Investigating NCE Preservice Candidates and Graduates’ Visual Literacy Practices in Middle and High School Science and Social Studies Classrooms

The study investigates whether secondary education science and social studies candidates transferred what they learned about visual literacy in their teacher preparation program to their practicum/student teaching classrooms. The study included qualitative and quantitative methods to document the candidates’ visual literacy knowledge and practices. The findings indicate that the candidates did employ visual literacy strategies as visuals had already been regularly used in their classrooms. But, they had limited success in implementing the strategies learned in their methods courses. In addition, they showed a good working knowledge of what visual literacy is and acknowledged its value in the classroom. They also stated that the use of visuals and visual literacy would be integral parts of their teaching in the future

Digital Storytelling: The Arts and Preservice Teachers

In this presentation, the authors describe a journey of teachers in a graduate Fine Arts Methods course. The journey began with conversations about what art is and the nature of collections in exploring this question. Elements of visual literacy, storytelling and music were investigated. The final product was a Digital Story incorporating all of these elements into a teaching artifact that integrated the Arts into other content areas for K-8 students

Assessment of air quality microsensors versus reference methods: The EuNetAir Joint Exercise - Part II

The EuNetAir Joint Exercise focused on the evaluation and assessment of environmental gaseous, particulate matter (PM) and meteorological microsensors versus standard air quality reference methods through an experimental urban air quality monitoring campaign. This work presents the second part of the results, including evaluation of parameter dependencies, measurement uncertainty of sensors and the use of machine learning approaches to improve the abilities and limitations of sensors. The results confirm that the microsensor platforms, supported by post processing and data modelling tools, have considerable potential in new strategies for air quality control. In terms of pollutants, improved correlations were obtained between sensors and reference methods through calibration with machine learning techniques for CO (r2=0.13-0.83), NO2 (r2=0.24-0.93), O3 (r2=0.22-0.84), PM10 (r2=0.54-0.83), PM2.5 (r2=0.33-0.40) and SO2 (r2=0.49-0.84). Additionally, the analysis performed suggests the possibility of compliance with the data quality objectives (DQO) defined by the European Air Quality Directive (2008/50/EC) for indicative measurements

Assessment of air quality microsensors versus reference methods: The EuNetAir joint exercise

The 1st EuNetAir Air Quality Joint Intercomparison Exercise organized in Aveiro (Portugal) from 13th–27th October 2014, focused on the evaluation and assessment of environmental gas, particulate matter (PM) and meteorological microsensors, versus standard air quality reference methods through an experimental urban air quality monitoring campaign. The IDAD-Institute of Environment and Development Air Quality Mobile Laboratory was placed at an urban traffic location in the city centre of Aveiro to conduct continuous measurements with standard equipment and reference analysers for CO, NOx, O3, SO2, PM10, PM2.5, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation and precipitation. The comparison of the sensor data generated by different microsensor-systems installed side-by-side with reference analysers, contributes to the assessment of the performance and the accuracy of microsensor-systems in a real-world context, and supports their calibration and further development. The overall performance of the sensors in terms of their statistical metrics and measurement profile indicates significant differences in the results depending on the platform and on the sensors considered. In terms of pollutants, some promising results were observed for O3 (r2: 0.12–0.77), CO (r2: 0.53–0.87), and NO2 (r2: 0.02–0.89). For PM (r2: 0.07–0.36) and SO2 (r2: 0.09–0.20) the results show a poor performance with low correlation coefficients between the reference and microsensor measurements. These field observations under specific environmental conditions suggest that the relevant microsensor platforms, if supported by the proper post processing and data modelling tools, have enormous potential for new strategies in air quality control

Assessment of air quality microsensors versus reference methods: The EuNetAir Joint Exercise – Part II

The EuNetAir Joint Exercise focused on the evaluation and assessment of environmental gaseous, particulate matter (PM) and meteorological microsensors versus standard air quality reference methods through an experimental urban air quality monitoring campaign. This work presents the second part of the results, including evaluation of parameter dependencies, measurement uncertainty of sensors and the use of machine learning approaches to improve the abilities and limitations of sensors. The results confirm that the microsensor platforms, supported by post processing and data modelling tools, have considerable potential in new strategies for air quality control. In terms of pollutants, improved correlations were obtained between sensors and reference methods through calibration with machine learning techniques for CO (r = 0.13–0.83), NO (r = 0.24–0.93), O (r = 0.22–0.84), PM10 (r = 0.54–0.83), PM2.5 (r = 0.33–0.40) and SO (r = 0.49–0.84). Additionally, the analysis performed suggests the possibility of compliance with the data quality objectives (DQO) defined by the European Air Quality Directive (2008/50/EC) for indicative measurements.Peer Reviewe