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has emergent properties, and be able to describe what these terms mean A number of assessment tools can be used to assess students' understanding (or progress toward understanding) of complex systems. A few of these tools are listed below. A concept map is a diagram with hierarchical nodes, labeled with concepts. The n... |
are arranged from general to specific. By developing concept maps, students literally illustrate their understanding of a complex system. This method can be used for summative or formative assessment, and has the benefit of highlighting any misconceptions. Students can develop and run physical or computer models to gai... |
in developing a model (what components of the system to include, how they are linked, and so on), along with how the student explains his or her choices, illustrate that student's understanding of the system in question. Their ability to explain the behavior of the model (describe the outcomes given different inputs, f... |
opportunity for assessment. This method can be employed for summative or formative assessment (or both). An understanding of graphical representations of data is an essential component of data analysis. Students can demonstrate their understanding of complex systems by interpreting graphical data illustrating the relat... |
more information about using graphs in the classroom, see the Starting Point web pages on describing and analyzing graphs. Assessing Students' Thinking Processes Much frustration can be avoided by engaging in formative assessment: assessing student learning during the learning process. One way to do this is to incorpor... |
to articulate what the results are and how they got there. This serves two functions: 1) it exposes misconceptions or misapplications at an early stage, and 2) it requires students to think about what they are doing and why -- and whether their progress makes sense in the context of what they know or expect. This opens... |
Many people think that a robot: - Is not 'natural' / was made by man. - Can see, hear or feel. - Can do a job / useful work. - |
Is intelligent, or can make choices. - Can be programmed to do different things. - Can move. - Seems to have a life of its own, like an animate object. |
- Is roughly the same shape as a human. People have been interested in building machines to do work for us for a long time. But it takes time and |
money to build just one machine, so early ideas stayed ideas, or were built to make rich people laugh. Leonardo Da Vinci designed a man-shaped machine to look like a |
knight in 1464. It would be controlled with ropes and wheels. Other engineers and dreamers drew mechanical men. So in 1920, Karel Čapek wrote a novel about them, and he |
used a word from Czech that is connected with 'work': robot. But the most successful robot designs in the 1900's were not made to look like people. They were designed |
for their use. George Devol made the first of these, the Unimate, in 1954, and General Motors bought it in 1960. The next year, it started work in a factory |
in New Jersey. The engineers could program it, and reprogram it if they had to. Modern Robots [change] Robots now have many uses. Many factories use robots to do lots |
of hard work quickly and without many mistakes. These are 'industrial' robots. The military uses robots to find and get rid of bombs. If someone makes a mistake, the robot |
is damaged or destroyed, which is better than a person being killed. There are also robots that help at home, to vacuum or cut grass, for example. Such robots must |
learn about the area of work. There are two robots on Mars. Because it takes a long time to send a signal from Earth to Mars, the robots do much |
of their work alone, without commands from Earth. People still think of robots as having a shape like a person—two legs, two arms, and a head. ASIMO is one robot |
that is helping scientists learn how to design and program robots. It can walk, which is not easy to program. Eastern and Western Views [change] Eastern Thoughts on Robots [change] |
Roughly half of all the robots in the world are in Asia, 32% in Europe, and 16% in North America, 1% in Australasia and 1% in Africa. 30% of all |
the robots in the world are in Japan. Japan has the most robots of any country in the world, and is the leader in the world robotics industry. Japan is |
actually said to be the robotic capital of the world. In Japan and South Korea, ideas of future robots have been mainly positive. The positive reception of robots there may |
be partly because of the famous cartoon robot, 'Astroboy'. China expressed views on robotics that are similar to those of Japan and South Korea, but China is behind both America |
and Europe in robotic development. The East Asian view is that robots should be roughly equal to humans. They feel robots could care for old people, teach children, or serve |
as assistants. The popular opinion of East Asia is that it would be good for robots to become more popular and more advanced. This view is opposite to the popular |
Western view. "This is the opening of an era in which human beings and robots can co-exist," says Japanese firm Mitsubishi about one of the many human-like robots in Japan. |
