workers in the northeast would be consumers of Western food, and the South should support it because of the market for the manufacture of cotton in northeastern factories. The South, however, strongly opposed tariffs and had a strong market for cotton, anyway.
In short, the American System met with mixed results over the 1810s and 1820s due to various obstacles, but in the end, American industry benefited, and growth ensued.
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was from the 18th to 19th century which made major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology. The industrial revolution began in England and slowly made its way over to the Americas.
Panic of 1819
Following the War of 1812, in addition to the relative absence of partisanship, the United States experienced a period of economic growth. However, around the same time the partisanship returned to Washington, the U.S. economy began to experience its first major financial crisis. Unlike the downturns of the 1780s and 1790s, this downturn originated primarily in the United States, and caused foreclosures, bank failures, unemployment, and reductions in agricultural and manufacturing output.
Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819
Due to the act of purchasing the Louisiana territory in 1803, the Adams-Onis Treaty in 1819 (purchasing Florida territory), and the incorporation of the northern territories of Mexico into the United States in 1847 (Mexican Cession), the number of Catholics in the United States nearly doubled.
Monroe Doctrine and Foreign Affairs
On December 2, 1823, President Monroe introduced the most famous aspect of his foreign policy in his State of the Union Address to Congress. The Monroe Doctrine, as it came to be called, stated that any further attempts by European powers to interfere in the affairs of the nations of the Western hemisphere (namely Latin America) would be seen as an act of aggression against the United States, requiring a U.S. response. The Monroe Doctrine came about as a result of U.S. and British fears the Spain would attempt to restore its power over former colonies in Latin America. President Monroe essentially sent notice that America, both North and South, was no longer open to colonization by European powers.
The fact that the U.S. was still a young nation with very little naval power meant that the warning went largely ignored by the major powers. Despite this, the British approved of the policy and largely enforced it as part of the Pax Britannica, whereby the British Navy secured the neutrality of the high seas. It was mainly through this support, rather than the Monroe Doctrine exclusively, which secured and maintained the sovereignty of Latin American nations.
Even so, the Monroe Doctrine was met with praise by Latin American leaders, despite the fact that they knew that the United States realistically could not enforce it without the backing of the British. In 1826, Latin American revolutionary hero Simón Bolívar called for the first Pan-American conference in Panama, and an era of Pan-American relations commenced.
Seminole War
Chief Neamathla of the Mikasuki at Fowltown engaged in a land dispute with the commander at Fort Scott, General Edmund Pendleton Gaines. The land had been ceded by the Creek at the Treaty of Fort Jackson, however the Mikasuki did not consider themselves Creek and so wished to exert sovereignty over the area, believing the Creek did not have right to cede Mikasuki land. In November 1817, a force of 250 men was sent by General Gaines to capture Neamathla, but was driven back. A second attempt in the same month turned out successful, and the Mikasuki people were driven from Fowltown.
A week after the attack on Fowltown, a military boat transporting supplies, sick soldiers, and the families of soldiers (whether or not children were on board is not clear) to Fort Scott was attacked on the Apalachicola River. Most of the passengers on board were killed, with one woman captured and six survivors making it to Fort Scott.
General Gaines had been ordered not to invade Spanish Florida (save for small incursions). However, after word of the Scott massacre reached Washington, DC, Gaines was ordered to invade Florida in pursuit of Seminoles, but not to attack Spanish installations. However, Gaines had been ordered to eastern Florida to deal with piracy issues there, so Secretary of War John C. Calhoun ordered General Andrew Jackson, hero of the War of 1812, to lead the invasion.
General Jackson gathered his forces at Fort Scott in March 1818. The force consisted of 800 regulars, 1,000 Tennessee volunteers, 1,000 Georgia militia, and 1,400 friendly Creek warriors. Jackson's force entered Florida on March 13, following the Apalachicola River and constructing Fort Gadsden. The Indian town of Tallahassee was burned on March 31 and the town of Miccosukee was taken the next day. The American and Creek forces left 300 Indian homes devastated in their wake, reaching the Spanish fort of St. Marks on April 6, capturing it.
The American force left St. Marks and continued to attack Indian villages, capturing Alexander George Arbuthnot, a Scottish trader who worked out of the Bahamas and supplied the Indians, and Robert Ambrister, a former Royal Marine and self-appointed British agent, as well as the Indian leaders Josiah Francis and Homathlemico. All four were eventually executed. Jackson's forces also attacked villages occupied by runaway slaves along the Suwannee River.
Having declared victory, Jackson sent the Georgia militia and Creek warriors home, sending the remaining army back to St. Marks, where he left a garrison before returning to Fort Gadsden. On May 7, he marched a force of 1,000 to Pensacola where he believed the Indians were gathering and being supplied by the Spanish, against the protests of the governor of West Florida, who insisted that the Indians there were mostly women and children. When Jackson reached Pensacola on May 23, the governor and the Spanish garrison retreated to Fort Barrancas. After a day of exchanging cannon fire, the Spanish surrendered, and Colonel William King was named military governor of West Florida. General Jackson went home to Tennessee -- and prepared for his presidential run in 1824.
The 1824 Election and Presidency of John Q. Adams
With the dissolution of the Federalist Party, there were no organized political parties for the 1824 presidential election, and four Democratic-Republicans vied for the office. The Tennessee legislature and a convention of Pennsylvania Democratic-Republicans had nominated General-turned-Senator Andrew Jackson for president in 1822 and 1824, respectively. The Congressional Democratic-Republican caucus (the traditional way to nominate a president) selected Treasury Secretary William H. Crawford for president and Albert Gallatin for vice president. Secretary of State John Q. Adams, son of the former President Adams, and House Speaker Henry Clay also joined the contest. It is widely believed that Crawford would have won had he not suffered a debilitating stroke during the course of the election.
When the electoral votes were cast and counted, it turned out that no candidate had a majority of votes. Jackson had won the most votes, but Constitutionally, a plurality was not good enough, and the vote for the top three candidates went to the House of Representatives. Clay, with the least amount of votes, was ineligible, but still wielded a lot of power as speaker of the house. And since Clay had a personal dislike of Jackson and supported many of Adams' policies, which were similar to his American System, Clay threw his support to Adams, and Adams won the presidency, much to the chagrin of Jackson, who had won the most electoral and popular votes. After Adams appointed Clay as secretary of state, Jackson's supporters protested that a corrupt bargain had been struck.
The 1824 helped in the resurgence of political parties in America. Jackson's followers, members of the Democratic Party, were known as Jacksonians; Adams, Clay, and their supporters established the National Republican Party. Partisan politics was back in style in Washington, DC.
During Adams' term as president, he undertook an ambitious domestic agenda, implementing many aspects of the American System, such as extending the Cumberland Road and several canal projects like the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal, the Portland to Louisville Canal, the connection of the Great Lakes to the Ohio River system, and the enlargement and rebuilding of the Dismal Swamp Canal in North Carolina. He worked diligently to upgrade and modernize infrastructure and internal improvements, such as roads, canals, a national university, and an astronomical observatory. These internal improvements would be funded by tariffs, an issue which divided the Adams administration. While Secretary Clay most certainly supported tariffs, Vice President John C. Calhoun opposed. This turned out to be a source of contention within the administration.
Unfortunately for President Adams, his agenda met with many roadblocks. First of all, Adams' ideas were not very popular, even from within his own party. But a major reason Adams had a tough time enacting his agenda was because the Jacksonians were still quite upset about the 1824 elections. In 1827, the Jacksonians won control of Congress, making it even more difficult. In addition, Adams did not believe in removing administration officials from office, except for incompetence, including those who may be political opponents. As a result, many administration officials were, in fact, supporters of Andrew Jackson. Adams' generous policy towards Indians further served to not endear him to some, such as when the federal government sought to assert authority on behalf of the Cherokee, causing Georgia to take up arms. The final nail in the coffin of the Adams administration would turn out to be when President Adams signed the Tariff of 1828 into law, which intended to protect northern industry, while the South saw it as an economic blow. The "Tariff of Abominations," as it was called, was highly unpopular in the South, and virtually crippled the administration in its final year.
The campaign was brutal, bitter, and personal, with even Jackson's wife attacked, accused of bigamy. In the end, Adams lost handily: 178-83 in the electoral college. Adams, like his father, chose not to attend his successor's inauguration ceremony. In 1830, he would go on to be the first former president elected to Congress after serving as president.
The People's President -- The Era of Andrew Jackson
Election and Inauguration
The three week journey from Nashville, Tennessee, to Washington, DC, was filled with jubilation, as crowds swarmed to catch a glimpse of the new president-elect Andrew Jackson. The inauguration ceremonies of former presidents were all indoor affairs, invite only. On March 29, 1829, however, there was a sense that this new president was a man of the people. The ceremony was held on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol, where 21,000 people eventually gathered to view the swearing-in.
The new president left through the west front of the capital and proceeded to the executive mansion for the reception on a white horse. By the time he arrived, the White House had already been invaded by supporters, as the festivities had been opened to the public. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story noted, "I never saw such a mixture. The reign of King Mob seemed triumphant."
The new president was forced to sneak out of the White House before heading to Alexandria, Virginia. The crowd remained, however, until the liquor was moved to the front lawn. The White House was left a mess, including thousands of dollars in broken china.
Petticoat Affair and the Kitchen Cabinet
The Petticoat Affair is also known as the Eaton Affair. Happening in the U.S. between 1830-1831. It was a U.S. scandal involving President Andrew Jackson's cabinet and their wives. Even though this was a private matter, it still troubled several men in their political careers. The Petticoat affair involved Peggy Eaton who was accused of having an affair with a man by the name of John Eaton during the time she was married to purser John Timberlake. Daughter of William O Neal, Peggy remained close to politics her father owned the Washington D.C Boarding House for politicians where Peggy worked. Peggy frequented the boarding house which later gave spectators more discrepancies in Peggy's character as she looses popularity. Peggy husband died while on sea and many believed it was a suicide after being revealed to of his wife Peggy's affair with John Eaton who was a good friend of couple. Although Timberlake's death was said to be a result of pneumonia. Peggy married John Eaton less than a year after her husbands death. Many surrounding women felt like the marriage of Peggy and John Eaton was not the correct thing to do. The alleged affair controversy ultimately assisted many men in Andrew Jackson's cabinet to resign from their position, including John Eaton himself. People begin to judge Jackson on the his position on the marriage. Andrew Jackson recommended that John Eaton and Peggy should get married, Jackson views resulted on from his personal experience he had with his first wife.A group of women emerged claimed to be Anti-Peggy who was led by Floride Calhoun. The women who emerged proclaimed rights and guidelines that women have to follow after death of husband including that they mourn and wear black for a year following their death.
Nullification Crisis
One of the early crises faced by the Jackson administration was the issue of nullification. In 1828, Congress decided to raise an already high tariff on imports from Europe. It was meant to help the industrialized North compete with Europe, but the agricultural South detested it, as it traded heavily with Europe. The South called it the "Tariff of Abominations."
The concept of nullification, that states had the right to nullify any federal law which it deemed went against its interests, had first appeared in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions in 1798. In response to the tariff, South Carolina declared it null and void. Vice President John C. Calhoun agreed with this notion of states’ rights and encouraged South Carolina to take a stand on the tariff issue.
Up until that point, no one was sure where Jackson stood on the issue of states' rights. Then, in April, 1830, he announced that he opposed states rights in this instance. While President Jackson sympathized with the South's position on the tariff, he believed in a strong union with central power. As a result, a deep rivalry developed between Jackson and Calhoun. The rivalry can be epitomized in an incident at the Jefferson Day dinner, April 13, 1830, in which South Carolina Senator Robert Hayne made a toast to "The Union of the States, and the Sovereignty of the States." President Jackson added (and clearly directed towards the vice president), "Our federal Union: It must be preserved!" To this, Vice President Calhoun responded: "The Union: Next to our Liberty, the most dear!" In 1831, the first ever Democratic National Convention was held, and former Secretary of State Martin Van Buren (who was still playing a vital role in the President's "kitchen cabinet") was selected to replace Calhoun as the nominee for vice president in the 1832 election. The vice president resigned in December 1832 to run for the South Carolina U.S. Senate seat.
The South would not compromise on this lower tax, and South Carolina passed the Nullification Act which proclaimed that the state would no longer pay the "illegal" tariffs. South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union if the federal government tried to interfere.
President Jackson continued to oppose nullification, stating that "The Constitution... forms a government not a league... To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States is not a nation." In 1832 he asked Congress to pass a "force bill," authorizing the use of military force to enforce the tariff law. The bill was held up in Congress until the great compromiser Henry Clay and the protectionists agreed to a Compromise Tariff bill. The Compromise Tariff contained a lower but still fairly high tariff. Both bills passed on March 1, 1833, and the president signed both.
In the face of the threat of military force, South Carolina quickly agreed to the lower compromise tariff and abolished the Nullification Act. The crisis was averted for another day.
Indian Policies
The lives of the Indians became even more troubled once a man who had been a friend, Andrew Jackson, became President of the United States. In 1830, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, this act removed any claims of the indigenous people to the land. This affected five tribes of the east—Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole. The act would subsequently resettle them into a designated Indian Territory, which would be where Oklahoma is today. In spite of legal protests from tribal leaders, Jackson wanted them gone, even if he had to use military force in order to do it. Jackson decided that the Indians were a threat to national security. He also had a personal financial stake in some of the territory in question. With each treaty signed by the Native Americans, a white investor could purchase the ceded lands for themselves. In spite of this, the Cherokee, continued to pursue justice legally and actually was victorious in 1832 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the individual states had no jurisdiction within tribal lands. Jackson, argued that Indian removal was in the national interest, and ignored the ruling. The aftermath becomes known as the Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears begins on October 8, 1832 and lasts for years. Indians are forced off of their land and migrate to the west.
Second Bank of the United States
The Second Bank of the United States began about 5 years after the First Bank of the United States fell. The Second Bank of the United States began in the same place as the first, Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia. It had many branches through out the nation. Many of the same men from the First Bank ran the Second bank, when they refused to renew the charter of the First Bank. The main reason the Second Bank rose was because of the war of 1812. The U.S. suffered a horrible inflation and had trouble financing military operations. Like the first, bank many speculators believed the bank was corrupt. Second Bank ending up suffering from similar issues as the first bank and was ultimately disposed.
Gag Rule
The Gag Rule of 1836 is a rule that limits or forbids the raising, consideration or discussion of a particular topic by members of a legislative or decision-making body. The term originated in the mid-1830s, about 1836, when the U.S. House of Representatives barred discussion or referral to committee of antislavery petitions. The gag rule was supported by people involved in proslavery. The gag rule helped limit the progression of antislavery petitions. After antislavery petitions begin to emerge the democrats create initial gag orders to prevent the petitions.John Quincy Adams opposed the gag rule and said that limited and diregarded basic civil rights for free citizens. John Quincy Adams was member of the whig party with numerous pushed to eliminated the gag rule.
Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States because of frequent actions of buying and selling housing properties.This all happened in New York City, on May 10, 1837, when every bank began to accept payment in Specie(Gold and Silver). This also happened due to when President Andrew Jacksons came up with the Specie Circular and when he refused to renew the charter of the Second Bank.
Reform and American Society
The Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening was a religious movement during the early 19th century in the United States. Which showed Arminian Theology, by which every person could be saved through revivals.The Awakening grew largely in opposition to deism related to the French Revolution. The Second Awakening grew after a revival in Uttica New York which was hosted by Charles Grandison Finney. Finney believed spoke to congregations in America stating that people were " moral free agents." Charles spoke about Calvinist beliefs and that everyone had a defined destiny. Awakenings were described as spiritual and religious revivals where people will congregate and confess to their sins. By 1831 church membership had grew by 100,000 solely as a result to awakenings that were carried out by preachers like Charles Finney and Theodore Weld.
Throughout the late 1700s and 1800s, alcoholism became an increasing problem, and as a result, temperance groups began forming in several states to reduce the consumption of alcohol. Although the temperance movement began with the intent of limiting use, some temperance leaders such as Connecticut minister Lyman Beecher began urging fellow citizens to abstain from drinking in 1825. In 1826, the American Temperance Society formed in a resurgence of religion and morality. By the late 1830s, the American Temperance Society had membership of 1,500,000, and many Protestant churches began to preach temperance.
Public Education
In the New England states, public education was common, even though it was class-based with the working class receiving minimum benefits. Schools taught religious values and also taught Calvinist philosophies of discipline, including corporal punishment and public humiliation.In 1833 Oberlin college had in attendance 29 men and 15 women. Oberlin college came to be known the first college that allowed women attend. Within five years, thirty-two boarding schools enrolled Indian students. They substituted English for American Indian languages and taught Agriculture alongside the Christian Gospel. Horace Mann was considered “The Father of American Education.” He wanted to develop a school that would help to get rid of the differences between boys and girls when it came to education. He also felt that this could help keep the crime rate down. He was the first Secretary for the Board of Education in Massachusetts in 1837-1848. He also helped to established the first school for the education of teachers in America in 1839.
Asylum Movement
The Asylum Movement was a social conscience that was increased in the early 19th century the helped raise the awareness of mental illness and its treatment.] The first asylum in America was in 1817 near Frankfort, PA. Later in 1817 another asylum emerged in Hartford, Connecticut. The asylums grew popularity and influenced other states to create asylums similar, like Massachusetts, Massachusetts State Lunatic Hospital in 1833. Prior to 1840 only wealthy people were permitted to the asylums. Many people that were mentally ill who did not have finances, were permitted to jails and almshouses.
Abolitionism is the movement for which the purpose is to abolish slavery. While many believed in the injustices that those in the south believed, there were also those who opposed the heinous acts they did to African Americans. There were many people involved in helping slaves to escape to freedom. The movement was expanding. As it got bigger and bigger the hostilities between the north and the south grew as well. The Underground Railroad stemmed from the hearts and minds of these abolitionist freedom fighters. Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were two popular African Americans who were a part of the abolitionist movement.
- A People and A Nation, Eighth Edition
- A People and A Nation, Eighth Edition
- A People and A Nation, Eighth Edition | http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/US_History/War,_Nationalism,_and_Division |
4.0625 | There are two main types of taxes (1)
direct tax and (2) indirect tax.
Explanation of Direct Tax:
A tax is said to be direct tax
impact and Incidence of a tax are on one and same person, i.e., when a
person on whom tax is levied is the same who finally bears the! burden of tax.
For Instance, income tax is a direct
tax because impact and incidence falls on the same person.
If impact of tax falls on one persons and incidence on the another,
the tax is called indirect.
For example, tax on saleable articles is
usually an indirect tax because it can be shifted on to the consumers.
Merits of Direct Tax:
(i) Direct taxes afford a greater degree of progression. They are, therefore,
(ii) They entail less expenses on collection and as such are economical.
(iii) They satisfy canons of
certainty, elasticity, productivity and simplicity.
(iv) Another advantage of direct taxes is
that they create civic consciousness in people. When a person has to bear burden
of tax, he takes active interest in affairs of state.
Demerits of Direct
(i) It is easy to evade a direct tax than an indirect tax. Taxpayer is seldom
happy when he pays tax. It pinches him that his hard-earned money is being taken
by government. So he often submits false statements of his income and thus tries
to evade tax. Direct tax is in fact a tax of honesty.
(ii) Direct tax is very inconvenience because taxpayer has to prepare lengthy
statements of his income and expenditure. He has to keep a record of his income
up-to-date throughout the year. It is very laborious for taxpayer to prepare and
keep these records.
(iii) Direct tax is to be paid in
lump some every year while income which a person earns is received in small
amounts. It often becomes difficult by taxpayers to pay large amounts in one
Indirect taxes are those taxes which are paid in the first instance by one
person and then are shifted on to some other persons. The impact is one person
but the incidence is on the other.
Merits of Indirect Tax:
(i) It is not possible to evade indirect tax. The only way to avoid this tax
is not to buy taxed commodities.
(ii) They are more convenient because they
are wrapped in prices. Consumer
often does not know that he is paying tax.
(iii) Another advantage of tax is that every member of society contributes
something towards revenue of state.
(iv) Indirect tax is also elastic to a certain extent. State can increase its
revenue within limits by increasing rates of taxes.
(v) If state wishes to discourage consumption of intoxicants and harmful
drugs, it can raise their prices by taxing them. This is a great social
advantage which a community can achieve from tax.
Demerits of Indirect Tax:
(i) A very serious objection leveled against indirect taxation is that it is
regressive in character. It is inequitable. Burden of tax falls more on poor
people than on rich.
(ii) Indirect tax is also uneconomical. State has to spend large amounts of
money on collection of taxes.
(iii) Revenue from indirect tax is uncertain. State cannot correctly estimate as
to how much money will it receive from this tax.
(iv) As lax is wrapped up in prices; therefore, it does not create civic
(v) If goods produced by manufacturers are taxed at higher rates, it hampers
trade and industry and causes widespread unemployment in the country.
After discussing merits and demerits of two types of taxes, we come to
conclusion that for reducing inequality of income and raising sufficient funds
for state, both these taxes are essential, A country should not place exclusive
reliance on any one type, but should employ both these forms of taxation.
agree here with Galdston when he says:
"Direct and Indirect taxes
are like two equally fair sisters to whom as Chancellor of Exchequer, he had to
pay equal addresses".
In recent times, however, there has
been a slight change in utilization of both these types of taxes. Every state,
in order to reduce inequality of income, is trying to raise major portion of its
income from direct taxes. | http://www.economicsconcepts.com/direct_tax_and_indirect_tax.htm |
4.09375 | Carnivorous plants are a specialized group of plants that grow in wet, boggy, acidic soils. These bogs are typically comprised of peat soils which are low in the mineral salts and other nutrients vital for the plants survival. One of the most critical plant nutrients is nitrogen which is usually taken up by plants as nitrates. Nitrogen is a nutrient that is easily leached out of even ordinary soils. For this reason the plants that live in these soils have evolved into carnivorous plants that capture and digest insects as a means of obtaining nitrates.
While these plants can obtain nutrients from gases (carbon dioxide which breaks down into carbon and oxygen creating carbohydrates) and what little nutrients they can obtain from the soil, they are healthier and more vigorous when their diet is supplemented with the nutrients obtained from insects. Here at the University of Illinois five of the most common genera of carnivorous plants are grown with goals of adding more genera in the future.
The Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula)
Obviously, the most well know carnivorous plant is the Venus Fly Trap. Carl Linnaeus named the VFT after Diana, the Greek goddess of love and beauty.
The Venus Fly Trap is probably one of the most fascinating of the carnivorous plants. It is native to the coastal plains of North Carolina and the northeast coast of South Carolina. The Venus fly trap captures its prey by modified leaves that have developed traps at the end of the leaf. The trap of the VFT is classified as an active trap. This means that there is actual movement of the plant in the capture of its prey.
There are numerous theories on how the trap actually moves. These theories are too long to add to this page, but are quite interesting. If you are interested in learning more here are a couple of web pages that explains some of the theories of the fly trap movement:
Wikipedia: Venus Flytrap and Live Science: "Venus Flytrap's Speed Secret Revealed" by By Robin Lloyd
Now for those who are not interested in the theory behind how the traps close but are interested in how they close, here is the simple version. There are four hairs on the inside of the leaf of the VFT called trigger hairs. Sweet smelling nectar is produced by glands on the inside of the trap attracting insects. When an unsuspecting insect walks across the leaf and touches the hairs in quick succession, the trap closes. The trap does not close tightly at first, but within seconds it will be tightly closed trapping the insect. It is believed the reason the trap does not close tight immediately, is so that small insects can get out of the trap and the plant does not expend energy and time on digesting a insufficient meal. The plant then releases digestive enzymes much like those we produce in our stomach and digests the soft body parts of the insect. Insects have an outer skeleton called an exoskeleton which is not digestible by the plant. After digestion is complete, which can take from five to ten days, the trap reopens and the exoskeleton is than washed away or blown away. A single trap will capture insects one to three times depending on the size of the insect. Then the trap will blacken and die.
Keep in mind that the purpose of the trap is to provide food and energy to the plant. Even though the leaf dies after capturing an insect, energy is provided to the plant to produce more leaves and traps.
American Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia sp.)
There are believed to be eight or possibly nine Sarracenia sp. All but one of them are native to the Coastal States of the Southeast, ranging from Alabama to the Carolinas. The one species that is not restricted to the south is Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea. This pitcher plant can be found along the
eastern seaboard into the upper Midwest and into much of Canada. You can find this pitcher plant in the Volo Bog north of Chicago almost at the Illinois/Wisconsin border. The American Pitcher plants capture their prey by means of passive traps called pitfall traps. The traps are specialize leaves that have developed into tubes. Once again there is sweet nectar at the base of the cap that attracts the insects.
(The picture to the left is of Sarracenia flava var. rugelli and the picture to the right is Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea)
This nectar intoxicates the insect. The insect then falls into the trap. The interior of the traps are either smooth or have hairs pointing downwards preventing the insects from climbing out of the trap. At the base of the trap the digestive enzymes are found. This liquid will rise higher in the tube as the tube fills with insects. With one particular trap, Sarracenia psittacina, the top of the tube balloons out and turns back down towards the tube leaving a small opening for the insects to enter. Any insect unfortunate enough to enter this particular plant is doomed to a torturous death. The balloon like chamber is pitted with chlorophyll free areas that act like windows letting light into the tube. The insect tries to exit the trap via these windows only to find itself trapped.
(The picture to the left is of Sarracenia psittacina and the picture to the right is pointing out the base of the cap on a Sarracenia flava var. rugelli)
Additionally, this particular plant has stiff needle-like hairs on the inside of the tube forcing the insect down the tube. If the insect should try to retreat, the insect will be pierced by these hairs. By the end of summer, the traps of the pitcher plants are full of insects. If you cut open the trap it is interesting to see the succession of insects caught from flies to moths to wasps and ladybug beetles.
(Picture is of a Sarracenia tube full of insects)
Tropical Pitcher Plants (Nepenthes sp.)
Nepenthes are the pitcher plants of the Old World Tropics with most of them native to the Asian rainforests. These pitcher plants differ from the American pitcher plants in that many of them are lianas, vines growing up into trees, rosettes, or epiphytes growing in the leafy debris caught in tree branches.
There are two classifications of Nepenthes based on the climate in which they grow. Lowland Nepenthes grow in areas below 3000 feet where the days are hot and nights are warm and the humidity is high. Highland Nepenthes grow higher in the mountains (above 3000 feet) where the days are warm and the nights are cool and the rainfall is high.
While there are many lowland Nepenthes, the majority of Nepenthes are highland Nepenthes.
This plant has a very unique structure. The pitcher is actually the leaf modified as a trap. The part that looks like a leaf is actually the leaf petiole. The pitcher holds liquid used to drown the insect. The plant actually produces the liquid in the pitchers. This is impressive considering there is one species that will hold up to three quarters of a gallon of liquid in it's pitcher. The pitchers of nepenthes vary in size from 4-5 inches to 12 inches (Nepenthes truncate) to 24 inches (Nepenthes rajah). It has been recorded that a rat was found in the pitcher of Nepenthes rajah.
The nepenthes are also unique in that they are similar to bromeliads where some animals, insects and spiders have learned to survive and live in the liquid of the nepenthes. There are mosquitoes and species of frogs that lay their eggs in the liquid of nepenthes and are not affected by the digestive enzymes.
Sundews (Drosera sp.)
Sundews are found world wide. They are tropical or temperate and grow on every continent of the world. Sundews are dainty, little plants glistening in the sun and much to the dismay of any unsuspecting insect, another notorious carnivorous plant. The leaves of the sundew are lined with hair-like structures or tentacles and on the tips of the tentacles are dewy drops that are thick and sticky. At the base of the tentacle is the gland that produces digestive enzymes. The insect is attracted to the glistening dew drops believing it to be flower nectar. Unfortunately for the insect, the dew drops are sticky and the insect is easily captured, very similar to a spider's web.
As the insect struggles to free itself, it just becomes more enmeshed by the plant. The more the insect is stuck to the plant the better for the plant. The plant can only digest body parts of the insect that are actually touching the glands. However, sundews are a second group of plants that use active traps to capture their prey.
Once an insect is caught, the tentacles of the sundew will wrap around the insect holding it tighter to prevent escape. There are a few sundews that as the insect struggles more, the leaves will wrap around the insect holding it even tighter.
Bladderworts (Utricularia sp.)
Bladderworts are the largest group of carnivorous plants encompassing over 200 species around the world. They are terrestrial growing in waterlogged, wet soils or aquatic growing in ponds. Several species are epiphytes growing in mossy trees. The plants are admired mostly for their flowers as that is the part of the plant that is visible. The true nature of the plant lies beneath the surface of the substrate in which they grow. An anomaly among plants, bladderworts are rootless. The majority of the plant grows beneath the soil surface or submerged in water.
The plant is mostly stem material. The plants capture small microorganisms and insects with bladder-like traps, hence the common name bladderwort. The aquatic bladderworts trap small insects, such as water fleas, Daphnia, and mosquito larvae, or in the case of the terrestrial bladderworts, protozoa or paramecia. The traps are one of the most complex structures of the plant world. The traps are specialized leaves attached to the stems. They can range in size from as small as a pinhead to as large as one-eight of an inch wide. The trap has a door which only opens inwardly. Outside the door are several trigger hairs. When the insect touches one of these hairs the door is opened creating a vacuum sucking in both water and the insect. These traps may appear as active traps like the Venus Flytrap, but they are actually passive traps called suction traps. The trigger hairs do not induce movement by the plant but act as a lever opening the door of the trap. Digestion occurs within 15 minutes at which time the trap is ready for another unsuspecting insect.
Growing Carnivorous Plants in Illinois (Carnivorous Plants Group.)
