A look at the origin of information science: evidence for identity characterization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jonathas Luiz Carvalho Silva

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Discusses social foundations, scientific and everyday that have given rise to the advent of Information Science, in order to conceive their identity characteristics. Problematológica The condition of this work can be synthesized from the following question: What are the direct factors and / or indirect that have given rise to the emergence of information science? What are the influences of these factors for the construction and characterization of the identity of Information Science? It aims to discuss the various social phenomena, academic and scientific directly and / or indirectly promoted the rise of information science. Methodologically, the article presents an exploratory research in the context of historical research through a literature review. It concludes that several factors helped the origin and foundation of Information Science showing its characteristic of postmodern science, it is possible to observe various features of identity from the elements that gave rise to flow of information science, such as historical identity (relationship of Library and Information Science, identity design (Documentation of Otlet and La Fontaine; shared identity (U.S. contribution to the European continent and the creation of the Information Science and institutional identity (creation of associations in Information Science.

Pluralism in Search of Sustainability: Ethics, Knowledge and Methdology in Sustainability Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ellinor Isgren

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Sustainability Science is an emerging, transdisciplinary academic field that aims to help build a sustainable global society by drawing on and integrating research from the humanities and the social, natural, medical and engineering sciences. Academic knowledge is combined with that from relevant actors from outside academia, such as policy-makers, businesses, social organizations and citizens. The field is focused on examining the interactions between human, environmental, and engineered systems to understand and contribute to solutions for complex challenges that threaten the future of humanity and the integrity of the life support systems of the planet, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and land and water degradation. Since its inception in around the year 2000, and as expressed by a range of proponents in the field, sustainability science has become an established international platform for interdisciplinary research on complex social problems [1]. This has been done by exploring ways to promote ‘greater integration and cooperation in fulfilling the sustainability science mandate’ [2]. Sustainability science has thereby become an extremely diverse academic field, yet one with an explicit normative mission. After nearly two decades of sustainability research, it is important to reflect on a major question: what critical knowledge can we gain from sustainability science research on persistent socio-ecological problems and new sustainability challenges?

Ecological science and transformation to the sustainable city

Science.gov (United States)

S.T.A. Pickett; Christopher G. Boone; Brian P. McGrath; M.L. Cadenasso; Daniel L. Childers; Laura A. Ogden; Melissa McHale; J. Morgan. Grove

2013-01-01

There is growing urgency to enhance the sustainability of existing and emerging cities. The science of ecology, especially as it interacts with disciplines in the social sciences and urban design, has contributions to make to the sustainable transformation of urban systems. Not all possible urban transformations may lead toward sustainability. Ecological science helps...

Advancing sustainable consumption in the UK and China: the mediating effect of pro-environmental self-identity

OpenAIRE

Dermody, Janine; Hanmer-Lloyd, Stuart; Koenig-Lewis, Nicole; Zhao, Anita Lifen

2015-01-01

In this paper, we respond to the call for more holistic and culturally diverse research to advance understanding of (non)sustainable consumption behaviour. Our conceptual model incorporates materialism, environmental concern, social consumption motivation, pro-environmental self-identity and sustainable consumption behaviours. This paper contributes to knowledge by examining the mediating role of pro-environmental self-identity to more fully explain consumers’ (non)sustainable consumption beh...

Freud's Jewish identity and psychoanalysis as a science.

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Richards, Arnold D

2014-12-01

Ludwik Fleck, the Polish philosopher of science, maintained that scientific discovery is influenced by social, political, historical, psychological, and personal factors. The determinants of Freud's Jewish identity are examined from this Fleckian perspective, as is the impact of that complex identity on his creation of psychoanalysis as a science. Three strands contributing to his Jewish identity are identified and explored: his commitment to the ideal of Bildung, the anti-Semitism of the times, and his "godlessness." Finally, the question is addressed of what it means that psychoanalysis was founded by a Jew. For Freud, psychoanalysis was a kind of liberation philosophy, an attempt to break free of his ethnic and religious inheritance. Yet it represented at the same time his ineradicable relationship with that inheritance. It encapsulated both the ambivalence of his Jewish identity and the creativity of his efforts to resolve it. © 2014 by the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Sustainability in Science Education? How the Next Generation Science Standards Approach Sustainability, and Why It Matters

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Feinstein, Noah Weeth; Kirchgasler, Kathryn L.

2015-01-01

In this essay, we explore how sustainability is embodied in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), analyzing how the NGSS explicitly define and implicitly characterize sustainability. We identify three themes (universalism, scientism, and technocentrism) that are common in scientific discourse around sustainability and show how they appear…

Understanding Children's Science Identity through Classroom Interactions

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Kim, Mijung

2018-01-01

Research shows that various stereotypes about science and science learning, such as science being filled with hard and dry content, laboratory experiments, and male-dominated work environments, have resulted in feelings of distance from science in students' minds. This study explores children's experiences of science learning and science identity.…

CILogon-HA. Higher Assurance Federated Identities for DOE Science

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Basney, James [Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)

2015-08-01

The CILogon-HA project extended the existing open source CILogon service (initially developed with funding from the National Science Foundation) to provide credentials at multiple levels of assurance to users of DOE facilities for collaborative science. CILogon translates mechanism and policy across higher education and grid trust federations, bridging from the InCommon identity federation (which federates university and DOE lab identities) to the Interoperable Global Trust Federation (which defines standards across the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, the Open Science Grid, and other cyberinfrastructure). The CILogon-HA project expanded the CILogon service to support over 160 identity providers (including 6 DOE facilities) and 3 internationally accredited certification authorities. To provide continuity of operations upon the end of the CILogon-HA project period, project staff transitioned the CILogon service to operation by XSEDE.

AUTHENTICITY, IDENTITY AND SUSTAINABILITY IN POST-WAR IRAQ: Reshaping the Urban Form of Erbil City

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rebwar Ibrahim

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Issues of authenticity and identity are particularly significant in cities where social and cultural change is shaping active transformation of its urban fabric and structure in the post-war condition. In search of sustainable future, Iraqi cities are stretched between the two ends of the spectrum, authentic quarters with its traditional fabric and modern districts with their global sense of living. This paper interrogates the reciprocal influences and distinct qualities and sustainable performance of both authentic and modern quarters of Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi province of Kurdistan, as factors in shaping sustainable urban forms for Iraqi cities. In doing so, the paper, firstly, seeks to highlight the urban identity as an effective factor in relation to sustainable urban form. Secondly, the city of Erbil in Iraq has been chosen as a field study, due to its regional, social, political and historical role in the region. Thirdly, the study emphasises the dynamic activities and performance of residential projects according to rational sustainable criteria. The research concludes that urban identity and the sense of place in traditional and historical places should inform design strategies in order to achieve a more sustainable urban context.

The Intersection of Identity, Culture and Science Engagement

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Strong, LaToya

2016-01-01

Ivã Gurgel, Mauricio Pietrocola, and Graciella Watanabe expand upon the existing literature, which links identity and science engagement. Specifically, the authors focus on ways in which the cultural identities of students relate to their engagement in physics. In doing so, Gurgel, Pietrocola, and Watanabe further build upon the idea that one's…

Citizens Science for Sustainability (SuScit) Project Briefing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Eames, Malcolm; Mortensen, Jonas Egmose; Adebowale, Maria

This project briefing gives a short overview of the Citizens Science for Sustainability (SuScit) Project.......This project briefing gives a short overview of the Citizens Science for Sustainability (SuScit) Project....

Science identity possibilities: a look into Blackness, masculinities, and economic power relations

Science.gov (United States)

Rosa, Katemari

2018-02-01

This forum paper dialogues with Sheron Mark's A bit of both science and economics: a non-traditional STEM identity narrative. In her paper, she discusses the development of a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) identity by a young African American male during an informal STEM for Social Justice Program. Here, the discussion focuses on Black masculinities, identity formation, and the role of science educators in making STEM fields a welcoming place for young Black men. Drawing from Mark's data and discussion, this paper is a dialogue between science identity possibilities in the United States and in Brazil when we look at the intersections of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Using the shared colonial past of both countries a connection is established to address race relations within science education. The main argument in this paper is that racism can no longer be denied and dismissed by the science education community worldwide and that intersectional approaches are needed to face this issue.

Doing gender/teaching science: A feminist poststructural analysis of middle school science teachers' identity negotiations

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Sowell, Scott P.

This research joins the gender equity conversation within science education by providing a feminist poststructural analysis of teachers' doing gender and teaching science. Feminist poststructuralism is used in recognition of the oppressive nature of dualistic modes of thought, which often reduce reality into a limiting either/or fallacy and can be theoretically constraining as research within any particular field becomes more sophisticated. By uprooting the concept of gendered identity from the unproductive grip of essentialism, and conceptualizing it instead as a shifting 'work in progress,' feminist poststructuralism provides an invigorating theoretical framework from which to conduct inquiries. From a this perspective, the identity of a teacher, as any identity, is not a fixed entity, but rather an unfinished project, swarmed upon by a variety of competing discourses. Situated in a rural middle school in the Florida panhandle, this research explores how numerous discourses compete to define what it means to be a female science teacher. More specifically, the aims of this research are to explore: (a) how the participants negotiated successful gendered identities within science and (b) how this taking up of subject positions crystallized into classroom practices which worked to reproduce and/or challenge commonsense notions of the heteropatriarchal gender dualism as well as the enmeshment of masculinity and science. Findings illustrate a wide array of classroom pedagogical practices, ranging from antioppressive emancipatory constructions of both gender and science to more traditional objectivist constructions that validated the patriarchal status quo. Explicating teacher identity as effects of these pedagogical approaches proved insightful in unveiling notions of resistance, frustration, enthusiasm, and agency as the teachers reflected on their practice.

Intersections of life histories and science identities: the stories of three preservice elementary teachers

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Avraamidou, Lucy

2016-03-01

Grounded within Connelly and Clandinin's conceptualization of teachers' professional identity in terms of 'stories to live by' and through a life-history lens, this multiple case study aimed to respond to the following questions: (a) How do three preservice elementary teachers view themselves as future science teachers? (b) How have the participants' life histories shaped their science identity trajectories? In order to characterize the participants' formation of science identities over time, various data regarding their life histories in relation to science were collected: science biographies, self-portraits, interviews, reflective journals, lesson plans, and classroom observations. The analysis of the data illustrated how the three participants' identities have been in formation from the early years of their lives and how various events, experiences, and interactions had shaped their identities through time and across contexts. These findings are discussed alongside implications for theory, specifically, identity and life-history intersections, for teacher preparation, and for research related to explorations of beginning elementary teachers' identity trajectories.

Preservice elementary teachers' actual and designated identities as teachers of science and teachers of students

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Canipe, Martha Murray

Preservice elementary teachers often have concerns about teaching science that may stem from a lack of confidence as teachers or their own negative experiences as learners of science. These concerns may lead preservice teachers to avoid teaching science or to teach it in a way that focuses on facts and vocabulary rather than engaging students in the doing of science. Research on teacher identity has suggested that being able to envision oneself as a teacher of science is an important part of becoming a teacher of science. Elementary teachers are generalists and as such rather than identifying themselves as teachers of particular content areas, they may identify more generally as teachers of students. This study examines three preservice teachers' identities as teachers of science and teachers of students and how these identities are enacted in their student teaching classrooms. Using a narrated identity framework, I explore stories told by preservice teachers, mentor teachers, student teaching supervisors, and science methods course instructors about who preservice teachers are as teachers of science and teachers of students. Identities are the stories that are told about who someone is or will become in relation to a particular context. Identities that are enacted are performances of the stories that are an identity. Stories were collected through interviews with each storyteller and in an unmoderated focus group with the three preservice teachers. In addition to sorting stories as being about teachers of science or students, the stories were categorized as being about preservice teachers in the present (actual identities) or in the future (designated identities). The preservice teachers were also observed teaching science lessons in their student teaching placements. These enactments of identities were analyzed in order to identify which aspects of the identity stories were reflected in the way preservice teachers taught their science lessons. I also analyzed the

Teaching heroics: Identity and ethical imagery in science education

Science.gov (United States)

Robeck, Edward C.

In what follows, I address ways in which science education can influence personal identity and social relationships. I do this through a consideration of ideological implications of science as it is constituted in science education. In this situation, I consider science to be a symbolic--emanating from socially derived meanings. I begin with the premise that any symbol system is permeated with ideological elements. To highlight the ideological elements of science in science education, I use another more explicitly symbolic system as a comparative framework. That system is epic heroism, primarily as Joseph Campbell (1949) describes it in The Hero With A Thousand Faces. The discussion of science education is given a practical grounding using transcripts from the interviews with twenty Grade 10 students and many of their teachers undertaken in the 1993-1994 school year. I used epic heroism as a framework for initiating interpretations of broad themes from the transcripts, but also read the transcripts in relation to aspects of epic heroism, including existing critiques of Campbell's work and heroism more broadly. Specific quotes are included to illustrations of various points. My particular focus here is on ideological elements that can be associated with racism, sexism, and other social relationships that are collectively referred to as relations involving divisive bias. In particular, two themes are discussed extensively. The first is the theme of identity formed through separation, which results in the promotion of reductive and individualistic identities. The second theme has to do with the role of boundary imagery in the formation of relationship, which establishes difference hierarchically. Both of these are pervasive in divisive bias and in the imagery of epic heroism. Ways in which they can pervade practices in science education are also discussed. The central argument of the thesis is that science education, when undertaken through practices that incorporate

Science Shaping Sustainable Finance

Science.gov (United States)

Rodriguez Osuna, V.; Vorosmarty, C. J.; Koehler, D.; Klop, P.; Spengler, J.; Buonocore, J.; Cak, A. D.; Tessler, Z. D.; Corsi, F.; Green, P. A.; Sánchez, R.

2017-12-01

Sustainable investment is confronting a period of rapid growth and fundamental change. However, the methods used to evaluate corporate sustainability are failing to keep pace with this new reality. In contrast to the 1990s when corporate data on pollution or occupational health were not available in the public domain, today's investors can take advantage of rich data streams, owing to voluntary corporate disclosures of their business practices. Yet, the data companies declare are hardly standardized, difficult to verify, and thus run the risk of creating unreliable assertions, a form of "green-washing". A partnership comprising a pension fund, an asset manager and two research universities has created a science-based approach to quantify context and place it into a decision-making framework for investors. We have tested this framework on US$2.5 billion of assets held by a large European pension fund with an initial focus on four domains—water, climate change, human health and food security. Our standardized metrics enable coherent comparison of individual company and portfolios over time. To place a company's impact on water systems or climate change into context requires geographically co-locating company operations, combining these with estimates of industrial emissions or mitigation potential, baseline Earth system science data and geopolitical and demographic statistics. Recent developments regarding the Paris Accord are a warning that progress toward a sustainable future requires rethinking the roles that the public and private sectors can play in effecting meaningful change. The finance sector, if given the proper guideposts, could rapidly transform fraught public policy challenges like climate adaptation or the global loss of biodiversity into business opportunities. By utilizing a science-based yardstick to evaluate and compare companies on the basis of their impacts, attention could be drawn to companies that are verifiably contributing to sustainability.

Earth Science Informatics Community Requirements for Improving Sustainable Science Software Practices: User Perspectives and Implications for Organizational Action

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Downs, R. R.; Lenhardt, W. C.; Robinson, E.

2014-12-01

Science software is integral to the scientific process and must be developed and managed in a sustainable manner to ensure future access to scientific data and related resources. Organizations that are part of the scientific enterprise, as well as members of the scientific community who work within these entities, can contribute to the sustainability of science software and to practices that improve scientific community capabilities for science software sustainability. As science becomes increasingly digital and therefore, dependent on software, improving community practices for sustainable science software will contribute to the sustainability of science. Members of the Earth science informatics community, including scientific data producers and distributers, end-user scientists, system and application developers, and data center managers, use science software regularly and face the challenges and the opportunities that science software presents for the sustainability of science. To gain insight on practices needed for the sustainability of science software from the science software experiences of the Earth science informatics community, an interdisciplinary group of 300 community members were asked to engage in simultaneous roundtable discussions and report on their answers to questions about the requirements for improving scientific software sustainability. This paper will present an analysis of the issues reported and the conclusions offered by the participants. These results provide perspectives for science software sustainability practices and have implications for actions that organizations and their leadership can initiate to improve the sustainability of science software.

Uncovering Black/African American and Latina/o students' motivation to learn science: Affordances to science identity development

Science.gov (United States)

Mahfood, Denise Marcia

The following dissertation reports on a qualitative exploration that serves two main goals: (1) to qualitatively define and highlight science motivation development of Black/African American and Latina/o students as they learn science in middle school, high school, and in college and (2) to reveal through personal narratives how successful entry and persistence in science by this particular group is linked to the development of their science identities. The targeted population for this study is undergraduate students of color in science fields at a college or university. The theoretical frameworks for this study are constructivist theory, motivation theory, critical theory, and identity theories. The methodological approach is narrative which includes students' science learning experiences throughout the course of their academic lives. I use The Science Motivation Questionnaire II to obtain baseline data to quantitatively assess for motivation to learn science. Data from semi-structured interviews from selected participants were collected, coded, and configured into a story, and emergent themes reveal the important role of science learning in both informal and formal settings, but especially in informal settings that contribute to better understandings of science and the development of science identities for these undergraduate students of color. The findings have implications for science teaching in schools and teacher professional development in science learning.

Teacher Transformation: An Exploration of Science Teachers' Changing Professional Identities, Knowledge, and Classroom Practices

Science.gov (United States)

Whitacre, Michelle Phillips

This qualitative, multiple case study examines five teachers' experiences with a National Science Foundation-funded professional development (PD) program focused on science literacy. Using a three dimensional conceptual framework combining transformative learning theory, communities of practice, and sociocultural conceptions of identity it explores: the ways the "Science Literacy through Science Journalism" (SciJourn) project built professional community and influenced teacher learning; the influence of the project on participating science teachers' professional identities, knowledge, and classroom practices; and the ways teachers were or were not transformed by participation in the project. To this end, data from surveys and phenomenological interviews were analyzed through qualitative textual analysis and narrative analysis. Four of the teachers experienced a change in their stories to live by, aka, an identity shift. Three predominant themes emerged across these cases. These included a changed conceptualization of science literacy, the importance of student engagement and authenticity, and the value of SciJourn's professional development and community. The changed conceptualization of science literacy was particularly salient as it challenged these teachers' assumptions, led them to rethink how they teach science literacy, and also influenced them to re-evaluate their teaching priorities beyond the PD. Consequently, this study concludes that PD efforts should focus as much, or more, on influencing teachers' ideas regarding what and how they teach and less on teaching strategies. A close comparison between two teachers' diverging experiences with the program showed that student engagement played a significant role in teachers' perceptions of the value of project, suggesting that whether or not teachers sustain a new practice is closely tied to their students' feedback. Additionally, this analysis showed that a teacher's individualized needs and sense of efficacy

Integrating Service-Learning Pedagogy for Preservice Elementary Teachers' Science Identity Development

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Wilson, Rachel E.; Bradbury, Leslie U.; McGlasson, Martha A.

2015-04-01

The purpose of this article is to explore how preservice elementary teachers (PSETs) interpreted their service-learning experiences within a pre-methods environmentally focused course and how their interpretations shaped their science teaching identities. Along a continuum of service-learning experiences were events that emphasized science learning, that focused on science teaching, and that were transitional, with elements of both science learning and science teaching. These various service-learning experiences were designed to be "boundary experiences" for professional identity development (Geijsel & Meijers in Educational Studies, 3(4), 419-430, 2005), providing opportunities for PSETs to reflect on meanings in cultural contexts and how they are related to their own personal meanings. We analyzed written reflections and end-of-course oral reflection interviews from 42 PSETs on their various service-learning experiences. PSETs discussed themes related to the meanings they made of the service-learning experiences: (a) experiencing science in relation to their lives as humans and future teachers, (b) interacting with elementary students and other PSETs, and (c) making an impact in the physical environment and in the community. The connections that PSETs were making between the discursive spaces (service-learning contexts) and their own meaning-making of these experiences (as connected to their own interests in relation to their future professions and daily lives) shows evidence of the potential that various types of science service-learning experiences have for PSETs in developing inbound science teaching identity trajectories (Wenger in Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). The findings of this study point to positive outcomes for PSETs when they participate in structured service-learning experiences along a learning to teaching continuum (246).

Sustainability Science: Sustainable Energy for Mobility and Its Use in Policy Making

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fabio Orecchini

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Since the 1980s sustainability has clearly become the challenge of the 21st century. In a process toward a sustainable society it is crucial that different stakeholders start collaboration and exchange ideas with technicians and academics. To finalize the policy decisions on important issues such as energy sustainability, collaboration between policy makers, academia and the private sector is important. This work intends to give Italian policy makers concrete advice and solutions to develop energy systems for mobility. The analysis proceeds from the context of Sustainability Science, a new science, which has emerged as one of the most important disciplines of international scientific research. Using a new approach, trans-disciplinary and integrated, this research is oriented to study and understand the complexity of the interactions between economy, society and nature. This broad approach permits proposing concrete solutions to complex problems locally and globally. We propose a scheme of definition of Sustainability Energy, defining five pillars of reference, and we redefine the energy systems for mobility in the context of Sustainability Science. In this paper, we start from the idea that we are living in a crucial passage, we are moving from the era of petroleum to the era of energy vectors. Energy systems, including mobility, should be redefined within this new approach.

From object to subject: hybrid identities of indigenous women in science

Science.gov (United States)

McKinley, Elizabeth

2008-12-01

The use of hybridity today suggests a less coherent, unified and directed process than that found in the Enlightenment science's cultural imperialism, but regardless of this neither concept exists outside power and inequality. Hence, hybridity raises the question of the terms of the mixture and the conditions of mixing. Cultural hybridity produced by colonisation, under the watchful eye of science at the time, and the subsequent life in a modern world since does not obscure the power that was embedded in the moment of colonisation. Indigenous identities are constructed within and by cultural power. While we all live in a global society whose consequences no one can escape, we remain unequal participants and globalisation remains an uneven process. This article argues that power has become a constitutive element in our own hybrid identities in indigenous people's attempts to participate in science and science education. Using the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand (called Māori) as a site of identity construction, I argue that the move from being the object of science to the subject of science, through science education in schools, brings with it traces of an earlier meaning of `hybridity' that constantly erupts into the lives of Māori women scientists.

Improving science education for sustainable development

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Eijck, van M.W.; Roth, W.-M.

2007-01-01

In recent issues of noteworthy journals, natural scientists have argued for the improvement of science education [1–4]. Such pleas reflect the growing awareness that high-quality science education is required not only for sustaining a lively scientific community that is able to address global

Creating and Sustaining University-Community Partnerships in Science Education (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Finkelstein, N.

2009-12-01

Despite years of research and investment, we have yet to see the widespread implementation of a myriad research-proven instructional strategies in STEM education[1]. To address this challenge, we present and analyze one such strategy, a theoretically-grounded model of university-community partnership [2] that engages university students and children in a collective enterprise that has the potential to improve the participation and education of all. We document the impact of this effort on: university participants who learn about education, the community and science; children in the community who learn about science, the nature of science and develop their identities and attitudes towards science; and, shifts in institutional structures which may allow these programs to be part of standard practice. This project is designed to be sustained and scaled, and is analyzed through the application of a new framework [3] which brings together theories of STEM change that come from studies in higher education, faculty development and disciplinary-based education research in STEM. [1] National Research Council. (2003). Improving Undergraduate Instruction in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics: Report of A Workshop. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. [2] Finkelstein, N. and Mayhew, L. (2008). Acting in Our Own Self-Interest: Blending University and Community. Proceedings of the 2008 Physics Education Research Conf, AIP Press. Melville NY, 1064, 19-22. [3] Henderson, C., Finkelstein, N. & Beach A. (to appear). Beyond Dissemination in College science teaching: An Introduction to Four Core Change Strategies. Accepted May 2009 in Journal of College Science Teaching.

Schooling girls in a rural community: An examination of female science identity and science career choices

Science.gov (United States)

Fowler, Melisa Diane Creasy

There is a gap in existence between the number of males and females entering science careers. Research has begun to focus largely on how identity impacts the selection of such careers. While much research has been done to examine the factors that impact student identity, little work has been done to examine what happens to female students who have been successful in science in a rural K-12 school once they leave high school and enter the world of academia. Thus, this study examined the following questions: (1) How do three recent female high school graduates from rural K-12 high schools narrate their identity? (2) How do the females narrate their experiences in a rural community and high school in relation to their science identity? (3) What do the participants describe as influencing their academic and career choices as they transition into the life of a college student? This study involved three female participants from a small rural community in a southeastern state. Each female has lived their entire life in the community and has attended only one K-12 school. All three females ranked in the top ten of their senior class and excelled in their science coursework. Additionally, each female elected to attend college locally and to live at home. The study utilized the qualitative methodology of interpretive biography. The researcher used a guided interview protocol with participants which served as the basis for the creation of their narrative biographies. The biographies were then analyzed for emergent themes. Sociocultural theory, identity theory, and critical feminism provided the theoretical frameworks utilized in data analysis. Findings from this study suggested that there were many differing factors influencing the science identity and career choices of the females under study. However, the most salient factor impacting their choices was their desire to remain in their hometown. Directions for future research suggestions involve exploring female students who

An Exploration of Teachers' Efforts to Understand Identity Work and its Relevance to Science Instruction

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, M. Cecil; Darfler, Anne

2012-06-01

US educators express concern that students are turning away from the study of science and have little interest in pursuing science careers. Nationally, science achievement scores for 8th graders are unchanged since 1996, but 12th graders' scores have significantly decreased. A shortcoming of education reform efforts is lack of attention to students' developmental needs. Science study should enable students to learn about themselves—to develop and refine their skills, define their values, explore personal interests, and understand the importance of science to themselves and others. Effective secondary science instruction requires attention to students' identity development—the key developmental task of adolescence. Secondary science teachers participated in an 8-week course focused on understanding adolescent identity development and methods for addressing identity. Transcripts of the teachers' online discussions of salient issues were analyzed to determine their perceptions regarding classroom identity work. Teachers identified several assets and obstacles to identity work that were organized into two broad categories: teacher knowledge, training opportunities, and administrative support, or lack of these; and, presence of inflexible curricula, standardized testing regimes, and increased teacher accountability. Implications for student growth and science teacher professional development are discussed.

Transition to Sustainability: Science Support Through Characterizing and Quantifying Sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

Plag, Hans-Peter; Jules-Plag, Shelley

2013-04-01

Humanity's sustainability crisis caused by a growing, resource-demanding population on a finite, rapidly changing planet challenges us with large uncertainties. While some see the planet on the edge, it is more likely that humanity as a global species is on the edge. However, science, Earth observations, and socio-economic data do not provide clear indications of where this edge is, and how close we are to this edge. The instruments in the cockpit of a modern airplane provide more relevant and actionable information to the pilots than the "cockpit" of planet Earth provides to those involved in the governance of our planet. There is no manual for those responsible to keep us on a track within the "safe operational space" of humanity. What science and research is needed to make progress towards a future, where knowledge of sustainability and resilience allows for an evidence-based, adaptive policy and decision-making? Paradoxically, innovation over the recent decades have worsened the sustainablity crisis, but more innovation is imperative to bring us out of it. The comprehensive, conceptual framework for sustainability research that would provide an umbrella identifying the key challenges and a basis for this innovation seems to be missing. Defining sustainability as a characteristic of a process that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely, we need to agree in a societal deliberation on a few aspects, including what processes we want to consider (the anthroposphere as embedded in the Earth system?), what time frames we want to aim at (not infinity, but very long time frames, e.g., 10,000 years?), and what spatial scales we need to look at (from local to global?). Most importantly, we need to acknowledge that humanity's sustainability is the result of intertwined social, economic, and environmental (s2e) processes that can not be separate. The research then has to clarify in the s2e context what are the attributes of sustainability, the relevant processes

Sustainable business conduct as business model or business identity : a stakeholder review of a potential trend towards a new normal

OpenAIRE

Kvarnström, Lovisa

2016-01-01

The objective of the thesis is to analyse how stakeholder influence has transformed sustainability work from being primarily risk management into becoming an integral part of business conduct and even business identities of today. To detect this trend I gather theoretical information that elaborate on the meaning and drivers of sustainable business conduct, sustainability as corporate identity, relevant stakeholders and ways of communicating to stakeholders. A case study of Ben & Jerry’s ...

The science of sustainable supply chains.

Science.gov (United States)

O'Rourke, Dara

2014-06-06

Recent advances in the science and technology of global supply chain management offer near-real-time demand-response systems for decision-makers across production networks. Technology is helping propel "fast fashion" and "lean manufacturing," so that companies are better able to deliver products consumers want most. Yet companies know much less about the environmental and social impacts of their production networks. The failure to measure and manage these impacts can be explained in part by limitations in the science of sustainability measurement, as well as by weaknesses in systems to translate data into information that can be used by decision-makers inside corporations and government agencies. There also remain continued disincentives for firms to measure and pay the full costs of their supply chain impacts. I discuss the current state of monitoring, measuring, and analyzing information related to supply chain sustainability, as well as progress that has been made in translating this information into systems to advance more sustainable practices by corporations and consumers. Better data, decision-support tools, and incentives will be needed to move from simply managing supply chains for costs, compliance, and risk reduction to predicting and preventing unsustainable practices. Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Science Teacher Identity and Eco-Transformation of Science Education: Comparing Western Modernism with Confucianism and Reflexive "Bildung"

Science.gov (United States)

Sjöström, Jesper

2018-01-01

This forum article contributes to the understanding of how science teachers' identity is related to their worldviews, cultural values and educational philosophies, and to eco-transformation of science education. Special focus is put on "reform-minded" science teachers. The starting point is the paper "Science education reform in…

Toward Knowledge Systems for Sustainability Science

Science.gov (United States)

Zaks, D. P.; Jahn, M.

2011-12-01

Managing ecosystems for the outcomes of agricultural productivity and resilience will require fundamentally different knowledge management systems. In the industrial paradigm of the 20th century, land was considered an open, unconstrained system managed for maximum yield. While dramatic increases in yield occurred in some crops and locations, unintended but often foreseeable consequences emerged. While productivity remains a key objective, we must develop analytic systems that can identify better management options for the full range of monetized and non-monetized inputs, outputs and outcomes that are captured in the following framing question: How much valued service (e.g. food, materials, energy) can we draw from a landscape while maintaining adequate levels of other valued or necessary services (e.g. biodiversity, water, climate regulation, cultural services) including the long-term productivity of the land? This question is placed within our contemporary framing of valued services, but structured to illuminate the shifts required to achieve long-term sufficiency and planetary resilience. This framing also highlights the need for fundamentally new knowledge systems including information management infrastructures, which effectively support decision-making on landscapes. The purpose of this initiative by authors from diverse fields across government and academic science is to call attention to the need for a vision and investment in sustainability science for landscape management. Substantially enhanced capabilities are needed to compare and integrate information from diverse sources, collected over time that link choices made to meet our needs from landscapes to both short and long term consequences. To further the goal of an information infrastructure for sustainability science, three distinct but interlocking domains are best distinguished: 1) a domain of data, information and knowledge assets; 2) a domain that houses relevant models and tools in a curated

Sustainability as an Identity Factor of Tourist Destinations at Websites:Does the Consumer Care?

OpenAIRE

Francisco Vicente Sales Melo; Salomão Alencar de Farias

2014-01-01

When choosing a vacation destination, consumers consider various factors, such as culture, natural attractions, history and points of interest, among others. In this article we analyze whether the question of sustainability is a determining factor in the choice of tourist destinations. Therefore, the article investigates the relationship of the identity of tourist destinations, as presented at their official websites, according to sustainability characteristics, the evaluation of the destinat...

Family matters: Familial support and science identity formation for African American female STEM majors

Science.gov (United States)

Parker, Ashley Dawn

This research seeks to understand the experiences of African American female undergraduates in STEM. It investigates how familial factors and science identity formation characteristics influence persistence in STEM while considering the duality of African American women's status in society. This phenomenological study was designed using critical race feminism as the theoretical framework to answer the following questions: 1) What role does family play in the experiences of African American women undergraduate STEM majors who attended two universities in the UNC system? 2) What factors impact the formation of science identity for African American women undergraduate STEM majors who attended two universities in the UNC system? Purposive sampling was used to select the participants for this study. The researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 10 African American female undergraduate STEM major from a predominantly White and a historically Black institution with the state of North Carolina public university system. Findings suggest that African American families and science identity formation influence the STEM experiences of the African American females interviewed in this study. The following five themes emerged from the findings: (1) independence, (2) support, (3) pressure to succeed, (4) adaptations, and (5) race and gender. This study contributes to the literature on African American female students in STEM higher education. The findings of this study produced knowledge regarding policies and practices that can lead to greater academic success and persistence of African American females in higher education in general, and STEM majors in particular. Colleges and universities may benefit from the findings of this study in a way that allows them to develop and sustain programs and policies that attend to the particular concerns and needs of African American women on their campuses. Finally, this research informs both current and future African American female

The Influence of Informal Science Education Experiences on the Development of Two Beginning Teachers' Science Classroom Teaching Identity

Science.gov (United States)

Katz, Phyllis; Randy McGinnis, J.; Riedinger, Kelly; Marbach-Ad, Gili; Dai, Amy

2013-12-01

In case studies of two first-year elementary classroom teachers, we explored the influence of informal science education (ISE) they experienced in their teacher education program. Our theoretical lens was identity development, delimited to classroom science teaching. We used complementary data collection methods and analysis, including interviews, electronic communications, and drawing prompts. We found that our two participants referenced as important the ISE experiences in their development of classroom science identities that included resilience, excitement and engagement in science teaching and learning-qualities that are emphasized in ISE contexts. The data support our conclusion that the ISE experiences proved especially memorable to teacher education interns during the implementation of the No Child Left Behind policy which concentrated on school-tested subjects other than science.

Listening to their voices: Exploring mathematics-science identity development of African American males in an urban school community

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, Kimi Leemar

National data continues to show an underrepresentation of African American males pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors, careers and professions in the United States. Whites and Asian Americans are continuously positioned as the face of STEM education and participation. And while research has provided ways to support mathematics and science learning for African American males, there still remains a gap in understanding how their formed mathematics-science identities in K-12 public schooling influences STEM participation. The research undertaken in this study explores this gap, and uses an integrative identity framework to understand mathematics-science identity development which goes beyond personal identity, and explores the relational, collective and material components of identity. Specifically, this research seeks to answer the following research questions: What are the shared lived experiences that exist between a group of African American male students developing a mathematics-science identity, and how these shared lived experiences shape their mathematics-science identity development? Therefore, by analyzing African American males lived experiences employing an integrative identity framework fosters a greater understanding of how mathematics-science identity is formed in K-12 public schools, which impacts STEM education and participation. The high school aged youth featured in this study consist of four African American males, who live in a moderate size city in California. Data for this study consists of observations, phenomenological interviews, and policy document analysis that took place over six months. Data has been analyzed to describe and interpret the young men's mathematics and science experiences, as revealed in their K-12 public school education. This inquiry sought to make meaning of how African American males experience mathematics and science teaching and learning within K-12 public schooling and how these

Science and Technology Research for Sustainable Development in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Science and Technology Research for Sustainable Development in Africa: The Imperative ... This has placed African countries at a disadvantage. ... In this paper, effort is made to establish the imperative of education to science and technology.

Designing Philadelphia Land Science as a Game to Promote Identity Exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Barany, Amanda; Shah, Mamta; Cellitti, Jessica; Duka, Migela; Swiecki, Zachari; Evenstone, Amanda; Kinley, Hannah; Quigley, Peter; Shaffer, David Williamson; Foster, Aroutis

2017-01-01

Few digital tools are designed to support identity exploration around careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that may help close existing representation gaps in STEM fields. The aim of this project is to inform the design of games that facilitate learning as identity change as defined by the Projective Reflection…

Revisiting the silence of Asian immigrant students: The negotiation of Korean immigrant students' identities in science classrooms

Science.gov (United States)

Ryu, Minjung

This dissertation is a study about Korean immigrant students' identities, including academic identities related to science learning and identities along various social dimensions. I explore how Korean immigrant students participate in science classrooms and how they enact and negotiate their identities in their classroom discursive participation. My dissertation is motivated by the increasing attention in educational research to the intersectionality between science learning and various dimensions of identities (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, social networks) and a dearth of such research addressing Asian immigrant students. Asian immigrant students are stereotyped as quiet and successful learners, particularly in science and mathematics classes, and their success is often explained by cultural differences. I confront this static and oversimplified notion of cultural differences and Asians' academic success and examine the intersectionality between science learning and identities of Asian immigrant students, with the specific case of Korean immigrants. Drawing upon cultural historical and sociolinguistic perspectives of identity, I propose a theoretical framework that underscores multiple levels of contexts (macro level, meso level, personal, and micro level contexts) in understanding and analyzing students' identities. Based on a year-long ethnographic study in two high school Advanced Placement Biology classes in a public high school, I present the meso level contexts of the focal school and biology classes, and in-depth analyses of three focal students. The findings illustrate: (1) how meso level contexts play a critical role in these students' identities and science classroom participation, (2) how the meso level contexts are reinterpreted and have different meanings to different students depending on their personal contexts, and (3) how students negotiated their positions to achieve certain identity goals. I discuss the implications of the findings for the

Science and Civics: Sustaining Wildlife

Science.gov (United States)

Council for Environmental Education, 2011

2011-01-01

Project WILD's new high school curriculum, "Science and Civics: Sustaining Wildlife", is designed to serve as a guide for involving students in environmental action projects aimed at benefitting the local wildlife found in a community. It involves young people in decisions affecting people, wildlife, and their shared habitat in the community. The…

An Examination of the Processes of Student Science Identity Negotiation within an Informal Learning Community

Science.gov (United States)

Mark, Sheron L.

Scientific proficiency is important, not only for a solid, interdisciplinary educational foundation, but also for entry into and mobility within today's increasingly technological and globalized workplace, as well as for informed, democratic participation in society (National Academies Press, 2007b). Within the United States, low-income, ethnic minority students are disproportionately underperforming and underrepresented in science, as well as mathematics, engineering and other technology fields (Business-Higher Education Forum, 2011; National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2009). This is due, in part, to a lack of educational structures and strategies that can support low-income, ethnic minority students to become competent in science in equitable and empowering ways. In order to investigate such structures and strategies that may be beneficial for these students, a longitudinal, qualitative study was conducted. The 15 month study was an investigation of science identity negotiation informed by the theoretical perspectives of Brown's (2004) discursive science identities and Tan and Barton's (2008) identities-in-practice amongst ten high school students in an informal science program and employed an amalgam of research designs, including ethnography (Geertz, 1973), case study (Stake, 2000) and grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Findings indicated that the students made use of two strategies, discursive identity development and language use in science, in order to negotiate student science identities in satisfying ways within the limits of the TESJ practice. Additionally, 3 factors were identified as being supportive of successful student science identity negotiation in the informal practice, as well. These were (i) peer dynamics, (ii) significant social interactions, and (iii) student ownership in science. The students were also uncovered to be particularly open-minded to the field of STEM. Finally, with respect to STEM career development, specific

Advancing sustainability science in South Africa

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Burns, MER

2006-09-01

Full Text Available sources of knowledge. A response to this situation has seen the emergence of 'sustainability science’, which aims to overcome divisions between knowledge sources of various forms, including the social and natural sciences and alternative epistemologies...

Research and development portfolio of the sustainability science team national sustainable operations USDA Forest Service

Science.gov (United States)

Trista Patterson; David Nicholls; Jonathan Long

2015-01-01

The Sustainability Science Team (SST) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service Sustainable Operations Initiative is a 18-member virtual research and development team, located across five regions and four research stations of the USDA Forest Service. The team provides research, publication, systems analysis, and decision support to the Sustainable...

Social Science, Equity and the Sustainable Development Goals

Science.gov (United States)

Liverman, D.

2015-12-01

The Sustainable Development Goals are underpinned by a committment to a world that is just, equitable, inclusive and environmentally sustainable and include goals of ending poverty and hunger; universal access to health, education, water, sanitation, energy and decent work; and reducing the risks and impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and marine, forest and land degradation. They seek to reduce inequality between and within countries and achieve gender equality. The SDGs build on the apparent success in meeting many of the Millenium Development Goals, including those of reducing poverty, hunger and debt and providing access to water. The science needed to achieve and monitor most of these goals is social science - an area of scholarship that is traditionally undervalued, underfunded, underepresented misunderstood and lacking in detailed data. This paper will provide an overview of the social science that is needed to support the Sustainable Development Goals, with a particular focus on the challenges of monitoring social data over time and within countries, the importance of research design, and of building capacity and credibility in the social sciences. As an example, the paper will discuss the social science that will be needed to achieve Goal 13: Take urgent actions to combat climate change and its impacts, and measuring targets such as strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity, and raising capacities of women, youth, and marginalized communities to manage and respond climate change.

The Chicago Consensus on Sustainable Food Systems Science.

Science.gov (United States)

Drewnowski, Adam

2017-01-01

As participants at the Ecosystem Inception Meeting convened by the Global Dairy Platform and held in Chicago in June 2016, we have identified some concepts as central to the study of food systems science. Following the definition developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization for sustainable diets, the food supply needs to provide foods that are healthy and safe, affordable, culturally acceptable, and with low impact on the environment. Therefore, the four main domains of sustainable food systems science can be described as health, economics, society, and the environment. Food systems science needs to embrace and engage with all relevant allied disciplines that may include environmental health sciences, epidemiology, geography, history, sociology, anthropology, business, and political science. Research and training in food systems science, both domestic and international, would benefit from a set of competencies, from more extensive research networks, and from more public-private engagement. This document builds on major advances in the area of food system research, training, and practice, already achieved by individuals, institutions, foundations, and local and national governments.

The Chicago Consensus on Sustainable Food Systems Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adam Drewnowski

2018-04-01

Full Text Available As participants at the Ecosystem Inception Meeting convened by the Global Dairy Platform and held in Chicago in June 2016, we have identified some concepts as central to the study of food systems science. Following the definition developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization for sustainable diets, the food supply needs to provide foods that are healthy and safe, affordable, culturally acceptable, and with low impact on the environment. Therefore, the four main domains of sustainable food systems science can be described as health, economics, society, and the environment. Food systems science needs to embrace and engage with all relevant allied disciplines that may include environmental health sciences, epidemiology, geography, history, sociology, anthropology, business, and political science. Research and training in food systems science, both domestic and international, would benefit from a set of competencies, from more extensive research networks, and from more public–private engagement. This document builds on major advances in the area of food system research, training, and practice, already achieved by individuals, institutions, foundations, and local and national governments.

A Case Study Exploring the Identity of an In-Service Elementary Science Teacher: a Language Teacher First

Science.gov (United States)

Marco-Bujosa, Lisa; Levy, Abigail Jurist; McNeill, Katherine

2018-01-01

Teachers are central to providing high-quality science learning experiences called for in recent reform efforts, as their understanding of science impacts both what they teach and how they teach it. Yet, most elementary teachers do not enter the profession with a particular interest in science or expertise in science teaching. Research also indicates elementary schools present unique barriers that may inhibit science teaching. This case study utilizes the framework of identity to explore how one elementary classroom teacher's understandings of herself as a science specialist were shaped by the bilingual elementary school context as she planned for and provided reform-based science instruction. Utilizing Gee's (2000) sociocultural framework, identity was defined as consisting of four interrelated dimensions that served as analytic frames for examining how this teacher understood her new role through social positioning within her school. Findings describe the ways in which this teacher's identity as a science teacher was influenced by the school context. The case study reveals two important implications for teacher identity. First, collaboration for science teaching is essential for elementary teachers to change their practice. It can be challenging for teachers to form an identity as a science teacher in isolation. In addition, elementary teachers new to science teaching negotiate their emerging science practice with their prior experiences and the school context. For example, in the context of a bilingual school, this teacher adapted the reform-based science curriculum to better meet the unique linguistic needs of her students.

Maintaining the CSR-identity of Sustainable Entrepreneurial Firms: The role of corporate governance in periods of business growth

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roelofsen, M.; Blok, V.; Wubben, E.F.M.

2015-01-01

This chapter focuses on the maintenance of the CSR-identity of sustainable entrepreneurial firms (SEFs) during periods of business growth. Our aim is to explore to what extent corporate governance mechanisms can be seen as effective mechanisms to maintain the CSR-identity of growing SEFs. To this

An introduction to sustainability science and its links to sustainability assessment

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Audouin, M

2015-09-01

Full Text Available In this chapter the authors explore two elements which arguably underlie all aspects of sustainability science, namely: an emphasis on the relationships between social, ecological and economic aspects in a systemic view of the world (section 14...

