Embracing Complexity: Creating Cultural Change Through Education for Sustainability

Campus Kindergarten in Brisbane, Australia, is a community-based organisation for children and families that has embraced change through the evolution of its internationally acclaimed ‘Sustainable Planet Project’. The centre initiated the project in 1997, introducing a range of new curriculum and pedagogical processes - always with young children at the heart - that have led to improvements in play spaces, reduced waste, lowered water consumption and improved biodiversity. This child-focussed approach is reflected in the way that children’s ideas provide much of the motivation and inspiration for changing to more sustainable practices. A whole centre project on water conservation, for example, was sparked when preschoolers (aged 4 years) articulated their concerns to staff about water use in the sandpit. This paper overviews a recent research project designed to document, examine and highlight the Sustainable Planet Project, to assist centre staff, researchers and others with a commitment to sustainability, to understanding the change processes. An important feature has been the project's slow, sometimes erratic, development that has always added complexity to the teachers’ work. Such change, however, has not been viewed negatively. Complexity theory has helped to explain the project’s evolution and complexity has been embraced as a vehicle for creativity, engagement, critique and ongoing change in this learning organisation. As a consequence, a culture of sustainability now permeates the centre where a strong vision has been translated into small but realistic goals and achievements

Motivation and Study Habits of College Calculus Students: Does Studying Calculus in High School Make a Difference?

Due in part to the growing popularity of the Advanced Placement program, an increasingly large percentage of entering college students are enrolling in calculus courses having already taken calculus in high school. Many students do not score high enough on the AP calculus examination to place out of Calculus I, and many do not take the examination. These students take Calculus I in college having already seen most or all of the material. Students at two colleges were surveyed to determine whether prior calculus experience has an effect on these students' effort levels or motivation. Students who took calculus in high school did not spend as much time on their calculus coursework as those who did not take calculus, but they were just as motivated to do well in the class and they did not miss class any more frequently. Prior calculus experience was not found to have a negative effect on student motivation or effort. Colleges should work to ensure that all students with prior calculus experience receive the best possible placement, and consider making a separate course for these students, if it is practical to do so

Motivation and Study Habits of College Calculus Students: Does Studying Calculus in High School Make a Difference?

Due in part to the growing popularity of the Advanced Placement program, an increasingly large percentage of entering college students are enrolling in calculus courses having already taken calculus in high school. Many students do not score high enough on the AP calculus examination to place out of Calculus I, and many do not take the examination. These students take Calculus I in college having already seen most or all of the material. Students at two colleges were surveyed to determine whether prior calculus experience has an effect on these students' effort levels or motivation. Students who took calculus in high school did not spend as much time on their calculus coursework as those who did not take calculus, but they were just as motivated to do well in the class and they did not miss class any more frequently. Prior calculus experience was not found to have a negative effect on student motivation or effort. Colleges should work to ensure that all students with prior calculus experience receive the best possible placement, and consider making a separate course for these students, if it is practical to do so

Why Grant Writing and Research Matters in Counselor Education: Advancing Our Discipline

This study outlines findings from an online survey gauging counseling faculty (N = 174) on their experience with grant funding. Results indicate that faculty, especially junior faculty, lack experience and desire knowledge in grant-writing skills. A discussion on why grant funding is important to the future of counseling is included

Biased Preferences to Names

The experimenters intended to show support that children have a bias against names that are uncommon and difficult to pronounce. Common and uncommon names were taken from the social security administration. Sixty-nine college students participated in a survey to determine what names are difficult to pronounce. Names that were common and easy to pronounce were paired with those names that were uncommon and difficult to pronounce. These pairings underwent a t-test to ensure they were significantly different from each other. Twenty-one children whose ages range from 6 to 12 took part in an interview on preferences of names. In using a chi square analysis, statistical significance was found at the .001 level, showing support for the hypothesis that children prefer names that are common and easy to pronounc

The Parthenon, January 30, 2015

The Parthenon, Marshall University’s student newspaper, is published by students Monday through Friday during the regular semester and weekly Thursday during the summer. The editorial staff is responsible for the news and the editorial content

A Unified Description of the Electrical Properties of Low-Density Polyethylene via the Dispersion Parameter

Low-density polyethylene is a prototypical highly disordered insulating material. This ubiquitous polymer has a variety of applications from spacecraft charging to high voltage DC power cable insulation. Therefore, the electrical properties are of great interest. The dispersion parameter, which originally appeared in a semi-empirical model to describe anomalies in permittivity data, is central to an understanding of these electrical properties. This parameter depends linearly on either temperature (low field regime) or on electric field (high field regime) and is scaled by the reciprocal of a characteristic energy. When the dispersion parameter reaches one, a transition from dispersive to non-dispersive transport occurs. Scher and Montroll spurred an “anomalous to obvious phase transition” by describing the anomalous transit times in dispersive materials with use of long-tailed hopping-time distribution functions characterized by the dispersion parameter. Direct measurements of the evolution of embedded charge distributions via pulsed electroacoustic measurements show a dispersive to normal transport transition occurs at an electric field strength of ~108 V/m. Measurements of the temperature transition in constant voltage conductivity data measured by our group and extensive data from the literature are presented and described in terms of the dispersion parameter. Other models and measurements—including those for AC and DC conductivity, radiation induced conductivity, charge decay, and electrostatic breakdown—also depend on the dispersion parameter. Research was supported by an AFRL STTR award through Box Elder Innovations and a USU Presidential Doctoral Research Fellowship

The Parthenon, April 24, 2015

The Parthenon, Marshall University’s student newspaper, is published by students Monday through Friday during the regular semester and weekly Thursday during the summer. The editorial staff is responsible for the news and the editorial content

The Parthenon, January 23, 2015

The Parthenon, Marshall University’s student newspaper, is published by students Monday through Friday during the regular semester and weekly Thursday during the summer. The editorial staff is responsible for the news and the editorial content