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Literature on school education suggests that teaching and learning science in basic level community schools in Nepal is largely theoretical. Consequently, achievement levels and the understanding of concepts of science is much below policy expectations. This paper builds on a shift from dogmatic lecturing to activity-based pedagogy using school gardening as contextual scaffolding for learning science in community schools in central Nepal. Five focus group discussions and observations were carried out among sixth and seventh graders, science teachers, and parents of an action (intervention) school located in the Chitwan district of Nepal, with support from the NORHED/Rupantaran project. At the beginning of the PAR project, the barriers associated with startup gardening activities were time allocation, integration of gardening activities with the science curriculum, and the ongoing engagement of parents. Later in the project, students, science teachers, and parents reported on their experiences such as active and meaningful engagement in activity-based pedagogy through school gardening. Overall, school gardening activities were found to have positive effects on students' understanding of scientific concepts, connecting school gardens in a contextual scaffold.

Background: Cognitive development in pre-schoolers through healthy eating and socio-demographic support is crucial for their later lives. We investigated healthy eating encouragement, socio-demographic factors and their association with cognitive development in pre-schoolers. Methods: Quantitative data were collected using a multi-stage random sampling between February and April 2021. Pre-schoolers 36 and 71 months and their primary caregivers were recruited from three local government units of Rupandehi district. We compared healthy eating encouragement, socioeconomic and demographic factors with cognitive development using t-test, one-way analysis of variance and multiple linear regression analysis to identify the predictors of the cognitive development among pre-schoolers. Results: Cognitive development in pre-schoolers is significantly positively associated with age 36-48 months (β = 0.153; 95% CI: 0.12, 13.96), living in a nuclear family (β = 0.121; 95% CI: 0.59, 6.88) and following Buddhism (β = 0.148; 95% CI: 0.88, 14.32). Conversely, children from specific caste/ethnic backgrounds, such as Dalit (β = -0.126; 95% CI: -10.79, -0.68), Janajati (β = -0.237; 95% CI: -6.14, -2.09) and non-Dalit Tarai caste or ethnicity (β = -0.133; 95% CI: -3.46, -0.25) and mothers employed (β = -0.134; 95% CI: -10.62, -1.44) show significantly lower levels of cognitive development. Conclusions: The finding shows that socioeconomic factors have an influence on cognitive development and also stimulate the adoption of healthy eating encouragement practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature on school education suggests that teaching and learning science in basic level community schools in Nepal is largely theoretical. Consequently, achievement levels and the understanding of concepts of science is much below policy expectations. This paper builds on a shift from dogmatic lecturing to activity-based pedagogy using school gardening as contextual scaffolding for learning science in community schools in central Nepal. Five focus group discussions and observations were carried out among sixth and seventh graders, science teachers, and parents of an action (intervention) school located in the Chitwan district of Nepal, with support from the NORHED/Rupantaran project. At the beginning of the PAR project, the barriers associated with startup gardening activities were time allocation, integration of gardening activities with the science curriculum, and the ongoing engagement of parents. Later in the project, students, science teachers, and parents reported on their experiences such as active and meaningful engagement in activity-based pedagogy through school gardening. Overall, school gardening activities were found to have positive effects on students' understanding of scientific concepts, connecting school gardens in a contextual scaffold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nepal's NORHED/Rupantaran project designed and developed participatory action research through school gardening. This study explored the ways for the community schools, science teachers and basic level (grade five to eight) students to foster a sense of agency in the school science curriculum through life-based experiential learning. Qualitative research design on thematic and verbatim methods are used to collect and analyze the data in this study. The findings show that school gardening activities are helpful and productive for science teaching and learning. The evidence from participatory action research experiences in actual school settings would provide new insights for policymakers to transform the school science curriculum. Further, the study findings show collaborative knowledge production through school gardening in a contextual environment, often neglected in community school science teaching and learning. The implications of the research findings could contribute to policy-level discussions about science teachers' professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Corona virus disease (COVID-19) remains pandemic globally. Vaccination is considered one of the best means to control both morbidity and mortality of COVID-19. The study aims to find out the people's acceptance and willingness to pay for it., Methods: The study used cross-sectional survey design. Data were collected using a survey questionnaire from 1072 respondents (age 20-60 years) from 14 districts of Nepal. Socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents were independent and acceptance of vaccine was the dependent variable., Results: The study found that 84% of the respondents accepted the COVID vaccine. Only one out of six did not accept the COVID vaccine while 16% of the respondents stated that they would like to pay for the COVID vaccination. The average willingness to pay (WTP) for vaccination was NRs. 1053 (US$ 9) while median and mode remained the same NRs. 500. The middle age groups (30-49 years), respondents belonged to Madhesi, business people in terms of occupation and the respondents who had completed school level education had a higher acceptance rate than other categories. It was observed that place of residence in terms of provinces or districts, age group, caste/ethnicity, and educational level of the respondents were significantly associated with the acceptance of the COVID vaccine. Moreover, respondents residing from Lumbini Province, age group of 30-39 years, and having secondary or higher education were noticed as more likely to accept the COVID vaccine than the respective compared groups., Conclusion: Appropriate information, education and communication needs to disseminate to minimize the misinformation about the COVID and lack of trust in vaccine that may lead to low acceptance and poor WTP for vaccine. These findings could be considered while making COVID and the COVID vaccine-related interventions., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest statement The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest with this study., (©2022 Pacini Editore SRL, Pisa, Italy.)