Natural Disasters Illuminated by B-Movie Clips

http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2...ateFurlong.htm

Press Release

Pennsylvania State University CONTACTS:
A'ndrea Elyse Messer
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (814) 865-9481,
Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2003 Vicki Fong
(814) 865-9481,

Natural Disasters Illuminated by B-Movie Clips

Seattle - Movie clips, town meetings, debates and backgrounders for public
affairs departments do not seem like assignments for a course on natural
hazards, but in Penn State's "Earth 101 - Natural Disasters: Hollywood vs.
Reality" class, these exercises out-distance and out-pace lectures.

"To the casual observer of the course, it looks chaotic, a total disaster,
noisy, unruly with very little lecturing," says Kevin P. Furlong,
professor of geosciences. "But the course has a reputation of not being
trivial and usually has about 60 percent honors students and athletes."

Furlong notes that Earth 101 is the first class to fill up, even though it
has 150 enrollment slots.

Each semester the class covers five of the possible topics, which include
volcanos, earthquakes, floods, and impacts from outer space, tornados,
hurricanes and tsunamis. Each topic uses a different learning approach,
but all include movie clips. The objective of the class, which is for
non-science majors, is to teach critical thinking, how science works and
how to make decisions on science-based topics.

"It is much better to have people learn critical thinking on something
they do not already have an opinion on," Furlong told attendees today
(Nov. 4) at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in
Seattle. "No one has religious or political opinions on hurricanes."

The students can begin to understand the issues surrounding observation
versus interpretation. They can learn how to determine the specific
information needed to understand something and also how to get that
information.

"Why use movie clips?" asks Furlong. "Because while students will laugh at
a movie clip that is obviously and patently scientifically wrong, they
would not laugh at a newspaper article that contained incorrect
information."

Some of the movie clips used include "Deep Impact" and "Dinosaur" when
studying impacts from outer space; "Volcano" and "Dante's Peak" when
studying volcanos; "Earthquake NY," "Earthquake" and "The San Francisco
Earthquake" for earthquakes; "Tidal Wave No Escape" for tsunamis; and
"Twister" for tornados. Furlong notes that the most accurate of these is
the 1930s "San Francisco Earthquake."

"When we ask students about the class, they say that they do not work hard
at all on the assignments," says Furlong. "But, the students actually work
very hard in this course. I think the students think it is an easy course
because they really enjoy the projects they are working on and so do not
mind the actual time spent."

Groups of students prepare public affairs manuals for cities that actually
have earthquake histories and current threats. Each student will work up a
chapter on a specific aspect needed by governmental people who deal with
natural disasters such as earthquakes. There would be chapters on the
local history of earthquakes, local geology, infrastructure, earthquakes
in general, nature of the emergency management system.

"We do this for 15 cities internationally with earthquake hazard
potential," says Furlong. "We also give extra credit if the book falls
together well, but we do not penalize the individuals if there is a
slacker in their midst."

Small groups of students are assigned debate topics such as whether or not
it is appropriate for the government to choose an elite group of citizens
to save in the event of an impact from outer space. The entire class
judges the debates, which must be based on factual evidence, not emotion.

In a large in-class project, students become proxies for the inhabitants
of a small town in Washington State where the local High School is
directly in the path of a lahar - a volcanic mud flow. Assigned to be
either the 56 percent of the population that is retired, young
professionals, unemployed, or members of the PTA or chamber of commerce,
the students investigate solutions to the high school problem.

With the school complex in the path of the mud flow, the options are to do
nothing, move the school or put in a lahar warning system. The warning
system would provide 30 to 40 minutes advance warning to evacuate the
school. After extensive research by the students and role playing, the
town, named Ourtown and situated in the path of lahars from Mt. Mayhem,
holds a town meeting to vote on the school issue.

"Not surprisingly, in most classes, the students vote exactly the way the
population of the real town, Orting, Wash., voted," says Furlong. "They
vote to install the warning system, even though it was shown that it
requires longer than 40 minutes to evacuate the students to a safe area."

The course, which was developed by Furlong and Jaime Whitlock, now at
Colorado State University, and is taught by others as well, requires a
final project that is fairly open. The projects are usually related to the
students' majors and have included teaching modules for third graders and
an informative video on volcanos.

"We are bringing the information to them using media, things that engage
the students," says Furlong. "They invest effort and it becomes part of
their lives. We think this is a more appropriate way in the long term to
encourage critical thinking, learn how to make informed choices based on
potential impacts, whether they be political, social or physical."

EDITORS: Dr. Furlong is at 814-863-0567 or at by
e-mail.

###

Ron Baalke wrote:

http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2...ateFurlong.htm

Press Release

Pennsylvania State University


snip

"To the casual observer of the course, it looks chaotic, a total disaster,
noisy, unruly with very little lecturing," says Kevin P. Furlong,
professor of geosciences. "But the course has a reputation of not being
trivial and usually has about 60 percent honors students and athletes."


I particularly appreciate the distinction made between "honors students" and
"athletes".

However, if the course is non-trivial, then why are the basket-weaving majors
enrolling? How many of them pass the course?

OK, back to real issues...

Joe (who just couldn't resist)

Joe wrote:

Ron Baalke wrote:


http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2...ateFurlong.htm

Press Release

Pennsylvania State University



snip

"To the casual observer of the course, it looks chaotic, a total disaster,
noisy, unruly with very little lecturing," says Kevin P. Furlong,
professor of geosciences. "But the course has a reputation of not being
trivial and usually has about 60 percent honors students and athletes."



I particularly appreciate the distinction made between "honors students" and
"athletes".

