San Jacinto Center for Environmental Education

The author sets out to find what the characteristics of a functional and successful nature center includes. In doing so, she helps to create the San Jacinto Center for Environmental Education. The desire behind this is to bring more school-age children and university students to the site as well as to manage and expand the public walks on the San Jacinto Wildlife Area

Analyzing the Determinants of the Matching Public School Teachers to Jobs: Estimating Compensating Differentials in Imperfect Labor Markets

Although there is growing recognition of the contribution of teachers to students' educational outcomes, there are large gaps in our understanding of how teacher labor markets function. Most research on teacher labor markets use models developed for the private sector. However, markets for public school teachers differ in fundamental ways from those in the private sector. Collective bargaining and public decision making processes set teacher salaries. Thus it is unlikely that wages adjust quickly to equilibrate the supply and demand for worker and job attributes. The objective of this paper is to develop and estimate a model that more accurately characterizes the institutional features of teacher labor markets. The approach is based on a game-theoretic two-sided matching model and the estimation strategy employs the method of simulated moments. With this combination, we are able to estimate how factors affect the choices of individual teachers and hiring authorities, as well as how these choices interact to determine the equilibrium allocation of teachers across jobs. Even though this paper focuses on worker-job match within teacher labor markets, many of the issues raised and the empirical framework employed are relevant in other settings where wages are set administratively or, more generally, do not clear the pertinent markets for job and worker attributes.

Increasing Microcystis cell density enhances microcystin synthesis: a mesocosm study

An experimental protocol using mesocosms was established to study the effect of Microcystis sp. cell abundance on microcystin production. The mesocosms (55 L) were set up in a shallow eutrophic lake and received either no (control), low (to simulate a moderate surface accumulation), or high (to simulate a dense surface scum) concentrations of Microcystis sp. cells collected from the lake water adjacent to the mesocosms. In the low- and high-cell addition mesocosms (2 replicates of each), the initial addition of Microcystis sp. cells doubled the starting cell abundance from 500 000 to 1 000 000 cells mL⁻¹, but there was no detectable effect on microcystin quotas. Two further cell additions were made to the high-cell addition mesocosms after 60 and 120 min, increasing densities to 2 900 000 and 7 000 000 cells mL-1, respectively. Both additions resulted in marked increases in microcystin quotas from 0.1 pg cell-1 to 0.60 and 1.38 pg cell⁻¹, respectively, over the 240 min period. Extracellular microcystins accounted for <12% of the total microcystin load throughout the whole experiment. The results of this study indicate a relationship between Microcystis cell abundance and/or mutually correlated environmental parameters and microcystin synthesis

Hindcasting cyanobacterial communities in Lake Okaro with germination experiments and genetic analyses

Cyanobacterial blooms are becoming increasingly prevalent worldwide. Sparse historic phytoplankton records often result in uncertainty as to whether bloom-forming species have always been present and are proliferating in response to eutrophication or climate change, or if there has been a succession of new arrivals through recent history. This study evaluated the relative efficacies of germination experiments and automated rRNA intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) assays in identifying cyanobacteria in a sediment core and thus reconstructing the historical composition of cyanobacterial communities. A core (360 mm in depth) was taken in the central, undisturbed basin of Lake Okaro, New Zealand, a lake with a rapid advance of eutrophication and increasing cyanobacteria populations. The core incorporated a tephra from an 1886 volcanic eruption that served to delineate recent sediment deposition. ARISA and germination experiments successfully detected akinete-forming nostocaleans in sediment dating 120 bp and showed little change in Nostocales species structure over this time scale. Species that had not previously been documented in the lake were identified including Aphanizomenon issatschenkoi, a potent anatoxin-a producer. The historic composition of Chrococcales and Oscillatoriales was more difficult to reconstruct, potentially due to the relatively rapid degradation of vegetative cells within sediment

In Our Own Backyard: Critical Theory and the Development of the San Jacinto Center for Environmental Education

This research addresses the topic of nature centers from a critical theory perspective. This research assumed in part, the question: what are the characteristics of a functional and successful nature center that includes environmental education goals and programs? Nature center administrators from across the United States were surveyed and asked to share their opinions on this topic. Six overall characteristics pertaining to management and vision were identified through an exploratory mixed‑method design. Other components of these characteristics were discovered during the analysis of the data, and include factors such as approaches to education. Recommendations for improving nature centers and their programs are also discussed

New Zealand Guidelines for cyanobacteria in recreational fresh waters: Interim Guidelines

