Can Earth support our growing population?

Para conocer las causas y consecuencias de la explosión demográfica. Invita a los lectores a pensar y expresarse de manera independiente. Incluye actividades que fomentan el pensamiento crítico y creativo para evaluar diferentes perspectivas sobre las cuestiones relacionadas con la población y la distribución de recursos. Para animar al debate se ofrece estudios de casos, relatos, informes, discusiones.

SOS, the Earth' s in danger : unidad didáctica. 'SOS, la Tierra en peligro'.

Unidad concebida para cuarto de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, aunque también puede utilizarse para tercero o para Bachillerato. Intenta enseñar el idioma de forma comunicativa, para lo cual elige como principal eje organizador un tema transversal: los problemas medioambientales. Presenta unos materiales lo más diversos posibles en cuanto a su contenido, desde materiales de tipo gramatical, lúdico, para practicar ciertas detrezas, etc. Se pretende que cada profesor pueda diseñar su propia unidad didáctica en función de sus intereses y los de sus alumnos. Hay una sección de referencia, dirigida al profesor, en la que se introduce información, un poco más amplia que la que aparece en las actividades para los alumnos, sobre los problemas medioambientales tratados. Esa información está también en inglés para que pueda ser utilizada en actividades de aula. Al final se incluyen tres propuestas de secuenciación.

Physical geology : the science of Earth.

Es una herramienta de aprendizaje para entender los fundamentos científicos de la geología, así como las consecuencias de las acciones humanas sobre nuestro planeta. Ofrece a los estudiantes un marco para aprender y pensar de forma crítica y ayudarles a tomar decisiones sobre cuestiones tan importantes como: el calentamiento global, la superpoblación, el problema del agua dulce y otros.

Save the Earth science experiments: science fair projects for eco-kids.

Ofrece una gran cantidad de ideas para que los niños obtengan el conocimiento necesario para entender lo que está pasando en el planeta Tierra y tengan el deseo de hacer algo ecológico todos los días. El recurso se divide en cinco capítulos. En el primer capítulo se ayuda paso a paso en los detalles para hacer un proyecto de ciencias y asegurar el éxito del resultado final. Los cuatro capítulos restantes presentan más de veinte experimentos diferentes relacionados con los temas ambientales de hoy.

Radio Earth.

El artículo pertenece a una sección de la revista dedicada a propuestas didácticas. - Material fotocopiable. - A modo de anexo se incluyen fichas de actividades para realizar por el alumnado.

Morfogènesi de pilars de terra (earth Pillars, hoodoos). Exemples de la Riera de Gaià (Vallès Occidental, Barcelona) i del Bernal de Yátor (Las Alpujarras, Granada)

The origin and the primary features of the erosive earth pillar-like formations that develop in the Riera de Gaià (Barcelona) and in the Bernal de Yátor (Granada) are described. They are dynamic formations typical of areas subjected to strong water erosion

Como aprender História e Geografia no 8º ano de escolaridade, usando o Google Earth ?

Actualmente no Ensino Básico as disciplinas de História e Geografia são vistas, maioritariamente , como desinteressantes e pouco úteis a grande parte dos alunos. Variadas razões podem ser apontadas, como a excessiva memorização de conteúdos, cultivados por um ensino expositivo enquanto forma de ensino com maiores adeptos pelos professores nas escolas. Aliada a esta memorização surge, inevitavelmente, a pouca retenção na memória no tempo dos conhecimentos adquiridos a estas disciplinas. Partindo dos pressupostos teóricos sobre os métodos de ensino mais inovadores, que sugerem a realização de experiências educativas com uma metodologia activa e um ensino por competências , efectuou-se uma experiência de aprendizagem em que se utilizou a ferramenta Google Earth nas aulas de História e Geografia do 8º ano de escolaridade. Pretendeu-se aferir se, com recurso às novas tecnologias, os alunos interiorizariam melhor conceitos relativos ás duas áreas do saber.

Eye movements of beginning and more skilled readers

The present study aimed to analyze and compare the eye movements of beginning (2nd grade) and more skilled (4th grade) readers, during reading words and pseudo-words aloud, that differ in frequency (just for words), regularity and length. In this way, one intends to analyze the process of visual information extraction, by both groups, and detect experience and practice-related changes in the ocular behavior. The eye movements of 34 children were monitored, while these were reading words/pseudo-words lists, and this was accomplished using eye-tracking technology. The results show statistically significant differences between the two groups, in mean and total fixations duration for high-frequency words, in mean fixation duration for regular words and in the mean saccade amplitude in irregular pseudo-words. However, no significant differences were found between the groups on the study of the other variables. Nevertheless, the results suggest that skilled readers tend to show more effective eye movements, what determined a lesser effect of words’ frequency, regularity and length on this group. Moreover, the pseudo-words processing was more difficult than that of words, in both groups.

Memory and power : two movements

The institutions that work with the preservation and diffusion of cultural heritage - be them archive, libraries, museums, art galleries or cultural centres - present a certain discourse about reality. To understand this discourse, composed by sound and silence, by fullness and emptiness, by presence and absence, by remembrance and forgetting, an operation is implied, not only with the enunciation of speech and its gaps, but also the comprehension of that which causes to speak, of who is speaking and of the point whence one speaks. Preservation and destruction, or, in another way, conservation and loss, walk hand in hand in the arteries of life. As suggested by Nietzsche (1999, p.273), it is impossible to live without loss, it is entirely impossible to live avoiding destruction to play its game and drive the dynamics of life on. However, by means of a kind of tautological argument, one often justifies preservation by the imminence of loss and memory by the threat of forgetting. Thus, one ceases to consider that the game and the rules of the game between forgetting and memory are not fed by themselves and that preservation and destruction are not opposed in a deadly duel, but instead they complement one another and are always at the service of subjects that build themselves and are built through social practices. To indicate that memories and forgettings can be sown and cultivated corroborates the importance of working towards the denaturalisation of these concepts and towards the understanding that they result from a construction process also involving other forces, such as: power. Power is a sower, a promoter of memories and forgettings.

Museums, memories and social movements

From modernity to the contemporary world, museums have been acknowledged for their power to produce metamorphoses of meanings and functions, for their ability to adapt historic and social determination, and for their calling for cultural mediation. They derive from creating gestures which bind the symbolic and the material, which bind what is sensitive and what is intelligible. For this very reason the bridge metaphor fits them well, a bridge cast between different times, spaces, individuals, social groups and cultures, a bridge that is built with images and which holds a special place in the imaginary.