Apples with Catchy Names...

This is the type of research I find fascinating, and not just because it relates to food. Human psychology, consumer behavior, and taste perception are all referenced.

Apples with catchy names may boost revenue for farmers

Provided

N.Y. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, left, tastes an NY1 apple alongside its breeder, Susan Brown, professor of horticultural sciences, at the 2010 New York Farm Days event in Washington, D.C.

Provided

The NY1 apple.

By Krisy Gashler

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but an apple by another name could fetch a much sweeter price for farmers.
Using experimental auctions, researchers at Cornell University's Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management tested participants' willingness to pay for five different varieties of apples, including a new, patented variety developed at Cornell, currently named NY1. Participants didn't know about the apples' history or the Cornell connection, but they learned about each variety's attributes, such as sweetness and crispness, and they tasted slices of each.
The researchers' conclusion? Consumers were willing to pay more for NY1, and they were willing to pay still more when it had an "exciting, sensory" name, said assistant professor Bradley J. Rickard. He presented the research Nov. 8 at the New York Produce Show and Conference in New York City.
Rickard and co-authors Todd Schmit, Miguel Gómez and Hao Lu, all of the Dyson School, wanted to test the influence of branding on patented fruit varieties.
"There are a lot of brands throughout the grocery store. The one exception is fresh produce," Rickard said. "But in the case of apples, pears, tomatoes and peaches, that's the one place in the fresh produce sector where you have a choice. Not really across brands, but across these varietal names."
And what's in a name? Quite a bit, it turns out.
Apple names generally fall into three categories, Rickard said: sincere names based on a breeder or location, such as Cortland or Granny Smith; sophisticated names, which usually highlight the fruit's appearance, such as Red or Golden Delicious; and exciting names that evoke the taste or texture of the apple, such as Honeycrisp.
In the experimental auction, the researchers tested the new Cornell apple under three names: sincere "Williams," sophisticated "Burgundy Beauty" and exciting "Flavor Haven."
In all cases, the average bid for the new apple was 12 percent higher than the average for four other apples (Empire, Fuji, Honeycrisp, and Piñata). With the Flavor Haven name, the average bid jumped to 27 percent over the other varieties.
Perhaps most interesting, Rickard said, bids on NY1 influenced bids on the other new, patented Washington apple, Piñata, but made no difference in bids on the traditional varieties.
New York grocery shoppers already enjoy a wide selection of apples -- including some of the 66 varieties developed at Cornell, such as Cortland, Empire, Macoun and Jonagold -- but new, patented varieties are starting to hit shelves. These varieties often sell for a premium, but they're also more expensive to grow, as farmers have to buy licenses to grow them.
Historically, public universities developed new apple breeds and released them to the public. But in 1980, the Bayh-Dole Act gave universities the right to retain the intellectual property rights for their research. In May 2010, Cornell forged a partnership with a new industry group, the New York Apple Growers LLC, to establish an exclusive licensing agreement for the new apple varieties, NY1 and NY2.
"The license will entail some fairly substantial upfront fee. It could be $1,500 an acre upfront," Rickard said. "Then once you sell a box of fruit, you also need to pay a royalty."
Rickard's primary research interest is determining the best price and setup for that license. In September, he was awarded a two-year, $348,700 USDA grant to study that topic.
Krisy Gashler is a freelance writer for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov11/CALSAppleNames.html 

Epic Noise Reduction Fail?

While this picture only shows two players, I have 20+ chess players in my library each day during lunch. I limited boards to 3, yet these are enterprising lads. Other options include:
 
iPad chess. 

Chess that rotates players after each turn. 

Chess tournaments. 

Chess groupies. 

It can get noisy. 

I've heard mixed feedback about decibel readers in libraries, so I conducted an experiment. I placed the Too Noisy app next to the students as they exuberantly played chess.

It's a simple app for little kids, so you either have a smiley face, a worried face, or a sad face amidst storm clouds. It was  too much fun to make the face cry, so noise increased. The same boys who had been unintentionally loud minutes before were now intentionally clapping and whistling. Epic fail?

At lunch today, the boys asked for the app (I wasn't planning to use it again), shushed themselves, and were young gentlemen. Will Too Noisy make a repeat visit to the chess table? Still thinking...

How did I never mention Thomas French?

