Environmental Problems :: essays research papers

Environmental Problems In today’s environment Palm Beach County alone faces many environmental problems, which can turn disastrous if not taken care of. Included in these problems are air pollution, water contamination, and urban explosion. Air pollution is a major factor threatening our health and our environment. Due to the pollutants that circulate in the air, many people can come into contact with cancer causing gases. Atmospheric contaminants are derived from human practices, such as gas from automobiles, factories, and even chimneys. Pollutants do not only cause damage to our health, but they cause damage to the health of plants and animals as well. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide cause damage to leaves of crop plants and trees when they enter leaf pores. Exposure of leaves to air pollutants can also break down the waxy coating that helps prevent excessive water loss and damage from diseases, pests, drought, and frost. Water pollution is another problem our county faces. There are many causes for water pollution but two general categories exist: direct and indirect contaminant sources. Direct sources include effluent outfalls from factories, waste treatment plants etc., which emit fluids of varying quality directly into urban water supplies. Although these practices are regulated, this doesn't mean that pollutants can't be found in these waters. Indirect sources include contaminants that enter the water supply from soils/groundwater systems and from the atmosphere via rainwater. Soils and groundwater contain the residue of human agricultural practices (fertilizers, pesticides, etc.) and improperly disposed of industrial wastes. The effects of water pollution are varied and can be severe. They include poisonous drinking water, poisonous food animals, unbalanced river and lake ecosystems that can no longer support full biological diversity, deforestation from acid rain, and many other effects. These effects are harmful to everyone either directly or indirectly. It seems as if everywhere you look you either see construction, or a sign confirming construction will soon be present in that particular area. Urban explosion has played a big role in Palm Beach County’s environmental problems. Construction of so many new restaurants and stores has lured many new residents to Palm Beach County. This urban sprout has slowly deteriorated the natural habitat in many areas where entire forests have been cut down in order to make room for homes and new resident areas.

Computer Intelligence :: essays research papers fc

Can computers think independently and do they have â€Å"minds†? This question has been the topic of countless, bad movies since the 1950s as well as a number of science fiction novels. We all believe that we have minds. It is something that is taken for granted but what exactly is a mind and are humans the only to possess them? Ever since the invention of the computer, they have been a mystery, even to the smartest of scientists. With the ongoing development of artificial intelligence and high population of computer literate people, the possibility of computers with minds must be re-evaluated. The initial question that must be answered before tackling the mind/computer problem is how do you define a mind? This is something that philosophers have been trying to answer for hundreds of years, long before the invention of the computer. Renee Descartes supported the concept of ‘dualism’ which is the belief that the mind is a separate non-physical entity associated with the body during its life. On the other hand, behaviorism holds the notion that the mind does not exist but rather patterns of behavior and our pre-dispositions to such behavior. Functionalism is another school of thought that has come to light recently and draws its theory from computer technology. Functionalism believes that the mind is simply a program and the body, its hardware. With all the different theories, none of them have been able to answer the question on whether computers are similar enough to the human brain to have intelligence. The think the simplest definition for intelligence is the ability to adapt. You can tell a computer to go to a specific IP address but if IBM’s address is no longer www.ibm.com, the computer does not know how to find the new one. More specifically, it can be said that intelligence is the to take into consideration the circumstances of completing a certain task. Alan Turing, a mathematician, sought to answer the question on whether or not computers possess intelligence. The Turing Test asked people to communicate with something or someone that they could not see. The people engaged in the communication were then asked identify whether they were talking to a machine or a human. If the test subjects thought themselves to be conversing with a human when they were really engaged with a machine, then the computer was thought to have intelligence. This test is inherently flawed.

