Elemental composition of ambient fine particles in urban schools : sources of children’s exposure

Currently, there is a limited understanding of the sources of ambient fine particles that contribute to the exposure of children at urban schools. Since the size and chemical composition of airborne particle are key parameters for determining the source as well as toxicity, PM1 particles (mass concentration of particles with an aerodynamic diameter less than 1 µm) were collected at 24 urban schools in Brisbane, Australia and their elemental composition determined. Based on the elemental composition four main sources were identified; secondary sulphates, biomass burning, vehicle and industrial emissions. The largest contributing source was industrial emissions and this was considered as the main source of trace elements in the PM1 that children were exposed to at school. PM1 concentrations at the schools were compared to the elemental composition of the PM2.5 particles (mass concentration of particles with an aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 µm) from a previous study conducted at a suburban and roadside site in Brisbane. This comparison revealed that the more toxic heavy metals (V, Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn and Pb), mostly from vehicle and industrial emissions, were predominantly in the PM1 fraction. Thus, the results from this study points to PM1 as a potentially better particle size fraction for investigating the health effects of airborne particles.

Game On: Know Alcohol - Interim findings from the first nine schools

A six module program designed to 1) show students the effects of alcohol, 2) impart knowledge of standard drinks and 3) provide students with strategies to moderate (or abstain) from alcohol drinking, is currently being tested in a cluster randomised control design in Queensland. This paper presents immediate evaluation results for the program that was designed using the eight National Social Marketing Centre (2009) benchmark criteria. Students have participated in baseline and/or immediate follow up evaluation in six intervention and three control schools to date. Early results suggest that Game On:Know Alcohol increases knowledge relating to alcohol and moderates attitudes towards binge drinking while maintaining behavioural intentions to drink alcohol excessively. Limitations of the current study and opportunities for future research are outlined.

Does school type affect cognitive and non-cognitive development in children? Evidence from Australian primary schools

This paper investigates the effects of primary school choices on cognitive and non-cognitive development in children using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). We militate against the measurement problems that are associated with individual unobserved heterogeneity by exploiting the richness of LSAC data and applying contemporary econometric approaches. We find that sending children to Catholic or other independent primary schools has no significant effect on their cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. The literature now has evidence from three different continents that the returns to attending Catholic primary schools are no different than public schools.

Learning through modelling in the primary years

Many nations are highlighting the need for a renaissance in the mathematical sciences as essential to the well-being of all citizens (e.g., Australian Academy of Science, 2006; 2010; The National Academies, 2009). Indeed, the first recommendation of The National Academies’ Rising Above the Storm (2007) was to vastly improve K–12 science and mathematics education. The subsequent report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm Two Years Later (2009), highlighted again the need to target mathematics and science from the earliest years of schooling: “It takes years or decades to build the capability to have a society that depends on science and technology . . . You need to generate the scientists and engineers, starting in elementary and middle school” (p. 9). Such pleas reflect the rapidly changing nature of problem solving and reasoning needed in today’s world, beyond the classroom. As The National Academies (2009) reported, “Today the problems are more complex than they were in the 1950s, and more global. They’ll require a new educated workforce, one that is more open, collaborative, and cross-disciplinary” (p. 19). The implications for the problem solving experiences we implement in schools are far-reaching. In this chapter, I consider problem solving and modelling in the primary school, beginning with the need to rethink the experiences we provide in the early years. I argue for a greater awareness of the learning potential of young children and the need to provide stimulating learning environments. I then focus on data modelling as a powerful means of advancing children’s statistical reasoning abilities, which they increasingly need as they navigate their data-drenched world.

The private problem with public service: Rural teachers in educational markets

Staffing rural and remote schools is an important policy issue for the public good. This paper examines the private issues it also poses for teachers with families working in these communities, as they seek to reconcile careers with educational choices for children. The paper first considers historical responses to staffing rural and remote schools in Australia, and the emergence of neoliberal policy encouraging marketisation of the education sector. We report on interviews about considerations motivating household mobility with 11 teachers across regional, rural and remote communities in Queensland. Like other middle-class parents, these teachers prioritised their children’s educational opportunities over career opportunities. The analysis demonstrates how teachers in rural and remote communities constitute a special group of educational consumers with insider knowledge and unique dilemmas around school choice. Their heightened anxieties around school choice under neoliberal policy are shown to contribute to the public issue of staffing rural and remote schools.

