Literacy, place-based pedagogies and social justice

Our long-term program of research has considered the relationships between teachers’ work and identities, literacy pedagogies and schooling, particularly in high-poverty communities. Over the past decade, we have worked with teachers to consciously explore with them the possible productive synergies between critical literacy and place-based pedagogies, and the affordances of multimodal and digital literacies for students’ engagement with the places where they live and learn. These studies have been undertaken with teachers working and living in various locales—from the urban fringe to inner suburban areas undergoing urban renewal, to rural and regional communities where poverty and the politics of place bring certain distinctive opportunities and constraints to bear on pedagogy for social justice. There is now wider recognition that “social justice” may need rethinking to foreground the nonhuman world and the relation between people and politics of places, people, and environments in terms of “eco-social justice” (Green 2010; Gruenewald 2003b) or spatial justice (Soja 2011). In this chapter, we explore place as a site of knowing and as an object of study as developed through the Special Forever project by teachers in schools located in the Murray-Darling Basin bioregion. Putting the environment at the center of the literacy curriculum inevitably draws teachers into the politics of place and raises questions concerning what is worth preserving and what should be transformed. We consider how the politics of place both constrains and opens up possibilities for pedagogy for eco-social justice and review the pedagogical work that one teacher, Hannah, undertook with her upper primary class.

Curiosity to cupboard : self reported disengagement with energy use feedback over time

This paper discusses findings made during a study of energy use feedback in the home (eco-feedback), well after the novelty has worn off. Contributing towards four important knowledge gaps in the research, we explore eco-feedback over longer time scales, focusing on instances where the feedback was not of lasting benefit to users rather than when it was. Drawing from 23 semi-structured interviews with Australian householders, we found that an initially high level of engagement gave way over time to disinterest, neglect and in certain cases, technical malfunction. Additionally, preconceptions concerned with the “purpose” of the feedback were found to affect use. We propose expanding the scope of enquiry for eco-feedback in several ways, and describe how eco-feedback that better supports decision-making in the “maintenance phase”, i.e. once the initial novelty has worn off, may be key to longer term engagement.

Fiction as a form of change : a paper overview of a literature panel discussion

It is well established that literary work can promote insights that result in future change, whether on a personal or an institutional level. As Umberto Eco (1989) notes, the act of reading does not stop with the artist but continues into the work of communities. The papers delivered in this panel consider the regenerative role of literature within culture, arguing that the special properties of literature can convey an important sense of nature (Bateson 1973, Zapf 2008). These concepts are discussed in relation to writing about Australian flora and fauna. Using an ecocritical focus based on ideas about the relationship between literature and the environment the paper considers Australian works and the way in which literature enlivens this complex intersection between humans, animals and the environment. This engagement is investigated through three modes: the philosophical, the literary, and the practical. The novels discussed include Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria, Richard Flanagan’s Wanting, and Sonya Hartnett’s Forest, as well as a range of fictional and non-fictional works that describe the Blue Mountains region in New South Wales. The paper closes with a discussion of the role of story-telling as a way of introducing the public to specific environmental locations and issues.

Visible light photocatalysts for synthesis of fine organic chemicals on supported nanostructures

This thesis is focus on developing new photocatalysts for synthesis of fine organic chemicals on supported nanostructures. These photocatalysts can facilitate reactions by using visible light, moderate temperature and atmospheric pressure which is suitable for a sustainable, green and eco-friendly modern chemical industry. Both Semiconductor Photocatalyst and Noble Metal Photocatalysts are designed to facilitate the homocouplings reaction of imine generation by amines.

Pathway to sustainability : the Lady Elliot Island hybrid solar power station

The Lady Elliot Island eco-resort, on the Great Barrier Reef, operates with a strong sustainability ethic, and has broken away from its reliance on diesel generators, an initiative which has ongoing and substantial economic benefit. The first step was an energy audit that led to a 35% reduction in energy usage, to an average of 575 kWh per day. The eco-resort then commissioned a hybrid solar power station, in 2008, with energy storage in battery banks. Solar power is currently (2013) providing about 160 kWh of energy per day, and the eco-resort’s diesel fuel usage has decreased from 550 to 100 litres per day, enabling the power station to pay for itself in 3 years. The eco-resort plans to complete its transition to renewable energy by 2015, by installing additional solar panels, and a 10-15 kW wind turbine. This paper starts by discussing why the eco-resort chose a hybrid solar power station to transition to renewable energy, and the barriers to change. It then describes the power station, upgrades through to 2013, the power control system, the problems that were solved to realise the potential of a facility operating in a harsh and remote environment, and its performance. The paper concludes by outlining other eco-resort sustainability practices, including education and knowledge-sharing initiatives, and monitoring the island’s environmental and ecological condition.

