Posts tagged students
CU expert: Preventing school violence is everybody’s job
Feb 29th
School violence can be prevented,
University of Colorado expert says
University of Colorado expert says
The tragic school shooting that occurred Feb. 27 at a suburban Cleveland high school is another reminder that communities can and must take action to prevent school violence, according to Delbert Elliott, a nationally renowned authority on school safety and juvenile violence at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“A key prevention strategy is good surveillance and good intelligence,” said Elliott, founding director of the CU-Boulder Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. “We need to enlist our students, our teachers and our adults in the community to help us and ask them to notify the police or the sheriff if they see something unusual or have heard that something is about to happen.”
In 80 percent of the school shootings examined by the U.S. Secret Service, someone knew the event was going to take place, Elliott said. “Nationally, we know right now of a dozen or more events for which we got a tip and were able to intervene early so the planned event actually never took place, which is, I think, our very, very best security.” Some of these plans were on the same level of violence as the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, he said.
In Colorado, there’s a toll-free Safe2Tell reporting system for students and others to call in anonymous tips about safety concerns, the result of collaboration between the CU-Boulder center and the Colorado Attorney General’s office. All tips are treated seriously, and when combined with other sources of information, often result in some kind of intervention. Since 2004, Safe2Tell has received almost 10,000 calls.
From 2004 through 2010, follow-up data indicate that 83 percent of all Safe2Tell incidents resulted in a positive intervention or action. These tips resulted in 415 formal investigations, 359 counseling referrals, 298 prevention/intervention plans, 324 potential suicide interventions, 312 school disciplinary actions, 74 arrests and 28 prevented school attacks.
“An equally critical key to security is to create a welcoming environment in which all students feel that they’re respected, that the rules are applied uniformly to all students, and students feel safe,” Elliott said. “When students feel that some children can get away with bad behavior and others can’t, and there’s bullying going on, that’s when kids feel like they have to take a weapon to school to protect themselves.”
After Columbine raised awareness of the need to prepare for school crises, school safety has improved nationally, Elliott said. In Colorado, the Legislature changed the law to allow schools, law enforcement and social services agencies to legally share information and every school in the state is now required to have a bullying prevention plan.
Any parent in the state can now go into their child’s school and ask to see what the bullying prevention plan is for that school and make sure that the school is following through with it, he said.
Every school, even those in rural areas, needs an “all-hazards” approach to crises that works for a variety of threats: fires, natural hazards, terrorist attacks, chemical spills, a shooter in the building or a hostage takeover, Elliott said. But most schools haven’t practiced these plans with a full response by police, SWAT, fire, victims’ services, mental health services and ambulances — all coordinated by a single command post.
As the responses to both Columbine and Sept. 11 showed, such drills are important because they reveal communications and other crucial response issues between agencies, he said. Such practices could be held on weekends without students being present, he noted.
Elliott also is concerned when school officials tell him that school safety is a lower priority for them than academic performance, that there is no space in their curriculum for an anti-bullying program.
“These two things should not be in competition with each other,” he said. “If you’ve got a problem with students feeling unsafe at school, you’re not going to improve academic performance because school safety is a necessary precondition for students to be able to concentrate and even to be willing to come to school.
“We argue that being safe at school and improving academic performance go hand in hand.”
Six percent of schoolchildren reported that they had not come to school on occasion because they were afraid of being threatened or assaulted according to the most recent Centers for Disease Control survey, Elliott said.
“Nevertheless, students are more likely to be a victim of violence away from school than at school by a huge margin,” said Elliott, who was the senior scientific editor of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Youth Violence issued in 2001.
The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence is part of the CU-Boulder Institute of Behavioral Science. For more information about the center visithttp://www.colorado.edu/cspv/.
CU student’s project UAV to “shake the ground” of rocket research
Feb 23rd
CU team’s efficient unmanned aircraft
jetting toward commercialization
jetting toward commercialization
Propulsion by a novel jet engine is the crux of the innovation behind a University of Colorado Boulder-developed aircraft that’s accelerating toward commercialization.
Jet engine technology can be small, fuel-efficient and cost-effective, at least with Assistant Professor Ryan Starkey’s design. The CU-Boulder aerospace engineer, with a team of students, has developed a first-of-its-kind supersonic unmanned aircraft vehicle, or UAV. The UAV, which is currently in a prototype state, is expected to fly farther and faster — using less fuel — than anything remotely similar to date.
The fuel efficiency of the engine that powers the 50-kilogram UAV is already double that of similar-scale engines, and Starkey says he hopes to double that efficiency again through further engineering.
Assistant Professor Ryan Starkey, left, with a team of students and one graduate, looks over = engine model nozzles for a first-of-its-kind supersonic unmanned aircraft vehicle, visible in the simulation on the computer screen, that's expected to fly farther and faster Ñ using less fuel Ñ than anything remotely similar to date. From left: Starkey, Sibylle Walter, doctoral student; Joah Deomm, master's graduate; and Greg Rancourt, master's student. (Photo by Glenn Asakawa/University of Colorado)
Starkey says his UAV could be used for everything from penetrating and analyzing storms to military reconnaissance missions — both expeditions that can require the long-distance, high-speed travel his UAV will deliver — without placing human pilots in danger. The UAV also could be used for testing low-sonic-boom supersonic transport aircraft technology, which his team is working toward designing.
