Adapting to the effects of climate change on water supply reliability

This paper presents preliminary results from an assessment of the barriers to adaptation to water supply shortage in a case study catchment in south east England with multiple supply companies. The investigation applies a conceptual framework, which distinguishes between generic barriers affecting the ability of supply companies to make adaptation decisions, and specific barriers to the implementation of each option. The preliminary analysis suggests that whilst there is a widespread awareness of the challenge of climate change, and a conceptual understanding of the need for adaptation, some of the generic barriers that will affect detailed evaluations and actual adaptation decisions have yet to be approached. The analysis also shows that different individual adaptation options are assessed differently by different stakeholders, and that there are differences in the barriers to adoption between supply-side and demand-side measures. First, however, the paper develops the general conceptual framework for the characterisation of the barriers to adaptation used in the study.

Methods to assess the effectiveness of naturally ventilated classrooms in Gauteng, South Africa

There is a tendency to reduce ventilation rates and natural or hybrid ventilation systems to ensure the conservation of energy in school buildings. However, high indoor pollutant concentration, due to natural or hybrid ventilation systems may have a significant adverse impact on the health and academic performance of pupils and students. Reviewed evidence shows that this can be detrimental to health and wellbeing in schools because of the learner density within a small area, eventually indicating that CO2 concentrations can rise to very high levels (about 4000 ppm) in classrooms during occupancy periods. In South Africa’s naturally ventilated classrooms, it is not clear whether the environmental conditions are conducive for learning. In addition, natural ventilation will be minimized given the fact that in cold, wet or windy weather, doors and windows will commonly remain closed. Evidence from literature based studies indicates that the significance of ventilation techniques is not understood satisfactorily and additional information concerning naturally ventilated schools has to be provided for better design and policy formulation. To develop a thorough understanding of the environments in classrooms, many other parameters have to be considered as well, such as outdoor air quality, CO2 concentrations, temperature and relative humidity and safety issues that may be important drawbacks for naturally ventilated schools. The aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual understanding of methods that can be implemented to assess the effectiveness of naturally ventilated classrooms in Gauteng, South Africa. A theoretical concept with an embedded practical methodology have been proposed for the research programme to investigate the relationship between ventilation rates and learning in schools in Gauteng , a province in South Africa. It is important that existing and future school buildings must include adequate outdoor ventilation, control of moisture, and avoidance of indoor exposures to microbiologic and chemical substances considered likely to have adverse effects in South Africa. Adequate ventilation in classrooms is necessary to reduce and/or eradicate the transmission of indoor pollutants.

Från grej till kvadrat : Om begreppsförståelse inom geometri utifrån läromedel

One of the purposes of this work was to find out what it means to have a conceptual understanding of geometry. It describes how the geometry evolved from history and the geometry that is taught in grade one to nine and collage. The area examined was based on fundamental geometric objects for example two- and three- dimensional objects and its characteristics and especially focusing on the areas of perimeter, area and volume. The literature- review showed that the conceptual understanding was primary to developing a good knowledge of geometry. The second purpose of his study examined whether pupils achieved the goals in geometry by working with a Mathematics Book. It was the newest Mathematics-book that gave the best conditions for this, while the oldest was missing key parts.

Vad ska elever lära sig angående naturvetenskaplig verksamhet? : En analys av svenska läroplaner för grundskolan under 50 år

The purpose of this study is to contribute to an understanding of which changes related to scientific inquiry have been made historically in curriculum documents. A comparative analysis is made of five Swedish national curricula– Lgr 62, Lgr 69, Lgr 80, Lpo 94 and Lgr 11 – during the last 50 years regarding what compulsory school students (school years 1–9) should learn about scientific inquiry. It focuses 1) what students should learn about carrying out scientific inquiries, and 2) what students should learn about the nature of science. All of the curricula examined have aims concerning scientific inquiry. The results show that during the period there have been many shifts in emphasis and changes of aims, for example from learning an inductive method to a more deductive one, and from an emphasis on carrying out investigations to an emphasis on more conceptual understanding of scientific investigations. Because teaching traditions tend to conserve aspects of earlier curricula, it is discussed how the results can help teachers, teacher students and curriculum developers to better see the consequences of the changes for teaching and learning.

Participação popular na gestão publica da saude: um estudo de caso

o texto mostra um estudo de caso, de caráter qualitativo, sobre o desempenho do Conselho Municipal de Saúde do Recife/CMS-Recife, numa perspectiva democrática de gestão. Visa, prioritariamente, a identificar as condições sob as quais se torna possível obter consensos que sejam representativos das necessidades de saúde da população por ele abrangida. A partir de um tratamento conceitual sobre a tríade "democracia, descentralização e participação", descreve os processos que levam à definição - na carta constitucional de 1988 - do Sistema Único de SaúdeSUS, e à instituição formal do Conselho, no município estudado. Evidencia a possibilidade e pertinência da aplicação da teoria do agir comunicativo, do filósofo alemão Jürgen Habermas, no ponto em que estabelece a vinculação entre a identificação das necessidades de saúde e a definição de modelos de organização das práticas do setor, através dos conselhos municipais. Sob tal enfoque, com o recurso do método hermenêutico-dialético, investiga o material obtido nas pesquisas bibliográfica e documental, nas entrevistas e pela técnica da observação aplicada em reuniões realizadas pelo Conselho, em atividade a partir de agosto de 1993. Revela, para o momento atual, seu distanciamento em relação ao conceito de "situação de fala ideal", ao mesmo tempo em que, face os avanços obtidos, justifica sua valorização como instrumento de construção democrática e consolidação da cidadania.

