Literary pen pals: Correspondence about books between university students and elementary students

In a semester-long, pen pal exchange between 3rd and 4th graders with college students enrolled in a Children\u27s literature class, I wanted to engage students in critical thinking about what they read and to involve students in authentic literacy activities. Using qualitative methodology of recognizing patterns and culling themes from more than 200 letters about books, I examined the nature of the letters, categorized the kinds of questions asked, and noted the patterns of communications between the pen pal pairs in order to glean the benefits to both groups. Both elementary and college students learned about books, about themselves, and about one another

Sustainability and Spread of Community-based Initiatives: A case study of Community Cares, a Children’s Hospital’s 16 year effort to serve its community

The sustainability and spread of innovations is often elusive, presenting continuous challenges to clinicians and healthcare leaders. Somewhere between 33 - 70% of all innovations are reportedly not sustained, and even fewer are spread beyond the original team, or to other units within an organization. In plain language, sustainability is defined as locking in progress, while continually building upon that foundation, while spread is the exchange of knowledge and experience to others beyond the original implementing team. The literature supports the concept that sustainability is both multi-dimensional and multi-factorial and has several characteristics and pre-conditions. Tax-exempt, not-for-profit organizations in the USA must provide measurable community benefits to the populations they seek to serve. Many of these community benefits take the form of locating necessary services closer to or directly within the communities being served in order to enhance access. A case study of a 16 year effort to provide a medical home-oriented primary care model to underserved children in Houston, Texas Children’s Pediatrics’ Community Cares, is presented as illustrative of such a community benefit. Many of the characteristics and preconditions essential to a model for sustainability and spread are highlighted and the Community Cares case study is discussed from the standpoint of this framework

Life and Death Toolkit

The Life and Death Toolkit helps design students to reflect on the sustainability of their projects and make informed decisions throughout their design process. The toolkit consists of two sets of prompt cards and a worksheet. The prompt cards suggest topics to consider while the worksheet is used by students to record their reflections and evaluate the sustainability of their project. The toolkit envisages design projects as part of a complex system or project ecology. It maintains that no project exists in isolation. It has been widely tested and well received by students

A Multiscale Investigation of Habitat Use and Within-river Distribution of Sympatric Sand Darter Species

The western sand darter Ammocrypta clara, and eastern sand darter Ammocrypta pellucida are sand-dwelling fishes of conservation concern. Past research has emphasized the importance of studying individual populations of conservation concern, while recent research has revealed the importance of incorporating landscape scale processes that structure habitat mosaics and local populations. We examined habitat use and distributions of western and eastern sand darters in the lower Elk River of West Virginia. At the sandbar habitat use scale, western sand darters were detected in sandbars with greater area, higher proportions of coarse grain sand and faster bottom current velocity, while the eastern sand darter used a wider range of sandbar habitats. The landscape scale analysis revealed that contributing drainage area was an important predictor for both species, while sinuosity, which presumably represents valley type also contributed to the western sand darter’s habitat suitability. Sandbar quality (area, grain size, and velocity) and fluvial geomorphic variables (drainage area and valley type) are likely key driving factors structuring sand darter distributions in the Elk River. This multiscale study of within-river species distribution and habitat use is unique, given that only a few sympatric populations are known of western and eastern sand darters