Application of a Weather Research and Forecasting model to study the urban heat island in Tomsk

The results of application of a Weather Research and Forecasting model (version 4.2) to study the heat island phenomenon in the city of Tomsk are considered. The results of numerical calculations were compared with measurements obtained using the instruments of Joint Use Center (JUC) Atmosphere and Tomsk Bogashevo Airport. On some days, the temperature difference between the city and the suburbs was shown to reach 1-3 °C

Capturing the Design Thinking of Young Children Interacting with a Parent

Children have often been labeled as “natural engineers” whose curiosity about the world around them evokes comparisons to skills used by professional engineers and taught to undergraduate engineering students. Building towers out of blocks, taking things apart and figuring how things work are a part of childhood and have been considered to be precursors to engineering thinking.However there has been considerable debate around what engineering looks like for young children. Can young children engage in design and if so, what does that look like? How can we differentiate “design” (especially “modeling” or “create”) activity from normal everyday play?Several design models have taken into account the developmental stages of young children, but they often are based on assumptions and have minimal evidence.In the GRADIENT (Gender Research on Adult-child Discussions within Informal ENgineering environmenTs) study, a collaboration between researchers at a museum and university, we looked at how parents with young girls engage in two different engineering activities in informal settings. The first setting is a Preschool Play dates program for children 3-5 years old, where the parent-daughter dyads were asked to build a tower first out of familiar materials (foam blocks)and then out of unfamiliar materials (dado squares). The second setting is a pneumatic ball run that is part of an engineering exhibit at the museum and was focused on children 6-11 years old.In each setting, 30 dyads were video recorded, and the verbal and non-verbal segments were open and axially coded for engineering talk and action.We found that children engage in the engineering design process in ways that are similar to other models of the engineering design, that include problem scoping, idea generation, modeling,testing, evaluation and revision. We also found that children engage in both predictive and reflective behavior, and often add context to the problem. However, we want to acknowledge that the way children engage in engineering thinking is different from the way that adults do(especially with idea generation and revision) and we will discuss this further in the paper. This work lays a foundation for future research, as understanding how children engage in the design process can help us understand how children learn engineering design skills, and how people develop engineering design skills across pre-college, undergraduate, and professional practice.The work also has implications for the development of learning experiences in both school and out-of-school settings

The Intersection of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Engineering Design in Secondary STEM

The instructional practices of the engineering design process and culturally responsive pedagogy have each garnered national attention and multiple decades of research. Findings from the respective literature bases call for educators and policymakers to integrate these two pedagogical approaches into K-12 classroom instruction. Scholars have argued that this integration would improve student engagement and academic achievement. There is a significant amount of research that supports the positive student outcomes associated with each approach, yet there remains a dearth of literature that addresses the integration of these two practices into the science and mathematics content areas. The movement around educational reform is rooted in teachers serving as learners; however, understanding how teachers learn and respond to reform is largely overlooked. The present research sought to examine the way in which teachers perceive and define integrated pedagogical approaches upon implementation. The authors utilized a comparative case study design to represent experiences of five secondary math and science teachers enrolled in graduate-level coursework and professional development on culturally responsive pedagogy and the engineering design process. Findings suggest that teachers’ self-reported pedagogical beliefs acted synergistically between the two pedagogical approaches. Subsequently, participating teachers expressed a strong preference towards the enactment of an integrated pedagogy of a culturally responsive engineering design process. The present research offers valuable recommendations for teacher educators, professional development providers, policymakers, and researchers who wish to integrate culturally responsive pedagogy and the engineering design process in math or science K-12 classrooms. The significance of this research underscores the importance of empowering teachers with professional development, around implementation of novel pedagogical approaches, to both shape and inform their beliefs and practices

Jamming during the discharge of granular matter from a silo

In this work we present an experimental study of the jamming that stops the free flow of grains from a silo discharging by gravity. When the outlet size is not much bigger than the beads, granular material jams the outlet of the container due to the formation of an arch. Statistical data from the number of grains fallen between consecutive jams are presented. The information that they provide can help to understand the jamming phenomenon. As the ratio between the size of the orifice and the size of the beads is increased, the probability that an arch blocks the outlet decreases. We show here that there is a power law divergence of the mean avalanche size for a finite critical radius. Beyond this critical radius no jamming can occur and the flow is never stopped. The dependence of the arch formation on the shape and the material of the grains has been explored. It has been found that the material properties of the grains do not affect the arch formation probability. On the contrary, the shape of the grains deeply influences it. A simple model to interpret the results is also discussed.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Engineering Together: Context in Dyadic Talk During an Engineering Task (K-12 Fundamental)

