Search for Mars lander/rover/sample-return sites: A status review

Ten Mars sites were studied in the USA for four years. The sites are the Chasma Boreale (North Pole), Planum Australe (South Pole), Olympus Rupes, Mangala Valles, Memnonia Sulci, Candor Chasma, Kasel Valles, Nilosyrtis Mensae, Elysium Montes, and Apollinaris Patera. Seven sites are being studied by the USSR; their prime sites are located at the east mouth of Kasel Valles and near Uranius Patera. Thirteen geological maps of the first six USA sites are compiled and in review. Maps of the Mangala East and West sites at 1:1/2 million scale and a 1:2 million scale map show evidence of three episodes of small-channel formation interspersed with episodes of volcanism and tectonism that span the period from 3.5 to 0.6 b.y. ago. The tectonic and geological history of Mars, both ancient and modern, can be elucidated by sampling volcanic and fluvial geologic units at equatorial sites and layered deposits at polar sites. The evidence appears clear for multiple episodes of fluvial channeling, including some that are quite recent; this evidence contrasts with the theses of Baker and Partridge (1986) and many others that all channels are ancient. Verification of this hypothesis by Mars Observer will be an important step forward in the perception of the history of Mars

Employing culturally responsive pedagogy to foster literacy learning in schools

 In recent years it has become increasingly obvious that, to enable students in schools from an increasingly diverse range of cultural backgrounds to acquire literacy to a standard that will support them to achieve academically, it is important to adopt pedagogy that is responsive to, and respectful of, them as culturally situated. What largely has been omitted from the literature, however, is discussion of a relevant model of learning to underpin this approach. For this reason this paper adopts a socio-cultural lens (Vygotsky, 1978) through which to view such pedagogy and refers to a number of seminal texts to justify of its relevance. Use of this lens is seen as having a particular rationale. It forces a focus on the agency of the teacher as a mediator of learning who needs to acknowledge the learner’s cultural situatedness (Kozulin, 2003) if school literacy learning for all students is to be as successful as it might be. It also focuses attention on the predominant value systems and social practices that characterize the school settings in which students’ literacy learning is acquired. The paper discusses implications for policy and practice at whole-school, classroom and individual student levels of culturally-responsive pedagogy that is based on a socio-cultural model of learning. In doing so it draws on illustrations from the work of a number of researchers, including that of the author

Developing reading-writing connections; the impact of explicit instruction of literary devices on the quality of children's narrative writing

The purpose of this collaborative schools-university study was to investigate how the explicit instruction of literary devices during designated literacy sessions could improve the quality of children's narrative writing. A guiding question for the study was: Can children's writing can be enhanced by teachers drawing attention to the literary devices used by professional writers or “mentor authors”? The study was conducted with 18 teachers, working as research partners in nine elementary schools over one school year. The research group explored ways of developing children as reflective authors, able to draft and redraft writing in response to peer and teacher feedback. Daily literacy sessions were complemented by weekly writing workshops where students engaged in authorial activity and experienced writers' perspectives and readers' demands (Harwayne, 1992; May, 2004). Methods for data collection included video recording of peer-peer and teacher-led group discussions and audio recording of teacher-child conferences. Samples of children's narrative writing were collected and a comparison was made between the quality of their independent writing at the beginning and end of the research period. The research group documented the importance of peer-peer and teacher-student discourse in the development of children's metalanguage and awareness of audience. The study suggests that reading, discussing, and evaluating mentor texts can have a positive impact on the quality of children's independent writing

The Reader, the text, the Context: An Exploration of a Choreographed Response to Literature

Much current theory about response to literature stresses the reader's active role in constructing meaning, with reader, text, and context affecting the responses of individual readers (Beach, 1993). Response to literature, like most classroom interaction, tends to take a linguistic form. In a supportive classroom environment, however, a range of response media can potentially mediate students' transactions with literature. The present exploratory study used stimulated recall to elicit a retrospective account from two alternative school students who choreographed a dance to depict their understanding of the relationship between the two central characters in a short story. In their account they indicate that in composing their text they (a) initiated their interpretation by empathizing with the characters, (b) represented the characters' relationship through spatial images and configurations, and (c) used the psychological tool of dance to both represent and develop their thinking about the story. Their thought and activity were further mediated by the social context of learning, including the communication genres of the classroom, their own interaction, their teacher's intervention, and the stimulated recall interview itself. Their account illustrates the way in which reader, text, and context participate in a complex transaction when readers construct meaning for literature. Their experience also illustrates the ways in which the values of an instructional setting influence the extent to which learners may take advantage of the psychological tools available to them for growth.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