The Definitions of Multi-Cultural Education

The purpose of this research paper is to discuss the increasing need for multi-cultural education incorporation into the classroom. And to investigate the teaching techniques of elementary school teachers and adaptations that can and should be made in order to increase the knowledge level of diversity among the students in the classroom. There are many definitions of multi-cultural education. The one most used and most relevant, I believe to this topic and today†s educational society is: â€Å"An education free of inherited biases, with freedom to explore other perspectives and cultures, inspired by the goal of making children sensitive to the purity of the ways of life, different modes of analyzing experiences and ideas, and ways of looking at history found throughout the world.†(Gay, 25 May 1994) This definition is the most descriptive one found because it mentions the goal of sensitizing children to understanding diversity and the other children around them. Young children need to be exposed to the teachings about cultures other than their own. Many kids only know about their own cultures and it is imperative to their futures that they are educated about the other students around them. Children need to grow up in a world without having any prejudice towards others. From the day a child is born, they are raised into the cultures of their parents. A child is taught their native language and about their cultural beliefs. Different cultures eat different foods, have their own way of dressing and speaking, and possess many other distinct cultural aspects. Children grow up questioning and understanding many aspects of their background and many times aren†t subjected to other cultures. It is up to a child†s parents to be the first teachers of multi-cultural education. Many times parents are bias to their own culture and way of life. There is a lot of discrimination in the world and many parents teach their children to discriminate against others. Part of the job as a parent is to teach their children right from wrong and this includes learning about and accepting people for who they are, regardless of their color or race. â€Å"Studies by Glock and others have shown that the more children understand about stereotyping, the less negativism they will have toward other groups† (Ramsey, 1998, p.62). This is common sense to most educators and parents. The increase in diversity among the student population is one of the greatest challenges facing teachers in the 90s. Teachers have to not only teach their students about diversity and other cultures, but they also have to adapt their own views. Teachers can†t be bias to their own or other cultures. Teachers must treat every student equally. And most importantly, teachers may have to adapt their teaching styles and methods to adhere to the diversity among their students in the classroom. To adequately attend to cultural diversity in the classroom, teachers must look first at their own cultural background and understand how their biases affect their interactions with students. Then, teachers can examine the backgrounds and needs of the student population and understand their students' cultural biases as well. Many educators are bias to their own or other cultures and many are prejudice toward some cultures. This is a serious issue that teachers need to recognize and change before they can possibly begin teaching their students about diversity. If a teacher is bias, it will show in his or her teaching. Students may feel neglected or treated unequally. It may be difficult to treat every student equally, but it is important in order to maintain balance in the classroom. Teachers must recognize each student in the classroom as being just as capable as every other student is. Teachers cannot always call on the same students; they must give each and every student the benefit of the doubt. They must be aware of the variation and diversity in their classroom in order to adapt their teaching methods. Another important piece of knowledge that teachers should be aware of is recognizing the parents. Effective teachers engage parent involvement and demonstrate interest in and respect for the family†s culture when interacting with parents. Teachers should find out as much as they can from parents about each child†s experiences and family situations. This can help them to understand and meet the child†s needs. It is extremely important that teachers evaluate their teaching methods in order to incorporate multi-cultural learning into the classroom environment. Teachers need to be aware of the different ways that students learn and express themselves. Some students are better auditory learners, and some learn better with the use of visual aids. It is up to the teacher to notice these differences and adapt their teaching methods. There are so many ways to incorporate diversity into everyday lesson plans. Using children†s names from different cultures, in word problems for example, is a simple way. Literature is also an extremely easy way to teach students about diversity. Having the students read about different cultures in reading groups or even reading aloud to them helps greatly. There are also very many holidays throughout the school year that recognize different cultures. Connecting lessons with examples from the real world is a great way to incorporate diverse learning into class curriculum. Another important aspect regarding multi-cultural incorporation is making sure that students get to know one another. Group work is very effective. Heterogeneous grouping and grouping students with different ethnicities together is an excellent way for students to feel more comfortable around each other. Students will learn more about a person and understand that they may be different but are still just like them. â€Å"Research Findings that verify the conceptual claims about the effects of multicultural education are rather sparse. This relative lack of research is due largely to the nature and relative youth of the field. During the 25 or so years of multicultural education†s existence, most research and scholarship have been devoted to defining the conceptual parameters of the field, documenting cultural characteristics, and developing sample curricula and instructional strategies for classroom practice.†(Hanson, 1998, March).

