Proactive and Preventive Student Welfare Activities in Finnish Preschool and Elementary School: Handling of Transition to Formal Schooling and a National Anti-Bullying Program as Examples

Prerequisites and effects of proactive and preventive psycho-social student welfare activities in Finnish preschool and elementary school were of interest in the present thesis. So far, Finnish student welfare work has mainly focused on interventions and individuals, and the voluminous possibilities to enhance well-being of all students as a part of everyday school work have not been fully exploited. Consequently, in this thesis three goals were set: (1) To present concrete examples of proactive and preventive psycho-social student welfare activities in Finnish basic education; (2) To investigate measurable positive effects of proactive and preventive activities; and (3) To investigate implementation of proactive and preventive activities in ecological contexts. Two prominent phenomena in preschool and elementary school years—transition to formal schooling and school bullying—were chosen as examples of critical situations that are appropriate targets for proactive and preventive psycho-social student welfare activities. Until lately, the procedures concerning both school transitions and school bullying have been rather problem-focused and reactive in nature. Theoretically, we lean on the bioecological model of development by Bronfenbrenner and Morris with concentric micro-, meso-, exo- and macrosystems. Data were drawn from two large-scale research projects, the longitudinal First Steps Study: Interactive Learning in the Child–Parent– Teacher Triangle, and the Evaluation Study of the National Antibullying Program KiVa. In Study I, we found that the academic skills of children from preschool–elementary school pairs that implemented several supportive activities during the preschool year developed more quickly from preschool to Grade 1 compared with the skills of children from pairs that used fewer practices. In Study II, we focused on possible effects of proactive and preventive actions on teachers and found that participation in the KiVa antibullying program influenced teachers‘ self-evaluated competence to tackle bullying. In Studies III and IV, we investigated factors that affect implementation rate of these proactive and preventive actions. In Study III, we found that principal‘s commitment and support for antibullying work has a clear-cut positive effect on implementation adherence of student lessons of the KiVa antibullying program. The more teachers experience support for and commitment to anti-bullying work from their principal, the more they report having covered KiVa student lessons and topics. In Study IV, we wanted to find out why some schools implement several useful and inexpensive transition practices, whereas other schools use only a few of them. We were interested in broadening the scope and looking at local-level (exosystem) qualities, and, in fact, the local-level activities and guidelines, along with teacherreported importance of the transition practices, were the only factors significantly associated with the implementation rate of transition practices between elementary schools and partner preschools. Teacher- and school-level factors available in this study turned out to be mostly not significant. To summarize, the results confirm that school-based promotion and prevention activities may have beneficial effects not only on students but also on teachers. Second, various top-down processes, such as engagement at the level of elementary school principals or local administration may enhance implementation of these beneficial activities. The main message is that when aiming to support the lives of children the primary focus should be on adults. In future, promotion of psychosocial well-being and the intrinsic value of inter- and intrapersonal skills need to be strengthened in the Finnish educational systems. Future research efforts in student welfare and school psychology, as well as focused training for psychologists in educational contexts, should be encouraged in the departments of psychology and education in Finnish universities. Moreover, a specific research centre for school health and well-being should be established.

Solar Twins and Solar Analogues in Galactic Surveys.

The Sun is a crucial benchmark for how we see the universe. Especially when it comes to the visible range of the spectrum, stars are commonly compared to the Sun, as it is the most thoroughly studied star. In this work I have focussed on two aspects of the Sun and how it is used in modern astronomy. Firstly, I try to answer the question on how similar to the Sun another star can be. Given the limits of observations, we call a solar twin a star that has the same observed parameters as the Sun within its errors. These stars can be used as stand-in suns when doing observations, as normal night-time telescopes are not built to be pointed at the Sun. There have been many searches for these twins and every one of them provided not only information on how close to the Sun another star can be, but also helped us to understand the Sun itself. In my work I have selected _ 300 stars that are both photometrically and spectroscopically close to the Sun and found 22 solar twins, of which 17 were previously unknown and can therefore help the emerging picture on solar twins. In my second research project I have used my full sample of 300 solar analogue stars to check the temperature and metallicity scale of stellar catalogue calibrations. My photometric sample was originally drawn from the Geneva-Copenhagen-Survey (Nordström et al. 2004; Holmberg et al. 2007, 2009) for which two alternative calibrations exist, i.e. GCS-III (Holmberg et al. 2009) and C11 (Casagrande et al. 2011). I used very high resolution spectra of solar analogues, and a new approach to test the two calibrations. I found a zero–point shift of order of +75 K and +0.10 dex in effective temperature and metallicity, respectively, in the GCS-III and therefore favour the C11 calibration, which found similar offsets. I then performed a spectroscopic analysis of the stars to derive effective temperatures and metallicities, and tested that they are well centred around the solar values.

Large scale solar power plant flat roof and carport installation in Finland

This work focuses on the 159.5 kW solar photovoltaic power plant project installed at the Lappeenranta University of Technology in 2013 as an example of what a solar plant project could be in Finland. The project consists of a two row carport and a flat roof installation on the roof of the university laboratories. The purpose of this project is not only its obvious energy savings potential but also to serve as research and teaching laboratory tool. By 2013, there were not many large scale solar power plants in Finland. For this reason, the installation and data experience from the solar power plant at LUT has brought valuable information for similar projects in northern countries. This work includes a first part for the design and acquisition of the project to continue explaining about the components and their installation. At the end, energy produced by this solar power plant is studied and calculated to find out some relevant economical results. For this, the radiation arriving to southern Finland, the losses of the system in cold weather and the impact of snow among other aspects are taken into account.