Palauan House: Curriculum Revision as a Vessel for Sustaining Palauan Lifeways

Culture is a living entity that continuously adapts to change. It may be observed through what is considered the “ordinary”. House, education and work are inextricably intertwined in ordinary daily life. House, the building, provides shelter, one of human beings most basic physiological needs. House is a safe environment where culture may be nurtured. It is precisely because house is ordinary that it is such an important social element within culture. Sustaining a culture requires absorption of nutrients which enable it to continue evolving, whereas preserving a culture freezes it at a particular point in time. In this document, the work practices, learning methods and cultural norms of traditional Palau, frozen in time through written and pictorial form, are identified and explored. The journey of changes in work and education though colonization by different colonial administrations is tracked. Many dualities exist within Palauan culture. These dualities within the culture are duplexities rather than dichotomies. They operate and co-operate both simultaneously or independently to balance and counterbalance each other. Traditional education in Palau amalgamated theoretical knowledge with practical skills. Unfortunately, with contemporary education, people have been encultured to believe that college prepares them for work. Many majors divorce theory from pragmatic utilitarian knowledge and skills, and then have substantial, both lengthy and rigorous, intern requirements after graduation/commencement prior to certification. The challenge for education in Palau is to create duplexity from this duality. The mission for education in Palau is to understand how cultural practices influence students, and how traditional Palauan education strategies may be effectively integrated into the current educational programs and curricula to help nurture and sustain Palauan culture. This document studies the proposed Architectural Drafting Program at Palau Community College to consider how it may be improved to enable student to sustain their social and cultural community commitments

Simulated Site Visits: an Environmental Learning Strategy for Older People.

This study sought to determine how effectively a simulated site visit could provide an older person with a working knowledge of an unknown building. The need for such research is related to the relocation of older people. To help mitigate the negative effects of such a move, a preparation program has been developed which advocates taking residents on visits to the new building prior to relocation. Although beneficial, the site visits have caused implementation problems. A simulation procedure could help solve the problems by essentially bringing the building to the residents. The simulation technique was based on mental image research. It was composed of a model of the building and a series of sequential slides. The model provided information concerning spatial relationships and the slides provided identification information and the sequential experience of walking through the building. To evaluate the simulation technique, a field experiment was conducted. The sample was r and omly divided into three groups: simulation group; site visit group; and control group. The simulation and site visit groups were exposed to the same parts of the building and in the same order. However, one group saw the simulation and the other saw the actual building. The control group received no exposure to the building prior to testing. A person's working knowledge was operationally defined by assessing the following: confidence in way-finding ability; the mental image of the building; and way-finding ability in the building. The evaluation revealed the simulation technique to be quite successful. Both the mental images and the way-finding performance of the simulation group were superior to the site visit group. Both groups were able to find places that were along the route presented to them. However, the simulation group was more successful in designing their own routes to desired locations--even in unknown areas of the building. This was shown to be the result of a well developed mental image. Thus, this study has demonstrated that the working knowledge provided by the simulation technique was actually more useful than that provided by actual visits to the building itself.Ph.D.ArchitectureUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/158563/1/8204576.pd