“Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.” — Jules Renard
“ideas to get your student’s pencils moving”
Writing is and isn’t an easy thing to do in the classroom. Especially nowadays when students don’t have long attention spans and are more and more “digital” and visual learners.
However, it is a vital skill that opens up a world of possibilities for any student. Written communication in whatever language, even with the advent of the internet, is still a necessity. Writing allows communication, controlled and deliberate – POWERFUL, communication. So we have to get our students writing more and better. How?
Below, find a rundown of what I consider the “standard” writing activities for any age group. Just change the topic/theme. Most are for any classroom, EFL / ESL or the regular classroom. My belief is that writing in English is writing in English. Whether it be a second language or first makes no difference because the “eating” is all the same.
I’ve divided the activities into different categories. These are just for the sake of having some kind of organization. I’ve also labeled them
WUP – for a warm up writing activity and something to do quickly.
CP – Controlled practice. Writing activities that help the beginning writer and offer support, repetition and guidance.
F – Free writing activities which activate student learning and allow them to practice what they already know and “test the waters” so to speak.
Where appropriate, I’ve linked to some resources that compliment the writing activity as described.
Listen — Write
There are many ways to “spice” up the standard dictation. The simplest is to have the students fold a blank piece of paper “hamburger” style (Up/down) 4 times. Unfold and they have a nice 8 line piece of paper. Speak 8 sentences , repeating each several times as the students write. Get the students to record their answers on the board and correct. Collect and keep in a portfolio!
There are many online sites where students can do the same but in a computer lab or at home. Or the teacher can even try in the classroom.
http://www.listen-and-write.com/audio – for older students
http://www.learner.org/interactives/spelling/ – for young learners
2. Story Rewriting
The teacher reads a story or the class listens to an audio story. After, students make a story board (just fold a blank page so you have 8 squares) and draw pictures. Then, they write the story based on those pictures. Very simple and powerful! – F
The students close their eyes and the teacher describes a scene. Play some nice background music. The students then write and describe the scene they imagined, sharing their scene afterwards with the class or a classmate.
4. Pop Song Rewrite
Play a familiar pop song. One with a “catchy” chorus. Afterwards, write out the chorus on the board with some of the words missing. Students can then rewrite the chorus and sing their own version. Higher level students can simply write their own version without help. Here’s a very simple example –
He’s got the whole world in his hands
He’s got ___________ and ___________
In his hands. (3x)
He’s got the whole world in his hands
Watch —– Write
Students watch a TV Commercial. Then, they write their own script based on that commercial but focused on a different product. Afterwards, they can perform. F
2. Short videos.
Just like a story but this time students watch. Then, they can rewrite / respond / reflect. Students can choose to reflect on one standard Reading Response question or as part of a daily journal. Ex. The best part was ….. / If I had made the video, I would have ……
Short videos are powerful and if well chosen can really get students writing in a reflective manner. CP / F
How to Videos
Students can watch a short “How to” video that describes a process. There are some excellent sites with User Generated Content. Expert Village and eHow are recommended. After the students watch the video several times, they can write out the steps using transitions which the teacher lists on the board. [First, first off, To begin, then, after that, next, most importantly, finally, last but not least, to finish ] CP / F
3. Newscasts / Weather reports
Watch the daily news or weather report. Students write in groups or individually, their own version of the news for that week/day. Then perform for the class like a real news report! F
4. Travel Videos
Watch a few travel videos (there are many nice, short travel “postcard” videos online). Groups of students select a place and write up a report or a poster outlining why others should visit their city/country. Alternately, give students a postcard and have them write to another student in the classroom as if they were in that city/country. For lower leveled students, provide them with a template and they just fill in the details. Ex.
I’m sitting in a ………… drinking a …………… I’ve been in ……. for ………. days now. The weather has been
……………. Yesterday I visited the ………….. and I saw …………….. Today, I’m going to ………………. I highly recommend ……………….. See you when I get home …………………
CP / F
Look —– Write
1. Pictures / Slideshows
Visuals are a powerful way to provide context and background for any writing. Make sure to use attractive, stimulating and if possible “real” photos to prompt student writing. Students can describe a scene or they can describe a series of pictures from a slideshow.
An excellent activity is to show a nice photo and get students to “guess” and write their guess in the form of the 5Ws. They answer all the 5w questions and then share their thoughts with the class.
Show a picture and get students to write a story or use it as background for a writing prompt. For example, Show a picture of a happy lottery winner. Ask students to write in their journal – If I won a million dollars I would ……
This is a much better way to “prompt” writing than simple script! – CP
Show students a selection of fairly similar pictures. The students describe in writing one of the pictures (faces work really well). They read and the other students listen and “guess” which picture is being described. Similar to this listening activity. CP
Provide students with a series of pictures which describe a story. I often use Action Pictures. Students write about each picture, numbering each piece of writing for each picture. The teacher can guide lower level students like this Mr. X’s Amazing Day example. After editing, the students cut up the pictures and make a storybook. Gluing in the pictures, coloring, decorating and adding their own story text. Afterwards read to the whole class or share among the class. CP / F
Provide students with a sequence of pictures which are scrambled. The students must order the pictures and then write out the process. Ex. Making scrambled eggs. F
Read —- Write
1. Reading Journal / Reading Response
The students read a story and then respond by making a reflective journal entry. Alternatively, the students can respond to a reading response question like, “Which character did you like best? Why?” F
Read a short story and then give students a copy of the story with some text missing. The students can fill it in with the correct version OR fill it in and make the story their own.
These are stories where words are replaced with icons/pictures. Students can read the story and then write out the whole story, replacing the pictures with the correct text. Here are some nice examples. – CP
3. Opinion / Essay
Select an article or OP Ed piece that students would find interesting or controversial. After reading and discussing, students can respond with a formal essay or piece of writing reflecting their opinion. Read them anonymously afterwards and get the class to guess who wrote it! F
4. Giving Advice
Students read a problem provided by the teacher (even better, get students to provide the problem by having them write down what they need advice on). This can often be an Ann Landers style request for advice from a newspaper. Students write their own response, giving advice. F
5. Running dictation
This is a lot of fun but quite noisy. Put students into groups of 3 or 4. For each group, post on the wall around the classroom, a piece of writing (maybe a selection of text you will be reading in your lesson). One student is appointed as the secretary. The other students must “run” to where their piece of writing is on the wall and read it. Then run back and dictate it to the secretary who records it. Continue until one group is finished (but check that they got it right!). CP
Think —- Write
1. Graphic Organizers
These you can make on your own by having students draw and fold blank sheets of paper or by giving them a pre-designed one. Students write out their thoughts on a topic using the organizer. An alphabet organizer is also an excellent activity in writing for lower level students. Graphic organizers and mind maps are an excellent way “first step” to a longer writing piece and are an important pre-writing activity. WUP
2. Prompts / Sentence Starters
Students are prompted to finish sentences that are half started. They can write X number of sentences using the sentence starter. Many starters can be found online. Prompts are also an excellent way to get students thinking and writing. Every day, students can “free write” a passage using the daily prompt (ex. What I did this morning etc… ) Creative writing of this sort really motivates students to write. There are many lists online you can use.
3. Thinking Games
Using a worksheet, students play the game while writing down their responses in grammatical sentences. What the Wordle / Not Like the Other and Top 5 are some games I’ve made and which help students begin to write. Each has a worksheet which students fill out. CP
4. Decoding / Translating
Translating a passage into English can be a good writing activity for higher level students.
Students love their cell phones and Transl8it.com is a handy way to get students interested in writing. Simply put in English text and Transl8it.com will output “text messaging”. Give this to students to decode into standard English and then check against the original. Lots of fun! See the games I’ve designed (Pop Song / Dialogues ) using this principle of decoding text messaging. CP
5. Forms / Applications
Students need to practice writing that will be of use to them directly in the wider world. Forms and filling in applications are a valuable way to do this. Fill in one together as a class and then get students to do this same for themselves individually. – CP
6. Journals / Reflection / Diaries
This type of free writing activity should be done on a regular basis if used in class. Use a timer and for X minutes, students can write upon a topic that is important to them, that day. Alternatively, students can write at the end of the day and record their thoughts about the lesson or their own learning. These are all excellent ways for the teacher to get to know their students. One caution – don’t correct student writing here! Comment positively on the student’s writing – the goal is to get them feeling good about writing and “into” it. – F
7. Tag Stories / Writing
Students love this creative exercise. Fold a blank piece of paper vertically (Hamburger style) 4 times. You’ll have 8 lines. On the first line, students all write the same sentence starter. Ex. A man walked into a bank and ……..