Last word : opportunity to educate

The article discusses the importance that learning to live sustainably in order to provide healthy and fulfilling lives for future generations. The things that need to be done differently and the innovative partnerships that are required are highlighted.

Productivism, culture and the challenges of sustainable beef production in Australia

Beef has become an important part of the South Korean diet. Rapid modernization and economic development since the 1960s has led to an increase in meat consumption, especially beef. Indeed, per capita beef consumption per year increased from 0.5kg in 1960 to 8.8kg in 2010, representing an 18-fold increase. The increasing demand for beef in Korea has been met by the development of intensive domestic meat production systems, along with a sharp increase in imports from meat exporting countries, most importantly Australia and the US.

Silk purse, sow’s ear : transforming second-Hand clothing into luxury fashion through craft practice

There is more apparel being created than ever before in history. The unsustainable production of materials and the clothing and textile waste that contributes annually to landfill, an estimated 500 000 tonnes of clothing per year in the UK (Gray, 2012) are significant issues inspiring the practice of Australian fashion designers, Carla van Lunn and Carla Binotto. While the contemporary fashion industry is built upon a production and consumption model that is younger than the industrial revolution, the traditions of costume, craft, and bodily adornment are ancient practices. Binotto and van Lunn believe that the potential for sustainable fashion practice lies outside the current industrial manufacturing model. This case study will discuss their fashion label, Maison Briz Vegas, and examine how recycling and traditional craft practices can be used to address the problem of clothing waste and offer an alternative idea of value in fashion and materials, addressing the indicative conference theme, Craft as Sustainability Activism in Practice. “Maison Briz Vegas”, a play on the notion of French luxury and the designers’ new world and sub-tropical home town, Brisbane, is an experimental and craft-based fashion label that uses second-hand cotton T-shirts and wool sweaters as primary materials to create designer fashion. The first collection, titled “The Wasteland”, was conceived and created in Paris in 2011, where designer Carla van Lunn had been living and working for several years. The collection was inspired by the precariousness of the global economy and concerns about climate change. The mountains of discarded clothing found at flea markets provided a textile resource from which van Lunn created a recycled hand-crafted fashion collection with an activist message and was shown to buyers and press during Paris Fashion Week. The label has since become a collaboration with fellow Australian designer Carla Binotto. The craft processes employed in Maison Briz Vegas’ up-cycled fashion collections include original hand block-printing, hand embroidery, quilting and patchwork. Taking an artisanal and slow approach, the designers work to create a hand touched imperfect style in a fashion market flooded with digital printing and fast mass-produced garments. The recycling extends to garment fastenings and embellishments, with discarded jar lids and bottle tops being used as buttons and within embroidery. This process transforms the material and aesthetic value of cheap and generic second-hand clothing and household waste. Maison Briz Vegas demonstrates the potential for craft and design to be an interface for environmental activism within the world of fashion. Presenting garments that are both high-design and thoughtfully recycled in a significant fashion context, such as Paris Fashion Week, Maison Briz Vegas has been able to engage a high-profile luxury fashion audience which has not traditionally considered sustainable or eco practices as relevant or desirable in themselves. The designers are studying how to apply their production model on a greater scale in order to fill commercial orders and reach a wider audience whilst maintaining the element of bespoke, limited edition, and slow hand-craft within their work.

The importance of use and end-of-life phases to the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of concrete : a review

Global climate change is one of the most significant environmental impacts at the moment. One central issue for the building and construction industry to address global climate change is the development of credible carbon labelling schemes for building materials. Various carbon labelling schemes have been developed for concrete due to its high contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, as most carbon labelling schemes adopt cradle-to-gate as system boundary, the credibility of the eco-label information may not be satisfactory because recent studies show that the use and end-of-life phases can have a significant impact on the life cycle GHG emissions of concrete in terms of carbonation, maintenance and rehabilitation, other indirect emissions, and recycling activities. A comprehensive review on the life cycle assessment of concrete is presented to holistically examine the importance of use and end-of-life phases to the life cycle GHG quantification of concrete. The recent published ISO 14067: Carbon footprint of products – requirements and guidelines for quantification and communication also mandates the use of cradle-to-grave to provide publicly available eco-label information when the use and end-of-life phases of concrete can be appropriately simulated. With the support of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and other simulation technologies, the contribution of use and end-of-life phases to the life cycle GHG emissions of concrete should not be overlooked in future studies.

