Multiscale models for movement in oriented environments and their application to hilltopping in butterflies

Hilltopping butterflies direct their movement in response to topography, facilitating mating encounters via accumulation at summits. In this paper, we take hilltopping as a case study to explore the impact of complex orienteering cues on population dynamics. The modelling employs a standard multiscale framework, in which an individual's movement path is described as a stochastic 'velocity-jump' process and scaling applied to generate a macroscopic model capable of simulating large populations in landscapes. In this manner, the terms and parameters of the macroscopic model directly relate to statistical inputs of the individual-level model (mean speeds, turning rates and turning distributions). Applied to hilltopping in butterflies, we demonstrate how hilltopping acts to aggregate populations at summits, optimising mating for low-density species. However, for abundant populations, hilltopping is not only less effective but also possibly disadvantageous, with hilltopping males recording a lower mating rate than their non-hilltopping competitors. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

Induction as an empirical problem : how students generalize during practical work

We examined how university students made generalizations when making morphological observations of insects. Five groups of two or three students working together were audio recorded. The results were analysed by an approach based on the work of Wittgenstein and on a pragmatic and sociocultural perspective. Results showed that students rarely made generalizations in terms of universal statements and they did not use induction or produced hypotheses for testing in an analytic philosophical sense. The few generalizations they made of this kind were taken from zoological authorities like textbooks or lectures. However, students used induction when in more familiar contexts. Moreover, when generalizations were analysed in the sense of Dewey, it became evident that students are fully capable of making generalizations by transferring meaning from one experience to another. The implications of these results for using induction and hypotheses testing in instruction are discussed

University students during practical work : can we make the learning process intelligible?

In this paper we suggest and apply a mechanism for the learning process based on Wittgenstein's later work, pragmatism and sociocultural perspectives. The theory is used to analyse recordings of student discourse during a practical an insect morphology. These are the first results of a research project on student discourse during practical work in the laboratory and in the field. The project is intended as a long-term study of biology and chemistry students during their first three years at Uppsala University

Aesthetics, affect, and making meaning in science education: an introduction

This overview gives a background for this special issue of the International Journal of Science Education on Aesthetics, affect, and making meaning in science education. Contributions to this special issue examine how and what kind of aesthetics of science is constituted when it meets the aesthetics of other practices (e.g. arts, mathematics, student lives), in and outside classrooms, and the consequences these encounters have for meaning-making and in learning science. It reviews various traditions and concepts used in studying aesthetics and affect in science education, their theoretical foundations and the different meanings these traditions assign to the concepts. The review spans from cognitivist, causal approaches to socio-culturally and pragmatically-oriented stances and examines the educational questions that these frameworks pose and resolve. The review makes a case that the socio-cultural and pragmatic frameworks adopted in the set of papers, focused on the continuity of aesthetic experience with meaning-making opens up fresh and powerful ways to support science teaching and learning. This review offers a backdrop against which the novelty of the individual contributions can be understood