Digital Commons Network^™

The Second Decade Of Numeracy: Entering The Seas Of Literacy, H. L. Vacher

Numeracy

This multipurpose editorial explores and tries to count the many types of literacy that are referred to by name in Wikipedia and Numeracy. Wikipedia’s Category:Literacy page identifies 44 kinds of literacy that are the subject of articles, ranging from numeracy and graphicacy to braille literacy and diaspora literacy. In addition, searching Google finds more than 30 adjective-literacy or noun-literacy collocations, including quantitative literacy, adult literacy, and document literacy, that do not have Wikipedia pages of their own but are mentioned on other Wikipedia pages. The sum puts this modest literacy count in line with the more than 70 bodies …

Numeracy And Social Justice: A Wide, Deep, And Longstanding Intersection, Kira Hamman, Victor Piercey, Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

We discuss the connection between the numeracy and social justice movements both in historical context and in its modern incarnation. The intersection between numeracy and social justice encompasses a wide variety of disciplines and quantitative topics, but within that variety there are important commonalities. We examine the importance of sound quantitative measures for understanding social issues and the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration in this work. Particular reference is made to the papers in the first part of the Numeracy special collection on social justice, which appear in this issue.

Developing Mathematics Teachers’ Attention To Quantitative Reasoning In Task Design: A Modeling Approach, David Glassmeyer

Numeracy

This study examines how a models-and-modeling perspective affected teachers' attention to quantitative reasoning in task design. A Model-Eliciting Activity (MEA) was implemented with 21 teachers over four weeks, challenging teachers to design a quantitative reasoning task for their students. Teachers’ initial quantitative reasoning tasks did not incorporate quantities or quantitative relationships, two essential components of quantitative reasoning. As teachers revised their tasks through the MEA, most teachers began attending to these components. This article details how a modeling approach to teacher education provided a method to describe and support teachers to incorporate quantitative reasoning in their classroom tasks, though attending …

An Uncommon Textbook: Review Of Common Sense Mathematics By Ethan Bolker And Maura Mast, Bernard Madison

Numeracy

Ethan D. Bolker and Maura B. Mast. 2016. Common Sense Mathematics.(Washington DC.: Mathematics Association of America) ISBN-13: 978-1-93951-210-9.

Common Sense Mathematics is an integrative quantitative reasoning (QR) textbook that is built around scores of exercises derived from authentic circumstances from public media and other public sources. The exercises elicit responses from students requiring extensive communication and analyses and distinguish the book from ones typically encountered in a mathematics or science course. Responses to exercises often require one-half page or more of writing and can occupy considerable class time in discussion. The book has material for a one- or two-semester …

Tracing And Constraining Anthropogenic Aerosol Iron Fluxes To The North Atlantic Ocean Using Iron Isotopes, Tim Conway, Douglas S. Hamilton, Rachel U. Shelley, Ana M. Aguilar-Islas, William M. Landing, Natalie M. Mahowald, Seth G. John

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Atmospheric dust is an important source of the micronutrient Fe to the oceans. Although relatively insoluble mineral Fe is assumed to be the most important component of dust, a relatively small yet highly soluble anthropogenic component may also be significant. However, quantifying the importance of anthropogenic Fe to the global oceans requires a tracer which can be used to identify and constrain anthropogenic aerosols in situ. Here, we present Fe isotope (δ56Fe) data from North Atlantic aerosol samples from the GEOTRACES GA03 section. While soluble aerosol samples collected near the Sahara have near-crustal δ56Fe, soluble aerosols from near North America …

Research On Land Use Changes And Ecological Risk Assessment In Yongjiang River Basin In Zhejiang Province, China, Peng Tian, Jianlin Li, Hongbo Gong, Ruiliang Pu, Luodan Cao, Shuyao Shao, Zuoqi Shi, Xuili Feng, Lijia Wang, Riuqing Liu

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Studying land use changes and ecological risk assessment in Yongjiang River Basin in Zhejiang Province, China, provides theoretical references for optimal configuration of land resources and maintaining stability of ecosystems. Given impacts of land use changes on landscape patterns in the Yongjiang River Basin, ecological risk assessment indexes were constructed and used to analyze temporal and spatial variation characteristics of ecological risk within different periods. Results show that (1) the construction land area was increased quickly, while the cultivated area decreased sharply. A prominent characteristic of land use changes was manifested by transforming cultivated area and forestland into construction land. …

Mobile Terrestrial Photogrammetry For Street Tree Mapping And Measurements, John Roberts, Andrew Koeser, Amr Abd-Elrahman, Benjamin Wilkinson, Gail Hansen, Shawn M. Landry, Ali Perez

