Children's understanding of globes as a model of the earth: a problem of contextualizing

Visual representations play an important role in science teaching. The way in which visual representations may help children to acquire scientific concepts is a crucial test in the debate between constructivist and socio-cultural oriented researchers. In this paper, the question is addressed as a problem of how to contextualize conceptions and explanations in cognitive frameworks and visual descriptions in cultural contexts. Eleven children aged six to eight years were interviewed in the presence of a globe. Those children who expressed views of the earth that deviated from the culturally accepted view did not show any difficulties in combining these different ideas with the globe model. The way that this is possible is explained using a model of conceptual development as a process of differentiation between contexts and frameworks. The child must differentiate not only between the earth as an area of flat ground in a common-sense framework and the planet earth in a theoretical framework, but also between these frameworks and the framework of the representation. It is suggested that a differentiation on a meta-level is needed to distinguish which problems and explanations belong to which cognitive framework. In addition, the children must contextualize the visual description of the earth in the globe in a cultural context to discern which mode of representation is used

Digitaalinen media yksilöllistää ja yhdistää vapaa-ajan liikkujia

nonPeerReviewe

Warm range margin of boreal bryophytes and lichens not directly limited by temperatures

Species at their warm range margin are potentially threatened by higher temperatures, but may persist in microrefugia. Whether such microsites occur due to more suitable microclimate or due to lower biotic pressure from, for example competitive species, is still not fully resolved. We examined whether boreal bryophytes and lichens show signs of direct climate limitation, that is whether they perform better in cold and/or humid microclimates at their warm range margin. We transplanted a moss, a liverwort and a lichen to 58 boreal forest sites with different microclimates at the species' southern range margin in central Sweden. Species were grown in garden soil patches to control the effects of competitive exclusion and soil quality. We followed the transplanted species over three growing seasons (2016-2018) and modelled growth and vitality for each species as a function of subcanopy temperature, soil moisture, air humidity and forest type. In 2018, we also recorded the cover of other plants having recolonized the garden soil patches and modelled this potential future competition with the same environmental variables plus litter. Species performance increased with warmer temperatures, which was often conditional on high soil moisture, and at sites with more conifers. Soil moisture had a positive effect, especially on the moss in the last year 2018, when the growing season was exceptionally hot and dry. The lichen was mostly affected by gastropod grazing. Recolonization of other plants was also faster at warmer and moister sites. The results indicate that competition, herbivory, shading leaf litter and water scarcity might be more important than the direct effects of temperature for performance at the species' warm range margin. Synthesis. In a transplant experiment with three boreal understorey species, we did not find signs of direct temperature limitation towards the south. Forest microrefugia, that is habitats where these species could persist regional warming, may instead be sites with fewer competitors and enemies, and with sufficient moisture and more conifers in the overstorey.Peer reviewe

Rocky habitats as microclimatic refuges for biodiversity. A close-up thermal approach

In the present scenario of climatic change, climatic refugia will be of paramount importance for species per- sistence. Topography can generate a considerable climatic heterogeneity over short distances, which is often disregarded in macroclimatic predictive models. Here we investigate the role of rocky habitats as microclimatic refugia by combining two different analyses: exploring a thermal mechanism whereby rocky habitats might serve as refugia, and examining if the biogeographic pattern shows a high abundance of relict, endemic and peripheral species. The thermal profile of two populations of relict and endemic plant species occurring in Pyrenean cliffs was investigated by infrared images and in situ temperature data-loggers. Despite occurring in crevices of a south oriented slope, Androsace cylindrica showed a narrower daily range of temperature than the surrounding matrix, thereby avoiding extreme high temperatures. Borderea chouardii, of tropical ancestors, also occurred in patches where temperatures were buffered during the growth season, experiencing lower mean temperatures than the surrounding matrix and nearby areas during the warmer part of the day, and similar temperatures during the colder. The rocky habitats of both species, therefore, reduced temperature ranges and exposition to extreme climatic events. Compared to other habitats, the rocky ones also harboured a very high fraction of both endemics and peripheral plant populations according to the largest vegetation dataset available in the Pyrenees (18,800 plant inventories and 400,000 records). Our results suggest an association between the habitats of relicts, en- demics and species at their distribution limit, driven by a stabilizing effect of rocky habitats on extreme tem- peratures. Given the important role of rocky habitats as hotspots of singular and unique plants, their char- acterization seems a sensible first step to identify potential refugia in the context of climate change

Post-Publication Gatekeeping Factors and Practices: Data, Platforms, and Regulations in News Work

The gatekeeping literature has turned to look at the factors and practices that shape gatekeeping in the post-publication environment, i.e., after news has entered circulation. This article adds to the discussion and argues that news workers share gatekeeping power in the post-publication environment with audiences, platforms, and regulations. Further, this study extends the post-publication gatekeeping framework and considers it in the context of datafication. The article aims to broadly understand how (audience) data is part of editorial decision-making in news media from news workers’ perceptions. The current study was conducted by interviewing news workers from three Finnish news organisations. The interview data was analysed utilising qualitative iterative content analysis. Our analysis revealed that the use of (audience) data in news organisations increasingly shapes news workers’ journalistic decision-making processes. We found that news workers were ambivalent toward data (use) and that their reliance on platform data depended on the particular platform. Furthermore, when interviewed about journalism ethics, news workers only connected it with legislative issues, such as General Data Protection Regulation. Lastly, we could see that regulatory factors of data, i.e., legislation and media self-regulation, have power over news production and distribution. This study reflects how journalism (research) is shifting from an audience-centric view to a data-driven one, i.e., it is experiencing a data turn

Drawings as representations of children's conceptions

Drawings are often used to get an idea of children's conceptions. Doing so takes for granted an unambiguous relation between conceptions and their representations in drawings. This study was undertaken to gain knowledge of the relation between children's conceptions and their representation of these conceptions in drawings. A theory of contextualization was the basis for finding out how children related their contextualization of conceptions in conceptual frameworks to their contextualization of drawings in pictorial convention. Eighteen children were interviewed in a semi-structured method while they were drawing the Earth. Audio-recorded interviews, drawings and notes were analysed to find the cognitive and cultural intentions behind the drawings. Also, even children who demonstrated alternative conceptions of the Earth in the interviews still followed cultural conventions in their drawings. Thus, these alternative conceptions could not be deduced from the drawings. The results indicate that children's drawings can be used to grasp children's conceptions only by considering the meaning the children themselves give to their own drawings