Posted on 20th May 2008 by Judy Breck in astronomy | engineering | general science | sciences
lander, landing, mars, mission, phoenix, surface
Phoenix Mars Lander is the topic of a magnificent learn node in the New York Science times today. Like any quality learn node, this one in the Times focuses on a small hunk of a subject: the scheduled landing of the vehicle this week on Mars. The node has internal links to superb supporting materials such as the graphic from which a piece is shown at the top of this post – although the graphic regretfully does not have a url of its own. Other internal links do, such as the slide show.
The node aspects are stunted here because there are not links beyond the NY Times to related material, such as The University of Arizona’’s Phoenix Mars Mission home webpage and NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander homepage. The great news is that the New York Times no longer posts its science materials for free and then a few days later closes them behind a paid subscription. Since it will remain open online, this Phoenix Mars Lander node will remain available to link into other networks of space exploration and related subjects.
Posted on 17th May 2008 by Judy Breck in art | history
1854, commodore, course, culture, japan, MIT, perry, visualize
Through a project called Visualizing Cultures, launched in 2002, MIT faculty explore, as the project link describes:
. . . the potential of the Web for developing innovative image-driven scholarship and learning. The VC mission is to use new technology and hitherto largely inaccessible visual materials to reconstruct the past as people of the time visualized the world (or imagined it to be.)
The 2008 course centered on this project is summarized:
Using new technologies, Visualizing Cultures weds images and commentary to illuminate social and cultural history in innovative ways. A narrative “Core Exhibit” not only gives the historical significance of the images, but also addresses issues such as genre and medium. Each unit comes with a comprehensive curriculum and carefully annotated digital archive of images from public and private sources.
The VC course is a superb learn node because it connects richly to closely related webpages that offer high quality knowledge substance. An example of a wonderful part of this VC network is a 2004 MIT project: Black Ships & Samurai: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan (1853-1854). To round out this learn node with something for those who prefer text to pictures, a detailed historical essay on Perry’s Japan arrival can be found in Fordham University’s Modern History SourceBook: Commodore Matthew Perry: When We Landed in Japan, 1854.
Posted on 14th May 2008 by Judy Breck in engineering | mechanics | physics | sciences
buildings, damage, earthquake, frequency, oscillation, resonance, Sichuan
The above image combines a map from the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program with a formula from a Connexions module by Sunil Kumar Singh that teaches forced oscillation. The map was captured as a screenshot from the USGS website 2 days after the Sichuan Earthquake began, and as the large squares on the map indicate, the aftershocks were continuing.
The Connexions module text accompanying the formula explains:
The resonance is an interesting feature of oscillation. This phenomenon attracts interest as it makes possible to achieve extra-ordinary result (material failure of large structure) with small force! Resonance also explains why earthquake causes differentiating result to different structures – most devastating where resonance occurs! The condition for maximum amplitude is obtained by differentiating amplitude function with respect to applied frequency as [the illustrated formula sets out.]
Thomas L. Pratt, who teaches research geophysicists at the University of Washington, provides a webpage that explains frequencies, periods, and resonance in which he includes this simple explanation: “Resonance is when motion at a given frequency is amplified by waves of that same frequency. For example, when a child is being pushed on a swing, the swinging is increased by a push being applied at the right time (at the correct frequency) during each swing.”
At Science Fair Central you can follow instructions for a simple experiment with 2 paper circles and a piece of cardboard to show why earthquakes shake some buildings more than others.
Posted on 13th May 2008 by Judy Breck in geography | history
cerrillos, Los_Cerrillos, new_mexico, pioneer, school
The Los Cerrillos school photo is posted here to demo how to make a learnode from a historical artifact. This photo was preserved by my Mother’s aunt Alma North (later Ferguson). Her father George Willis North gave the land to the town for the stone school in front of which the students and their teacher are posed, with Alma at the top left. These facts, and a few more about the school, can be found in a North family history written by Alma’s son Jack Ferguson in 1987, and now posted on my personal website judybreck.com.
The travel website Legends of America has a well-researched article about Los Cerrillos. Another source for information on the town is The Santa Fe County Cerrillos Hills Historic Park. It describes the founding of the town to which my great-grandfather George Willis North and his wife Ida Lupfer North moved with their three children Alma, Clarence (my grandfather), and May in 1887 and remained until 1896.
The Village of Cerrillos was established in 1879 as a tent camp between the lead and silver of the Cerrillos Hills to the north and the coal of Madrid and the gold of Placer and Ortiz Mountains to the south. It flourished as a natural point of access to both areas, but it was the arrival of the railroad in 1880 that assured the fate of the Village of Cerrillos would be different than that of Carbonateville. A few of the mines survived into the 20th century. The American Turquoise Company, an agency of Tiffany, New York, was active around the turn of the century, especially at Turquoise Hill on the north side of the Cerrillos.
I can recall my grandfather Clarence Lupfer North talking about the men from Tiffany. He told me he remembered from when he was a boy that they got big pieces of excellent turquoise from Los Cerrillos to make jewelry for the grand store in New York City.
This node (“knot” is the root of the word node) ties together strands of history and memory – and links out to many more nodes – enriching learning from the dynamic micro level of the Net.
Posted on 8th May 2008 by Judy Breck in math | physics
formulas, gravitation, gravitational, johannes, kepler, laws, motion, newton, physics, planetary, yale
Kepler’s Laws, Newton’s formulas: grasping grand concepts from great teachers is the online luxury of this learn node. Rice University’s Galileo Project provides the Johannes Kepler biography. NASA spins in an overview for science teachers of Kepler’s Three Laws of Planetary Motion. The image with this post is from a Syracuse University Physics applet that animates Kepler’s Laws.
A class video lecture is provided of Ramamurti Shankar, the John Randolph Huffman Professor of Physics and Professor of Applied Physics at Yale. From from a course in the Fundamentals of Physics, the lecture on Kepler’s Laws covers these ideas: “The focus of the lecture is problems of gravitational interaction. The three laws of Kepler are stated and explained. Planetary motion is discussed in general, and how this motion applies to the planets moving around the Sun in particular.”
