The Mission of Early Childhood Education in the Anthropocene

During the last century, the human way of life has begun to transgress many of the Earth’s biophysical boundaries in an alarming way. The consequences of this are more dramatic and long lasting than ever before. Many researchers even argue that humanity has created a new geological epoch, which they call Anthropocene. Education, even in early childhood (EC), is often presented as a remedy for these complex problems. Yet, how can anyone prepare young children to deal with such tremendous changes? The primary aim of our study is to define and outline what the mission of early childhood education (ECE) might be in the epoch of the Anthropocene. Through a comprehensive review of the literature, we have tried to find answers about how the Anthropocene could be addressed in ECE. We have searched for answers in the natural science literature, policy documents, educational research articles and philosophy, and discuss the various standpoints we have identified. We argue that the Anthropocene demands a new, more authentic education; a change towards a more holistic, transformative, sustainability-oriented approach. At the same time, children, as always, have a right to a safe, positive and encouraging childhood

The Mission of Early Childhood Education in the Anthropocene

During the last century, the human way of life has begun to transgress many of the Earth’s biophysical boundaries in an alarming way. The consequences of this are more dramatic and long lasting than ever before. Many researchers even argue that humanity has created a new geological epoch, which they call Anthropocene. Education, even in early childhood (EC), is often presented as a remedy for these complex problems. Yet, how can anyone prepare young children to deal with such tremendous changes? The primary aim of our study is to define and outline what the mission of early childhood education (ECE) might be in the epoch of the Anthropocene. Through a comprehensive review of the literature, we have tried to find answers about how the Anthropocene could be addressed in ECE. We have searched for answers in the natural science literature, policy documents, educational research articles and philosophy, and discuss the various standpoints we have identified. We argue that the Anthropocene demands a new, more authentic education; a change towards a more holistic, transformative, sustainability-oriented approach. At the same time, children, as always, have a right to a safe, positive and encouraging childhood.publishedVersio

The Mission of Early Childhood Education in the Anthropocene

During the last century, the human way of life has begun to transgress many of the Earth’s biophysical boundaries in an alarming way. The consequences of this are more dramatic and long lasting than ever before. Many researchers even argue that humanity has created a new geological epoch, which they call Anthropocene. Education, even in early childhood (EC), is often presented as a remedy for these complex problems. Yet, how can anyone prepare young children to deal with such tremendous changes? The primary aim of our study is to define and outline what the mission of early childhood education (ECE) might be in the epoch of the Anthropocene. Through a comprehensive review of the literature, we have tried to find answers about how the Anthropocene could be addressed in ECE. We have searched for answers in the natural science literature, policy documents, educational research articles and philosophy, and discuss the various standpoints we have identified. We argue that the Anthropocene demands a new, more authentic education; a change towards a more holistic, transformative, sustainability-oriented approach. At the same time, children, as always, have a right to a safe, positive and encouraging childhood

Erik the Red’s Land: the land that never was

In May this year, a Briton named Alex Hartley gamely claimed as his personal territory a tiny island in Svalbard that had been revealed by retreating ice. Sval bard’s islands have a long history of claims and counter-claims by adventurers of diverse nations: the question of who owns the Arctic is an old one. In this next article in our unreviewed biographical/historical series, Frode Skarstein describes Norway’s bid to wrest a corner of Greenland from the Danish crown 75 years ago

Geochemical Characterisation of Oils and Sediments from Cuba and Jamaica; Implications for the Northern Petroleum System