Next, students finish the sentence and then pass their paper to the student on their left/right. That student reads the sentence and continues the story on the next line. Continue until all 8 lines are completed. Read the stories as a class – many will be hilarious! I often do this with a “gossip” variation. I write some gossip “chunks” on the board like; “I heard that..” , “I was told…” “The word on the street is…” “Don’t pass it around but…”. Students choose one and write some juicy gossip about the student to their right. They then pass their paper to the left with everyone adding onto the gossip. Students really get into this! CP / F
8. Describe and guess
Students think of a person / a place or a thing. They write a description of them / it and they are read out and others students guess.
Jokes and riddles are also effective for this. Students write out a joke or riddle they know and then they are read and other students try to guess the punchline. – F
TEXT —– Write
1. Sentence Chains
The teacher writes a word on the board and then students shout out words that follow using the last letter(s). The more last letters they use, the more points they get. The teacher keeps writing as quick as possible as the students offer up more correct words. Ex. Smilengthosentencementality…..
Give students a blank piece of paper and in pairs with one student being the secretary, they play! This is a great game for simple spelling practice and also to get students noticing language and how words end/begin. They can also play for points. Compound words and phrases are acceptable! – WUP
2. Guided Writing
This is a mainstay of the writing teacher’s toolkit. Students are either given a “bank” of words or can write/guess on their own. They fill in the missing words of a text to complete the text. Take up together and let students read their variations. A nice adaptation to guided writing for lower level students is for them to personalize the writing by getting them to draw a picture for the writing passage to illustrate and fortify the meaning. Here’s a nice example. CP
Use a time line to describe any event. Brainstorm as a class. Then students use the key words written on the board, to write out the time line as a narrative. Really effective and you can teach history like this too! Biographies of individuals or even the students themselves are a powerful writing activity and timelines are a great way to get them started. – F
Students are given notes (the classic example is a shopping list but it might be a list of zoo animals / household items etc…) and then asked to write something using all the noted words. This usually focuses on sequence (transitions) or location (prepositions). F
5. Grammar Poems
Grammar poems are short poems about a topic that students complete using various grammar prompts. This form of guided writing is very effective and helps students notice various syntactical elements of the language.
Put the grammar poem on the board with blanks. Here are some examples but it could be on any topic (country, famous person, my home, this school, etc..). Fill out as a class with one student filling it in. Then, students copy the poem and complete with their own ideas. Change as needed to stress different grammatical elements. And of course, afterwards SHARE. Present some to the class and display on a bulletin board. Your students will be proud of them!
SPEAK — Write
1. Surveys / Reports
Students have a survey question or a questionnaire. They walk around the class recording information. After, instead of reporting to the class orally, they can write up the report about their findings.
This can also be used with FSW (Find Someone Who) games. Students use a picture bingo card to walk around the classroom and ask students yes/no questions. They write the answers with a check or X and the student’s name in the box with the picture. After, they write up a report about which student ……. / didn’t …… certain things. CP
2. Reported Speech
Do any speaking activity or set of conversation questions. Afterwards, students report back by writing using reported speech, “ Susan told me that she ………..” and “ Brad said that ………..” etc….. CP
3. Introducing each other
Students can interview another classmate using a series of questions / key words given by the teacher. After the interview of each other is over, students can write out a biography of their partner and others can read them in a class booklet. – F
4. In class letter writing
Writing for a purpose is so important and nothing makes this happen better than in class letter writing. Appoint a postman and have each student make a post office box (it could just be a small bag hanging from their desk). The students can write each other (best to assign certain students first) and then respond to their letter. Once it gets started, it just keeps going and going… – F
4. Email / messaging / chat / social networking
This is an excellent way to get students speaking by writing. Set up a social networking system or a messaging / emailing system for the students. They can communicate and chat there using an “English only” policy. Use videos / pictures like in class – to promote student discussion and communication. Projects online foster this kind of written communication and using an CMS (Content Management System) like moodle or atutor or ning can really help students write more. – F
5. Class / School English newspaper or magazine
Students can gain valuable skills by meeting and designing a school English newsletter. Give each student a role (photographer, gossip / news / sports / editor in chief / copy editor etc…) and see what they can do. You’ll be surprised! – F
WRITE —— Do
Students can write dialogues for many every day situations and then act them out for the class. The teacher can model the language on the board and then erase words so students can complete by themselves and in their own words. Here’s a neat example using a commercial as a dialogue. – CP
Students draw a picture and then write a description of the picture. They hand their description to another student who must read it and then draw the picture as they see it. Finally, both students compare pictures! – F
3. Tableaus / Drama
Students write texts of any sort. Then the texts are read and other students must make a tableau of the description or act out the text in some manner. For example – students can write about their weekend. After writing, the student reads their text and other students act it out or perform a tableau. F
4. Don’t speak / Write!
I once experimented with a class that wouldn’t speak much by putting a gag on myself and only writing out my instructions. It worked and this technique could be used in a writing class. Students can’t speak and are “gagged”. Give them post it notes by which to communicate with others. Instruct using the board. There are many creative ways to use this technique! – F
RECOMMENDED BOOKS 4 TEACHERS
I highly recommend the following two books for ideas and some general theory on how to teach writing. Purchase them for reference.
1. HOW TO TEACH WRITING – Jeremy Harmer
Very insightful and cleanly, simply written. The author explores through example and description, all the facets and theory behind that “looking glass” which we call teaching. I use this as a course text for my methodology class for in-service teachers.
2. Oxford Basics: Simple Writing Activites
- Jill and Charles Hadfield
This book (and series) is a gem! Jill Hadfield knows what working EFL / ESL teachers need and in this book there are 30 simple writing activities which teachers can use with a wide variety of levels and with only a chalkboard and a piece of chalk / paper.
See my Blog post and download the list of my TOP 10 WRITING WEBSITES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS


A long time ago I wrote the article The Dull Case of Emissivity and Average Temperatures and expected that would be the end of the interest in emissivity. But it is a gift that keeps on giving, with various people concerned that no one has really been interested in measuring surface emissivity properly.
All solid and liquid surfaces emit thermal radiation according to the Stefan-Boltzmann formula:
E = εσT4
where ε=emissivity, a material property; σ = 5.67×10-8 ; T = temperature in Kelvin (absolute temperature)
and E is the flux in W/m²
More about this formula and background on the material properties in Planck, Stefan-Boltzmann, Kirchhoff and LTE.
The parameter called emissivity is the focus of this article. It is of special interest because to calculate the radiation from the earth’s surface we need to know only temperature and emissivity.
Emissivity is a value between 0 and 1. And is also depends on the wavelength of radiation (and in some surfaces like metals, also the direction). Because the wavelengths of radiation depend on temperature, emissivity also depends on temperature.
When emissivity = 1, the body is called a “blackbody”. It’s just the theoretical maximum that can be radiated. Some surfaces are very close to a blackbody and others are a long way off.
Note: I have seen many articles by keen budding science writers who have some strange ideas about “blackbodies”. The only difference between a blackbody and a non-blackbody is that the emissivity of a blackbody = 1, and the emissivity of a non-blackbody is less than 1. That’s it. Nothing else.
The wavelength dependence of emissivity is very important. If we take snow for example, it is highly reflective to solar (shortwave) radiation with as much as 80% of solar radiation being reflected. Solar radiation is centered around a wavelength of 0.5μm.
Yet snow is highly absorbing to terrestrial (longwave) radiation, which is centered around a wavelength of 10μm. The absorptivity and emissivity around freezing point is 0.99 – meaning that only 1% of incident longwave radiation would be reflected.
Let’s take a look at the Planck curve – the blackbody radiation curve – for surfaces at a few slightly different temperatures:
The emissivity (as a function of wavelength) simply modifies these curves.
Suppose, for example, that the emissivity of a surface was 0.99 across this entire wavelength range. In that case, a surface at 30°C would radiate like the light blue curve but at 99% of the values shown. If the emissivity varies across the wavelength range then you simply multiply the emissivity by the intensity at each wavelength to get the expected radiation.
Sometimes emissivity is quoted as an average for a given temperature – this takes into account the shape of the Planck curve shown in the graphs above.
Often, when emissivity is quoted as an overall value, the total flux has been measured for a given temperature and the emissivity is simply:
ε = actual radiation measured / blackbody theoretical radiation at that temperature
[Fixed, thanks to DeWitt Payne for pointing out the mistake]
In practice the calculation is slightly more involved, see note 1.
It turns out that the emissivity of water and of the ocean surface is an involved subject.
And because of the importance of calculating the sea surface temperature from satellite measurements, the emissivity of the ocean in the “atmospheric window” (8-14 μm) has been the subject of many 100′s of papers (perhaps 1000′s). These somewhat overwhelm the papers on the less important subject of “general ocean emissivity”.
Aside from climate, water itself is an obvious subject of study for spectroscopy.
