31,634 research outputs found

    The Global Engineer : Incorporating global skills within UK higher education of engineers

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    NEXUS/Physics: An interdisciplinary repurposing of physics for biologists

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    In response to increasing calls for the reform of the undergraduate science curriculum for life science majors and pre-medical students (Bio2010, Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians, Vision & Change), an interdisciplinary team has created NEXUS/Physics: a repurposing of an introductory physics curriculum for the life sciences. The curriculum interacts strongly and supportively with introductory biology and chemistry courses taken by life sciences students, with the goal of helping students build general, multi-discipline scientific competencies. In order to do this, our two-semester NEXUS/Physics course sequence is positioned as a second year course so students will have had some exposure to basic concepts in biology and chemistry. NEXUS/Physics stresses interdisciplinary examples and the content differs markedly from traditional introductory physics to facilitate this. It extends the discussion of energy to include interatomic potentials and chemical reactions, the discussion of thermodynamics to include enthalpy and Gibbs free energy, and includes a serious discussion of random vs. coherent motion including diffusion. The development of instructional materials is coordinated with careful education research. Both the new content and the results of the research are described in a series of papers for which this paper serves as an overview and context.Comment: 12 page

    Technology education in the New Zealand curriculum

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    In this chapter, the way in which experience of existing school programmes influences teacher perceptions of technology education is discussed, and reasons for teaching technology are outlined. A relationship between technology and technology education is suggested and the structure of technology education in the New Zealand technology curriculum is described. A particular focus is the role of technological activities in technology education, and this is developed in the final section

    Educating the energy informatics specialist: opportunities and challenges in light of research and industrial trends

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    Contemporary energy research is becoming more interdisciplinary through the involvement of technical, economic, and social aspects that must be addressed simultaneously. Within such interdisciplinary energy research, the novel domain of energy informatics plays an important role, as it involves different disciplines addressing the socio-techno-economic challenges of sustainable energy and power systems in a holistic manner. The objective of this paper is to draw an overview of the novel domain of energy informatics by addressing the educational opportunities as well as related challenges in light of current trends and the future direction of research and industrial innovation. In this study we discuss the energy informatics domain in a way that goes beyond a purely scientific research perspective. This paper widens the analyses by including reflections on current and future didactic approaches with industrial innovation and research as a background. This paper provides key recommendations for the content of a foundational introductory energy informatics course, as well as suggestions on distinguishing features to be addressed through more specialized courses in the field. The importance of this work is based on the need for better guidelines for a more appropriate education of a new generation of experts who can take on the novel interdisciplinary challenges present in future integrated, sustainable energy systems

    CESEC Chair – Training Embedded System Architects for the Critical Systems Domain

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    Increasing complexity and interactions across scientific and tech- nological domains in the engineering of critical systems calls for new pedagogical approach. In this paper, we introduce the CESEC teaching chair. This chair aims at supporting new integrative ap- proach for the initial training of engineer and master curriculum to three engineering school in Toulouse: ISAE, INSA Toulouse and INP ENSEEIHT. It is supported by the EADS Corporate Foundation. In this paper, we highlight the rationale for this chair: need for sys- tem architect with strong foundations on technical domains appli- cable to the aerospace industry. We then introduce the ideal profile for this architect and the various pedagogical approaches imple- mented to reach this objective

    Planning Curricular Proposals on Sound and Music with Prospective Secondary-School Teachers

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    Sound is a preferred context to build foundations on wave phenomena, one of the most important disciplinary referents in physics. It is also one of the best-set frameworks to achieve transversality, overcoming scholastic level and activating emotional aspects which are naturally connected with every day life, as well as with music and perception. Looking at sound and music by a transversal perspective - a border-line approach between science and art, is the adopted statement for a teaching proposal using meta-cognition as a strategy in scientific education. This work analyzes curricular proposals on musical acoustics, planned by prospective secondary-school teachers in the framework of a Formative Intervention Module answering the expectation of making more effective teaching scientific subjects by improving creative capabilities, as well as leading to build logical and scientific categorizations able to consciously discipline artistic activity in music students. With this aim, a particular emphasis is given to those concepts - like sound parameters and structural elements of a musical piece, which are best fitted to be addressed on a transversal perspective, involving simultaneously physics, psychophysics and music.Comment: 12 pages with 5 figures. Submitted for publication in Physics Curriculum Design, Development and Validation - GIREP 2008 book of selected papers, 200

    Transition UGent: a bottom-up initiative towards a more sustainable university

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    The vibrant think-tank ‘Transition UGent’ engaged over 250 academics, students and people from the university management in suggesting objectives and actions for the Sustainability Policy of Ghent University (Belgium). Founded in 2012, this bottom-up initiative succeeded to place sustainability high on the policy agenda of our university. Through discussions within 9 working groups and using the transition management method, Transition UGent developed system analyses, sustainability visions and transition paths on 9 fields of Ghent University: mobility, energy, food, waste, nature and green, water, art, education and research. At the moment, many visions and ideas find their way into concrete actions and policies. In our presentation we focused on the broad participative process, on the most remarkable structural results (e.g. a formal and ambitious Sustainability Vision and a student-led Sustainability Office) and on recent actions and experiments (e.g. a sustainability assessment on food supply in student restaurants, artistic COP21 activities, ambitious mobility plans, food leftovers projects, an education network on sustainability controversies, a transdisciplinary platform on Sustainable Cities). We concluded with some recommendations and reflections on this transition approach, on the important role of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ and student involvement, on lock-ins and bottlenecks, and on convincing skeptical leaders

    Smart & sustainable cities

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    The University of Strathclyde is creating a new Institute for Future Cities that aims to improve the quality of human life across the world through innovative research that enables cities to be understood in new ways, and innovative approaches to be developed for the way we live, work, learn and invest in cities. The new Institute will create a focus and strategy to coordinate academic research on urban themes, and partnerships with cities, businesses, research institutions and governments across the world. This paper outlines the wider context and issues for urban policy and research, and describes some of the key objectives and activities of the Institute for Future Cities - including the €3.7 million EU FP7 STEP UP project on sustainable city planning and implementation, a new ESRC research programme on crime prediction, and the City Observatory within the £24 million TSB Future City Demonstrator in Glasgow
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