Learning in the natural environment to influence secondary school students' beliefs on the natural environment of Pulau Pangkor, Perak, Malaysia

Learning about nature in its natural setting is a rare opportunity because schools are frequently inhibited by time and financial capabilities. The present study seeks to determine the influence of learning in the natural environment on secondary school students’ beliefs on Pulau Pangkor. Prior to the designing of the Student Research Assistant Programme, a focus group discussion was conducted with 10 secondary school students to elicit their thoughts and emotions towards the (a) natural environment of Pangkor, and (b) their involvement as students research assistants in the Pulau Pangkor Scientific Expedition. The findings of the focus group discussion were used to guide in the developing of the Student Research Assistant programme. Throughout the four-day programme, the students were attached to different research teams from various higher learning institutions and NGO. The Student Research Assistant programme provided a first-hand learning experience that was effective in influencing their beliefs towards the natural environment of Pangkor. The experiences also provided students a glimpse into the nature of the work of a field researcher and what research is all about besides contributing towards students’ personal development

Environmental concern, attitude and intention in understanding student’s anti-littering behavior using structural equation modelling

Concerns about the environment began to rise as various issues such as littering increased. Littering is one of the problems involving the environment, and higher education campuses are also actively practising anti-littering to show their efforts. The aim of this study is to test the relationship between environmental concern, attitude and intention on anti-littering using Theory of Planned Behavior Extended Model. A total of 303 students of the Polytechnic Malaysia campus were respondents in this study and the data were analyzed by Structural Equation Modeling using SPSS Amos 24.0 Statistical Packages. Findings show that there is a direct and indirect effect between environmental concern and student’s anti-littering intention. The indirect result shows that attitude towards anti-littering behavior partially mediates the relationship between environmental concern and anti-littering intention. The implications of the research findings and suggestions for the future study are also included in the study

Exploring rural secondary school students' attitude toward the Malayan tapir through salient beliefs

Environmental education programmes in Malaysia have been successful in increasing students' knowledge but not so in changing attitudes. To design educational programmes that changes attitudes, we need to understand the underlying determinant of attitude. The purpose of the study was to explore and elicit rural secondary school students' attitudes towards the Malayan tapir through their salient beliefs. Focusing on the cognitive and affective components of the attitude model, eighty-one secondary school students were asked to elucidate what they knew about the Malayan tapir through pictorial stimulation in focus group discussion. Students were observed to be intrigued by the physical characteristics of the Malayan tapir but knew little about its ecological function, natural habitat and threats while displaying positive and negative emotions in reaction to the pictures. Future research implications include the designing of an environmental education programme based on the observations of this study and measuring the effectiveness of the programme in influencing behaviour

Projek Hijau @ Taman Botani Perdana

Buku Projek Hijau @ Taman Botani ini merupakan satu himpunan aktiviti yang boleh digunakan dalam perlaksanaan program pendidikan alam semulajadi di kawasan taman botani. Buku ini menggunakan tumbuh-tumbuhan sebagai topik utamanya manakala elemen- elemen seperti udara, tanah dan air diketengahkan sebagai elemen sokongan kepada pertumbuhan tumbuh-tumbuhan. Modul-modul ini dibangunkan dengan memberi tumpuan kepada proses pengajaran dan pembelajaran secara langsung dengan persekitaran semulajadinya. Dengan menggunakan Taman Botani Perdana Kuala Lumpur sebagai lokasi aktivitinya, sudah pasti pelaksanaan modul ini dapat memberi pemahaman tentang tumbuh-tumbuhan secara lebih mendalam dan pengalaman yang lebh bermakna kepada para peserta

Socio-ecological perspectives of engaging smallholders in environmental-friendly palm oil certification schemes

The majority of smallholders in palm oil producing countries are not involved in palm oil certification schemes. The schemes are jointly developed by environmental NGOs, government agencies, and plantation companies without the input of smallholders. The inclusion of smallholders into palm oil certification schemes is necessary as they constitute 40% of land use coverage for global palm oil cultivation. This paper argues for the need to understand the smallholders’ socio-ecological perspectives to design a realistic and acceptable scheme. Three hundred independent and managed smallholders in Peninsular Malaysia were interviewed to collect information on the groups’ knowledge, perception, expectation and willingness to participate in the certification scheme. The study showed that the smallholder groups (more than 90% of the respondents) were keen to participate in the certification scheme if there is a premium pricing for oil palm yield and the certification cost is affordable. The study also indicated that smallholders need to be educated on biodiversity conservation and provided with financial and technical incentives to boost smallholders’ participation. The paper concludes that understanding the socio-ecological background of smallholders is instrumental to designing a holistic certification scheme that will successfully conserve biodiversity in the agricultural production landscape without neglecting the plight of smallholders

