Software Carpentry lesson that teaches how to use databases and SQL In the late 1920s and early 1930s, William Dyer, Frank Pabodie, and Valentina Roerich led expeditions to the Pole of Inaccessibility in the South Pacific, and then onward to Antarctica. Two years ago, their expeditions were found in a storage locker at Miskatonic University. We have scanned and OCR the data they contain, and we now want to store that information in a way that will make search and analysis easy. Three common options for storage are text files, spreadsheets, and databases. Text files are easiest to create, and work well with version control, but then we would have to build search and analysis tools ourselves. Spreadsheets are good for doing simple analyses, but they don’t handle large or complex data sets well. Databases, however, include powerful tools for search and analysis, and can handle large, complex data sets. These lessons will show how to use a database to explore the expeditions’ data.

Objectives To explore the effectiveness of data sharing by randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in journals with a full data sharing policy and to describe potential difficulties encountered in the process of performing reanalyses of the primary outcomes. Design Survey of published RCTs. Setting PubMed/Medline. Eligibility criteria RCTs that had been submitted and published by The BMJ and PLOS Medicine subsequent to the adoption of data sharing policies by these journals. Main outcome measure The primary outcome was data availability, defined as the eventual receipt of complete data with clear labelling. Primary outcomes were reanalyzed to assess to what extent studies were reproduced. Difficulties encountered were described. Results 37 RCTs (21 from The BMJ and 16 from PLOS Medicine) published between 2013 and 2016 met the eligibility criteria. 17/37 (46%, 95% confidence interval 30% to 62%) satisfied the definition of data availability and 14 of the 17 (82%, 59% to 94%) were fully reproduced on all their primary outcomes. Of the remaining RCTs, errors were identified in two but reached similar conclusions and one paper did not provide enough information in the Methods section to reproduce the analyses. Difficulties identified included problems in contacting corresponding authors and lack of resources on their behalf in preparing the datasets. In addition, there was a range of different data sharing practices across study groups. Conclusions Data availability was not optimal in two journals with a strong policy for data sharing. When investigators shared data, most reanalyses largely reproduced the original results. Data sharing practices need to become more widespread and streamlined to allow meaningful reanalyses and reuse of data. Trial registration Open Science Framework osf.io/c4zke.

Welcome to 2.007! This course is a first subject in engineering design. With your help, this course will be a great learning experience exposing you to interesting material, challenging you to think deeply, and providing skills useful in professional practice. A major element of the course is design of a robot to participate in a challenge that changes from year to year. This year, the theme is cleaning up the planet as inspired by the movie Wall-E.
From its beginnings in 1970, the 2.007 final project competition has grown into an Olympics of engineering.  See this MIT News story for more background, a photo gallery, and videos about this course.

Welcome to 2.007! This course is a first subject in engineering design. With your help, this course will be a great learning experience exposing you to interesting material, challenging you to think deeply, and providing skills useful in professional practice. A major element of the course is design of a robot to participate in a challenge that changes from year to year. This year, the theme is cleaning up the planet as inspired by the movie Wall-E.

Gravels deposited as a result of continental glaciation are used to teach introductory-level earth-science students the application of the scientific method in a cooperative learning mode which utilizes hands-on, minds-on analyses. Processes that involve erosion, transportation, and deposition of pebble- and cobble-sized clasts are considered by students in formulating and testing hypotheses.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Background: We are providing PD on differentiation. Day two is centered around using tech tools to differentiate. We will be exploring three tech tools for this PD (Jamboard, Adobe Spark, and Canva). The see-think-wonder strategy will be repeated to explore each of these tools separately. They will be building off of day one PD where they identified gaps in their units where they needed to differentiate. When they have worked through the activity for each tool, they should have a list of differentiation ideas that can be used to fill the gaps they had identified previously. 

Background: We are providing PD on differentiation. Day two is centered around using tech tools to differentiate. We will be exploring three tech tools for this PD (Jamboard, Adobe Spark, and Canva). The see-think-wonder strategy will be repeated to explore each of these tools separately. They will be building off of day one PD where they identified gaps in their units where they needed to differentiate. When they have worked through the activity for each tool, they should have a list of differentiation ideas that can be used to fill the gaps they had identified previously. 