Emerging Opportunities for "Design Thinking" to Deliver Sustainable Solutions in the Built Environment

In the built environment sector, a range of innovations are delivering environmental improvements with mixed success worldwide. The authors of this paper argue that a more “disruptive” form of innovation is needed to bring about significant and systemic change within the sector. Critical to this transition is the development of new behaviours and values. In particular, built environment professionals need to become active change agents in cultivating these new behaviours and values through the development of collaborative visions, scenarios, practices, and ideas. This paper identifies and discusses the critical role that design (in its broadest sense) can play in this process. Drawing on a comprehensive review of literature, the authors highlight a number of transformational opportunities for cross professional learning and sharing between design and built environment disciplines in achieving environmental innovation (eco-innovation). The paper also considers several design-based concepts that have a potential application in the built environment sector including: design thinking, social innovation (human-centered), and disruptive innovation (transformational) approaches. The research findings will assist in building the capabilities of designers and innovators to create sustainable solutions to global problems, and in supporting the social diffusion of systems-changing ideas in the built environment sector.

The burning season

"Every year deliberately lit fires rage across Indonesia. They destroy pristine rainforest, endanger orangutans and contribute to climate change. A young carbon trading entrepreneur goes in search of a solution." "Dorjee Sun, a young Australian Entrepreneur, believes there's money to be made from protecting rainforests in Indonesia, saving the orangutan from extinction and making a real impact on climate change. Armed with a laptop and a backpack, he sets out across the globe to find investors in his carbon trading scheme. It is a battle against time. Achmadi, the palm oil farmer is ready to set fire to his land to plant more palm oil, and Lone's orangutan centre has reached crisis point with over 600 orangutans rescued from the fires. The Burning Season is an eco-thriller about a young man not afraid to confront the biggest challenge of our time."

UNICEF, Jakarta, Indonesia : Review of Satap Schools

A. Background and context 1. Education, particularly basic education (grades1-9), has been considered critical to promoting national economic growth and social well being1. Three factors that con-tribute to the above are: (i) Education increases human capital inherent in a labor force and thus increases productivity. It also increases capacity for working with others and builds community consensus to support national development. (ii) Education can in-crease the innovative capacity of a community to support social and economic growth—use of new technologies, products and services to promote growth and wellbeing. (iii) Education can facilitate knowledge transfer needed to understand the social and eco-nomic innovations and new processes, practices and values. Cognizant of the above benefits of education, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the Education for All (EFA) declarations advocating universal basic education were formulated and ratified by UN member countries. 2. Achieving universal primary education (grade 6) may not be sufficient to maxim-ize the above noted socio-economic and cultural benefits. There is general consensus that basic literacy and numeracy up to grade 9 are essential foundational blocks for any good education system to support national development. Basic Education provides an educational achievement threshold that ensures the learning is retained. To achieve this, the donor partner led interventions and the UN declarations such as the MDG goals have sought universal access to basic education (grades 1-9). As many countries progress towards achieving the universal access targets, recent research evidence suggests that we need more than just access to basic education to impact on the na-tional development. Measuring basic education completion cycle, gross enrolment rate (GER) and participation rate etc., has to now include a focus on quality and relevance of the education2. 3. While the above research finding is generally accepted by the Government of In-donesia (GoI), unlike many other developing countries, Indonesia is geographically and linguistically complex and has the fourth largest education sector in the world. It has over 3000 islands, 17,000 ethnic groups and it takes as long as 7 hours to travel from east to west of the country and has multiple time differences. The education system has six years of primary education (grades 1-6), 3 years of junior secondary education (grades 7-9) and three years of senior secondary education (grades 10-12). Therefore, applying the findings of the above cited research in a country like Indonesia is a chal-lenge. Nevertheless, since the adoption of the National Education Law (2003)3 the GoI has made significant progress in improving access to and quality of basic education (grades 1-9). The 2011/12 national education statistics show the primary education (grades 1-6) completion rate was 99.3%, the net enrolment rate (NER) was 95.4% and the GER was 115.4%. This is a significant achievement considering the complexities faced within Indonesia. This increase in the primary education sub-sector, however, has not flowed onto the Junior Secondary School (JSS) education. The transition from pri-mary to JSS is still short of the GoI targets. In 2012, there were 146,826 primary schools feeding into 33,668 junior secondary schools. The transition rate from primary to secondary in 2011/12 was 78%. When considering district or sub-district level data the transition in poor districts could be less than the aggregated national rate. Poverty and lack of parents’ education, confounded by opportunity cost, are major obstacles to transitioning to JSS4. 4. Table 1 presents a summary of GoI initiatives to accelerate the transition to JSS. GoI, with assistance from the donor community, has built 2465 new regular JSS, mak-ing the total number of regular JSS 33,668. In addition, 57,825 new classrooms have been added to existing regular JSS. Also, in rural and remote areas 4136 Satu-Atap5 (SATAP) schools were built to increase access to JSS. These SATAP schools are the focus of this study as they provide education opportunities to the most marginalized, ru-ral, remote children who otherwise would not have access to JSS and consequently not complete basic education.