Exploring how children develop early interest and understanding in engineering canprovide useful information for the ongoing efforts to increase the access of women inengineering careers. Drawing on occupational choice theories, girls and women havetended to place a high value on helping others in their work, but do not often realize thatcareers in engineering can lead to these types of endeavors. Adding layers of socialcontext that highlight the connections between engineering endeavors and improving thelives of others may create a more engaging experience for girls and women, andpotentially lead to increased development of girls’ engineering interest and understanding.Additionally, informal learning environments are positioned to become a pivotal role in inspiring today’s youth to pursue careers in STEM. These contexts have already been shown to be important avenues in which children can develop lifelong interest and understanding of broad range of STEM topics. Moreover, informal learning environments often allow for parents and children to work together to foster interest and engagement within STEM.Parent-child dyads who were visiting a metropolitan science museum as part of it\u27s program for preschool-aged children were asked to participate in a study that explores parent-child engineering conversations through a conversation analysis methodology. Dyads consisting of a parent with their daughter (aged 3-5 years) were video-recorded while engaged in two different engineering tasks: building a tower out of familiar materials and constructing a second tower out of unfamiliar materials. In the preliminary phase, participants (n = 25) were asked to build a tower with a specified goal, whereas participants in the follow-up phase (n = 25) were given the same directions though infused with a social context (i.e. building for someone, for a specified purpose).This paper will examine the differences in the use of context between fathers and mothers within the preliminary and follow-up phases, including the frequency and type of context used towards the design of the towers. Four case studies were evaluated to highlight key findings such as the addition of context to the preliminary phase and the involvement of social context in the follow-up. It was found that in the preliminary phase that both parents and the children added context to the task – a finding that resonates with the research that girls are more interested in socially relevant activities. When given a more detailed background, children integrated the given context within design decisions and explanations even going so far as to expand on the original information.By examining the dyad’s interaction, we hope to identify recommendations we can make to other parents on how to foster engineering interest in their children, as well as contribute ideas for activities for K-5 classrooms to reach a wider range of children

Measuring Students’ Sense of School Catholic Identity

As a ministry of the Catholic Church, Catholic schools are charged with educating stu­dents’ hearts and minds. Multiple standardized academic tests and other student assessments are available for monitoring both student and teacher outcomes in Catholic schools, but fewer measures exist for considering the school’s faith-related mission. Although tests of student religious knowledge and benchmarks related to specific Catholic elements of the school are available, we do not yet have a robust set of instruments that provide teachers and leaders an understanding of their progress in providing a school environment permeated by Catholic culture and faith. To consider how students in Catholic schools perceive the Catholicity of their school and how these perceptions vary among different student groups, we developed, piloted, and validated the Sense of School Catholic Iden­tity Survey (SSCI). This 20-­item survey measures Grade 5 through 8 students’ perceptions of their Catholic school as personal and invitational, sacramental, unitive, and eucharistic. Findings from the pilot study suggest that responses differ by student grade level, religious tradition, and gender. Future testing of the scale will examine school­-level differences in Catholic identity

Using Puppets to Elicit Talk During Interviews on Engineering with Young Children