For example, 29 years ago Miriam Sidran writing Broadband reflectance and emissivity of specular and rough water surfaces, begins:
The optical constants of water have been extensively studied because of their importance in science and technology. Applications include a) remote sensing of natural water surfaces, b) radiant energy transfer by atmospheric water droplets, and c) optical properties of diverse materials containing water, such as soils, leaves and aqueous solutions.
In this study, values of the complex index of refraction from six recent articles were averaged by visual inspection of the graphs, and the most representative values in the wavelength range of 0.200 μm to 5 cm were determined. These were used to find the directional polarized reflectance and emissivity of a specular surface and the Brewster or pseudo-Brewster angle as functions of wavelength.
The directional polarized reflectance and emissivity of wind-generated water waves were studied using the facet slope distribution function for a rough sea due to Cox and Munk .
Applications to remote sensing of sea surface temperature and wave state are discussed, including effects of salinity.
Emphasis added. She also comments in her paper:
For any wavelength, the total emissivity, ε, is constant for all θ [angles] < 45° [from vertical]; this follows from Fig. 8 and Eq. (6a). It is important in remote sensing of thermal radiation from space, as discussed later..
The polarized emissivities are independent of surface roughness for θ < 25°, while for θ > 25°, the thermal radiation is partly depolarized by the roughness.
This means that when you look at the emission radiation from directly above (and close to directly above) the sea surface roughness doesn’t have an effect.
I thought some other comments might also be interesting:
The 8-14-μm spectral band is chosen for discussion here because (a) it is used in remote sensing and (b) the atmospheric transmittance, τ, in this band is a fairly well-known function of atmospheric moisture content. Water vapor is the chief radiation absorber in this band.
In Eqs. (2)-(4), n and k (and therefore A and B) are functions of salinity. However, the emissivity value, ε, computed for pure water differs from that of seawater by <0.5%.
When used in Eqs. (10), it causes an error of <0.20°C in retrieved Ts [surface temperature]. Since ε in this band lies between 0.96 and 0.995, approximation ε= 1 is routinely used in sea surface temperature retrieval. However, this has been shown to cause an error of -0.5 to -1.0°C for very dry atmospheres. For very moist atmospheres, the error is only ≈0.2°C.
One of the important graphs from her paper:
Click to view a larger image
Emissivity = 1 – Reflectance. The graph shows Reflectance vs Wavelength vs Angle of measurement.
I took the graph (coarse as it is) and extracted the emissivity vs wavelength function (using numerical techniques). I then calculated the blackbody radiation for a 15°C surface and the radiation from a water surface using the emissivity from the graph above for the same 15°C surface. Both were calculated from 1 μm to 100 μm:
The “unofficial” result, calculating the average emissivity from the ratio: ε = 0.96.
This result is valid for 0-30°C. But I suspect the actual value will be modified slightly by the solid angle calculations. That is, the total flux from the surface (the Stefan-Boltzmann equation) is the spectral intensity integrated over all wavelengths, and integrated over all solid angles. So the reduced emissivity closer to the horizon will affect this measurement.
Niclòs et al – 2005
One of the most interesting recent papers is In situ angular measurements of thermal infrared sea surface emissivity—validation of models, Niclòs et al (2005). Here is the abstract:
In this paper, sea surface emissivity (SSE) measurements obtained from thermal infrared radiance data are presented. These measurements were carried out from a fixed oilrig under open sea conditions in the Mediterranean Sea during the WInd and Salinity Experiment 2000 (WISE 2000).
The SSE retrieval methodology uses quasi-simultaneous measurements of the radiance coming from the sea surface and the downwelling sky radiance, in addition to the sea surface temperature (SST). The radiometric data were acquired by a CIMEL ELECTRONIQUE CE 312 radiometer, with four channels placed in the 8–14 μm region. The sea temperature was measured with high-precision thermal probes located on oceanographic buoys, which is not exactly equal to the required SST. A study of the skin effect during the radiometric measurements used in this work showed that a constant bulk–skin temperature difference of 0.05±0.06 K was present for wind speeds larger than 5 m/s. Our study is limited to these conditions.
Thus, SST used as a reference for SSE retrieval was obtained as the temperature measured by the contact thermometers placed on the buoys at 20-cm depth minus this bulk–skin temperature difference.
SSE was obtained under several observation angles and surface wind speed conditions, allowing us to study both the angular and the sea surface roughness dependence. Our results were compared with SSE models..
The introduction explains why specifically they are studying the dependence of emissivity on the angle of measurement – for reasons of accurate calculation of sea surface temperature:
The requirement of a maximum uncertainty of ±0.3 K in sea surface temperature (SST) as input to climate models and the use of high observation angles in the current space missions, such as the 55° for the forward view of the Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) (Llewellyn-Jones et al., 2001) on board ENVISAT, need a precise and reliable determination of sea surface emissivity (SSE) in the thermal infrared region (TIR), as well as analyses of its angular and spectral dependences.
The emission of a rough sea surface has been studied over the last years due to the importance of the SSE for accurate SST retrieval. A reference work for many subsequent studies has been the paper written by Cox and Munk (1954)..
The experimental setup:
From Niclos (2004)
The results (compared with one important model from Masuda et al 1988):
From Niclos (2004)
Click on the image for a larger graphic
This paper also goes on to compare the results with the model of Wu & Smith (1997) and indicates the Wu & Smith’s model is a little better.
The tabulated results, note that you can avoid the “eye chart effect” by clicking on the table:
Click on the image for a larger view
Note that the emissivities are in the 8-14μm range.
You can see that the emissivity when measured from close to vertical is 0.98 – 0.99 at two different wind speeds.
Konda et al – 1994
A slightly older paper which is not concerned with angular dependence of sea surface emissivity is by Konda, Imasato, Nishi and Toda (1994).
They comment on a few older papers:
Buettner and Kern (1965) estimated the sea surface emissivity to be 0.993 from an experiment using an emissivity box, but they disregarded the temperature difference across the cool skin.
Saunders (1967b, 1968) observed the plane sea surface irradiance from an airplane and determined the reflectance. By determining the reflectance as the ratio of the differences in energy between the clear and the cloudy sky at different places, he calculated the emissivity to be 0.986. The process of separating the reflection from the surface irradiance, however, is not precise.
Mikhaylov and Zolotarev (1970) calculated the emissivity from the optical constant of the water and found the average in the infrared region was 0.9875.
The observation of Davies et al. (1971) was performed on Lake Ontario with a wave height less than 25 cm. They measured the surface emission isolated from sky radiation by an aluminum cone, and estimated the emissivity to be 0.972. The aluminum was assumed to act as a mirror in infrared region. In fact,aluminum does not work as a perfect mirror.
Masuda et al. (1988) computed the surface emissivity as a function of the zenith angle of observed radiation and wind speed. They computed the emissivity from the reflectance of a model sea surface consisting of many facets, and changed their slopes according to Gaussian distribution with respect to surface wind. The computed emissivity in 11 μm was 0.992 under no wind.
Each of these studies in trying to determine the value of emissivity, failed to distinguish surface emission from reflection and to evaluate the temperature difference across the cool skin. The summary of these studies are tabulated in Table 1.
The table summarizing some earlier work:
Konda and his co-workers took measurements over a one year period from a tower in Tanabe Bay, Japan.
They calculated from their results that the ocean emissivity was 0.984±0.004.
One of the challenges for Konda’s research and for Niclòs is the issue of sea surface temperature measurement itself. Here is a temperature profile which was shown in the comments of Does Back Radiation “Heat” the Ocean? – Part Three:
Kawai & Wada (2007)
The point is the actual surface from which the radiation is emitted will usually be at a slightly different temperature from the bulk temperature (note the logarithmic scale of depth). This is the “cool skin” effect. This surface temperature effect is also moderated by winds and is very difficult to measure accurately in field conditions.
Smith et al – 1996
Another excellent paper which measured the emissivity of the ocean is by Smith et al (1996):
An important objective in satellite remote sensing is the global determination of sea surface temperature (SST). For such measurements to be useful to global climate research, an accuracy of ±0.3K or better over a length of 100km and a timescale of days to weeks must be attained. This criterion is determined by the size of the SST anomalies (≈1K) that can cause significant disturbance to the global atmospheric circulation patterns and the anticipated size of SST perturbations resulting from global climate change. This level of uncertainty is close to the theoretical limits of the atmospheric corrections..
It is also a challenge to demonstrate that such accuracies are being achieved, and conventional approaches, which compare the SST derived from drifting or moored buoys, generally produce results with a scatter of ±0.5 to 0.7K. This scatter cannot be explained solely by uncertainties in the buoy thermometers or the noise equivalent temperature difference of the AVHRR, as these are both on the order of 0.2K or less but are likely to be surface emissivity/reflectivity uncertainties, residual atmospheric effects, or result from the methods of comparison
Note that the primary focus of this research was to have accurate SST measurements from satellites.