Os currículos praticados no cotidiano da EJA: regulações e emancipações na Escola Centro Educacional Dr. Pedro Amorim

This research has as its object of study practiced in the daily curriculum of Youth and Adults in their midst and considered discussion of the concepts of knowledge as regulation and emancipation. The camp of our research relates to the knowing / doing the teachers of this modality of education, in the Escola Centro Educacional Dr. Amorim-CEPA, the city of Assú/RN and is articulated to the emerging desire to understand how cooperating teachers have thought, organized and practiced the curriculum in order to consider the many complex situations that are present in everyday school life. Our tour was guided by the need to study the relationship between the regulated curriculum and practiced in everyday adult education, as well as to understand, from the knowing / doing of the teachers, the conceptions that guide their teaching practices and, therefore, reflect on this Reality curriculum in order to better signify then. In this sense, we turn to the fundamentals of qualitative research, adopting the procedures of documentary research, participant observation and semi-structured interview, which allowed us to enter a universe of complex dimensions, senses, and that add significant difference, because the forms of use of various practitioners are and unique, in that enroll in school life and define their brand identities. The predominance of a traditional teaching practice nature by a process of training and teaching experience, the lines of flight, volatilities and inventiveness promoted by the circumstances of everyday life are some of the conclusions we draw from the data collected. This reality, we infer that the practice of teachers varies between regulation and emancipation, being this time, many challenges to be faced, namely the process of continuing education, the conceptual understanding of the subject curriculum and the existence of relational different knowing / doing produced, used and created in/from the school routine of Youth and Adults

Comunicação pública e cidadania: um estudo exploratório na unidade do poupatempo Bauru (SP)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Compreensões de conceitos de cálculo diferencial no primeiro ano de matemática: uma abordagem integrando oralidade, escrita e informática

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

As dimensões ensino e pesquisa enquanto premissas institucionais da formação acadêmica no arquipélago Universidade Federal do Pará

Tratamos da relação entre ensino e pesquisa como característica essencial da moderna concepção instituída de universidade e das suas repercussões na definição de docência universitária, estabelecendo a educação enquanto particularidade comparativa a ser compreendida nessa totalidade. Com o tema assim definido, examinam-se as tensões desse ideal acadêmico na sua institucionalização no Brasil, em seguida na UFPA e Centro de Educação. O problema de pesquisa se expressa em três questionamentos básicos: como se instituiu a pesquisa no espaço acadêmico universitário brasileiro e quais as suas repercussões na caracterização da atividade docente nessa instituição? De que modos as dimensões ensino e pesquisa se encontram enunciadas nos documentos oficiais da UFPA? Como essa relação se evidencia na particularidade do Centro de Educação? Essa problemática constitui-se a partir de uma abordagem filosófico-epistemológica em que os conceitos de racionalidade prática, produtiva e teórica e de instituição científica e social foram os fios condutores. Num esforço de compreensão histórico-conceitual do tema, a investigação debruçou-se sobre fontes bibliográficas e documentais de caráter qualitativo, mas também de informações estatísticas a respeito da UFPA e do Centro de Educação. Ao conjunto de fontes selecionadas se aplicou basicamente procedimentos de análise textual explicação, comentário e dissertação. Foi possível compreender que a idéia de universidade de pesquisa intensificou-se enquanto deverser desde às primeiras décadas do Século XX, trazendo como característica fundamental na definição do que seja o conhecimento, o que se tem chamado de conhecimento desinteressado ou puro, em contraposição aos conhecimentos aplicados ou profissionais. Cria-se, assim, uma dicotomia entre racionalidade prática e produtiva, por um lado, e razão teórica, por outro. O campo educacional se inscreveria naquele domínio e nele e por ele encontraria as suas mais fortes justificativas na universidade. A docência universitária constitui-se em consonância com esse campo de sentido, no qual se pensa o exercício do ensino a partir da diferenciação entre domínio teórico do conteúdo e preparação didático-pedagógica, a qual pode se desdobrar na distinção do pesquisador em relação ao professor. Contudo, o ideário instituído de universidade defende a indissociabilidade do ensinar e do pesquisar. A alteridade instituinte dessa imagem instituída vem procurando afirmar-se na tentativa de superar as dicotomias antes mencionadas, tendo por base o conceito de práxis, o que se pôde constatar em discursos mais recentes sobre o tema. Essa rede de conceitos instituídos que constituem o ideário da universidade brasileira fez-se presente nos documentos oficiais que definem os objetivos e a estrutura da UFPA e do CED, ainda que se tenha verificado a emergência de novas justificativas institucionais relativamente ao ensino, à pesquisa e à docência universitária que valorizam novas perspectivas epistemológicas e didático-pedagógicas. No que se refere às condições de efetivação do ideal instituído / instituinte da universidade de pesquisa na UFPA e no CED, pôde-se constatar com base em dados oficiais, que só em anos bem recentes elas vem sendo construídas através de iniciativas concernentes à qualificação docente, ao desenvolvimento de pesquisa e pós-graduação e aos novos projetos acadêmicos de cursos, bem como à iniciação científica.

