Real science and school science : endless wonder versus the drive to explore

Science may be simply defined as a way of finding out about how the world works. It is often viewed as objective and being built on a step-wise procedural base. The question arises as to whether school science needs to be different to cutting-edge (‘real’) science since the outcomes have different purposes, one requiring scientific breakthroughs, the other being imitative and simple. The divergence between these two realities of science impacts on the development of science curricula in that relevance for students, rather than purely imitating real science, steers science curricula.

Book review : the secret history of wonder woman

Book review of The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore.

Hoax e-mails and bonsai kittens: are you e-literate in the docuverse?

As a society we are still to a large degree on that first wave of enchantment and wonder with what the information superhighway has to offer us - instant communication with loved ones and colleagues - either next door, at the next desk or on another continent - beautifully word processed reports, elegant spreadsheets and shopping at midnight in Paris or reading the latest dissertation on Iranian politics.

Our social mantra is very much 'is Internet, is good', and our logic is often placed around a misguided belief that if the information was found on the 'Net, then it must be good'.

This paper discusses the importance of not only having the skills of computer literacy, that is defined as being able to use computers and software to navigate the Internet, but also the importance of information literacy, defined as the skill of being critically literate.

Ontology of building in war and reconstruction

Post-war cities epitomise both a disjuncture and resonance between the end of the nation-state, on the one hand, and a preoccupation with reinventing the city through building, on the other. Programs of 'reconstruction' and 'remaking a city' are preceded by destruction: a destructive force has altered the face of the city, buildings have been destroyed and damaged, their ordered and ordering materiality is eroded, and the city is no longer an image of an idealized symbol of unity and identity. Belying the mythical power of architecture as a material and symbolic force, is also its fragility. Architecture can be monumentally erected and can have a presence and persistence that inspires awe and wonder, but it can also, just as easily be de-erected, demolished, destroyed. It can be de-constructed in a way that the literal sense of the term signals its symbolic frailty. Perceiving the symbolic as intrinsically tied to the physical articulation and presence of the architectural edifice, both reveals and conceals that the symbolic is also tied to fantasy, memory and fiction. Drawings that precede construction are projections of an idealized image of something that does not yet exist, and photographs that remain after a building is demolished are representations of a past realist that is now fictional.

[P]lucky Jane et al: ideal types in the legal academy?

This article started as a response to a decision by Deakin University's Law School late last year to embark upon a major recruitment of new staff. That decision caused the writer to wonder what published sources of advice were available to assist aspiring legal academics in choosing and shaping a career. To date it would seem that whilst there is no dearth of sources about what law schools should teach, or on the content and structure of the curriculum, research on the selection and formation of academics is somewhat less common. This is changing. In 2003 a short biographical study of six law teachers, based on structured interviews, was published and in 2004, a major study of the identity of 54 law teachers became available. There have also been significant studies on the particular issues encountered by female academics in the legal academy.

Climate change and human health: what can GPs do?

In recent months articles in the most respected peer reviewed medical journals in Australia, the USA and Britain have called for urgent action to reduce climate change.1–4 The chief scientist of the United Kingdom has described climate change as ‘the most severe problem that we are facing today – more serious even than the threat of terrorism’.5 Yet, many of you will wonder if this is really such an urgent issue, and – even if it is – what on earth has it got to do with general practice?

SOSE curriculum structures : where to now?

SOSE curriculum structures have changed dramatically over the last few decades. Teachers who once taught history, geography and economics have found themselves teaching in the SOSE KLA which many perceive as a generic mish-mash of former school subjects. Some saw this as the death of their disciplines whilst others saw it as an opportunity to explore transdiciplinary and inter-disciplinary teaching and learning. Regardless of opinion, many teachers and tertiary education students often asked a familiar question - What am I supposed to teach and how am I supposed to teach it?

Whilst NSW retained a disciplinary structure for the teaching and learning of SOSE in secondary schools, all other Australian States and Territories adopted a Key Learning Area [KLA] approach. In recent years Victorian curriculum change has seen the re-emergence of a disciplinary approach to the teaching and learning of SOSE in upper primary schools and secondary schools and we can only wonder what curriculum change in other States and Territories will bring. In this paper we explore disciplinary, transdiciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to SOSE and critique these in relation to effective teaching and learning.

