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Adaptations for specific cultural populations are needed to respond to children affected by natural disasters. After Hurricane María, we provided disaster response training to mental health professionals and Disaster Response Play Therapy services to children in Puerto Rico. In this article, we describe culturally specific, field-tested preparation and procedures to promote Puerto Rican children's mental health after disasters. We recommend cultural adaptations for training mental health professionals and providing children's disaster response in Puerto Rico.

Skin cancer prevention efforts in Australia have increasingly incorporated a focus on protection during incidental sun exposure. This complements the long-present messages promoting protection in high-risk settings and avoidance of acute intense bouts of sun exposure. Data from two waves of a cross-sectional direct observational survey was used to assess the prevalence and correlates of N = 12,083 adolescents' and adults' sun protection behavior (arm and leg cover, hat, sunglasses, and shade cover). Individuals were observed in public outdoor settings in Melbourne, Australia during peak ultraviolet (UV) times (11 a.m.-3 p.m.) on summer weekends. Settings included pools and beaches, parks and gardens, and for the first time in 2018, outdoor streets and cafés which may capture more incidental forms of sun exposure and represent another public setting where Australians commonly spend time outdoors. Females and older adults were consistently better protected than males and adolescents. Physical activity was strongly associated with low shade cover across settings. Weather was more strongly associated with sun protection at outdoor streets/cafes and parks/gardens than at pools/beaches but use of observed sun protection (particularly arm cover and covering hat) was low across settings. Continued public education about UV risk and its relation to weather and the seasons is needed to promote the routine use of multiple forms of sun protection during outdoor activities in peak UV times, especially among males and adolescents. Findings also highlight the importance of considering activity demands of public spaces in shade planning to optimize sun protection during outdoor activities in public spaces.

Periods of extremely hot and cold weather can cause significant mortality and morbidity in both temperate and more extreme climates. In the UK, their occurrence prompts the issuing of number and colour coded warnings providing an assessment of the level of risk. These are designed to minimize health impact by prompting timely and appropriate mitigating actions by the public. Drawing upon the interdisciplinary notion of framing, I report on a study that identified a central role for language in mediating how these warnings are interpreted and evaluated. I use an innovative approach that combines the quantitative tools of corpus linguistics to identify the language used to represent warnings and the risks of extreme temperature in the mass media, with qualitative analysis of focus group discussions of typical texts. A comparison of both datasets indicates a multi-layered interactivity between the myriad ways in which language can give salience to aspects of a risk scenario and an interpreter's knowledge and perception of a threat, and that underlying such interactions, is the conceptualization of risk as scalar property.

This study sought to investigate the link between preferred learning styles, performance, and cognitive load. After determining learning styles (visual or auditory), undergraduate students were assigned to three instructional formats, namely: Listen Only, Read Only, and Read + Listen. A pretest was administered to assess students' prior knowledge on lightning. During acquisition, students received instructions specific to the instructional format they were assigned to. For example, students in the Read Only group received written materials only while those in the Listen Only group received auditory materials only. The acquisition phase was followed by a posttest phase. Based on cognitive load theory, it was hypothesized that different instructional formats would result in differences in student performances. Two-way between-groups ANOVA results confirm the hypotheses, in that student's cognitive load was a better predictor of student performance than student learning styles. Educational implications and limitations are also discussed.

Proverbs are a part of cultural heritage of people. Proverbs about climate and weather influence human behaviours at such areas as agriculture and fishing. The pedagogical use of proverbs promotes to link everyday knowledge with scientific one. However, teachers should be familiar with the meanings of proverbs to integrate them into their classes. This article presents data collected from prospective teachers (n=22) and senior citizens (n=38). The results show that both of the groups believed proverbs, even though there were some differences concerning their familiarities with the content of the proverbs. This shows that the proverbs should be successfully used in science teaching to facilitate a better conceptual understanding of science content. Therefore, proverbs should be approached in teacher education contexts.

