danaleeling

Floral morphology began with eb 08 Floral morphology  and then after a brief lecture at the board, moved into the field. Saya on the lead, Burnell at the left, Natalie and Shawn behind Saya. Night blooming jasmine - a Cestrum A dicot, Gardenia taitensis, masquerading as a six-petaled monocot flower An actual monocot flower: Hymenocallis littoralis The rainbow remained a backdrop fixture in the sky throughout the walk. 

The week long focus on color began on Monday with a video that connects waves from week nine with the color of light in week ten, The Limits of Light by The Secrets of Nature . Wednesday began with the use of CD spectroscopes, a discussion of how many colors and what are those colors seen in the spectrum and wrapped up with Why is Indigo in the Rainbow ? Thursday's lab saw the return use of a microscope to examine a cell phone. The lowest magnification did was not suitably sufficient for my new Motorola Moto G30, so I had to move up one tube. I then was able to use blurring to show that the red and green phosphors did indeed produce yellow.  This was followed by a truncated version of ps 10 Color .  The class worked primarily on cell phones. Connectivity was suboptimal, thus loading the text to get the code segment was suboptimal. A new code page was added after class. This should make setting up the online HTML editor easier in future terms. Perhaps. Later in the afternoon ...

Material culture is the area of the most loss and presentations are some of the most challenging for the students. As I often say to the students, I could drop any one of them into a major city and they would not stand out - their clothing would not mark them as being different. But if I dropped them into the Micronesia of 200 years ago, they would definitely stand out. Whether clothing, transportation, housing, tattoos, tools, or implements, material culture is the area of the greatest change.  Audrey Ann explains the use of the Pohnpeian mwarmwar for festivities. Sisero brings sehu pwet, sugar cane, to "Nahnmwarki" AJ. Sisero is coming to inform the king that citizen of the kingdom has passed away. Only sehu pwet can be used for this - white sugar cane.  Sisero lays the cane stalk down crosswise to the king. The stalk is then turned to signify that the king has been invited to the funeral.  Shaun and Natalie present the Chuukese love stick, an implement used long ago in...

The number of courses and instructors dropped slightly in week nine. This is thought to be due in part to a change in the number of half-term ACE courses. Some of the loss in the number of students may be due to withdrawals from courses post-midterm. In the wake of midterms, page views dropped significantly on the Instructure Canvas platform.  The drop in page views, which serves as a proxy for platform engagement, may not be unusual in the week after midterm. Page view data has not been available to the institution in the past, there is no prior data against which to compare this data. Canvas can provide insights into the platform that have not been possible in the past. With week nine being just behind midterm but ahead of the last day to withdraw from a course, there is perhaps some value in looking at the distribution of scores and grades for students on the platform.  The score intervals do not correspond exactly to grades. The numbers are class upper limits and scores up...

Thatching: a photo essay. This term thatching landed on the day the speed of sound was measured in physical science class. This meant needing to remember to pack gloves, a knife, a sharpening stone, hat, sunglasses, towels, in the morning. Misty rain fell at the start of the class, a welcome relief after the too ferocious sun of the midday. Audrey Ann works on a doak for thatching Benselyn making doakoahs en Ruk The frondlets are from oahs, Metroxylon amicarum Blossom with her "flag" Lashana demonstrated prior practice with a very regular weave Pelinda starting hers - rain had made the cement wet which is why everyone is standing Saya working on doakoahs en Ruk Herna working on the same doakoahs en Ruk style of thatching Saya Natalie retrieves more frondlets as Shawn gets started Ashanty and Pelinda Blossom marching with her self-proclaimed flag Felsida Lashana A regular, straight weave line Natalie, Burnell in the background AJ and Sisero reeling out line AJ, Sisero Saya...