Bathymetry retrievals from 2D, multispectral imagery, referred to as Satellite‐Derived Bathymetry (SDB), afford the potential to obtain global, nearshore bathymetric data in optically clear waters. ...However, accurate SDB depth retrievals are limited in the absence of “seed depths.” The Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite‐2 (ICESat‐2) space‐based altimeter has proven capable of accurate bathymetry, but methods of employing ICESat‐2 bathymetry for SDB retrievals over broad spatial extents are immature. This research aims to establish and test a baseline methodology for generating bathymetric surface models using SDB with ICESat‐2. The workflow is operationally efficient (17–37 min processing time) and capable of producing bathymetry of sufficient vertical accuracy for many coastal science applications, with RMSEs of 0.96 and 1.54 m when using Sentinel‐2 and Landsat 8, respectively. The highest priorities for further automation have also been identified, supporting the long‐range goal of global coral reef habitat change analysis using ICESat‐2‐aided SDB.
Plain Language Summary
Mapping the underwater surface in coastal areas is important for understanding our changing climate and how it impacts the nearshore environment. Space‐based imagers are critical to underwater mapping, given their global coverage and wide spatial extent, but require reference depth measurements to inform accurate bathymetric retrievals. Laser altimetry from ICESat‐2 has the potential to address the reference measurement need. This work establishes a foundational technical approach for combining the data and producing a nearshore bathymetric product that is efficient, accurate and informs new research opportunities.
Key Points
Satellite‐derived bathymetry using passive sensors, requires elevation “seed points” to yield physically meaningful seafloor elevations.
NASA ICESat‐2 laser altimetry provides a vertical reference for satellite‐derived bathymetry products.
Operationally efficient ICESat‐2‐aided satellite‐derived bathymetry workflows hold promise for global assessment of benthic habitat change.
•The study addresses the role of the home learning environment in children's early science learning.•Parental engagement in science-related activities (SRA) is associated with 5-year-old preschool ...children's science knowledge.•Structural family characteristics and parental interest in science are associated with the frequency of SRA.•SRA mediate associations of structural family characteristics and parental interest in science with children's knowledge.•Results highlight the pivotal role of parents in preschool children's early science learning.
Parents play a pivotal role in introducing their children to science, but little is known about the nature of an early science-related home learning environment. This study examines different aspects of the home learning environment and their associations with children's science knowledge. Mediation analyses of a sample of 257 five-year-old preschool children and their parents show that (1) parental engagement in science-related learning activities with their children is associated with children's science knowledge, (2) structural family characteristics as well as parental interest in science are associated with the frequency of these activities, and (3) associations of structural family characteristics and parental interest in science with children's knowledge are mediated by science-related activities. The results emphasize the important role of parents in children's early science education.
•Head Start families vary widely in the resources they provide for early science learning at home and in their communities.•Children’s informational texts and technology-based media about science are ...not regularly accessed by Head Start families.•Head Start families have generally positive beliefs about early science; self-efficacy for science varies widely.•Family background, science self-efficacy, and beliefs about science explain variation in science learning opportunities.
Families make important contributions to children’s learning across multiple developmental domains by providing quality educational experiences in the home and community. Until now, it was unknown what resources low-income families provide at home and in their communities to support early childhood science education and how families’ own self-efficacy and beliefs about science and background characteristics relate to the opportunities they provide. The present study interviewed 300 parents, diverse in race/ethnicity, of Head Start children ages 4–5 years about the opportunities they provided in their home and community to support early science learning. In addition, families completed the Attitudes Toward Science Survey to identify their self-efficacy and beliefs about science. Results identified wide variation in the resources families provided in the home (e.g., toys, books, technology) and in the community (e.g., visits to park, nature center, zoo); families with more positive beliefs and higher self-efficacy for science were more likely to offer materials at home and access community resources to support science learning. In addition, child gender, family ethnicity and home language explained some of the variation in family supports for science. Implications of this work point to important investments in science education to be made by schools which leverage what families do at home.
Research shows that early scientific interest is associated with science degree completion and career selection. However, little is known about the conditions that support early scientific interest. ...Using a “funds of knowledge” theoretical framework, this study examined the role of parents, family, and extended social networks in fostering early interest in science. Using interview narratives from 116 scientists (physicists and chemists) in the United States, we conducted a qualitative thematic content analysis. Findings suggest that children who become scientists in adulthood often received early, informal opportunities to use and manipulate material objects and discover how the world works. Second, families used a wide variety of scientific terms at home and encouraged children to pursue their interests whether in science or other fields. Third, these future scientists were often networked with extended family members or friends to observe and do science when they were quite young. Collectively, these findings highlight the specific ways in which families fostered early scientific interest and aided in supporting a student-directed learning environment.
