Cumberland-Times Sky Columns
April 2006

April 2: Waste & Dependence
April 9: Thinking & Tests
April 16: A Special Time
April 23: Birth, Life & Death
April 30 - Facts at Your Fingertips

April 2: WASTE & DEPENDENCE

There has been much complaining about the high gasoline prices. With the tripling of the price of a barrel of crude petroleum and the reduction of oil from Iraq, no one should be surprised about what we pay at our gas pumps. What is suprising is that there has been little apparent change in American driving habits. I'm been amazed to see the following local situations: a noisy truck in grocery store parking lot idling as a child watches a DVD player operating off the cigarette lighter, a student studying in a idling car with the heater on (when she could be studying in an unoccupied classroom), a SUV idling near a school bus stop so the student and driver wouldn't get a little bit cold while waiting a few minutes for the bus. An idling car gets zero miles per gallon. It is also true each second an idling vehicle emits several hundred million microscopic particles (called particulates) into our country's atmosphere. Each year, the U.S. pumps 23 million tons of particulates into the atmosphere, contributing to the early deaths of thousands of Americans.

Consider the following statistics about U.S. motor vehicles over the years. In 1975, the average auto (includes cars, small trucks) weighed 4060 lbs., had an engine with 137 horsepower and got 13.1 miles per gallon. In that year, 19% of the vehicles sold were trucks, vans or SUV's. In 1987, the average auto weighed 3220 lbs, had an engine with 118 horsepower and got 22.1 miles per gallon. At that time, 28% of the vehicles were trucks, vans or SUV's. In 2004, the average auto weighed 4066 lbs., had an engine with 208 horsepower and got 20.8 miles per gallon. In that year, 48% of the vehicles sold were trucks, vans
or SUV's. In the past 20 years, there has been little improvement in miles per gallon as many American have chosen to buy SUV's, which have lower mileage standards than cars. And as the number of registered vehicles have climbed, our national consumption of petroleum has climbed from 16.3 million barrels (33 % imported) in 1986 to 20.6 million barrels (59% imported) in 2005.

Why do many people buy SUV's when twenty years ago, most vehicles sold were cars? Some feel that larger vehicles are safer in collisions but actually SUV's are more likely to roll over than sedans. For most it's convenience - having a big vehicle with a lot of space inside great for vacation or picking up and dropping off an entire soccer team of youngsters to their respective houses. But when I look at the SUV's in traffic, there is usually only one person inside and the vehicle is largely empty. One easy step to reduce our gasoline dependence is to fill up our SUV's (not with gas but with people) so we get more passenger miles per gallon. One person in a SUV may get only 15 passenger miles per gallon but a family of five will generate 75 passenger miles per gallon! Think of asking your neighbors, particularly senior citizens if they would like to go the grocery, drug store or mall when you take your SUV out.

A way to encourage people to be more conservative in using gasoline is to have leaders who set a good example in their own use of vehicles. I salute Maryland's 6th district Congressman, Roscoe Bartlett because he drives a hybrid car. Representative Bartlett, a scientist is one of the few house members who understands our energy situation. I would like to see a bipartisan group of informed members of Congress meeting regularly to develop short term projects to reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum. I think a group like this should have their meetings regularly televised; then the American public can be informed about steps they can take right now, rather than waiting for 'miracle
fixes' from research that may take decades to appear on the road.

April 9 - THINKING & TESTS

More than ever students fear and complain about tests. What can make tests better for both teachers and students? Here are some of my own views about tests. Tests are needed to determine how each student grasps the basic ideas of a course. You can't do this by casual conversations with a student or by observing a student working in a group where there is much interdependence between group members. Tests should be carefully constructed so items rely on different kinds of thinking such as discrimination, analysis, recognition, and applying different rules to a new situation. This can't be done with one kind of test question, whether it is multiple choice or essay. Lengthy tests are not necessarily better, unless the teacher wants to 'wear out' the students and show his/her dominance. I have always felt that fewer questions that are carefully chosen can be better in assessing students that a large quantity of questions from an author's test bank (a book of questions that can be obtained from publisher). A test is like a physical exam; a skillful doctor will select certain procedures like blood analysis, listening to your heart and lung action with a stethoscope, your blood pressure, and careful listening to standard questions posed to the patient. An ineffective physical exam would require many different procedures that would take the patient several full days of waiting in hospital departments for diagnostic tests. This is similar to tests that run over time and have students racing against the clock, where they miss entire questions and have little time to check their work.