From Smith et al (1996)
The experimental work on the research vessel Pelican included a high spectral resolution Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) which was configured to make spectral observations of the sea surface radiance at several view angles. Any measurement from the surface of course, is the sum of the emitted radiance from the surface as well as the reflected sky radiance.
- ocean salinity
- intake water temperature
- surface air temperature
- wind velocity
- SST within the top 15cm of depth
There was also independent measurement of the radiative temperature of the sea surface at 10μm with a Heimann broadband radiation thermometer “window” radiometer. And radiosondes were launched from the ship roughly every 3 hours.
Additionally, various other instruments took measurements from a flight altitude of 20km. Satellite readings were also compared.
The AERI measured the spectral distribution of radiance from 3.3μm to 20μm at 4 angles. Upwards at 11.5° from zenith, and downwards at 36.5°, 56.5° and 73.5°.
There’s a lot of interesting discussion of the calculations in their paper. Remember that the primary aim is to enable satellite measurements to have the most accurate measurements of SST and satellites can only really “see” the surface through the “atmospheric window” from 8-12μm.
Here are the wavelength dependent emissivity results shown for the 3 viewing angles. You can see that at the lowest viewing angle of 36.5° the emissivity is 0.98 – 0.99 in the 8-12μm range.
From Smith et al (1996)
Note that the wind speed doesn’t have any effect on emissivity at the more direct angle, but as the viewing angle moves to 73.5° the emissivity has dropped and high wind speeds change the emissivity considerably.
Henderson et al – 2003
Henderson et al (2003) is one of the many papers which consider the theoretical basis of how viewing angles change the emissivity and derive a model.
Just as an introduction, here is the theoretical variation in emissivity with measurement angle, versus “refractive index” as computed by the Fresnel equations:
The legend is refractive index from 1.20 to 1.35. Water, at visible wavelengths, has a refractive index of 1.33. This shows how the emissivity reduces once the viewing angle increases above 50° from the vertical.
The essence of the problem of sea surface roughness for large viewing angles is shown in the diagram below, where multiple reflections take place:
Henderson and his co-workers compare their results with the measured results of Smith et al (1996) and also comment that at zenith viewing angles the emissivity does not depend on the wind speed, but at larger angles from vertical it does.
A quick summary of their model:
We have developed a Monte Carlo ray-tracing model to compute the emissivity of computer-rendered, wind-roughened sea surfaces. The use of a ray-tracing method allows us to include both the reflected emission and shadowing and, furthermore, permits us to examine more closely how these processes control the radiative properties of the surface. The intensity of the radiation along a given ray path is quantified using Stokes vectors, and thus, polarization is explicitly included in the calculations as well.
Their model results compare well with the experimental results. Note that the approach of generating a mathematical model to calculate how emissivity changes with wind speed and, therefore, wave shape is not at all new.
Water retains its inherent properties of emissivity regardless of how it is moving or what shape it is. The theoretical challenge is handling the multiple reflections, absorptions, re-emissions that take place when the radiance from the water is measured at some angle from the vertical.
The best up to date measurements of ocean emissivity in the 8-14 μm range are 0.98 – 0.99. The 8-14 μm range is well-known because of the intense focus on sea surface temperature measurements from satellite.
From quite ancient data, the average emissivity of water across a very wide broadband range (1-100 μm) is 0.96 for water temperatures from 0-30°C.
The values from the ocean when measured close to the vertical are independent of wind speed and sea surface roughness. As the angle of measurement moves from the vertical around to the horizon the measured emissivity drops and the wind speed affects the measurement significantly.
These values have been extensively researched because the calculation of sea surface temperature from satellite measurements in the 8-14μm “atmospheric window” relies on the accurate knowledge of emissivity and any factors which affect it.
For climate models – I haven’t checked what values they use. I assume they use the best experimental values from the field. That’s an assumption. I’ve already read enough on ocean emissivity.
For energy balance models, like the Trenberth and Kiehl update, an emissivity of 1 doesn’t really affect their calculations. The reason, stated simply, is that the upwards surface radiation and the downward atmospheric radiation are quite close in magnitude. For example, the globally annually averaged values of both are 396 W/m² (upward surface) vs 340 W/m² (downward atmospheric).
Suppose the emissivity drops from 0.98 to 0.97 – what is the effect on upwards radiation through the atmosphere?
The upwards radiation has dropped by 4W/m², but the reflected atmospheric radiation has increased by 3.4W/m². The net upwards radiation through the atmosphere has reduced by only 0.6 W/m².
One of our commenters asked what value the IPCC uses. The answer is they don’t use a value at all because they summarize research from papers in the field.
Whether they do it well or badly is a subject of much controversy, but what is most important to understand is that the IPCC does not write papers, or perform GCM model runs, or do experiments – and that is why you see almost no equations in their many 1000′s of pages of discussion on climate science.
For those who don’t believe the “greenhouse” effect exists, take a look at Understanding Atmospheric Radiation and the “Greenhouse” Effect – Part One in the light of all the measured results for ocean emissivity.
On Another Note
It’s common to find claims on various blogs and in comments on blogs that climate science doesn’t do much actual research.
I haven’t found that to be true. I have found the opposite.
Whenever I have gone digging for a particular subject, whether it is the diurnal temperature variation in the sea surface, diapycnal & isopycnal eddy diffusivity, ocean emissivity, or the possible direction and magnitude of water vapor feedback, I have found a huge swathe of original research, of research building on other research, of research challenging other research, and detailed accounts of experimental methods, results and comparison with theory and models.
Just as an example, in the case of emissivity of sea surface, at the end of the article you can see the first 30 or so results pulled up from one journal – Remote Sensing of the Environment for the search phrase “emissivity sea surface”. The journal search engine found 348 articles (of course, not every one of them is actually about ocean emissivity measurements).
Perhaps it might turn out to be the best journal for this subject, but it’s still just one journal.
Broadband reflectance and emissivity of specular and rough water surfaces, Sidran, Applied Optics (1981)
In situ angular measurements of thermal infrared sea surface emissivity—validation of models, Niclòs, Valor, Caselles, Coll & Sànchez, Remote Sensing of Environment (2005)
Measurement of the Sea Surface Emissivity, Konda, Imasato, Nishi and Toda, Journal of Oceanography (1994)
Observations of the Infrared Radiative Properties of the Ocean—Implications for the Measurement of Sea Surface Temperature via Satellite Remote Sensing, Smith, Knuteson, Revercomb, Feltz, Nalli, Howell, Menzel, Brown, Brown, Minnett & McKeown, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (1996)
The polarized emissivity of a wind-roughened sea surface: A Monte Carlo model, Henderson, Theiler & Villeneuve, Remote Sensing of Environment (2003)
Note 1: The upward radiation from the surface is the sum of three contributions: (i) direct emission of the sea surface, which is attenuated by the absorption of the atmospheric layer between the sea surface and the instrument; (ii) reflection of the downwelling sky radiance on the sea, attenuated by the atmosphere; and (iii) the upwelling atmospheric radiance emitted in the observing direction.
So the measured radiance can be expressed as:
where the three terms on the right are each of the three contributions noted in the same order.
Note 2: 1/10th of the search results returned from one journal for the search term “emissivity sea surface”:
Remote Sensing of Environment - search results
Read Full Post »


The Bruce-Benedicks Saga and the Birth of the AGH
While living in Paris in the 1880's, the budding young Canadian artist, William Blair Bruce
, met the aristocratic Swedish sculptress, Caroline Benedicks
. They fell in love, married, and eventually established themselves in a permanent year-round residence, Brucebo
, on the western seashore of Gotland Island in Sweden. From their artistic union two significant institutions in the world of fine art were to evolve – the birth of the Art Gallery of Hamilton in Canada and the creation of the Brucebo Fine Art Scholarship Foundation in Sweden.
The saga of William and Caroline’s life-story spans one of the most exciting phases in European contemporary history, including its fine art development. It comprises the last quarter of the 19th century and the decades leading up to World War II. The era is characterized by dramatic transformations in not just technological and industrial developments, but also in social and cultural institutions, including the world of art in its various forms.
was born in 1856 into a wealthy industrialist family in Stockholm. Caroline had finished her studies in Sweden in the early 1880's, before moving South, to Paris, and settling in the village of Grez-sur-Long in 1884, where she stood out from the majority of artists living there. First, she was a single young female in a society that basically frowned upon such status. Second, she was financially independent, and third, she had received a typical "proper" education as behooved a young woman of wealthy family circumstances. Finally, she was a family girl whose keen interest in the fine arts had landed her in a sea of male artists. Another factor that made her quite atypical was her chosen field of art specialization in sculpture rather than the standard popular domain of painting.
