NSF

Overview: The rapid warming of the Arctic and melting of Arctic sea and land ice will have ramifications around the globe. Shipping routes through an ice-free Northwest Passage in combination with modifications to ocean circulation and regional climate patterns linked to Arctic ice melt will affect trade, fisheries, tourism, coastal ecology, air and water quality, animal migration, and demographics not only in the Arctic but also in lower latitude coastal regions such as New England. With profound changes on the horizon, this is a critical opportunity for New England to prepare for uncertain yet inevitable economic and environmental impacts of Arctic change. In order to detect and respond to the challenges that New England will face as the nation’s eastern gateway to the Arctic, it will be necessary to modify traditional observational networks and models. This workshop pairs two of NSF’s 10 Big Ideas: Navigating the New Arctic and Growing Convergence Research at NSF. During this eve...

Rejected Preliminary Proposal for Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure-1, NSF call at https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2019/nsf19537/nsf19537.htm<br>This document proposed an extension of the Scientific Python Ecosystem (SPE) and enabling closer collaboration between the SPE and its scientific users

The Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP) is a learning trajectory-oriented formative assessment program that develops teachers’ abilities to understand and apply research-based developmental trajectories in math content areas to deepen their thinking about their students. In OGAP, teachers learn to use a learning progression framework to continually assess and adapt their instruction to students’ developing understanding, aiming to move them towards more sophisticated strategies in a range of multiplicative contexts. For this reason, OGAP puts a premium on students’ precision of answer (including correctness and unit labeling) and sophistication of solution response. In this study we examine the multi-year impacts of OGAP on grades 3-5 student correctness and solution sophistication in multiplication on an open-ended assessment created by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) as part of a randomized experimental study of OGAP in Philadelphia schools. In order to assess...

The OGAP intervention incorporates two approaches to mathematics instruction that are well supported by research, but have not been uniformly adopted in U.S. schools: The first is ongoing formative assessment by teachers to tailor instruction to student needs (Black & Wiliam, 1998); the second is the use of learning trajectories to specify conceptual pathways for student development within specific domains (Daro et al., 2011; Sztajn et al., 2012). Implementing OGAP in schools involves a great deal of learning on the part of teachers and school leaders. It also involves embracing a fundamental shift in how one thinks about learning and designing instruction. The OGAP intervention provided grade 3-5 teachers with tools to support learning-trajectory formative assessment practices (described in other papers) and professional development (weeklong summer training and several additional training days during the academic year). We also included a site-based approach to increase understand...

A current trend in education is to opt for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiatives to help close the looming gap in technical talent in the U.S. labor force. Another trend in education is to build bridges between college and K–12 programs to bring more students into technical studies. This paper will focus on a PIC microcontroller project that was funded in a STEM program and was subsequently used by a high school electronics program. The PIC microcontroller project was originally developed in the summer undergraduate program in 2007. The project design and implementation was facilitated by a

Since March 2014, a sustainably focused community located on a 0.7 hectares site in Portland, Oregon, USA, has been undertaking an experimental composting toilet system modeled after the Water Efficiency and Sanitation Standard (WE-Stand) set forth by the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO). This system collects urine and hot composts human excreta in a dry-composting toilet system for eventual use on the community's organic gardens. The system design reduces the need to access municipal water, sewer, and electrical infrastructure, enhancing emergency preparedness. It conserves an otherwise wasted nutrient flow, and safely produces a valuable compost. The system consists of urine collection vessels, multiple portable collection containers for excreta, toilet paper, and additive, and a compost processor. Urine diversion has allowed the community to reclaim nitrogen and other nutrients otherwise lost in conventional sewage systems, resulting in l...

The first version of the ISC-GEM Global Instrumental Earthquakes Catalogue (1900-2009) was released in 2013 (www.isc.ac.uk/iscgem/index.php) following the 27-month project funded by the ISC and GEM Foundation. The catalogue was constructed for use in both global and regional seismic hazard and risk assessment. The main feature of this catalogue is the improved homogeneity and accuracy of the main earthquake parameters (location and magnitude) over a 110-year period of instrumental recordings. Due to the time and resource limitations of the original project, the ISC-GEM catalogue included only earthquakes greater than or equal to the following time-variable cut-off magnitudes: MS 7.5 for earthquakes occurring before 1918; MS 61⁄4 between 1918 and 1959; and MS 5.5 from 1960 onwards. With further funding from several commercial and public bodies, we started working on the 4-year Extension project, adding both recent earthquakes as well as those in the early instrumental period that fel...

This article examines several aspects of knowledge production among practitioners of 21st century capitalism, critiquing the motivations, funding, methods, and dissemination of today’s politically and economically dominant epistemology. We document a methodological experiment undertaken during the Oregon Eclipse Festival—a week-long event coinciding with the solar eclipse that crossed the United States on August 21, 2017. As commissioned participants in the festival’s Art & Science exhibit, we designed an interactive archeological excavation that sought to produce material evidence corroborating the (un)reality of UFO activity in Oregon. From this performance, we highlight four insights into the relationship between science, evidence, and responsibility.