Should Science be Taught in Early Childhood?

This essay considers the question of why we should teach science to K-2. After initial consideration of two traditional reasons for studying science, six assertions supporting the idea that even small children should be exposed to science are given. These are, in order: (1) Children naturally enjoy observing and thinking about nature. (2) Exposing students to science develops positive attitudes towards science. (3) Early exposure to scientific phenomena leads to better understanding of the scientific concepts studied later in a formal way. (4) The use of scientifically informed language at an early age influences the eventual development of scientific concepts. (5) Children can understand scientific concepts and reason scientifically. (6) Science is an efficient means for developing scientific thinking. Concrete illustrations of some of the ideas discussed in this essay, particularly, how language and prior knowledge may influence the development of scientific concepts, are then provided. The essay concludes by emphasizing that there is a window of opportunity that educators should exploit by presenting science as part of the curriculum in both kindergarten and the first years of primary school.     

Massive preexposure and preexposure in multiple contexts attenuate the context specificity of latent inhibition

Latent inhibition, which refers to attenuated responding to a conditioned stimulus (CS) after CS-unconditioned stimulus (CS-US) pairings as a result of CS-alone presentations prior to the pairings, is often attenuated if preexposure and conditioning occur in different contexts (i.e., it is context specific). Here we report two conditioned lick suppression experiments, using rat subjects, that examined whether manipulations known to attenuate the context specificity of extinction could also eliminate the context specificity of latent inhibition. Context specificity of latent inhibition was eliminated when the CS was preexposed in multiple contexts (Experiment 1) and when the CS was massively pre-exposed in the training context alone (Experiment 2). These results and their practical implications are discussed in the framework of contemporary theories of latent inhibition.     

Teaching Ecosystems and Matter Cycles with Creative Drama Activities

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of creative drama-based instruction on seventh graders’ science achievements in the ecology and matter cycles unit and their attitudes toward science. The study is an experimental study carried out in one of the public elementary schools in Turkey during 2005–2006 schooling year. An ecological concept achievement test was developed and administered to 45 students in two classes (as control and experimental group) of an elementary school before and after the treatment. The experimental group received creative drama-based instruction and the control group received traditional instruction. A guiding instruction material which contains six lesson plans in the subject was constructed for the teacher to administer creative drama-based instruction. The topics of ecosystems and matter cycles were taught to the both of groups for 3 weeks. A science attitude test was administered to both groups before and after the treatment. The results revealed a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the both groups with respect to achievement in the ecology concepts and median of the attitudes toward science in favour of the experimental group after the treatment.     

Student,home, and school socio-demographic factors: links to school,home, and community arts participation

This study explored the role of student (e.g., age, language background, gender), home (e.g., parent/caregiver education), and school (e.g., school type, size) socio-demographic factors in students’ school (e.g., in-school arts tuition, arts engagement), home (e.g., parent/caregiver–child arts interaction), and community (e.g., arts attendance, arts tuition) arts participation. The sample comprised 1172 elementary and secondary school students from 15 schools. Findings revealed that student and home socio-demographic factors were the most salient in predicting arts participation across school, home, and community contexts. Age, gender, and prior achievement were the key student socio-demographic factors, while parent/caregiver education and occupation were also associated with students’ arts participation. Implications for practice and intervention pertinent to young people’s arts participation are discussed.     

对韩礼德“阶和范畴语法”理论的批评

Halliday的“现代汉语语法范畴”揭开了阶和范畴语法理论研究的序幕 ,其主要目的是说明语言是什么 ,语言如何工作。该理论一提出 ,就受到当代数位语言大师的批评 ,该文简要回顾了Postal,Matthews等对级阶理论的批评 ;Butler等对类概念的批评 ;Huddle ston ,Palmer等对结构概念的批评和Postal对分类性质的批评。     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Agrobacterium</Emphasis>-mediated transformation of herbicide resistance in creeping bentgrass and colonial bentgrass

Embryogenic calli were induced from the seeds of creeping bentgrass (Agrostis palustris Huds.) cv. Regent and colonial bentgrass (Agrostis Tenuis Sibth. Fl. Oxen.) cv. Tiger. The embryogenic calli were precultured on fresh medium for 4–7 days and then co-cultivated withAgrobacterium tumefaciens, LBA4404. which contains plasmid vector-pSBGM harboring bar coding region, synthetic green fluorescent protein (sGFP) coding region and matrix attachment region (MAR). After 3 days of co-cultivation, the calli were washed thoroughly and transferred to MS medium containing 2 mg/L of 2, 4-D, 12–15 mg/L phosphinothricin (PPT) and 250 mg/L of cefotaxime. After 2–3 months of selection, the actively growing calli of ‘Regent’ and ‘Tiger’ were transferred to MS medium with 12–15 mg/L PPT and 250 mg/L cefotazime for regeneration. The putative transformants were maintained on MS medium with 3 mg/L PPT for long period but control died within 1 month. After establishing in greenhouse, the transformants also showed strong resistance to 0.4% of herbicide Basta but control plants died within 2 weeks. Under confocal microscope, both young leaves and roots showed significant GFP expression. PCR analysis revealed the presence of a DNA fragment of GFP gene at the expected size (380 bp) in the transformants and its absence in a randomly selected control plant.     

Religious education,communal identity and national politics in the Muslim world

This article discusses models for religious education in school in (parts of) the Muslim world and the implied relation between self and other, confessional and national identity. The question of how current models and discussions respond to globalized issues in education is also discussed. The last part of the article identifies triggering factors behind some recent attempts at establishing more inclusive ways of teaching about religion and ethics in school.     

CICBS: a methodology and a framework for measuring and managing intellectual capital of cities. A practical application in the city of Mataró

The governments of cities have to make important decisions on the future of their communities. In the past, the vision, objectives, and goals of cities have been determined mainly by considering tangible assets as the main factors of a city's prosperity. However, in the knowledge economy, the role of intangible assets in wealth creation has become fundamental. As a result, a framework of intangible assets that allows navigation from the present reality to the future vision has become an urgent need for all cities. The paper has two well-defined parts. In the first part, it develops a specific methodology and framework for measuring and managing the intellectual capital of cities. In the second part, the study deals with the practical application of this model of intellectual capital in cities with the specific case of the city of Mataró, providing some details of the first cities’ intellectual capital report.     

Knowledge sharing in a multi-cultural setting: a case study

Organizational culture has been shown to influence the success of knowledge management practices. Hofstede's theory specifies that organizational culture is not independent of national culture. A case study of an international subsidiary was conducted to explore the extent to which knowledge sharing is dependent on national culture. Results indicate that language differences can create knowledge blocks, and cross-cultural differences can explain the direction of knowledge flows.