Artistic approaches to environmental education : developing eco-art education in elementary classrooms

This dissertation explores curriculum development in eco-art education, an integration of art education and environmental education, as a means of increasing awareness of and engagement with learning about the environment. The creation of eco-art curricula in school settings was investigated by tracking how elementary teachers' knowledge and understanding of eco-art education resulted in learning experiences for their students. Guided by the frameworks of collaborative action research and arts-informed research, a team of four elementary teachers and a university-based educator exchanged and generated practical and theoretical knowledge in order to plan, implement, observe and reflect on the development of eco-art curricula over the span of a school year. By drawing on the expertise and experience of the team members, the research aimed to acknowledge the central role teachers play in the design of innovative curricula and pedagogy and maximize the benefits inherent in school-university partnerships. Data was collected in four schools over the course of nine months, and analyzed, interpreted and shared through a combination of thematic analysis, concept-mapping and arts-informed research strategies. As the first dissertation to examine eco-art learning in a sustained way across multiple school sites, it offers evidence to demonstrate that eco-art curricula can take a multitude of forms and promote environmental learning in a variety of ways. The extensive database of elementary eco-art lessons created as part of the study highlights the roles of collaboration, place-based learning, systems-thinking and stewardship in eco-art learning, as well as the importance of using biodegradable materials and natural processes in making eco-art with children. Presented as a combination of text and imagery, this dissertation also makes connections between the study and the author's ongoing work in community arts and guerilla art gardening as a means to elucidate the praxis of eco-art education. In this, eco-art education is shown to offer an innovative means for teachers to weave together learning about art and the environment in school-based settings

Pandemic Paradox: Early Life H2N2 Pandemic Influenza Infection Enhanced Susceptibility to Death during the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic.

Recent outbreaks of H5, H7, and H9 influenza A viruses in humans have served as a vivid reminder of the potentially devastating effects that a novel pandemic could exert on the modern world. Those who have survived infections with influenza viruses in the past have been protected from subsequent antigenically similar pandemics through adaptive immunity. For example, during the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic, those exposed to H1N1 viruses that circulated between 1918 and the 1940s were at a decreased risk for mortality as a result of their previous immunity. It is also generally thought that past exposures to antigenically dissimilar strains of influenza virus may also be beneficial due to cross-reactive cellular immunity. However, cohorts born during prior heterosubtypic pandemics have previously experienced elevated risk of death relative to surrounding cohorts of the same population. Indeed, individuals born during the 1890 H3Nx pandemic experienced the highest levels of excess mortality during the 1918 "Spanish flu." Applying Serfling models to monthly mortality and influenza circulation data between October 1997 and July 2014 in the United States and Mexico, we show corresponding peaks in excess mortality during the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic and during the resurgent 2013-2014 H1N1 outbreak for those born at the time of the 1957 H2N2 "Asian flu" pandemic. We suggest that the phenomenon observed in 1918 is not unique and points to exposure to pandemic influenza early in life as a risk factor for mortality during subsequent heterosubtypic pandemics.IMPORTANCE The relatively low mortality experienced by older individuals during the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus pandemic has been well documented. However, reported situations in which previous influenza virus exposures have enhanced susceptibility are rare and poorly understood. One such instance occurred in 1918-when those born during the heterosubtypic 1890 H3Nx influenza virus pandemic experienced the highest levels of excess mortality. Here, we demonstrate that this phenomenon was not unique to the 1918 H1N1 pandemic but that it also occurred during the contemporary 2009 H1N1 pandemic and 2013-2014 H1N1-dominated season for those born during the heterosubtypic 1957 H2N2 "Asian flu" pandemic. These data highlight the heretofore underappreciated phenomenon that, in certain instances, prior exposure to pandemic influenza virus strains can enhance susceptibility during subsequent pandemics. These results have important implications for pandemic risk assessment and should inform laboratory studies aimed at uncovering the mechanism responsible for this effect

Synthesis and butyllithium-induced cyclisation of 2-benzyloxyphenylphosphonamidates giving 2,3-dihydrobenzo[d][1,3]oxaphospholes

Authors thank EPSRC (UK) and CRITICAT Centre for Doctoral Training for a studentship to R.A.I. (Grant EP/L016419/1).A series of fourteen O-ethyl-N-butylphenylphosphonamidates with benzyl ether substituents at the ortho position have been prepared and fully characterised. Upon treatment with n-butyllithium in THF at RT, these undergo cyclisation in eight cases to give the novel 2,3-dihydrobenzo[d][1,3]oxaphospholes in moderate to low yield as a single diastereomer for which the relative configuration has been determined by X-ray diffraction in one case.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