The South Korean Ministry of Information and Communication has predicted that every South Korean household will have a robot by between 2015 and 2020. In this sense, people in Japan |
are much more likely to be affected by Technosexuality, as they are much more exposed to robots in their society. South Korea aims to put a robot in every house |
there by 2015-2020 in order to help catch up technologically with Japan. This will obviously have an impact on the technosexuality of South Korea. China, like South Korea, wishes to |
catch up with Japan, and has been developing robots very quickly. After China becomes more developed, and each person has more money to view the media, where robots could be |
seen, or to buy robots, as is happening in Japan and South Korea, technosexuality will probably rise there too, when considering the current opinions of the people of robots. With |
a limited number of robots in the rest of the world away from Japan, and even in Japan too, movies and literature are the where most of the technosexuality will |
be towards. Futuristic images/descriptions or robots may encourage technosexuality. At the moment, there are not that many real human-like robots in the world. The most human-like robot in the world, |
'Actroid', made by Japanese company 'Kokoro' a division of 'Sanrio', is a good example of the target for technosexuality. Western Thoughts on Robots [change] Western societies are more likely to |
be against, or even fear the development of robotics, through much media output in movies and literature that they will replace humans. The West regards robots as a 'threat' to |
the future of humans, which is also muchly due to religious influence of the Abrahamic religions, in which creating machines that can think for themselves would almost be playing God. |
Obviously, these boundaries are not clear, but there is a significant difference between the two ideologies. Robot Laws [change] The writer Isaac Asimov told many stories about robots who had |
three robot laws to keep them safe, as well as to keep humans safe from them. - A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a |
human being to come to harm. - A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. - A |
robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. These were not used in real life when he invented |
them. However, in today's world robots are more complicated, and one day real laws may be needed, much like Isaac Asimov's original three laws. These laws are talked about in |
- A giant list of known robots - NASA and robots - NASA Robotics Division - International Federation of Robotics - Should we be worried by the rise of robots? |
- Podcast 'Talking Robots' - interviews with high-profile professionals in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence - French collection of toy robot - Introduction to Robotics - Robot World News - Robot |
news, robot tutorials, robot videos and robot chatbox - Robot news, theory of robotics - List of robots - Brandweek: Even Robot Suicide Is No Laughing Matter - Robots Today |
and Tomorrow: IFR Presents the 2007 World Robotics Statistics Survey; World Robotics; 2007-10-29; retrieved on 2007-12-14 - Reporting by Watanabe, Hiroaki; Writing and additional reporting by Negishi, Mayumi; Editing by |
Norton, Jerry;Japan's robots slug it out to be world champ; Reuters; 2007-12-02; retrieved on 2007-01-01 - Lewis, Leo; The robots are running riot! Quick, bring out the red tape; TimesOnline; |
2007-04-06; retrieved on 2007-01-02 - Biglione, Kirk; The Secret To Japan's Robot Dominance; Planet Tokyo; 2006-01-24; retrieved on 2007-01-02 - Domestic robot to debut in Japan ; BBC News; 2005-08-30; |
retrieved on 2007-01-02 - Robotic age poses ethical dilemma; BBC News; 2007-03-07; retrieved on 2007-01-02; - Chamberlain, Ted; Photo in the News: Ultra-Lifelike Robot Debuts in Japan; National Geographic News; |
2005-06-10; retrieved on 2008-01-02 - Yang, Jeff; ASIAN POP Robot Nation Why Japan, and not America, is likely to be the world's first cyborg society; SFGate; 2005-08-25; retrieved on 2007-01-02 |
The Modern Olympics 1932 -- Los Angeles, The United States of America 1,408 athletes, 37 nations Despite the stock market crash of 1929, Los Angeles put on a impressive show for 1932 Games and still ended up with a million-dollar surplus. Attendance was low because many other countries did not even have the money to pa... |
competition. for Olympic posters Many new innovations were showcased at the Games. The first Olympic village was built and every athlete was housed, fed and transported for less than $2 a day. The village included a hospital, library, post office, barber shop, cinema, and dining rooms. Since Los Angeles athlete village... |
and the playing of the national anthems were also introduced in Los Angeles. Duncan McNaughton won a gold medal in the high jump and Horace "Lefty" Gwynne placed first in bantamweight boxing. Canada's other medals came from track and field, wrestling, rowing and yachting events. Canadians were disappointed when their f... |
