The first comprehensive, peer-reviewed open access textbook for biological anthropology courses. Produced with support from the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (a section of the American Anthropological Association) and a grant from Minnesota State. Available free of charge for use in any setting.

In February, 2020 ancillary materials will be published, including test banks, PowerPoint slides and study guides. If you (adopting faculty) develop any ancillary materials you would be willing to share as open access materials on this website, please contact us at: explorationstextbook@gmail.com

If you adopt part of all of this textbook, please let us know by filling out our Adoptions survey. This information will help us report back to our funding agencies and, ultimately, help us develop more high quality, open access educational materials.

Students conduct an experiment to study the acceleration of a mobile Android device. During the experiment, they run an application created with MIT's App Inventor that monitors linear acceleration in one-dimension. Students use an acceleration vs. time equation to construct an approximate velocity vs. time graph. Students will understand the relationship between the object's mass and acceleration and how that relates to the force applied to the object, which is Newton's second law of motion.

Study of physical effects in the vicinity of a black hole as the basis for understanding general relativity, astrophysics, and elements of cosmology. Extension to current developments in theory and observation. Energy and momentum in flat spacetime; the metric; curvature or spacetime near rotating and nonrotating centers of attraction; the Global Positioning System and its dependence on general relativity; trajectories and orbits of particles. Subject has online component and classroom lectures are replaced with online interactions: manipulation of visualization software, access to websites describing current research, electronic submission of homework, and structured online discussions between undergraduates and alumni and with instructors and graduate specialists in the topics covered.

In this activity, students will explore two given websites to gather information on Bone Mineral Density and how it is measured. They will also learn about X-rays in general, how they work and their different uses, along with other imaging modalities. They will answer guiding questions as they explore the websites and take a short quiz after to test the knowledge they gained while reading the articles.

The author's goals in writing Exploring Business were simple: (1) introduce students to business in an exciting way and (2) provide faculty with a fully developed teaching package that allows them to do the former. Toward those ends, the following features are included in this text:1- Integrated (Optional) Nike Case Study: A Nike case study is available for instructors who wish to introduce students to business using an exciting and integrated case. Through an in-depth study of a real company, students learn about the functional areas of business and how these areas fit together. Studying a dynamic organization on a real-time basis allows students to discover the challenges that it faces, and exposes them to critical issues affecting the business, such as globalization, ethics and social responsibility, product innovation, diversity, supply chain management, and e-business.2- A Progressive (Optional) Business Plan: Having students develop a business plan in the course introduces students to the excitement and challenges of starting a business and helps them discover how the functional areas of business interact. This textbook package includes an optionalintegrated business plan project modeled after one refined by the author and her teaching team over the past ten years.3- AACSB Emphasis: The text provides end-of-chapter questions, problems, and cases that ask students to do more than regurgitate information. Most require students to gather information, assess a situation, think about it critically, and reach a conclusion. Each chapter presents ten Questions and Problems as well as five cases on areas of skill and knowledge endorsed by AACSB: Learning on the Web, Career Opportunities, The Ethics Angle, Team-Building Skills, and The Global View. More than 70% of end-of-chapter items help students build skills in areas designated as critical by AACSB, including analytical skills, ethical awareness and reasoning abilities, multicultural understanding and globalization, use of information technology, and communications and team oriented skills. Each AACSB inspired exercise is identified by an AACSB tag and a note indicating the relevant skill area.4- Author-Written Instructor Manual (IM): For the past eleven years, Karen Collins has been developing, coordinating and teaching (to over 3,500 students) an Introduction to Business course. Sections of the course have been taught by a mix of permanent faculty, graduate students, and adjuncts.

Students observe multiple examples of capillary action. First they observe the shape of a glass-water meniscus and explain its shape in terms of the adhesive attraction of the water to the glass. Then they study capillary tubes and observe water climbing due to capillary action in the glass tubes. Finally, students experience a real-world application of capillary action by designing and using "capillary siphons" to filter water.

Uses primary sources to explore the impacts World War I had on the struggle for civil rights in Connecticut and America.

