The Social Justice Role Of School Librarians

This study builds on Rioux’s 2010 social justice metatheory in the library sciences as it looks at the practices of school librarians in the areas of collection development, policies, and instructional practices. The mixed methods study demonstrates that school librarians act as agents of social justice in the collection of materials based on diversity, inclusion, vantage points, and international viewpoints. The policies of unrestricted access to library materials, access to digital and print formats, critical reflection, school library as a safe haven, advocating for the freedom to read, and facilitating students to read a variety of materials were also examined. Additionally, the instructional practices of teaching all students, valuing democracy, challenging social inequities, and exploring global problems were surveyed. Seventy-three public school librarians in a Midwestern U.S. city answered survey questions pertaining to their social justice agencies. In comparing the social justice responses of secondary and elementary librarians, the survey found secondary librarians had an overall higher social justice mean score than elementary librarians. Both secondary and elementary librarians ranked having the library as a safe haven for students as an area of strong agreement. Access to a materials in all formats, diversity, and variety of materials were also in the top five for both instructional levels. Exploring global problems and international viewpoints were in the bottom four agreement categories for both educational levels. This study affirms Rioux’s assumption that providing information services is an inherently powerful activity. As the role of school librarians continues to shift due to educational advances and informational realities, a social justice framework is of value both in theory and practice. Social justice is the past, present, and future of school libraries

Status report for our living camps : an interactive environmental content management and mapping tool designed to enhance student learning and participation

Project Leaders: Peter Motavalli, John Gardner, Chris Barnett, Steve Burdic, Keith W. Goyne, Charles Nilon, and Peter AshbrookStatus report for the 2010/2011 IIF project, "Our Living Campus." From the original description: "The purpose of this project was to develop an interactive web-based environmental content management and mapping tool for the University of Missouri campus. The web-based system is designed to enhance student learning and awareness of environmental issues. It will also facilitate the development and coordination of campus-based environmental projects and course assignments. The tool will provide ways for students to enter geographically-referenced environmental information, such as through Google Maps. The tool has the potential to become a highly visible focal point for student environmental education by increasing participation in active learning activities and by providing relevant “living” examples that illustrate environmental issues."MU Interdisciplinary Innovations Fun

Sustain reboot : final report

Project Leaders: Peter Meng, Steve BurdicFinal report for the 2011/2012 project, "Sustain Reboot." From project overview: "During the Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 semesters, a cross dis c i plinary effort was developed and executed to release a groundbreaking new platform for educating the Mizzou/Columbia community about sustainability . REBOOT was a ten week long game - based even t that began on February 12 t h and ended on April 22 n d (Earth Day Weekend). REBOOT was well received by participants as well as media due to its i nnovative development and use of a platform technology to engage community members and students in challenges that were fun as well as educational . Over 7 different departments on Mizzou�s campus were involved in making the project come to life. The found ation of the project was built on 3 critical components that were ultimately tied together and leveraged through the use of Internet and mobile technology[.]"MU Interdisciplinary Innovations Fun

Propagation and Culture of Western North American Carnivorous Plants

Volume: 17Start Page: 5End Page: 1

Do dolphins benefit from nonlinear mathematics when processing their sonar returns?

Dolphins have been observed to blow bubble nets when hunting prey. Such bubble nets would confound the best man-made sonar because the strong scattering by the bubbles generates ‘clutter’ in the sonar image, which cannot be distinguished from the true target. The engineering specification of dolphin sonar is not superior to the best man-made sonar. A logical deduction from this is that, in blowing bubble nets, either dolphins are ‘blinding’ their echolocation sense when hunting or they have a facility absent in man-made sonar. Here we use nonlinear mathematical functions to process the echoes of dolphin-like pulses from targets immersed in bubble clouds. Dolphins emit sequences of clicks, and, within such a sequence, the amplitude of the clicks varies. Here such variation in amplitude between clicks is exploited to enhance sonar performance. While standard sonar processing is not able to distinguish the targets from the bubble clutter, this nonlinear processing can. Although this does not conclusively prove that dolphins do use such nonlinear processing, it demonstrates that humans can detect and classify targets in bubbly water using dolphin-like sonar pulses, raising intriguing possibilities for dolphin sonar when they make bubble nets. <br/