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Welcome to the Journal of Inquiry and Action in Educatio

A South Dakota Country School Experience

Review of: A South Dakota Country School Experience, by William E. Lass

The Meaning of Place and Community in Contemporary Educational Discourse

Place and community are terms used with ever more frequency in discussions, reports, and research related to education, yet there is little agreement related to what these terms mean. This article examines the concepts of place and community in an attempt to bring more clarity to the role they may play in educational theory and, ultimately, educational policy

Cultural Obstacles on the Road to Rural Educational Renewal

While many rural communities consider themselves a part of something other than an agriculturally-oriented economy, most are nevertheless deeply affected by agricultural policy and practice. Other long-standing rural occupa-tions, such as logging, mining, and fishing, share with agriculture the finite nature of the resource base involved. Historically, this circumstance led to the development of resource stewardship in rural communities and to the resulting evolution of cultural practices tending to sustain the extractive nature of these occupations. In this regard, all of these types of communities are similar. They are similar, too, in that during this century, all have witnessed the distant corporate takeover of their local economies, resulting in the gradual loss of local stewardly wisdom and a clear trend toward unsustainable production practices. Although we focus on agriculture in this essay, by far the most prevalent economic orientation for rural communities in this country, the dynamics discussed are readily transferable to other types of communities. We will be operating on an important premise that already may be apparent from what has been said; that is, we believe it is impossible to separate the concerns of rural schools from their larger social, economic, and political milieu. Because we believe this is the case, it seems that questions concerning rural education must go hand-in-hand with questions about rural community. The goal of this essay, therefore, is to identify contextual obstacles that inhibit both rural school and community renewal and to begin to chart a course others may find useful in their attempts to maneuver around these obstacles

Where to restore ecological connectivity? Detecting barriers and quantifying restoration benefits

Landscape connectivity is crucial for many ecological processes, including dispersal, gene flow, demographic rescue, and movement in response to climate change. As a result, governmental and non-governmental organizations are focusing efforts to map and conserve areas that facilitate movement to maintain population connectivity and promote climate adaptation. In contrast, little focus has been placed on identifying barriers—landscape features which impede movement between ecologically important areas—where restoration could most improve connectivity. Yet knowing where barriers most strongly reduce connectivity can complement traditional analyses aimed at mapping best movement routes. We introduce a novel method to detect important barriers and provide example applications. Our method uses GIS neighborhood analyses in conjunction with effective distance analyses to detect barriers that, if removed, would significantly improve connectivity. Applicable in least-cost, circuit-theoretic, and simulation modeling frameworks, the method detects both complete (impermeable) barriers and those that impede but do not completely block movement. Barrier mapping complements corridor mapping by broadening the range of connectivity conservation alternatives available to practitioners. The method can help practitioners move beyond maintaining currently important areas to restoring and enhancing connectivity through active barrier removal. It can inform decisions on trade-offs between restoration and protection; for example, purchasing an intact corridor may be substantially more costly than restoring a barrier that blocks an alternative corridor. And it extends the concept of centrality to barriers, highlighting areas that most diminish connectivity across broad networks. Identifying which modeled barriers have the greatest impact can also help prioritize error checking of land cover data and collection of field data to improve connectivity maps. Barrier detection provides a different way to view the landscape, broadening thinking about connectivity and fragmentation while increasing conservation options

The noise radiated by marine piling for the construction of offshore wind farms

The most commonly used method for the installation of offshore wind turbine foundations in the shallow coastal waters in the UK is pile driving. The construction technique consists of large steel piles being driven up to around 30 m into the seabed using powerful hydraulic hammers, in water depths up to around 25 to 30 m. It is a source of high-amplitude impulsive sound and has the potential for impact on marine life. Methodologies developed for the measurement of underwater sound radiated from marine piling, for the estimation of source level are described in this paper. Data are presented for piles of 5.2 m in diameter driven by hammers with typical strike energies of up to 1350 kJ. Data were recorded as a function of range from the source using vessel-deployed hydrophones, with the data then used to estimate the energy source level. In addition, fixed acoustic buoys were used to record the entire piling sequence, including soft-start period. The dependencies of the radiated noise on the physical parameters of the piling operation are discussed, along with limitations and knowledge gaps

Effectiveness of exclusion zones and soft-starts as mitigation strategies for minimizing acoustic impact from underwater noise sources

Several recent studies have suggested that cumulative Sound Exposure Level (SEL) is an important metric for assessment of the impact of exposure to anthropogenic sound sources by various marine receptors including marine mammals and fish. This metric allows the cumulative exposure of an animal to a sound field for an extended period to be assessed against a predefined impact criteria. Two widely used mitigation strategies used by both industrial and military users to reduce potential impact on marine receptors are exclusions zones (zones from source where received levels exceed a certain threshold), a source is either not started or stopped if receptors are detected within this zone and ‘soft-starts’ or ‘ramp-ups’ (lower energy levels at the commencement of a noise source allowing a receptor to move out of the area). This paper discusses the relative effectiveness of these methodologies in terms of a cumulative exposure impact criteria. Cumulative exposure examples are given including typical marine piling operations for wind-farm construction and sub-surface piling operations for various receptor models, including, static, fleeing and transiting animals

Theoretical comparison of cumulative sound exposure estimates from jacket and tripod foundation construction

Foundation pile driving during offshore construction has led to increasing concerns regarding radiated noise and its effects on the marine fauna (receptors). In the case of many static offshore developments two commonly used foundation techniques are tripod-constructions involving installation of a series of smaller diameter piles surrounding a central structure and mono-piles using a single larger diameter pile. Pile installation itself may involve sequences of percussive piling at different hammer energies, vibro-piling (more rapid, lower level vibrations) and drilling. In some cases all three techniques are used on a single pile installation. The spectral characteristics, as well as duration and level of the total radiated energy from these techniques can vary significantly and may result in different Sound Exposure Levels (SEL) experienced by marine fauna. This paper theoretically explores the potential difference in total SEL for various receptor scenarios for each of these techniques using available source characteristics data. The total sound SEL’s for each scenario are compared and model sensitivities identified