danaleeling

To say this was an unusual term would be an understatement. The term would end on the Monday of week ten, the sixteenth of March 2020. In prior terms I had wrapped up section 10.1, which occurred this term just three days earlier on Friday 13 March, with the note that the term could now end as the students could now perform confidence interval hypothesis testing. I would note that the next set of material would not introduce any new statistical capabilities per se, just another way to do hypothesis testing. 10.2 introduces the t-statistic and 10.3 the p-value, and provided one always does two tailed hypothesis testing, the results should be those found with a confidence interval. There would be the missing material of sample on sample testing for a difference of the means. This term the term did end with 10.1 due to the global pandemic SARS-CoV-2 virus and the associated Covid-19 illnesses. The redesign of the course to compress new material into the first three-quarters of the term ...

Waves began on a RipStik on the sidewalk This term I did not have a good stable run in which led to my centerline not remaining straight. I also had an unstable swizzle frequency which led to the wavelength shifting as I traveled down the paper. Perhaps the paper was too far to the east, but I wanted the paper in front of the bulk of the class on the stairs to the right. The results of the RipStik run. Wednesday I reinforced the concepts using a rope and stopwatch, then moved on to a meter stick vibration. I skipped the bouncing ball. And then used the laptop to run an oscilloscope program and a tone generator, tying sound to waves. Thursday the class measured the speed of sound. In the morning Trumaine (and Nicky) took on the clapping. The air was misty but rain did not fall. While Jackleen strikes a pose, the class heads out. The clapper was placed in the shade of the Pterocarpus indica below the Nukap hut, just west of the intersection due to morning tr...

The midterm in SC/SS 115 Ethnobotany  was redeveloped and shifted to more closely mirror the authentic assessment used in the final examination. This also provides the students with a better idea of how the final examination will run, while also giving me some early insight into where problems may arise in that field final. Class began with a setting of the essential ground rule of an honor system field evaluation of plants encountered during the first half of the term. Volkameria inermis was first up. Ocimum tenuiflorum was the second plant. While the students answered the questions I worked on trying the limited macro capabilities of my G7. Scaevola taccada also known as Scaevola sericea was third. One white fruit was present on the plant. I suppose I could try a three foot rule, but with 25 students that would spread the class over a much larger area. That does not seem practical and the intent is not to be draconian. By and large students w...