Students learn about energy, kinetic energy, potential energy, and energy transfer through a series of three lessons and three activities. They learn that energy can be neither created nor destroyed and that relationships exist between a moving object's mass and velocity. The associated activities give students hands-on experience with examples of potential-to-kinetic energy transfers. The activities also provide ways for students to apply the core concepts of energy through engineering practices such as building and testing prototypes to meet design criteria, planning and carrying out investigations, collecting and interpreting data, optimizing a system design, and collaborating with other research groups. The fundamental concepts presented in this unit serve as a good foundation for future lessons on energy technologies and electricity production.

Students are introduced to the concept of energy conversion, and how energy transfers from one form, place or object to another. They learn that energy transfers can take the form of force, electricity, light, heat and sound and are never without some energy "loss" during the process. Two real-world examples of engineered systems light bulbs and cars are examined in light of the law of conservation of energy to gain an understanding of their energy conversions and inefficiencies/losses. Students' eyes are opened to the examples of energy transfer going on around them every day. Includes two simple teacher demos using a tennis ball and ball bearings. A PowerPoint(TM) presentation and quizzes are provided.

Students learn about kinetic and potential energy, including various types of potential energy: chemical, gravitational, elastic and thermal energy. They identify everyday examples of these energy types, as well as the mechanism of corresponding energy transfers. They learn that energy can be neither created nor destroyed and that relationships exist between a moving object's mass and velocity. Further, the concept that energy can be neither created nor destroyed is reinforced, as students see the pervasiveness of energy transfer among its many different forms. A PowerPoint(TM) presentation and post-quiz are provided.

Students are introduced to the definition of energy and the concepts of kinetic energy, potential energy, and energy transfer. This lesson is a broad overview of concepts that are taught in more detail in subsequent lessons and activities in this curricular unit. A PowerPoint(TM) presentation and pre/post quizzes are provided.

In a hands-on way, students explore light's properties of absorption, reflection, transmission and refraction through various experimental stations within the classroom. To understand absorption, reflection and transmission, they shine flashlights on a number of preselected objects. To understand refraction, students create indoor rainbows. An understanding of the fundamental properties of light is essential to designing an invisible laser security system.

Students create movements to represent long and short rhythmic patterns and compose patterns using non-traditional notation.

Exploring Movie Construction and Production contains eight chapters of the major areas of film construction and production. The discussion covers theme, genre, narrative structure, character portrayal, story, plot, directing style, cinematography, and editing. Important terminology is defined and types of analysis are discussed and demonstrated. An extended example of how a movie description reflects the setting, narrative structure, or directing style is used throughout the book to illustrate building blocks of each theme. This approach to film instruction and analysis has proved beneficial to increasing students’ learning, while enhancing the creativity and critical thinking of the student.

Through this lesson and its series of hands-on mini-activities, students answer the question: How can we investigate and measure the inside of an object or its structure if we cannot take it apart? Unlike the destructive nuclear weapon test (!), nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods are able to accomplish this. After an introductory slide presentation, small groups rotate through five mini-activity stations: 1) applying Maxwell’s equations, 2) generating currents, 3) creating magnetic fields, 4) solving a system of equations, and 5) understanding why the finite element method (FEM) is important. Through the short experiments, students become familiar with the science and physics being used and make the mathematical connections. They explore components of NDE and see how engineers find unseen flaws and cracks in materials that make aircraft. A pre/post quiz, slide presentation and worksheet are included.

The reason why Randall Fallows wrote Exploring Perspectives: A Concise Guide to Analysis is simple; to help give students a better understanding of how to discover, develop, and revise an analytical essay. Here is how his 5 chapter book goes about doing just that:The first two chapters focus on the nature of an analysis and what’s involved in writing an analytical essay. First, Randall shows that analysis consists of a balance of assertions (statements which present their viewpoints or launch an exploration of their concerns), examples (specific passages/scenes/events which inspire these views), explanations (statements that reveal how the examples support the assertions), and significance (statements which reveal the importance of their study to personal and/or cultural issues).After showing why each feature should be present throughout an essay, he reveals how to ”set the stage“ for producing one of their own. He first helps students to evaluate their own views on a subject and to examine how these views emerge from their own experiences, values and judgments. He, then, shows them how to research what others have said about the subject and provides suggestions for evaluating and incorporating this research into their own perspectives.Finally, Randall discusses the nature of writing, not as a linear procedure, but as a recursive process where the discovery and clarification of a concept occur simultaneously.The remaining three chapters reveal more specific advice on how to develop an analytical essay.Exploring Perspectives: A Concise Guide to Analysis by Randall Fallows is a great text to prepare any student to write analytical essays for the argument and persuasion courses.