Moved by spirit of Canadian nature

A travel article about a visit to Klemtu and the Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia. A LOW-TIDE mark of rocks coated in orange seaweed borders the islands of the Great Bear Rainforest. Our seaplane stays low under the clouds. As we approach the village of Klemtu, turning into Finlayson Channel, the trees beneath us thicken against the shoreline like a concert crowd being pushed from behind. There's no gap between the dark, still sea and the front row of soaring conifers, seemingly no entry point into one of the last great wilderness areas.

Bluebird AR

"What is Bluebird AR? Bluebird AR was the ABC's alternate reality drama set around the leak of Bluebird, a clandestine geoengineering initiative created by eco-billionaire Harrison Wyld. Proposing a fictional scenario set against a backdrop of real world possibilities, Bluebird AR took some of the conventions of the well-established alternate reality game (ARG) genre and pulled them into the relatively new area of online drama, to create a hybrid entertainment form best described as 'participatory drama'. With Bluebird AR's interactive narrative centred on the experimental science of geoengineering, the deliberate manipulation of the Earth's atmosphere to counteract global warming, the events and characters in the Bluebird story were entirely fictional but fused with reality online. Inhabiting a mixture of third party social media spaces and websites created by the ABC, the story incorporated real online articles, scientific journals, media and debate around geoengineering. In an Australian first, ABC Innovation launched Bluebird AR on 27 April 2010, with a 6 week live phase. Audience members were invited to play collectively to help 'unlock the drama' and push forward the emerging narrative, or passively watch the story unfold in real-time across the internet. Bluebird AR subverted ARG conventions with the high quality of its production and assets, and raised the stakes for online drama with its level of audience participation." © 2014 ABC "Introduction One of the most exciting creative challenges of producing Bluebird AR was formulating the broad array of visual styles and treatments required for the project's diverse range of content. Many assets also needed to translate well not only online but across other media, including television and print. With the project's producers keen to create a visually rich narrative with high production values from the outset, inspiration for the production design for various aspects of the Bluebird story began in the earliest pitching phase in September 2008. Particular visual treatments and styles for Bluebird's characters, their web spaces and real world possessions were formulated concurrently with the creation of their profiles. Ideas around how various clues and gameplay spaces might look and feel were also explored at this early stage. Bluebird AR's small but tight creative team produced 7 website designs and brands, motion graphics for title sequences and logo animations, rotoscope animation, 3D compositing and animation, 3D wireframes and schematics, countless Photoshop composites, and a vast array of character assets for the DC (including Kyle's Bluebird Labs security pass and resignation letter, Kruger's American and Russia passports and birth certificate, Harrison's divorce papers, and more)…" © 2014 ABC

Cidade é uma palavra plural [City is a manifold word]

This text elaborates on the city as cultural construct and representation and Lisbocópio, the installation by Pancho Guedes and Ricardo Jacinto in the context of the Official Representation of Portugal at the 10. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura-La Biennale di Venezia.