As a child on the Gulf of Mexico, evacuation to higher ground for floods, hurricanes, and tornado warnings were common. At the end of August 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the homelands of this author's father and grandfather in Louisiana. Hundreds of miles of wetlands, already threatened, were turned to open water; vital brackish waters were…

Eddie Francis bursts out laughing when he recounts his unexpected coaching debut for Southern University at New Orleans this past semester. The men's track team was planning to travel to Tennessee for a national indoor championship meet, but their part-time coach, a runner himself, couldn't accompany them because of a race he would run in Europe…

Hurricane Katrina brought to the surface serious questions about the capacity of the public health system to respond to community-wide disaster. The storm and its aftermath severed developmentally protective family and community ties; thus its consequences are expected to be particularly acute for vulnerable adolescents. Research confirms that…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the behaviors, attitudes, and levels of understanding among faculty, staff, and students in efforts to design programs aimed at reducing energy use in University of Michigan (UM) buildings. Design/methodology/approach: A multi-method approach is used in five diverse pilot buildings including focus…

This study sought to examine London, Ontario-based childcare providers' perspectives of the barriers and facilitators to physical activity participation among preschoolers (i.e. children aged 2.5-5 years) attending daycare. A heterogeneous sample of childcare providers (n = 54; response rate 47%) working at public daycare facilities in London,…

An educational model simulation of the sound produced by lightning in the sky has been employed to demonstrate realistic signatures of thunder and its connection to the particular structure of the lightning channel. Algorithms used in the past have been revisited and implemented, making use of current computer techniques. The basic properties of…

The author presents several upper elementary science activities involving tree limbs that were collected after severe weather conditions. The activities involved 3rd-grade students arranging tree limb pieces in the correct order from the trunk to the tip of the limb, measuring the pieces, determining the age of a tree limb by its rings,…

Swiss-born Arnold Henri Guyot (1807-1884) was the first professionally trained geographer to hold an academic position in the United States. After his migration to this country in 1848 he lived for several years in Massachusetts. During this period he introduced contemporary German-Swiss ideas of geography to key opinion leaders in an important…

The National Science Foundation-funded Arctic Climate Modeling Program (ACMP) provides "curriculum resource-based professional development" materials that combine current science information with practical classroom instruction embedded with "best practice" techniques for teaching science to diverse students. The Sea Ice Board…

The study used data from Project Ice Storm to determine the extent to which exposure to prenatal maternal stress due to a natural disaster can explain variance in the intellectual and language performance of offspring at age 5 1/2.

Profiling landforms actively involves students in measuring the topography of landforms such as beaches, hillsides, and stream embankments. In this activity, the author describes how to set up an inquiry situation in which students can ask questions, seek answers, and develop explanations about seasonal or weather-related changes in the landscape.…

The complexity and interrelatedness of aspects of the geosciences is an important concept to convey in an undergraduate geoscience curriculum. A synthesis capstone project has served to integrate pattern-based learning of an introductory Earth History course into an active and process-based exercise in hypothesis production. In this exercise,…

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of serious emotional disturbance (SED) among children and adolescents exposed to Hurricane Katrina along with the associations of SED with hurricane-related stressors, sociodemographics, and family factors 18 to 27 months after the hurricane. Method: A probability sample of prehurricane residents of areas…

This article examines the role material culture and making items can serve in establishing a sense of place or informing place-based educational practices. It is arranged around six principles that, if used in a learning context, connect material from a place to an enhanced comprehension of a sense of place. A critical component in making the…

In the aftermath of any disaster, natural or otherwise, stories of men and women reaching out to help one another abound. Whether it's the courage and training of first responders--police officers and firefighters--that leads to the rescue of a marooned family, the expert work of doctors and nurses that saves a life on the operating table, or the…