However, if the course is non-trivial, then why are the basket-weaving majors
enrolling? How many of them pass the course?

OK, back to real issues...

Joe (who just couldn't resist)

It probably qualifies as a 'science course' for non-science majors. We
are all familiar with the 5 hour science course with lab requirement Geo
101 filling up with non-geos because they feel they cannot hack biology,
chemistry or physics. No one told them geology taught well encompasses
all three other sciences...

Seriously, I know of several Geo Depts., where the only justification
for the department on the basis of student enrollment is the "Rocks for
Jocks" class, and other 'outreach' efforts.

You'd think with so few geo majors, there would be more jobs out there.

--
Geo Communications Services -- www.geocommunications.net
Jo Schaper's Missouri World -- http://www.missouriworld.net

MY NEWS GROUPS:
news:alt.discuss.clubs.public.talk.general.heidis_ hideaway_h

news:alt.discuss.clubs.public.alternative.paranorm al.spookcity2

Name: Bryan Butler

My name is Bryan Butler and I have been working my whole life trying
to find the truth. I have found the connection, the truth.
I have simplified what others could not. I am finding myself
bored and I am no longer challanged.

I gave a presentation in my class and it had to be under 3 minutes,
it went as follows. Though I can explain it better in person.



_____________________Deep thinking with Bryan Butler____________
Title




1.Introduction

For my topic I have chosen a difficult concept to Convey. And that is,
if it would be possible or even conceivable that nothing would be in
the center of the earth.
So for my time with you we are going to do some light deep thinking
and try to think a little out of the box and hopefully no one will get
hurt.
My objective is to make one good point that would support nothing
being in the center of the planet.
I have a short amount of time, and I have racked my brain trying to
find the best way to accomplish my objective here today and I believe
the answer for achieving my objective is to talk about opposites, more
over antonyms.

2.Body

Antonyms are words that are opposite, ladies and gentlemen.

So here is a quick list of other antonyms, Good/Bad, Wrong/Right,
Up/Down, Left/Right, Day/Night, Beginning/End, Forever/Never, Yes/NO,
Open/Close, Forward/Backwards, In/Out, Plus/Minus, Positive and
Negative, and so On and so OFF. (Boy that was a mouthful)

Now when I was younger I found that I had a Mother and Father, and
soon after I had a Brother and Sister, I went outside my house and saw
the day and sure enough sooner or later the night came. I went to
school and I found, Educated and Uneducated, I found Rich and Poor, I
found Smart and Dumb, I found Right and Wrong and I learned about
Kindness and Cruelness, I learned about Mercy and Ruthlessness, I
learned about 1 and 0, about positive and negative, about North and
South, about On and Off. So as my time decreased here on earth I
found my grade levels increased and I learned that I was stacking this
Opposites and Similarities in order to learn. I then realized I should
put the similarities into categories, so I took words like kindness,
Mercy, fairness, and others and grouped them together and found the
name for that category to be Good. I then grouped the words Cruelness,
Ruthlessness and unfairness, and found the name of that category to be
bad. Not surprisingly I found, of Course, each category still had an
opposite. But then I came upon a problem in school. I learned that hot
and cold went into the category Temperature. I learned that queit and
load went into the category sound. I learned about other categories,
such as Color, such as taste and smell, such as Time and Weight. The
problem came when trying to find the opposites of those categories. So
I grouped them together Time, Temperature, Color, taste, smell,
weight, and all other categories that I had ever seen. What do they
all have in Common I then asked my self and the answer was simply,
ENERGY.



3.Conclusion

So the next question I came upon was this, can there be one without
zero, could there be on without off, could there be white without
black.
In a movie there are good guys and bad guys, problems and solutions,
so would it be enjoyable to come up with a movie that had only Good
guys and solutions without problems. How could you have a solution
without first having a problem? How would you know what a good guy was
if there was not a bad guy to compare him too. Well sounds about as
good an Idea as having a computer language with only 1's. If all you
had ever seen was darkness how would you truly know you were in
darkness until you saw the light?

So they say no matter how many times you split a magnet you always
have a positive and a negative, JUST LIKE CATEGORIES. So if opposites
attract like positive and negative, and they don't exist without each
other. Could Energies opposite be the absence of all energy types,
meaning No Time, No smell, No taste, No temperature, and the absence
of all color, making it pure black? The center of your eye is not pure
black but energy black attracting all possible light, not stones or
other energy types though. The center of the earth could be the
absence of all energy, pure black, attracting all possible energy none
excluded and as a result gravity is created.


So if you wouldn't mind I would like to write a few things on the
board.

Truth |Lie

English/ Something + Nothing = Everything |contradiction = Not 1
Math/ 1 + 0 = 1 |contradiction = Not 1
Science/ Energy +Ab-energy = 0 |contradiction = NOT 1

What's the opposite of the Category Everything, How could anyone
find the
truth without the contradiction? The opposites truth and lie are the
final
opposites!!

Zero + one = One, and you can't see the zero anymore.
Something + Nothing = Everything, You still can't see the nothing.
Energy + the Absence of energy = 0, the line representing the 1 making
it possible to see the 0 and the 1 together for the can not exist
without eachother.

Most people when they see this 0 they say it is a Zero but I see a 1
not just a
Zero.

To explain, I took a stick and put it in the dirt and moved it around
in a
circle and I got a blurry one around the zero, like a wheel. The one
made it possible to find the zero!


d. The 0 demonstration.
1. How could you see Zero without the 1? You could not see it (erase
it).
2. How could you know energy without the absence of all energy? (leave
it)
d. Thank you all for listening I wish you all the best in your life