Digital Commons Network^™

The Level Of Pedagogical Content Knowledge Of In-Service English Language Teachers In A Foreign Language Context, Dima Hijazi, Amal Al-Natour

Association of Arab Universities Journal for Arts مجلة اتحاد الجامعات العربية للآداب

The aim of this study is to find out the level of pedagogical content knowledge of inservice English language teachers in a foreign language context. The data were collected from 9 in-service English language teachers’ responses on five open-ended grammar, pronunciation and writing problems. The results show that Jordanian English language teachers don’t know enough about what they teach. Furthermore, they show that the integration between what teachers know about what they teach and about the process of teaching and how to teach (PCK) isn’t adequate enough (with a medium level).

Integrating Theatre And Biology: How Embodied Performance Can Enhance Empathy Among College Science Students, Annika C. Speer, Begona Echeverria

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

In these field notes, we examine the integration of the arts into a 20-person honors biology seminar at UC Riverside “Beyond Science: Being Humane Amid Human Rights Crises.” We held a four-hour workshop to examine the ways in which performance and theatrical storytelling can enhance science learning. The workshop provided a unique avenue for exploring how human activities result in downward consequences including refugee displacement, one of the course objectives. In addition to the workshop, we conducted surveys and a focus group with the students to better understand their experience incorporating the arts into their science class. A key concept …

Collaboration Between Science And Art Through A Special International Symposium For Ecosystem Health And Sustainability, Changwoo Ahn Dr.

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

The collaborations between ecosystem restoration and art practices was epitomized by the eco-artist Jackie Brookner who said: “it is not a matter of the scientists providing the hard-core research and artists the soft outreach; rather, the dynamics engendered in the space between disciplines is full of information necessary to solve complex problems at the systemic level”. This paper reviews and summaries the goals, activities, and lessons learned from a special symposium, which was held at the 12^th INTECOL (International Congress of Ecology) conference in Beijing, China, August 21 through 25, 2017, where about 3000 people attended from 70 countries. …

Constructing Kites To Integrate Mathematics And Arts Concepts, David Glassmeyer, Kevin Hsieh, Lieu Nguyen

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This article describes a tetrahedral kite activity that was implemented with grade 9 students (age 14-15). We detail how the three-part lesson provided opportunities to integrate mathematics and art concepts, with potential to also weave in science and engineering ideas. The first part primed students to consider tetrahedral kites, their cultural and historical significance, and the materials needed for constructing the kite. The second part had students create a prototype using nets of tissue paper decorated with mark making techniques. The third part had students create a tetrahedron kite containing cultural and geographical mark making techniques on the tissue paper …

Citizen Scientists And Artists: Integrating Arts And Technology To Teach The Effects Of Climate Change On Bird Migration, Laura Fattal Dr., Heejung An Dr.

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Ways to incorporate climate change into K-12 curricula are of growing interest to many science educators. The International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) examines animal and bird migrations as a lens to understand climate change aiding educators with its emphasis on technological imagining in science and visual arts teaching and learning. This article presents an interdisciplinary unit pertaining to bird migration and climate change that integrates the arts and technology by placing upper-elementary students in the position of being citizen scientists and artists, leading to a culminating art installation project. The unit shows how a variety of digital …

Cultivating Ingenuity In Art Through Steam Picture Books, Julia L. Hovanec

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

In what creative ways can educators cultivate ingenuity? This article features ten STEAM picture books and their possibilities in the art room and beyond. It equips educators to take on STEAM armed with engaging and inspiring picture books that foster creativity, inventiveness, and more while inspiring students to create, experiment, problem-solve, and construct. There is a focus on one substantive, integrated Art and Science lesson built on the provocative book Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian written by Margarita Engle and illustrated by Julie Paschkis. Readers will leave with one complete STEAM challenge-based lesson plan informed by this book …

Dear Duck-Billed Platypus, Michael J. Leach Dr

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This piece is a concrete poem that both shows and describes the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus).

Gömböc The Great, Indigo M. Strickert, Lori E. Bradford

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

A sonnet written about the mathematics behind the self-righting shape of some tortoise shells.

