This work is part of a research project whose main objective is to understand the impact that the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has on the teaching and learning process on the subject of Physics. We will show that, with the use of a storm simulator, physics students improve their learning process on one hand they understand…

Many people use wind to help meet their needs. Over the years, people have been able to harness or capture the wind in many different ways. More recently, people have seen the rebirth of electricity-generating wind turbines. Thus, the age-old argument about technology being either good or bad can also be applied to the wind. The wind can be a…

Many universities exist apart from their community's public schools. A New Orleans area public university took measures to facilitate collaborative partnerships with four public schools. Those schools were taken over and converted to charter schools by state officials for poor performance. The partnerships created simultaneous opportunities and…

In this article, the authors describe how they used formative assessments to ferret out possible misconceptions among middle-school students in a unit about weather-related concepts. Because they teach fifth- and eighth-grade science, this assessment also gives them a chance to see how student understanding develops over the years. This year they…

Winter in the UK has, in recent years, brought a significant amount of snow and cold weather. This was the case while the author was a trainee teacher on placement at a rural primary school in Dartmoor early in 2010. The day started promisingly with the class looking at the weather forecast on the interactive whiteboard and having a short…

On December 10, 2009, Dr. Melissa Reeves, chair of the PREPaRE workgroup, presented oral and written testimony on behalf of NASP (National Association of School Psychologists) at a hearing of the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. This subcommittee is chaired by…

In January of 2007, freezing temperatures destroyed citrus and vegetable crops in California. By May 2007, more than 9,000 freeze-related unemployment applications had been fled. Through face-to-face interviews, this study documents the experience of 63 farmworkers to find out how they survived the freeze and accessed services. Findings revealed…

Recent research suggests that pollution has a large impact on asthma and other respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. But this relationship and its implications are not well understood. I use changes in location due to military transfers, which occur entirely to satisfy the needs of the army, to identify the causal impact of pollution on…

In two experiments, participants made inferences from weather maps, before and after they received instruction about relevant meteorological principles. Different versions of the maps showed either task-relevant information alone, or both task-relevant and task-irrelevant information. Participants improved on the inference task after instruction,…

Hurricane Katrina blew across the St. Bernard Parish Public Schools district in Chalmette, Louisiana, on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, bringing with it a wall of water that flooded everything for miles, putting the school system's 18 buildings under several feet of water filled with mud, gasoline, oil, dead fish, and other debris. Eleven weeks…

The author explores the articulations of six social studies student/teachers after a viewing of "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts". The film, a documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on the people in and around New Orleans, constitutes an encounter with what Deborah Britzman (1998) calls "difficult…

This dissertation examined the performance outcomes of public management networks (PMNs) in the disaster management context. The effectiveness of three disaster response sub-networks in the area of evacuation were examined and compared using the case of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans, Louisiana in August 2005: Citizen Protection:…

Using data from a new household survey on environmental attitudes, behaviors, and policy preferences, we find that current weather conditions affect preferences for environmental regulation. Individuals who have recently experienced extreme weather (heat waves or droughts) are more likely to support laws to protect the environment. We find…

The war contributions of the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory in Cambridge, MA, were recorded in 169 Technical Reports, most of which were sent to the Office of the Quartermaster General. Earlier reports were sent to the National Research Council and the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Many of the reports from 1941 and later dealt with…

On April 20, 2010, a massive explosion killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Survivors of this explosion recounted terrifying near-death experiences and mourned the loss of coworkers and friends who had perished. Shock and grief spread through small coastal communities composed mostly of fishers and oil workers. However, this was…