Teaching the actual practices of science : students' experiences of undergraduate research projects

Cet article décrit une étude de cas basée sur des entretiens avec des étudiants de 20 à 22 ans à propos de leur expérience de projet de fin d'études en science à l'université. Nous examinons comment, par leur travail de projet, les étudiants développent leur compréhension des pratiques effectives de la science, c'est-à-dire des différents moyens utilisés par les scientifiques pour développer le savoir scientifique et les procédures de recherche. Nous donnons des exemples de connaissances explicites et implicites tels qu'on les rencontre dans un travail de projet. Nous indiquons que les messages implicites communiqués aux étudiants pendant leur travail de projet influencent de manière significative leur apprentissage des pratiques effectives de la science

Granton Coastal Park: a high-level climate adaptation and environmental cost benefit assessment

Final report for City of Edinburgh Council (CEC), July 2022. This document has been prepared with the CEC with funding from UKRI/NERC (NE/R009236/1, led by Naylor), with data inputs (and/or modelling outputs) and support from staff in the City of Edinburgh, Atkins, SEPA (Kirsten Thorburn, Paul Lewis), the Dynamic Coast 2 project and the Edinburgh Shoreline project team who helped co-design the aims of this report. This report was reviewed by several staff in different levels of Scottish Government and/or organisations (e.g., Adaptation Scotland) tasked with the delivery of key aspects of climate change delivery for Scotland. These included: Dr Alistair Rennie, Elise Schneider, Linda Hamilton, Sat Patel, Anna Beswick and Fiona Macleod

Do sustainability measures constrain urban design creativity?

Planners, architects, urban designers and other built environment professionals engage with a myriad of checkboxes, guidelines, requirements and specifications, all of which potentially compromise creativity and innovation in urban design. Approaches that measure performance are accused of belying the nature of places as messy, plural, organic, accidental and emotive; trying to find a formula that works may tick boxes, but it risks creating soulless spaces, oppressing innovation and incorporation of inappropriate design elements. This paper argues that sustainability assessment methods do have something to contribute to creativity and innovation in urban design precisely because they encourage engagement with challenging and often complex societal priorities. Through interviews with built environment professionals and a critical examination of sustainability assessment methods, the authors suggest that such methods can promote creativity and innovation if they engage competently with sustainability, work at a scale that allows for both breadth and depth (typically greater than the building scale) and incorporate in their design a set of eight key characteristics designed to promote creativity and innovation. </jats:p

Towards a synthesized critique of neoliberal biodiversity conservation

During the last three decades, the arena of biodiversity conservation has largely aligned itself with the globally dominant political ideology of neoliberalism and associated governmentalities. Schemes such as payments for ecological services are promoted to reach the multiple ‘wins’ so desired: improved biodiversity conservation, economic development, (international) cooperation and poverty alleviation, amongst others. While critical scholarship with respect to understanding the linkages between neoliberalism, capitalism and the environment has a long tradition, a synthesized critique of neoliberal conservation - the ideology (and related practices) that the salvation of nature requires capitalist expansion - remains lacking. This paper aims to provide such a critique. We commence with the assertion that there has been a conflation between ‘economics’ and neoliberal ideology in conservation thinking and implementation. As a result, we argue, it becomes easier to distinguish the main problems that neoliberal win-win models pose for biodiversity conservation. These are framed around three points: the stimulation of contradictions; appropriation and misrepresentation and the disciplining of dissent. Inspired by Bruno Latour’s recent ‘compositionist manifesto’, the conclusion outlines some ideas for moving beyond critique

Effects of lameness treatment for claw horn lesions on lying behaviour in dairy cows

Lameness affects lying behaviour in dairy cattle, increasing total lying time and the number of lying bouts. However, there is limited information about the effect of lameness treatment on dairy cow behaviour. This study investigated the effect of four lameness treatments on lying behaviour (total lying time, number of bouts, average bout duration and laterality of lying) in dairy cows. Forty-four newly lame cows were treated randomly with one of four treatment protocols: trim only, trim + block, trim + NSAID, and trim + block + NSAID. Thirty-four non-lame control cows were matched by parity, days in milk, and farm-pen. Each cow had an accelerometer attached to the hind leg, lying behaviour data was collected over 5 days immediately after treatment and analysed using multilevel regression models. Lame cows in three of the four treatment groups demonstrated no increase in lying time compared to non-lame controls. This finding is contrary to previous work and may reflect the enrolment criteria which favoured the selection of cows with mild disease i.e. before the behavioural impacts of lameness had manifested. Only cows in the treatment group which received a therapeutic trim and a foot block saw higher lying times post treatment. As this effect was not apparent in the group which received a NSAID in addition to a trim and a foot block, we hypothesise that this effect is caused by discomfort associated with the block. Where foot blocks are administered as part of treatment protocols, we propose that NSAIDs should be administered concurrently to alleviate the behavioural changes and likely discomfort associated with this treatment