Secular and religious moral grounds resonating across state schools in Indonesia

This paper describes moral education in Indonesia, more particularly, how teachers have implemented the Character Education policy issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC) in 2010. This policy required teachers to instil certain values in every lesson, including EFL lessons, to contribute towards building a shared national moral character. Drawing on Durkheim's distinction between secular and religious morality, this paper considers how state schools accommodated and promoted this ‘rational moral education' or secular morality (Durkheim, 1925) in government schools, and how it interacted with religious moral education. This paper uses Bernstein's concepts of pedagogic discourse, instructional and regulative discourses to analyse how teachers have recontextualised this policy in the micro pedagogic settings of their EFL classes. Three types of data were collected for this study: interviews, class observations and teachers' lesson plans. In this way, four EFL teachers working in state schools were interviewed on two occasions and three of their classes were observed. The first interview identified teachers' beliefs and perceptions regarding the Character Education policy. Their classroom and lesson plans were observed to augment this information. Then the final interview asked about the teacher's thinking behind their actions in the observed classes. Since character education was issued within the broader frame of school based curriculum that offered schools and teachers more choices to develop the local curriculum and its intent, the analysis will focus on what moral premises were evident in their school and classes, and how such morality was transmitted through the EFL lessons. The conclusion suggests that teachers' implementation of moral education in their classes was dominated by their school communities and the teachers' own preferred value of religiosity. Such value played out in the classes through both the regulative discourse and the instructional discourse.

Online counselling in secondary schools: Would students seek help by this medium?

Students in secondary schools experience problems that can impact on their well-being and educational outcomes. Although face-to-face counselling is available in most Australian secondary schools, many students, particularly boys, do not seek appropriate help. Research suggests that online counselling can be effective and increase engagement. This study of 215 secondary school students sought to assess students' intention to use online counselling if it was made available in schools. The results found no gender difference in the likely intentions to seek online help though year level was significant and students experiencing psychological distress had a preference for online counselling. If students did use online counselling it was more likely they would discuss sensitive topics rather than for career issues. Implications for school counselling are discussed.

The way schools cope with learning difficulties is doing more harm than good

We fail children who experience difficulty in school and with learning almost every day in Australia and in so many ways. These children can fall through a myriad of cracks: cracks that appear in some schools and not others, cracks that exist for different reasons whether they be capacity, belief or resource-related, and cracks that are exacerbated by industrial relations and education policy. Whatever their origin, these cracks need to be addressed.

Implementation of workplace learning in the accountancy schools of Australian universities

This exploratory study seeks to further our understanding of Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) programs in the Accountancy schools of Australian universities. It emphasises the significance of the role of the university in monitoring and administrating these programs. The study uses a qualitative method with mainly open-ended questions via an online questionnaire. The responses from senior accounting academic decision-makers identified the major forms of WIL used and the most challenging issues. WIL is perceived to be an important program that should be included in degree courses, and strong efforts should be made to overcome the challenges involved in conducting such a program.

Combination chemotherapy for primary small intestinal lymphoma in the Middle East

Twelve patients with primary small intestinal lymphoma were followed prospectively for 3 years. Endoscopic abnormalities were diagnostic of lymphoma in all cases where the duodenum was involved (83%). In three cases (25%) the disease extended to the stomach. One patient (8%) had diffuse small cell cleaved and 11 (92%) diffuse large cell lymphoma stages I (8%), II (25%), III (58%) and IV (8%). Nine of them were unresectable and primarily treated with combination chemotherapy; 67% achieved complete remission, 22% partial response and 11% no response. Only one patient relapsed and achieved a second remission. All complete remission patients are currently alive and free of disease at a median follow-up of 36 months. Overall survival for all patients is 58%, and disease-free survival is 50%. No instance of chemotherapy-related bleeding or perforation was seen. Tetracycline was necessary for the treatment of IPSID-associated diarrhea and malabsorption in spite of cytotoxic chemotherapy.

