danaleeling

Floral morphology began the way floral morphology began with a video playlist led off by a music video to accommodate late arrivals and students settling in. I showed only the first six videos. The rest of the list is only used on rainy days. After the video the class went outside to observe floral morphology in the field. In the field the students had a handout that they were working with. This term I also tried to make a couple iNaturalist observations during the field walk. Due to the limited time, I was only able to get a couple of observations logged, Hibiscus rosa-sinensis and Mimosa pudica . The walk ended at period end at the Hymenocallis littoralis.

The SC/SS 115 Ethnobotany class visited the Vital Coconut Industry Development Unit  which has a mission focus on coconut for life . Through the production of coconut oil based products, Vital provides income to farmers across the nation. The farmers are registered and organized into participant guarantee system groups (PGS) that sell copra to Vital. The copra is used to produce both crude coconut oil diesel and virgin coconut oil for cooking and cosmetic uses. The facility in Pohnpei focuses on the production of virgin coconut oil for cooking oil and soap production. The facility can process up to 2000 pounds of copra per day, roughly 1500 coconuts. The process also produces roasted dried and pressed copra which is sold as pig feed. A larger facility with a ten fold increase in capacity is under construction in Tonoas, Chuuk. That facility will produce crude coconut oil, pig feed, and from the husks, peat. A briefing on the coconut industry and benefits to the nation A s...

The Secretary-Treasurer of the Awak Farmers Association, Loatis Seneres, presented on leaf sheaf petiole plates being produced by the Awak Farmers Association. These plates represent a modern evolution in ethnobotanical material culture. These plates are intended to replace single use plastic and styrofoam plates. Being made from the leaf sheaf portion of the petiole of an Areca palm here on Pohnpei, the plates are environmentally friendly and fully biodegradable. The process begins with collecting, cleaning, and storing fallen Areca catechu palm fronds. The fronds should be stored in a dry place. The sooner the frond is collected from the ground, the lighter the color of the leaf sheath. Plate production begins with soaking the petiole for ten to fifteen minutes to make the leaf sheath more flexible and pliable. The leaf sheath is then allowed to dry slightly for fifteen to twenty minutes. Photo from SS Engineering works A single leaf sheath is used, three to five pl...

This term the week on which optics landed was a shortened week. Monday was FSM Independence Day and Friday is Pohnpei Constitution Day. This left an abbreviated stub of a week with a single lecture on Wednesday and a single laboratory section. Ellena and Joyann determine the location of the image Wednesday I showed Bill Nye's Light and Optics video. This usually occurs on Monday followed by a Wednesday lecture and demonstration session. This term the Wednesday demonstrations were set aside. The morning was gloriously sunny Thursday morning the water was off due to a power outage early in the morning. This left me unable to set up the apparent depth equipment. I chose to forgo the refraction portion of the laboratory at 8:00, knowing that this would also cancel the refraction portion of the 11:00 laboratory. The lack of water at 8:00, however, left no other options. Kimmy and James work out the image position The shortened laboratory went well with the shorten...

Halloween 2019 saw a distinct drop in the number of groups and children seeking sweet treats. The low tally is certainly partially attributable to an increased security presence in the area, yet that alone would not account for the lower turnout. Children appeared to be able to freely move through the security point, some perhaps chose not to do so. A Thursday school night may have had some impact, there are surely other factors that impinged on the candy count this year. Total candy distributed fell from the running average of 473 down to 128 this year. Note that in 2017 and 2018 numbers were limited by candy exhausting prior to eight in the evening, with 2018 running out of candy by 7:49 PM. No "mega-groups" of youth were seen this year, groups of over thirty. The largest group came in at 24, and that was the sole outlier in the data for this year.

Each term I have the students in SC 130 Physical Science view the visible spectrum using a CD spectroscope . This follows the viewing the Limits of Light . I have used the CD spectroscope exercise both to frame the visible light spectrum lecture and to tackle the "issue" of indigo . This term I added a slight twist to the lecture demonstration session. Staisy I brought crayons and drawing paper and asked the students to draw the spectrum. This had an unexpected consequence: for the first time students were going back and looking at the spectrum again. As this happened I suddenly realized that the students had been only glancing at the rainbow without really analyzing what colors they were seeing and in what order. The introduction of sketching the spectrum shifted this up to the thinking taxonomy to analysis.  Mauriney, Ellena, Joyann This also led directly to the issue of indigo, with some students working to ensure that they had seven colors including indigo....

Usually the " paper aircraft exercise " is done as an example designed to capture a known, pre-existing population mean. This term a string of rainy mornings prevented this exercise from occurring in chapter ten . Good weather landed on the morning of 11.2 , so I opted to divide the class into a group one and a group two and then testing to see which group, if either, could achieve a greater average flight distance. Given that there were no criterion for being in one or the other group (the students were split by the side of the room in which they choose to sit), the expectation would be no difference in the means. Folding Flying Distribution on the ground Distances were measured perpendicular to the building. Aircraft that landed on the first floor porch were negative distances. Once the data was entered and the means were calculated I asked the class, "If we threw the planes again, would we get the same average distance? Could the averages reverse th...