Effects of web geographic information system (GIS) technology and curriculum approaches on education for disaster risk reduction

Disaster risk reduction education (DRRE) is a strategy to mitigate the harmful effects of disasters. The implementation of DRRE in schools is on the rise, and web geographic information system (GIS) technology in DRRE is becoming increasingly prevalent. However, little knowledge exists about whether students can improve their understanding of disaster risk reduction (DRR) through web GIS technology and which factors affect their learning of web hazard maps. This study has provided materials and curricula for DRR education in Chinese and Japanese high schools and utilized them eight times in the classroom between 2020 and 2022. These classes had three forms of implementation due to the COVID-19 pandemic: online, on-site and online–on-site mixed. The students first answered a pretest. Then they learned about DRR using the explanatory web pages and the web hazard maps by answering quizzes shown on the pages. After that, they answered a posttest and a questionnaire. Most students exhibit improved results after utilizing the digital DRR materials. This improvement is pronounced for the on-site implementations, while the mixed online–on-site implementation proves less effective. The pretest scores for the implementations using local disaster cases are low, but the subsequent improvement is significant. The ability of students to utilize electronic devices affects the learning of GIS-related content rather than other aspects. The daily use of online maps and attention to disaster prevention and mitigation affect the learning of all the materials. Increasing the use of online hazard maps is key to realizing social DRR.</p

Rethinking Pedagogy: Exploring the Potential of Digital Technology in Achieving Quality Education

(First Paragraph) The Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) is UNESCO’s Category 1 education Institute in the Asia-Pacific region devoted to education for peace and sustainable development, as enshrined in SDG Target 4.7. UNESCO MGIEP promotes the use of digital learning platforms where teachers and students can co-create and share a highly interactive learning experience. With the rise of the internet, there has been a proliferation of online content and digital resources intended to support teaching and learning, albeit widely varying in quality. Digital education media and resources, if carefully designed and implemented, have a significant potential to be mobilized on a massive scale to support transformative learning for building sustainable, flourishing societies

Whitworth Park Community Archaeology and History Project: An Evaluation Report for the Heritage Lottery Fund

The Whitworth Park Community Archaeology and History Project took place between 2011 and 2015. The project investigated the material, social and natural history of Whitworth Park through archaeological survey and excavation, archival research and oral history. At the same time it engaged present-day communities with Whitworth Park&rsquo;s rich past and its contribution to their urban heritage. The results of the project contributed to a wide range of activities and outputs that promoted public understanding well beyond the original project brief. These included tours of the excavations and the park, open days, a project blog, a Live Tweet, an exhibition, a public leaflet, a park display board, three short films, a series of lectures and workshops, and a number of preliminary publications addressing popular, professional and academic audiences. The project touched the lives of numerous people in diverse ways, ranging from the intensive participation of c.50 volunteers in the excavations and post-excavation work, to workshops for various classes from 6 schools, to some 44.5k visitors to the exhibition, to approximately 3.5k blog visitors and approximately 44.5k twitter accounts. Collectively, the volunteers dedicated 252 days and 1763 hours to the project.The project has contributed a great deal to our knowledge and understanding of Whitworth Park, providing intimate insights into the everyday lives of those who used it in the past. It equipped volunteers with new heritage-based skills as well as generic skills in team-working, communication and public engagement. Most importantly, it provided a strong sense of camaraderie in the shared excitement of discovery. School workshops facilitated connections and comparisons between childhood past and present, and gave children ranging from primary schools to 6th form colleges a taste of the significance and excitement of history and archaeology. Diverse and rewarding partnerships were created and fostered, many of which will be sustained beyond the lifetime of the project. Above all, the project has made a contribution to the work of those who care for public parks &ndash; their heritage and their future &ndash; ranging from the Friends of Whitworth Park to the Heritage Lottery Fund and other national organisations

Health Promotion in Children and Adolescents through Sport and Physical Activities