Developing a workable teacher identity: Building and negotiating identity within a professional network

Science.gov (United States)

Rostock, Roseanne

The challenge of attracting and retaining the next generation of teachers who are skilled and committed to meeting the growing demands of the profession is of increasing concern to researchers and policy makers, particularly since 45--50% of beginning teachers leave the profession within five years (Ingersoll & Smith, 2003). Reasons for such attrition include compensation, status and working conditions; however, there is growing evidence that a critical factor in new teacher retention hinges on teachers' ability to accomplish the difficult task of forming a workable professional identity in the midst of competing discourses about teaching (Alsup, 2006; Britzman, 2003). There is little research on professional identity development among those beginning teachers at highest risk for attrition (secondary math and science teachers, and those with strong academic backgrounds). This study explores the professional identity development of early-career math and science teachers who are part of the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation's (KSTF) teaching fellowship program, an external support network that aims to address many of the issues leading to high attrition among this particular population of teachers. Using narrative research methods, I examine three case studies of beginning teachers, exploring how they construct professional identity in relation to various discourse communities and negotiate tensions across multiple discourses. The cases identify both dominant discourses and counter-discourses that the teachers draw upon for important identity development resources. They also demonstrate that the way a teacher manages tensions across competing discourses is important to how well one can negotiate a workable professional identity. In particular, they emphasize the importance of engaging in borderland discourses (Gee, 1996) as a way of taking agency in one's own identity development as well as in transforming one's discourse communities. These cases shed light on how

Science for a sustainable future

CERN Multimedia

2013-01-01

Today we had a visit from Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations. This is Mr Ban’s second visit to our laboratory, but his first since CERN was granted Observer status at the United Nations General Assembly last December. It therefore gave us our first opportunity to discuss joint initiatives already under way.   Our discussions focused on CERN’s contribution to science-related UN activities, and in particular those of the UN’s Economic and Social Council, ECOSOC, whose focus for 2013 is on leveraging science, technology, innovation and culture for a sustainable future. CERN will be taking part in ECOSOC meetings in Geneva in July, and we will be contributing on the theme of young women in science to ECOSOC’s Youth Forum on 27 March. Mr Ban and I also discussed the role of the Secretary-General’s recently established science advisory board. During his brief visit, Mr Ban became one of our first visitors to see some of the underg...

Incorporating Indonesian Students' "Funds of Knowledge" into Teaching Science to Sustain Their Interest in Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A.N. Md Zain

2011-12-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of incorporating students’ funds of knowledge in the teaching of science in sustaining Indonesian students’ interest in science. The researchers employed mixed method approach in this study. This study took place within two suburban secondary schools in Indonesia. Two teachers and a total of 173 students (94 males and 79 females participated in this study. The findings revealed that initially, most students expected that the teaching process would mainly include science experiments or other hands-on activities. Their preferences revealed a critical problem related to science learning: a lack of meaningful science-related activities in the classroom. The findings showed that incorporating students’ funds of knowledge into science learning processes -and thus establishing students’ culture as an important and valued aspect of science learning was effective in not only sustaining but also improving students’ attitudes and increasing their interest in science.

Capturing the Transformation and Dynamic Nature of an Elementary Teacher Candidate's Identity Development as a Teacher of Science

Science.gov (United States)

Naidoo, Kara

2017-12-01

This study examines the transformation and dynamic nature of one teacher candidate's (Susan) identity as a learner and teacher of science throughout an innovative science methods course. The goal of this paper is to use theoretically derived themes grounded in cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and situated learning theory to determine the ways in which Susan's identity as a learner and teacher of science was influenced by her experiences in the course, and to describe how she made meaning of her transformative process. The following are the three theoretical themes: (1) learning contributes to identity development, (2) identity development is a dialogical process that occurs between individuals, not within individuals, and (3) social practice leads to transformations and transformations lead to the creation of new social practices. Within each theme, specific experiences in the science methods course are identified that influenced Susan's identity development as a teacher of science. Knowing how context and experiences influence identity development can inform design decisions concerning teacher education programs, courses, and experiences for candidates.

Journal of Science and Sustainable Development

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives. Journal Homepage Image. Annually, Uganda Martyrs University's School of Postgraduate Studies and Research produces the Journal of Science and Sustainable Development (JSSD) (ISSN: 2070-1748). The goal of the Journal is to ...

Teaching Primary Science: Emotions, Identity and the Use of Practical Activities

Science.gov (United States)

Cripps Clark, John; Groves, Susie

2012-01-01

This paper uses cultural historical activity theory to examine the interactions between the choices primary teachers make in the use of practical activities in their teaching of science and the purposes they attribute to these; their emotions, background and beliefs; and the construction of their identities as teachers of science. It draws on four…

Identity Theft in the Academic World Leads to Junk Science.

Science.gov (United States)

Dadkhah, Mehdi; Lagzian, Mohammad; Borchardt, Glenn

2018-02-01

In recent years, identity theft has been growing in the academic world. Cybercriminals create fake profiles for prominent scientists in attempts to manipulate the review and publishing process. Without permission, some fraudulent journals use the names of standout researchers on their editorial boards in the effort to look legitimate. This opinion piece, highlights some of the usual types of identity theft and their role in spreading junk science. Some general guidelines that editors and researchers can use against such attacks are presented.

CILogon: An Integrated Identity and Access Management Platform for Science

Science.gov (United States)

Basney, J.

2016-12-01

When scientists work together, they use web sites and other software to share their ideas and data. To ensure the integrity of their work, these systems require the scientists to log in and verify that they are part of the team working on a particular science problem. Too often, the identity and access verification process is a stumbling block for the scientists. Scientific research projects are forced to invest time and effort into developing and supporting Identity and Access Management (IAM) services, distracting them from the core goals of their research collaboration. CILogon provides an IAM platform that enables scientists to work together to meet their IAM needs more effectively so they can allocate more time and effort to their core mission of scientific research. The CILogon platform enables federated identity management and collaborative organization management. Federated identity management enables researchers to use their home organization identities to access cyberinfrastructure, rather than requiring yet another username and password to log on. Collaborative organization management enables research projects to define user groups for authorization to collaboration platforms (e.g., wikis, mailing lists, and domain applications). CILogon's IAM platform serves the unique needs of research collaborations, namely the need to dynamically form collaboration groups across organizations and countries, sharing access to data, instruments, compute clusters, and other resources to enable scientific discovery. CILogon provides a software-as-a-service platform to ease integration with cyberinfrastructure, while making all software components publicly available under open source licenses to enable re-use. Figure 1 illustrates the components and interfaces of this platform. CILogon has been operational since 2010 and has been used by over 7,000 researchers from more than 170 identity providers to access cyberinfrastructure including Globus, LIGO, Open Science Grid

The Single Sex Debate for Girls in Science: a Comparison Between Two Informal Science Programs on Middle School Students' STEM Identity Formation

Science.gov (United States)

Hughes, Roxanne M.; Nzekwe, Brandon; Molyneaux, Kristen J.

2013-10-01

Currently, there are policy debates regarding the efficacy and legality of single sex formal and informal education programs. This issue is particularly poignant in science education due to the historical marginalization of women in these fields. This marginalization has resulted in women being positioned as a stigmatized group within many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related fields. Research points to adolescence as the age where this sense of marginalization begins to develop. As a result, policy responses have utilized various frameworks such as: increased access for women, changing pedagogy to address women's learning styles, changing the language and culture of science to prevent marginalization of stigmatized groups, and finally exploring the role that individual identity plays in the marginalization of women. This study adds to the policy debate as it applies to single sex education by comparing middle school participants' STEM identity formation during two informal science learning environments (an all girls' STEM camp and a co-educational STEM camp). Additionally, this study focuses on the influence of camp activities within two informal science education programs: particularly the provision of role models and authentic STEM research activities, as means to improve STEM identity and make these fields relevant to the lives of middle school students. The results indicate that both camps improved girls' STEM identities. These findings suggest that the single sex environment is not as important to STEM identity as the pedagogy used within the program.

Standing at the crossroads: Identity and recognition of the Applied Science Technologist in British Columbia

Science.gov (United States)

Roemer, Thomas

concludes with recommendations for the sustainability of the Applied Science Technologist as distinct occupational category. Keywords. engineering technology; community college; diploma; recognition; identity; social imaginaries

Promoting Issues-based STSE Perspectives in Science Teacher Education: Problems of Identity and Ideology

Science.gov (United States)

Pedretti, Erminia G.; Bencze, Larry; Hewitt, Jim; Romkey, Lisa; Jivraj, Ashifa

2008-09-01

Although science, technology, society and environment (STSE) education has gained considerable force in the past few years, it has made fewer strides in practice. We suggest that science teacher identity plays a role in the adoption of STSE perspectives. Simply put, issues-based STSE education challenges traditional images of a science teacher and science instructional ideologies. In this paper, we briefly describe the development of a multimedia documentary depicting issues-based STSE education in a teacher’s class and its subsequent implementation with 64 secondary student-teachers at a large Canadian university. Specifically, we set out to explore: (1) science teacher candidates’ responses to a case of issues-based STSE teaching, and (2) how science teacher identity intersects with the adoption of STSE perspectives. Findings reveal that although teacher candidates expressed confidence and motivation regarding teaching STSE, they also indicated decreased likelihood to teach these perspectives in their early years of teaching. Particular tensions or problems of practice consistently emerged that helped explain this paradox including issues related to: control and autonomy; support and belonging; expertise and negotiating curriculum; politicization and action; and biases and ideological bents. We conclude our paper with a discussion regarding the lessons learned about STSE education, teacher identity and the role of multimedia case methods.

Toward A Science of Sustainable Water Management

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, C.

2016-12-01

Societal need for improved water management and concerns for the long-term sustainability of water resources systems are prominent around the world. The continued susceptibility of society to the harmful effects of hydrologic variability, pervasive concerns related to climate change and the emergent awareness of devastating effects of current practice on aquatic ecosystems all illustrate our limited understanding of how water ought to be managed in a dynamic world. The related challenges of resolving the competition for freshwater among competing uses (so called "nexus" issues) and adapting water resources systems to climate change are prominent examples of the of sustainable water management challenges. In addition, largely untested concepts such as "integrated water resources management" have surfaced as Sustainable Development Goals. In this presentation, we argue that for research to improve water management, and for practice to inspire better research, a new focus is required, one that bridges disciplinary barriers between the water resources research focus on infrastructure planning and management, and the role of human actors, and geophysical sciences community focus on physical processes in the absence of dynamical human response. Examples drawn from climate change adaptation for water resource systems and groundwater management policy provide evidence of initial progress towards a science of sustainable water management that links improved physical understanding of the hydrological cycle with the socioeconomic and ecological understanding of water and societal interactions.

Challenges of Teaching Science to Address Global Sustainability

OpenAIRE

Halim, Lilia

2015-01-01

For a liveable condition in this post- industrial era, it would depend on our ability to understand and use the science and technology advancement in a responsible manner. Water pollution and global warming phenomena are outcomes of scientific and technological advancement that has been mismanaged. One way to achieve global sustainability is through science education and the development of a scientific literate citizen. This paper, based on the literature and research work in science educatio...

QUEST for sustainable CPD: scaffolding science teachers' individual and collaborative inquiries

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Birgitte Lund

2015-01-01

Continuous Professional Development (CPD) can be crucial for reforming science teaching, but more knowledge is needed about how to support sustainability of the effects. The Danish QUEST project is a large scale, long-term collaborative CPD project designed according to widely agreed criteria...... phase. The findings are discussed looking forward to the institutionalization phase identifying factors potentially supporting sustainable development pertaining to local science teachers developing a shared focus on student learning in science, and perceived individual and collective efficacy...

Scientist Spotlight Homework Assignments Shift Students' Stereotypes of Scientists and Enhance Science Identity in a Diverse Introductory Science Class

Science.gov (United States)

Schinske, Jeffrey N.; Perkins, Heather; Snyder, Amanda; Wyer, Mary

2016-01-01

Research into science identity, stereotype threat, and possible selves suggests a lack of diverse representations of scientists could impede traditionally underserved students from persisting and succeeding in science. We evaluated a series of metacognitive homework assignments ("Scientist Spotlights") that featured counterstereotypical…

Redesigning Introductory Science Courses to Teach Sustainability: Introducing the L(SC)2 Paradigm

Science.gov (United States)

Myers, J. D.; Campbell-Stone, E.; Massey, G.

2008-12-01

Modern societies consume vast quantities of Earth resources at unsustainable levels; at the same time, resource extraction, processing, production, use and disposal have resulted in environmental damage severe enough to threaten the life-support systems of our planet. These threats are produced by multiple, integrative and cumulative environmental stresses, i.e. syndromes, which result from human physical, ecological and social interactions with the environment in specific geographic places. In recent decades, recognition of this growing threat has lead to the concept of sustainability. The science needed to provide the knowledge and know-how for a successful sustainability transition differs markedly from the science that built our modern world. Sustainability science must balanced basic and applied research, promote integrative research focused on specific problems and devise a means of merging fundamental, general scientific principles with understanding of specific places. At the same time, it must use a variety of knowledge areas, i.e. biological systems, Earth systems, technological systems and social systems, to devise solutions to the many complex and difficult problems humankind faces. Clearly, sustainability science is far removed from the discipline-based science taught in most U.S. colleges. Many introductory science courses focus on content, lack context and do not integrate scientific disciplines. To prepare the citizens who will confront future sustainability issues as well as the scientists needed to devise future sustainability strategies, educators and scientists must redesign the typical college science course. A new course paradigm, Literacies and Scientific Content in Social Context (L(SC)2), is ideally suited to teach sustainability science. It offers an alternative approach to liberal science education by redefining and expanding the concept of the interdisciplinary course and merging it with the integrated science course. In addition to

The Influence of Informal Science Education Experiences on the Development of Two Beginning Teachers' Science Classroom Teaching Identity

Science.gov (United States)

Katz, Phyllis; McGinnis, J. Randy; Riedinger, Kelly; Marbach-Ad, Gili; Dai, Amy

2013-01-01

In case studies of two first-year elementary classroom teachers, we explored the influence of informal science education (ISE) they experienced in their teacher education program. Our theoretical lens was identity development, delimited to classroom science teaching. We used complementary data collection methods and analysis, including interviews,…

Integrating Climate Change Science and Sustainability in Environmental Science, Sociology, Philosophy and Business Courses.

Science.gov (United States)

Boudrias, M. A.; Cantzler, J.; Croom, S.; Huston, C.; Woods, M.

2015-12-01

Courses on sustainability can be taught from multiple perspectives with some focused on specific areas (environmental, socio-cultural, economic, ethics) and others taking a more integrated approach across areas of sustainability and academic disciplines. In conjunction with the Climate Change Education Program efforts to enhance climate change literacy with innovative approaches, resources and communication strategies developed by Climate Education Partners were used in two distinct ways to integrate climate change science and impacts into undergraduate and graduate level courses. At the graduate level, the first lecture in the MBA program in Sustainable Supply Chain Management is entirely dedicated to climate change science, local and global impacts and discussions about key messages to communicate to the business community. Basic science concepts are integrated with discussions about mitigation and adaptation focused on business leaders. The concepts learned are then applied to the semester-long business plan project for the students. At the undergraduate level, a new model of comprehensive integration across disciplines was implemented in Spring 2015 across three courses on Sustainability each with a specific lens: Natural Science, Sociology and Philosophy. All three courses used climate change as the 'big picture' framing concept and had similar learning objectives creating a framework where lens-specific topics, focusing on depth in a discipline, were balanced with integrated exercises across disciplines providing breadth and possibilities for integration. The comprehensive integration project was the creation of the climate action plan for the university with each team focused on key areas of action (water, energy, transportation, etc.) and each team built with at least one member from each class ensuring a natural science, sociological and philosophical perspective. The final project was presented orally to all three classes and an integrated paper included

The construction of a questionnaire to evaluate the science orientedness of students’ identities as learners from a cognitive perspective

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Taconis, R.; Putter-Smits, de L.G.A.; Henry, S.F.; Brok, den P.J.; Beijaard, D.

2010-01-01

Forming a science-oriented identity is considered a process underlying both interest and achievement in science education. A questionnaire is developed for describing "identities as learners" and evaluating their science orientedness. The instrument (k = 65) focuses on cognitive aspects. An internal

The Grand Challenges Discourse: Transforming Identity Work in Science and Science Policy.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaldewey, David

2018-01-01

This article analyzes the concept of "grand challenges" as part of a shift in how scientists and policymakers frame and communicate their respective agendas. The history of the grand challenges discourse helps to understand how identity work in science and science policy has been transformed in recent decades. Furthermore, the question is raised whether this discourse is only an indicator, or also a factor in this transformation. Building on conceptual history and historical semantics, the two parts of the article reconstruct two discursive shifts. First, the observation that in scientific communication references to "problems" are increasingly substituted by references to "challenges" indicates a broader cultural trend of how attitudes towards what is problematic have shifted in the last decades. Second, as the grand challenges discourse is rooted in the sphere of sports and competition, it introduces a specific new set of societal values and practices into the spheres of science and technology. The article concludes that this process can be characterized as the sportification of science, which contributes to self-mobilization and, ultimately, to self-optimization of the participating scientists, engineers, and policymakers.

Service-Learning in the Environmental Sciences for Teaching Sustainability Science

Science.gov (United States)

Truebe, S.; Strong, A. L.

2016-12-01

Understanding and developing effective strategies for the use of community-engaged learning (service-learning) approaches in the environmental geosciences is an important research need in curricular and pedagogical innovation for sustainability. In 2015, we designed and implemented a new community-engaged learning practicum course through the Earth Systems Program in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University focused on regional open space management and land stewardship. Undergraduate and graduate students partnered with three different regional land trust and environmental stewardship organizations to conduct quarter-long research projects ranging from remote sensing studies of historical land use, to fire ecology, to ranchland management, to volunteer retention strategies. Throughout the course, students reflected on the decision-making processes and stewardship actions of the organizations. Two iterations of the course were run in Winter and Fall 2015. Using coded and analyzed pre- and post-course student surveys from the two course iterations, we evaluate undergraduate and graduate student learning outcomes and changes in perceptions and understanding of sustainability science. We find that engagement with community partners to conduct research projects on a wide variety of aspects of open space management, land management, and environmental stewardship (1) increased an understanding of trade-offs inherent in sustainability and resource management and (2) altered student perceptions of the role of scientific information and research in environmental management and decision-making. Furthermore, students initially conceived of open space as purely ecological/biophysical, but by the end of the course, (3) their understanding was of open space as a coupled human/ecological system. This shift is crucial for student development as sustainability scientists.

Beyond Preparation: Identity, Cultural Capital, and Readiness for Graduate School in the Biomedical Sciences.

Science.gov (United States)

Gazley, J Lynn; Remich, Robin; Naffziger-Hirsch, Michelle E; Keller, Jill; Campbell, Patricia B; McGee, Richard

2014-10-01

In this study, we conducted in-depth interviews with 52 college graduates as they entered a Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP). Our goal was to investigate what it means for these aspiring scientists, most of whom are from groups underrepresented in the sciences, to feel ready to apply to a doctoral program in the biomedical sciences. For our analysis, we developed and used a theoretical framework which integrates concepts from identity-in-practice literature with Bourdieu's formulation of cultural capital and also examined the impact of racial, ethnic, and gender identities on education and career trajectories. Five patterns of identity work for expected engagement with PREP grew out of our analysis: Credential Seekers, PI Aspirants, Path Builders, Discipline Changers, and Interest Testers. These patterns illuminate differences in perceptions of doing, being , and becoming within science; external and internal foci of identity work; and expectations for institutional and embodied cultural capital. Our findings show that preparing for graduate education is more complex than acquiring a set of credentials as it is infused with identity work which facilitates readiness beyond preparation . This deeper understanding of individual agency and perceptions allows us to shift the focus away from a deficit model where institutions and programs attempt to "fix" students, and to offer implications for programs designed to support college graduates aspiring to become scientists.

Science teacher identity and eco-transformation of science education: comparing Western modernism with Confucianism and reflexive Bildung

Science.gov (United States)

Sjöström, Jesper

2018-03-01

This forum article contributes to the understanding of how science teachers' identity is related to their worldviews, cultural values and educational philosophies, and to eco-transformation of science education. Special focus is put on `reform-minded' science teachers. The starting point is the paper Science education reform in Confucian learning cultures: teachers' perspectives on policy and practice in Taiwan by Ying-Syuan Huang and Anila Asghar. It highlights several factors that can explain the difficulties of implementing "new pedagogy" in science education. One important factor is Confucian values and traditions, which seem to both hinder and support the science teachers' implementation of inquiry-based and learner-centered approaches. In this article Confucianism is compared with other learning cultures and also discussed in relation to different worldviews and educational philosophies in science education. Just like for the central/north European educational tradition called Bildung, there are various interpretations of Confucianism. However, both have subcultures (e.g. reflexive Bildung and Neo-Confucianism) with similarities that are highlighted in this article. If an "old pedagogy" in science education is related to essentialism, rationalist-objectivist focus, and a hierarchical configuration, the so called "new pedagogy" is often related to progressivism, modernism, utilitarianism, and a professional configuration. Reflexive Bildung problematizes the values associated with such a "new pedagogy" and can be described with labels such as post-positivism, reconstructionism and problematizing/critical configurations. Different educational approaches in science education, and corresponding eco-identities, are commented on in relation to transformation of educational practice.

Educating science teachers for sustainability: questions, contradictions and possibilities for rethinking learning and pedagogy

Science.gov (United States)

Rahm, Jrène; Gorges, Anna

2017-09-01

In this review, we explore what educating science teachers for sustainability implies according to the 23 book chapters and many sampled teacher education and science methods courses in the edited book by Susan Stratton, Rita Hagevick, Allan Feldman and Mark Bloom, entitled Educating Science Teachers for Sustainability, published in 2015 by Springer as part of the ASTE Series in Science Education. We situate the review in the current complex landscape of discourses around sustainability education, exploring its grounding in an anthropocentric ideology next to emancipatory practices and a holistic vision of the world. We offer a quick overview of the chapters and themes addressed. We then take up some ideas to think with. We are particularly invested in thinking about the implications of sustainability education as going beyond science teachers and science education, and as implying a serious engagement with and critique of current unsustainable ways of living. We play with the idea of taking sustainability education beyond neoliberal ideals of education and offer some suggestions by bringing in voices of students, youth, land-based learning and the idea of living sustainability. We also explore what indigenous scholars and epistemologies could have contributed to an exploration of sustainability education, a voice that was absent in the book, yet helps desettle the conversation and actions taken, moving the discourse beyond an Eurocentric grounding.

Sustainability, the Next Generation Science Standards, and the Education of Future Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Egger, Anne E.; Kastens, Kim A.; Turrin, Margaret K.

2017-01-01

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize how human activities affect the Earth and how Earth processes impact humans, placing the concept of sustainability within the Earth and Space Sciences. We ask: how prepared are future teachers to address sustainability and systems thinking as encoded in the NGSS? And how can geoscientists…

The effect of immigration status on physics identity and physical science career intentions

Science.gov (United States)

Lung, Florin; Potvin, Geoff; Sonnert, Gerhard; Sadler, Philip M.

2012-02-01

Using data collected from a nationally-representative sample of first-year college students, we examine how students' identity development as physics persons and their likelihood to pursue a career in physical science is predicted by differing immigrant experiences. We consider broad factors having a social, economic, or cultural nature as covariates in a propensity score model that assesses differences due to immigrant generation. Our results show that, when controlling for such factors as race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, and gender, students' physics identities and the likelihood of choosing a career in physical science are significantly higher amongst first generation students than second generation (or later) students. We conclude that physical science as a career option can be influenced by the experiences of being an immigrant and through the relationship between origin and host culture.

The nanny in the schoolhouse: the role of femme-Caribbean identity in attaining success in urban science classrooms

Science.gov (United States)

Grimes, Nicole K.

2013-06-01

A growing body of teacher identity-based research has begun to embrace that the development of self-understanding about being a teacher is critical to learning how to teach. Construction of a professional teacher identity requires much more beyond mere content, skills and a foundational pedagogy. It also includes an intersection of the personal and professional self, which gives way to the emergence of multiple identities in the classroom. An educator's gender, nationality, language and interests among other tenets all permeate the classroom field and coexist alongside the professional role identity. This paper aims to use narrative as a way to discuss how science educators can mediate holding several identities in the classroom in order to create an environment characterized by successful teaching and learning. Drawing from an array of sociocultural theoretical perspectives, complementary constructs of identity by Jonathan Turner (Face to face: toward a sociological theory of interpersonal behavior. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2002) and Amartya Sen (Identity and violence: the illusion of destiny. W. W. Norton, New York, 2006), George Lakoff's (Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980) work on metonymy, and David Bloome's (2005) theorization of the power of caring relationships, I explore the ways in which my Black female Caribbean identity has transformed the science classroom field and created positive resonance for some of my privileged White students who have Caribbean caretakers at home. To begin, I unpack how Afro-Caribbean immigration to urban centers in the United States continues to produce childcare occupational opportunities in places like New York City. Being a first generation Trinidadian immigrant, my many identities have structured my science teaching praxis and consequently transformed the way my students learn science. A significant part of this paper is a reflexive account of experiences (primarily dialogue

Global business management for sustainability and competitiveness: The role of corporate branding, corporate identity and corporate reputation

OpenAIRE

Gupta, Suraksha; Melewar, T.C.; Czinkota, Michael C.

2013-01-01

This special issue of the Journal of World Business is devoted to the role of intangibles of a firm in building sustainable business for success in competitive markets. The research articles included in this issue have contributed to the on-going academic knowledge about the ability of marketing and management practices to drive business sustainability. This special issue on business sustainabili- ty focuses on the role of corporate branding, corporate identity and corporate reputation.

Sustainability Science Needs Sustainable Data!

Science.gov (United States)

Downs, R. R.; Chen, R. S.

2013-12-01

Sustainability science (SS) is an 'emerging field of research dealing with the interactions between natural and social systems, and with how those interactions affect the challenge of sustainability: meeting the needs of present and future generations while substantially reducing poverty and conserving the planet's life support systems' (Kates, 2011; Clark, 2007). Bettencourt & Kaur (2011) identified more than 20,000 scientific papers published on SS topics since the 1980s with more than 35,000 distinct authors. They estimated that the field is currently growing exponentially, with the number of authors doubling approximately every 8 years. These scholars are undoubtedly using and generating a vast quantity and variety of data and information for both SS research and applications. Unfortunately we know little about what data the SS community is actually using, and whether or not the data that SS scholars generate are being preserved for future use. Moreover, since much SS research is conducted by cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional teams, often scattered around the world, there could well be increased risks of data loss, reduced data quality, inadequate documentation, and poor long-term access and usability. Capabilities and processes therefore need to be established today to support continual, reliable, and efficient preservation of and access to SS data in the future, especially so that they can be reused in conjunction with future data and for new studies not conceived in the original data collection activities. Today's long-term data stewardship challenges include establishing sustainable data governance to facilitate continuing management, selecting data to ensure that limited resources are focused on high priority SS data holdings, securing sufficient rights to allow unforeseen uses, and preparing data to enable use by future communities whose specific research and information needs are not yet known. Adopting sustainable models for archival

Uncovering Students' Environmental Identity: An Exploration of Activities in an Environmental Science Course

Science.gov (United States)

Blatt, Erica

2014-01-01

This study at a public high school in the Northeastern United States explores how students' environmental identities are affected by various activities in an Environmental Science course. Data was collected as part of an ethnographic study involving an Environmental Science teacher and her tenth-twelfth grade students. The results focus on…

Understanding Economic and Management Sciences Teachers' Conceptions of Sustainable Development

Science.gov (United States)

America, Carina

2014-01-01

Sustainable development has become a key part of the global educational discourse. Education for sustainable development (ESD) specifically is pronounced as an imperative for different curricula and regarded as being critical for teacher education. This article is based on research that was conducted on economic and management sciences (EMS)…

A bit of both science and economics: a non-traditional STEM identity narrative

Science.gov (United States)

Mark, Sheron L.

2017-10-01

Black males, as one non-dominant population, remain underrepresented and less successful in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Researchers focused on non-dominant populations are advised against generalizations and to examine cultural intersections (i.e. race, ethnicity, gender, and more) and also to explore cases of success, in addition to cases of under-achievement and underrepresentation. This study has focused on one African American male, Randy, who expressed high-achieving STEM career goals in computer science and engineering. Furthermore, recognizing that culture and identity development underlie STEM engagement and persistence, this long-term case study focused on how Randy developed a STEM identity during the course of the study and the implications of that process for his STEM career exploration. Étienne Wenger's (1999) communities-of-practice (CoP) was employed as a theoretical framework and, in doing so, (1) the informal STEM program in which Randy participated was characterized as a STEM-for-social-justice CoP and (2) Randy participated in ways that consistently utilized an "economics" lens from beyond the boundaries of the CoP. In doing so, Randy functioned as a broker within the CoP and developed a non-traditional STEM identity-in-practice which integrated STEM, "economics", and community engagement. Randy's STEM identity-in-practice is discussed in terms of the contextual factors that support scientific identity development (Hazari et al. in J Res Sci Teach 47:978-1003, 2010), the importance of recognizing and supporting the development of holistic and non-traditional STEM identities, especially for diverse populations in STEM, and the implications of this new understanding of Randy's STEM identity for his long-term STEM career exploration.

Fostering solidarity and transforming identities: A collaborative approach to elementary science teacher education

Science.gov (United States)

Siry, Christina A.

This study explores the use of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue in pre-service elementary teacher education, and the ways in which collaborating to share responsibility for learning and teaching can afford the development of solidarity and new teachers' identity transformations. Specifically, the research detailed in this dissertation focuses on learning to teach science in a field-based methods course taught partially on a college campus and partially in an urban elementary school. I used critical ethnography guided by the theoretical frameworks of cultural sociology and the sociology of emotions. The lens of phenomenology provided the contextual aspects of the individual experience, and design experiment was utilized as the research unfolded, affording continual redesign of the work. Issues of identity and group membership are central to this research, and I have explored connections between the emergence of solidarity within a group of teachers and the individual identity transformations supported through a collective sense of belonging. A key component of this study was an analysis of the co-responsibility nurtured through coteaching and cogenerative dialogue, and thus the dialectical relationship between the individual and the collective is critical to this research. At the individual level, I examined identity development, and individual participation in a field-based methods course. At the collective level, I considered the ways that participants form collective identities and group solidarity. Two of the chapters of my dissertation are coauthored with students, as I have sought to dismantle teacher-student hierarchies and replace them with complex relationships supported through polysemic and polyphonic approaches to research. In examining identity and solidarity as they emerged from this approach, I make the following contributions to science teacher education; (1) identify resources and practices in elementary science teaching that surface in a

Exploring Environmental Identity and Behavioral Change in an Environmental Science Course

Science.gov (United States)

Blatt, Erica N.

2013-01-01

This ethnographic study at a public high school in the Northeastern United States investigates the process of change in students' environmental identity and proenvironmental behaviors during an Environmental Science course. The study explores how sociocultural factors, such as students' background, social interactions, and classroom structures,…

The right of all nations to access science, new technologies and sustainable development.

Science.gov (United States)

Majidi, Mohammad Reza; Dehshiri, Mohammad Reza

2009-01-01

This article explores the need for reflection on the right of developing countries to science and technology in addition to explaining the place of the scientific rights of nations in human rights as a whole. The discussion was conducted in relation to sustainable development. Through the examination of the current situation and the challenges to sustainable development, and taking into account the imbalance in the distribution of the benefits of science and new technologies, the authors advocate a comprehensive approach to promote cooperation and capacity-building in this area. They argue that linkages should be adopted between micro-levels and macro-levels of analysis by elevating rights and related issues from individuals to the national level in the field of the right to science and technology, and from the national to the international level in the field of sustainable development in order to institutionalise and ensure individual and national rights to science, technology and sustainable development. The authors also believe in a multidimensional perspective based on the balanced flourishing of the material and immaterial aspects of humankind in order to realise these rights in the context of dialogue and cultural diversity and to promote the culture of sustainable and dynamic peace based on justice in knowledge societies.

Secondary science teachers' view toward and classroom translation of sustained professional development

Science.gov (United States)

Lewis, Elizabeth Blake

This study concerns the phenomenon of secondary science teacher learning and enacting instructional strategies learned at the Communication in Science Inquiry Project (CISIP) teacher professional development events, as well as teacher perception of, and relationship to, this year-long professional development program. The CISIP program teaches science teachers how to build scientific classroom discourse communities with their students. Some of the science teachers were previous participants in the professional development, and acted as mentor teachers. The research design employed an integrated conceptual framework of situated learning theory with an analytical lens of teachers' professional, institutional and affinity, identities. A multi-method approach was used to generate data. Throughout the 2007-2008 academic year, the teachers' fidelity to the professional development model was measured using a classroom observation instrument aligned with the professional development model. From these observation data a longitudinal model, using hierarchical linear modeling, was constructed. In addition, surveys and interview data were used to construct both whole group and case studies of two high school science teachers who taught biology at the same school. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between previous and new participants; specifically, the longer teachers had participated in the professional development, and adopted a mentorship role, the greater their fidelity of classroom instruction to the CISIP model. Additionally, the case study teacher who developed a CISIP model-aligned affinity identity implemented more of the instructional strategies than the teacher who maintained his school-based institutional identity.

Catalytic Science and Technology in Sustainable Energy II

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wang, Yuxin; Xiao, Feng-Shou; Seshan, Kulathu K.

2017-01-01

This special issue of Catalysis Today results from four sessions, under the collective theme "Catalysis in Sustainable Energy", of the 2ndInternational Symposium on Catalytic Science and Technology in Sustainable Energy and Environment, held in Tianjin, China during October 12-14, 2016. This bien...... whom the special issue would not have been possible. As the organizer of the EECAT 2016, Y Li expresses his special gratitude to the sponsors, especially Haldor Topsoe and Synfuels China, the participants and the co-organizers for their great contribution to the success of EECAT 2016....

The role of science in achieving sustainability

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dragan, Gleb

2004-01-01

Over the last few decades research in the natural sciences has unveiled a number of specific complex relations between human activity an environmental change on a global scale. Scientific assesment confirm that global life support systems, such as climate, biodiversity and water resources are significantly affected by human activities. System change became the key in the research plan that emerged - systems being defined as the socio-economic and technical chains of production, distribution, consumption and disposal activities. Predicting the impact of a changing world on human health is a hard task and requires an interdisciplinary approach drawn from the fields of evaluation, biogeography, ecology and social sciences, and relying on various methodologies such as mathematical modelling as well as historical analysis. However, the great majority of public health researchers are empiricists by training and tradition, studying the past and the present via direct observation. By definition empirical methods cannot be used to study the future. To extent that the advent of global environmental changes obliges scientists to estimate future impacts, should current or foreseeable trends continue, then empiricism must be supplemented by integrated assessment modelling. The prediction of environmental change and its health impacts encounters uncertainties at various level. Some of the uncertainties are of scientific kind or are referring to the conceptualisation and construction of mathematical models where the specification of linked processes may be uncertain. Research on transformation towards sustainability puts emphasis on the interaction of innovation (production), consumption and institution and incentive structure. The specific challenges and research needs are: - Understand the dynamics of structural change in sociotechno-ecological system and anticipate transformation paths (knowledge of system dynamics); - Assess and evaluate the impacts of specific paths of

Professional identity in clinician-scientists: brokers between care and science.

Science.gov (United States)

Kluijtmans, Manon; de Haan, Else; Akkerman, Sanne; van Tartwijk, Jan

2017-06-01

Despite increasing numbers of publications, science often fails to significantly improve patient care. Clinician-scientists, professionals who combine care and research activities, play an important role in helping to solve this problem. However, despite the ascribed advantages of connecting scientific knowledge and inquiry with health care, clinician-scientists are scarce, especially amongst non-physicians. The education of clinician-scientists can be complex because they must form professional identities at the intersection of care and research. The successful education of clinician-scientists requires insight into how these professionals view their professional identity and how they combine distinct practices. This study sought to investigate how recently trained nurse- and physiotherapist-scientists perceive their professional identities and experience the crossing of boundaries between care and research. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 nurse- and physiotherapist-scientists at 1 year after they had completed MSc research training. Interviews were thematically analysed using insights from the theoretical frameworks of dialogical self theory and boundary crossing. After research training, the initial professional identity, of clinician, remained important for novice clinician-scientists, whereas the scientist identity was experienced as additional and complementary. A meta-identity as broker, referred to as a 'bridge builder', seemed to mediate competing demands or tensions between the two positions. Obtaining and maintaining a dual work position were experienced as logistically demanding; nevertheless, it was considered beneficial for crossing the boundaries between care and research because it led to reflection on the health profession, knowledge integration, inquiry and innovation in care, improved data collection, and research with a focus on clinical applicability. Novice clinician-scientists experience dual professional identities as care

Emerging identities: A proposed model for an interactive science curriculum for First Nations students

Science.gov (United States)

Sable, Trudy

Mi'kmaw students face a complexity of personal, cultural, and social conditions within contemporary educational systems that affect their continued participation in the educational process offered within Atlantic Canada. Despite a variety of approaches developed by educators to address the high drop out rate and lack of interest in science, the statistics remain largely unchanged. Aboriginal educators are calling for a "new story" in education that better meets the needs of Aboriginal students. This study attempts to identify the conditions and contexts necessary to bridge the gap that currently exists for Aboriginal students in science studies. The research investigates the basic relationship between learning in general and the meaning-making processes engaged in by students of a Grade 7/8 class within a Mi'kmaw reserve school. It leads to a proposal for an alternative pedagogy, or a new narrative, for teaching science to Aboriginal students and the foundations for a culturally interactive science curriculum. For educators to understand the complexity of issues affecting Mi'kmaw student achievement in science requires a theoretical framework that allows the students' lived experience to emerge. Toward this end, the research includes both phenomenological and ethnographic approaches to understanding the lived experiences and cultural narratives based on interviews with the students, a field trip within the community, and a trial chemistry lesson. I examined how these students perceive themselves in different contexts and how their sense of identity establishes the meaningfulness of particular educational content. I also assessed how person, community/cultural and social contexts affect the students' learning. Part of creating this new narrative requires recognizing knowledge, including science, as a cultural product Taking this cultural view of scientific knowledge allows us to view learning as a process of identity formation and culture as a system of symbols

The role of cultural identity as a learning factor in physics: a discussion through the role of science in Brazil

Science.gov (United States)

Gurgel, Ivã; Pietrocola, Mauricio; Watanabe, Graciella

2016-06-01

In recent decades, changes in society have deeply affected the internal organization and the main goals of schools. These changes are particularly important in science education because science is one of the major sources of change in peoples' lives. This research provided the opportunity to investigate how these changes affect the way teachers develop their classroom activities. In this work, we focus on science as part of the cultural identity of a society and how this identity affects the process of teaching and learning inside the classroom. Other works have shown that certain social characteristics such as gender, race, religion, etc., can create a cultural barrier to learning science. This results in an obstacle between those particular students and the science that is taught, hindering their learning process. We first aim to present the notion of identity in education and in other related fields such as social psychology and sociology. Our main purpose is to focus on identity in a school setting and how that identity affects the relationship students have with the science content. Next, we present and analyze an intervention in the subject of Modern and Contemporary Physics composed by a sequence of activities in a private school in the region of Sao Paulo State, Brazil. This intervention serves to illustrate how scientific topics may be explored while considering aspects of cultural differences as an obstacle. The intervention was completed in two steps: first, in the classroom with a discussion concerning scientific works and nationality of scientists, with one being a Brazilian physicist; second, taking students to visit a particle collider at the University of São Paulo. One of the results of our research was realizing that students do not perceive science as something representative of the Brazilian cultural identity. At the same time, the activity gave the students the opportunity to make the connection between doing physical sciences at an

Kindergarten girls "illuminating" their identities-in-practice through science instruction framed in explanation building: From the shadows into the light

Science.gov (United States)

McDyre, Alicia M.

Recent research on young children's learning has revealed that they are capable of sophisticated scientific reasoning and has prompted a new era of reform framed around the integration of three main strands -- core disciplinary ideas, scientific and engineering practices, and cross-cutting themes. Given the documented issues with girls in science in later grades, I chose to examine their participation in scientific norms and practices in kindergarten to gain insights into their identities-in-practice. From the perspective of identity as an enactment of self, I used the lens identities-in-practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) to examine the impact that having classroom science instruction framed around constructing explanations with evidence would have on the girls in the class. In this study, I drew from theories of sociocultural learning, positioning, and identities-in-practice to study: a) the norms of participation, b) the authoring and positioning of girls, and c) the identities-in-practice that the girls' enacted in the kindergarten science classroom. Using a research design informed by qualitative methods and participant observation, I analyzed data using a constant comparative approach and crafted case studies of four girls in the science classroom. Three assertions were generated from this study: a) Identity-in-practice manifests differently in different literacy practices and shows how students chose to be science students across time and activities- a focus on one literacy practice alone is insufficient to understand identity; b) The ways in which the teacher positions girls, especially "quiet" girls, is essential for engaging them in productive participation in science discourse and learning; and c) A focus on classroom science instruction grounded in constructing explanations from evidence provided a consistent framework for students' writing and talking, which facilitated the establishment of expectations and norms of participation for all students

The sustainability paradigm and the STS approach: mediations for science education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elizandra Rêgo de Vasconcelos

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The society has been confronted with issues that involve interactions between science, technology and society (STS, which reveal social, economic, environmental, ethical implications, among others. The sustainability paradigm occupies a prominent position in this area. We understand that the STS guidelines are an important instrument for building the concept of sustainability in science education, whose perspectives consistent with the formation of citizens with environmental sensitivity-citizens who are able to analyze and evaluate critically issues related to the social, environmental and economic field, among other aspects. We propose, in this article, to discuss the possible links between the sustainability paradigm, the STS approach and the process of teaching and learning in science. This articulation certainly helps to think the implications of the current development model and the relationships STS, inserted, for example, on various issues, contexts, dimensions, knowledge and teaching strategies. Certainly, we must undertake the effort to approximate the natural and social fields, in the apprehension of the complex reality as it stands nowadays

A case study of the effects of social experiences on the science identity formation of Mexican American females in high school chemistry

Science.gov (United States)

Beeton, Renee P.

Mexican Americans are a rapidly growing ethnic group in the United States. However, they are noticeably absent from physical science fields. Little research has explored the experiences of Mexican American girls in high school chemistry. The theories of identity based on communities of practice and multicultural feminism framed this year-long case study of nine Mexican American girls in a high school chemistry course. This study explored the social encounters and experiences that shaped the participants' identities and how their views of themselves affected their attitudes towards high school chemistry and future science careers. Data collection included a focus group and in-depth interviews with the participants, classroom observations, and teacher interviews. Five main identities influenced the participants' potential to become a scientist: ethnic, gender, science, student, and college. Mexican ethnic identity was the overarching identity; however gender also influenced the participants' other identities. The participants were aware of ethnic gender stereotypes that might hinder them from being successful in science. Also, ethnic factors, such as citizenship and abilities to receive financial aid limited their views of themselves as chemists. Participatory science, student, and school identities were all needed in order for the participants to be potential scientists. Family expectations, authentic relationships with teachers, and personal connections were important factors in the development of these participatory identities.

Beginning Teachers' Professional Identity Formation in Early Science and Mathematics Teaching : What Develops?

OpenAIRE

Botha, Marie; Onwu, Gilbert

2013-01-01

This article is about teacher identity formation of two foundation phase level (Grade R-9) level beginning teachers in their first year of teaching early mathematics science and technology (MST) in two different schools and grade levels. The study used a phenomenological approach and the case study method to try to illuminate what factors infl uence how teacher identities can be narratively constructed on the basis of the lived experiences of the two teachers in different school contexts. Dat...

Fourth Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE4)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Katz, Daniel S; Niemeyer, Kyle E; Gesing, Sandra; Hwang, Lorraine; Bangerth, Wolfgang; Hettrick, Simon; Idaszak, Ray; Salac, Jean; Chue Hong, Neil; Núñez-Corrales, Santiago; Allen, Alice; Geiger, R Stuart; Miller, Jonah; Chen, Emily; Dubey, Anshu; Lago, Patricia

2018-01-01

This article summarizes motivations, organization, and activities of the Fourth Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE4). The WSSSPE series promotes sustainable research software by positively impacting principles and best practices, careers, learning, and

Education for sustainable development - Resources for physics and sciences teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Miličić, Dragana; Jokić, Ljiljana; Blagdanić, Sanja; Jokić, Stevan

2016-03-01

With this article we would like to stress science teachers must doing practical work and communicate on the basis of scientific knowledge and developments, but also allow their students opportunity to discover knowledge through inquiry. During the last five years Serbian project Ruka u testu (semi-mirror of the French project La main á la pâte), as well as European FIBONACCI and SUSTAIN projects have offered to our teachers the wide-scale learning opportunities based on Inquiry Based Science Education (IBSE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Our current efforts are based on pedagogical guidance, several modules and experimental kits, the website, exhibitions, and trainings and workshops for students and teachers.

