Making sense of an everyday science text : linguistic, visual and spatial design

In this article, we take a close look at the literacy demands of one task from the ‘Marvellous Micro-organisms Stage 3 Life and Living’ Primary Connections unit (Australian Academy of Science, 2005). One lesson from the unit, ‘Exploring Bread’, (pp 4-8) asks students to ‘use bread labels to locate ingredient information and synthesise understanding of bread ingredients’. We draw upon a framework offered by the New London Group (2000), that of linguistic, visual and spatial design, to consider in more detail three bread wrappers and from there the complex literacies that students need to interrelate to undertake the required task. Our findings are that although bread wrappers are an example of an everyday science text, their linguistic, visual and spatial designs and their interrelationship are not trivial. We conclude by reinforcing the need for teachers of science to also consider how the complex design elements of everyday science texts and their interrelated literacies are made visible through instructional practice.

An in-depth study of a teacher engaged in an innovative primary science trial professional development project

The implementation of effective science programmes in primary schools is of continuing interest and concern for professional developers. As part of the Australian Academy of Science's approach to creating an awareness of Primary Investigations, a project team trialled a series of satellite television broadcasts of lessons related to two units of the curriculum for Year 3 and 4 children in 48 participating schools. The professional development project entitled Simply Science, included a focused component for the respective classroom teachers, which was also conducted by satellite. This paper reports the involvement of a Year 4 teacher in the project and describes her professional growth. Already an experienced and confident teacher, no quantitative changes in science teaching self efficacy were detected. However, her pedagogical content knowledge and confidence to teach science in the concept areas of matter and energy were enhanced. Changes in the teacher's views about the co-operative learning strategies espoused by Primary Investigations were also evident. Implications for the design of professional development programmes for primary science teachers are discussed.

The high speed water tunnel facility at the Indian Institute of Science

The present article about the high speed water tunnel facility at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, provides a general description of the tunnel circuit, and brief reports on the performance of the facility and some typical results from investigations carried out in it. A unique aspect of the facility is that it has a horizontal resorber in the form of a large cylindrical tank located in the lower leg of the circuit. The facility has been used, among other things, for flow visualization studies, and investigations on marine propeller hydrodynamics and “synthetic cavitation”. The last topic has been primarily developed at the Indian Institute of Science and shows considerable promise for basic work in cavitation inception and noise.

A Transit Timing Analysis of Mine RISE Light Curves of the Exoplanet System TrES-3

We present nine newly observed transits of TrES-3, taken as part of a transit timing program using the RISE instrument on the Liverpool Telescope. A Markov-Chain Monte Carlo analysis was used to determine the planet star radius ratio and inclination of the system, which were found to be R-p/R-star = 0.1664(-0.0018)(+0.0011) and i = 81.73(-0.04)(+0.13), respectively, consistent with previous results. The central transit times and uncertainties were also calculated, using a residual-permutation algorithm as an independent check on the errors. A re-analysis of eight previously published TrES-3 light curves was conducted to determine the transit times and uncertainties using consistent techniques. Whilst the transit times were not found to be in agreement with a linear ephemeris, giving chi(2) = 35.07 for 15 degrees of freedom, we interpret this to be the result of systematics in the light curves rather than a real transit timing variation. This is because the light curves that show the largest deviation from a constant period either have relatively little out-of-transit coverage or have clear systematics. A new ephemeris was calculated using the transit times and was found to be T-c(0) = 2454632.62610 +/- 0.00006 HJD and P = 1.3061864 +/- 0.0000005 days. The transit times were then used to place upper mass limits as a function of the period ratio of a potential perturbing planet, showing that our data are sufficiently sensitive to have probed sub-Earth mass planets in both interior and exterior 2:1 resonances, assuming that the additional planet is in an initially circular orbit.

A transit timing analysis of seven RISE light curves of the exoplanet system HAT-P-3

We present seven light curves of the exoplanet system HAT-P-3, taken as part of a transit timing programme using the rapid imager to search for exoplanets instrument on the Liverpool Telescope. The light curves are analysed using a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm to update the parameters of the system. The inclination is found to be i = 86.75+0.22-0.21°, the planet-star radius ratio to be Rp/R* = 0.1098+0.0010-0.0012 and the stellar radius to be R* = 0.834+0.018-0.026Rsolar, consistent with previous results but with a significant improvement in the precision. Central transit times and uncertainties for each light curve are also determined, and a residual permutation algorithm is used as an independent check on the errors. The transit times are found to be consistent with a linear ephemeris, and a new ephemeris is calculated as Tc(0) = 2454856.70118 +/- 0.00018 HJD and P = 2.899738 +/- 0.000007 d. Model timing residuals are fitted to the measured timing residuals to place upper mass limits for a hypothetical perturbing planet as a function of the period ratio. These show that we have probed for planets with masses as low as 0.33 and 1.81 M? in the interior and exterior 2:1 resonances, respectively, assuming the planets are initially in circular orbits.

Representations of the Human/ Nonhuman Primate Divide: the Influence of Science, Fiction, and Science-Fiction on the Concept of 'Being Human'

For as far back as human history can be traced, mankind has questioned what it means to be human. One of the most common approaches throughout Western culture's intellectual tradition in attempts to answering this question has been to compare humans with or against other animals. I argue that it was not until Charles Darwin's publication of The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) that Western culture was forced to seriously consider human identity in relation to the human/ nonhuman primate line. Since no thinker prior to Charles Darwin had caused such an identity crisis in Western thought, this interdisciplinary analysis of the history of how the human/ nonhuman primate line has been understood focuses on the reciprocal relationship of popular culture and scientific representations from 1871 to the Human Genome Consortium in 2000. Focusing on the concept coined as the "Darwin-Müller debate," representations of the human/ nonhuman primate line are traced through themes of language, intelligence, and claims of variation throughout the popular texts: Descent of Man, The Jungle Books (1894), Tarzan of the Apes (1914), and Planet of the Apes (1963). Additional themes such as the nature versus nurture debate and other comparative phenotypic attributes commonly used for comparison between man and apes are also analyzed. Such popular culture representations are compared with related or influential scientific research during the respective time period of each text to shed light on the reciprocal nature of Western intellectual tradition, popular notions of the human/ nonhuman primate line, and the development of the field of primatology. Ultimately this thesis shows that the Darwin-Müller debate is indeterminable, and such a lack of resolution makes man uncomfortable. Man's unsettled response and desire for self-knowledge further facilitates a continued search for answers to human identity. As the Human Genome Project has led to the rise of new debates, and primate research has become less anthropocentric over time, the mysteries of man's future have become more concerning than the questions of our past. The human/ nonhuman primate line is reduced to a 1% difference, and new debates have begun to overshadow the Darwin-Müller debate. In conclusion, I argue that human identity is best represented through the metaphor of evolution: both have an unknown beginning, both have an indeterminable future with no definite end, and like a species under the influence of evolution, what it means to be human is a constant, indeterminable process of change.