Students Arts Participation Increases Stem Motivation Via Self-Efficacy, Stephen M. Dahlem

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This work found that there exists a correlation between student motivation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and student participation in the arts during high school with self-efficacy being a mediator. STEM is an important component of student success from a broad, national, perspective, as well as from a domain-specific point of view. The results of this work may provide aid to teachers, parents, administrators, and even students seeking to find ways to increase student motivation and performance in the STEM subjects. Additionally, this work may be of interest to advocates of the arts. This quantitative correlational study was …

Challenge-Based Learning & Steam Curriculum, Diana Lockwood

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

STEAM education is being integrated into elementary schools as a way to engage more students in creativity, hands-on learning, and problem-based learning also referred to as Challenge-Based-Learning (CBL). This article focuses on elementary educators’ curriculum design for STEAM and presenting students with open-ended questions phrased as a challenge as a way to raise student interest and achievement (DeJarnette, 2018; Hunter-Doniger, 2018). When students received challenges to solve, they felt more open to sharing their ideas since there was more than one potential right answer (DeJarnette, 2018; Drake, 2012). When implementing CBL, teachers act as facilitators using a constructivist approach as …

Creative Learning With Music And Mathematics: Reflections On Interdisciplinary Collaborations, Graham Johnson, Alesia M. Moldavan

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Culturally responsive content, accessible and inclusive tools, and meaningful interdisciplinary tasks can aid in developing equitable and creative learning environments. Music and mathematics are ideal disciplines for interdisciplinary creative learning. In this article, we reflect on our experiences engaging in interdisciplinary music and mathematics tasks with preservice teachers. In particular, we highlight specific efforts taken to design and implement a creative music and mathematics workshop for use in a mathematics methods course. Guided by these experiences, we offer examples of tools and practices that have helped preservice teachers collaborate, engage in inquiry, improvise, develop empathy, and take intellectual and social …

Steam And The Way Forward, Shamini Dias

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

The STEAM Journal editorial in which we present this issue and describe our way forward in furthering transdisciplinary thought and practice in the integration and connection of STEM and the Arts. STEAM is poised to become a critical space of thought and practice in research, education, and the arts in addressing emerging complex and global issues.

Solvatochromic Behavior Of 2,7-Disubstituted Sila- And Germafluorenes, Shelby J. Jarrett-Noland, William Mcconnell, Janet Braddock-Wilking, Cynthia M. Dupureur

Educator Preparation & Leadership Faculty Works

Push–pull dyes exhibit intramolecular charge transfer behavior, which due to changes in the dipole moment upon excitation, is the origin of their sensitivity to the environment. Such compounds are of interest as probes for bioimaging and as biosensors to monitor cellular dynamics and molecular interactions. Desirable biological probes absorb in the visible region, have high extinction coefficients, high quantum yield and excellent photostability. Fluorophores with scaffolding that can be used to tune and optimize solvatochromic behavior are of particular interest. Here, we investigate the environmental sensitivity of a small library of highly fluorescent 2,7-disubstituted sila- and germafluorenes. Density functional theory …

Rank And Analysis Several Solutions Of Healthcare Waste To Achieve Cost Effectiveness And Sustainability Using Neutrosophic Mcdm Model, Ahmed Abdelhafeez, Hoda K. Mohamed, Nariman A. Khalil

Neutrosophic Systems with Applications

Managing healthcare waste (HCWTT) from healthcare facilities is difficult. It's high up on the list of health concerns. This growth in HCWTT has been especially visible in recent years, as the quantity of medical services available has increased. Because of the potential danger, this garbage poses to people and the planet, it must be properly disposed of. Because of ineffective waste management practices, inadequate financial resources, and a lack of adequate facilities, HCWT administration is especially crucial in developing nations. Reducing HCWT via appropriate treatment is important for the area's financial and environmental health. In order to solve single-valued neutrosophic …

Space-Time Conflict Spheres For Constrained Multi-Agent Motion Planning, Anirudh Chari '24

Distinguished Student Work

Multi-agent motion planning (MAMP) is a critical challenge in applications such as connected autonomous vehicles and multi-robot systems. In this paper, we propose a space- time conflict resolution approach for MAMP. We formulate the problem using a novel, flexible sphere-based discretization for trajectories. Our approach leverages a depth-first con- flict search strategy to provide the scalability of decoupled approaches while maintaining the computational guarantees of coupled approaches. We compose procedures for evading discretization error and adhering to kinematic constraints in generated solutions. Theoretically, we prove the continuous-time feasibility and formulation-space completeness of our algorithm. Experimentally, we demonstrate that our algorithm …

Policies, Projections, And The Social Cost Of Carbon: Results From The Dice-2023 Model, Lint Barrage, William D. Nordhaus

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The present study examines the assumptions, modeling structure, and preliminary results of DICE-2023, the revised Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy (DICE), updated to 2023. The revision contains major changes in the carbon and climate modules, the treatment of non-industrial greenhouse gases, discount rates, as well as updates on all the major components. The major changes are a significant reduction in the target for the optimal (cost-beneficial) temperature path, a lower cost of reaching the 2 °C target, an analysis of the impact of the Paris Accord, and a major increase in the estimated social cost of carbon.

