The Council on Foreign Relation's (CFR) "Deforestation in the Amazon" InfoGuide provides a compelling look at the causes and consequences of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and is available online in English and Portuguese. CFR InfoGuides are a multimedia series to promote understanding of complex foreign policy issues.

In the wake of recent acts of gun violence in America, both citizens and politicians continue the debate over gun control in the United States. Legislation addressing issues like background checks, concealed carry permits and bump stocks have been suggested to address this issue. This deliberation will allow students to explore the roots of gun control in the United States while also exploring varying viewpoints on how to address the problem of gun violence in the future.

Audubon Christmas Bird Count
The nation's longest-running community science bird project fuels Audubon's work throughout the year.

This site is a gateway to projects involving public participants in real-world research, with hopes of fostering connections for sharing ideas and resources.

Students will gain an understanding of civil rights Supreme Court cases that helped to transform the move away from the oppression of minority groups and move towards equality for all. This project was developed as a part of the Creating Lessons Using Transformative Technology - Platteville Public Schools OER grant.

In this activity students will observe and investigate rocks in order to classify them in terms of color, shape, texture and size.

After a butterfly species disappeared from a location where it had been found for many years, conservation professionals accessed climate projections to identify potential habitat for its recovery.

When water utility personnel recognized their groundwater withdrawals were damaging ecosystems in the Tampa Bay area, they found new ways to reduce their dependence on it.

From weeks-long dry spells to extreme precipitation events, farmers face significant challenges in bringing crops to market. Here’s how one grower uses seasonal climate forecasts to increase his chances for success.

Anticipating increasing demand as well as changes in the timing and amount of future water supply, state agencies and researchers are gathering information to help decision makers plan for Colorado's water future.

Climate change poses a threat to the traditional livelihoods and the sustainably managed forestlands of the Menominee Nation. However, climate change also presents an opportunity—a chance to apply indigenous knowledge to adapt and sustain native communities, and for the Menominee Nation to share its understandings with others seeking to address this global issue.

This course provides more in-depth coverage on competitive intelligence with an emphasis on analytical models used by CI Professionals. The course also provides an overview of CI Systems and pulls all concepts together by presenting some short case studies. Course Level: Intermediate - You should complete Course 12 - Part 1 before taking this course. Recommended for 2.0 hours of CPE.

Incorporating elders’ wisdom in the process of systematically analyzing climate impacts and vulnerabilities in nine categories of tribal life prioritizes actions to take to enhance the evolution of an ancient culture, while protecting tribal traditions.

Each winter, massive waves attract surfers and visitors to the North Shore of O‘ahu in Hawai‘i. Some years, the waves cause severe erosion, and continuing sea level rise will accelerate this issue. Residents and the state are taking steps to preserve homes and beaches.

A great article from University of Stevens Point on how library instruction aides graduation rates for students. This is being placed in the Wiselearn resources as Community Partnerships as I partner with this librarian for instructional purposes for all our University bound seniors. The study found that students who had direct instruction on how to use the library, stayed in school longer at the post-secondary level, and had a higher graduation rate than their peers who did not enroll in the Library instructional class.

Coastal habitats and archeological sites in western Alaska are at risk from coastal erosion. Researchers are documenting current assets and vulnerabilities so managers can make informed decisions.

Students are asked to compare two similar businesses in an effort to differentiate the business' target markets. Students will answer a series of questions about the business in order to create a customer profile. Students will utilize their customer profile to determine how and where that business should advertise. This helps students see that all decisions relate back to a business' target market.

It's not easy to keep faucets flowing year-round in southwest Florida. To make sure their customers can get ample clean water at a good price—even through dry seasons—water utility managers crafted a useful index to help them decide which water sources to use.

Since the late 1980s through the early 2000s social media and texting have started booming and becoming well known communication avenues around the world. Every year since these platforms have continued to gain popularity and is one of the most common ways to communicate today. This has played a role in the rise of unprofessional communication within the business world. This article examines the past and new data on if social media and texting are to blame for the gap of unprofessional communication in the workplace, focusing mainly on written communication. In addition, a project-based learning project is summarized to help high school students, who are taking business courses for college credit, understand the importance of having professional communication within a business setting, while creating a professional email and sharing their findings on why professional communication is important with their classmates throughout the school.