Understanding the teaching and learning paradigm is a relentless search for educators. Because individual students bring their own learning style preferences to the learning environment, teachers are asked to consider and even adjust their teaching to these preferences to improve student learning. In Kolb's (1984) experiential learning theory, learners have preferences for how they grasp and transform information. These considerations have implications for students' success, or lack thereof, in the classroom. This study determined the interactions that existed between learning style and successful intelligence of secondary agricultural education students. No statistically significant differences were found regarding teaching approaches and students' preferred method of grasping information. However, statistically significant interactions were identified related to students' preferences for transforming information and performance on an analytical assessment. Recommendations point to infusing variability in the classroom, especially in how students are asked to transform the information they have grasped previously. Further research should focus on the motivational outcomes resulting from experiential instruction delivered to students of varying learning styles.

Smart phones can be regarded as one of the greatest invention of this century and have become inseparable gadgets from everyone's pocket. The diffusion of smartphones has been widening more rapidly due to its means for communication, gaming, education, entertainment, technical support, information, day to day news coverage, and trading and business. Mobile apps are software programs designed to run on smartphones, tablets and other devices. There is a need for the design and development of a mobile application for farmers, students and agriculture experts with improvisation of content/features in both educational and advisory services. This study aims to explore the present scenario of mobile agricultural applications in the global mobile ecosystem available in various platforms and to highlight the challenges in the upscaling of the mobile agricultural apps, while pointing out certain additional contexts to strengthen mobile agricultural applications. Developers and agricultural experts must review carefully to avoid the stereotypes and clichés and the new mobile applications must be user friendly to the farmers in advisory services and in education.

This paper draws on a research study that builds on a long and rich history of research in environmental education focusing on the value of learning through everyday experiences with the more than human. This study specially focused on very young children's experiences of ecologies and explored the unique opportunities sensorially rich bodily interactions with nonhuman entities provided. Drawing on postqualitative inquiry, using visual arts, narrative and walking methodologies, Karen and Sarah Jane are attentive in this work to the very subtle encounters and sensitivities of how child bodies move with and through places. By employing a number of nontraditional formats, the two researchers share sensorial ecological encounters as a form of child-worlding; bodies attune to the ongoing and the everyday presented as images, stories and prose. As an approach to diffractive analysis, they adopt a relational ontology as a means for thinking with the concepts of kin and stones. Sensing ecologically in this way becomes both a conceptual analytical tool and a pedagogical practice, allowing new imaginaries for children becoming and knowing the more-than-human-world prior to forming formal abstract 'language'. It seeks to disrupt the teaching and naming of objects as superior. They draw on the notion of ecomorphism to support a view of humans as interdependent with all ecological beings, objects and weathering of the earth. Ecomorphism also attributes qualities of a shared life through sensorial knowing with others and objects; whether they be human or nonhuman. Throughout the paper Karen and Sarah Jane have considered deeply how young children come to be with/encounter nonhuman animals, plants, weather, water and materials, and how do they respond and communicate with those entities through and with their animal bodies.

Numerous studies illustrate the value of simulations or project-based learning approaches to enhance the learning of science. Simulations can help students connect across macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic representations of scientific phenomena, while project-based learning can provide a meaningful narrative and activities for students to engage in. Despite such studies, less is known about simulation sequencing within project-based learning and how such sequencing may influence conceptual understanding. This study investigates such simulation sequencing within an online-supported project-based learning unit that focuses on a drought narrative to teach solution chemistry concepts for 10th graders (n = 72). Specifically, we compare two treatments with students randomly assigned to using a simulation before (planning treatment; n = 37) or after (reflection treatment; n = 35) the design of desalination units. This quasi-experimental study includes a pre/post conceptual test, embedded conceptual measures, a student questionnaire, a teacher interview, and classroom observations. Results show significant pre/post gains for all students on solution chemistry concepts. Findings show no overall difference between the two treatments. Student and teacher comments, and classroom observations illustrate affordances and constraints for teaching solution chemistry concepts through a technology-supported project and point to future directions for iteration. We discuss the implications of this work for future technology-supported projects and science education.

This study sought to measure risk perception and behavioral intention in rural and urban communities in Mississippi and Alabama when severe weather strikes. We developed an experiment testing how visual cues and media messages surrounding an impending hurricane could influence an individual's decision-making in the situation. Respondents were selected from six counties on Mississippi and Alabama coastlines and placed into one of three conditions, each of which described a hypothetical "Hurricane Farrah," which was near landfall nearby. Data were collected on 466 respondents and analysis determined that the live video was least likely to motivate respondents to take evacuation measures.