William Blair Bruce’s
formative years could not have been more different from Caroline’s. William was born in 1859 into a comfortable middle-class here a continent away in Canada, on Hamilton’s “mountain”. He received his early training from his father who was also an amateur painter. In 1877, William studied at the local Mechanics Institute (Hamilton Art School), and from 1878 until 1880 was employed as a draftsman for a local architectural firm.
In the autumn of 1881, at age 22, William sailed to France, settling in Paris and enrolling in classes at the Académie Julien. William wanted to soak up the Parisian atmosphere, discover new inspirational approaches in painting by rubbing shoulders with contemporaries, and to meet the new generation of avant-guard painters. Above all, he wanted to pit his artistic skills and talent in the open competition at the annual Grand Salon, and at various exhibition galleries, against other talented painters who tried to achieve fame in the art world “mecca”, Paris.
William’s behavior in this world was typical. He first rented a studio apartment on Rive Gauche with all the other aspiring artists. However, in 1882, he leased a cottage in the village of Barbizon, on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau. This became his permanent pied-a-terre during his years in Paris.Meanwhile, Caroline was mixing with the Swedish crowd that tended to center upon the village of Grez-sur-Long, where the young, up-and-coming generation of Swedish painters were developing their talents.
The 1880's were an exciting time for any young artist to reside in France. Toward the latter part of the 19th century, the art world in general had broken with the previous romantic/realism styles that had typified the (landscape) painting schools, both on the Continent and in England during earlier decades. New fine art waves were washing away the traditional studio-based approach to painting, and the innovations in France at the time fostered the first generation of impressionistic painters. This powerful wave of avant-garde art as represented by the impressionists had a major impact throughout European and international art communities. The standard bearers, such as Corot, Monet, Pissaro, and Sisley, were all well-established, and frequently organized private exhibitions outside the annual Paris Salon. They, and others in a widening flock, served as beacons for the younger generation of artists that came to France. William and Caroline included.
The first couple of meetings of Caroline and William must have occurred in this context - accidental and informal encounters in popular places of residence typical of the artistic community at large.
By this time, Caroline was an active and respected member of the Swedish art circles, first at Grez and later Paris. Indeed, before she came to Paris, she had been admitted into the Royal Swedish Academy of Art, a measure of her professional calibre. How a " colonial nobody " such as William, straight out of the British North America Dominion of Canada, could fit into her busy social and professional calendar is hard to imagine. Perhaps it can be best explained through the "Parisian way of life " - the great ease by which people in the art community socialized. Also, both William and Caroline belonged to the younger "talent pool" of the foreign art colony, which also raised their public profile. Hence, given the artist's small world, it was only matter of time before they bumped into each other sometime in the spring of 1885.
William’s letters home suggested that he possessed both a strong personal determination and a great belief in his own artistic talent. William’s talents were not generally being recognized in France at the time, but what surely must have added a certain personal fame was his ill-fated trip home to Canada in the Fall of 1885, during which the steamship, Brooklyn
, sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence with his whole portfolio of five years hard work in Paris – some 200 paintings. Such an event must have been much talked about, and seen as a catastrophic, almost monumental personal tragedy - a drama literally handmade for the bistro and cafe gossip-mills.
Shortly thereafter, a surprise transatlantic voyage brought Caroline and her chaperone uncle to New York and to Canada. After considerable discussion the young couple decided to return to Paris, where William would start resurrecting his shattered career and Caroline continue hers. Caroline and her understanding uncle must have been quite persuasive in the discussions, but more important was the fact that the pair wanted more than anything else to be together, preferably in Paris, where their love affair had begun.
So, they crossed the Atlantic again in 1887, she getting closer to her twin "home-bases" of Paris and Stockholm, he subconsciously casting loose his moorings from his Canadian home-base.
Although Caroline and William were engaged in the fall of 1886, their subsequent marriage did not materialize until 1888. One can only conclude that there existed a certain amount of concern, even resistance, to the young couple's marriage on the part of the Benedicks family. The fact that the newly-weds almost immediately after the wedding returned to Paris is perhaps indicative of their preference of having the Benedicks clan at some distance rather than just round the corner in Stockholm. After the wedding, which saw an impressive gathering of Stockholm high society and cultural elite, Caroline and William literally fled southward to Paris, where they remained for another couple of years practicing a typical bohemian, but fashionable, vagabond lifestyle. They freely traveled to places that caught their fancy and inspired their creativity. They also took up the habit of spending summers in the North, where at an early stage they became enamored with the Island of Gotland.
The Gotland connection is something of an enigma in the Bruce - Benedicks saga. There were no family links with Gotland among the Benedicks, nor any business. The couple seemed to have fallen in love with the island, its serene landscape and leisurely summer ambiance. Gotland Island possessed an open, expansive, almost prairie-flat, pastoral landscape dotted with Viking rune stones, burial sites, rich archeological digs, and 14th century churches in classical "Gotland Gothic style". Gotland was romantic, historical, aesthetically pleasing, and highly inspirational - well worth the young artists’ gaze.
William quickly succumbed. As an aspiring impressionist, he was fascinated by the “Gotland light” and shoreline/seascape interface, both of which figured prominently in his painting from that time on. And, in winter, the island atmosphere was hauntingly dark, with the afternoon's magical l'heure bleue
reflected across the frozen beaches and snow-covered meadowlands.
In 1899, the Bruces' settled at Brucebo
. The site of their home was located a few kilometers up the coast from Visby, at Skalso - a fishing village on a limestone terrace offering a beautiful westward view toward the low-lying shore, with the light blue sea and sky serving as an immense backdrop. The air was clear, salubrious, and healthy, combining its tonic quality with a scent of fresh pine and the sound of the wind through the forest. At Brucebo
they experienced spectacular and ever-changing scenery and the rhythmic sounds of wave and wind mixed with the cries of terns and seagulls. The summer climate was dry, sunny and warm – the very best Sweden could offer, especially for William who was sensitive to damp and raw weather.
The Bruces loved their Brucebo
homestead. Caroline did sculpture, etchings, and watercolors, while William captured seascapes on canvas.
They had only seven years on Gotland before William’s untimely death on November 17, 1906 at the age of 47. Caroline was then 50 years old, and would survive her husband by 29 more years. She settled for good at Brucebo
and continued to work as a painter and sculptress. She also took an active interest in a number of contemporary political causes - especially the women's emancipation movement in the years prior to World War I. Strangely perhaps, she also became active in Gotland's voluntary military organization, and over the years established herself as a great nationalist-patriot with strong sympathies for the British- French Grande Entente. Indeed, Caroline's life remained full to the very end.
When Caroline passed away, World War II was only four years away, the famous impressionists were all long-gone, 20th century modernistic fine art styles were in full bloom, and social democracy was about to become the political standard in Sweden.
After the death of Caroline in 1935 at the age of 70, a grant endowment was established. However, it was only in 1972 that the formula and institutional arrangement for her wish that a stipend be made available to a promising Canadian painter to spend some summer weeks at Brucebo
on the island of Gotland, became reality. Thus, through the Gotland Fine Art Museum, and the Brucebo Fine Art Scholarship Foundation, the Brucebo Fine Arts Summer Scholarship and in recent years, the William Blair Bruce Fine Arts European Travel Scholarship have been offered in a tangible and lasting manner to talented Canadian artists, in commemoration of William Blair Bruce of Hamilton Ontario, and Caroline Benedicks of Stockholm Sweden, and of their transatlantic saga of love and art.
But there was also another more immediate legacy of this saga. Upon the death of William, his father in Hamilton and his widow in Gotland offered the City of Hamilton twenty-nine of William’s works, on the understanding that a permanent municipal gallery would be established to house them. However, Hamilton lacked a municipal art gallery at the time, and six years were to pass before the City acquired a space to house the Blair Bruce Collection
In 1913 the first Hamilton Public Library vacated their building, built on Main Street West near James in 1890, and moved across the street into the new Carnegie Library. Finally, on November 27, 1913 the City finally designated the second floor and attic of the old Public Library Building as space for the first municipal art gallery, named the Hamilton Municipal Gallery
Without the Blair Bruce bequest, it would likely have been many years before Hamilton could ever boast a municipal art gallery – perhaps never. Today, that modest gallery with its Blair Bruce Collection has grown and matured to become the Art Gallery of Hamilton
For AGH's chronology from 1886 to 2005, click here.


Tamoxifen use 'should double' to stop breast cancer returning
A decade's treatment with tamoxifen could stop the return of breast cancer for many more women than the current recommendation for five years, say researchers.
University of Oxford scientists say the doubling cuts both the risk of the cancer returning and deaths from the disease.
Writing in The Lancet, they say this outweighs the risk of side effects.
Cancer Research UK said the study added important clarity.
Tamoxifen tablets have long been part of the daily routine for women in the years after remission from 'ER-positive' breast cancer.
ER-positive tumour growth is accelerated by the female sex hormone oestrogen, and tamoxifen blocks the hormone.
