Modeling Runoff from Small Agricultural Watersheds in Eastern South Dakota

The capability to be able to consistently and accurately model any problem has potential time and money savings. The present study aimed to determine if the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Curve Number (CN) model or the more detailed Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) Model can consistently and accurately model runoff events from small agricultural fields in Eastern South Dakota. The overall goal was to better understand models used to predict runoff and determine if they can produce accurate estimates of runoff from the watersheds being studied. Runoff measurements were collected from an agricultural field located south of Coleman, South Dakota. The field of study was under a conventional tillage, two-year corn-soybean rotation. Three distinct watersheds make up the farm field with one flume at the lowest point for each watershed. Four years of collected rain data at the site (2013- 2016) along with two years of runoff data (2015-2016) were used for modeling and subsequent statistical comparison. This study examined the collected runoff totals for rain events and evaluated the accuracy and precision of model predictions to the observed runoff totals. For the two years studied, almost all predicted runoff events using the CN method were higher than the measured runoff totals. On average, the CN model over-predicted runoff totals by 300%. Adjustments to three areas of the CN model (initial abstraction ratio, curve number, and watershed size) improved comparison statistics. However, none of the changes made to the CN model produced satisfactory statistical results. The 2015 and 2016 runoff events were then compared to the SWAT model predictions. The first model run was with SWAT’s recommended settings and produced higher runoff than was observed. Adjustments to three areas of the SWAT model (curve number (CN2), potential evapotranspiration method (IPET), and daily curve number calculation method (ICN)) were combined to improve comparison statistics. The SWAT model using Penman-Monteith method + Potential Evapotranspiration method + 10% decrease in CN2 produced the closest approximation to measured values relative to all models, including the CN model. This variation of the SWAT model did not produce a consistent and accurate model for all three watersheds, but it did produce partially acceptable results for the largest watershed. Neither the CN nor SWAT produced a model that was statistically acceptable at predicting runoff for the studied agricultural watersheds. For further research it was decided to focus on changes to the SWAT model. Given this, the next steps would be: produce fewer outlets during the startup of the SWAT model, test the three watersheds as one large watershed in SWAT, and/or take soil samples at the testing site to determine if the soil is more hydrophilic than modeled

Seventh-Grade Students\u27 Use of Heat Transfer Conceptions During an Engineering Design-Based STEM Integration Curriculum

As the integration of STEM becomes increasingly important in pre-college education, it is important to study models of STEM integration. One model, engineering design-based STEM integration, has shown promising results in terms of student science content learning. This study’s purpose was to explore one student team’s use of heat transfer conceptions as they participated in an engineering design-based STEM integration curriculum. A case study research design, along with procedures from qualitative content analysis, were used to identify scientific and alternative conceptions that the seventh-grade students communicated during the unit. The main result is that the students spoke and wrote about many heat transfer conceptions. For some concepts, they used scientific conceptions when other studies have shown that their peers tend to use alternative conceptions. However, the student team also created a new set of alternative conceptions in which they confused ideas from conduction and radiation as they attempted to create one set of rules about how well materials transfer heat. These results suggest that students can learn science content through design-based curricula, but they can also reveal their alternative conceptions when they need to combine and apply those conceptions to a novel context such as an engineering challenge. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number NSF 1238140. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations conveyed in this study are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation

Expression of AGBL1, DCPS, RUNX1 and PHYKPL in colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer is one of the deadliest cancer forms because of late detection. Biomarkers can be used as an indication of cancer and plays of late a great role in cancer care, there are however currently no specific biomarkers that can be used for early detection of colorectal cancer. The genes AGBL1, DCPS, PHYKPL and RUNX1 have been suggested to be affected in colorectal cancer and the aim of this study was to investigate the expression of these in patients with colorectal cancer to understand more about the mechanisms involved in cancerogenesis. The gene expression in colorectal tumors and normal tissue was analysed by real-time PCR. Immunohistochemistry and western blot were used to analyse the expression of phosphorylated RUNX1 protein. The gene DCPS was downregulated by half and PHYKPL was downregulated about five times. RUNX1 was upregulated three times in the tumors, however, any active RUNX1-protein could not be detected in the tissue. Further studies are needed on these genes to fully understand their potential role in the disease and as prognostic markers

Expression of AGBL1, DCPS, RUNX1 and PHYKPL in colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer is one of the deadliest cancer forms because of late detection. Biomarkers can be used as an indication of cancer and plays of late a great role in cancer care, there are however currently no specific biomarkers that can be used for early detection of colorectal cancer. The genes AGBL1, DCPS, PHYKPL and RUNX1 have been suggested to be affected in colorectal cancer and the aim of this study was to investigate the expression of these in patients with colorectal cancer to understand more about the mechanisms involved in cancerogenesis. The gene expression in colorectal tumors and normal tissue was analysed by real-time PCR. Immunohistochemistry and western blot were used to analyse the expression of phosphorylated RUNX1 protein. The gene DCPS was downregulated by half and PHYKPL was downregulated about five times. RUNX1 was upregulated three times in the tumors, however, any active RUNX1-protein could not be detected in the tissue. Further studies are needed on these genes to fully understand their potential role in the disease and as prognostic markers

Metal Crystal Structures Lesson in Special Session: Activities with Impact!