How did I never mention Thomas French in my posts this fall? I just found a new article and went back through old posts to link to information about his visit to Saint Stephen's, and I was surprised to find nothing. This post is the other post I was searching for, and at least that wasn't just a post that I wrote in my head.

http://greenteamedia.blogspot.com/2011/08/aquarium-people-watching-in-greater.html

Backstory: Mr. French is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist who spoke to our students and faculty last year after all students read one of his books as part of their summer reading assignment. His background allows him to work with both AP Environmental Science students and 9th grade English classes...and many classes in between. Zoo Story narrates a half decade at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa. It includes details about the lives of the keepers, the personalities of the animals, and Lex Salisbury's management (or mismanagement) of operations. It's nonfiction, and all 9th graders visited the zoo for a scavenger hunt and field trip after meeting with French. It was the first time that many of our students spoke with an author, and he was a patient teacher with them.

The Article that Reminded me of Zoo Story and French: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/why-we-love-zoos/

Humanities Class, I believe you spent the entire fall discussing what it means to be human. This is perfect ending to the article and tie-in to Mr. French...

What a lonely species we are, searching for signals of life from other galaxies, adopting companion animals, visiting parks and zoos to commune with other beasts. In the process, we discover our shared identity. We flock to zoos for many reasons, not least to shed some of the burden of being human.

Part Two coming soon. Another author on campus...

Consumer Behavior

I find the psychology of consumer behavior fascinating, and I think this is partially because libraries are one of the few places in modern American society that don't promote individual buying.
Where else do you share materials with strangers?
Whenever I'm browsing the shelves, I think about the individual histories of the books, the hands that have searched them, and the designs that prompt people to open the cover.
Anyway...

These two studies interested me, and I think they're telling examples of the ways that humans experience the world around them. First, we're a lot more likely to buy things if we touch them. In the days of online shopping, that's good to know. One study specifically examined the difference between having a clerk hand over a copy of a requested book instead of simply pointing to it. This also explains why we develop more of an emotional attachment to print greeting cards compared with their electronic equivalents.

We feel something akin to a sense of ownership when we hold things in our hand. That’s why we establish or reestablish connection by greeting strangers and friends with a handshake. In this case, having to then let go of the book after holding it might generate a subtle sense of loss, and motivate us to make the purchase even more.

Read more at http://ideas.time.com/2012/01/10/the-secret-cause-of-buyers-remorse/

This one's more of a stretch, but it's relevant to libraries for two reasons. First, we know that people often choose books based on the title. Second, there are larger implications for intellectual property now that companies are able to patent the rights to their research. (Did you know that the University of Minnesota earned over 8 million dollars as a result of its patent of the Honeycrisp apple variety?). This particular study looked at how consumers price and select apples in the grocery store.

Consumers were willing to pay more for NY1, and they were willing to pay still more when it had an "exciting, sensory" name. Apple names generally fall into three categories, Rickard said: sincere names based on a breeder or location, such as Cortland or Granny Smith; sophisticated names, which usually highlight the fruit's appearance, such as Red or Golden Delicious; and exciting names that evoke the taste or texture of the apple, such as Honeycrisp. In the experimental auction, the researchers tested the new Cornell apple under three names: sincere "Williams," sophisticated "Burgundy Beauty" and exciting "Flavor Haven."

In all cases, the average bid for the new apple was 12 percent higher than the average for four other apples (Empire, Fuji, Honeycrisp, and Piñata). With the Flavor Haven name, the average bid jumped to 27 percent over the other varieties.

Read more at http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov11/CALSAppleNames.html

The sense of touch. The power of a name. Two things to keep in mind next time you're out shopping.

How Librarians Organize Libraries

It's still surprising to me how many people ask for books by the the color or image on the cover.

Yes, I'm a visual learner too, but that's not our organization system.

Enjoy this sketch from The Two Ronnies on the subject.

Aquarium People-Watching, in greater depth

As promised in an earlier comment, I wanted to share about my return visit to the aquarium Thursday afternoon. If you've been reading regularly, you'll remember that we were challenged to spend 5 minutes observing one exhibit. Always the meta-observer, I watched the people just about as much as I watched the jellyfish. Having time to return to the aquarium today, I planned to sit by the same exhibit. Despite any intentions I entered with, people-watching became the focus. I started to take notes on what people said as they walked up to, or right by, the exhibit. Because I can't capture the "glance and go" cell phone camera crowd, I stuck with recording those people who commented in the proximity of the jellyfish. Now I will greatly overreach in cataloging their comments.

(Taking notes by the jellies. Seth will probably observe that my sitting there with a pencil changed the situation, but I think most people were too self-focused to notice me. Besides, with the comments they were making, what did they have to hide?)

Most common were polite little blips of comments, proof that the seer existed, and general, approved of the jellyfish. They place the seer in relation to another visitor and, I can only assume, work to build a bond between the two. "Oooh, jellyfish." "Look, (insert person here, such as grandma, mom, etc." "Cool." or "Coooooool!" The word cool was repeated by hundreds of guests. Am I becoming an English curmudgeon because I wanted them to use a word that meant something, one that couldn't be used to describe absolutely any animal in the building?

