Challenges encountered during acid resin transfer preparation of fossil fish from Monte Bolca, Italy

Copyright: Palaeontological Association May 2015. This is an open access article, available to all readers online, published under a creative commons licensing (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The file attached is the published version of the article

Cleaning Minerals: practical and ethical considerations

Mineral specimens have a dual nature, both as a scientific resource and an aesthetic pleasure. Combine this with a long history of sampling for study, and the developed nature of most specimens on the commercial market, and it is difficult to relate to the ethical principles of conservation when cleaning minerals.The attached document is the author’s final accepted/submitted version of the journal article. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it

Reconsidering Instructional Groupings

For over a half-century elementary school teachers have organized students for reading instruction into achievement groupings (sometimes mislabeled ability groups ). The traditional three group scheme-top, middle and bottom-was recommended shortly after the turn of the century as a better alternative to whole class instruction. The three group scheme has come under increasing scrutiny over the past few years as American society changed and our understanding of how children learn to read and write increased

“Hope” is the thing with feathers: how useful are cyclomethicones when cleaning taxidermy?

Silicone solvents have extreme hydrophobicity so they can be used as a temporary barrier to aqueous cleaning solutions. They are characterised as having low odour, moderately low toxicity, low polarity and surface tension. They are 100% volatile so will leave no trace behind. Silicone solvents could potentially be used to flood the skin of taxidermy specimens, to provide a barrier whilst fur or feathers are cleaned, and even permit the use of heat treatments without causing damage to the skin. They will not cause drying or swelling and will not dissolve or mobilise any skin components such as dyes or fats, which would normally be adversely affected by water or other solvents. They are also, in theory, safe to use on skin which has suffered so much deterioration that the shrinkage temperature is close to room temperature. Different classes of silicone solvents have different working times and this article explores 3 of these, and their practical applicability when cleaning taxidermy.NatSCA Notes & Comments is published by the Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA) and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Works can be shared and adapted for any purpose, including commercially. CC BY 4.0 allows maximum dissemination, which is integral to the aims of NatSCA. All authors retain the copyright in their work

Conservation of James Sowerby’s Fungi Models

NatSCA supports open access publication as part of its mission is to promote and support natural science collections. NatSCA uses the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ for all works we publish. Under CCAL authors retain ownership of the copyright for their article, but authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles in NatSCA publications, so long as the original authors and source are cited. The attached version is the published pdf

Snagged setae: evaluating alternatives to cotton wool bungs for liquid-stored specimens

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved. Article is available as open access. The attached file is the published pdf version

Remembering is Not Necessarily Understanding in Content Areas

Improving comprehension in middle-grade content areas would be an easier topic to address if we had available validated theoretical models, and hence an understanding, of 1) how one learns from text, and 2) how intellectual operations develop in adolescence. Our current state of ignorance in these areas has been aptly summarized by Miller (1976) and Neimark (1975) respectively. We are then, like everyone else who would discuss improving comprehension of text, reduced to drawing upon the available body of literature and from this attempting to produce a framework from which useful strategies can be developed

Conservation in a Barcode Age: A cross-discipline re-storage project for pyritic specimens

The dichotomy of conservation and access has long been recognised within the museum profession. The recent push for digitisation has added a new dimension to this argument: digital records can both increase potential access, due to increased awareness of the existence of objects, and decrease potential handling, since a more thorough awareness of an object creates a more informed decision regarding whether access is actually necessary. The use of barcodes and the creation of digital resources have therefore been incorporated into a re-storage project at the Natural History Museum, London to reduce duplication of work (and handling) by staff and to combat the reduction in access caused by the enclosure of objects within microenvironments, which in turn helps preserve specimens for future access. This project demonstrates how conservation and digitisation can successfully synthesise through the use of barcodes, when working with a cross-discipline team.This publication from ICOM-CC is "Open Access” and licensed by the respective authors. This license allows for unlimited distribution and reuse as long as appropriate credit is given to the original source

The Airless Project

A project to combat pyrite oxidation at the NHM (London, UK) is currently in its second year. The project aims to undertake conservation treatments and store highest risk specimens in low oxygen microenvironments. An emergent benefit of the conservation-driven project has been the digitisation of specimens on the collection management system KE Emu, through the use of barcodes and web-based applications.This is a poster presented at Evolving Ideas: Provocative new ways of working with collections (Natural Sciences Collections Association Conference). Cambridge, UK, 20‐21 April 2017. NatSCA supports open access publication as part of its mission is to promote and support natural science collections. NatSCA uses the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) for all works we publish. Under CCAL authors retain ownership of the copyright for their article, but authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles in NatSCA publications, so long as the original authors and source are cited

NEPC Review: Whole Language High Jinks: How to Tell When 'Scientifically-Based Reading Instruction' Isn't

In Whole Language High Jinks: How to Tell When 'Scientifically-Based Reading Instruction' Isn't, Louisa Moats contends that she provides "the necessary tools to distinguish those [programs] that truly are scientifically based... from those that merely pay lip service to science" (p. 10). This review finds that Moats exaggerates the findings of the National Reading Panel (NRP), especially the effects of systematic phonics on reading achievement. She also ignores research completed since the NRP report was issued seven years ago. Perhaps most disturbingly, she touts primarily commercial curriculum products distributed by her employer &ndash; products that have far fewer published studies of effectiveness than the products and methods she disparages. These flaws pervade the report's subsequent discussion of what "scientifically based reading instruction" should look like. In the end, the Fordham report works more effectively as promotional material for products and services offered by Moats's employer, SoprisWest, than as a reliable guide to effective reading instruction.</p