Review on wildlife value orientation for ecotourism resource management

Wildlife value orientation (WVO) is important in the management of conflicts in ecotourism, particularly in human and wildlife concerns as human-wildlife conflict reported cases have increased in recent years. Therefore, this article systematically reviews literatures on WVO globally from the context of theoretical approach as well as the effect of modernization on values towards wildlife. The theoretical approach highlights the cognitive hierarchy model and the development of four theories that shapes the cultural thought towards wildlife relevant to ecotourism products. By understanding, through integrated empirical investigation, the values people hold towards wildlife, it enables the development of effective decision makings in handling the conflicts in the realm of ecotourism product or resource management

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Multiancestry analysis of the HLA locus in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases uncovers a shared adaptive immune response mediated by HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes

Across multiancestry groups, we analyzed Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) associations in over 176,000 individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) versus controls. We demonstrate that the two diseases share the same protective association at the HLA locus. HLA-specific fine-mapping showed that hierarchical protective effects of HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes best accounted for the association, strongest with HLA-DRB1*04:04 and HLA-DRB1*04:07, and intermediary with HLA-DRB1*04:01 and HLA-DRB1*04:03. The same signal was associated with decreased neurofibrillary tangles in postmortem brains and was associated with reduced tau levels in cerebrospinal fluid and to a lower extent with increased Aβ42. Protective HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes strongly bound the aggregation-prone tau PHF6 sequence, however only when acetylated at a lysine (K311), a common posttranslational modification central to tau aggregation. An HLA-DRB1*04-mediated adaptive immune response decreases PD and AD risks, potentially by acting against tau, offering the possibility of therapeutic avenues

Effectiveness of interpretive education program in influencing rural secondary school students' conservation behavior

Many out-of-school environmental education programs for school students in Malaysia lacked the capacity to influence behavior. The study compares the effectiveness of the non-interpretive and interpretive education programs in influencing rural secondary school students’ intention to be an organizer of a Malayan Tapir education program in school. The study utilized focus group discussion to elicit secondary school students’ attitudes and emotions toward the Malayan Tapir. Students’ salient beliefs toward their involvement as an organizer of a Malayan Tapir education program in school were also elicited based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) theoretical framework. Findings from the discussion were used to develop a self-reported questionnaire and an interpretive education program based on the enjoy, relevant, organized and thematic (EROT) interpretive model. The pre-test post-test experiment design was utilized to compare the effectiveness of the non-interpretive and interpretive education programs. Pre-test was conducted before the intervention while the post-test was conducted after the intervention. A delayed post-test was conducted six months after the intervention. Data was statistically analyzed to compare the effectiveness of the interventions between groups and tests. Comparing between tests, the pre-test and post-test results for the control group showed no improvement in the TPB constructs mean scores with significant differences observed for the attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control constructs. Non-interpretive group showed no improvement in the TPB constructs mean scores and significant difference was only observed for the subjective norm construct. For the interpretive group, tests mean scores improved for all TPB constructs with significant differences observed for the subjective norm and behavior intention constructs. When the pre-test and delayed post-test were compared to determine the long-term effect of the intervention programs, no significant differences between the mean scores were observed for the control and non-interpretive groups. There were no improvement in the constructs’ mean scores for the interpretive group but significant differences between tests were observed for the attitude and perceived behavioral control constructs. Comparing the four TPB constructs between interventions groups, significant difference in the pre-test was observed for the attitude construct with interpretive group having stronger positive attitude as compared to the control and non-interpretive groups. Significant differences were observed for all TPB constructs in the post-test with interpretive group scoring higher mean scores as compared to the control and noninterpretive groups. No significant differences between groups for all the TPB constructs in the delayed post-test. The conduct of the pre-test had an effect on the groups’ post-test while students’ gender had an effect on the groups’ post-test results. The EROT interpretive results showed that interpretive program was more successful in making the program enjoyable, relevant, organized and thematic; and evoking students’ emotion to take action as compared to the non-interpretive program. The study has shown that the interpretative model was more successful in influencing students’ beliefs toward the Malayan Tapir and students’ intention to be involved as an organizer of the Malayan Tapir education program in school. The interpretive program was also replicable to other locations and wildlife (i.e. Orang utan)