The Depth and Dynamics of Context: Tracing the Sources and Channels of Engagement and Disengagement in Students' Response to Literature

In this article, we analyze one coauthor's 12th-grade English class, focusing on a small group of students who interpreted the character of Gertrude in Hamlet through a body biography, a life-sized human outline that students filled with words and images that represented their understanding of the character. We analyze the body biography production as a function of the social context of activity and then analyze the processes of composition involved in their production. Analysis of the data reveals that (a) the students exhibited different degrees of commitment to and involvement in the group task, (b) the degree of equity in productivity and social relations varied within the group in accordance with these different degrees of engagement, and (c) the inequity in social relations and contributions to the group product belied the degree to which the final interpretive product met the teacher's assessment criteria. We conclude with a reconsideration of the notion of engagement that includes attention to both the immediate social relations within the classroom and the histories of engagement that students bring to class.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Developing a collaborative agenda for humanities and social scientific research on laboratory animal science and welfare.

Improving laboratory animal science and welfare requires both new scientific research and insights from enquiry in the humanities and social sciences. Whilst scientific research provides evidence to replace, reduce and refine procedures involving laboratory animals (the ‘3Rs’), work in the humanities and social sciences can help understand the social, economic and cultural processes that enhance or impede humane ways of knowing and working with laboratory animals. However, communication across these disciplinary perspectives is currently limited, and they frame questions, generate results, engage users, and seek to influence policy in different ways. To facilitate dialogue and future research at this interface, we convened an interdisciplinary group of 45 life scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars, non-governmental organisations and policy-makers to generate a collaborative research agenda. This drew on other agenda-setting exercises in science policy, using a collaborative and deliberative approach for the identification of research priorities. Participants were recruited from across the community, invited to submit research questions and vote on their priorities. They then met at an interactive workshop in the UK, discussed all 136 questions submitted, and collectively defined the 30 most important issues for the group. The output is a collaborative future agenda for research in the humanities and social sciences on laboratory animal science and welfare. The questions indicate a demand for new research in the humanities and social sciences to inform emerging discussions and priorities on the governance and practice of laboratory animal research, including around: international harmonisation, openness and public engagement, ‘cultures of care’, harm-benefit analysis and the future of the 3Rs. The process underlines the value of interdisciplinary exchange for improving mutual understanding of different research cultures and identifies ways of enhancing the effectiveness of future research at the interface between the humanities, social sciences, science and science policy

Fast Growth Increases the Selective Advantage of a Mutation Arising Recurrently during Evolution under Metal Limitation

Understanding the evolution of biological systems requires untangling the molecular mechanisms that connect genetic and environmental variations to their physiological consequences. Metal limitation across many environments, ranging from pathogens in the human body to phytoplankton in the oceans, imposes strong selection for improved metal acquisition systems. In this study, we uncovered the genetic and physiological basis of adaptation to metal limitation using experimental populations of Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 evolved in metal-deficient growth media. We identified a transposition mutation arising recurrently in 30 of 32 independent populations that utilized methanol as a carbon source, but not in any of the 8 that utilized only succinate. These parallel insertion events increased expression of a novel transporter system that enhanced cobalt uptake. Such ability ensured the production of vitamin B12, a cobalt-containing cofactor, to sustain two vitamin B12–dependent enzymatic reactions essential to methanol, but not succinate, metabolism. Interestingly, this mutation provided higher selective advantages under genetic backgrounds or incubation temperatures that permit faster growth, indicating growth-rate–dependent epistatic and genotype-by-environment interactions. Our results link beneficial mutations emerging in a metal-limiting environment to their physiological basis in carbon metabolism, suggest that certain molecular features may promote the emergence of parallel mutations, and indicate that the selective advantages of some mutations depend generically upon changes in growth rate that can stem from either genetic or environmental influences

The Nature of Knowledge in Composition and Literary Understanding: The Question of Specificity

↵PETER SMAGORINSKY is Assistant Professor, College of Education, University of Oklahoma, 820 Van Vleet Oval, Norman, OK 73019-0. He specializes in classroom literacy.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline