Posts

Island Food Community of Pohnpei's CHEEF benefits

Image
All material below is from the Island Food Community of Pohnpei . Culture Food is a basic part of our culture. When we promote our island foods, we are also promoting the traditional Pohnpeian way of life and farming system. As the forces of globalization affect indigenous peoples' traditions and food availability, it is imperative that traditional knowledge on agroforestry and cultural beliefs surrounding food are preserved for future generations. Connection to the land and local ecosystems is one way to do this. Health Consuming island foods provides protection against many nutritionally-related diseases including: diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, vitamin A deficiency, and anemia. Health problems emerged from the 1970s with the dietary shift to imported processed foods, resulting in the level of non-communicable diseases being identified as a health emergency in the region. Nutrient-rich staple food crops have been substituted by imported white rice. This pre...

Five marbles must use groups of equal size

Image
[Chapter eight] The five marbles exercise used in MS 150 Statistics is intended to demonstrate that the mean of a set of sample means in a closed system is equal to the population mean. A closed system is where the sample sizes add to the population size: the whole population under consideration is sampled by samples of equal sample size. The exercise is also used to show that the standard error of the mean is smaller than the standard deviation of the data. I start the exercise by giving each student five marbles. After the marbles are distributed I ask what is the average number of marbles each student has. The answer is five, all students have five marbles thus the average is self-evidently five marbles per person. On the board I multiply the number of students by five to calculate the total number of marbles that have been distributed in the room and then divide the total number of marbles by the total number of students to get back five. I then tell the students that t...

Mathematical models and the physical science midterm

Image
SC 130 physical science is guided by the idea that the great book of the universe is written in the language of mathematics. The first laboratory of the course opens with my reading of a quote from Freeman Dyson. As this is written, Freeman Dyson has just passed away at the age of 96 years. Dyson wrote, For a physicist mathematics is not just a tool by means of which phenomena can be calculated, it is the main source of concepts and principles by means of which new theories can be created... ...equations are quite miraculous in a certain way. I mean, the fact that nature talks mathematics, I find it miraculous. I mean, I spent my early days calculating very, very precisely how electrons ought to behave. Well, then somebody went into the laboratory and the electron knew the answer. The electron somehow knew it had to resonate at that frequency which I calculated. So that, to me, is something at the basic level we don't understand. Why is nature mathematical? But there's no dou...

GPS hide and seek

Image
Each term I spend a few days considering hides for the GPS hide and seek activity. I gave the most serious consideration to a hide among a small stand of Clinostigma ponapensis I only stumbled onto this term.  This location is just to the northwest of a place I hid in 2010 . Yet when I went out onto the campus on Monday to find my hide I settled on the most unorthodox location yet: a hide almost in plain site and not out in the remote fringes of the campus. This term the hide was not out under a bush or tree, nor buried in the paddle grass Faustino Jr. on lead GPS for group one I thought this might be the easiest term, yet no team reached me until after 12:15 PM. That is faster than a hiding spot out in the fringes, but was still useful. The porch would prove to be a more useful place to query the searchers on what they learned. Keilana, Christian The group had apparently taken the activity to be a race and had done some running. The group initially had gone too...

Pwunso botanic garden visit

Image
Pwunso prep this term began in A204 with a run through of a history of the Pohnpei agriculture station  followed by brief coverage of how nutmeg and the lure of spices brought westerners into these waters .  I also provided a handout on some of the plants we might see on our visit to the garden: The walk started at the millenium tree behind the public library. Angiosperm: Ficus prolixa. Banyan, aiau, auu, aw, kohnyah, leaves as hair conditioner The walk then crossed the driveway to have a look at the remaining clove spice trees. Angiosperm: Syzygium aromaticum. Clove tree. Christian considers the Araucaria pine Then the class looked at the Araucaria pine trees. Gymnosperm: Araucaria columnaris. Cook Island Pine. Family: Araucariaceae James looks up as I explain that the round female cones remain near the top of the tree Male cones of the Araucaria columnaris tree The trunk of Araucaria is distinctly pine-like. Gymnosperms produce pollen and seeds...

Temperature, Heat, and Cooling Curves

Image
Monday I showed a 1980 set of videos on heat and temperature by the Ontario Educational  Communication Authority that was acquired by the MITC in VCR format circa 1993. Those videos remain one of the best introductions to temperature and heat which is comprehensive and fits into a 50 minute period comfortably. Temperatures Wednesday I ran a series of temperature demonstrations. This term the coconut oil was placed in the refrigerator in the morning, and melted at under 20°C. I also briefly mentioned three of the ways heat moves. Thursday I used cups of three different materials: metal, glass, and Styrofoam. The morning session saw some groups abandoning data recording after they had ten to twelve data points - only ten minutes into the cooling. The trend appears linear at this point and I had to ask them to continue taking data. In the afternoon I went ahead and was more careful in noting that the data would take time and would slow down but would not stop. I noted the...