Growing carnivorous plants in Illinois is a challenge even
for the best of gardeners. It takes patience to learn which plants will survive
our climate and that is only accomplished through trial and error. The
University of Illinois garden is in Champaign, Illinois, or Central Illinois.
Any gardener south of Central Illinois should have luck with a little care and
learning how to set up a proper bed for carnivorous plants. Anything that grows
in our garden will grow south of here. Unfortunately, I cannot say what
carnivorous plants will grow north of Central Illinois except for the purple
pitcher plant. If you are in town during the summer months come and see our
The Garden Bed
When establishing a carnivorous plant garden, a special bed
needs to be created and prepared. These plants grow in native bogs throughout
the United States. The plants cannot be planted directly into our soils. There
are two ways to create a bed for carnivorous plants. One method is to buy a tub
used for aquatic ponds. Make sure the tub is at least 18 inches deep. The
second method is to dig your own "pond" making sure it is at least 18 inches
deep and then lining the hole with the liners used to make water gardens. If
using a plastic tub for aquatic pools, you will have to drill holes about 5
inches from the top for drainage. The carnivorous plants should not be sitting
Do not use any local soil. Use only milled or baled
sphagnum peat as your soil medium. This can be bought at most garden centers.
Make sure the bag says sphagnum peat. If it does not, do not use it. Some
additives that can be used to mix into the peat are perlite, washed play sand or
lava rock also called kaolite or expanded clay. While some people like
including these additives for aeration, they are not necessary. If you should
use sand, make sure you buy play sand not sand used in construction. Also, wash
the sand until the water runs clear. Sand has salts or minerals in it that are
detrimental to carnivorous plants.
Never use tap water of any kind. Well water is usually
safe as long as it does not go through a water softener. The best water to use
would be rain water or if you need to buy water use only distilled water. Do
not use bottles labeled as spring water or water like Hinckly Schmidt. These
types of water have salts and minerals added back to the water to make it taste
Most of the carnivorous plants that you will try growing
come from the coastal states of the United States from Alabama up through North
Carolina. These states have humidity levels of close to 100% year around. Most
of Illinois has enough humidity during the summer months that lack of humidity
should not be a problem.
Carnivorous plants grow best in direct sunlight for most of
the day. While some light shade is beneficial during the hottest part of the
afternoon, it is not necessary.
Again, most of the carnivorous plants that you will be
growing will require a dormancy period. Here at the University of Illinois, the
gardens are left uncovered until November, sometimes December. The plants are
then covered with straw and then the straw is covered with some kind of porous
material like a thin layer of landscape cloth, burlap, some kind of material
that will hold up during the winter and allow rain water to soak through to the
plants. The material is held in place with landscape cloth stakes. This
protection is kept in place at least until mid March. Timing for lying the
protection down in the Fall and removing it in the Spring will be determined by
where you live. The dates provided are what are used here in Central Illinois.
The majority of the pests you will encounter will be
animals. Squirrels and raccoons like to dig in the soft soil burying their
treasures or looking for snails to eat. Rabbits may try nibbling on the
trumpets when they first appear in Spring, but usually leave them alone after
they find they are not very appetizing. Lastly, watch for snails and slugs.
They can become a problem in the bog gardens.
Plants grown outside at the University of Illinois
Drosera binata – the only sundew that seems to really
survive our winters.
Drosera filiformis ssp. filiformis -- may survive in milder
Sarracenia flava ssp. Rugelli
Sarracenia flave 'red tube'
Sarracenia oreophila x leucophylla
Sarracenia 'Dixie Lace'
Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea
catesbaei X alata
These two books should be in every gardener's library if
they are interested in growing carnivorous plants:
The Savage Garden by Peter D'Amato
Carnivorous Plants of the United States and Canada by | http://www.life.illinois.edu/plantbio/greenhouse/vt_carnivorous.html |
4.03125 | |This article does not cite any references or sources. (January 2008)|
In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker (although most interjections have clear definitions). Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections. Interjections are often placed at the beginning of a sentence.
An interjection is sometimes expressed as a single word or non-sentence phrase, followed by a punctuation mark. The isolated usage of an interjection does not represent a complete sentence in conventional English writing. Thus, in formal writing, the interjection will be incorporated into a larger sentence clause.
Interjection (Figure of Speech)
Interjection as a Figure of Speech refers to the use of one word. For example, lawyers in the United States of America traditionally say: Objection! or soldiers: Fire!.
Examples in English
Conventions like Hi, Bye and Goodbye are interjections, as are exclamations like Cheers! and Hooray!. In fact, like a noun or a pronoun, they are very often characterized by exclamation marks depending on the stress of the attitude or the force of the emotion they are expressing. Well (a short form of "that is well") can also be used as an interjection: "Well! That's great!" or "Well, don't worry." Much profanity takes the form of interjections. Some linguists consider the pro-sentences yes, no, amen and okay as interjections, since they have no syntactical connection with other words and rather work as sentences themselves. Expressions such as "Excuse me!", "Sorry!", "No thank you!", "Oh dear!", "Hey that's mine!", and similar ones often serve as interjections. Interjections can be phrases or even sentences, as well as words, such as "Oh!" or "Wowee!".
Several English interjections contain sounds that do not (or very rarely) exist in regular English phonological inventory. For example:
- Ahem [əʔəm], [ʔəʔəm], [əɦəm], or [ʔəhəm], ("attention!") may contain a glottal stop [ʔ] or a [ɦ] in any dialect of English; the glottal stop is common in American English, some British dialects, and in other languages, such as German.
- Shh [ʃːː] ("quiet!") is an entirely consonantal syllable.
- Pc [psː] ("here!"), also spelled psst, is another entirely consonantal syllable-word, and its consonant cluster does not occur initially in regular English words.
- Tut-tut [ǀ ǀ] ("shame..."), also spelled tsk-tsk, is made up entirely of clicks, which are an active part of regular speech in several African languages. This particular click is dental. (This also has the spelling pronunciation [tʌt tʌt].)
- Ugh [ʌx] ("disgusting!") ends with a velar fricative consonant, which otherwise does not exist in English, though is common in languages like Spanish, German, and Gaelic .
- Whew or phew [ɸɪu] ("what a relief!"), also spelled shew, may start with a bilabial fricative, a sound pronounced with a strong puff of air through the lips. This sound is a common phoneme in such languages as Suki (a language of New Guinea) and Ewe and Logba (both spoken in Ghana).
- Gah [ɡæh] ("Gah, there's nothing to do!") ends with [h], which does not occur with regular English words.
- Yeah [jɛ] ("yes") ends with the short vowel [ɛ], or in some dialects [æ], neither of which are found at the end of any regular English words.
See also
|Look up interjection in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.|
- Discourse marker
- Ejaculation (grammar)
- Filler (linguistics)
- List of interjections by language at Wiktionary.
- Words without vowels
- Gladwyn Ferreira. English Kumarbharati Grammar,Language Study & Writing Skills Std.X. Jeevandeep Prakashan Pvt Ltd. pp. 168–. GGKEY:PYF90EN6DCP. Retrieved 18 May 2013. | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interjection |
4.03125 | SQ3R is a comprehension strategy that helps students think about the text they are reading while they're reading. Often categorized as a study strategy, SQ3R helps students "get it" the first time they read a text by teaching students how to read and think like an effective reader.
- Survey: Students review the text to gain initial meaning from the headings, bolded text, and charts.
- Question: Students begin to generate questions about their reading from previewing it.
- Read: As students read, they need to look for answers to the questions they formulated during their preview of the text. These questions, based on the structure of the text, help focus students' reading.
- Recite: As students move through the text they should recite or rehearse the answers to their questions and make notes about their answer for later studying.
- Review: After reading, students should review the text to answer lingering questions and recite the questions they previously answered.
Do you have students who get to the end of reading their textbook selection and have no idea what they've read? These students can benefit from using the SQ3R because it requires them to activate their thinking and review their understanding throughout their reading.
It also dissuades students from waiting and then cramming for tests since the five steps requires them to review information and create notes during their initial reading. Their notes from the initial reading become their study guides.
Create and use the strategy
- Explain to students that effective readers do many things while reading, including surveying, questioning, reading, reciting and reviewing.
- Choose a content area passage to read and model the five SQ3R steps.
- During each step, make sure to explain what you're doing and why you're doing it.
- After your modeling session, invite students to independently read a selection and practice applying the SQ3R steps. This could be completed as an in-class or take-home assignment.
- Afterwards ask students to review their notes and reflect on the process. Were they surprised by how much they remember by using the SQ3R method?
- Students may not be "sold" on this strategy the first time they try it. Not all readings will be worth the time it takes to complete the SQ3R steps, so help students to understand not just how to apply it, but when to apply it.
What it looks likeDownload the SQ3R Guide
Fisher, D., and Frey, N, (2004). Improving Adolescent Literacy: Strategies at Work. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Robinson, F.P. (1946). Effective Study. New York: Harper & Row. | http://www.adlit.org/strategies/19803/ |
4.03125 | White Only: Jim Crow in America
Early Klan image
The Ku Klux Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866 to combat Reconstruction reforms and intimidate African Americans. By 1870 similar organizations such as the Knights of the White Camelia and the White Brotherhood had sprung up across the South. Through fear, brutality, and murder, these terrorist groups helped to overthrow local reform-minded governments and restore white supremacy, and then largely faded away.
KKK robe and hood
By the mid-1920s the Klan was again a powerful political force in both the South and the North, spreading hatred against African Americans, immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. Klan membership plummeted later in the decade after a series of scandals involving its leadership. But by then, the Klan had inflamed racial hatred and strengthened the political power of white supremacists in many parts of the country. This Ku Klux Klan robe and hood date from the 1920s.
KKK parade in Washington
Demonstrating their political power, Klansmen triumphantly parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., on September 13, 1926, in full regalia.
(Courtesy of Library of Congress)
Ballot—No Negro Equality
The fight over civil rights was never just a southern issue. This ballot is from the race for governor of Ohio in 1867. Allen Granbery Thurman’s campaign included the promise of barring black citizens from voting. He narrowly lost to future president Rutherford B. Hayes. Thurman was then appointed U.S. Senator for Ohio, where he worked to reverse many Reconstruction-era civil rights reforms.
Thurmond campaign poster
Race and white privilege have long been central issues in American politics. At the Democratic presidential convention in 1948, southern delegates broke with the party over civil rights and formed the State’s Rights Party.
Their nominee for president was a prominent segregationist, South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond. He received more than a million votes and carried four southern states—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. His campaign sent a clear message to the nation that the South would not give up segregation without a fight. | http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/1-segregated/white-only-2.html |
4.28125 | Nature and Science: Geology
It’s all about rocks! Construction of the canal across New York was made possible thanks to the most significant gap in the Appalachian Mountain range. This low lying gap provided a natural avenue between the eastern seaboard and the Great Lakes through which a canal could be dug.
A shallow sea covered upstate New York during the period from 450 to 390 million years ago. Over time layers of shells and silt were deposited on the sea floor and were later compressed by overlying new sediments.
In this process, sand was solidified into sandstone, thick layers of mud became soft shales, and dissolved shells and calcium carbonate formed thin layers of resistant dolomite and limestone. In shallow bays, the seawater evaporated, leaving concentrations of dissolved minerals, such as salt and gypsum.
When the geologic events of the Alleghanian Orogeny, or mountain-building episode, thrust up the Appalachian Plateau during the period from 320 to 250 million years ago, the sedimentary rocks west of the Hudson were tipped gently to the south, exposing a cross section of layers. The tipped layers blocked the prevailing northward flow of water and redirected the streams into east-west channels that cut down into the softer layers.
The Mohawk, Seneca, and Clyde Rivers follow this east-west pattern, granting the Erie Canal an ease of construction and operation unknown to any other canal that attempted to unite the interior of the continent with the eastern seaboard.
As the streams cut down through the limestone caprock and tipped shale, they etched the surface into relief, leaving a pattern of steep slopes or escarpments facing north, and gentle slopes facing south. These escarpments extend east-west in bands across upstate New York. Along most of its length, the Erie Canal’s alignment took advantage of the east-west orientation of the underlying bedrock and the softer shales.
Crossing an escarpment, however, posed a major challenge, as evidenced in Lockport, where the Flight of Five locks climbs approximately 60 feet to ascend the Niagara Escarpment.
During the period from approximately one million to 10,000 years ago, successive waves of glaciers moved across the bedrock formation and shaped other distinctive landforms through processes of erosion and deposition. The glaciers also shaped many unique glacial features that form the characteristic landscape of upstate New York. | http://eriecanalway.org/learn_nature-science_geology.htm |
4.25 | Money Connection—Unit 3
This lesson focuses on the impact of too much money or too little money flowing in the economy in terms of jobs, prices, and production of goods and services. A simulation is used to demonstrate the impact of inflation on the economy.
Money Connection Video
The Money Connection is a lively, two-part video (approximately 17 minutes) designed to introduce fourth through sixth grade audiences to the Federal Reserve System. The fast-paced, news show format combines historical photographs and live-action footage with interviews and animation sequences for a close up look at the history and important responsibilities and functions of the Federal Reserve.
The "What is a dollar worth?" calculator allows you to compare prices for goods or services from different periods of time. For example, you can compare the price you paid for a dozen eggs in 1972 with the price you paid last week.
Time Value of Money Online Learning Module
This online learning module helps students learn about the time value of money, opportunity costs, interest and inflation. The module also focuses on mathematical components and calculations of the related time value formulas.
Consumer Price Index Video
This Drawing Board video explains the Median Consumer Price Index (CPI) and how it is used to gauge inflation.
Other Inflation Teaching Ideas
Find out what methods other educators in the Southeast have used to teach concepts related to inflation.
The Fed Today—Lesson Four: The Fed's Role in Making and Setting Monetary Policy
This lesson focuses on price stability and inflation. Students discuss how to define inflation and analyze the relationship between the money supply and the price level using the Fisher Equation. Students then examine the harmful effects of inflation on the economy. Finally, small groups of students determine how business and consumer behavior changed during the 1970s when inflation had a negative impact on the nation's economy.
A Lesson to Accompany "Benjamin Franklin and the Birth of a Paper Money Economy"
In this lesson, students learn about the role of money in the colonial economy by participating in a trading activity in which they observe the effects of too little money on trade within a colony. In the final activity, students learn how too much money can lead to inflation. Related essay
Advanced High School to College
The Economy: Crisis and Response—The Road Ahead
As the economy moves toward recovery, the Fed will remain active in its response, including unwinding certain policies as conditions warrant. This website examines the economic outlook, why inflation is a topic of focus, and the changes in regulation needed to strengthen the financial markets.
The Inflation Project
Tracking inflation and its effects is a vital component of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. The Inflation Project regularly compiles links to data releases, reports, research, and international inflation updates.
The Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions, commonly known as the Beige Book, gathers anecdotal information on current economic conditions in each Federal Reserve District through reports from Bank and Branch directors and interviews with key business contacts, economists, market experts, and other sources. The Beige Book summarizes this information by District and sector. | http://www.frbatlanta.org/edresources/classroomeconomist/inflation_resources.cfm |
4.09375 | Among modern political movements, socialism has arguably given the greatest attention to the elaboration of a coherent political theory. By the late nineteenth century many socialists had come to believe that Marxism gave them alone a “scientific” understanding of the economic and social laws of history. This belief became codified as “Marxism-Leninism” in the first socialist state, the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. Opponents have teased socialists for their faith in theory and have compared the socialist movement to an orthodox church replete with dogma and an infallible priesthood.
Dogmatic or sophisticated, reformist or communist, socialists developed their theories in the heat of an unfolding series of political conflicts. This course investigates the evolution of socialism as a political philosophy and ideology within this shifting political context. It begins with the pre-Marxian utopian socialism promoted by Babeuf, Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen and the anarchism of Proudhon and Bakunin. The course then turns to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and follows the subsequent division of socialist thinking into evolutionary and revolutionary systems in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It will look at the debates within socialism about the relationship between anarchism and social democracy, and over the need to reinterpret Marx in the imperialist age. Significant attention will be paid to the new divisions in the wake of the Bolshevik success in Russia. Finally, students will want to examine the fate of socialism after the recent watersheds of 1968 and 1989. What, if any, is the impact of socialist theory in Europe today?
Students with questions or desiring summer reading suggestions are encouraged to contact the tutor at email@example.com.
Tutorial Contribution 10% | http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofHistoryandAnthropology/ProspectiveStudents/UndergraduateStudies/History/UndergradHistorymodules/SocialismtheHistoryofanIdeaHIS3038/ |
4.09375 | Narwhals are mid-sized whales living in the cold waters of the Arctic Circle near northern Canada and Greenland. They grow between 4 and 6 m (12-20 ft.) in length – a similar size to their relative, the beluga whale.
But they are easily distinguished from their beluga kin. Male narwhals possess a great spiraled tooth that projects from their heads. The long, hornlike tooth can reach up to 3 m (10 ft.) in length and grows continually to replace wear. Researchers are unsure of the exact purpose of the tooth. Some believe it serves as an attractive ornament for mating, while others believe it is used as a weapon to fight rivals. One researcher concluded that the tooth has the ability to detect changes in water temperature and pressure.
Narwhals also have a second tooth that measures about 30 cm (1 ft.) long, but it remains embedded in the skull. Some females have been spotted with a protruding tooth, though not nearly as long as that of the males. There have even been some males with two long protruding teeth.
Narwhals also differ from belugas in skin color. Narwhals have black and white mottled skin. Appearing to resemble the bodies of drowned soldiers, the name narwhal derives from the old Norse word nar meaning corpse.
At birth, narwhals are approximately 1.5 m (5 ft.) in length. At maturity, which is between 6 and 9 years, females grow to about 3.5 m (11.5 ft.) in length, and weigh around 1,000 kg (2,200 lb.). Males reach between 4 and 6 m (13 and 20 ft.) and can weigh 1,600 kg (3,500 lb.).
Once they are mature, females will give birth to a calf once every 3 years. The pregnancy lasts for about 14 months, and calves are born in the spring.
Like many other whales, narwhals travel in groups. Their pods average 15-20 whales. Sometimes multiple pods will meet in social groups of up to 100 whales, although it is hard to get exact numbers. Narwhals have proven difficult for researchers to tag and track, mainly due to the cold and icy water conditions and the fact that narwhals do not come very close to shore.
Narwhals feed more regularly in the winter, consuming fish like cod and halibut, shrimp, and squid. Preying on creatures primarily on the bottom of the sea, they dive on average 800 m (.5 mi.), but can go twice that. The dives last around 25 minutes. In the summer, narwhals feed rarely, having stored up enough energy during the winter feeding season. They return to the same feeding grounds each year.
Narwhals are preyed upon by polar bears and walruses if they get trapped by shifting ice. Off shore they are attacked by orcas, to whom they are also related. In the summer, narwhals are also hunted by Inuits using kayaks and spears.
Narwhals are currently considered near-threatened. Exact data is not known regarding the number of narwhals in the world. There are concerns with specific populations near the coasts of Eastern Canada and Greenland due to intense hunting. Many of the areas inhabited by narwhals are also subject to drilling and mining, which produces waste that is dangerous to all animal populations.
What You Can Do to Help
One way you can help is to get involved with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
- American Cetacean Society – Narwhal
- Harvard Gazette
- IUCN Red List – Narwhal
- National Geographic – Narwhal | http://www.animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/narwhal/ |
4.0625 | Crust is made by melting mantle. Small percentages of the mantle melt - the resulting magma is more buoyant and so rises towards the surface. So you can say that the crust is the scum of the Earth!
The main place where new crust, indeed new plate, is created is at mid ocean ridges. This is oceanic crust but over geological time almost all of this is recycled back into the mantle by subduction. Continental crust is different. It is generally too buoyant to be recycled into the mantle by subduction. Once formed it stays on top. And as it still forms today the amount of continental crust has been increasing over geological time. Even so, only about 40% of the Earth's surface is represented by continental crust.
So how is continental crust formed? As it involves melting small amounts of mantle and then for these small amounts to congeal near the Earth's surface we should rephrase the question: where does the important mantle melting happen? There are two key sites. Mantle plumes, the deep structure of "hot spots" are sites of melting. These can erupt sheets of flood basalt lava at the Earth's surface. Examples include the Deccan Traps of India and the Parana basalts of Brazil/Paraguay. These occupy areas of more than 50,000 and 750,000 square kilometres respectively. Far more material may exist at depth (so-called "underplate"), caked on at the base of the old continental crust.
But plumes are only one way to add to the volume of continental crust. At present the main way in which new continental crust is formed is at subduction zones. Although these are the sites of plate destruction, as oceanic plates are recycled into the mantle, they are also factories for making new continental crust. This happens because water entrained in the subduction zone triggers melting in the mantle. This magma is manifest as volcanic island arcs and cordillera. Island arcs, such as form the eastern rim of the Caribbean, form when subduction happens beneath oceanic crust. Here a whole suite of new igneous rocks are intruded, creating new crust that is too buoyant to be subducted. Eventually, over geological time, this island arc is plastered onto the side of an older continent, adding to its volume. When subduction happens beneath an already existing continent, igneous rocks thicken it up, manifest as cordilleran mountain ranges. The classic example are the Andes.
The modern continents are made up of crust of all sorts of ages. The oldest crust is over 3.8 billion years old (examples in southern Africa, Canada and Australia). The old crust has been added to and then "remobilised" by tectonics. Interestingly, the creation of new continental crust has not been a steady process - there are distinct periods in Earth History when continental crust is preferentially formed. Earth scientists are still not sure why - could it be that plate tectonics has operated sporadically through time?
The geology of NW Scotland charts a similar pattern as the global picture. Although there are no rocks preserved from the oldest period of continental growth, the Lewisian complex was largely formed in the next one. Much of the Lewisian was formed by magmatism about 2.5 billion years ago. And a major period of reworking, accompanied by melting, happened at about 1.8 billion years ago. The evidence for the next great global pulse of activity at about 1 billion years ago is a little circumstantial. But the Torridonian sediments (1000 - 800 million years old) tell of a major mountain range of this age to the west of modern Scotland. In Canada this mountain building episode is called the Grenvillian where there are major structures of this age. The final key episode about 500 million years ago coincides with the Caledonian mountain building episodes of the British Isles. Effectively the Grampian Highlands represent the new crust of this age - and also the crust of the Midland valley of Scotland and the Southern Uplands. Since then the amount of new crust added to Scotland has been rather small. The only reasonable addition came because of the proto-Iceland mantle plume about 60 million years ago., Mantle melting added magma to form the so-called British Tertiary Igneous Province. These are manifest as the rugged hills of the Cuillins of Skye and other volcanic formations such as the Antrim basalts of northern Ireland. But a lot more material may exist at the base of the crust, underplated onto the ancient foundations of Scotland.
|| Extra information || Home page || | http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/structure/assyntgeology/extra_info/ehistory.htm |
4.40625 | The discovery of nearly identical sea creatures on either side of a now solid Antarctic ice sheet -- 1,500 miles wide and over a mile thick -- points to an open ocean passage there as recently as 125,000 years ago.
A schematic of a seaway created by the partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
The new evidence adds to geologic clues indicating the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has collapsed at least once in the last million years, and could do so again in a warmer climate. The complete collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise global sea level by 11 to 16 feet.
“The West Antarctic Ice Sheet can be considered the Achilles heel of Antarctica,” biologist David Barnes of the West Antarctic Survey, lead author of the study, said in a press release. “Our research provides compelling evidence that a seaway stretching across West Antarctica could have opened up only if the ice sheet has collapsed in the past.”
As part of the Census of Antarctic Marine Life, scientists were looking at the distribution of different species of bryozoans, small filter-feeders that are attached to the sea floor as adults. They found that the populations of bryozoans were remarkably similar in two different seas separated by the ice sheet, the Weddell and the Ross.
“Because the larvae of these animals sink and this stage of their life is short -- and the adult form anchors itself to the sea bed -- it’s very unlikely that they would have dispersed the long distances carried by ocean currents,” Barnes said. “Our conclusion is that the colonisation of both these regions is a signal that both seas were connected by a trans-Antarctic sea way in the recent past.”
“This biological evidence is one of the novel ways that we can look for clues that help us reconstruct Antarctica’s ice sheet history,” Barnes said. The study appears in Global Biological Change.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is already considered to be highly vulnerable to climate change, but estimates of when it might collapse vary from a few hundred to a few thousand years. | http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-09/01/sea-creatures |
4.21875 | LEADER RESOURCE 2: Histories
South Africa and Black South Africans
Apartheid was the law in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. Apartheid laws enforced segregation by race and kept the white majority in power, while denying black South Africans basic human rights and freedoms. After years of pressure from other countries, South Africa dismantled apartheid. An official apology from the government was never issued, though individual officials and citizens publicly apologized. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to grant amnesty to those who had committed political crimes on both sides under apartheid; to record the story of (predominantly black) victims whose voices had until then been silenced; and to make recommendations on reparations, both symbolic and monetary, for those identified as victims. It was met with uneven success.
Germany and Jews affected by the Holocaust
Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, a state-sponsored, systematic genocide executed by Nazi Germany. After the war ended in 1945, the Jewish people established their own state, Israel, in the Middle East. In 1952, after negotiations between Israel, the World Jewish Congress and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany until 1990) The government of West Germany signed an agreement to provide 715 million dollars in goods and services to the State of Israel as compensation for taking in survivors; 110 million dollars to the Claims Conference for programs to finance the relief, rehabilitation, and resettlement of Jewish Holocaust survivors; and direct reparations to selected individuals over a 12-year period. Additionally, the government of Germany coordinated an effort to reach a settlement with German companies that had used slave labor during the war and established a National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Berlin.
At that time, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer made a public speech that acknowledged the suffering of the Jewish people, stopping short of actually assuming responsibility or apologizing, saying "... unspeakable crimes have been committed in the name of the German people, calling for moral and material indemnity, both with regard to the individual harm done to the Jews and with regard to the Jewish property for which no legitimate individual claimants still exist."
In the ensuing years, various members of the German government have
offered apologies for Germany's role in the Holocaust, including President Johannes Rau, who said, in an address to the Israeli Knesset (parliament) in 2000, "I am asking for forgiveness for what Germans have done, for myself and my generation, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, whose future I would like to see alongside the children of Israel." Not everyone affected by the Holocaust—either directly or through their ancestors—accepts the apologies or approves of reparations.
Unitarian Universalists and the Ute tribe
In response to a report by UUA President Bill Sinkford, delegates at General Assembly in 2007 made a resolution to "encourage their congregations and the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) to research their own and the Association's history: to uncover our links and complicity with the genocide of native peoples; with slavery and the slave-based economy; and with all types of racial, ethnic, and cultural oppression, past and present, toward the goal of accountability through acknowledgment, apology, repair, and reconciliation." The resolution requests congregations and the UUA report back in subsequent General Assemblies.
In the process, a little known part of our history was uncovered by Reverend David Pettee and Ted Fetter. In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant invited Protestant denominations to take over the management of Indian reservations and agencies. "The American Unitarian Association (AUA) accepted charge of the district covering the Colorado reservation occupied by various tribes of the Ute. The hope was that not only would the religious managers be less corrupt than some government officials, but also that they would 'civilize' the Native American people."
Petee, Fetter and others discovered mismanagement and misunderstanding. The situation eventually erupted into violence and the forced removal of the Ute from their native land.
In response to these findings, President Sinkford issued an apology at General Assembly 2009, saying, "We participated, however ineptly, in a process that stole your land and forced a foreign way of life on you. We ask for your forgiveness, and we promise to stand with you as you chart your way forward."
United States and Japanese Americans
In 1942, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into World War II, the United States government ordered the relocation of 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans to War Relocation Camps. Sixty-two percent of the interred were American citizens. The internment led to property and job loss, deaths due to poor medical facilities in the camps, and immeasurable psychological damage.
In 1988, Congress issued the Civil Liberties Act, which said, "The Congress recognizes that, as described in the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, a grave injustice was done to both citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry by the evacuation, relocation, and internment of civilians during World War II.
As the Commission documents, these actions were carried out without adequate security reasons and without any acts of espionage or sabotage documented by the Commission, and were motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.
The excluded individuals of Japanese ancestry suffered enormous damages, both material and intangible, and there were incalculable losses in education and job training, all of which resulted in significant human suffering for which appropriate compensation has not been made.
For these fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights of these individuals of Japanese ancestry, the Congress apologizes on behalf of the Nation." Congress also authorized monetary redress in the amount of about 20,000 dollars per surviving internee. After determining terms of payment and definition of eligibility in 1988, over 82,000 Japanese Americans received payments.
United States and African Americans
The first Africans arrived in the United States. as indentured servants in 1619. The institution of enslaving Africans by states started in 1640. By 1800, over 700,000 Africans had been brought to the country as slaves. Though some states had laws that allowed enslaved Africans to earn their freedom, these laws were the exception and not the rule. Hence slavery was passed down through generations until it was repealed in 1865 by the 13th Amendment. After its repeal, discrimination and violence against African Americans took new turns with Jim Crow laws and legal segregation in the public and private arenas.
From 2006-2007, six states (Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey and North Carolina) apologized for slavery, prompting the United States House of Representatives (in 2008) and the Senate (in 2009) to apologize. The Senate resolution acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws; apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws; expresses Congress's recommitment to the principle that all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and calls on all people of the United States to work toward eliminating racial prejudices, injustices, and discrimination from society. To prevent the possibility of African Americans' suing the United States government for reparations, the resolution includes the disclaimer: "Nothing in this resolution authorizes or supports any claim against the United States or serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States."
This work is made possible by the generosity of individual donors and congregations. Please consider making a donation today.
Last updated on Thursday, October 27, 2011.
