Learning for the natural environment： The case against anthropocentrism

The world （Africa in particular） is in a progressive state of environmental crisis, caused by global warming, loss of biodiversity, human overpopulation, pollution, massive deforestation and desertification, urbanization and many other environmental problems and risk factors. For several commentators and theorists, part of the solution resides in the provision of pertinent and adequate education, including environmental education. The present paper briefly examines the history of environmental education, internationally and in South Africa, and some of its most prominent current trends and issues, before critiquing its general orientation. Arguing against what appears to lie at the heart of environmental education and literacy, namely anthropocentrism （ideas like ＂education for sustainable development＂）, the paper urges a radical rethinking of its central concerns and modus operandi, in terms of facilitating learning for the natural environment. In other words, in order to live up to its promise of contributing towards life beyond the twenty-first century, such learning must include the realization that nature matters in and for itself.     

Environmental impact prediction using remote sensing images

Environmental impact prediction is an important step in many environmental studies. A wide variety of methods have been developed in this concern. During this study, remote sensing images were used for environmental impact prediction in Robatkarim area, Iran, during the years of 2005-2007. It was assumed that environmental impact could be predicted using time series satellite imageries. Natural vegetation cover was chosen as a main environmental element and a case study. Environmental impacts of the regional development on natural vegetation of the area were investigated considering the changes occurred on the extent of natural vegetation cover and the amount of biomass. Vegetation data, land use and land cover classes （as activity factors） within several years were prepared using satellite images. The amount ofbiomass was measured by Soil-adjusted Vegetation Index （SAVI） and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index （NDVI） based on satellite images. The resulted biomass estimates were tested by the paired samples t-test method. No significant difference was observed between the average biomass of estimated and control samples at the 5% significance level. Finally, regression models were used for the environmental impacts prediction. All obtained regression models for prediction of impacts on natural vegetation cover show values over 0.9 for both correlation coefficient and R-squared. According to the resulted methodology, the prediction models of projects and plans impacts can also be developed for other environmental elements which may be derived using time series remote sensing images.     

Legal study on water environmental protection of Three Gorges Reservoir Area

Water environment security of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area has become a more extensive concern since the impoundment of the reservoir. This paper describes the existing water environmental hazards and defects in current legal system for water environmental protection in this area, and also discusses their possible causes and potential problems in the future based on first hand materials and other literature. According to the theories of integrated river basin management and environmental equity principle, legal proposals are put forward, which include building an unitary legal system dedicated to the Reservoir Area, setting up a basin authority of the Yangtze River to preside over the resources protection and development, using interests' compensation system to solve interest conflicts among different reaches, and making concrete regulations to direct public participation in water environmental security protection of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area.     

Modelling and control PEMFC using fuzzy neural networks

INTRODUCTION With worldwide increase of air pollution and the environmental consciousness of governments,people have to look for new resources to mitigate the energy crisis and improve the present environmental status(Baschuk and Li,2000;Rowe and Li,2001).Fuel cells are highly efficient and environmentally clean electricity generators(Berning et al.,2002)that convert the chemical energy of a gaseous fuel directly into electrical energy and play an important role in solving the energy pro…     

Sustainable water system of a green residential zone： demonstrated with a case of a campus construction project

The sustainable water system （SWS） was interpreted based on green residential zone associated codes issued by P.R. China and some other countries, and ecological principles. Its constitution, designing and engineering, and economic and environmental benefits were illustrated with a case of a campus construction project. The SWS incorporates divided nature drainage systems, grey water treatment and reuse technologies, rainwater decentralized collection and purification technologies, and water quality safeguard techniques for reclaimed water reused for landscaping. Application of the SWS is expected to gain remarkable economic and environmental benefits by reducing both the demand for municipal water supply and sewage discharge.     