Young children's imagination in science education and education for sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

Caiman, Cecilia; Lundegård, Iann

2017-09-01

This research is concerned with how children's processes of imagination, situated in cultural and social practices, come into play when they invent, anticipate, and explore a problem that is important to them. To enhance our understanding of young children's learning and meaning-making related to science and sustainability, research that investigates children's use of imagination is valuable. The specific aim of this paper is to empirically scrutinize how children's imaginations emerge, develop, and impact their experiences in science. We approach imagination as a situated, open, and unscripted act that emerges within transactions. This empirical study was conducted in a Swedish pre-school, and the data was collected `in between' a science inquiry activity and lunchtime. We gathered specific video-sequences wherein the children, lived through the process of imagination, invented a problem together and produced something new. Our analysis showed that imagination has a great significance when children provide different solutions which may be useful in the future to sustainability-related problems. If the purpose of an educational experience in some way supports children's imaginative flow, then practicing an open, listening approach becomes vital. Thus, by encouraging children to explore their concerns and questions related to sustainability issues more thoroughly without incautious recommendations or suggestions from adults, the process of imagination might flourish.

Sustainable Infrastructures for Life Science Communication: Workshop Summary

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Elizabeth Stallman; Yeung, Laurence; Sawyer, Keegan

2014-01-01

Advances in the life sciences--from the human genome to biotechnology to personalized medicine and sustainable communities--have profound implications for the well-being of society and the natural world. Improved public understanding of such scientific advances has the potential to benefit both individuals and society through enhanced quality of…

Urban sustainability science as a new paradigm for planning

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Du Plessis, C

2009-06-01

Full Text Available specifically on understanding the dynamic interactions of social-ecological systems, of which the city is a particularly significant example. Building on the literature of planning and sustainability science, this paper presents an argument in favour...

The secret identity of science education: masculine and politically conservative?

Science.gov (United States)

Lemke, Jay

2011-06-01

This response to Jesse Bazzul and Heather Sykes' paper, The secret identity of a biology textbook: straight and naturally sexed, explores their critiques of textbooks and curricula that authoritatively present scientific accounts of the natural world without engaging students in critical thinking. It proposes that we need to go beyond such useful critiques to develop alternatives to the unsatisfactory heteronormative status quo in biology textbooks and in science education more generally.

Young African American children constructing identities in an urban integrated science-literacy classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Kane, Justine M.

This is a qualitative study of identities constructed and enacted by four 3rd-grade African American children (two girls and two boys) in an urban classroom that engaged in a year-long, integrated science-literacy project. Juxtaposing narrative and discursive identity lenses, coupled with race and gender perspectives, I examined the ways in which the four children saw and performed themselves as students and as science students in their classroom. Interview data were used for the narrative analysis and classroom Discourse and artifacts were used for the discursive analysis. A constructivist grounded theory framework was adopted for both analyses. The findings highlight the diversity and richness of perspectives and forms of engagement these young children shared and enacted, and help us see African American children as knowers, doers, and talkers of science individually and collectively. In their stories about themselves, all the children identified themselves as smart but they associated with smartness different characteristics and practices depending on their strengths and preferences. Drawing on the children's social, cultural, and ethnolinguistic resources, the dialogic and multimodal learning spaces facilitated by their teacher allowed the children to explore, negotiate, question, and learn science ideas. The children in this study brought their understandings and ways of being into the "lived-in" spaces co-created with classmates and teacher and influenced how these spaces were created. At the same time, each child's ways of being and understandings were shaped by the words, actions, behaviors, and feelings of peers and teacher. Moreover, as these four children engaged with science-literacy activities, they came to see themselves as competent, creative, active participants in science learning. Although their stories of "studenting" seemed dominated by following rules and being well-behaved, their stories of "sciencing" were filled with exploration, ingenuity

It isn't no slang that can be said about this stuff: Language, identity, and appropriating science discourse

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Bryan A.

2006-01-01

This investigation explores how underrepresented urban students made sense of their first experience with high school science. The study sought to identify how students' assimilation into the science classroom reflected their interpretation of science itself in relation to their academic identities. The primary objectives were to examine students' responses to the epistemic, behavioral, and discursive norms of the science classroom. At the completion of the academic year, 29 students were interviewed regarding their experiences in a ninth and tenth-grade life science course. The results indicate that students experienced relative ease in appropriating the epistemic and cultural behaviors of science, whereas they expressed a great deal of difficulty in appropriating the discursive practices of science. The implications of these findings reflect the broader need to place greater emphasis on the relationship between students' identity and their scientific literacy development.

Integrating Sustainability Science with the Sciences of Human Well-being to Inform Design and Planning in an Urbanizing World

Science.gov (United States)

Alberti, M.; Graumlich, L. J.; Frumkin, H.; Friedman, D.

2012-12-01

A sustainable human future requires both healthy ecosystems and communities in which people thrive, with opportunities for health, well-being, happiness, economic prosperity, and equity. To make progress towards this goal, two largely disparate communities of scholars and practitioners must come together: sustainability science needs to be integrated with the sciences of human health and well-being. The opportunity for such integration is particularly ripe for urbanizing regions which not only dominate energy and resource use but also increasingly represent the human habitat. We present a conceptual framework that integrates sustainability science with the sciences of human health and well-being to explicitly articulate testable hypotheses on the relationships between humans and their habitat. We are interested in human behaviors and metrics of health and well-being in relationship to the characteristics of the built environment at various scales from buildings to metro regions. Focusing on the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW) as a testbed, we are building on our current empirical studies on urban sprawl and ecosystem function including biodiversity, air quality, hydrological, biogeochemical, and human health to develop formal hypotheses on how alternative urban design and development patterns may influence health outcomes and well-being. The PNW is an ideal setting for this work because of the connected metropolitan areas within a region characterized by a spectacular diversity of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and deeply held cultural and political aspirations towards sustainability. The framework also highlights opportunities for translation of knowledge to practice in the design and planning of built environments. For example, understanding these associations is critical to assessing tradeoffs in design and planning strategies and exploring potential synergies that optimize both sustainability and human well-being. In complex systems such as cities, managers

Crafting a Future in Science: Tracing Middle School Girls' Identity Work over Time and Space

Science.gov (United States)

Barton, Angela Calabrese; Kang, Hosun; Tan, Edna; O'Neill, Tara B.; Bautista-Guerra, Juanita; Brecklin, Caitlin

2013-01-01

The underrepresentation of girls from nondominant backgrounds in the sciences and engineering continues despite recent gains in achievement. This longitudinal ethnographic study traces the identity work that girls from nondominant backgrounds do as they engage in science-related activities across school, club, and home during the middle school…

Scientist Spotlight Homework Assignments Shift Students’ Stereotypes of Scientists and Enhance Science Identity in a Diverse Introductory Science Class

Science.gov (United States)

Schinske, Jeffrey N.; Perkins, Heather; Snyder, Amanda; Wyer, Mary

2016-01-01

Research into science identity, stereotype threat, and possible selves suggests a lack of diverse representations of scientists could impede traditionally underserved students from persisting and succeeding in science. We evaluated a series of metacognitive homework assignments (“Scientist Spotlights”) that featured counterstereotypical examples of scientists in an introductory biology class at a diverse community college. Scientist Spotlights additionally served as tools for content coverage, as scientists were selected to match topics covered each week. We analyzed beginning- and end-of-course essays completed by students during each of five courses with Scientist Spotlights and two courses with equivalent homework assignments that lacked connections to the stories of diverse scientists. Students completing Scientist Spotlights shifted toward counterstereotypical descriptions of scientists and conveyed an enhanced ability to personally relate to scientists following the intervention. Longitudinal data suggested these shifts were maintained 6 months after the completion of the course. Analyses further uncovered correlations between these shifts, interest in science, and course grades. As Scientist Spotlights require very little class time and complement existing curricula, they represent a promising tool for enhancing science identity, shifting stereotypes, and connecting content to issues of equity and diversity in a broad range of STEM classrooms. PMID:27587856

Water Hyacinth in China: A Sustainability Science-Based Management Framework

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Jianbo; Wu, Jianguo; Fu, Zhihui; Zhu, Lei

2007-12-01

The invasion of water hyacinth ( Eichhornia crassipes) has resulted in enormous ecological and economic consequences worldwide. Although the spread of this weed in Africa, Australia, and North America has been well documented, its invasion in China is yet to be fully documented. Here we report that since its introduction about seven decades ago, water hyacinth has infested many water bodies across almost half of China’s territory, causing a decline of native biodiversity, alteration of ecosystem services, deterioration of aquatic environments, and spread of diseases affecting human health. Water hyacinth infestations have also led to enormous economic losses in China by impeding water flows, paralyzing navigation, and damaging irrigation and hydroelectricity facilities. To effectively control the rampage of water hyacinth in China, we propose a sustainability science-based management framework that explicitly incorporates principles from landscape ecology and Integrated Pest Management. This framework emphasizes multiple-scale long-term monitoring and research, integration among different control techniques, combination of control with utilization, and landscape-level adaptive management. Sustainability science represents a new, transdisciplinary paradigm that integrates scientific research, technological innovation, and socioeconomic development of particular regions. Our proposed management framework is aimed to broaden the currently dominant biological control-centered view in China and to illustrate how sustainability science can be used to guide the research and management of water hyacinth.

Cultural Identities in Sustaining Religious Communities in the Arctic Region: An Ethnographic Analysis on Religiosity from the Northern Viewpoint

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nafisa Yeasmin

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Northern countries are facing the challenges of declining human capital, and admitting immigrants, many of whom belong to religious minorities, to satisfy the demand for labour. If northern societies accept multiculturalism and immigrants, they should not disregard the cultures and religious practices (for example, ritual slaughter of immigrants, as they need to survive and integrate as a minority community in a secular society. However, there is clash between secularism and religions permitting animal slaughter, which is prohibited by some and allowed by other European countries. Community viability and sustainability depend partly on the exercise of community beliefs and ideology that support identity behaviour. This study will present an ethnographic analysis of the religiosity related to ritual slaughter and Muslim cultural identity in the European Arctic region and explore how religious relativism and practice sustain the community and support the overall integration of the Muslim minority in the North.

Green Chemistry and Sustainability: An Undergraduate Course for Science and Nonscience Majors

Science.gov (United States)

Gross, Erin M.

2013-01-01

An undergraduate lecture course in Green Chemistry and Sustainability has been developed and taught to a "multidisciplinary" group of science and nonscience majors. The course introduced students to the topics of green chemistry and sustainability and also immersed them in usage of the scientific literature. Through literature…

Tracing a Beginning Elementary Teacher’s Development of Identity for Science Teaching

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Avraamidou, Lucy

2014-01-01

The purpose of this case study was to examine a beginning elementary teacher’s development of identity for science teaching from her first year at university, her field experience, and through her first year of teaching. Several kinds of data were collected over a period of 5 years through different

On the Travel Emissions of Sustainability Science Research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Timothy Waring

2014-05-01

Full Text Available This paper presents data on carbon emissions generated by travel undertaken for a major sustainability science research effort. Previous research has estimated CO2 emissions generated by individual scientists, by entire academic institutions, or by international climate conferences. Here, we sought to investigate the size, distribution and factors affecting the carbon emissions of travel for sustainability research in particular. Reported airline and automobile travel of participants in Maine’s Sustainability Solutions Initiative were used to calculate the carbon dioxide emissions attributable to research-related travel over a three-year period. Carbon emissions varied substantially by researcher and by purpose of travel. Travel for the purpose of dissemination created the largest carbon footprint. This result suggests that alternative networking and dissemination models are needed to replace the high carbon costs of annual society meetings. This research adds to literature that questions whether the cultural demands of contemporary academic careers are compatible with climate stabilization. We argue that precise record keeping and routine analysis of travel data are necessary to track and reduce the climate impacts of sustainability research. We summarize the barriers to behavioral change at individual and organizational levels and conclude with suggestions for reducing climate impacts of travel undertaken for sustainability research.

Proceedings of the 1999 Sustainable Forest Management Network conference: science and practice : sustaining the boreal forest

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Veeman, S.; Smith, D.W.; Purdy, B.G.; Salkie, F.J.; Larkin, G.A. [eds.

1999-05-01

The wide range and complex nature of research in sustainable forest management, supported cooperatively by the forest products industry, governments, the universities, First Nations and other groups, is reflected in the 128 papers presented at this conference. The range of topics discussed include historical perspectives of forest disturbances, including fires and harvesting, biological diversity, gaseous, liquid and solid wastes, community sustainability, public involvement, land aquatic interfaces, forest management planning tools, contaminant transfer, First Nations issues, certification, monitoring and resource trade-offs. The theme of the conference {sup S}cience and practice: sustaining the boreal forest` was selected to identify the key efforts of the Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Network on boreal forest research. The objective of the conference was to exchange knowledge and integrate participants into a better working network for the improvement of forest management. refs., tabs., figs.

From Science, Engineering and Innovation to Sustainable Development: The Path Forward

Science.gov (United States)

Turekian, Vaughan

2017-01-01

In September 2015, world leaders committed to a new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at ending poverty, hunger and inequality, taking action on the environment and climate change, and improving access to health and education. Science, technology and innovation (STI) underpin the achievement of all of the SDGs, whether it is expanding access to health services and quality education; improving food security; and access to clean water and sanitation; building transparent, accountable, and stable institutions; empowering women and minorities; or promoting the sustainable management and use of renewable energy and natural resources. The goals speak to a broad range of directions the world needs to go to promote economic, environmental, and social well-being. The goals are interdependent and achieving one will only be possible by achieving all. We have an obligation to take necessary steps that integrate all the different stakeholders and constant advances in innovation, science, and technology.

Cultural politics: Linguistic identity and its role as gatekeeper in the science classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Hilton-Brown, Bryan Anthony

This dissertation investigated how participation in the cultural practices of science classrooms creates intrapersonal conflict for ethnic minority students. Grounded in research perspectives of cultural anthropology, sociocultural studies of science education, and critical pedagogy, this study examined the cultural tensions encountered by minority students as they assimilate into the culture of the science classroom. Classroom interaction was viewed from the perspective of instructional congruence---the active incorporation of students' culture into science pedagogy. Ogbu's notion of "oppositional identity", Fordham's "fictive kinship", Bahktin's "antidialogics", and Freire's "critical consciousness" were brought together to examine how members of marginalized cultures develop non-normative behaviors as a means of cultural resistance. Choice of genre for public discourse was seen as a political act, representing students' own cultural affiliations. Conducted in a diverse Southern Californian high school with an annual population of over 3,900 students, this study merged ethnographic research, action research, and sociolinguistic discourse analysis. Post hoc analysis of videotaped classroom activities, focus group interviews, and samples of student work revealed students' discursive behavior to shift as a product of the context of their discursive exchanges. In whole class discussions students explained their understanding of complex phenomena to classmates, while in small group discussions they favored brief exchanges of group data. Four domains of discursive identities were identified: Opposition Status, Maintenance Status, Incorporation Status, and Proficiency Status. Students demonstrating Opposition Status avoided use of science discourse. Those students who demonstrated Maintenance Status were committed to maintaining their own discursive behavior. Incorporation Status students were characterized by an active attempt to incorporate science discourse into

Malaysian Mega Science Framework: The Need for Social Impact and Sustainability Assessment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmad Zainal A.

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This review focuses on issues surrounding wastewater management as part of the National Sustainable Development (2013-2050 under the Malaysian Mega Science Framework. In line with the national priority area of water security, this review will highlight the technical reports compiled by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM on the challenges of water resource development and wastewater management and treatment. The discussion will dwell on the social impact of pollution in water and wastewater and mitigation plans that need to be put in place to ensure sustainable national development and making water as a National Key Economic Area (NKEA.

Building Science Identity in Disadvantaged Teenage Girls using an Apprenticeship Model

Science.gov (United States)

Pettit, E. C.; Conner, L.; Tzou, C.

2015-12-01

Expeditionary science differs from laboratory science in that expeditionary science teams conduct investigations in conditions that are often physically and socially, as well as intellectually, challenging. Team members live in close quarters for extended periods of time, team building and leadership affect the scientific process, and research tools are limited to what is available on site. Girls on Ice is an expeditionary science experience primarily for disadvantaged girls; it fully immerses girls in a mini scientific expedition to study alpine, glacierized environments. In addition to mentoring the girls through conducting their own scientific research, we encourage awareness and discussion of different sociocultural perspectives on the relation between the natural world, science, and society. The experience aligns closely with the apprenticeship model of learning, which can be effective in enhancing identification with science. Using a mixed-methods approach, we show that the Girls on Ice model helps girls (1) increase their interest and engagement in science and build a stronger science identity, (2) develop confidence, importantly they develop a combined physical and intellectual confidence; (3) engage in authentic scientific thinking, including critical thinking and problem solving; and (4) enhance leadership self-confidence. We discuss these results in a learning sciences framework, which posits that learning is inseparable from the social and physical contexts in which it takes place.

Authoring Identity amidst the Treacherous Terrain of Science: A Multiracial Feminist Examination of the Journeys of Three Women of Color in Science

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Angela; Brown, Jaweer; Carlone, Heidi; Cuevas, Azita K.

2011-01-01

The study of the identity processes of women of color in science-based fields helps us (a) find ways to support similar women, and (b) study the dynamics of inequity, within and beyond science. Participants in this study (a Black woman, a Latina, and an American Indian woman) survived inadequate high schools and discouraging college science…

Confidence in the Knowledge Base of English Language Learners Studying Science: Using Agency to Compensate for the Lack of Adequate Linguistic Identity

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes, Aneta L.; Mansour, Nasser

2017-04-01

Changes in the cultural and linguistic environments of learners are often associated with identity shifts. The aim of this study was to explore what identity shifts occur when science students from Bahraini national schools transition to an international university. The role of two aspects of learner identity—that is, English proficiency and science background knowledge, was examined in this study. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews were conducted with students and with university lecturers. The analysis suggested three conceptual themes of (1) reliance on science knowledge, (2) the auxiliary role of professional language and (3) adequacy of student learning strategies, demonstrating what subjective meanings the participants ascribe to the interplay between science knowledge and linguistic ability. The findings suggest that despite the lack of adequate linguistic attributes, the students are still able to successfully learn science in the context of language change. It is also implied that through strategically utilising their academic background in science, students preserve their identity as successful learners from school through to university. We conclude that agency plays a separate role in transition and is not a sole function of identity. We also contest the idea of language as a necessary attribute of one's identity as it was perceived by our participants to be an advantage and an auxiliary tool rather than a requirement.

Agroecology as a Science of Integration for Sustainability in Agriculture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fabio Caporali

2007-06-01

Full Text Available A knowledge contribution is provided in order to understand agroecology as both a scientific discipline and a philosophical paradigm for promoting sustainability in agriculture. The peculiar character of agroecology as an applied science based on the systems paradigm is explored in the fields of research and tuition. As an organisational capability of connecting different hierarchical levels in accordance with the goal of sustainability, integration is shown as an emergent property of the evolution of agriculture as a human activity system.

Scientist Spotlight Homework Assignments Shift Students' Stereotypes of Scientists and Enhance Science Identity in a Diverse Introductory Science Class.

Science.gov (United States)

Schinske, Jeffrey N; Perkins, Heather; Snyder, Amanda; Wyer, Mary

2016-01-01

Research into science identity, stereotype threat, and possible selves suggests a lack of diverse representations of scientists could impede traditionally underserved students from persisting and succeeding in science. We evaluated a series of metacognitive homework assignments ("Scientist Spotlights") that featured counterstereotypical examples of scientists in an introductory biology class at a diverse community college. Scientist Spotlights additionally served as tools for content coverage, as scientists were selected to match topics covered each week. We analyzed beginning- and end-of-course essays completed by students during each of five courses with Scientist Spotlights and two courses with equivalent homework assignments that lacked connections to the stories of diverse scientists. Students completing Scientist Spotlights shifted toward counterstereotypical descriptions of scientists and conveyed an enhanced ability to personally relate to scientists following the intervention. Longitudinal data suggested these shifts were maintained 6 months after the completion of the course. Analyses further uncovered correlations between these shifts, interest in science, and course grades. As Scientist Spotlights require very little class time and complement existing curricula, they represent a promising tool for enhancing science identity, shifting stereotypes, and connecting content to issues of equity and diversity in a broad range of STEM classrooms. © 2016 J. N. Schinske et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2016 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

Philosophy, history and sociology of science: interdisciplinary relations and complex social identities.

Science.gov (United States)

Riesch, Hauke

2014-12-01

Sociology and philosophy of science have an uneasy relationship, while the marriage of history and philosophy of science has--on the surface at least--been more successful I will take a sociological look at the history of the relationships between philosophy and history as well as philosophy and sociology of science. Interdisciplinary relations between these disciplines will be analysed through social identity complexity theory in oider to draw out some conclusions on how the disciplines interact and how they might develop. I will use the relationships between the disciplines as a pointer for a more general social theory of interdisciplinarity which will then be used to sound a caution on how interdisciplinary relations between the three disciplines might be managed.

Ideals, practices, and future prospects of stakeholder involvement in sustainability science.

Science.gov (United States)

Mielke, Jahel; Vermaßen, Hannah; Ellenbeck, Saskia

2017-12-12

This paper evaluates current stakeholder involvement (SI) practices in science through a web-based survey among scholars and researchers engaged in sustainability or transition research. It substantiates previous conceptual work with evidence from practice by building on four ideal types of SI in science. The results give an interesting overview of the varied landscape of SI in sustainability science, ranging from the kinds of topics scientists work on with stakeholders, over scientific trade-offs that arise in the field, to improvements scientists wish for. Furthermore, the authors describe a discrepancy between scientists' ideals and practices when working with stakeholders. On the conceptual level, the data reflect that the democratic type of SI is the predominant one concerning questions on the understanding of science, the main goal, the stage of involvement in the research process, and the science-policy interface. The fact that respondents expressed agreement to several types shows they are guided by multiple and partly conflicting ideals when working with stakeholders. We thus conclude that more conceptual exchange between practitioners, as well as more qualitative research on the concepts behind practices, is needed to better understand the stakeholder-scientist nexus. Copyright © 2017 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.

Science Teachers' Use of Mass Media to Address Socio-Scientific and Sustainability Issues

Science.gov (United States)

Klosterman, Michelle L.; Sadler, Troy D.; Brown, Julie

2012-01-01

The currency, relevancy and changing nature of science makes it a natural topic of focus for mass media outlets. Science teachers and students can capitalize on this wealth of scientific information to explore socio-scientific and sustainability issues; however, without a lens on how those media are created and how representations of science are…

Misunderstood misunderstanding: social identities and public uptake of science

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wynne, B.

1992-01-01

This paper draws general insights into the public reception of scientific knowledge from a case study of Cumbrian sheep farmers' responses to scientific advice about the restrictions introduced after the Chernobyl radioactive fallout. The analysis identifies several substantive factors which influence the credibility of scientific communication. Starting from the now-accepted point that public uptake of science depends primarily upon the trust and credibility public groups are prepared to invest in scientific institutions and representatives, the paper observes that these are contingent upon the social relationships and identities which people feel to be affected by scientific knowledge, which never comes free of social interests or implications. The case study shows laypeople capable of extensive informal reflection upon their social relationships towards scientific experts, and on the epistemological status of their own 'local' knowledge in relation to 'outside' knowledge. Public uptake of science might be improved if scientific institutions expressed an equivalent reflexive discourse in the public domain. (author)

Agriculture and crop science in China:Innovation and sustainability

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Yunbi Xu; Jiayang Li; Jianmin Wan

2017-01-01

The International Crop Science Congress (ICSC) is a regularly held event allowing crop scientists to integrate current knowledge into a global context and international applications. The 7th ICSC was held on August 14–19, 2016 in Beijing, China, with the theme "Crop Science: Innovation and Sustainability". As a companion production for this great congress, the nine papers collected in this special issue feature important fields of crop science in China. This editorial first briefly introduces the 7th ICSC, followed by a brief discussion of the current status of, constraints to, and innovations in Chinese agriculture and crop science. Finally, the main scientific points of the papers published in this special issue are surveyed, covering important advances in hybrid rice breeding, minor cereals, food legumes, rapeseed, crop systems, crop management, cotton, genomics-based germplasm research, and QTL mapping. In a section describing future prospects, it is indicated that China faces a full transition from traditional to modern agriculture and crop science.

Mapping classroom experiences through the eyes of enlace students: The development of science literate identities

Science.gov (United States)

Oemig, Paulo Andreas

The culture of a science classroom favors a particular speech community, thus membership requires students becoming bilingual and bicultural at the same time. The complexity of learning science rests in that it not only possesses a unique lexicon and discourse, but it ultimately entails a way of knowing. My dissertation examined the academic engagement and perceptions of a group (N=30) of high school students regarding their science literate practices. These students were participating in an Engaging Latino Communities for Education (ENLACE) program whose purpose is to increase Latino high school graduation rates and assist them with college entrance requirements. At the time of the study, 19 students were enrolled in different science classes to fulfill the science requirements for graduation. The primary research question: What kind of science classroom learning environment supports science literate identities for Latino/a students? was addressed through a convergent parallel mixed research design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). Over the course of an academic semester I interviewed all 30 students arranged in focus groups and observed in their science classes. ENLACE students expressed interest in science when it was taught through hands-on activities or experiments. Students also stressed the importance of having teachers who made an effort to get to know them as persons and not just as students. Students felt more engaged in science when they perceived their teachers respected them for their experiences and knowledge. Findings strongly suggest students will be more interested in science when they have opportunities to learn through contextualized practices. Science literate identities can be promoted when inquiry serves as a vehicle for students to engage in the language of the discipline in all its modalities. Inquiry-based activities, when carefully planned and implemented, can provide meaningful spaces for students to construct knowledge, evaluate claims

Analysis of sustainable leadership for science learning management in the 21st Century under education THAILAND 4.0 framework

Science.gov (United States)

Jedaman, Pornchai; Buaraphan, Khajornsak; Pimdee, Paitoon; Yuenyong, Chokchai; Sukkamart, Aukkapong; Suksup, Charoen

2018-01-01

This article aims to study and analyze the 21st Century of sustainable leadership under the education THAILAND 4.0 Framework, and factor analysis of sustainable leadership for science learning. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative approaches in collecting data including a questionnaire survey, a documentary review and a Participatory Action Learning (PAL). The sample were sampling purposively. There were 225 administrators of Primary and Secondary Education Area Offices throughout Thailand. Out of 225, 183 (83.33%) and 42 (16.67%) respondents were the administrators of Primary and Secondary Education Offices, respectively. The quantitative data was analyzed by descriptive statistical analysis including mean, standard deviation. Also, the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to analyze the factors associated with sustainable leadership under the education THAILAND 4.0 Framework. The qualitative data was analyzed by using three main stages, i.e., data reduction, data organization, data interpretation to conclusion. The study revealed that sustainable leadership under the education THAILAND 4.0 Framework needs to focus on development, awareness of duty and responsibility, equality, moral and knowledge. All aspects should be integrated together in order to achieve the organizational goals, good governance culture and identity. Importantly, there were six "key" elements of sustainable leadership under the education THAILAND 4.0 framework: i) Professional Leadership Role, ii) Leadership Under Change, iii) Leadership Skills 4.0 in the 21st Century, iv) Development in the Pace With Change, v) Creativity and Creative Tension, and vi) Hold True Assessments. The CFA showed that the six key elements of sustainable leadership under the education THAILAND 4.0 framework by weight of each elements were significant at the .01 significance level.

Science Education and Education for Citizenship and Sustainable Development

Science.gov (United States)

Johnston, Ronald

2011-01-01

In the United Kingdom (UK) and Europe, the need for education for sustainable development and global citizenship has recently been emphasised. This emphasis has arguably found its major home in the social studies in higher education. Concurrently, there has been a decline in interest in "the sciences" as evidenced by a reduction in the…

Investigation of Pre-Service Science Teachers' Attitudes towards Sustainable Environmental Education

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Keles, Özgül

2017-01-01

The purpose of the current study is to investigate pre-service science teachers' sustainable environmental education attitudes and the factors affecting them in terms of some variables (gender and grade level). The study group of the current research is comprised of 154 pre-service teachers attending the Department of Science Education in the…

Methodological Challenges in Sustainability Science: A Call for Method Plurality, Procedural Rigor and Longitudinal Research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Henrik von Wehrden

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Sustainability science encompasses a unique field that is defined through its purpose, the problem it addresses, and its solution-oriented agenda. However, this orientation creates significant methodological challenges. In this discussion paper, we conceptualize sustainability problems as wicked problems to tease out the key challenges that sustainability science is facing if scientists intend to deliver on its solution-oriented agenda. Building on the available literature, we discuss three aspects that demand increased attention for advancing sustainability science: 1 methods with higher diversity and complementarity are needed to increase the chance of deriving solutions to the unique aspects of wicked problems; for instance, mixed methods approaches are potentially better suited to allow for an approximation of solutions, since they cover wider arrays of knowledge; 2 methodologies capable of dealing with wicked problems demand strict procedural and ethical guidelines, in order to ensure their integration potential; for example, learning from solution implementation in different contexts requires increased comparability between research approaches while carefully addressing issues of legitimacy and credibility; and 3 approaches are needed that allow for longitudinal research, since wicked problems are continuous and solutions can only be diagnosed in retrospect; for example, complex dynamics of wicked problems play out across temporal patterns that are not necessarily aligned with the common timeframe of participatory sustainability research. Taken together, we call for plurality in methodologies, emphasizing procedural rigor and the necessity of continuous research to effectively addressing wicked problems as well as methodological challenges in sustainability science.

Spatial Variation of Regional Sustainable Development and its Relationship to the Allocation of Science and Technology Resources

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jian Wu

2014-09-01

Full Text Available With the increasing of labor salaries, the RMB exchange rate, resource product prices and requirements of environmental protection, inexpensive labor and land are no longer the decisive factor of regional competitiveness. From this perspective, China needs to shift from the extensive development mode to the sustainable development mode. Science and technology resources rational allocation is one of the key issues in sustainable development. Based on the counties (districts data of Zhejiang Province in China, this paper portrays the spatial variation of regional sustainable development level of this area. This paper finds that counties tend to cluster in groups with the same sustainable development level, and this agglomeration trend has been enforced during the past several years. It then testifies to the relationship between the allocation of science and technology resources and local sustainable development, identifies science and technology human resources, financial resources and environmental resource are positively related to local sustainable development, except government financial support. The economic level has a negative relationship with regional sustainable development. This is because the development of the Zhejiang economy grown at the expense of the environment and ecosystem. Some advice is given according to the empirical analysis result.

Family Matters: Familial Support and Science Identity Formation for African American Female STEM Majors

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Parker, Ashley Dawn

2013-01-01

This research seeks to understand the experiences of African American female undergraduates in STEM. It investigates how familial factors and science identity formation characteristics influence persistence in STEM while considering the duality of African American women's status in society. This phenomenological study was designed using critical…

The science teacher as the organic link in science learning: Identity, motives, and capital transfer

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Alexakos, Konstantinos

This life history study is based on in-depth interviews of five science teachers and explores themes of science teachers' experiences as science learners and how these experiences frame what I have come to call "the subjective aspects of teaching." These themes seem to imply that through such individual experiences individuals develop a personally unique lens through which they view and interpret science, science meanings, and science teaching and learning. Emerging themes created new questions to pursue and they in turn produced new themes. These were further investigated in an attempt to connect science learning and science teachers to broader issues in society. These themes include that of a dynamic, dialectical learning and understanding of science by the participants, developed and influenced through a combination of their families, their schools, and their professional experiences, and in which morals and passion play major roles. The theme of the "organic link" is also introduced and developed in this research. It includes these individuals' views of science and the scientific enterprise, their path to learning, their morals, passions, and choices, and their way of constructing knowledge and the transmission of such a process. As organic links, they are seen as a direct and necessary social connection between science and the science learner, and they foster educational experiences grounded in the social lives of their students. Not only are they seen as "transmitters" of science knowledge and the process of constructing knowledge, but they are also seen as correcting and adjusting perceived diversions of the students' thinking from that of their own. It is in this context that the concept of capital (human and cultural capital, as well as capital exchange) is also explored. These themes are seen as having immense impact on how these science teachers teach, where they teach, what is communicated to their students, and whether they become or remain science

Examining Game Design Features for Identity Exploration and Change

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Foster, Aroutis; Shah, Mamta

2016-01-01

This study used the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) to examine the extent to which a game, Land Science, afforded identity change opportunities as exploration of science identities, science content knowledge, science confidence, action possibilities, and interest/valuing in an intentional manner. Analysis of the game and existing…

Sharing the Sky: The Role of Family and Consumer Sciences in Sustainability.

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Makela, Carole J.

2003-01-01

Explains why sustainability is integral to family and consumer sciences. Presents a framework depicting the relationship of ultimate means, intermediate means, intermediate ends, and ultimate ends. Provides classroom activities. (SK)

Tunisia-Japan Symposium: R&D of Energy and Material Sciences for Sustainable Society

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Akimoto, Katsuhiro; Suzuki, Yoshikazu; Monirul Islam, Muhammad

2015-04-01

This volume of the Journal of Physics: Conference Series contains papers presented at the Tunisia-Japan Symposium: R&D of Energy and Material Sciences for Sustainable Society (TJS 2014) held at Gammarth, Republic of Tunisia on November 28-30, 2014. The TJS 2014 is based on the network of the Tunisia-Japan Symposium on Science, Society and Technology (TJASSST) which has been regularly organized since 2000. The symposium was focused on the technological developments of energy and materials for the realization of sustainable society. To generate technological breakthrough and innovation, it seems to be effective to discuss with various fields of researchers such as solid-state physicists, chemists, surface scientists, process engineers and so on. In this symposium, there were as many as 109 attendees from a wide variety of research fields. The technical session consisted of 106 contributed presentations including 3 plenary talks and 7 key-note talks. We hope the Conference Series and publications like this volume will contribute to the progress in research and development in the field of energy and material sciences for sustainable society and in its turn contribute to the creation of cultural life and peaceful society.

An Applied Mereology of the City: Unifying Science and Philosophy for Urban Planning.

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Epting, Shane

2016-10-01

Based on their research showing that growing cities follow basic principles, two theoretical physicists, Luis Bettencourt and Geoffrey West, call for researchers and professionals to contribute to a grand theory of urban sustainability. In their research, they develop a 'science of the city' to help urban planners address problems that arise from population increases. Although they provide valuable insights for understanding urban sustainability issues, they do not give planners a manageable way to approach such problems. I argue that developing an applied mereology to understand the concept of 'city identity' gives planners a theoretical device for addressing urban affairs, including ethical concerns. In turn, I devise a model of city identity to show how a 'philosophy of the city' contributes to a grand theory of urban sustainability.

Sustained Assessment Metadata as a Pathway to Trustworthiness of Climate Science Information

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Champion, S. M.; Kunkel, K.

2017-12-01

The Sustained Assessment process has produced a suite of climate change reports: The Third National Climate Assessment (NCA3), Regional Surface Climate Conditions in CMIP3 and CMIP5 for the United States: Differences, Similarities, and Implications for the U.S. National Climate Assessment, Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment, The State Climate Summaries, as well as the anticipated Climate Science Special Report and Fourth National Climate Assessment. Not only are these groundbreaking reports of climate change science, they are also the first suite of climate science reports to provide access to complex metadata directly connected to the report figures and graphics products. While the basic metadata documentation requirement is federally mandated through a series of federal guidelines as a part of the Information Quality Act, Sustained Assessment products are also deemed Highly Influential Scientific Assessments, which further requires demonstration of the transparency and reproducibility of the content. To meet these requirements, the Technical Support Unit (TSU) for the Sustained Assessment embarked on building a system for not only collecting and documenting metadata to the required standards, but one that also provides consumers unprecedented access to the underlying data and methods. As our process and documentation have evolved, the value of both continue to grow in parallel with the consumer expectation of quality, accessible climate science information. This presentation will detail the how the TSU accomplishes the mandated requirements with their metadata collection and documentation process, as well as the technical solution designed to demonstrate compliance while also providing access to the content for the general public. We will also illustrate how our accessibility platforms guide consumers through the Assessment science at a level of transparency that builds trust and confidence in the report

Intersections of Life Histories and Science Identities: The Stories of Three Preservice Elementary Teachers

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Avraamidou, Lucy

2016-01-01

Grounded within Connelly and Clandinin's conceptualization of teachers' professional identity in terms of "stories to live by" and through a life-history lens, this multiple case study aimed to respond to the following questions: (a) How do three preservice elementary teachers view themselves as future science teachers? (b) How have the…

"Actually, I May be Clever Enough to do it". Using Identity as a Lens to Investigate Students' Trajectories Towards Science and University

Science.gov (United States)

Krogh, Lars Brian; Andersen, Hanne Moeller

2013-04-01

We have followed a group of students in the potential pipeline for science through their last years of upper secondary school and in the context of a university mentorship program. The student group is defined by their choice of Mathematics at A-level which is mandatory for admission to tertiary STEM education in Denmark. Rich data (repeated interviews, questionnaires (pre-and post-) and observations) from 14 target students have been collected. Using Late Modern identity theory as a lens, we have analysed students' identity narratives in order to establish their trajectories in relation to university in general, and towards science studies and science careers in particular. We find that the diversity of students' educational identity narratives can be characterized and their trajectories understood in terms of a Four Factor Framework comprising: general identity process orientations (reflecting, committing, exploring), personal values, subject self-concepts and subject interests. In various ways these constructs interact and set the range and direction of the students' searches for future education and careers. Our longitudinal study suggests that they have enough permanence to enable us to hypothesize more or less secured paths of individual students to tertiary science (or other areas of academia).

Sustainability Labeling

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dam, van Y.K.

2017-01-01

Sustainability labeling originated from a need to protect the identity of alternative systems of food production and to increase market transparency. From the 1980s onwards sustainability labeling has changed into a policy instrument replacing direct government regulation of the food market, and a

Globalisation and science education: the case of Sustainability by the Bay

Science.gov (United States)

Carter, Lyn; Dediwalage, Ranjith

2010-06-01

It is impossible to consider contemporary science education in isolation from globalisation as the dominant logic, rethinking and reconfiguring social and cultural life in which it is located. Carter (J Res Sci Teach 42, 561-580, 2005) calls for a close reading of policy documents, curriculum projects, research studies and a range of other science education texts using key concepts from globalisation theory to elucidate the ways in which globalisation shapes and is expressed within science education. In this paper, we consider an example from our own practice of a school-based curriculum project, Sustainable Living by the Bay, as one such instance. The first section reviews neoliberalism and neoconservativism necessary to understand how globalisation penetrates education, while the second outlines aspects of the curriculum project itself. As there were many different facets to the development and implementation of a project like Sustainable Living by the Bay, there is space only to elaborate two examples of the globalisation discourse. The first example concerns the government policy initiative that funded the project while the second example focuses on learner- centred pedagogies as globalisation's pedagogies of choice.

Agency Amidst Formidable Structures: How Girls Perform Gender in Science Class

Science.gov (United States)

Carlone, Heidi B.; Johnson, Angela; Scott, Catherine M.

2015-01-01

Larger social structures such as race, class, gender, and sexuality and classroom structures like narrowly defined participation practices constrain individuals' agency to engage in untroubled and sustained science identity work. This article explores the central dilemma of attending to structure and agency in settings where inequities are…

Pre-Service Science Teachers' Views of the Ecological Footprint: The Starting-Points of Sustainable Living

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Keles, Ozgul; Aydogdu, Mustafa

2010-01-01

In this study, pre-service science teachers' opinions about the concept of the ecological footprint were investigated before and after activities about sustainable life and their ecological footprints were calculated. A total of 49 pre-service science teachers (31 male, 18 female) who attend third class in the science education department…

Building student capacity to lead sustainability transitions in the food system through farm-based authentic research modules in sustainability sciences (FARMS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Selena Ahmed

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Undergraduate courses provide valuable opportunities to train and empower students with the knowledge, skills, and motivation to advance society in more sustainable directions. This article emphasizes the value of bridging primary scientific research with undergraduate education through the presentation of an integrated experiential learning and primary research model called Farm-based Authentic Research Modules in Sustainability Sciences (FARMS. FARMS are collaboratively designed with agricultural stakeholders through a community needs assessment on pressing food system issues and opportunities with the objective for faculty and students to jointly identify evidence-based management solutions. We illustrate the implementation of FARMS in an undergraduate course in Ecological Agriculture at Dartmouth College, NH where students assessed various agroecological solutions for managing plant vitality, weeds, soil quality, pests, pollinators, and biodiversity at the Dartmouth Organic Farm. Student reflections indicate that the FARMS course component was beneficial for understanding agroecological theories and concepts while also motivating involvement in sustainability sciences despite the challenges of primary research. Educator reflections noted that the FARMS pedagogical approach facilitated achieving course objectives to develop students’ ability for systems thinking, critical thinking, and interdisciplinarity while fostering students’ collaboration skills and overall motivation for creating change. Adopting the FARMS model should enable faculty in the sustainability sciences to serve as bridges between the learning, practicing, and scientific communities while supporting educational programming at student and community farms. Ultimately, it is expected that the implementation of FARMS will increase student capacity and prepare the next generation of leaders to address complex challenges of the food system using an evidence-based approach.

An Exploration of Hispanic Mothers' Culturally Sustaining Experiences at an Informal Science Center

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Weiland, Ingrid

2015-01-01

Science education reform focuses on learner-centered instruction within contexts that support learners' sociocultural experiences. The purpose of this study was to explore Hispanic mothers' experiences as accompanying adults at an informal science center within the context of culturally sustaining experiences, which include the fluidity…

Sustainability Science as a Transdisciplinary Framework for Institutional Transformation at Unity College

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Mulkey, S. S.

2012-12-01

Interdisciplinary programming in higher education is accepted as necessary for effective instructional delivery of complex environmental problems. Difficulties in sharing resources among disciplinary units and the need for students to sequentially access information from different disciplines limit the effectiveness of this approach. In contrast, transdisciplinary programming requires that the perspectives of various disciplines be simultaneously integrated in problem-focused pedagogy. Unity College, an environmental college in Maine, has recently adopted Sustainability Science (sensu U.S. National Academy of Science) as a framework for transdisciplinary pedagogy throughout all of its degree programs. Sustainability Science is a promising alternative framework that focuses on the dynamics of coupled human-natural systems and is defined by the problems that it addresses rather than by the disciplines it employs. Students are empowered to become brokers of knowledge, while faculty perform a curatorial role to provide students with networked resources generally external to the classroom. Although the transdisciplinary framework is effective for delivery of Sustainability Science in upper division and capstone courses, we propose this approach also for elements of our general education curriculum during the first two years of our baccalaureate programs. Classroom time is liberated for experiential student engagement and recitation. Our experience suggests that transdisciplinary programming can provide students with critical thinking skills and thus enhance the postgraduate value of their baccalaureate degree. We are coordinating the development of this distinctive curriculum delivery with a marketing program that will make Unity College accessible to a wider range of clientele. Our implementation of transdisciplinary programming will occur over a four-year period and requires explicit and fundamental change in essentially all aspects of College administration and

`Unthinkable' Selves: Identity boundary work in a summer field ecology enrichment program for diverse youth

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Carlone, Heidi B.; Huffling, Lacey D.; Tomasek, Terry; Hegedus, Tess A.; Matthews, Catherine E.; Allen, Melony H.; Ash, Mary C.

2015-07-01

The historical under-representation of diverse youth in environmental science education is inextricably connected to access and identity-related issues. Many diverse youth with limited previous experience to the outdoors as a source for learning and/or leisure may consider environmental science as 'unthinkable'. This is an ethnographic study of 16 diverse high school youths' participation, none of who initially fashioned themselves as 'outdoorsy' or 'animal people', in a four-week summer enrichment program focused on herpetology (study of reptiles and amphibians). To function as 'good' participants, youth acted in ways that placed them well outside their comfort zones, which we labeled as identity boundary work. Results highlight the following cultural tools, norms, and practices that enabled youths' identity boundary work: (1) boundary objects (tools regularly used in the program that facilitated youths' engagement with animals and nature and helped them work through fear or discomfort); (2) time and space (responsive, to enable adaptation to new environments, organisms, and scientific field techniques); (3) social support and collective agency; and (4) scientific and anecdotal knowledge and skills. Findings suggest challenges to commonly held beliefs about equitable pedagogy, which assumes that scientific practices must be thinkable and/or relevant before youth engage meaningfully. Further, findings illustrate the ways that fear, in small doses and handled with empathy, may become a resource for youths' connections to animals, nature, and science. Finally, we propose that youths' situated identity boundary work in the program may have the potential to spark more sustained identity work, given additional experiences and support.