- Workshop Overview
- Workshop Plan
- Entire Workshop
- Entire Workshop (Paper-Saving Version) | http://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/youth/call/workshop11/workshopplan/leaderresources/173124.shtml |
4.1875 | |Learning About Computers and the Internet|
How to keep straight the various ways that computers encode characters.
Since computers do everything in binary code, the letters and other characters that we use are actually encoded as a number on a computer. Because there are various ways to do this encoding, things can sometimes become confusing when creating or reading documents that are used on many computers and in different parts of the world. For example, Windows may encode certain characters differently from Linux or Mac systems. Also, non-English languages may have characters not present in your computer's particular repertoire. Then there are special symbols like those in mathematics or currencies. In order to help bring order to all this, there are international standards under the general oversight of the Unicode Consortium but for historical, national, and proprietary reasons there are many inconsistencies and complications. For these reasons every computer user should know a little bit about how computers represent characters. This article will try to clarify the different ways that characters are handled in computers and discuss some of the problems that can occur.
History and Background of Character Encoding
Encoding characters goes back a long way. Various methods such as smoke signals, mirror flashes, and flags have been used since ancient times. A more modern but pre-computer example is the Morse code system of long and short electrical pulses used to send telegrams. As technology advanced in the 19th and early 20th century, other systems such as the Hollerith punched card came into use. When the digital computer first came on the scene in the middle of the 20th century. it was, as its name suggests, a number-cruncher with little capacity for handling anything other than numerical data. However, the need to handle more than numbers soon gave rise to a system for encoding characters that became known as ASCII.
It wasn't just computers that needed a system for encoding characters. Communications equipment such as teletype machines also required a method of representing letters and other characters. Various schemes were used but a system called ASCII (after American Standard Code for Information Interchange) came into general use and was used as the basis for the early computer encoding. Bits were precious back then and ASCII is a 7-bit system. This has led to some confusion because today almost everything is done in 8-bit bytes (octets). ASCII is still used but generally uses 8-bit code with the most significant bit set to zero.
With 7 bits, 128 numbers (0-127 in decimal notation) are available to code characters. Fewer are actually used because 0-31 and 127 were set aside for unprintable device controls like "line feed", "bell", and "carriage return". (Recall that ASCII was devised for a variety of devices, including the teletype.) The printable repertoire (including the character for "space" ) is assigned to code points 32-126. The 95 printable characters are shown in Figure I. The characters correspond pretty much to what was available on typewriter keyboards of the day. Although these are the official encodings that have been incorporated in the international system defined by Unicode, there have been some national variations and these particular encodings are sometimes called US-ASCII. Generally, however, the national variations are no longer used.
Figure I. Printable ASCII characters
Note a somewhat tricky point that you have to keep in mind. A number that is used by the computer to code a character is just that - code for displaying or printing something. For example, the digit "7" shown above has ASCII code number "55" (in decimal). This coding refers to something that is used to display a character and is not the same as an actual piece of numerical data that is used in arithmetical calculations. Another point is that the actual physical appearance of a character depends on what font you are using and what medium is used for the display.
The above encoding (plus the control codes) defines the strict meaning of ASCII. Unfortunately, the term "ASCII" is used loosely and does not always have the same meaning. Sometimes it means plain text that has no formatting, even when non-ASCII characters are present. Sometimes, as with FTP software, it means anything that is not a binary file.
Other variations on ASCII are some that use the control code points for printable characters. Since computers do not need all the controls that devices like teletypes use, some of the reserved points 0-31 were assigned instead to printable characters. These assignments varied and were defined by including a so-called "code page" to define the characters. For example, a code page is still present in Windows for use in the command line. For the complications that causes, see this reference.
ISO Latin 1 (ISO 8859-1)
ASCII has a very limited repertoire and was soon expanded to an 8-bit system that has 256 code points, 0-255. Added to the ASCII characters are various letters needed for writing languages of Western Europe and certain special characters. This encoding is called ISO Latin-1 or ISO 8859-1, "ISO" coming from the International Organization for Standardization. Microsoft applications also refer to this encoding as "Western European (ISO)". The additional characters occupy code positions 160 - 255 and are shown in Figure II. Code positions 128 - 159 are explicitly reserved for control purposes.
Figure II. Addiional printable characters in Latin-1
This particular coding is very common and is one of those most used on the Internet. To confuse matters, however, there is a related encoding that is not official but is used by many Windows systems. Because Windows is so widespread, this encoding is also common. It is discussed next.
This 8-bit Microsoft-specific encoding is not part of the official Unicode standards but is common because of Microsoft's dominance. It is the same as ISO Latin-1 with one big exception. Positions 128-159 in ISO Latin-1 are reserved for controls, but the Microsoft encoding uses most of them for printable characters. This Microsoft variation is called variously ANSI, Windows-1252, or Windows Latin-1. Microsoft applications also sometimes use the name "Western European (Windows)". Just to confuse matters, some people even call this encoding "ASCII". Detailed tables of the encoding are at numerous references, including Alan Wood's site.
Note that an application that expects a file to be encoded according to ISO Latin-1 will not render correctly the characters corresponding to code points 128-159. For example, files saved in Notepad often use ANSI and that can sometimes lead to problems.
UTF-8 (8-bit UnicodeTransformation Format)
So far we have only considered character encoding appropriate for Western European languages. However, even in Europe there are other alphabets such as Greek and Cyrillic and the rest of the world has many more as well as ideographic writing. The general rules for encoding the languages of the world as well as many specialized symbols are established by the Unicode Consortium. One 8-bit byte is no longer sufficient when coding the many languages and the most common way of representing the Unicode standards uses a a variable number of 8-bit blocks or octets and is called UTF-8. From one to to four octets can be used but the old ASCii and ISO encodings are preserved with the use of a single octet. This backward compatibility is very useful and is one reason for the wide use of UTF-8 on the Internet.
Another system using 16-bit units and called UTF-16 is also in use. For example, Windows XP uses it internally. However, it is not usually encountered in ordinary use of a computer.
Example of encoding problem - Unexpected characters in Notepad
Periodically someone posts something on the Internet about how mysterious messages appear in the Windows accessory Notepad. What appears to be a mystery is the result of Notepad mistaking which character encoding is being used. Raymond Chen explains what is happening in detail at this link and gives more explanation at this link.
Using character codes
Provided that your system has fonts that support them, various characters not found on a regular keyboard can be entered into documents by using character codes in certain ways. I discuss some of these on another page as well as using the Windows Character Map.
|<< Home page||©2002-2013 Victor Laurie||Home page >>| | http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/characters.htm |
4.0625 | “Dead zones” occur in the most of the world’s oceans. These massive plumes are devoid of life as nothing is capable of surviving there. Most fishermen have heard of the Gulf of Mexico’s Dead Zone, but few understand what it actually is. Here are the basics...
The Mississippi River serves as the drainage basin for over forty-percent of the continental United States. As such, the aggregate runoff and seepage makes its way into the Mississippi where it’s carried downstream and into the Gulf of Mexico.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hypothesizes the annual agricultural and treated sewage discharge into the Gulf via the Mississippi exceeds 1,700,000 tons or 3,400,000,000 pounds of potassium and nitrogen. To put that into perspective, it’s the equivalent of 168 million 20-pound bags of fertilizer.
These compounds are the basic building blocks for single-celled plant-like organisms known as phytoplankton. Once force-fed these nutrients, the supercharged organisms reproduce uncontrollably, in what scientists referred to as an algal bloom. As microorganisms reproduce they consume more oxygen than they produce. Here, seasonally depleted oxygen levels fall below 2 mg/L (~6-8 mg/L is normal) or 2.002284606 parts per million in a phenomenon called hypoxia.
The Gulf’s dead zone is located near the Louisiana continental shelf (off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas) and annually varies in size from 21,756 square kilometers (8,400 square miles) to a record low of 39 square kilometers (15 square miles) in 1988
The Gulf’s dead zone begins forming in the late spring and continues through midsummer when it peaks. By fall, the oxygen returns to normal levels and the dead zone disappears. This is due in part, to the formation of tropical storms which break dead zones apart. | http://www.saltwatersportsman.com/blogs/short-strikes/gulf-s-zombie |
4.15625 | © Copyright 2006 J. Banfill. All Rights Reserved.Legal Notice
Fourth Grade Hands-On Activities
- Use a scale or balance to determine weight/mass in both
metric units (grams, kilograms) and U.S. customary units (ounces, pounds).
- Measure length in metric units (millimeters, centimeters and meters) and U.S.
customary units (fractions of an inch, inches, feet, yards).
- Measure liquid volume in metric units (milliliters, liters)
and U.S. customary units (teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, pints, quarts, gallons).
- Measure the perimeter of plane geometric figures such as triangles, quadrilaterals,
and irregular shaped polygons.
- Draw points, lines, line segments and rays and understand how they are related.
- Draw lines that are intersecting, parallel and perpendicular.
- Collect data and display in bar graphs with incremental values labeled on
the axes. Include a title and a legend.
- Determine the approximate probability of a given event using materials. For
example, if a bag contains 5 blue marbles and 20 red marbles what is the
probability of randomly picking a blue marble. | http://aaamath.com/B/handson4.htm |
4 | From about c.1600-1100 BC main land
Greece was ruled by the Myceneans. Their name comes from the city of Mycenae
where remains of the culture were first discovered. Some of the first and
most important archaeological evidence comes from the royal graves which
date from 1600 BC. There were two types of graves, shaft graves, and tholos
graves. Shaft graves were the early version. They were 40 feet deep and
held several bodies. Tholos graves replaced shaft graves and were shaped
like beehives. Members of royal families were buried with special objects
made of gold, bronze, and crystal. Because thieves couldnít find
the objects, we were able to locate them. There are no written records
with the Mycenean religious belief. However, they did have a form of writing
known as Linear B which was a combination of Linear A and new signs. We
only know what we have learned from frescos, statues, and shrines. Archaeologists
believe their beliefs were similar to the Minoans. They believed in life
after death, goddesses were more powerful than gods, and they both believed
in the male gods Zeus, Poseidon, and Dionysus.
The Myceneans lived in small kingdoms, each with itís own city. They were built on high ground surrounded by high walls s it was easy to defend. This was called Acropolis which means ìhigh cityî. People settled there because there was a spring of water and it was easy to defend. They supported themselves by growing produce which they also exported. They had many artists and craftsmen who made things such as pots, statues, jewelry, cloth, and weapons. They would also export this for profit. The Myceneans traded mostly in the eastern Mediterranean, but kept trading in important cities along the coast of Asia Minor and Lebanon.
The Myceneans were warlike people and we know this because of the weapons and armor found in graves. A ruler was expected to look after his soldiers which included food, land, a home, and some slaves. A rich soldier, or nobleman, had expensive bronze armor. Poorer soldiers, or foot soldiers wore leather tunics. We think rulers and noblemen fought in chariots pulled by horses.
Around c.1200 BC the Mycenean world began to crumble. They experienced a long period of poor harvests, famine, and food shortages. This effected produce so nothing could export and craftsman could not be paid and the economic system began to fall apart. The famine caused the Myceneans to immigrate. Egyptian writing showed that Myceneans were seen in the eastern Mediterranean. Some traveled over land with women and children while most men fought at sea. These immigrants were known as the sea people. As the people left there cities the Mycenean world began to disappear. This is when they entered the Dark Ages and a group of people called the Dorians began to take over. | http://library.thinkquest.org/5372/grmycen.html |
4.03125 | See U.S. Agricultural Research Service, Beekeeping in the United States (rev. ed. 1971).
Sweet, viscous liquid food, golden in colour, produced in the honey sacs of various bees from the nectar of flowers. Honey has played an important role in human nutrition since ancient times; until about 250 years ago, it was almost the sole sweetening agent. Honey is often produced on a commercial scale from clover (Trifolium) or sweet clover (Melilotus) by the domestic honeybee. The nectar is ripened into honey by inversion of most of its sucrose into the sugars levulose (fructose) and dextrose (glucose) and the removal of excess moisture. Honey is stored in the beehive or nest in a honeycomb, a double layer of uniform hexagonal cells constructed of beeswax and propolis (a plant resin). The honey is used in winter as food for the bee larvae and other members of the colony. Honey extracted for human consumption is usually heated to destroy fermentation-causing yeasts and then strained. Seealso beekeeping.
Learn more about honey with a free trial on Britannica.com.
Honey is a sweet and viscous fluid produced by honey bees (and some other species), and derived from the nectar of flowers. According to the United States National Honey Board and various international food regulations, "honey stipulates a pure product that does not allow for the addition of any other substance…this includes, but is not limited to, water or other sweeteners". This article refers exclusively to the honey produced by honey bees (the genus Apis); honey produced by other bees or other insects has very different properties.
Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose and has approximately the same relative sweetness as granulated sugar (97% of the sweetness of sucrose, a disaccharide). Honey has attractive chemical properties for baking, and a distinctive flavor which leads some people to prefer it over sugar and other sweeteners.
Most micro-organisms do not grow in honey because of its low water activity of 0.6. However, it is important to note that honey frequently contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to infants as the endospores can transform into toxin-producing bacteria in the infant's immature intestinal tract, leading to illness and even death (see Precautions below).
The study of pollens and spores in raw honey (melissopalynology) can determine floral sources of honey. Because bees carry an electrostatic charge, and can attract other particles, the same techniques of melissopalynology can be used in area environmental studies of radioactive particles, dust, or particulate pollution.
The beekeeper encourages overproduction of honey within the hive so that the excess can be taken without endangering the bees. When sources of foods for the bees are short the beekeeper may have to give the bees supplementary nutrition.
Typical honey analysis
Different monofloral honeys have a distinctive flavor and colour because of differences between their principal nectar sources. Beekeepers keep monofloral beehives in an area where the bees have access to only one type of flower, because of that flower's properties. In practice, because of the difficulties in containing bees, a small proportion of any honey will be from additional nectar from other flower types. Typical examples of monofloral or varietal honeys are "orange blossom", "sage", "eucalyptus", "tupelo", "manuka", "buckwheat", "sourwood", and "clover".
Germany's Black Forest is a well known source of honeydew-based honeys, as well as some regions in Bulgaria. Honeydew honey is popular in some areas, but in many areas beekeepers have difficulty selling the stronger flavored product.
Honeydew honey has a much larger proportion of indigestibles than light floral honeys, which can cause dysentery, resulting in the death of colonies in areas with cold winters. Good beekeeping management requires the removal of honeydew prior to winter in colder areas.
Because of its unique composition and the complex processing of nectar by the bees which changes its chemical properties, honey is suitable for long term preservation and is easily assimilated even after long conservation. History knows examples of honey preservation for decades, and even centuries. "...small residues of edible honey have even been found in the pharaoh's tombs…
A number of special prerequisites are, however, necessary to achieve the conservation periods of this order. These might include sealing the product in vessels of chosen material, kept in a favorable environment of specific humidity, temperature etc. An example of natural sealing of the honey with wax by the bees in little separated honey comb cells could be taken for reference.
When conventional preservation methods are applied, it is not recommended to preserve the honey for longer than 2 (maximum 3) years. As honey has a strong tendency to absorb outside smells, it is advisable to keep it in clean, hermetically sealed vessels. It is also advisable to keep it in darkened (not lucid) vessels, or in dark store-places. When honey remains in direct sunlight for about one day its lysozyme (an antibacterial albuminous enzyme) is destroyed. Honey should also be protected from oxygen inflow, which brings about accelerated crystallization. Optimal preservation temperature is +4 – 10 °C. The store-place should be dark and dry, preventing the honey from absorbing any moisture. If excessive moisture is soaked up by the honey, it might start fermenting. "Bee honey can absorb the moisture from the air; therefore it might ferment in a damp place"
"Exposure to fresh air brings about the soaking up of external smells, oxygen and moisture, which cause fundamental chemical change of the product—decay of valuable amino acids, vitamins, enzymes and "antibiotics". The light has a similar influence."
Acacia honey is known to be more resistant to crystallization. "The acacia honey would not crystallize (as quick as other types)…
For the aforementioned reasons (high tendency to absorb outside smells and moisture), it is not advisable to preserve honey uncovered in a refrigerator, especially together with other foods and products Honey is considered to gradually become toxic when preserved in metal containers. "Honey must not be preserved in metal containers, because the acids contained in its structure may cause oxidation. This leads to increased content of heavy metals in honey and decreases the amount of valuable healthy ingredients. Such a honey may cause obnoxious sensations in the stomach and even bring about a poisoning… It used to be preserved in ceramic and wooden containers in ancient times. Glass bottles are recommended nowadays. "The wooden vessels of coniferous wood are not suitable for honey preservation (honey soaks up the coniferous smell in such vessels). In the oak wood vessels honey grows black."
Traditionally honey was preserved in deep cellars, but not together with wine or other products. It is considered even more sensitive to the store-place conditions than the best wines.
Honey should not be heated above 40°С (104°F).
"The best honey is in the uncut honey combs. After being pumped out from there it is very vulnerable, and the main losses of quality take place during preservation and distribution. Heating up to 37°С causes loss of nearly 200 components, part of which are antibacterial. Heating up to 40°С destroys the invertase—the main bee enzyme, thanks to which the nectar becomes honey; heating up to 50°С turns the honey into caramel (the most valuable honey sugars become analogous to synthetic sugar). Generally any larger temperature fluctuation (10°С is ideal for preservation of ripe honey) causes decay."
The honey should not lay down in layers. If this is a case, it indicates the excessive humidity (over 20%) of the product, and such a honey would not be suitable for long term preservation.
A fluffy thin layer on the surface of the honey (like a white foam), or marble-coloured and white spots in crystallized honey at the wallsides of the bottle are caused by filling of liquid honey with subsequent sealing—the air bubbles are surfacing and part of them is concentrated at the wallsides. This is an indication of a high quality honey, which was filled without pasteurization (heating).
If the honey is transparent, burning with amber-like colours, then (unless it is very fresh) it has most likely been heated. Transparent and reluctant to thicken honey can also indicate its being a result of feeding the bees with sugar syrup or even sugar itself, which is bad both for the bees and for the honey they produce, as naturally they are supposed to feed on flower nectar.
A true honey that is at least one month old is usually of demure (not translucent) colours.
A 2008 Italian study determined that nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy can be used to distinguish between different honey types, and can be used to pinpoint the area where it was produced. Researchers were able to identify differences in acacia and polyfloral honeys by the differing proportions of fructose and sucrose, as well as differing levels of aromatic amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine. This ability allows greater ease of selecting compatible stocks.
In Jewish tradition, honey is a symbol for the new year—Rosh Hashana. At the traditional meal for that holiday, apple slices are dipped in honey and eaten to bring a sweet new year. Some Rosh Hashana greetings show honey and an apple, symbolizing the feast. In some congregations, small straws of honey are given out to usher in the new year.
In some parts of Greece, it was formerly the custom for a bride to dip her fingers in honey and make the sign of the cross before entering her new home. This was meant to ensure sweetness in her married life, especially in her relationship with her mother-in-law.
In the accounts of the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Seti I, one hundred pots of honey were equivalent in value to an ass or an ox. Ancient Egyptian and Middle-Eastern peoples also used honey for embalming the dead.
Scythians, and later the other Central Asian nomadic people, for many months drove a wagon with a deceased ruler around the country in their last rites mourning procession, carrying the body in a casket filled with honey.
"Honey", along with variations like "honey bun" and "honeypot" and the abbreviation "hon", has become a term of endearment in most of the English-speaking world. In some places it is used for loved ones; in others, such as the American South, it is used when addressing casual acquaintances or even strangers.
"And thy Lord taught the bee to build its cells in hills, on trees and in (men's) habitations…there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for mankind. Verily in this is a Sign for those who give thought".There is an entire Surah in Qur'an called al-Nahl (the Bees). According to hadith, Muhammad(S.A.W) strongly recommended honey for healing purposes.
Honey is the main ingredient in the alcoholic beverage mead, which is also known as "honey wine" or "honey beer" (although it is neither wine nor beer). It is also used as an adjunct in beer. Beer brewed with more than 30% honey as a source of sugar by weight, or mead brewed with malt (with or without hops), is known as braggot. Modern microbrews of this style typically call their product "honey beer" instead, however, as "braggot" is an unfamiliar word to most English speakers.
Its glycemic index ranges from 31 to 78 depending on the variety. (http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/HBE/05-027.pdf)
When used topically (as, for example, a wound dressing), hydrogen peroxide is produced by dilution with body fluids. As a result, hydrogen peroxide is released slowly and acts as an antiseptic.
Honey has been shown to be an effective treatment for conjunctivitis in rats.
Though widely believed to alleviate allergies, local honey has been shown to be no more effective than placebos in controlled studies of ocular allergies. This may be because most seasonal allergies are caused by tree and grass pollens, which honeybees do not collect. However, a recent study has shown pollen collected by bees to exert an anti allergenic effect, mediated by an inhibition of IgE immunoglobulin binding to mast cells. This inhibited mast cell degranulation and thus reduced allergic reaction.
A review in the Cochrane Library suggests that honey could reduce the time it takes for a burn to heal - up to four days sooner in some cases. The review included 19 studies with 2,554 participants. Although the honey treatment healed moderate burns faster than traditional dressings did, the author recommends viewing the findings with caution, since a single researcher performed all of the burn studies.
In 2005, China, Turkey, and the U.S. were the top producers of natural honey, reports the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Mexico is also an important producer of honey, providing about ten percent of the world's supply. Much of this (about one-third) comes from the Yucatan peninsula. Honey production began here when the Apis mellifera and the A. Mellifer ligustica were introduced here early in the 20th century. Most of Mexico's Yucatan producers are small, family operations who use primitive techniques, moving hives to take advantage of the various tropical and sub-tropical flowers. The honey-producing cycle depends on the rainy season. The first and best harvest takes place in the dry season between February and May. Many species flower at this time. After the rainy season begins, there are still plenty of flowers but the bees have a difficult time traveling for nectar and producing the honey because of the weather conditions. Bees may not make enough for sale and what may be produced is of lower-quality.
Honey produced from the flowers of rhododendrons, mountain laurels, sheep laurel, and azaleas may cause honey intoxication. Symptoms include dizziness, weakness, excessive perspiration, nausea, and vomiting. Less commonly, low blood pressure, shock, heart rhythm irregularities, and convulsions may occur, with rare cases resulting in death. Honey intoxication is more likely when using "natural" unprocessed honey and honey from farmers who may have a small number of hives. Commercial processing, with pooling of honey from numerous sources generally dilutes any toxins.
Toxic honey may also result when bees are in close proximity to tutu bushes (Coriaria arborea) and the vine hopper insect (Scolypopa australis). Both are found throughout New Zealand. Bees gather honeydew produced by the vine hopper insects feeding on the tutu plant. This introduces the poison tutin into honey. Only a few areas in New Zealand (Coromandel Peninsula, Eastern Bay of Plenty and the Marlborough Sound) frequently produce toxic honey. Symptoms of tutin poisoning include vomiting, delirium, giddiness, increased excitability, stupor, coma, and violent convulsions. As little as one teaspoon of toxic honey may produce severe effects in humans. In order to reduce the risk of tutin poisoning, humans should not eat honey taken from feral hives in the risk areas of New Zealand. Since December 2001, New Zealand beekeepers have been required to reduce the risk of producing toxic honey by closely monitoring tutu, vine hopper, and foraging conditions within 3 km of their apiary. | http://www.reference.com/browse/HONEY |
4.03125 | Temporal range: Early Pleistocene – Recent
|Reconstructed range of wild boar (green) and introduced populations (blue). Not shown are smaller introduced populations in the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere (such as the southwest of Australia.).|
Wild boar (Sus scrofa), also known as wild pig, is a species of the pig genus Sus, part of the biological family Suidae. The species includes many subspecies. It is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, an animal with which it freely hybridises. Wild boar are native across much of Northern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean Region (including North Africa's Atlas Mountains) and much of Asia, including Japan and as far south as Indonesia. Populations have also been artificially introduced in some parts of the world, most notably the Americas and Australasia. Elsewhere, populations have also become established after escapes of wild boar from captivity.
The term boar is used to denote an adult male of certain species – including, domestic pigs. However, for wild boar, it applies to the whole species, including, for example, "wild boar sow" or "wild boar piglet".
The body of the wild boar is compact; the head is large, the legs relatively short. The fur consists of stiff bristles and usually finer fur. The colour usually varies from dark grey to black or brown, but there are great regional differences in colour; even whitish animals are known from central Asia. During winter the fur is much denser.
The Wild Boar is quite a variably sized mammal. In exceptionally large specimens, the species can rival the size of the Giant forest hog, the largest extant species of wild suid. Adult boars can measure from 90 to 200 cm (35 to 79 in) in length, not counting a tail of 15 to 40 cm (5.9 to 16 in), and have a shoulder height of 55 to 110 cm (22 to 43 in). As a whole, their average weight is 50–90 kg (110–200 pounds), though boars show a great deal of weight variation within their geographical ranges. Generally speaking, native Eurasian boars follow Bergmann's rule, with smaller boars nearer the tropics and larger, smaller-eared boars in the North of their range. Mature sows from Southeast Asia and southern India may weigh as little as 44 kg (97 lb). The Manchurian Wild Boar (S. s. ussuricus), the largest subspecies typically weighs between 70 and 180 kg (150 and 400 lb). In central Italy, their weight usually ranges from 80 to 100 kg (180 to 220 lb) while boars shot in Tuscany have been recorded to weigh up to 150 kg (331 lb). An unusually large French specimen shot in Negremont forest in Ardenne in 1999 weighed 227 kg (550 lb). Carpathian boars have been recorded to reach weights of 200 kg (441 lb). Romanian and Russian boars can reach weights of 300 kg (661 lb), while unconfirmed giants reported in early Russian hunting journals have reportedly weighed up to 320 kg (710 lb).
Adult males develop tusks, continuously growing teeth that protrude from the mouth, from their upper and lower canine teeth. These serve as weapons and tools. The upper tusks are bent upwards in males, and are regularly ground against the lower ones to produce sharp edges. The tusks normally measure about 6 cm (2.4 in), in exceptional cases even 12 cm (4.7 in). Females also have sharp canines, but they are smaller, and not protruding like the males' tusks. Tigers hunt boars, but avoid tackling mature male boars. In many cases, boars have gored tigers to death in self-defense. Wild boars can be dangerous to humans, especially when they have piglets.
Wild boar piglets are coloured differently from adults, having marbled chocolate and cream stripes lengthwise over their bodies. The stripes fade by the time the piglet is about 6 months old, when the animal takes on the adult's grizzled grey or brown colour (see photo in Reproduction section to compare adult and juvenile colouring).
Adult males are usually solitary outside of the breeding season, but females and their offspring (both sub-adult males and females) live in groups called sounders. Sounders typically number around 20 animals, although groups of over 50 have been seen, and will consist of 2 to 3 sows; one of which will be the dominant female. Group structure changes with the coming and going of farrowing females, the migration of maturing males (usually when they reach around 20 months) and the arrival of unrelated sexually active males.
Wild boar are situationally crepuscular or nocturnal, foraging in early morning and late afternoon or at night, but resting for periods during both night and day. They are omnivorous scavengers, eating almost anything they come across, including grass, nuts, berries, carrion, nests of ground nesting birds, roots, tubers, refuse, insects and small reptiles. Wild boar in Australia are also known to be predators of young deer and lambs.
If surprised or cornered, a boar (particularly a sow with piglets) can and will defend itself and its young with intense vigour. The male lowers its head, charges, and then slashes upward with its tusks. The female, whose tusks are not visible, charges with head up, mouth wide, and bites.
Sexual activity and testosterone production in males is triggered by decreasing day length, reaching a peak in mid-autumn. The normally solitary males then move into female groups, and rival males fight for dominance, whereupon the largest and most dominant males achieve the most mating. Mating may last over 45 minutes, and is accompanied by pelvic thrusting.
The age of puberty for sows ranges from 8 to 24 months of age depending on environmental and nutritional factors. Pregnancy lasts approximately 115 days and a sow will leave the group to construct a mound-like nest out of vegetation and dirt, 1–3 days before giving birth (farrowing).
The process of giving birth to a litter lasts between 2 and 3 hours, and the sow and piglets remain in, or close to, the nest for 4–6 days. Sows rejoin the group after 4–5 days, and the piglets will cross suckle between other lactating sows.
Litter size is typically four to six piglets but may be smaller for first litter, usually two to three. The largest litters can be up to fourteen piglets. The sex ratio at birth is 1:1. Litter size of wild boars may vary depending on their location. A study in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the US reported a mean litter size of 3.3. A similar study on Santa Catalina Island, California reported a mean litter size of 5. Larger litter sizes have been reported in the Middle East. Piglets weigh 750–1,000 g (1.7–2.2 lb) at birth. Rooting behaviour develops in piglets as early as the first few days of life, and piglets are fully weaned after three to four months. They will begin to eat solid foods such as worms and grubs after about two weeks.
Wild boar were originally found in North Africa and much of Eurasia; from the British Isles to Korea and the Sunda Islands. The northern limit of its range extended from southern Scandinavia to southern Siberia and Japan. Within this range it was absent in extremely dry deserts and alpine zones.
A few centuries ago it was found in North Africa along the Nile valley up to Khartum and north of the Sahara. The reconstructed northern boundary of the range in Asia ran from Lake Ladoga (at 60°N) through the area of Novgorod and Moscow into the southern Ural, where it reached 52°N. From there the boundary passed Ishim and farther east the Irtysh at 56°N. In the eastern Baraba steppe (near Novosibirsk) the boundary turned steep south, encircled the Altai Mountains, and went again eastward including the Tannu-Ola Mountains and Lake Baikal. From here the boundary went slightly north of the Amur River eastward to its lower reaches at the Sea of Okhotsk. On Sakhalin there are only fossil reports of wild boar. The southern boundaries in Europe and Asia were almost everywhere identical to the sea shores of these continents. In dry deserts and high mountain ranges, the wild boar is naturally absent. So it is absent in the dry regions of Mongolia from 44–46°N southward, in China westward of Sichuan and in India north of the Himalaya. In high altitudes of Pamir and Tien Shan they are also absent; however, at Tarim basin and on the lower slopes of the Tien Shan they do occur.
