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RipStik wave student union

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This is the term in which the new and not yet inhabited student union has been the gift that keeps giving. The view from the mezzanine was unmatched. The unshielded stairs were something to be mindful of. This orientation kept me from either starting too close to the top of the stairs, or ending with flying off the main stairs. Getting lined up properly required a clockwise pattern with a right-hand downwind. No run was ever completely stable on the centerline when I hit the pad - that requires a longer final approach. A left-hand downwind and counterclockwise circle into the poster pad paper was not an option - the turn was too tight. This term a 300 cm tape measure was used. Easier to carry around. This term I did not pre-tape the poster pad sheets. I went straight from lunch to the student union and did all set up there.  The mezzanine was known to be cleaner than the first floor. And dirt on my wheels leaves the faint trace of the...
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Clouds

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This term a Monday holiday knocked the weather links introduction back to Wednesday. This reduced the usual three days down to 20 hours the time in which students could obtain cloud photos. The revamped geology laboratory which shifted to a slide deck now precedes this laboratory exercise - thus SnapSeed and Google Slides are already familiar to the students. As a result of a lack of cloud photos and prior experience with the tools, the laboratory did not run out to the three hours seen in the past. The opening clouds playlist is slightly longer, ending just after nine o'clock on an eight o'clock start.  After the video playlist, during which a couple students nodded off, I took the class outside to wake them back up and have them identify the clouds in the sky. This was followed by a presentation on cloud types and another on how to use SnapSeed to label clouds in a photo .  Friday covers ENSO and typhoons.
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11.1 Paired marbles t-test

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The marbles were pre-split on 5.1 grams and 5.2 grams. Less massive on one side, more massive on the other.  This term the students detected a mass difference with the results being statistically significant. The students are always surprised when they get the mass difference correct. One only has a sensation of a faint difference, but no surety.  Yet 14 of 18 were correct with one tie and three incorrect, far from the 9|9 split that might be randomly expected.
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Botany lab nine: Leaf shapes quiz

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  This laboratory was driven by two presentations, one on leaf shapes and the other on how to build a quiz in Google Forms . This term students were not informed in advance to have three leaf images available to work upon. Once the presentations were done, the students were sent out to gather leaf images to use.
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Unknown rock identification exercise

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This week the students in SC 130 Physical Science learned about characteristics of rocks including type of rock, hardness, luster, breakage, and streak color. Students also learned how to use online tools to identify rocks, using characteristics to confirm an identity. Rock fragments  On Thursday I learned the college had recently received patio flagstones for the student union. The patio flagstones were a type of rock the students hadn't seen before.  Streak sheets and 5.5 hardness test glass  With thanks to the director of maintenance, I was permitted to gather some smaller fragments that had detached during shipping.  Leona working on her fragment On Friday I had the students test their abilities at identifying an unknown rock. The students were told that in order for the college to properly care for the forthcoming patio, knowing the nature, type, and name of the patio flagstones was essential. Their task was to be a geologist ...
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Rocks

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This laboratory has two separate goals.  To learn how rocks are characterized To learn to build a slide deck using mobile apps Questions to be explored in the laboratory: What are the three basic types of rocks? What is rock hardness? What is rock luster? What is rock breakage? What is rock color streak? What is the identification of your rock? On Pohnpei there are essentially two types of rocks. The black colored rock is basalt, a combination of minerals produced by the volcanic eruptions that formed the island. Basalt can be composed of different minerals. Basalt on Pohnpei contains iron which oxidizes to form red and brown colors. The red clay soils are also high in iron. There is so much iron in the ground that well water in some places has too much iron to be consumed by us. Out in Nett there is a special facility that removes iron from the well water. The other type of rock is coral, usually a white color. Coral is not a mineral because the origin of coral is in a living anim...
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10.2 From confidence intervals to hypothesis testing

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Section 10.1 introduced using confidence intervals for hypothesis testing.  Spreadsheet In the above fibobelly exercise the tested value was 1.618, the golden ratio. There exists a theory that that the distance from the ground to the belly button divided by the distance from the belly button to the top of the head is the Fibonacci ratio 1.618.  The female confidence interval did not capture the test value of 1.618, the male confidence could not rule out the golden ratio as being the male fibobelly ratio. Desmos The shift to 10.2 hypothesis testing with the t-statistic was supported by Desmos files. Above the t-statistic for the females is out beyond the upper t-critical. Values from the spreadsheet were entered into Desmos. Desmos For the males the t-statistic is not beyond the t-statistic.
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