Special Session at the 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Heat Transfer Conceptions Used in an Engineering Design-Based STEM Integration Unit: A Case of Struggle

In the United States, there has been an increased emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and especially engineering, in pre-college settings. There are several potential benefits of this, including: increasing the quantity and diversity of students who pursue STEM careers, improving all students’ technological literacy, and improving student learning in the STEM disciplines. While current standards support the integration of the four STEM disciplines in pre-college classrooms, research still needs to be done to determine which models of STEM integration are effective and how and why they impact student learning. The context of this study is a model of STEM integration called engineering design-based STEM integration. The purpose of this study was to do an in-depth exploration of students’ use of science conceptions during an engineering design-based STEM integration unit, with additional focus on how engineering design, redesign, teamwork, and communication influence students’ use of science conceptions. For this study, the unit was designed to address middle school-level physical science concepts related to heat transfer, including temperature, thermal energy, and processes of heat transfer (i.e., conduction, convection, and radiation). An embedded case study design was used to explore students’ science conceptions while they participated in an engineering design STEM integration unit. The case was one student team from a seventh-grade science class, and the students within the team were the embedded sub-units. Data were collected on each day of the unit’s implementation; these data included video of the student team and entire classroom, audio of the student team, observations and field notes, and student artifacts, including their engineering notebooks. Data were analyzed primarily using methods from qualitative content analysis. Themes emerged for the whole team, with emphasis on specific students when appropriate. The results show that there were a few key features of engineering (i.e., engineering design, redesign, teamwork, and communication) that influenced students’ use of heat transfer conceptions. During much of the problem scoping stage, which included the science lessons focused on heat transfer, students mostly used scientific conceptions about conduction, convection, and radiation. However, when they needed to think about those three processes of heat transfer together, as well as apply them to the context of the engineering design challenge, the students began to use a larger mix of scientific conceptions and alternative conceptions. Several alternative conceptions emerged when they combined ideas and vocabulary from conduction and radiation to create one set of rules about thermal properties of materials (i.e., did not distinguish between conduction and radiation). Even when they used scientific conceptions, the students sometimes applied the conceptions unscientifically when designing, which led them to create a prototype that performed poorly. However, the student team then learned from the failures of their first design and redesigned, during which they appropriately used mostly scientific conceptions. In other words, the opportunity to learn from failure and redesign was critical to this team’s use of correct conceptions about heat transfer. Two other features of engineering that emerged were teamwork and communication through notebooks

How do schools work with prevention and rectificatin of bullying and degrading treatment that occurs on social media? : A qualitativ studie with school curators

Internet har idag blivit en stor och stark social mötesplats för ungdomar. En stor del av deras kommunikation sker idag genom olika sociala forum som exempel Facebook, Twitter och Youtube. Internet skapar utrymme för frihet och uttryck. Å andra sidan kan det negativa med de olika sociala forumen vara att ungdomar kan fara illa genom att integriteten kränks på olika sätt. Trots att internet kan vara ett sätt för ungdomar att umgås på och därmed en social arena kan alltså risken för mobbning och kränkande behandling förekomma. Då människor i större utsträckning har tillgång till internet och mobiltelefoner resulterar det vidare till att mobbning och kränkande behandling som sker på nätet följer offret överallt i den dagliga tillvaron. Detta kan resultera i att nätmobbningen och nätkränkningen inte enbart sker på fritiden utan följer även med ungdomarna in i skolans värld. När denna typ av mobbning och kränkande behandling följer ungdomen in i skolans värld har skolan enligt lag skyldighet att agera. Hela skolans personal, föräldrar och elever är involverade i arbetet med att förebygga mobbning och kränkande behandling. Det krävs även att hela elevhälsan är delaktiga och där är nyckelpersonen, skolkuratorn. Utifrån detta är vårt syfte och vår ambition med denna studie att undersöka hur skolkuratorer i skolan hanterar problematik (mobbning, kränkande behandling, trakasserier samt diskriminering) som uppkommer på grund av sociala medier. Detta kommer att ske genom åtta kvalitativa intervjuer med skolkuratorer. Urvalet har begränsats till Norrort i Stockholm, där åtta grundskolor slumpmässigt valts ut. Vidare har även en intervju med en projektledare från organisationen Friends ägt rum. Studien bygger på tankarna bakom primär, sekundär och tertiär brottsprevention. Teorin som använts för att analysera resultatet är Sulers ”The online disinhibition effect”. Huvudslutsatserna i studien är att mobbning som sker på sociala medier är ett svårt problem för skolkuratorerna att arbeta med. Skolkuratorerna uttrycker att det oftast inte handlar om mobbning utan om att personen istället utsätts för en kränkande behandling, detta då eleverna inte tänker sig för när det uttrycker sig på internet. En annan slutsats är att skolkuratorerna inte skiljer på traditionell mobbning och mobbning som sker på sociala medier och att deras förebyggande arbete är väldigt generellt.

Teachers’ Incorporation of Argumentation to Support Engineering Learning in STEM Integration Curricula

One of the fundamental practices identified in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is argumentation, which has been researched in P-12 science education for the previous two decades but has yet to be studied within the context of P-12 engineering education. This research explores how elementary and middle school science teachers incorporated argumentation into engineering design-based STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) integration curricular units they developed during a professional development program. To gain a better understanding of how teachers included argumentation in their curricula, a multiple case study approach was conducted using four STEM integration units. While evidence of argumentation was found in each curriculum, the degree to which it appeared in each case varied. The strongest potential for argumentation occurred when students were required to explain and justify their final engineering design solutions to the client; certain guiding questions and discussions also promoted argumentation, depending on their structure. Additionally, argumentation was found to support engineering concepts such as the process of design, engineering thinking, communication in engineering contexts, and the application of science, mathematics, and engineering content. These findings support the idea that argumentation can be integrated into P-12 engineering education contexts in order to support students’ STEM learning