In recent centuries, the range of wild boar has changed dramatically, largely due to hunting by humans and more recently because of captive wild boar escaping into the wild. For many years populations dwindled. They probably became extinct in Great Britain in the 13th century. In Denmark the last boar was shot at the beginning of the 19th century, and in 1900 they were absent in Tunisia and Sudan and large areas of Germany, Austria, and Italy. In Russia they were extinct in wide areas in the 1930s.
A revival of boar populations began in the middle of the 20th century. By 1950 wild boar had once again reached their original northern boundary in many parts of their Asiatic range. By 1960 they reached Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and by 1975 they were to be found in Archangelsk and Astrakhan. In the 1970s they again occurred in Denmark and Sweden, where captive animals escaped and now survive in the wild. (The wild boar population in Sweden was estimated to be around 80,000 in 2006 but grew in excess of 100,000 in a few years). In England, wild boar populations re-established themselves in the 1990s, after escaping from specialist farms that had imported European stock.
Elsewhere, in 1493, Christopher Columbus brought eight hogs to the West Indies. Importation to the American mainland was in the mid-16th century by Hernan Cortes and Hernando de Soto, and in the mid-17th century by Sieur de La Salle. Pure Eurasian boar were also imported there for sport hunting in the early 20th century. Large populations of wild boar also live in Australia, New Zealand and North and South America. In the United States, there are approximately 6 million feral pigs. In the first decade of the 21st century, wild boar escaped from game farms in Alberta and Saskatchewan (Canada) and reproduced rapidly, resulting in bounties offered for pairs of ears. A few years later, population estimates range in the thousands.
Status in Britain
Between their medieval extinction and the 1980s, when wild boar farming began, only a handful of captive wild boar, imported from the continent, were present in Britain. Occasional escapes of wild boar from wildlife parks have occurred as early as the 1970s, but since the early 1990s significant populations have re-established themselves after escapes from farms; the number of which has increased as the demand for wild boar meat has grown.
Another DEFRA report, in February 2008, confirmed the existence of these two sites as 'established breeding areas' and identified a third in Gloucestershire/Herefordshire; in the Forest of Dean/Ross on Wye area. A 'new breeding population' was also identified in Devon.
Populations estimates were as follows:
- The largest population, in Kent/East Sussex, was estimated at approximately 200 animals in the core distribution area.
- The second largest, in Gloucestershire/Herefordshire, was estimated to be in excess of 100 animals.
- The smallest, in west Dorset, was estimated to be fewer than 50 animals.
- Since winter 2005/6 significant escapes/releases have also resulted in animals colonising areas around the fringes of Dartmoor, in Devon. These are considered as an additional single 'new breeding population' and currently estimated to be up to 100 animals.
Population estimates for the Forest of Dean are disputed. In early 2010 the Forestry Commission embarked on a cull, with the aim of reducing the boar population from an estimated 150 animals to 100. By August it was stated that efforts were being made to reduce the population from 200 to 90, but that only 25 had been killed. The failure to meet cull targets was confirmed in February 2011.
There have also been reports of wild boar having crossed the River Wye into Monmouthshire, Wales. Many other sightings, across the UK, have also been reported. The effects of wild boar on the UK's woodlands were discussed with Ralph Harmer of the Forestry Commission on the BBC Radio's Farming Today radio programme in 2011. The programme prompted activist writer George Monbiot to propose a thorough population study, followed by the introduction of permit-controlled culling.
Status in Germany
Recently, Germany has reported a surge in the wild boar population. According to one study, "German wild boar litters have six to eight piglets on average, other countries usually only about four or five." Boar in Germany are also said to be becoming increasingly 'brazen' and intrude further into cities, for example Berlin.
Different subspecies can usually be distinguished by the relative lengths and shapes of their lacrimal bones. S. scrofa cristatus and S. scrofa vittatus have shorter lacrimal bones than European subspecies. Spanish and French boar specimens have 36 chromosomes, as opposed to wild boar in the rest of Europe which possess 38, the same number as domestic pigs. Boars with 36 chromosomes have successfully mated with animals possessing 38, resulting in fertile offspring with 37 chromosomes.
Four subspecies groups are generally recognised:
Western races (scrofa group)
- Common wild boar Sus scrofa scrofa: The most common and most widespread subspecies, its original distribution ranges from France to European Russia. It has been introduced in Sweden, Norway, the US and Canada.
- Iberian wild boar Sus scrofa baeticus: A small subspecies present in the southwestern Iberian Peninsula. Probably a junior synonym of S. s. meridionalis.
- Castillian wild boar Sus scrofa castilianus: Larger than S. s. baeticus, it inhabits northern Spain. Probably a junior synonym of S. s. scrofa.
- Sardinian wild boar Sus scrofa meridionalis: A small, almost maneless subspecies from Corsica, Sardinia and Andalusia. Possibly extinct now in its island range.
- Italian wild boar Sus scrofa majori: A subspecies smaller than S. s. scrofa with a higher and wider skull. It occurs in central and southern Italy. Since the 1950s, it has hybridised extensively with introduced S. s. scrofa populations.
- Sus scrofa attila: A very large, long-maned, yellowish subspecies from eastern Europe to Kazakhstan, northern Caucasus and Iran.
- Barbary wild boar Sus scrofa algira: Maghreb in Africa. Closely related to, and sometimes considered a junior synonym of, S. s. scrofa, but smaller and with proportionally longer tusks. Now quite rare.
- Sus scrofa lybica: A small, pale and almost maneless subspecies from Caucasus to the Nile Delta, Turkey and the Balkans. Possibly extinct now.
- Sus scrofa sennaarensis: From Egypt and northern Sudan. Former presence in these countries, where became extinct around 1900, is linked to ancient introductions by man, and S. s. sennaarensis is probably a junior synonym of S. s. scrofa. "Wild boars" now present in Sudan are derived from domestic pigs.
- Sus scrofa nigripes: A light-coloured subspecies with dark legs from Tianshan Mountains, Central Asia.
Indian races (cristatus group)
- Indian wild boar Sus scrofa cristatus: A long-maned subspecies with a coat that is brindled black unlike S. s. davidi. More lightly built than European boar. Its head is larger and more pointed than that of the European boar, and its ears smaller and more pointed. The plane of the forehead straight, while it is concave in the European. Occurs from the Himalayas south to central India and east to Indochina (north of the Kra Isthmus).
- Sus scrofa affinis: This subspecies is smaller than S. s. cristatus and found in southern India and Sri Lanka. Validity questionable.
- Sus scrofa davidi: A small, long-maned and light brown subspecies from eastern Iran to Gujarat; perhaps north to Tajikistan.
Eastern races (leucomystax group)
- Manchurian wild boar Sus scrofa ussuricus: A very large (largest subspecies of the wild boar), almost maneless subspecies with a thick coat that is blackish in the summer and yellowish-grey in the winter. From Manchuria and Korea.
- Japanese wild boar Sus scrofa leucomystax: A small, almost maneless, yellowish-brown subspecies from Japan (except Hokkaido where the wild boar is not naturally present, and the Ryukyu Islands where replaced by S. s. riukiuanus).
- Ryukyu wild boar Sus scrofa riukiuanus: A small subspecies from the Ryukyu Islands.
- Formosan wild boar Sus scrofa taivanus: A small blackish subspecies from Taiwan.
- Sus scrofa moupinensis: A relatively small and short-maned subspecies from most of China and Vietnam. There are significant variations within this subspecies, and it is possible there actually are several subspecies involved. On the contrary, recent evidence suggests the virtually unknown Heude's pig may be identical to (and consequently a synonym of) wild boars from this region.
- Siberian wild boar Sus scrofa sibiricus: A relatively small subspecies from Mongolia and Transbaikalia.
Sundaic race (vittatus group)
- Banded pig Sus scrofa vittatus: A small, short-faced and sparsely furred subspecies with a white band on the muzzle. From Peninsular Malaysia, and in Indonesia from Sumatra and Java east to Komodo. Might be a separate species, and shows some similarities with some other species of wild pigs in south-east Asia.
The domestic pig is usually regarded as a subspecies – Sus scrofa domestica – although this is sometimes classified as a separate species: Sus domestica.
Wild boar are a main food source for tigers in the regions where they coexist. Tigers typically follow boar groups, and pick them off one by one. Tigers have been noted to chase boars for longer distances than with other prey, though they will usually avoid tackling mature male boars. In many cases, boars have gored tigers to death in self-defense. In the Amur region, wild boars are one of the two most important prey species for the Siberian Tiger alongside the Manchurian Wapiti, with the two species collectively comprising roughly 80% of the prey selected by these tigers. Studies of Bengal Tigers indicate that boars are usually secondary in preference to various cervids and bovids. Boars are also probably an important component of the diet of Sumatran Tigers, though their specific significance in the tiger's diet there is not known.
Wolves are also major predators of boars in some areas. Wolves mostly feed on piglets, though adults have been recorded to be taken in Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and Russia. Wolves rarely attack boars head on, preferring to tear at their perineum, causing loss of coordination and massive blood loss. In some areas of the former Soviet Union, a single wolf pack can consume an average of 50–80 wild boars annually. In areas of Italy where the two animals are sympatric, the extent to which boars are preyed upon by wolves has led to them developing more aggressive behaviour toward both wolves and domestic dogs.
Striped hyenas occasionally feed on boars, though it has been suggested that only hyenas from the three larger subspecies present in Northwest Africa, the Middle East, and India can successfully kill them.
Young piglets are important prey for several species, including large snakes, such as the reticulated python, large birds of prey, and various wild felids. In Australia many piglets are killed by dingos. Adults, due to their size, strength, and defensive aggression, are generally avoided as prey. However, they have been taken additionally by mature leopards; large bears (mainly brown bears); and mature crocodiles. All predators of boars are opportunistic and would take piglets given the opportunity. Where introduced outside of their natural range, boars may be at the top of the food chain, but it is possible that they can taken by predators similar to those in their native Eurasia, such as large snakes, raptors, cats, wolves, and other large predators.
Interactions with humans
Aggression towards humans
Wild boar attacks on humans are not common but do occur occasionally. Usually, boars, like most wild animals, will avoid interactions with humans. Due to the clearing of natural boar habitats, the number of interactions, including aggressive ones, between humans and boars has increased. When dealing aggressively with a human, boars will charge at them. Sometimes, these may be bluff charges but, in other cases, violent contact will be made. While the impact of the large, hard-skulled head may cause considerable damage itself, most damage is inflicted by the boar's tusk. When ramming into a person, the boar will slash the tusks upwards, creating sizeable open lacerations on the skin. Due to the height of the boar relative to a human, most wounds are inflicted to the upper legs. Some attacks are provoked, such as when hunters wound a boar which then counterattacks. Male boars become most aggressive during the mating season and may charge at humans at such times. Occasionally, female boars will attack if they feel their piglets are threatened, especially if a human physically comes between them and their young. Although a majority of boar attack victims recover with medical treatment, fatalities do occasionally occur.
In Medieval hunting the boar, like the hart, was a 'beast of venery', the most prestigious form of quarry. It was normally hunted by being harboured, or found by a 'limer', or bloodhound handled on a leash, before the pack of hounds was released to pursue it on its hot scent. In The poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight a boar hunt is described, which depicts how dangerous the boar could be to the pack hounds, or raches, which hunted it.
The ancient Lowland Scottish Clan Swinton is said to have to have acquired the name Swinton for their bravery and clearing their area of wild boar. The chief's coat of arms and the clan crest allude to this legend, as is the name of the village of Swinewood in the county of Berwick which was granted to them in the 11th century.
Wild boar are still occasionally hunted, especially where not legally protected. The minimum safe calibre for shooting wild boar is generally considered to be .243 Winchester with 85 grain or heavier expanding projectiles, with larger calibres being recommended. Wild boar are strong, solidly built animals with sharp tusks and a willingness to defend themselves vigorously. Boar are known to charge the hunter after a missed shot or a wound that is not immediately lethal; because of this, some of the earliest bayonets were actually used by boar hunters rather than military forces.
Wild boar farming in the UK
Captive wild boar in Britain are kept in private or public wildlife collections and in zoos, but exist predominantly on farms. Because wild boar are included in the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976, certain legal requirements have to be met prior to setting up a farm. A licence to keep boar is required from the local council, who will appoint a specialist to inspect the premises and report back to the council. Requirements include secure accommodation and fencing, correct drainage, temperature, lighting, hygiene, ventilation and insurance.
The original British wild boar farm stock was mainly of French origin, but from 1987 onwards, farmers have supplemented the original stock with animals of both west European and east European origin. The east European animals were imported from farm stock in Sweden because Sweden, unlike eastern Europe, has a similar health status for pigs to that of Britain. Currently there is no central register listing all the wild boar farms in the UK; the total number of wild boar farms is unknown.
In many countries, boar are farmed for their meat, and in France and Italy, for example, boar (sanglier in French, "cinghiale" in Italian) may often be found for sale in butcher shops or offered in restaurants (although the consumption of wild boar meat has been linked to transmission of Hepatitis E in Japan). In Germany, boar meat ranks among the highest priced types of meat. In certain countries, such as Laos and parts of China, boar meat is considered an aphrodisiac.
The hair of the boar was often used for the production of the toothbrush until the invention of synthetic materials in the 1930s. The hair for the bristles usually came from the neck area of the boar. While such brushes were popular because the bristles were soft, this was not the best material for oral hygiene as the hairs were slow to dry and usually retained bacteria. Today's toothbrushes are made with plastic bristles.
Boar hair is used in the manufacture of boar-bristle hairbrushes, which are considered to be gentler on hair – and are much more expensive – than common plastic-bristle hairbrushes. However, among shaving brushes, which are almost exclusively made with animal fibres, the cheaper models use boar bristles, while badger hair is used in much more expensive models.
Boar hair is used in the manufacture of paintbrushes, especially those used for oil painting. Boar bristle paintbrushes are stiff enough to spread thick paint well, and the naturally split or "flagged" tip of the untrimmed bristle helps hold more paint.
Despite claims that boar bristles have been used in the manufacture of premium dart boards for use with steel-tipped darts, these boards are, in fact, made of other materials and fibres – the finest ones from sisal rope.
Mythology, religion, history and fiction
In Celtic mythology the boar was sacred to the Gallic goddess Arduinna, and boar hunting features in several stories of Celtic and Irish mythology. One such story is that of how Fionn mac Cumhaill ("Finn McCool") lured his rival Diarmuid Ua Duibhne to his death—gored by a wild boar.
Gullinbursti (meaning "Gold Mane or Golden Bristles") is a boar in Norse mythology. Likewise, in most European pagan traditions, the wild boar is associated with male solar deities, such as Endovelicus, Freyr and Apollon, due to the nature of death and rebirth attached to the boar's connection to the earth and necrophagous behaviour.
A story from Nevers, which is reproduced in the Golden Legend, states that one night Charlemagne dreamed he was about to be killed by a wild boar during a hunt, but was saved by the appearance of a child, who had promised to save the emperor if he would give him clothes to cover his nakedness. The bishop of Nevers interpreted this dream to mean that the child was Saint Cyricus and that he wanted the emperor to repair the roof of the Cathédrale Saint-Cyr-et-Sainte-Julitte de Nevers – which Charlemagne duly did.
Heraldry and other symbolic use
The wild boar and a boar's head are common charges in heraldry. It represents what are often seen as the positive qualities of the boar, namely courage and fierceness in battle. The arms of the Campbell of Possil family (see Carter-Campbell of Possil) include the head, erect and erased of a wild boar, as does the crest Mackinnon clan. The arms of the Swinton Family also possess wild boar, as does the coat of arms of the Purcell family.
A boar is a long-standing symbol of the city of Milan, Italy. In Andrea Alciato's Emblemata (1584), beneath a woodcut of the first raising of Milan's city walls, a boar is seen lifted from the excavation. The foundation of Milan is credited to two Celtic peoples, the Bituriges and the Aedui, having as their emblems a ram and a boar respectively (Bituricis vervex, Heduis dat sucula signum.); therefore "The city's symbol is a wool-bearing boar, an animal of double form, here with sharp bristles, there with sleek wool," (Laniger huic signum sus est, animálque biforme, Acribus hinc setis, lanitio inde levi). Alciato credits the most saintly and learned Ambrose for his account.
Domestic pigs can escape and quite readily become feral, and feral populations are problematic in several ways. They can cause significant amount of damage to trees and other vegetation and may feed on the eggs of ground-nesting birds and turtles. Feral pigs often interbreed with wild boar, producing descendants similar in appearance to wild boar; these can then be difficult to distinguish from natural or introduced true wild boar. The characterisation of populations as feral pig, escaped domestic pig or wild boar is usually decided by where the animals are encountered and what is known of their history. In New Zealand, for example, feral pigs are known as "Captain Cookers" from their supposed descent from liberations and gifts to Māori by explorer Captain James Cook in the 1770s. New Zealand feral pigs are also frequently known as "tuskers", due to their appearance.
One characteristic by which domestic and feral animals are differentiated is their coats. Feral animals almost always have thick, bristly coats ranging in colour from brown through grey to black. A prominent ridge of hair matching the spine is also common, giving rise to the name razorback in the southern United States, where they are common. The tail is usually long and straight. Feral animals tend also to have longer legs than domestic breeds and a longer and narrower head and snout.
A very large swine dubbed Hogzilla was shot in Georgia, United States, in June 2004. Initially thought to be a hoax, the story became something of an internet sensation. National Geographic Explorer investigated the story, sending scientists into the field. After exhuming the animal and performing DNA testing, it was determined that Hogzilla was a hybrid of wild boar and domestic swine. As of 2008[update], the estimated population of 4 million feral pigs caused an estimated US$800 million of property damage per year in the U.S.
The problematic nature of feral hogs has caused several states in the U.S. to declare feral hogs to be an invasive species. Often, these states will have greatly reduced (or even non-existent) hunting regulations regarding feral hogs. In Missouri, no hunting permit is required for the taking of wild boar; hunters may take as many as they like with any weapon. The Missouri Department of Conservation requests that hunters who encounter feral hogs shoot them on sight. Caution is advised, as feral pigs can use their tusks defensively, and hog hunters consider them dangerous when injured or cornered. Similarly, in Texas, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department allows them to be taken at any time of the year, by any method, with no limit; the only rules are that a person must have a hunting license and permission of the landowner.
At the beginning of the 20th century, wild boar were introduced for hunting in the United States, where they interbred in parts with free roaming domestic pigs. In South America, New Guinea, New Zealand, Australia and other islands, wild boar have also been introduced by humans and have partially interbred with domestic pigs.
In South America, also during the early 20th century, free-ranging boars were introduced in Uruguay for hunting purposes and eventually crossed the border into Brazil sometime during the 1990s, quickly becoming an invasive species, licensed private hunting of both feral boars and hybrids (javaporcos) being allowed from August 2005 on in the Southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, although their presence as a pest had been already noticed by the press as early as 1994. Releases and escapes from unlicensed farms (established because of increased demand for boar meat as an alternative to pork), however, continued to bolster feral populations and by mid-2008 licensed hunts had to be expanded to the states of Santa Catarina and São Paulo. Such licensed hunts were, however, forbidden in 2010 by IBAMA, which argued the necessity of additional studies for devising a strategy of pest control for boars. Meanwhile, boars and boar crosses were spotted in the State of Rio de Janeiro, where cases of crop raiding were reported in the municipality of Porciuncula. There was also the danger of an escape from an unlicensed farm in Nova Friburgo, which was closed in December 2011, all 316 animals being sent to an abattoir. In October 2010, a rural worker was killed by a boar in Ibiá, in the State of Minas Gerais.
Recently established Brazilian boar populations are not to be confused with long established populations of feral domestic pigs, which have existed mainly in the Pantanal for more than a hundred years, along with native peccaries. The demographic dynamics of the interaction between feral pigs populations and those of the two native species of peccaries (Collared Peccary and White-lipped Peccary) is obscure and is being studied presently. It has been proposed that the existence of feral pigs could somewhat ease jaguar predation on peccary populations, as jaguars would show a preference for hunting pigs, when these are available.
Feral hogs can rapidly increase their population. Sows can have up to 10 offspring per litter, and are able to have two litters per year. Each piglet reaches sexual maturity at 6 months of age. They have virtually no natural predators.
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- Nicholas Köhler Kill Boars for cash. Alberta puts a bounty on its wild, furry pigs. Maclean's 14 January 2009
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- Monbiot, George (2011-09-16). "How the UK's zoophobic legacy turned on wild boar". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 September 2011. "I was prompted to write this article by an item I heard on the BBC's Farming Today programme at the beginning of the week. It was an interview with Ralph Harmer, who works for the Forestry Commission, about whether or not the returning boar are damaging our woodlands. I was struck by what the item did not say. Not once did the programme mention that this is a native species. The boar was discussed as if it were an exotic invasive animal, such as the mink or the grey squirrel. [...] Then, once we've found out how many boar, [...] should be culled to allow a gentle expansion but not an explosion, permits to shoot them should be sold, and the money used to compensate farmers whose crops the boar have damaged. Other hunting should be banned. This is how they do it in France."
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- INSTRUÇÃO NORMATIVA Nº 71, DE 04 DE AGOSTO DE 2005.. SERVIÇO PÚBLICO FEDERAL. MINISTÉRIO DO MEIO AMBIENTE. INSTITUTO BRASILEIRO DO MEIO AMBIENTE E DOS RECURSOS NATURAIS RENOVÁVEIS
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|Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Boar.|
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- Farmed wild boars exposed to Toxoplasma gondii and Trichinella spp. | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Boar |
4.0625 | In the world of herbal medicine, distinguishing between various plant parts is important. Here’s a quick overview of botany to help you understand terms commonly used on labels, in books, and in the bulk aisles of your local health-food store.
• Herbs have four basic parts: the root, the stem, the leaf, and the flower or fruit (in most cases, the flower is the part that becomes the fruit). The aerial parts are those aboveground: the stem, leaves, flowers, and fruits.
• Roots take different shapes depending on whether they need to hold reserves over the winter or during a dormant period. Taproots dig deep to bring up minerals and nutrients, while shallow, moplike roots serve as a solid base for top-heavy plants.
• The stem supports the plant and transports nutrients from the roots to the leaves and flowers. A rhizome is considered to be a root by many, but it is actually a modified stem designed to store food reserves for the plant’s future use. Rhizomes usually lie just under the surface of the soil.
• In most green, flowering plants, the leaf is the structure where photosynthesis occurs. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants convert sunlight into energy that creates chemical compounds.
• Some plants are self-pollinating, meaning that they have flowers with both male components (stamens) and female components (pistils). Other plants have separate male and female flowers and are cross-pollinated by outside sources, such as bees, birds, wind, and water. The reproduction of some plants can be controlled by separating the genders. The ginkgo tree, for example, is usually sold only as a female in this country, without the males necessary to ensure the production of fruit, which has an offensive smell.
Click here for the orignial article, Herb Basics. | http://www.motherearthliving.com/gardening/herb-basics-a-ripe-banana-contains-more-andshyalcohol-than-a-dose-of-tincture-15-a-brief-lesson-in-botany.aspx |
4.0625 | simple machineArticle Free Pass
simple machine, any of several devices with few or no moving parts that are used to modify motion and force in order to perform work. The simple machines are the inclined plane, lever, wedge, wheel and axle, pulley, and screw.
The inclined plane
An inclined plane consists of a sloping surface; it is used for raising heavy bodies. The plane offers a mechanical advantage in that the force required to move an object up the incline is less than the weight being raised (discounting friction). The steeper the slope, or incline, the more nearly the required force approaches the actual weight. Expressed mathematically, the force F required to move a block D up an inclined plane without friction is equal to its weight W times the sine of the angle the inclined plane makes with the horizontal (θ). The equation is F = W sin θ.
The principle of the inclined plane is used widely—for example, in ramps and switchback roads, where a small force acting for a distance along a slope can do a large amount of work.
A lever is a bar or board that rests on a support called a fulcrum. A downward force exerted on one end of the lever can be transferred and increased in an upward direction at the other end, allowing a small force to lift a heavy weight.
All early people used the lever in some form, for example, for moving heavy stones or as digging sticks for land cultivation. The principle of the lever was used in the swape, or shadoof, a long lever pivoted near one end with a platform or water container hanging from the short arm and counterweights attached to the long arm. A man could lift several times his own weight by pulling down on the long arm. This device is said to have been used in Egypt and India for raising water and lifting soldiers over battlements as early as 1500 bce.
A wedge is an object that tapers to a thin edge. Pushing the wedge in one direction creates a force in a sideways direction. It is usually made of metal or wood and is used for splitting, lifting, or tightening, as in securing a hammer head onto its handle.
The wedge was used in prehistoric times to split logs and rocks; an ax is also a wedge, as are the teeth on a saw. In terms of its mechanical function, the screw may be thought of as a wedge wrapped around a cylinder.
The wheel and axle
A wheel and axle is made up of a circular frame (the wheel) that revolves on a shaft or rod (the axle). In its earliest form it was probably used for raising weights or water buckets from wells.
Its principle of operation is best explained by way of a device with a large gear and a small gear attached to the same shaft. The tendency of a force, F, applied at the radius R on the large gear to turn the shaft is sufficient to overcome the larger force W at the radius r on the small gear. The force amplification, or mechanical advantage, is equal to the ratio of the two forces (W:F) and also equal to the ratio of the radii of the two gears (R:r).
If the large and small gears are replaced with large- and small-diameter drums that are wrapped with ropes, the wheel and axle becomes capable of raising weights. The weight being lifted is attached to the rope on the small drum, and the operator pulls the rope on the large drum. In this arrangement the mechanical advantage is the radius of the large drum divided by the radius of the small drum. An increase in the mechanical advantage can be obtained by using a small drum with two radii, r1 and r2, and a pulley block. When a force is applied to the large drum, the rope on the small drum winds onto D and off of d.
A measure of the force amplification available with the pulley-and-rope system is the velocity ratio, or the ratio of the velocity at which the force is applied to the rope (VF) to the velocity at which the weight is raised (VW). This ratio is equal to twice the radius of the large drum divided by the difference in the radii of the smaller drums D and d. Expressed mathematically, the equation is VF/VW = 2R/(r2 - r1). The actual mechanical advantage W/F is less than this velocity ratio, depending on friction. A very large mechanical advantage may be obtained with this arrangement by making the two smaller drums D and d of nearly equal radius.
A pulley is a wheel that carries a flexible rope, cord, cable, chain, or belt on its rim. Pulleys are used singly or in combination to transmit energy and motion. Pulleys with grooved rims are called sheaves. In belt drive, pulleys are affixed to shafts at their axes, and power is transmitted between the shafts by means of endless belts running over the pulleys.
One or more independently rotating pulleys can be used to gain mechanical advantage, especially for lifting weights. The shafts about which the pulleys turn may affix them to frames or blocks, and a combination of pulleys, blocks, and rope or other flexible material is referred to as a block and tackle. The Greek mathematician Archimedes (3rd century bce) is reported to have used compound pulleys to pull a ship onto dry land.
What made you want to look up "simple machine"? Please share what surprised you most... | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1194584/simple-machine |
4.125 | proportionalityArticle Free Pass
proportionality, In algebra, equality between two ratios. In the expression a/b = c/d, a and b are in the same proportion as c and d. A proportion is typically set up to solve a word problem in which one of its four quantities is unknown. It is solved by multiplying one numerator by the opposite denominator and equating the product to that of the other numerator and denominator. The term proportionality describes any relationship that is always in the same ratio. The number of apples in a crop, for example, is proportional to the number of trees in the orchard, the ratio of proportionality being the average number of apples per tree.
What made you want to look up "proportionality"? Please share what surprised you most... | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/479166/proportionality |
4.5 | Ensure students learn the basic terms needed to understand the material in the rest of the Teaching Citizenship Unit.
1 - Terms and Definitions
2 - Democracy versus Autocracy
- Democracy versus Autocracy Worksheet.
3 - U.S. Constitution Basics
4 - Public Officials - Roles & Responsibilities
- Handout the Responsibilities of Elected Offficials .
Remind the kids that the country is run on a daily basis by those we elect and and by those who are appointed and hired by those we elect.
- Discuss some of the powers and decisions our public officials make and the importance to the country.
- Homework - Handout the Elected Officials Worksheet
KEY POINT - Elected officials and the individuals they appoint have a great deal of influence over the laws and direction of the country.
5 - Citizens - Rights and Responsibilities
Specifically citizens responsible for
- Understanding heritage of country
- Staying involved in democratic process
- Promoting a sense of community
- Supporting individuals with special responsibility for keeping country strong
- Keeping themselves and their families strong
- Understanding how our government works
6 - Special Interest Groups
- Ask the kids to identify other organizations they believe might be SIGs. Clarify what their cause is and ask what things each of the SIGs might do that was in their best interest but not in the best interest of the country overall.
KEY POINT - Special interest groups are concerned about their cause and not necessarily the country. | http://www.goodcitizen.org/Instructional%20Materials/Lesson%20Plans/Lesson%201/Lesson%201%20-%20Terms%20&%20Definitions.html |
4.03125 | Traditional methods of food drying is to spread the foodstuffs to place the foodstuffs in the sun in the open air. This method, called sun drying, is effective for small amounts of food. The area needed for sun drying expands with food quantity and since the food is placed in the open air, it is easily contaminated. Therefore, one major reason why sun drying is not easily performed with larger quantities of food is that the monitoring and overview becomes increasingly more difficult with increasing food quantities.