An international group of scientists, led by Dr Christina Davies from the University of Oxford, looked at the effect of sustained tamoxifen on the likelihood that cancer would return.
They looked at 6,847 women with the ER-positive version of the disease, half of whom were given tamoxifen for the standard five year period, and half who continued with the drug until the 10 year mark.
The results found that cancer returned in a quarter of the women given five years of tamoxifen. That fell to 21.4% in those given ten years of the drug.
Deaths from breast cancer was also significantly reduced, from 15% of those on the five-year programme, to just over 12% of those given 10 years.
End Quote Dr Caitlin Palframan Breakthrough Breast Cancer
This trial is great news for women with this type of breast cancer as it suggests that taking the commonly used drug, tamoxifen, for longer could save more lives with minimal additional side effects”
While the changes are only a few percent, with more than 40,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK alone every year, a large proportion of whom have 'ER-positive' cancer, it could mean a significant decrease in the number whose cancer returns.
The report authors said: "Good evidence now exists that 10 years of tamoxifen in ER-positive breast cancer produces substantial reductions in rates of recurrence and in breast cancer mortality not only during the first decade, while treatment continues, but also during the second decade, long after it has ended."
The drug does cause side-effects in some patients, including, rarely, cancer of the lining of the womb, but the scientists said that the increased chance of preventing breast cancer returning far outweighed the risk.
Dr Caitlin Palframan, head of policy at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: "ER-positive breast cancer is the most common type of breast cancer and so improving treatment and getting the most out of the effective treatments we already have is key.
"This trial is great news for women with this type of breast cancer as it suggests that taking the commonly used drug, tamoxifen, for longer could save more lives with minimal additional side effects."
Other scientists say that 10 years could now become the standard for treatment.
Prof Trevor Powles, from Cancer Centre London, said that this, and other studies due to report next year, "should herald a change in practice".
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said: "We do not generally make recommendations relating to how long a patient should receive tamoxifen; that decision should be made by a doctor according to their professional judgement and in discussion with their patient, not least because there are continuing trials in this area.
"We review our guidance regularly to ensure it remains based on the best, most up-to-date evidence available and, when we come to update our guidelines on the diagnosis and management of breast cancer, we will take all new evidence into consideration."
Martin Ledwick, from Cancer Research UK which funded the study, said: "This important study adds further clarity to the question about the length of time women should take tamoxifen.
"Although treatment for hormone receptor positive breast cancer has become more complex in recent years with some women receiving aromatese inhibitors, these results will help in deciding the length of treatment for women who are prescribed tamoxifen alone."


Nov. 30, 2006 -- Do the sounds of our native languages affect how we hear music and other non-language sounds" A team of American and Japanese researchers has found evidence that native languages influence the way people group non-language sounds into rhythms.
People in different cultures perceive different rhythms in identical sequences of sound, according to Drs. John R. Iversen and Aniruddh D. Patel of The Neuroscience Institute in San Diego and Dr. Kengo Ohgushi of the Kyoto City University of Arts in Kyoto, Japan. This provides evidence that exposure to certain patterns of speech can influence one's perceptions of musical rhythms. In future work, they believe they may even be able to predict how people will hear rhythms based on the structures of their own languages. The researchers will present their findings Nov. 30 at the Fourth Joint Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and the Acoustical Society of Japan (ASJ), which will be held at the Sheraton Waikiki and Royal Hawaiian Hotels in Honolulu, Hawaii. The meeting will run from Nov. 28 through Dec. 2, and more than 1600 papers will be presented.
Researchers have traditionally tested how individuals group rhythms by playing simple sequences of tones. For example, listeners are presented with tones that alternate in loudness (...loud-soft-loud-soft...) or duration (...long-short-long-short...) and are asked to indicate their perceived grouping. Two principles established a century ago, and confirmed in numerous studies since, are widely accepted: a louder sound tends to mark the beginning of a group, and a lengthened sound tends to mark the end of a group. These principles have come to be viewed as universal laws of perception, underlying the rhythms of both speech and music. However, the cross-cultural data have come from a limited range of cultures, such as American, Dutch and French.
This new study suggests one of those so-called "universal" principles, perceiving a longer sound at the end of a group, may be merely a byproduct of English and other Western languages. In the experiments Iversen, Patel and Ohgushi performed, native speakers of Japanese and native speakers of American English agreed with the principle that they heard repeating "loud-soft" groups. However, the listeners showed a sharp difference when it came to the duration principle. English-speaking listeners most often grouped perceived alternating short and long tones as "short-long." Japanese-speaking listeners, albeit with more variability, were more likely to perceive the tones as "long-short." Since this finding was surprising and contradicted a common belief of perception, the researchers replicated and confirmed it with listeners from different parts of Japan.
To uncover why these differences exist, one clue may come from understanding how musical rhythms begin in the two cultures. For example, if most phrases in American music start with a short-long pattern, and most phrases in Japanese music start with a long-short pattern, then listeners might learn to use these patterns as cues for how to group them. To test this idea, the researchers examined phrases in American and Japanese children's songs. They examined 50 songs per culture, and for each beginning phrase they computed the duration ratio of the first note to the second note and counted how often phrases started with a short-long pattern versus other possible patterns such as long-short, or equal duration. They found American songs show no bias to start phrases with a short-long pattern. But Japanese songs show a bias to start phrases with a long-short pattern, consistent with their perceptual findings.
One basic difference between English and Japanese is word order. In English, short grammatical, or "function," words such as "the," "a," and "to," come at the beginning of phrases and combine with longer meaningful, or "content," words such as a nouns or verbs. Function words are typically reduced in speech, having short duration and low stress. This creates frequent linguistic chunks that start with a short element and end with a long one, such as "to eat," and "a big desk." This fact about English has long been exploited by poets in creating the English language's most common verse form, iambic pentameter.
Japanese, in contrast, places function words at the ends of phrases. Common function words in Japanese include "case markers," or short sounds which can indicate whether a noun is a subject, direct object, indirect object, etc. For example, in the sentence "John-san-ga Mari-san-ni hon-wo agemashita," ("John gave a book to Mari") the suffixes "ga," "ni" and "wo" are case markers indicating that John is the subject, Mari is the indirect object and "hon" (book) is the direct object. Placing function words at the ends of phrases creates frequent chunks that start with a long element and end with a short one, which is just the opposite of the rhythm of short phrases in English.
In addition to potentially uncovering a new link between language and music, the researchers' work demonstrates there is a need for cross-cultural research when it comes to testing general principles of auditory perception.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


How do you get your heart rate on target?
When you work out, are you doing too much or not enough?
There’s a simple way to know: Your target heart rate helps you hit the bull’s eye. “We don’t want people to over-exercise, and the other extreme is not getting enough exercise,” says Gerald Fletcher, M.D., a cardiologist and professor in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Jacksonville, Fla.
First Thing’s First
Before you learn how to calculate and monitor your target training heart rate, you have to know your resting heart rate. Your resting heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute while it’s at rest.
It’s best to check it in the morning after you’ve had a good night’s sleep and before you get out of bed. The average resting heart rate is 60-80 beats per minute, but it’s usually lower for physically fit people. It also rises with age.
Hitttin’ the Target
Now you’re ready to determine your target training heart rate. As you exercise, periodically:
• Take your pulse on the inside of your wrist, on the thumb side.
• Use the tips of your first two fingers (not your thumb) to press lightly over the blood vessels on your wrist.
• Count your pulse for 10 seconds and multiply by 6 to find your beats per minute. You want to stay between 50 percent to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. This range is your target heart rate.
Know Your Numbers
The table below shows estimated target heart rates for different ages. In the age category closest to yours, read across to find your target heart rate. Your maximum heart rate is about 220 minus your age. The figures are averages, so use them as general guidelines.
|Age||Target HR Zone 50-85%||Average Maximum Heart Rate, 100%|
|20 years||100-170 beats per minute||200 beats per minute|
|30 years||95-162 beats per minute||190 beats per minute|
|35 years||93-157 beats per minute||185 beats per minute|
|40 years||90-153 beats per minute||180 beats per minute|
|45 years||88-149 beats per minute||175 beats per minute|
|50 years||85-145 beats per minute||170 beats per minute|
|55 years||83-140 beats per minute||165 beats per minute|
|60 years||80-136 beats per minute||160 beats per minute|
|65 years||78-132 beats per minute||155 beats per minute|
|70 years||75-128 beats per minute||150 beats per minute|
Important Note: A few high blood pressure medications lower the maximum heart rate and thus the target zone rate. If you're taking such medicine, call your physician to find out if you need to use a lower target heart rate.
So what’s in a number?