Hilda Strike of Montreal won two silver medals in track after coming second to Stella Walsh from Poland. When Walsh was shot and killed years later an autopsy showed "she" was actually a man. If a sex-test had been used in 1932 Strike would have won gold. A sex-test was not introduced at the Olympics until 1968. Before... |
12 Feb 13 Biodiversity is a recent word. It was used for the first time in Washington in 1986 by an entomologist (Edward O. Wilson) and can be a misunderstood topic. In actual fact it should be a simple concept, because at its essence, it signifies nature, life itself, and the diversity of life on many levels - from th... |
smallest and most basic (genes - the building blocks of life) to animal and plant species, up to the most complex levels (ecosystems). All these levels intersect and influence each other and each other’s evolution. Studies from the University of Stanford have compared the species and varieties of an ecosystem to rivets... |
the rivets, for a while nothing will happen and the airplane will continue to operate. But little by little the structure will weaken and, at a certain point, just removing one rivet will cause the plane to crash. In the history of the planet, everything has a beginning and an end, and in every era, many species have b... |
But never at the horrifying rate of recent years, one that is a thousand times greater than previous eras. This summer after a thorough study of many years, the prestigious University of Exeter in England declared that the earth is undergoing its sixth mass extinction (with the fifth, 65 million years ago, the dinosaur... |
difference between this and the extinctions of the past: the cause. For the first time man is responsible. Man continues to destroy rainforests, cement the land, pollute waters and grounds with chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and accumulate plastic in the oceans. And he insists on excluding the earth’s last custod... |
the fragile equilibrium of nature. Slow Food started its work with biodiversity in 1997 and our foot in the door - that since the beginning has given us a unique perspective - was food. If biodiversity disappears what will happen to our food? Together with the plants and wild animals, the plants domesticated by man, br... |
meat) will also disappear. According to the FAO, 75% of plant varieties have been irreversibly lost. In the USA the figure is 95%. Today 60% of the world’s food is based on three cereals: wheat, rice and corn. Not on the thousands of rice varieties selected by farmers that once were cultivated in India and China, or on... |
of varieties of corn that were grown in Mexico, but on the few hybrid varieties selected and sold to farmers by a handful of multinationals. Slow Food’s first intuition was this: look after domestic biodiversity. Meaning not just the panda or the seal, but also the Gascon chicken and the Alpago lamb; not just the edelw... |
asparagus from Albenga. But not just this. We became interested in taste and the knowledge connected to it, and traditional techniques of breeding, growing, and processing. And this led us to our second intuition: on our Ark of Taste – a catalogue of products to save – we have also included transformed foods: breads, c... |
is also biodiversity. Once we had identified our field of action, how did we work? We linked diverse worlds that normally didn’t interact: farmers, cooks, veterinarians, journalists… In order to achieve two objectives: 1 – Help small-scale farmers: To save a breed, we didn’t start from genetic selection; to save an app... |
varieties. Instead, we began by seeking out the shepherds that bred that certain breed, the farmers that still cultivated that apple, and we went and spoke to them. With this crucial step, the Presidia project was launched, that today is supporting producers in every corner of the world. 2 – Raise awareness about biodi... |
and experts, but also with schools, journalists, restaurant and so on. We need to write and tell these stories of producers with every tool at our disposal, because these themes transcend university lecture halls and scientific institutions, and become the heritage of us all. Biodiversity can’t be saved by scientists a... |
is of no interest to the market. And it’s probable that Noah won’t be arriving with his Ark. This battle, therefore, is one that needs to be taken up by us, together with all the people we manage to involve, on our lands, every day - with our Ark of Taste, Presidia, Earth Markets, community and school gardens, and the |
Giant chipmaker Intel has a new baby born from the One Laptop Per Child project called the Studybook, a rugged tablet PC meant for use by students of all ages |
in developing countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Scientific American Wednesday reported that computer makers in participating countries will make the Intel Studybook, and students at the nearest |
schools will use the tablets, a manufacturing system that will dramatically reduce the cost per unit. The Studybook will have a 17.8-centimeter multi-touch LCD screen about the size of an |
Amazon Kindle Fire. It has basic front and rear cameras with 0.3- and 2-megapixel capacities, a microphone, one gigabyte of memory, and 22 gigabytes of storage. The Intel tablet—its low |