Note: This book was written in 1999 and last updated in 2003. Since then technologies have changed so the non-conceptual and more technical parts of the book may be out of date.Why Yet Another Textbook (WYAT)?There are many excellent introductory information systems (IS) texts on the market. Why then produce our own text? Interestingly enough, when we sat down to critically review the first year Information Systems curriculum, the very last thing that we wanted was to get involved in writing yet another text. But after we had set the broad educational goals, the curriculum content and educational approach, we found that no textbook fitted our objectives or approach. Briefly, the following considerations forced us to fire up our word processor and compile the text you find in front of you.Technology Bias. A frequent criticism of the introductory information systems curricula is that many have a very strong technological bias: many courses are an in-depth treatment of hardware and software concepts with an avalanche of buzzwords, often reflecting some computer science origins. Although a sound understanding of the technology that underlies information systems is critical, this technology is subject to significant change and seems to receive a disproportionately large amount of attention. This is particularly prevalent in many of the American textbooks that we considered for this course: they all seem to be an "Introduction to Computers" rather than an "Introduction to Information Systems". We wondered where the broader scientific contexts are in these, admittedly very well illustrated but quickly out-dated, documentaries of computer technologies. This is in sharp contrast to a number of European and Australasian texts, some of which relegate all the technology concepts to a single chapter or even a mere appendix at the end of the book! We needed something of a balance between these two extremes. We hope that the three roughly equal sections (scientific, technological and organisational contexts) in this will provide a sufficiently balanced approach to the study of information systems. We wish to provide students with a sound technical understanding but also let them take into account the more philosophical, scientific and organisational aspects of information systems.Depth of Treatment. We needed a text where the conceptual or theoretical component would be equivalent to roughly half of a one-semester course. Most textbooks on the market are intended for full or half-year courses. A frequent comment, even of the newer "trimmed-down editions", is that there is just too much material. Students with little or no previous exposure to computer jargon especially despair when confronted with the many new terms and acronyms. In addition, many of these technologies may be outdated by the time the students have completed their studies. By limiting ourselves to twelve chapters and setting strict limits to the length of each chapter, we hope to stem the "information overload" without compromising the academic standard. We carefully considered "need to know" versus "nice to know". A good example of the latter are the typical detailed historical notes on historical devices such as the abacus, Babbage or ENIAC.Educational Approach. Contrary to our expectations, past student evaluations showed that the textbook previously use, a well-written American one with excellent colour photographs and illustrations, was not well received and lectures based on the textbook were judged to be "boring". It is clear that a different educational approach was needed, perhaps due to our unique South African circumstances. Based on our experiences, we hope that a participatory learning approach will make the "theoretical" section come more alive and replace the rote learning with genuine understanding. The integral part of this text is therefore in the supporting materials: readings, case studies, class assignments and group exercises.Cost. Although not a decisive factor, we also considered the fact that many students face financial constraints. By producing a local textbook, we hope to beat the exchange rate fluctuations.This text consist of twelve chapters, which can be grouped roughly into the following three sections.The scientific context: a review of the fundamental scientific concepts on which IS builds: what is information, what is a system and what are information systems.The technological context: an overview of relevant technology: hardware, software and communications technology.The organisational context: the development and deployment of information systems as well as some wider societal concerns.It is important that this text not be seen separate from the practical worksheets, case studies, videos and group work, which will be provided in the lectures. The intention of these additional materials is to enhance the educational process through participatory learning units: you learn best when doing.It is also our conviction that university students need to be introduced from the first year to academic pluralism: too often undergraduate students get the impression that there is a single correct approach or, even worse, that most problems have only one correct solution or answer. This text is therefor supplemented with additional readings, culled from the world-wide web, in which we hope to expose students to different views of the material presented in the concepts part.