Members of the BSU community have recently been featured in the media. Here are a few that caught our attention.
Dr. Paula Krebs, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, recently shared her thoughts on a couple of issues. One was about carrying on after the death of a loved one.
The other was a piece for Inside Higher Ed concerning the mismatch between graduate programs and the hiring needs of community colleges. It begins: Most folks at doctoral institutions don't have a clue what goes on in community colleges. The departments don't, the individual faculty members don't, and it would be a rare graduate adviser indeed who had ever set foot on a community college campus. Read the rest…
EarthView, the giant inflatable model of the earth that has become an important teaching tool for the Geography Department, has been in the news recently along with the two professors who use it most often to teach, Drs. Vernon Domingo and James Hayes-Bohanan.
They appeared on WBZ Radio’s Nightside radio program.
And the EarthView was the star of this WBZ TV segment, part of the channel’s Eye On Education series.
Lastly, a Brazilian TV network did a piece on the EarthView. You can watch it here. (Translation is below, courtesy of Joao Santos).
Brazil Video: Aula dentro do globo aproxima crianças da geografia
TV Anchor: For those who have had the opportunity of visiting a planetarium, you understand how magnificent it is to see the stars up close. Now, imagine seeing countries on the other side of the world right in front of you. At UDESC, a very different lesson occurred within a globe by bringing children to a new kind of geography. A wonderful initiative that provided a unique trip.
TV Anchor: Imagine seeing the world from this point of view, from the outside, a gigantic circular sphere, from the inside, countries larger than those we usually see on a map. This was the objective, to approach people to geography.
Dr. Francisco Oliveira: We are in the middle of a national territorial management and development seminar. The activities of this seminar are specific both in scale and in planning activities. However, a parallel activity with the objective of mentally stimulating the children is to bring them a live geography and allow them to experiment and understand the notion of space, the notion of territory, and to have a vision of the globe, of the world, and of places.
TV Anchor: In association with Bridgewater State University, the University of the State of Santa Catarina (UDESC) presented the thirty-five kilogram, seven-meter diameter Earth View Globe. The globe left the Unites States to Florianopolis for the first time and attracted both adults and children.
Dr. Francisco Oliveira: I would say it is almost a fight between adults and children because they both want to get inside together all the time. Therefore, we have to control, to resize and to plan again. For example today after the session programed for the children, we had to do a special session only for adults so they could also get in and learn, and it is very interesting because the reactions are very different. The majority of the adults take pictures, film, and record.
TV Anchor: Delighted with this portable classroom, students from public and private schools took the opportunity to clarify all doubts and to enjoy the space that reveals rivers, seas, islands, oceans and countries from several continents.
Child 1: I thought it was great because it shows more or less the exact dimensions of the globe because in maps we see everything very small. For example, the island of Florianopolis we see it very big.
Child 2: When we look in the book and then we look in reality, we have a different sensation.
Child 3: Inside we can observe planet Earth as if it was a mirror with its sides inverted. We step in Antarctica and we learn more about the planet’s curiosities.