Assessment of volatile organic compounds in urban schools

There is an increased concern about airborne particles not only because of their environmental effects, but also due to their potential adverse health effects on humans, especially children. Despite the growing evidence of airborne particles having an impact on children’s health, there have been limited studies investigating the long term health effects as well as the chemical composition of ambient air which further helps in determining their toxicity. Therefore, a systematic study on the chemical composition of air in school environment has been carried out in Brisbane, which is known as “Ultrafine Particles from Traffic Emissions on Children’s Health” (UPTECH). This study is also a part of the larger project focusing on analysis of the chemical composition of ambient air, as well as source apportionment and the quantification of ambient concentrations of organic pollutants in the vicinity of schools. However, this particular paper presents some of the results on concentration of different Volatile Organic Compounds in both indoor and outdoor location from different schools. The database consisted of 750 samples (500 outdoor and 250 indoor) collected for VOCs at 25 different schools. The sampling and analysis were conducted following the standard methods. A total of 90 individual VOCs were identified from the schools studied. Compounds such as toluene, acetic acid, nonanal, benzaldehyde, 2- ethyl 1- hexanol, limonene were the most common in indoors whereas isopentane, toluene, hexane, heptane were dominant in outdoors. The indoor/ outdoor ratio of average sum of VOCs were found to be more than one in most of the schools indicating that there might be additional indoor sources along with the outdoor air in those schools. However, further expansion of the study in relation to source apportionment, correlating with traffic and meteorological data is in progress.

Volatile organic compounds: Characteristics, distribution and sources in urban schools

Long term exposure to organic pollutants, both inside and outside school buildings may affect children’s health and influence their learning performance. Since children spend significant amount of time in school, air quality, especially in classrooms plays a key role in determining the health risks associated with exposure at schools. Within this context, the present study investigated the ambient concentrations of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in 25 primary schools in Brisbane with the aim to quantify the indoor and outdoor VOCs concentrations, identify VOCs sources and their contribution, and based on these; propose mitigation measures to reduce VOCs exposure in schools. One of the most important findings is the occurrence of indoor sources, indicated by the I/O ratio >1 in 19 schools. Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation was used to identify common sources of VOCs and source contribution was calculated using an Absolute Principal Component Scores technique. The result showed that outdoor 47% of VOCs were contributed by petrol vehicle exhaust but the overall cleaning products had the highest contribution of 41% indoors followed by air fresheners and art and craft activities. These findings point to the need for a range of basic precautions during the selection, use and storage of cleaning products and materials to reduce the risk from these sources.

Challenges in embedding numeracy throughout the curriculum in three Queensland secondary schools

The new Australian Curriculum and national standardised testing have placed the teaching of numeracy across the curriculum at the forefront of what Australian schools must do. However, it has been left to schools to determine how they do this. Although there is a growing body of literature giving examples of pedagogies that embed numeracy in various learning areas, there are few studies of cross-curricular numeracy from the management perspective. This paper responds to the research question: How do selected Queensland secondary schools interpret and apply the Australian Curriculum requirement to embed numeracy throughout the curriculum? A multiple case study design was used to investigate the actions of the senior managers and mathematics teachers in three large secondary schools located in outer Brisbane. The numeracy practices in the three schools were interpreted from asocial constructivist perspective. The study found that in each school key managers had differing constructions of numeracy that led to confusion in administrative practices, policy development and leadership. The lack of coordinated cross-curricular action in numeracy in all three schools points to the difficulty that arises when teachers do not share the cross-curricular vision of numeracy present in the Australian Curriculum. The managers identified teachers’ commitment, understanding, or skills in relation to numeracy as significant barriers to the successful implementation of numeracy in their school. Adoption of the Australian Curriculum expectation of embedding numeracy across the curriculum will require school managers to explicitly commit to initiatives that require persistence,time and, most importantly, money.

Exploring links between pedagogical knowledge practices and student outcomes in STEM education for primary schools

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is an emerging initiative in Australia, particularly in primary schools. This qualitative research aimed to understand Year 4 students' involvement in an integrated STEM education unit that focused on science concepts (e.g., states of matter, testing properties of materials) and mathematics concepts (e.g., 3D shapes and metric measurements) for designing, making and testing a strong and safe medical kit to insulate medicines (ice cubes) at desirable temperatures. Data collection tools included student work samples, photographs, written responses from students and the teacher, and researcher notes. In a post-hoc analysis, a pedagogical knowledge practice framework (i.e., planning, timetabling, preparation, teaching strategies, content knowledge, problem solving, classroom management, questioning, implementation, assessment, and viewpoints) was used to explain links to student outcomes in STEM education. The study showed how pedagogical knowledge practices may be linked to student outcomes (knowledge, understanding, skill development, and values and attitudes) for a STEM education activity.