Best Selling Books by Emily Morgan

There'' s a lot to love about this newly expanded book in the Picture-Perfect Science series: You can combine STEM and reading through lively lessons that are just right for your first-grade students. Also, reading-comprehension strategies are embedded in all 11 of the ready-to-teach lessons, six of which are updated and five that are brand new. The goal is to help your young scientists learn to read and read to learn while engaging in activities that blend science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Your students will love Picture-Perfect STEM Lessons, Grade 1, Expanded Edition because of the captivating fiction and nonfiction books at the core of the lessons. Your first graders can learn about natural phenomena by playing a find-the-penguin game based on the book Animal Teachers. They can explore ways to design solutions to problems after reading Clothing Inspired by Nature. And inspired by Next Time You See the Moon, they can create a tool to predict the next phases on a lunar calendar. You'' ll also love it because the veteran teachers who wrote this book understand that you need an approach that'' s easy to use and makes the most of class time. Picture Perfect STEM Lessons, Grade 1, Expanded Edition brings you * Engaging content and helpful teacher supports that cover phenomena students find interesting and relevant, more questioning strategies to drive student sensemaking, three-dimensional prompts and activities, and updated reading strategies. * Ready-to-use lessons containing engagement activities, hands-on explorations, student pages, and opportunities for STEM education outside of school. * Assessments, including ideas for poster sessions, writing assignments, design challenges, and presentations. * Standards-based objectives aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core State Standards. More teacher-tested lessons. More standards-based content. And a kid-magnet formula that will get your students more engrossed in STEM while they improve their reading skills. What'' s not to love?

In UNIQUE KIDS "A Mom''s Guide to Autism: Embracing Unconditional Love," author Emily Morgan hands you a self-help guide from the journey through her experiences as a mom raising a child on the autism spectrum. With heartfelt authenticity, she shares the raw emotions, challenges, and triumphs that come with parenting a unique and extraordinary child. From her joyous anticipation during pregnancy to the glorious birth of her beautiful baby, Emily''s world is filled with love and high expectations. But at 18 months, signs start to show, and the journey takes an unexpected turn. Faced with anger, self-blame, and disappointment, Emily perseveres. At the diagnosis of autism at 2.5 years, she embarked on a quest for understanding, discovering effective parenting strategies, building a support network, and finding solace in self-care practices. In "Unique Kids," Emily offers invaluable insights that would help parents with embracing acceptance, understanding, and the incredible power of patience and unconditional love. She shares from her experiences as an advocate, guiding readers through the process of creating a nurturing environment, celebrating milestones, and finding strength in the face of challenges. With each page, she illuminates the path of healing and moving forward, inspiring other parents to find their own resilience, acceptance, and joy in their unique journeys. This compassionate and empowering guide provides practical advice, support, and a sense of community for moms and caregivers raising children with autism. With her guidance, moms can navigate the maze of autism, find their inner strength, and embrace the extraordinary love that comes from raising their unique children. "Navigating Autism: A Mom''s Guide to Understanding and Supporting Her Child" is written as a testament to the power of love, resilience, and the unwavering determination of mothers to get mastery over the Autism maze. It is a must-read for anyone seeking support and inspiration on their journey of raising a child with autism.

Central to the distributive theory is the idea that members of Congress can use strategic committee assignments to fund pork projects for their districts. Committees that are primarily constituency service based are considered most susceptible to porkbarrel politics. The Public Works and Transportation Committee, in particular, has developed a reputation for distributing pork projects. Adler''s (2002) study of six committees found impressive evidence that members of certain committees are able to channel disproportionate benefits to their districts - - the lone exception was the Public Works and Transportation Committee. Given the folklore about Public Works and "pork," this result seems odd. In this study, I make two major adjustments to the research design. First, I isolate the dollars spent on committee programs that were not allocated by a formula. Formulas have prior built-in controls that are not subject to bargaining after the formula has been set, and thus are not illustrative of the pork process. Second, I expand the years studied (1983-1996) and analyze the data with a pooled cross-section/time series design, which better controls the potential effects of time on the distribution of federal funds. These modifications do not produce results to reconcile the conflict with congressional folklore, instead they question the generalizability of allocation decisions for constituency service committees.