Objective: The main aim of this study was to determine if young adults, who as children and adolescents were heavily exposed to the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, had late reminders of this disaster nine years post disaster and, if so, how they handled these late reminders. Method: The subjects who had been exposed when they were between 10 and 15 years old were interviewed nine years post disaster when they had reached adulthood. Results: All those interviewed stated that they had experienced different late reminders of the 2004 tsunami even nine years later. They said that they could plan in advance or deal with late reminders should they occur. Two types of reminders were identified, one type designated as external and the other as internal. The interview subjects described how they had handled these reminders by striving for balance by thinking, talking, letting feelings out, doing something else or by avoiding. Conclusions: These young adults strived to find a balance between their function as adults in society and continued effects from the 2004 tsunami. A person, even if not affected functionally, can be affected in different ways in adulthood by the natural disaster they had experienced during childhood or adolescence. This is something important for anyone to think about when he or she meets persons who have been heavily exposed to a natural disaster many years earlier.

This article is organized around describing a pair of resources developed to support student and teacher use of the instructional model Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning (CER) in the classroom and incorporate writing as a meaningful part of their science instruction. Project LISTO developed and put the Scaffolding Scientific Explanations (SSE) resources in the hands of teachers across Texas to help alleviate writing challenges common to typical science classrooms. The authors found that teachers' use of the SSE handout improved student writing ability and allowed teachers to see student thinking. The SSE handout is one more tool for a teacher to strengthen students' ability to construct evidence-based explanations.

Outdoor play with its risks is necessary for optimal child development. Increasing attention is being paid to factors influencing children's opportunities for risky outdoor play, with parent/guardian (hereafter parent) perceptions being an important, under-researched topic. This research explored parents' perceptions of preschoolers' risky outdoor play. Interviews were held with 19 parents of preschoolers in Nova Scotia, Canada. Bronfenbrenner's ecological model was used to consider levels of influence related to parents' perceptions of risky outdoor play. A qualitative descriptive approach identified key themes from interviews. Microsystem-level factors influencing parents' perceptions included children's age, size, ability to self-assess, and comfort with risk. Mesosystem-level factors were children's companions and supervision during play. Exosystem-level factors included neighborhood location, perceived safety, and house type. Macrosystem and chronosystem-level factors included how parents' perceptions of weather and season affected children's play, and the influences of higher societal expectations of injury avoidance on children's play over time. Findings can be used to inform strategies to promote children's quality outdoor play through understanding the factors influencing parents' perceptions of preschoolers' risky outdoor play.

Objective: Socially-relevant and controversial topics, such as the climate crisis, are subject to differences in the explanations that scientists and the public find plausible. Scaffolds can help students be evaluative of the validity of explanations based on evidence when addressing such topics and support knowledge gains. Method: This study compared two scaffolds in which students weighed connections between lines of evidence and explanations for the topics of climate change and extreme weather events. Results: A Wilcoxon-signed rank test showed that students' plausibility judgements shifted towards scientifically accepted explanations and that students increased their knowledge about climate crisis topics after completing both activities. A structural equation model suggested that students' shifts in plausibility judgements drive their knowledge gains for the extreme weather activity, but the climate change activity demonstrated a possible ceiling effect in its usefulness for learning. Conclusions: When students choose their lines of evidence and explanatory models, their plausibility reappraisals result in greater levels of post-instructional knowledge. Although effect sizes were modest, the results of this study demonstrate that students' explicit reappraisal of plausibility judgements can support deeper learning of climate crisis issues.

The Fluid Earth (FE) is an interactive data visualization initially developed for learning about Earth's atmosphere in informal educational settings. In this study, we tested FE in middle school classes to assess student engagement in a formal educational setting. Using a quasi-experimental design, students were assigned to interact with the data visualization website (high interactivity) or prerecorded videos of the visualization (low interactivity). Students who used the website demonstrated greater engagement and perceived learning than students who used videos, but no differences were observed for behavioral intentions to use FE in the future. Results provide preliminary evidence that the interactive interface provided a more engaging educational experience than videos. Findings suggest that interactivity is an important component of science education visualizations, and there is value in creating interactive tools for students to explore geosciences processes and concepts. Additional work is needed to assess the visualization's impact on student learning of content knowledge and its applicability to more diverse student groups.