While cool functions as a judgmental statement, albeit a positive one, there were also other jugmental statements that weren't so kind. "They're not cute" made me wonder about the girl's standards and the general human-centered viewpoint we bring to aquariums. "I hate jellyfish. They hurt." interested me because this woman was the only person who commented on anything that either didn't relate to the senses or only related to the sense of sight. If you read the Aquarium article I recommended previously (http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/newberry_su04.html), you'll consider the irony that we use almost exclusively visual language to describe aquariums, despite the fact that many aquarium residents have no use for vision.

Although I now think that I might backtrack on my previous statement just a little. People did try to make the jellyfish seem more less alien by comparing them to more familiar items. Most common was mushrooms, but one person mentioned cauliflower. One might argue that they chose items that carry connotations of particular smells, textures, and tastes, but I want to straddle the line on reading too much into these overheard statements. :)

"Bonk. Bonk. It's like that movie where they're hopping on the jellyfish." "They're upside down." This only stood out because I witnessed many Nemo searches in the coral reef exhibit, and one person said he spotted Bruce in the kelp tank. While all of these are technically impossible since they're imaginary characters, I especially think it's unlikely that there's a great white shark in the tank featuring Monterey Bay wildlife. It just serves to reinforce for me the powerful pull that Disney has on popular culture.

(In case you wanted to know more about the spotted jelly.
Yes, all the comments were made in the presence of this sign.)

We also have the 'bad science' people, the ones that prove that ocean literacy needs to be taught at some level.
"The legs fell off that one." Oh yes, those elusive jellyfish legs. They probably did fall off, didn't they?
"We already saw the jellyfish over there." This isn't really bad science as much as a lack of understanding about ocean diversity. Does this person go to the zoo and stop after they've seen one primate?
"Are these anenomes?" I'm guessing this person had never seen an anenome or a jellyfish before, and perhaps was illiterate. Or is that too harsh. When Seth worked at Disney, he learned to be patient with guests because even normally smart people sometimes left their brains at home when they went on vacation and would ask questions that should be obvious to all. But what about "Look at the spots on their shells." Where do I even start with that one?


Then there were the incomprehensible statements. "Jellyfish aren't as cool as penguins." This could also go under judgement or humanism, but I'm curious about the comparison chart for that one.
"This is just like a wedding I went to." Really? You can see the tank in my photo. Let me know if you have clues. I guarantee that they did not remind me of any weddings I attended, although my imagination is intrigued.

A few people tried to be scientific, even if they didn't necessarily add much to the general school of knowledge. At least they were making observations. "Where are their minds? Maybe inside the tentacles?" "It's gliding. It's falling. It's gliding. Now it's falling. Gliding again." etc.

(This will only make sense to people who have visited the aquarium. I also spent a half hour laying on the floor (out of the way) on the 2nd floor observation area of the deep sea exhibit. I was experimenting with taking photographs of the giant window. I'm on my back with my knees up on the left side of the photo, and my hand is over my stomach. Note how the sea turtle has just come into the space between my hand and my knees, which wasn't planned because the camera was on a ten-second delay.)

(Bad photo, but you get a sense of the crowds at the exhibit. Same tank looking at the first floor.)

A 1950's Religion and Status Quiz

I don't know if I'll have Internet this weekend for our weekend to Cambria, Big Sur, and Hearst Castle, so if you don't hear from me until Sunday evening, that's why. In the meantime, here's a fun game that we played in the classroom on Tuesday. As a group of adults traveling from all over the country, I'm sure that we all have different political and religious beliefs. This isn't something that it's normally acceptable to discuss, but the American Studies professor who was leading the session had a backwards way of getting us to talk with each other about these potentially volatile topics. We were split into small groups and asked to rank the 6 Christian and 3 Jewish sects in order of socioeconomic status in the 1950s. This was one of cultural historian Packer Vance's studies. (I think his readings will have me covered for the next few months. You all know that I'm a closet sociologist.) Our group didn't come up with the correct answers, although my own guesses only had a few switches, but this quiz got us talking about our backgrounds and our religious beliefs in a way that would have been impossible without the prompt. Here are the sects.

-Baptist -Conservative Jew
-Catholic -Orthodox Jew
-Congregationalist -Reform Jew
-Episcopalian
-Lutheran
-Methodist
-Pentecostal
-Presbyterian
-Unitarian

Karen, you asked about the popular culture of the 1940's. We briefly discussed how Steinbeck buffered the "4 pound books" of the 1930's and 1950's with the "1 pound books" of the 1940's, but the professor who worked with us talked exclusively about the 1950's. I'll try to find some of my more interesting notes to post.