This document is divided into four main sections, plus 14 appendices. Section 1. Introduction provides an overview of the purpose and status of the document as well as advice on who should use it. Section 2. Framework provides a background to the overall guidelines approach, recommendations on agency roles and responsibilities, and information on the condition of use of this document. Section 3. Guidelines describes the recommended three-tier monitoring and action sequence for planktonic and benthic cyanobacteria. Section 4. Sampling provides advice on sampling planktonic and benthic cyanobacteria. The appendices give further background information and include templates for data collection and reporting, including: • background information on known cyanotoxins and their distribution in New Zealand • information on the derivation of guideline values • photographs of typical bloom events • a list of biovolumes for common New Zealand cyanobacteria • templates for field assessments • suggested media releases and warning sign templates. A glossary provides definitions for abbreviations and terms used in these guidelines

Recruiting Effective Math Teachers: How Do Math Immersion Teachers Compare?: Evidence from New York City

School districts often struggle to recruit and retain effective math teachers. Alternative-route certification programs aim to expand the pool of teachers available; however, many alternate routes have not been able to attract large numbers of teacher candidates with undergraduate degrees in math. In response, some districts, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and New York City, have developed alternative programs with a math immersion component to recruit candidates who do not have undergraduate majors in math. Such programs provide potential math teachers with intensive math preparation to meet state certification requirements while, at the same time maintaining an early-entry approach in which individuals who have not completed a teacher preparation program can become qualified to teach with only five to seven weeks of coursework and practice teaching. Four years since its inception, the New York City Teacher Fellows Math Immersion program supplies 50 percent of all new certified math teachers to New York City public schools. In this study, we find that Math Immersion teachers have stronger academic qualifications than their College Recommending (traditionally certified) peers, although they have weaker qualifications than Teach for America teachers. However, despite stronger general academic qualifications Math Immersion teachers produce somewhat smaller gains in math achievement for middle school math students than do College Recommending teachers and substantially smaller gains than do Teach for America teachers.

Further characterization of glycine-containing microcystins from the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica

Microcystins are hepatotoxic cyclic peptides produced by several cyanobacterial genera worldwide. In 2008, our research group identified eight new glycine-containing microcystin congeners in two hydro-terrestrial mat samples from the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Eastern Antarctica. During the present study, high-resolution mass spectrometry, amino acid analysis and micro-scale thiol derivatization were used to further elucidate their structures. The Antarctic microcystin congeners contained the rare substitution of the position-1 D-alanine for glycine, as well as the acetyl desmethyl modification of the position-5 Adda moiety (3S-amino-9S-methoxy-2S,6,8S-trimethyl-10-phenyldeca-4E,6E-dienoic acid). Amino acid analysis was used to determine the stereochemistry of several of the amino acids and conclusively demonstrated the presence of glycine in the microcystins. A recently developed thiol derivatization technique showed that each microcystin contained dehydrobutyrine in position-7 instead of the commonly observed N-methyl dehydroalanine

How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement

Researchers and policymakers often assume that teacher turnover harms student achievement, but recent evidence calls into question this assumption. Using a unique identification strategy that employs grade-level turnover and two classes of fixed-effects models, this study estimates the effects of teacher turnover on over 600,000 New York City 4th and 5th grade student observations over 5 years. The results indicate that students in grade-levels with higher turnover score lower in both ELA and math and that this effect is particularly strong in schools with more low-performing and black students. Moreover, the results suggest that there is a disruptive effect of turnover beyond changing the composition in teacher quality.

The Narrowing Gap in New York City Teacher Qualifications and its Implications for Student Achievement in High-Poverty Schools

The gap between the qualifications of New York City teachers in high-poverty schools and low-poverty schools has narrowed substantially since 2000. Most of this gap-narrowing resulted from changes in the characteristics of newly hired teachers, and largely has been driven by the virtual elimination of newly hired uncertified teachers coupled with an influx of teachers with strong academic backgrounds in the Teaching Fellows program and Teach for America. The improvements in teacher qualifications, especially among the poorest schools, appear to have resulted in improved student achievement. By estimating the effect of teacher attributes using a value-added model, the analyses in this paper predict that observable qualifications of teachers resulted in average improved achievement for students in the poorest decile of schools of .03 standard deviations, about half the difference between being taught by a first year teacher and a more experienced teacher. If limited to teachers who are in the first or second year of teaching, where changes in qualifications are greatest, the gain equals two-thirds of the first-year experience effect.