Making Cereal Box Dioramas of Native American Historic Homes and Culture

Hands-on projects such as creating a three-dimensional diorama are among the most memorable of positive elementary school experiences, yet they are generally uncommon because these complex projects are daunting to undertake. Therefore, it is important to prepare preservice teachers with the skills to lead children in creating these types of projects. This document is a compilation of preservice teacher work completed during a social studies methods class that assists instructors in teaching students to create unique dioramas. After the preservice teachers had constructed dioramas and assisted elementary students in making their own, they reflected on previous social studies projects from their childhoods and considered the learning outcomes of the current project. Eighty preservice teachers enrolled in a social studies methods course participated in the study. These college students created their own Native American dioramas along with images for furnishing and finishing dioramas of the Native American group on which they focused. The five Native American groups explored through dioramas include the Iroquois of the northeastern United States, the Seminole of the Southeast, the Lakota of the Central Plains, Hopi (and Navajo) of the American Southwest and the Haida of the Northwest Coast. This document provides photoillustrated examples and steps of how to create an intricate diorama from a cereal box, recycled copy paper, white craft glue, paints, images, and common craft items. The cereal box base is cut to open like a book and a model of a Native American home made of recycled cardboard is affixed over a cut-out hole in the cover so that the box opens to reveal the interior of the home. All surfaces are covered with a layer of torn recycled copy paper that is securely glued, coated with white gesso base paint, and then decorated with acrylic craft paints. In the facing inside enclosure, a ceremony scene is displayed. The back of the cereal box features crafts of the Native American group, while the other cereal box exterior sides show foods, clothing, and other cultural Reflection data indicate that preservice teachers recognized the large amount of time and patience necessary to complete a quality diorama and the valuable amount of in-depth learning that results, including a deeper respect for Native American people and greater confidence in teaching these concepts. Therefore, we recommend diorama projects in teaching about diverse cultures (2 tables, 5 figures, 2 photo-illustrated appendices)

Middle Level Preservice Teachers Experience a Natural History Arts-Integrated Interdisciplinary Thematic Unit

Curricular demands and best practices for middle school require interdisciplinary units. Arts integration can provide motivation and a new pathway to learning. This unit focused on inquiry into the natural history of artifacts and rocks recovered from the exposed subsoil of an area near Cedar Falls, Iowa that had been bulldozed as part of subdivision development. The described unit involved preservice teachers in exploration of all subject areas (language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) with arts-integrated projects (agate watercolor painting, stone tool graphing, acrylic polymer clay agate keyring making, and stone tool drawings). The content area activities for social studies included identification and lifestyle interpretation of stone tools found intermixed with rocks and sand in the subsoil of the site. Science content activities included identification of rocks (igneous and metamorphic rocks; quartz nodules, geodes, and agates; and iron ore specimens) from the site along with interpretation of basalt cobbles that had been ground flat as glacially transported, and interpretation of maps and diagrams of glaciation, iron ore deposits, and agate deposits. Language arts activities involved word study through morpheme analysis of words such as “anthropology” and “artifact” along with matching a set of descriptive adjectives to objects related to agates. Mathematics content activities focused on graphing. Preservice teachers were highly engaged in the activities, remarking that they learned new content and pedagogy. Some expressed lack of confidence regarding artistic ability because of little experience and the desire to complete everything in the correct manner. At the end of the lessons, preservice teachers expressed that teaching the content through themes allowed for a great number of connections between subject areas, increased real-life connections, and deeper understandings of the topics

Ocean Underwater Scene Dioramas of First Graders with Submarine Porthole Views

Ecology education of the younger generations is vital for worldwide change of people’s attitudes toward nature warranted by the current global ecological crisis. Yet, this goal needs to be addressed through age-appropriate activities that are educational and engaging. This practical article focuses on dioramas of ocean reef life made by first graders. This arts-integrated project served two main purposes: 1) education of primary students about ocean ecology and helping students realize their roles in saving nature 2) increasing student science content knowledge. Additionally, several other benefits of making dioramas emerged during this project, including highly creative student products, genuine interest in the topic of ocean ecology, and heightened levels of motivation and concentration displayed by the students during the project

Quantum phase transitions and decoupling of magnetic sublattices in the quasi-two-dimensional Ising magnet Co3V2O8 in a transverse magnetic field

The application of a magnetic field transverse to the easy axis, Ising direction in the quasi-two-dimensional Kagome staircase magnet, Co3V2O8, induces three quantum phase transitions at low temperatures, ultimately producing a novel high field polarized state, with two distinct sublattices. New time-of-flight neutron scattering techniques, accompanied by large angular access, high magnetic field infrastructure allow the mapping of a sequence of ferromagnetic and incommensurate phases and their accompanying spin excitations. At least one of the transitions to incommensurate phases at \mu 0Hc1~6.25 T and \mu 0Hc2~7 T is discontinuous, while the final quantum critical point at \mu 0Hc3~13 T is continuous.Comment: 5 pages manuscript, 3 pages supplemental materia

