Building sustainable learning environments that are ‘fit for the future’ with reference to Egypt

Perhaps there is no building type that has a more significant impact on our lives than the Kindergarten to high School (K-12). We continue to carry the memories of our early learning environments through the residue of our lives. It is the quality of those learning environments that play a crucial role in enhancing or hampering our learning experience. Learning spaces are complex spaces where the collective skills, knowledge, and practices of a culture are taught, shaped, encouraged, and transmitted. Comfortable/safe and creative learning spaces can inspire and motivate users, while ugly/unsafe spaces can oppress. Based on these two attitudes, the aims of this paper are to; firstly, developing Sustainable learning environments (SLE) in the Middle-East countries with reference to Egypt. Secondly, to reviewing and extending the planning and design of the internal, external and landscaping features of a proposed eco-class to collectively pass to the learners for enhancing the quality of learning space and thus education. After the Egyptian Revolution on the 25th of January, 2011 and the hopes and dreams this brings with it, for a major transformation in all life sectors, the Egyptian government needs to recognise the right of children and young people to learn in an environment which is safe, healthy and achieves the highest quality possible. We must all be committed to improving the quality, attractiveness and health of the learning and communal spaces in our schools. Environmental factors have significant effects on pupil and teacher wellbeing. In contrast, poor school and classroom design can affect concentration, creativity and general well-being; in addition, poor quality lighting, ventilation, acoustics and furniture all have a negative effect on student achievement and health. Nowadays, Egypt endure deterioration of education quality as a result of deficient learning spaces, high number of pupils in class, insufficient governmental expenditure and funding, and lack of proper research in education developmental strategies. Therefore, new learning spaces should be able to increase flexibility in order to support hands-on and outside-class learning activities. Furthermore, they intend to encourage extra-curricula activities beyond conventional learning times. Currently, these integral learning-components are crucial for socio-cultural sustainability and positive initiatives towards minimizing recent educational underachievement. Undoubtedly, comfortable, safe and creative learning spaces can inspire and motivate users, while ugly/unsafe spaces can depress. Therefore, well-designed learning spaces are able to support creative, productive and efficient learning processes on one hand. On the other hand, ecological design measures became increasingly major keystone for modern sustainable learning-spaces. Thus, learning-spaces’ design process, form, components, materials, features, and energy-saving technologies can generate well-educated, environmental-literate, energy-conscious, and innovative future-generations. (Continued

Developing Thai Undergraduate Online Digital Citizenship Skills (DCS) Under the New Normal

The study aims to develop a model and assess the suitability of a digital citizenship skills (DCS) model for online teaching and learning for Thai undergraduate students. In-depth interviews and content analysis from seven Thai academic experts in 2020 were used for the analysis. The experts’ questionnaires suitability was analyzed using propriety standards, utility standards, feasibility standards, and accuracy standards as outlined by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (JCSEE). After that, descriptive statistics including the mean and standard deviation (SD) were used to assess the results from the five-level agreement scale used. The final DCS model consisted of five components. These included the learner (L), the instructors (I), the Internet, intranet, and extranet network components (I), the platform component for online teaching, and information and communication technology (ICT) enabled devices (P), and personalized learning (P) (LIIPP Model). Overall model suitability according to the experts’ input was judged to be at a very high level (mean = 4.61, SD = .51)

Enabling Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Inspired by research on the importance of entrepreneurship for sustained economic growth and improved wellbeing, many governments and non-governmental grantmaking organizations have sought over the past decade to implement policies and programs intended to support entrepreneurs. Over this interval, growing appreciation of the limits of strategies focused narrowly on financing or training entrepreneurs has prompted a number of such entities to shift their efforts toward more broadbased strategies aimed at enabling "entrepreneurial ecosystems" at the city or sub-national regional scale.This paper takes the metaphor of the "ecosystem" seriously, seeking to draw lessons from evolutionary biology and ecology to inform policy for entrepreneurship. In so doing, the paper provides a framework for data gathering and analysis of practical value in assessing the vibrancy of entrepreneurial ecosystems

The Summit on Creativity and Aging in America

This report looks at how the federal government can leverage the arts to foster healthy aging and inclusive design for this growing population. This white paper features recommendations from the May 2015 Summit on Creativity and Aging in America, a convening of more than 70 experts hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Center for Creative Aging. The paper highlights recommendations on healthy aging, lifelong learning in the arts, and age-friendly community design. The summit was a precursor to the 2015 White House Conference on Aging, which addressed four major issues: retirement security, long-term services and supports, healthy aging, and elder abuse

Community Lynching and the US Asthma Epidemic

We explore the implications of IR Cohen's work on immune cognition for understanding rising rates of asthma morbidity and mortality in the US. Immune cognition is inherently linked with central nervous system cognition, and with the cognitive function of the embedding sociocultural networks by which individuals are acculturated and through which they work with others to meet challenges of threat and opportunity. Externally-imposed patterns of 'structured stress' can, through their effect on a child's socioculture, become synergistic with the development of immune cognition, triggering the persistence of an atopic Th2 phenotype, a necessary precursor to asthma and other immune diseases. Structured stress in the US particularly includes the cross sectional and longitudinal effects of a systematic destruction of minority urban communities occurring since the end of World War II which we characterize as community lynching. Reversal of the rising tide of asthma and related chronic diseases in the US thus seems unlikely without a 21st Century version of the earlier Great Urban Reforms which ended the scourge of infectious diseases, in particular an end to the de-facto ethnic cleansing of minority neighborhoo

D-STEM: a Design led approach to STEM innovation

Advances in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) disciplines offer opportunities for designers to propose and make products with advanced, enhanced and engineered properties and functionalities. In turn, these advanced characteristics are becoming increasingly necessary as resources become ever more strained through 21st century demands, such as ageing populations, connected communities, depleting raw materials, waste management and energy supply. We need to make things that are smarter, make our lives easier, better and simpler. The products of tomorrow need to do more with less. The issue is how to maximize the potential for exploiting opportunities offered by STEM developments and how best to enable designers to strengthen their position within the innovation ecosystem. As a society, we need designers able to navigate emerging developments from the STEM community to a level that enables understanding and knowledge of the new material properties, the skill set to facilitate absorption into the design ‘toolbox’ and the agility to identify, manage and contextualise innovation opportunities emerging from STEM developments. This paper proposes the blueprint for a new design led approach to STEM innovation that begins to redefine studio culture for the 21st Century

The Human–Nature Relationship and Its Impact on Health: A Critical Review

Within the past four decades, research has been increasingly drawn toward understanding whether there is a link between the changing human–nature relationship and its impact on people’s health. However, to examine whether there is a link requires research of its breadth and underlying mechanisms from an interdisciplinary approach. This article begins by reviewing the debates concerning the human–nature relationship, which are then critiqued and redefined from an interdisciplinary perspective. The concept and chronological history of “health” is then explored, based on the World Health Organization’s definition. Combining these concepts, the human–nature relationship and its impact on human’s health are then explored through a developing conceptual model. It is argued that using an interdisciplinary perspective can facilitate a deeper understanding of the complexities involved for attaining optimal health at the human–environmental interface