Biome Essay

The African Savanna biome is a tropical grassland in Africa between latitude 15Â ° North and 30 degrees S and longitude 15 degrees W and 40Â ° West. It covers Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote D’ivore, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, and South Africa. Around 2 million large plant-eating mammals live in the savanna. There are 45 species of mammals, almost 500 species of birds, and 55 species of acacia in the Serengeti Plains. There are animals such as lions, African wildcats, klipspringer, steenbok, Burchell’s zebra, African Savanna monitor, and puff adders. They have the largest diversity of hoofed animals in the world including antelopes, wildebeest, buffalos, zebras, and rhinoceros. Fire, ground water, water table, soil’s moisture retention, landforms (plateau, mountain, valley) and their slope ( < 3% to > 10%), soil temperate, days of cloud cover versus days of sun for amount of sunlight and it influence, first & last frost dates for growing season. Focus on the limiting factors of the air supply, precipitation, soil types, & light.

Solar Power

Peter Maloney writes in his article, † Environmentalists Against Solar Power† that solar power projects are facing major scrutiny, not from the coal or oil industry, but from environmentalists. Maloney says that Southern California is pushing for solar power in the desert cause the amount of sunlight with virtually no clouds, â€Å"but its also the home to the Mojave ground squirrel, the desert tortoise and the burrowing owl, and to human residents†. Maloney also states that the US Bureau of Land Management says that it had applications submitted for solar power that would cover 78,490 acres in the desert. For the entire US, the number of applications grew from zero two years ago to more than 125 with enouch potential electrical power of 70,000 megawatts or the equivalent to 70 large coal plants. The rush to try and get this land is caused by a California Law that calls for 20 percent of the state's electricity must come from renewable resources by 2010. Jim Harvey, who is the founder of the Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy, is quoted by Maloney saying, † Our position is that none of this is needed. We support renewable energy, and we support California's renewable energy targets, but we think it can be done through rooftop solar†. Harvey also pointed out the success that Germany was having by using rooftop solar panels. The way it works is that the government offers payments for electricity generated from solar panels. The payment is roughly 50 cents per kilowatt hour. The average payment in the US in 11 cents per kilowatt hour, but the payments would not be as high as the German payments here. Maloney goes on to say not only would the solar panels destroy habitats, it would run the deserts small water supply, as it is, even more scarce. The mirror and solar panels would have to be washed, and some panels use turbines which would require more water. Terry Frewin, chairman of the Sierra Club's California/Nevada desert commitee, says that † solar panels destroy all natice resources on site, and have indirect and irreversible impacts on surrounding wilderness†. At the current rate of adding 200 megawatts of rooftop solar panels a year, it would take â€Å"100 years to meet the 20 percent renewable [target set] by California†. The first major debate over a large solar power project was over the 250 acres of land, which was on the outskirts of Victorville, California, on the western side of the Mojave that was gonna be used for the solar panels. Inland hired people to look for the endangered ground squirrel and desert tortoise. No squirrels were found but some tortoises were, so the Inland, cmpany building the panels, said for every acre of lost habitat they would buy one acre of land to offset it. Although it would cost some â€Å"6.5 million to 10 million dollars† to buy the offsetting acreage. Solar Power Peter Maloney writes in his article, † Environmentalists Against Solar Power† that solar power projects are facing major scrutiny, not from the coal or oil industry, but from environmentalists. Maloney says that Southern California is pushing for solar power in the desert cause the amount of sunlight with virtually no clouds, â€Å"but its also the home to the Mojave ground squirrel, the desert tortoise and the burrowing owl, and to human residents†. Maloney also states that the US Bureau of Land Management says that it had applications submitted for solar power that would cover 78,490 acres in the desert. For the entire US, the number of applications grew from zero two years ago to more than 125 with enouch potential electrical power of 70,000 megawatts or the equivalent to 70 large coal plants. The rush to try and get this land is caused by a California Law that calls for 20 percent of the state's electricity must come from renewable resources by 2010. Jim Harvey, who is the founder of the Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy, is quoted by Maloney saying, † Our position is that none of this is needed. We support renewable energy, and we support California's renewable energy targets, but we think it can be done through rooftop solar†. Harvey also pointed out the success that Germany was having by using rooftop solar panels. The way it works is that the government offers payments for electricity generated from solar panels. The payment is roughly 50 cents per kilowatt hour. The average payment in the US in 11 cents per kilowatt hour, but the payments would not be as high as the German payments here. Maloney goes on to say not only would the solar panels destroy habitats, it would run the deserts small water supply, as it is, even more scarce. The mirror and solar panels would have to be washed, and some panels use turbines which would require more water. Terry Frewin, chairman of the Sierra Club's California/Nevada desert commitee, says that † solar panels destroy all natice resources on site, and have indirect and irreversible impacts on surrounding wilderness†. At the current rate of adding 200 megawatts of rooftop solar panels a year, it would take â€Å"100 years to meet the 20 percent renewable [target set] by California†. The first major debate over a large solar power project was over the 250 acres of land, which was on the outskirts of Victorville, California, on the western side of the Mojave that was gonna be used for the solar panels. Inland hired people to look for the endangered ground squirrel and desert tortoise. No squirrels were found but some tortoises were, so the Inland, cmpany building the panels, said for every acre of lost habitat they would buy one acre of land to offset it. Although it would cost some â€Å"6.5 million to 10 million dollars† to buy the offsetting acreage.