ARTIST???S CREATIVE CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

While expectations regarding art???s potential contributions to the interdisciplinary research context continue to grow, the creative endeavors of individual artists remain under-examined, perhaps because of the inter-relational nature of joint research settings. To explore, how artists navigate their contribution to a given research community, this study reviews the art practice of Seung-Hyun Ko, who participated in Science Walden, a Convergent Research Center carrying out an interdis-ciplinary research project that aimed to build an ecologically sustainable community. Drawing on comprehensive views of creativity that emphasize the importance of the social context in which the efforts of individuals emerge and are assessed, the study examines Ko???s recent collaborative practice in Science Walden within the larger context of his long-term practice as a leading artist of Yatoo, a bioregionally conscious artist community. Ko???s responses to the opportunities and challenges of his involvement in these two interrelated contexts disclose the value of the creative dynamics of interdisciplinary research, with implications for the increasingly diverse interdisciplinary research practices emerging within science and technology

Atmospheric Pollution, Health and Height in Late Nineteenth Century Britain

Atmospheric pollution was an important side effect of coal-fired industrialisation in the nineteenth century. In Britain emissions of black smoke were on the order of fifty times as high as they were a century later. In this paper we examine the effects of these emissions on child development by analysing the heights on enlistment during the First World War of men born in England and Wales in the 1890s. We use the occupational structure to measure the coal intensity of the districts in which these men were observed as children in the 1901 census. We find strong negative effects of coal intensity on height, which amounts to difference of almost an inch between the most and least polluted localities. These results are robust to a variety of specification tests and they are consistent with the notion that the key channel of influence on height was via respiratory infection. The subsequent reduction of emissions from coal combustion is one factor contributing to the improvement in health (and the increase in height) during the twentieth century

Using Genomic Sequencing for Classical Genetics in E. coli K12

We here develop computational methods to facilitate use of 454 whole genome shotgun sequencing to identify mutations in Escherichia coli K12. We had Roche sequence eight related strains derived as spontaneous mutants in a background without a whole genome sequence. They provided difference tables based on assembling each genome to reference strain E. coli MG1655 (NC_000913). Due to the evolutionary distance to MG1655, these contained a large number of both false negatives and positives. By manual analysis of the dataset, we detected all the known mutations (24 at nine locations) and identified and genetically confirmed new mutations necessary and sufficient for the phenotypes we had selected in four strains. We then had Roche assemble contigs de novo, which we further assembled to full-length pseudomolecules based on synteny with MG1655. This hybrid method facilitated detection of insertion mutations and allowed annotation from MG1655. After removing one genome with less than the optimal 20- to 30-fold sequence coverage, we identified 544 putative polymorphisms that included all of the known and selected mutations apart from insertions. Finally, we detected seven new mutations in a total of only 41 candidates by comparing single genomes to composite data for the remaining six and using a ranking system to penalize homopolymer sequencing and misassembly errors. An additional benefit of the analysis is a table of differences between MG1655 and a physiologically robust E. coli wild-type strain NCM3722. Both projects were greatly facilitated by use of comparative genomics tools in the CoGe software package (http://genomevolution.org/)

From Top to Bottom - the Multiwavelength Campaign of V824 Ara (HD 155555)

A great deal of progress has been made in recent years in decomposing the 2-D structure in the atmospheres of late-type stars. Doppler images of many photospheres single stars, T Tauri stars, Algols, RS CV(sub n) binaries to name a few - are regularly published (Strassmeier 1996; Richards and Albright 1996; Rice and Strassmeier 1996; Kuerster et al. 1994). Ultraviolet spectral images of chromospheres appear in the literature (e.g., Walter et al. 1987; Neff et al. 1989) but are less common owing to the difficult nature of obtaining complete phase coverage. Zeeman doppler images of magnetic fields are now feasible (e.g., Donati et al. 1992). Performing Doppler imaging of the same targets over many seasons has also been accomplished (e.g, Vogt et al. 1997). Even when a true image reconstruction is not possible due to poor spectral resolution, we can still infer a great deal about spatial structure if enough phases are observed. However, it is increasingly apparent that to make sense of recent results, many different spectral features spanning a range of formation temperature and density must be observed simultaneously for a coherent picture to emerge. Here we report on one such campaign. In 1996, we observed the southern hemisphere RS CV(sub n) binary V824 Ara (P=1(sup d).68, G5IV+K0V-IV-IV) over one complete stellar rotation with the Hubble Space Telescope and EUVE. In conjunction, radio and optical photometry and spectroscopy were obtained from the ground. Unique to this campaign is the complete phase coverage of a number of activity proxy indicators that cover source temperatures ranging from the photosphere to the corona

The \u3cem\u3eChlamydomonas\u3c/em\u3e Genome Reveals the Evolution of Key Animal and Plant Functions

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a unicellular green alga whose lineage diverged from land plants over 1 billion years ago. It is a model system for studying chloroplast-based photosynthesis, as well as the structure, assembly, and function of eukaryotic flagella (cilia), which were inherited from the common ancestor of plants and animals, but lost in land plants. We sequenced the ∼120-megabase nuclear genome of Chlamydomonas and performed comparative phylogenomic analyses, identifying genes encoding uncharacterized proteins that are likely associated with the function and biogenesis of chloroplasts or eukaryotic flagella. Analyses of the Chlamydomonas genome advance our understanding of the ancestral eukaryotic cell, reveal previously unknown genes associated with photosynthetic and flagellar functions, and establish links between ciliopathy and the composition and function of flagella