A Descriptive Study of a Successful School Bond and Rate Referenda Campaign

It is the purpose of this study to present a detailed analysis of the methods and techniques employed in the November 23, 1968 passage of a school bond referendum, and tax rate increases in the education and building funds for Maercker School District #60, Clarendon Hills, Illinois. As per data from the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Illinois Education Association, and a local newspaper, The Trib, school referenda are increasingly meeting with voter rejection. Only 53.2 per cent of the nation\u27s bond referenda were approved during the fiscal year 1969-1970. The percentage of successful referenda in Illinois has decreased steadily from a high of 66 in 1965-1966 to 44 in 1969-1970. And, in 1971 only 36 per cent of the issues presented in 36 west suburban (Chicago) school districts · passed. In 1970 voters accepted 52 per cent of the proposals in these communities. In addition to the foregoing statistical realities, the review of the literature cites reasons why school referenda are failing, reveals proven campaign strategy, developes contributions which citizens\u27 cornmittees can render, and stresses public relations media. The study describes the approach of the district with respect to the organization of the campaign, committees and their functions, campaign literature, area coffees, and election day activities, Finally, a specific listing of the author\u27s findings in regard to the essentials of a successful school referenda campaign, as per the study, are enumerated. It is concluded that to be successful at the polls, school referenda must be seriously undertaken and well-planned, It is toward this end that this thesis has merit

Promoting Societal-Oriented Communication and Decision Making Skills by Learning about Advertising in Science Education

In our everyday lives we are surrounded by advertising in its various forms. Thus in the school context it is not surprising that the issue of advertising is addressed by different subjects, with the main foci being advertising-specific language, images and illustrations, use of stereotypes, strategies of persuasion etc. But advertising also contains factual information, being explicit or implicit, to make a campaign more credible and underline the effectiveness of a certain product. Dealing with the use of factual information in advertising critically is important for the consumer. For many products this information is derived from science and technology. Understanding the science in and behind advertising is necessary to become a critical consumer. Learning about the use of science in advertising also allows promoting societal-oriented communication and decision making skills in the science classroom. Unfortunately, only a few examples on the use of advertising in the science classroom exist. This paper provides a justification for the use of advertising in science education. Examples from the classroom developed in the framework of the PROFILES-project are provided by way of illustration

Perspectives on education for sustainability in chemistry teaching

The media landscape and the public debate are full of reports about the threats caused by unsustainable lifestyles by large parts of the global society today. Climate is changing, water is polluted more and more, natural resources are progressively exploited, inequalities are increasing. It is under constant debate whether and how far humans can continue affecting our planet until these developments lead to irreversible changes in the environment and human life. Regardless of exactly how these changes come to place and what they cause in the end, the political answer is the demand for more sustainability. Sustainable development asks for a way of life that does not permanently damage our planet, so that future generations can still live on earth and meet their needs without being too restricted by both today’s contamination of the environment and consumption of resources. It is clearly suggested that this task applies to all school subjects, including chemistry. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of selected concepts in the context of sustainability and refers them to education in general, and chemistry teaching in particular

Sources of knowledge and trust in authorities as prerequisites of pre-service teachers’ reflective judgment skills in the context of socioscientific issues

Developments in science and technology enrich life in the 21st century. To cope with life in society, reflective judgment and decision-making abilities on both the individual and societal levels are needed. Schools must prepare the younger generations to become responsible citizens who are able to make reflective judgments. This study elaborates on how pre-service teachers in Türkiye make reflective judgments as persons who will go on to teach secondary school-level students in the future. The study focuses on sources of information students use, their trust in expert knowledge, and levels of reflective judgment skills. The study is based on a qualitative approach combining analyses of recordings of classroom discussions and interviews. The study found different levels of reflective judgment skills among the students and identified the sources of knowledge they select to make judgments and measured their trust in expert knowledge.  The more students trust expert knowledge, the more reflective they are toward developments in science and technology

El suministro europeo de materias primas críticas como tema sociocientífico en la enseñanza de química

Tota economia depèn del subministrament de matèries primeres. Algunes, les anomenades matèries primeres crítiques (MPC), són escasses o només es produeixen en uns quants països, i poden crear un risc en el subministrament. La Unió Europea publica cada tres anys una llista d’MPC per a l’economia europea. S’hi descriu un entorn d’aprenentatge digital perquè l’alumnat pugui aprendre sobre aquestes matèries i qüestions sociocientífiques, així com els resultats preliminars a les classes de química.Every economy depends on the supply of raw materials. Some raw materials, referred to as critical raw materials (CRM), are rare or only produced in a few countries, and this can create a supply risk. Every three years, the European Union publishes a list of these CRM for the European economy. This article describes a digital learning environment with which pupils can learn about these materials and socioscientific issues, and explains the results of the first experiences in chemistry classes.Toda economía depende del suministro de materias primas. Algunas de ellas, las llamadas materias primas críticas (MPC), son escasas o solo se producen en unos pocos países, y pueden crear un riesgo en el suministro. La Unión Europea publica cada tres años una lista de MPC para la economía europea. Se describe un entorno de aprendizaje digital para que el alumnado pueda aprender sobre estas materias y cuestiones sociocientíficas, así como los resultados preliminares en las clases de química

the fire assay reloaded

The fire assay process is still the most accurate and precise method for measuring the gold content in gold alloys. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy have been applied to observe the change in microstructure of the samples undergoing the fire assay process. The performed observations reveal that the microstructure of the specimen is more complex than expected. Before the parting stage, the specimen is not a perfect gold–silver binary alloy but contains also copper–silver oxides and other residual compounds. The parting stage appears to be a dealloying process leading to a nanoporous gold nanostructure. What observed after partition explains the evolution of the shape and colour of the specimen and may allow for a better comprehension of the procedure and an improvement in the method

Evolving surface finite element method for the Cahn-Hilliard equation

We use the evolving surface finite element method to solve a Cahn- Hilliard equation on an evolving surface with prescribed velocity. We start by deriving the equation using a conservation law and appropriate transport for- mulae and provide the necessary functional analytic setting. The finite element method relies on evolving an initial triangulation by moving the nodes according to the prescribed velocity. We go on to show a rigorous well-posedness result for the continuous equations by showing convergence, along a subse- quence, of the finite element scheme. We conclude the paper by deriving error estimates and present various numerical examples

Preserving invariance properties of reaction–diffusion systems on stationary surfaces

We propose and analyse a lumped surface finite element method for the numerical approximation of reaction–diffusion systems on stationary compact surfaces in R3. The proposed method preserves the invariant regions of the continuous problem under discretization and, in the special case of scalar equations, it preserves the maximum principle. On the application of a fully discrete scheme using the implicit–explicit Euler method in time, we prove that invariant regions of the continuous problem are preserved (i) at the spatially discrete level with no restriction on the meshsize and (ii) at the fully discrete level under a timestep restriction. We further prove optimal error bounds for the semidiscrete and fully discrete methods, that is, the convergence rates are quadratic in the meshsize and linear in the timestep. Numerical experiments are provided to support the theoretical findings. We provide examples in which, in the absence of lumping, the numerical solution violates the invariant region leading to blow-up