Learning from a tree
Observation of a single tree throughout the year can be the starting point for explorations of nature, life science, and environmental science.
Reading images: an introduction to visual literacy
Images are all around us, and the ability to interpret them meaningfully is a vital skill for students to learn.
Plants and Animals, Partners in Pollination
This site helps students see how plants and animals interact to accomplish pollination. Students (Grades 3-8) identify plant and animal parts involved in pollination, connections between pollination and food production, relationships between pollinators and the plants they pollinate, and ways flowers have adapted to encourage pollination.
Smithsonian Kids: Collecting
This site invites kids to start a collection of rocks, shells, postcards, posters, or something else that interests them. Three Smithsonian collections are sampled. Rocks and Minerals includes the Hope Diamond; Stamps includes Western Cattle in Storm (1898); Historic Coins includes the Jefferson Indian Peace Medal.
Formulas for functions of two variables
This website features a chart of functions with two variables and the equations for their standard deviation. It is from the Engineering Statistics handbook whose goal is to help scientists and engineers incorporate statistical methods in their work as efficiently as possible. A link to tools and aids for using the handbook is provided.
Latin America and the Caribbean: Peace Corps
provides lessons around stories, letters, poems, and folk tales from experiences of Peace Corps volunteers. Topics include the geography and cultures of the Dominican Republic, hurricanes, hero worship, conducting interviews, Paraguay, the risks of a one-crop economy (coffee), how best to use one's time in different cultures, why service to others matters, and the common good.
Calisphere Themed Collection - 1939-1945: World War II: California and the Postwar Suburban Home
These images by Los Angeles–based photographer Maynard L. Parker show suburban homes in California in the two decades following World War II. Many appeared in popular house and design magazines of the era. They offered middle–class consumers a new way of living that emphasized a relaxed, low–maintenance, private, indoor–outdoor experience.
Francois le Vaillant and the Great South African Text(s)
Ian Glenn, Professor of Media Studies and Director of the University of Cape Town's Centre for Film and Media Studies, was guest speaker at this Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) Great TextsBig Question lecture. He discussed the influence of eighteenth century French explorer and ornithologist, Franccedilois le Vaillant, on modern South African culture. Franccedilois le Vaillant, 1753 - 1824, came to the Cape in 1781 on behalf of the Dutch East India Company to collect sp
Phylogenetic analysis
This exercise introduces students to analysis of evolutionary relationships both by analysis of molecular similarity and by cladistic techniques. The molecular analysis uses both paper-and-pencil and bioinformatics comparison of the amino acid sequence of the hemoglobin beta chain of eight vertebrates. The cladistic exercises introduce students to cladistic principles, and then allow students to solve hypothetical problems both with and without homoplasy. Students then test their cladistic abili
Plant Hormones: Bioassay for Gibberellin
This simple assay makes use of the ability of the plant hormone GA3 to induce starch breakdown in the endosperm of a barley seed from which the embryo has been removed. The effect of the hormone is clear and repeatable. This exercise can be used in introductory biology courses to demonstrate a basic plant process, or can be modified and used to investigate more sophisticated questions in a developmental biology course.
English grammar in context
The use of grammar is more complex than it appears. This unit looks at the way grammar can be used as a tool for adapting our communications (both written and spoken) in ways which present us and our message in different lights.
Attention
What does 'attention' mean to you? This unit will help you to examine how we 'pay attention'. How do we manage to single out sounds and images that require attention and how easy is it to distract someone and why?
A Europe of the Regions?
What role will the 'regions' play in the emerging governance structures of the European Union? This unit examines the rise of the regions and regionalism in Western Europe. You will look at the possible development pathways for Europe: will it become a Federal super-state or a decentralised 'Europe of the Regions'?
School Governors: being strategic
Why are schools in the UK run by school governors? This unit will examine how the role has developed and the main tasks and responsibilities that exist today. We will also look at the need for self-evaluation and how the setting of a clear strategic direction can help governors achieve the required targets.
Play, learning and the brain
This unit examines the area of the brain based learning with a particular focus on the development of the young child's brain and is of particular relevance to those who work with young children. We begin by looking at the structure and functions of the brain, and the impact that sensory deprivation can have on these. We consider the implications of current understandings of brain development for teaching and learning, particularly in an early years setting, and finish by exploring the value of
Hume
This unit examines Hume's reasons for being complacent in the face of death, as these are laid out in his suppressed essay of 1755, 'Of the immortality of the soul'. More generally, they examine some of the shifts in attitude concerning death and religious belief that were taking place in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century, through examination of this and other short essays.
History as commemoration
Commemoration - remembering and marking your past - makes an important contribution to our sense of community. Written texts, memorials, letters and photographs can all serve to commemorate events, people and values we wise to remember from our past.
Commemoration: visual texts
This unit explores the commemoration of war through treating two war memorials - the Sandham Memorial Chapel and the Royal Artillery Memorial - as 'visual texts'. By helping you to respond to visual cues the unit aims for you to develop your understanding of these memorials, not only as memorials, but as artifacts or 'made objects'. It does this through consideration of such factors as the location of the monument; its function and purpose; its symbolism or realism; use of materials and overall
Cloud Cover over Borneo: March 1, 1998
Cloud cover over Borneo for March 1, 1998 superimposed over a topographic image
Solar Cells
Advanced semiconductor devices are a new source of energy for the 21st century, delivering electricity directly from sunlight. Suitable semiconductor materials, device physics, and fabrication technologies for solar cells are presented in this course. The guidelines for design of a complete solar cell system for household application are explained. Cost aspects, market development, and the application areas of solar cells are presented.
