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Showing posts from September, 2015

Ipomoea mauritiana

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Ipomoea mauritiana seen growing along the road in Paies, Palikir, Kitti. Pohnpeian name is  likehdou .

Pwunso spice and timber tree visit

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Four of the clove trees were cut down, reason unknown, many of the coffee plants have been removed, and three of the nutmeg trees have been removed. I do not know why nor who to ask. Pohnpei Visitor Bureau building appears abandoned and only Island Food is located there. I remain unclear who is now in charge and making decisions, but it appears I probably should try to move more plants to the college if possible.   Martha Tilfas, Allison Fugog, Sylvia Johnson    Merany Pelep, Allison Fugog, (Janessa Johnny), Trisden Elias. Lorryann Martin visible in the back on the left of Trisden.   Eucalyptus deglupta

Healing Plants

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Healing plants presentations fall 2015. Fredson Ardos covered the use of the husk of an old coconut to disinfect wounds and cuts. Erika Billen descibed the use of madeu, Pohnpei cinnamon tree, to treat back pain. The cinnamon tea is consumed hot to treat unspecified back pain. Michelle David explained the use of ilau, Clerodendrum inerme, for cough and fever. Four to eight leaves are rubbed in the hands, then the leaves are squeezed to produce a liquid. Four orally administered drops. Sylvia Johnson noted the use of the growing tip of a red-nutted coconut tree root combined with heart of the coconut tree to treat earache. Junia Alanzo presented an unusual use of the vegetative end of sakau. The leaf shoot is combined with coconut juice to ease nervousness. To the best of my recollection this is the first I have heard of the consumption of the leaves, in this case the shoots. The kavalactones are primarily in the roots. Whether the upper part of the plant is saf

Pulleys!

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Laboratory five is a fairly simple investigation of the use of pulleys to demonstrate mechanical advantage. This laboratory is the weakest in terms of tying into the lecture-demonstration section. The week focuses on force, but from a motion and Newton's laws perspective. A force equals mass times acceleration laboratory would be more appropriate, but I have not seen a good local materials only system that well illustrates the principal. In my head I think of wagons being accelerated by spring scale systems, but I have yet to conceive of a practical rig. Ideally one would vary the mass for a constant force and obtain a linearly varying acceleration, but short of air tracks and carts I have not come up with the rig to demonstrate the relationship using locally available supplies. Sharisey Lee Ling hooking up a spring scale to measure force Petery Peter changing the load on her pulley Macy Johannes records data as Callany David looks at other groups Mary-Ann Lekka

Pseudo-PowerPoint from the back of a RipStik

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A belated convocation was going to take out Wednesday the 16th, so I decided to move Newton's laws to Monday. Liberation Day had already wiped out the Friday quiz on the 11th, thus Monday the 14th had no quiz to cover. I opted to hold class in front of the south faculty building. I promised the class that in my quest to diversify my use of methods in the class, I would give a PowerPoint presentation. I mounted my RipStik and pulled out my PowerPoint cards. Which were hand scrawled in marker on eight and half by eleven sheets of high weight paper. I displayed the cards as I rode up and down in front of the class on the RipStik. I used the RipStik to demonstrate the laws as I covered them, borrowing a post as an example of an external force. I also showed that internal forces did not affect my velocity - pulling my own hand could not make me faster. The external force led naturally to the second law, and the collisions helped illustrate the third law. No pictures were taken, but th

Healing plants walk about Paies

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This fall marked the first year that the class did not visit the former traditional plants of Pohnpei garden at the Pohnpei campus. The garden has been all but lost in a transition to support for the agriculture and food technology program at Pohnpei campus. What little remains is no longer worth the trip to visit. My original thought had been to use the plants of the Palikir campus in lieu of the previous field trip, but as I fell asleep the night before the idea of walking up into Paies seized my imagination. I did not know what I might or might not find, which made the gambit all the more interesting. The walk, being new, had me occupied with locating and identifying local medicinal plants, I took few pictures.  A side track west up the border river between Sokehs and Kitti caused me to stumble upon a Cephalomanes fern, possibly Cephalomanes atrovirens. I was excited because the Cephalomanes specimen on the valley walk was gone. I also found  Antrophyum reticulatum (G. Fo

Primitive plants presentations

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A photo gallery of presentations on monilophytes and lycophytes in SC 115 Ethnobotany fall 2015. Cyanobacteria poster session Erika Billen on the life cycle of moss Erika presents as Myreesha looks on Trisden Elias covers the life cycle of lycopodium Shanon Jonathan presents on the morphology of lycopodium microphylls, strobilus, stem Jayson on the life cycle of selaginella Aiesha-Laine Santos assisted by Fredson Ardos on the morphology of ferns Well done fern morphology chart Sylvia Johnson covers Pingelapese pronunciations of primitive plants Fritz Mihkel and Merany Pelep share northern and Kitti dialectical differences in Pohnpei   Fritz covers Kitti Alison Fugog shares Yapese pronunciations with the class