scholarly journals Nuptse & Lhotse Go to the Rockies by J. Asnong

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Visual Experience ◽  
Reading Aloud ◽  
Rocky Mountain ◽  
Grizzly Bear ◽  
Canadian Rockies ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
Entry Points ◽  
Simple Language ◽  
Canadian Pacific Railway ◽  
Mountain Geography

Asnong, Jocey. Nuptse & Lhotse Go to the Rockies. Victoria, BC: Rocky Mountain Books, 2014. Print.Nuptse & Lhotse are sibling cats with a sense of adventure.  Finding inspiration in the Canadian Rockies, author and illustrator Jocey Asnong sends the cats on an adventure through the Canadian Rockies to help Mrs. Jasper find her missing cubs, Yoho and Kootenay.  The cats along with Mrs. Jasper travel through the scenic highlights of Mountain Parks, from the Valley of the Ten Peaks to Lake Louise, along the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks to the Spiral Tunnels and up to the Columbia Icefields, with a stop to ski along the way.The story is straightforward, with simple language that works for beginner readers or reading aloud. A map at the beginning situates the events of the story, a comparison of a teddy bear to a grizzly bear is lighthearted and informative, and a maze illustration works with the plot of finding the lost cubs and is a fun activity while reading. It is the illustrations that bring the story to life by combining pencil crayon drawings with collage to create a layered visual experience leaving something new to be discovered with each read. Seamlessly incorporated into the text and illustrations are aspects of mountain geography and culture.  This includes an explanation of the blue-green colour of the mountain lakes that is part of the cats’ stop in Lake Louise and homage to legendary mountain photographer Byron Harmon. These details make good entry points for further classroom learning and connect to a number of curriculum areas.The publisher, Rocky Mountain Books, is known for publications that celebrate mountain culture and Nuptse & Lhotse Go to the Rockies is an excellent addition to their growing catalogue for young readers. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Lauren WheelerLauren Wheeler is a Program Lead at the Alberta Museums Association. When not assisting museums across Alberta, Lauren likes to explore and relax in her hometown of Canmore.

Peeping at nature with the Reverend Charles A. Hall FRMS (1872–1965)

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Visual Appeal ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
Simple Language ◽  
Quality Production

Attention is drawn to the contents, pedagogic style and visual appeal of the 17-volume “Peeps at nature” series published by A. & C. Black between 1911 and 1935. Edited by the Reverend Charles Albert Hall (a Swedenborgian minister), who also contributed most of the titles, this series was a quality production but one that was cheap enough to be readily accessible to young readers. Its volumes were written in simple language and included colour pictures. With time, the flamboyant artistry of the covers that so characterized the earlier volumes was replaced by more muted designs, possibly to reduce production costs. Later contributors abandoned anthropomorphism and the moralizing tone of many nineteenth-century popularizers of natural history, although styles of writing varied between the early and later contributors to the series, becoming less technical with time.

scholarly journals Gallery Interactives: From Grizzlies to Polar Bears by Canadian Museum of Nature

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Norlander
Keyword(s):  
Educational Game ◽  
Grizzly Bear ◽  
Polar Bears ◽  
Blue Color ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
Wrong Side ◽  
Simple Language ◽  
Static Images ◽  
Color Scheme ◽  
The University

“Gallery Interactives: From Grizzlies to Polar Bears”. Canadian Museum of Nature, 16 Dec. 2009, http://nature.ca/discover/exm/frmgrzzlstplrbrs/index_e.html. Accessed 14 Feb. 2017.This short, educational game is designed to teach children about both polar and grizzly bears’ adaptations. It uses matching to allow users to choose between two different versions of an adaptation and drag them to either the polar or grizzly bear side. With the correct answer, a picture demonstrating that adaptation will appear and a box will pop up that explains in more detail the different adaptations. This game is educational in that it provides detailed information explained in simple language. It is also clear the user must drag the answer to a side, and what buttons to press once the box of information comes up. It holds the user’s hand almost too much but does not disrupt interaction. The interactivity of the game is limited because the only decisions users can make are by choosing the answers and if the wrong side is chosen, it moves back to the center. The graphic design is simple, using a muted blue color scheme, simple shapes, and a few static images but it could have used brighter colours or videos with audio to bring the animals to life. There also does not seem to be anything inventive because it is simply a matching game, with only two choices for each of the five levels, three of which focus on appearance. By having some incentive for the user to learn about each of the bears such as a mission or a problem to be solved, or by having more intuitive ways of choosing the answers, it would allow users to demonstrate their perceptiveness, build confidence and give them a feeling of investment in the material. For example, they could learn about the claws/pads by examining a trail of bear tracks. Overall this game is sufficient in its educational purpose but could do more to engage users.Recommended with reservations: 2 stars out of 4 Reviewer: Ellen NorlanderEllen Norlander is currently an MLIS student at the University of Alberta and hopes to enter the fields of either health sciences or academic librarianship. Her interests are reading anything and everything, playing piano, and blogging.

scholarly journals A Comparative Study of Educational Texts for Native, Foreign, and Bilingual Young Speakers of Russian: Are Simplified Texts Equally Simple?

