A Curriculum Project on the Utilization of the Rule of Four to Enable Students to Work in Their Zone of Proximal Development

Discussed, developed, and written over the course of roughly two-and-a-half-years, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) seek to prepare students to be college- and career-ready (K-12 Blueprint, 2014). Released for implementation in classrooms nation-wide in June 2010, the CCSS are claimed to be “a balance of concepts and skills, with content standards that require both conceptual understanding and procedural fluency” (K-12 Blueprint, 2014, p. 3), as well as address the issue of mathematical curricula being described as “a mile wide and an inch deep” (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2014). In order to abide by the newly adopted curricula, teachers must find ways to help students think more conceptually. This curriculum project on trigonometric functions at the Algebra II level attempts to do just that through the utilization of the Rule of Four in order to support students working within their zone of proximal development

Deploy diverse renewables to save tropical rivers.

A strategic mix of solar, wind and storage technologies around river basins would be safer and cheaper than building large dams, argue Rafael J. P. Schmitt, Noah Kittner and colleagues

The Flushing Flow Problem: Defining and Evaluating Objectives

Reservoir releases may be specified for the purpose of maintaining or improving the downstream channel and habitat. A wide variety of ecological or management objectives may be defined for such flushing flows (which may be broadly divided into sediment maintenance and channel maintenance flows). To specify a particular discharge and water volume for a flushing flow requires that the ecological or management objectives be translated into specific physical objectives for which flows can be specified. Flushing objectives that cannot be translated into definable flows are of little practical use, regardless of their intrinsic importance. Once defined, flushing flow objectives may be shown to conflict in some cases. For example, no flushing flow can satisfy the typical sediment maintenance objectives of maximizing sand removal and minimizing gravel loss. A discharge that mobilizes sediment throughout the channel cross section for channel maintenance purposes will often produce comparable transport rates of sand and gravel, thereby eliminating the selective transport of sand needed to reduce the sand content in the bed. Some nonflushing alternatives, such as artificial gravel replenishment and pool dredging, can be used to improve the performance of flushing flows. Selection among these alternatives and specification of a flushing flow discharge and volume depend directly on quantitative estimates of sand and gravel transport as a function of flow rate and volume

Sediment Starvation from Dams in the Lower Mekong River Basin: Magnitude of the Effect and Potential Mitigation Opportunities

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchive

Bridges over the Nile: Transportation corridors transformed into public spaces

Cairo is a congested city with high rate of urbanization and very limited public space. Cairo has one of the lowest rates of parkland per capita of any major city. Moreover, the banks of the Nile, formerly alive with activities such as washing, fishing, and felucca landings, were by the end of the twentieth century largely cutoff from free public access by a wall of busy roads, private clubs, luxury hotels, restaurants, nurseries, and police/military stations, roads. The need for open space for people from lower income who could not afford the expensive options along the Nile banks, has resulted in use of the sidewalks of the main bridges as public spaces. Families, couples, and friends tolerate the noise and fumes of traffic to enjoy the expansive views and breezes over the Nile. As a result of this extraordinary re-purposing of the bridges, new small businesses have formed to cater to the uses, and a new interaction with the river has emerged. We studied the patterns of use, characteristics of the user population, and stated preferences of users. We identify a set of characteristics contributing to the popularity of the bridges as public space, including affordability, accessibility, openness to the river and visual connection with the other bank. We propose that these characteristics be taken into account when developing future projects along the river water front to address the need for public space and access to the Nile

“Allá eras un chilenito y acá un cubanito, cachai?”. “Retorno” y desarraigo en la experiencia de la segunda generación del exilio chileno. Entrevista con Lumi

Life stories approached with the methodology of oral history allows the access to invisible or silenced memories and paths within the complex and multidimensional phenomenon of political exile, allowing the opening to topics and dimensions of personal and collective experiences. Adopting this perspective and with the aim of contributing to the line studies of the second generation of the exiles of the Southern Cone during the second half of the twentieth century, this article presents an interview with Lumi, a daughter of exiled Chilean activists of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, born in Cuba in 1975, whose family was reunited in Chile in 1991. The topics covered in it are: the effects of exile in children; the experiences in Cuba of the seventies and eighties under the Homes Project; installation difficulties in Chile by the end of the dictatorship and the complex processes of identification and adaptation or or the rejection of her family’s country of origin. Las historias de vida abordadas con la metodología de la historia oral permiten acceder a memorias y trayectorias silenciadas o invisibilizadas dentro del complejo y multidimensional fenómeno del exilio político, logrando abrir temas y dimensiones de las experiencias personales y colectivas. Adoptando esta perspectiva y con el objetivo de aportar a la línea de estudios sobre la segunda generación de los exilios del Cono Sur durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX, en este artículo se presenta una entrevista con Lumi, una hija de exiliados chilenos militantes del Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, nacida en Cuba en 1975, cuya familia se reunificó en Chile en 1991. Los temas que se tratan en ella son: los efectos del exilio en los hijos; las vivencias en la Cuba de las décadas del setenta y ochenta en el marco del Proyecto Hogares; la difícil instalación en Chile hacia finales de la dictadura y los complejos procesos de identificación y adaptación o rechazo del país de origen de su familia.

Hydrogeomorphology-Ecology Interactions in River Systems

The work included in this special issue was funded by the European Union's FP7 programme under grant agreement no. 282656 (REFORM