A Tale of Two Stadiums: Comparing the Economic Impact of Chicago’s Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field

Supporters of sports stadium construction often defend taxpayer subsidies for stadiums by suggesting that sports infrastructure can serve as an anchor for local economic redevelopment. Have such promises of economic rejuvenation been realized? The City of Chicago provides an interesting case study on how a new stadium, U. S. Cellular Field, has been integrated into its southside neighborhood in a way that may well have limited local economic activity. This economic outcome stands in stark contrast to Wrigley Field in northern Chicago which continues to experience a synergistic commercial relationship with its neighborhood.sports, sports, stadiums, development, baseball, Chicago, economic impact

A Tale of Two Stadiums: Comparing the Economic Impact of Chicago’s Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field

Supporters of sports stadium construction often defend taxpayer subsidies for stadiums by suggesting that sports infrastructure can serve as an anchor for local economic redevelopment. Have such promises of economic rejuvenation been realized? The City of Chicago provides an interesting case study on how a new stadium, U. S. Cellular Field, has been integrated into its southside neighborhood in a way that may well have limited local economic activity. This economic outcome stands in stark contrast to Wrigley Field in northern Chicago which continues to experience a synergistic commercial relationship with its neighborhood.sports, stadiums, development, baseball, Chicago, economic impact

Teaching Engineering Ethics in the Classroom through a Town Hall Meeting Activity

Engineers often contribute to projects that impact many people and have ethical implications. Some may even move to a career of political advocacy and policy-making. However, most engineering curricula have a strongly technical focus and do not require students to think critically about ethical issues related to engineering. To bridge this gap, we developed a classroom-based town hall meeting activity that demonstrates the ethical issues that may arise when engineers are advocating for or helping craft public policies. Our town hall meeting scenario, which was set in a fictional tourist town called Rainbow Town, divided a class of twenty engineering students into groups of engineers, politicians, and voters. There were two opposing political groups and two engineering groups with competing interests. The voters had individual characters with varying careers and objectives. The town hall meeting was a debate on whether Rainbow Town should undertake a construction project that would bring jobs to the city, but could potentially adversely impact fish population at the town’s natural heritage site, the main source of income for the town. The objective of the activity varied based on what role each student was playing. The politicians’ job was to further the objectives of their own party while simultaneously keeping their voter base happy. The engineers’ job was to help voters make an informed decision about which policy (or party) to vote for, while helping politicians craft the right policy. The voters’ job was to protect their own livelihoods. Despite the simplicity of the town hall meeting scenario, the students wholeheartedly donned the mantle of their assigned role, taking the objectives of their role seriously. At the post-activity debrief, students commented that the activity was harder on the engineers since they had to prove everything with facts, but the politician groups did not.Cockrell School of Engineerin

The Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances 2012

This year's Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances chronicles the continued growth of private financial flows to the developing world and how new forms of giving are poised to change the face of international philanthropy and global foreign aid as we know it today

Understanding Student Computational Thinking with Computational Modeling

Recently, the National Research Council's framework for next generation science standards highlighted "computational thinking" as one of its "fundamental practices". 9th Grade students taking a physics course that employed the Modeling Instruction curriculum were taught to construct computational models of physical systems. Student computational thinking was assessed using a proctored programming assignment, written essay, and a series of think-aloud interviews, where the students produced and discussed a computational model of a baseball in motion via a high-level programming environment (VPython). Roughly a third of the students in the study were successful in completing the programming assignment. Student success on this assessment was tied to how students synthesized their knowledge of physics and computation. On the essay and interview assessments, students displayed unique views of the relationship between force and motion; those who spoke of this relationship in causal (rather than observational) terms tended to have more success in the programming exercise.Comment: preprint to submit to PERC proceedings 201

Sensation seeking among high- and low-risk sports participants : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the sensation seeking tendencies of select New Zealand athletes. A "sensation seeker" is thought to be a person who needs varied, complex, novel, and intense forms of stimulation and experience and who is thought to be capable of taking physical and social risks for such experiences (Zuckerman, 1994). According to Marvin Zuckerman (1994), 'Sensation Seeking' is integrated within a broader trait called Impulsive-Sensation Seeking (ImpSS). That is, the personality dimensions of 'impulsiveness' and 'sensation seeking' are thought to be interconnected. The main aim of the present study was to assess empirical support for Zuckerman's (1994) ImpSS theory and associated hypotheses, and to replicate and extend previous research findings in this area using high- and low-risk sport participants. The Sensation Seeking Scale-V (Zuckerman, Eysenck & Eysenck, 1978), the Impulsiveness Scale of the Impulsiveness- Ventureous-Empathy Scale (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1978), and a life span questionnaire of sports participation were administered to both male (n = 119), and female (n = 47) athletes currently engaged in one of eight sport disciplines - Hanggliding; Mountaineering; Sky-diving; Automobile racing; Swimming; Marathon running; Aerobics; and Golf. Results provided support for the main hypothesis of Zuckerman's ImpSS theory -- (a) that sensation seeking is integrated within a broader trait called Impulsive-Sensation Seeking; and (b) that total sensation seeking can differentiate between high- and low-risk sport participants. Results provided a mixed level support for some more specific hypotheses derived from Zuckerman's ImpSS theory. Findings are discussed with respect to Zuckerman's (1994) Impulsive-Sensation Seeking model. Limitations of the present study and suggestions for future research are also discussed