cost notwithstanding—will also be equipped with an accelerometer and light sensor. And since the Studybook is primarily meant for use by students in all conceivable environments, one of its best |
features is its sturdiness. Made from a single piece of plastic, the Studybook frame contains a rubber gasket seat for its screen, making the tablet waterproof. The sturdy plastic construction |
allows the Studybook to absorb a 70-centimeter or 2-foot drop without breaking. Intel’s Wayne Grant, director for research and planning for the chipmaker’s Education Market Platforms group, said the tablet |
can also connect to networks via Wi-Fi, 3G or Bluetooth, and current models now run on Windows 7 OS. Grant said in a few months, versions that run on Google’s |
Android operating system would be available, depending on schedules announced by the various participating manufacturers. The tablet will likely cost around $200 – $300 each, a clear third of the |
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family (also known as the nightshades). The word potato may refer to the plant itself |
as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes were first introduced outside the Andes region four |
centuries ago, and have become an integral part of much of the world’s cuisine. It is the world’s fourth-largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize. Long-term storage of potatoes |
requires specialised care in cold warehouses. Wild potato species occur throughout the Americas, from the United States to Uruguay. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated independently in |
multiple locations, but later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species proved a single origin for potatoes in the area of present-day southern Peru (from a |
species in the Solanum brevicaule complex), where they were domesticated 7,000–10,000 years ago. Following centuries of selective breeding, there are now over a thousand different types of potatoes. Of these |
subspecies, a variety that at one point grew in theChiloé Archipelago (the potato’s south-central Chilean sub-center of origin) left its germplasm on over 99% of the cultivated potatoes worldwide. Following |
the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish introduced the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century. The staple was subsequently conveyed by European mariners |
to territories and ports throughout the world. The potato was slow to be adopted by distrustful European farmers, but soon enough it became an important food staple and field crop |
that played a major role in the European 19th century population boom. However, lack of genetic diversity, due to the very limited number of varieties initially introduced, left the crop |
vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland, resulting in |
the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine. Nonetheless, thousands of varieties persist in the Andes, where over 100 cultivars might be found in a single valley, and |
a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household. The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the 21st century included about |
33 kg (73 lb) of potato. However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. It remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), |
where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. China is |
now the world’s largest potato-producing country, and nearly a third of the world’s potatoes are harvested in China and India. The English word potato comes from Spanish patata (the name |
used in Spain). The Spanish Royal Academy says the Spanish word is a compound of the Taino batata (sweet potato) and the Quechua papa (potato). The name potato originally referred |
to a type of sweet potato rather than the other way around, although there is actually no close relationship between the two plants. The English confused the two plants one |
for the other. In many of the chronicles detailing agriculture and plants, no distinction is made between the two. The 16th-century English herbalist John Gerard used the terms “bastard potatoes” |
distinguish them from sweet potatoes. The name spud for a small potato comes from the digging of soil (or a hole) prior to the planting of potatoes. The word has |
an unknown origin and was originally (c. 1440) used as a term for a short knife or dagger, probably related to Dutch spyd and/or the Latin “spad-” root meaning “sword”; |
over to the tuber itself. The origin of “spud” has erroneously been attributed to a 19th century activist group dedicated to keeping the potato out of Britain, calling itself The |
Society for the Prevention of an Unwholesome Diet. It was Mario Pei’s 1949 The Story of Language that can be blamed for the false origin. Pei writes, “the potato, for |
its part, was in disrepute some centuries ago. Some Englishmen who did not fancy potatoes formed a Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet. The initials of the main words |
in this title gave rise to spud.” Like most other pre-20th century acronymic origins, this one is false. There are about five thousand potato varieties worldwide. Three thousand of them |
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