Rank And Analysis Several Solutions Of Healthcare Waste To Achieve Cost Effectiveness And Sustainability Using Neutrosophic Mcdm Model, Ahmed Abdelhafeez, Hoda K. Mohamed, Nariman A. Khalil

Neutrosophic Systems with Applications

Managing healthcare waste (HCWTT) from healthcare facilities is difficult. It's high up on the list of health concerns. This growth in HCWTT has been especially visible in recent years, as the quantity of medical services available has increased. Because of the potential danger, this garbage poses to people and the planet, it must be properly disposed of. Because of ineffective waste management practices, inadequate financial resources, and a lack of adequate facilities, HCWT administration is especially crucial in developing nations. Reducing HCWT via appropriate treatment is important for the area's financial and environmental health. In order to solve single-valued neutrosophic …

Medial Tibial Sesamoid Bone Fracture Of The Foot In A Collegiate Football Player: A Case Study, Chalynne M. Wisniewski

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Background: The foot contains two sesamoid bones including a medial tibial sesamoid and lateral fibular sesamoid bone, in which both are embedded in the plantar ligament beneath the first metatarsal head. Medial sesamoid fractures are rare and are often misdiagnosed. Radiographs may be inconclusive because a bipartite sesamoid may be present (sesamoid bone is naturally divided into two segments). Sesamoid fractures usually occur due to forced hyperextension of the great toe and metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint. Sesamoid fractures are often missed on initial diagnosis because the clinical presentation is similar to a turf toe injury. Pain in the ball of …

Comparing Computational Design Methods For A Type 2 Diabetes Medication, Andrew Voss

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) is a promising target for the treatment of type 2 diabetes because activating this receptor improves insulin sensitivity and helps manage glucose levels in patients. However, currently approved drugs that activate this receptor have side effects, such as weight gain, weakening of bones, and cardiac failure, which have limited or halted their use. The goal of my study is to compare computational methods that estimate the binding affinity of compounds to PPARγ. To achieve this, I will estimate the binding affinities of compounds that have published experimental binding affinities to determine if the estimated binding …

Microseismic Mapping Of The Aftershock Sequences Following The Magnitude 5.8 Lincoln, Mt Earthquake, Brett A. Steck, Reyer Fenoff

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Regional seismic stations are distributed sparsely throughout Montana. The thin dispersion of stations inhibits the evaluation of aftershock evolutions following a larger earthquake, as well as hinders the ability to record low magnitude events. To account for these limitations, a dense concentration of seismic stations from the University of Montana, Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, and the USGS were specifically deployed around the area of the 2017 Lincoln, MT earthquake. With a magnitude of 5.8, this event was one of the largest earthquakes in Montana’s history. In years following the mainshock, a sequence of aftershocks have occurred along adjacent …

Chiral Nanoparticles For Analysis Using Capillary Electrophoresis, Sierra M. Paske

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

This project will develop and introduce novel methods for the separation and analysis of enantiomers. Chiral separation of enantiomers is crucial in the area of drug development where two enantiomers of a compound can have varying effects as pharmaceuticals. Many pharmaceutical compounds or targets are chiral, with each enantiomer producing different biological responses in humans. For this reason, the Food and Drug Administration requires that each enantiomer of a chiral pharmaceutical be isolated and analyzed. Analytical and preparative scale chiral separations are thus critically important.

Chiral compounds have virtually identical chemical and physical properties, meaning separating their enantiomers for analysis …

Methods For Extracting Wildfire Specific Pm2.5 For The Western United States, Ava Orr

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Air pollution and PM_2.5 from wildfire smoke have steadily increased over the last decade despite decreasing anthropogenic emissions. The increase in wildfires in the western US has highlighted the need to understand better how wildfire-specific PM_2.5 affects human health. To support health risk assessment studies from wildfire smoke inhalation, differentiating between wildfire-specific PM_2.5 and non-wildfire-specific PM_2.5 is essential. We used PM_2.5 data developed by Swanson et al. and three different methods to isolate wildfire-specific PM_2.5. The PM_2.5 data uses air quality station observations, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, aerosol optical thickness data, and …

Inverting For Earth Structure Using Ocean Tides Loading The Surface, Eleanor Serviss

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

The fundamental question of geophysics is simple: What is inside the Earth? Because we cannot physically travel there, we rely on indirect methods such as mapping the strength of Earth’s gravity or studying how fast earthquakes travel through Earth’s layers. Most of our knowledge of Earth structure comes measuring the two earthquake velocity, the pressure-wave velocity and shear-wave velocity. In order to turn these two velocities into material parameters such as density, shear modulus, and modulus, we need to make assumptions about Earth structure. These assumptions come in the form of scaling and combining the velocities to recover the elastic …

Cervical Disk Rupture In A Collegiate Football Player: A Case Study, Hannah Kuracina Mx., Karl Reisig Dr., Benjamin Smith Do.