Fisheries stock assessment models are used to estimate population demographics and dynamics such as abundance, biomass, and fishing mortality from input fishery data including total catch, composition of catch, and fishing effort. A goal of stock assessment is to accurately quantify population and fishery dynamics so stocks can be managed to achieve fishery objectives and long-term sustainability. Accurate and precise model estimates can be attained by using models and techniques that account for ecological complexity like variability in quantities across ages, years, or regions without overparameterization. The state-space framework is one such statistical technique that may allow for incorporating more stochasticity such that the model can better reflect reality. The state-space modeling framework assumes that unobserved "states" develop over time due to process error modeled as a random effect and that observed data have expected values based on these states but differ from expectations due to observation error.State-space stock assessment models (SSSAM) have experienced an outpouring of research and application in the past decade as computation processing power and novel software has facilitated the approximation of the high-level integrals necessary for SSSAM. SSSAM allows for several time-varying processes in recruitment, numbers at age, mortality, selectivity, and catchability, and has become an essential part of the contemporary fisheries modeling toolbox. With their swift advancement, it is important to understand best practices of applying state-space stock assessment models, and how data availability, the variability of process or observation error, and model structure may influence model results and accuracy.In Chapter 1 I built an age-based state-space stock assessment model that used fisheries dependent data, rather than fisheries independent surveys, as an index of abundance and was applied to Lake Michigan lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis). The model predicted greater℗ abundance and lower mortality compared to the non-state-space model and domed rather than asymptotic selectivity. The state-space model also had reduced retrospective patterns in recruitment. Chapters 2 and 3 each used a simulation-estimation framework to generate catch and index data using a state-space stock assessment that assumed process variability in recruitment, expected survival (abundance), and selectivity. Simulations were based on a Gulf of Maine haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) model and assumed different degrees of process and observation variance (Chapter 2) or assumed observation error likelihood distributions for the proportions at age (Chapter 3) to generate data. Simulated data were input into several estimation models with alternative assumptions about contributing sources of process variability and/or observation error distributions. The results show that state-space models which assume several sources of process variability can produce unbiased estimates even when processes are constant over time. The state-space models were able to estimate process variance in several stochastic processes under a broad range of true values. However, assuming variability in expected survival when it is deterministic can lead to the model not converging. Unbiased results are achieved when the observation likelihood is structured to account for inter-age correlation and overdispersion though such a framework may have difficulty allocating variance between process and observation sub-models.The concluding chapter places this work in the context of other age-based stock assessment models and argues for the inclusion of state-space in the modeling toolbox, as they can account for multiple time-varying processes and be used in a broad range of data contexts. This work provides a blueprint for where and how SSSAM may be best utilized in the future, particularly with data limited or data poor stocks and in cases where the process variance is unknown and should be estimated within the model.

The results show that performance feedback was the most used and successful intervention for increasing implementation fidelity of an academic intervention. Professional development and teacher training were other interventions that were implemented to improve implementation fidelity. These results are summarized and implications for school-based practice are discussed. With such few studies that met the inclusion criteria, there is a need for more research in this area.

Heat stress negatively impacts dry dairy cows in subtropical climates, but impacts in moderate climates are unknown. The objective of this thesis was to determine if dry cows and their calves in Northern NY and VT are impacted by episodic heat stress and varying levels of heat exposure. Another aim of this study was to determine farmers'' knowledge of heat stress, heat abatement use, and the need for future research.Chapter 2 describes a study conducted on a Northern NY farm, where dry cows were housed in moderate heat abatement, meaning fans over a bedded pack or free stalls. Surprisingly, cows had higher reticular temperature and rumination time on hot days. Although not reflected in body temperature or rumination data, these cows were heat-stressed as they stood longer on hot days to dissipate heat. Cows who experienced high amounts of heat stress during the dry period (DP) had a shorter gestation length. Cows who experienced low amounts of heat stress during the DP tended to have higher-quality colostrum than those with moderate heat stress. Cows who experienced high amounts of heat stress during the late DP had lower 21-day milk production. Calves were not statistically affected by in-utero episodic heat stress for the measured variables. Chapter 3 describes a study conducted on a Northern VT farm, where dry cows were housed on pasture for their early DP and on a bedded pack with access to an outdoor sandlot for their late DP. Similar to the study conducted in Chapter 2, this study indicated that cows ruminated longer on hot days. Unlike in Chapter 2, cows only had higher reticular temperature on hot days when housed on pasture, not when they had the option of shade access of the barn. Cows who experienced high amounts of heat stress during the late dry period tended to have greater weight loss from dry off to calving. Eight farmers with varying farm sizes and heat abatement use were interviewed regarding their opinions of heat stress and usage of heat abatement, as described in Chapter 4. Overall, all farmers felt their cows were negatively impacted by heat stress, and most had implemented heat abatement strategies on their farms. A prevalent theme of many interviews was farmers'' hesitancy to install sprinklers as a form of heat abatement due to concerns about animal health and water availability. These studies indicate that dry cows are negatively impacted by episodic heat stress in the Northeast, so heat abatement should be provided during the DP. Farmers in the area believe heat stress negatively affects their cattle and have observed positive impacts of providing heat abatement for their animals.

Increasing soil carbon (C) content promises to mitigate climate change and enhance soil fertility. Soil C content is determined, in part, by microbial respiration, which converts soil C into carbon dioxide. Carbon protection mechanisms represent processes and conditions that limit microbial respiration of soil C. Anoxic microsites, zones of oxygen depletion in otherwise oxic soils, are a recently recognized and under-studied soil C protection mechanism. In this dissertation, I use field and laboratory methods to determine the extent and contribution of anoxic microsites to soil C protection within natural and agricultural systems. In Chapter 2, I measure the dissolved oxygen content of soil porewater from California agricultural soils. I show that physical disturbance destroys anoxic microsites through enhancing oxygen supply to the smallest soil pores. In Chapter 3, I show that oxygen limitations constrain OM turnover in a Hawaiian rainforest soil, an environment where mineral content is presumed to be the dominant soil C protection mechanism. In Chapter 4, I examine a soil textural gradient at the Stanford Dish and demonstrate that anoxic microsites are particularly important for protecting C in coarsely textured soils. Finally, in Chapter 5, I use droplet digital PCR to quantify anaerobe DNA (a proxy for anoxic microsites) in soils from four long-term agricultural experiments across the continental United States. I show that anoxic microsites vary with soil properties, respond to management, and uniquely contribute to soil C stabilization within cropland soils. In sum, this dissertation reveals that anoxic microsites represent a vulnerability in the soil C stock but also an opportunity to enhance soil C storage.