In contrast to sun drying, where the meat is exposed directly to the sun, the solar drying method uses indirect solar radiation. The principle of the solar drying technique is to collect solar energy by heating-up the air volume in solar collectors and conduct the hot air from the collector to an attached enclosure, the meat drying chamber. Here the products to be dried are laid out.
In this closed system, consisting of a solar collector and a meat drying chamber, without direct exposure of the meat to the environment, meat drying is more hygienic as there is no secondary contamination of the products through rain, dust, insects, rodents or birds. The products are dried by hot air only. There is no direct impact of solar radiation (sunshine) on the product. The solar energy produces hot air in the solar collectors. Increasing the temperature in a given volume of air decreases the relative air humidity and increases the water absorption capacity of the air. A steady stream of hot air into the drying chamber circulating through and over the meat pieces results in continuous and efficient dehydration.
The solar dryer is a relatively simple concept. The basic principles employed in a solar dryer are:
- Converting light to heat: Any black on the inside of a solar dryer will improve the effectiveness of turning light into heat.
- Trapping heat: Isolating the air inside the dryer from the air outside the dryer makes an important difference. Using a clear solid, like a plastic bag or a glass cover, will allow light to enter, but once the light is absorbed and converted to heat, a plastic bag or glass cover will trap the heat inside. This makes it possible to reach similar temperatures on cold and windy days as on hot days.
- Moving the heat to the food. Both the natural convection dryer and the forced convection dryer use the convection of the heated air to move the heat to the food.
There are a variety of solar dryer designs. Principally, solar dryers can be categorized into three groups: a) natural convection dryers, which are solar dryers that use the natural vertical convection that occurs when air is heated and b) forced convection dryers, in which the convection is forced over the food through the use of a fan and c) tunnel dryers.
While several different designs of the solar dryers exist, the basic components of a solar dryer are illustrated in Figure 1. In the case of a forced convection dryer, an additional component would be the fan.
The structure of a tunnel dryer is relatively simple. The basic design components of a tunnel dryer are the following:
- A semi circular shaped solar tunnel in the form of a poly house framed structure with UV stabilized polythene sheet
- The structure is, in contrast to the other dryer designs, large enough for a person to enter
The design of a tunnel dryer is illustrated in Figure 2. In addition, the technology teaser image at the top of this description is an image of the inside of a tunnel dryer.
Natural Convection Dryer Large scale design
Generally, natural convection dryers are sized appropriately for on-farm use. One design that has undergone considerable development by the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand is shown in Figure 3. This natural covenction dryer is a large scale structure: the collector is 4.5 meters long and 7 meters wide and the drying bin is 1 meter long and 7 meters wide. The structure consists of three main components: a solar collector, a drying bin and a solar chimney. The drying bin in this design is made of bamboo matting. In addition to the collector, air inside the solar chimney is heated which also increases the thermal draught through the dryer. The solar chimney is covered with black plastic sheet in order to increase the thermal absorption. A disadvantage of the dryer is its high structural profile which poses stability problems in windy conditions, and the need to replace the plastic sheet every 1-2 years.
Figure 4 shows a smaller design for a natural convection dryer. The capacity of this dryer is ten times smaller than the capacity for food drying in the larger design. However, the design is simple to build and is less susceptible to stability problems.
Natural Convection dryer small scale design
These solar food dryers are basically wooden boxes with vents at the top and bottom. Food is placed on screened frames which slide into the boxes. A properly sized solar air heater with south-facing plastic glazing and a black metal absorber is connected to the bottom of the boxes. Air enters the bottom of the solar air heater and is heated by the black metal absorber. The warm air rises up past the food and out through the vents at the top (see Figure 5). While operating, these dryers produce temperatures of 130–180° F (54–82° C), which is a desirable range for most food drying and for pasteurization. With these dryers, it’s possible to dry food in one day, even when it is partly cloudy, hazy, and very humid. Inside, there are thirteen shelves that will hold 35 to 40 medium sized apples or peaches cut into thin slices.
In the case of forced convection dryers, the structure can be relatively similar. However, the forced convection dryer requires a power source for the fans to provide the air flow. The forced convection dryer doesn't require an incline for the air flow however, the collector can be placed horizontallly with the fan at one end and the drying bin at the other end. In addition, the forced convection dryer is less dependent on solar energy as it provides the air flow itself; this allows the design to work in weather conditions in which the natural convection dryer doesn't work. As inadequate ventilation is a primary cause of loss of food in solar food dryers, and is made worse by intermittent heating, it is essential to realize proper ventilation. Adding a forced convection flow, for instance provided through a PV- solar cell connected to a fan, will prevent the loss of food.
Drying is an important step in the food production process. The main argument for food drying is to preserve the food for longer periods of time. However, it is important to note that the process is not just concerned with the removal of moisture content from the food. Additional quality factors are influenced by the selection of drying conditions and equipment:
- Moisture Content. It is essential that the foodstuff after drying is at a moisture content suitable for storage. The desired moisture content will depend on the type of food, duration of storage and the storage conditions available. The drying operation is also essential in minimizing the range of moisture levels in the batch of food as portions of under-dried food can lead to deterioration of the entire batch.
- Nutritive value. Food constituents can be adversely affected when excessive temperatures are reached.
- Mould growth. The rate of development of micro-organisms is dependent on the food moisture content, temperature and the degree of physical damage to the food.
- Appearance and smell of the food. For example, the colour of milled rice can be adversely affected if the paddy is dried with direct heated dryers with poorly maintained or operated burners or furnaces.
Therefore, it is essential to not only monitor the moisture content of the foodstuffs, but to also monitor temperature, mould growth, appearance and smell of food, air flow, etc. Whether a natural convection dryer, a forced convection dryer or a tunnel dryer is appropriate depends on the amount of food, the climate and the demands placed on the end-product (how long does it need to be stored, in what quantities, etc.). A typical pattern of several of these factors is shown in Figure 6.
In addition, an important feature of solar drying devices is the size of the solar collectors. Depending on the quantity of goods to be dried, collectors must have the capacity to provide sufficient quantities of hot air to the drying chamber. Collectors which are too small in proportion to the amount of food to be dried will result in failed attempts and spoiled food.
According to the FAO (no date), the most common drying method of grain in tropical developing countries is sun drying. The process of sun drying starts when the crop is standing in the field prior to harvest; maize may be left on the standing plant for several weeks after attaining maturity. However, this may render the grain subject to insect infestation and mould growth. In addition, it prevents the land being prepared for the next crop and is vulnerable to theft and damage from animals.
A more controlled practice is to bring the foodstuffs into a structure which is specifically designed for food drying. This removes the issue of bacterial contamination, theft and insect infestation. Modern variations are to dry food in special enclosed drying racks or cabinets and expose the food to a flow of dry air heated by electricity, propane or solar radiation.
Although it is difficult to establish the current status of the technology in terms of market penetration as data on this technology is insufficient, some general remarks can be made about the market potential.
There seem to be no major design barriers to a solar dryer: the design is easy to build with a minimum of materials required. This is especially true for the natural convection dryer, which doesn't require any machinery or energy source (next to the solar energy source). In contrast, the forced convection flow, the electricity heated design and the propane fuelled dryers all require some form of machinery and require an external heat source (in the form of electricity or propane). This complicates their designs and makes their operational costs more expensive. However, these designs possibly do have lower food loss rates due to more constant air flow.
Related to the previous remark, the easy design cuts costs. The design can be made primarily from materials found in the local surroundings. For instance the frame of the structure can be constructed from wood, bamboo or any other natural product that is strong enough. This characteristic enhances the market potential of this product.
The technology provides several socio-economic benefits. As the FAO (2010) notes, one of the main issues facing developing countries today is the issue of food security. The solar food dryer can improve food security through allowing the longer storage of food after drying compared to food that hasn't been dried.
The solar dryer can save fuel and electricity when it replaces dryer variations that require an external energy source in the form of electricity or fossil fuel. In addition solar food dryers cut drying times in comparison to sun drying. While fossil fuel or electrically powered dryers might provide certain benefits (more consistent air flow and higher temperatures), the financial barriers that these technologies provide might be too high for marginal farmers. For instance, electricity might be not available or too expensive and fossil fuel powered drying might pose large initial and running costs.
Fruits, vegetables and meat dried in a solar dryer are better in quality and hygiene compared to fruits, vegetables and meat dried in sun drying conditions. As mentioned, due to the closed system design, contamination of food is prevented or minimized. In addition, the food is not vulnerable to rain and dust, compared to the open system design of sun drying.
In rural areas where farmers grow fruits and vegetables without proper food drying facilities, the farmers need to sell the food in the market shortly after harvesting. When food production is high, the farmers have to sell the food at low price to prevent the food from losing value through decomposition. Therefore, the solar food dryer might be able to prevent the financial losses farmers in these situations face. Dried food can be stored longer and retain quality longer. Moreover, dried fruits and vegetables might be sold as differentiated products which possibly enhances their market value. For example, dried meat can be processed into a variety of different products.
Drying food reduces its volume. Therefore, in combination to longer storage times, the food is also more easily transported after drying which potentially opens up additional markets to the producer of the food.
While there is insufficient data at the moment to elaborate fully on the financial requirements and costs of this technology, certain general remarks can be made.
For natural convection dryers, the financial requirements are low. The structure is made from components that are mostly easily available (wood, bamboo, other strong construction materials). However, the major cost components are likely to be the glass sheets required to trap the heat, and the plastic sheets need to be available. Operational costs of the natural convection technology are limited to labour costs. Forced convection dryers have higer initial costs and higher operational costs, as the fan needs to be purchased and operated.
As mentioned, dried food products might yield a higher price on the market as it can be sold out-of-season (the fresh food version might no longer be on the market in a particular season, which might increase the price of the dried version of the food.
FAO, 2010. “Climate-Smart” Agriculture - Policies, Practices and Financing for Food Security, Adaptation and Mitigation. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2010. Document can be found at: http://www.fao.org
FAO, no date. Information retrieved from the following websites: http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0395e/T0395E04.htm , http://www.fao.org/docrep/x0209e/x0209e06.htm and http://www.fao.org/docrep/t1838e/T1838E0v.htm | http://climatetechwiki.org/print/technology/jiqweb-edf |
4.15625 | The process of communication is one in which people convey their meaning to others in an attempt to reach a mutual understanding. Interspecies communication is possible to an extent, such as a lion tamer being able to control a lions actions to a degree. For purposes of this discussion however, the focus will remain on humans interacting with humans.
A set of skills in both parties are necessary in order for communication to function effectively. In the case of speech, those skills involve several main steps. Here follow discussions of those steps.
First comes speaking. When someone has something to say, they want to share it with others. To do so, they must find listeners. If one speaks and no one listens, communication has not occurred. This is a maddening point repeated by teachers who often feel that their students are ignoring them, which the students often are doing. Once listening is taking place, observing can follow, in which the teachers statements and body language, including gesticulations, can be witnessed by the students. These movements often add a little color to the words themselves, which can come out somewhat plainly at times.
To demonstrate that they have listened and observed, students can perform the next step in the process, which is to ask questions about aspects of what was said that are unclear to them. Asking detailed questions implies that the student has analyzed what was said and either found a deficiency in the explanation, or is just struggling to grasp the concept.
After making their inquiry, a student will be able to perform the final step in the communication process, that of evaluation. They can determine if the information as given, which may have included an answer to a question, makes sense to them and should thus be added to their memory.
When things in one persons brain arrive into another persons brain and stay there, even temporarily, the communication process has successfully occurred. It is through this process that humans are able to achieve their best, by attracting the attention of others attuned to their message. | http://www.mbcnet.org/tag/route-of-communication |
4.09375 | mark systemArticle Free Pass
mark system, penal method developed about 1840 by Alexander Maconochie at the English penal colony of Norfolk Island (located east of Australia). Instead of serving fixed sentences, prisoners there were held until they had earned a number of marks, or credits, fixed in proportion to the seriousness of their offenses. A prisoner became eligible for release when he had obtained the required number of credits, which were accumulated for good conduct, hard work, and study and could be denied or subtracted for indolence or misbehaviour. The mark system symbolized the decline of the “let the punishment fit the crime” theory of correction and presaged the use of indeterminate sentences, individualized treatment, and parole. Above all, it emphasized training and performance as the chief mechanisms of reformation.
What made you want to look up "mark system"? Please share what surprised you most... | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/365619/mark-system |
4.03125 | Last week, we discussed a couple of variations of inequality questions with many factors. Let’s now look at some more complications that we should know how to handle.
Complication No 3: Even powers
(x – a)^2(x – b)(x – c)(x – d) > 0
How would you handle even powers of factors? Say, if the question has a factor (x – a) which has an even power, would you still plot ‘a’ on the number line? No, you will just ignore that factor while making the number line! Why? This is so because this factor will never be negative. It will be either 0 (in case the inequality includes the equality sign e.g. (x – a)^2(x – b)(x – c)(x – d) ≥ 0) or it will be positive. Therefore, a factor with an even power acts just like a positive constant. Then, does it mean factors with even powers have no role to play at all? No, it doesn’t. While writing out the range, they could impact the final answer. We will discuss this in more detail using an example later on.
e.g. (x – 4)(x – 2)(x + 8)^4 < 0
You don’t need to plot -8 here. Since (x + 8)^4 can never be negative, it doesn’t change the sign of the expression.
The expression will be negative in the range 2 < x < 4.
Complication No 4: Odd powers
(x – a)^3(x – b)(x – c)(x – d) > 0
What will you do in case of odd powers? Notice that in the last two posts, we have handled questions where the power of all the factors is 1. 1 is an odd power. So when you have any other odd power, you will handle it the same way. You can assume that the odd power is equal to 1 and proceed as usual. This is so because the sign of (x – a) will be the same as the sign of (x – a)^3.
e.g. (x – 4)(x – 2)(x + 1)^3 < 0
The expression will be negative in the range x < -1 or 2 < x < 4.
Now let’s look at a question involving both these complications.
Question: Find the range of x for which the given inequality holds.
[(2x – 5) * (6 – x)^3]/x^2 ≤ 0
I hope you agree that it doesn’t matter whether the factors are multiplied or divided. We are only concerned with the sign of the factors.
[2(x – 5/2) * (-1)(x – 6)^3]/x^2 ≤ 0 (take 2 common)
[2(x – 5/2) * (x – 6)^3]/(x – 0)^2 ≥ 0 (multiply both sides by -1)
Now let’s draw the number line. We don’t need to plot 0 since (x – 0) has an even power.
We want to find the range where the expression is positive. The required range is x ≤ 5/2 or x ≥ 6. But we are missing something here. x ≤ 5/2 implies that all values less than 5/2 are acceptable but note that x cannot be 0 since x^2 is in the denominator. Hence the acceptable range is x ≤ 5/2 or x ≥ 6 but x ≠ 0.
When you have the equal to sign, you have to be careful about the way you choose your range.
Karishma, a Computer Engineer with a keen interest in alternative Mathematical approaches, has mentored students in the continents of Asia, Europe and North America. She teaches the GMAT for Veritas Prep and regularly participates in content development projects such as this blog! | http://www.veritasprep.com/blog/2012/07/quarter-wit-quarter-wisdom-inequalities-with-complications-part-ii/ |
4.09375 | Ground beetle (Bembidion nigropiceum)
|Size||Length: less than 7.5 mm (2)|
Classified as Nationally Scarce in Great Britain (3).
Unlike many members of the Bembidion genus, the largest genus of ground beetles in Britain, this blackish ground beetle does not have a metallic sheen (2). It is small, flattened and rather parallel-sided compared to other Bembidion species (4).
Found around the coast of southern Britain between Kent and Pembrokeshire. Elsewhere it occurs in Europe on the Mediterranean coast and along the English Channel (3).
This species dwells on shingle and coarse sand beaches, or amongst rubble at the base of coastal cliffs (3). It can be found under rocks near the high-water mark (5).
This ground beetle has an annual life cycle (it takes a year to complete); larvae are present in summer, the adults hibernate through the winter and emerge the following spring, when they are believed to breed (3); they are seen between March and June (5). Both the adults and larvae are predatory, taking small insects. It is thought that this species spends much of its time below ground (3) and is often found deep within shingle (4).
Development along the coast, as well as costal sea-defences are thought to represent the main threats facing the species (3). Marine pollution is a possible further threat (5).
As a UK Biodiversity Action Plan priority species, a Species Action Plan has been published for this beetle, which aims to maintain the current range of the species. At a number of known sites, this species occurs within Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) or National Nature Reserves (NNRs), and therefore receives a degree of legal protection (3). Furthermore, English Nature has incorporated Bembidion nigropiceum in its Species Recovery Programme.
For more on English Nature's Species Recovery Programme see:
Information authenticated by Dr Martin Luff of the School of Biology, University of Newcastle, with the support of the British Ecological Society:
- Hibernate: a winter survival strategy characteristic of some mammals in which an animal's metabolic rate slows down and a state of deep sleep is attained. Whilst hibernating, animals survive on stored reserves of fat that they have accumulated in summer. In insects, the correct term for hibernation is 'diapause', a temporary pause in development and growth. Any stage of the lifecycle (eggs, larvae, pupae or adults) may enter diapause, which is typically associated with winter.
- Larvae: stage in an animal's lifecycle after it hatches from the egg. Larvae are typically very different in appearance to adults; they are able to feed and move around but usually are unable to reproduce.
- National Biodiversity Network Species Dictionary (September 2002) http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nbn/
- Lindroth, C. H. (1974) Handbooks for the identification of British insects. Volume IV. Part 2: Coleoptera, Carabidae. The Royal Entomological Society of London, London.
- UKBAP Species Action Plan. (September 2002) http://www.ukbap.org.uk
- Luff, M. (2004) Pers. comm.
- Hymen, P. S. and Parsons, M.S. (1992) A review of the scarce and threatened Coleoptera of Great Britain: Part 1. JNCC, Peterborough. | http://www.arkive.org/ground-beetle/bembidion-nigropiceum/factsheet |
4.03125 | Verizon Thinkfinity offers thousands of free K-12 educational resources across seven disciplines for use in and out of school.
Our lesson plans are written and reviewed by educators using current research and the best instructional practices and are aligned to state and national standards. Choose from hundreds of topics and strategies.
Find the latest in professional publications, learn new techniques and strategies, and find out how you can connect with other literacy professionals.
Teacher Resources by Grade
|1st - 2nd||3rd - 4th|
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|9th - 10th||11th - 12th|
Introducing New Content with Seed Discussions
|Grades||5 – 12|
|Strategy Guide Series||Reading in the Content Areas|
In this strategy guide, you’ll learn how to elicit ideas and conversation about new concepts or content by effectively holding a Seed Discussion in your classroom.
Often times, introducing new content or new concepts can be overwhelming for students and teachers alike. Through the use of Seed Discussions, students are able to preview the new content or concepts for things that they can relate to. They seek out information that looks familiar to them, things they don’t quite understand, and things that look interesting to them, including new vocabulary. Seed Discussions allow students to identify and develop topics important to their own thinking.
After previewing the new content or concepts and filling out their Seed Discussion Organizer, students are able to have a discussion with their peers about new information coming their way and exiting information that they already hold. According to Project CRISS, effective “seeds” grow into dynamic discussions, driving the interest in new content and reaffirming their existing knowledge so that the “new” content doesn’t seem so intimidating.
Strategy in Practice
- Pick a new piece of content or a new concept that you will be introducing to your students. This may be a new unit in your science textbook, a new chapter in a novel, or a magazine article on a current event, among other things.
- Put up four pieces of chart paper around the classroom; one each with the given prompts on the Seed Discussion Organizer. Students will use these pieces of chart paper to record their responses after they fill out their individual Seed Discussion Organizer.
- Give each student access to the new content, as well as a copy of the Seed Discussion Organizer. Discuss with students the four categories that make up the Seed Discussion Organizer and give them examples of things that they might write in each of the areas as they go through the new content. You may wish to model this process and do a think-aloud for your students on a whole-class Seed Discussion Organizer, projected where the students can see it and give feedback.
- After students fully understand what is expected of them as they explore the new content, allow them about 10-15 minutes to peruse the new content and fill out their Seed Discussion Organizer with questions and thoughts that they have, specific to each area of the organizer.
- Once all students have completed the different areas of the organizer (aim for at least three questions/thoughts per box), allow them to discuss their findings with a partner or group.
- Ask each group to decide on their top three responses for each box. Ask one member of each group to be the recorder and write the three responses on the appropriate piece of chart paper for each prompt. To save time, you may ask each student in the group to each choose one prompt and be the recorder on the chart paper for that specific prompt.
- Once all groups have recorded their top three group responses on the chart paper, hold a class discussion about the class’ findings. Discuss each prompt and the students’ findings one at a time, and allow for other students to provide additional prior knowledge they may have.
- Talk about the process that students just completed. Ask students questions such as :
- How did you feel after completing your Seed Discussion Organizer and discussing it with your group?
- How might your Seed Discussion Organizer and our class conversations help you to become a better reader and thinker?
- How does this strategy help you become actively engaged in the new concept we are studying?
- Leave the chart paper up in a visible area for students to refer to often during the study of the new content or concept. You may wish to allow students to add to the information as they learn new things and/or answer questions that students had when originally exploring the new content.
- To summarize the new concept or content at the end of the study, revisit the chart paper and individual Seed Discussion Organizer at the end of the unit, chapter, etc. to ensure that all questions were answered and the content was thoroughly understood. Allow time for students to go back and look for information if it is not readily accessible by memory.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Engage students in content area reading with the Textmasters strategy, which allows students to collaborate with their peers in different roles that enable better understanding of the content.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Minilesson
Do your students skim assigned text material without even engaging their brains? The Check and Line method encourages students to think about what they are reading and monitor their own comprehension of the information. | http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/introducing-content-with-seed-30631.html?tab=1 |
4.09375 | For example, shield volcanoes such as Kilauea on the island of Hawaii produce large amounts of lava that is less viscous (less sticky) because it has less silica, SiO2, in it. Lava from these eruptions may flow as a rough textured type called aa (a Hawaiian word, pronounced "ah, ah"), or another type called pahoehoe, which often has wrinkle folds on its surface. During an eruption, pahoehoe may change into aa as it becomes more viscous.
Composite volcanoes such as Mount St Helens generally have relatively small amounts of viscous lava. The sticky nature of the lava and the magma that forms it is caused by its relatively high silica content and makes these eruptions very explosive.
Image: A pahoehoe basalt lava flow from Kilauea volcano on the island of Hawaii (credit: Stephen & Donna O'Meara/SPL)
Liz Bonnin gets a close look at hot, molten lava flowing from Mount Kilauea.
Liz Bonnin gets a close look at hot, molten lava flowing from Mount Kilauea in Hawaii.
BBC News reports on a 1992 Mount Etna eruption.
The BBC's Justin Webb reports on attempts to divert lava flows on Mount Etna during a 1992 eruption.
Lava flows from this spectacular volcano have built the island of Hawaii.
Professor Iain Stewart explains how Mount Kilauea's eruptions of lava have built up the island of Hawaii over millions of years as a magma plume known as a hotspot rises up through the Earth's crust.
David Attenborough explains how lava erupts and cools.
David Attenborough explains how basalt lava erupts and cools - sometimes creating beautiful formations such as Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland and Fingal's Cave in Scotland.
Lava refers both to molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption and the resulting rock after solidification and cooling. This molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites. When first erupted from a volcanic vent, lava is a liquid at temperatures from 700 to 1,200 °C (1,292 to 2,192 °F). Up to 100,000 times as viscous as water, lava can flow great distances before cooling and solidifying because of its thixotropic and shear thinning properties.
A lava flow is a moving outpouring of lava, which is created during a non-explosive effusive eruption. When it has stopped moving, lava solidifies to form igneous rock. The term lava flow is commonly shortened to lava. Explosive eruptions produce a mixture of volcanic ash and other fragments called tephra, rather than lava flows. The word "lava" comes from Italian, and is probably derived from the Latin word labes which means a fall or slide. The first use in connection with extruded magma (molten rock below the Earth's surface) was apparently in a short account written by Francesco Serao on the eruption of Vesuvius between May 14 and June 4, 1737. Serao described "a flow of fiery lava" as an analogy to the flow of water and mud down the flanks of the volcano following heavy rain.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/earth/surface_and_interior/lava |
4.1875 | The madrigal is a genre of secular music that developed in Italy in the 1500s and reached its peak there around the turn of the seventeenth century. The popularity of the genre continued when it was exported to England in a volume entitled Musica Transalpina. Confusingly, it is unrelated to the fourteenth century Italian musical genre of the same name.
Unlike the formes fixees that characterized French lyric poetry, the poetry of the Italian madrigal has neither a fixed rhyme scheme, nor a fixed stanza length. What unites all madrigal poetry however is the free alternation of lines of seven syllables with lines of eleven syllables.
The main stylistic trait of the madrigal is its use of word painting: the musical illustration or representation of the text. The idea of word painting was perhaps derived from the writings of Pietro Bembo, an influential Italian literary theorist. Bembo's theory posited that certain words could convey feelings of dignity or sweetness depending on their vowels, consonants, rhythm, rhyme and context. In essence the words themselves had a visceral effect on the listener. In time, word painting would begin to be taken to an extreme and a catalog of signifiers began to develop.
Claudio Monteverdi would eventually compose nine books of Madrigals, each of which stretched the limits of music and the genre further. Cruda Amarilli the first of the Fifth book of Madrigals of 1605 was the work that particularly bothered the polemicist Artusi.
Things to Note
The text of Cruda Amarilli comes from one of the madrigalist's favorite poems: Il Pastor fido [The Faithful Shepherd] (1589) of Giambattista Guarini, an extremely complicated tragi-comic pastoral drama. More than a hundred composers set its verses in over five hundred madrigals. The setting is Arcadia in ancient Greece and its main characters are Amarilli (a lovely maid) and Silvio, both descended from gods; and Mirtillo. An oracle has promised that an ancestral scourge can be absolved through the marriage of two descendents of gods and the intervention of a shepherd. Consequently, Amarilli is engaged to Silvio. Problematically, Silvio, thinks only of hunting and his dog, to the exclusion of sex; and Amarilli really loves Mirtillo. Mirtillo loves her in return, but out of propriety Amarilli does not protest her engagement. At Mirtillo's first entrance he intones the poem "Cruda Amarilli" expressing his hopeless love for Amarilli. The remainder of the plot is so ludicrous as to make a Bollywood film seem tame by comparison. It is interesting to note that the name Amarilli derives from "Amar" which means "bitter" and is related to "amor" meaning "love."
Various musical motives are assigned to various parts of the text in order to palpably represent Mirtillo's angst. This is particularly apparent at the phrase "Ahi, lasso" (The passage to which Artusi took particular umbrage) in which Mirtillo's sensual desire and extreme emotion are made musically audible in flights of dissonance.
Claudio Monteverdi: Cruda Amarilli (1605)
All text © Todd Tarantino 2002-2012.
Not to be reprinted without permission. | http://toddtarantino.com/hum/crudaamarilli.html |
4.09375 | How far have these students walked by the time the teacher's car
reaches them after their bus broke down?
Experiment with the interactivity of "rolling" regular polygons,
and explore how the different positions of the red dot affects its
vertical and horizontal movement at each stage.
Position the lines so that they are perpendicular to each other.
What can you say about the equations of perpendicular lines?
Experiment with the interactivity of "rolling" regular polygons, and explore how the different positions of the red dot affects the distance it travels at each stage.
Two cyclists, practising on a track, pass each other at the starting line and go at constant speeds... Can you find lap times that are such that the cyclists will meet exactly half way round the. . . .
On the grid provided, we can draw lines with different gradients.
How many different gradients can you find? Can you arrange them in
order of steepness?
Explore the relationship between resistance and temperature
Collect as many diamonds as you can by drawing three straight
Two buses leave at the same time from two towns Shipton and Veston on the same long road, travelling towards each other. At each mile along the road are milestones. The buses' speeds are constant. . . .
How does the position of the line affect the equation of the line?
What can you say about the equations of parallel lines?
I took the graph y=4x+7 and performed four transformations. Can you
find the order in which I could have carried out the
Investigate what happens to the equations of different lines when
you reflect them in one of the axes. Try to predict what will
happen. Explain your findings.
Can you decide whether two lines are perpendicular or not? Can you
do this without drawing them?
Can you adjust the curve so the bead drops with near constant
Looking at the graph - when was the person moving fastest? Slowest?
Investigate what happens to the equation of different lines when
you translate them. Try to predict what will happen. Explain your
When I park my car in Mathstown, there are two car parks to choose
from. Which car park should I use?
Follow the instructions and you can take a rectangle, cut it into 4 pieces, discard two small triangles, put together the remaining two pieces and end up with a rectangle the same size. Try it!
You can move the 4 pieces of the jigsaw and fit them into both
outlines. Explain what has happened to the missing one unit of
A 1 metre cube has one face on the ground and one face against a
wall. A 4 metre ladder leans against the wall and just touches the
cube. How high is the top of the ladder above the ground?
Straight lines are drawn from each corner of a square to the mid
points of the opposite sides. Express the area of the octagon that
is formed at the centre as a fraction of the area of the square.
Logo helps us to understand gradients of lines and why Muggles Magic is not magic but mathematics. See the problem Muggles magic.
In a snooker game the brown ball was on the lip of the pocket but
it could not be hit directly as the black ball was in the way. How
could it be potted by playing the white ball off a cushion?
Which is bigger, n+10 or 2n+3? Can you find a good method of
answering similar questions?
If you take two tests and get a marks out of a maximum b in the first and c marks out of d in the second, does the mediant (a+c)/(b+d)lie between the results for the two tests separately.