Appreciation of Saint Stephen's

****IMPORTANT-READ BEFORE READING THIS POST*** I wrote this on the airplane on the way to Japan, but I wanted to wait to bookend it with reflections at the end of my trip-coming later today. It's not meant to be disparaging towards public schools, just reflections on the public school system based on what I've heard from other teachers, and an honest appreciation for the Saint Stephen's community.

Even though I’m on the plane and haven’t yet set foot in Japan, I’ve learned so much from my colleagues at schools across the United States. Over 90% of the teachers in this program are public school teachers. Since I attended and worked at Catholic schools before my job at Saint Stephen’s, I hadn’t realized just how broken, in many ways, our public school system is. When caught up in the daily grind of life at Saint Stephen’s, it can be easy to forget that we are, in many ways, an academic bubble. In the first 5 hours of meeting my colleagues in San Francisco, I began to feel like I wasn’t worthy of this fellowship. I love my job and my school, and I feel that I’m supported in pursuing what is best for the library. I already bought into the notion that teachers are great people who are passionate about sharing knowledge with young people. But I didn’t realize the adversity that many of them encounter in order to do the work that they love. Here are some comments that I heard on day one:

1. “We strive for around 30 (students) per class, but frequently it's around 35.” –Elementary school teacher
2. “No one asked me for lesson plans, and I know they don’t have the budget for a sub, but I’m hoping they’ll (the students) be supervised by a para. I also left Halloween coloring sheets and crayons. That’s probably what will happen.” –Elementary school art teacher
3. “We have lcd projectors in every classroom. My bulb burned out. I put in a request last fall. I still haven’t heard back.” –High school teacher
4. “We teach to the TAKS!”-Texas middle school teacher
5. “Over 75% of my students are obese. None have ever left the country. I don’t know if any have left the state. They can’t even picture Japan.” High school teacher
6. “All our principal cares about is pursuing the Assistant Principal and test scores.” Intermediate school teacher.
7. “I’ve got it pretty good. Every other year, my kids are scoring at a second grade level. This year, they’re coming to me at 4.” -5th grade teacher
8. “Everything’s about the FCATs.” –Florida high school teacher
9. “We had to cut gifted classes. They’re (the gifted students) already fine.” –Middle school teacher
10. “Why don’t they (the parents) care? Can’t they see they’re hurting their kids when they shoot up!” –Special Education teacher

Two teachers had to drop out because their schools wouldn’t support this once-in-a-lifetime professional development opportunity. Two are here on unpaid leave. One of those two said that she’s been assured that her position won’t be eliminated while she’s away. When I asked Mr. Lisk and Mr. Snodgress about applying for the program last fall, when they had only known me for three months, both immediately responded, “Go for it!” and wrote recommendation letters. Having been at the school almost another full year, I can’t believe how little they must have known about me when they agreed to write the letters. I want to give the Saint Stephen’s administration a heartfelt thank you for supporting professional development in general and my participation in this program in particular. I can’t wait, figuratively speaking (I definitely want to experience the Japan portion of my travel!), to return to Saint Stephen’s and teach our students and teachers. One of my main goals as a librarian is to serve as a resource to students and faculty in the school, and I am excited to think about the potential impact of this program on the Saint Stephen’s community.

One girl in this program is working on her PhD thesis on community-school relations. She described her ideal school environment as one in which the parents trusted the administrators’ expertise in running the school and in which families would use the school on nights and weekends. This is far from the case at her school. I immediately thought to the volleyball games late in the evenings, Boy Scout meetings after school, Mr. Yanelli’s study skills program, the booster club car washes on Saturdays, and the Sunday AP review sessions. I know that it’s easy to lose perspective; we’re experiencing an unstable economy, have the need for an honor council, and sometimes have to track students down for mandatory community service. Yet, we are so so fortunate to have the strong, intentional, Saint Stephen’s community. Every family has made the choice to send their child to Saint Stephen’s and every teacher has made the choice to make this their home away from home. Other teachers in this country are dealing with a 50% drop out rate, authoritarian principals, metal detectors at the doorways, daily false fire alarms, and 5th graders writing curse words across the school hallways. The one girl I’ve spoken with in-depth who works for an independent school is the school’s curriculum coordinator and teaches an environmentality/sustainability class that she created to fourth through sixth graders. It’s highlighted at the end of each year by a trip to Yosemite (4th), Catalina Island (5th), and a working farm (6th). Teachers in inner city schools are struggling to find outdated textbooks for all of their students. I don’t think it’s a difference in teaching ability but in facilities and opportunities to connect with students and share our passions. Let us continue to strive for the best for our students and for ourselves.

