Posts

Need to de-stress?

Hello Everyone,

The Holiday Season can be wonderful and stressful.  To help de-stress, take a break and check out my new story map entitled, “Where on Earth?”  Its designed to show locations related to the artwork inside the Orton Memorial Library of Geology.  Below are samples from a couple of the chapters:

Snip of "Where on Earth?" story map showing Petrified Forest Painting and location where Petrified Forest National Park is located.

From the chapter, “Where on Earth are the landscape paintings located?”

Snip of "Where on Earth?" story map showing William Mather's portrait and where he was born on a map.

From the chapter, “Where on Earth were the geologists in the portraits born?”

Happy Holidays,

Patti Dittoe

Getting ready for Evaluation Season – with humor

Hello Everyone,

It’s almost evaluation season and I’m not quite ready.  What can I do in a short period of time?  I can watch several humorous videos by the Cutting Edge Communications Comedy Series.

I’ve chosen three on the list:

  1. Staying Motivated at Work is timely while we finish out our objectives for the year.  This short video suggests finding ways to motivate your team, an example is thanking your students for all that they do to help with projects.  Show interest in people & ideas, an example is asking your students how their classes are going.  Giving and receiving feedback to improve, which can be a bit tricky because everyone has a level defensiveness.   And uncovering what inspires you to do well, which is hard to do with this pandemic dragging on.  On that note, I watched two other videos to help prepare.
  2. Listening actively is also very timely.  We all definitely need this skill for the upcoming meetings, and it will help with giving and receiving feedback to improve also.  This is also a short video and it suggests that you listen and show interest, an example is maintaining culturally appropriate eye contact with the speaker.  Acknowledging key points, an example is nodding when appropriate.  Agree to listen to each other, which is more respectful than forcing someone to listen to you.  And read reactions to your words by watching the other person’s body language when you speak in turn.  My last video goes to the heart of the matter.
  3. Handling tricky appraisals.  This year may be tricky with telework, work on campus, and combinations of the two.  This is also a short video, and it would make for great viewing prior to the event.  Here is what it suggests to help prevent a problem.  Give a realistic self assessment to your manager, and be open to their feedback.  Managers should not surprise their employee but prepare them on what to expect, have specific examples of ways that they can improve, reward their achievements as agreed, and remain calm rather than allowing conflicts in the meeting to escalate.

Enjoy your toy sharks and/or toy horses—watch the third video to find out why.

Patti Dittoe

A story to travel by

Hello Everyone,

It’s been a long time since anyone has been able safely travel, but there may be a solution.  A story map was recently published by my co-worker, Jan Wager, and me.  It’s about the Oregon Trail.  Perhaps it will inspire you to travel the area once the Pandemic is over.

This is a photograph of Chimney Rock National Historic Site, Morrill Co., NE, by Brian W. Schaller, Free Art License.  There are many more sites as you “travel” the story map, and don’t forget to play the Oregon Trail Game as seen at the end of the “Life on the Trail” chapter.

 

Stay well everyone!

Patti Dittoe

Half Way Point! Part 2

This post continues my discussion of the film “Extinction and rebirth.”

The exploding lava, from western Siberia, with its accompanying carbon dioxide warmed the planet enough that the Siberian problem became global.  Many plants died because of the volcanic activity, and the planet warmed enough that methane hydrates began to melt from deep below the Panthalassa ocean releasing huge amounts of methane gas.  The methane gas caused the Earth to become hotter than it has been in the past 600 million years, and the methane gas also combined with oxygen in the atmosphere to further reduce oxygen.  96% of all marine species, and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrate species became extinct.  How did life adapt to less oxygen?

Comparison of the air sac system of birds and the Majungasaurus dinosaur.

Comparison of the air sac system of birds and a dinosaur, National Science Foundation, public domain.

Many terrestrial vertebrates evolved to have air sacs.  Birds today use this unique air sac/lung respiration system for very high altitude flight, but it began in that long distant time in response to a low oxygen atmosphere.  Dinosaur fossils show that same air sac/lung respiration system, and they began evolving in the Triassic when oxygen levels were still quite low.  It is thought that early mammals coped with the low oxygen levels by remaining small, having smaller rib cages to allow more room for lung expansion, and evolving a womb/placenta system to protect the young longer than it could in an egg case.  These adaptations allowed both to survive the 4th mass extinction at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary, but the non-avian dinosaurs perished during the 5th mass extinction caused by the asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago.  Add an opposable thumb, a lot of luck, a few million years, and the next thing you know someone is typing on a keyboard about a film on mass extinction & rebirth while worrying about current events.