The objective of the current study was to identify an effective learning environment for kindergarten students as they acquire an initial understanding of scientific inquiry activities (SIA) and a ...simple (idealized) scientific inquiry cycle (SIC). The study aimed to examine (a) the effects of instructional support and (b) the role of similarity across scientific phenomena illustrating the SIA/SIC in helping children acquire an initial understanding. The study used a randomized group treatment design with children aged 5-6 years (N = 231). Similarity of scientific phenomena and specificity of instructional support related to the SIA/SIC were systematically varied across conditions. Results indicated that SIA/SIC-specific instructional support provided short-term benefits to children's knowledge about SIA and the SIC. In addition, results suggested that similarity of scientific phenomena interacted differentially with children's prior knowledge. More knowledgeable students benefited from variation in their understanding of the SIA/SIC, while similarity helped less knowledgeable children improve their content knowledge.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
This study highlights the effectiveness of explicit instructional support focused on scientific inquiry activities (SIA) and the science inquiry cycle for children aged 5-6. The findings suggest that such targeted teaching approaches can promote a deeper understanding of the process and objectives of scientific inquiry, without compromising content knowledge. This research invites educators to rethink traditional hands-on pedagogical methods, emphasizing the importance of guiding children toward viewing science as an intentional process of information seeking, characterized by inquiry and iterative question development. Moreover, the findings underscore the potential benefit of early introduction to SIA. This study also notes the interplay between the design of learning environments, the variability of examples used, and children's prior knowledge, factors which should be carefully balanced in early science education.
Surface meltwater accumulating on Antarctic ice shelves can drive fractures through to the ocean and potentially cause their collapse, leading to increased ice discharge from the continent. ...Implications of increasing surface melt for future ice shelf stability are inadequately understood. The southern Amery Ice Shelf has an extensive surface hydrological system, and we present data from satellite imagery and ICESat‐2 showing a rapid surface disruption there in winter 2019, covering ∼60 km2. We interpret this as an ice‐covered lake draining through the ice shelf, forming an ice doline with a central depression reaching 80 m depth amidst over 36 m uplift. Flexural rebound modeling suggests 0.75 km3 of water was lost. We observed transient refilling of the doline the following summer with rapid incision of a narrow meltwater channel (20 m wide and 6 m deep). This study demonstrates how high‐resolution geodetic measurements can explore critical fine‐scale ice shelf processes.
Plain Language Summary
Surface melting over Antarctica's floating ice shelves is predicted to increase significantly during coming decades, but the implications for their stability are unknown. The Antarctic Peninsula has already seen meltwater driven ice shelf collapses. We are still learning how meltwater forms, flows and alters the surface, and that rapid water‐driven changes are not limited to summer. We present high‐resolution satellite data (imagery and altimetry) showing an abrupt change on East Antarctica's Amery Ice Shelf in June 2019 (midwinter). Meltwater stored in a deep, ice‐covered lake drained through to the ocean below, leaving a deep, uneven 11 km2 depression of fractured ice (a “doline”) in the ice shelf surface. The reduced load on the floating ice shelf resulted in flexure, with over 36 m of uplift centered on the former lake. Simple flexure modeling showed that this corresponds to about 0.75 km3 of water being lost to the ocean. ICESat‐2 observations in summer 2020 profiled a new narrow channel inside the doline as meltwater started refilling it from a new lake created by the flexure. ICESat‐2's capacity to observe surface processes at small spatial scales greatly improves our ability to model them, ultimately improving the accuracy of our projections.
