A 350Kb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine—complete with images—is available by clicking HERE
More on Academics I read your July/August editorial with interest. During my years of college teaching and management (during the 70s, 80s and 90s) I saw first semester failures rise from 7 or 8 percent to the mid-50s percent. During that period students entered college with progressively weaker academic abilities. It wasn't until I was appointed Chair of our academic department that I thought to look into the matter. I couldn't understand why, for example, so many students were failing their first semester math exam. I tracked down the high school curriculum and studied their Grade 12 math curriculum. I was astounded that the Grade 12 math curriculum (Grade 12 mathematics was a subject required for admissions to our program) appeared to be at a similar level as our first semester mathematics curriculum (we had probably unconsciously backed down as we were faced with weaker and weaker students) yet more than 50% of our students were still failing. How was that possible?
I discovered the answer a few days later when visiting the head of the mathematics department in the local high school. He knew that two of his graduates were in our program in fact, one of his graduates was in the one class I continued to teach. When he asked how his students were doing, I replied saying that they were nice, polite young men, but they didn't seem to know any trigonometry. He seemed shocked and replied that if he had known that trigonometry was needed for the program, he would have taught it to them. Puzzled, I replied trigonometry is in the curriculum, how could you not have taught it to them? He said that they had not had a curriculum for decades. Once the students entering high school demonstrated that they could not perform at the Grade 9 level, high school teachers were told that the curriculum was now only a guideline and that they were just to do the best they could. By this time, I had been teaching college for twenty years, and all this time I (along with my fellow faculty members) was not aware that the high school curriculum had been discarded and turned into only a guideline a very cleverly kept secret. Barry Kavanagh
Via the Internet
Editor's Note: Watch for a more in-depth article on this topic by Mr. Kavanagh in a future issue. M.C.
More on Survey Records In reference to Joel Leininger's article "Survey Record Indices" in the July/ August 2006 issue, he described well the need for indices for survey work and mentioned several items that may do the task, but he really did not offer a comprehensive solution.
Our system beginning in 1951 was to create (as is done in libraries throughout the world) 3x5 inch cards for each project one for the client, one for the subdivision, and one for the township, range and section a minimum of three cards for each job. On each card is the following: BOOK (field book and page); PORT (file folder using a code system); MAP (the location of the germane plat, i.e., subdivisions, towns, tracts, cemeteries, water-rights, etc). Of course, there are multiple cards if there is more than one client, the seller and purchaser, or more than one Section involved in the platting. Consequently, when responding to a telephone caller asking for information, we can usually answer the question while talking to the caller if we get a clue. Our file has more than 30,000 cards and we are now in the process of entering all of them into a computer database. Paul N. Scherbel, LS
Surveyor Scherbel, Ltd.
A 350Kb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine—complete with images—is available by clicking HERE
Editorial: Maps as a Metaphor
"I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us--everything that exists--proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision." There are many surveyors and mappers and members of the precision community who concur with these words of Thomas Edison. Economy, too, hangs on immutable laws. One of the .... Read the Article
Measuring a Caribbean Disaster
On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the city of Port-au-Prince, the capital and largest city of Haiti. Tens of thousands of buildings collapsed, and more than 200,000 people died in the disaster. Earthquakes are not unexpected in Haiti. The country sits astride several fault lines, among them the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault .... Read the Article
3D-Laser Scanning and Surveying Collide
LandAir Surveying started business in 1988 performing site surveys and topographic surveys for contractors in Georgia and surrounding states with two survey crews and a total staff of less than 10. By 1998 the firm expanded to surveying cell tower sites for the telecommunications industry (more than 3,000 sites in four years) using ... Read the Article
Another Triumph!
He's done it again. Javad Ashjaee has released an impressive state-of-the-art product that enables surveyors to expand their GNSS capabilities. On June 29, 2010 Javad unveiled the Triumph VS at the company's 40,000 square foot newly designed headquarters and JAVAD EMS boardmanufacturing facility in San Jose, California. Over the decades ... Read the Article
Product Review: Hemisphere GPS R220
One of the recent trends in precision GPS manufacturing is the enclosed, fully integrated receiver. This is no doubt in response to market demands by surveyors in the field for gear that offers more durability and less complexity in setting up and getting to work. This trend has certainly offered surveyors many benefits, however, it has also ushered in a few limitations. For instance, many of these ... Read the Article
Comprehensive Collection
Recording the location, dimensions and physical attributes of every piece of equipment constituting rural utilities throughout the United States might seem like a tall order. But information tools used to build a GIS have advanced so much in recent years that the endeavor is not only possible, but plausible. Great Falls, Montana-based GeoNav Group International, Inc. recently acquired the technology to pull .... Read the Article
Feedback
Doing a Proper Job: I have a better reason for the legal profession insisting on a metes and bounds descriptions for dependent resurveys than clerk mentality or ancient check lists. In his article "Rewriting Legal Descriptions" [Vol. 7, Num. 4], Gary Kent's example of "the most egregious example of description rewriting is the preparation of a metes and bound description for a property that is a lot in ... Read the Comments
Vantage Point: "Just" What?
Several months ago my husband and I were working on a rail to trail conversion in our neighborhood, digging out debris and planting trees. At one point I was separating the junk found in the digging process from the recyclable beer cans and glass bottles when someone walked up and started talking to me. With my head still down, in the midst of trying to subdue a long strand of barbed wire into a ... Read the Article
Share this page with your favorite social networks!
Reach our audience of Professional land surveyors and Geo-Technology professionals with your career ad. Feel free to contact us if you need additional information.