A General Chemistry Course for Prospective Elementary School Teachers

The paper describes a general chemistry course designed for students who are planning to become elementary school teachers. The course has been structured so as to transmit the fun and excitement of experiencing chemistry and uncovering its basic principles by centering on laboratory and other discovery experiences. In addition, the course uses peer led workshops in which the students discuss these experiences. The course is thus a product of a particularly strong collaboration between public schools and college faculties. It is going to become a part of a new four-course sequence that will be required of all students intending to earn elementary education certification at Lehman College

Highways and Bi-Ways for Environmental Justice

The purpose of this essay is to discuss the past, present, and future of the environmental justice movement as illustrated by the highway between Selma and Montgomery in Alabama and the highway system surrounding the City of Atlanta in neighboring Georgia. The essay is divided into three parts. The first part describes environmental justice, seeking both to place it in a broader historical perspective and to discuss how it relates to civil rights law and environmental law. The second part undertakes a closer examination of the challenges presented by efforts to fashion positive law to address environmental justice norms. This discussion considers why it has proven so difficult for both civil rights and environmental law to evolve in a responsive fashion. Particular attention is paid to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which has been an area of emphasis for many in the environmental justice movement. Finally, the essay speculates on where progress is more likely to be made in the future in terms of securing legal bases for the promotion of environmental justice objectives. The essay concludes that the two highways that bookend the essay suggest possible bi-ways to environmental justice based on both environmental and civil rights laws

Crystals and Mud in Nature

Professor James Salzman has written a wonderful article, which promises an equally wonderful book. His article intelligently and thoughtfully examines the forces that compete, conflict, and combine in the creation of laws relating to drinking water. These include, of course, the physical characteristics of the resource itself and how the resource relates to essential biological needs of humankind. But as Professor Salzman demonstrates, the biological role is only one of several perspectives on drinking water relevant to the kind of legal rules that apply to it. The article describes drinking water as a cultural resource, a social resource, and an economic resource, contending that one has to consider each of these various natures of a natural resource to determine how best to fashion legal rules governing its management. The article readily reminds us how much human history and culture relates to natural resources law. For the purposes of this commentary, however, I would like to expand on two reactions I had to the article. The first is that the article\u27s narrow focus on one use of water undermines some of the article\u27s conclusions by understating water\u27s complexity. And the second is why the article made me think about dirt, and ultimately about mud, and the juxtaposition of water and dirt in natural resources law

The Tragedy of Distrust in the Implementation of Federal Environmental Law

The relationship between the EPA and Congress Since the founding of the EPA in 1970 has been marked by congressional oversight that has seriously frustrated the development and implementation of federal environmental protection policy. A destructive cycle has emerged: agency distrust has led to the failure of its policies, creating further distrust and further failure

Human Nature, the Laws of Nature, and the Nature of Environmental Law

The essay is divided into three parts. Part I considers the ways in which the need for environmental law derives from the tendency of human nature to cause adverse environmental consequences and the ways in which the laws of nature make it more difficult to prevent those consequences absent the imposition of external legal rules. Part II describes how our nation\u27s lawmaking institutions are similarly challenged by the laws of nature. This includes a discussion of how the kinds of laws necessary to bridge the gap between human nature and the laws of nature are systematically difficult for our lawmaking institutions to develop in the first instance and to maintain over time. Part III takes a closer look at one of the nation\u27s most important legal institutions - the United States Supreme Court - and briefly discusses both its past shortcomings in environmental lawmaking and its potential in the future. This part of the essay includes some analysis of the Court\u27s deliberations in specific environmental cases, as revealed by the recently disclosed official papers of Justice Harry Blackmun

Generalized Moran sets Generated by Step-wise Adjustable Iterated Function Systems

In this article we provide a systematic way of creating generalized Moran sets using an analogous iterated function system (IFS) procedure. We use a step-wise adjustable IFS to introduce some variance (such as non-self-similarity) in the fractal limit sets. The process retains the computational simplicity of a standard IFS procedure. In our construction of the generalized Moran sets, we also weaken the fourth Moran Structure Condition that requires the same pattern of diameter ratios be used across a generation. Moreover, we provide upper and lower bounds for the Hausdorff dimension of the fractals created from this generalized process. Specific examples (Cantor-like sets, Sierpinski-like Triangles, etc) with the calculations of their corresponding dimensions are studied.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figure

HOW BIG IS MINNESOTA'S FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY?

This report shows that the state's food and agricultural industry is still a significant component of the economy, although probably less so than in earlier years due mainly to agricultural commodity price declines. Agricultural output amounted to 8 percent of the state's total output in 1999, while employment in the industry represented 5 percent of total employment and 3 percent of the labor income generated in the state. Agricultural exports out of the state were 19 percent of the state's total exports. These agricultural exports generate additional indirect sales such as feedgrains sold to pork producers and farm machinery sales to crop farms. The indirect impact measures are derived using the IMPLAN input-output software package. The food and agricultural industry accounts for 213,000 jobs, or 6 percent of the state total, when these secondary impacts of exports are considered. When all food and agricultural industry final sales for export and in-state use are used as the direct measure rather than just exports, the total number of jobs directly or indirectly generated comes to 350,000, or 11 percent of the state total. The importance of agriculture is greater on a percentage basis for the western and southeastern portions of the state. Another measure of the food and agricultural industry's contribution to the state economy is the state's strong $8 billion "trade surplus" in food and agricultural products.Agribusiness,