Projective Techniques Essay

Such tests are based loosely on the psychoanalytic concept of projection, the assumption being that respondents project unconscious aspects of their personalities on to the test items and reveal them in their responses †¦ The website of the Association of Qualitative Practitioners (AQR 2004) defines projective techniques as follows: A wide range of tasks and games in which respondents can be asked to participate during an interview or group, designed to facilitate, extend or enhance the nature of the discussion. Some are known as ‘projective’ techniques, being loosely based on approaches originally taken in a psychotherapeutic setting. These rely on the idea that someone will ‘project’ their own (perhaps unacceptable or shameful) feelings or beliefs onto an imaginary other person or situation †¦ Projective techniques may be used in qualitative as well as quantitative studies (Levy 1994) and they are useful (Boddy 2004b) in both. 240 International Journal of Market Research Vol. 47 Issue 3 Projective techniques are commonly used in qualitative market research (Gordon & Langmaid 1990) where the aim of the techniques is to facilitate the gaining of a deeper understanding of the area being researched. In discussing projective techniques they distance the use of projective techniques in qualitative market research from that of psychoanalytical practice, and suggest a more pedestrian and pragmatic definition: Projection [is] the tendency to imbue objects or events with characteristics or meanings which are derived from our subconscious desires, wishes or feelings. Dichter (1964) defined projection as meaning ‘to project subjective ideas and contents onto an object’, and said that one person could ascribe their own problems or difficulties to someone else. He described these techniques as being widely used in psychological work (Dichter 1960) and said that they are a non-directive interview technique where the respondent can project himself onto another and thus reveal some of the respondent’s own thoughts, feelings and fears. Projective vis-a-vis enabling techniques The market researchers Chandler and Owen (2002) define projective and enabling techniques quite succinctly and in a way with which most qualitative market research practitioners (Gordon & Langmaid 1990; Goodyear 1998) would probably agree. This differentiation is useful to make at the beginning of this paper as the techniques are often used interchangeably and the distinction between them may have become blurred in the minds of some qualitative market researchers. Classically, the idea of a projective technique relates to a device that allows the individual research participant to articulate repressed or otherwise withheld feelings by projecting these onto another character. The idea of enabling techniques relates to a device which allows the individual research participant to find a means of expressing feelings, thoughts and so on which they find hard to articulate. Enabling techniques are held to be the simpler (Will, Eadie & MacAskill 1996) of the two techniques as they just help people to talk about themselves. Will et al. ake the useful distinguishing point that while all projective techniques may be enabling, not all enabling techniques involve projection. Other researchers (Lysaker & Bradley 1957) make the point that even pictorial devices, which do not function as projective techniques 241 Projective techniques in market research (i. e. devices researchers would nowadays refer to as enabling techniques), may still have utility in gener ating responses. Gordon and Langmaid (1990) state that the use of projective as opposed to enabling techniques is a false distinction in market research as the aim of both techniques is to facilitate deeper understanding. However, they do go on to say that in enabling techniques people are asked to do something that itself has no interpretive value (and so doesn’t itself need to be interpreted). In terms of analysis there is a distinction because with enabling techniques the research participants are talking as themselves (that is not to say that this speech should always be taken at face value), whereas with projective techniques the research participants are talking as someone else and the researcher makes the interpretative assumption that they are talking as themselves. This agreement over the definition of projective techniques is about as far as most research textbooks get on the subject. How they are subsequently used is little discussed and how they are then analysed is hardly explicitly touched on at all (Levy 1994; Catterall 1998), which is a situation that has hardly changed from ten or more years ago. This paper aims to look at current reports of how projective techniques are analysed and what support for their reliability and validity exists, and aims to stimulate debate in this area of market research so that a better and more accessible understanding of the subject can be offered to those entering research as potential practitioners, to interested clients, and to researchers who are more used to a quantitative or direct questioning approach. The origins of projective techniques Projective techniques were employed in market research from the 1940s (Catterall & Ibbotson 2000) to encourage research participants to express feelings and attitudes that might otherwise be withheld due to embarrassment or fear if more direct questioning methods were used. Market research originally borrowed (Robson 2000; Boddy 2004a) projective techniques from psychoanalysis and clinical psychology where they are still used (Richman 1996) to gain insights into personality and personality disorders. Projection, as a concept, originated from Freud’s work on paranoia (Lilienfeld, Wood & Garb 2000), where he conceptualised projection as a defence mechanism by which people unconsciously attribute their own negative personality traits to others. Lilienfeld et al. say that Freud’s work 242 International Journal of Market Research Vol. 47 Issue 3 was subsequently developed by psychoanalysts and clinical psychologists. This development was based on the hypothesis that ‘research participants project aspects of their personalities in the process of disambiguating unstructured test stimuli’, and several different techniques were developed such as the well-known Rorschach technique, or ‘ink-blot test’, where subjects are assumed to project aspects of their personality onto the ambiguous features of a set of inkblots. Projective techniques in market research A commonly used completion technique (Gordon & Langmaid 1990; Will et al. 1996) in qualitative market research is ‘bubble drawing’. This is a device based on a technique called the Thematic Apperception Test where, according to Tucker-Ladd (2001), clinical psychologists use a series of standard pictures and ask subjects to make up stories about them. TuckerLadd says that what people see in the pictures says something about themselves and thus reveals their personality. Projective techniques can be used in a variety of market research situations as well as in social and educational research (Catterall & Ibbotson 2000), and these do not have to be aiming at uncovering aspects of personality of any great depth. For example, a bubble drawing was used (Boddy 2004a) by one researcher to uncover students’ underlying attitudes towards the delivery of a lecture on marketing research rather than to uncover any deeper aspects of their own personalities. Projective and enabling techniques are thus useful when research participants have difficulty expressing opinions or feelings and researchers need some way of accessing these from the participants’ minds (Gordon & Langmaid 1990; Kay 2001).