Professional Identity Development of Teacher Candidates Participating in an Informal Science Education Internship: A Focus on Drawings as Evidence

Science.gov (United States)

Katz, Phyllis; McGinnis, J. Randy; Hestness, Emily; Riedinger, Kelly; Marbach-Ad, Gili; Dai, Amy; Pease, Rebecca

2011-01-01

This study investigated the professional identity development of teacher candidates participating in an informal afterschool science internship in a formal science teacher preparation programme. We used a qualitative research methodology. Data were collected from the teacher candidates, their informal internship mentors, and the researchers. The…

Sustainability on-the-go

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kampf, Constance Elizabeth

on sustainability-- The Good Guide, Carrotmob and Colalife. Each organization demonstrates a web presence through social media that are available on mobile devices. This paper examines the mobile space as a space for examining the potential impacts of a technology mediated interaction focused on sustainability...... as an extension of consumer identity and conscience. Using Gee’s focus on the connection between language use, technology and context as part of identities in interaction, this paper also explores the potential and implications of mobile technologies for the communication of sustainable values. Technology...... is approached through the tension between McLuhan’s notion of physical extension and as E.T Hall’s description of technology as an extension of cultural practice. (Rogers 2000). Conclusions include understanding the shift to mobile technology as offering a space in which consumer identity plays an active role...

Sustainable development tables for science teachers training within the information society

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Horta, L.M.P. [Portuguese Ministry of Education' s Secondary School at Sabugal, Sabugal (Portugal)

2006-07-01

Certain essential criteria are needed to achieve sustainable development. These include information about the benefits of investment and public awareness about environmental education, training, appropriate energy technologies, energy storage strategies, the availability of renewable energy sources and cleaner technologies. This paper reported on the value of the Internet in providing new opportunities to both students and teachers to improve their knowledge in renewable energy technologies and environment awareness. The Internet provides a starting point for pedagogical projects. The Internet's capability of providing ideas for secondary and post secondary teachers in chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering was discussed with reference to the Science Technology and Society (Environmental) approach in the Portuguese National Education Curriculum. The approach provides opportunities for improving the image of science to students and offers the use of laboratory experiments to motivate students. It was concluded that public awareness and education on issues concerning sustainable development, such as renewable energies, energy efficiency, can be promoted by the Internet. 106 refs., 2 tabs.

Biological Sciences for the 21st Century: Meeting the Challenges of Sustainable Development in an Era of Global Change

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Joel Cracraft; Richard O' Grady

2007-05-12

The symposium was held 10-12 May, 2007 at the Capitol Hilton Hotel in Washington, D. C. The 30 talks explored how some of today's key biological research developments (such as biocomplexity and complex systems analysis, bioinformatics and computational biology, the expansion of molecular and genomics research, and the emergence of other comprehensive or system wide analyses, such as proteomics) contribute to sustainability science. The symposium therefore emphasized the challenges facing agriculture, human health, sustainable energy, and the maintenance of ecosystems and their services, so as to provide a focus and a suite of examples of the enormous potential contributions arising from these new developments in the biological sciences. This symposium was the first to provide a venue for exploring how the ongoing advances in the biological sciences together with new approaches for improving knowledge integration and institutional science capacity address key global challenges to sustainability. The speakers presented new research findings, and identified new approaches and needs in biological research that can be expected to have substantial impacts on sustainability science.

Skill Development in Science and Technology Education for Sustainable Development in Nigeria

Science.gov (United States)

Modebelu, M. N.; Ugwuanyi, S. A.

2014-01-01

This paper reviews skill development in science and technology education, which is of crucial importance for sustainable development in Nigeria. The relevant concepts are introduced and robust argumentation is made with respect to the context of Nigeria.

Confidence in the Knowledge Base of English Language Learners Studying Science: Using Agency to Compensate for the Lack of Adequate Linguistic Identity

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes, Aneta L.; Mansour, Nasser

2017-01-01

Changes in the cultural and linguistic environments of learners are often associated with identity shifts. The aim of this study was to explore what identity shifts occur when science students from Bahraini national schools transition to an international university. The role of two aspects of learner identity--that is, English proficiency and…

Characteristics, emerging needs, and challenges of transdisciplinary sustainability science

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ruppert-Winkel, Chantal; Arlinghaus, Robert; Deppisch, Sonja

2015-01-01

Transdisciplinary sustainability science (TSS) is a prominent way of scientifically contributing to the solution of sustainability problems. Little is known, however, about the practice of scientists in TSS, especially those early in their career. Our objectives were to identify these practices...... and to outline the needs and challenges for early career scientists in TSS. To that end, we compiled 10 key characteristics of TSS based on a literature survey. We then analyzed research groups with 81 early career scientists against these characteristics. All of these research groups are funded by an ongoing...... achievements of societal and scientific impact, acknowledging that focusing on the time-consuming former aspect is difficult to integrate into a scientific career path; and (3) although generalist researchers are increasingly becoming involved in such TSS research projects, supporting the integration of social...

Sustainability and Science Learning: Perceptions from 8th Grade Students Involved with a Role Playing Activity

Science.gov (United States)

Freire, Sofia; Baptista, Mónica; Freire, Ana

2016-01-01

Raising awareness about sustainability is an urgent need and as such education for sustainability has gained relevancy for the last decades. It is acknowledged that science education can work as an important context for educating for sustainability. The goal of the present paper is to describe a role-playing activity about the construction of a…

Complex dilemmas of identity and practice

Science.gov (United States)

Enyedy, Noel; Goldberg, Jennifer; Muir Welsh, Kate

2006-01-01

Identity is a complex construct, yet extremely important if we wish to understand the practice of teaching as a profession. In this paper, we examine the ways two middle school teachers talk about their identity and teaching practices and coordinate these self-reports with our own observations of how they implement a new environmental science curriculum. More specifically, we compare the teachers' beliefs about learning, goals for the classroom community and for instruction, and their knowledge of science content, and pedagogy. Furthermore, we discuss teaching dilemmas, which arise for these teachers as their identities and practices intersect and at times conflict. We argue, however, that a focus on practice and outcomes is an important, but limited aspect of what we, as a field, need to consider when attempting to understand the complexities of teaching and learning. Therefore, we continue to expand our understanding of two science classrooms as we examine the teachers' multiple identities in relation to their implementation of a science curriculum. The identity portraits from this study provide a rich and complicated account of the implementation of a science curriculum and illuminate a number of potential obstacles and pitfalls, which may inform the way we as a field reflect on curriculum and professional development.

Building sustained partnerships in Greenland through shared science

Science.gov (United States)

Culler, L. E.; Albert, M. R.; Ayres, M. P.; Grenoble, L. A.; Virginia, R. A.

2013-12-01

Greenland is a hotspot for polar environmental change research due to rapidly changing physical and ecological conditions. Hundreds of international scientists visit the island each year to carry out research on diverse topics ranging from atmospheric chemistry to ice sheet dynamics to Arctic ecology. Despite the strong links between scientific, social, and political issues of rapid environmental change in Greenland, communication with residents of Greenland is often neglected by researchers. Reasons include language barriers, difficulties identifying pathways for communication, balancing research and outreach with limited resources, and limited social and cultural knowledge about Greenland by scientists. Dartmouth College has a legacy of work in the Polar Regions. In recent years, a National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) in Polar Environmental Change funded training for 25 Ph.D. students in the Ecology, Earth Science, and Engineering graduate programs at Dartmouth. An overarching goal of this program is science communication between these disciplines and to diverse audiences, including communicating about rapid environmental change with students, residents, and the government of Greenland. Students and faculty in IGERT have been involved in the process of engaging with and sustaining partnerships in Greenland that support shared cultural and educational experiences. We have done this in three ways. First, a key component of our program has been hosting students from Ilisimatusarfik (the University of Greenland). Since 2009, five Greenlandic students have come to Dartmouth and formed personal connections with Dartmouth students while introducing their Greenlandic culture and language (Kalaallisut). Second, we have used our resources to extend our visits to Greenland, which has allowed time to engage with the community in several ways, including sharing our science via oral and poster presentations at Katuaq

Malaysian Mega Science Framework: The Need for Social Impact and Sustainability Assessment

OpenAIRE

Ahmad Zainal A.; Ahmad Zulfadli

2015-01-01

This review focuses on issues surrounding wastewater management as part of the National Sustainable Development (2013-2050) under the Malaysian Mega Science Framework. In line with the national priority area of water security, this review will highlight the technical reports compiled by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) on the challenges of water resource development and wastewater management and treatment. The discussion will dwell on the social impact of pollution in water and wastewat...

Exploring the identity and "sense of identity" of organisations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C L Van Tonder

2006-04-01

Full Text Available During the past two decades a steady increase in scholarly contributions in the area of organisation identity have been observed – to the point that the phenomenon is now the subject of a sustainable discourse in several disciplines. Many theoretical and conceptual dilemmas however remain, largely as a result of the low incidence of empirical research in the area. This study reports the results of an exploratory investigation that adapted Schley and Wagenfield’s (1979 concept of identity for use in an organisational setting. Interviews were conducted with 152 top managers representing 10 companies. The results indicate that organisational responses to the question “who am I?�? elicit distinctive organisational self-descriptions and some awareness of identity issues.

Science teacher development and the lens of social media: An investigation into the identity and influences upon the development of elementary pre-service science teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Wall, Steven D.

Pre-service teacher education is committed to the cultivation of different forms of competency that include, but are not limited to, content knowledge and pedagogical skill (Levin, Hammer, & Coffey, 2009; Yerrick, 2005). While advances in practice have been made, pre-service elementary teachers (PS-ESTs) continue to exhibit anxiety and doubt about self-efficacy in science teaching. Teacher education is designed to encourage PS-ESTs to formulate useful practices, but PS-ESTs must first overcome limitations and anxiety generated by past, personal experiences and an acknowledged discomfort with science. While this goal is accomplished through contexts designed with that intent (e.g. methods courses, field experiences), challenges remain. Twenty-first century elementary teacher education research needs to examine influences associated with individual identities within specific roles (Gee, 2000), teaching and learning contexts and their inherent influences, and interactions that are enhanced by the increasing presence and influence of social networks. To examine and better understand identity, contexts, and interactional influences, blogs from two cohorts of PS-ESTs were examined to better understand how teacher education practices influenced PS-ESTs and to determine PS-ESTs beliefs about the teacher's role. The study was designed to answer the following research questions: "What is learned about the identity of PS-ESTs authored through social media, what contextual influences are acknowledged by PS-ESTs, and what interactions are occurring and what roles are they playing in the development of PS-ESTs?" This study used grounded theory and perceptual control theory (PCT) to analyze and reduce data to make assertions about PS-ESTs' development as teachers and influences upon their practices. Findings illuminated components of PS-EST teaching identities and suggested multiple implications within different domains, including the role of PST understandings of science

Socially situated activities and identities: Second-grade dual language students and the social construction of science

Science.gov (United States)

Bryce, Nadine

Latina and Latino American students are among the lowest achievers in science, when compared to European and Asian American students, and are highly underrepresented in science careers. Studies suggested that a part of this problem is students' lack of access to science, due to their status as English language learners and their perceived status as deficient students. This study investigated the social construction of science in a second grade dual language urban classroom that offered bilingual students access to science, while positioning them as competent, capable learners. What participants valued in science was interpreted from their stated beliefs and attitudes, as well as their patterned ways of reading, writing, and talking. A bilingual European American teacher and three Latina and Latino focal students were observed over the course of 10 weeks, as they enacted a science unit, in English, on habitats. Science lessons were videotaped, documented with field notes, and transcribed. Interviews with the teacher and students were audiotaped and transcribed, and relevant curriculum documents, and teacher- and student-generated documents, copied. Gee's (1999) d/Discourse analysis system was applied to the transcripts of science lessons and interviews as a way to understand how participants used language to construct situated activities and identities in science. Curriculum documents were analyzed to understand the positioning of the teacher and students by identifying the situated activities and roles recommended. Students' nonfiction writing and published nonfiction texts were analyzed for linguistic structures, semantic relationships and conventions of science writing. Results indicated that the teacher drew on traditional and progressive pedagogical practices that shaped her and her students' science activities and situated identities. The teacher employed traditional talk strategies to build science themes, while students enacted their roles as compliant

Sustainability science: accounting for nonlinear dynamics in policy and social-ecological systems

Science.gov (United States)

Resilience is an emergent property of complex systems. Understanding resilience is critical for sustainability science, as linked social-ecological systems and the policy process that governs them are characterized by non-linear dynamics. Non-linear dynamics in these systems mean...

Sustainability Transdisciplinary Education Model: Interface of Arts, Science, and Community (STEM)

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, Barbara; Button, Charles

2011-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the components of a sustainability transdisciplinary education model (STEM), a contemporary approach linking art, science, and community, that were developed to provide university and K-12 students, and society at large shared learning opportunities. The goals and application of the STEM curriculum…

Some aspects of identity, meaning and park sustainability research, with special reference to Kamenički park

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bajić Luka

2011-01-01

Full Text Available One of the main goals of urban planning by principles of sustainable development is the pursuit of diversity in structure, form and function in planning and design of urban public space. It is therefore necessary to redefine the concept and function of urban green areas and city parks, with the recommendation of identity preservation and promotion of social cohesion of this type of public space. In a theoretical sense, there is a problem of planning and designing urban parks in Serbia. This is due to failure to recognize the complexity underlying the possible role of urban public parks as an engine of urban renewal in the city or of any of his districts. Example of Kamenički park was chosen because of its complexity - in addition to being the largest green space in the city, this park also has high natural and cultural values (the park is protected as a cultural and natural heritage. The results indicate the reduced use of urban space. Based on existing theory and insights into the local planning process, general recommendations for improving its quality is the improvement of form/design of the park and it is necessary to define and promote the identity of space through the spatial analysis. The ultimate goal is to successfully respond to existing and potential customers' needs and thus define environmental, economic, cultural and social sustainability, which are key factors in managing the park.

The Normative Dimension in Transdisciplinarity, Transition Management, and Transformation Sciences: New Roles of Science and Universities in Sustainable Transitioning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roland W. Scholz

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This paper discusses the role normative aspects play in different approaches of science–practice collaboration, in particular as action research, (Mode 2 Transdisciplinarity (Td, Transition Management (TM, and Transformative Science (TSc. We elaborate on the different roles that scientists in these processes play. They work as facilitators (or contribute to a facilitated Td process, as activists (i.e., activist researchers in TM projects, and as catalysts in TSc. Td processes develop socially robust solutions for sustainable transitioning and impacts on the science system through mutual learning and by integrating epistemics (i.e., ways of knowing from science and practice and focusing on the empowerment of stakeholders. Science is viewed as a public good aiming to serve all key stakeholders. Researchers involved in TM projects strive to influence ongoing transition processes by actively engaging and participating in them, including lobbying for and empowering transformative changes toward sustainability based upon the researchers’ own analyses and world views. The TSc approach takes a catalyst perspective of the scientist’s role in inducing processes of strategic (societal transition when including certain stakeholder groups. The paper focuses on what roles normative aspects play in the different approaches and new societal demands imposed on science and universities. Based on this, we conclude that a new order of universities, public knowledge institutions, and boundary institutions is forthcoming.

Cocitation or Capacity-Building? Defining Success within an Interdisciplinary, Sustainability Science Team

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abby J. Roche

2017-10-01

Full Text Available To address gaps in knowledge and to tackle complex social–ecological problems, scientific research is moving toward studies that integrate multiple disciplines and ways of knowing to explore all parts of a system. Yet, how these efforts are being measured and how they are deemed successful is an up-and-coming and pertinent conversation within interdisciplinary research spheres. Using a grounded theory approach, this study addresses how members of a sustainability science-focused team at a Northeastern U.S. university funded by a large, National Science Foundation (NSF grant contend with deeply normative dimensions of interdisciplinary research team success. Based on semi-structured interviews (N = 24 with researchers (e.g., faculty and graduate students involved in this expansive, interdisciplinary team, this study uses participants’ narrative accounts to progress our understanding of success on sustainability science teams and addresses the tensions arising between differing visions of success present within the current literature, and perpetuated by U.S. funding agencies like NSF. Study findings reveal that team members are forming definitions of interdisciplinary success that both align with, and depart from, those appearing in the literature. More specifically, some respondents’ notions of team success appear to mirror currently recognized outcomes in traditional academic settings (i.e., purpose driven outcomes—citations, receipt of grant funding, etc.. At the same time, just as many other respondents describe success as involving elements of collaborative research not traditionally acknowledged as a forms of “success” in their own right (i.e., capacity building processes and outcomes—relationship formation, deep understandings of distinct epistemologies, etc.. Study results contribute to more open and informed discussions about how we gauge success within sustainability science collaborations, forming a foundation for

Challenges of science-society interactions in the frame of sustainable development: A case-study of contemporary Bulgaria

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paneva Aneliya

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Effectively tackling problems of sustainable development such as climate change, poverty, and biodiversity loss requires a different perspective on the role of science in society. Building on the understanding that knowledge production processes shall go hand in hand with governance processes, sustainability science and ecological economics promote transdisciplinarity and participatory procedures as a key requirement for scientific work on nature-society interactions. Involving non-academic actors such as local lay persons, civil society representatives, businesses, and decision makers in the research process promises the discovery of practical solutions to related problems and empowerment of communities. While this novel research approach has been increasingly applied in Western societies, its adoption by scientific actors in the context of Central and Eastern Europe, however, remains relatively low. Employing Bulgaria as a case study, this investigation examined the inter-actions between academia and practice through a series of expert interviews and a review of policy documents, thus offering insights into the specific conditions of implementing science for sustainable development. It emerges that knowledge transfer and experience exchange in the field are needed. Promoting social learning in this domain requires clarification of the roles of actors and institutions for sustainable development. Finally, recommendations for science related policies and scientific work are given.

A qualitative study of science education in nursing school: Narratives of Hispanic female nurses' sense of identity and participation in science learning

Science.gov (United States)

Gensemer, Patricia S.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn from Hispanic nursing students regarding their experiences as participants in science learning. The participants were four female nursing students of Hispanic origin attending a small, rural community college in a southeastern state. The overarching question of this study was "In what ways does being Hispanic mediate the science-related learning and practices of nursing students?" The following questions more specifically provided focal points for the research: (1) In what ways do students perceive being Hispanic as relevant to their science education experiences? (a) What does it mean to be Hispanic in the participants' home community? (b) What has it meant to be Hispanic in the science classroom? (2) In what ways might students' everyday knowledge (at home) relate to the knowledge or ways of knowing they practice in the nursing school community? The study took place in Alabama, which offered a rural context where Hispanic populations are rapidly increasing. A series of four interviews was conducted with each participant, followed by one focus group interview session. Results of the study were re presented in terms of portrayals of participant's narratives of identity and science learning, and then as a thematic interpretation collectively woven across the individuals' narratives. Portraitures of each participant draw upon the individual experiences of the four nursing students involved in this study in order to provide a beginning point towards exploring "community" as both personal and social aspects of science practices. Themes explored broader interpretations of communities of practice in relation to guiding questions of the study. Three themes emerged through the study, which included the following: Importance of Science to Nurses, Crossing with a Nurturing and Caring Identity, and Different Modes of Participation. Implications were discussed with regard to participation in a community of practice and

Skill Development in Science and Technology Education for Sustainable Development in Nigeria

OpenAIRE

M. N. Modebelu; S. A. Ugwuanyi

2014-01-01

This paper reviews skill development in science and technology education, which is of crucial importance for sustainable development in Nigeria. The relevant concepts are introduced and robust argumentation is made with respect to the context of Nigeria. Keywords: skill development, education, Nigeria

Re-shaping Sustainability Science for the 21st Century: : Young Scientists’ Perspectives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schinko, Thomas; Borgomeo, Edoardo; Dufva, Mikko; Figge, Lukas; Schipfer, Fabian

2017-01-01

Humanity is facing unprecedented environmental, social and economic challenges. We ask what the role of the sustainability science community should be in tackling these challenges, focusing particularly on young scientists’ perspectives on the issue. On the basis of a questionnaire and a workshop

`You Have to Give Them Some Science Facts': Primary Student Teachers' Early Negotiations of Teacher Identities in the Intersections of Discourses About Science Teaching and About Primary Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Danielsson, Anna T.; Warwick, Paul

2014-04-01

In the broadest sense, the goal for primary science teacher education could be described as preparing these teachers to teach for scientific literacy. Our starting point is that making such science teaching accessible and desirable for future primary science teachers is dependent not only on their science knowledge and self-confidence, but also on a whole range of interrelated sociocultural factors. This paper aims to explore how intersections between different Discourses about primary teaching and about science teaching are evidenced in primary school student teachers' talk about becoming teachers. The study is founded in a conceptualisation of learning as a process of social participation. The conceptual framework is crafted around two key concepts: Discourse (Gee 2005) and identity (Paechter, Women's Studies International Forum, 26(1):69-77, 2007). Empirically, the paper utilises semi-structured interviews with 11 primary student teachers enrolled in a 1-year Postgraduate Certificate of Education course. The analysis draws on five previously identified teacher Discourses: `Teaching science through inquiry', `Traditional science teacher', `Traditional primary teacher', `Teacher as classroom authority', and `Primary teacher as a role model' (Danielsson and Warwick, International Journal of Science Education, 2013). It explores how the student teachers, at an early stage in their course, are starting to intersect these Discourses to negotiate their emerging identities as primary science teachers.

Explainers' development of science-learner identities through participation in a community of practice

Science.gov (United States)

Richardson, Anne E.

The urgent environmental issues of today require science-literate adults to engage in business and political decisions to create solutions. Despite the need, few adults have the knowledge and skills of science literacy. This doctoral dissertation is an analytical case study examining the science-learner identity development of Exploratorium Field Trip Explainers. Located in San Francisco, CA, the Exploratorium is a museum of science, art, and human perception dedicated to nurturing curiosity and exploration. Data collected included semi-structured interviews with sixteen former Field Trip Explainers, participant observation of the current Field Trip Explainer Program, and review of relevant documentation. Data analysis employed constant comparative analysis, guided by the communities of practice theoretical framework (Wenger, 1998) and the National Research Council's (2009) Six Strands of Science Learning. Findings of this research indicate that Exploratorium Field Trip Explainers participate in a community of practice made up of a diverse group of people that values curiosity and openness to multiple ways of learning. Many participants entered the Field Trip Explainer Program with an understanding of science learning as a rigid process reserved for a select group of people; through participation in the Field Trip Explainer community of practice, participants developed an understanding of science learning as accessible and a part of everyday life. The findings of this case study have implications for research, theory, and practice in informal adult science learning, access of non-dominant groups to science learning, and adult workplace learning in communities of practice.

Education in the New Era: The Dissemination of Education for Sustainable Development in the Political Science Programmes at Notre Dame University--Louaize

Science.gov (United States)

Labaki, Georges

2012-01-01

Sustainable development is continuous process of change requiring painful choices resting on political will. This paper examines the developments needed to engage with sustainable development in the field of political science through the following: the reform in political science programmes to cope with the need for sustainable development in…

Psychological science's contributions to a sustainable environment: extending our reach to a grand challenge of society.

Science.gov (United States)

Kazdin, Alan E

2009-01-01

Climate change and degradation of the environment are global problems associated with many other challenges (e.g., population increases, reduction of glaciers, and loss of critical habitats). Psychological science can play a critical role in addressing these problems by fostering a sustainable environment. Multiple strategies for fostering a sustainable environment could draw from the diversity of topics and areas of specialization within psychology. Psychological research on fostering environmentally sustainable behaviors is rather well developed, as illustrated by interventions focusing on education of the public, message framing, feedback, decision making, the media, incentives and disincentives, and social marketing. Other sciences and professions as well as religion and ethics are actively involved in fostering a sustainable environment. Psychology ought to be more involved directly, systematically, and visibly to draw on our current knowledge and to have palpable impact. We would serve the world very well and in the process our discipline and profession.

Sustainability Science Education in Africa: Negotiating indigenous ways of living with nature in the third space

Science.gov (United States)

Glasson, George E.; Mhango, Ndalapa; Phiri, Absalom; Lanier, Marilyn

2010-01-01

In response to global climate change, loss of biodiversity, and the immense human impact on the carrying capacity of the earth systems, attention has been given to sustainable development worldwide. In this paper, we explore the emerging field of sustainability science within the context of the socio-cultural milieu of Malawi, a sub-Saharan African country. Through interviews in vernacular languages and observations in the field, our research explores how traditional agriculture practices of African elders may contribute to the sustainability of the environment and culture in Africa. Findings indicate that traditional farmers and food preservationists choose to practice indigenous ways of living with nature to live sustainably in a globalized economy. Further discussion elucidates how merging worldviews and hybridized knowledge and languages can be leveraged to create a third space for dialogue and curriculum development by connecting indigenous ways of living with Eurocentric science.

The contribution of nuclear science and technology to sustainable development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hardy, C.J.

1997-01-01

The United Nations and many individual States and organisations have given increasing attention to the topic of sustainable development in recent years. This has arisen because of concerns about the increasing population of the planet, increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and other pollutants in the biosphere, and the need for increasing amounts of food, water and energy. The paper will use the recent reports of these organisations as background and give an overview of the perceived problems needed to be addressed in the 21st Century to allow sustainable development. The ways in which nuclear science and technology is already contributing to the solution of these problems will then be summarised and comments made on how it can contribute even more in the future

Education for Global Citizenship and Sustainable Development in Social Science Textbooks

Science.gov (United States)

Jimenez, Jeremy David; Lerch, Julia; Bromley, Patricia

2017-01-01

This article reviews the state of research and data on relevant content, broadly understood as sustainable development, in social science textbooks worldwide. Specifically, it examines the extent to which these textbooks could help learners to acquire the knowledge, skills and values that are needed to meet goal 4.7 of the United Nation's…

Postcolonial foldings of space and identity in science education: limits, transformations, prospects

Science.gov (United States)

Zembylas, Michalinos; Avraamidou, Lucy

2008-12-01

The four essays reviewed here constitute a worthwhile attempt to discuss various aspects of postcolonial theory, and offer constructive ideas to ongoing academic as well as public conversations with respect to whether science education can meet the challenges of educating an increasingly diverse population in the 21st century. These essays are grounded in the assumption that it is difficult to make meaningful and transformative changes in science education so that educators' efforts take into consideration the dramatic changes (i.e., diverse culture and racial origins, language, economic status etc.) of `an era of globalization' in order to meet the demands of today's schools. Each of these four essays problematizes various aspects of the social and cultural conditions of science education nowadays using different `postcolonial' ideas to interpret the implications for science learning and teaching. Although the term `postcolonial' has certainly multiple meanings in the literature, we use this term here to describe the philosophical position of these essays to challenge long-standing and hegemonic practices and taken-for-granted assumptions in science education. Through critical analysis of these essays, we engage in a dialogue with the authors, focusing on two of what seem crucial issues in understanding the potential contributions as well as the risks of postcolonial concepts in science education; these issues are space and identity. We choose these issues because they permeate all four essays in interesting and often provocative ways.

Identity and the Management Project

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Kenneth Mølbjerg; Dehlin, Erlend

The paper discusses the concept of identity in relation to management. We take our starting point in Wittgenstein’s concept language games. We argue that identity is a question of using linguistic tools to construct reality. Two elements of the language game metaphor are central here: rules...... and family resemblance. As such, managing identity in organizations is closely linked to rules and family resemblance. Organizations manage identity through the definition of norms and values for right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, to name but a few. Norms and values are important as reference...... points for constructing identities. Managing identity has become more important because the rules-of-the-game have become more unstable. Managing identity is important if the bonds between individuals and organizations are to be sustained. But this task is contradictory and paradoxical of its very nature...

Developing Identity for Lawyers

OpenAIRE

Høedt-Rasmussen, Inger

2014-01-01

The role of the lawyer is in transition and the formerly predominantly homogeneous profes-sion has become a heterogeneous group of lawyers with diverging perceptions of the lawyer’s identity and of the main characteristics of the profession. The European Union has extended the perception of democracy and the fundamental rights to include more collective rights, social concerns, global responsibility and sustainability. The dissertation’s main question is: How can the identity and competen...

Researcher Identity in Transition

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Castelló, Montserrat; Kobayashi, Sofie; McGinn, Michelle K.

2015-01-01

to reinterpretation, and ECRs need to attend to new or reimagined signals in their efforts to develop a researcher identity in this current context. In this article, we present a comprehensive framework for researcher identity in relation to the ways ECRs recognise and respond to divergent signals across spheres...... of activity. We illustrate this framework through eight identity stories drawn from our earlier research projects. Each identity story highlights the congruence (or lack of congruence) between signals across spheres of activity and emphasises the different ways ECRs respond to these signals. The proposed...... comprehensive framework allows for the analysis of researcher identity development through the complex and intertwined activities in which ECRs are involved. We advance this approach as a foundation for a sustained research agenda to understand how ECRs identify and respond to relevant signals, and...

Nottingham Health Science Biobank: a sustainable bioresource.

Science.gov (United States)

Matharoo-Ball, Balwir; Thomson, Brian J

2014-10-01

Nottingham Health Science Biobank (NHSB) was established in 2011 by a 3-year "pump priming" grant from the United Kingdom National Institute of Health Research. Before biobanking operations began, NHSB commissioned a financial report on the full costs of biobanking and worked with key stakeholders and external consultants to develop a business plan with the aim of achieving financial and operational sustainability. The plan included: scanning published information, telephone interviews with commercial companies, Freedom of Information Requests, dialogue with prospective customers, and a market analysis of global trends in the use of human tissue samples in research. Our financial report provided a comprehensive and structured costing template for biobanking and confirmed the absolute requirement to ensure cost-efficient processes, careful staff utilization, and maximization of sample turnover. Together with our external consultants, we developed a business model responsive to global interest in healthcare founded on i) identification of key therapeutic areas that mapped to the strengths of the NHSB; ii) a systematic approach to identifying companies operating in these therapy areas; iii) engagement with noncommercial stakeholders to agree strategically aligned sample collection with the aim of ensuring the value of our tissue resource. By adopting this systematic approach to business modelling, the NHSB has achieved sustainability after less than 3 years of operation.

Science Education for Environmental Sustainability: A Case Study of the Palouse Watershed

Science.gov (United States)

Lyman, Samson E.

2009-01-01

This study uses case study and qualitative content analysis methodologies to answer the question: What is the relationship between Washington State's k-12 science education standards and the environmental sustainability needs of the Palouse River Watershed? After defining the Palouse Watershed's attributes, the author presents a land use history…

Education for Sustainable Development at Notre Dame University--Louaize: Environmental Science Curriculum--A Pre-Phase to the Rucas Project on Education for Sustainable Development

Science.gov (United States)

Khalaf-Kairouz, Layla

2012-01-01

The Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences at Notre Dame University--Louaize, conscious to the need of experts in the emerging field of sustainability and to the role that an educational institution plays for the service of the community, introduced into the university curricula a major in environmental science. This paper will present the…

Is victim identity in genocide a question of science or law? The scientific perspective, with special reference to Darfur.

Science.gov (United States)

Komar, Debra

2008-09-01

In genocide, victims must represent an ethnic, racial, religious or national group. But is victim identity a question of science or law? Must victims be a socially recognized group or can group identity exist solely in the mind of the perpetrator? This question is relevant to the on-going crisis in Darfur. The "Arab-on-African" violence depicted in the media encompasses identities not shared by Darfurians. This study details an evaluation of victim identity in Darfur, based on field research and literature review. Darfurians are defined by subsistence strategy and economic groups are not protected under genocide law. Whether Darfur is genocide depends on whether victims must conform to scientific group classifications or need only be defined by their relationship to the perpetrators.

Gender, identity and culture in learning physics

Science.gov (United States)

Corbett, Katelin

2016-06-01

Student engagement in science, as defined by Iva Gurgel, Mauricio Pietrocola, and Graciella Watanabe, is of great importance because a student's perceived compatibility with science learning is highly influenced by personal identities, or how students see themselves in relations to the world. This can greatly impact their learning experiences. In this forum, I build on the work of Gurgel, Pietrocola, and Watanabe by exploring the relationships between engagement in physics and gender, and by looking at the expansive nature of the concept of culture. I expand the conversation by investigating ways in which learning science has impacted my own identity/worldview, particularly how it affects my personal teaching and learning experiences. I focus the conversation around the relationship between gender and the experience of learning science to further the dialogue concerning identity and how it impacts engagement in science. I also look at the role of didactic transposition in the perceived disconnect with science. I reveal my experiences and analysis through a personal narrative.

Preparing Pre-Service Teachers to Teach Primary Science: An Integrated Approach Using the Theme of Sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

King, Donna

2014-01-01

An integrated approach to assessment afforded pre-service teachers the opportunity to learn about a local sustainability issue through three learning areas: science and technology, the arts and studies of society and environment (SOSE). Three sustainability issues chosen by the pre-service teachers are presented in this paper highlighting the…

The Priority of the Question: Focus Questions for Sustained Reasoning in Science

Science.gov (United States)

Lustick, David

2010-08-01

Science education standards place a high priority on promoting the skills and dispositions associated with inquiry at all levels of learning. Yet, the questions teachers employ to foster sustained reasoning are most likely borrowed from a textbook, lab manual, or worksheet. Such generic questions generated for a mass audience, lack authenticity and contextual cues that allow learners to immediately appreciate a question’s relevance. Teacher queries intended to motivate, guide, and foster learning through inquiry are known as focus questions. This theoretical article draws upon science education research to present a typology and conceptual framework intended to support science teacher educators as they identify, develop, and evaluate focus questions with their students.

National facility for advanced computational science: A sustainable path to scientific discovery

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Simon, Horst; Kramer, William; Saphir, William; Shalf, John; Bailey, David; Oliker, Leonid; Banda, Michael; McCurdy, C. William; Hules, John; Canning, Andrew; Day, Marc; Colella, Philip; Serafini, David; Wehner, Michael; Nugent, Peter

2004-04-02

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) proposes to create a National Facility for Advanced Computational Science (NFACS) and to establish a new partnership between the American computer industry and a national consortium of laboratories, universities, and computing facilities. NFACS will provide leadership-class scientific computing capability to scientists and engineers nationwide, independent of their institutional affiliation or source of funding. This partnership will bring into existence a new class of computational capability in the United States that is optimal for science and will create a sustainable path towards petaflops performance.

Vision Development towards a Sustainable North Rhine-Westphalia 2030 in a Science-Practice-Dialogue

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miriam Müller

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The paper presents the results of a participatory vision development process in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW in Germany. The vision development was part of a scientific research project that accompanied the development of a sustainability strategy for NRW at state level. The Sustainability Strategy NRW was adopted in July 2016 and contains parts of the vision developed in the research project: Sentences from the narrative text vision and proposed targets and indicators that back-up the vision for a sustainable NRW in 2030 were used by the state of NRW. The vision was developed in iterative steps in three consecutive dialogue rounds with different stakeholders from science and practice. The paper presents the methodological approach and the results of the vision formulation process. The paper discusses the lessons learned from the vision development—from both practical and theoretical perspectives of transition management. The paper explores the relevance of setting ambitious targets for sustainable development as part of a state strategy by taking the proposed target of a “4 × 25% modal split” by 2030 as an example. The project demonstrated that a participatory approach for vision development is time and resource consuming, but worth the effort as it improves the quality and acceptance of a vision. Furthermore, the project demonstrated that transformative science contributes valuable inputs for sustainability transitions and for facilitating participatory vision development.

Living Green: Examining Sustainable Dorms and Identities

Science.gov (United States)

Watson, Lesley; Johnson, Cathryn; Hegtvedt, Karen A.; Parris, Christie L.

2015-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of living in "green" dorms on students' environmentally responsible behaviors (ERBs), in concert with other factors, including individual identity and social context in the form of behavior modeling by peers. Design/methodology/approach: The sample of 243 consists of students…

Capturing the Transformation and Dynamic Nature of an Elementary Teacher Candidate's Identity Development as a Teacher of Science

Science.gov (United States)

Naidoo, Kara

2017-01-01

This study examines the transformation and dynamic nature of one teacher candidate's (Susan) identity as a learner and teacher of science throughout an innovative science methods course. The goal of this paper is to use theoretically derived themes grounded in cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and situated learning theory to determine the…

Sustainability Champions? Academic Identities and Sustainability Curricula in Higher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Wood, Bronwyn E.; Cornforth, Sue; Beals, Fiona; Taylor, Mike; Tallon, Rachel

2016-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of academic staff who are committed to embedding sustainability within tertiary curricula and pedagogy. Design/Methodology/Approach: The focus of this paper is on a New Zealand university. A survey of staff was undertaken and in-depth interviews conducted with 11 sustainability…

Effects of racialized tracking on racial gaps in science self-efficacy, identity, engagement, and aspirations: Connection to science and school segregation

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Briana L.

Given the concentration of economic growth and power in science fields and the current levels of racial stratification in schooling, this study examined (1) the effects of race on students' connectedness to science and career aspirations, (2) the extent to which these effects were moderated by school racial composition and racialized tracking, and (3) the differences in modeling effects using separate variables for race and gender (i.e., White, Black, Hispanic, female) versus race/gender (e.g., White female, Black male, etc.). Using the lens of racial formation theory, this study situated access to science knowledge as a racial project, conferring and denying access to resources along racial lines. Reviews of the literature on science self-efficacy, identity, engagement, and career aspirations revealed an under-emphasis on school institutional factors, such as racial composition and racialized tracking (which are important in sociological literature), as shaping student outcomes. The study analyzed data from the nationally representative High School Longitudinal Study that surveyed students in 2009 during their freshman year in high school and again in 2012 during most students' junior year (n = 6,998). Affective ratings (in self-efficacy, identity, engagement) and career aspirations for students measured in 2012 were examined as dependent variables and a variable for racialized tracking was estimated given schools' placement of students in advanced science coursework in 2012. Although school racial composition was not found to moderate race on outcome effects, primary analyses demonstrated that the presence of racialized tracking in the students' schools did moderate these effects. Overall these results suggested that the student subgroups most often at a disadvantage compared to White students for the science outcomes studied were Hispanic males and females; Black students' ratings and aspirations were largely on par or exceeded those of their White counterparts

Collaborative Framework for Designing a Sustainability Science Programme: Lessons Learned at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

Science.gov (United States)

Charli-Joseph, Lakshmi; Escalante, Ana E.; Eakin, Hallie; Solares, Ma. José; Mazari-Hiriart, Marisa; Nation, Marcia; Gómez-Priego, Paola; Pérez-Tejada, César A. Domínguez; Bojórquez-Tapia, Luis A.

2016-01-01

Purpose: The authors describe the challenges and opportunities associated with developing an interdisciplinary sustainability programme in an emerging economy and illustrate how these are addressed through the approach taken for the development of the first postgraduate programme (MSc and PhD) in sustainability science at the National Autonomous…

I am smart enough to study postsecondary science: a critical discourse analysis of latecomers' identity construction in an online forum

Science.gov (United States)

Jackson, Phoebe A.; Seiler, Gale

2017-11-01

Latecomers to science are students who take non-traditional routes into postsecondary science because they are initially missing prerequisites. Latecomers have a lower rate of persistence than traditional science students. This critical discourse analysis of an online forum thread uses Gee's toolkit to explore how latecomers, who have histories of not being recognized as smart enough to do science, find new ways to identify with science. Applying a theoretical lens in which identity is viewed as a process of continual negotiation, which is constrained and afforded by the resources of the relevant figured worlds, it is shown how four latecomers shared reinterpreted histories of being recognized as not smart enough to do science and in doing so, formed solidarity. As part of this process they co-produced a new cultural model in which the ability or inability to ask questions led respectively to success (good grades) or failure (low grades) in science. Used in conjunction with their solidarity, they were not only able to successfully position themselves in the elite figured world of science, but also to reify the result in a form that could potentially support future identification with science. Aspects of the online forum that supported the co-production are explored, including its ability to help students draw on resources from outside of the science program. The importance of encouraging students to discuss their struggles with science and the accompanying construction of solidarity is also discussed. This research is of particular interest to practitioners and researchers interested in supporting non-traditional science students such as latecomers, especially those wishing to move away from deficit views of these students and towards a more complex and agentic understanding of persistence and identity in science.

Sustaining biological welfare for our future through consistent science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shimomura Yoshihiro

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Physiological anthropology presently covers a very broad range of human knowledge and engineering technologies. This study reviews scientific inconsistencies within a variety of areas: sitting posture; negative air ions; oxygen inhalation; alpha brain waves induced by music and ultrasound; 1/f fluctuations; the evaluation of feelings using surface electroencephalography; Kansei; universal design; and anti-stress issues. We found that the inconsistencies within these areas indicate the importance of integrative thinking and the need to maintain the perspective on the biological benefit to humanity. Analytical science divides human physiological functions into discrete details, although individuals comprise a unified collection of whole-body functions. Such disparate considerations contribute to the misunderstanding of physiological functions and the misevaluation of positive and negative values for humankind. Research related to human health will, in future, depend on the concept of maintaining physiological functions based on consistent science and on sustaining human health to maintain biological welfare in future generations.

Sustainable computational science

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rougier, Nicolas; Hinsen, Konrad; Alexandre, Frédéric

2017-01-01

Computer science offers a large set of tools for prototyping, writing, running, testing, validating, sharing and reproducing results, however computational science lags behind. In the best case, authors may provide their source code as a compressed archive and they may feel confident their research...... workflows, in particular in peer-reviews. Existing journals have been slow to adapt: source codes are rarely requested, hardly ever actually executed to check that they produce the results advertised in the article. ReScience is a peer-reviewed journal that targets computational research and encourages...... the explicit replication of already published research, promoting new and open-source implementations in order to ensure that the original research can be replicated from its description. To achieve this goal, the whole publishing chain is radically different from other traditional scientific journals. ReScience...

Sustaining inquiry-based teaching methods in the middle school science classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Murphy, Amy Fowler

This dissertation used a combination of case study and phenomenological research methods to investigate how individual teachers of middle school science in the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative (AMSTI) program sustain their use of inquiry-based methods of teaching and learning. While the overall context for the cases was the AMSTI program, each of the four teacher participants in this study had a unique, individual context as well. The researcher collected data through a series of interviews, multiple-day observations, and curricular materials. The interview data was analyzed to develop a textural, structural, and composite description of the phenomenon. The Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) was used along with the Assesing Inquiry Potential (AIP) questionnaire to determine the level of inquiry-based instruction occuring in the participants classrooms. Analysis of the RTOP data and AIP data indicated all of the participants utilized inquiry-based methods in their classrooms during their observed lessons. The AIP data also indicated the level of inquiry in the AMSTI curricular materials utilized by the participants during the observations was structured inquiry. The findings from the interview data suggested the ability of the participants to sustain their use of structured inquiry was influenced by their experiences with, beliefs about, and understandings of inquiry. This study contributed to the literature by supporting existing studies regarding the influence of teachers' experiences, beliefs, and understandings of inquiry on their classroom practices. The inquiry approach stressed in current reforms in science education targets content knowledge, skills, and processes needed in a future scientifically literate citizenry.

Killing Curiosity? An Analysis of Celebrated Identity Performances among Teachers and Students in Nine London Secondary Science Classrooms

Science.gov (United States)

Archer, Louise; Dawson, Emily; DeWitt, Jennifer; Godec, Spela; King, Heather; Mau, Ada; Nomikou, Effrosyni; Seakins, Amy

2017-01-01

In this paper, we take the view that school classrooms are spaces that are constituted by complex power struggles (for voice, authenticity, and recognition), involving multiple layers of resistance and contestation between the "institution," teachers and students, which can have profound implications for students' science identity and…

Young women's scientific identity formation in an urban context

Science.gov (United States)

Brickhouse, Nancy W.; Potter, Jennifer T.

2001-10-01

In this article we examine the scientific identity formation of two young women of color who attend an urban vocational high school. One young woman lives in an urban setting, while the other lives in a suburban setting. We describe how these young women's identities influence and respond to experiences in school science. In particular, we describe how the experience of marginalization can make membership in a school science community impossible or undesirable. We also describe the advantages that accrue to students who fit well with the ideal identities of an urban school. Finally, we describe some of the difficulties students face who aspire to scientific or technological competence yet do not desire to take on aspects of the identities associated with membership in school science communities.

A Comparison of the Performance of Online versus Traditional On-Campus Earth Science Students on Identical Exams

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Werhner, Matthew J.

2010-01-01

In this paper I compare the performance of online versus traditional on-campus students on identical exams in an earth science class. The number of college level distance learning classes offered online continues to increase as they offer greater scheduling flexibility to students, they appeal to students who like to work independently, and allow…

A motivational account of the undergraduate experience in science: brief measures of students' self-system appraisals, engagement in coursework, and identity as a scientist

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Skinner, Ellen; Saxton, Emily; Currie, Cailin; Shusterman, Gwen

2017-11-01

As part of long-standing efforts to promote undergraduates' success in science, researchers have investigated the instructional strategies and motivational factors that promote student learning and persistence in science coursework and majors. This study aimed to create a set of brief measures that educators and researchers can use as tools to examine the undergraduate motivational experience in science classes. To identify key motivational processes, we drew on self-determination theory (SDT), which holds that students have fundamental needs - to feel competent, related, and autonomous - that fuel their intrinsic motivation. When educational experiences meet these needs, students engage more energetically and learn more, cumulatively contributing to a positive identity as a scientist. Based on information provided by 1013 students from 8 classes in biology, chemistry, and physics, we constructed conceptually focused and psychometrically sound survey measures of three sets of motivational factors: (1) students' appraisals of their own competence, autonomy, and relatedness; (2) the quality of students' behavioural and emotional engagement in academic work; and (3) students' emerging identities as scientists, including their science identity, purpose in science, and science career plans. Using an iterative confirmatory process, we tested short item sets for unidimensionality and internal consistency, and then cross-validated them. Tests of measurement invariance showed that scales were generally comparable across disciplines. Most importantly, scales and final course grades showed correlations consistent with predictions from SDT. These measures may provide a window on the student motivational experience for educators, researchers, and interventionists who aim to improve the quality of undergraduate science teaching and learning.