Nature of the spin dynamics and 1/3 magnetization plateau in azurite

We present a specific heat and inelastic neutron scattering study in magnetic fields up into the 1/3 magnetization plateau phase of the diamond chain compound azurite Cu$_3$(CO$_3$)$_2$(OH)$_2$. We establish that the magnetization plateau is a dimer-monomer state, {\it i.e.}, consisting of a chain of $S = 1/2$ monomers, which are separated by $S = 0$ dimers on the diamond chain backbone. The effective spin couplings $J_{mono}/k_B = 10.1(2)$ K and $J_{dimer}/k_B = 1.8(1)$ K are derived from the monomer and dimer dispersions. They are associated to microscopic couplings $J_1/k_B = 1(2)$ K, $J_2/k_B = 55(5)$ K and a ferromagnetic $J_3/k_B = -20(5)$ K, possibly as result of $d_{z^2}$ orbitals in the Cu-O bonds providing the superexchange pathways.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Exploring Preservice Teachers’ Still-Life Paintings of Crystals with Artist-Focused Compared to Science-Focused Introductions

This experimental study was undertaken with preservice teachers to test whether the use of science integration into arts education increases demonstration of science details and creative features in artwork. Two conditions were created: arts-focused and science-focused; gouache still-life paintings were produced and analyzed, and an attitude survey was completed. The results suggested that science integration into visual arts classes increased creativity for the arts-focused condition and increased science concepts in the science-focused condition. Participants in both conditions reported positive attitudes, specifically, high levels of enjoyment, alluded to lack of experience with arts and creative projects, and expressed desire for more exposure because of emotional benefits

Critical X-ray Scattering Studies of Jahn-Teller Phase Transitions in TbV1−x_{1-x}Asx_{x}O4_{4}

The critical behaviour associated with cooperative Jahn-Teller phase transitions in TbV$_{1-x}$As$_{x}$O$_{4}$ (where \textit{x} = 0, 0.17, 1) single crystals have been studied using high resolution x-ray scattering. These materials undergo continuous tetragonal $\to$ orthorhombic structural phase transitions driven by Jahn-Teller physics at T$_C$ = 33.26(2) K, 30.32(2) K and 27.30(2) K for \textit{x} = 0, 0.17 and 1 respectively. The orthorhombic strain was measured close to the phase transition and is shown to display mean field behavior in all three samples. Pronounced fluctuation effects are manifest in the longitudinal width of the Bragg scattering, which diverges as a power law, with an exponent given by $x=0.45 \pm 0.04$, on approaching the transition from either above or below. All samples exhibited twinning; however the disordered x = 0.17 sample showed a broad distribution of twins which were stable to relatively low temperatures, well below T$_C$. This indicates that while the orthorhombic strain continues to develop in a conventional mean field manner in the presence of disorder, twin domains are easily pinned by the quenched impurities and their associated random strains.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Magnetic soft modes in the locally distorted triangular antiferromagnet alpha-CaCr2O4

In this paper we explore the phase diagram and excitations of a distorted triangular lattice antiferromagnet. The unique two-dimensional distortion considered here is very different from the 'isosceles'-type distortion that has been extensively investigated. We show that it is able to stabilize a 120{\deg} spin structure for a large range of exchange interaction values, while new structures are found for extreme distortions. A physical realization of this model is \alpha-CaCr2O4 which has 120{\deg} structure but lies very close to the phase boundary. This is verified by inelastic neutron scattering which reveals unusual roton-like minima at reciprocal space points different from those corresponding to the magnetic order.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures and lots of spin-wave

Asymmetric Thermal Lineshape Broadening in a Gapped 3-Dimensional Antiferromagnet - Evidence for Strong Correlations at Finite Temperature

It is widely believed that magnetic excitations become increasingly incoherent as temperature is raised due to random collisions which limit their lifetime. This picture is based on spin-wave calculations for gapless magnets in 2 and 3 dimensions and is observed experimentally as a symmetric Lorentzian broadening in energy. Here, we investigate a three-dimensional dimer antiferromagnet and find unexpectedly that the broadening is asymmetric - indicating that far from thermal decoherence, the excitations behave collectively like a strongly correlated gas. This result suggests that a temperature activated coherent state of quasi-particles is not confined to special cases like the highly dimerized spin-1/2 chain but is found generally in dimerized antiferromagnets of all dimensionalities and perhaps gapped magnets in general