Including the Interactive White Board in a Classroom

In the last decade, a new technology has started to make its way into countless classrooms around the world. This technology is the Interactive White Board (IWB) system. This self study project shows ways a teacher can integrate the IWB technology in an elementary school classroom. This study was conducted in a first grade classroom in an urban area through analyzing lessons, student work, and teacher journals. The lessons that were taught all included the use of an IWB in different ways, including viewing of online sources, accessing curriculum materials, providing interactive materials, documenting student or teacher work, modeling, and creating opportunities for students to be active learners. I found that the IWB is an effective tool in both delivery of materials during lessons and assessment

Scenario Evaluator for Electrical Resistivity Survey Pre-modeling Tool

Geophysical tools have much to offer users in environmental, water resource, and geotechnical fields; however, techniques such as electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) are often oversold and/or overinterpreted due to a lack of understanding of the limitations of the techniques, such as the appropriate depth intervals or resolution of the methods. The relationship between ERI data and resistivity is nonlinear; therefore, these limitations depend on site conditions and survey design and are best assessed through forward and inverse modeling exercises prior to field investigations. In this approach, proposed field surveys are first numerically simulated given the expected electrical properties of the site, and the resulting hypothetical data are then analyzed using inverse models. Performing ERI forward/inverse modeling, however, requires substantial expertise and can take many hours to implement. We present a new spreadsheet-based tool, the Scenario Evaluator for Electrical Resistivity (SEER), which features a graphical user interface that allows users to manipulate a resistivity model and instantly view how that model would likely be interpreted by an ERI survey. The SEER tool is intended for use by those who wish to determine the value of including ERI to achieve project goals, and is designed to have broad utility in industry, teaching, and research

In Situ Rhamnolipid Production at an Abandoned Petroleum Refinery

A simple screening method was developed to detect in situ biosurfactant production by exploiting the relationship between surface tension (ST) and surfactant concentration. Filtered groundwater from contaminated wells with ST values of 60 to 70 dynes/cm decreased to 29 dynes/cm after being concentrated 10 to 15 times in a rotary evaporator, indicating that biosurfactants in the sample reached the critical micelle concentration (CMC). Samples from uncontaminated groundwater concentrated 25 times showed no decrease in ST below 72 dynes/cm, suggesting that biosurfactants were not present. Microorganisms from soil cores were cultured on diesel fuel and identified using fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) analysis. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was found at very low numbers in uncontaminated soil but was the dominant species in contaminated soil, indicating that hydrocarbon release impacted microbial diversity significantly. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to quantify rhamnolipids, biosurfactants produced by P. aeruginosa, in concentrated groundwater samples. Rhamnolipid concentrations in samples from contaminated soil were observed equal to their CMC (50 mg/L), but were not detected in samples from uncontaminated wells. We conclude that biosurfactant production may be an indicator of intrinsic bioremediation