Increasing extreme weather events in a warming world fuel the need for citizens to understand natural hazards and improve community resilience. We especially need to prepare students for these challenges and increase their understanding of hazard resilience. A teacher needs assessment survey was conducted to identify current teaching practices around natural hazards and community resilience, as well as the needs teachers have with respect to training and educational resources on these topics. Using an intentional sampling strategy of school districts in rural and urban communities across Colorado, we surveyed 279 teachers from all disciplines. Almost 70% of teacher survey respondents currently teach about natural hazards, while only about 30% address community resilience. The most common reasons for not teaching about natural hazards or community resilience included a lack of alignment to the subject they are teaching, the absence of these topics in the standards/curriculum, a lack of time, or a lack of personal background knowledge. Teaching practices included lectures, field trips, and class discussions which focused on the science of natural hazards, social aspects (preparedness and impacts), and using current or past events. Science teachers are the most likely to teach about natural hazards and urban teachers are more likely to teach about both hazards and community resilience. Awareness of relevant educational resources was associated with a higher rate of teachers addressing community resilience. Results imply teachers' need for effective and place-conscious educational resources in order to build more resilience in students and thus help communities prepare for natural hazards.

In this introduction to the special issue, "Youth Participatory Action Research on Puerto Rican Students' Experiences with Hurricane Maria: Shifting from Resilience to Resistance," we outline the theoretical foundations of youth participatory action research (YPAR) and explicate the guiding principles that are seminal in the corpus of YPAR literature. We propose a synthesized model based on these guiding principles called the arc of transformation in YPAR. The model is used to examine points of convergence and divergence in how these principles are employed across YPAR methods and pedagogies. We close by discussing the rising emergence of arts-based YPAR methods and how they encourage young people to engage in artistic, creative, and innovative approaches to youth-driven inquiry alongside community members, educators, scholars and researchers.

Hurricane María had a profound impact on the way essential health services were given during the emergency period that followed its landfall on Puerto Rico. The main objective of this research was to find out what people with health conditions in need of essentials services from hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies did during the emergency period. Furthermore, we wanted to know people's view about the government's response to the aftermath of the hurricane. By conducting a series of interviews with different health specialists, students at the University of Puerto Rico-Cayey, and citizens of the community of Jájome Alto in Cayey, Puerto Rico, we were able to better understand aspects of the physical and social impact caused by Hurricane Maria. Interviews made at Casa Pueblo in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, served as an inspiration for how we can prepare better for future natural disasters.

Since vulnerability is not recognized, the issue of mental health in Puerto Rico is something that is invisible on the island. The objective of this research is to recognize the negative psychological effects caused by the passage of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The data collection was carried out through nine semi-structured interviews, with Puerto Ricans between the ages of twenty to seventy-five years of age, the majority being college students. The experiences of each of the interviewees regarding their life before, during and after Hurricane Maria were investigated. The results of this research showed that the greatest impact, in terms of mental health, was during the months after the hurricane. As mentioned by most of the participants, the despair of seeing that nothing returned to normal and that necessities--drinking water, electricity, food, etc.--were scarce, created a mass hysteria and great trauma. Puerto Ricans have not yet overcome the adversities that Hurricane Maria brought. During the investigation, we were able to observe how there are still people who have not recovered mentally or psychologically after this natural disaster. According to our observations, there are many people in need of professional psychological help, which is not recognized, as seeking such help is taboo. Therefore, it is time to act and start working on this situation.