Um balanço entre o multilateralismo e o unilateralismo na política externa dos EUA no caso da guerra contra o Iraque em 2003

Pós-graduação em Relações Internacionais (UNESP - UNICAMP - PUC-SP) - FFC

Aplicação da modelagem no estudo da teoria cinética dos gases

In this term paper is studied the use of models and analogies and it's influences in the study of chemistry, for learning and understanding of concepts related to the kinetic theory of gases. It was developed an activity with students of high school second year, enrolled in a State school, in the city of Bauru-SP. It was built and developed a model using the mechanical vertical model scheme, based on the proposal of Professor Luiz Ferraz Netto, for the teaching of the kinetic theory of gases. It was applied a questionary to evaluate the effect of the model in the classroom, and the analysis of data was done in descriptive qualitative way. It was verified that the methodology favored the development of conceptual understanding, demonstrating significant results on the theme of learning

Writing in the Mathematics Classroom: Does It Have an Effect on Students’ Mathematical Reasoning?

In this action research study of my classroom of 5th grade mathematics, I investigate how to improve students’ written explanations to and reasoning of math problems. For this, I look at journal writing, dialogue, and collaborative grouping and its effects on students’ conceptual understanding of the mathematics. In particular, I look at its effects on students’ written explanations to various math problems throughout the semester. Throughout the study students worked on math problems in cooperative groups and then shared their solutions with classmates. Along with this I focus on the dialogue that occurred during these interactions and whether and how it moved students to a deeper level of conceptual understanding. Students also wrote responses about their learning in a weekly math journal. The purpose of this journal is two-fold. One is to have students write out their ideas. Second, is for me to provide the students with feedback on their responses. My research reveals that the integration of collaborative grouping, journaling, and active dialogue between students and teacher helps students develop a deeper understanding of mathematics concepts as well as an increase in their confidence as problem solvers. The use of journaling, dialogue, and collaborative grouping reveals themselves as promising learning tasks that can be integrated in a mathematics curriculum that seeks to cultivate students’ thinking and reasoning.

Alternative Tasks for the Teaching and the Learning of functions: analysis of an intervention in the High School

In this paper we focus on the application of two mathematical alternative tasks to the teaching and learning of functions with high school students. The tasks were elaborated according to the following methodological approach: (i) Problem Solving and/or mathematics investigation and (ii) a pedagogical proposal, which defends that mathematical knowledge is developed by means of a balance between logic and intuition. We employed a qualitative research approach (characterized as a case study) aimed at analyzing the didactic pedagogical potential of this type of methodology in high school. We found that tasks such as those presented and discussed in this paper provide a more significant learning for the students, allowing a better conceptual understanding, becoming still more powerful when one considers the social-cultural context of the students.

Modelling Mathematical Reasoning in Physics Education

Many findings from research as well as reports from teachers describe students' problem solving strategies as manipulation of formulas by rote. The resulting dissatisfaction with quantitative physical textbook problems seems to influence the attitude towards the role of mathematics in physics education in general. Mathematics is often seen as a tool for calculation which hinders a conceptual understanding of physical principles. However, the role of mathematics cannot be reduced to this technical aspect. Hence, instead of putting mathematics away we delve into the nature of physical science to reveal the strong conceptual relationship between mathematics and physics. Moreover, we suggest that, for both prospective teaching and further research, a focus on deeply exploring such interdependency can significantly improve the understanding of physics. To provide a suitable basis, we develop a new model which can be used for analysing different levels of mathematical reasoning within physics. It is also a guideline for shifting the attention from technical to structural mathematical skills while teaching physics. We demonstrate its applicability for analysing physical-mathematical reasoning processes with an example.

The Value of Intuitive Concepts in Evaporation Research

The Evaporative Fraction (EF) and the Complementary Relationship (CR), both extensively explored by Wilfried Brutsaert during his productive career, have elucidated the conceptual understanding of evapotranspiration within hydrological science, despite a lack of rigorous proof of validity of either concept. We briefly review Brutsaert's role in the history of these concepts and discuss their appeal and interrelationship.