If your target heart rate is too high, you’re straining. So slow down. If it’s too low, and the intensity feels “light” or “moderate/brisk,” push yourself to exercise a little harder. During the first few weeks of working out, aim for the lowest part of your target zone (50 percent). Then, gradually build up to the higher part (85 percent). After six months or more, you may be able to exercise comfortably at up to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. But you don't have to exercise that hard to stay in shape.
“It’s not an absolute, but it’s a good tool to have,” says Fletcher, who is also an American Heart Association volunteer. “And if you don’t know it, remember, if you’re not able to carry on a conversation (while exercising), that may be a bit too much.”
If you have a heart condition or you’re in cardiac rehab, talk to a healthcare professional about what exercises you can engage in, what your target heart rate should be and whether you need to be monitored during physical activity. This will also help you to choose the types of physical activity that are appropriate for your current fitness level and health goals, because some activities are safer than others.


Today is Sunday, Feb. 3, the 34th day of 2013. There are 331 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Feb. 3, 1913, the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing for a federal income tax, was ratified.
On this date:
In 1783, Spain formally recognized American independence.
In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens held a shipboard peace conference off the Virginia coast; the talks deadlocked over the issue of Southern autonomy.
In 1924, the 28th president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, died in Washington, D.C., at age 67.
In 1930, the chief justice of the United States, William Howard Taft, resigned for health reasons. (He died just over a month later.)
In 1943, during World War II, the U.S. transport ship Dorchester, which was carrying troops to Greenland, sank after being hit by a German torpedo; of the more than 900 men aboard, only some 230 survived.
In 1953, the Batepa Massacre took place in Sao Tome as Portuguese troops killed some 1,000 striking plantation workers.
In 1959, rock-and-roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in a small plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. An American Airlines Lockheed Electra crashed into New York's East River, killing 65 of the 73 people on board.
In 1966, the Soviet probe Luna 9 became the first manmade object to make a soft landing on the moon.
In 1971, New York City police officer Frank Serpico, who had charged there was widespread corruption in the NYPD, was shot and seriously wounded during a drug bust in Brooklyn.
In 1972, the XI Olympic Winter Games opened in Sapporo, Japan.
In 1991, the rate for a first-class postage stamp rose to 29 cents.
In 1998, Texas executed Karla Faye Tucker, 38, for the pickax killings of two people in 1983; she was the first woman executed in the United States since 1984. A U.S. Marine plane sliced through the cable of a ski gondola in Italy, sending the car plunging hundreds of feet, killing all 20 people inside.
Ten years ago: President George W. Bush sent lawmakers a $2.23 trillion budget for 2004. Abandoning a two-month-long general strike that failed to oust President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's workers returned to work in all sectors but the vital oil industry. Legendary record producer Phil Spector was arrested in the shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson at his mansion in Alhambra, Calif. (Spector's first trial ended in a jury deadlock; he was convicted of second-degree murder in a retrial and sentenced to 19 years to life in prison.)
Five years ago: The New York Giants scored a late touchdown to win Super Bowl XLII, 17-14, ending the New England Patriots' run at a perfect season.
One year ago: Susan G. Komen for the Cure abandoned plans to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, following a three-day furor that resounded across the Internet, in Congress and among Komen affiliates. Federal prosecutors dropped their investigation of Lance Armstrong, ending a nearly two-year effort aimed at determining whether the seven-time Tour de France winner and his teammates had participated in a doping program. (In January 2013, Armstrong publicly admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs.) Actor Ben Gazzara, 81, died in New York. Actor-filmmaker Zalman King, 70, died in Santa, Monica, Calif.
Today's Birthdays: Comedian Shelley Berman is 88. Former Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., is 80. Football Hall-of-Famer Fran Tarkenton is 73. Actress Bridget Hanley is 72. Actress Blythe Danner is 70. Singer Dennis Edwards is 70. Football Hall-of-Famer Bob Griese is 68. Singer-guitarist Dave Davies (The Kinks) is 66. Singer Melanie is 66. Actress Morgan Fairchild is 63. Actress Pamela Franklin is 63. Actor Nathan Lane is 57. Rock musician Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) is 57. Actor Thomas Calabro is 54. Actor-director Keith Gordon is 52. Actress Michele Greene is 51. Country singer Matraca Berg is 49. Actress Maura Tierney is 48. Actor Warwick Davis is 43. Actress Elisa Donovan is 42. Reggaeton singer Daddy Yankee is 37. Musician Grant Barry is 36. Singer-songwriter Jessica Harp is 31. Actor Matthew Moy is 29. Rapper Sean Kingston is 23.
Thought for Today: "When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income." — Plato, Greek philosopher.


Growing Political Turmoil
After the conservatives came to power in Spain in November 1933, the CNT planned a national uprising for December 8. Despite a spectacular Barcelona jail break by CNT prisoners, the insurrection was a failure; indeed, it was used to legitimate government censorship, union repression, and the arrest of labor leaders. When, in October 1934, the Catholic conservative party won three cabinet positions, Socialists and anarcho-syndicalists were galvanized to take action against what they feared would be a right-wing coup, whether in fact or
in name. Within a few days, the CNT and the Socialist General Confederation of Workers (UGT), which since December 1933 had been discussing some kind of working-class alliance, planned a national general strike. It began on October 4, with coal miners in Asturias in northern Spain leading the struggle. If there had been any doubts about the ruthlessness of the new republican government, they were laid to rest by its treatment of the workers. Utterly unsympathetic to the gruesome conditions under which the coal miners worked and without concern for their fears, it called in Colonel Francisco Franco. As commander of the crack Moroccan troops and Foreign Legion mercenaries, Franco showed no mercy as his soldiers quashed the miners and their supporters. From October 10 to October 18, Moroccan troops and Legionnaires were permitted to rape and pillage in the mining towns of Asturias. The maneuver resulted in about one thousand dead and thirty to forty thousand jailed throughout Spain.
The day after the nationwide general strike was called on October 4, 1934, Lluís Companys, now president of the Generalitat, proclaimed the "Republic of Catalunya within the Federal Republic of Spain"—an act that was regarded as treason, since there was no federalist state at the time. Companys was arrested and held for sixteen months, and the Statute of Autonomy was abrogated.
After the strike, forces from among Spain's landowners, its army, and its fascist Falange political party had begun to negotiate with Mussolini and Hitler, from whom they obtained financial commitments and promises of military support for a rebellion to overthrow the legally elected Second Republic. The republicans and the left, increasingly aware of the growing fascist menace throughout Europe and mindful that in 1933 divisions among republicans, Socialists, and leftists had permitted conservatives to come to power in Spain, decided to run a unified slate for the parliamentary elections of February 16, 1936. Their coalition, like other such slates elsewhere in Europe, was known as the Popular Front.
Meanwhile, during the summer of 1935, Jaume Sabartés, a poet turned journalist who had been a close friend of Picasso's some three decades earlier in Barcelona, received a summons from the painter. Now that Picasso had left his wife Olga Koklova, with whom he had been fighting for years, he needed a secretary. He hoped that Sabartés, who had recently returned to the city after twenty years as a journalist in Latin America, would accept this position. Although Sabartés had been
the butt of Picasso's jokes in their youth, he was happy to serve. Persuading his own wife to join him, Sabartés headed for Paris, where, from November 1935 to the winter of 1937, he practically lived with Picasso as his secretary and companion. Presumably, he filled Picasso in on recent events in Barcelona.
In the midst of the Popular Front election campaign, Picasso was contacted by the Catalan Friends of the New Arts (Amics de l'Art Nou, or ADLAN), who wanted to open an exhibit of his work on February 18, 1936, two days after the election was scheduled to take place. Even though Picasso was a celebrity, few in Barcelona were familiar with his art, which had not been seen since he and Ramón Casas exhibited jointly in Barcelona in 1932. Picasso agreed to the retrospective but refused to attend. His mother, María Picasso, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí talked on the radio in his place to publicize the show. Picasso's friend, the surrealist poet Paul Éluard, traveled down to Barcelona from Paris for the exhibit and delivered a lecture at the opening. Éluard, standing in for Picasso, received the hearty support of students who chanted, "Picasso, the Marxist," confirming that they saw Picasso as a radical. (In fact, although Picasso did later, in 1944, join the Communist party of France, Éluard, like most of the other surrealists, had become a member in 1926.)
When the Popular Front won the elections in February, the left was jubilant, and the right intensified their plotting. With the support of Catholic landowners and fascists, five generals, including Francisco Franco, organized a barracks uprising for July 18, 1936, that was designed to overthrow the freely elected government and impose one more congenial to themselves. The plotters, however, had not counted on the loyalty of certain officers who supported the Popular Front. Nor did they count on the quick action of the people in cities like Barcelona, Madrid, and Seville, where civilians—many of them acting through their unions—rose up to defend the Republic. Only about half of Spain went over to the rebels. And thus the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939 began.
