Having fun outside : teaching and learning science through the environment

Examines how some Victorian Schools have incorporated both science and environmental education into their programs through the Science in Schools Research Project. Development of environmental science education in two primary schools; Conceptualizations of science teaching and learning in schools.

Informing decision-making in libraries: informetric research as input to LIS education and practice.(Library and Information Science).

Findings from informetric research represent an important background resource to add to the mix of information useful for resolving difficult and ongoing problems in specific library environments or information service settings. This paper provides examples of informetric research that can be useful input to decision-making in the field of library management and information service provision. This overview takes four of the challenges that Michael Buckland outlined for library research as a way of guiding the discussion of ways that informetric work can be used to inform library decision-making. (1) References are made to relevant informetric work undertaken or conducted in Australia, by Australian researchers, or with Australian data.

Informetrics includes both quantitative and qualitative methods, which when used in combination can provide a rounded set of findings that has great validity for management, policy and service applications. Quantitative methodologies are generally based on bibliometric techniques, such as mining and analysis of data from various bibliographic and textual databases. Qualitative methods include survey, case study and historical approaches. Used in combination, each set of findings adds richness and other perspectives to an analysis.

Developing a rural and regional science challenge to utilise community and industry-based partnerships

Interest and participation in science in schools has been declining for many years and there is a genuine need to rejuvenate interest in science at the high school level. One possible solution is the completion of challenging science projects which fulfill an authentic purpose in the community. This paper discusses the results of ongoing research into the establishment of a rural and regional Science Challenge which makes use of partnerships with local industries and community groups to encourage the development of authentic science projects. In the development of the Science Challenge, many issues are emerging in relation to teachers' work, resources, administration and school cultures. This paper reports on the preliminary findings and indicates directions for the future.

Developing a science challenge to support partnerships and pedagogy in rural and regional science

In 2007 the researchers decided to investigate the development of a “science challenge” as a means of engaging students in science. They wanted to ensure that whatever was developed was sustainable, addressed the needs of students and provided some answers for the dilemma of equitable education in regional and rural areas. A literature search indicated that whilst science competitions were not new, one which was based on schoolcommunity partnerships and involved students in the solving of real problems, was quite different. This paper will report on the development of the science challenge with reference to the viewpoints of teachers, community and industry participants.

Beyond the analogon; the "transfer of the referent" : the relationship between the external world experienced through culturally generated perceptual models constructed in the human mind, and the transfer of these images, via visual language, onto referen

Within 20th. Century art, the concept of the ‘normative’ image, as an attribute of things, has been challenged. As a consequence, paintings must now picture the ‘real’ world in other ways, incorporating knowledge and meaning beyond the analogon. Such descriptive representations were revealed as paradigmatic, rather than incontrovertible fact. Dependent on pre-conceived notions of stereotypicality, these descriptive images relied on surface illumination. My thesis explores images of things in the world as culturally inspired and information based. I examine paintings and sculptures of other cultures, such as black African, and other historical periods such as the Medieval, which reveal metonymously the basis for variations in representations of the ‘real’ world. The new enhanced representations which Modern artists created in their work were denigrated as deviant from the absolute ‘normative’ or regarded as distortions for purely mannerist and stylistic reasons. Postmodern research has reassessed them as multiple or extended imagings in whose facture new knowledge and human responses can be incorporated. These new forms of representation can be regarded as theoretical constructs rather than stylised depictions of appearance. In this way referents are transferred through the mind onto objects and vistas in the real world to align with our developed view of the physical world and better our understanding of humanity’s symbiotic relationship with nature.