Life finds a way then and now.  We will find a way through this Pandemic; we will survive.  Wear your mask, wash your hands, stay socially distant, and vote!

Thank you,

Patti Dittoe

Half Way Point! Part 1

Hello Everyone,

To “celebrate” the half way point of this challenging Fall Semester, I am sharing what I learned watching the video Extinction and rebirth.  This online video is one of six parts of the documentary series “Miracle Planet.”  The film begins in the Zhejiang Province along the east coast of China where geologists have found rock that shows evidence of Earth’s most deadly mass extinction.  The rock layers in this hillside in Zhejiang show marine fossils in the hundreds, then an ashy boundary layer, and after that fossils only in the dozens.  The fossils after the boundary layer show a change in the environment indicating low levels of oxygen during the recovery phase.  This hillside contains rock laid down during the deadly third mass extinction event on Earth, sometimes called the Great Dying, and it occurred approximately 252 million years ago, but it didn’t begin in China.

This extinction event began in western Siberia when it was part of the super-continent Pangea.

Siberian Traps photo by Benjamin Black, U.S.G.S.

This image shows distant flat top mountains, which are the remains of ancient basalt lava flows and sills, located along the Maymecha river, near the arctic Siberian town of KayakRU.  Geologists theorize that there were three pulses to this extinction, and it began with immense volcanic activity in western Siberia.

More about this film in my next post.

Enjoy,

Patti Dittoe

Are you remembering to mask?

Today at 9:30AM the Autumnal Equinox occurred, so this is a good time for a reminder that we all need to wear our masks inside as the weather cools outside.  As you can see, there are several characters in Orton Hall that have taken this to heart.  If they can do it, so can we.

Stay healthy everyone!

Patti Dittoe

Go! Geology Library has re-opened.

Today the Geology Library has re-opened to the OSU public, and to our new normal.  We have many socially distant features, wipes, and hand sanitizers for you to enjoy.

Photograph of the statue Edward Orton Sr. wearing a disposable mask.

We also have Edward Orton Sr., the first University President, modeling a nice disposable mask to celebrate Fall Semester.  Please join him by wearing your mask.

Geology Library is open 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM Monday through Friday, and our seats are by reservation only.

Stay Well Everyone!

Patti Dittoe

Moby-Duck!

The title of this post is not a typo.  I recently finished listening/reading the book, “Moby-Duck:  The true story of 28,800 bath toys lost as sea and the beachcombers, oceanographers, environmentalists, and fools, including the author, who went in search of them.”

Donovan Hohn is the author, but I personally wouldn’t call him a fool.  The story begins with the spill off of the cargo ship “China.”  It took place on 10 January 1992 near the Aleutian Islands of Alaska in an area known as the Graveyard of the Pacific. The author followed the trail of these toys all over the planet to get a real feel for what might happen to them.  He interviewed oceanographers and beachcombers, he went to toy factories in China, he worked on a cargo ship in the wintry Pacific Ocean, and he worked on a Canadian Coast Guard ice-breaker.  The author tells a mostly whimsical tale of this journey; however, his information about the environmental impact of plastics, not just the polyethylene bath toys he is chasing, but also the islands of plastic trash in all of our oceans, took the whimsical tale to a wholly different level.  In the end we find that the plastic duckies deteriorated before many were found intact.  Sadly, most plastics don’t break down so quickly.  Perhaps we should all consider the plastic drinking straw that we’re about to use will be in the environment for 200 years.

Happily, this book will be available for check out next week after I return the copy & it’s out of quarantine.

Get set…

Hello Everyone,

I thought I’d give you all an update on the progress underway to reopen the Geology Library, which is set for 08-25-2020.  We now have Plexiglas around our Circulation Desk, so users can safely pick up their requests for library items.  I continue to work from home most of the time, but I’m looking forward to a return to something like normal.

Stay Well!

Patti Dittoe