Secondary Teachers Should Expose Rural Readers To Books That Are Culturally Different Than The Student\u27S Personal Choice

This capstone addresses the research question, “How can secondary teachers expose rural readers to books that are culturally different than the student’s personal choice?” It documents one teacher’s creation of a book club that allows students a chance to read various novels that portray cultures that differ from the rural culture. It integrates differentiation of choice novels, reflections, and character comparisons. The author documents research from the literature review based on rural influence and motivation, classroom culture, and censorship by schools, parents, and librarians. This project includes the lists of books to use, the step-by-step layout, and the character comparison paper as a way to show student learning. The author explores rural culture and how it affects student choice when it comes to reading, integrating research supporting an after-school book club

Repeated Reading and Reader’s Theater to Improve Fluency

This starred paper focuses on the effectiveness of using two reading strategies to improve fluency in an elementary student. The two reading strategies are repeated reading and readers theater. Research within the starred paper have effect sizes for both reading strategies in experiments. Readers theater is where a student is working on prosody which is a part of fluency by reading their part in a play on a script. The student is mastering their lines and focusing on expression. Repeated reading is where a student reads a passage at instructional level three times. A cold, warm, and hot read. The student graphs their words read correct per minute results. Continue to read to learn about the research of repeated reading and readers theater

The ELC: An Early Childhood Learning Community at Work

The ELC professional development model was designed to improve the quality of teacher candidates’ Practicum field placements and align teaching in field placements with Learning Standards used in the teacher education program. Teams of four educators from varied settings worked in a Practicum placement setting for one semester to improve their teaching and align it with Learning Standards. An action research approach improved teaching challenges teams faced. Research articles were read to improve teams’ teaching challenges by implementing one agreed strategy. Teams video-recorded, assessed, and reflected on the impact of the strategy on their teaching, on teacher candidates’ learning and on children’s learning. This text compiles six case studies from this model to illustrate how teaching challenges were improved. Appropriate for practiced educators as well as educators in training, this text provides a real world look into applying Learning Standards in early childhood classrooms.https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/oer-ost/1029/thumbnail.jp

Safely through the Gate: Exploring Media Coverage and Journalists Decisions on the Flow of Farm Safety Stories

Agriculture continues to rank as one of the most dangerous industries in the nation. Media coverage is an important tool for sharing farm safety information, improving knowledge and changing behaviors. Despite this importance, surprisingly little research has focused on agricultural media coverage and the forces that influence journalists’ decisions about when and how to cover safety stories. This study uses content analysis methods to examine the nature of farm safety issues, accidents, and topics that appear in mainstream news, agricultural media, and blogs. Researchers also interviewed journalists and bloggers to better understand their motivations, barriers, and information needs when covering safety topics. Findings indicate there is a need to expand safety reporting beyond accident coverage and to better engage bloggers in farm safety topics. Journalists emphasized their strong moral obligation to cover farm safety and desire to include more preventative information and actionable advice in stories. They also described their struggle to find local angles other than accident reports and to find timely hooks for farm safety features outside of harvest and planting seasons. Journalists wanted more research-based studies, stories, and relationships with organizational experts connected to safety and health issues. Few bloggers were engaged with farm safety topics, as some preferred to focus on more consumer-oriented information or felt they did not know enough about farm safety to write about it. Recommendations are included for journalists and organizations working on farm safety related topics and campaigns

Properties of Gamma-Ray Burst Classes

The three gamma-ray burst (GRB) classes identified by statistical clustering analysis (Mukherjee et al. 1998) are examined using the pattern recognition algorithm C4.5 (Quinlan 1986). Although the statistical existence of Class 3 (intermediate duration, intermediate fluence, soft) is supported, the properties of this class do not need to arise from a distinct source population. Class 3 properties can easily be produced from Class 1 (long, high fluence, intermediate hardness) by a combination of measurement error, hardness/intensity correlation, and a newly-identified BATSE bias (the fluence duration bias). Class 2 (short, low fluence, hard) does not appear to be related to Class 1.Comment: 5 pages, 4 imbedded figures, presented at the 5th Huntsville Gamma-Ray Burst Symposiu

Biomass burning pollution in the summer time Arctic atmosphere : Development and deployment of a novel airborne CI-ITMS instrument for PAN detection

The present work aims for a better understanding of the reactive nitrogen and ozone budgets of the Arctic summer atmosphere. Special focus is paid to the organic nitrogen compound PAN (Peroxyacetyl nitrate), which as temporary reservoir species plays a key role especially during longrange transport of pollutants. For the first time, a chemical ionization - ion trap mass spectrometer (CI-ITMS) was equipped with an I- ion source for the detection of PAN. The new FASTPEX (Fast Measurement of Peroxyacyl nitrates) instrument successfully was deployed aboard the research aircraft Falcon during POLARCAT - GRACE campaign (Polar Study using Aircraft, Remote Sensing, Surface Measurements and Models, of Climate, Chemistry, Aerosols, and Transport - Greenland Aerosol and Chemistry Experiment) in summer 2008, which was conducted within the framework of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007 - 2009. Continuous in-flight calibrations were performed using a newly set-up isotopic PAN calibration source. An in-flight intercomparison during GRACE showed very good agreement between the PAN measurements of the new FASTPEX instrument and the PAN measurements aboard the research aircraft NASA DC8. The GRACE measurements revealed that the Arctic free troposphere in summer is heavily perturbed by aged inflow from the boreal fire regions of Canada and Siberia. PAN was found to be the dominant reactive nitrogen species at altitudes between ca. 4 and 9km. While nitrogen oxide (NO) in the free troposphere was close to the detection limit of several pmol/mol, PAN was abundant at median mixing ratios of ca. 300pmol/mol. Low photochemical ozone formation was observed in imported pollution plumes. This is the result of fast conversion of NOx (NOx =NO+NO2) to PAN in young fire emissions, in combination with the high thermal stability of PAN during subsequent transport towards Greenland. A detailed case study provided first observational evidence of an efficient transport pathway for surface emissions into the lowermost stratosphere, which was previously suggested by model simulations. The anthropogenic pollution was detected by enhanced mixing ratios of PAN and CO above the tropopause. Air mass trajectory calculations showed that the Asian emissions were lifted within a warm conveyor belt (WCB) and reached the lowermost stratosphere within a few days after emission