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Background: Cervical disc herniations (CDH) commonly occur between the ages of 51 and 60. Research suggests that less than 2% of patients with CDH were male and between the age of 20-29. The NFL reported 9 cases of CDH, from a singular traumatic event between 2001 and 2011. This case study examines a collegiate-aged male, a demographic not commonly associated with CDH. The typical presentation of CDH includes neck pain with unilateral numbness and tingling. CDH in young healthy adults is unusual and the clinical presentation, in this case, differs from what is commonly reported. This patient had no neurological …

Characterizing Particle Bed Stratigraphy As A Function Of Particle Size In An Airless, Microgravity Environment, Gillian Gomer, Michael Fraser, Anthony Meola, Raquel Guzman

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

Asteroids and other small planetary bodies are covered in a loose, dynamic layer of multi-sized dusty particles. We are focused on developing methods to further understand this surface regolith behavior to inform future landing missions on these small bodies for resource collection. The Strata-1 experiment was designed to study granular behavior in a passive, microgravity, airless environment. These conditions, simulating that of an asteroid’s surface, were attained by installing Strata-1 aboard the International Space Station for 347 days. In this experiment, we took images of red, green, and blue multi-sized glass shards within a tube to better understand their stratigraphy. …

“I Give The Kids My Warty Gourd Story”: A Qualitative Study On Public Health Nurses’ Experiences With Human Papillomavirus (Hpv) Vaccination In Montana, Juthika Jayendra Thaker

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Approximately 35,000 HPV-attributable cancers are diagnosed in the United States annually. Rural communities face a higher burden of HPV-attributed infections and cancers compared to urban areas due to lower vaccination coverage. The CDC recommends a 2-dose or a 3-dose HPV vaccine series depending on the age of the initial vaccination. Only 53% of eligible adolescents in Montana had completed the HPV vaccine series. While research on vaccine delivery systems has focused mainly on private clinics, rural adolescents rely on public health facilities for their immunization needs. A thorough understanding of public health nurses’ role in improving community vaccination rates will …

Childhood Vaccination Practices And Parental Hesitancy Barriers In Rural And Urban Primary Care Settings, Alexandria N. Albers Mph, Ms, Emma Wright Md, Juthika Thaker Mha, Kathrene Conway Bs, Matthew F. Daley Md

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Nationally and in Montana, children living in rural areas have unique barriers to vaccine access and lower vaccination rates compared to children in urban areas. However, there has been minimal prior research on rural-focused strategies for increasing vaccination rates. Our objective was to compare rural and urban Montana primary care providers’ (PCPs’) practices in promoting childhood vaccination and their perceptions regarding barriers to and strategies for promoting vaccination.

We conducted a mail and online survey of rural and urban Montana PCPs. In October-December 2021, the survey was pilot tested by PCPs across Montana. In January-April 2022, we sent out four …

Ruminal Proteolysis In Forages With Distinct Endopeptidases Activities, G. Pichard, C. Tapia, R. Larrain

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Improving livestock efficiency in utilisation of nitrogen resources continues to be a major environmental and economic objective. Zhu et al. (1999) have shown that plant endopeptidases are activated as a response to cutting stress. Previous work in our laboratory explored over 300 entries of forage genotypes and found a broad diversity in enzymatic activity by means of hydrolysis in gelatine and direct autolysis assays in forage tissues. The objective of this work was to assess if the species previously identified as having high or low endopeptidase activity, would behave consistently when exposed to ruminal microbial proteolysis.

Effects Of Particle Size In Forage Samples For Protein Breakdown Studies, G. Pichard, C. Tapia

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Coupling ruminal processes of hydrolysis and synthesis continues to be a research issue where more progress is needed. This requires the development of good protein assessment methods, particularly when representing the breakdown processes that occur in fresh pastures eaten by herbivores. Laboratory analyses need to deal with small and homogeneous samples, but the mechanical reduction of particle size may not reflect the actual digestion kinetics occurring when the original fresh forage is consumed. Such physical traits may alter the release of non-structural compounds and the penetration of microbial enzymes (Boudon et al., 2002). The objective of this work was …

A New System For The Evaluation Of The Fermentation Quality Of Silages, K. Weiß, E. Kaiser

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Depending on the content of nitrate in green forage, the pattern of fermentation products in silages differ significantly (Weiß & Kaiser, 2001). The systems, which are now common in practice for evaluating the quality of silage fermentation, characterise fermentation quality incorrectly because the evaluation is influenced by the chemical composition of green forage. The aim of this work was to derive an evaluation system for fermentation quality, which is independent from the chemical composition of green forage.