The initiative to investigate the themes of migration, art and culture in this research arose from our experiences after Hurricane Maria. We begin with the view that culture, in the form of art etc., is threaded through the entire post-hurricane experience, from response and resilience to recovery and resistance. We wish to consider how our research contributes to an understanding of how the migration of Puerto Ricans after the catastrophe might accelerate the process of cultural change. We do this by exploring how art and culture are used as a mechanism of resistance. Our desire to conduct research on this topic developed as a result of our firsthand experiences and reflections. First, the theme of migration, linked to cultural change, arose from our experience of seeing our close relatives such as our siblings, uncles, cousins, leave our island and see how they had to adapt to a new culture and redefine their cultural practices. Second, the theme of art, in all its facets (music, painting, drawing…), arose from our motivation after Hurricane Maria, from our way of coping with the situation and letting our feelings come out through art, thus demonstrating a resistance to not falling into a decline in both physical and mental health and a persistence for wanting to overcome the disaster despite the situation. Puerto Rican culture is one of the most important components of our society, as it defines our identity as Puerto Ricans for many reasons such as our music, food and dancing. This allows us to share as a community. Also, we recognise that in Puerto Rico, awareness and acknowledgement of culture has faded to some extent; only on "Puerto Rican Day" is when our culture and traditions are noticed. This is confirmed by the responses of the respondents in our research study. This is why we decided to investigate how important culture is for Puerto Rican migrants and family and friends who remained and what it means to them.

Resource degradation is a chief concern related to increased recreational of U.S. public lands. The Seven Leave No Trace (LNT) Principles are used to educate visitors how to reduce recreational impacts. This study sought to understand Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) hikers' behavioral intent toward LNT practices. A quantitative questionnaire was used to measure participants' behavioral intent toward LNT based on four predictor variables: attitudes of appropriateness, perceived effectiveness, perceived difficulty, and self-reported knowledge. 285 total questionnaires were completed. These results indicate that the predictor variables had varying levels of influence on hikers' behavioral intent, with perceived effectiveness and difficulty being the most significant predictors. GRSM staff may be able to reduce hiker impact by focusing education on the effectiveness and ease of practice of LNT Principles. GRSM staff may also provide education that increases hikers' understanding of impacts and emphasizes appropriateness of proper LNT behavior.

The goal of this work is to build a low cost pedagogical device able to improve the comprehension of weather phenomena for African students in particular and in general for students across the world. This experimental and didactic device can be seen as an easy teaching tool to measure meteorological and climatic data. This structure is called a micro weather station. The investigation is done in Metipkwale one of the village of Ebolowa town in Cameroon (Central Africa). Some weather data automatically obtained from the micro weather station (sensors) such as temperature, humidity and pressure, are directly transmitted by a modem (Wi-Fi connection) to the ThingSpeak platform in order to be registered online and plotted as a diagram. The illustration process is assured by a computer or a smartphone. Moreover, the prediction process of climatic behaviour and the reactions of students have been also outlined. Further, some notions such as Internet of Things and Deep Learning associated with exponential smoothing algorithms are also presented.

Learning STEM applications in the first years of education reinforce children's curiosity toward exploring the world around them, and form the basis for all scientific studies they will receive throughout their lives. The aim of this study is to implement the STEM activity on the subject of seasons to preschool students. In the spring semester of the 2019-2020 academic year, the activity titled "Learning with Seasons" was carried out with the participation of 24 children aged 48-60 months. The activity was carried out using the Makey-Makey kit and the coding program Scratch by a preschool teacher within four course hours. The activity plan was prepared based on the learning objectives and indicators included in the preschool curriculum and the Next Generation Science Standards. During the activity, 7E learning model stages were followed. It can be stated that the activities carried out using the Makey-Makey kit will facilitate access to learning objectives related to science education in the preschool period and establish an environment in which students can have fun while learning. In this context, the present activity is a very effective in terms of the science education of preschool children and reaching the specified international standards.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced over 1 billion learners to shift from face-to-face instruction to online learning. Seven months after it began, this transition became even more challenging for Filipino online learners. Eight typhoons struck the Philippines from October to November 2020. Two of these typhoons caused widespread flooding, utilities interruptions, property destruction, and loss of life. We examine how these severe weather conditions affected online learning participation of Filipino students pursuing their undergraduate and graduate studies. We used CausalImpact analysis to explore September 2020 to January 2021 data collected from the Moodle Learning Management System data of one university in the Philippines. We found that overall student online participation was significantly negatively affected by typhoons. However, the effect on participation in Assignments and Quizzes was not significant. These findings suggested that students continued to participate in activities that have a direct bearing on their final grades, rather than activities that had no impact on their course outcomes.