The UAV is intended to shape the next generation of flight experimentation after post-World War II rocket-powered research aircraft, like the legendary North American X-15, have long been retired.
“I believe that what we’re going to do is reinvigorate the testing world, and that’s what we’re pushing to do,” said Starkey. “The group of students who are working on this are very excited because we’re not just creeping into something with incremental change, we’re creeping in with monumental change and trying to shake up the ground.”
Its thrust capacity makes the aircraft capable of reaching Mach 1.4, which is slightly faster than the speed of sound. Starkey says that regardless of the speed reached by the UAV, the aircraft will break the world record for speed in its weight class.
Its compact airframe is about 5 feet wide and 6 feet long. The aircraft costs between $50,000 and $100,000 — a relatively small price tag in a field that can advance only through testing, which sometimes means equipment loss.
Starkey’s technology — three years in the making at CU-Boulder — is transitioning into a business venture through his weeks-old Starkey Aerospace Corp., called Starcor for short. The company was incubated by eSpace, which is a CU-affiliated nonprofit organization that supports entrepreneurial space companies. Starkey’s UAV already has garnered interest from the U.S. Army, Navy, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and NASA. The acclaimed Aviation Week publication also has highlighted Starkey’s UAV.
Starkey says technology transfer is important because it parlays university research into real-life applications that advance societies and contribute to local and global economies.
It also can provide job tracks for undergraduate and graduate students, says Starkey who’s bringing some of the roughly 50 students involved in UAV development into his budding Starcor.
“There are great students everywhere, but one of the reasons why I came to CU was because of how the students are trained. We definitely make sure they understand everything from circuit board wiring to going into the shop and building something,” said Starkey. “It makes them very effective and powerful even as fresh engineers with bachelor’s degrees. They’re very good students to hire. That’s a piece that I’m interested in embracing — finding the really good talent that we have right here in Colorado and pulling it into the company.”
Starkey and his students are currently creating a fully integrated and functioning engineering test unit of the UAV, which will be followed by a critical design review after resolving any problems. The building of the aircraft and process of applying for FAA approval to test it in the air will carry into next year.
Starkey’s continuing fascination with speed first began to burn inside of him when he visited Kennedy Space Center at the age of 5.
“When I teach I tell my class, ‘If it goes fast and gets hot, I’m in it.’ That’s what I want to do. There needs to be fire involved somewhere.”
-C
CU: The Brazilians are coming! (to study science)
Feb 17th
Brazilian ‘Science Without Borders’
undergraduates study at CU-Boulder
undergraduates study at CU-Boulder
100,000 Brazilian students, fully funded by Brazil’s booming economy, want to share knowledge
The University of Colorado Boulder welcomed 19 students from Brazil this semester as part of the new Science Without Borders Program and Brazil’s initiative to place and fully fund outstanding students abroad to supplement their studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.
The students are among approximately 650 Brazilian undergraduates who have been selected to study on U.S. campuses with funding for their tuition, fees and housing from the Brazilian government’s Science Without Borders Program. The program, announced last year, provides scholarships to Brazilian undergraduate students for one year of study at one of more than 100 host colleges and universities, including CU-Boulder. Scholarships are given primarily to students in the STEM fields. After two semesters and an on- or off-campus internship, the students will return to Brazil to complete their degrees.
“Science Without Borders interested me because I wanted to know what it was like to study and live on campus and to learn in a different environment,” said Victor Sabioni, an aerospace engineering student from the Universidade de Federal de minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte. “I am taking two classes that are not offered at home, and everything is great so far.
“The campus is amazingly beautiful and everyone has been so welcoming and polite. CU couldn’t be better. It’s like heaven with homework.”
The Science Without Borders Program at CU-Boulder is offered through a partnership between the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering and Applied Science and the Division of Continuing Education.
“The students are studying with their peers, living in university housing and experiencing life in Colorado and the U.S.,” said Anne Heinz, dean of Continuing Education and associate vice chancellor for outreach and engagement. “Several of the students already have indicated an interest in returning to CU-Boulder for graduate school.
“CU-Boulder students, whether they’re from the San Luis Valley, San Francisco or São Paulo, will benefit from the enriched classroom conversations and experiences enabled by these programs,” she said. “These collaborations foster our future as a global society, and we look forward to CU-Boulder’s continued participation in this program.”
An additional cohort of students is scheduled to arrive later this year for programs beginning in the summer and fall.
The Science Without Borders Program is part of a larger Brazilian government initiative to grant 100,000 scholarships to Brazil’s best students to study abroad at the world’s best universities. The program is sponsored by the scholarship foundation of Brazil’s Ministry of Education, Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior. The program is administered by the Institute of International Education, an independent nonprofit specializing in international exchange. The institute has been working closely with the ministry and with CU-Boulder and other U.S. universities to place the students in study programs that best meet their academic needs.
“We are pleased to be partnering with the government of Brazil and with the U.S. host campuses to implement this important program,” said Allan E. Goodman, Institute of International Education president and CEO. “At a time when Brazil’s economy is expanding rapidly, and Brazil and the United States are forging unprecedented ties in trade, energy and scientific development, we look to higher education as another area where our two countries should seek much stronger cooperation.”