Sustainability Logistics Basing - Science and Technology Objective - Demonstration; Industry Assessment and Demonstration Final Report

Science.gov (United States)

2017-08-14

TECHNICAL REPORT AD ________________ NATICK/TR-17/019 SUSTAINABILITY ...LOGISTICS BASING – SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY OBJECTIVE – DEMONSTRATION; INDUSTRY ASSESSMENT AND DEMONSTRATION FINAL REPORT by Elizabeth D. Swisher and...Benjamin J. Campbell August 2017 Final Report December 2014 – February 2016 Approved for public release; distribution is

Environmental Influences on Adult Motivation for Career Choice in Science Professions

Science.gov (United States)

Fawcett-Adams, Victoria Joan

Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education is an issue of great concern for the country with implications for sustaining a skilled workforce in science-based professions. This empirical study explored adults' science career choice and explored the environmental influences that motivated, influenced and shaped these choices. This qualitative study used the analytical lens of narrative inquiry storytelling and thick description. Participants lived in medium-sized rural towns and a small city, and they were adults who had been in science careers for a minimum of ten years in the fields of health care, education and agriculture. Interviews were semi-structured with open-ended questions and were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Observations took place at the workplace site. The interview transcripts were reviewed with each participant in person for authenticity and additional specific questions were designed to further explore their responses, meaning and provide accurate interpretations of the data. Themes and subthemes emerged from coding the data and suggested four dominant themes: people, identity, beliefs and attitudes, and feelings. Findings showed that people such as parents, grandparents, siblings and teachers were most influential in forming identity as well as shaping beliefs and attitudes, and feelings in science career choice. Participants did not remember educational experiences as influential; however, they did remember some teachers and advisors as influential, especially during college. The researcher recommends that parents and other adults build relationships with students specifically to discuss career opportunities. Parents and teachers should increase their knowledge and awareness of science careers. This knowledge can then contribute to a more informed conversation when discussing career objectives with students. Industry should partner with K-16 education to help develop a scientific workforce and participate in further career

Identity Expansion and Transcendence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

William Sims Bainbridge

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Emerging developments in communications and computing technology may transform the nature of human identity, in the process rendering obsolete the traditional philosophical and scientific frameworks for understanding the nature of individuals and groups.  Progress toward an evaluation of this possibility and an appropriate conceptual basis for analyzing it may be derived from two very different but ultimately connected social movements that promote this radical change. One is the governmentally supported exploration of Converging Technologies, based in the unification of nanoscience, biology, information science and cognitive science (NBIC. The other is the Transhumanist movement, which has been criticized as excessively radical yet is primarily conducted as a dignified intellectual discussion within a new school of philosophy about human enhancement.  Together, NBIC and Transhumanism suggest the immense transformative power of today’s technologies, through which individuals may explore multiple identities by means of online avatars, semi-autonomous intelligent agents, and other identity expansions.

Water Sciences - Connecting the dots to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

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Uhlenbrook, Stefan; Ortigara, Angela; Minelli, Lucilla

2017-04-01

Land use change, urbanisation, climate change, demographic development and migration, conflicts and peace, change of diets, industry 4.0, globalisation etc. are among the challenges that water sciences need to address to serve societal needs. Water availability per capita is decreasing, water quality is deteriorating at many places, but water demand is continuously escalating. Business as usual in water science is not up to the related challenges. In fact, business as usual cannot be the answer in all aspects, i.e. also current policy making processes will need to improve and take stock of evidences provided by science in order to better address societal challenges. However, exciting developments have been taking place. The global community agreed on a new and ambitious agenda for development, which aims to be comprehensive and include the participation of all stakeholders in one integrated framework. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides a stimulating new era, with unique opportunities to reconcile science, society and policy making. Hydrology and water management - in all its facets including wastewater - play a central role in the Agenda 2030, as it is not only central in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, but it is fundamental for the realization of other SDGs related to, for instance, poverty reduction, sustainable growth, health, food security, climate change, ecosystems (land and sea), gender equality, etc. Despite the recognition of the critical importance of water in this agenda, the implementation of related policies and use of scientific developments represent a difficult task. Two main challenges remain: (i) the utilization of the knowledge and developments already available, and (ii) the need to overcome current and future knowledge gaps ensuring that scientific results support sustainable development effectively. The UN system will produce a Synthesis Report for SDG 6, which is currently being prepared by a UN-Water Task Force that

Accountability of FCS Education to a Sustainability Ethos: Focus on Sustainable Consumption

Science.gov (United States)

Wuest, Beth; Hustvedt, Gwendolyn; Kang, Jiyun

2014-01-01

The American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences' (AAFCS) brand, "creating healthy and sustainable families," implies accountability in promoting sustainable consumer behavior. This study compared students majoring in family and consumer sciences (FCS) and its specializations to those majoring in other fields on constructs of…

Sustainability Assessment Using a Unit-based Sustainability ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

A sustainability assessment study was performed with three teaching departments at Rhodes University – Ichthyology and Fisheries Science, Anthropology, and Accounting. The assessment used a Unit-based Sustainability Assessment Tool (USAT) and was guided by systems thinking and the ontological framework ...

Robotics as science (re)form: Exploring power, learning and gender(ed) identity formation in a "community of practice"

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Hurner, Sheryl Marie

"Robotics as Science (re)Form" utilizes qualitative research methods to examine the career trajectories and gender identity formation of female youth participating as members of an all-girl, academic team within the male-dominated environment of the FIRST Robotics competition. Following the constant comparative approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), my project relies upon triangulating ethnographic data drawn from extensive field notes, semi-structured interviews, and digital and video imagery compiled over two years of participant observation. Drawing upon the sociolinguistic "community of practice" (CoP) framework (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998), this study maps the range of gendered "identities" available to girls involved in non-traditional academic and occupational pursuits within a local context, and reveals the nature, structure and impact of power operating within this CoP, a significantly underdeveloped construct within the language and gender literature. These research findings (1) contribute to refining theories of situated or problem based learning with a focus on female youth (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998); (2) reveal affordances and barriers within the local program design that enable (and preclude) women and minority youth entering the engineering pipeline; and (3) enrich our understanding of intragroup language and gendered "practices" to counter largely essentializing generalizations based upon quantitative analysis. Keywords: Robotics, gender, identity formation, science, STEM, communities of practice

The emergence and institutional co-determination of sustainability as a teaching topic in interdisciplinary science teacher education

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rasmussen, Klaus

2016-01-01

This paper takes an institutional perspective on the topic of sustainability in order to analyse how this ‘idea’ enters science teacher education through an interdisciplinary approach. It shows how the development and implementation of a course for Danish pre-service teachers was conditioned......, conceptualised through a new reference model that separates the analysis from the usual sustainability dimensions. The findings reveal how sustainability as a teaching topic can be a unifying idea in an interdisciplinary setting. Disciplinary differences evidently impact course planning and implementation...

Rethinking Materiality, Memory and Identity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tracy Ireland

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This introductory article  considers and questions exactly how materials and people constitute social worlds and relationships which sustain identity and memory and, in turn, the social and political structures or norms that these attachments invest in, stabilise and maintain.

Sustainability Initiatives and Organizational Performance: An Analysis of Publications in the WEB of SCIENCE DATABASE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eduardo Luís Hepper

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Brazil is going through a time of reflection about the preservation of natural resources, an issue that is increasingly considered in its agenda. The search for balance between environmental, social and economic aspects has been a challenge for business survival over the years and has led companies to adopt initiatives focused on sustainability. The objective of this article is to analyse how the international scientific production addresses sustainable practices and initiatives and their relationship with organizational performance. Considering this scope, a bibliometric study of the publications located on Web of Science - Social Sciences Citation Index (WoS-SSCI was developed. There were 33 articles identified and selected on the subject. Journals that stand out in quantity of articles and number of citations are the Journal of Cleaner Production and Strategic Management Journal, respectively. Analysing the results, a growing concern about this issue and the increase in publications was noticed after the 2000s. The results found, in general, associate sustainable practices to positive organizational performance, such as increased profit on the product sold, quality improvement, improved reputation, and waste reduction, among others gains identified.

An Analysis of Pre-Service Science Teachers' Moral Considerations about Environment and Their Attitudes towards Sustainable Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Alpak-Tunç, Gizem; Yenice, Nilgün

2017-01-01

This study aims at analysing the moral considerations of pre-service science teachers about environment and their attitudes towards sustainable environment. It was carried out during the school year of 2014-2015 with 1438 pre-service science teachers attending public universities in the Aegean region of Turkey. The data of the study were collected…

Scientific literacy and academic identity: Creating a community of practice

Science.gov (United States)

Reveles, John Michael

2005-07-01

This one-year ethnographic study of a third grade classroom examined the construction of elementary school science. The research focused on the co-development of scientific literacy and academic identity. Unlike much research in science education that views literacy as merely supportive of science; this dissertation research considers how students learned both disciplinary knowledge in science as well as about themselves as learners through language use. The study documented and analyzed how students came to engage with scientific knowledge and the impact this engagement had upon their academic identities over time. Ethnographic and discourse analytic methods were employed to investigate three research questions: (a) How were the students in a third grade classroom afforded opportunities to acquire scientific literate practices through the spoken/written discourse and science activities? (b) In what ways did students develop and maintain academic identities taken-up over time as they discursively appropriated scientific literate practices via classroom discourse? and (c) How did students collectively and individually inscribe their academic identities and scientific knowledge into classroom artifacts across the school year? Through multiple forms of analyses, I identified how students' communication and participation in science investigations provided opportunities for them to learn specific scientific literate practices. The findings of this empirical research indicate that students' communication and participation in science influenced the ways they perceived themselves as active participants within the classroom community. More specifically, students were observed to appropriate particular discourse practices introduced by the teacher to frame scientific disciplinary knowledge and investigations. Thus, emerging academic identities and developing literate practices were documented via analysis of discursive (spoken, written, and enacted) classroom interactions. A

On the gender-science stereotypes held by scientists: explicit accord with gender-ratios, implicit accord with scientific identity.

Science.gov (United States)

Smyth, Frederick L; Nosek, Brian A

2015-01-01

Women's representation in science has changed substantially, but unevenly, over the past 40 years. In health and biological sciences, for example, women's representation among U.S. scientists is now on par with or greater than men's, while in physical sciences and engineering they remain a clear minority. We investigated whether variation in proportions of women in scientific disciplines is related to differing levels of male-favoring explicit or implicit stereotypes held by students and scientists in each discipline. We hypothesized that science-is-male stereotypes would be weaker in disciplines where women are better represented. This prediction was tested with a sample of 176,935 college-educated participants (70% female), including thousands of engineers, physicians, and scientists. The prediction was supported for the explicit stereotype, but not for the implicit stereotype. Implicit stereotype strength did not correspond with disciplines' gender ratios, but, rather, correlated with two indicators of disciplines' scientific intensity, positively for men and negatively for women. From age 18 on, women who majored or worked in disciplines perceived as more scientific had substantially weaker science-is-male stereotypes than did men in the same disciplines, with gender differences larger than 0.8 standard deviations in the most scientifically-perceived disciplines. Further, particularly for women, differences in the strength of implicit stereotypes across scientific disciplines corresponded with the strength of scientific values held by women in the disciplines. These results are discussed in the context of dual process theory of mental operation and balanced identity theory. The findings point to the need for longitudinal study of the factors' affecting development of adults' and, especially, children's implicit gender stereotypes and scientific identity.

On the gender–science stereotypes held by scientists: explicit accord with gender-ratios, implicit accord with scientific identity

Science.gov (United States)

Smyth, Frederick L.; Nosek, Brian A.

2015-01-01

Women's representation in science has changed substantially, but unevenly, over the past 40 years. In health and biological sciences, for example, women's representation among U.S. scientists is now on par with or greater than men's, while in physical sciences and engineering they remain a clear minority. We investigated whether variation in proportions of women in scientific disciplines is related to differing levels of male-favoring explicit or implicit stereotypes held by students and scientists in each discipline. We hypothesized that science-is-male stereotypes would be weaker in disciplines where women are better represented. This prediction was tested with a sample of 176,935 college-educated participants (70% female), including thousands of engineers, physicians, and scientists. The prediction was supported for the explicit stereotype, but not for the implicit stereotype. Implicit stereotype strength did not correspond with disciplines' gender ratios, but, rather, correlated with two indicators of disciplines' scientific intensity, positively for men and negatively for women. From age 18 on, women who majored or worked in disciplines perceived as more scientific had substantially weaker science-is-male stereotypes than did men in the same disciplines, with gender differences larger than 0.8 standard deviations in the most scientifically-perceived disciplines. Further, particularly for women, differences in the strength of implicit stereotypes across scientific disciplines corresponded with the strength of scientific values held by women in the disciplines. These results are discussed in the context of dual process theory of mental operation and balanced identity theory. The findings point to the need for longitudinal study of the factors' affecting development of adults' and, especially, children's implicit gender stereotypes and scientific identity. PMID:25964765

On the Gender-Science Stereotypes held by Scientists: Explicit accord with Gender-Ratios, Implicit accord with Scientific Identity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frederick L Smyth

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Women’s representation in science has changed substantially, but unevenly, over the past 40 years. In health and biological sciences, for example, women’s representation among U.S. scientists is now on par with or greater than men’s, while in physical sciences and engineering they remain a clear minority. We investigated whether variation in proportions of women in scientific disciplines is related to differing levels of male-favoring explicit or implicit stereotypes held by students and scientists in each discipline. We hypothesized that science-is-male stereotypes would be weaker in disciplines where women are better represented. This prediction was tested with a sample of 176,935 college-educated participants (70% female, including thousands of engineers, physicians, and scientists. The prediction was supported for the explicit stereotype, but not for the implicit stereotype. Implicit stereotype strength did not correspond with disciplines’ gender ratios, but, rather, correlated with two indicators of disciplines’ scientific intensity, positively for men and negatively for women. From age 18 on, women who majored or worked in disciplines perceived as more scientific had substantially weaker science-is-male stereotypes than did men in the same disciplines, with gender differences larger than 0.8 standard deviations in the most scientifically-perceived disciplines. Further, particularly for women, differences in the strength of implicit stereotypes across scientific disciplines corresponded with the strength of scientific values held by women in the disciplines. These results are discussed in the context of dual process theory of mental operation and balanced identity theory. The findings point to the need for longitudinal study of the factors’ affecting development of adults’ and, especially, children’s implicit gender stereotypes and scientific identity.

Science education reform in Confucian learning cultures: teachers' perspectives on policy and practice in Taiwan

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Ying-Syuan; Asghar, Anila

2018-03-01

This empirical study investigates secondary science teachers' perspectives on science education reform in Taiwan and reflects how these teachers have been negotiating constructivist and learner-centered pedagogical approaches in contemporary science education. It also explores the challenges that teachers encounter while shifting their pedagogical focus from traditional approaches to teaching science to an active engagement in students' learning. Multiple sources of qualitative data were obtained, including individual interviews with science teachers and teachers' reflective journals about Confucianism in relation to their educational philosophies. Thematic analysis and constant comparative method were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that Confucian traditions play a significant role in shaping educational practices in Taiwan and profoundly influence teachers' epistemological beliefs and their actual classroom practice. Indeed, science teachers' perspectives on Confucian learning traditions played a key role in supporting or obstructing their pedagogical commitments to inquiry-based and learner-centered approaches. This study draws on the literature concerning teachers' professional struggles and identity construction during educational reform. Specifically, we explore the ways in which teachers respond to educational changes and negotiate their professional identities. We employed various theories of identity construction to understand teachers' struggles and challenges while wrestling with competing traditional and reform-based pedagogical approaches. Attending to these struggles and the ways in which they inform the development of a teacher's professional identity is vital for sustaining current and future educational reform in Taiwan as well as in other Eastern cultures. These findings have important implications for teachers' professional development programs in East Asian cultures.

Sprawl and sustainable urban development in Europe

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Maksin-Mićić Marija

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Over 50 years urban development in Europe has been affected by extensive urban sprawl. Environmental, economic and social impacts of long lasting sprawl are threatening urban identity, urban culture and cultural identity of European territory. Last two decades the main concept in European planning and governance system has been the sustainable development, namely sustainable urban development and its implementation. We ought to be realistic about the possibilities to counter sprawl. Realistic seams to steer sprawling tendencies in more suitable and sustainable manner, so called smart urban sprawl. This paper analyses the planning concepts and gives the brief review of current policies for steering the urban sprawl in EU, which are considered to be of importance in achieving more sustainable urban development and efficient urban management in Serbia.

21st Century Science for Sustainable Development in the Developing World

Science.gov (United States)

Sachs, J. D.

2004-12-01

Meeting the Millennium Development Goals and, ultimately, eradicating extreme poverty, engages experts from many academic disciplines and different parts of society- climatologists, earth engineers, ecologists, economists, public health specialists, social activists, and politicians. We are in the midst of exciting technological and scientific breakthroughs that make it realistic to end extreme poverty by 2025. Indeed, the experiences of China and India in recent years have illustrated that technology can accelerate economic development to impressively high rates. India, which boasts growth rates of nearly 8% over the past decade, may end hunger among its population as early as 2007, thanks in large part to the Green Revolution underway there. The work of agronomists and economists are not unrelated - the science behind soil nutrients, water, and germplasm all fuel sustainable development. Science and technology are important ingredients for growth, and they are improving at an ever-increasing rate. When applied for the sake of human benefit, we have a tool of unprecedented strength. But the developing world has also reached a point of unprecedented environmental stress. Biodiversity faces serious threats, as do water supplies, forests, and the atmosphere. Developing and developed nations continue to grapple with the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions. We must maintain our scientific investigations and analysis while ensuring that development policy addresses long-term environmental needs. The energy sector is one obvious example. Several developing countries, China and India included, harbor vast coal deposits. Fueling development with coal will drastically exacerbate the ongoing spiral of man-made climate change. My presentation will focus on the contributions that 21st century science can make-indeed, must make-to ensure that sustainable development occurs and we meet the Millennium Challenge of cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015.

Identity as wrapping up

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nickelsen, Niels Christian Mossfeldt

2015-01-01

The aim of this paper is to provide an understanding of cross-professional collaboration and to develop a notion of professional identity based in practice. The background of the paper is science and technology studies and more precisely actor network theory. The method used: The empirical analysis...... in close relation to the making of a report concerning the cross-professional collaboration. Findings are that “Identity as wrapping up” points to the way in which certain actors, by other actors, are maneuvered into certain pockets in a network. Identity as wrapping up is emphasized as a way...... of participating, which is closely connected to the intention to control the relation towards the other. Thus identity as wrapping up is argued to be a strategy to optimize the situation of one’s own profession. Conclusion: This articulation of identity contributes to the actor network literature as well...

Leverage points for sustainability transformation.

Science.gov (United States)

Abson, David J; Fischer, Joern; Leventon, Julia; Newig, Jens; Schomerus, Thomas; Vilsmaier, Ulli; von Wehrden, Henrik; Abernethy, Paivi; Ives, Christopher D; Jager, Nicolas W; Lang, Daniel J

2017-02-01

Despite substantial focus on sustainability issues in both science and politics, humanity remains on largely unsustainable development trajectories. Partly, this is due to the failure of sustainability science to engage with the root causes of unsustainability. Drawing on ideas by Donella Meadows, we argue that many sustainability interventions target highly tangible, but essentially weak, leverage points (i.e. using interventions that are easy, but have limited potential for transformational change). Thus, there is an urgent need to focus on less obvious but potentially far more powerful areas of intervention. We propose a research agenda inspired by systems thinking that focuses on transformational 'sustainability interventions', centred on three realms of leverage: reconnecting people to nature, restructuring institutions and rethinking how knowledge is created and used in pursuit of sustainability. The notion of leverage points has the potential to act as a boundary object for genuinely transformational sustainability science.

[Forum: legitimacy, expansion, and sustainability of Social and Human Sciences in Public Health. Introduction].

Science.gov (United States)

Deslandes, Suely Ferreira

2012-12-01

The Forum debates current trends and challenges for teaching and research in this subfield and the prevailing criteria for evaluation of its academic output. The authors wager on the hypothesis that we are currently experiencing a clash between the consolidation of Social and Human Sciences in Public Health (with a well-defined identity, undeniable vigor in their research and proposals, and an important number of practitioners) and a bottleneck in training processes and iniquity and inadequacy in the institutional mechanisms for recognition of merit. The Forum presents four articles. The first, by Minayo, discusses the basic forms of knowledge for this training and those needed to analyze contemporary challenges in a globalized world, besides debating the interfaces and mediations between the biological and the social in a teaching proposal. The second, by Trad, provides a current portrait of the subfield's output. The third, by Deslandes & Iriart, presents theoretical and methodological trends in recently published studies, identifying their gaps and characteristics. Bosi, author of the fourth article, fuels the debate on the criteria for evaluation of academic output in the field and analyzes their consequences. The Postscript, by Nunes, reclaims and updates the debate on the construction of identities in the social and Human Sciences in Public Health.

Singapore: The Politics of Inventing National Identity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephan Ortmann

2009-01-01

Full Text Available This study wants to shed new light on the politics of Singapore’s national identity invention. Since independence in 1965, the Singaporean government has tried to generate a sense of national identity in Singapore. While at first, the priority was on pragmatic values to promote the economic development, this changed in the late 1980s when the government became concerned with the widespread materialism within the society. As an alternative, so-called Asian values sought to provide an ideological alternative and a new basis for a stronger national identity. At the same time, average Singaporeans have developed their own unique conceptions of the city-state’s national identity, which sometimes contradict the official nation-building efforts and thus constitute a subtle form of opposition. Many Singaporeans demand greater participation in the negotiation of their Singaporean identity, which demonstrates the difficulty of constructing a sustainable authoritarian civic national identity.

The Taskforce on Conceptual Foundations of Earth System Governance: Sustainability Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Barry Ness

2017-02-01

Full Text Available We are pleased to introduce the second special issue from Challenges in Sustainability, this time as a part of the Taskforce on Conceptual Foundations of Earth System Governance, an initiative by the Earth System Governance Project (ESG (http://www.earthsystemgovernance.net/conceptual-foundations/. The ESG Project is a global research alliance. It is the largest social science research network in the field of governance and global environmental change. ESG is primarily a scientific effort but is also designed to assist policy responses to pressing problems of earth system transformation.

Narratives of location: School science identities and scientific discourse among Navajo women at the University of New Mexico

Science.gov (United States)

Brandt, Carol B.

This research examines the interplay of scientific discourse and students' sense of self among four Navajo (Dine) women as they major in science at a university in the southwestern United States. This dissertation research is an ethnographic case study of Navajo women as they were completing their final year of undergraduate study in the life sciences at a university. How do Navajo women express their identity in Western science at the university? What role does scientific discourse play in this process? This research employs a feminist poststructural approach to language and expands the way discourse has typically been addressed in science education. I expand the notion of discourse through poststructuralism by recognizing the co-constitutive role of language in fashioning realities and generating meaning. Data sources in this study included transcripts from one-on-one interviews, electronic correspondence (e-mail), observations of social contexts on campus, students' writing for science courses, university policy statements, departmental outcomes assessments, web profiles of student research in science, and a researcher's reflective journal. This study took place beginning in January 2002 and continued through May of 2003 at the University of New Mexico. After completing the thematic (constant comparative analysis) and an analysis of metaphors, I "retold" or "restoried" the narratives collected during interviews. In the cross case analysis, I compared each participant's description of those discursive spaces that afforded engagement with science, and those locations where their awareness of academic language was heightened in a process of metadiscourse. I identified these spaces as locations of possibility in which students and their mentors (or instructors) valued connected knowing, acknowledged each other's history, culture, and knowledge, and began speaking to each other subject-to-subject to challenge normative views of schooling. The participants in this

More than Just Playing Outside: A Self-Study on Finding My Identity as an Environmental Educator in Science Education

Science.gov (United States)

Gatzke, Jenna M.; Buck, Gayle A.; Akerson, Valarie L.

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the identity conflicts I was experiencing as an environmental educator entering a doctoral program in science education. My inquiry used self-study methodology with a variety of data sources, including sixteen weeks of personal journal entries, audio-recordings of four critical friend meetings, and…

Nuclear and sustainable development - A trans-disciplinary approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Meskens, Gaston

2001-01-01

Never before in history has society been so thoroughly permeated by Science and Technology in all aspects of human life, ranging from economic progress to warfare, often resulting in huge environmental problems. Nuclear science can easily be seen as an exponent of this evolution. Numerous beneficial technologies for medicine and energy were developed, but mostly against the background of the Cold War culture of military secrecy - thus contaminating the public perception of nuclear technology as a whole from the early beginning. Moreover, these developments were accompanied by the threat of cancer risks. Gradually, the contours of a new societal paradigm seem to materialise, driven by the often cited dynamics of social change: globalisation, the pace of technological change (notably biotechnology and information technology), changing social identities, mistrust in 'big science' and expert systems and often, an alienation from politics. In 'the age of risk', people feel insecure about the future. In this social context of uncertainty, a new concept for policy making at the global and local level has emerged : Sustainable Development. At present, the nuclear expert is struggling with society, and he paradoxically lacks a scientific approach and insight in complex human behaviour and societal interaction. The restoration of trust will require the integration of humanities and social sciences in a transdisciplinary problem solving approach, far beyond the technical dimension. The Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK-CEN already built up experience with multidisciplinary projects (e.g. extending the research on nuclear complexity to economics and liability), but in 1998 the board of directors decided to integrate social sciences in a more co-ordinated way. The four existing projects are: Legal Aspects and Liability, Sustainability and Nuclear Development, Transgenerational Ethics related to the Disposal of long-lived Rad waste, and Emergency Communication and Risk

The Impact of an Authentic Science Experience on STEM Identity: A Preliminary Analysis of YouthAstroNet and MicroObservatory Telescope Network Participant Data

Science.gov (United States)

Dussault, Mary E.; Wright, Erika A.; Sadler, Philip; Sonnert, Gerhard; ITEAMS II Team

2018-01-01

Encouraging students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is a high priority for national K-12 education improvement initiatives in the United States. Many educators have claimed that a promising strategy for nurturing early student interest in STEM is to engage them in authentic inquiry experiences. “Authentic” refers to investigations in which the questions are of genuine interest and importance to students, and the inquiry more closely resembles the way real science is done. Science education researchers and practitioners at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have put this theory into action with the development of YouthAstroNet, a nationwide online learning community of middle-school aged students, educators, and STEM professionals that features the MicroObservatory Robotic Telescope Network, professional image analysis software, and complementary curricula for use in a variety of learning settings. This preliminary study examines factors that influence YouthAstroNet participants' Science Affinity, STEM Identity, and STEM Career Interest, using the matched pre/post survey results of 261 participants as the data source. The pre/post surveys included some 40 items measuring affinity, identity, knowledge, and career interest. In addition, the post intervention instrument included a number of items in which students reported the instructional strategies they experienced as part of the program. A simple analysis of pre-post changes in affinity and interest revealed very little significant change, and for those items where a small pre-post effect was observed, the average change was most often negative. However, after accounting for students' different program treatment experiences and for their prior attitudes and interests, a predictor of significant student gains in Affinity, STEM Identity, Computer/Math Identity, and STEM Career Interest could be identified. This was the degree to which students reported

Teacher participation in science fairs as professional development in South Africa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Clement K. Mbowane

2017-07-01

Full Text Available This research was undertaken to understand the perceptions of the Physical Sciences teachers who participate in the South African ‘Eskom Expo for Young Scientists’, regarding the educational significance of the science fair, and the extent to which expo participation provides an opportunity for professional development. The educational significance of this article is found in its contribution to the professional identity of teachers in their roles as organisers, mentors and judges. The model of Beijaard et al. (Teach Teach Educ. 2004;20:107–128 was used to characterise the teachers’ professional identity in terms of professional knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, norms and values, as well as emotions and agency. Interviews with the Physical Sciences teachers were analysed using thematic analysis, ultimately interpreting and linking the categories of responses to the theme of professional identity. The study found that expo participation contributes to pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge (as both procedural and declarative or factual knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. Self-efficacy beliefs were strengthened, positive attitudes were developed, and strategies of inquiry-based learning and effective methodological instruction were observed during participation, which contributed to the participants’ school-based teaching. Teachers learn both from their engagement with learners, and through networking opportunities with fellow teachers. Teachers themselves value these aspects, and consequently, science fair participation is a sustainable form of professional development. It is recommended that the opportunity for professional development that is provided by teachers’ participation in such school-level science fairs should be acknowledged and promoted by schools and fair organisers. Significance: Science expos offer professional development to participating teachers and improve learners’ academic performance.

Emotional facial expressions reduce neural adaptation to face identity.

Science.gov (United States)

Gerlicher, Anna M V; van Loon, Anouk M; Scholte, H Steven; Lamme, Victor A F; van der Leij, Andries R

2014-05-01

In human social interactions, facial emotional expressions are a crucial source of information. Repeatedly presented information typically leads to an adaptation of neural responses. However, processing seems sustained with emotional facial expressions. Therefore, we tested whether sustained processing of emotional expressions, especially threat-related expressions, would attenuate neural adaptation. Neutral and emotional expressions (happy, mixed and fearful) of same and different identity were presented at 3 Hz. We used electroencephalography to record the evoked steady-state visual potentials (ssVEP) and tested to what extent the ssVEP amplitude adapts to the same when compared with different face identities. We found adaptation to the identity of a neutral face. However, for emotional faces, adaptation was reduced, decreasing linearly with negative valence, with the least adaptation to fearful expressions. This short and straightforward method may prove to be a valuable new tool in the study of emotional processing.

ICT innovations for sustainability

CERN Document Server

Aebischer, Bernard

2015-01-01

ICT Innovations for Sustainability is an investigation of how information and communication technology can contribute to sustainable development. It presents clear definitions of sustainability, suggesting conceptual frameworks for the positive and negative effects of ICT on sustainable development. It reviews methods of assessing the direct and indirect impact of ICT systems on energy and materials demand, and examines the results of such assessments. In addition, it investigates ICT-based approaches to supporting sustainable patterns of production and consumption, analyzing them at various levels of abstraction – from end-user devices, Internet infrastructure, user behavior, and social practices to macro-economic indicators.   Combining approaches from Computer Science, Information Systems, Human-Computer Interaction, Economics, and Environmental Sciences, the book presents a new, holistic perspective on ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S). It is an indispensable resource for anyone working in the area of ICT...

Mapping a sustainable future: Community learning in dialogue at the science-society interface

Science.gov (United States)

Barth, Matthias; Lang, Daniel J.; Luthardt, Philip; Vilsmaier, Ulli

2017-12-01

In 2015, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) announced that the Science Year 2015 would focus on the "City of the Future". It called for innovative projects from cities and communities in Germany dedicated to exploring future options and scenarios for sustainable development. Among the successful respondents was the city of Lüneburg, located in the north of Germany, which was awarded funding to establish a community learning project to envision a sustainable future ("City of the Future Lüneburg 2030+"). What made Lüneburg's approach unique was that the city itself initiated the project and invited a broad range of stakeholders to participate in a community learning process for sustainable development. The authors of this article use the project as a blueprint for sustainable city development. Presenting a reflexive case study, they report on the process and outcomes of the project and investigate community learning processes amongst different stakeholders as an opportunity for transformative social learning. They discuss outputs and outcomes (intended as well as unintended) in relation to the specific starting points of the project to provide a context-sensitive yet rich narrative of the case and to overcome typical criticisms of case studies in the field.

Sustainable development: challenges and opportunities for the natural sciences (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Mutter, J. C.; Fishman, R.; Anttila-Hughes, J. K.; Hsiang, S. M.

2009-12-01

The challenges of sustainable development -- equitably improving global human welfare while ensuring that the environment is preserved for future generations - demand research at the nexus of the social and natural sciences. Massive and inevitable changes in climate, ecosystem functions, and human interaction with the environment will perturb societies throughout the world in different ways over the coming century. The changes faced by poor societies and their ability to cope differs markedly from those that face the richest. Yet in all regions the dynamic interaction of social and natural drivers will govern the prospects for human welfare and its improvement. Developing an understanding of these phenomena will require field research together with analytical and modeling capabilities that couple physical and social phenomena, allowing feedback between the two to manifest and permit forecasting over long time scales. Heterogeneous income and population growth further complicate this need through their consequences for food security, migration, resource allocation, and conflict. In this contribution, we identify some key concepts of sustainable development, open research questions and outline how scientific research might engage this emerging discipline. Using recent examples of interaction, we discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the further development of this dialogue.

Report on the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel S. Katz

2016-10-01

Full Text Available This report records and discusses the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3. The report includes a description of the keynote presentation of the workshop, which served as an overview of sustainable scientific software. It also summarizes a set of lightning talks in which speakers highlighted to-the-point lessons and challenges pertaining to sustaining scientific software. The final and main contribution of the report is a summary of the discussions, future steps, and future organization for a set of self-organized working groups on topics including developing pathways to funding scientific software; constructing useful common metrics for crediting software stakeholders; identifying principles for sustainable software engineering design; reaching out to research software organizations around the world; and building communities for software sustainability. For each group, we include a point of contact and a landing page that can be used by those who want to join that group’s future activities. The main challenge left by the workshop is to see if the groups will execute these activities that they have scheduled, and how the WSSSPE community can encourage this to happen.

Report on the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3)

Science.gov (United States)

Katz, Daniel S.; Choi, Sou-Cheng T.; Niemeyer, Kyle E.; Hetherington, James; Löffler, Frank; Gunter, Dan; Idaszak, Ray; Brandt, Steven R.; Miller, Mark A.; Gesing, Sandra; Jones, Nick D.; Weber, Nic; Marru, Suresh; Allen, Gabrielle; Penzenstadler, Birgit; Venters, Colin C.; Davis, Ethan; Hwang, Lorraine; Todorov, Ilian; Patra, Abani; de Val-Borro, Miguel

2016-02-01

This report records and discusses the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3). The report includes a description of the keynote presentation of the workshop, which served as an overview of sustainable scientific software. It also summarizes a set of lightning talks in which speakers highlighted to-the-point lessons and challenges pertaining to sustaining scientific software. The final and main contribution of the report is a summary of the discussions, future steps, and future organization for a set of self-organized working groups on topics including developing pathways to funding scientific software; constructing useful common metrics for crediting software stakeholders; identifying principles for sustainable software engineering design; reaching out to research software organizations around the world; and building communities for software sustainability. For each group, we include a point of contact and a landing page that can be used by those who want to join that group's future activities. The main challenge left by the workshop is to see if the groups will execute these activities that they have scheduled, and how the WSSSPE community can encourage this to happen.

Issues or Identity? Cognitive Foundations of Voter Choice

Science.gov (United States)

Jenke, Libby; Huettel, Scott A.

2016-01-01

Voter choice is one of the most important problems in political science. The most common models assume that voting is a rational choice based on policy positions (e.g., key issues) and non-policy information (e.g., social identity, personality). Though such models explain macroscopic features of elections, they also reveal important anomalies that have been resistant to explanation. We argue for a new approach that builds upon recent research in cognitive science and neuroscience; specifically, we contend that policy positions and social identities do not combine in merely an additive manner, but compete to determine voter preferences. This model not only explains several key anomalies in voter choice, but also suggests new directions for research in both political science and cognitive science. PMID:27769726

Establishment of sustainable health science for future generations: from a hundred years ago to a hundred years in the future.

Science.gov (United States)

Mori, Chisato; Todaka, Emiko

2009-01-01

Recently, we have investigated the relationship between environment and health from a scientific perspective and developed a new academic field, "Sustainable Health Science" that will contribute to creating a healthy environment for future generations. There are three key points in Sustainable Heath Science. The first key point is "focusing on future generations"-society should improve the environment and prevent possible adverse health effects on future generations (Environmental Preventive Medicine). The second key point is the "precautious principle". The third key point is "transdisciplinary science", which means that not only medical science but also other scientific fields, such as architectural and engineering science, should be involved. Here, we introduce our recent challenging project "Chemiless Town Project", in which a model town is under construction with fewer chemicals. In the project, a trial of an education program and a health-examination system of chemical exposure is going to be conducted. In the future, we are aiming to establish health examination of exposure to chemicals of women of reproductive age so that the risk of adverse health effects to future generations will decrease and they can enjoy a better quality of life. We hope that society will accept the importance of forming a sustainable society for future generations not only with regard to chemicals but also to the whole surrounding environment. As the proverb of American native people tells us, we should live considering the effects on seven generations in the future.

The Power of One: The Impact of Family and Consumer Sciences Education on Environmental Sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, Nancy E.

2010-01-01

The issues related to environmental sustainability can be overwhelming. It is difficult to imagine that actions of one person could make a difference. This article addresses that perception and illustrates the impact of one person, a family and consumer sciences educator, on the lives of others and on environmental resources. Making a difference…

Improving Software Sustainability: Lessons Learned from Profiles in Science.

Science.gov (United States)

Gallagher, Marie E

2013-01-01

The Profiles in Science® digital library features digitized surrogates of historical items selected from the archival collections of the U.S. National Library of Medicine as well as collaborating institutions. In addition, it contains a database of descriptive, technical and administrative metadata. It also contains various software components that allow creation of the metadata, management of the digital items, and access to the items and metadata through the Profiles in Science Web site [1]. The choices made building the digital library were designed to maximize the sustainability and long-term survival of all of the components of the digital library [2]. For example, selecting standard and open digital file formats rather than proprietary formats increases the sustainability of the digital files [3]. Correspondingly, using non-proprietary software may improve the sustainability of the software--either through in-house expertise or through the open source community. Limiting our digital library software exclusively to open source software or to software developed in-house has not been feasible. For example, we have used proprietary operating systems, scanning software, a search engine, and office productivity software. We did this when either lack of essential capabilities or the cost-benefit trade-off favored using proprietary software. We also did so knowing that in the future we would need to replace or upgrade some of our proprietary software, analogous to migrating from an obsolete digital file format to a new format as the technological landscape changes. Since our digital library's start in 1998, all of its software has been upgraded or replaced, but the digitized items have not yet required migration to other formats. Technological changes that compelled us to replace proprietary software included the cost of product licensing, product support, incompatibility with other software, prohibited use due to evolving security policies, and product abandonment

Politics of Sustainability in the Arctic

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gad, Ulrik Pram; Jakobsen, Uffe; Strandsbjerg, Jeppe

2017-01-01

The concept of sustainability has become central in arctic politics. However, there is little agreement on what ‘sustainable’ means. For different actors (governments, indigenous people, NGOs, etc.) the concept implies different sets of opportunities and precautions. Sustainability, therefore...... the role of sustainability in political and economic strategies in the Arctic. Sustainability has become a fundamental concept that orders the relationship between the environment (nature) and development (economy), however, in the process rearticulating other concepts such as identity (society). Hence, we...... to outline an agenda for how to study the way in which sustainability works as a political concept....

Enhancing climate governance through indigenous knowledge: Case in sustainability science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nelson Chanza

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The current tempo of climate change strategies puts the notion of sustainability in question. In this philosophy, mitigation and adaptation strategies ought to be appropriate to the sectors and communities that are targeted. There is a growing realisation that the effectiveness of both strategies hinges on climate governance, which also informs their sustainability. The application of the climate governance concept by the technocratic divide (policymakers and climate practitioners to communities facing climate change impacts, however, is still a poorly developed field, despite extensive treatment by academia. By drawing heavily from conceptual and analytical review of scholarship on the utility of indigenous knowledge (IK in climate science, these authors argue that IK can be deployed in the practice of climate governance. It reveals that the merits of such a deployment lie in the understanding that the tenets of IK and climate governance overlap and are complementary. This is exhibited by examining the conceptual, empirical and sustainability strands of the climate governance-IK nexus. In the milieu of climate change problems, it is argued that the basic elements of climate governance, where actions are informed by the principles of decentralisation and autonomy; accountability and transparency; responsiveness and flexibility; and participation and inclusion, can be pragmatic particularly to communities who have been religiously observing changes in their environment. Therefore, it becomes necessary to invigorate the participation of communities, with their IK, in designing climate change interventions, which in this view can be a means to attain the objectives of climate governance.

Unstable identity compatibility: how gender rejection sensitivity undermines the success of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahlqvist, Sheana; London, Bonita; Rosenthal, Lisa

2013-09-01

Although the perceived compatibility between one's gender and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) identities (gender-STEM compatibility) has been linked to women's success in STEM fields, no work to date has examined how the stability of identity over time contributes to subjective and objective STEM success. In the present study, 146 undergraduate female STEM majors rated their gender-STEM compatibility weekly during their freshman spring semester. STEM women higher in gender rejection sensitivity, or gender RS, a social-cognitive measure assessing the tendency to perceive social-identity threat, experienced larger fluctuations in gender-STEM compatibility across their second semester of college. Fluctuations in compatibility predicted impaired outcomes the following school year, including lower STEM engagement and lower academic performance in STEM (but not non-STEM) classes, and significantly mediated the relationship between gender RS and STEM engagement and achievement in the 2nd year of college. The week-to-week changes in gender-STEM compatibility occurred in response to negative academic (but not social) experiences.

Educating the Future of Sustainability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gillian Bowser

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The future of global environmental sustainability is contingent upon educating the next generation of environmental stewards. Critical elements of training such an interdisciplinary workforce include mentoring and experiential learning in the areas of science, communication, and leadership. To keep pace with the ever changing and increasingly complex issues of global environmental sustainability, environmental educators must encourage and support the participation and training of a diverse body of students in the environmental sciences. The Rocky Mountain Sustainability and Science Network (RMSSN is a partnership of over two dozen universities, federal agencies and other organizations designed to help train the next diverse generation of interdisciplinary leaders who are prepared to address issues related to global climate change, environmental sustainability, and the management of public lands and resources using the Rocky Mountains as a laboratory and classroom. Herein, we present the RMSSN as a model for engaging students in the environmental sciences with an emphasis on understanding key elements of sustainability. Our model is based on a foundation of: (1 diversity; (2 tiered mentoring in cohorts; (3 engaging lectures coupled with field experiences on public lands; (4 long term networking; and (5 environmental internships.

The macroecology of sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

Burger, Joseph R.; Allen, Craig D.; Brown, James H.; Burnside, William R.; Davidson, Ana D.; Fristoe, Trevor S.; Hamilton, Marcus J.; Mercado-Silva, Norman; Nekola, Jeffrey C.; Okie, Jordan G.; Zuo, Wenyun

2012-01-01

The discipline of sustainability science has emerged in response to concerns of natural and social scientists, policymakers, and lay people about whether the Earth can continue to support human population growth and economic prosperity. Yet, sustainability science has developed largely independently from and with little reference to key ecological principles that govern life on Earth. A macroecological perspective highlights three principles that should be integral to sustainability science: 1) physical conservation laws govern the flows of energy and materials between human systems and the environment, 2) smaller systems are connected by these flows to larger systems in which they are embedded, and 3) global constraints ultimately limit flows at smaller scales. Over the past few decades, decreasing per capita rates of consumption of petroleum, phosphate, agricultural land, fresh water, fish, and wood indicate that the growing human population has surpassed the capacity of the Earth to supply enough of these essential resources to sustain even the current population and level of socioeconomic development.

Narratives, choices, alienation, and identity: learning from an elementary science teacher

Science.gov (United States)

Upadhyay, Bhaskar

2009-09-01

As we contemplate on teacher identity research, there is a need to place a teacher's narratives or story-lines at the center of that work. In this forum, in response to the insightful commentary from Stephen Ritchie and Maria Iñez Mafra Goulart and Eduardo Soares, I place a greater emphasis on understanding Daisy's narratives from an existing social identity framework. Narratives tell us intricate and complex actions that a teacher has taken both personally and professionally. Additionally, narratives help us see implicit nature of identity explicitly. Therefore, a greater focus has to be placed on interactions and utterances of a teacher to make sense of who they are and what they do as expressed by their own words (identity and action). Finally, I join with Ritchie and Goulart and Soares to advocate that identity research needs to include participants as co-researchers and co-authors as identities are very personal and complex to be fully understood by the outsiders (researchers).

