Abstract Concern about the health of American democracy mounts as a result of the large body of literature documenting chronically low levels of voter turnout among young people in particular. A volunteer, nonprofit organization called “Kids Voting, USA” was formed in the late 1980s to try to tackle the specific problem of encouraging young adults to vote. In cooperation with school districts, the program includes some grade-specific curricula and culminates on Election Day with kids voting in polling booths set up alongside official ones. Existing assessments of the program's impact have been very positive. Particularly hopeful is one study that concludes that the program's strongest effects are found in mobilizing those least advantaged in terms of the customary correlates of political participation. Our ecological analysis, based on the actual turnout rates in the Kids Voting elections for participating schools in Erie County, NY (N = 222), suggests that such conclusions are perhaps overly optimistic. Patterns in the geography and social ecology of participation in Kids Voting elections unfortunately look quite similar to those related to variations in the official electoral process. Although Kids Voting programs may have a salutary effect stimulating political involvement among the young, further reforms seem necessary if they are to reach their full potential. 相似文献
Abstract A Learning Support System (LSS) that emphasizes experiential research in natural environments using the cutting-edge technologies of GIS and multimedia has been developed for teaching environmental literacy to undergraduate students at the University of Georgia. Computers are used as cognitive tools to create a context in which students become interns in an ecological research center. Students are instructed to conduct research in the form of two field laboratories (the stream and forest laboratories). They accomplish their tasks by collecting data in the field (the State Botanical Garden of Georgia near the campus). They enter the data in the Learning Support System (LSS), and are guided to formulate hypotheses relating to stream water quality and human impact on forest succession for testing. Students also interact with the Environmental Research Support Site (ERSS) within the LSS for explanations to their findings. A specially customized Arc View GIS program within the LSS provides a tool to students for spatial analysis in the case of the forest laboratory. Students and faculty evaluations as well as final examination results confirmed the receptiveness of students to the LSS approach and its effectiveness in the learning of environmental literacy. 相似文献
Abstract This study investigated the effects of using a long-duration, project-based science professional development model on the acquisition of declarative knowledge and basic terminology associated with the use of geographic information technologies (GIT), teachers' self-assessed confidence in using GIT skills, and the implementation of GIT in participants' classrooms. Results suggest that a long-duration, project-based science model was effective in teaching GIT declarative knowledge and raising teachers' self-confidence in using GIT tools. The academy was funded through a grant from the US Department of Education with additional support from Environmental Science Resources Institute (ESRI), Inc., and members of the New Mexico Geographic Information Council. 相似文献
Abstract Over the next decade or so, the National Assessment for Educational Progress in Geography and the Geographic Education Standards Project promise to give geography a new definition as a school subject. This will challenge the educational community to re-examine how geography is taught and learned across all the grade levels, K-12. If geography is to be perceived as an essential subject in preparing students for citizenship as adults, not only must its image change, but its content and the pedagogy that delivers it must be modified as well. To achieve those ends, new curricular models grounded in cogent and applicable research must develop through partnerships of teachers, teacher educators, learning theorists, and professional geographers. 相似文献
Genetic techniques are increasingly employed in the field of conservation biology; our understanding of sea turtle biology, and particularly of sea turtle migrations and population structures, has increased through genetic analyses that ‘match’ turtles found in various and often widely distributed habitats (e.g. nesting beaches, foraging grounds, migratory corridors). This relatively recent technological development has implications for how sea turtles are conceived, both as resources and as objects of conservation. Traditionally, sea turtle populations have been identified with nesting beaches, and most conservation efforts have been focused on these discrete geographic locations and undertaken by the state. The more complete understanding of relationships among turtles found in geographically disparate areas, achieved via genetic analysis, can take conservation beyond the beaches and territorial waters of individual states; foraging populations can now be linked to nesting populations sometimes hundreds of kilometers distant. In this paper, we explore the implications of genetic analysis for sea turtle conservation, the scale at which it is undertaken, and the variety of actors with competing interests in it. We focus on the case of hawksbill sea turtles in the Caribbean, where genetic data are invoked in conservation conflicts. We are particularly interested in the way genetic data can support the scaling-up of sea turtle conservation, creating new ‘conservation territories,’ and we draw on political ecology and common pool resource theory to explore the implications thereof. 相似文献
A geographic information system (GIS) raster technique has been developed and used interactively with remediation designers to evaluate the optimum extent of excavating soil contaminated by chlorinated solvents. The technique and the results of its application are presented. The site was a former chemical storage plant for acids and solvents. Two distinct solvent plumes were detected within the ground using a photo-ionisation detector. The solvents were found to be dissolved in the groundwater and migrating in the general direction of groundwater flow. A remediation strategy was proposed involving the localised excavation of contamination ‘hot spots’ followed by the implementation of a groundwater remediation system. A number of excavation options were discussed and the GIS raster technique was developed to evaluate these options in terms of contaminant removed and excavation cost.
The plumes were initially mapped using a triangular irregular network (TIN). These TIN models were rasterised to produce a regular grid of rectangular cells, each cell having a value relating to the concentration of contaminant at that spatial point. The proposed excavation zones were then overlaid on to the raster models as masks. The relationship between the value of contaminant concentration of cells within the mask (or excavation zone) and the total value of contaminant concentration of cells within the solvent plume was used to determine the efficiency of the excavation.
The excavation options were compared taking into account the percentage of the contaminant plume removed, the excavation area (soil volumes) and related costs. Once the GIS raster technique had been developed, it proved very quick to rerun the analysis for the other excavation zones. The optimum excavation zone, based upon cost and contaminant recovery, was found for the site. The technique helped by targeting the worst area of contamination and provided the client with a cost-benefit analysis of the different remediation options. 相似文献