Activism and engagement with real-world climate crises, within particular contexts, are prerequisites for learning about climate justice. I draw on my experience as an imbedded activist researcher living and learning through two recent 'crises' in Cape Town, to deepen my understandings of 'climate justice'. I followed a case study approach to investigate learning within two 'crises', the 2017/2018 drought and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Cape Town is a significant context within which to explore climate justice as it is a 'city of islands' with 'so much beauty, yet a tremendous amount of violence and suffering'. It is a microcosm of the inequalities and socio-economic injustices in the world. Through the study, ecofeminism is identified as a significant framework for understanding 'climate justice' and deep, just transitions towards its attainment. It places at the centre of concern marginalised poor, Indigenous, black, peasant women. Climate justice is about foregrounding those people who have contributed least to climate catastrophes and are most affected by them. As climate justice is about systems change, social movements and social movement learning (SML) are key vehicles towards deep transformation. SML importantly confronts knowledge hierarchies and middle-class biases in crisis responses.

Changing weather patterns and extreme events are not the only outcomes of global climatic change. We investigate the impact of changing weather conditions on human capital development by studying achievement on standardized tests in Math and English/Language Arts for students in grades 3-8. Here we show that increasing average temperature levels and particularly hot days reduce student learning and achievement. We find that achievement decreases as temperatures increase, that this effect is larger in areas with lower average maximum temperatures, and that each additional day above 100F decreases student achievement. This study confirms many findings in the received literature on global climate change and human capital acquisition and productivity.

Background/Context: Jean Anyon's work provides a powerful intervention in the study of education with her attention to political economy and the social contexts of education. Mainstream neoliberal charter reform arguments often counter Anyon's work by suggesting a "no excuse" ideology, which often ignores structural realities facing youth. Over the decades, charter schools have garnered bipartisan interest and expanded significantly. Following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was one such site where the expansion and experimentation with charter schools has taken place. Utilizing the restructuring of New Orleans after Katrina as a site for examination, this article builds from a larger yearlong qualitative critical race case study on the reproduction of White dominance via the charter school authorization and application process. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Utilizing the educational restructuring of New Orleans post-Katrina, this article aims to illustrate the interconnectedness of political economy and race. Extending Anyon's analysis of political economy, the article focuses on the neoliberal restructuring of New Orleans education after Hurricane Katrina to illustrate how the notions of abjection and zones of nonbeing form a guiding constellation for the accumulation and solidification of White power and capital. Research Design/Data Collection and Analysis: This article builds off a larger yearlong qualitative critical race case study on the reproduction of White racial educational dominance in post-Katrina New Orleans. Interviews and student artifacts are the central data. Conclusion/Recommendations: The author recommends the grounding of youth voice in educational policy analysis, conceptualization, and implementation; the consideration of how race impacts education; and continued research on the inter-imbrication of race and political economy.

Water is a special substance. Not only do humans rely on water for survival, but it is also fascinating to play with and makes a great topic to investigate. Many simple investigations can be done with water, at home or at school, to guide children's science learning. This article describes a sequence of online learning experiences that were set for Foundation-level children in Sydney NSW, during the recent school lockdown due to COVID-19. The lessons were communicated to 5-6-year-old children via the Seesaw digital app and were part of a unit on weather and water designed for children in their first year of school. Examples of student responses to these water-based learning tasks are provided.

When the road is wet (there is a water layer on the road surface), the road marks become blurred and drivers are distracted. We discuss the contributing processes and identify which processes are dominant to the occurrence of this phenomenon. Modelling and a simple experiment demonstrate that the dominant processes are: (a) refraction of light by the water layer that reduces the beam angle of the light that enters the driver's eyes, (b) reflection of light in the water layer, and (c) the glare.

This qualitative study examines first-year teacher candidates early field experience designing and implementing maker workshops for an afterschool program. The maker workshops were offered as part of a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) enrichment club at a local elementary school. The participants engaged in 50 hr of guided design, planning, and facilitation of a weather-focused maker workshop. Findings illuminate the role early teaching experiences (e.g., makerspaces) can play in the early professional development of elementary teacher candidates. This study calls for further investigation regarding maker environments as sites for elementary field experiences for teacher candidates.

