Object Lesson: Open House.

On the snowy afternoon when we first knocked on Pang Toua Yang's door, he thought he had won something. Actually, we were there to tell him that his house is going to be the subject of a new Minnesota Historical Society exhibit: Open House will tell the story of a single, existing house—Pang Toua's house on St. Paul's East Side—and the people who lived within its walls, from the German immigrants who built it in 1888 to the Italians, African Americans, and now Hmong who have followed. The exhibit will be at the Minnesota History Center—Pang Toua's house will be untouched—but we wanted his support and feared he would tell us, translator Foung Heu and myself, the Hmong equivalent of "hit the road.

Human Propulsion

This lesson points out that the motion of objects (velocity or acceleration) is almost never constant, and applies this idea to the motion of a person walking. The discussion covers the energy transfers involved in walking and in some other forms of human-powered transportation (crutches, bicycle, wheelchair), and the velocity and acceleration of an object that is moving in one dimension. The lesson includes an activity in which students use an accelerometer attached to a student volunteer to measure instantaneous acceleration in three dimensions, and calculate the total work which is done. Educational levels: Undergraduate lower division, High school

California Climate Law---Model or Object Lesson?

In the invitation to this Symposium on Reconceptualizing the Future of Environmental Law, the organizers explained that the Symposium “focuses on the continued expansion of environmental law into distinct areas of the law, requiring an increasingly multidisciplinary approach beyond that of traditional federal regulation.” In short, the question posed is about the future proliferation of environmental measures outside the previous domains of federal environmental statutes. At the risk of being guilty of local parochialism, I would like to discuss how the future described by the organizers has already arrived in California--both in the sense that a great deal is happening outside the purview of “federal statutes,” and that much of it involves “distinct areas of law” other than traditional environmental regulation. My focus will be on the issue of climate change, where California has been particularly active. Not all of California\u27s efforts have been met with approval, even from observers who are highly sympathetic to the goals. Some influential environmental scholars have debated whether California might have done better to simply set a price on carbon and avoid further regulatory apparatus, either by traditional regulators or elsewhere. I will use this debate to discuss some of the costs and benefits of mainstreaming environmental law into areas outside of the traditional environmental statutes. Part I will address California\u27s broad portfolio of climate measures. These measures certainly fit the organizer\u27s description: none of them are federal, but many are implemented by parts of the state government other than environmental agencies, and some reach forms of conduct well outside traditional environmental regulation. Part II will ask whether the breadth of this regulatory portfolio is really desirable: would we be better off to stick to a simple direct attack on carbon emissions? Using so many different tools may simply be an unnecessary complication, if not counterproductive. But a broad portfolio might also be more effective in some ways

The Effects of Using Living Sea Animals on the Student’s Emotional States

Using living animals in school lessons makes it possible for students to have an emotionally charged learning experience. With the example of Thornback rays (Raja clavata), the emotional affects of sea animals on students are investigated. Theoretical aspects can be found in the explanation of activity-oriented teaching, which is organised holistically and student-active. The preparation for and confrontation with the thornback ray was successfully adjusted to the individual needs of the students. The students collectively worked on research issues and the ray was presented as a research object. Besides the emotional adventures of touching a living ray, the students took notes of the most important growth characteristics of the ray. Hence the students encounter the ray as a living animal on different levels. To check the hypotheses of how a living animal influences the students’ emotional state, the PANAS questionnaire is applied. PANAS serves as a snap-shot of the students’ emotional state. Whilst there are no differences found concerning the negative affects, the positive affects show a significant difference between a lesson with and a lesson without a real object. If the lesson comprises a real object, the item attentive is chosen significantly more often than in a lesson without real objects. Additionally, the data was analysed with a t-test, whereat the students in the framework of an activity-oriented lesson show significantly more positive affects compared to a lesson without real objects. The study gives a comprehensive insight into the different emotions of students when confronting them with a real object

“Effectiveness of using Pictures in Teaching and Learning English Vocabulary to the 4th grade students of SDN I AMPEL BOYOLALI”

This report is written based on the job training done by the writer as an English teacher in SDN 1 Ampel Boyolali. There are two objectives stated in this final object report. They are: (1) to describe the process of teaching English Vocabulary using pictures, (2) to explain the effectiveness of using pictures in teaching English vocabularies. This final project report is divided into four chapters. They are; chapter I: Introduction, chapter II: Literature Review, chapter III: Discussion, chapter IV: Conclusion and suggestion. The data of this report is obtained from the writers’ observation and experience when he taught English lesson. During conducting the job training, the writer used some steps to make the English teaching and learning process run smoothly. The steps covered greeting, motivation strategies, presentation strategies, skill practice, assessment and ending the lesson. The result shows that there are some effectiveness of using picture such as the explaining material during the teaching and learning process of English vocabularies can run better

Exploring Animal-like Images in NASA Photos of Mars Using de Bono’s CoRT Thinking Skills: Alternatives, Possibilities, and Choices, Compare, and Decisions

The use of de Bono’s CoRT Thinking Skills of “Alternatives, Possibilities, and Choices,” “Compare,” and “Decisions” create opportunities for students to critically think about ideas using a new lens of thinking. The lesson was designed to accommodate twice-exceptional students, gifted students with the disabilities of dyslexia and/or dyscalculia, through three of the de Bono’s strategies integrated with activities. Gifted graduate students in this lesson were presented with an opportunity to explore and analyze the animal-like images from Mars using the three CoRT thinking skills. The photographs used in this lesson were provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). They compared the Martian object resembling a groundhog and a crablike object with animals from Earth, while generating creative ideas regarding what these images might represent. Additionally, students participated in an arts-integrated crayon-rubbing activity. This component of the lesson provided an opportunity to practice the Compare thinking skill while identifying similarities and differences between the artwork and the photograph of the Martian crablike object and to gather ideas to support a decision. After analyzing the artwork and the photograph of the object, students used Edward de Bono’s Decisions thinking skill to decide which image was more realistic, the student-created art image or the photo. The results of this lesson support the premise that the three de Bono CoRT Thinking Skills called “Alternatives, Possibilities, and Choices,” “Compare”, and “Decisions” help meet the needs of twice exceptional students and promote development of critical thinking skills