By Aaron Brewer

My students and I started building the high tunnel (also known as a hoop house) in AGR-111 Basic Farm Maintenance. We then continued to build it during labs for AGR-160 Plant Science and AGR-263 Vegetable Production.

Once it was complete, students in AGR-263 planted a variety of plants in both the high tunnel and the garden. Students were grouped into pairs and given a set number of rows to grow various crops. We planted everything from garlic to watermelons. Students also learned how to properly time their plantings, best practices for using fertilizer, and how to follow the steps of Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

Over the summer, I'll work a few hours per week to care of the garden. Hopefully, we'll be able to sell the produce we grow to faculty and staff in the near future and then transition to selling it to the general public.

By Gretchen Benton & Amy Holmes

Three new features will be available in Moodle starting next week on Thursday, June 15th. Two of these tools will be replacing some tools that you may currently be using. Please read about each of these features below and sign up to attend a quick training session to learn them. If you are not able to attend the live training, the session will be recorded. 

This service will replace the Ally accessibility checker and you’ll notice that Ally will no longer be available beginning on July 1st. Brickfield Accessibility+ was created by developers in Ireland who have extensive experience with Moodle and accessibility. This tool allows instructors and students to convert documents, just like Ally. Although you won’t see the red, orange, and green gauges anymore, you’ll be able to run reports that show which elements in your courses pass or fail. Other features include convenient bulk fixes for alt text, URLs, and heading styles.

This service will replace Safe Assign. Copyleaks is a plagiarism detection tool that you will be able to use to scan student assignments. The tool compares the submission text with other sources to flag potential plagiarism and use of artificial intelligence (AI). Safe Assign will no longer be available beginning on July 1st. Anyone currently using Safe Assign should transition to using Copyleaks or Turnitin during the last two weeks of June. 

This is a new feature in Moodle that will allow you to see everything that you need to grade in one convenient location! This is a new tool and is not replacing any other tool. Add it to a course to see all items that need grading in that course or add it to your dashboard to see items across all your courses at one time. This tool will be a game changer, saving you time and effort in your grading processes.

By Kevin Eagan

We started Storm Stats (a student organization) almost two years ago seeking to introduce students to the exciting world of sports analytics. It's a rapidly growing field that combines mathematics, computer programming, "Big Data", and of course, sports!

A group of 5-10 students met every Monday throughout the academic year and looked at various sports topics from a uniquely data-driven perspective. We often started club meetings with an inspirational video of someone who works in college or professional athletics. We would then have a brief presentation from one of our members on a topic of interest. The aim was to familiarize ourselves with the biggest names, techniques, and trends in sports analytics. Some of the most interesting topics we looked at included:

We concluded most meetings by attempting to apply some of our new found skills. We'd collect data, organize it, calculate unique metrics, and perform analysis about our very own Storm basketball team. Much of that work was later presented to the coaching staff here at Davidson-Davie.

Finally, we had email correspondence with analysts from the Charlotte Hornets (NBA), the Carolina Panthers (NFL), and Inpredictable.com's Michael Beuoy. Going forward we've talked about writing articles, contributing to blogs, and attending sports analytics conferences.

By Suzanne LaVenture

Three Davidson-Davie students received the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship! Gilman Scholars are U.S. undergraduate students who qualify and receive Pell Grants to cover their higher education costs. Congratulations to Mandi Boger, Freya Wilson, and Aimee Macias for receiving these scholarships to study abroad! Mandi and Freya are going to Ireland and Aimee is going to Paris!