Competition to attract international students continues to grow and understanding the factors that influence study destination choice is critical to the marketing efforts of nations, states, and institutions. This survey-based study of international students at Michigan State University demonstrates that they appear to choose the country in which to study, and/or the specific school, with less regard for school location. The most critical influences on their choices were expected quality of education, reputation/ranking of the university and individual departments/programs, safety/security, and cost/affordability. Differences in relative importance by nationality, gender, and level of education sought were also identified. Implications of these findings, for the marketing, promotion, and recruitment efforts of universities and national/regional economic development agencies, are discussed.

It is well-known that misconceptions exist on a range of topics. The origin of these misconceptions can be very different, but some of them can be understood by students struggling with the application of physics concepts in real life situations or in the context of another school subject, e.g. geography. In this paper, different strategies to tackle misconceptions concerning the formation of clouds and wind were studied. In Flanders, this topic is studied in geography at the end of secondary education, but underlying physics principles are taught in the preceding physics courses in the middle of secondary school. Three different strategies to teach the topic in geography were designed and compared: a traditional, teacher centered lecture, a lecture including an experiment showing the process of cloud and wind formation and a lecture in which the students worked through the material themselves by means of an interactive learning path on a tablet pc and in which the experiment was included in a movie. In all lectures, explicit reference was made to the underlying physical concepts. In a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, the impact of the three formats on the students' conceptual understanding was studied. Results show that the learning outcomes of students in the tablet pc class are not as good as those in the other two conditions. Teaching method, but also learning material and attitude of students, can explain these differences.

Agricultural communicators and extension educators need to make scientific information about global warming, a critical component of climate change, more salient to the general public to increase knowledge and to encourage people to take action to mitigate its effect; however, views on global warming are diverse. Scientists have repeatedly shown human activity is directly impacting the Earth's climate. Despite this, a segment of the U.S. population (including politicians with a large amount of influence) are very vocal about their mistrust of climate science and lack of belief in global warming. States located on the coasts are affected by climate change the most where extreme weather events impact the safety of residents and agricultural production more often than those located inland. This research used the Six Americas framework to identify the diverse segments of believers/nonbelievers in Florida. Findings revealed 87% of respondents believed in climate change but are not actively engaged in its mitigation. Recommendations are offered on how agricultural communicators can reach diverse segments of the population and the role extension educators can play in their communities to turn difficult to understand climate science into something the public can understand and get behind.

In response to the perception that climate change is too abstract and its consequences too far-reaching for us to make a difference, recent feminist environmental humanities scholars have drawn attention to connections that can be forged by noticing the intermingling of bodies, relations, materials, places and movements in the world. Inspired by these ideas, Tonya Rooney has proposed that there is potential in working with child-weather relations as a pedagogical response to making climate change more connected and immediate for young children. Mindy Blaise and her colleagues have also shown how 'matters of fact' dominate early childhood teaching, and call for new pedagogies that attend to 'matters of concern', such as climate change. In this article the authors build on these ideas by drawing also on María Puig de la Bellacasa's suggestion that we extend our concern to 'matters of care' as an 'ethically and politically charged "practice'." The authors report on their work with educators and children in an Australian-based preschool where they have started to engage with matters of concern and matters of care to create new types of pedagogies that they call 'weathering-with pedagogies'. These are situated, experimental, embodied, relational and ethical, and, the authors suggest, reflect a practice of care, thus providing young children with new ways of responding to climate change. The authors take as their starting point Donna Haraway's invitation to 'muddy the waters' as a way to stir up the possibilities, tensions and challenges in doing such work.

Natural disasters can negatively impact students' educational outcomes and well-being. After a natural disaster, families and communities often rely on schools to foster stability and serve as a conduit to resources. Yet, school principals face many challenges, often with little guidance, in how to best respond to natural disasters. This case demonstrates that, in the aftermath of a natural disaster, educational leaders may be required to communicate effectively with staff and media; make operational, managerial, and logistical decisions quickly and under immense pressure; efficiently assess families' needs; manage the outpouring of philanthropy; and integrate parent and community voice in governance.

