108 research outputs found
Junior secondary students\u27 perceptions of influences on their engagement with schooling
Various explanations and solutions have been proposed over the last decade in relation to the implications of studentsā apparent lack of engagement with middle years schooling in Australia. In this article we report on responses to a questionnaire by 333 Year 8 students (aged about 13, the second year of high school) on perceptions of factors relating to their engagement with the academic curriculum. We found that while the majority of students reported a strong sense of the importance of, and opportunities in, schooling, and saw English, mathematics and science connected to those opportunities, this orientation was not matched by corresponding positive engagement with these same subjects. We also found that there was diversity in the responses of students, and recommend that schools take steps to identify individual studentsā perceptions of factors influencing their engagement, and where appropriate, address those perceptions
Grassroots Leadership Development
Over a four-year period, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation invested more than $20 million in grants to 23 local, regional, and national organizations involved in grassroots leadership development. Dr. Jeanne Campbell, a Minnesota-based research consultant, was retained to lead the research on this project. Her charge was to visit these 23 organizations and capture what they had learned about grassroots leadership. Largely based on the Campbell Report, this workbook provides new insights for aspiring or current grassroots leaders to sharpen and clarify assumptions about grassroots leadership and its power.Healthy communities need involved citizens. A civil society depends on citizen concern and citizen action as its lifeblood. How we sustain and strengthen communities is an enduring question. The examples in this workbook offer practical, proven suggestions on how to strengthen and build healthy communities.Whether you are interested in solving a problem in your community or involving more of your neighbors in your cause, you'll find something of value to your work in these findings. Some of the findings give weight and credibility to the obvious or assumed. Others break new ground and point to approaches that can help all of us get more results from grassroots leadership efforts.What follows are the five main findings from this research and related work by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Leveraging Online Learning to Promote Systems Thinking for Sustainable Food Systems Training in Dietetics Education
Educating and training a multisectoral food systems workforce is a critical part of developing sustainable, resilient, and healthy food and water systems. This paper shares perspectives from a working group of educators, learners, and food systems subject matter experts that collaborated over the course of a year to develop, pilot test, and evaluate two interactive webinar series with a multi-site cohort of dietetics interns and graduate students. The three-part webinar series format included a training webinar, a practice activity, and a synthesis webinar. In reflecting on the effectiveness of this format, we provide direct assessments of student learning from subject matter experts alongside indirect assessments from pre- and post-surveys fielded with learners. Learners who participated in an interactive webinar series demonstrated skills in several dimensions of systems thinking and gained confidence in food systems learning outcomes. Learners also shared valuable feedback on the opportunities and challenges of using online platforms for this experience. As online learning opportunities become more common, it will become increasingly important for educators to prioritize strategies that effectively equip students with the higher-order thinking skills, such as systems thinking, needed to address the complexities of sustainable food systems. The interactive webinar series format described here provides an opportunity to leverage didactic webinars in combination with interactive experiences that enable learners to deepen their knowledge through practice with peers and subject matter experts. Though this format was piloted within dietetics education programs, many of the lessons learned are transferable to other food systems educational contexts
Discovery and Validation of Kepler-452b: A 1.6-Re Super Earth Exoplanet in the Habitable Zone of a G2 Star
We report on the discovery and validation of Kepler-452b, a transiting planet
identified by a search through the 4 years of data collected by NASA's Kepler
Mission. This possibly rocky 1.63 R planet orbits
its G2 host star every 384.843 days, the longest orbital
period for a small (R < 2 R) transiting exoplanet to date. The
likelihood that this planet has a rocky composition lies between 49% and 62%.
The star has an effective temperature of 575785 K and a log g of
4.320.09. At a mean orbital separation of 1.046 AU,
this small planet is well within the optimistic habitable zone of its star
(recent Venus/early Mars), experiencing only 10% more flux than Earth receives
from the Sun today, and slightly outside the conservative habitable zone
(runaway greenhouse/maximum greenhouse). The star is slightly larger and older
than the Sun, with a present radius of 1.11 R and an
estimated age of 6 Gyr. Thus, Kepler-452b has likely always been in the
habitable zone and should remain there for another 3 Gyr.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figure
The Grizzly, February 24, 1997
Dr. Gaede Receives $28,500 Grant ā¢ Organist and Dancer to Perform at Ursinus ā¢ Dr. Goetz to Lecture ā¢ Greek Life Discussion at Common Hour ā¢ Opinion: Things That Make Me Go Hmmm; Letters from Great Britain; A Non-Greek Speaks Back; Go Out and Do Something; Student Ponders Greek Life; Politicians\u27 Greed Outweighs Desires of Constituents ā¢ Daniel Pipes to Lecture on the Middle East ā¢ Torsone Wins 118-Pound Regional Title ā¢ Women\u27s Basketball Drops Two in a Row ā¢ Larkin Honored Twice ā¢ Gymnastics Place Third at Ithaca Invitational ā¢ Buyse Scores 1,000th Pointhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1398/thumbnail.jp
Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. VII. The First Fully Uniform Catalog Based on The Entire 48 Month Dataset (Q1-Q17 DR24)
We present the seventh Kepler planet candidate catalog, which is the first to