This Special Issue entitled ”Health Promotion in Children and Adolescents through Sport and Physical Activities” was developed after I received an interesting phone call from Giuseppe Musumeci, a friend and colleague who, in my opinion, is brilliantly driving JFMK to success. Giuseppe motivated me to manage a Special Issue ( SI), and after a short interaction with him and some personal study, I decided to address the topic of this SI to the area mentioned above. Although the title of this SI may seem a bit broad, since the beginning, my intention has been clear: to try to collect more information about the impact that human movement has on the physical and psychological conditions of subjects during all stages of development, also known as the pediatric age. I admit I was surprised when submissions started rolling in. There were many exciting works (unfortunately, we had to reject a few of them for a variety of reasons), and in the end we collected 13 contributions in a short period. In brief, I will present here the core message that this SI book aims to share with the readers. The first part of the book contains three interesting editorials that fit perfectly with the SI’s purposes. Sarah West et al. point out the importance of “research that longitudinally assesses how lifelong physical activity () contributes to life expectancy and mortality”, while Ambra Gentile presents an interesting project supported by the European Commission addressing sports and human movement as valid methods of preventing violence and social exclusion. The third editorial by Marianna Alesi et al. also reports on a European initiative concerning cognitive and motivational monitoring during enriched sports activities. Interestingly, these three articles have many common points, and the central role of human movement is the driving factor. Among the subsequent contributions, readers will find an interesting review by Riggs Klika et al., in which the terms cancer, pediatric age, and exercise have been properly investigated and presented. Laura Kabiri et al. presents data that support the importance of being active at a young age, while Ryan D. Burn and You Fu investigated the interrelationships among motor competence and health-related variables during the pediatric age. The matter of motor competence is addressed by Charlotte JH Hall et al., who suggest that good motor competence is an important correlate of children meeting physical activity guidelines for health. In an original investigation, Yolanda Demetriu et al. provide first insights into how a sports-oriented school can promote students’ physical literacy and optimal cognitive performance. Cain CT Clark et al. investigated motor skills in children and highlighted the importance of gender differences, while the work of Michael PR Sheldrick et al. reports that sufficient MVPA and excessive screen time were associated with healthy and unhealthy factors, respectively, with relationships sometimes differing by sex. Ewan Thomas and Antonio Palma report that it is possible to consider age-related performance measures to develop exercise interventions that follow the growth characteristics of schoolchildren, while Francisco Tavares et al., in their original investigation, encourage the development of power capacities in the late youth phase when preparing athletes for the senior competition level. Now, at the end of this journey through all the scientific contributions that I had the honor of managing, I want to say thank you to all the lovely people at the MDPI Editorial Office. I felt supported and encouraged to be creative and productive, and I will definitely request a second edition of this successful and interesting Special Issue

The Journal of ERW and Mine Action Issue 18.3 (2014)

Pacific Islands | Program Management | Notes from the Field | Research and Developmen

Primary and Secondary Education During Covid-19

This open access edited volume is a comparative effort to discern the short-term educational impact of the covid-19 pandemic on students, teachers and systems in Brazil, Chile, Finland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. One of the first academic comparative studies of the educational impact of the pandemic, the book explains how the interruption of in person instruction and the variable efficacy of alternative forms of education caused learning loss and disengagement with learning, especially for disadvantaged students. Other direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic diminished the ability of families to support children and youth in their education. For students, as well as for teachers and school staff, these included the economic shocks experienced by families, in some cases leading to food insecurity and in many more causing stress and anxiety and impacting mental health. Opportunity to learn was also diminished by the shocks and trauma experienced by those with a close relative infected by the virus, and by the constrains on learning resulting from students having to learn at home, where the demands of schoolwork had to be negotiated with other family necessities, often sharing limited space. Furthermore, the prolonged stress caused by the uncertainty over the resolution of the pandemic and resulting from the knowledge that anyone could be infected and potentially lose their lives, created a traumatic context for many that undermined the necessary focus and dedication to schoolwork. These individual effects were reinforced by community effects, particularly for students and teachers living in communities where the multifaceted negative impacts resulting from the pandemic were pervasive. This is an open access book

Songs, Safe and Sound: Children’s Educational Music in Interwar America

This dissertation examines how children’s music, children’s theater, and media (e.g., radio and film) contributed to safety education from 1918 to 1939. During this time, technologies such as automobiles radically changed everyday life, leaving death and tragedy in their wake. These hazards fundamentally challenged the safety of family life, recreation, and work. As deaths from preventable accidents rivaled the number of American soldiers who died in World War I, governments and trade associations created new safety initiatives to prevent death and injury. Scholars have examined the economic, engineering, and workplace aspects of safety. However, overlooked is the revolutionary role of the arts in defining safety and educating the public on these deadly consequences. My research asks: what did it mean for something or someone to be considered safe? By attending to music and media, I show that safety required active community-wide participation and that prejudices based on age, class, ethnicity, gender, and race undergirded safety. I examine the biases portrayed in safety lessons, placing close readings of media sources in conversation with archival documents, music analysis, and contemporaneous studies from the social sciences. An introduction constructs a historical model of safety. Chapters explore accident prevention in the school; the work of mothers as arbiters of safe content for child listeners; the tension between public service and the commercial music industry; and crime prevention and police surveillance. An epilogue reflects on public health, safety, and sonic media today. This research provides the historical context for debates regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the role of the arts in education during times of crisis, the history of remote learning, and gendered labor in the home. As this dissertation examines the shaping of both childhood and parenthood by the media, it places debates on the potential dangers of music technologies and the early maturation of children’s tastes in the early twentieth century. This research locates a historical precedent for uses of music in public health and safety efforts in America before color television and music streaming. In using the arts to examine the relationship between safety and prejudice, this dissertation shows how music and media both help and harm society

Smart Cities and Construction Technologies

This book includes nine chapters presenting the outcome of research projects relevant to building, cities, and construction. A description of a smart city and the journey from conventional to smart cities is discussed at the beginning of the book. Innovative case studies of underground cities and floating city bridges are presented in this book. BIM and GIS applications on different projects, and the concept of intelligent contract and virtual reality are discussed. Two concepts relevant to conventional buildings including private open spaces and place attachments are also included, and these topics can be upgraded in the future by smart technologies