Sustainable pathways towards climate and biodiversity goals in the UK:the importance of managing land-use synergies and trade-offs

Agricultural and environmental policies are being fundamentally reviewed and redesigned in the UK following its exit from the European Union. The UK government and the Devolved Administrations recognise that current land use is not sustainable and that there is now an unprecedented opportunity to define a better land strategy that responds fully to the interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable development. This paper presents evidence from three pathways (current trends, sustainable medium ambition, and sustainable high ambition) to mid-century that were co-created with UK policymakers. The pathways were applied to a national integrated food and land-use model (the FABLE calculator) to explore potential synergies and trade-offs between achieving multiple sustainability targets under limited land availability and constraints to balance food supply and demand at national and global levels. Results show that under the Current Trends pathway all unprotected open natural land would be converted to urban, agriculture and afforested land, with the consequence that from 2030 onwards tree planting targets could not be met. In contrast, the two sustainable pathways illustrate how dietary change, agricultural productivity improvements and waste reduction can free up land for nature recovery and carbon sequestration. This enables a transition to a sustainable food and land-use system that provides a net carbon sink with up to 44% of land able to support biodiversity conservation. We highlight key trade-offs and synergies, which are important to consider for designing and implementing emerging national policies. These include the strong dependence of climate, food and biodiversity targets on dietary shifts, sustainable improvements in agricultural productivity, improved land-use design for protecting and restoring nature, and rapid reductions in food loss and waste.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-022-01242-8

Too Big to Fail: Motives, Countermeasures, and the Dodd-Frank Response

Government forbearance, support, and bailouts of banks and other financial institutions deemed 'too big to fail' (TBTF) are widely recognized as encouraging large companies to take excessive risk, placing smaller ones at a competitive disadvantage and influencing banks in general to grow inefficiently to a 'protected' size and complexity. During periods of financial stress, with bailouts under way, government officials have promised 'never again'. During periods of financial stability and economic growth, they have sanctioned large-bank growth by merger and ignored the ongoing competitive imbalance. Repeated efforts to do away with TBTF practices over the last several decades have been unsuccessful. Congress has typically found the underlying problem to be inadequate regulation and/or supervision that has permitted important financial companies to undertake excessive risk. It has responded by strengthening regulation and supervision. Others have located the underlying problem in inadequate regulators, suggesting the need for modifying the incentives that motivate their behavior. A third explanation is that TBTF practices reflect the government’s perception that large financial firms serve a public interest - they constitute a 'national resource' to be preserved. In this case, a structural solution would be necessary. Breakups of the largest financial firms would distribute the 'public interest' among a larger group than the handful that currently hold a disproportionate concentration of financial resources. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 constitutes the most recent effort to eliminate TBTF practices. Its principal focus is on the extension and augmentation of regulation and supervision, which it envisions as preventing excessive risk taking by large financial companies; Congress has again found the cause for TBTF practices in the inadequacy of regulation and supervision. There is no indication that Congress has given any credence to the contention that regulatory motivations have been at fault. Finally, Dodd-Frank eschews a structural solution, leaving the largest financial companies intact and bank regulatory agencies still with extensive discretion in passing on large bank mergers. As a result, the elimination of TBTF will remain problematic for years to come

Multiple aims in the development of a major reform of the national curriculum for science in England

In the context of a major reform of the school science curriculum for 14-16 year olds in England we examine the aims ascribed to the reform, the stakeholders involved and the roles of differing values and authority in its development. This reform includes an emphasis on socioscientific issues and the nature of science; curriculum trends of international relevance. Our analysis identifies largely 'instrumental' aims, with little emphasis on 'intrinsic' aims and associated values. We identify five broad categories of stakeholders focusing on different aims with, for example, a social, individual, political or economic emphasis. We suggest that curriculum development projects reflecting largely social and individual aims were appropriated by other stakeholders to serve political and economic aims. We argue that a curriculum reform body representing all stakeholder interests is needed to ensure that multiple aims are considered throughout the curriculum reform process. Within such a body the differentiated character of the science teaching community would need to be represented