Promontory forts are an understudied but distinctive maritime archaeological feature from the Iron Age to the early medieval period from northern Spain to Scotland. Their coastal location renders them susceptible to erosion and loss to history, a situation exacerbated by increased storm frequency and sea level rise. Reconstruction of their original form is important to determine their role in the society of the time. This paper concentrates on a particularly notable group of promontory forts along the Copper Coast of Co. Waterford, where traces of up to 32 remain today within a 24 km stretch of coastline. The methodology has involved using oral tradition, historical records and field survey. This has been enhanced by aerial survey using drones and light aircraft. This paper models the data to estimate areas eroded and show how forts were once significantly larger and dominated coastal resources with an economy of farming, fishing, mining and trading. This paper calculates a likely erosion rate of 4–5 cm/yr and anticipates the last remains to be lost in 350 years, perhaps sooner with climate change.
Language immersion programs are becoming more available as a form of school choice in both private and public education in the United States and beyond. While there is research on the benefits of immersion education regarding overall intelligence, there is still much skepticism as to why parents would place their child in an immersion program vs. a traditional program where all academics are taught in English. This study presents the data from two schools in the same school district in a Midwest state that took the bold move to create a stand-alone one-way Spanish full immersion school. The analysis show that students educated in the immersion program scored statistically better than their similarly situated peers on the Smarter Balanced Assessment in mathematics and the Measure of Academic Progress in mathematics and reading. The analysis also showed the students educated in the immersion program performed better than their similarly situated peers on the Smarter Balanced Assessment in English language arts and the ABC District Writing Assessment, but statistical significance was not found. While this study is based upon a one-way full immersion program, the findings may also apply to dual and two-way immersion programs where similar results may be achieved for English Language Learners educated in their native language as well as in English.
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