Don't Get Fooled by Climate Change Deniers

You may have heard some simple but plausible arguments to the effect that climate change is not really happening. Actually, some of the "arguments" aren't even arguments, they are assertions (e.g. "It isn't happening"). Other statements actually make use of real facts. These include the following:

• Global Warming Stopped in 1998


• Arctic Sea Ice is Rebounding and


• Temperatures are Below Projections

According to Fool Me Once, a blog that teaches the science of climate change to non-scientists like me and you, thorough explanations are what climate change deniers fear the most.

The way I see it, the point is not to scare your neighbors, friends, or family (although maybe you would like to wipe some of the snarky grins off their faces)... but rather, the point is to inform people of what is already happening on God's Green Earth. That is why Fool Me Once explains the physics, biology, chemistry, oceanography, geology, and statistics behind climate change.

NY Times' Blog Addresses How Much Students Are Learning

The New York Times blog "The Choice" is usually about the college admissions process, but this week they are addressing the results of a study in which 2300 first-and-second-year college students were followed by researchers. The title of the book that the two head researchers wrote about the study says a lot about their results.

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (and a shorter report of the same study) found that 45 percent of the students they followed "demonstrated no significant gains in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and written communications."

Problems identified by the researchers are that students are not taking classes that require them to do significant amounts of reading and writing and that universities have lost their focus on undergraduate learning and have become "distracted by other institutional functions and goals."

Yahoo News also posted the Associated Press' writeup of this study.

Adults Going Back to College Tips

I found a blog that gives advice to adults who are going back to college. It focuses more on the financial aspect, but other areas are mentioned as well. If you are interested, please check it out. It is always good to get other people's advice on such a popular subject, especially this time of the year.

http://college-money-tips.blogspot.com/2010/07/tips-for-adults-going-back-to-college.html

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Many of the MPTC faculty are taking a class in which they'll discuss a book by Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch called The Last Lecture. There's really no better way to introduce the book than to quote from its' own web page:

On September 18, 2007, computer science professor Randy Pausch stepped in front of an audience of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University to deliver a last lecture called "really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." with slides of his CT scans beaming out at the audience, randy told [them] about the cancer that is devouring his pancreas and that will claim his life in a matter of months. On the stage that day, Randy was youthful, energetic, handsome, often cheerfully, darkly funny. He seemed invincible. But this was a brief moment, as he himself acknowledged.

That lecture became a phenomenon.


View a 5-plus-minute video excerpt of the lecture...




View the one-hour and sixteen-minute lecture here in its entirety:




You can even (gasp) read the book (gasp). We have copies at all MPTC campus libraries:
call number QA 76.2 .P38 A3 2008

Does America Have Enough Educated People? One Economist's Viewpoint

Here's a debate that we as students and educators have an interest in: Does the American economy have enough educated people in the workforce - or does it now have too many college graduates?

I encourage you to read David Leonhardt's blogpost on that controversy.

Gale Virtual Reference Library: E-book Collection of the Week

The Gale Virtual Reference Library is another great electronic book collection which is available through some Libraries. You can search this collection using your library card number on campus or at home, 24/7.

Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs and specialized reference resources which cover a number of subjects. These subjects include history, law, medicine, science and technology. A few of the book titles included in this collection are: Encyclopedia of Food & Culture, Crime and Punishment in the United States, Gale Encyclopedia of Surgery, Encyclopedia of Substance Abuse Prevention, Treatment & Recovery, Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, Real-Life Math and The Tools for Successful Online Teaching.

This collection offers different ways of searching. You can do a basic keyword search, search within a certain publication, search by document type (such as biography or brief article) and you can further narrow down your search by author, publisher, target audience (academic, general or trade) and even limit to documents that have images. The best approach to take is to experiment with the basic, subject and advanced search options and see which one suits you!

Preferences may be changed while you search: you can change the color of your font, the style of font, but most importantly, you can change the default language from English to Spanish, French or Portuguese.

Explore this e-book collection at: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=mptc_main&authCount=1&u=mptc_main

Once again, if you're having trouble accessing this collection, call your library.

New Books

"A thorough and often shocking discussion...[the authors] drive home their crucial theme: What's best for our bodies is best for our communities and for the earth itself." -Booklist

The National Bestseller Hope's Edge, is the sequal to the three-million-copy bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet. Hope's Edge is about the impact of what everyobdy eats. Each chapter ends with a recipe and the Wisconsin is the setting of chapter ten.


*some were purchased to replace battered old copies, others are "new" in the strict sense of the word.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
by William Shirer.
Wikipatterns: A Practical Guide to Improving Productivity and Collaboration in Your Organization by Stewart Mader.
We're Born to Learn: Using the Brain's Natural Learning Process to Create Today's Curriculum by Rita Smilkstein.
AutoCad 2008 for Dummies by David Byrnes.

Principles of Economics, 9th Edition by Karl Case, Ray Fair, and Sharon Oster.

Essentials of Economics by R. Glenn Hubbard and Anthony P. O'Brien.

Essential Foundations of Econimics, 4th Edition by Robin Bade and Michael Parkin

Web Site of the Day

7 Things You Should Know About...
http://www.educause.edu/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutSeries/7495
The folks at EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative are responsible for numerous articles that "provide quick, no-jargon overviews of emerging technologies and related practices that have demonstrated or may demonstrate positive learning impacts." If you are interested in staying current with new technologies and practices give this series a look. 

Science Animations

Web Site of the Day
Science Animations
http://science.nhmccd.edu/BIOL/animatio.htm
Visitors to this site will find links to animations demonstrating a variety of scientific processes. The animations cover topics in biology, geology, physics and ecology.