A storied-identity analysis approach to teacher candidates learning to teach in an urban setting

Science.gov (United States)

Ibourk, Amal

While many studies have investigated the relationship between teachers' identity work and their developing practices, few of these identity focused studies have honed in on teacher candidates' learning to teach in an urban setting. Drawing upon narrative inquiry methodology and a "storied identity" analytic framework, I examined how the storied identities of science learning and becoming a science teacher shape teacher candidates' developing practice. In particular, I examined the stories of three interns, Becky, David, and Ashley, and I tell about their own experiences as science learners, their transitions to science teachers, and the implications this has for the identity work they did as they navigated the challenges of learning to teach in high-needs schools. Initially, each of the interns highlighted a feeling of being an outsider, and having a difficult time becoming a fully valued member of their classroom community in their storied identities of becoming a science teacher in the beginning of their internship year. While the interns named specific challenges, such as limited lab materials and different math abilities, I present how they adapted their lesson plans to address these challenges while drawing from their storied identities of science learning. My study reveals that the storied identities of becoming a science teacher informed how they framed their initial experiences teaching in an urban context. In addition, my findings reveal that the more their storied identities of science learning and becoming a science teacher overlapped, the more they leveraged their storied identity of science learning in order to implement teaching strategies that helped them make sense of the challenges that surfaced in their classroom contexts. Both Becky and Ashley leveraged their storied identities of science learning more than David did in their lesson planning and learning to teach. David's initial storied identity of becoming a science teacher revealed how he

Reflections on science gateways sustainability through the business model canvas: case study of a neuroscience gateway

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Shahand, S.; van Duffelen, J.; Olabarriaga, S. D.

2015-01-01

The sustainability of science gateways has been a topic of active discussion because they have been created and supported in the context of temporary research and infrastructure projects. As successful projects come to an end, it is necessary to find (new) models to secure continuous exploitation of

Becoming a science teacher: moving toward creolized science and an ethic of cosmopolitanism

Science.gov (United States)

Seiler, Gale

2011-03-01

Although communities and schools in North America are increasingly diverse and positioned in a global web, schools continue to adhere to Western norms and the teacher workforce remains largely White, continuing an ideology of collective sameness and conformity. Hybridization of teacher identity and of science teaching are suggested as ways to advance an ethic of solidarity through difference (cosmopolitanism) with science teaching as its vehicle. In this paper, I explore identity hybridization among non-dominant science teachers as they merge identity narratives, or who they are around science and science teaching, with who they are out-of-school. Our attention is focused on their experiences of dis-identification with science in terms of diaspora, or the sense of being taken away from what one knows and values. By generating a creolized approach to science teaching, teachers create possibilities for greater student identification with science in school, which in turn has potential for changing the face of who does science and of science itself.

The AGING Initiative experience: a call for sustained support for team science networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Garg, Tullika; Anzuoni, Kathryn; Landyn, Valentina; Hajduk, Alexandra; Waring, Stephen; Hanson, Leah R; Whitson, Heather E

2018-05-18

Team science, defined as collaborative research efforts that leverage the expertise of diverse disciplines, is recognised as a critical means to address complex healthcare challenges, but the practical implementation of team science can be difficult. Our objective is to describe the barriers, solutions and lessons learned from our team science experience as applied to the complex and growing challenge of multiple chronic conditions (MCC). MCC is the presence of two or more chronic conditions that have a collective adverse effect on health status, function or quality of life, and that require complex healthcare management, decision-making or coordination. Due to the increasing impact on the United States society, MCC research has been identified as a high priority research area by multiple federal agencies. In response to this need, two national research entities, the Healthcare Systems Research Network (HCSRN) and the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Centers (OAIC), formed the Advancing Geriatrics Infrastructure and Network Growth (AGING) Initiative to build nationwide capacity for MCC team science. This article describes the structure, lessons learned and initial outcomes of the AGING Initiative. We call for funding mechanisms to sustain infrastructures that have demonstrated success in fostering team science and innovation in translating findings to policy change necessary to solve complex problems in healthcare.

Career identity in the veterinary profession.

Science.gov (United States)

Page-Jones, S; Abbey, G

2015-04-25

This research investigates vet and vet nurse career identity through the qualitative methodology of narrative enquiry. It derives learning and understanding from these empirical data to assist the veterinary profession to adjust to the changing industry landscape. Through a case series of 20 vets and vet nurses' career stories, this paper seeks understanding about career identity and its impact on individuals and organisations in the light of industry consolidation. Findings suggest that career is central to identity for many veterinary professionals who tend to have a strong sense of self; this is particularly evident around self as learner and technically competent, teacher and educator, ethical and moral and dedicated and resilient. Consequently, mismatches between 'who I am' and 'what I do' tend not to lead to identity customisation (to fit self into role or organisation) but to the search for alternative, more identity-compatible employment. This study offers a valuable insight for employers, veterinary professionals and universities. It suggests that businesses can gain competitive advantage and employees achieve validation and enrichment by working towards organisational and individual identity congruence and that teaching veterinary professionals with contemporary business in mind may develop graduates with a more sustainable identity. British Veterinary Association.

Issues or Identity? Cognitive Foundations of Voter Choice.

Science.gov (United States)

Jenke, Libby; Huettel, Scott A

2016-11-01

Voter choice is one of the most important problems in political science. The most common models assume that voting is a rational choice based on policy positions (e.g., key issues) and nonpolicy information (e.g., social identity, personality). Though such models explain macroscopic features of elections, they also reveal important anomalies that have been resistant to explanation. We argue for a new approach that builds upon recent research in cognitive science and neuroscience; specifically, we contend that policy positions and social identities do not combine in merely an additive manner, but compete to determine voter preferences. This model not only explains several key anomalies in voter choice, but also suggests new directions for research in both political science and cognitive science. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The emergence of land change science for global environmental change and sustainability

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Turner II, B.L.; Lambin, E.F.; Reenberg, Anette

2007-01-01

  Land change science has emerged as a fundamental component of global environmental change and sustainability research.  This interdisciplinary field seeks to understand the dynamics of land-cover and land-use as a coupled human-environment system in order to address theory, concepts, models......, and applications relevant to environmental and societal problems, including the intersection of the two.  The major components and advances in land change are addressed: observation and monitoring; understanding the coupled system-causes, impacts, and consequences; modeling; and synthesis issues.  The six articles...

Reconnecting art and science for sustainability: learning from indigenous knowledge through participatory action-research in the Amazon

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simone Athayde

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Sustainability science focuses on generating and applying knowledge to environmentally sound human development around the world. It requires working toward greater integration of different types of knowledge, ways of knowing, and between academy and society. We contribute to the development of approaches for learning from indigenous knowledge, through enhanced understanding of the system of values, meanings, and relationships afforded by indigenous arts. We focus on a long-term, participatory action research project developed for the revitalization of weaving knowledge among three Kawaiwete (also known as Kaiabi indigenous groups in the Amazon. The problem was originally defined by indigenous communities, concerned with the erosion of weaving knowledge of basketry and textiles among men and women. Methods for coproduction of knowledge included dialogical methods and tools, indigenous-led strategies, and quantitative and qualitative approaches across biophysical and social sciences. Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies considered multiple dimensions, scales, and networks of knowledge creation, distribution, and transmission. Innovation and articulation with western systems, along with shamanism, gender, and leadership, were key factors enhancing artistic knowledge resilience. We reflect on lessons learned and implications of this initiative for broadening the understanding of art and science intersections toward a sustainable future.

The Most Resilient Show on Earth: The Circus as a Model for Viewing Identity, Change, and Chaos

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Philip A. Loring

2007-06-01

Full Text Available Resilience, adaptability, and transformability are all tightly linked to the notion of change, whether in respect to coping with, adapting to, or harnessing it. But in order to understand these forces of change, we first need to recognize its counterpart: identity. Identity of a social-ecological system is not merely a static set of quantifiable feedbacks or indicators, but a more qualitative characterization of what results from the overlap of the social and the ecological. To fully articulate these ideas, I turn to a unique and enduring phenomenon: the traveling circus. Through the many forms they have taken over the last 150 yr, circuses have changed significantly while sustaining a singular identity. As a successful and enduring social system, their intriguing history exposes the nuances of sustainability theory, from resilience to pathologies, and illustrates that sustainability requires a complex dynamic between identity, tradition, and change.

Predicting organizational citizenship behavior from the functional analysis and role identity perspectives: further evidence in Spanish employees.

Science.gov (United States)

Dávila, Ma Celeste; Finkelstein, Marcia A

2010-05-01

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is a prosocial activity with similarities to volunteerism. The purpose of this work is to contribute new evidence about the relevance to OCB of two models of sustained volunteerism, functional analysis and role identity theory. A total of 983 Spanish employees at49 organizations completed surveys measuring amount of OCB, motives for engaging in citizenship behavior, and the degree to which respondents developed an organizational citizen role identity. The results showed that both motives and role identity were significant predictors of OCB, with motive partially mediating the role identity-OCB relationship. The findings suggest that similar mechanisms are involved in sustaining volunteerism and OCB.

Sustainable computational science: the ReScience initiative

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicolas P. Rougier

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Computer science offers a large set of tools for prototyping, writing, running, testing, validating, sharing and reproducing results; however, computational science lags behind. In the best case, authors may provide their source code as a compressed archive and they may feel confident their research is reproducible. But this is not exactly true. James Buckheit and David Donoho proposed more than two decades ago that an article about computational results is advertising, not scholarship. The actual scholarship is the full software environment, code, and data that produced the result. This implies new workflows, in particular in peer-reviews. Existing journals have been slow to adapt: source codes are rarely requested and are hardly ever actually executed to check that they produce the results advertised in the article. ReScience is a peer-reviewed journal that targets computational research and encourages the explicit replication of already published research, promoting new and open-source implementations in order to ensure that the original research can be replicated from its description. To achieve this goal, the whole publishing chain is radically different from other traditional scientific journals. ReScience resides on GitHub where each new implementation of a computational study is made available together with comments, explanations, and software tests.

Contribution of Nuclear Science in Agriculture Sustainability

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Soliman, S.M.; Galal, Y.G.M.

2017-01-01

Sustainable agricultural systems employ natural processes to achieve acceptable levels of productivity and food quality while minimizing adverse environmental impacts. Sustainable agriculture must, by definition, be ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible. Sustainable agriculture must nurture healthy co systems and support the sustainable management of land, water and natural resources, while ensuring world food security. To be sustainable, agriculture must meet the needs of present and future generations for its products and services, while ensuring profitability, environmental health and social and economic equity. The global transition to sustainable food and agriculture will require major improvements in the efficiency of resource use, in environmental protection and in systems resilience. In Mediterrane an environments, crops are grown mainly in the semiarid and sub-humid are as. In arid and semiarid are as dry land farming, techniques are of renewed interest in the view of sustain ability. They are aimed to increase water accumulation in the soil, reduce runoff and soil evaporation losses, choose species and varieties able to make better use of rainwater, and rationalize fertilization plans, sowing dates, and weed and pest control. Fertilization plans should be based on well-defined principles of plant nutrition, soil chemistry, and chemistry of the fertilizer elements. Starting from the calculation of nutrient crop uptake (based on the actually obtainable yield), dose calculation must be corrected by considering the relation ship between the availability of the trace elements in soil and the main physical and chemical parameters of the soil (ph, organic matter content, mineralization rate, C/N, ratio of solubilization of phosphorus, active lime content, presence of antagonist ions, etc.). In the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, Soil and Water Research Department, nuclear techniques including radio and stable isotopes in addition to

Tracking Identity: Opportunity, Success, and Affiliation with Science among Fifth-Grade Latina/o Youth of Santa Barbara, California

Science.gov (United States)

Maas, Grayson Ford

This dissertation is an investigation into the American public education system at the elementary school level. It highlights important factors that shape the organizational structure of schools and classrooms, and in turn, how they engender disparities in the ways students experience education, namely, in the opportunities made available to them to achieve and succeed at a high level. This dissertation operates at the confluence of notions about class, gender, language, and race, especially as they revolve around public education and the hegemonic meritocratic discourse on which it is founded. This dissertation engages and contributes to scholarship within the following areas: The political economy of education; discourse and the dialectical relationship between agency and structure; cultural perspectives on identity, voice, and learning; and, Latinas/os in science education. The data that serve as the basis for the findings presented in this dissertation were collected throughout a three-phase yearlong ethnographic study of the two tracked fifth-grade classrooms at Amblen Elementary School, serving a socioeconomically disadvantaged Latina/o student population in Santa Barbara, California. In classrooms all across the nation, while it remains true that Latina/o students disproportionally take up space in the lower-tracked courses and not in the higher ones, this study does not examine inequality in tracking assignments made along ethnic/racial lines (as 100% of the students that participated in this research identify as Latina/o), rather, it investigates the consequences of what happens when Latina/o students are tracked according to symbolic markers of their ethnic/racial identity, that is, their varying levels of English language competency. Using data from participant observation, semi-structured interviews, students' drawings, as well as free-list and rank-order exercises, I was able to answer the following central research questions: In what ways do the

The Politics of Sustainability in the Arctic

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

. In original conservationist discourse, the environment was the sole referent object of sustainability, however, as sustainability discourses expand, the concept is linked to an increasing number of referent objects, such as, society, economy, culture and identity. This book sets out a theoretical framework...... of sustainability and how actors are employing and contesting this concept in specific regions within the Arctic. In doing so, the book demonstrates how sustainability is being given new meanings in the postcolonial Arctic and what the political implications are for postcoloniality, nature, and development more...

Globus Identity, Access, and Data Management: Platform Services for Collaborative Science

Science.gov (United States)

Ananthakrishnan, R.; Foster, I.; Wagner, R.

2016-12-01

Globus is software-as-a-service for research data management, developed at, and operated by, the University of Chicago. Globus, accessible at www.globus.org, provides high speed, secure file transfer; file sharing directly from existing storage systems; and data publication to institutional repositories. 40,000 registered users have used Globus to transfer tens of billions of files totaling hundreds of petabytes between more than 10,000 storage systems within campuses and national laboratories in the US and internationally. Web, command line, and REST interfaces support both interactive use and integration into applications and infrastructures. An important component of the Globus system is its foundational identity and access management (IAM) platform service, Globus Auth. Both Globus research data management and other applications use Globus Auth for brokering authentication and authorization interactions between end-users, identity providers, resource servers (services), and a range of clients, including web, mobile, and desktop applications, and other services. Compliant with important standards such as OAuth, OpenID, and SAML, Globus Auth provides mechanisms required for an extensible, integrated ecosystem of services and clients for the research and education community. It underpins projects such as the US National Science Foundation's XSEDE system, NCAR's Research Data Archive, and the DOE Systems Biology Knowledge Base. Current work is extending Globus services to be compliant with FEDRAMP standards for security assessment, authorization, and monitoring for cloud services. We will present Globus IAM solutions and give examples of Globus use in various projects for federated access to resources. We will also describe how Globus Auth and Globus research data management capabilities enable rapid development and low-cost operations of secure data sharing platforms that leverage Globus services and integrate them with local policy and security.

LOCAL IDENTITY MEETING WITH CITY: CITTASLOW-SLOW CITIES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tugba Ustun Topal

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Cities are characterised by local identities, which have been shaped by natural and cultural values. Constituting elements of local identity are settlement pattern bearing the traces of past, local music, traditional taste, handicrafts and life story. Besides, there has been a fast pace of life owing to globalization, and globally standardized cities, where local identities are ignored, have been emerged in planning-design-implementation process. From this viewpoint, Cittaslow movement has become a major turning point for liveable and sustainable cities that emphasize the local character. In this context, in the study, it is aimed to raise awareness about Cittaslow which is an example of an urban model for sustainability. In line with this purpose, the importance of Cittaslow approach and the criteria that are needed to be met for being a member of the Association of Cittaslow have been revealed. In line with these criteria Cittaslow cities in Turkey were discussed comparatively in terms of their features were considered. Examples from our country have been evaluated together with the international Cittaslow examples. In addition, proposals have been made by developing strategies in planning- designing and implementation process for the Cittaslow approach.

Sustainability in Chinese Higher Educational Institutions’ Social Science Research: A Performance Interface toward Efficiency

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xianmei Wang

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Sustainability issues in higher educational institutions’ (HEIs research, especially in the social science field, have attracted increasing levels of attention in higher education administration in recent decades as HEIs are confronted with a growing pressure worldwide to increase the efficiency of their research activities under a limited volume and relatively equitable division of public funding resources. This paper introduces a theoretical analysis framework based on a data envelopment analysis, separating the social science research process into a foundation stage and a construction stage, and then projecting each HEI into certain quadrants to form several clusters according to their overall and stage efficiencies and corresponding Malmquist Productivity Indices. Furthermore, the interfaces are formed in each cluster as feasible potential improvement directions. The empirical results in detail are demonstrated from a data set of Chinese HEIs in Jiangsu Province over the Twelfth Five-Year period as offering a closer approximation to the “China social science research best practice”.

Using Science to Take a Stand: Action-Oriented Learning in an Afterschool Science Club

Science.gov (United States)

Hagenah, Sara

This dissertation study investigates what happens when students participate in an afterschool science club designed around action-oriented science instruction, a set of curriculum design principles based on social justice pedagogy. Comprised of three manuscripts written for journal publication, the dissertation includes 1) Negotiating community-based action-oriented science teaching and learning: Articulating curriculum design principles, 2) Middle school girls' socio-scientific participation pathways in an afterschool science club, and 3) Laughing and learning together: Productive science learning spaces for middle school girls. By investigating how action-oriented science design principles get negotiated, female identity development in and with science, and the role of everyday social interactions as students do productive science, this research fills gaps in the understanding of how social justice pedagogy gets enacted and negotiated among multiple stakeholders including students, teachers, and community members along what identity development looks like across social and scientific activity. This study will be of interest to educators thinking about how to enact social justice pedagogy in science learning spaces and those interested in identity development in science.

Identity and sortals (and Caesar)

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Klev, Ansten

2017-01-01

Roč. 82, č. 1 (2017), s. 1-16 ISSN 0165-0106 Institutional support: RVO:67985955 Keywords : identity * neo-logicism * type theory * Julius Caesar problem Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion OBOR OECD: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Women, race, and science: The academic experiences of twenty women of color with a passion for science

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Angela C.

Women of color drop out of science at higher rates than other students. This study is an ethnographic examination of why this occurs and how women of color can be supported in studying science. Through participant observation in science classes, labs, and a program supporting high-achieving students of color, as well as interviews with minority women science students, the student identities celebrated by science departments, as well as those embraced by my informants, were uncovered. Cultural norms of science classes often differed from those of the women in the study. Only one identity---apprentice research scientist---was celebrated in science settings, although others were tolerated. The women tended to either embrace the apprentice research scientist identity, form an alternative science-oriented identity, or never form a satisfying science student identity. Women who were more racially marked were more likely to fall into the second and third groups. This study uncovered difficulties which women students of color faced more than other science students. In addition, it uncovered several seemingly neutral institutional features of science lectures and labs which actually served to discourage or marginalize women students of color. It revealed values held in common by the women in the study and how those characteristics (especially altruism and pride and pleasure in academic challenge) led them to study science. It also revealed strategies used by the most successful women science students, as well as by professors and programs most successful at supporting women of color in the study of science. Based on this study, increasing the participation of women of color in science holds the possibility of altering the basic values of science; however, institutional features and personal interactions within science departments tend to resist those changes, primarily by encouraging women of color to abandon their study of science.

Integrating science and business models of sustainability for environmentally-challenging industries such as secondary lead smelters: a systematic review and analysis of findings.

Science.gov (United States)

Genaidy, A M; Sequeira, R; Tolaymat, T; Kohler, J; Wallace, S; Rinder, M

2010-09-01

Secondary lead smelters (SLS) represent an environmentally-challenging industry as they deal with toxic substances posing potential threats to both human and environmental health, consequently, they operate under strict government regulations. Such challenges have resulted in the significant reduction of SLS plants in the last three decades. In addition, the domestic recycling of lead has been on a steep decline in the past 10 years as the amount of lead recovered has remained virtually unchanged while consumption has increased. Therefore, one may wonder whether sustainable development can be achieved among SLS. The primary objective of this study was to determine whether a roadmap for sustainable development can be established for SLS. The following aims were established in support of the study objective: (1) to conduct a systematic review and an analysis of models of sustainable systems with a particular emphasis on SLS; (2) to document the challenges for the U.S. secondary lead smelting industry; and (3) to explore practices and concepts which act as vehicles for SLS on the road to sustainable development. An evidence-based methodology was adopted to achieve the study objective. A comprehensive electronic search was conducted to implement the aforementioned specific aims. Inclusion criteria were established to filter out irrelevant scientific papers and reports. The relevant articles were closely scrutinized and appraised to extract the required information and data for the possible development of a sustainable roadmap. The search process yielded a number of research articles which were utilized in the systematic review. Two types of models emerged: management/business and science/mathematical models. Although the management/business models explored actions to achieve sustainable growth in the industrial enterprise, science/mathematical models attempted to explain the sustainable behaviors and properties aiming at predominantly ecosystem management. As such

Exploring Girls' Science Affinities Through an Informal Science Education Program

Science.gov (United States)

Todd, Brandy; Zvoch, Keith

2017-10-01

This study examines science interests, efficacy, attitudes, and identity—referred to as affinities, in the context of an informal science outreach program for girls. A mixed methods design was used to explore girls' science affinities before, during, and after participation in a cohort-based summer science camp. Multivariate analysis of survey data revealed that girls' science affinities varied as a function of the joint relationship between family background and number of years in the program, with girls from more affluent families predicted to increase affinities over time and girls from lower income families to experience initial gains in affinities that diminish over time. Qualitative examination of girls' perspectives on gender and science efficacy, attitudes toward science, and elements of science identities revealed a complex interplay of gendered stereotypes of science and girls' personal desires to prove themselves knowledgeable and competent scientists. Implications for the best practice in fostering science engagement and identities in middle school-aged girls are discussed.

Identities under risk or risk as identity? Youth’s health and the contemporary life

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luis David Castiel

2007-04-01

Full Text Available This is an essay on the issue of the identity of the Brazilian youth related to risks in our contemporary culture. There is a brief approach towards conceptual dimensions connected to categories such as ‘health’, ‘contemporaneity’, ‘identity’, ‘youth’. Some statistical aspects related to morbidity and mortality are presented in order to generate a synthetic framework of the epidemiological situation in our context. An analysis is proposed, from a sociological point of view, concerning the construction of fluid identities in a society characterized by precariousness and excess in many levels. At last, it is suggested how the link between risk and ambivalence in many ways frame respective attitudes of exposure (adventure and avoidance (prevention. Keywords: risk, identity, youth, social sciences in health.

Sustaining Student Engagement in Learning Science

Science.gov (United States)

Ateh, Comfort M.; Charpentier, Alicia

2014-01-01

Many students perceive science to be a difficult subject and are minimally engaged in learning it. This article describes a lesson that embedded an activity to engage students in learning science. It also identifies features of a science lesson that are likely to enhance students' engagement and learning of science and possibly reverse students'…

Proceedings – Mathematical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Using Ramanujan's identities and the Weierstrass--Enneper representation of minimal surfaces, and the analogue for Born--Infeld solitons, we derive further nontrivial identities. Author Affiliations. RUKMINI DEY1. International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS)-TIFR, Survey No. 151, Shivakote, Hesaraghatta ...

Entrepreneurship Education as Learning to Form Identities Cross-Cultural Perspective

OpenAIRE

Aaltio, Iiris; Wang, Qian

2015-01-01

[Introduction] In this study we focus on entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurs’ professional identity and related cross-cultural issues [1]. Today’s global business requires professional identities that are flexible and broad-mind, and this is why teaching should recognize these challenges. There is a need for new skills such as generalist skills, social skills and abilities for creating and sustaining new, complex trust-based business networks. We believe entrepreneurship education can p...

Chemical and Isotopic Tracers of Groundwater Sustainability: an Overview of New Science Directions

Science.gov (United States)

Bullen, T.

2002-12-01

Groundwater sustainability is an emerging concept that is rapidly gaining attention from both scientists and water resource managers, particularly with regard to contamination and degradation of water quality in strategic aquifers. The sustainability of a groundwater resource is a complex function of its susceptibility to factors such as intrusion of poor-quality water from diverse sources, lack of sufficient recharge and reorganization of groundwater flowpaths in response to excessive abstraction. In theory the critical limit occurs when degradation becomes irreversible, such that remediative efforts may be fruitless on a reasonable human time scale. Chemical and isotopic tracers are proving to be especially useful tools for assessment of groundwater sustainability issues such as characterization of recharge, identification of potential sources, pathways and impacts of contaminants and prediction of how hydrology will change in response to excessive abstraction. A variety of relatively cost-efficient tracers are now available with which to assess the susceptibility of groundwater reserves to contamination from both natural and anthropogenic sources, and may provide valuable monitoring and regulatory tools for water resource managers. In this overview, the results of several ongoing groundwater studies by the U.S. Geological Survey will be discussed from the perspective of implications for new science directions for groundwater sustainability research that can benefit water policy development. A fundamental concept is that chemical and isotopic tracers used individually often provide ambiguous information, and are most effective when used in a rigorous "multi-tracer" context that considers the complex linkages between the hydrology, geology and biology of groundwater systems.

Geoscience and sustainability

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grindsted, Thomas Skou

2018-01-01

This paper explores how scientists entangle themselves in between keywords and buzzwords when they make use of concepts like sustainability. It sketches out theoretical distinctions between keywords and buzzwords. Then it turns to the concept of nature discussing the paradox that nature embraces...... the same fuzzy, slippery and contingent character as does sustainability, yet the former has a deep ontological status, the latter does not. The paper explores a related paradox: natural sciences claim we live in the Anthropocene, in which humans have transformed geochemical cycles, e.g. of methane...... and carbon dioxide as much as they changed between glacial and interglacial periods. Yet, science favors (external) nature as a keyword, sustainability as a buzzword. This should cause deep reflections on how scientists make use of the power of reference in between keywords and buzzwords – as well...

The Long-Term Impact of an Education for Sustainability Course on Israeli Science and Technology Teachers' Pro-Environment Awareness, Commitment and Behaviour

Science.gov (United States)

Abramovich, Anat; Loria, Yahavit

2015-01-01

The impact of an Education for Sustainability (EfS) course for science and technology junior high school teachers on the intentional and actual environmental behaviour of participants was studied by researching the EfS implementation of 13 science and technology teachers within their family, community, and work environment. The research was…

Land system science and sustainable development of the earth system

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Verburg, Peter H.; Crossman, Neville; Ellis, Erle C.

2015-01-01

Land systems are the result of human interactions with the natural environment. Understanding the drivers, state, trends and impacts of different land systems on social and natural processes helps to reveal how changes in the land system affect the functioning of the socio-ecological system...... as a whole and the tradeoff these changes may represent. The Global Land Project has led advances by synthesizing land systems research across different scales and providing concepts to further understand the feedbacks between social-and environmental systems, between urban and rural environments and between...... distant world regions. Land system science has moved from a focus on observation of change and understanding the drivers of these changes to a focus on using this understanding to design sustainable transformations through stakeholder engagement and through the concept of land governance. As land use can...

Bioenergy production and sustainable development: science base for policymaking remains limited.

Science.gov (United States)

Robledo-Abad, Carmenza; Althaus, Hans-Jörg; Berndes, Göran; Bolwig, Simon; Corbera, Esteve; Creutzig, Felix; Garcia-Ulloa, John; Geddes, Anna; Gregg, Jay S; Haberl, Helmut; Hanger, Susanne; Harper, Richard J; Hunsberger, Carol; Larsen, Rasmus K; Lauk, Christian; Leitner, Stefan; Lilliestam, Johan; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Muys, Bart; Nordborg, Maria; Ölund, Maria; Orlowsky, Boris; Popp, Alexander; Portugal-Pereira, Joana; Reinhard, Jürgen; Scheiffle, Lena; Smith, Pete

2017-03-01

The possibility of using bioenergy as a climate change mitigation measure has sparked a discussion of whether and how bioenergy production contributes to sustainable development. We undertook a systematic review of the scientific literature to illuminate this relationship and found a limited scientific basis for policymaking. Our results indicate that knowledge on the sustainable development impacts of bioenergy production is concentrated in a few well-studied countries, focuses on environmental and economic impacts, and mostly relates to dedicated agricultural biomass plantations. The scope and methodological approaches in studies differ widely and only a small share of the studies sufficiently reports on context and/or baseline conditions, which makes it difficult to get a general understanding of the attribution of impacts. Nevertheless, we identified regional patterns of positive or negative impacts for all categories - environmental, economic, institutional, social and technological. In general, economic and technological impacts were more frequently reported as positive, while social and environmental impacts were more frequently reported as negative (with the exception of impacts on direct substitution of GHG emission from fossil fuel). More focused and transparent research is needed to validate these patterns and develop a strong science underpinning for establishing policies and governance agreements that prevent/mitigate negative and promote positive impacts from bioenergy production.

PREFACE: International Symposium on Materials Science and Innovation for Sustainable Society - Eco-Materials and Eco-Innovation for Global Sustainability - The 21st Iketani Conference 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Takahashi, Yasuo

2012-08-01

Conference logo The 21st century has been called the century of environmental revolution. Green innovations and environmentally friendly production systems based on physics, chemistry, materials science, and electronic engineering will be indispensable for ensuring renewable energy and establishing a sustainable society. In particular, production design, materials processing, and fabrication technologies such as welding and joining will be very important components of such green innovations. For these reasons, the International Symposium on Materials Science and Innovation for Sustainable Society - eco-materials and eco-innovation for global sustainability - (ECO-MATES 2011) was organized by the Joining and Welding Research Institute (JWRI) and the Center of Environmental Innovation Design for Sustainability (CEIDS), Osaka University. ECO-MATES 2011 was held at Hotel Hankyu Expo Park, Osaka, Japan from 28-30 November 2011. 435 participants from 20 countries around the world attended the symposium. 149 oral presentations including 60 invited talks and 160 posters were presented at the symposium to discuss the latest research and developments in green innovations in relation to environmental issues. The topics of the symposium covered all environmentally related fields including renewable energy, energy-materials, environment and resources, waste and biomass, power electronics, semiconductor, rare-earth metals, functional materials, organic electronics materials, electronics packaging, smart processing, joining and welding, eco-efficient processes, and green applied physics and chemistry. Therefore, 55 full papers concerning green innovations and environmentally benign production were selected and approved by the editorial board and the program committee of ECO-MATES 2011. All papers were accepted through peer review processes. I believe that all the papers have many informative contents. On behalf of the steering committee of the symposium, I would like to express

CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABILITY – A LOGICAL APPROACH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

EMIL DINGA

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The paper aims to achieve a definition of the concept of sustainability and of sustainable system from a logical perspective. In this respect, it introduces and defines (through the sufficiency predicates the concept of logically vivid system and, on this basis, are discussed a logical concept of sustainability, respectively of a sustainable system in general are discussed and built up. Sustainability is considered in light of identity preservation of the systems, as a static anchor, on one hand, and of the concept of automatic stabilizers as a dynamic anchor on the other side. Finally, the two sufficiency conditions for a logically vivid system be sustainable are identified: the presence of hyper-cycles, respectively the absence of positive feed-back.

Teaching Sustainability from a Scientific Standpoint at the Introductory Level

Science.gov (United States)

Campbell-Stone, E.; Myers, J. D.

2008-12-01

In recent decades, humankind has recognized that current levels of resource utilization are seriously impacting our planet's life support systems and threatening the ability of future generations to provide for themselves. The concept of sustainability has been promoted by a variety of national and international organizations as a method to devise ways to adjust humanity's habits and consumption to levels that can be maintained over the long term, i.e. sustained. Courses on sustainability are being offered at many universities and colleges, but most are taught outside of science departments; they are often designed around policy concerns or focus primarily on environmental impacts while neglecting the science of sustainability. Because the three foundations necessary to implement sustainability are sustainability governance, sustainability accounting, and sustainability science, it is imperative that science departments play an active role in preparing citizens and professionals for dealing with sustainability issues. The geosciences are one of the scientific disciplines that offer a logical foundation from which to teach sustainability science. Geoscientists can also offer a unique and relevant geologic perspective on sustainability issues. The authors have developed an introductory, interdisciplinary course entitled 'Global Sustainability: Managing Earth's Resources' that integrates scientific disciplines in the examination of real world sustainability issues. In-depth understanding of physical, Earth and biological science principles are necessary for students to identify the limits and constraints imposed on important issues facing modern society, e.g. water, energy, population growth, etc. This course exposes students to all the scientific principles that apply directly to sustainability. The subject allows the instructors to present open-ended, multifaceted and complex problems relevant to today's industrialized and globalized world, and it encourages

Negotiating science and engineering: an exploratory case study of a reform-minded science teacher

Science.gov (United States)

Guzey, S. Selcen; Ring-Whalen, Elizabeth A.

2018-05-01

Engineering has been slowly integrated into K-12 science classrooms in the United States as the result of recent science education reforms. Such changes in science teaching require that a science teacher is confident with and committed to content, practices, language, and cultures related to both science and engineering. However, from the perspective of the science teacher, this would require not only the development of knowledge and pedagogies associated with engineering, but also the construction of new identities operating within the reforms and within the context of their school. In this study, a middle school science teacher was observed and interviewed over a period of nine months to explore his experiences as he adopted new values, discourses, and practices and constructed his identity as a reform-minded science teacher. Our findings revealed that, as the teacher attempted to become a reform-minded science teacher, he constantly negotiated his professional identities - a dynamic process that created conflicts in his classroom practices. Several differences were observed between the teacher's science and engineering instruction: hands-on activities, depth and detail of content, language use, and the way the teacher positioned himself and his students with respect to science and engineering. Implications for science teacher professional development are discussed.

The importance of interpretive social science to promoting renewable energy and sustainable development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Steve Connelly

2016-12-01

Full Text Available A few years ago I was privileged to hear one of the UK’s leading scientists speak on ‘tackling climate change’ at my university (Krebs 2010. Lord Krebs is a zoologist, and as Chair of the Adaptation Sub- Committee of the UK Government’s Committee on Climate Change he has a significant role in advising government on this major challenge of our times.  What struck me was that the major challenges he presented demand social science to answer them: Will we switch from talking to doing? Are we prepared to elect a Government that is more coercive? Are we prepared to stop getting richer and consuming more? Will we invest in technologies for a green prosperous future? Clearly these are a crucial b about politics and society and c without obvious answers. To be sure, in the field of sustainable development and renewable energy there are many technical issues unresolved: around efficiency and implementation, about what works best in particular settings and so on. This is why the research reported in this journal, amongst others, is so important. But as I understand it the fundamental science in this field is largely known, with a few outstanding exceptions such as light-weight storage of electricity. The Big Questions are social.One of the papers which has most influenced me was not an academic article, but a project report about failure to achieve an ‘obviously’ desirable goal: its title was ‘Why don’t people plant trees?’ (Skutsch 1983. This seems to me the fundamental research question. We know sustainable development is important, we know renewables are crucial, but why isn’t this knowledge acted on? And who is ‘we’ in those sentences? And why doesn’t the rest of the world listen to ‘us’? Scientists and engineers have a tendency to view the answers to this in terms of a combination of ignorance and irrational politics, and so see solutions in terms of transferring knowledge. ‘If only they (the public, the

Exploring Sustainability Using images from Space

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Loris; Salmon, Jennifer; Burns, Courtney

2016-04-01

Sustainability is the integrating theme of grade 8 science at Dwight D. Eisenhower in Wyckoff, New Jersey. With a focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), sustainability establishes relevance for students, connects course work to current news topics, and ties together trimester explorations of earth science, physical science, and life science. Units are organized as problem-based learning units centered on disciplinary core ideas. Sustainability education empowers students to think about human and natural systems on a broader scale as they collaboratively seek solutions to scientific or engineering problems. The STEM-related sustainability issues encompass both global and local perspectives. Through problem solving, students acquire and demonstrate proficiency in the three-dimensions of Next Generation Science Standards (disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts). During the earth science trimester, students explore causes, effects, and mitigation strategies associated with urban heat islands and climate change. As a transition to a trimester of chemistry (physical science), students investigate the sustainability of mobile phone technology from raw materials mining to end-of-life disposal. Students explore natural resource conservation strategies in the interdisciplinary context of impacts on the economy, society, and environment. Sustainability creates a natural context for chemical investigations of ocean-atmosphere interactions such as ocean acidification. Students conclude the eighth grade with an investigation of heredity and evolution. Sustainability challenges embedded in genetics studies include endangered species management (California condors) and predicting the effects of climate change on populations in specific environments (Arctic and Antarctic regions). At Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School, science students have access to a variety of web-enabled devices (e.g., Chromebooks

Catalysis as an Enabling Science for Sustainable Polymers.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Xiangyi; Fevre, Mareva; Jones, Gavin O; Waymouth, Robert M

2018-01-24

The replacement of current petroleum-based plastics with sustainable alternatives is a crucial but formidable challenge for the modern society. Catalysis presents an enabling tool to facilitate the development of sustainable polymers. This review provides a system-level analysis of sustainable polymers and outlines key criteria with respect to the feedstocks the polymers are derived from, the manner in which the polymers are generated, and the end-of-use options. Specifically, we define sustainable polymers as a class of materials that are derived from renewable feedstocks and exhibit closed-loop life cycles. Among potential candidates, aliphatic polyesters and polycarbonates are promising materials due to their renewable resources and excellent biodegradability. The development of renewable monomers, the versatile synthetic routes to convert these monomers to polyesters and polycarbonate, and the different end-of-use options for these polymers are critically reviewed, with a focus on recent advances in catalytic transformations that lower the technological barriers for developing more sustainable replacements for petroleum-based plastics.

Report on the Second Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE2)

Science.gov (United States)

Katz, Daniel S.; Choi, Sou-Cheng T.; Wilkins-Diehr, Nancy; Chue Hong, Neil; Venters, Colin C.; Howison, James; Seinstra, Frank; Jones, Matthew; Cranston, Karen; Clune, Thomas L.; de Val-Borro, Miguel; Littauer, Richard

2016-02-01

This technical report records and discusses the Second Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE2). The report includes a description of the alternative, experimental submission and review process, two workshop keynote presentations, a series of lightning talks, a discussion on sustainability, and five discussions from the topic areas of exploring sustainability; software development experiences; credit & incentives; reproducibility & reuse & sharing; and code testing & code review. For each topic, the report includes a list of tangible actions that were proposed and that would lead to potential change. The workshop recognized that reliance on scientific software is pervasive in all areas of world-leading research today. The workshop participants then proceeded to explore different perspectives on the concept of sustainability. Key enablers and barriers of sustainable scientific software were identified from their experiences. In addition, recommendations with new requirements such as software credit files and software prize frameworks were outlined for improving practices in sustainable software engineering. There was also broad consensus that formal training in software development or engineering was rare among the practitioners. Significant strides need to be made in building a sense of community via training in software and technical practices, on increasing their size and scope, and on better integrating them directly into graduate education programs. Finally, journals can define and publish policies to improve reproducibility, whereas reviewers can insist that authors provide sufficient information and access to data and software to allow them reproduce the results in the paper. Hence a list of criteria is compiled for journals to provide to reviewers so as to make it easier to review software submitted for publication as a "Software Paper."

Science and design: identical twins?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Galle, Per; Kroes, Peter

2014-01-01

explicit arguments’ in its defence. This calls for an in-depth conceptual clarification of the science-design relationship. The aims of the present paper are to take up the gauntlet thrown by Farrell and Hooker, and in so doing, to provide such a clarification. We first analyse Farrell & Hooker's arguments...

SciStarter 2.0: A Digital Platform to Foster and Study Sustained Engagement in Citizen Science

Science.gov (United States)

Hoffman, C.

2016-12-01

SciStarter is a popular online hotspot for citizen science. As a Match.com meets Amazon for citizen science projects, we connect the millions of citizen scientists to thousands of projects and events, and to the resources they need to participate. These opportunities represent ways for the general public from kids to adults to get involved in scientific research. Recently, SciStarter developed a new digital infrastructure to support sustained engagement in citizen science, and research into the behaviors and motivations of participants. The new digital infrastructure of SciStarter includes contribution tracking tools to make it easier to participate in multiple projects, enhanced GIS information to promote locally relevant projects, an online personal dashboard to keep track of contributions, and the use of these tools (contribution tracking, GIS, dashboard) by project owners and researchers to better understand and respond to the needs and interests of citizen science participants. We will provide an overview of these tools and the research behind their development. We will then explore how these new tools advance citizen science towards a future with more pathways to participatory policymaking, expanded access to informal STEM experiences, and lowered barriers to citizen science. Finally, we will present the research questions that can and will be answered through the site by practitioners in the diverse science and citizen science fields.

The effects of social identity threat and social identity affirmation on laypersons' perception of scientists.

Science.gov (United States)

Nauroth, Peter; Gollwitzer, Mario; Kozuchowski, Henrik; Bender, Jens; Rothmund, Tobias

2017-10-01

Public debates about socio-scientific issues (e.g. climate change or violent video games) are often accompanied by attacks on the reputation of the involved scientists. Drawing on the social identity approach, we report a minimal group experiment investigating the conditions under which scientists are perceived as non-prototypical, non-reputable, and incompetent. Results show that in-group affirming and threatening scientific findings (compared to a control condition) both alter laypersons' evaluations of the study: in-group affirming findings lead to more positive and in-group threatening findings to more negative evaluations. However, only in-group threatening findings alter laypersons' perceptions of the scientists who published the study: scientists were perceived as less prototypical, less reputable, and less competent when their research results imply a threat to participants' social identity compared to a non-threat condition. Our findings add to the literature on science reception research and have implications for understanding the public engagement with science.

Social Sustainability and Legal Guarantees of Cultural Identity​

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amina Sh. Rudi

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The article presents an approach to the sustainability of the social system as a phenomenon of the preservation of society via the changes. The notion of “legitimacy” is actualized, expressing the correspondence of the existing law and order and acting authority to the universal principles of human and social life. Legitimacy is interesting as a social consensus, achieved in the dynamics of social life. It means the adoption of legal and political norms by the subjects of interactions and the lack of demand for power resources to maintain the legal order. Cultural identity is considered as a factor of social stability. The cultural identity of the people is connected, on one hand, with ethno-national and regional identity, and on the other hand, with the self-determination of people as citizens of an integral state and carriers of the historical values of a particular country. Legislative opportunities for ensuring the complex sustainability of multicultural social education are indicated.​

Combining Project-based Instruction, Earth Science Content, and GIS Technology in Teacher Professional Development: Is this Holistic Approach Sustainable?

Science.gov (United States)

Rubino-Hare, L.; Bloom, N.; Claesgens, J.; Fredrickson, K.; Henderson-Dahms, C.; Sample, J. C.

2012-12-01

From 2009-2011, with support from the National Science Foundation (ITEST, DRL-0929846) and Science Foundation Arizona (MSAG-0412-09), educators, geologists and geographers at Northern Arizona University (NAU) partnered to offer professional development for interdisciplinary teams of secondary and middle school teachers with a focus on project-based instruction (PBI) using geospatial technologies (GST). While participating in professional development teachers received support and were held accountable to NAU staff. They implemented activities and pedagogical strategies presented, increased knowledge, skills, and confidence teaching with project-based instruction integrating GST, and their students demonstrated learning gains. Changes in student understanding are only observed when teachers continue to implement change, so the question remained: did these changes in practice sustain after official project support ended? In order to determine what, if anything, teachers sustained from the professional development and the factors that promoted or hindered sustained use of teaching with GST and PBI, data were collected one to two years following the professional development. Research questions included a) what pedagogical practices did teachers sustain following the professional learning experiences? and b) what contexts were present in schools that supported or limited the use of geospatial technologies as a teaching and learning tool? Findings from this study indicate that teachers fall into three categories of sustaining implementation - reformed implementers, mechanical implementers and non-implementers. School context was less of a factor in level of implementation than teachers' beliefs and philosophy of teaching and teachers' understanding of technology integration (teaching with technology vs. teaching technology). Case studies of teacher experiences will be presented along with implications for future professional development.

Social identity threat motivates science-discrediting online comments.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Nauroth

Full Text Available Experiencing social identity threat from scientific findings can lead people to cognitively devalue the respective findings. Three studies examined whether potentially threatening scientific findings motivate group members to take action against the respective findings by publicly discrediting them on the Web. Results show that strongly (vs. weakly identified group members (i.e., people who identified as "gamers" were particularly likely to discredit social identity threatening findings publicly (i.e., studies that found an effect of playing violent video games on aggression. A content analytical evaluation of online comments revealed that social identification specifically predicted critiques of the methodology employed in potentially threatening, but not in non-threatening research (Study 2. Furthermore, when participants were collectively (vs. self- affirmed, identification did no longer predict discrediting posting behavior (Study 3. These findings contribute to the understanding of the formation of online collective action and add to the burgeoning literature on the question why certain scientific findings sometimes face a broad public opposition.

