8,917 research outputs found
The Unseen Folklore of Dia de los Muertos
This essay offers a unique and personal approach to the Mexican holiday “Dia de los Muertos,” and highlights the way it is perceived in modern-day American culture. Author Bailey White shares historical knowledge on the holiday while simultaneously offering insight on the underlying values that are found throughout some of celebration’s most popular traditions
Being Somali Bantu in the City: A Look at the Life of a Somali Bantu Student in the Syracuse City School District
“Saturdays with Egal” is a documentary for the Capstone thesis “Being Somali Bantu in the City: A look at the life of a Somali Bantu student in the Syracuse City School District. The film focuses on Egal Adan, a Somali Bantu, fourteen-year-old refugee. It is a story about my relationship with Egal as a tutor and mentor. “Saturdays with Egal” also delves into the adversity he has had to overcome and his accomplishments in school, sports, extracurricular activities, and at home despite his hardships.
I chose to create a documentary because of the organic relationship it creates between viewers and the subject. I filmed on my own such that each scene was created with my subjects, a camera, and me. This allowed the characters to feel more comfortable opening up, especially in interviews, and allows the audience to feel as if they are apart of the family and friends with the characters, rather than just observing a staged production. I used a combination of cinema vérité and journalistic styling. The film is also driven by my voiceover narration, which provides background and additional insight into Egal’s life and our relationship.
The film presents the themes of perseverance and determination. My goal is to inspire people and teach them about the Somali Bantu refugee population as well as necessities for students to succeed in urban school districts. One of my passions is urban education reform, and this is my first step in bringing attention to the help we need for our schools. The film focuses on a student that self-sufficiently has taught himself and succeeded in the Syracuse City School District, but he lives in poverty. Other students do not have the same drive that Egal has and thus struggle because they do not receive proper help. By highlighting a student that has surpassed expectations in Syracuse schools, we see what works and is needed in order to help other students reach the same level. The film shows that with proper support and funding for classes and extracurricular activities, students are more apt to devote themselves to their schoolwork and achieve high grades. “Saturdays with Egal” taught me, and will teach the viewers, about our relationship as teacher and student, the Somali Bantu community, and urban education through the life of a refugee student
Improving Access to Books for Young School-age Children One Library at a Time
Johnson and Donham (2012) found that Iowa elementary school library check out policies for young children did not always support early literacy development because of their being overly restrictive concerning the number of books children could borrow each week. A state-wide survey of Idaho elementary school library staff revealed similar challenges. Preschoolers, kindergarteners, and 1st graders were not being given adequate access to books. A state-wide grant program was developed and implemented that provided funds for collection development while stipulating the implementation of less restrictive check out policies for young children. Results from the grant program are reported along with future plans and recommendations for others wanting to implement similar programs
Keck NIRSPEC Radial Velocity Observations of Late-M dwarfs
We present the results of an infrared spectroscopic survey of 23 late-M
dwarfs with the NIRSPEC echelle spectrometer on the Keck II telescope. Using
telluric lines for wavelength calibration, we are able to achieve measurement
precisions of down to 45 m/s for our late-M dwarfs over a one to four year-long
baseline. Our sample contains two stars with RV variations of >1000 m/s. While
we require more measurements to determine whether these RV variations are due
to unseen planetary or stellar companions or are the result of starspots known
to plague the surface of M dwarfs, we can place upper limits of <40 MJsini on
the masses of any companions around those two M dwarfs with RV variations of
<160 m/s at orbital periods of 10-100 days. We have also measured the
rotational velocities for all the stars in our late-M dwarf sample and offer
our multi-order, high-resolution spectra over 2.0 to 2.4 micron to the
atmospheric modeling community to better understand the atmospheres of late-M
dwarfs.Comment: Accepted to Ap
Dynamic landscapes and human dispersal patterns : tectonics, coastlines, and the reconstruction of human habitats
Studies of the impact of physical environment on human evolution usually focus on climate as the main external forcing agent of evolutionary and cultural change. In this paper we focus on changes in the physical character of the landscape driven by geophysical processes as an equally potent factor. Most of the landscapes where finds of early human fossils and artefacts are concentrated are ones that have been subjected to high levels of geological instability, either because of especially active tectonic processes associated with faulting and volcanic activity or because of proximity to coastlines subject to dramatic changes of geographical position and physical character by changes of relative sea level. These processes can have both beneficial effects, creating ecologically attractive conditions for human settlement, and deleterious or disruptive ones, creating barriers to movement, disruption of ecological conditions, or hazards to survival. Both positive and negative factors can have powerful selective effects on human behaviour and patterns of settlement and dispersal. We consider both these aspects of the interaction, develop a framework for the reconstruction and comparison of landscapes and landscape change at a variety of scales, and illustrate this with selected examples drawn from Africa and Arabia
Time-Dependence of the Mass Accretion Rate in Cluster Cooling Flows
We analyze two time-dependent cluster cooling flow models in spherical
symmetry. The first assumes that the intracluster gas resides in a static
external potential, and includes the effects of optically thin radiative
cooling and mass deposition. This corresponds to previous steady-state cooling
flow models calculated by White & Sarazin (1987). Detailed agreement is found
between steady-state models and time-dependent models at fixed times in the
simulations. The mass accretion rate is found either to increase or remain
nearly constant once flows reach a steady state. The time rate of change of the
accretion rate is strongly sensitive to the value of the mass deposition
parameter q, but only mildly sensitive to the ratio beta of gravitational
binding energy to gas temperature. We show that previous scaling arguments
presented by Bertschinger (1988) and White (1988) are valid only for mature
cooling flows with weak mass deposition (q ~< 1). The second set of models
includes the effects of a secularly deepening cluster potential and secondary
infall of gas from the Hubble flow. We find that such heating effects do not
prevent the flows from reaching a steady state within an initial central
cooling time.Comment: 22 pages (AASTeX) with 16 EPS figures; accepted for publication in
The Astrophysical Journa
Librarians: Key Partners in a State-Wide Book Distribution Outreach Program
Book distribution programs targeted at young children and their families that include the children own-ing the books have been in existence for a long time. Results are provided from a multi-year program evaluation of a unique, state-wide book distribution program developed in 1997 by the Idaho Commis-sion for Libraries called My First Books. The program is unique among book distribution programs because it relies on local librarians to deliver and showcase the books each month during the academic year in a variety of public and private early childhood care and education settings. My First Books thus becomes a powerful mechanism for library outreach to local childcare and education facilities, parents and caregivers of young children, and the children themselves. Program evaluation results reveal a highly popular and effective program for all of these constituencies that fits well within the resources available in public libraries of all sizes throughout Idaho
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