On the day of the attempted coup in Barcelona, the CNT marched on the army barracks, disarmed the soldiers, and seized their weapons to arm themselves. Having chafed at the bit under nearly five years of republican rule, the CNT now attempted to carry out a social revolution by collectivizing all local economic and social resources. George Orwell, who was in Barcelona shortly afterward, talked about how it felt to be in a city in which the people ruled:
It was the first time I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; . . . almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-workers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said "Señor" or "Don" or even "Usted"; everyone called everyone else "Comrade" and "Thou. " . . . The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. . . . Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for.
The Spanish Republican government continued to carry on its work while it attempted to defend itself against its enemies. The right-wing rebels, among whom General Francisco Franco had become preeminent by November 1936, were willing to empower Hitler and Mussolini to test new military strategies on Spain in their behalf. On October 23, 1936, three months after the Civil War had begun, the Luftwaffe began to bomb Madrid. Over five thousand people were killed in a single night, in the first time systematic bombing was used specifically to terrorize and crush the will of a civilian population. Like later similar attempts, however, this first instance only enhanced the resolve of the people, both in Madrid and in the Spanish nation as a whole. It was at this time that Dolores Ibarruri, a Communist leader known as "La Pasionaria," coined the slogan "No pasarán" (They shall not pass), which became a watchword for democratic forces throughout the world.


MONTPELIER — Vermont students’ vocabulary comprehension in the fourth and eighth grades are above national averages, according to data released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Challis Breithaupt, NAEP state coordinator at Vermont Department of Education, said it was the first-ever national vocabulary report.
“There was a new framework for reading in 2009 and the feeling was there needed to be a criteria developed for vocabulary,” Breithaupt said.
The measure would assess more of students’ ability to understand vocabulary and their ability to acquire meaning from passages they were reading.
“Helping students to increase their vocabulary and to feel comfortable using words in various contexts is paramount,” state Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca said in a statement. “There is significant research in the field supporting a link between vocabulary and comprehension.”
On a scale of 0-500, fourth-graders scored 224 and eighth-graders scored 274. The national average for fourth- and eighth-graders was 217 and 263, respectively.
Only Connecticut, Massachusetts, Montana and North Dakota scored higher than Vermont’s eighth-grade vocabulary.
“Students use their knowledge of words in order to understand what they are reading, to identify ideas and themes,” said Vilaseca. “Summer reading programs continue to support the good work that is done throughout the school year; keeping our children’s minds active supports strong reading and comprehension skills.”
The NAEP addressed the method of the vocabulary test in its results: “Unlike traditional tests of vocabulary that ask students to write definitions of words in isolation, NAEP always assesses word meaning within the context of particular passages. Students are asked to demonstrate their understanding of words by recognizing what meaning the word contributes to the passage in which it appears.”
For more information, The report card can be found online: www.nationsreportcard.gov.MORE IN Vermont News
- Most Popular
- Most Emailed
- MEDIA GALLERY


This is an old revision of ArchaeologicalFindsandtheClassroom from 2008-03-13 15:48:05.
West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service
Archaeological Finds and the Classroom
As its name suggests this web-based presentation is intended primarily for use with schools. However, the ideas it contains will also be useful for those of you working with young people in a less formal setting, perhaps through a youth group or a Young Archaeologists Club. Archaeological Finds and the Classroom outlines activities which you can use to get children thinking and talking about archaeological artefacts. It also offers guidance on carrying out fieldwork (fieldwalking, garden pottery surveys and molehill surveys) and offers advice on how to make the best use of the results.
To find out more, visit the website (www.arch.wyjs.org.uk/AdvSrv/Classroom/introduction.htm∞).
| CBA, St Mary's House, 66 Bootham, York YO30 7BZ.
tel: +(44) (0)1904 671417 | fax: +(44) (0)1904 671384 | email:


Don't miss our great houseplant growing section with self watering planters, high quality potting soil, organic houseplant fertilizers, sprouting bags and more.
In the late 1980s, a study by NASA and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA) resulted in excellent news for homeowners and office workers everywhere. The study concluded that common houseplants such as bamboo palms and spider plants not only make indoor spaces more attractive, they also help to purify the air!
The study was conducted by Dr. B.C. Wolverton, Anne Johnson, and Keith Bounds in 1989. While it was originally intended to find ways to purify the air for extended stays in orbiting space stations, the study proved to have implications on Earth as well.
Newer homes and buildings, designed for energy efficiency, are often tightly sealed to avoid energy loss from heating and air conditioning systems. Moreover, synthetic building materials used in modern construction have been found to produce potential pollutants that remain trapped in these unventilated buildings.
The trapped pollutants result in what is often called the Sick Building Syndrome. With our ultra modern homes and offices that are virtually sealed off from the outside environment, this study is just as important now as when it was first published.
While itís a well known fact that plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen through photosynthesis, the NASA/ALCA study showed that many houseplants also remove harmful elements such as trichloroethylene, benzene, and formaldehyde from the air.
NASA and ALCA spent two years testing 19 different common houseplants for their ability to remove these common pollutants from the air. Of the 19 plants they studied, 17 are considered true houseplants, and two, gerbera daisies and chrysanthemums, are more commonly used indoors as seasonal decorations.
The advantage that houseplants have over other plants is that they are adapted to tropical areas where they grow beneath dense tropical canopies and must survive in areas of low light. These plants are thus ultra-efficient at capturing light, which also means that they must be very efficient in processing the gasses necessary for photosynthesis. Because of this fact, they have greater potential to absorb other gases, including potentially harmful ones.
In the study NASA and ALCA tested primarily for three chemicals: Formaldehyde, Benzene, and Trichloroethylene. Formaldehyde is used in many building materials including particle board and foam insulations. Additionally, many cleaning products contain this chemical. Benzene is a common solvent found in oils and paints. Trichloroethylene is used in paints, adhesives, inks, and varnishes.
While NASA found that some of the plants were better than others for absorbing these common pollutants, all of the plants had properties that were useful in improving overall indoor air quality.
NASA also noted that some plants are better than others in treating certain chemicals.
For example, English ivy, gerbera daisies, pot mums, peace lily, bamboo palm, and Mother-in-law's Tongue were found to be the best plants for treating air contaminated with Benzene. The peace lily, gerbera daisy, and bamboo palm were very effective in treating Trichloroethylene.
Additionally, NASA found that the bamboo palm, Mother-in-law's tongue, dracaena warneckei, peace lily, dracaena marginata, golden pathos, and green spider plant worked well for filtering Formaldehyde.
After conducting the study, NASA and ALCA came up with a list of the most effective plants for treating indoor air pollution.
The recommended plants can be found below. Note that all the plants in the list are easily available from your local nursery.
For an average home of under 2,000 square feet, the study recommends using at least fifteen samples of a good variety of these common houseplants to help improve air quality. They also recommend that the plants be grown in six inch containers or larger.
Here is a list of resources for more information on this important study:
PDF files of the NASA studies related to plants and air quality:


U.S. Presidents: Everything You Need
Who was the first president to live in the White House? Learn about this and other presidential "firsts."
Read more >
History of the White House and Washington, D.C. from 1792 to today.
Who was the first U.S. president to be photographed?
Grades: 3–5, 6–8
A few fun facts about America's first President of the United States, from this height and weight to his favorite foods.
Grades: PreK–K, 1–2
In this lesson, students read about George Washington and discuss the monument built in his honor. Then they create their own monument to honor a...
Birthplace: Shadwell, Albemarle County, VirginiaReligion: Christian (no specific denomination)College Attended: College of William and Mary,...
Spend a day in the life of the multi-talented man, President Thomas Jefferson, with these informative biographical websites.
The President of the United States has seven roles in his job, from being the Commander-In-Chief to the Guardian of the Economy.
Brief biography of Gerald R. Ford, the 38th president of the United States of America.
Timeline of the life of former U.S. President Gerald R. Ford.
Transcript from the February 10, 1995 online interview with former President Gerald R. Ford.
Grades: PreK–K, 1–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–12
Important events during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
President Jimmy Carter agreed to answer seven questions selected from several hundred posted by Scholastic students.
A time line showing the events in Ronald Reagan's life
Read about the vital statistics and important events that happened during the time Ronald Reagan was President of the United States.
President George H.W. Bush answers questions from students.
Get the vital statistics and learn about important events that occurred during Bill Clinton's presidency.
Lesson Plans, Book Resources
Even United States Presidents started out as regular kids! So You Want to Be President? is chock-full of interesting tidbits about our Presidents;...
Activities and Games, Extension Activities, Book Resources
Extension activity for Arthur Meets the President by Marc Brown.
Biography of former United States President George Herbert Walker Bush.
Sign up today for free teaching ideas, lesson plans, online activities, tips for your classroom, and much more.
Choose your grade range:
See a sample >