Science education in primary schools in a state of change

Through a longitudinal study of one teacher's science teaching practice set in the context of her base school, this thesis records the effects of the structural and policy changes that have occurred in Victorian education over the past 6-7 years - the 'Kennett era'. Initially, the purpose of the study was to investigate the teacher's practice with the view to improving it. For this, an action research approach was adopted. Across the year 1998, the teacher undertook an innovative science program with two grades, documenting the approach and outcomes. Several other teachers were involved in the project and their personal observations and comments were to form part of the data. This research project was set in the context of a single primary school and case study methodology was used to document the broader situational and daily influences which affected the teacher's practice. It was apparent soon after starting the action research that there were factors which did not allow for the development of the project along the intended lines. By the end of the project, the teacher felt that the action research had been distorted - specifically there had been no opportunity for critical reflection. The collaborative nature of the project did not seem to work. The teacher started to wonder just what had gone wrong. It was only after a break from the school environment that the teacher-researcher had the opportunity to really reflect on what had been happening in her teaching practice. This reflection took into account the huge amount of data generated from the context of the school but essentially reflected on the massive number of changes that were occurring in all schools. Several issues began to emerge which directly affected teaching practice and determined whether teachers had the opportunity to be self-reflective. These issues were identified as changes in curriculum and the teaching role, increased workload, changed power relations and changed security/morale on the professional context. This thesis investigates the structural and policy changes occurring in Victorian education by reference to documentation and the lived experiences of teachers. It studies how the emerging issues affect the practices of teachers, particularly the teacher-researcher. The case study has now evolved to take in the broader context of the policy and structural changes whilst the action research has expanded to look at the ability of a teacher to be self-reflective: a meta-action research perspective. In concluding, the teacher-researcher reflects on the significance of the research in light of the recent change in state government and the increased government importance placed on science education in the primary context.

Are Chinese firms innovative or imitative?

In recent time, many Chinese firms have not only operated quite successfully at their home front, competing with those giant multinational companies inside China, they are also moving offshore. The short internationalisation process of Chinese firms looks both sudden and unexpected, causing many to wonder the success factors for Chinese firms. A dynamic innovation that combines strategic, organisational, cost as well as technological change was believed to have contributed to the fast growing Chinese firms in the global stage. This paper reviews the literature related to these areas of innovation. It also discusses reasons for firms to innovate or imitate, using institutional perspective and resource-based view (RBV). Intertwined with these discuss ion, empirical studies of innovative performance among Chinese firms are also analysed. The results show that in fact most Chinese firms still follow an imitative strategy, but there is a clear evidence of strategic cost innovation widely practiced among Chinese firms.

Weeds: a brief introduction

Many plants that are now recognised as weeds are incredibly beautiful and it is no wonder they have been used to adorn home gardens. Unfortunately, they can naturalise in the environment once they have escaped and cause many problems. Ornamental species form about two thirds of our environmental weeds. This paper outlines why weeds are a problem, the characteristics that allow weeds to become a problem and provides a brief glimpse of the mode of introduction of weeds to Australia.

Frames

'The film is a mixture of flickery, letraset, light, scratching and hand-drawn colour. So rapid is the movement that it makes you wonder at times if you are looking at an image or its afterimage. Could a film like Frames be damaging to your retinam or neurological functions? if you sat in front of this type of film long enough, would it send you on a trip? Could it awaken a patient out of a coma? After a confronting seven minutes I felt exhausted and slightly frazzled. Such is the power of the film' Glen Hannah in Filmviews Number 130 p28 1986

