Navigating the Middle Grades and Preparing Students for High School Graduation

This brief presents preliminary findings from an exploratory study of New York City students' transitions into, through, and out of the middle grades. Our analysis reveals that students' attendance and achievement in their early schooling (fourth grade) predict whether students are likely to graduate from high school many years later. Further, we find that many students begin the middle grades on-track to graduate high school but fall off this trajectory before the end of eighth grade. These findings suggest that teachers and administrators should pay close attention to students whose attendance and math achievement fall during the middle grades, as these students are particularly at risk for not graduating from high school on time

Palaeoecological and possible evolutionary effects of early Namurian (Serpukhovian, Carboniferous) glacioeustatic cyclicity

Early Namurian (Serpukhovian, Carboniferous), sedimentary cycles in the Throckley and Rowlands Gill boreholes, near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, consist of fossiliferous limestones overlain by (usually unfossiliferous) black mudstone, followed by sandstones and often by thin coal seams. Sedimentological and regional geological evidence suggests that the largest are high-amplitude cycles, probably of glacioeustatic origin. 13C (bulk organic matter) delineates marine and non-marine conditions because of the large difference between terrestrial and marine 13C, and indicates that full marine salinity was only intermittent and resulted from glacioeustatic marine transgression superimposed on a background of inundation by freshwater from large rivers, which killed off the marine biota. Palynology suggests that plant groups, including ferns and putative pteridosperms, were affected by changing sea level, and that there is a theoretical possibility of connection between cyclicity and the first appearance of walchiacean conifer-like monosaccate pollen such as Potonieisporites. Long-term terrestrial and marine increasing 13C (organic) may reflect the onset of major glaciation in Gondwana, as there is evidence to suggest that the two are coeval, but no specific mechanism can be suggested to link the trends

Whatever Happened to Blackwater RD.?: A Visual Documentary Concerning Achievement in the Face of Failure

Whatever happened to Blackwater RD.? is a feature length documentary thesis film created and cultivated by Michael E. Stephenson to fulfill the requirements of the Master of Fine Arts degree in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema while attending the University of Central Florida. Whatever happened to Blackwater RD.? has met these criteria of the School of Visual Arts and Design, in the College of Arts and Humanities, by being a feature length digital film with a budget no larger than $50,000. This film is the efforts of the filmmaker to trace the failure of his original narrative thesis film Blackwater RD., attempting to discover where everything went wrong while trying to recover from such a crushing defeat. Assembled from behind the scene videos and interviews, this film represents a collected effort to discover a way to make digital cinema from multiple sources, ranging from digital cameras to smartphones, while still crafting a singular vision. Digital cinema allows for films to be made in a collage-like effort to explore how narrative can be manipulated and how a director may steer it, even in the documentary field. Through the exploration of his own failings the filmmaker has discovered perhaps the most important lesson of both academia and film: failure is always an option. To fail is a life worthy experience that one should learn from and utilize in accomplishing future tasks

Five unconventional fuels: geology and environment

Unconventional fuels may present a viable partial replacement for conventional fossil fuel reservoirs (such as sandstone and limestone) in rocks onshore and offshore. These alternative fuels are obtained from distinct sources and employ extraction technologies which are very different to those used to extract conventional hydrocarbons. Oil sands (also known as tar sands or bituminous sands) are loose sand or partially consolidated sandstone containing viscous bitumen. Resources occur in Canada, Kazakhstan and Russia and estimated worldwide deposits represent 2500 billion barrels of oil in place. Oil sands have only recently been considered to be part of the world's oil reserves, as higher oil prices and new technology enable profitable extraction and processing. Converting oil sands to liquid fuels requires energy for steam injection and refining. Methane from coal includes gas recovered from active (coal mine methane or CMM) and abandoned mines (abandoned mine methane or AMM), as well as methane recovered from undisturbed or ‘virgin’ coal seams (usually known as coal bed methane or CBM). Gas from these sources is already produced on a modest scale and exploration is ongoing for further prospects. Gas can also be derived from coal by combustion of underground coal seams in situ to produce synthetic gas (‘syngas’). This process is usually known as 'underground coal gasification' (UCG). This technology is also in its infancy both in terms of engineering the subsurface process and in the understanding of subsurface and surface environmental impacts. Methane hydrates (methane gas trapped in ‘cages’ of water molecules, resembling ice) have been recovered from, or are postulated for, virtually all marine shallow sediment continental margins around the world and a few areas onshore. Volumes of about 2 x 1014m3 methane in‐place have been estimated for this potential resource. To quantify reserve potential and to identify suitable methods of methane extraction, a full understanding of how hydrates are held within sediments is required. A less well known unconventional fuel is subsurface hydrogen. Small flows of hydrogen naturally occur in some mines and in deep oceans associated with abiogenic and biogenic methane, nitrogen and helium. The main geological environment that is promising for exploration is the tectonic remnants of ancient ocean floor known as ophiolites. The main accessible onshore areas are where ophiolites are found tectonically emplaced within fold belts. Though unconventional fuels represent an enormous resource overall, some of the technology is immature and many of the environmental impacts of their exploitation are unknown. Apart from subsurface hydrogen, all are hydrocarbons and thus are constrained in their use in countries which may limit carbon emissions either now or in the future

Bisaccate pollen from the Early Permian OSPZ3a Sub-Biozone of the Lower Gharif Member, Oman

The OSPZ3a Sub-Biozone, associated with the lowest part of the Lower Gharif Member, is part of biozonal scheme that was intended to unify the palynological schemes across Arabia. This paper describes and illustrates the main bisaccate pollen taxa from the OSPZ3a Sub-Biozone of the Well A cored well, Oman, between 2842.69 and 2852.82 m, where they are unusually well preserved. Pteruchipollenites indarraensis which is the most common bisaccate pollen taxon, reaching 40 to 50% of assemblages, is here placed in synonymy with Alisporites tenuicorpus Balme, 1970, the latter being its junior synonym. Striatopodocarpites cancellatus consistently first occurs in the OSPZ3a Sub-Biozone, and well-preserved specimens are present in Well A, but Arabian specimens appear to have a wider range of morphology, mainly in the arrangement of taeniae, than the type material. The relationship of the genus Striatopodocarpites to Verticipollenites Bharadwaj, 1962, Lahirites Bharadwaj, 1962 and Hindipollenites Bharadwaj, 1962 is also examined with the result that Striatopodocarpites is asserted as the senior synonym. The taeniate bisaccate pollen Hamiapollenites fusiformis Marques-Toigo, 1974 is unusually common in the Well A assemblages and its morphology is found to be distinct from the similar multi-taeniate bisaccate taxon Striatoabieites multistriatus (Balme and Hennelly) Hart, 1964, with which it is sometimes placed in synonymy