Learn By Doing

A Lifelong Learner Shares Thoughts About Education

  • Jobs Charted by State and Salary

    Prominent industries in a state can say a lot about an area. Is there a lot of farming? Is there a big technology market? Couple the jobs with salary, and you also see where the money’s at. You see a state’s priorities.

    For example, look at California. You see an increased prominence of farmworkers and laborers, whereas the farming, fishing, and forestry sector is nearly nonexistent in many other parts of the country. I expected a lot more in the midwest states, but relative to the other occupations in those states, the farming sector doesn’t seem that big from an employee perspective.

    For a drastic change, switch to Washington, D.C., where people who work in the legal and business sectors are much more common. I realize it’s a comparison between a city and states, but whoa, that’s a lot of lawyers packed in one place.

    Move the median salary up a bit, and you get a sense of overall salaries (and a correlating cost of living, kind of) as you check out different states.

    Anyway, it’s an interesting first look at employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  • 10-important-work-skills

  • via te@chthought

    instrinsic-motivation

  • 1019-sci-sub3LEAFchOne of the great wonders of life is watching the leaves change colors in the fall. When temperatures get cool, chlorophyll begins to break down revealing the underlying pigments in the plants’ sap. This depiction of the inner-workings of a maple leaf shows the process in action (see the annotated version that appeared in The New York Times for more detail).

    Science illustrator Frank Ippolito is behind this beautiful illustration and a series of other “cube” drawings – drawings cleverly constructed to illustrate multiple dimensions in a scene. The first cube drawing he developed appeared in a lead story in the New York Times Science Times and was the basis for a series of postersshowing various ecosystems teeming with life: a tide pool, a deciduous forest, a desert, a rainforest. This maple leaf cube was originally commissioned by The New York Times to accompany the lead story in the Science Times titled “Those Brilliant Fall Outfits May Be Saving Trees,” by Carl Zimmer.

    Ippolito’s portfolio at Production Post Studios contains his cube series, Life Underfoot, as well as other work. You can also find his work on science-art.com.