danaleeling

This was an unstructured open exploration laboratory. All of the supplies were acquired from Ace Hardware on island, including the seeds used in the laboratory. Total cost of all supplies was just over a hundred. In the future a petty cash should be able to resupply this laboratory. Lee Sandra opens the seed starter mix I intentionally pre-opened none of the supplies. I wanted the students to realize that this was first off effort. I split the class of nine into three groups. In retrospect, I probably should have gone with three seed trays, perhaps smaller, one per table, and called each table a group.  The seed starter trays came with covers that effectively made them into mini-greenhouses for moisture retention.  I picked up colored construction paper and colored light filters repurposed from binder separators.  The grass seed was coated in fungicide.  I attempted a brain storming session on the white boar...

Fall 2023 I i experimented with retaining the three meter marks I used during week two, adding only a 1.5 meter mark. This worked well fall 2023, with the note that I held off all accelerative push unless the 3 meter mark, and then accelerated into 12 meters. If anything, a more minimal acceleration appears to be beneficial to generating a parabola.  As I did last fall, I inserted a 1.5 meter mark. On the first run I forgot to hit the lap timer - a practice run is recommended. I again refrained from making an accelerative push until the three meter mark. Just the wobbling required to remain on the board increased my velocity. Although I intended to end at 12 meters, rainy conditions - despite the El Niño - reduced my traction on the board. I had even used a towel to improve my traction, but my Hoka Challenger 7 GTX still lacked grip on the board deck. So my acceleration was rather tentative and timid. As a result I accelerated out to 15 meters. While the ten...

The drought strongly negatively impacted this walk. I opted to go west into Haruki after having seen that Davallia pectinata was already dead and the  Phlegmariurus phlegmaria appeared to gone.  Haruki was dry. There was only a single Thelypteris maemonensis. The Asplenium polyodon hung dead from the Acacia tree. There was no Haploteris vittata to be seen. The selaginella was gone from much of the garden. Rather depressing overall and made for a very weak SVP hike. Not to mention the downed and hanging timber. The garden remains a maze of fallen timber. 

Monday began in A101 with an opening question on how time is related to distance for motion at a constant rate.  Wednesday was used to introduce use the split timing capabilities on the stopwatches, with the students walking 30 meters and determining their walking speed using Desmos. Splits were every three meters. The Monday RipStik run was at 1.75 m/s.  Thursday the lab opened with a framing question and the table layout Data was then gathered in the field. An east wind had me reverse the direction. At 8:00 the slow balls were perhaps a tad too fast. As was done fall 2023, the slow and medium speed balls were both timed on three meter splits. The fast ball was timed on a six meter split. This appeared to work moderately well, as it had last fall. This removes the need to remeasure for each run speed. Friday I plan to cover slope zero and slope undefined. Might cover pace versus velocity. Magnus effect might be worth demonstrati...

I introduced iNaturalist on the Smartboard using the longer explanatory format focused on iNat I used in ethnobotany earlier this term. I began by introducing the scope and uses of iNaturalist on the Smartboard. Then I moved into the presentation on getting logged into iNaturalist.  The orchids have all but disappeared from across the road.  El Niño has brought scorching hot conditions to midday classes. Hyptis in the foreground. Everyday weather in this El Niño driven season of drought.

On Monday measures of middle proceeded with 12 of 15 students present and went well. Wednesday launched with only seven students. I opted to individually measure each student's height and work quartiles in the white board app on the Smartboard. Then I shifted back to Google Sheets to demonstrate the functions on the Monday data for heart rates, marble masses, and bolt masses . Desmos was used to generate box plots as the BoxPlotR host site is down. Provided the data is purely numeric, values can be copied from Google Sheets into Desmos to generate a list from which a box plot can be made. 

Day one was a brief introduction to the course followed by a walk to the Premna serratifolia, Premna obtusifolia, Macromitrium. A kidou at the drainage ditch was the starting point. Once again the students seemed unable to name their plants.  Day two, Thursday, was stripped down to a sole focus on iNaturalist. No coverage of Canvas was given. I first introduced the iNaturalist web site, tried to give the students a sense of the scope and breadth of the site. I covered the difference between wild and cultivated plants. Only then did I move into the presentation . I then had the students download iNaturalist and get logged in. Following this we walked to an area west of the LRC to get a first observation.