In this problem we are faced with an apparently easy area problem,
but it has gone horribly wrong! What happened? | http://nrich.maths.org/public/leg.php?code=68&cl=3&cldcmpid=4954 |
4.25 | Ancient Rocks Reveal Ages
Billions of years of history have been uncovered with a new technique that is helping scientists paint a picture of how Earth’s continents were arranged.
Scientists are using the new method to recover rare minerals from rocks and analyze their composition. In addition, researchers claim they can accurately date ancient volcanic rocks for the first time.
The early landmasses can be pieced together by aligning rocks that have a similar age and orientation. Scientists say the new approach will help them discover rocks rich in ore and oil deposits.
So far, the method has revealed that Canada once bordered Zimbabwe, helping the mining industry identify new areas for exploration.
Dr Wouter Bleeker, from the Geological Survey of Canada, said much of the geology that exists today formed around 300 million years ago when the supercontinent Pangea existed.
"We really don’t understand the [Earth's] history prior to Pangea," he told a recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Toronto.
The geologists reconstruct early landmasses by analyzing rocks that formed when continents drifted apart.
Dr Richard Ernst, a geologist from the University of Ottawa, said molten magma fills the cracks formed by shifting continental plates.
The magma cools to form long veins of basalt that has a "distinct magnetic signature" revealing the rock’s orientation and latitude when it formed.
Researchers combine this "magnetic signature" with the ages of the rocks, to determine whether rocks on different continents were once part of the same volcanic up-welling.
Until now, researchers were unable to determine the ages of these ancient rocks due to problems with extracting the minerals used to date them. The mineral crystals were too small, usually far smaller than a strand of human hair.
Thanks to the development of baddeleyite, the minerals can now be successfully recovered. Baddeleyite incorporates large amounts of uranium into its crystal-structure.
Uranium naturally decays to lead, and because scientists know the rate at which this happens they can use these minerals as radioactive “clocks”.
Researchers hope to collect and date 250 rocks from around the world during a large international project.
They plan to use this information to reconstruct how these continental fragments were once together to form giant landmasses that existed 2.5 billion years ago.
On The Net: | http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1701581/ancient_rocks_reveal_ages/ |
4.15625 | Sentences and Sentence Patterns
Sentence Clarity and Combining
Run on sentences
Identifying Sentences: Nearly
every complete sentence has at least a verb and subject.
A more complete analysis of the
structure and makeup of sentences can be examined in:
moderately long and complex sentences are accompanied by
explanations for both
beginners and experienced diagrammers.
|The subject of the sentence:
who or what the sentence is about
What does the subject do?
The infinitive form of all verbs
begins with "to"
(or a Verb Phrase)
If the root fits after "to"
and makes sense,
it's a verb.
(to eat, to walk)
or who is the
action done to or for?
The object of the action of the verb can be either direct or indirect.
Or it can be an
objective (prepositional) phrase.
The object represents to whom or for whom the action takes place...
Noun or a Pronoun
Action or State of being
Noun or Pronoun
Sentence Patterns:English word order is
normally SUBJECT - VERB - OBJECT.
Following are the commonly
used sentence patterns:
1. SUBJECT - VERB:
2. SUBJECT -VERB-OBJECT:
Elephants frighten mice.
3. SUBJECT - VERB - INDIRECT OBJECT - DIRECT OBJECT: Mary baked Fred a cake
4. There - VERB – SUBJECT: 1
There have been objections.
5. AUXILIARY - SUBJECT - VERB?
Do coyotes howl in the distance?
6. AUXILIARY - SUBJECT - VERB - OBJECT?
Have mice ever frightened elephants?
7. AUXILIARY - SUBJECT - VERB - INDIRECT OBJECT - DIRECT
OBJECT? Will Mary bake Fred a cake?
8. OBJECT - AUXILIARY- SUBJECT - VERB?
What did the mice
9. VERB - there - SUBJECT? 1
Were there any objections?
10. AUXILIARY - there - VERB - SUBJECT? 1
Have there been any objections?
Common patterns of commands (imperative sentences) are derived from the first
three statement patterns.
Many exclamatory sentences are also derived from patterns of statements.
There have been a hundred objections!
Mary baked Fred a cake!
Such Sentences as the following, usually take an exclamation point:
How many objections there were!
What a cake Mary baked Fred!
A sentence pattern such as the following may be a
statement, a question or an exclamation:
Mice Frighten elephants. Mice
frighten elephants? Mice frighten elephants!
1There used as an
introductory work or filler is an expletive, which is
Art of Argument
Run on sentences
Return to Main
||Adventures in Writing
||Links and references
books at the left are recommended resources for those who want
to write effectively. They can supplement any secondary, college, or
graduate-level writing project. If you would like to obtain either
click at left. The Writers Harbrace Handbook is a basic guide and
rulebook for writers. It has particularly useful resources on
rhetoric. Adventures in writing is designed as a practical guide for
process. The book is designed for people who want to improve their
writing, including students from non-English based learning environments.
For questions, contact
Return to the Main Page and discover more resources and tips.
Sentence Parts, Patterns, and Variety
Clauses and Phrases
- Clause Definitions: Independent and Dependent:
web page or
web page or
Comparison & Contrast, Definition, Description,
Persuasion, Process Analysis, Essays | http://www.angelfire.com/blues/writing/sentence_pattern.html |
4.1875 | July 15, 2007 Dutch researcher Joris van den Berg has developed a mathematical model to predict the movement of sand waves. Sand waves are formed by an interaction between the tidal current and sand. They are larger than sand ripples on the beach but smaller than sandbanks. Sand waves largely determine the shape of the sea floor in the southern part of the North Sea. A good predictive computer model would be a valuable tool for shipping and designers of offshore infrastructures.
The mathematical equations describing the behaviour of sand waves have been known for some time. Yet suitable equations alone are not enough to predict their behaviour; the equations also need to be solved reliably. To date, no practical methods were available for solving these equations, especially for larger sand waves.
First of all, Van den Berg simplified the equations considerably. This made it much easier to find solutions and hence to predict sand wave behaviour. The result was a tool that could quickly predict the effect of interventions such as dredging. This model was used successfully to determine the recovery of sand waves after dredging of a trench for the new high-voltage cable from the Netherlands to England.
Subsequently, Van den Berg developed efficient calculation methods to solve the original equations. In the end this resulted in a mathematical model that will possibly enable studies on the interaction between sand waves and sand banks in the future.
Predicting the growth and movement of these waves is vitally important for the safety of shipping and the design of offshore infrastructure, such as pipelines, cables and platforms.
Sand waves develop in loose sand on the bottom of shallow seas. This loose sand is transported by tidal currents, giving rise to wave patterns. These patterns disrupt the tidal flow and result in more sand being pushed on to the slope. Eventually, sand waves can reach a height of five to eight metres and due to the current they can continuously move and change shape.
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070712134908.htm |
4.3125 | 7. Ratio and Proportion
We need to be a bit careful because lots of people use the words "ratio", "fraction" and "proportion" to mean the same thing in everyday speech.
This makes it difficult when we meet the terms in mathematics, because they are not necessarily used to mean the same thing.
Ratios and Fractions
Ethanol or methanol (wood-based methyl alcohol) is sometimes added to gasoline to reduce pollution and cost. Car engines can typically run on a petrol-ethanol mixture in a ratio of `9:1`. The "`9:1`" means that for each nine units of petrol, there is 1 unit of ethanol.
For example, if we had 9 L of petrol, we would need 1 L of ethanol.
We can see that altogether we would have 10 L of the mixture.
As fractions, the proportion of each liquid is:
You can see a more advanced question involving ratios and gasoline in Applied Verbal Problems, in the algebra chapter.
Concrete is a mixture of gravel, sand and cement, usually in the ratio `3:2:1`.
We can see that there are 3 + 2 + 1 = 6 items altogether. As fractions, the amount of each component of the concrete is:
One of the most famous ratios is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
The value of that ratio cannot be determined exactly. It is approximately 3.141592654... We call it:
`pi` (the Greek letter "pi").
See more on Pi.
We can talk about the proportion of one quantity compared to another.
In mathematics, we define proportion as an equation with a ratio on each side.
Considering our ethanol/petrol example above, if we have 54 L of petrol, then we need 6 L of ethanol to give us a 9:1 mix.
We could write this as:
`54:6 = 9:1`
We could use fractions to write our proportion, as follows:
A normal walking speed is 1 km in 10 min. This is a rate, where we are comparing how far we can go in a certain amount of time.
Our walking rate is equivalent to 6 km/h.
Example 6 - Conversion of Units
A bullet leaves a gun travelling at 500 m/s. Convert this speed into km/h.
A famous ratio: `Phi`
Now let's move on to an interesting ratio called `Phi` ("phi"), in Math of Beauty.
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More info: Algebra videos | http://www.intmath.com/numbers/7-ratio-proportion.php |
4.25 | Anemia is a condition when there are too few red blood cells in the body. Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is one type of anemia where there is not enough iron in the blood.
The main job of red blood cells is to carry oxygen from your lungs to all the organs and tissues in your body. A red blood cell is full of a protein, called hemoglobin, which carries the oxygen. Iron is an essential part of hemoglobin. Iron is needed to help make hemoglobin and to help carry oxygen. When people lack a sufficient amount of iron, fewer red blood cells are made and each red cell has smaller amounts of hemoglobin. As a result, people who are iron deficient can become very anemic. | http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/health/i/iron-anemia/ |
4.0625 | Winning Lesson Plans
these science lesson plans submitted by teachers for Science WoRx contests.
Building Working Models of the Human Heart
In this activity by David Brock, students design and build functioning artificial "hearts" to study and to demonstrate their knowledge of the circulatory system.
The Cell as a System
The animal cell can be seen as a comparison to many systems that exist in our world today. In this lesson plan by Diana VonEyes, students will use the process of scientific literacy and scientific inquiry to design the animal cell as a city system.
Using Simple Machines to Create an Obstacle Course
Combine a lesson on simple machines with physical fitness in this fun science activity by Michelle Brooks. Build an obstacle course using simple machines!
Inheritance and Natural Selection
In this jam-packed lesson plan by Kristina Woods, students will explore how genes are inherited, meiosis, genetic mutations and natural selection.
Searching for Lead in Our Environment - An Environmental Science Lab
Lead is a common and deadly contaminant in the environment, especially in older, urban environments. In this lab by Bill Felinski III, students will measure the concentration of lead in water and soil samples.
Measuring the Speed of Light - A Physics Lab
Break out the s'mores and a microwave and calculate the speed of light with this physics lab by Brian Heglund!
Magnet Car Contest - A Physics Lab
This lesson by Randy Moehnke provides students with a fun and challenging hands-on activity where they apply the principles of electricity and magnetism to creating toy cars!
This educational game created by John Sowash reinforces a student's understanding of meiosis in a fun and challenging way!
The Scientific Method and Basic Microbiology
Molly Jean Woofter shares this lab experiment in which students form hypotheses about the effectiveness of household cleaners in inhibiting the growth of bacteria.
Ancient Indian Gravity Sewers - A Physics and Social Studies Lab
This cross-curriculum experiment by Michael Ryan combines information on the creation of sewers in the Ancient Indus Valley with the hands-on experience of a science experiment dealing with gravity.
Creating an Ecosystem
In this creative, hands-on environmental science activity by Marsha Fischer, students create a shoebox diarama of an ecosystem, including both biotic and abiotic factors.
The Three Pigs Construction Company - A Lab on Force and Motion
In this hands-on lab by Lisa Milenkovic, students will try to build a "house" that can withstand big winds - such as the huffing and puffing of the big bad wolf, or even a hurricane!
Identify a Real-Life Monster! Student Worksheet
If it's scaly, creepy-crawly and has lots of legs, then it's definitely a monster - or an insect! Some of the most bizarre-looking creatures are insects, but don't be afraid: What can be named can be conquered! Use your skills of observation and the dichotomous key to identify the Order of these scary-looking insects.
Identify a Real-Life Monster! Answer Key
Here's an answer key for our Identify a Real-Life Monster! activity!
Video Lesson Guides
Science Pro Lab videos? Find the full lesson plans and each video here.
Science Lesson Plan: Ice on Fire Experiment
Science Pro Robert showcases an amazing chemistry experiment that helps kids identify the coefficients and subscripts in a chemical equation. This video is most appropriate for science classes in grades 9-12.
View the video
Science Lab: Extracting DNA from a Strawberry
Watch Science Pros Laurie and Carrie as they conduct a science lab that will extract so much strawberry DNA that you can see it with the naked eye! It?s a great idea for a science fair project! This video is most appropriate for science classes in grades 7-10.
View the video
Science Lab: Testing pH with Cabbage
Join Science Pros Marya and Angie to test the pH of substances we use every day with a most unusual ingredient: cabbage juice! This video is most appropriate for science classes in grades 5-8.
View the video
Science Lab: Chromatography: Why Do Leaves Change Color?
Check out this science lab with Science Pros Margaret and Jeff as they use everyday items to separate the colored pigments in a leaf using chromatography! This video is most appropriate for science classes in grades 10-12.
View the video | http://www.scienceworx.org/Resources.aspx |
4.125 | ||It has been suggested that Combining dimensions be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since August 2012.|
||This article needs attention from an expert in Mathematics. (February 2013)|
In mathematics, a projection is a mapping of a set (or other mathematical structure) into a subset (or sub-structure), which is equal to its square for mapping composition (or, in other words, which is idempotent). The restriction to a subspace of a projection is also called a projection, even if the idempotence property is lost. An everyday example of a projection is the casting of shadows onto a plane (paper sheet). The projection of a point is its shadow on the paper sheet. The shadow of a point of the paper sheet is the point itself (idempotence). The shadow of a three dimensional sphere is a circle. Originally, the notion of projection was introduced in Euclidean geometry to denote the projection of the Euclidean space of three dimensions onto a plane in it, like the shadow example. The two main projections of this kind are:
- The projection from a point onto a plane or central projection: If C is the point, called center of projection, the projection of a point P different than C is the intersection with the plane of the line CP. The point C and the points P such that the line CP is parallel to the plane do not have any image by the projection.
- The projection parallel to a direction D, onto a plane: The image of a point P is the intersection with the plane of the line parallel to D passing through P.
The concept of projection in mathematics is a very old one, most likely having its roots in the phenomenon of the shadows cast by real world objects on the ground. This rudimentary idea was refined and abstracted, first in a geometric context and later in other branches of mathematics. Over time differing versions of the concept developed, but today, in a sufficiently abstract setting, we can unify these variations.
In cartography, a map projection is a map of a part of the surface of the Earth onto a plane, which, in some cases, but not always, is the restriction of a projection in the above meaning. The 3D projections are also at the basis of the theory of perspective.
The need for unifying the two kinds of projections and of defining the image by a central projection of any point different of the center of projection are at the origin of projective geometry.
In an abstract setting we can generally say that a projection is a mapping of a set (or of a mathematical structure) which is idempotent, which means that a projection is equal to its composition with itself. A projection may also refer to a mapping which has a left inverse. Both notions are strongly related, as follows. Let p be an idempotent map from a set E into itself (thus p∘p = p) and F = p(E) be the image of p. If we denote by π the map p viewed as a map from E onto F and by i the injection of F into E, then we have i∘π = IdF. Conversely, i∘π = IdF implies that π∘i is idempotent.
The original notion of projection has been extended or generalized to various mathematical situations, frequently, but not always, related to geometry, for example:
- In set theory:
- An operation typified by the j th projection map, written projj , that takes an element x = (x1, ..., xj , ..., xk) of the cartesian product X1 × … × Xj × … × Xk to the value projj (x) = xj . This map is always surjective.
- A mapping that takes an element to its equivalence class under a given equivalence relation is known as the canonical projection.
- The evaluation map sends a function f to the value f(x) for a fixed x. The space of functions YX can be identified with the cartesian product , and the evaluation map is a projection map from the cartesian product.
- In category theory, the above notion of cartesian product of sets can be generalized to arbitrary categories. The product of some objects has a canonical projection morphism to each factor. This projection will take many forms in different categories. The projection from the Cartesian product of sets, the product topology of topological spaces (which is always surjective and open), or from the direct product of groups, etc. Although these morphisms are often epimorphisms and even surjective, they do not have to be.
- In linear algebra, a linear transformation that remains unchanged if applied twice (p(u) = p(p(u))), in other words, an idempotent operator. For example, the mapping that takes a point (x, y, z) in three dimensions to the point (x, y, 0) in the plane is a projection. This type of projection naturally generalizes to any number of dimensions n for the source and k ≤ n for the target of the mapping. See orthogonal projection, projection (linear algebra). In the case of orthogonal projections, the space admits a decomposition as a product, and the projection operator is a projection in that sense as well.
- In differential topology, any fiber bundle includes a projection map as part of its definition. Locally at least this map looks like a projection map in the sense of the product topology, and is therefore open and surjective.
- In topology, a retract is a continuous map r: X → X which restricts to the identity map on its image. This satisfies a similar idempotency condition r2 = r and can be considered a generalization of the projection map. A retract which is homotopic to the identity is known as a deformation retract. This term is also used in category theory to refer to any split epimorphism.
- The scalar projection (or resolute) of one vector onto another. | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_(mathematics) |
4.0625 | A & P Study Guide
Exam # 2
Chapter 6 – Skeletal System
Skeleton: Overview (p. 79)
at least five functions of the skeleton.
a classification of bones based on their shapes.
the anatomy of a long bone.
the growth and development of bones.
and describe eight types of fractures, and state the four steps in
Axial Skeleton (p. 82)
between the axial and appendicular skeletons.
the bones of the skull, and state the important features of each bone.
the structure and function of the hyoid bone.
the bones of the vertebral column and the thoracic cage. Be able to label
diagrams of them.
a typical vertebra, the atlas and axis, and the sacrum and coccyx.
the three types of ribs and the three parts of the sternum.
the bones of the pectoral girdle and the pelvic girdle. Be able to label
diagrams of them.
the bones of the upper limb (arm) and the lower limb (leg). Be able to
label diagrams that include surface features.
- Cite at
least five differences between the female and male pelvises.
Joints (Articulations) (p. 100)
how joints are classified, and give examples of each type of joint.
the types of movements that occur at synovial
Effects of Aging (p. 105)
and physiological changes occur in the skeletal system as we age.
Chapter 7 – Muscular System
Types and Functions of Muscles (p. 111)
the three types of muscles, and indicate whether each type is
and discuss four functions of muscles.
Skeletal Muscle Structure and Contraction (p. 111)
the anatomy of a whole muscle and a muscle fiber.
the manner in which a muscle fiber contracts.
a muscle twitch, summation, and tetanus.
how ATP is made available for muscle contraction.
how muscles work together to achieve movement.
muscle tone and the effect of contraction on the size of a muscle.
Skeletal Muscles of the Body (p. 117)
the superficial muscles of the head, neck, and trunk; shoulder and upper
limb (arm); and thigh and lower limb (leg). Indicate their origins and
insertions, and give their functions
Chapter 8 – Nervous System
Nervous System (p. 136)
the three functions of the nervous system.
the structure and function of the three types of neurons and four types of
how a nerve impulse is conducted along a nerve and across a synapse.
the structure of a nerve and the differences between the three different
types of nerves.
the structure of a reflex arc and the function of a reflex.
Central Nervous System (p. 144)
the major parts of the brain and the lobes of the cerebral cortex. State
functions for each structure.
in detail the structure of the spinal cord, and state its functions.
the three layers of meninges, and state the function
how cerebrospinal fluid is formed and circulates.
Peripheral Nervous System (p. 152)
the twelve pairs of cranial nerves, and give a function for each.
the structure and function of spinal nerves.
and describe the autonomic nervous system.
between the sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions in four ways, and
give examples of their respective effects on specific organs.
Effects of Aging (p. 158)
and physiological changes occur in the nervous system as we age.
Chapter 9 – Sensory System
General Receptors (p. 166)
sensory receptors according to the system used in the text.
the four senses of the skin, and state the location of their receptors.
the function of visceral receptors.
the function of proprioceptors.
Chemoreceptors (p. 168)
the chemoreceptors, and state their location,
anatomy, and mechanism of action.
Photoreceptors (p. 169)
the anatomy and function of the accessory organs of the eye.
the anatomy of the eye and the function of each part.
the sensory receptors for sight, their mechanism of action, and the
mechanism for stereoscopic vision.
common disorders of sight discussed in the text.
Mechanoreceptors (p. 179)
the anatomy of the ear and the function of each part.
the sensory receptors for balance and hearing, and their mechanism of
Effects of Aging (p. 183)
and physiological changes occur in the sensory system as we age.
Gravis (p. 171)
Lenses (p. 178)
Damage and Deafness (p. 182) | http://www2.thomas.edu/faculty/hansenj/sc321/Study2.htm |
4.3125 | A Texas Alphabet
Social Studies, Art, and Language Arts Activity
Students create an alphabet book for younger children based on Texas themes.
WHAT YOU NEED
- Reference materials about Texas places, people, and products
- Art materials suitable for making and binding a booklet
- Examples of alphabet books with a variety of approaches
WHAT TO DO
- Circulate examples of alphabet books and ask students how and what younger
children can learn from them. Point out, if necessary, that not only can
children learn the letters of the alphabet, they can also learn about the
things that are pictured. Encourage a discussion of students' memories of
having used alphabet books of their own or with a younger child.
- Divide students into publishing teams, with responsibilities for writers,
editors, artists, and bookmakers. Have each team plan a Texas alphabet. Explain
that each letter should stand for something that can be found in Texas. For
example: A is for Austin, B is for bronco, C is for cattle, D is for Dallas,
and so forth.
- Once students have researched a state-related subject for each letter, they
create the text and drawing for each page, decorate a cover, and bind the book.
Encourage students to develop step-by-step checks for accuracy.
- On publication day, have students share their completed books with other
Pair each of your students with a kindergartner and have them study an alphabet
book together. Later, encourage your students to share what they learned from
Hold a publishing party to which you invite family and members of the
community. Students present their work and answer questions about how they
produced the books. Serve simple snacks that students help to prepare.
Before the publication date, have students "test market" the alphabet books.
Have them get feedback by trying earlier versions on younger siblings, then use
the input to make changes in the final design.
Activity Search |
Reading Center |
Math Center |
Social Studies Center
Education Place |
You may download, print and make copies of this page for use in your classroom, provided that you include the copyright notice shown below on all such copies.
Copyright © 1998 Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved. | http://www.eduplace.com/ss/act/alphabet.html |
4.15625 | Sore mouth is caused by a virus. It commonly affects nursing or recently weaned lambs, but sheep of all ages can be affected. The disease is characterized by the formation of lesions, which progress into thick crust or scabs, on the lips. Often, an entire group of lambs will become infected. However, mortality is low.
Sore mouth is spread by direct contact. The incubation period depends on the amount of virus present and varies from 8 to 10 days. Lesions begin as small red spots on the lips, and scabs develop two or three days later. Occasionally, the nostrils, eyelids, and mouth also are involved. When the scabs are prominent on the lips, lambs may eat less because eating is painful. Loss of body weight can be noticeable. Occasionally, a lamb might die from starvation or secondary pneumonia induced by sore mouth. Nursing lambs may spread the infection to the teats of the ewes. When this occurs, it is not unlikely for mastitis to follow.
Use extreme care and sanitation in treating infected sheep because the virus can affect humans. Lesions are sometimes found on the hands and faces of people working with infected sheep.
Treating sheep with sore mouth has not proven very effective. However, applying a topical antibiotic ointment may help reduce the potential for secondary infection. Commercially available vaccines also can be used on infected premises or in feedlots to prevent sore mouth. Apply vaccines as directed on the label. Generally, the application entails creating a small lesion (scratch) on the inside of the thigh, and applying the vaccine to the lesion. Vaccination of lambs at tail-docking time is a good management procedure. Vaccinate show flocks at least one month before the beginning of the show season. | http://aces.nmsu.edu/newmexicosheep/soremouth.html |
4.3125 | After leaving the nest, it is imperative that the hen keep in contact with her young. A series of assembly and maternal calls from the hen and responding vocalizations from the ducklings keep the family unit together. While feeding and exploring in thick vegetation, the family may not always have visual contact, but they do maintain vocal contact. Poised to protect her brood, the ever watchful hen alerts her young to predators by using an alarm call, to which the ducklings instinctively respond, most commonly by freezing their movements.
Vocalizations are important to the social signaling systems of waterfowl. Individuals have calls that work to draw attention to themselves. For example, when a female mallard is sitting on a pond and spots other mallards flying overhead, she will typically hail them by projecting a loud decrescendo-the familiar "hail"-call that encourages them to join her. Within a flock, vocal signals from an individual function to benefit all members of the flock. In the case of Canada geese, their grazing habit exposes them to terrestrial as well as aerial predators. A warning call given by a single goose alerts the entire flock to danger, and the group is able to take precautions in order to avoid predation.
Additionally, vocalization is used to coordinate flight when preparing for migration, leaving a roost for feeding grounds, or escaping predators. Waterfowl often give a pre-flight call to signal their intent to change location. This vocal synchronization of their takeoff functions to keep mates, family members, and flocks together.
Some of the most obvious functions of vocalization are to facilitate mating. The intricate courtship displays of male waterfowl involve the pairing of distinct postures and expressive calls. The female reciprocates to her chosen mate with an inciting call and posture of her own. Once established, pair bonds are reinforced through vocalizations between the drake and hen. Pairs learn to identify each other by the individuality of their mate's voice. This allows them to find one another in a flock, while in flight, and after the female returns from laying or nest searching. Waterfowl pairs recognize their mate's call and respond with a call of their own. Male mallards, for example, respond to the female mallard decrescendo call with a slow raehb.
Territorial waterfowl species such as northern shovelers and Canada geese use vocalizations in concert with threatening postures to defend and advertise their breeding territory. Canada geese can be heard clearly from a distance when challenging an intruder. Mallard, blue-winged teal, and northern shoveler drakes also use boisterous calls and threatening postures to defend their mate against harassment by other males.
Many species of female dabbling ducks including the green-winged teal, northern pintail, mallard, and northern shoveler advertise their location while on the breeding grounds and while searching for nest sites by persistent quacking. One theory is that this behavior functions, in part, to draw out predators within the breeding home range. By doing this, the female is aware of potential threats and is better able to avoid a surprise attack. Predator presence is an important factor in determining a nesting site because the hen is vulnerable during incubation, and the young are highly susceptible to predation while on the journey from the nest to water.
Vocalizing is not just a way for waterfowl to exercise their syrinx. From hatching to breeding, waterfowl vocalizations perform functions vital to survival. A large part of the behavioral strategies of waterfowl involve the use and understanding of calls. Just as humans use speech to communicate, waterfowl use calls to enhance the meaning of distinct movements and to convey information to others of their species. | http://www.ducks.org/conservation/waterfowl-biology/waterfowl-vocalizations/page2 |
4.125 | Marie Daucks was a twenty-five year old widow when she signed up to go to Jamestown. Barbara Burchens was just seventeen and unmarried when she decided to travel across the ocean. They were among the 57 'maids' sent to Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1621 in an effort to raise morale and improve the quality of life in the struggling colony.
It was not the first time the company had tried to do something about the gender imbalance in the colony. But earlier efforts had met neither success nor approval; too few women were sent, the men complained, and even by Virginia's standards they left a lot to be desired. So this time around, the company was more selective in its recruitment. The young women had to present letters of recommendation—letters which spoke to their character and domestic skills. As a result, the women who made the trip were far from the most desperate of England's poor. Among the 57 women sent in 1621 were eight with ties to the English gentry; another twelve were the daughters of artisans. Ranging in ages from 15 to 28, with an average age of twenty, these women could not be classified as destitute. But they were united by a certain disadvantage—virtually all were economically vulnerable. The group included only two widows, but there were numerous orphans and several young women that had recently lost their fathers. While not the most desperate of London's poor, the girls and women who decided to go to Jamestown faced an uncertain future in England.
To read further, go to www.shmoop.com. | http://librariangene.blogspot.com/2010/03/women-in-colonial-america.html |
4 | Hebrew is classified as a Northwest Semitic language. The Northwest Semitic languages are subdivided into the Canaanite and Aramaic branches, with Hebrew falling under the Canaanite branch. The writing system used by the Canaanite and Aramaic branches diverged from each other so far as the shape of the letters are concerned. During the Babylonian captivity, the Jewish people adopted the Aramaic script and replaced the writing system they had been using with it. Thus, the Hebrew alphabet in use today in Israel and in all printed versions of the Bible is actually the Aramaic alphabet. It is also the alphabet of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Hebrew alphabet is listed below. Notice that the kaph k, mem m, nun n, pe p, and tsade c have two forms. The second form is what is called the "final" form of the letter. The final form is used at the end of a word. The other form is used everywhere else in a word.
There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The shin/sin # is counted as a single letter.
Hebrew texts are written from right to left, the opposite of English.
Notice, also, that all these letters are consonents. As with many Semitic languages, the vowels were not originally indicated by the writing system (both Modern Hebrew and Arabic write only the consonents). Vowel pronunciation was understood from a knowledge of the language and context.
As Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language, the letters vav and yod came to be used to sometimes represent the o or u and i or e vowels respectively, and later the Masoretes (scholars in Tiberias between 700 and 1100 AD) developed a system of dots and dashes placed above and below the consonents to represent the vowels. You will learn this system in Lesson Two.
| || |
|bet||b||b as in boy or v as in have|
|gimel||g||g as in go|
|dalet||d||d as in dog|
|he||h||h as in hate|
|vav||w||v as in valley|
|zayin||z||z as in zoo|
|het||x||ch as in German Bach|
|tet||+||t as in tick|
|yod||y||y as in yellow|
|kaph||k, K||k as in kitty or ch as in German Bach|
|lamed||l||l as in look|
|mem||m, M||m as in moon|
|nun||n, N||n as in nanny|
|samek||s||s as in silly|
|pe||p,P||p as in peace or f as in infant|
|tsade||c, C||ts as in cats|
|qof||q||k as in kitty; usually transliterated as q|
|resh||r||r as in rat|
|shin, sin||#$, $#||sh as in sheep or s as in silly|
|tav||t||t as in tick|
Write the letters, don't draw them. Keep in mind that just as English letters when printed in a book have extra serifs and such, the same is the case with Hebrew. Write the letters as simply as possible. Notice the "Simplified Square" script on page 25 of Biblical Hebrew Step-by-Step. That is how you should write your letters.
