danaleeling

On November 28 Kristina Estrada and Tanner Beckstrom presented on their ongoing research into soil health measures. Estrada is looking at plant biodiversity and Beckstrom is studying the soil. Their work specifically focuses on tropical oxisol soils and their ability to support biodiversity. Soil provides a critical ecosystem service for plants. Beckstrom covered soil health which includes physical, biological, and chemical constituents.  Beckstrom explains the function of soil. Estrada is looking at the biodiversity supported by a given soil. The relationship between soil health and biodiversity is a central part of the research.  The researchers are also looking at how specific farming practices contribute to overall soil health. The local approach to agroforestry, a mixed crop no till with mulching by leftover vegetative material after harvest all contribute to soil health.  Optional group photo after the...

Canvas has introduced a new analytics dashboard as an external tool. Where the earlier dashboard was termed Analytics, the new dashboard is referred to as Admin Analytics. For a while Admin Analytics was labeled New Analytics. The new Admin Analytics and the prior Analytics do not exactly match each other number for number. There are reasons for this. For example, Analytics appears to have counted every course in the course count. Admin Analytics counts courses that have an instructor, at least three students, are published, and have at least one page view. Analytics is not specific about the definition used, but could have included inactive courses without page views.  A comparison of the metrics reported by the two dashboard systems The table above compares the metrics for the number of instructors, courses, and students reported by the pre-existing Analytics dashboard and the new Admin Analytics dashboard. The differences appear to relate primarily to differences in underlying d...

Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Earth scaled to a sun ball not imaged.  On the road to Uranus. Saturn was back by the LRC. Ney can be seen holding the sun. Ian, Siniann, Sean, Pevirleen, and Ivy on the lead in this attendance tracking photo.  This term the weather was conducive to going all the way out to the dwarf planet Pluto. Proof of who made it to Pluto.

Monday of the week on chemistry began with an introduction to Hydrogen. After an introduction to isotopes, the lecture moved all too quickly into orbitals and lithium. As I had noted last fall , by the 40 minute mark the students were at the limit of their ability to pay attention, information saturation had been hit. Last spring a tropical system was developing in the waters of Pohnpei. I shifted gears and covered the developing weather system. By the next morning, Thursday, classes had been canceled and part of Kitti were cut off by downed trees. Thursday April 20, 2023 Trees were also down on the road over the pass into Palikir.  This pushed the laboratory back a week in spring and dropped the second day of atomics lecture. Wednesday I backed up a little and tackled beryllium followed by sodium. I wanted to use sodium and chorine to get to NaCl, salt. The problem is Chlorine is complex. I tried to run to the concept of a Neon core, but that w...

Canned fruits were prepurchased and refrigerated 24 hours in advance. Class opened with a couple fruit type videos. These bought me set up time. Attendance was heavy, only two absences. I set up a 5×5 grid of bowls. I loaded the bowl with half of every can except for the Fiesta. I dumped in the whole Fiesta can. I ladled a single scoop into every bowl, which emptied the bowl. I then refilled the bowl with the remaining half cans and put a second scoop in every bowl. The cans seen in the image provided two scoops to the 25 bowls. This was first term the canned fruit supply was exactly exhausted. Shish kabob sticks were optimal for exploring the fruit pieces one by one. The mangos were reported to be sour.  Setup requires at least 15 minutes and benefits from presetting. The videos did not appear to help with the fruit typing. The students were partly distracted by my setting up. I pulled up the fruit type table  from the text. The submission ...