Hyper - inflation in Zimbabwe in 2008

As the display in the British Museum tells, money became pretty much worthless in this African country in 2008. They couldn't even keep up with how fast the exchange rates were changing.

The Broad Street pump

John Snow was a physician by trade, but made a huge impact in the field of geography too with his mapping of a major cholera outbreak in London in the mid-1800s.  This is a replica of the pump where he asked that the handle be removed...saving uncountable further deaths.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak

Small train stations

I just love these places. This one is in the middle of town, and as usage declined over the years the second building was changed into a clinic.

At this station there's not even a ticket office or kiosk: if you board ("alight") here, you can buy your ticket on the train. Can't do that at most places.

(Hale Station, Altrincham, on the outskirts of Manchester)

"Ricicles"

The early name of Rice Krispies. From about 1960.

(At the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry)

If the road is too muddy...

...then just make a new one and go around!  :-)

Vacation time

Hopefully I'll avoid the Griswolds on this European Vacation.  Many pics to come over the next 3 weeks I hope!

Relationships, relationships, relationships

In my introductory weather and climate course, scores on Exam 2 typically slide considerably.  Sometimes, the average drops 10-15% from Exam 1.  I have no hard evidence, but my suspicion is that scores go down because the primary topic is humidity and atmospheric moisture, a topic many students find quite difficult to grasp.  However, although some students do worse on the second exam, there are always several who do much better.  How??  They figure out that my classes are not about rote memorization -- that I'm serious why I say that I care about critical thinking skills, and that I care about problem-solving ability.  And they make a conscious effort to change their study habits.  To continue just "studying the vocab" is a quick route to a failing grade.

I asked one such student -- who went from a C+ on Exam 1 to a perfect score on Exam 2 -- what she did differently.  Her response:

To the people who say "I'm just not good at science," I say stop it!  This student is a political science major and goes on to present a universal truth: analytical ability is a key to success in college regardless of your discipline, not just in the "sciences."

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P.S.:  That's all for this post, but I figured it might be helpful to show an example exam question.  In large courses (>50), exams are strictly multiple choice and there are typically N = length_of_class/2 questions on an exam.

See also "What 'the tests count for too much' really means"