title: The description and modification of children's views of plant nutrition

authors: Barker, Miles

abstract: This study lies within the constructivist tradition in science education which holds that the learner's prior knowledge is a key factor in concept development. The topic was photosynthesis, which was known to be difficult for students although little was known of their prior understandings about plant activities. A three phase research programme was designed to arrive at a description of these pre-teach views (Part 1) and to use this knowledge in an action research programme which modified children's existing knowledge more effectively than current classroom practice (Part 2), 
Phase I comprised interviews with 28 pupils (aged 8 to 17 years). This lead to Phase II in which nearly 6000 pencil-and-paper survey responses were obtained from students from standard four (10- year-olds) to first year university (18+ years). The interviews and surveys showed that pre-teach children had a number of separate views about plant drinking, plant breathing, plant growth, how plants acquire energy, and plant feeding (these were collectively identified as views about 'plant nutrition'), but the children did not possess knowledge directly comparable with photosynthesis. As with earlier scientists' explanations, analogies and metaphors relating plants to animals were important in children's understandings. In contrast with what is known about children's prior knowledge generally, their views about plant nutrition were held with varying degrees of conviction and on some issues no views were evident. 
Phase III approached classroom action research by evaluating three existing strategies. Each of these (the guided discovery, element analysis, and trophic conflict strategies) was found to be deficient because children's prior knowledge was not considered and/or the scientists' view was not adequately addressed (i.e. food-making was considered at the expense of carbohydrate production or energy storage). A new strategy which explored the material aspects of photosynthesis (carbohydrate production)and which was based on the generative learning model was developed.
The new strategy resulted in a teaching package entitled "Where Does The Wood Come From?" which was trialled by an experienced and sympathetic teacher with a middle ability class of 26 fourth formers (14-year-olds). The class was observed throughout the four weeks of teaching, and individual students were also interviewed out of class at key times. After this unit, 71% of the students had acquired a view of photosynthesis as a carbohydrate-producing process. This contrasted with the usual guided discovery strategy, where a foodmaking view was the major outcome. Important observations were that the students perceived the unit as non-threatening, and that they underestimated the importance of their own ideas.
The study also documented some practical applications of the generative learning model (and constructivist theory generally) in the classroom. Investigations 1 surveys, a self-teach booklet, and a series of checkpoints were developed, and these features of the teaching package may have wider application. Also, it was suggested that the apparent similarities between children's views and those of earlier scientists may be used to facilitate classroom discussion and expose ideas. The findings of the action research resulted in suggested modifications to the generative learning model itself, especially its apparently sequential nature.

text: The description and modification of children's views of plant nutrition This study lies within the constructivist tradition in science education which holds that the learner's prior knowledge is a key factor in concept development. The topic was photosynthesis, which was known to be difficult for students although little was known of their prior understandings about plant activities. A three phase research programme was designed to arrive at a description of these pre-teach views (Part 1) and to use this knowledge in an action research programme which modified children's existing knowledge more effectively than current classroom practice (Part 2), 
Phase I comprised interviews with 28 pupils (aged 8 to 17 years). This lead to Phase II in which nearly 6000 pencil-and-paper survey responses were obtained from students from standard four (10- year-olds) to first year university (18+ years). The interviews and surveys showed that pre-teach children had a number of separate views about plant drinking, plant breathing, plant growth, how plants acquire energy, and plant feeding (these were collectively identified as views about 'plant nutrition'), but the children did not possess knowledge directly comparable with photosynthesis. As with earlier scientists' explanations, analogies and metaphors relating plants to animals were important in children's understandings. In contrast with what is known about children's prior knowledge generally, their views about plant nutrition were held with varying degrees of conviction and on some issues no views were evident. 
Phase III approached classroom action research by evaluating three existing strategies. Each of these (the guided discovery, element analysis, and trophic conflict strategies) was found to be deficient because children's prior knowledge was not considered and/or the scientists' view was not adequately addressed (i.e. food-making was considered at the expense of carbohydrate production or energy storage). A new strategy which explored the material aspects of photosynthesis (carbohydrate production)and which was based on the generative learning model was developed.
The new strategy resulted in a teaching package entitled "Where Does The Wood Come From?" which was trialled by an experienced and sympathetic teacher with a middle ability class of 26 fourth formers (14-year-olds). The class was observed throughout the four weeks of teaching, and individual students were also interviewed out of class at key times. After this unit, 71% of the students had acquired a view of photosynthesis as a carbohydrate-producing process. This contrasted with the usual guided discovery strategy, where a foodmaking view was the major outcome. Important observations were that the students perceived the unit as non-threatening, and that they underestimated the importance of their own ideas.
The study also documented some practical applications of the generative learning model (and constructivist theory generally) in the classroom. Investigations 1 surveys, a self-teach booklet, and a series of checkpoints were developed, and these features of the teaching package may have wider application. Also, it was suggested that the apparent similarities between children's views and those of earlier scientists may be used to facilitate classroom discussion and expose ideas. The findings of the action research resulted in suggested modifications to the generative learning model itself, especially its apparently sequential nature.