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Urban forests are often heavily populated by street trees along right-of-ways (ROW), and monitoring efforts can enhance municipal tree management. Terrestrial photogrammetric techniques have been used to measure tree biometry, but have typically used images from various angles around individual trees or forest plots to capture the entire stem while also utilizing local coordinate systems (i.e., non-georeferenced data). We proposed the mobile collection of georeferenced imagery along 100 m sections of urban roadway to create photogrammetric point cloud datasets suitable for measuring stem diameters and attaining positional x and y coordinates of street trees. In a comparison between stationary and …

Climate Policy Implications Of Nonlinear Decline Of Arctic Land Permafrost And Other Cryosphere Elements, Dmitry Yumashev, Chris Hope, Kevin Schaefer, Kathrin Riemann-Campe, Fernando Iglesias-Suarez, Elchin Jafarov, Eleanor J. Burke, Paul J. Young, Yasin Elshorbany, Gail Whiteman

USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications

Arctic feedbacks accelerate climate change through carbon releases from thawing permafrost and higher solar absorption from reductions in the surface albedo, following loss of sea ice and land snow. Here, we include dynamic emulators of complex physical models in the integrated assessment model PAGE-ICE to explore nonlinear transitions in the Arctic feedbacks and their subsequent impacts on the global climate and economy under the Paris Agreement scenarios. The permafrost feedback is increasingly positive in warmer climates, while the albedo feedback weakens as the ice and snow melt. Combined, these two factors lead to significant increases in the mean discounted economic …

Htgcd Well Evaluation: Dripping Springs Water Supply Co. Test Well 1 & Stratigraphic Evaluation Of The Trinity Aquifer Units In Wester Hays County And Implications For Hydrological Variations, Nicholas J. Soto-Kerans, A. Broun, J. Watson

School of Geosciences Student Publications

The Trinity Aquifer is a very important groundwater resource for the Dripping Springs area and Central Texas as a whole. Evidence in recent studies show increased levels of aquifer stress and pumping due to higher influx of population and demand for potable water in the area.

In addition to high levels of pumping, groundwater appears to be influenced by facies change. There is little information on how certain geological units affect the presence of groundwater in the Trinity Aquifer – this study is purposed to bring a better understanding of how groundwater resources are stored and moved through the subsurface …

Is Ghana Ready To Attain Sustainable Development Goal (Sdg) Number 7?—A Comprehensive Assessment Of Its Renewable Energy Potential And Pitfalls, Michael Acheampong, Qiuyan Yu, Funda C. Ertem, Lucy E.D. Enomah, Shakhawat H. Tanim, Michael Eduful, Mehrdad Vaziri, Erick Ananga

School of Geosciences Student Publications

Ghana has declared support for the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number seven which most importantly target ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services. This target presents a formidable challenge to Ghana because the country still relies mainly on traditional biomass as its primary source of energy coupled with a chronically fragile hydropower sector. In this study, we assess Ghana’s potential in achieving sustainable goal number seven. Specifically, we comprehensively review the breakthroughs and impediments Ghana has experienced in its efforts towards improving its renewable energy potential. We note that while Ghana has made significant stride toward …

Rapid Iceberg Calving Following Removal Of Tightly Packed Pro-Glacial Mélange, Surui Xie, Timothy Dixon, David M. Holland, Denis Voytenko, Irena Vaňková

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Iceberg calving is a major contributor to Greenland’s ice mass loss. Pro-glacial mélange (a mixture of sea ice, icebergs, and snow) may be tightly packed in the long, narrow fjords that front many marine-terminating glaciers and can reduce calving by buttressing. However, data limitations have hampered a quantitative understanding. We develop a new radar-based approach to estimate time-varying elevations near the mélange-glacier interface, generating a factor of three or more improvement in elevation precision. We apply the technique to Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland’s major outlet glacier. Over a one-month period in early summer 2016, the glacier experienced essentially no calving, and …

Developing High Resolution Baseline Coast Resource Maps Using World View 2 Imagery For A Coastal Village In Fiji, Ashneel Ajay Singh, Anish Maharaj, Michelle Kumar, Priyatma Singh, Sanjay Singh, Frank Muller-Karger, Matthew James Mccarthy, Lionel Joseph, Herve Damlamian, Zulfikar Begg

Marine Science Faculty Publications

In Fiji, like most Pacific Island countries, there have been numerous reports of degradation of coastal resources, including adverse changes in abundance and stock distribution of numerous aquatic species associated with the coastal habitat. To develop effective management plans, assessment of existing coastal resources is pertinent. High spatial resolution satellite imagery, combined with geographic information systems allow for efficient and synoptic mapping of coastal resources to provide a baseline for developing effective and improved management plans. The purpose of this study was to develop a baseline habitat map of the intertidal benthic cover in Komave Village, Coral Coast, Sigatoka, Fiji. …