Extraterrestrial Life essays

Extraterrestrial Life essays As biologists learn about life on Earth in all its diversity, and at the rate that new planets are being discovered the search for life elsewhere grows more steadily pressing. We have discovered organisms on the Earth that seem tenacious and tough almost to a fault; they thrive in the most seemingly adverse conditions imaginable, and organisms so fragile and specialized so as to exist in only the most isolated and pristine environments. With the knowledge of this great amount of diversity it is a safe bet that we will one day find organisms in other parts of the galaxy that are not indigenous to the earth. This richness of diverse life though is comprised of creatures that could only survive on the Earth, so in order to draw any strong conclusions life must be found elsewhere. Due to their relative proximity the planets of our own solar system are the best place to start this search. And finally what types of organisms could we expect to find on other planets judging from the sam ples on earth? Even with the great diversity of life on earth and new species being discovered almost daily it is unlikely that any terrestrial creatures could survive in the environments of the other planets we have discovered thus far. There is compelling evidence of flowing water on mars and that the moons of Jupiter could contain even vast frozen oceans but these are still unknowns. The other planets we have discovered outside of our solar system all appear to be gas giants similar to the gas giants of our own solar system and these planets and these planets seem like the least likely place to harbor any organisms that we know of. But we must work with the knowledge that we already have and apply the template of life to the rest of the universe since what we have learned of life on earth is all that we know however unlikely it may seem that any of the terrestrial organisms could survive off the earth. We must find organi ...

Legislation and ethics report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Legislation and ethics report - Essay Example There’s even the freckled duck enclosure which is one of the world’s rarest ducks. Given the educational and social experience that the student will experience they will have closer understanding and appreciation of what they have always learnt in class because they will have real life experience of practically interacting with what they have always learnt in class. The focus of excursions is to give learning as well as social experience to the students through interactions with nature and other practical aspects that make the students comprehend more at the work place. Walking along the trails is very educational for the children as they get to explore and learn things that they might just see in books. E.g. live birds and reptiles. Watching animals and birds will make the children comprehend things that they have always seen in books. Through such experience, the students will have better understanding of the aspects through real life experience. On the same note, social welfare of the children would be enhanced through the interactions that the opportunity would accord them as they interact amongst themselves as well as with the adults that accompany them. The ratios between children and adult will be 3: 1. There will be 5 adults coming along; 3 teachers and 2 volunteers. It is always better to have more adults and be able to care for all the children than to have more children and fewer adults. We will be hiring a bus. Children will board the bus from the centre and arrive straight to Hunter Wetlands. They will not be crossing a pedestrian or a set of traffic lights. In course of the journey, there will management that will ensure that the seating capacity stated in the compliance plate is not exceeded. On the same note, the adults who accompany the children will ensure that the children will remain seated all through the journey and that they will be seated near an adult persons

Compare and contrast the ways in which two plays investigate the Essay

Compare and contrast the ways in which two plays investigate the question of gender - Essay Example Both the plays explore the depths of lust, power and money through the struggles of the characters, who are in a quest after it. In this article, we discuss by comparing and contrasting the various themes, characterization and ideology of the two plays, particularly investigating the question of gender. Women Beware Women: The play Women Beware Women was originally written by Thomas Middleton in 1657 and later on, in 1879, Howard Barker, one of the prolific playwrights of that period, revamped it to the modern world audience. The play was primitively observed as a Jacobean tragedy, until when Barker replaced the Jacobean Puritanism with the ‘modern’ adaptation, putting forward his views on the redemption power of sex. According to the Barker’s version of the play, Women Beware Women tells the story of Bianca, a rich daughter, who elopes with her love, Leantio and lives secretly in his mother’s place. Despite her husband’s exhortation, the Duke of Flo rence determines to lure her with the help of Livia, a wealthy widow in the neighborhood. Bianca is seduced by Duke and turns to be his mistress leaving her husband. Parallel to it goes the story of Isabella, who engages in an affair with her uncle, Hippolito, with the help of his sister Livia, and later is forced for a marriage with a rich foolish Ward. On the night before the wedding of Bianca, she is raped by Sordido, as a punishment for her acquisitive complicity for the Duke’s seduction. However, the Ward is not ever a fool and has pretended to be so for hiding his despair for Isabella. By the end, Livia is reformed as a liberated woman with a highly igniting passion towards Leantio. Cloud Nine The two-act play Cloud Nine is written by Caryl Churchill in 1979 with the workshops of Joint Stock Theatre Company. In the first Act, the characters are set in the backdrop of Victorian era, when the British colonialism was in full swing. However, in the second Act, the setting i s changed to a reformed culture in London during 1979, when the Victorian ideology of restrictions are loosened yet several other forms of repression exist in the society. In Act I, Clive, the British colonial administrator, lives with his wife Betty, son Edward and daughter Victoria. Meanwhile, Harry Bagley, an explorer and Mrs. Saunders, a widow arrives seeking protection from the natives. Matters start changing dramatically in the family when Clive ogles with Mrs. Saunders, while Betty fancies Harry, whereas Harry gets intimate with the servant Joshua. The governess Ellen reveals her lesbian nature which is confronted by Clive, forcing her into a marriage with Harry, even after his gay sexuality is disclosed. The play forwards with the marriage celebration, where Mrs. Saunders is kicked out by Clive for her disgusting behavior with Betty for kissing Clive. The Act ends with Joshua pointing a gun at him when he starts to initiate a speech for the couple. Act II happens a few decad es later in a setting in London and the characters are grown up. Betty, after leaving Clive, lives with her daughter Victoria, who is now married to Martin, an authoritarian husband. Edward, in the new scenario, is openly gay, leading a relationship with Gerry, whereas, Victoria begins a lesbian relationship with Lin. However, Edward discovers that he is bisexual and moves in with Lin and Victoria. Finally, Victoria leaves Martin and goes for living together with Lin and