Social Identity Threat Motivates Science-Discrediting Online Comments

Science.gov (United States)

Nauroth, Peter; Gollwitzer, Mario; Bender, Jens; Rothmund, Tobias

2015-01-01

Experiencing social identity threat from scientific findings can lead people to cognitively devalue the respective findings. Three studies examined whether potentially threatening scientific findings motivate group members to take action against the respective findings by publicly discrediting them on the Web. Results show that strongly (vs. weakly) identified group members (i.e., people who identified as “gamers”) were particularly likely to discredit social identity threatening findings publicly (i.e., studies that found an effect of playing violent video games on aggression). A content analytical evaluation of online comments revealed that social identification specifically predicted critiques of the methodology employed in potentially threatening, but not in non-threatening research (Study 2). Furthermore, when participants were collectively (vs. self-) affirmed, identification did no longer predict discrediting posting behavior (Study 3). These findings contribute to the understanding of the formation of online collective action and add to the burgeoning literature on the question why certain scientific findings sometimes face a broad public opposition. PMID:25646725

Social identity threat motivates science-discrediting online comments.

Science.gov (United States)

Nauroth, Peter; Gollwitzer, Mario; Bender, Jens; Rothmund, Tobias

2015-01-01

Experiencing social identity threat from scientific findings can lead people to cognitively devalue the respective findings. Three studies examined whether potentially threatening scientific findings motivate group members to take action against the respective findings by publicly discrediting them on the Web. Results show that strongly (vs. weakly) identified group members (i.e., people who identified as "gamers") were particularly likely to discredit social identity threatening findings publicly (i.e., studies that found an effect of playing violent video games on aggression). A content analytical evaluation of online comments revealed that social identification specifically predicted critiques of the methodology employed in potentially threatening, but not in non-threatening research (Study 2). Furthermore, when participants were collectively (vs. self-) affirmed, identification did no longer predict discrediting posting behavior (Study 3). These findings contribute to the understanding of the formation of online collective action and add to the burgeoning literature on the question why certain scientific findings sometimes face a broad public opposition.

Data Access, Interoperability and Sustainability: Key Challenges for the Evolution of Science Capabilities

Science.gov (United States)

Walton, A. L.

2015-12-01

In 2016, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will support a portfolio of activities and investments focused upon challenges in data access, interoperability, and sustainability. These topics are fundamental to science questions of increasing complexity that require multidisciplinary approaches and expertise. Progress has become tractable because of (and sometimes complicated by) unprecedented growth in data (both simulations and observations) and rapid advances in technology (such as instrumentation in all aspects of the discovery process, together with ubiquitous cyberinfrastructure to connect, compute, visualize, store, and discover). The goal is an evolution of capabilities for the research community based on these investments, scientific priorities, technology advances, and policies. Examples from multiple NSF directorates, including investments by the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Division, are aimed at these challenges and can provide the geosciences research community with models and opportunities for participation. Implications for the future are highlighted, along with the importance of continued community engagement on key issues.

Sustainable Concrete Technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sim J.

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The growing concern over global warming and significant ecological changes requires sustainable development in all fields of science and technology. Concrete not only consumes huge amount of energy and natural sources, but also emits large amount of CO2, mainly due to the production of cement. It is evident that such large amount of concrete production has put significant impact on the energy, resource, environment, and ecology of the society. Hence, how to develop the concrete technology in a sustainable way has become a significant issue. In this paper, some of Korean researches for sustainable development of concrete are presented. These are sustainable strengthening for deteriorated concrete structure, sustainable reinforcement of new concrete structure, sustainable concrete using recycled aggregate and supplementary cementing materials and finally application of each technique to precast concrete.

Over a Decade of Lessons Learned from an REU Program in the Science of Global Change and Sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

Hersh, E. S.; James, E. W.; Banner, J. L.

2014-12-01

The Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in "The Science of Global Change and Sustainability" at the University of Texas at Austin Environmental Science Institute (ESI) has just completed its twelfth summer. The program has 113 REU alumni plus 5 Research Experience for Teachers (RET) alumni, selected from a competitive pool of 976 applicants (~14% acceptance rate), 68% from 61 smaller colleges and universities (of 79 schools represented), 40% of those who self-reported coming from demographics underrepresented in STEM, and with nearly 70% women. Students conduct independent research under the supervision of a faculty mentor in four major interdisciplinary themes: Impacts on Ecosystems, Impacts on Watersheds and the Land Surface, Campus Sustainability, and Reconstructing Past Global Change. These themes bridge chemistry, biology, ecology, environmental policy, civil and environmental engineering, marine science, and geological science. The summer cohort participates in weekly research and professional development seminars along with group field exercises. Topics include graduate school, career preparation, research ethics, sustainability, global change, environmental justice, and research communication. These activities plus the student's individual research comprise a portfolio that culminates in a reflection essay integrating the concepts, methods, and perspectives gained over the 10-week program. Program alumni were surveyed in 2014 to gauge long-term impact and outcomes. Of the 76 surveyed from 2006-2013, 39% responded. 67% have earned or are working on a graduate degree, and 94% of the graduate programs are in STEM. 93% of the responding alumni felt that the program "influenced my job and educational choices" and 97% felt that the program "helped me better understand scientific research." 40% presented their findings at a conference and 17% authored or co-authored a peer-reviewed publication. This presentation will include a discussion of best practices

The sustainable wood production initiative.

Science.gov (United States)

Robert. Deal

2004-01-01

To address concerns about sustainable forestry in the region, the Focused Science Delivery Program is sponsoring a three year Sustainable Wood Production Initiative. The Pacific Northwest is one of the world's major timber producing regions, and the ability of this region to produce wood on a sustained yield basis is widely recognized. Concerns relating to the...

Defining Sustainability in the Business Setting

Science.gov (United States)

Bateh, Justin; Heaton, Camille; Arbogast, Gordon W.; Broadbent, Ardell

2013-01-01

Sustainability has become a buzzword in organizational research and ecological science. Much has been said about the role of sustainability for organizational development and markets. Thousands of organizations worldwide have adopted sustainability strategies to boost their productivity and develop a competitive advantage. Yet the concept of…

A Christian identity for the liberal state?

Science.gov (United States)

Joppke, Christian

2013-12-01

It seems to be impossible for the liberal state to embrace a Christian identity, because 'liberalism' is exactly a device for separating state and religion. Discussing the implications of a recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights, Lautsi v. Italy (2011), I argue that this is not necessarily so. If paired with a liberal commitment to pluralism, a Christian identity might even be more inclusive of minority religions than a narrowly 'liberal' state identity, which has been the dominant response in Western Europe to the challenge of immigrant diversity, especially that of Muslim origins. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2013.

Positioning health professional identity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lund, Ole; Krogh Christensen, Mette; Mørcke, Anne Mette

2017-01-01

Drawing on positioning theory, the purpose of this paper is to characterize the activities and positions of students and supervisors at workplaces and on-campus skills training sites across the higher health professional educations of medicine, sports science, and nursing. Furthermore, the study ...... explored the impact of work-based learning (WBL) and skills training on students’ personal professional identity development....

Body talk: students' identity construction while discussing a socioscientific issue

Science.gov (United States)

Ideland, Malin; Malmberg, Claes

2012-06-01

Vision II school science is often stated to be a democratic and inclusive form of science education. But what characterizes the subject who fits into the Vision II school science? Who is the desirable student and who is constructed as ill-fitting? This article explores discourses that structure the Vision II science classroom, and how different students construct their identities inside these discourses. In the article we consider school science as an order of discourses which restricts and enables what is possible to think and say and what subject-positions those are available and non-available. The results show that students' talk about a SSI about body and health is constituted by several discourses. We have analyzed how school science discourse, body discourse and general school discourse are structuring the discussions. But these discourses are used in different ways depending on how the students construct their identities in relation to available subject positions, which are dependent on how students at the same time are "doing" gender and social class. As an example, middle class girls show resistance against SSI-work since the practice is threatening their identity as "successful students". This article uses a sociopolitical perspective in its discussions on inclusion and exclusion in the practice of Vision II. It raises critical issues about the inherited complexity of SSI with meetings and/or collisions between discourses. Even if the empirical results from this qualitative study are situated in specific cultural contexts, they contribute with new questions to ask concerning SSI and Vision II school science.

Seeking Sustainability

OpenAIRE

Clive L. Spash

2014-01-01

What does sustainability research do to help the environment? One might well wonder when observing the annual conference season with various academics and professors in sustainability science, ecological economics or environmental ethics driving to the airport to fly off to international meetings to discuss how bad things are getting, what should been done about it, and how time is running out for action. In fact, singling out a few academic groups is highly unfair because the link between pr...

Anthropology and Genre: Science Fiction – Communication of Identity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bojan Žikić

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Genre production uses the shared nature of cultural communication in order to establish certain kinds and models of cultural identity, and these identities go on to have a social and cultural existence outside genre communication. Anthropology insists on the shared nature of cultural communication, more precisely, on the fact that those who shape the information transmitted in this way have to share its code with the intended recipients. The anthropological study of genres is actually the study of certain cultural artefacts characteristic of the societies and cultures in which they have been created. on the fact that those who shape the information transmitted in this way have to share its code with the intended recipients. The anthropological study of

Report on the Second Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE2

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel S. Katz

2016-02-01

Full Text Available This technical report records and discusses the Second Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE2. The report includes a description of the alternative, experimental submission and review process, two workshop keynote presentations, a series of lightning talks, a discussion on sustainability, and five discussions from the topic areas of exploring sustainability; software development experiences; credit & incentives; reproducibility & reuse & sharing; and code testing & code review. For each topic, the report includes a list of tangible actions that were proposed and that would lead to potential change. The workshop recognized that reliance on scientific software is pervasive in all areas of world-leading research today. The workshop participants then proceeded to explore different perspectives on the concept of sustainability. Key enablers and barriers of sustainable scientific software were identified from their experiences. In addition, recommendations with new requirements such as software credit files and software prize frameworks were outlined for improving practices in sustainable software engineering. There was also broad consensus that formal training in software development or engineering was rare among the practitioners. Significant strides need to be made in building a sense of community via training in software and technical practices, on increasing their size and scope, and on better integrating them directly into graduate education programs. Finally, journals can define and publish policies to improve reproducibility, whereas reviewers can insist that authors provide sufficient information and access to data and software to allow them reproduce the results in the paper. Hence a list of criteria is compiled for journals to provide to reviewers so as to make it easier to review software submitted for publication as a “Software Paper.” 

Educating Professionals for Sustainable Futures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hille Janhonen-Abruquah

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The recent discourse on sustainability science calls for interdisciplinary research. The home economics science approach ranges from individual actions to the involvement of communities and societies at large, and thus it can provide important perspectives on cultural sustainability. The aim of the research is to study the linkage between cultural sustainability and service sector education to support the creation of sustainable professions. In the present small-scale empirical study, the food service degree curriculum of a Finnish vocational college and teachers’ group interview data were analyzed to find how cultural sustainability is presented in the curriculum and how it is understood by teachers and integrated into teaching practices. Previous cultural sustainability research identifies four perspectives of cultural sustainability: (1 vitality of cultural traditions; (2 economic starting point; (3 diversity together with maintenance of local culture; and (4 possible influence on the balance between human actions and environment. Findings indicate that sustainability, including cultural sustainability, is integrated in the curriculum and considered important by teachers. Translating these into practice remains a challenge. The balance between human and nature was mostly understood as recycling, use of public transport, sustainable consumption, and taking trips to the nature nearby. Cultural sustainability as a concept is not well known, although themes such as multicultural issues, equality, charity, and environmental responsibility were included in teachers’ practical lessons daily. Feasts and celebrations in learning were opportunities to view cultural sustainability widely. This paper provides a way forward for the teachers to develop further their pedagogical practices.

Identity, causality, and pronoun ambiguity.

Science.gov (United States)

Sagi, Eyal; Rips, Lance J

2014-10-01

This article looks at the way people determine the antecedent of a pronoun in sentence pairs, such as: Albert invited Ron to dinner. He spent hours cleaning the house. The experiment reported here is motivated by the idea that such judgments depend on reasoning about identity (e.g., the identity of the he who cleaned the house). Because the identity of an individual over time depends on the causal-historical path connecting the stages of the individual, the correct antecedent will also depend on causal connections. The experiment varied how likely it is that the event of the first sentence (e.g., the invitation) would cause the event of the second (the house cleaning) for each of the two individuals (the likelihood that if Albert invited Ron to dinner, this would cause Albert to clean the house, versus cause Ron to clean the house). Decisions about the antecedent followed causal likelihood. A mathematical model of causal identity accounted for most of the key aspects of the data from the individual sentence pairs. Copyright © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Federated Identity Management for Research Collaborations

CERN Document Server

Broeder, Daan; Kelsey, David; Kershaw, Philip; Lüders, Stefan; Lyall, Andrew; Nyrönen, Tommi; Wartel, Romain; Weyer, Heinz J

2012-01-01

Federated identity management (FIM) is an arrangement that can be made among multiple organisations that lets subscribers use the same identification data to obtain access to the secured resources of all organisations in the group. Identity federation offers economic advantages, as well as convenience, to organisations and their users. For example, multiple institutions can share a single application, with resultant cost savings and consolidation of resources. In order for FIM to be effective, the partners must have a sense of mutual trust. A number of laboratories including national and regional research organizations are facing the challenge of a deluge of scientific data that needs to be accessed by expanding user bases in dynamic collaborations that cross organisational and national boundaries. Driven by these needs, representatives from a variety of research communities, including photon/neutron facilities, social science & humanities, high-energy physics, atmospheric science, bioinformatics and fusi...

European Identity through Space Space Activities and Programmes as a Tool to Reinvigorate the European Identity

CERN Document Server

Baranes, Blandina

2013-01-01

Space activities are one particularly visible area, where Europe can shape its identity. This publication investigates the effect space activities have already had on building a European “spirit” (e.g. through European missions or European astronauts). It also looks into the effects that activities labelled “national” have on the emergence of a European identity. Based on this analysis, the book's intention is to identify creative ways and means for how to further use space for shaping the European identity. For this purpose the focus is not only on policy analysis but also on expertise from the fields of cultural science and the arts in order to tap their creative potential and also their theoretical approaches to the topic. Selecting this theme provides ESPI with another opportunity to develop its trans-disciplinary approach.

Identity's identities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Kim Ebensgaard

-specialized language in which it also serves a number of functions – some of which are quite fundamental to society as such. In other words, the lexeme identity is a polysemic word and has multiple, well, identities. Given that it appears to have a number of functions in a variety of registers, including terminologies...... in Academic English and more everyday-based English, identity as a lexeme is definitely worth having a look at. This paper presents a lexicological study of identity in which some of its senses are identified and their behaviors in actual discourse are observed. Drawing on data from the 2011 section...... of the Corpus of Contemporary American English, a behavioral profile of the distributional characteristics of identity is set up. Behavioral profiling is a lexicographical method developed by the corpus linguist Stefan Th. Gries which, by applying semantic ID tagging and statistical analysis, provides a fine...

System understanding as a basis for sustainable decision-making. A science - school collaboration within the Sparkling Science project "Traisen w3"

Science.gov (United States)

Poppe, Michaela; Böck, Kerstin; Loach, Andreas; Scheikl, Sigrid; Zitek, Andreas; Heidenreich, Andrea; Kurz-Aigner, Roman; Schrittwieser, Martin; Muhar, Susanne

2016-04-01

Equipping young people with the skills to participate successfully in increasingly complex environments and societies is a central issue of policy makers around the world. Only the understanding of complex socio-environmental systems establishes a basis for making decisions leading to sustainable development. However, OECD Pisa studies indicated, that only a low percentage of 15-year-old students was able to solve straightforward problems. Additionally, students get less interested in natural science education. In Austria "Sparkling Science" projects funded by the Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy in Austria target at integrating science with school learning by involving young people into scientific research for the purpose of developing new and engaging forms of interactive, meaningful learning. Within the Sparkling Science Project "Traisen.w3" scientists work together with 15 to 18-year-old students of an Austrian Secondary School over two years to identify and evaluate ecosystem services within the catchment of the river Traisen. One of the aims of the project is to foster system understanding of the youths by multi-modal school activities. To support the development of causal systems thinking, students developed qualitative causal models on processes in the catchment of the river Traisen with an interactive, hierarchically structured learning environment that was developed within the EU-FP7 project "DynaLearn" (http://www.dynalearn.eu) based on qualitative reasoning. Students worked in small groups and were encouraged to interlink entities, processes and simulate the results of the proposed interactions of hydrological, biological, ecological, spatial and societal elements. Within this setting collaborative problem solving competency through sharing knowledge, understanding and different perspectives was developed. Additionally, in several school workshops the ecosystem services concept was used as communication tool to show the

Forest Science and forest policy in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East: Building Bridges to a sustainable future

Science.gov (United States)

Richard W. Guldin; Niels Elers Koch; John A. Parrotta; Christian Gamborg; Bo J. Thorsen

2004-01-01

Making forest policies that help bridge from the current situation to a sustainable future requires sound scientific information. Too often, scientific information is available, yet policy makers do not use it. At a workshop in Denmark, attendees reviewed case studies where forest science influenced forest policies and identified six major reasons for success. Three...

Science or Science Fiction?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lefsrud, Lianne M.; Meyer, Renate

2012-01-01

This paper examines the framings and identity work associated with professionals’ discursive construction of climate change science, their legitimation of themselves as experts on ‘the truth’, and their attitudes towards regulatory measures. Drawing from survey responses of 1077 professional......, legitimation strategies, and use of emotionality and metaphor. By linking notions of the science or science fiction of climate change to the assessment of the adequacy of global and local policies and of potential organizational responses, we contribute to the understanding of ‘defensive institutional work...

Sustainability Tools Inventory - Initial Gaps Analysis | Science ...

Science.gov (United States)

This report identifies a suite of tools that address a comprehensive set of community sustainability concerns. The objective is to discover whether "gaps" exist in the tool suite’s analytic capabilities. These tools address activities that significantly influence resource consumption, waste generation, and hazard generation including air pollution and greenhouse gases. In addition, the tools have been evaluated using four screening criteria: relevance to community decision making, tools in an appropriate developmental stage, tools that may be transferrable to situations useful for communities, and tools with requiring skill levels appropriate to communities. This document provides an initial gap analysis in the area of community sustainability decision support tools. It provides a reference to communities for existing decision support tools, and a set of gaps for those wishing to develop additional needed tools to help communities to achieve sustainability. It contributes to SHC 1.61.4

Promoting US-China Critical Zone Science Collaboration and Coordination Through Established Subnational Bilateral Science Partnerships: The US-China EcoPartnership for Economic and Environmental Sustainability.

Science.gov (United States)

Filley, T. R.; Guo, D.; Plante, A. F.

2015-12-01

The concept of critical zone (CZ) science has gained wide recognition with actively funded and emerging CZ observatory programs across the globe. There is much to be gained through international collaboration that links field, laboratory, and modeling efforts from across the emerging global CZ networks, but building international ties is difficult, especially when peer-to-peer connections are nascent, separated by great distances, and span different cultural and political environments. The U.S. and China share many climatic and geological similarities but differ greatly in the magnitude and timescale of human alteration of their landscapes making the comparative study of their respective pasts, current state, and future co-evolution an outstanding scientific opportunity to better understand, predict, and respond to human influence on the CZ. Leveraging the infrastructure and trust capital of longstanding sub-national volunteer scientific networks to bring together people and organizations is a resource-efficient mechanism to build cross-network CZ programs. The U.S.-China EcoPartnership for Environmental Sustainability (USCEES) is one of 30 current EcoPartnerships established beginning in May 2008 by a joint agreement between the U.S. Department of State and China's National Development and Reform Commission with the overarching goal of addressing the interconnected challenges of environmental, social, and economic sustainability through bi-national research innovation, communication, and entrepreneurship. The 2015 USCEES annual conference on "Critical Zone Science, Sustainability, and Services in a Changing World" was co-sponsored by the U.S. Cross-CZO Working Group on Organic Matter Dynamics and hosted three NSF-funded workshops on organic matter dynamics:1) methods for large and complex data analysis, 2) erosion and deposition processes, and 3) mineralogical and microbial controls on reactivity and persistence. This paper highlights outcomes from the workshops

Sustaining Rocky Mountain landscapes: Science, policy and management for the Crown of the Continent ecosystem

Science.gov (United States)

Prato, Tony; Fagre, Daniel B.

2007-01-01

Prato and Fagre offer the first systematic, multi-disciplinary assessment of the challenges involved in managing the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem ( CCE), an area of the Rocky Mountains that includes northwestern Montana, southwestern Alberta, and southeastern British Columbia. The spectacular landscapes, extensive recreational options, and broad employment opportunities of the CCE have made it one of the fastest growing regions in the United States and Canada, and have lead to a shift in its economic base from extractive resource industries to service-oriented recreation and tourism industries. In the process, however, the amenities and attributes that draw people to this “New West” are under threat. Pastoral scenes are disappearing as agricultural lands and other open spaces are converted to residential uses, biodiversity is endangered by the fragmentation of fish and wildlife habitats, and many areas are experiencing a decline in air and water quality. Sustaining Rocky Mountain Landscapes provides a scientific basis for communities to develop policies for managing the growth and economic transformation of the CCE without sacrificing the quality of life and environment for which the land is renowned. This forthcoming edited volume focuses on five aspects of sustaining mountain landscapes in the CCE and similar regions in the Rocky Mountains. The five aspects are: 1) how social, economic, demo graphic and environmental forces are transforming ecosystem structure and function, 2) trends in use and conditions for human and environmental resources, 3) activating science, policy and education to enhance sustainable landscape management, 4) challenges to sustainable management of public and private lands, and 5) future prospects for achieving sustainable landscapes.

Navigating emotions and identity: Learning to teach science in a high needs school

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, Karen J.

As student populations in the United States become more diverse, teacher education programs are challenged to find innovative and effective ways to prepare teachers for the twenty-first century. However, the goal of "science for all" continues to elude many students in urban and high needs settings where science achievement gaps persist, teacher turnover is high, and novice teachers are often hired to fill those vacancies. Researchers have examined teachers' beliefs, attitudes, practices, as well as content and pedagogical knowledge and made progressive strides in illuminating the complexities of urban classrooms and how we can better prepare teachers for these settings. However, only recently have we begun to venture into the affective areas of teaching to investigate how these areas of human nature interact to influence instruction. This research follows three preservice teachers placed in a high needs school during their student teaching semester. In this case, a high need is described as a school with more than 30% of the students who meet the poverty criteria under section 1113(a)(f) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. This case study explored the connections between preservice teachers' emotions, identity and the implementation of student-centered science instruction during the participants' student teaching experience. Data collection included observations, interviews, and physical artifacts. The interviews included the Teachers' Pedagogical Philosophy Interview (Richardson & Simmons, 1994) and the Meta-Emotions Interview (Gottman, Katz & Hooven, 1997) as well as general interview questions that illuminated the participants' views on teaching, their emotions, life history and identity. Multiple naturalistic observations were used to describe the interactions between the preservice teachers and the students during the implementation of student-centered lessons. Physical artifacts included weekly journals and lesson plans. These artifacts

The Science of Sustaining Health Behavior Change: The Health Maintenance Consortium

Science.gov (United States)

Ory, Marcia G.; Smith, Matthew Lee; Mier, Nelda; Wernicke, Meghan M.

2013-01-01

Objective The Health Maintenance Consortium (HMC) is a multisite Grantee Consortium funded by the National Institutes of Health from 2004–2009. The goal of HMC is to enhance understanding of the long-term maintenance of behavior change, as well as effective strategies for achieving sustainable health promotion and disease prevention. Methods This introductory research synthesis prepared by the Resource Center gives context to this theme issue by providing an overview of the HMC and the articles in this journal. Results It explores the contributions to our conceptualization of behavior change processes and intervention strategies, the trajectory of effectiveness of behavioral and social interventions, and factors influencing the long-term maintenance of behavioral and social interventions. Conclusions Future directions for furthering the science of maintaining behavior change and reducing the gaps between research and practice are recommended. PMID:20604691

Individuals with greater science literacy and education have more polarized beliefs on controversial science topics.

Science.gov (United States)

Drummond, Caitlin; Fischhoff, Baruch

2017-09-05

Although Americans generally hold science in high regard and respect its findings, for some contested issues, such as the existence of anthropogenic climate change, public opinion is polarized along religious and political lines. We ask whether individuals with more general education and greater science knowledge, measured in terms of science education and science literacy, display more (or less) polarized beliefs on several such issues. We report secondary analyses of a nationally representative dataset (the General Social Survey), examining the predictors of beliefs regarding six potentially controversial issues. We find that beliefs are correlated with both political and religious identity for stem cell research, the Big Bang, and human evolution, and with political identity alone on climate change. Individuals with greater education, science education, and science literacy display more polarized beliefs on these issues. We find little evidence of political or religious polarization regarding nanotechnology and genetically modified foods. On all six topics, people who trust the scientific enterprise more are also more likely to accept its findings. We discuss the causal mechanisms that might underlie the correlation between education and identity-based polarization.

Mālama I Ka `Āina, Sustainability: learning from Hawai`i's displaced place and culture-based science standard

Science.gov (United States)

Chinn, Pauline W. U.

2011-03-01

This response to Mitchell and Mueller's "A philosophical analysis of David Orr's theory of ecological literacy" comments on their critique of Orr's use of the phrase "ecological crisis" and what I perceive as their conflicting views of "crisis." I present my views on ecological crisis informed by standpoint theory and the definition of crisis as turning point. I connect the concept of turning point to tipping point as used in ecology to describe potentially irreversible changes in coupled social-ecological systems. I suggest that sustainable societies may provide models of adaptive learning in which monitoring of ecological phenomena is coupled to human behavior to mitigate threats to sustainability before a crisis/tipping point is reached. Finally, I discuss the Hawai`i State Department of Education's removal of its Indigenous science content standard Mālama I Ka `Āina, Sustainability and its continued use in community-based projects.

Beliefs that manifest through newspaper items in relation to peoples’ life challenges and their potential to enhance a sustainable learning environment in school science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thapelo L. Mamiala

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The paper documents beliefs that manifest themselves through newspaper items and elaborates on their potential to enhance a sustainable learning environment in a school science lesson. “Learning environment” is depicted from different angles and includes virtual and real learning environments, school environments and classroom environments. Descriptive and item analyses were conducted on sixty-eight newspaper items that were identified. The nature of problems and prescriptions/solutions was categorised for each item and the paper further provides elaboration on the types of problems and recommended solutions. The results show that the “believed” structure contents in their newspaper items to catch the attention of the “believer”. Lessons on the power of belief must be learnt by school science teachers if they are to succeed in creating a sustainable learning environment with improved performance in school science.

Hard Identity and Soft Identity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hassan Rachik

2006-04-01

Full Text Available Often collective identities are classified depending on their contents and rarely depending on their forms. Differentiation between soft identity and hard identity is applied to diverse collective identities: religious, political, national, tribal ones, etc. This classification is made following the principal dimensions of collective identities: type of classification (univocal and exclusive or relative and contextual, the absence or presence of conflictsof loyalty, selective or totalitarian, objective or subjective conception, among others. The different characteristics analysed contribute to outlining an increasingly frequent type of identity: the authoritarian identity.

Consumption governance toward more sustainable consumption

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wahlen, S.; Dubuisson-Quellier, Sophie

2018-01-01

This article deliberates on strategies of consumption governance toward more sustainable consumption. We discuss theoretical concepts stemming from various social science perspectives to (1) promote more sustainable consumption, (2) compare strategies stemming from individualist understanding of

Analysing the sustainability of the entities quoted on the B.S.E. using accounting sustainability measures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Florentin Caloian

2013-11-01

Full Text Available In order to ensure a sustainable development of an entity, a sustainability accounting report, trustfulness and proper made is mandatory for financial users. As a fact, the entities have to reveal social and environment information in order to increase the creditworthiness in the activity they realized. The purpose of this research is to point out how the sustainability accounting report influences the financial performance of the companies, by quantifying the social and environment elements in a score variable. The analysis is done upon the societies that are listed on the first category of Bucharest Stock of Exchange and tries to identity the way through which sustainable development can be ensured. The results are based on a linear regression model and find a direct positive correlation between the score variable and the financial performance of the companies

Sustainability Infused Curriculum

Science.gov (United States)

Ibarra, D. L.

2015-12-01

The Independent Schools Foundation Academy (ISF) in Hong Kong established a sustainability policy in 2015, which explicitly states, "an experimentally integrated, environmentally and ethically sustainable system of science education and conservation practices based on the 2012 Jeju Declaration of the World Conservation Congress will be implemented through the school". ISF Academy is a private Chinese bilingual school in Hong Kong serving over 1500 students K-12, following the framework and curriculum of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO). The strategy behind the implementation of this policy includes: development of a scientific sustainable curriculum that is age appropriate; establish a culture of sustainability within the ISF community and beyond to the wider HK community; install sustainable infrastructure that allows students to learn; and learn first hand sustainable living practices. It is well understood that solutions to the environmental challenges facing Hong Kong and our planet will require multiple disciplines. The current sustainability programs at ISF include: a) a whole school aerobic food waste composting system and organic farming, b) energy consumption monitoring of existing buildings, c) upcoming installation of an air pollution monitoring equipment that will correlate with the AQHI data collected by the Hong Kong government, d) a Renewable Energy Education Center (REEC) that will teach students about RE and also produce solar energy for classroom consumption, and e) student lead environmental group that manages the paper and used cooking oil recycling on campus. The Shuyuan Science and Sustainability faculty work closely with classroom teachers to ensure that the above mentioned projects are incorporated into the curriculum throughout the school. Interdisciplinary units (IDU) of study are being developed that encourage faculty and students to work across subject areas. Projects include Personal Projects, Extended Essays

Evaluation of Narrative Therapy in the Decrease of Female Students’ Identity Crisis in the Department of Sciences and Counseling of Islamic Azad University, Roudehen Branch, Roudehen, Iran

OpenAIRE

Masoumeh Komijani; Parivash Vakili

2015-01-01

Background: The present research aimed to investigate the effect of narrative therapy on the decreasing of female students’ identity crisis in the Faculty of Educational Sciences and Counseling of Islamic Azad University, Roudehen Branch, Roudehen, Iran.Methods: The present study was a quasi-experiment with pre-test, post-test, and control group design. The statistical population included all the female students of the Faculty of Educational Sciences and Counseling of Islamic Azad University,...

Sustainable development and energy indicators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pop-Jordanov, Jordan

2002-01-01

Starting from the basic definition of sustainable development and its four dimensions, the role of indicators for sustainable energy development is analysed. In particular, it is shown that important energy efficiency indicators belong in fact to energy supply efficiency, while the end-use energy efficiency could be more pertinently represented by energy intensity indicators. Furthermore, the negentropic effects of science and technology related sustainable energy scenarios are pointed out. Finally, the sustainable development is related to wisdom, interpreted as a sum of knowledge, morality and timing. (Author)

The sustainable development thematic in the research groups

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Cristina Comunian Ferraz

2007-11-01

Full Text Available The technological innovation brought for the debate the question of the sustainable technological development. The article presents an entirety of theoretical reflections on the science, technology and sustainable development themes and to aim the contributions of the Information Science, while interdisciplinary science, with respect to the understanding of the sustainable development. With basis in this reference it was carried through the investigation of descriptive exploratory nature with quanti-qualitative boarding, having as main objective to identify the presence of the sustainable development thematic in research groups of the UFSCar registered in cadastre in the National Directory of Research Groups of the CNPq. The results had shown that the sustainable development thematic is present in eleven researchgroups of the UFSCar distributed in different knowledge areas. Comparing the data gotten with the research groups of the country that had participated of 2004 Census of the National Directory of Research Groups of the CNPq it was verified that it has similarity between both the data. In accordance with scientific literature, confirms that the sustainable development thematic is interdisciplinar and that the knowledge production of the research groups is result to know articulated in some of the knowledge areas.

Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe's productive gardeners

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Smith, J.; Jehlička, Petr

2013-01-01

Roč. 32, č. 3 (2013), s. 148-157 ISSN 0743-0167 R&D Projects: GA ČR GAP404/10/0521 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z70280505 Keywords : Quiet sustainability * Sustainable development * Sharing Subject RIV: AD - Politology ; Political Sciences Impact factor: 2.036, year: 2013 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016713000454

H3Africa and the African life sciences ecosystem: building sustainable innovation.

Science.gov (United States)

Dandara, Collet; Huzair, Farah; Borda-Rodriguez, Alexander; Chirikure, Shadreck; Okpechi, Ikechi; Warnich, Louise; Masimirembwa, Collen

2014-12-01

Interest in genomics research in African populations is experiencing exponential growth. This enthusiasm stems in part from the recognition that the genomic diversity of African populations is a window of opportunity for innovations in postgenomics medicine, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The recently launched H3Africa initiative, for example, captures the energy and momentum of this interest. This interdisciplinary socio-technical analysis highlights the challenges that have beset previous genomics research activities in Africa, and looking ahead, suggests constructive ways H3Africa and similar large scale science efforts could usefully chart a new era of genomics and life sciences research in Africa that is locally productive and globally competitive. As independent African scholars and social scientists, we propose that any serious global omics science effort, including H3Africa, aiming to build genomics research capacity and capability in Africa, needs to fund the establishment of biobanks and the genomic analyses platforms within Africa. Equally they need to prioritize community engagement and bioinformatics capability and the training of African scientists on these platforms. Historically, the financial, technological, and skills imbalance between Africa and developed countries has created exploitative frameworks of collaboration where African researchers have become merely facilitators of Western funded and conceived research agendas involving offshore expatriation of samples. Not surprisingly, very little funding was allocated to infrastructure and human capital development in the past. Moving forward, capacity building should materialize throughout the entire knowledge co-production trajectory: idea generation (e.g., brainstorming workshops for innovative hypotheses development by African scientists), data generation (e.g., genome sequencing), and high-throughput data analysis and contextualization. Additionally, building skills for political science

Frontiers in sustainable consumption research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Reisch, Lucia A.; Cohen, Maurie J.; Thøgersen, John

2016-01-01

While the field of sustainable consumption research is relatively young, it has already attracted scholars from all corners of the social sciences. The time has come to identify a new research agenda as trends in sustainable consumption research seem to suggest the dawning of a new phase. Not only...

FY 2017 Site Sustainability Plan

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pope, Jason E.

2016-11-30

For more than 50 years, the United States (U.S.) Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has advanced the frontiers of science and technology through courageous discovery and innovation. Our multidisciplinary team of more than 4,400 scientists, engineers, and support professionals is tackling global sustainability challenges in our science, energy, environmental, and security missions. For example, our research on how human and natural systems interact is critical to informing sustainable solutions to the nation’s energy and environmental challenges. PNNL is equally committed to sustainability right here at home, and we are making excellent progress toward the goals described in this plan. We are working on ongoing challenges, such as reducing the energy required to meet our research mission and promoting conservation among our employees.

The advent of canine performance science: offering a sustainable future for working dogs.

Science.gov (United States)

Cobb, Mia; Branson, Nick; McGreevy, Paul; Lill, Alan; Bennett, Pauleen

2015-01-01

Working and sporting dogs provide an essential contribution to many industries worldwide. The common development, maintenance and disposal of working and sporting dogs can be considered in the same way as other animal production systems. The process of 'production' involves genetic selection, puppy rearing, recruitment and assessment, training, housing and handling, handler education, health and working life end-point management. At present, inefficiencies throughout the production process result in a high failure rate of dogs attaining operational status. This level of wastage would be condemned in other animal production industries for economic reasons and has significant implications for dog welfare, as well as public perceptions of dog-based industries. Standards of acceptable animal use are changing and some historically common uses of animals are no longer publicly acceptable, especially where harm is caused for purposes deemed trivial, or where alternatives exist. Public scrutiny of animal use appears likely to increase and extend to all roles of animals, including working and sporting dogs. Production system processes therefore need to be transparent, traceable and ethically acceptable for animal use to be sustainable into the future. Evidence-based approaches already inform best practice in fields as diverse as agriculture and human athletic performance. This article introduces the nascent discipline of canine performance science, which aims to facilitate optimal product quality and production efficiency, while also assuring evidence-based increments in dog welfare through a process of research and development. Our thesis is that the model of canine performance science offers an objective, transparent and traceable opportunity for industry development in line with community expectations and underpins a sustainable future for working dogs. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Canine Behavior. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Proceedings – Mathematical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Proceedings – Mathematical Sciences. MEGHA GOYAL. Articles written in Proceedings – Mathematical Sciences. Volume 128 Issue 1 March 2018 pp 2 Research Article. On 3-way combinatorial identities · A K AGARWAL MEGHA GOYAL · More Details Abstract Fulltext PDF. In this paper, we provide ...

Expected role of nuclear science and technology to support the sustainable supply of energy in Indonesia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Soentono, Soedyartomo; Aziz, Ferhat

2008-01-01

Energy resources are available in Indonesia but small per capita. The increase of oil price and its reserve depletion rate dictates to decrease the oil consumption. Therefore, it is imperative to increase the shares of other fossils as well as the new and renewable sources of energy in various energy sectors substituting the oil. The introduction of nuclear power plant becomes more indispensable, although the share is to be small but significantly important for electric generation in Java-Madura-Bali grid. Nuclear technology can have also important role enabling the increase of the shares of renewable, e.g. geothermal, hydro and bio-fuels as well as fossil energies to meet more sustainable energy mix sufficing the energy demand to attain intended economic and population growths while maintaining the environment. The first introduced nuclear power plant is to be the proven ones, but the innovative nuclear energy systems being developed by various countries will eventually also be partially employed to further improve the sustainability. The nuclear science and technology are to be symbiotic and synergistic to other sources of energy to enhance the sustainable supply of energy. (author)

Heritage contribution in sustainable city

Science.gov (United States)

Rostami, R.; Khoshnava, S. M.; Lamit, H.

2014-02-01

The concept of sustainability has been an integral part of development work since the late 1970s. Sustainability is no longer a buzzword but a reality that must be addressed by cities all over the world. Increasing empirical evidence indicates that city sustainability is not just related to technical issues, such as carbon emissions, energy consumption and waste management, or on the economic aspects of urban regeneration and growth, but also it covers social well-being of different groups living within increasingly cosmopolitan towns and cities. Heritage is seen as a major component of quality of life, features that give a city its unique character and provide the sense of belonging that lies at the core of cultural identity. In other words, heritage by providing important social and psychological benefits enrich human life with meanings and emotions, and raise quality of life as a key component of sustainability. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine the role that built cultural heritage can play within sustainable urban development.

Heritage contribution in sustainable city

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rostami, R; Khoshnava, S M; Lamit, H

2014-01-01

The concept of sustainability has been an integral part of development work since the late 1970s. Sustainability is no longer a buzzword but a reality that must be addressed by cities all over the world. Increasing empirical evidence indicates that city sustainability is not just related to technical issues, such as carbon emissions, energy consumption and waste management, or on the economic aspects of urban regeneration and growth, but also it covers social well-being of different groups living within increasingly cosmopolitan towns and cities. Heritage is seen as a major component of quality of life, features that give a city its unique character and provide the sense of belonging that lies at the core of cultural identity. In other words, heritage by providing important social and psychological benefits enrich human life with meanings and emotions, and raise quality of life as a key component of sustainability. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine the role that built cultural heritage can play within sustainable urban development

Identity threat at work: how social identity threat and situational cues contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in the workplace.

Science.gov (United States)

Emerson, Katherine T U; Murphy, Mary C

2014-10-01

Significant disparities remain between racial and ethnic minorities' and Whites' experiences of American workplaces. Traditional prejudice and discrimination approaches explain these gaps in hiring, promotion, satisfaction, and well-being by pointing to the prejudice of people within organizations such as peers, managers, and executives. Grounded in social identity threat theory, this theoretical review instead argues that particular situational cues-often communicated by well-meaning, largely unprejudiced employees and managers-signal to stigmatized groups whether their identity is threatened and devalued or respected and affirmed. First, we provide an overview of how identity threat shapes the psychological processes of racial and ethnic minorities by heightening vigilance to certain situational cues in the workplace. Next, we outline several of these cues and their role in creating and sustaining perceptions of identity threat (or safety). Finally, we provide empirically grounded suggestions that organizations may use to increase identity safety among their employees of color. Taken together, the research demonstrates how situational cues contribute to disparate psychological experiences for racial and ethnic minorities at work, and suggests that by altering threatening cues, organizations may create more equitable, respectful, and inclusive environments where all people may thrive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Sustainability in nursing: a concept analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Anåker, Anna; Elf, Marie

2014-06-01

The aim of this study was to describe, explore and explain the concept of sustainability in nursing. Although researchers in nursing and medicine have emphasised the issue of sustainability and health, the concept of sustainability in nursing is undefined and poorly researched. A need exists for theoretical and empirical studies of sustainability in nursing. Concept analysis as developed by Walker and Avant. Data were derived from dictionaries, international healthcare organisations and literature searches in the CINAHL and MEDLINE databases. Inclusive years for the search ranged from 1990 to 2012. A total of fourteen articles were found that referred to sustainability in nursing. Sustainability in nursing involves six defining attributes: ecology, environment, future, globalism, holism and maintenance. Antecedents of sustainability require climate change, environmental impact and awareness, confidence in the future, responsibility and a willingness to change. Consequences of sustainability in nursing include education in the areas of ecology, environment and sustainable development as well as sustainability as a part of nursing academic programs and in the description of the academic subject of nursing. Sustainability should also be part of national and international healthcare organisations. The concept was clarified herein by giving it a definition. Sustainability in nursing was explored and found to contribute to sustainable development, with the ultimate goal of maintaining an environment that does not harm current and future generations' opportunities for good health. This concept analysis provides recommendations for the healthcare sector to incorporate sustainability and provides recommendations for future research. © 2014 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Nordic College of Caring Science.

Application of Life Cycle Assessment for Corporate Sustainability : Integrating environmental sustainability in business for value creation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Manda, B.M.K.

2014-01-01

The main objective of this research is to make a contribution to bridge the gap between sustainability science and business management by improving the integration of sustainability in core business of corporations. The core business of corporations is to provide products and services to meet

Digital identity management

CERN Document Server

Laurent, Maryline

2015-01-01

In the past four decades, information technology has altered chains of value production, distribution, and information access at a significant rate. These changes, although they have shaken up numerous economic models, have so far not radically challenged the bases of our society.This book addresses our current progress and viewpoints on digital identity management in different fields (social networks, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT)), with input from experts in computer science, law, economics and sociology. Within this multidisciplinary and scientific context, having crossed analys

Socio-psychological processes of identity formation among EE/ESD enthusiast

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Læssøe, Jeppe; Lysgaard, Jonas Greve

Introduction: When engaging with normative educational ideals such as education for sustainable development (ESD), such ideals heavily influence socio-psychological processes of identity formation among individuals and groups. This is especially important when looking into enthusiasts...... developing educational participatory activities. Describing group dynamics and how they draw on the normative and ideological discourse qualities is one thing, but through this paper we also want to stress the importance of the individual and subjective identity formation and meaning making processes when...... navigating the often contradictionary field of ESD, Methods: This paper is a theoretical study drawing on theories focusing on socio-psychological processes of identity formation such as psychoanalysis, European-continental social psychology and micro-sociology. The paper also draws on recent empirical...

Engage key social concepts for sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

C. C. Hicks; A. Levine; A. Agrawal; X. Basurto; S. J. Breslow; C. Carothers; Susan Charnley; S. Coulthard; N. Dolsak; J. Donatuto; C. Garcia-Quijano; M. B. Mascia; K. Norman; M. R. Poe; T. Satterfield; K. St. Martin; P. S. Levin

2016-01-01

With humans altering climate processes, biogeochemical cycles, and ecosystem functions (1), governments and societies confront the challenge of shaping a sustainable future for people and nature. Policies and practices to address these challenges must draw on social sciences, along with natural sciences and engineering (2). Although various social science approaches...

Individuals with greater science literacy and education have more polarized beliefs on controversial science topics

Science.gov (United States)

2017-01-01

Although Americans generally hold science in high regard and respect its findings, for some contested issues, such as the existence of anthropogenic climate change, public opinion is polarized along religious and political lines. We ask whether individuals with more general education and greater science knowledge, measured in terms of science education and science literacy, display more (or less) polarized beliefs on several such issues. We report secondary analyses of a nationally representative dataset (the General Social Survey), examining the predictors of beliefs regarding six potentially controversial issues. We find that beliefs are correlated with both political and religious identity for stem cell research, the Big Bang, and human evolution, and with political identity alone on climate change. Individuals with greater education, science education, and science literacy display more polarized beliefs on these issues. We find little evidence of political or religious polarization regarding nanotechnology and genetically modified foods. On all six topics, people who trust the scientific enterprise more are also more likely to accept its findings. We discuss the causal mechanisms that might underlie the correlation between education and identity-based polarization. PMID:28827344

Alternative Framings, Countervailing Visions: Locating the "P" in Professional Identity Formation.