Key Points
Satellite images showed an 11 km2 depression on Amery Ice Shelf as an ice‐covered lake drained abruptly in winter 2019 forming an ice doline
ICESat‐2 and WorldView data show elevation fell as much as 80 m in the depression, amidst 60 km2 of hydrostatic rebound and uplift over 36 m
ICESat‐2 photon data profiled a new meltwater channel, incised when a lake formed by the flexural uplift overflowed into the doline in 2020
Early science learning and, specifically, the development of scientific process skills are essential for children to understand the natural world around them. Question asking is a valuable tool to ...help children get information to organise and make sense of their environment. This research aims to find out whether pre-elementary children employ categorical questions on an information-seeking task and at what age they do so. It also intends to examine how this skill evolves just after an educational intervention, and two months later. The participants were 72 children from three early childhood education levels (ECE1: 3-4 years old; ECE2: 4-5 years old; and ECE3: 5-6 years old). Before the intervention, most of the children did not spontaneously ask categorical questions in the proposed task. Teaching this ability to them made them improve it, mainly in the ECE2 and ECE3 groups, and the acquired learning was maintained over time. However, the youngest children have considerable difficulties in using categorical questions. Thus, activities to model children's scientific skills, particularly those involving the formulation of categorical questions, could be included as part of the science teaching-learning process from 4 to 5 years of age.
The circulation of Rubén Darío's texts in Latin American press has been regarded as emblematic of the emergence processes of the professional writer and the gradual autonomization of literature. ...However, only a portion of that production was later incorporated into books published by the author or in subsequent posthumous compilations. The conception of this selection as his 'literary work' implies, in its aesthetic hierarchization, the removal of the texts from their original support and, above all, the erasure of the discursive dialogue that these texts engaged with others, present in the same or similar media.
In this work, I am interested in analyzing how some fantastic stories by Rubén Darío, written and/or published in Buenos Aires in the last decade of the 19th century, were strongly linked to journalistic information and, specifically, the dissemination of scientific, pseudoscientific, and technical novelties circulating in newspapers and magazines. Rubén Darío maintained a close connection with the emergence of these novelties and skillfully filtered them into his literature as material for narrative fiction. He also seemed to capture, with productive sensitivity, the intersection of these scientific novelties with the occultism and traditional religiosity.
The review of these stories in the context of their original publication will also allow the study, through a particular case, of a larger process: the development of the short story genre in Argentina, a form that modernized and consolidated in a constant interaction between, on the one hand, literary tradition, and on the other hand, the conditions that the press exerted on that narrative form.
La circulación de los textos de Rubén Darío en la prensa latinoamericana y, en menor medida, europea, ha sido ponderada como emblemática de los procesos de emergencia del escritor profesional y de la paulatina autonomización de la literatura como práctica social específica. Sin embargo, sólo una porción de esa producción fue luego incorporada en libros publicados por el autor o en las posteriores compilaciones póstumas. La concepción de esta selección como su “obra literaria” lleva implícita, en su valoración y su jerarquización estética, la sustracción de los textos de su soporte original y, sobre todo, el borramiento del diálogo discursivo y de imaginarios que esos textos entablaron con otros, presentes en los mismos soportes o en soportes contiguos.
En este trabajo, me interesa analizar la forma en que algunos cuentos fantásticos de Rubén Darío, escritos y/o publicados en Buenos Aires en la última década del siglo XIX, se vincularon fuertemente con la información periodística y, de manera puntual, con la divulgación de novedades científicas, pseudocientíficas y técnicas que circulaban en diarios y revistas. Rubén Darío mantuvo un vínculo estrecho con la irrupción de esas novedades y supo tamizarlas en su literatura como material para la ficción narrativa; asimismo pareció captar con productiva sensibilidad el cruce de estas novedades científicas con la dimensión de los ocultismos y la religiosidad tradicional.
La revisión de estos relatos en el marco de su publicación original permitirá asimismo estudiar, a través de un caso particular, un proceso mayor: el desarrollo del género cuento en la Argentina, forma que se modernizó y consolidó “por fuera del libro”, en una permanente interacción entre, por un lado, la tradición literaria y, por otro, los condicionamientos y posibilidades que la prensa operó sobre esa forma narrativa.
In the current paper, we report on the recommendations for preschool science put forward in the educational standards of U.S. states. Our focus was specifically on whether educational standards ...recommend abstract science constructs—constructs that are difficult to learn. In Study 1, we focused on science constructs related to inquiry (i.e., activities geared towards the generation of scientific knowledge). And in Study 2, we focused on science constructs related to facts (i.e., established scientific knowledge). In each study, we developed a coding scheme to distinguish between concrete and abstract constructs and then determined the relative prevalence of each. Our findings show that preschoolers are indeed expected to learn abstract science constructs. At the same time, educational standards varied considerably across U.S. states. Implications for the field of early science learning are discussed.
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