danaleeling

On the last day of class the SC 130 Physical Science class was honored to have the Warning Coordination Meteorologist Landon Aydlett as a guest speaker along with the Director of the Weather Service Office here on Pohnpei, Reverend Eden Skilling. Fredson Hadley, Malisa Mauricio, Jocela Spencer (back), Kiora Pablo, Ann Loverina Mike, Myena Kasno, Landon Aydlett, Eden Skilling, Rosie-Rita Villazon, Alexander Leben, Kamaloni "Kai" Anson, Sean Hebel, Tommy Simram, Reagan Eperiam WCM Aydlett spoke about the role of NWS and his own role within the NWS in Guam. He also spoke about his own path to becoming a meteorologist and encouraged the students to consider becoming meteorologists. The class thanks WCM Aydlett for the encouraging words and Director Skilling for helping to enable this visit.

The last physical science laboratory of the term seeks to bring home the meaninglessness of the manner in which mathematics above arithmetic is taught in schools at present.  I start off my outlining the "math stack" from counting through arithmetic, algebra, and on up through calculus and beyond. I note that there are other fields of mathematics that do not make it into the stack, and yet they are no more useless to the average liberal arts major than knowing how to factor a quadratic equation. Because factoring quadratics is not a useful life skill. There are far fewer people on the planet getting paid to factor quadratic equations as a living than there are people who are paid to play video games for a living (check out the Asian competitive video game playing scene).  Then I lay out the patterns seen on the board and ask the students to predict the next letter, colored circle, arrow, or number in the sequence.  This is done entirely in the abstract without any referen...

 Page views are a proxy statistic for engagement on the Instructure Canvas platform.  The growth in the number of courses, instructors, and students over the past three terms makes discerning common patterns impossible.  Vertical axis is logarithmic Shifting to a logarithmic scale helps, but still makes a fall 2021 on fall 2022 comparison challenging at best. By rescaling each term against the maximum number of page views during that term, all three terms can be placed on a scale from zero to one. With this rescaling the shared patterns become more evident. The highest number of page views at the term start, thought to be a combination of faculty setting up material at term start and students learning to find their way around the platform. The drop in page views into midterm, and then a midterm increase in page views. The increase is, in relative terms, almost the same for all three terms.  After midterm page views decline. The drop in week fourteen spring 2022 was d...

With few students knowing their own stories and legends, and even fewer knowing any involved their traditional plants, this presentation continues to be optional. Richard presents on the origin of Piper methysthicum Sakau: how it was brought to Pohnpei. Pohnpeian cosmology includes three inhabited realms.  Pahn lahng: The place underneath the heavens, inhabited by demigods.  Pohnpei: The terrestrial island inhabited by people. Aramas in pahn Sed: the underwater people of Pohnpei who inhabit an underwater realm in the sea. Sakau came from pahn lahng. Kerehs leng. A boy that came to the island. He passed men making a canoe. The men ignored Kerehs leng and failed to greet him. After Kerehs leng had passed, the canoe was transformed back into a tree. That boy was from place of the demigods.  One day the demigods were feasting in pahn lang. A strand of sakau fell and landed in Nett. That place in Nett is now renowned for strong sakau. People in Nett discovered the sakau. ...

The 8:00 lab settled on measuring the diameter in centimeters and timing five rotations of the hula hoop in seconds.  Myena with a 137 cm hoop, the green one is 96 cm This term I had sufficient hoops to cut and splice hoops generating everything from about 72 cm up to 137 cm in diameter. This was the first term to have actual hoops in a variety of diameters.  Cutting and splicing worked far better than expected and far better than the planned approach of taping overlaps and underlaps as was piloted last summer in Kosrae. Jasmine demonstrates the rotation rate differences Cutting sections from some hoops... Allowed splicing into other hoops. The shortened hoops were closed with Black Gorilla Tape to form shorter hoops. Hoops ranges in size from 72 cm in diameter up to 137 cm in diameter. I was able to hoop the 88 cm hoop, but only two students could put the 72 cm hoop into a stable orbit, Jasmine in the 8:00 section and Joe Scott at 11:00. Jasmine with a smaller hoop, Myena wi...

This term I realized that I should not  stand in A101 and read legends and stories to the class, not if that could be avoided. Inspired by Hamilson Phillip  I had already laid the groundwork that no one version of a story is the authoritative version. Stories belong to story tellers and their families. One has to shake free of the western concept of a single correct version of events. All versions are equally and simultaneously true. I also knew that like Hamilson, or any other story teller, I could not read the story. I had to tell the story, orally, recalling the details without reference to notes. In this term of working to be fully paperless, I arrived in class empty handed. I did not take role, I did not refer to notes, I left my phone holstered out of view. Only three or four students were at the classroom at 3:30, so I headed down towards the dipwopw tree thinking to maybe hold class there. Then I decided to get a breadfruit leaf from across the road as a prop. The cla...

A second day of work on the plants for the ethnobotany final opened up a path through the plants on the west side of campus. The path starts from the east parking lot of the gym and runs straight back to an Ixora.  Jasminum sambac is also located here. Along with a Cyathea nigricans in the middle of the Gardenia jasminoides There is also a Senna alata forest developing here. Senna alata is a useful antifungal for fungal skin conditions. From the Senna alata the path turns west towards the Haruki cemetery. The path drops down through a gully which includes this lovely remnant from twenty years ago when the Chinese were building the gym. Based on the design I presume this was a part of the star gate terminus they were working on. Or not. There is metal embedded all over the hill from that construction project. Post-construction clean-up was apparently not in the contract. Cordyline fruticosa just up the slope. Cordyline fruticosa Curcuma longa. Not sure that this will still be there ...