Howard Gardner Biography

Howard Gardner was born on July 11, 1943 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His parents were refugees from the period of the Nazis, in Germany. As a child he loved music, he later became a great pianist. As a young man he enrolled at Harvard University. Gardner started to study other careers but ended getting inspired by the works of Jean Piaget to study developmental psychology.He is married to Ellen Winner, a developmental psychologist who teaches at Boston College, and they have four children together He spent some time working with two different types of groups, normal and gifted children and brain-damaged adults, Gardner began developing a theory designed to synthesize his research and observations. In 1983, he wrote Frames of Mind  which outlined his theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner believed that people had multiple different ways of thinking and learning.He has since identified and described eight different kinds of intelligence which are: Visual-spatial intelligence Gardne r also identifies spatial ability as one which lasts longest into old age, Linguistic-verbal intelligence which Gardner takes account of the importance of language in thought, and also in terms of music , Mathematical intelligence, kinesthetic intelligence, Musical intelligence in which Gardner investigates neurological basis for the musical ability, Interpersonal intelligence is related to the ways in which we understand and respond to other people, Intrapersonal intelligence is mostly about our cognitive ability to understand ourselves as human beings and Naturalistic intelligence has to do with an individual's ability to perceive patterns in nature and to classify them. He has also believed that there might have been another possible addition of a ninth type which he refers to as â€Å"existential intelligence. Gardner’s theory has had one of the greatest impact in education In 1986 he started to teach at Harvard Graduate School of Education and began his role at Project Zero, which is a research group that focuses in human cognition with a special focus on the arts and was created by by the philosopher Nelson Goodman with the aim of improving learning in the Arts through research But Over this period Project Zero expanded from its original arts learning base to include research into learning across all types of things. Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences has not been accepted within academic psychology. However, it has met with a strongly positive response from many educators. After all, Gardner has been a great psychologist and his theory has inspired many educators, whether it hasn’t or has been accepted in psychology education.