My tests typically are on one sheet of paper, both sides. Each test has 10 carefully written multiple choice questions, 10 fill in blanks with an associated memory bank (usually 24 choices), 5 short answer questions requiring a phrase answer (different from fill-ins), and 1 or 2 short essay questions.

As I begin a new section of a course that concludes with a test, I circulate to my students a list of top 10 concepts for each of the 3 or 4 chapters on the test. Then as the students read each chapter, they know what are the key concepts to focus on and what are the details. Then each chapter quiz focuses on the same 10 key concepts. My tests don't feature questions from the chapter quizzes as using these sends a message to the students, "memorize these questions and answers and you'll do well." I also prepare a sample test with as many items as a regular test for the students to look over and get experience. This sample test is circulated at least a week before the actual class test.

I have learned the hard way about returning the students' tests (for them to keep). I first circulate to all a typed set of correct answers (the key). I let the students look this over for a while. Then I return the individual tests near the end of the class period, encouraging the students to check their tests carefully to be sure they have received appropriate credit and to talk to me if their test score is not what they expected. If you return the tests at the start of a period, the disgruntled students want to openly debate about the questions they got wrong. These are students who usually don't ask questions during the test.

As for the students, most need to get rid of a pessimistic mindset about tests where they feel they will not do well. Imagine if a sports team with the same kind of gloomy outlook were to take the field - this team would be beaten badly. Each student needs to be positive about what they have studied and have some confidence in their thinking abilities. I often tell my students before a test - "this is your opportunity to show me what you have learned, surprise me!"

It is hard to get over negative experiences with other tests and classes, but everyone has to try to ignore these and try to make a fresh start. I welcome student questions during a test, telling them their questions help me and will often be a question that some one else has but doesn't have the gumption to ask.

April 16 - A SPECIAL TIME

The word Easter can be traced to the Germanic dawn goddess named Eastre (in standard West Saxon). When Baldus, the sun god was slain, he was condemned to spend half the year in the underworld (all fall and winter). During this time, Eastre's job was to guard the gates of Valhalla.
The adjective Pascal comes from the Greek and Latin word Pascha which refers to both Christian Easter and Jewish Passover. Easter to Christians is the greatest Holy Day of the year, celebrating the Resurrection of Christ and the redemption of believers.

During the forty days of Lent before Easter, there were prohibitions on eating eggs. But the chickens kept on laying them! So the eggs laid during Lent were hardboiled to keep them from rotting. Then on Easter morning, the eggs were consumed, particularly by the poorer folk who couldn't afford meat.

The tradition of the Easter Bunny comes to the United States through the Pennsylvania Dutch, who called the Easter Bunny the 'Oschter Haws'.

In Britain during Crowmell's rule (1649 to 1660), celebrating Easter was outlawed. With the restoration of the monarchy with the Stuarts in 1660, Easter was restored.

There was a tradition in England that at sunrise on Easter, the sun could be seen dancing back and forth along the horizon in celebration of the Resurrection. If one couldn't see this motion, it was the Devil that had blocked the view.

In the early days of our country, Easter was not celebrated widely. But as more Roman Catholics and Episcopalians immigrated to our shores after the Civil War, Easter observances became popular.

April 23 - BIRTH, LIFE & DEATH

The easiest way to relate to stars is to consider the key stages of a human life and then consider the corresponding stages in a star's development.

First, stars are suns, huge gaseous spheres held together by gravity. Gravity is the force that pulls objects together; the gravity pull between our bodies and the Earth below gives us our weight. Stars' intense heat is due to nuclear reactions in their cores where lighter elements are fused or merged into heavier elements. An element is an atom with a distinctive number of positive charges or protons in their nucleus. The two most common elements in stars are hydrogen (1 proton) and helium (2 protons). If an object doesn't have enough matter, it forms a planet, asteroid, comet or just remains as gas or dust.

How are stars born? Stars form in huge molecular clouds in our galaxy. (A molecule is a bunch of atoms that are bonded electrically. We are made mostly of long stringy molecules that contain the elements carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen. The molecules in the huge molecular clouds are mostly hydrogen with two hydrogens sharing their electrons. Within the molecular clouds (many trillions of miles across), there are denser pockets of gases where the molecules are closer together. When a shock wave of some kind passes through the cloud, it compresses these pockets and triggers a contraction by gravity. (The opposing factor is the molecules' thermal motion which resists any compression.)