Please read pages 3-28 in Biblical Hebrew Step-by-Step.
1. Memorize the Hebrew alphabet.
2. Do the Exercises on pages 12, 16-17, 22, and 27-28.
Copyright © Quartz Hill School of Theology. All Rights Reserved. | http://www.theology.edu/hebrew/hb01.htm |
4.0625 | - Grades: 1–2
It is always exciting and eye-opening for students to learn about another culture. By exploring cultures, students begin to get a sense of the world around them. China's culture is something that many students find fascinating. They begin to see how cultures that can be so very different, can also have some similarities. This unit allows students to explore China through literature as well as Internet resources.
- Discover fundamental differences between China and the U.S.
- Compare our daily lives to the life of a child in China
- Explore how literature can change in different cultures
- Compare and contrast the two cultures' versions of Little Red Riding Hood
- Research geography, history, celebrations, and people of China
- Become an expert in one topic by researching it further
- Create a poster with a group of four to display their learnings
- Share their findings with the rest of the class
Lesson Plans for this Unit
Lesson 1: Comparing Lifestyles
Lesson 3: Chinese Cultural WebQuest
The WebQuest serves as a great culminating activity to studying China. It incorporates cultural, geographical, and historical aspects of the country. By allowing each student to become an expert in one area, they become the teachers to the other members in the group. This creates an interactive learning environment, and all students are completely engaged. Through presenting the information to the class, the students have to justify their ideas and gain an even better understanding of the content | http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/exploring-china |
4.28125 | Highlights DNA Replication (continued)
1. Replication of linear eukaryotic chromosomes is more complex than replicating the circles of prokaryotic cells. During each round of eukaryotic DNA replication, a small portion of the DNA at the end of the chromosome (known as a telomer) is lost. Telomers have thousands of copies of the same short nucleotide sequence. Telomer length may be relative the cellular lifespan.
2. Telomerases are enzymes that make telomers and they are active in fetal cells. They serve to elongate the ends of linear chromosomal DNAs, adding thousands of repeats of a short sequence (junk DNA). This "junk DNA" is called a telomere. At each round of eukaryotic DNA replication, a short stretch at the end of the DNA is lost, shortening the telomere. The longer a telomere is, the more times a cell can divide before it starts losing important DNA sequences.
3. Tumor cells are another cell type that has an active telomerase. This probably is a factor that enables them to be "immortal".
4. Telomerase acts as a reverse transcriptase, using an RNA primer that it carries with it to copy and make the repetitive sequences of the telomer.
5. Eukaryotic cells tightly control the process that leads to their division. The cycle is called the cell cycle and the protein p53 plays an important role. If p53 detects that replication has not completed properly, it stimulates production of repair proteins that try to fix the damage. If the damage is fixed, the cell cycle continues and the cell ultimately divides. If the damage cannot be fixed, p53 stimulates the cell to commit suicide - a phenomenon called apoptosis.
1. Transcription is the making of RNA using DNA as a template. Transcription requires an RNA polymerase, a DNA template and 4 ribonucleoside triphosphates (ATP, GTP, UTP, and CTP). Prokaryotic cells have only a single RNA polymerase. Transcription occurs in the 5' to 3' direction. RNA polymerases differ from DNA polymerases in the RNA polymerases do NOT require a primer.
2. Transcription requires DNA strands to be opened to allow the RNA polymerase to enter and begin making RNA. Transcription starts near special DNA sequences called promoters.
3.A factor known as sigma associates with the RNA polymerase in E. coli and helps it to recognize and bind to the promoter. A promoter is a sequence in DNA that is recognized by the RNA Polymerase-Sigma complex. (Note that sigma factor binds to BOTH the RNA Polymerase and to the promoter sequence in the DNA. Note also that sigma factor is a PROTEIN). Genes that are to be transcribed have a promoter close by to facilitate RNA Polymerase binding to begin transcription.
4. Promoters in E. coli have two common features. The first is a sequence usually located about 10 base pairs "upstream" of the transcription start site (the transcription start site is the location where the first base of RNA starts). This sequence is known as the "-10" sequence or the Pribnow (TATA) box', which is so-named because the most common version of it (known as a consensus sequence) has the sequence 5'-TATAAT-3'. The second common feature of E. coli promoters is located about 35 base pairs upstream of the transcription start site. Eukaryotic promotoers also frequently have a TATA box, but in a slightly different position.
5. Transcription occurs in three phases - initiation, elongation, and termination. Binding of RNA Polymerase and sigma is the first step in transcription (initiation). After polymerization starts, sigma factor leaves the RNA polymerase and the elongation process continues.
6. Termination of transcription in E. coli occurs by several mechanisms. One I discussed in class is factor independent transcription termination, which occurs as a result of a hairpin loop forming in the sequence of an RNA. When it forms, it "lifts" the RNA polymerase off the DNA and everything falls apart and transcription stops at that point.
7. Factor dependent termination and is caused by a protein called rho. Rho works by binding to the 5' end of the RNA and sliding up the RNA faster than the RNA Polymerase makes RNA. When rho catches the RNA polymerase, it causes the RNA polymerase to dissociate (come off of) the DNA and release the RNA.
8. An operon is a collection of genes all under the control of the same promoter. When an operon is transcribed, all of the genes on the operon are on the same mRNA. Operons occur in prokaryotes, but not eukaryotes. In eukaryotes, each gene is made on individual mRNAs and each gene has its own promoter. | http://oregonstate.edu/instruction/bb350/spring12/highlightstranscription.html |
4.03125 | In Kepler, NASA has an exoplanet hunter. In the Curiosity rover, the space agency has finely tuned mechanism for tracking down geological signs of past life on Mars. It even has an asteroid hunter capable of chasing down hurtling chunks of rock from millions of miles away. Now, NASA wants a comet hunter. Literally. In a lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland researchers have constructed a massive crossbow in which they are testing huge harpoons that they hope will one day blast through the surface of a speeding comet.
The overarching idea: to fly a spacecraft close enough to a comet that it can fire a harpoon into the comet’s surface, acquire material samples from within it, and recover the samples to the spacecraft for return to Earth. But before they can do that, researchers have to prove that their harpoon will work. That’s why in a closet-sized lab space at GSFC there sits a six-foot-tall crossbow--it’s technically a ballista, a siege weapon invented by the ancient Greeks to hurl large missiles at their foes--made from a pair of truck leaf springs and equipped with a half-inch-thick steel bowstring.
The ballista is positioned pointing downward for obvious reasons. It’s bowstring is pulled back mechanically to create up to 1,000 pounds of force, which can launch projectiles upwards of 100 feet per second. It’s here that GSFC researchers are firing various harpoon designs into 55-gallon drums of simulated comet material (usually some mix of pebbles, salt, sand, or the like) to see what sticks--and what doesn’t.It’s the first phase of a long design project aimed at proving that harpooning a comet and returning the samples to Earth is feasible. That Japanese space agency JAXA has succeeded in returning asteroid samples to Earth and NASA’s Stardust has collected samples from the tail of a comet, but researchers really want to see what’s inside. That’s where they might find a bit of the “primordial ooze” that could’ve seeded life on this planet millions of years ago through comet strikes here on Earth.
But landing on a comet and drilling core samples isn’t so easy. Unlike large asteroids, comets exert very little gravity and are basically just huge chunks of ice and dust leftover from the solar system’s formation. In order to land a spacecraft on one, NASA would likely have to somehow tether a spacecraft to the comet and pull itself onto the surface. In other words, it would need a harpoon of sorts anyhow. The idea here is to simply go ahead and make the harpoon the subsurface sampling device, circumventing the need to actually land.
To do so, GSFC researchers are trying to figure out and demonstrate the best tip designs, cross-section, ideal velocities, and explosive charges to propel the harpoon (the actual mission wouldn’t pack a crossbow, but some kind of chemical propellant to launch the harpoons). Once it has penetrated the surface, researchers need to show their harpoon can gather a sample, detach (probably leaving the tip behind), and ferry the sample back up to the spacecraft. And they will have to demonstrate the ability to do this in a variety of possible materials, because there’s no way to know what the comet’s composition will be like until the spacecraft gets there.
It’s an ambitious project, and it starts with a huge ballista sitting in a closet at Goddard.
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more. | http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-12/hunt-comets-nasa-building-giant-harpoon |
4.09375 | As shown in our online store screenshot, our resources are intended for secondary students and teachers. I’m so excited that we are just weeks away from the release of our new curriculum, The Founding Documents: A Three-Act Drama, which is tailor-made for fourth through sixth graders. It is a fun, full-color magazine-style activity booklet that covers the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The content includes short readings, games, and other engaging activities. A short teacher’s guide with reading comprehension questions, vocabulary support, and final quizzes will also be available to teachers.
Fifth-grade teachers have attended many of our professional development programs because U.S. History is often taught at that grade level. Because it is important for students of all ages to engage in thinking about the Constitution and its principles, we are often asked for ideas about how to adapt our existing secondary resources for younger learners. Below are some of the strategies that teachers of elementary students might use in order to effectively employ Bill of Rights Institute lesson plans in their classes. A few simple modifications can make the readings and activities age-appropriate.
• Vocabulary support: pre-teach vocabulary, add marginal notes, highlight important terms
• Use additional images: conduct an internet search of public domain resources for supporting portraits, maps, or period art work
• Chunking: break up readings into shorter segments; jigsaw strategies; graphic organizers
• Use fewer or shorter passages from primary sources
• Help students understand relevance by leading them to point out connections between the lesson content and their everyday lives
• Emphasize cross-curricular applications: many Bill of Rights Institute lessons include elements from social studies, reading, and writing–even math
• Notice “story-telling” opportunities – Students of all ages love stories
Many of our lesson plans use activity cards and small group activities to have students engage with the content. With a little vocabulary support, these cards are a vehicle to engage young students in considering applications of important constitutional principles.
These and other scaffolding ideas can provide the tools to empower young learners to grapple with complex critical thinking tasks. It is important to enable them to read and understand primary source documents, presented in age-appropriate chunks. If your students would be discouraged by a whole paragraph from a primary source, give them a sentence. If a sentence is too much, give them a phrase. But help students develop their capacity for thinking about complex issues by presenting and discussing these issues. A kid does not learn to swim if he never gets in water over his belly button. He won’t learn to think if he is not coached into working with challenging materials.
What strategies and tips have you found to be helpful in leading young learners to understand and appreciate their heritage of liberty?
Thanks to Elaine Rowe (New York), Diana Fiddler (Oklahoma), and Emma Humphries (Florida) for contributing their ideas on this topic!
Pre-Order your copy of the Founding Documents: A Three-Act Drama today!
Posted in Civic Education | http://billofrightsinstitute.org/blog/2011/04/12/constitutional-thinking-for-young-learners/ |
4.34375 | In the preceding posts, I mentioned infinite products as approximations for π. These may be seen geometrically as exhaustion methods, where the area of a polygon approaches the circular area alternately from above, from below, from above, from below, etc.
There are also integral representations of pi. In such integral representations, π appears in the quantitative value of the integral of a mathematical function. Visually, this is often represented as the area delimited by the bounds of the function. However, the relation with the circle is lost, when viewed under Cartesian coordinates. For example, the graph of the simplest instance of the Cauchy-Lorentz distribution, f(x)=1/(1+x²), "has nothing at all to do with circles or geometry in any obvious way" as quoted from last Pi-day Sunday function from Matt Springer's Built on Facts blog.
In order to view the role of the circle in integral representations of π, we need to switch to alternative ways to visualize math functions. As an example, let's take the constant function y=f(x)=2. The function f maps an element x from a domain to the element y of the target. In this case, for every x, the target y has the constant value 2. With Cartesian coordinates, we are used to represent this function as a horizontal straight line, like in Figure 1a (click on the figure to view it enlarged). If however we write it as R=f(r)=2, where the function f maps any circle of radius r of the domain to a target circle of radius R=2, the same function can be viewed as a circle of constant radius, like in Figure 1b. So the same function f can be equally well viewed as a straight line or as a circle (x, y, r or R are only dummy variables).
Now if we take another example, the linear function, y=f(x)=2x, we are often used to view it in Cartesian coordinates as a straight line with slope 2, like in Figure 1c. In the circular representation R=f(r)=2r, this works however differently. Because we are relating circles of the input domain to other circles of the target, for each circle of radius r, we need to draw the target circle of radius 2r. A single line won't do. For one value of r, we need to draw two circles. If we use blue circles for elements of the input domain and red circles for elements of the target, we could visualize it for successive values of r as an animation like in Figure 1d. In that way, we view the progression of the target circle as the input circle becomes larger.
Unlike the Cartesian representation which shows the progression of a function in a static graph, this circular representation needs a dynamic or recurrent process to get grip of the progression of the function. Therefore it isn't very adapted for illustrations in print media. On the other hand, it has the advantage of keeping track of the geometrical form of the circle. And that's exactly what we need in order to perceive the circular nature when π shows up in mathematical functions. The relation of the integral of the Cauchy-Lorentz distribution f(r)=1/(1+r²) with the circle can then be seen with the help of the geometric counterparts of arithmetic operations like addition, squaring and dividing. A convenient procedure is illustrated in the successive steps of Figure 2.
Step 1. Draw the input circle of radius r and the reference circle of radius unity.
Step 2. Determine r².
Step 5. Find the target ring related to the input ring ranging over [r, r + dr]. This yields a ring of width dr/(1+r²). The location of this ring depends on the relative progression rates of r and r² (I've not yet found a straightforward explanation for this determination).
Step 6. Integrate dr/(1+r²) for r running over all space. For r becoming larger and larger, the summed area tends towards the area of a circle of radius 1. For the positive half plane, this corresponds to the π/2 value found analytically.
The tricky step seems to be the way how to relate the progression between r and 1/(1+r²) in steps 5 and 6. One can verify for example the value of the integral at intermediate steps. For the integral from r=0 to 1, the value in the positive half plane must be π/4, which can be verified on the figure below.
In order to gain more insight on π, it could be of interest to develop skills for this circular representation. | http://commonsensequantum.blogspot.com/2010/04/keeping-track-of-circle-for-integral.html |
4.1875 | Historical, hands-on documents help your students explore the attitudes and conditions of the Spanish Inquisition in Europe during the Middle Ages. This Jackdaw discusses a classic example of religious intolerance and abuse of power with terrible consequences for the victims, and it provides a basis for class study on similar instances of abuse throughout history. Historian: John Langdon-Davies. The contents of this Jackdaw feature:
What was the Inquisition?
- The Spanish Inquisition
- How the Spanish Inquisition Worked
- Who Were the Victims?
- Auto de fe
- The Spanish Inquisition and Witchcraft
Study Guide / Lesson Plan – Reproducible Activities
A procession to an auto de fe. Engraving.
- Description of an auto de fe at Toledo in 1692 with a list of the condemned, includes translation.
- The festive auto de fe at Madrid in 1680. Engraving.
- Designs for the ritual robes of the condemned. Engravings.
- Engravings from Francisco Goya’s Caprichos.
- An Edict of Faith issued in Valencia in 1512, includes translation.
- A bond, written by a nun, making a pact with the Devil.
- The Loyal Martyrs, an English ballad sheet. | http://www.jackdaw.com/p-332-the-spanish-inquisition.aspx |
4.28125 | Ability Level– Referring to instructional material that is appropriate for that particular child’s understanding.
Abbreviation - Short form of a word or phrase. Example: Texas = TX or University of California, Los Angeles = UCLA
Action Verb - See Verbs
Action Words - See Action Verbs definition in Verbs
Adjectives - Words that describe nouns and pronouns
Adverbs - Words that describe verbs. They usually answer how, when, where, and why.
Alphabetic Principle- The ability to recognize and name letters and understand that each letter makes a sound. The alphabetic principle is the idea that alphabetical characters can be coded into words.
Blends - Two consonants that make one sound such as bl, sl, cl, gl, pl, br, cr, fr, gr, pr, tr, sk, sn,
Cause - The reason something happens
Character - A person or animal is a story
Classifying - See Sorting
Clause - A group of words that have a subject and predicate that and is part of a compound or complex sentence.
Compare - Look for things thate are the same
Complement - A phrase or clause that follows a linking verb and complements the subject by renaming it or describing it. Example: This is a nice toy.
Complex Sentences - Use one independent clause and one dependent clause. Example: Bria dances although Bryce plays basketball.
Compound Sentence - Two independent clauses joined together by a conjuction, adverb, or semicolon. Examples: Bryce takes a nap, Bria plays games. Bria likes princesses, but Bryce likes cars. Bria reads story books; her brother reads board books.
Compound Words - Two smaller words put together such as pancake.
Consonant Blends - (see Blends)
Consonant Teams - Two or three consonant letters that have a single sound such as sh, th, tch, scr, spl, shr, spr, str, ng, nk
Contraction - A short way to write two words. Example: it is = it's
Contrast - Look for things that are different.
Dependent Clause - A group of words that has a subject and a verb but does not express a complete thought. Example: When Bryce got his candy (What happened when he got the candy? It does not express a complete thought.)
Details - Parts of a story that help you understand what the story is about.
Digraph - Pair of consonants(blends) or vowels used to write one phoneme (distict sound) such as tooth and crawl
Diphthongs - Two vowels that combine together to make a new sound such as oi in oil, oy in toy, ou in around, and ow in owl.
Double Vowel Words - When two vowels are put together in a word, the first one says its name and the second one is silent such as meat. You hear the e and the a is silent.
Drawing Conclusions - Use your own thoughts to answer the question, "How could that have happened?".
Effect - The result of something happening
Exclamation Sentence - A senctence that shows stong feelings suce as anger, fear, excitement. These sentences end with an exclamation mark (!).
Fantasy - Story events that are make believe. Ask could this happen?
Fluency- The ability to read a text accurately and quickly. Fluent readers recognize words automatically. They group words quickly to help them gain meaning from what they read. Because fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding the words, they can focus their attention on what the text means. Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.
Grammar - The rules of how sentences are put together using syntax and word formation.
Homographs - Words that are spelled the same but have a different meaning like the bow of a ship and a bow posture position are homographs.
Homophones - Words that are pronounced the same, but have different meaning are homophones. For example, pane and pain sound the same, yet have different meanings. Another example is carrot, carat, and caret.
Independent Clause - A group of words that contains a subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought. Example: Bria read the book.
Inference - Using parts of the story to help draw a conclusion about the story
Language - Thoughts and feelings used by a system of a nation, people, or distinct community using voice sounds, signals, gestures, or written symbols (letters, numbers, punctuation marks)
Linking Verb - Linking verbs link a subject to a complement and must be followed by a complement to make sense. Current linking verbs - appear, be, fear, lie, look, remain, seem, smell, sound, stay, taste. Resulting verbs - become, fall, get, grow, prove, run, turn
Main Idea - Tells what the wshole story is about
Noun - Person, place, or thing
Onset - The part of a syllable that precedes the nucleus. In the word nucleus (nû'klç-əs), the onset of the first syllable is (n), the onset of the second syllable is (kl), and the last syllable has no onset.
Phonemes - The smallest unit of distinguished meaning. Patterns of letter-sound correspondence and spelling in English.
Phonemic Awareness - The ability to distinquish and manipulate different sounds. Once a child has phonemic awareness, they are aware that sounds are like building blocks that can be used to build different words.
Phonograms - See Word Families
Phonological Awareness. Phonological awareness is ability to distinguish distinct sounds. Dog can be broken down to separate sounds d-o-g.
Phrase - A group of words that acts as a single unit. Example: the toys in the toy box
Plural Nouns - Word that show more than one
Predicate - The predicate of a sentence tells what the subject is doing or being.
Prefix - Syllables added to the beginning of words to change their meaning. Example: unlucky = un + lucky
Print Concepts- Awareness that print conveys a message. Print conventions consist of directionality (left to right, top to bottom), distinctions between upper and lower case, punctuation, and books have common characteristics such as author, title, front/back.
Punctuation - Everything in written language except the letters and numbers.
Questions - Questions ask something. Question sentences end with a question mark (?).
R-Controlled Vowels - When a vowel is followed by r (ar, er, ir, or, ur), it has a different sound as in he becomes her.
R-Controlled Words - Words using r-contolled vowels such as bird, star, burn.
Reading Comprehension - A process in which the reader intentionally and interactively engages with the text. Reading comprehension depends on word recognition, decoding, fluency, and a well developed vocabulary.
Real - Story events that could happen are real.
Rhyming Words - Words that have the same ending sound such as mail / ale or cat / hat
Rimes - See Word Families
Sentence - Tells a complete thought or idea. Words in a sentence must be in order to make sense.
Sequencing - Put events from a story in the order that they happened.
Sight Words - High frequency words that are not able to be shown on a picture such as to and that
Silent E - When e comes at the end of the end of the word, you cannot hear it such as cake.
Silent Letters - Some words have letters you can't hear such as the gh in light, the b in climb, the t in listen, the k in knee
Simple Sentence - A simple sentence has one independent clause. Bryce drinks milk.
Singular words - Words that show one noun
Sorting - Grouping like things together makes it easierto remember what you read
State of Being Verb - See Verbs
Subject - Who or what the sentence is about. Example: The hungry children ate all the fruit. The hungry children is the complete subject.
Subject and Verb Agreement - A singular subject has to be matched to a plural verb. A plural subject has to be matched to a singular verb. Example: Boy plays. Girls play.
Suffix - A syllable that is added at the end of the word to change its meaning. Example: helpful = help + ful
Syllable - A unit of spoken language that consists of a single uninterrupted sound formed by a vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant, or by any of these sounds preceded, followed, or surrounded by one or more consonants. Example: syl-la-ble
Syntax - The study of rules that govern the way words combine to form clauses, phrases, and sentences.
Verbs - Words that show action or state of being. Action verbs tell what a person or thing is doing. State of being verbs state that someting is. State of being verbs include is, am, were, was, are, be, being, been.
Visualizing - Picture the story so that as you read you can understand it better.
Vowels - A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y. But, usually when asked to name the 5 vowels, it is a, e, i, o, and u.
Word Families - Words that are have a pattern of the same ending spellings such as well, shell, yell. There are 37 most frequently used patterns. ack, ail, ain, ake, ale, ame, an, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw, ay, eat, ell, en, et, ice, ick,ide,ig, ight, ill, in, ine, ing, ink, ip, it, ock, oke, op, ore, ot, uck, ug, ump, unk, up, ut
Word Order - Words in a sentence must be in order to make | http://www.ilearnmyway.com/Reading-Definitions-s/14.htm |
4.3125 | Migration is a fact of life for most bird species in North America, and migration periods are much anticipated by birders. Since the beginning of detailed migration studies, much has been learned about how birds migrate. However, there are still open questions, such as what factors influence the routes and timing of migrants and how migration evolved. To that end, two government naturalists are tracking marbled godwits with radio transmitters in the west.
Farmer and Olson attach a small box with a wire that weighs half an ounce to the back of the bird and set it free. A solar panel on the tiny backpack provides power to send a signal for six hours each day to satellites. Such devices have long been used on other animals, but the recent development of super-lightweight transmitters have for the first time allowed scientists to track birds that weigh as little as a pound....This article focuses on two individuals, so it is hard to tell how many birds are being tracked. Given that this equipment is probably expensive, it may be a small number. One interesting result so far is that the migration routes of these two godwits confirm the importance of setting aside protected wetlands. Each bird made stops in multiple protected refuges as they made their way north from the banding station in Utah.
Using the satellite signals and Google Earth's online global-imaging service, the scientists tracked the bird. In a little less than a day, they found, it flew 600 miles to Saskatchewan. | http://dendroica.blogspot.com/2006/09/migration-study.html |
4.34375 | What Is Congress?
Making laws is the U.S. House of Representatives' most important job. Committees play an important role in this process. To learn how laws are made, visit How a Bill Becomes a Law.
In early Congresses, Representatives were creating lots of bills on many different topics and needed a way to organize them. Temporary committees were created to help the Representatives put the bills into categories. As the United States grew, so did the number of bills being considered, and committees became a permanent way for Representatives to organize their work.
Today, there are 25 committees. Some are responsible for making rules and decisions for the U.S. House of Representatives. Other, temporary committees are created to research specific issues. A standing committee is the most common type of committee. It is responsible for researching and revising bills under consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Once a bill is introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, it is sent to one of the 20 standing committees. Each standing committee covers a different area of public policy, such as agriculture, education, or technology. While in committee, the bill is reviewed, researched, and revised. The committee may hold a hearing to question experts and examine evidence.
If more information is needed, the committee sends the bill to one of its subcommittees. Subcommittees are smaller groups of the committee's members who are experts in a specific part of the committee’s area of public policy. Once the committee members are satisfied with the bill, they vote whether or not to report it to the House floor.
Each Representative, Delegate, and Resident Commissioner serves on two standing committees. Committee assignments are given at the start of each new Congress. Representatives can request to be on specific committees, and returning Representatives usually keep their committee assignments from the previous Congress because they have expertise and seniority. To learn more about what happens at the start of a new Congress, visit First Day of Congress.
Once Representatives have received their committee assignments, they are expected to become experts on the committee’s area of public policy. They also prepare and vote on changes to bills and decide whether or not to report bills to the House floor. Committee members also must write committee reports and studies, which are read by other Members of the U.S. House of Representatives so they can learn more about bills under consideration. | http://kids.clerk.house.gov/grade-school/lesson.html?intID=34 |
4.09375 | LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
Ambrose, S.E. Undaunted Courage (Simon & Schuster, 1996).
United States citizens knew little about western North America when the Lewis and Clark Expedition set out in 1804. Twelve years earlier Captain Robert Gray, an American navigator, had sailed up the mouth of the great river he named the Columbia. Traders and trappers reported that the source of the Missouri River was in the mountains in the Far West. No one, however, had yet blazed an overland trail.
President Thomas Jefferson was interested in knowing more about the country west of the Mississippi and in finding a water route to the Pacific Ocean. In 1803, two years after he became president, he asked Congress for $2,500 for an expedition.
To head the expedition, Jefferson chose his young secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis. Lewis invited his friend Lieutenant William Clark to share the leadership. Both were familiar with the frontier and with Native Americans through their service in the army.
Before Lewis and Clark set out, word came that Napoleon had sold an immense tract of land to the United States. Therefore, part of the region the expedition would be exploring was United States territory.
Plans for the expedition were carefully laid. The party was to ascend the Missouri to its source, carry canoes across the Continental Divide, and descend the Columbia River to its mouth. In preparation for the historic journey, Lewis studied natural history and learned how to fix latitude and longitude by the stars. In the winter of 1803-04 the expedition was assembled in Illinois, near St. Louis. The permanent party consisted of the two leaders, Lewis and Clark; three sergeants; 22 privates; the part-Native American frontiersman George Drouillard; and Clark's African American slave, York. They called themselves the Corps of Discovery.
On May 14, 1804, the explorers started up the Missouri in a 55-foot (17-meter) covered keelboat and two small canoes, paddled by French boatmen and a small temporary escort. On August 3 they held their first meeting with Native Americans at a place the explorers named Council Bluff, across the river and downstream from present-day Council Bluffs, Iowa. In late October they reached the earth-lodge villages of the Mandan, near the present site of Bismarck, N.D.
Across the river from the Mandan villages, the explorers built Fort Mandan and spent the winter. It was here that they hired Toussaint Charbonneau, a French interpreter, and his Native American wife, Sacagawea, the sister of a Shoshone chief. While at Fort Mandan, Sacagawea gave birth to a baby boy. This did not stop her from participating in the group. She carried the child on her back for the rest of the trip. As an interpreter she proved invaluable.
In the spring of 1805 the keelboat was sent back to St. Louis with dispatches for President Jefferson and with natural history specimens. Meanwhile, canoes had been built. On April 7 the party continued up the Missouri. On April 26 it passed the mouth of the Yellowstone, and on June 13 reached the Great Falls of the Missouri. Carrying the laden canoes 18 miles (29 kilometers) around the falls caused a month's delay. In mid-July the canoes were launched again above the falls. On the 25th the expedition reached Three Forks, where three rivers join to form the Missouri. They named the rivers the Madison, the Jefferson, and the Gallatin, after presidents James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Gallatin, who was secretary of treasury under Jefferson.
For some time the explorers had been within sight of the Rocky Mountains. Crossing them was to be the hardest part of the journey. The expedition decided to follow the Jefferson River, the fork that led westward toward the mountains.
On August 12 the group climbed to the top of the Continental Divide, where they hoped to see the headwaters of the Columbia close enough to let them carry their canoes and proceed downstream toward the Pacific. Instead they saw mountains stretching endlessly into the distance. The water route Jefferson had sent them to find did not exist.
They were now in the country of the Shoshone, Sacagawea's people. Sacagawea eagerly watched for her tribe, but it was Lewis who found them. The chief, Sacagawea's brother, provided the party with horses and a guide for the difficult crossing of the lofty Bitterroot Range.
It took the Corps of Discovery most of September to cross the mountains. Hungry, sick, and exhausted, they reached a point on the Clearwater River where Nez Perce helped them make dugout canoes. From there they were able to proceed by water. They reached the Columbia River on October 16.