Nonlinear modeling of PEMFC based on neural networks identification

INTRODUCTION With worldwide increase of air pollution and the environmental consciousness of governments, people have to look for new resources to mitigate the energy crisis and improve the present environmental status (Ferng et al., 2004; Rowe and Li, 2001). Fuel cells are highly efficient and environmentally clean electrical generators (Mann et al., 2000) that convert the chemical energy of a gaseous fuel directly into elec-tricity energy and play an important role in solving the prob…     

Environmental damage costs from fossil electricity generation in China, 2000-2003

Electricity consumption increases rapidly with the rapid development of China. The environmental damage costs of electricity generation are very important for both policy analysis and the proper management of the environment. A method was developed in this work to estimate gross environmental damage costs according to emission inventory and environmental cost factors, and to extend the costs from provincial to national level with population density. In this paper, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter less than 10 μm in diameter (PM10), and carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fired power plants over 6000 kW were selected as index pollutants to quantify the environmental costs of damages on human health and global warming. With the new developed method, environmental damage costs, caused by 3 types of fired power plants in 30 provinces and 6 economic sectors during the years 2000 to 2003, were evaluated and analyzed. It can be seen that the calculated total national environmental damage costs of electricity have rapidly increased from 94930.87×106 USD in 2000 to about 141041.39×106 USD in 2003, with an average annual growth rate of 14.11%. Environmental damage costs of SO2, NOx, PM10, and CO2 are 69475.69×106, 30079.29×106, 28931.84×106, and 12554.57×106 USD and account for 49.26%, 21.33%, 20.51%, and 8.90% of total environmental costs in fossil electricity generation, respectively. With regard to regional distribution, external costs caused by fossil electricity generation are mainly concentrated in the more populated and industrialized areas of China, i.e., the Eastern Central and Southeastern areas.     

Study of CNG/diesel dual fuel engine’s emissions by means of RBF neural network

INTRODUCTION The serious environmental pollution and theenergy crisis all over the world has caused the de-velopment of the lower pollution and lower energyconsumption automobile to become major researchgoal. An engine using compressed natural gas(CNG) as fuel has outstanding advantages of higherefficiency and lower pollution. The CNG/dieselDFE for the city bus could also obviously reducethe pollution of the city air, especially for the bigcities. So the research on the combustion…     

Relationship between environment policy and technical transformation: industry pollution control in Three Gorges Reservoir

Ecological objective promotes local government who is in a reservoir area adopting new environmental policies which encourage firms to save energy and reduce emissions. Based on real option theory, we characterized the arrival of new environmental policy as a Poisson jump process. Under the situation that neither the policy arrival time nor contents can be determined, with the real option theory, we focused on problems for firms to decide best investment timing and scale, provided the cumulative probability distribution function of investment timing, and gave a numerical analysis. By analyzing the relationship between policy and investment decision, we found a perverse result that the high subsidy does not always encourage investment all the time, which can be a valuable reference for government to control industry pollution and make reasonable policies.     

Policy on Higher Education and Research: The Rede Lecture 1991

My main theme is the relationship between British universities and Government, how it is likely to change in the next few years, and what effect this will have on what universities do and how they do it. I shall discuss what I expect to happen, which is not always what I would wish to see; the weather forecaster who predicts cold and rain does not thereby declare himself a masochist.     

Brave new platforms: a possible platform future for highly decentralised schooling

ABSTRACT

Sweden has one of the most marketised and decentralised school systems in the world while also ranking amongst countries with the highest levels of access to technology in classrooms. Considering the increasingly central role that digital platforms play in the practices of schooling, this article speculates on what might happen during the 2020s in highly decentralised school systems like Sweden’s. Based on current trends in education, directions indicated by platformisation in other contexts and taking a critical speculative approach, it offers a discussion of what could happen to the practices of schooling and the public mission of education. This discussion is intended to raise important questions for researchers, educators and policy makers to consider as the platformisation of schooling unfolds.     

Framing a Philosophy of Environmental Action: Aldo Leopold,John Muir,and the Importance of Community

A philosophy of action consists of a theory about how and why we do things and what motivates us to act. By juxtaposing the theory of environmental action implied by the works and life of John Muir with the philosophy of action suggested by Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic, we will illuminate the importance of a philosophy of action in determining one's approach to environmental decision making. This discussion is important for environmental education and the ethics these experiences inspire because both philosophies advocate very different visions of environmental action. In short, Muir demonstrates an ethic guided by the expected results of actions, an approach parallel to the responsible environmental behavior model (REB) of environmental education, whereas Leopold, demonstrates the role of intention and emotion in ethical decision making through the lens of community.     