Interviewing can be tricky at best, but with a younger audience (\u3c 5 years) there are some additional barriers that inhibit the interview process such as shyness, short attention span,lack of vocabulary, and level of parental guidance (Clark, 1999). When in an interview, a child may try to ‘second guess’ what the researcher wants them to say, especially if they believe that the interviewer may already know the answer (Gallop, 2000). Additionally young children tend to give monosyllabic answers to open ended questions (Tizard &Hughes, 1984), and might require more prompting than adults.One aide that has been recently investigated is the use of puppets to elicit children’s talk for research (Epstein et al., 2008). Puppets have been shown to: • Decrease children’s fears of the interview process • Lower anxiety levels • Help assess children’s knowledge • Help children to adjust to environment • Provide effective communication and teaching tools. Most research focuses on puppets within clinical contexts, but recently the use has been extended towards other applications such as qualitative interviews (Epstein et al., 2008),mathematical lessons (Cauley, 1988), promoting science engagement (Naylor et al,2007), and teaching phonics (Johnston & Watson, ???). However, there has not been any documented use of this research approach within engineering education.There are three common interview techniques involving puppets in practice: the Alien Puppet Interview (API) (Krott and Nicoladis, 2005), the Puppet Interview (PI) (Cassidy,1988; Verschueren, Buyuk and Marcoen, 2001) and the Berkeley Puppet Interview (BPI) (Measelle et al., 1998; Ablow et al., 1999). Each technique has a different strategy depending on how the child interacts with the puppet.As part of a larger project, children ages 3-5 were interviewed about an engineering task that they had just completed with their parents during a museum event. The interview was a hybrid mix of the Alien Puppet Interview and the Puppet Interview, depending on the way in which the child interviewee chose to interact with the puppet. Thirty interviews were analyzed for children’s interaction, quality of answers, and behavior toward the puppet.In the paper, we will provide more details about the specific interview approach used for our study (as well as insights into how children responded to this interview approach) in addition to a larger discussion of the three interview techniques in order to provide a research methodology resource for other pre-college engineering education researchers to use

Understanding Early Childhood Engineering Interest Development as a Family-Level Systems Phenomenon: Findings from the Head Start on Engineering Project

There is growing recognition that interest is critical for engaging and supporting learners from diverse communities in engineering and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics. Although interest research has historically focused on older children, studies demonstrate that preschool-age and younger children also develop persistent, individualized interests in different objects, activities, and topics and that these early interests have important implications for ongoing learning and development. Unfortunately, there is relatively little research on engineering learning in early childhood and almost no work specific to the concept of interest. To begin to address this need, we conducted in-depth case study research with 15 English- and Spanish-speaking families and their preschool-age children participating in a family-based engineering education program through a local Head Start organization. Using systems theory to conceptualize interest development as involving the whole family, the study documented how both children and parents developed engineering-related interests through the program and explored the characteristics of and shifts in these interest systems. The qualitative, cross-case analysis highlighted three aspects of family-level interest development that varied across families and over time: (1) parent awareness, knowledge, and values; (2) family re-engagement with engineering activities; and (3) family use of the engineering design process. Shifts were also observed in a subset of the families that potentially signal movement toward deeper, sustained levels of engineering-related interest

Sensitivity analysis of the physical parameterizations in the WRF model on the prediction accuracy of meteorological parameters

Computational experiments were carried out using the WRF model version 4.2. The influence of different sets of parameterizations on the results of calculating the surface values of air temperature, wind speed and direction is considered. A set of parameterizations providing the best accuracy of numerical prediction (with a resolution of 1 km) of local meteorological characteristics for the conditions of Western Siberia, is selected. It was found that the set of parameterizations affects the simulation quality, but it is not the main aspect in ensuring prediction accuracy. To test the WRF model, the observations obtained using meteorological instruments of the JUC Atmosphere of the V.E. Zuev Institution of Atmospheric Optics SB RAS, the airfield information and measurement system of the Tomsk Airport, and the Tomsk weather station were employed

A Study of Cake Filtration Parameters Using the Constant Rate Process

The minerals calcium carbonate and talc were filtered under various conditions of filtrate flow rate and suspension concentration, using constant rate conditions with the aid of a peristaltic pump to draw the filtrate. Cake concentrations of between 0.41 and 0.53 v/v for calcium carbonate and 0.19 and 0.26 v/v for talc were recorded. The mean sizes of the two different minerals were very similar, but the average specific resistances obtained from the experiments were 5.9 × 1010 and 7.4 × 1011 m/kg for calcium carbonate and talc, respectively. These results do not agree with what would be predicted from an analytical equation for permeability, such as Kozeny-Carman. In addition, discontinuities were observed in all cases on the curves of filtrate volume with time for the initial stage of filtration. This behaviour is attributed to retarded packing compressibility (RPC) complicating the analysis of the filter medium resistance. RPC is an important component in determining the filter cake resistance and its functionality with cake forming pressure. It is found that there are additional effects that enhance the resistance to permeation in different cake materials, which is not recognised in the standard analytical approaches. These complexities can be related to shape, polydispersity, or agglomeration within the material sample and not to the experimental equipment or procedure. Furthermore, a complete and straightforward methodology is presented in this work for investigating the significance, or otherwise, of medium resistance on the later stages of the filtration