AI Gamma-Ray Burst Classification: Methodology/Preliminary Results

Artificial intelligence (AI) classifiers can be used to classify unknowns, refine existing classification parameters, and identify/screen out ineffectual parameters. We present an AI methodology for classifying new gamma-ray bursts, along with some preliminary results.Comment: 5 pages, 2 postscript figures. To appear in the Fourth Huntsville Gamma-Ray Burst Symposiu

How Sample Completeness Affects Gamma-Ray Burst Classification

Unsupervised pattern recognition algorithms support the existence of three gamma-ray burst classes; Class I (long, large fluence bursts of intermediate spectral hardness), Class II (short, small fluence, hard bursts), and Class III (soft bursts of intermediate durations and fluences). The algorithms surprisingly assign larger membership to Class III than to either of the other two classes. A known systematic bias has been previously used to explain the existence of Class III in terms of Class I; this bias allows the fluences and durations of some bursts to be underestimated (Hakkila et al., ApJ 538, 165, 2000). We show that this bias primarily affects only the longest bursts and cannot explain the bulk of the Class III properties. We resolve the question of Class III existence by demonstrating how samples obtained using standard trigger mechanisms fail to preserve the duration characteristics of small peak flux bursts. Sample incompleteness is thus primarily responsible for the existence of Class III. In order to avoid this incompleteness, we show how a new dual timescale peak flux can be defined in terms of peak flux and fluence. The dual timescale peak flux preserves the duration distribution of faint bursts and correlates better with spectral hardness (and presumably redshift) than either peak flux or fluence. The techniques presented here are generic and have applicability to the studies of other transient events. The results also indicate that pattern recognition algorithms are sensitive to sample completeness; this can influence the study of large astronomical databases such as those found in a Virtual Observatory.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Observations of meteoric material and implications for aerosol nucleation in the winter Arctic lower stratosphere derived from in situ particle measurements

Number concentrations of total and non-volatile aerosol particles with size diameters >0.01 μm as well as particle size distributions (0.4–23 μm diameter) were measured in situ in the Arctic lower stratosphere (10–20.5 km altitude). The measurements were obtained during the campaigns European Polar Stratospheric Cloud and Lee Wave Experiment (EUPLEX) and Envisat-Arctic-Validation (EAV). The campaigns were based in Kiruna, Sweden, and took place from January to March 2003. Measurements were conducted onboard the Russian high-altitude research aircraft Geophysica using the low-pressure Condensation Nucleus Counter COPAS (COndensation PArticle Counter System) and a modified FSSP 300 (Forward Scattering Spectrometer Probe). Around 18–20 km altitude typical total particle number concentrations nt range at 10–20 cm−3 (ambient conditions). Correlations with the trace gases nitrous oxide (N2O) and trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11) are discussed. Inside the polar vortex the total number of particles >0.01 μm increases with potential temperature while N2O is decreasing which indicates a source of particles in the above polar stratosphere or mesosphere. A separate channel of the COPAS instrument measures the fraction of aerosol particles non-volatile at 250°C. Inside the polar vortex a much higher fraction of particles contained non-volatile residues than outside the vortex (~67% inside vortex, ~24% outside vortex). This is most likely due to a strongly increased fraction of meteoric material in the particles which is transported downward from the mesosphere inside the polar vortex. The high fraction of non-volatile residual particles gives therefore experimental evidence for downward transport of mesospheric air inside the polar vortex. It is also shown that the fraction of non-volatile residual particles serves directly as a suitable experimental vortex tracer. Nanometer-sized meteoric smoke particles may also serve as nuclei for the condensation of gaseous sulfuric acid and water in the polar vortex and these additional particles may be responsible for the increase in the observed particle concentration at low N2O. The number concentrations of particles >0.4 μm measured with the FSSP decrease markedly inside the polar vortex with increasing potential temperature, also a consequence of subsidence of air from higher altitudes inside the vortex. Another focus of the analysis was put on the particle measurements in the lowermost stratosphere. For the total particle density relatively high number concentrations of several hundred particles per cm3 at altitudes below ~14 km were observed in several flights. To investigate the origin of these high number concentrations we conducted air mass trajectory calculations and compared the particle measurements with other trace gas observations. The high number concentrations of total particles in the lowermost stratosphere are probably caused by transport of originally tropospheric air from lower latitudes and are potentially influenced by recent particle nucleation