Master's thesis in Petroleum Geosciences EngineeringThe Caribbean plate has a complex tectonic history and its petroleum potential is relatively unexplored. Jamaica and a large part of Cuba were once part of the Great Arc of the Caribbean (GAC), which was later deformed as a result of two collisional events; Jamaica with the Chortis block during Latest Cretaceous and Cuba with the North American plate during the Paleocene. Due to the collision in the Paleocene, the stratigraphy of Cuba comprises rocks of both Caribbean and North American origins. The majority of the petroleum occurrences in northern Cuba are proposed to belong to a Gulf of Mexico (GOM) petroleum system. This study presents detailed organic geochemical observations of fourteen crude oils and nineteen extracts from Cuba, as well as one crude oil, four extracts, and thirteen potential source rocks from Jamaica. The main goal is to investigate the petroleum system in the northern part of Caribbean. Analyses of oils and extracts by gas chromatography (GC), GC-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), GC-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MSMS), and isotope analyses revealed alteration, facies, maturity, and age of the generating source rock. The geochemical results obtained were compared with published geochemical data from GOM and oils from the southern rim of the Caribbean plate (Barbados, Venezuela, and southeastern South America). In addition, Rock-Eval analysis gave information about source rock richness and maturity. Organic geochemical data suggests that the Cuban and Jamaican oils can be divided into five oil families based on facies and age dependent biomarker ratios. Family I consists of oils derived from shales in northwestern Cuba, whereas Family II comprises oils originating from marls in the same area. The third (Family III) represents the oils generated by carbonates in central Cuba, Family IV includes the carbonate derived oils from southern Cuba, and Family V consists of the oils originating from marls in Jamaica. Furthermore, the presence of light oil fraction in biodegraded oils, as well as differences in maturity and facies between the oil fractions suggest the existence of at least two petroleum system in northwestern and central Cuba. The regional geochemical comparison showed similarities in lithofacies and age with oils from GOM, suggests that the GOM petroleum system is working on northwestern Cuba. On the other hand, the Cuban and Jamaican oils appear to belong to different petroleum system than the oils from the southern margin of the Caribbean plate. Finally, the potential source rocks collected from Jamaica showed to have petroleum potential when buried sufficiently deep to attain the temperatures needed to generate petroleum.submittedVersio

Building a finite state automaton for physical processes using queries and counterexamples on long short-term memory models

Most neural networks (NN) are commonly used as black-box functions. A network takes an input and produces an output, without the user knowing what rules and system dynamics have produced the specific output. In some situations, such as safety-critical applications, having the capability of understanding and validating models before applying them can be crucial. In this regard, some approaches for representing NN in more understandable ways, attempt to accurately extract symbolic knowledge from the networks using interpretable and simple systems consisting of a finite set of states and transitions known as deterministic finite-state automata (DFA). In this thesis, we have considered a rule extraction approach developed by Weiss et al. that employs the exact learning method L* to extract DFA from recurrent neural networks (RNNs) trained on classifying symbolic data sequences. Our aim has been to study the practicality of applying their rule extraction approach on more complex data based on physical processes consisting of continuous values. Specifically, we experimented with datasets of varying complexities, considering both the inherent complexity of the dataset itself and complexities introduced from different discretization intervals used to represent the continuous data values. Datasets incorporated in this thesis encompass sine wave prediction datasets, sequence value prediction datasets, and a safety-critical well-drilling pressure scenario generated through the use of the well-drilling simulator OpenLab and the sparse identification of nonlinear dynamical systems (SINDy) algorithm. We observe that the rule extraction algorithm is able to extract simple and small DFA representations of LSTM models. On the considered datasets, extracted DFA generally demonstrates worse performance than the LSTM models used for extraction. Overall, for both increasing problem complexity and more discretization intervals, the performance of the extracted DFA decreases. However, DFA extracted from datasets discretized using few intervals yields more impressive results, and the algorithm can in some cases extract DFA that outperforms their respective LSTM models.Masteroppgave i informatikkINF399MAMN-INFMAMN-PRO

An Issue of Scale: The Challenge of Time, Space and Multitude in Sustainability and Geography Education