be based on the entire, uniformly processed, 48 month Kepler dataset. This is
the first fully automated catalog, employing robotic vetting procedures to
uniformly evaluate every periodic signal detected by the Q1-Q17 Data Release 24
(DR24) Kepler pipeline. While we prioritize uniform vetting over the absolute
correctness of individual objects, we find that our robotic vetting is overall
comparable to, and in most cases is superior to, the human vetting procedures
employed by past catalogs. This catalog is the first to utilize artificial
transit injection to evaluate the performance of our vetting procedures and
quantify potential biases, which are essential for accurate computation of
planetary occurrence rates. With respect to the cumulative Kepler Object of
Interest (KOI) catalog, we designate 1,478 new KOIs, of which 402 are
dispositioned as planet candidates (PCs). Also, 237 KOIs dispositioned as false
positives (FPs) in previous Kepler catalogs have their disposition changed to
PC and 118 PCs have their disposition changed to FP. This brings the total
number of known KOIs to 8,826 and PCs to 4,696. We compare the Q1-Q17 DR24 KOI
catalog to previous KOI catalogs, as well as ancillary Kepler catalogs, finding
good agreement between them. We highlight new PCs that are both potentially
rocky and potentially in the habitable zone of their host stars, many of which
orbit solar-type stars. This work represents significant progress in accurately
determining the fraction of Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of
Sun-like stars. The full catalog is publicly available at the NASA Exoplanet
Archive.Comment: Accepted to the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. 30 pages, 9
figures, 7 tables. We make the DR24 robovetter decision code publicly
available at http://github.com/JeffLCoughlin/robovetter, with input and
output examples provided using the same data as contained in the full paper's
table
Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler V: Planet Sample from Q1-Q12 (36 Months)
The Kepler mission discovered 2842 exoplanet candidates with 2 years of data.
We provide updates to the Kepler planet candidate sample based upon 3 years
(Q1-Q12) of data. Through a series of tests to exclude false-positives,
primarily caused by eclipsing binary stars and instrumental systematics, 855
additional planetary candidates have been discovered, bringing the total number
known to 3697. We provide revised transit parameters and accompanying posterior
distributions based on a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm for the cumulative
catalogue of Kepler Objects of Interest. There are now 130 candidates in the
cumulative catalogue that receive less than twice the flux the Earth receives
and more than 1100 have a radius less than 1.5 Rearth. There are now a dozen
candidates meeting both criteria, roughly doubling the number of candidate
Earth analogs. A majority of planetary candidates have a high probability of
being bonafide planets, however, there are populations of likely
false-positives. We discuss and suggest additional cuts that can be easily
applied to the catalogue to produce a set of planetary candidates with good
fidelity. The full catalogue is publicly available at the NASA Exoplanet
Archive.Comment: Accepted for publication, ApJ
Licence to be active: parental concerns and 10ā11-year-old children's ability to be independently physically active
Background Physical activity independent of adult supervision is an important component of youth physical activity. This study examined parental attitudes to independent activity, factors that limit licence to be independently active and parental strategies to facilitate independent activity. Methods In-depth phone interviews were conducted with 24 parents (4 males) of 10ā11-year-old children recruited from six primary schools in Bristol. Results Parents perceived that a lack of appropriate spaces in which to be active, safety, traffic, the proximity of friends and older children affected childrenās ability to be independently physically active. The final year of primary school was perceived as a period when children should be afforded increased licence. Parents managed physical activity licence by placing time limits on activity, restricting activity to close to home, only allowing activity in groups or under adult supervision. Conclusions Strategies are needed to build childrenās licence to be independently active; this could be achieved by developing parental self-efficacy to allow children to be active and developing structures such as safe routes to parks and safer play areas. Future programmes could make use of traffic-calming programmes as catalysts for safe independent physical activity
Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. VIII. A Fully Automated Catalog With Measured Completeness and Reliability Based on Data Release 25
We present the Kepler Object of Interest (KOI) catalog of transiting
exoplanets based on searching four years of Kepler time series photometry (Data
Release 25, Q1-Q17). The catalog contains 8054 KOIs of which 4034 are planet
candidates with periods between 0.25 and 632 days. Of these candidates, 219 are
new and include two in multi-planet systems (KOI-82.06 and KOI-2926.05), and
ten high-reliability, terrestrial-size, habitable zone candidates. This catalog
was created using a tool called the Robovetter which automatically vets the
DR25 Threshold Crossing Events (TCEs, Twicken et al. 2016). The Robovetter also
vetted simulated data sets and measured how well it was able to separate TCEs
caused by noise from those caused by low signal-to-noise transits. We discusses
the Robovetter and the metrics it uses to sort TCEs. For orbital periods less
than 100 days the Robovetter completeness (the fraction of simulated transits
that are determined to be planet candidates) across all observed stars is
greater than 85%. For the same period range, the catalog reliability (the
fraction of candidates that are not due to instrumental or stellar noise) is
greater than 98%. However, for low signal-to-noise candidates between 200 and
500 days around FGK dwarf stars, the Robovetter is 76.7% complete and the
catalog is 50.5% reliable. The KOI catalog, the transit fits and all of the
simulated data used to characterize this catalog are available at the NASA
Exoplanet Archive.Comment: 61 pages, 23 Figures, 9 Tables, Accepted to The Astrophysical Journal
Supplement Serie
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