In a multi-week experiment, student teams gather biogas data from the mini-anaerobic digesters that they build to break down different types of food waste with microbes. Using plastic soda bottles for the mini-anaerobic digesters and gas measurement devices, they compare methane gas production from decomposing hot dogs, diced vs. whole. They monitor and measure the gas production, then graph and analyze the collected data. Students learn how anaerobic digestion can be used to biorecycle waste (food, poop or yard waste) into valuable resources (nutrients, biogas, energy).

Discrete mathematics is applied in many areas including the physical, engineering, and increasingly, the social sciences. This online textbook, written by mathematics and information technology professors, is aimed at students of information technology, computer science, and applied mathematics. The focus is on applying discrete math techniques from the two broad component areas of discrete math, namely combinatorics or enumerative techniques, and graph theory.

This is a field investigation on diversity of life where students count the number of kinds organisms in two locations. Students report their results on posters and propose reasons why there might be difference in diversity between the locations.

This page presents a strategy for addressing a common climate misconception in the classroom, derived from The Debunking Handbook, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. This material was created by faculty as part of the CLEAN Climate Communications Workshop, held in April, 2012.

How does infrastructure meet our needs? What happens when we are cut off from that supporting infrastructure? As a class, students brainstorm, identify and explore the pathways where their food, water and energy originate, and where wastewater and solid waste go. After creating a diagram that maps a neighborhood's inputs and waste outputs, closed and open system concepts are introduced by imagining the neighborhood enclosed in a giant dome, cut off from its infrastructure systems. Students consider the implications and the importance of sustainable resource and waste management. They learn that resources are interdependent and that recycling wastes into resources is key to sustain a closed system.

Student teams find solutions to hypothetical challenge scenarios that require them to sustainably manage both resources and wastes. They begin by creating a card representing themselves and the resources (inputs) they need and wastes (outputs) they produce. Then they incorporate additional cards for food and energy components and associated necessary resources and waste products. They draw connections between outputs that provide inputs for other needs, and explore the problem of using linear solutions in resource-limited environments. Then students incorporate cards based on biorecycling technologies, such as algae photobioreactors and anaerobic digesters in order to make circular connections. Finally, the student teams present their complete biorecycling engineering solutions to their scenarios in poster format by connecting outputs to inputs, and showing the cycles of how wastes become resources.

This resource provides lecture notes and writing assignments for the study of drama. While Othello and Trifles are mentioned specifically, these notes and assignments can be adapted and applied to practically any play.  Unless otherwise noted, the materials in this unit are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.

This seminar will focus on dynamical change in biogeochemical cycles accompanying early animal evolution -- beginning with the time of the earliest known microscopic animal fossils (~600 million years ago) and culminating (~100 million years later) with the rapid diversification of marine animals known as the "Cambrian explosion." Recent work indicates that this period of intense biological evolution was both a cause and an effect of changes in global biogeochemical cycles. We will seek to identify and quantify such coevolutionary changes. Lectures and discussions will attempt to unite the perspectives of quantitative theory, organic geochemistry, and evolutionary biology.

In this class we will critically review both classical works and recent literature on complexity in ecology. The emphasis will be on developing quantitative theories in the context of experimental and observational data. We will meet twice weekly for roundtable discussions.

In this class we will critically review both classical works and recent literature on ecological theory. Emphasis will be on providing a theoretical and phenomenological foundation for the study of computational models. We will meet twice weekly for roundtable discussions.

Developmental Dyscalculia (DD) is a learning disorder affecting the ability to acquire school-level
arithmetic skills, affecting approximately 3-6% of individuals. Progress in understanding the root causes
of DD and how best to treat it have been impeded by lack of widespread research and variation in
characterizations of the disorder across studies. However, recent years have witnessed significant growth
in the field, and a growing body of behavioral and neuroimaging evidence now points to an underlying
deficit in the representation and processing of numerical magnitude information as a potential core
deficit in DD. An additional product of the recent progress in understanding DD is the resurgence of a
distinction between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ developmental dyscalculia. The first appears related to
impaired development of brain mechanisms for processing numerical magnitude information, while the
latter refers to mathematical deficits stemming from external factors such as poor teaching, low socioeconomic status, and behavioral attention problems or domain-general cognitive deficits. Increased
awareness of this distinction going forward, in combination with longitudinal empirical research, offers
great potential for deepening our understanding of the disorder and developing effective educational
interventions.