Global Competition: How We Can Win
6th Annual Berkeley in Silicon Valley Symposium
In his recent best selling book, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Friedman writes that the lowering of trade and political barriers and profound technological advances in global connectivity have enabled a "flat world" where it is possible to do business or almost anything else instantaneously and with billions of people. According to Dean Richard Newton, it is perhaps ironic that
Changing the Culture of the Academy: Toward a More Inclusive Practice
Mission Statement
Changing the Culture of the Academy explores ways that the academy might incorporate the challenge of diversity as it pertains to its core mission and practice. Participants will consider new paradigms for rethinking the academy that are inclusive of various cultural and disciplinary traditions, learning styles and identities. This will include opening a dialogue about these issues across all disciplines, from the social sciences and humanities to the physical and life sciences
The Olympic Region Harmful Algal Blooms
This is the website of the Olympic Region Harmful Algal Bloom (ORHAB) partnership, which was organized to develop collaboration and cooperation among federal, state and local management agencies, coastal Indian tribes, marine resource-based businesses, public interest groups, and academic institutions. The ORHAB partnership investigates the origins of blooms of toxic algae, monitors where and when the blooms occur, assesses the environmental conditions conducive to blooms and toxification of int
Precipitation Protocols
The purpose of this activity is to determine the amount of moisture input to the local environment by measuring rain and snowfall and to measure the pH of precipitation. To do so students use a rain gauge and a snowboard to measure the daily amount of precipitation. Special pH measuring techniques for precipitation are used to determine the pH of rain and melted snow. Intended outcomes are that students will understand that precipitation is measured in depth and this depth is assumed to apply to
Soil and My Backyard
The purpose of this resource is to explore soil and soil properties. Students discover the variability of soils, derive relationships among soils and the soil forming factors, and link the GLOBE Soil Investigation to the students' local environment. Students use soil samples from their homes to identify properties that characterize their soils. They compare and contrast their soils to those of their classmates. As a class, students describe relationships between the properties of their soils and
Using Graphs to Show Connections
The purpose of this resource is to show how graphs of GLOBE data over time show the interconnectedness of Earth's system components at the local level. Students visit a study site, where they observe and recall their existing knowledge of air, water, soil, and living things to make a list of interconnections among the four Earth system components. They make predictions about the effects of a change in a system, inferring ways these changes affect the characteristics of other related components.
Limiting Factors in Ecosystems
The purpose of this resource is to understand that physical factors - temperature and precipitation - limit the growth of vegetative ecosystems. Students observe and record seasonal changes in their local study site. They establish that these phenomena follow annual cycles and conclude the activity by creating displays that illustrate the repeating pattern associated with the appearance and disappearance of seasonal markers.
Oceanography Activities
This set of online oceanography activities helps students learn about ocean waves and El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The wave module addresses wave anatomy, global and local waves and their relationship to wind, and the properties of tsunamis. Activities in the ENSO module include simple calculations, discovery learning, satellite imagery, simulations, animations and drawings to present relationships between atmospheric and oceanic processes. Multiple choice self-tests are included. Provid
Module Five: Employability Skills
If you are thinking of looking for a job now or in the future, this module will be of great interest to you. It is designed to illustrate the importance of understanding what it takes to get prepared for the world of work, to look for and secure that job that you need so much in life. It is intended to give you skills and competences that you need to be a successful job searcher. It explores, for example, essential job search skills and approaches that will help you to compete in the changing la
Health Effects of Toxic Organic Compounds from Coal
This USGS fact sheet summarizes the occurrence of Balkan Endemic Nephropathy, a serious kidney disease that occurs only in tributary valleys of the Danube River in Romania, Bulgaria, and the former Yugoslavia. There is a close correspondence between the location of affected villages and the occurrence of local coal deposits.
Finding Common Ground
Finding common ground helps students make informed decisions to conserve temperate forests in the United States and central China, habitat of the endangered giant panda. Through classroom activities, on-line simulations, and field investigations students learn about the important role temperate forests play in local and global ecosystems. Action steps culminate in a Class Conservation Action Plan.
In the course of this curriculum students locate the biome in which they live, explore a local habi
Lights Alive!
This San Diego Natural History Museum interactive website, designed specifically for kids, explores living lights and the chemistry of bioluminescence. It includes links to informational pages and facts about bioluminescence, a quiz and word search game, detailed glossary, and links to related websites. Java is required to fully access the activities associated with this page.
Entrepreneurship Consulting and Analysis
This course provides students an opportunity to practice action learning. Many instructors are advocates of action learning because they believe students can learn by doing. In this course, students will complete a project for a local entrepreneur. The project may be highly specialized or comprehensive in nature, depending upon the needs of the business.
Understanding Your Water
Over two class periods, you will be guiding your students through the basics of water treatment -- both tap water treatment and sewage (or wastewater) treatment. To prepare for the lessons on the treatment process, the students will be researching where their drinking water comes from and where their wastewater goes once it goes down the drain for homework. After learning about their local water treatment and traditional tap water and sewage treatment processes, students will watch the NewsHour
Reference Resources: Being a Good Detective
Students become familiar with a variety of reference resources when seeking information. These sources include atlases, almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, online search engines for the Internet, and online library card catalogs.
Lecture 25 - 5/27/2009
Lecture 25
Phylogenetic Investigator
Phylogenetic Investigator (PI) is a software package designed to facilitate creative problem-solving in phylogenetic analysis for the purpose of teaching and learning phylogenetic inference. Users can identify characters and states, polarize characters, and engage in directed-search phylogenetic tree construction.
PI also allows the user to
* make inferences and represent them one step at a time
* vary representational features of their trees (such as angle of divergence and time betwee
Envirofacts Data Warehouse
The Envirofacts Data Warehouse website provides access to several EPA databases that offer information about environmental activities that may affect air, water, and land anywhere in the United States. Users can search a pre-assembled sampling of information available pertaining to a specific area, or choose a topic for more in-depth information about a specific locale.
Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945
During and directly after World War I, four great empires (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia, and the Ottomans) crumbled precipitously, to be replaced by more than one dozen fledgling nation-states. The largely agrarian, in some cases semifeudal, societies of central Europe were thrust nearly overnight into crises of civil war, unemployment, or inflation — and beyond these crises into a world propelled by mass media and consumer economies. Becoming modern was attractive but also anxiety-provokin
Where Are the MDGs?
By investigating the coverage of the Millennium Development Goals in the media, students learn about both the local and global presence of development issues, as well as gain an introduction to the way the media represents these issues in different parts of the world.