The field of geography is important for any sustainability education. The aim of geography education is to enable students to understand the environment, its influence on human activity, and how humans influence the environment. In this article we present a study on how the interplay between the three pillars of sustainability thinking (environment, society and economy) play out on smaller and larger scales of time, space and multitude in geography education. In this paper, we argue that central issues in high quality sustainability education in geography relates to students’ deeper grasp of how to shift between magnitudes of time, space and multitude patterns. We show how an appreciation of many core issues in sustainability education require students to understand and traverse different magnitudes of the scalable concepts of time, space and multitude. Furthermore, we argue and exemplify how common sustainability misconceptions arise due to an inability to make the cognitive shift between relevant magnitudes on these scalable concepts. Finally, we briefly discuss useful educational approaches to mediating this problem, including the use of digital tools in order to allow geography teachers to facilitate the students’ better understanding of different magnitudes of slow, fast, small and large scale entities and processes.publishedVersio

An Issue of Scale: The Challenge of Time, Space and Multitude in Sustainability and Geography Education

The field of geography is important for any sustainability education. The aim of geography education is to enable students to understand the environment, its influence on human activity, and how humans influence the environment. In this article we present a study on how the interplay between the three pillars of sustainability thinking (environment, society and economy) play out on smaller and larger scales of time, space and multitude in geography education. In this paper, we argue that central issues in high quality sustainability education in geography relates to students’ deeper grasp of how to shift between magnitudes of time, space and multitude patterns. We show how an appreciation of many core issues in sustainability education require students to understand and traverse different magnitudes of the scalable concepts of time, space and multitude. Furthermore, we argue and exemplify how common sustainability misconceptions arise due to an inability to make the cognitive shift between relevant magnitudes on these scalable concepts. Finally, we briefly discuss useful educational approaches to mediating this problem, including the use of digital tools in order to allow geography teachers to facilitate the students’ better understanding of different magnitudes of slow, fast, small and large scale entities and processes

An Issue of Scale: The Challenge of Time, Space and Multitude in Sustainability and Geography Education

Article is also published in: Geography Education Promoting Sustainability. ISBN 978-3-03928-500-6 (Pbk); ISBN 978-3-03928-501-3 (PDF) DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-03928-501-3 https://www.mdpi.com/books/pdfview/book/2184The field of geography is important for any sustainability education. The aim of geography education is to enable students to understand the environment, its influence on human activity, and how humans influence the environment. In this article we present a study on how the interplay between the three pillars of sustainability thinking (environment, society and economy) play out on smaller and larger scales of time, space and multitude in geography education. In this paper, we argue that central issues in high quality sustainability education in geography relates to students’ deeper grasp of how to shift between magnitudes of time, space and multitude patterns. We show how an appreciation of many core issues in sustainability education require students to understand and traverse different magnitudes of the scalable concepts of time, space and multitude. Furthermore, we argue and exemplify how common sustainability misconceptions arise due to an inability to make the cognitive shift between relevant magnitudes on these scalable concepts. Finally, we briefly discuss useful educational approaches to mediating this problem, including the use of digital tools in order to allow geography teachers to facilitate the students’ better understanding of different magnitudes of slow, fast, small and large scale entities and processes.Peer reviewe

An Issue of Scale: The Challenge of Time, Space and Multitude in Sustainability and Geography Education

The field of geography is important for any sustainability education. The aim of geography education is to enable students to understand the environment, its influence on human activity, and how humans influence the environment. In this article we present a study on how the interplay between the three pillars of sustainability thinking (environment, society and economy) play out on smaller and larger scales of time, space and multitude in geography education. In this paper, we argue that central issues in high quality sustainability education in geography relates to students’ deeper grasp of how to shift between magnitudes of time, space and multitude patterns. We show how an appreciation of many core issues in sustainability education require students to understand and traverse different magnitudes of the scalable concepts of time, space and multitude. Furthermore, we argue and exemplify how common sustainability misconceptions arise due to an inability to make the cognitive shift between relevant magnitudes on these scalable concepts. Finally, we briefly discuss useful educational approaches to mediating this problem, including the use of digital tools in order to allow geography teachers to facilitate the students’ better understanding of different magnitudes of slow, fast, small and large scale entities and processes