THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL FREE-CHOICE LEARNING AND STUDENTS’ LEARNING, ATTITUDES, AND POLICY VIEWS ABOUT WATERWAYS

Environmental free-choice learning is a strategy that has been shown to have positive short-term impacts upon participants’ attitudes and understanding of desired educational outcomes. However, longitudinal studies in this area are rare due to difficulties inherent in data collection and vast differences in participants in these kinds of educational experiences. This study examined the effectiveness of participation in the Skunk River Navy, a free-choice environmental education experience, 1 – 4 years afterward to determine longitudinal effects of the experience on participants’ attitudes toward waterways and content knowledge. Importantly, participants were compared to non-participants who were also biology majors in the same program, completed the same coursework, and who likely shared similar dispositions, interest in biology, and are of similar demographic backgrounds. Results indicate that attitudes toward waterways and content knowledge were higher among participants, but that content knowledge remains lower than desired by program developers. Therefore, when reducing the impact of selection and variance within the study population, longitudinal positive effects can be seen from free-choice learning experiences when they are coupled with formal classroom experiences that address similar concepts.     

Cultural capital: strengths,weaknesses and two advancements

In this paper I discuss two weaknesses in Bourdieu’s work on cultural capital, both of which are related to his integration of the multidimensional nature of social space in different domains of life: social mobility, lifestyle differentiation, and political orientation. First, there is an anomaly between the work on social mobility and on lifestyles. Multiple dimensions of social origin (cultural and economic capital) are related to uni‐dimensional outcomes (e.g. schooling levels), whereas it would be more appropriate to study multidimensional schooling outcomes too. Secondly, although Bourdieu sees a close resemblance in the type of resources affecting lifestyle preferences and political orientations, I argue that these outcomes are affected by two different types of resources: cultural and communicative resources. Proposals for progress, including a review of the empirical results supporting these, are given.     

Children Left Behind in AYP and Non-AYP Schools: Using Student Progress and the Distribution of Student Gains to Validate AYP

The No Child Left Behind Act ( NCLB, 2002 ) establishes ambitious goals for increasing student learning and attaining equity in the distribution of student performance. Schools must assure that all students, including all significant subgroups, show adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward the goal of 100% proficiency by the year 2014. In this paper, we illustrate an alternative way of evaluating AYP that both emphasizes individual student growth over time and focuses on the distribution of student growth between performance subgroups. We do so through analyses of a longitudinal data set from an urban school district in the state of Washington. We also examine what these patterns tell us about schools that have been designated as meeting their AYP targets and those that have not. This alternative way of measuring AYP helps bring to light potentially important aspects of school performance that might be masked if we limit our focus to classifying schools based only on current AYP criteria. In particular, we are able to identify some schools meeting Washington state's AYP criteria in which above-average students are making substantial progress but below-average students making little to no progress. In contrast, other schools making AYP have below-average students making adequate progress but above-average students showing little gains. These contrasts raise questions about the meaning of "adequate" progress and to whom the notion of progress refers. We believe that closely examining the distribution of student progress may provide an important supplementary or alternative measure of AYP.     

An electronic workbook to study statistics: Design and evaluation

The present contribution focuses on an evaluation study in which a so‐called Electronic Workbook was designed, developed and experimentally implemented in the first‐year statistics course of the Faculty of Policy Sciences at the University of Nijmegen. The Electronic Workbook was developed as a potential solution to a four‐fold problem statement (study postponement by students, limited relevance of the course within the curriculum, lack of exploration possibilities, lack of insight into study progress by teachers). The Electronic Workbook was experimentally implemented as a regular part of the statistics course and evaluated during two consecutive academic years. The evaluation results show that students appreciated the possibility of active exploration provided by several types of support devices. They were fairly positive on being responsible for their own study activities. The aims — to gain insight into study progression and to meet the problem of study postponement ‐were achieved only to a limited degree in the first evaluation study. Due to some major changes in the educational set‐up of the second evaluation study, students were more actively and regularly engaged in the statistics course.     

Race,Media, and the Cultivation of Concern

These reflections on critical communication and cultural studies of race draw on Bruno Latour's idea of ‘matters of concern’ to propose that scholars expand the focus of inquiry from empirical questions of veracity and accuracy in representations of race to concerns with how (and where) media gather and mobilize sentiments and affective investments that increasingly underwrite quotidian practices of racial inequality and racism in the post racial period.     

The Internet Defends Itself: The Network Neutrality Debate on the Web

This study examines the network neutrality debate, as represented online. The research begins by conducting network analysis to identify key websites, followed by retrieving the relevant documents and using content analysis. Results demonstrate that the online version of the debate skews heavily toward the pro-network neutrality side. The web debate also includes much higher proportions of voices from nonprofit sectors, especially nongovernmental organizations. Telecommunications companies and trade groups, which anchor the anti-network neutrality coalition, are relatively quiet online. These findings show groups that are less powerful making heavy use of online communication and, in light of the political history of the issue, they also suggest online mobilizing may help reshape the dynamics of issue advocacy.     

Diagnosis,Evaluation, and Treatment of Lead Poisoning in General Population

Among the heavy metals, lead still remains the major toxic pollutant of the environment. Human exposure to lead can occur through numerous pathways including air, food, dust, soil, and water. In the present study 14 lead poisoned patients with non-occupational lead exposure were evaluated. They were followed up and compared against the controls with no history of lead exposure. The patients had high blood lead levels and symptoms of weakness, dizziness, abdominal pain, generalized body ache, loss of appetite, and anxiety. Repeated course of chelation therapy helped to bring down their body burden of lead. Alternative sources for lead exposure can cause severe lead poisoning in general population. Screening and medical management of such individuals is very important to identify and eliminate sources of lead. The treatment and management requires a thorough medical evaluation and environmental intervention.