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Dmitrieva ◽  
Antonina Laposhina ◽  
Maria Lebedeva
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Binary Classification ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Primary School Children ◽  
Plain Language ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
Simple Language ◽  
Linguistic Backgrounds ◽  
The Russian Language

Studies on simple language and simplification are often based on datasets of texts, either for children or learners of a second language. In both cases, these texts represent an example of simple language, but simplification likely involves different strategies. As such, this data may not be entirely homogeneous in terms of text simplicity. This study investigates linguistic properties and specific simplification strategies used in Russian texts for primary school children with different language backgrounds and levels of language proficiency. To explore the structure and variability of simple texts for young readers of different age groups, we have trained models for multiclass and binary classification. The models were based on quantitative features of texts. Subsequently, we evaluated the simplification strategies applied to readers of the same age with different linguistic backgrounds. This study is particularly relevant for the Russian language material, where the concept of easy and plain language has not been sufficiently investigated. The study revealed that the three types of texts cannot easily be distinguished from each other by judging the performance of multiclass models based on various quantitative features. Therefore, it can be said that texts of all types exhibit a similar level of accessibility to young readers. In contrast, binary classification tasks demonstrated better results, especially in the R-native vs. non R-native track (with 0.78 F1-score), these results may indicate that the strategies used for adapting or creating texts for each type of audience are different.

scholarly journals Conditions for caribou persistence in the wolf-elk-caribou systems of the Canadian Rockies

Rangifer ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Hebblewhite ◽  
Jesse Whittington ◽  
Mark Bradley ◽  
Geoff Skinner ◽  
Alan Dibb ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
National Parks ◽  
Prey Species ◽  
Rocky Mountain ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Population Estimates ◽  
Canadian Rockies ◽  
Wolf Predation ◽  
Inverse Density Dependence ◽  
Kill Rate ◽  
Numeric Response

Woodland caribou populations are considered threatened in Alberta and have declined in the Canadian Rocky Mountain National Parks of Banff and Jasper despite protection from factors causing caribou populations to decline outside of parks. Recent research emphasizes the importance of the numeric response of wolves to moose in moose-caribou-wolf systems to caribou persistence. Moose are rare in the Canadian Rockies, where the dominant ungulate prey for wolves is elk. Few studies have explored wolf-elk dynamics and none have examined implications for caribou. We used data collected in Banff to estimate the numeric response of wolves to elk from 1985 to 2005. Because no caribou kill-rate data exist for the Rockies, we explore the consequences of a range of hypothetical kill-rates based on kill-rates of alternate prey collected from 1985 to 2000 in Banff. We then multiplied the numeric response of wolves by the estimated caribou kill-rates to estimate the wolf predation response on caribou as a function of elk density. Caribou predation rates were inversely density dependent because wolf numbers depend on prey species besides caribou in multiple prey species systems. We then combined this simple wolf-elk-caribou model with observed demographic and population estimates for Banff and Jasper caribou from 2003-2004 and solved for the critical kill-rate thresholds above which caribou populations would decline. Using these critical kill-rate thresholds, Jasper caribou are likely to persist when wolf densities are below 2.1 - 4.3 wolves/1000km2 and/or when elk densities are below 0.015- 0.033 elk/km2. Thresholds for Banff caribou persistence are much lower because of inverse density dependence. Future research is needed on some of the necessary assumptions underlying our modeling including multi-prey wolf numeric responses, wolf kill-rates of caribou, caribou mortality by other predators, and spatial aspects of wolf-elk-caribou dynamics.

scholarly journals Canada’s Rocky Mountain Forests Are on the Move

Eos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mara Johnson-Groh
Keyword(s):  
Rocky Mountain ◽  
Mountain Forests ◽  
Canadian Rockies

Using century-old surveying photos, scientists have mapped 100 years of change in the Canadian Rockies to document the climate-altered landscape.

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