NASA CONNECT Functions and Statistics: Dressed for Space
In NASA CONNECT Dressed for Space, students learn about the suits astronauts wear in space and why sizing is critical for working in space. They learn how the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space suits were developed. Building on past space suit technologies, NASA engineers and researchers use functions and statistics to create the next generation of space suits for the International Space Station and beyond.
The ABC's of Nuclear Science
The ABC's of Nuclear Science is a brief introduction to Nuclear Science. We look at Antimatter, Beta rays, Cosmic connection and much more. Visit here and learn about radioactivity - alpha, beta and gamma decay. Find out the difference between fission and fusion. Learn about the structure of the atomic nucleus. Learn how elements on the earth were produced. Do you know that you are being bombarded constantly by nuclear radiation from the Cosmos? Discover if there are radioactive products found i
17 - Homefronts and Battlefronts: "Hard War" and the Social Impact of the Civil War
Professor Blight begins his lecture with a description of the sea change in Civil War scholarship heralded by the Social History revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Along with a focus on the experience of the common solider, women, and African Americans, a central component of this shift in scholarly emphasis was an increased interest in the effects of the war on the Union and Confederate home fronts. After suggesting some of the ways in which individual Americans experienced the war, Professor B
05 - Telling a Free Story: Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in Myth and Reality
Professor Blight discusses the rise of abolitionism. Blight begins with an introduction to the genre of slave narratives, with particular attention to Frederick Douglass' 1845 narrative. The lecture then moves on to discuss the culture in which antebellum reform grew--the factors that encouraged its growth, as well as those that retarded it. Professor Blight then describes the movement towards radical abolitionism, stopping briefly on colonization and gradualism before introducing the character
01 - Introductions: Why Does the Civil War era have a hold on American Historical Imagination?
Professor Blight offers an introduction to the course. He summarizes some of the course readings, and discusses the organization of the course. Professor Blight offers some thoughts on the nature of history and the study of history, before moving into a discussion of the reasons for Americans' enduring fascination with the Civil War. The reasons include: the human passion for epics, Americans' fondness for redemption narratives, the Civil War as a moment of "racial reckoning," the fascination wi
Advanced Mathematics for Secondary Teachers: Course Portfolio
The course the portfolio describes is a capstone course in mathematics primarily aimed at future high school mathematics teachers. Bennett decided to write a course portfolio for this course as a way to pass the course along to other faculty members that will teach it in the future. Thus, the central purpose of this portfolio is to be a course record, suitable for other faculty members in the department to use as the main resource when they teach the course.
Learning to Think Mathematically
Concerned that most students leave college thinking of mathematics as a fixed body of knowledge to be memorized, Cooperstein designed a new course to help students learn to think mathematically for themselves. This website serves as a course portfolio that documents the new class, Introduction to Mathematical Problem Solving. The principal activity in the class involved students working on and discussing novel problems which required them to formulate experiments, work out cases, look for patter
Peer Review of Teaching - Course Portfolio
In this course portfolio, Dan Bernstein reports on changes he has made over three semesters in a psychology course on learning. He has succeeded in getting more students to achieve higher levels of understanding by changing the assessment from short abstract essay questions to problems that asked students to apply concepts in new contexts, and providing web-based opportunities for students to identify what makes some answers better than others. The portfolio includes examples of the assessments
Building Bridges, Dams, Power Plants
The large development projects of the 1930s, designed to serve a growing population, helped shape California in many ways. Most are still integral today. Photographs show the progress of two massive Northern California projects: the Golden Gate Bridge, which links San Francisco and Marin County, and the Bay Bridge, which connects San Francisco with Oakland and the East Bay. The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most recognized bridges in the world. It is unique not only because of its vermilion o
Environmental Impact
The Gold Rush, positive for California in so many ways, had a devastating effect on the state's environment. Many of these problems were directly related to gold-mining technology. The process of hydraulic mining, which became popular in the 1850s, caused irreparable environmental destruction. Two images show California's largest hydraulic mine ? Malakoff Diggings, in Nevada County ? in action. (Malakoff Diggings is now a state park and open to visitors.) Dams (such as the English Dam in Nevada
Mark Twain Project Online
Mark Twain Project Online applies innovative technology to more than four decades' worth of archival research by expert editors at the Mark Twain Project. It offers unfettered, intuitive access to reliable texts, accurate and exhaustive notes, and the most recently discovered letters and documents.
