Inventing Metaphors to Understand the Genre of Poetry

To make personally meaningful connections with poetry as a genre, students in the author\u27s seventh grade classes generated original metaphors to describe the essence of poetry

Session B6- Dam Removal on Main Street in Historic Pawtuxet Village

The Pawtuxet River is the third-largest tributary of Narragansett Bay, with a watershed area of approximately 230 square miles. As with most urban rivers, the Pawtuxet and its tributaries have been extensively modified for industry, transportation, and development. Today, there are more than 140 dams on the Pawtuxet system, most of which are less than 20 ft. in height. Small dams degrade riverine habitat, water quality, and biodiversity; on the Pawtuxet, they have caused extirpation of native anadromous fish runs. Large areas of the Pawtuxet’s natural floodplains have beenfilled or modified, creating flooding problems for communities along the river corridor. The Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, R.I. Dept. of Environmental Management, EA Engineering, Science and Technology, and other partners are restoring ecological functions to the lower Pawtuxet River and Narragansett Bay watersheds by removing a large portion of the Pawtuxet Falls Dam, the first downstream dam on the system (located at the head of tide), and creating a low-flow fish passage channel by using the natural pool and bedrock formations. The project will restore migratory fish habitats, reestablish ecological connections between the lower Pawtuxet River and Narragansett Bay, and enhance natural riverine functions and values. River restoration in such an urbanized setting presents many social and technical challenges. The dam is a prized historic and aesthetic feature of one of the most historic communities in Rhode Island. Its impoundment or backwater effect impacts approximately 5 linear river miles; HEC-RAS modeling is being used to design the restoration and predict post-removal changes in water surface elevation and flow. The Pawtuxet’s industrial legacy also presents challenges, requiring evaluation of potential risks to human health, with mitigation measures incorporated as necessary into restoration plans. We will discuss the social, ecological, and technical aspects of the projects to inform other urban river restorations

The Conduit\u27s Garden

This report summarizes the development process of the Interactive Media and Game Development and Computer Science Major Qualifying Project titled The Conduit’s Garden. This game was completed over a three month period at the Osaka University Toyonaka Campus in Osaka, Japan. The Conduit’s Garden is a fourth- dimensional Japanese gardening game developed in Unity3D to work with the HTC Vive virtual reality platform. Players are given the role of a Shinto spiritual conduit tasked with caring for the bonsai trees, Koi ponds, and gravel pits in a fourth-dimensional Japanese garden to appease local nature spirits. This report details the designs, implementations and playtesting that went into developing this game as well as aspirations for future development

Anomalous Eurasian snow extent and the wintertime AO

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2009.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 100-105).The winter mode of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) is the dominating influence on extratropical winter climate variability in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) . The phase of the Arctic Oscillation is characterized by trends in temperature, precipitation, air pressure, and storm tracks over the North Atlantic region, and affects northeastern North America, Europe, and parts of the Mediterranean. While predictability of the AO phase would benefit socioeconomic sectors in these densely populated regions by enabling greater foreknowledge of energy demands, precipitation intensity, and storm frequency, it is currently not particularly skillful. Previous studies have demonstrated a link between autumn snow over Eurasia and the AO mode and have proposed a dynamical pathway describing the mechanism that links them. The goal of this thesis is to present new evidence of a significant relationship between anomalous snow cover and the winter AO phase. Observational evidence of a significant link between extremely high (low) October snow extent anomalies over Eurasia and the negative (positive) AO winter phase is presented. Significant positive (negative) vertical wave activity flux (WAF) anomalies in the stratosphere during December and January are shown to occur following autumns with significantly high (low) snow extent, supporting the dynamical pathway proposed in previous studies. It is concluded that a significant mean snow extent anomaly over Eurasia in October could serve as a predictor for the AO phase of the following winter.by Elizabeth Whitin Lundgren.S.M

Sound Archive: Acadia National Park

The purpose of this project was to collect audio recordings of Acadia National Park. With these recordings, the team designed an archive that makes the recordings accessible to the general public. The audio recordings include important sounds that are signature to Acadia. These “sound marks” illustrate the unique attributes of the park to the general public. This project is of importance to groups that do not have direct access to the park. Researchers and artists who are looking for sound clips to capture and display the history of Acadia can find use in this archive. It will preserve and present the natural sounds and environment of Acadia National Park for many generations to come

Extending the Conversation: New Technologies, New Literacies, and English Education

The authors contend that new technologies have developed new literacies and new ways of thinking that are reshaping our lives. In the rapidly changing world, they argue, these new literacies and their practices must become central to effective English education programs. To frame their argument, they introduce the notion of technological pedagogical content knowledge to bridge the perceived binary of technology and English education. Throughout, they analyze how reflection on new technologies and integration of them into coursework for specific purposes is an educational, political, and even a moral imperative