The authors describe their resources for raising awareness and encouraging positive water behaviours among young children. The DRY (Drought Risk and You) project brought together a multidisciplinary team to create a research-informed storybook and teachers' notes for 7- to 11-year-olds. This article takes a brief look at the book and reflects on what teachers, trainee teachers and learners had to say about it.

Refutation texts, which are texts that rebut scientific misconceptions and explain the normative concept, can be effective devices for addressing misconceptions and affecting conceptual change. However, few, if any, refutation texts specifically related to climate change have been validated for effectiveness. In this project, we developed and tested three refutation texts related to climate change. The three texts, which are freely available for other educators and researchers to use, relate to (1) the enhanced greenhouse effect, (2) the distinction between climate and weather, and (3) the nature of ozone depletion and how it is not a major contributor to global warming. Participants in the study consisted of 146 undergraduates enrolled in various educational psychology courses. They were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. All participants completed a knowledge pretest, posttest, and delayed (2 wk) posttest. Experimental-group participants read one of the refutation texts, whereas control subjects read an unrelated text. Based on repeated-measures ANOVAs, results indicated that the refutation texts were generally effective in increasing knowledge and addressing the misconceptions that they were designed to address, although results were mixed for the weather versus climate text. Furthermore, there was little regression at the delayed posttest, except for the weather versus climate text (understanding that climate is usually measured over a 30-y period) and for global warming being unrelated to skin cancer. The importance of combining these texts with other instructional activities and simulations is discussed.

Through a program called "Snowga" (yoga in the snow), students learned about mindfulness and living in the present moment through yoga postures and meditations. Positive changes included growth in wellbeing as the children explored self, community, and the natural world through yoga, mindfulness, personal reflective journals, and artwork. The purpose: to engender awareness of the efficacy of mindfulness and yoga practices in nature and contribute to the growing body of knowledge around wellbeing in education.

In a notoriously cold-seasoned region, this paper explored how our formal education and non-formal environmental education (EE) gatekeepers of Northeastern Minnesota regard the importance of outdoor play and cold weather for young students. This research study explored the relationship between participant gatekeepers' beliefs of the benefits outdoor play and beliefs toward cold weather. Using online survey research, this descriptive study found both formal and non-formal EE educational communities to have overall, positive beliefs toward the benefits of outdoor play, however, significant differences between formal education gatekeepers and non-formal EE gatekeepers' beliefs toward cold weather emerged. Results from this study point toward differences between the institutional influence of formal and non-formal EE, and invite discussion for possible implications on early childhood students' opportunities for outdoor play in cold weather. Strategies for educational gatekeepers were also presented to support early childhood opportunities for outdoor play in cold weather, fostering year-round well-being and resilience of young students.

Home food production plays a critical role in food security for residents of Trinidad and Tobago and around the world. The purpose of this study was to examine barriers and benefits that influence residents' engagement in or rejection of home food production to inform social marketing programs. To address study objectives, interviews were conducted with 40 participants who represented five distinct Habitat for Humanity communities. Four subthemes emerged among the benefits associated with engaging in home food production: economic benefits, food safety, sharing and reciprocity, and personal well-being. Among the barriers, subthemes included: monetary expenses associated with start-up, lack of nonmonetary resources, lack of experience, generational disconnect, and barriers beyond human control such as the weather. While findings revealed many factors may hinder residents growing food around homes, there were high perceived social and financial values associated with this practice. Implications point to strategies that agricultural education professionals can use to encourage home food production among Trinidadians and in other locations.

A wealth of research evidences the positive impact of the outdoors for young children. Yet there is little relating to the experiences of babies and toddlers who attend daycare settings. This paper offers new knowledge about outdoor provision for under twos in the English context where there is a lack of explicit policy support for outdoor practice. Findings, captured through an online survey from Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings in one geographically diverse county, reveal a generally positive picture. This suggests that practice is ahead of research. However, the survey also highlights significant variability in outdoor provision. We suggest that, in the absence of a strong policy driver ECEC settings may be inadvertently laying the foundations for inequality of access to the outdoors. Furthermore, a lack of research evidence to inform practice may be contributing to an underdevelopment of the pedagogic value of outdoor environments.