We report results of a study in which a low cost sociable robot was immersed at an Early Childhood Education Center for a period of 2 weeks. The study was designed to investigate whether the robot, which operated fully autonomously during the intervention period, could improve target vocabulary skills of 18-24 month of age toddlers. The results showed a 27 % improvement in knowledge of the target words taught by the robot when compared to a matched set of control words. The results suggest that sociable robots may be an effective and low cost technology to enrich Early Childhood Education environments.

Small‐scale buoyant outflows have the potential to impact beach contamination, nutrient exchange, productivity, larval recruitment, and carbon chemistry in the nearshore region where surface gravity waves influence momentum and energy transport. This study aims to understand the dynamics leading to the fate and structure of an idealized small‐scale outflow in the presence of surface waves using a fully coupled 3‐D hydrodynamic and spectral wave model. Wave‐current interactions significantly alter plume structure when compared to hydrodynamics‐only simulations. Wave dissipation injected into the water column as a flux of turbulent kinetic energy at the sea surface mixes the plume in the surf zone, while wave‐driven velocities reduce offshore plume propagation and enhance alongshore spreading. A series of simulations varying flow rate and offshore wave height indicate a log linear relationship between the surf zone volume‐integrated freshwater fraction and the ratio of wave to outflow momentum fluxes.

The Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) on the West Antarctic coastline has been identified as a region of accelerated glacial melting. A Southern Ocean State Estimate (SOSE) is analyzed over the 2005–2010 time period in the Amundsen Sea region. The SOSE oceanic heat budget reveals that the contribution of parameterized small‐scale mixing to the heat content of the ASE waters is small compared to advection and local air‐sea heat flux, both of which contribute significantly to the heat content of the ASE waters. Above the permanent pycnocline, the local air‐sea flux dominates the heat budget and is controlled by seasonal changes in sea ice coverage. Overall, between 2005 and 2010, the model shows a net heating in the surface above the pycnocline within the ASE. Sea water below the permanent pycnocline is isolated from the influence of air‐sea heat fluxes, and thus, the divergence of heat advection is the major contributor to increased oceanic heat content of these waters. Oceanic transport of mass and heat into the ASE is dominated by the cross‐shelf input and is primarily geostrophic below the permanent pycnocline. Diagnosis of the time‐mean SOSE vorticity budget along the continental shelf slope indicates that the cross‐shelf transport is sustained by vorticity input from the localized wind‐stress curl over the shelf break.