danaleeling

The second day of ethnobotany class included a tour of the plants lost in the weeds and invasive species behind the FSM-China Friendship Sports Center. The sea of Ischaemum polystachyum had completely engulfed the Ixora casei variant and the Jasminum sambac. The Cymbopogon citratus was also becoming engulfed. The Colocasia escuelenta was all struggling to survive. I had taken only one knife - the area was too tight to have a class all wielding machetes. The rain came down, and the class learned that plants happen in the rain. Some thought we might take shelter, but not ethnobotany class. No lightning, no flood, no need for shelter. Cleaning by pulling, using raw strength, with the one on the right shouting encouragement  Cymbopogon citratus Merremia peltata on Senna alata with Ischaemum polystachyum Under the Ischaemum polystachyum, Colocasia escuelenta Soft taro A late afternoon rainbow A class with rainbow selfies?

The banana patch was heavily overgrown this term. After a viewing machete safety videos in A204, the class walked down to the patch. I had preloaded the machetes in my car and pre-positioned the car at the agriculture area so the class did not have to cross campus with machetes. This took more time than I anticipated, and I had to jog back to the class to meet them on time. This approach, however, works better than any other. At the end of class the students simply put the machetes in the car, I do not have to lug a couple dozen machetes back across the campus. Deep in Clidemia hirta Sasha Mitchell Naoya pulling Clidemia hirta The Clidemia hirta was tall and thick Fanning out around the overgrown garden The instructor Vanessa Hadley clearing bush Jon Jose

This term I opened the laboratory with an expansion on the Dyson quote I have used in past terms. I added a quote from Galileo Galilei. The core idea is that nature is mathematical and the laws of nature are written in a mathematical language. For the Galileo quote I translated his use of "philosophy" into the modern understanding of that usage as "science." I decided to first give a go at the original quote as written by Galileo, here reproduced without the accent marks. La filosofia e scritta in questo grandissimo libro, che continuamente ci sta aperto innanzi agli occhi (io dico l' Universo'), ma non si puo intendere, se prima non il sapere a intender la lingua, e conoscer i caratteri ne quali e scritto. Egli e scritto in lingua matematica,... which might be translated as: [Science] is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes — I mean the universe — but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the s...

For the past fifteen years statistics has started with gathering data on body metrics and then launching into a lecture driven course. In 2008 I added statistics projects to the lecture and test mix. The statistics projects did not result in increased student engagement with statistics .  In 2013 the experiment with projects was replaced with exercises in open data exploration .  In 2015 the open data explorations were capped off by a single student presentation . In subsequent terms the number of end of term presentations would be increased. The course was still structured around a lecture and test format in the first eleven to twelve weeks of the course, and three to four weeks of open data exploration. In an attempt to integrate a more problem based learning approach to learning in statistics, in fall 2016 the curriculum was planned to include open data exploration and presentations from start of the term. As is often the case, the thought first struck me while out on a r...