Instructors: The Third Edition includes a set of test banks which are not available to the public. For access to these resources, please contact Dr. Barbara Tucker at btucker@daltonstate.edu.

Exploring Public Speaking: The Free College Public Speaking Textbook began as the brainchild of Dr. Kris Barton, Chair of the Department of Communication at Dalton State College. It also was made possible through a generous Textbook Transformation Grant in 2015 from Affordable Learning Georgia, a highly successful program of the University System of Georgia. Dr. Barton asked me to help him author/compile the text.

The goal was to provide a high-quality, usable, accessible, and low-cost textbook for the hundreds of students who take COMM 1110 at Dalton State College every year. This course is required of all degree-seeking students. We have been able to save students hundreds of thousands of dollars already with this text. Unexpectedly and happily, the text has also been downloaded close to 14,000 times (as of August 2018) all over the world and has been adopted at many other institutions.

Dr. Barton and I worked on creating the textbook from July 2015 until May 2016, with the goal of going live with the text in Summer of 2016. Tragically Dr. Barton passed away in early May, a reality that still does not seem real. He has been greatly missed as a friend, colleague, father, scholar, teacher, and mentor.

The launch of the book proceeded; however, due to the loss of Dr. Barton, the ancillaries were not finished. In Summer 2017 I took on a significant revision and updating which I named the Second Edition. I included in that edition information on college student success in the appendices. In January 2018, a colleague, Matthew LeHew, and I won a grant from the University System to create the ancillaries and improve the format for more accessibility. I decided to remove the “Dalton State” from the title and most examples for wider appeal. An appendix on library research retains the information for specific use of Roberts Library on our campus.

Over 90% of the book is original with Dr. Barton, me, or other colleagues at Dalton State College. Some parts, specifically from Chapters 9, 10, and 15, are adapted from another open resource public speaking text whose author prefers not to be cited.

This Third Edition, along with including necessary updates and being formatted with different software, includes four more appendices: one on online speaking, one on APA, one on humor and storytelling in public speaking, and one on Dalton State’s Library. I have also tried to clarify concepts, to provide “case studies” to show the rhetorical process, and include more outlines and examples.

We think this book is especially useful in coverage of PowerPoint, audience responsiveness, ethics in public speaking, special occasion speeches, and structure of speeches. Three ancillaries are available: electronic “flash cards” for study, Powerpoints on the 15 main chapters, and test banks for the 15 main chapters.

Thank you for downloading Exploring Public Speaking, and the co-authors and I truly wish you happy teaching and learning with it. We welcome input. If you choose to use it, let us know at btucker@daltonstate.edu.

Student teams formulate and complete space/earth/ocean exploration-based design projects with weekly milestones. This course introduces core engineering themes, principles, and modes of thinking, and includes exercises in written and oral communication and team building. Specialized learning modules enable teams to focus on the knowledge required to complete their projects, such as machine elements, electronics, design process, visualization and communication. Examples of projects include surveying a lake for millfoil from a remote controlled aircraft, then sending out robotic harvesters to clear the invasive growth; and exploration to search for the evidence of life on a moon of Jupiter, with scientists participating through teleoperation and supervisory control of robots.

In this lesson students look at primary source images and read short secondary texts to understand slave life. In the activity, the teacher models and students practice differentiating between different types of text (primary, secondary, etc.) they might encounter in the social studies classroom. Students show their understanding of a passage's central concepts by selecting words and phrases to compose a "found poem" about the main ideas of the text. This lesson was designed for struggling readers and ESL/ELL students.