Using computer simulation, it can be shown that a pocket of gas would contract a million fold over dozens of millions of years on its way to becoming a star like our sun. Imagine a giant sport arena being compressed into the size of a lady bug! As the gas cloud shrinks the molecules collide and heat up the core. Eventually the core temperature climbs to ten million degrees Celsius and the hydrogen nuclei begin to merge, forming helium. The energy released creates an outward pressure that stops the shrinking. We have a stable star. These stable stars are what we see at night, stars fusing hydrogen into helium. How long a star shines depends on the amount of hydrogen (its mass) as well as its rate of consuming hydrogen (its power).

There is sort of a cosmic justice as the heavier stars are stellar spendthrifts, burning through their fuel in a matter of ten million years. Then these heavyweight suns balloon outward into supergiant stars, hundreds of times larger than our sun with many bigger than the orbit of Mars. The red star Betelguese (say beetle juice) in Orion is one such star. Then comes the day of final reckoning when these stars exhaust all their nuclear fuel and become supernova. The supernova explosion tears these stars apart, releasing as much energy in a few weeks as our sun has released in its entire lifetime. Only a tiny fraction of stars end their lives so dramatically.

Stars like our sun shine for billions of years. As the sun's fuel reaches an end, it swells into a giant star. Then it shrinks and then swells again to an even larger object. Then the outer layers become unstable and are shucked off, creating a delicate, expanding tapestry of multicolored gas; the most beautiful Hubble Telescope pictures are of these gas displays. Left behind is a tiny core, a planet sized star cinder called a white dwarf.

April 30 - FACTS AT YOUR FINGERPRINT

One of the most useful books that you can find in a library is an almanac. Of course, most grocery stores sell a version of a farmer's almanac, a relic from rural America. A farmer's almanac tells you the sunrise, sunset for a particular town (ex. Boston or Hagerstown) and the moon's phases. The main appeal of such almanacs today is a year long weather forecast, telling the snowy days, when there are storms, dry spells, etc. Since it is difficult to predict the weather accurately more than 3-4 days in advance, these almanac forecasts are somewhat dubious. The rest of these almanacs consist of helpful household hints and interesting stories.

The real almanac are several inches thick and contain many different subjects but NO WEATHER FORECASTS. My favorite is THE WORLD ALMANAC, which includes a very thorough astronomy section, including sunrises, moonrises, sunsets and moonsets at 5 different latitudes. There are directions on how to adjust the sun and moon times for your own locale. (For today's sun and moon events, just check the weather map section of the Cumberland Times-News. There you will also find weather forecast for the coming days based on current meteorological data.)

In the opening pages are a review of the top 10 news stories of 2005. There follows a very nice month by month account of the news of the previous year, both national and international news. There are listings of the last federal election (2004), the vote totals for both winner and losers state by state. There is a comprehensive section on economics, both U.S. and international. The meteorology section includes records for many different U.S. and international cities and U.S. states. Disaster fans will enjoy the comprehensive listings of airplane, railroad and ship misadventures, earthquakes, floods and explosions.

The vital statistic section tells you about births, deaths, smoking, firearm deaths, car accidents etc. There are vast listings of the birthdates, death dates of famous entertainers, scientists, politicians and celebrities as well as those still alive. The science section deals with environomental issues including key numbers on global warming, etc. There is a listing of the U.S. 100 most populous cities. It is interesting that of the 10 fastest shrinking cities, 8 have NFL teams (including Detriot (#1) and Cincinatti (#2)).

The U.S. History section starts with 1492, when Columbus touched land in the Bahamas. The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution with its Amendments are given. You can read the biographies of the 43 presidents (Grover Cleveland is both the 22nd and 24th president). The education section gives statistics of schools state by state with Maryland outspending its neighbor states at $9150 per child per year.

The World History begins with the first humans followed by the invention of writing in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) 6,000 years ago. The tallest building is now in Taiwan at 1670 feet nearly 200 feet taller than the twin towers in Malaysia. The Nations of the World section gives you a quick sketch of the population, geography, economy, its beginnings and recent history of each country. The last section of the World Almanac is a huge collection of sports tables from Olympic games to fishing. The other thick alamanacs include the Time Alamanac & Information Please, the New York Time Alamanac and the Encylopedia Brittanica Almanac. If you go to a library, you may find several of these almanacs and you can compare. The cost of these almanacs in paperback is about $12, a small price for such a huge amount of information. While some of this information can be found on the Internet, you would save a lot of time through using almanacs.