psychology — 2014 — The 21st Century Matriarch

Quite a few courses ended in July:

Diversity of Exoplanets (University of Geneva)
Preventing Chronic Pain (University of Minnesota)
Paradoxes of War (Princeton University)
An Introduction to Global Health (University of Copenhagen)

I enjoyed all of them but there were times I thought I had started more than I could possible finish. It is incredibly difficult to forego a course on a interesting topic; I need to develop more will power!

As I start August, only two courses are in session and I am enjoying the reduction. It is challenging to keep up with the classes while I am traveling….but I have succeeded in listening to the lectures. I’ll have to catch up with the discussion forums and assignments later. The two courses are:

Globalization and You (University of Washington). I just finished the module on Money last week. The history of monetary policy and outcomes was very well done. It may be the best module of the course!

Social Psychology (Wesleyan University). Every week there is something that surprises me....and quite a lot that is very applicable to everyday life. The forums are lively in this one ---- worth the time to peruse and participate.

I have one course that will be starting up in August after I am back home!

Beauty, Form, and Function: An Exploration of Symmetry (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore). I am looking forward to this course for several reasons: it is a very different topic area from other courses I’ve taken, it is offered by a different university that other courses, and I anticipate that this topic will benefit from the cultural diversity what will be part of the MOOC students.

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Green Schoolyard Movement: Gaining Momentum around the World - Hooray for outdoor spaces that are complex systems….good for the children and the environment!

Aerial 3D Panoramas from around the World - Wow! There is a lot of interesting places to explore on this site. I started with Petra, Jordan.

Fracking in Water-Stressed Zones Increases Risks to Communities – and Energy Producers - Nearly half of the wells hydraulically fractured (indicated by black dots) in the United States are located in areas of high or extremely high water stress…not a good thing. The potential for supply shortfalls poses operational risks to the energy producers as well as risks of rationing and other emergency measures to the wider community.

Special Albinos and Unusually White Animals - Their lack of coloring caused them to stand out.

A Crash Course in Psychology - On YouTube. It will continue on in 10 minutes segments over the next few months. The second installment is here.

Global Health Observatory Map Gallery - There is a pull down list for geographic coverage and topics….and then an area for keywords. There are lots of maps to explore with this tool. Here is one example: I selected ‘world’ then ‘maternal and reproductive health’ - and there was a list of 3 maps to look at. One of them was “Maternal mortality ration (per 100,000 live births), 2010.” The US is now as good as most of the developed world in this metric.

The Nine Planets Imagined as One - I like this both as art and science (even if it does include Pluto which is no longer considered a planet)!

The Future of Agriculture (part 1 and part 2) - Fred Kirshenmann talking about going beyond ‘green’ to resilient agriculture. The videos are few years old but I just discovered them (they were suggested as references in the Coursera course I am taking on the US Food System).

Jumping Liquids Mimic Japanese Flower Arrangements - Whether or not they look like Japanese Flower Arrangements….they are worth a look. My favorite is the red, white and purple one need the middle of the series.

The end of the GMO era? - Some recent stories about GMOs.