Contributing factors to student achievement Essay Example for Free

Contributing factors to student achievement Essay In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act placed even stronger responsibility on states to raise student performance. As a result of these accountability standards, states must now administer standardized tests to â€Å"measure adequate yearly progress† of all students (2001). They face costly federal mandates and must submit comprehensive plans. The federal law also focuses on narrowing the achievement gap between races. It requires that states monitor the performance of racial and economic subgroups and undertake corrective action in failing schools (Wong, 2004). †¦states are implementing policies that provide incentives to attract and retain teachers and increase student performance. Incentives are helping states recruit new teachers into the work force, attract persons from outside education, retain teachers in the classroom and support accountability programs that focus on school-by-school efforts to boost student achievement (Cornett and Gaines, 2002). Researchers examining student performance consistently find that one of the most important influences on student achievement is socioeconomic status (SES) of students. These findings give little comfort to educators in economically disadvantaged schools who are facing heavy pressure to improve performance and close the gap between minority and white students. Yet Verstegen and King (1998) claim that a growing body of research is using better databases and more sophisticated methodological strategies to provide evidence that school policies can make a positive difference in student outcomes. They also emphasize that resource patterns that optimize performance in one setting do not necessary work in others. Encouraged by this line of thinking, the researcher will investigate factors that may explain the differences in performances in schools that share a common socioeconomic context. Are there choices made by policymakers and administrators in economically disadvantaged schools that spark significant improvements in performance in these schools? In this study, the researcher will assume the significance of SES or â€Å"input† factors in explaining achievement, and the researcher considers the impact of other factors over which schools have some control. Impact of Process Variables Although the statistical models will include measures for SES (percent of economically disadvantaged students and percent white students), the focus will be on process variables. The latter include those variables that school systems more or less control. The researcher categorizes these variables into three general areas: 1) school class size 2) school policies and 3) proven effective programs to increase student reading proficiency. One of the most controversial characteristics of schools is the amount of students per teacher (FTE). Production function research on the effects of school size has been inconclusive, and both sides have their advocates. Supporters of small schools contend that students get more attention, school governance is simpler, and teachers and administrators are more accessible to parents. Noguera (2002) states that in high schools where the majority of low-income students of color are achieving at high levels the one common characteristic is the small size of the schools. Lee and Burkam found that students are less likely to drop out of schools with fewer than 1,500 students (2003). However, others argue that large schools are able to offer students a wider range of educational offerings and services (â€Å"Still Stumped,† 2002). Recent research indicates that the effects of school size may depend on the SES of students. Findings show consistently that the relationship between achievement and socioeconomic status was substantially weaker in smaller schools than larger schools, that is, students from impoverished communities are much more likely to benefit from smaller schools. On the other hand, a positive relationship exists between larger schools and the output measures of affluent students (Lee and Smith, 1996; Howley and Bickel, 1999). Because this study will examine the performance of economically disadvantaged students, the researcher expects to find a negative relationship between school size and achievement scores. That is, the larger the school, the less likely students are to achieve on standardized tests. The relationship between class size and positive student achievement is another relationship that has been closely studied. In 2000, Congress allocated $1. 3 billion for class size reduction as a provision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (Johnson, 2002). Most of the studies that examine the effect of class size on student performance have focused on primary schools. One of the largest and most scientifically rigorous experiments was the 1985, Tennessee’s Student Achievement Ratio (STAR) study. The STAR project provides compelling evidence that smaller classes can improve student achievement, especially in primary schools, which could have lasting effects (1985). The four year longitudinal study focused on classes in Tennessee and consisted of grades kindergarten through third. Classes of thirteen to seventeen students were compared to classes of twenty-two to twenty-six students; of the total classes, some had just one teacher and some had a teacher and aid. Phase one included over three hundred classes and a total of 6500 students (1985). The result after four years was positive support for the reduction of classroom sizes which proved to have positive effects on student achievement. Some critics have pointed out the limitations of project STAR (Vinson, 2002). A couple of limitations listed in a report by Tony Vinson in 2002 were: 1) limiting sample of certain cultural groups 2) schools volunteered to participate in the study, suggesting they had motivation to use innovative teaching practices. In 1996, Mostellar, a statistician, reported; â€Å"the Tennessee Class Size study demonstrates convincingly that student achievement is better in small K-3 classes and the effect continues later in regular-sized classes (1996). In a follow-up study, Nye, Hedges and Kontantopoulos (1999) found that students of smaller class size continued showing significant advantages over students of regular-sized classes, throughout school, to graduation. These students demonstrated higher grades, took more challenging classes, had better graduation rates and were more likely to go on to college (Vinson, 2002). Wisconsin’s Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (Vinson, 2002), began in the 1996-1997 school year and was expanded in 1998-1999 and again in 2000-2001 (Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction). The objective of the program is to improve student achievement through the implementation of four school improvement strategies: class sizes no more than 15:1 in grades K-3; increased collaboration between schools and their communities; implementation of a rigorous curriculum focusing on academic achievement; and improving professional development and staff evaluation practices. Schools in SAGE have renewable 5-year contracts with the state and get state aid equal to $2,000 for each low-income child in the grades served by the program. During 2005-06 495 schools participated in SAGE (up from 30 when the program began). Just over 93,000 K-3 pupils were served. State funding, which was $4. 5 M in 96-97 will be $98. 6 M in 2006-07. A few districts are also benefiting from a state categorical aid program created in 1999 to help schools pay debt service on the cost of new classrooms built to accommodate SAGE (DPI).