One person said, in response to my feeling like the spoiled little rich kid in comparison to others that she was glad I was here because the kids I teach are going to be the ones creating the policy one day. I can’t argue with her; she’s right. Even though we must continually strive to improve Saint Stephen’s, it is a successful school environment. Our students have a wide range of intellectual abilities, but everyone has a family support structure and the ability to use the school support structures. “We’re not just teaching reading and writing. We have to teach them how to be human beings. We have to teach them to say please and thank you. All they know at home is being yelled at.” This was said by an inner city elementary teacher. We also are concerned with educating and nurturing the “whole child,” but I believe that our bar is raised a bit higher right from the start. I don’t think of my job as just a job and I certainly don’t think of this as a vacation. I think of all of the teachers I work with in the middle and upper divisions (I’m sure it’s true in the intermediate and lower divisions as well; I just don’t know you well enough enough yet!) and I’m motivated by their intensity, challenged by their scholarship, and in awe of their knowledge. We were all hired as teachers and administrators, but we’re not just passing along subject material, we’re also sharing ourselves. Some teachers were saying that they can’t hire people from the same family in the same district, let alone the same school. I can see how this could be an issue for concern but I think our school benefits so much from trust it entails; the entire lives of some of our teachers are tied to the school. We all have a vested interest in improving the Saint Stephen’s experience.

And whether or not you are connected with Saint Stephen’s, you have a vested interest in the US educational system. Remember the 80’s song, “I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the future they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride.” As a group of 158 teachers coming together from all states in America, we have a wide range of political opinions represented. Yet, I haven’t heard one teacher who believes that No Child Left Behind is reaching all children. The elections are coming up soon…

Here’s a brief addition to my earlier writings. (There’s also going to be a long ending reflection piece posted tonight.) When we visited the schools, I kept hearing from the other teachers about how respectful and welcoming the students were. I’ll agree; as you know from my earlier posts, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with Tomigusuku students. I did not think that their behavior, however, was out of the ordinary. Saint Stephen’s students greet visitors politely, smile, and include them in their school day when appropriate. We had an incredible all school welcome for our Chinese guests last year! Students (and some parents) volunteer to come to school early to meet with students at the Lugalo School! Other teachers said that their students would ignore (best case scenario) or curse at, spit at, or mock school guests. Thankfully, I have no point of reference for that. I have always been very impressed with the public behavior of Saint Stephen’s students, and that’s one of the reasons I think it was necessary to start the Ambassador program. I’m proud of our students and think that they do an excellent job of representing the school. I know we all get worn down by the daily grind, but we need to count our blessings!

Figiting and Discipline

Guess when this video was taken!

It’s 12:50, about 5 minutes before lunch. Can’t you see the learning going on? People always picture Japanese school children in straight rows, silently scribbling notes. The desks are in rows, but the students still whisper to each other, sleep on their desks, and TEXT!

I asked about cell phones at both the junior and the senior high school. Officially from both, administrators told me that many students have cell phones, but they are not allowed to use them in class. They admitted that there was some difficulty enforcing this. Asking students, they were all too willing to show me the ways that they can hide their hands in their bags, text in their desks, or wait until the teacher turns his back.

While they were willing to talk to me (off the record), they were faster than cockroaches scuttling away from the light whenever I took out my camera. I think that the most effective cell phone policy we could implement would be to have a group of foreign teachers wandering around with cameras. I told one girl who I kind-of caught (whose English was excellent - she was an exchange student in Illinois last year - that I was going to put her picture up in my library with a big No sign around the phone. I doubt students anywhere want to be documented breaking the rules!

I've learned that the reason Japanese schools don't have discipline problems is because they define appropriate behavior much more loosely and they take a more holistic attitude towards discipline. I just explained how teachers don't acknowledge cell phone use or general disinterest in class material. But here's a more specific example. During our Q and A session, one teacher asked whether the school had a problem with student graffiti. The principal admitted that they did but said that it was a result of teachers not motivating students sufficiently. Students were dissatisfied and stressed. When they took disciplinary action last year, they found a backlash of increased instances of graffiti. They concluded that discipline didn't work. Instead, they made posters encouraging students to be proud of their school. (I'll bring one home.) In addition to the poster, administrators are now "reaching to the heart of the students" and trying to build trust with the families. I thought this demonstrated a departure from the US-based system I know. Not better or worse, just different, from an inside-out or outside-in perspective.

Cell phone use in schools. Good or bad idea? Potential advantages and pitfalls? Your thoughts...