Mary C. Henry

We're creeping closer to the halfway point of the semester and things are getting busy for me. My teaching load ended up being lighter than planned this semester, since one of my classes was canceled. However, I am busy with some research work right now. I have a paper revision due on October 8th, so I've been working on that the last few weeks- a little at a time. I am also working on a new proposal to the Ohio Board of Regents Improving Teacher Quality Program. We are hoping to partner with some local schools to develop some new approaches for teaching science and math. I have never applied to this program before, and it's been hectic trying to coordinate with colleagues and set up meetings with K12 teachers. I am very excited about the project, though- I hope we get funding!! Proposals are due October 27th. Yikes! The canceled class has made things easier on me for all the other things I am working on, but I am still feeling stressed. Proposal-writing is tough work and I...

A geographer friend of mine directed me to an interesting blog a few months ago, called " Strange Maps ". A lot of us in geography have an interest in maps (shocking, I know) and this site doesn't disappoint. I just posted a link to two maps on the blog for my GEO 121 class (it's part of our university content system, so not publicly available). One is a plan to make a city in Southern Sudan look like a rhino , and the other is a map of Europe that looks like Marge Simpson . The blog contains all sorts of unusual maps- just have a look around there and see what you find. Feel free to share links here!

It's time to stop using the phrase "It can be seen from space!" In an era of sub-meter spatial resolution satellite sensors, it no longer makes sense to point out the vastness of something by saying that "it can be seen from space". You can see cars and trees from space now- just have a look at Google Earth (or Maps ). We can only assume that spy satellites can detect objects much smaller than that, so there are probably few things left on the Earth's surface that can't be seen from space (unless it's cloudy!) I felt compelled to write this blog post after last night's Countdown with Keith Olbermann , where he kept saying that the Gulf Oil Spill is large enough "to be seen from space". But, he is not alone . The recent discovery of a very large beaver dam in Canada drew similar responses . This is just no longer a meaningful phrase unless you qualify it with something like "the space shuttle astronauts can see it without bin...

We have one week of classes left at Miami before finals, and I find myself in a curious position this weekend. I don't have any pressing work for classes or research! I just came back from a conference last Monday, so research is sort of on hold until classes finish. I am caught up with grading for now- but that will change tomorrow because I have remote sensing labs coming in, then Wednesday I will get 92 physical geography papers, and Friday I'll get another 14 remote sensing term papers. I am giving one in-class exam (which my teaching assistant will grade) and I'll have 14 take-home exams for remote sensing to grade. I also have a lot of meetings and student defenses coming up in the next week, so I will be on campus more days that usual (which cuts into at-home grading time). I'm done with teaching prep, too. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, now, but there is a mountain of grading to get through first! This summer should be busy with research (I am go...

Every semester, we have a particular day (or days) that have extremely low class attendance because they fall right before a break. In fall, it's Thanksgiving. Miami is closed the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so there are only two days of classes that week. A lot of students see it as opportunity to go home (or on a trip) for the entire week and leave town the weekend before Thanksgiving. Another time like this is right before Spring Break. The Thursday before Spring Break is celebrated by the students as " Green Beer Day *" (although some students do show up to class intoxicated). Even among students not drinking on Thursday, many leave town that day or the next so that attendance is always meager that Friday. Every semester, we (faculty and staff) receive emails from the university administration warning us not to cancel classes on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving or on Green Beer Day. Last fall, we even had an email from the Provost that included this: Dear colleague...

In class this week, we were talking about remote sensing and I mentioned the cost of some of the image data (which can run into the thousands of dollars). A student asked "Who buys that?" I explained that people with research grants could afford it and mentioned that I had purchased some recently for a project. Later, another student asked "Did Miami [University] have to pay a lot of money for that?". I mentioned that the USDA did, since they funded our research. The discussion ended there, but I thought it might be a good idea to explain a bit more about the whole process of how we do research and get grants to fund that research. Here is how the process might go: 1) Someone has an idea for a research project. This can come from many sources, including earlier research, reading articles, talking with colleagues, etc. 2) This person looks for funding sources for this research. Depending on the field of the study, this person might look for funding with government ag...

As the semester comes to a close, I find myself thinking about my classes this semester and considering ways to improve them the next time I teach them. Two of my classes (hazards and landscape ecology) will be put on the shelf until next August, but I will be teaching physical geography (GEO 121) again in just over a month (yikes!) Now would be a great time for me to make notes about what worked well, how the timing of some things worked and didn't work, and other thoughts for next fall. Even though I'll be teaching GEO 121 again soon, there is a good chance that I'll forget about some changes I wanted to make before then, so I should make some notes about that, too! One of the things that I struggle with in GEO 121 is making the class interesting and more interactive. The lecture part of the class has 90 students and we meet in a lecture hall with seats that are bolted to the floor and I'm stuck at or near a large stationary podium. This setup is not conducive to stud...