year: 1986

title: Austerity Measures: Presenting Food in British Writing, 1939-1954

authors: Taylor, David Andrew

subjects: Evelyn Waugh

abstract: Rationing measures in force in the United Kingdom from the beginning of the Second World War in December of 1939 until July of 1954 ostensibly ensured an egalitarian access to food and resulted in a general levelling-up of standards of nutrition in the general populace. The restrictions and shortages that plagued larders and plates, however, meant that variety and stability became preoccupations for the British public on the home front. Against the backdrop of socially levelling austerity measures, popular writers used the public’s food consciousness to explore anxieties surrounding the demarcation and performance of identities challenged by the threats to Britain’s physical and ideological borders. Food is an invaluable lens through which to examine the shaping of identity during a period that challenged food and ideological security in Britain, particularly with respect to the performance of socioeconomic class differences, national identity and gender binaries. Largely structured by Pierre Bourdieu’s examination of consumption habits as an articulation of class and gender in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979), this thesis will examine the ways in which food representation serves as a fulcrum on which social and economic class identities pivot in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1948) and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and the acute awareness of the post-war custodianship of a damaged Britain. Secondly, it will demonstrate the ways in which austerity cookery literature not only upsets and recodifies national identity as constructed by quotidian consumption habits, but also the problematic configuration of duty to ahedonistic rationing as the housewife’s moral obligation to the nation. Expanding on this, it will consider the reconfiguration of Britain’s post-Empire relationship to the world and the enduring legacy of culinary creolisation as demonstrated in Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume’s recipe for Poulet Reign Elizabeth as served at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, and the claim to the sensual rewards of gastronomy in Elizabeth David’s A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950). Finally, it will examine the ways in which Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts (1941) and Barbara Pym’s Jane and Prudence (1953) critique and subvert ways in which a mind-body duality structures the notions of gendered appetites, and the authors’ appetites for a transcendence of the fascism of the patriarchy undergirding the twentieth century. While the austerity years are often perceived as representing a dearth of culinary culture in Britain, it is better appreciated as a period of rich innovation and adaptation, where the yearning for security and identity forged complex texts ambivalent about Britain’s past, present and future.

text: Austerity Measures: Presenting Food in British Writing, 1939-1954 Rationing measures in force in the United Kingdom from the beginning of the Second World War in December of 1939 until July of 1954 ostensibly ensured an egalitarian access to food and resulted in a general levelling-up of standards of nutrition in the general populace. The restrictions and shortages that plagued larders and plates, however, meant that variety and stability became preoccupations for the British public on the home front. Against the backdrop of socially levelling austerity measures, popular writers used the public’s food consciousness to explore anxieties surrounding the demarcation and performance of identities challenged by the threats to Britain’s physical and ideological borders. Food is an invaluable lens through which to examine the shaping of identity during a period that challenged food and ideological security in Britain, particularly with respect to the performance of socioeconomic class differences, national identity and gender binaries. Largely structured by Pierre Bourdieu’s examination of consumption habits as an articulation of class and gender in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979), this thesis will examine the ways in which food representation serves as a fulcrum on which social and economic class identities pivot in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1948) and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and the acute awareness of the post-war custodianship of a damaged Britain. Secondly, it will demonstrate the ways in which austerity cookery literature not only upsets and recodifies national identity as constructed by quotidian consumption habits, but also the problematic configuration of duty to ahedonistic rationing as the housewife’s moral obligation to the nation. Expanding on this, it will consider the reconfiguration of Britain’s post-Empire relationship to the world and the enduring legacy of culinary creolisation as demonstrated in Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume’s recipe for Poulet Reign Elizabeth as served at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, and the claim to the sensual rewards of gastronomy in Elizabeth David’s A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950). Finally, it will examine the ways in which Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts (1941) and Barbara Pym’s Jane and Prudence (1953) critique and subvert ways in which a mind-body duality structures the notions of gendered appetites, and the authors’ appetites for a transcendence of the fascism of the patriarchy undergirding the twentieth century. While the austerity years are often perceived as representing a dearth of culinary culture in Britain, it is better appreciated as a period of rich innovation and adaptation, where the yearning for security and identity forged complex texts ambivalent about Britain’s past, present and future.

year: 2016

title: Handbook of indigenous peoples' rights [Book review]

authors: Te Aho, Linda

abstract: This article reviews the book “Handbook of indigenous peoples' rights”, edited by Corinne Lennox and Damien

text: Handbook of indigenous peoples' rights [Book review] This article reviews the book “Handbook of indigenous peoples' rights”, edited by Corinne Lennox and Damien

year: 2016