Contexts for questioning: Two zones of teaching and learning in undergraduate science

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012.Higher education institutions are currently undertaking a challenging process in moving from teacher-orientated to student-focused approaches. Students’ ability to asking questions is fundamental to developing critical reasoning, and to the process of scientific enquiry itself. Our premise is that questioning competences should become a central focus of current reforms in higher education. This study, part of a broader naturalistic research project, aims at developing a theoretical framework for conceptualizing different contexts for questioning, illustrating the application of the proposed framework (contextual questioning zones) and reflecting about some of the dimensions of teaching and learning, for overcoming some of the challenges that higher education institutions are facing presently. The discussion of two ‘opposite’ contexts of enquiry is based on qualitative data, gathered through close collaboration with four teachers of undergraduate biology at a Portuguese university. These teachers were observed during their ‘daily activity’ during an academic year. Data was also gathered by interviewing these teachers and 8 selected students, at the end of the year, and used to sustain the argumentation. The paper concludes with some reflections and suggestions to promote authentic enquiry-based learning experiences.Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologi

Erosive processes: the example of a granite batholith

[Résumé] Bien que la Serra do Marao soit connue surtout comme une structure marqueé par les quartzites et schistes du Ordovicien et du Silurien, y existent aussi quelques petits affleurements de granites. L étude de ces affleurements, malgré sa situation périphérique, se montre particulierement interessant car le comportement geomorphologique spécifique des granites, permet des analyses qui complement les études réalisés dans le reste de l' aire de la Serra do Marao. La diversité de formes qui existe dans ce genre de roches, parfois plus évidentes et demeurées en bon état, contribue dans une meilleure et plus minutieuse connaissance de 1 évolution morfogenétique de la région. L étude que nous sommes en train de réaliser tombe surtout sur le détail de la rnicromorphologie rapporté au déclive des versants, ala tectonique et au réseau de diaclases, proposant pour objet la compréhension globale de 1 évolution du process erosif. Dans cet article on veut présenter un étude de détail qui on a eu l'opportunité de développer dans un petit basin hydrografique de la versant Ouest de la Serra do Marao, ou il a été possible essayer la mesure des déplacements des blocs de granit que glissent par la versant. Il est, pourtant, une breve annotation car la lenteur du procéssus exige une periode d' observation bien plus long que celle que nous avons eu jusqu a ce momento.[Abstract] Although Marao mountain is essentially known as a structure characterized by quartzite and schist, there are also smalls granite batholiths. The study of these levellings, despite their peripherallocation, seems to be particularly interessant, because the specific geomorphologic behaviour of the granite makes it possible to make analyses that complement the studies done in the remaining area of the mountain. The diversity of forms that emerge in this kind of rocks, at times more obvious and less preserved, contributes to a better and more precise knowledge of the morphogenetic evolution of the region. The study that we have been doing falls specially upon the item of micromorphology related with slope angle, tectonic and joints so that the evolution of the erosive process can be globaly understood. Its our intention to present a detailed study that we were able to do in a small basin in the western slope of the mountain. There, we were able to measure the displacement of the granite blocks that slide down the mountain. However, this is only a small study because the slowness of the process requires a larger period of observation

The human impact on the Espinho-Paramos coast in the 20th Century

The relationship between man and coast has been for centuries marked by a “peaceful coexistence”, something which has been neglected over the last generations. The evolution of the coastline does not depend solely upon natural factors but also upon the type of intervention and land use of man. The “advances” of the sea along the Portuguese coastal strip are not recent; however the maintenance of the position of the coastline using engineering structures to protect the coast from the intervention of the last generations has contributed significantly to an increase of erosion and related problems. This paper describes an analysis demonstrating the influence of engineering structures on the evolution of the coastline by comparing and integrating information from cartographic documents and newspaper reports, which constitute the best source of information for the area under study. The analysis was conducted using cartography at different scales and from different sources over about a century, which allow us to estimate the advances and retreats of the coastline and determine changes in terms of the behaviour of the coastal strip in stabilised stretches. Coastal erosion has been affecting the study area since the end of the 19th century and its increasing impact has been felt throughout the 20th century. The several experiences and projects of coastal protection adopted during the 20th century have not prevented the retreat of the coastline and they have in fact become ineffective, contributing to the amplification and propagation of the phenomenon, especially from the 1970s onwards, to the south sector of the study area, where erosion rates in the period 1998/2003 ranged between 1,5m/year and 5m/year. The average coastline retreat is 2 m/year, which demanded the need to maintain and reinforce protective structures, which means an expense of millions of euros during a period of a century constituting an economic and environmental loss.La relación hombre/costa ha tenido a lo largo de los siglos una “coexistencia pacífica” que las generaciones de hoy han ido abandonando. La evolución del litoral no depende solamente de cuestiones de orden natural, sino también del tipo de intervención y del uso del territorio por parte del hombre. El “avance” del mar no es una novedad a lo largo de la franja costera de Portugal continental; sin embargo, la ansiedad por fijar el litoral mediante intervenciones de protección costera por parte de las recientes generaciones, ha contribuido de manera significativa a acelerar los problemas erosivos. En este contexto, este trabajo se propone desarrollar un análisis que demuestre la evolución del litoral, influenciado en especial por las construcciones de protección costera, comparando e integrando un conjunto de información cartográfica y de noticias en los medios de comunicación que constituyen la mejor fuente de conocimiento del área. El análisis está desarrollado en base a una cartografia de escalas y de fuentes distintas y para un período de alrededor de un siglo, lo que ha permitido calcular el retroceso y los avances del litoral y verificar las alteraciones del comportamiento de la franja costera en los sectores estabilizados. La erosión costera en el área del estudio era ya una realidad a finales del siglo XIX que ha ido aumentando a lo largo del siglo XX. Las experiencias diversas y los proyectos de defensa costera adoptados durante el siglo XX no habían conseguido frenar exactamente la erosion costera, y llegaron a ser ineficaces, contribuyendo a la amplificación y a la propagación del fenómeno, en especial a partir de la década de 1970, para el sector sur del área del estudio, donde las tasas de erosión entre 1998/2003 comprenden valores entre 1,5-5 m/año. La tasa de retroceso medio del litoral es de 2 m/año lo que ha exigido la necesidad de consolidar las estructuras de defensa, habiendo invertido muchos millones de euros en los últimos 100 años, lo que constituye una pérdida económica y ambiental

Las defixiones oscas: Composición, interpretación, tipología

Sin resume

La aliteración como recurso poético en las lenguas indoeuropeas

Sin resume