danaleeling

The unit on the color of light in physical science as currently configured takes off from a playlist of videos on color, light, and the electromagnetic spectrum . This list is more than 80 minutes of videos, not including transitions between videos. The list takes more than 90 minutes to run, and 90 minutes of online streaming video is usually asking a lot of the bandwidth here on Kosrae. That said, I did have a copy of the longest video on my laptop, and I reorganized the list to run that video last this summer. I then booted the ChromeBook onto the Kosrae campus WiFi and the Gigabyte SMARTboard computer which is connected via Cat 5 cabling, hard wire. The hard wire connection stalled on attempt to load YouTube. The laptop was ready to go and the Gigabyte was still waiting for YouTube to respond. For some reason there is more bandwidth on the WiFi here than on the hardwire, but this works to my advantage with my laptop so I am loathe to see this change. I swapped over from the ...

On Wednesday 27 June the twenty-one students in physical science traveled to the Green Banana Paper production facility here on Kosrae in the Federated States of Micronesia. Green Banana Paper produces a variety of paper products using fibers from banana stems. Bananas are not a tree but rather a perennial herb that produces a pseudostem made of tightly packed banana leaf petioles. Each stem produces a single bunch of bananas and then the stem dies. New banana stems and subsequent fruit are produced on new stems arising from the base of the plant, a rhizome like structure called a corm. Banana stems at Green Banana Paper Many varieties of banana stems are suitable sources of fiber for paper production. The facility tends to purchase stems from roughly 19 varieties. For applications which require longer fibers, such as the handwoven items in inventory, Musa textilis is used. The banana stems source from roughly one hundred families, providing much needed income to local families...

On Monday in physical science class I covered the concepts of and relationships between current, voltage, resistance, power, and energy. I also showed how one can calculate the per hour cost of an appliance using the utility rate in kilowatt-hours and the power consumed by the appliance. On Tuesday the class visited the Kosrae Utility Authority. The class wishes to thank General Manager Fred Skilling for permitting and hosting the visit by the class. Thanks are due to Tolenna Joe for his presentation on energy efficiency and conservation. The class also thanks electrical engineer Gerry Protacio for the excellent presentation and tour. The engine for the 1500 kW generator  General Manager Skilling opened by welcoming the class an explaining that KUA has four main divisions. Engineering Production (generators) and Distribution (poles and lines) Accounting Computing and customer services The 1500 kW generator Engineer Gerry Protacio noted that he was not going to go...

The physical science class engaged in a follow-up exploration of data gathered at the prehistoric city of Leluh , specifically exploring whether Leluh (sometimes Lelu), Mount Finol Finkol, and the ancient sacred site of Menka (also Menke) on Kosrae are aligned in a line and whether that line aligns with the rising summer solstice sun. The alignment and the angle...  The most significant limitation was that the Google Maps web site will not permit multiple coordinate markers to be displayed. If there is a way to display multiple markers in Maps, then I am unaware of how this is accomplished. Google Earth, however, requires Google Chrome browser. And college computers have only FireFox loaded onto them. And Google Earth is a Chrome only web app. I continue to push for Chrome to be adopted as the default college browser as my students now use Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides exclusively as their productivity software. All of these are optimized for Chrome and Chrome for them. ...