Gender based difference in managerial styles Essays -- essays research

Executive Summary This report looks at several researches that have studied the managerial styles of males and females with an attempt to define perceived differences between them. In addition discussed are the results from studies on the effectiveness of managers between the two genders. The results of these studies have been analyzed through readings of several researches and personal experiences of the students doing this report. Studies say both genders are at least equally effective in the business world and that success is affected by diverse individual factors and has very less to do with gender. Commonly held perceptions of males being more effective managers are not only a loss to the female manager, but a loss to the organization and society as a whole. A note on the report writers The team consists of six members – five males and one female. The gents are in Executive positions with at least four years of full-time work experience and the lady a middle level manager with a total of 10 years in the corporate world out of which five have been in a management position. Although cultural issues are out of the scope of this assignment, the ethnicity of the members is thought to be relevant. All group members are from the Indian sub-continent, except one member who is a Middle Eastern male. All members work experience have been derived in the UAE and most members have been in the country for at least six years. Snap-shots of the brainstorming session Researches Used Extensive researches have been conducted on the topic of gender-based difference in managerial styles. All members prior to commencing of the session have thoroughly read these. An example of one of the researches used has been attached in the appendix and outlined below: Management Research Group (MRG) has conducted a study on gender differences and leadership that claims to have eliminated key shortcomings that other such researches have, such as small number of participants, reliance on self-reports, use of inappropriate subjects, uncontrolled differences etc. This research claims to be the largest controlled study of gender differences in leadership style with data compiled over 15 years. Further details of this research participants and form of research can be found in the research report in the appendix section. Discussion between the team members Almo... ...9-560. Eagly, A. H., & Johnson, B. T., 1990 Gender and leadership style: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, p: 108, 233-256. Kabacoff R, Peters H, 1998 â€Å"The Way Women and Men Lead – Different but Equally Effective.† Management Research Group Research Report: Leadership & Gender. http://www.mrg.com/Publications/articles/The_Way_Women-Men_Lead.pdf [Accessed: November 17, 2004] Eagly et al, â€Å"Transformational, Transactional, and Laissez-Faire Leadership Styles: A Meta-Analysis Comparing Women and Men† Psychological Bulletin http://www.ratcow.com/paf508/lazzifar_leader.html Formichelle, L, 2001, He Does, She Does Management styles may differ, but success isn’t gender-related.http://www.wellsfargo.com/biz/products/resources/advisor/archives/012002He/012002He.jhtml Robbins, S. P. 2004,10th edition, Organisational Behaviour, Prentice Hall, USA. Turner, D. H. â€Å"Gender differences in management style: Evidence from the accounting profession†, The Centre for the study of Women, Science and Technology. http://www.wst.gatech.edu/Gender_Differences_in_Management_Style.ppt [Accessed: November 14, 2004] http://www.kon.org/archives/forum/12-1/prehl.html