On Nov. 7, 1805, after a journey of nearly 18 months, Clark wrote in his journal, "Great joy in camp. We are now in view of the Ocean." The explorers had traveled more than 4,100 miles (6,600 kilometers) since they started up the Missouri. They were disappointed to find no ships at the mouth of the Columbia. A few miles from the Pacific shore, south of present-day Astoria, Ore., they built a stockade, Fort Clatsop. There they spent the rainy winter.
On March 23, 1806, the entire party started back. They crossed the mountains in June with Nez Perce horses and guides. Beside the Bitterroot River the two leaders separated to learn more about the country.
Clark headed for the Yellowstone River and followed it to the Missouri. Lewis, with nine men, struck off toward the northeast to explore a branch of the Missouri that he named the Marias. On this trip he had a skirmish with Native Americans that left two Blackfoot dead, the only such incident of the entire journey. Later, while out hunting, he was accidentally shot by one of his own men. He recovered after the party was reunited and had stopped at the Mandan villages. There they left Sacagawea and her family.
The party reached St. Louis on Sept. 23, 1806. Their arrival caused great rejoicing, for they had been believed dead. They had been gone two years, four months, and nine days.
Lewis, Clark, and several other members of the expedition kept detailed journals. They brought back much new material for cartographers and specimens of previously unknown wildlife. American settlers and traders soon began to travel over the route they had blazed. The expedition also provided useful support for the United States claim to the Oregon country.
A project by History World International | http://history-world.org/lewisand%20clark.htm |
4.03125 | What is Ozone?
Chemically, ozone is oxygen with an extra atom added. Electrically, ozone is oxygen with a higher energy level. It is unstable and highly reactive.
There is a cycle of oxygen just as there is a cycle of water. Oxygen is released in photosynthesis by land plants and ocean phytoplankton (mostly diatoms), and rises up in the atmosphere about 25-30 miles, where it is energized by a part of the ultraviolet spectrum of energy from the sun, producing ozone. Ozone is heavier than air and begins to descend. It immediately attaches itself to airborne particles. It contacts them, oxidizing them, cleaning the air. If it encounters water vapor, it can attach itself to it, forming hydrogen peroxide. Rain and snow both contain hydrogen peroxide naturally. That is why plants grow better from rain water than from irrigation.
At ground level, ozone attaches itself to all pollutants, oxidizing them and cleaning the air. It has been incorrectly blamed for smog. Ozone is present in smog only transiently at around 25 parts per hundred million.
Carbon monoxide is present in smog at about 3000 parts per hundred million, and hydrocarbons at about 100 parts per hundred million. Smog is produced by the photoelectric effect of the sun's rays acting on carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere, which are the end products when hydrocarbons are burned.
Ozone cannot be produced in the internal combustion engine because the hydrocarbon fuel quenches the spark gap. The ozone that exists in the atmosphere is produced by nature and it is attracted to pollutants because of opposite charge -- it attempts to oxidize them and clean the air. The problem is one of too little ozone to complete the job, not too much.
Ozone is also created near the ground by lightning. The fresh smell in the air after a thunderstorm is ozone. The amount of ozone created in an average thunderstorm is about three times the safe limit according to US EPA regulations.
Ozone (O3) is an allotropic form of oxygen: it is oxygen in its most active state; therefore it is a more generous supply of oxygen - the life giver.
Through the action of lightning flashes, and the photochemical reaction of the UV light of the sun on atmospheric oxygen, nature produces ozone for the purpose of purifying the air, and to destroy all organic decay upon which disease, germs and bacteria thrive.
Ozone is triatomic oxygen. As a gas it is blue; both liquid ozone (-112 C) and solid ozone (-193 C) are a deep blue color. It is this blue ozone in the atmosphere that causes the sky to be blue. At altitudes from 25-30 km. ozone is created by a portion of the sun's ultraviolet spectrum. It exists as a gas in concentrations of 10-20 parts per million. (ppm). In these concentrations, ozone is a powerful absorber of a narrow portion of the sun's ultraviolet radiation. At ground level, ozone exists in a greatly diluted state and is always present in minute quantities (.001-.003 ppm) which we breathe in. It does not become an irritant until levels above .1 ppm are exceeded for over eight hours. Below those levels there have never been any permanent detrimental effects from inhaling it. Ozone is created naturally by crashing surf, white water rapids, and lightning storms. Recently, ozone has come to public attention as an alleged pollutant in smog. In order to measure hydrocarbon air pollution, an index is required. High levels of hydrocarbons have a corresponding ozone level (since the ozone is attracted to the pollutants), so by measuring the ozone, scientists can measure indirectly how bad the pollution is. What is not mentioned is that the ozone molecule lasts for a maximum of 20 minutes as it busily eats up the hydrocarbon pollution by oxidizing it. Carbon monoxide, benzene, chlorides, sulphur and many other pollutants are swiftly oxidized on contact by ozone, thus cleaning the air.
Ozone has long been internationally recognized as the most powerful oxidant next to hydroxyl; which is a mixture of ozone with hydrogen peroxide. | http://nevadaozone.com/whatisozone.html |
4.15625 | Bees with the necessary honey-storing characteristics to be exploited by humans for their honey belong either to the subfamily Meliponini that contains several genera of stingless bees, or to the single genus Apis, the honey bees, The stingless bees are social bees that store significant volumes of honey. Their natural distribution is throughout tropical and subtropical areas of the world, and there are around 300 species. They live in perennial colonies ranging from a few dozen individuals to many thousands. Their social organisation, division of labour between workers and some of the physical structures of the adult bee (such as pollen baskets) are similar to the Apis genus of honey bee.
However, their biology differs from honey bees in some significant ways. For example, the feeding of stingless bee larvae is very different from the way that honey bee larvae are fed. In stingless bees the cells are mass provisioned, which means that all the food the larva will need for its development is placed in the cell in one operation by a nurse bee. One of the workers will then lay an egg (known as a trophic egg) into the cell. The queen will be attracted to the group of workers laying eggs and will come and eat the egg, plus some of the food provision before laying her own egg into the cell. After this the workers seal the cell so the larva can mature and pupate. The queen will receive most of her nutrition in this manner.
Stingless bee cells are oval or round and are arranged in orderly groups or plates, which may be reminiscent of honeycomb. Their nests can be found in cavities in trees or in exposed nests attached to tree branches. Other species nest underground and may take residence in part of a termite's nest. The nest is frequently divided into two parts - the brood chamber where the larvae are reared and, in some species, a special area for storing honey and pollen. The nest is made of a waxy substance called cerumen, collected from resinous trees, and covered in a tougher wax known as batumen - similar to the propolis used by honey bees.
New nests are started by workers from an existing colony starting up a nest in a different site. Eventually a young queen from the old colony goes to the new site with a few workers and gradually the colony builds up to become independent of the parent colony. This arrangement precludes the rapid spread of new stingless bee nests to new areas, making them very vulnerable to habitat loss. Female caste differentiation is different from the honey bee (which arises because of food quality). Michener 2000, describes three different systems of queen determination.
1. A small number of queens are reared at the margins of the comb and the quantity of food supplied appears to be the controlling factor in queen development.
2. The second system uses clusters of specially shaped, well separated and well fed cells.
3. The third system uses no special cells but the small sized females produced mature into queens after hatching.
Mating occurs outside of the hive with the virgins entering into male mating swarms. As in honey bees, males mate once and then die.
Archive material on this topic from all past journals. click here to view in our bookstore
Print topic information
|Management of Philippine Bees||Cervancia C.R: Fajardo A.C; Manila-Fajardo A.C; Lucero R.M.|
|Meliponiculture - Beekeeping with stingless bees||Sommeijer, M. J.|
|NOVOS RECURSOS TÉCNICOS, NOVOS CAMINHOS PARA CRIAÇÃO DE ABELHAS SEM FERRÃO||Mitsiotis, N.M|
|Organic Beekeeping in Mexico||Furst, M.; Ganz, P.|
|Pot - Honey: A legacy of Stingless Beest||Vit P., Pedro S., Roubik D. Editors|
|Progress Reports 2001-2004: Proyecto de Manejo de Abejas y del Bosque (Support for reforestation and forest management by the traditional keeping of non-stinging bees in NW El Salvador, Central America) - a collection of articles in a green box file||PROMABOS|
|Role of Stingless Bees in Pollination of Typically Tropical Fruits in Thailand||Boongird, S.|
|Royal Mayan bee||Poovey, C.|
|Simple ways to manage stingless bees||Fajardo, A. & Cervancia, C.|
|Stingless bees||Waring, C.|
|Stingless bees - importance, management and utlisation||Kwapong,P., Aidoo,K., Combey,R., Karikari,A.|
|Stingless bees as bioindicators in Brazil||Braga, J.A., Nunes, R.M. and Lorenzon, M.C.A.|
|Stingless bees in Angola||Armor, M.|
|Stingless bees in Costa Rica||Bees for Development|
|Stingless bees in Ghana||Aidoo, Kwame ; Kwapong, Peter ; Combey, Rofela ; Karikari, Afia|
|Stingless bees in Guyana||Rajkumar, A|
|Stingless bees in Kenya||Macaharia, J. Raina, S. and Muli, E.|
|Stingless Bees in Kenya||Macharia, J., Raina, S. & Muli, E.|
|Stingless Bees: Importance, Management and Utilisation||Aidoo, K., Combey, R., Karikari, A. & Kwapong, P.|
|The bees of the world||Michener, C D|
|The land of corn and honey: the keeping of stingless bees (meliponiculture) in the ethno-ecological environment of Yucatan (Mexico) and El Salvador||de Jong, H. J.|
|Where in the world is Nagaland? (And do they keep bees there?)||Petersen,.S.|
|Xunan, Kab, the stingless bees of the yucatan: preserving meliponiculture in Mayan communities (2/2)||Cohn, D.| | http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/portal/topic.php?id=106&p=38 |
4.46875 | This activity investigates how you might make squares and pentominoes from Polydron.
Here are some ideas to try in the classroom for using counters to investigate number patterns.
Can you make a cycle of pairs that add to make a square number
using all the numbers in the box below, once and once only?
Can you make square numbers by adding two prime numbers together?
This practical challenge invites you to investigate the different
squares you can make on a square geoboard or pegboard.
Using all ten cards from 0 to 9, rearrange them to make five prime
numbers. Can you find any other ways of doing it?
Add the sum of the squares of four numbers between 10 and 20 to the
sum of the squares of three numbers less than 6 to make the square
of another, larger, number.
A red square and a blue square overlap so that the corner of the red square rests on the centre of the blue square. Show that, whatever the orientation of the red square, it covers a quarter of the. . . .
Bluey-green, white and transparent squares with a few odd bits of
shapes around the perimeter. But, how many squares are there of
each type in the complete circle? Study the picture and make. . . .
Can you use LOGO to create a systematic reproduction of a basic
design? An introduction to variables in a familiar setting.
Learn how to use Excel to create triangular arrays.
Use Excel to investigate the effect of translations around a number
This spreadsheet highlights multiples of numbers up to 20 in
Pascal's triangle. What patterns can you see?
Use Excel to create some number pyramids. How are the numbers in
the base line related to each other? Investigate using the | http://nrich.maths.org/thismonth/2and3/2003/01 |
4.125 | of Earth Science |Northeastern
Objectives #6 (September 13,
the end of today's class, you
should be able to do the following:
v Making a Scientific Presentation:
v Water Flow:
and verbally convey information on a scientific lab experiment to an
audience, supplementing your talk with simple illustrations.
v Properties of Porous Materials:
what makes water flow.
- Define the following term: porosity.
- Characterize rocks and sediments in terms of their
porosity, giving typical ranges of values of these properties for each
rock and sediment.
v Presentations on water flow: Present
the work you did in lab over the past week. In your brief (2-3
presentation, please convey to the audience information on your
setup, your results (they may be numbers, graphs, or verbal
observations), and at least one conclusion based on your
experimental results. Groups/activities: Holey
Water Bottle, Draining Work, Bucket to
Bucket Transfer, Infiltration Observation, Capillary Action.
v Properties of Porous Materials: Define porosity.
Write a formula to express
its meaning. Arrange a suite of samples of rock and sediment in
order of increasing porosity.
© 2007 Laura L.
Last updated September 13, 2007. | http://www.neiu.edu/~llsander/337/Fall2007/objectives6.html |
4.09375 | Search Course Communities:
Conditional Probability Applet
Course Topic(s): Probability | Basic Probability, conditional probability | Basic Probability, basic rules
This applet shows two events \(A\) and \(B\) as squares within a larger square that represents the sample space. The user can drag events \(A\) and \(B\) around, and the applet displays the probabilities of \(A\), \(B\), \(A\) and \(B\), \(A\) or \(B\), not \(A\), not \(B\), not (\(A\) and \(B\)), not (\(A\) or \(B\)), In addition, the user can select any of these events with a set of radio buttons and see the selected event highlighted in the Venn diagram. Finally, the conditional probability of \(A\) given \(B\) and \(B\) given \(A\) are displayed. The underlying probability measure is the uniform distribution on the sample space, although this is not explicitly stated.
Resource URL: http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~west/applets/Venn1.html
To rate this resource on a 1-5 scheme, click on the appropriate icosahedron:
Creator(s): Webster West
Contributor(s): Webster West
This resource was cataloged by Kyle SiegristPublisher:
Resource copyright: Unknown
This review was published on September 14, 2012
Be the first to start a discussion about this resource. | http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/61/?pa=newCollection&sa=viewResourceEntry&resourceId=1246 |
4.1875 | The standard RAVLT format starts with a list of 15 words, which the examiner reads aloud at the rate of one word per second. The test-taker's task is to repeat all the words he or she can remember, in any order. This procedure is carried out a total of five times. Then, the examiner presents a second list of 15 words, allowing the test-taker only one attempt at recall. Immediately following this, the individual is asked to remember as many words as possible from the first list.
The RAVLT is useful in evaluating verbal learning and memory, including proactive inhibition, retroactive inhibition, retention, encoding versus retrieval, and subjective organization. Because the test is brief, straightforward, easy to understand, and appropriate for children, adolescents, and adults ages 7-89 years, it has gained widespread acceptance. However, until now, comprehensive data about the RAVLT norms, validity studies, different administration and scoring procedures, etc., have been scattered in various sources.
This handbook describes the test, its development, and its uses including the following topics:
- Administration and Scoring
- Selecting Norms
- Selecting an Appropriate Form
- A Review of RAVLT Norms
- Moderator Variables (Age, Education, Intelligence, Gender, Ethnicity, Culture, and Clinical Diagnosis)
- Impaired Motivation and Malingering
- Alternate Forms and Test-Retest Comparisons
- Reliability and Validity
Appendices include test form and stimulus sheets, supplementary scores and indexes, and conversion tables for obtaining z scores, T scores, standard scores, and approximate percentiles. In addition, a 4-page Record Sheet and Score Summary, available with the Handbook or separately, allows you to quickly organize and record RAVLT special scores and indexes | http://www.annarbor.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=416_249_303 |
4.09375 | Ocean Regions: Littoral Zone - Characteristics
The littoral zone is the part of the ocean closest to the shore.
The littoral zone is from the shoreline to 600 feet (183 meters)
out into the water and is divided into three zones: the supralittoral
zone, the intertidal zone and the sublittoral zone.
The supralittoral, or spray, zone is only underwater during unusually high
tides or during storms. It starts at the high-tide line and goes
toward dry land. The intertidal zone is between the high-tide and
low-tide lines. The sublittoral zone extends from the low-tide line
out to 200 meters.
The littoral zone is a tricky area for predicting water conditions because
so many factors affect it. Coastal currents, onshore and offshore winds,
reefs, bays and the shape of the shoreline are some of the things sailors
have to deal with in this zone. | http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/ocean/regions/littoralzone1.htm |
4.71875 | You can learn a lot about the nature of matter by making a model of an atom. Before you begin, look through the Periodic Table of Elements and pick an atom. You can find the table in an encyclopedia, a science textbook or online. Choose an atom with an atomic number of at least 11, since it has at least three energy level rings [source: Atomic Model Construction].
OK let's make that model. Here's what you need:
- Ping pong balls or other small round objects of three different colors. Get three times as many balls as the atomic number. You will use one color for the protons, one for the neutrons and one for the electrons.
- Cardboard large enough to accommodate the model
Now let's make the model.
- Glue balls together to represent protons and neutrons. This is the nucleus. Try to arrange them in an alternating pattern.
- Glue the nucleus to the center of the cardboard.
- Determine how many rings you need for the electrons. Starting from the innermost ring, you can have up to two electrons in the first ring, up to eight in the second ring, up to 18 in the third ring and up to 32 in the fourth ring.
- Glue the string around the nucleus to make the energy level rings.
- Apply a few drops of glue to each ring.
- Glue the electrons on the rings, spacing them evenly. Make sure you don't exceed each ring's maximum number of electrons.
[source: Make a Model of an Atom]
You now have a model of an atom! If you don't want to build the model from parts, you can do it interactively on the internet [source: Interactive Atom Model]. | http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/how-to-make-model-of-atom.htm |
4.09375 | Many of the words we use come from a root word. Once you pull off any prefixes or suffixes, the root will be normally at the front or the back of the remaining word. A little digging will uncover just what the root word really means. For example, in a word such as scissors, the root word is sciss, which means cut.
Words can even have two root words, such as schoolhouse.
There are many root words that are frequently used as parts of common words in the English language. For example, the following root words are provided with their meaning and, in italics, with an example of the root word as part of a word:
Liter, glyph, cap, morph, crypt, plan, ego, scent, and zoo are also root words. For example, animal is the actual meaning of the root word zoo, so when they named the zoo, they were right.
Some root words aren’t even fully words, such as bio. Bio is the root word for biography or biology. Bio means life. Here are a few more examples:
By knowing different root words, you can understand what a word means even if you don’t know the word, since the meaning can be derived from a combination of the root words.
Some root words make less sense. For example, take the word apology. The root word "logy" is the study of something, and apo is from or away from. So, if you interpret the meaning of apology based on root words alone, you would see that it means "away from the study of something?" Not a very good explanation. When we see apology we think sorry or sad about something. So, although many words have root words, knowing the meaning of the roots won't always provide you with a clear definition.
When talking with friends or reading a book, you're constantly hearing root words. Here are some examples of root words, their meanings and other words that are formed by adding prefixes and/or suffixes to these building blocks:
Every root word has a meaning and that meaning corresponds to the new word made from it.
Root words are derived from Latin and Greek, and many word can be traced back to the Latin or Greek root word. So, in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Tula’s father may have been right when he said “Give me a word, any word, and I'll show you that the root of that word is Greek.”
Defining a root word from a word is simple when you have a list of all the root words available. The easiest place to find the root word for a longer word would be to look up the longer word here on YourDictionary.com. By searching the longer word and the root word in a dictionary or in one of the specialty reference sources on YourDictionary.com you can learn the definition, where the word came from, and information on who came up with the word.
Etymology is the study of root words, or the history of words. Etymologists discover how words are formed and what their meaning is and how that meaning has changed over time.
Etymologists apply specific steps to analyze the origin of words. They have to perform philological research, make use of dialectological data, and study semantic change.
Etymologists must know a wide range of languages and understand how they were developed. Not only are the words important, but how the language interprets it is also vital in the study of etymology.
The first etymologists were the Sanskrit linguists and grammarians in ancient India, but etymology is still practiced today. | http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-root-words.html |
4.3125 | Oh My! Long O is all Over the Place!
Rationale: This lesson will help students to recognize the long vowel o_e = /O/. It is critical for students to understand that vowels can make different sounds and be able to distinguish between them to master language skills and reading skills. The students will be learning about Long O through direct instruction, a decodable text, and hands on practice. These activities will provide the students with practice in verbalization, spelling, and reading of words with the Long O vowel.
Copies of Bo and Rose by: Shelia Cushman. Published in 1990 by Educational Insights.
Tongue Tickler (On Chart)-"Opie Owns an Old Oak Oboe."
Elkonin Boxes for each student.
Letter tiles for each student.- a, b, c, e, f, g, k, l, n, o, p, r, s, t, w.
Dry Erase board or Blackboard.
Giant Letterbox Words on individual flashcards.
Assessment Worksheet made in Microsoft Word containing the pictures and words: cone, smoke, stone, globe, stove, spoke, and snore.
Letterbox words on note cards for individual assessment: rose, dog, mop, sock, stone, globe, drove, stripe strode stroke.
1. Our written language is a secret and tricky code that can be difficult to understand. The tricky parts are trying to learn what each letter stands for and the different mouth moves we make as we speak words. In order to master this secret code we need to learn about each individual letter and the sound that it can make. Today we are going to be learning about o_e = /O/. We spell the /O/ sound with and o_e, example: rose. O is the shape that our mouths make when we say the letter O and when we understand something. Therefore, at times today we will nod our heads as if saying "Oh, I see!" when we hear or speak the letter O.
2. Let's all pretend we have just figured out something important and nod our heads and say "Oh, I see!" Does anyone notice that their mouth is open when we say "Oh"? Can everyone say "Oh" so I can see your big open mouths? Excellent! When we say the /O/ sound we open our mouths and drop our bottom jaw. Also, we use our vocal cords to push out the /O/ sound. Can everyone touch their throat this time as we say "Oh, I see!"? Did everyone feel that they had sound coming from their vocal cords and out through their big open mouth? That is great!
3. Let me show you how you can find the /O/ sound in the word rose. I am going to stretch out the word rose by saying it in slow motion and I want you to watch me and listen for the sound of someone understanding and saying the beginning of "Oh, I see!" Rrr-ooo-sss-ee. Ok, now we will try it even slower Rrrrrrrrr-oooooooo-ssssss-eeeee. I heard it! Did you hear it too? I felt myself open my mouth, drop my bottom jaw, and make a sound come from my vocal cords out through my mouth. I can definitely hear the /O/ sound in the word rose.
4. Ok, everyone lets all try a tongue tickler (on chart). "Opie owns an old oak oboe." Now lets all try saying that together three times in a row. Great job! Can we try stretching out the /O/ sound at the beginning of the words? Here we go, "Ooooopie oooowns an oooold oooak oooboe." Try it again and break the /O/ off of each word. "/O/-pie /O/-wns an /O/-ld /O/-ak /O/-boe." Great work everyone!
5. We are now going to see if we can hear the Long O sound in words. I will call on students to answer my questions and explain how they came up with their answers. If you hear the /O/ sound I want you to nod your head and say 'Oh". I will give you an example: stone-ssss-ttt-oooo(nod head and say Oh)- nnn-ee. Now you give it a try: Do you hear /O/ in globe? How about stroke? Drove? Let's try something more challenging. Ok, do you hear /O/ in rose or tulip? How about in strode or stripe? Excellent job everyone!
6. I will now give each student a set of Elkonin boxes and the appropriate letter tiles. I will have a replica of the boxes drawn on the board to use as an example and as a tool if students have any questions. Ok, we are now going to spell some words that have the /O/ sound using our letterboxes. We are also going to review a few short o = /o/ words. I will model how to do the word strode. Ss-tt-rrr-oo-dd-eee. The first phoneme I heard was /s/ so it will go in my first box. Next I heard /t/ and it was followed by /r/ so I will put those letters in boxes two and three. What comes after str in strode? That's right /O/ so I will place the letter o in box four and it will be followed by the d in box five. Finally I will place the e outside my last letterbox because the e is the letter that makes the o say its name. Remember that o_e makes the /O/ sound and that is how we get strode and not strod. I would blend the word as I went along and say it out loud one time after I had it spelled correctly. Now it is your turn to spell some words so place your letters in front of you in a nice straight line. Ok everyone place three boxes out in front of you and we will begin-3 phoneme words are rose, dog, mop, and sock (review words). Now you need 4 boxes-stone, globe, drove. Finally you need 5 boxes- stripe, strode, stroke.
Give a sentence with each word and give plenty of time for students who may need it. Walk around the room and observe while noting any miscues that you can. After all of the words are complete have the class read the words off of the board or off of giant flashcards.
7. Now we are all going to read Bo and Rose in pairs of two. Each of you will take turns reading a page and I will walk around and listen and answer questions if you have any. Before we begin I will complete a quick book talk: Rose has a very sweet goat named Bo who had chewed through his rope and escaped! Will Rose find Bo wandering around town somewhere or will he be gone forever? To find out you have to keep reading.
8. After the students have finished reading I will distribute the assessment worksheet for them to do individually. On the worksheet the students will match the o_e =/O/ word to the corresponding picture. As the students work I will call them individually to my desk to read over the /O/ flashcards one more time to see if I can take any more miscue notes. I found this worksheet on Wee with EE by Courtney Davis and I changed the words from ee =/E/ to o_e = /O/. The words I used and pictures I used are: cone, smoke, stone, globe, stove, spoke, and snore.
Bo and Rose by: Shelia Cushman. Published in 1990 by Educational Insights.
Courtney Davis, Wee with EE!:
Whitney Patterson, Easy E Street:
Return to the Journeys Index. | http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/journeys/adkinsbr.htm |
4.03125 | LCROSS Finds Water on the Moon
November 13, 2009: The argument that the Moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.
At a press conference today, researchers revealed preliminary data from NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicating that water exists in a permanently shadowed lunar crater. The discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the Moon.
Above: Visible camera images showing the ejecta plume at about 20 seconds after impact. Credit: LCROSS/NASA [more images]
"We are ecstatic," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center.
On Oct. 9th, the LCROSS spacecraft and a companion rocket stage made twin impacts in crater Cabeus near the Moon's south pole. A plume of debris traveled at a high angle beyond the rim of Cabeus and into sunlight, while an additional curtain of debris was ejected more laterally.
Since the impacts, the LCROSS science team has been analyzing the huge amount of data the spacecraft collected. The team concentrated on data from the satellite's spectrometers, which provide the most definitive information about the presence of water. A spectrometer helps identify the composition of materials by examining light they emit or absorb.
The team took the known near-infrared spectral signatures of water and other materials and compared them to the impact spectra the LCROSS near-infrared spectrometer collected.
"We were able to match the spectra from LCROSS data only when we inserted the spectra for water," Colaprete said. "No other reasonable combination of other compounds that we tried matched the observations. The possibility of contamination from the Centaur also was ruled out."
Right: Data from LCROSS's near-infrared spectrometer taken 20 to 60 seconds after the impact of the Centaur booster. The smooth curve corresponds to a model containing water and other compounds--some of which remain unidentified. A model-fit containing only water may be found here. Credit: NASA [larger image] [more images]
Additional confirmation came from an emission in the ultraviolet spectrum that was attributed to hydroxyl (OH), one product from the break-up of water (H2O) by sunlight.
Data from the other LCROSS instruments are being analyzed for additional clues about the state and distribution of the material at the impact site. The LCROSS science team and colleagues are poring over the data to understand the entire impact event, from flash to crater. The goal is to understand the distribution of all materials within the soil at the impact site.
"The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The data is that rich," Colaprete said. "Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the Moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years."
Stay tuned for updates.
A longer version of this press release may be found here.
LCROSS Photographed by Backyard Astronomers -- (Science@NASA)
School Kids Track LCROSS -- (Science@NASA)
LCROSS Home Page -- (NASA/HQ)
LCROSS Mission Page -- (NASA/Ames) | http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/13nov_lcrossresults/ |
4.1875 | How to multiply fractions – Special fractions worksheets
There are some basic, very important, math skills underlying multiply fractions. If kids want to learn how to multiply fractions, they have to have the following tools in their math tools chest.
- Ultimate multiplication skills or in other words kids need to be very competent on times tables.
- Once kids know their times tables, the next tool is the knowledge of prime factorization of a number.
- Last but not least the knowledge of the method on how to multiply two or more fractions with each other.
Kids can get fractions worksheets and prime factoring worksheets by visiting online.
Two methods to multiply fractions
There are many ways to multiply fractions. One of the method is to multiply the fractions and then reduce the resulting fractions into lowest terms if possible. This method is the easiest one and works most of the times but not always.
The second method to multiply fractions is to reduce the fractions before multiplying them and then multiply the given fractions after simplify them. This method takes little bit time to develop the skill but very powerful and works all the time. Once kids know this method to multiplying fractions, then they never look back as this the fastest method to multiply two or more fractions.
How to multiply fractions using prime factors
The second method need to develop the skill of prime factorization of any number. If kids have learn how to find prime factors of a number then they can do the 2nd method of multiplying fractions very easily. To perform this method, we need to find the prime factors of all the numerator and denominators of the given fractions and write all of these prime factors together, on top for all the numerators and at bottom for all the denominators. Then we can cut the same factor present at top and bottom (if any).
After cutting the same factors, multiply the rest of the factors at top and bottom to get the numerator and denominator of the answering fraction, respectively.
Lesson to learn fraction multiplication using prime factorizing method
Below is a lesson on the second method to multiply fractions, i.e. prime factorization to multiply fractions.
Once kids get comfortable on how to multiply fractions using prime factors, the next step is to print some fractions worksheets on multiplying fractions. This way they can make sure that they know this key skill very well. For fractions worksheets on multiply fractions you can visit www.fractionsworksheets.ca or click in any link in this post to take you to the multiplying fractions page of the site.
Guru Angad Educational Team | http://fractions-worksheets.com/multiply-fractions/ |
4.34375 | The exact cause of a squint or strabismus is not fully understood. Six eye muscles controlling eye movement are attached to the outside of each eye. In each eye, two muscles move the eye right or left. The other four muscles move it up or down and at an angle. To line up and focus both eyes on a single target, all of the muscles in each eye must be balanced and working together. In order for the eyes to move together, the muscles in both eyes must be coordinated.
The brain controls the eye muscles. Strabismus is especially common among children with disorders that affect the brain, such as cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, hydrocephalus and brain tumours. Cataracts and other causes of poor vision can also cause strabismus. | http://www.health24.com/Medical/Eye/Squint/How-does-a-squint-arise-20120721 |