对高等教育大众化研究的方法论思考

对高等教育大众化问题的思考不能仅仅停留在实用技术层面上，必须进入方法论层面，也即必须进行高等教育大众化的价值取向的思考，而这是当前研究中比较缺乏的。从方法论出发，目前致力于寻找高等教育规模与经济发展水平之间的精确关系的技术向度研究存在重大缺憾，因为它没有回答高等教育大众化对人们生活方式的影响以及高等教育制度所应进行的调整，这就需要新的研究方式来补足，这个新的研究方式就是本文提出的文化向度的研究。     

Refusing to settle for pigeons and parks: urban environmental education in the age of neoliberalism

The institutionalization of neoliberal reforms that began to take hold in the 1970s were by and large ‘common-sense governance’ by the 1990s. While the growing predominance of neoliberal discourse and marginalization of alternatives in environmental education is disconcerting on the level of policy, this paper explores an equally troubling phenomenon: the deepening of a neoliberal logic, such that it pervades the way we understand and relate with the world. Specifically, this paper draws upon an experience at a recent environmental education conference whereby participants were invited to explore three place-based inquiries inspired by Aldo Leopold in an urban environment: what is happening here? what has happened here? and what should happen here? Although the intention of the workshop was to explore some of the challenges involved in implementing a critical pedagogy of place, many of the participants seemed unwilling to criticize the way in which an urban downtown core suppresses the more-than-human aspects of place. We contend that environmental education is a key arena for debating the limits of neoliberalism and explore how these well-intentioned, but ultimately uncritical responses, run the risk of being appropriated by the ecologically destructive logic-informing neoliberal natures.     

A Delphi investigation into future trends in e-learning in Israel

The purpose of this study is to investigate the views and opinions of e-learning experts regarding future trends in the e-learning arena. The Delphi technique was chosen as a method of study. This technique is an efficient and effective group communication process designed to systematically elicit judgments from experts in their selected area of expertise. The 35 experts who participated in this study were asked to rate 16 statements according to what they think will probably happen (probability) and what they would like to see happen (desirability). Findings show that participants believe that the use of new technologies will change current educational theories and methodologies and will have impact on instructor skills, effort, feedback, and interaction as well as on the process of learning assessment. Concerning the future of e-learning, participants view a future tendency toward the provision of full online degrees, yet they are skeptical, stating that the e-learning setting will not completely replace the frontal educational setting. Regarding the impact of social and mobile technologies on e-learning, experts seem to view the role of social and mobile technologies as facilitators in the transfer and sharing of information in e-learning settings.     

Environmental Education for Sustainability: defining the new focus of environmental education in the 1990s

The history of environmental education reveals a close connection between changing concerns about the environment and its associated problems and the way in which environmental education is defined and promoted. In the 1990s, mounting concern over environment and development problems has meant greater support for an educational approach, which not only considers immediate environmental improvement as an actual goal, but also addresses educating for ‘sustainability’ in the long term. Although some education literature has embraced this new focus of environmental education for sustainability (EEFS), it has failed to outline the essence of this approach and has neglected questions about how it differs from the environmental education of the 1980s. No document exists to date which translates the goals of EEFS into guiding principles for its development in schools. Essentially, EEFS needs further definition. This paper is an attempt to engage the debate about what constitutes this new focus of environmental education and how it may differ from conventional approaches to environmental education.     

Risky forms of knowledge: configuring pedagogical practices and their excesses in a sexuality education programme in South Africa

Within the context of sexuality education as an HIV prevention strategy, much attention has been given to what content should be taught and the effectiveness of that content in achieving desired goals. While some research has problematised how curricular content is understood or taken-up, what remains largely unquestioned is a pedagogical imaginary of knowledge as a fixed and stable object that can be transmitted from teacher to learner. This paper builds on feminist readings of pedagogy, and in particular the work of Elizabeth Ellsworth, to interrogate what might happen within sexuality education by thinking about knowledge as continually being made. Drawing on data from a year-long ethnographic research study conducted with loveLife, a national HIV prevention programme for young people in South Africa, the paper problematises the perceived boundaries of what is taught and explicitly engages the pedagogical approach as a constitutive part of what can/should/must be known as well as what kind of relation is offered to that knowledge. The question then is how sexuality education might be re-articulated to engage with ongoing and power-laden struggles within configurations of knowledge, and how a pedagogical approach might open those configurations to ways of knowing, and being known, that are more just for more people.     

印度高等教育政策的回顾与展望

本文采用历史制度主义的基本方法,考察和梳理了印度高等教育政策演变及其制度变迁过程;并对印度高等教育政策的呈现方式、内容的规定性予以概括和总结,文章还根据印度国家《第十一个五年规划》等最新文献中有关高等教育发展的政策性建议,阐述了印度未来高等教育发展目标和实施策略等问题。