Science.gov (United States)

Hafferty, Frederic W; Michalec, Barret; Martimianakis, Maria Athina Tina; Tilburt, Jon C

2016-02-01

Professional identity formation in medical education is referenced increasingly as an object for educational reform. The authors introduce core concepts from two largely untapped literatures on identity and formation, contrasting framings on occupational preparation from within the organizational socialization literature with issues of socialization and professional acculturation from a military sciences perspective.The organizational sciences literature emphasizes socializing a workforce to "fit in," raising questions about how organization values might clash with core professional values concerning patient primary and social justice. The military literature, in turn, advances the notions of professional identity as a collective property, and that a particular social other (the public) must participate in shaping the group's identity as a profession.The authors extrapolate from these reviews that the training of physicians-as-professionals, and thus issues of socialization and identity formation, require intentionality and specificity around these contrasting issues. In turn, they argue that medical educators must attend to socializing trainees to a professional group identity while at the same time producing health care professionals who retain the capacity to resist the bureaucratic application of standardized solutions to contemporary problems. Educators must thus strive to identify the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary that will allow physicians-qua-professionals to function as a quasi-subversive work force and to disrupt the very system that helped to shape their identity, so that they may fulfill their mission to their patients.

Nutrition and sustainability: an emerging food policy discourse.

Science.gov (United States)

Lang, Tim; Barling, David

2013-02-01

It is well known that food has a considerable environmental impact. Less attention has been given to mapping and analysing the emergence of policy responses. This paper contributes to that process. It summarises emerging policy development on nutrition and sustainability, and explores difficulties in their integration. The paper describes some policy thinking at national, European and international levels of governance. It points to the existence of particular policy hotspots such as meat and dairy, sustainable diets and waste. Understanding the environmental impact of food systems challenges nutrition science to draw upon traditions of thinking which have recently been fragmented. These perspectives (life sciences, social and environmental) are all required if policy engagement and clarification is to occur. Sustainability issues offer opportunities for nutrition science and scientists to play a more central role in the policy analysis of future food systems. The task of revising current nutrition policy advice to become sustainable diet advice needs to begin at national and international levels.

Green dentistry: the art and science of sustainable practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Mulimani, P

2017-06-23

Dentistry is highly energy and resource intensive with significant environmental impact. Factors inherent in the profession such as enormous electricity demands of electronic dental equipment, voluminous water requirements, environmental effects of biomaterials (before, during and after clinical use), the use of radiation and the generation of hazardous waste involving mercury, lead etc have contributed towards this. With rising temperatures across the world due to global warming, efforts are being made worldwide to mitigate the effects of environmental damage by resorting to sustainability concepts and green solutions in a myriad of ways. In such a scenario, a professional obligation and social responsibility of dentists makes it imperative to transform the practice of dentistry from a hazardous to a sustainable one, by adopting environmental-friendly measures or 'green dentistry'. The NHS in the UK has been proactive in implementing sustainability in healthcare by setting targets, developing guidance papers, initiating steering groups to develop measures and implementing actions through its Sustainable Development Unit (SDU). Such sustainable frameworks, specific to dentistry, are not yet available and even the scientific literature is devoid of studies in this field although anecdotal narratives abound. Hence this paper attempts to present a comprehensive evaluation of the existing healthcare sustainability principles, for their parallel application in the field of dentistry and lays out a blueprint for integrating the two main underlying principles of sustainability - resource use efficiency and eliminating or minimising pollution - in the day-to-day practice. The article also highlights the importance of social values, community care, engaging stakeholders, economic benefits, developing policy and providing leadership in converting the concept of green dentistry into a practised reality.

Adolescent Girls’ STEM Identity Formation and Media Images of STEM Professionals: Considering the Influence of Contextual Cues

Science.gov (United States)

Steinke, Jocelyn

2017-01-01

Popular media have played a crucial role in the construction, representation, reproduction, and transmission of stereotypes of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals, yet little is known about how these stereotypes influence STEM identity formation. Media images of STEM professionals may be important sources of information about STEM and may be particularly salient and relevant for girls during adolescence as they actively consider future personal and professional identities. This article describes gender-stereotyped media images of STEM professionals and examines theories to identify variables that explain the potential influence of these images on STEM identity formation. Understanding these variables is important for expanding current conceptual frameworks of science/STEM identity to better determine how and when cues in the broader sociocultural context may affect adolescent girls’ STEM identity. This article emphasizes the importance of focusing on STEM identity relevant variables and STEM identity status to explain individual differences in STEM identity formation. PMID:28603505

Adolescent Girls' STEM Identity Formation and Media Images of STEM Professionals: Considering the Influence of Contextual Cues.

Science.gov (United States)

Steinke, Jocelyn

2017-01-01

Popular media have played a crucial role in the construction, representation, reproduction, and transmission of stereotypes of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals, yet little is known about how these stereotypes influence STEM identity formation. Media images of STEM professionals may be important sources of information about STEM and may be particularly salient and relevant for girls during adolescence as they actively consider future personal and professional identities. This article describes gender-stereotyped media images of STEM professionals and examines theories to identify variables that explain the potential influence of these images on STEM identity formation. Understanding these variables is important for expanding current conceptual frameworks of science/STEM identity to better determine how and when cues in the broader sociocultural context may affect adolescent girls' STEM identity. This article emphasizes the importance of focusing on STEM identity relevant variables and STEM identity status to explain individual differences in STEM identity formation.

Cultural, Political, and Social Dimensions of Identity among Student

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rahmatollah Sedigh Sarvestani

2010-01-01

Full Text Available As various Iranian theorists emphasis, challenge between tradition and modernity is among the most affective phenomena on Iranian identity. Thus, in the present study, different dimensions of Student’s identity have been evaluated regarding this challenge. According to the main hypothesis, student’s identity is a hybrid of traditional and modern elements. Each dimension of identity (either modern or traditional has been studied from the social, cultural, and political aspects. The study has been carried using questionnaire in 6 universities in Tehran –including University of Tehran, Shahid Beheshti, Allameh Tabatabaei, Sharif University of Technology, Al-Zahra, and University of Applied Science and Technology. Results show that in social and cultural aspects, modern elements of identity prevail, while in the political aspect it is the traditional elements that prevail. In another word, religion-politics blend and authoritarianism play crucial role in students’ identity rather than tendency to civil society. In addition, students’ identity is not simply a one-dimensional structure, but a bi-dimensional construction within which both modern and traditional elements are involved.

"I am Not a Statistic": Identities of African American Males in Advanced Science Courses

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Diane Wynn

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (2010) expects new industries to generate approximately 2.7 million jobs in science and technology by the year 2018, and there is concern as to whether there will be enough trained individuals to fill these positions. A tremendous resource remains untapped, African American students, especially African American males (National Science Foundation, 2009). Historically, African American males have been omitted from the so called science pipeline. Fewer African American males pursue a science discipline due, in part; to limiting factors they experience in school and at home (Ogbu, 2004). This is a case study of African American males who are enrolled in advanced science courses at a predominantly African American (84%) urban high school. Guided by expectancy-value theory (EVT) of achievement related results (Eccles, 2009; Eccles et al., 1983), twelve African American male students in two advanced science courses were observed in their science classrooms weekly, participated in an in-depth interview, developed a presentation to share with students enrolled in a tenth grade science course, responded to an open-ended identity questionnaire, and were surveyed about their perceptions of school. Additionally, the students' teachers were interviewed, and seven of the students' parents. The interview data analyses highlighted the important role of supportive parents (key socializers) who had high expectations for their sons and who pushed them academically. The students clearly attributed their enrollment in advanced science courses to their high regard for their science teachers, which included positive relationships, hands-on learning in class, and an inviting and encouraging learning environment. Additionally, other family members and coaches played important roles in these young men's lives. Students' PowerPoint(c) presentations to younger high school students on why they should take advanced science courses highlighted these

Indigenous identity – Global grasp: The Road Not Taken Tours ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries benefit from the growing tourism market but there are also detrimental effects, including a large influx of tourists, the oversupply or duplication of tourism businesses, and the deterioration of local cultures. The latter, sustaining local cultural identity, is the issue ...

Sustaining and Extending the Open Science Grid: Science Innovation on a PetaScale Nationwide Facility (DE-FC02-06ER41436) SciDAC-2 Closeout Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Livny, Miron [Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Shank, James [Boston Univ., MA (United States); Ernst, Michael [Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Blackburn, Kent [California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States); Goasguen, Sebastien [Clemson Univ., SC (United States); Tuts, Michael [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States); Gibbons, Lawrence [Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States); Pordes, Ruth [Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Sliz, Piotr [Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (United States); Deelman, Ewa [Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Information Sciences Inst.; Barnett, William [Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States); Olson, Doug [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); McGee, John [Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States). Renaissance Computing Inst.; Cowles, Robert [SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Wuerthwein, Frank [Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States); Gardner, Robert [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States); Avery, Paul [Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL (United States); Wang, Shaowen [Univ. of Illinois, Champaign, IL (United States); Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, IA (United States); Lincoln, David Swanson [Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (United States)

2015-02-11

Under this SciDAC-2 grant the project’s goal w a s t o stimulate new discoveries by providing scientists with effective and dependable access to an unprecedented national distributed computational facility: the Open Science Grid (OSG). We proposed to achieve this through the work of the Open Science Grid Consortium: a unique hands-on multi-disciplinary collaboration of scientists, software developers and providers of computing resources. Together the stakeholders in this consortium sustain and use a shared distributed computing environment that transforms simulation and experimental science in the US. The OSG consortium is an open collaboration that actively engages new research communities. We operate an open facility that brings together a broad spectrum of compute, storage, and networking resources and interfaces to other cyberinfrastructures, including the US XSEDE (previously TeraGrid), the European Grids for ESciencE (EGEE), as well as campus and regional grids. We leverage middleware provided by computer science groups, facility IT support organizations, and computing programs of application communities for the benefit of consortium members and the US national CI.

Hemifield effects in multiple identity tracking.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Charlotte Hudson

Full Text Available In everyday life, we often need to attentively track moving objects. A previous study has claimed that this tracking occurs independently in the left and right visual hemifields (Alvarez & Cavanagh, 2005, Psychological Science,16, 637-647. Specifically, it was shown that observers were much more accurate at tracking objects that were spread over both visual hemifields as opposed to when all were confined to a single visual hemifield. In that study, observers were not required to remember the identities of the objects. Conversely, in real life, there is seldom any benefit to tracking an object unless you can also recall its identity. It has been predicted that when observers are required to remember the identities of the tracked objects a bilateral advantage should no longer be observed (Oksama & Hyönä, 2008, Cognitive Psychology, 56, 237-283. We tested this prediction and found that a bilateral advantage still occurred, though it was not as strong as when observers were not required to remember the identities of the targets. Even in the later case we found that tracking was not completely independent in the two visual hemifields. We present a combined model of multiple object tracking and multiple identity tracking that can explain our data.

The Perceptions of Pre-Service Science Teachers and Science Teachers About Climate Change

OpenAIRE

Meilinda, M; Rustaman, N. Y; Tjasyono, B

2017-01-01

The global climate phenomenon in the context of climate change is the impact of both the dynamic complex climate system and human behaviors that affect environmental sustainability. Human is an important component that should be considered in science teaching that is believed to improve human attitudes towards the environmental sustainability. The research aims to investigate the perceptions of pre-service science teachers and science teachers in South Sumatra who teach climate change and glo...

Black Adolescent Males: Intersections Among Their Gender Role Identity and Racial Identity and Associations With Self-Concept (Global and School).

Science.gov (United States)

Buckley, Tamara R

2017-09-12

Intersectional approaches for understanding identity have gained momentum in the social sciences. Black adolescent males are often perceived as threatening, underachieving, and hypermasculine, which is reinforced through media outlets and psychological research that portray them as a monolith rather than a heterogeneous group with multiple intersecting identities. This cross-sectional study of 70 Black adolescent males between 14 and 18 years old simultaneously explores their race and gender identities and associations with self-concept (global and school). Results demonstrated that participants reported a combination of feminine and masculine gender roles, rather than hypermasculine. A canonical correlation analysis found that Black racial identity attitudes (RIAS-L) and gender roles simultaneously contributed to significant relationships with total and school self-concept. Study limitations and future directions for research and practice are discussed. © 2017 The Authors. Child Development © 2017 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Sustainable development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boiteux, M.

2004-01-01

Marcel Boiteux evokes the results of the work on the sustainable development by the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. This is a vast political programme with the goal of allowing all humanity to live well in growing unity while protecting the environment and favouring economic growth. (author)

Learning in a Physics Classroom Community: Physics Learning Identity Construct Development, Measurement and Validation

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Sissi L.

At the university level, introductory science courses usually have high student to teacher ratios which increases the challenge to meaningfully connect with students. Various curricula have been developed in physics education to actively engage students in learning through social interactions with peers and instructors in class. This learning environment demands not only conceptual understanding but also learning to be a scientist. However, the success of student learning is typically measured in test performance and course grades while assessment of student development as science learners is largely ignored. This dissertation addresses this issue with the development of an instrument towards a measure of physics learning identity (PLI) which is used to guide and complement case studies through student interviews and in class observations. Using the conceptual framework based on Etienne Wenger's communities of practice (1998), I examine the relationship between science learning and learning identity from a situated perspective in the context of a large enrollment science class as a community of practice. This conceptual framework emphasizes the central role of identity in the practices negotiated in the classroom community and in the way students figure out their trajectory as members. Using this framework, I seek to understand how the changes in student learning identity are supported by active engagement based instruction. In turn, this understanding can better facilitate the building of a productive learning community and provide a measure for achievement of the curricular learning goals in active engagement strategies. Based on the conceptual framework, I developed and validated an instrument for measuring physics learning identity in terms of student learning preferences, self-efficacy for learning physics, and self-image as a physics learner. The instrument was pilot tested with a population of Oregon State University students taking calculus based

Community attachment, regional identity and resident attitudes toward tourism

Science.gov (United States)

Daniel R. Williams; Cary D. McDonald; Carla M. Riden; Muzaffer Uysal

1995-01-01

An important tourism policy objective is to sustain local values, culture and quality of life. Yet, faced with a decline in traditional industries such as mining, agriculture and forestry, many rural communities turn to tourism as a source of economic revitalization (Long et al., 1990). Often the culture and identity of these communities are bound up in the very...

Sustainability + Accounting Education: The Elephant in the Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Gray, Rob

2013-01-01

Despite the growing importance of sustainability and the sustainable development agenda, and despite the growing presence of papers recognising the critical interaction between sustainability and accounting and finance (and, indeed, with all social science), there has been a relatively muted response apparent within the accounting education…

Sustainability Science to Real-World Action

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Meyer, Niels I; AtKisson, Alan

2012-01-01

The Balaton Group has been responsible for the creation or accelerated development of a number of innovations in the field of sustainable development. However, to understand the history of the Balaton Group, one must begin with the history of the Club of Rome, and the report that the Club sponsored...

The potential scientist’s dilemma: How the Masculinization of Science Shapes Friendships and Science Job Preferences*

Science.gov (United States)

Gauthier, G. Robin; Hill, Patricia Wonch; McQuillan, Julia; Spiegel, Amy N.; Diamond, Judy

2017-01-01

In the United States, girls and boys have similar science achievement, yet fewer girls aspire to science careers than boys. This paradox emerges in middle school, when peers begin to play a stronger role in shaping adolescent identities. We use complete network data from a single middle school and theories of gender, identity, and social distance to explore how friendship patterns might influence this gender and science paradox. Three patterns highlight the social dimensions of gendered science persistence: (1) boys and girls do not differ in self-perceived science potential and science career aspirations; (2) consistent with gender-based norms, both middle school boys and girls report that the majority of their female friends are not science kinds of people; and (3) youth with gender-inconsistent science aspirations are more likely to be friends with each other than youth with gender normative science aspirations. Together, this evidence suggests that friendship dynamics contribute to gendered patterns in science career aspirations. PMID:28491465

Acid rain science and politics in Japan: a history of knowledge and action toward sustainability

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ken Wilkening

2004-07-01

This is a pioneering work in environmental and Asian history as well as an in-depth analysis of the influence of science on domestic and international environmental politics. The book is composed of the following chapters. Chapter 2 introduces the general set of concepts used to analyze the science-politics nexus. These concepts are employed in the remainder of the book to track and explain the relationship between science and policy related to the acid deposition problem in Japan. Chapter 3 discusses nature, culture, and the acid deposition problem in Japan. It begins with a brief introduction to the acid deposition problem in general. It continues with an overview of elements of Japan's natural environment and culture that are relevant to its acid deposition problems. This is followed by a quick sketch of the history of science in Japan, which in turn serves as a preamble for describing in the final section the environmental and acid deposition chronologies used to organize analysis of Japan's acid deposition history. The swath of history between 1868 and the present (circa 2000) is divided into five environmental eras and six acid deposition periods. Chapters 4-9 discuss in detail each of the six acid deposition periods. Chapter 10 synthesizes and summarizes what was learned in the process of analyzing Japan's acid deposition history, and draws lessons that might be applied to the challenge of creating sustainable societies in Japan, Asia, and the rest of the world. An appendix describes the present state of acid deposition science in Japan.

On the roles of science and culture in sustainable development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eriksson, K.E.

1999-01-01

Sustainable development not only involves relations between the global society ant its resource base, the ecosphere, but also relations within the global society itself. It may useful to think of sustainable development as a process with two phases. The first is transitional and involves a transition to a sustainable situation in several essential respects: population; use of natural systems, in particular atmosphere, water, productive land; supply and use of water, food, energy; international order; democracy and human development. The second phase then involves continued development within the restrictions set by the sustainable requirements

Identity, Flexibility and Sustainability for the new Social Housing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cesare Sposito

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Pubblica (lit. Public Residential Construction, undergone over the last sixty years in Italy, have brought about new lines of thought with regard to places to live. The high cost of renewal and re-functionalization of the E.R.P. areas, the absence of services, which have transformed them into dormitory suburbs, have led us to rethink new urban environments as places possessing a sense of identity, in which to provide communal services and spaces for neighborly relations. Moreover, the social, economic and political dynamics of the last few years have modified not only life styles, but also the typology of householder, ever more sensitive to the quality of product and environmental issues. This contribution discusses several principles as a point of departure for a new Social Housing.

The Impossible Sustainability of the Bay of Brest? Fifty Years of Ecosystem Changes, Interdisciplinary Knowledge Construction and Key Questions at the Science-Policy-Community Interface

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olivier Ragueneau

2018-04-01

Full Text Available In this contribution, the study of the Bay of Brest ecosystem changes over the past 50 years is used to explore the construction of interdisciplinary knowledge and raise key questions that now need to be tackled at the science-policy-communities interface. The Bay of Brest is subject to a combination of several aspects of global change, including excessive nutrient inputs from watersheds and the proliferation of invasive species. These perturbations strongly interact, affecting positively or negatively the ecosystem functioning, with important impacts on human activities. We first relate a cascade of events over these five decades, linking farming activities, nitrogen, and silicon biogeochemical cycles, hydrodynamics of the Bay, the proliferation of an exotic benthic suspension feeder, the development of the Great scallop fisheries and the high biodiversity in maerl beds. The cascade leads to today's situation where toxic phytoplankton blooms become recurrent in the Bay, preventing the fishery of the great scallop and forcing the fishermen community to switch pray and alter the maerl habitat and the benthic biodiversity it hosts, despite the many scientific alerts and the protection of this habitat. In the second section, we relate the construction of the interdisciplinary knowledge without which scientists would never have been able to describe these changes in the Bay. Interdisciplinarity construction is described, first among natural sciences (NS and then, between natural sciences and human and social sciences (HSS. We finally ask key questions at the science-policy interface regarding this unsustainable trend of the Bay: How is this possible, despite decades of joint work between scientists and fishermen? Is adaptive co-management a sufficient condition for a sustainable management of an ecosystem? How do the different groups (i.e., farmers, fishermen, scientists, environmentalists, with their diverse interests, take charge of this situation

Stronger Disciplinary Identities in Multidisciplinary Research Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Geschwind, Lars; Melin, Göran

2016-01-01

In this study, two multidisciplinary Social Sciences and Humanities research schools in Sweden have been investigated regarding disciplinary identity-making. This study investigates the meetings between different disciplines around a common thematic area of study for Ph.D. students. The Ph.D. students navigate through a complex social and…

Humanity and Sustainability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shu-Kun Lin

2011-09-01

Full Text Available So far our open access publishing company MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute has published mainly science, medicine and technology journals. To become a multidisciplinary publisher, we launched the journal Sustainability [1]. More recently, we started to run several social science journals, including Societies [2], Religions [3], Administrative Sciences [4] and Behavioral Sciences [5]. Today we published the first paper [6] of the inaugural issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787. This will be an international open access journal, publishing scholarly papers of high quality across all humanities disciplines. As a publisher, I would like to publish journals surrounding the topics of sustainability and I believe the humanities as a discipline of academic studies are very important. As a scientist, I believed science and technology will only benefit human beings. I was raised in a small village, living a very primitive life in a peasant family: no electricity, no machines, of course no TV and no refrigerator. Now, the life of my children is completely different. Even my own life has completely changed. I have witnessed very rapid changes: more and more machines are used to consume mineral resources and energy and to pollute the environment, in order to produce more and more powerful machines (we are also launching a journal titled Machines, in which the relationship between Man and machine should be an interesting topic.. Machines are more and more like human individuals consuming resources themselves (we are launching a journal titled Resources. [...

Intersections between immigration, language, identity, and emotions: a science teacher candidate's journey

Science.gov (United States)

Rivera Maulucci, Maria S.

2008-04-01

This study reports a subset of findings from a larger, ongoing study aimed at exploring interactions between teacher identity, learning, and classroom practices in a social justice teacher education program at a selective liberal arts college in New York. This case-study explores the journey of Elena, as an immigrant, a student, and a pre-service teacher candidate towards becoming a social justice educator. Elena reflects upon her school language experiences as an immigrant youth, her learning in a social justice teacher education program, and her field experiences in an international high school. The analysis spans macro-, meso-, and microlevels to explore the ways globalization, particularly immigration, as well as schooling policies for English language learners interact with aspects of Elena's core identity, particularly in school settings. The findings show some of the ways language and literacy verified and/or denied aspects of Elena's core identity; specific instances where second language proficiency was cast as power and privilege versus disadvantage according to ethnic, language, and class categorizations; and the struggles Elena, and other immigrant youth may face given the focus on English language acquisition and high stakes accountability in schools, at the expense of students' primary language proficiency and affirmation of core identity markers.

The NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence: Translating Identity Management and Cybersecurity into Scientific Collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Welch, V.

2016-12-01

Scientists care deeply about their collaborations: who is a member, who can access, produce, and correct data, and manager instruments critical to their science missions. The communities of cybersecurity and identity management professionals develop tools to support collaborations and the undertaking of trustworthy science, but there are large cultural and linguistic gaps between these communities and the scientists they service. The National Science Foundation has recently funded a NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence to help its community of projects by providing leadership and addressing the challenges of trustworthy science. A key goal of this NSF Center has been translating between the goals of the science community into requirements and risks understood by identity management and cybersecurity communities. This talk will give an update on the Center's efforts and other services it provides to the NSF community to bridge these cultures.

The Levi-Civita Tensor and Identities in Vector Analysis. Vector Field Identities. Modules and Monographs in Undergraduate Mathematics and Its Applications Project. UMAP Unit 427.

Science.gov (United States)

Yiu, Chang-li; Wilde, Carroll O.

Vector analysis is viewed to play a key role in many branches of engineering and the physical sciences. This unit is geared towards deriving identities and establishing "machinery" to make derivations a routine task. It is noted that the module is not an applications unit, but has as its primary objective the goal of providing science,…

Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Tenth World Wilderness Congress symposium; 2013, 4-10 October, Salamanca, Spain

Science.gov (United States)

Alan Watson; Stephen Carver; Zdenka Krenova; Brooke McBride

2015-01-01

The Tenth World Wilderness Congress (WILD10) met in Salamanca, Spain in 2013. The symposium on science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values was the largest of multiple symposia held in conjunction with the Congress. This symposium was organized and sponsored by the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, the Wildland Research Institute of the...

Areva and sustainable development 2003 summary report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-01-01

This document is a summary of the 2003 report on the sustainable development of the world nuclear industry leader, Areva. The 2002 report helped establish the status of Areva entities sustainable development performance and identity areas for improvement. The 2003 report presents the continuous improvement process, including accomplishments and projects initiated as well as difficulties encountered and ground yet to be covered. Two new tools support this process. The Areva Way self assessment model allows each unit to assess its own performance against the sustainable development commitments and the Areva values charter lays down ethical principles of action and rules of conduct. Over the coming months, the Group will devote considerable effort to extending the sustainable development initiative to the activities resulting from the acquisition of Alstom Transmission and Distribution operations in early 2004. (A.L.B.)

Building Trust-Based Sustainable Networks

Science.gov (United States)

2013-06-05

entities to build sustainable networks with limited resources or misbehaving entities by learning from the lessons in the social sciences. We discuss...their individuality); and ■ Misbehaving nodes in terms of environmental, economic, and social perspectives. The sustainable network concerns...equitable access to particular services which are otherwise abused by misbehaving or malicious users. Such approaches provide a fair and

The significance of soils and soil science towards realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Science.gov (United States)

Keesstra, Saskia D.; Bouma, Johan; Wallinga, Jakob; Tittonell, Pablo; Smith, Pete; Cerdà, Artemi; Montanarella, Luca; Quinton, John N.; Pachepsky, Yakov; van der Putten, Wim H.; Bardgett, Richard D.; Moolenaar, Simon; Mol, Gerben; Jansen, Boris; Fresco, Louise O.

2016-04-01

In this forum paper we discuss how soil scientists can help to reach the recently adopted UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the most effective manner. Soil science, as a land-related discipline, has important links to several of the SDGs, which are demonstrated through the functions of soils and the ecosystem services that are linked to those functions (see graphical abstract in the Supplement). We explore and discuss how soil scientists can rise to the challenge both internally, in terms of our procedures and practices, and externally, in terms of our relations with colleague scientists in other disciplines, diverse groups of stakeholders and the policy arena. To meet these goals we recommend the following steps to be taken by the soil science community as a whole: (i) embrace the UN SDGs, as they provide a platform that allows soil science to demonstrate its relevance for realizing a sustainable society by 2030; (ii) show the specific value of soil science: research should explicitly show how using modern soil information can improve the results of inter- and transdisciplinary studies on SDGs related to food security, water scarcity, climate change, biodiversity loss and health threats; (iii) take leadership in overarching system analysis of ecosystems, as soils and soil scientists have an integrated nature and this places soil scientists in a unique position; (iii) raise awareness of soil organic matter as a key attribute of soils to illustrate its importance for soil functions and ecosystem services; (iv) improve the transfer of knowledge through knowledge brokers with a soil background; (v) start at the basis: educational programmes are needed at all levels, starting in primary schools, and emphasizing practical, down-to-earth examples; (vi) facilitate communication with the policy arena by framing research in terms that resonate with politicians in terms of the policy cycle or by considering drivers, pressures and responses affecting impacts of land

An attempt of classification of theoretical approaches to national identity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Milošević-Đorđević Jasna S.

2003-01-01

Full Text Available It is compulsory that complex social concepts should be defined in different ways and approached from the perspective of different science disciplines. Therefore, it is difficult to precisely define them without overlapping of meaning with other similar concepts. This paper has made an attempt towards theoretical classification of the national identity and differentiate that concept in comparison to the other related concepts (race, ethnic group, nation, national background, authoritativeness, patriarchy. Theoretical assessments are classified into two groups: ones that are dealing with nature of national identity and others that are stating one or more dimensions of national identity, crucial for its determination. On the contrary to the primordialistic concept of national identity, describing it as a fundamental, deeply rooted human feature, there are many numerous contemporary theoretical approaches (instrumentalist, constructivist, functionalistic, emphasizing changeable, fluid, instrumentalist function of the national identity. Fundamental determinants of national identity are: language, culture (music, traditional myths, state symbols (territory, citizenship, self-categorization, religion, set of personal characteristics and values.

Sustainable NREL: From Integration to Innovation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

2015-09-01

NREL's sustainability practices are integrated throughout the laboratory and are essential to our mission to develop clean energy and energy efficiency technologies and practices, advance related science and engineering, and provide knowledge and innovations to integrate energy systems at all scales. Sustainability initiatives are integrated through our campus, our staff, and our environment allowing NREL to provide leadership in modeling a sustainability energy future for companies, organizations, governments, and communities.

The Potential Scientist’s Dilemma: How the Masculine Framing of Science Shapes Friendships and Science Job Aspirations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Robin Gauthier

2017-02-01

Full Text Available In the United States, girls and boys have similar science achievement, yet fewer girls aspire to science careers than boys. This paradox emerges in middle school, when peers begin to play a stronger role in shaping adolescent identities. We use complete network data from a single middle school and theories of gender, identity, and social distance to explore how friendship patterns might influence this gender and science paradox. Three patterns highlight the social dimensions of gendered science persistence: (1 boys and girls do not differ in self-perceived science potential and science career aspirations; (2 consistent with gender-based norms, both middle school boys and girls report that the majority of their female friends are not science kinds of people; and (3 youth with gender-inconsistent science aspirations are more likely to be friends with each other than youth with gender normative science aspirations. Together, this evidence suggests that friendship dynamics contribute to gendered patterns in science career aspirations.

A Sustainable Energy Laboratory Course for Non-Science Majors

Science.gov (United States)

Nathan, Stephen A.; Loxsom, Fred

2016-01-01

Sustainable energy is growing in importance as the public becomes more aware of climate change and the need to satisfy our society's energy demands while minimizing environmental impacts. To further this awareness and to better prepare a workforce for "green careers," we developed a sustainable energy laboratory course that is suitable…

Exploring Corn-Ethanol As A Complex Problem To Teach Sustainability Concepts Across The Science-Business-Liberal Arts Curriculum

Science.gov (United States)

Oches, E. A.; Szymanski, D. W.; Snyder, B.; Gulati, G. J.; Davis, P. T.

2012-12-01

The highly interdisciplinary nature of sustainability presents pedagogic challenges when sustainability concepts are incorporated into traditional disciplinary courses. At Bentley University, where over 90 percent of students major in business disciplines, we have created a multidisciplinary course module centered on corn ethanol that explores a complex social, environmental, and economic problem and develops basic data analysis and analytical thinking skills in several courses spanning the natural, physical, and social sciences within the business curriculum. Through an NSF-CCLI grant, Bentley faculty from several disciplines participated in a summer workshop to define learning objectives, create course modules, and develop an assessment plan to enhance interdisciplinary sustainability teaching. The core instructional outcome was a data-rich exercise for all participating courses in which students plot and analyze multiple parameters of corn planted and harvested for various purposes including food (human), feed (animal), ethanol production, and commodities exchanged for the years 1960 to present. Students then evaluate patterns and trends in the data and hypothesize relationships among the plotted data and environmental, social, and economic drivers, responses, and unintended consequences. After the central data analysis activity, students explore corn ethanol production as it relates to core disciplinary concepts in their individual classes. For example, students in Environmental Chemistry produce ethanol using corn and sugar as feedstocks and compare the efficiency of each process, while learning about enzymes, fermentation, distillation, and other chemical principles. Principles of Geology students examine the effects of agricultural runoff on surface water quality associated with extracting greater agricultural yield from mid-continent croplands. The American Government course examines the role of political institutions, the political process, and various

Managing Natural Resources for Sustainable Livelihoods: Uniting ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

2003-07-31

Jul 31, 2003 ... Management of local resources has a greater chance of a ... Managing Natural Resources for Sustainable Livelihoods: Uniting Science and Participation ... innovative approaches for establishing and sustaining participation and ... A new IDRC-supported project will help improve water conservation and ...

TERENA eScience PKI

Science.gov (United States)

Sova, Milan

Several National Research and Education Networks associated in TERENA have joined their efforts to build a shared PKI able to serve potentially millions of users from their constituency. The TCS eScience Personal CA takes advantage of national identity federations to facilitate user identity vetting and enrollment procedures. The system uses identity management systems (IdMS) at participating institutions to perform the functions of registration authorities. The certificate enrollment application acts as a SAML Service Provider relying on information provided by IdMS performing as SAML Identity Providers (IdP). When applying for a personal certificate, users authenticate at their home IdP using credentials they normally use to access local services. The IdP controls the certificate issuance process by releasing SAML attributes specifying the user's eligibility for the service and the information to be included in the certificate such as the user's name and email address. The TCS eScience Personal CA is part of the TERENA Certificate Service that uses a commercial PKI provider. Outsourcing the actual CA machinery to a specialized company results in professional-level services such as CRL and OCSP management. The paper describes the legal, organizational and technical aspects of the TCS eScience PKI.

The UNCCD Science-Policy Interface (SPI) - Exploring the sustainable land management nexus among the Rio Conventions

Science.gov (United States)

Safriel, Uriel; Akhtar-Schuster, Mariam; Abraham, Elena Maria; Cowie, Annette; Daradur, Mihail; de Vente, Joris; Dema Dorji, Karma; Kust, German; Metternicht, Graciela; Orr, Barron; Pietragalla, Vanina

2015-04-01

At its 11th meeting in Windhoek/Namibia, in September 2013, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Conference of the Parties (COP) decided to establish a Science-Policy Interface (SPI)* (decision 23/COP.11). The goal of the SPI is to facilitate a two-way dialogue between scientists and policy makers in order to ensure the delivery of policy-relevant information, knowledge and advice on desertification/land degradation and drought (DLDD). The SPI established several initial objectives, including working with the scientific community to bring to the UNCCD and the other Rio conventions (climate change and biodiversity) the scientific evidence for the contribution of sustainable land use and management to climate change adaptation/mitigation and to safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystem services. *For more on the SPI see: http://www.unccd.int/en/programmes/Science/International-Scientific-Advice/Pages/SPI.aspx?HighlightID=282

How do psychiatrists in India construct their professional identity? A critical literature review

Science.gov (United States)

Bayetti, Clement; Jadhav, Sushrut; Deshpande, Smita N.

2017-01-01

Psychiatric practice in India is marked by an increasing gulf between largely urban-based mental health professionals and a majority rural population. Based on the premise that any engagement is a mutually constructed humane process, an understanding of the culture of psychiatry including social process of local knowledge acquisition by trainee psychiatrists is critical. This paper reviews existing literature on training of psychiatrists in India, the cultural construction of their professional identities and autobiographical reflections. The results reveal a scarcity of research on how identities, knowledge, and values are constructed, contested, resisted, sustained, and operationalized through practice. This paper hypothesizes that psychiatric training and practice in India continues to operate chiefly in an instrumental fashion and bears a circular relationship between cultural, hierarchical training structures and patient–carer concerns. The absence of interpretative social science training generates a professional identity that predominantly focuses on the patient and his/her social world as the site of pathology. Infrequent and often superfluous critical cultural reflexivity gained through routine clinical practice further alienates professionals from patients, caregivers, and their own social landscapes. This results in a peculiar brand of theory and practice that is skewed toward a narrow understanding of what constitutes suffering. The authors argue that such omissions could be addressed through nuanced ethnographies on the professional development of psychiatrists during postgraduate training, including the political economies of their social institutions and local cultural landscapes. Further research will also help enhance culturally sensitive epistemology and shape locally responsive mental health training programs. This is critical for majority rural Indians who place their trust in State biomedical care. PMID:28529358

Developing a Reform-Minded Science Teaching Identity: The Role of Informal Science Environments

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Avraamidou, Lucy

2014-01-01

Recommendations for reform in science education around the world set high goals for beginning elementary teachers. Concurrently, existing literature indicates a number of challenges that beginning elementary teachers face. In this paper an argument is put forward about the integration of informal science environments in elementary teacher…

Voice similarity in identical twins.

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Van Gysel, W D; Vercammen, J; Debruyne, F

2001-01-01

If people are asked to discriminate visually the two individuals of a monozygotic twin (MT), they mostly get into trouble. Does this problem also exist when listening to twin voices? Twenty female and 10 male MT voices were randomly assembled with one "strange" voice to get voice trios. The listeners (10 female students in Speech and Language Pathology) were asked to label the twins (voices 1-2, 1-3 or 2-3) in two conditions: two standard sentences read aloud and a 2.5-second midsection of a sustained /a/. The proportion correctly labelled twins was for female voices 82% and 63% and for male voices 74% and 52% for the sentences and the sustained /a/ respectively, both being significantly greater than chance (33%). The acoustic analysis revealed a high intra-twin correlation for the speaking fundamental frequency (SFF) of the sentences and the fundamental frequency (F0) of the sustained /a/. So the voice pitch could have been a useful characteristic in the perceptual identification of the twins. We conclude that there is a greater perceptual resemblance between the voices of identical twins than between voices without genetic relationship. The identification however is not perfect. The voice pitch possibly contributes to the correct twin identifications.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE. Profiling risk and sustainability in coastal deltas of the world.

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Tessler, Z D; Vörösmarty, C J; Grossberg, M; Gladkova, I; Aizenman, H; Syvitski, J P M; Foufoula-Georgiou, E

2015-08-07

Deltas are highly sensitive to increasing risks arising from local human activities, land subsidence, regional water management, global sea-level rise, and climate extremes. We quantified changing flood risk due to extreme events using an integrated set of global environmental, geophysical, and social indicators. Although risks are distributed across all levels of economic development, wealthy countries effectively limit their present-day threat by gross domestic product-enabled infrastructure and coastal defense investments. In an energy-constrained future, such protections will probably prove to be unsustainable, raising relative risks by four to eight times in the Mississippi and Rhine deltas and by one-and-a-half to four times in the Chao Phraya and Yangtze deltas. The current emphasis on short-term solutions for the world's deltas will greatly constrain options for designing sustainable solutions in the long term. Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Towards Farm Animal Welfare and Sustainability.

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Buller, Henry; Blokhuis, Harry; Jensen, Per; Keeling, Linda

2018-05-25

As farm animal welfare becomes an increasingly important component of contemporary global livestock production, animal welfare science and animal welfare policy-making need to find new ways of entering global debates over food security and sustainability. In this paper, we explore the means by which both animal welfare science and policy should articulate with these emerging global debates. Having first established the important gains in animal welfare policy and the maturity of animal welfare science, we identify and explore the potential impact of these current debates and argue that they have the potential for profound change in our understanding of, and our response to, the welfare of animals. We conclude the paper with a number of possible recommendations for how a scientifically informed, sustainable animal welfare policy might flourish.

Young Women's Scientific Identity Formation in an Urban Context.

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Brickhouse, Nancy W.; Potter, Jennifer T.

2001-01-01

Examines the scientific identity formation of two young women of color who attended an urban vocational high school. Describes how the experience of marginalization can make membership in a science school community impossible or undesirable. (Author/MM)

Governance for sustainability

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D.A. Loorbach (Derk)

2007-01-01

textabstractSustainable development is rapidly moving from the periphery to the mainstream of politics, business, and science. Over the past several years, a strong consensus has started to emerge that some of the major global problems can only be overcome through large-scale concerted action.

Science Partnerships for a Sustainable Arctic: the Marine Mammal Nexus (Invited)

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Moore, S. E.

2010-12-01

Marine mammals are both icons of Arctic marine ecosystems and fundamental to Native subsistence nutrition and culture. Eight species are endemic to the Pacific Arctic, including the polar bear, walrus, ice seals (4 species), beluga and bowhead whales. Studies of walrus and bowheads have been conducted over the past 30 years, to estimate population size and elucidate patterns of movement and abundance. With regard to the three pillars of the SEARCH program, these long-term OBSERVATIONS provide a foundation for research seeking to UNDERSTAND and RESPOND to the effects of rapid climate change on the marine ecosystem. Specifically, research on the coastal ecosystem near Barrow, Alaska focuses on late-summer feeding habitat for bowheads in an area where whales are hunted in autumn. This work is a partnership among agency, academic and local scientists and the residents of Barrow, all of whom seek to better UNDERSTAND how recent dramatic changes in sea ice, winds and offshore industrial activities influence whale movements and behavior. In regard to RESPONDING to climate change, the nascent Sea Ice for Walrus Outlook (SIWO) is a science partnership that projects sea ice and wind conditions for five villages in the Bering Strait region. The objective of the SIWO is to provide information on physical conditions in the marine environment at spatial and temporal scales relevant to walrus hunters. Marine mammals are a strong and dynamic nexus for partnerships among scientists, Arctic residents, resource managers and the general public - as such, they are essential elements to any science plan for a sustainable Arctic.

Consumer perception of sustainability attributes in organic and local food.

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Annunziata, Azzurra; Angela, Mariani

2017-12-14

about the social and environmental benefits of organic and local consumption, beyond health and quality aspects, by promoting communication strategies aimed at creating a sense of belonging and self-identity in the change process towards sustainability. While consumers in the second cluster could be more informed about the additional social and economic benefits of organic and local consumption, that goes beyond the still perceived environmental benefits. The strategic focus should be on attracting interest on the sense of belonging to the local community, in order to further promoting the short supply chain as models based on community building relationships and processes, that hold people to place and shared responsibility. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the increasing demand for more sustainable food products needs to be coupled with the development and adoption of innovations. In this regards, several patents have been registered for biopesticides/insecticides and bioactive agricultural products. However, more scientific evidence of higher yields and other benefits and enabling measures that support farmers are required to broaden adoption of innovation for sustainable agro-food production. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

Narrative reflective practice in medical education for residents: composing shifting identities.

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Clandinin, Jean; Cave, Marie Thérèse; Cave, Andrew

2011-01-01

As researchers note, medical educators need to create situations to work with physicians in training to help them attend to the development of their professional identities. While there is a call for such changes to be included in medical education, educational approaches that facilitate attention to the development of medical students' professional identities, that is, who they are and who they are becoming as physicians, are still under development. One pedagogical strategy involves narrative reflective practice as a way to develop physician identity. Using this approach, medical residents first write narrative accounts of their experiences with patients in what are called "parallel charts". They then engage in a collaborative narrative inquiry within a sustained inquiry group of other residents and two researcher/facilitators (one physician, one narrative researcher). Preliminary studies of this approach are underway. Drawing on the experiences of one medical resident in one such inquiry group, we show how this pedagogical strategy enables attending to physician identity making.

Towards transdisciplinarity in Arctic sustainability knowledge co-production: Socially-Oriented Observations as a participatory integrated activity

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Vlasova, Tatiana; Volkov, Sergey

2016-09-01

The paper is an attempt to tie together main biogeophysical and social science projects under the auspice of interdisciplinary sustainability science development. Special attention is put to the necessity of the transdisciplinary knowledge co-production based on activities and problem-solutions approaches. It puts attention to the role of monitoring activities in sustainability interdisciplinary science and transdisciplinary knowledge evolution in the Arctic. Socially focused monitoring named Socially-Oriented Observations creating a transdisciplinary space is viewed as one of sources of learning and transformations towards sustainability making possible to shape rapid changes happening in the Arctic based on sustainability knowledge co-production. Continuous Socially-Oriented Observations integrating scientific, education and monitoring methods enables to define adaptation and transformation pathways in the Arctic - the most rapidly changing region of our planet. Socially-Oriented Observations are based on the existing and developing interdisciplinary scientific approaches emerged within natural science and social science projects, sustainable development and resilience concepts putting principle attention to building sustainable and resilient socio-ecological systems. It is argued that the Arctic sustainability science is a valuable component of the whole and broader system of the Arctic Sustainability knowledge co-produced with the help of transdisciplinary approaches integrating science, local/traditional knowledge, entrepreneurship, education, decision-making. Socially-Oriented Observations are designed to be a transdisciplinary interactive continuous participatory process empowering deliberate choices of people that can shape the changes and enable transformation towards sustainability. Approaches of Socially-Oriented Observations and methods of implementation that have been developed since the IPY 2007/2008 and being practiced in different regions of the

Just like My Nanny: Troubling Teacher's Social Identities in the Classroom

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Tan, Edna

2013-01-01

Teacher-researcher narrative accounts are essential and insightful for the science education field, yet they are few and far-between. In this forum, I engage in dialogue with Nicole Grimes's auto-ethnographic narrative on the affordances her femme-Caribbean identity allowed for some students to engage more deeply in science. While I agree with and…

L’IDENTITÉ: DE LA SOCIOLOGIE AUX SCIENCES SOCIALES / LA IDENTIDAD: DE LA SOCIOLOGÍA A LAS CIENCIAS SOCIALES / IDENTITY: FROM SOCIOLOGY TO SOCIAL SCIENCES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yasmine Alaoui

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The main objective of this paper is to explore the notion of identity from different angles: ethnography, sociology, psychology, psychoanalysis, anthropology, geography and urbanism. The aim of this article is not to list the aspects of identity exhaustively, but to give an overview of the main areas that have dealt with territorial identity and propose a typology ranging from personal identity to the territorial identity through the individual and the collective. At the genesis of this paper many questions: What does one mean by identity? What is the relation between identity and territory and can it be a lever of territorial attractiveness? The desire to develop this notion has been spiced up by the sense of urgency manifested by the majority of territories in the continuous search for the valorization of their suffering identity of the”disease" of the century: globalization.