Motifs of Invisible Man Essay

Throughout Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison the narrator battles many battles continuously. These motifs that all compile into the very many themes of the literary work. The motifs range from blindness to invisibility even to the racism keeping our narrator from discovering his true identity. Blindness is the most used motif in Invisible Man. The narrator and his peers are always battling blindness throughout the novel. Throughout the novel blindness is a problem because willfully avoid seeing and confronting the true problem. †Within the American conscience with such an intensity towards his predicament† (Forward Page 2). During the time period the moral blindness of whites was a major problem, but so was the blindness of blacks. Many of the brothers remained blind to the true problem they were confronting. Also blindness takes a few literal turns. One during the â€Å"Battle Royal†, when the boys fight blindfolded, and the second the statue of the founder is described as â€Å"not having eyes†. Blindness also literally suffers from blindness. The motif, blindness, tells us about the actions and feeling of the society. The second major motif is invisibility. Not only is it in the title, but this topic plays major role throughout the novel. The book starts out with the narrator saying â€Å"I am an Invisible Man† (page 3). This motif continues to appear all the time until the epilogue. The motif of invisibility goes hand in hand with moral blindness. While blindness has a bad connotation, Invisibility can bring freedom and mobility. †I’ve overstayed my hibernation, since there’s a possibility that even an invisible man has a socially responsible role to play† (Page 571). The narrator realizes that being invisible may be a safe position, but he would never be able to make a major impact in the world. Although he is comfortable as an invisible man he emerges to go make a visible impact on the world. The last major motif, Racism, is an obstacle to finding individual identity. Throughout the novel he struggles to find his true identity. As he passes from minor society to minor society he tries to adapt their identity on to him. Each time he takes away from his individuality. The narrator finally realizes that racism just causes him to see what others want him to see. He comes to this realization when he says â€Å"and I knew it was better to live out f one’s own absurdity than to die for that of others, whether for Ras’s or Jack’s† (page 559). In the end he chooses to be productive by making his own contributions to society; force others to acknowledge, and to clarify the reality of thoughts outside of their prejudiced notions. The narrator battles blindness of others, the comfort of invisibility, and the obstacle blocking his own personal identity. Throughout this coming of age novel the narrator losses many battles, but in the end he finally wins. He ends as a visible advocate staying true to himself.

Comparison of Li Po and Tu Fus Poetry Essays - 802 Words

Comparison of Li Po and Tu Fus Poetry During the Tang Dynasty, Li Po and Tu Fu have reigned the literary world with their poetry. Their writing techniques and themes in their poetry allow them to stand out amongst other poets at the time. With the unique aspects and images these poets write about, they distinguish the similarities between themselves and contain different intensities in their poetry. While Li Po has a more relaxed tone to his poetry, Tu Fu deals with the serious aspects of life such as war, poverty, and suffering. Li Pos writing style is conventional and contains no new innovations. Much of his poetry contains older styles such as lu-shih, chueh-chu, and especially the†¦show more content†¦Alcohol became another common theme of Li Pos poetry. Scholar Tan-chiu! Bring the wine and no delay! For you Ill sing a song- be pleased to bend your ears and hear; bells and drums, foods rare as jade- these arent worth prizing; all I ask is to be drunk forever, never to sober up! This excerpt from the poem Bring the Wine, is only one of the many hundreds of poems that portrays Li Pos love of wine and its affects. I take my wine jug out among the flowers to drink alone, without friends. I raise my cup to entice the moon. That, and my shadow, makes us three, is an excerpt from his Drinking Alone poem. It displays his love of wine and the enjoyment of the beauty of the moon. Tu Fus poetry illustrates more serious topics and contains more serious themes. It contains more creation, tu-tsao, and his writing styles have a modern twist to them. He also brought the chin-ti form to popularity, making it a poetic statement. One characteristic of Tu Fu poems is that he incorporates and parallels two totally different topics together. For example, in his poem River Stop Tu Fu parallels the river and clouds to his heart and his mind. Rivers flow- my heart doesnt try to keep up; clouds remain- slow as my imagination. Tu Fu also condenses and distorts his poetry, which leaves his poetry ambiguous and open to suggestion. However, this may be