Biometrics
This text manual introduces statistical analysis and its underlying philosophy, enabling students to understand how to describe the confidence they have in their analysis.
Statistical analysis is one of the most widely used, and abused, techniques in the biological sciences. Statistics are ostensibly used to allow an investigator to be objective. That is, the researcher uses statistical tests to determine whether or not his/her hypothesis is supported by the data collected.
Unfortunately, the
Data Collection and Organization
The Data Collection and Organization (DC&O) text module provides background on useful, general-purpose software tools. The aim is to discuss types of generic software that virtually every well-equipped scientist uses. This includes: spreadsheets, database programs, statistics packages, graphics programs, and word processors.
DC&O includes several examples of the use of these tools in biology. These include 'An Embryological Example with Tips and Tricks' and the complete text and dataset of a cl
Essential Physics I
Essential Physics 1, is an intensive introduction to classical and special relativity, Newtonian dynamics and gravitation, Einsteinian dynamics and gravitation, and wave motion. Mathematical methods are discussed, as needed; they include: elements of differential geometry, linear operators and matrices, ordinary differential equations, calculus of variations, orthogonal functions and Fourier series, and non-linear equations for chaotic systems. The contents of this book can be taught in one seme
Introduction to Groups, Invariants and Particles
Introduction to Groups, Invariants & Particles is a book for Seniors and advanced Juniors who are majoring in the Physical Sciences or Mathematics. The book places the subject matter in its historical context with discussions of Galois groups, algebraic invariants, Lie groups and differential equations, presented at a level that is not the standard fare for students majoring in the Physical Sciences. A sound mathematical basis is thereby provided for the study of special unitary groups and their
The Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
The Kamusi Project is a collaborative work by people all over the world. Together we are working to establish new dictionaries and learning resources for the Swahili language - Kiswahili- both within Swahili and between Swahili and English. Swahili is the most widely spoken African language, with as many as 100 million speakers in East and Central Africa. Swahili is a national language of Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, and it is an official language of the African Union. We invite you to become a
Amazing Bean Races
Developed for fifth grade and above. Primary biological content area covered:; Plant growth; Seedling morphology; Hypothesis testing; Experimental design; Line graphing; Introductory statistics.
Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least
Social Psychology - Spring 2008
Social Psychology - Spring 2007. The course will begin with a historical introduction to social psychology, focusing on the intellectual contribution of Kurt Lewin and the integration of
evolutionary and cultural approaches to human nature. The course will then focus on the major topics of social psychology (group dynamics, social influence, attitudes and attitude
change, social perception) as well as more specific areas of research (altruism, emotion, justice) and recent developments in the fie
Research and Data Analysis in Psychology Fall 2008
The course covers methods in psychological research emphasizing research design and statistics. Areas covered in research design are measurement and sampling, correlational research and experimental design. Statistical methods include t-tests, analysis of variance, correlation and regression, chi-square and monte-carlo simulations. The lecture will illustrate the importance of research design and statistical reasoning in psychology and provide the theoretical background for each of the statistic
The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
This is an introduction to programming and computer science. This course exposes students to techniques of abstraction at several levels: (a) within a programming language, using higher-order functions, manifest types, data-directed programming, and message-passing; (b) between programming languages, using functional and rule-based languages as examples. It also relates these techniques to the practical problems of implementation of languages and algorithms on a von Neumann machine. There are se