Evanescent

Exhibition of original artworks created in 2013. Evanescent is a new series produced in 2013 which premiered at the Castlemaine State Festival 15-24 March 2013. The series revisits a childhood delight and fascination with the projected image and the natural world. For me then, as it is now, a magnifying glass was a wonder; its simple optics twisted light into abstract comas and sci-fi aberrations; able to compact a whole view into a luminous, paradoxically inverted phantom that could fit literally into the palm of my hand. By curling fingers and thumb around the lens and cupping both hands around the elusive rays, and by peering into the space in which I had trapped them, I fancied that I had entered into the secret workings of the eye. Chrysalis, for example, appears as a scenic projection from a hand-held lens and simultaneously as the litter of the forest floor. It is produced with a makeshift camera-obscura. The nebulous silhouettes of trees, some blurred under the passing clouds of a summer wind resolve here and there into crisp lines curled across the surface of a fallen leaf on which a moth chrysalis adheres. The leaf assumes Brobdingnagian proportions and thickness as the evanescent image shrinks and is foreshortened then dissolves in the enlarged dust and grit. It manifests the unique sight anchored at this fixed point, to reveal what we might see if we were to become vegetable or mineral. Near and far, large and small, superimpose, trigonometrically exact in their adjacency and spatial relations, presenting us with a located point of view.Why? I want to understand more intimately the interior of the natural landscape, rather than any ‘scene’ of human presence, or the context of any cultural landmark. In the steep, bush locations in which I am making these images, my means are necessarily makeshift; my camera and an old manual-aperture lens able to be carried in a backpack with a black T-shirt as a 'dark-tent'. The project is not systematic but intuitive and responsive to prevailing conditions and the effect on the projection caused by sun, shade, weather and situation. I am guided by the response of objects, textures and surfaces to the projected image and how they modulate and map it. This is landscape, but not from a human point of view.

The Black Side of the Sun: Camus, Theology, and the Problem of Evil

Albert Camus is typically categorized as an atheistic thinker, in the same breath as Sartre. Yet there is a sizable, often sympathetic, theological response to his works, which deal at great length with Christian themes, wrestle with the problem of evil, and are animated by his own avowed desire — in strong contrast with Sartre and other existentialists — to preserve a sense of the sacred without belief in human immortality. This essay reconstructs three components of Camus’s rapport and disagreement with Christian theology, which he approached pre-eminently through the figure of Augustine, central to his early Diplome thesis. First, we recount the young Camus’s neopagan ‘‘religiosity’’ — a sense of the inhuman majesty and beauty of the natural world at the heart of what he termed (and later regretted terming) the ‘‘absurd,’’ and rooted in Camus’s own unitive experiences growing up amidst the sea, sand, and blazing sun of North Africa. Second, we look at Camus’s engagement with the problem of evil, which for Camus — as for many early modern thinkers such as Bayle or Voltaire — represented the decisive immanent tension in later medieval theology, vindicating — in ethical terms — the modern rebellions against altar, pulpit, and throne. The essay closes by rebutting the charge, strongly argued recently by Ronald Srigley, that Camus was (both) anti-modern because anti-Christian. Camus’s aim, we propose, was instead to bring together a neopagan sense of the wonder of the natural world and our participation in it, with the egalitarian components of Christian ethics, severed from secularized eschatological content.

Artworks : Water Table and Rain Table : presented as part of the Periscope Exhibition, Castlemaine State Festival

Rain Table and Water Table: Delicate splashes and droplets of water act like primitive lenses bringing transparency to the diffused images of celestial bodies. These two installation pieces are inspired by the beauty of the night sky and invite the viewer to consider the cosmos in relation to ones self and to contemplate the discoveries which have changed our understanding of the universe. Water Table and Rain Table are the two works being presented as part of Periscope. Through the form of the science bench or museum cabinet, luminous and projected images play against glass and water invoking the sublime sense of wonder that we have when we look to the starry night sky. Water Table - In 1912 the astronomer, Vesto Slipher made the discovery that “Nebula” were moving at incredible velocities due to the expansion of space itself. This discovery revealed these “Nebula” to be vastly remote and independent galaxies. Water Table speculates on the understanding that when we look into deep space, we also look into deep time. Rain Table is a new work produced for the festival and makes reference to the first telescopic observations of the Moon made by the mathematician, philosopher and astronomer, Galileo Galilei in 1610. The implication of Galileo’s observations gave rise to a radical new understanding of the heavens and our place in it and the final acceptance that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe.