scholarly journals A case study of a Green Flag-certified preschool in Sweden

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-627
Author(s):  
Farhana Borg
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Preschool Teachers ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
Head Teacher ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Animal Societies

This paper presents findings from a case study intended to develop understanding of the practices within education for sustainable development at a preschool in Sweden and highlights its work with two themes: The Health of People and the Planet and Human and Animal Societies. This case study was part of a large school development project conducted by a university in collaboration with a municipality between 2017 and 2019. The preschool had two units with a total of 36 children aged 1–6 years, and 8 preschool teachers. Empirical materials were collected from observations of educational activities at two events, as well as group discussions with teachers and the preschool head teacher. Findings show that the interconnectedness of, and interdependencies between, the environmental, social, and, to some extent, economic aspects of sustainable development were present in educational practices of the preschool. They also indicate that young children, with support and encouragement from their teachers, can take responsibility for activities that are meaningful to them. In this preschool, children’s opinions were respected, and they were given the opportunity to participate in decision-making activities of relevance to their lives.

scholarly journals Introducing Sustainability in a Robotic Engineering Degree: A Case Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 5574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco A. Pujol ◽  
David Tomás
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmentally Friendly ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Male Students ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
Engineering Degree ◽  
The Impact

This paper describes a group activity concerning the topic of climate change, designed to introduce the concepts of sustainable development into a Robotic Engineering degree. The purpose of this activity was to make students reflect about the impact of their work on the planet as future engineers by asking them to design an environmentally friendly robot that also integrated social and economic aspects, covering the three dimensions of sustainability in this way. Students were surveyed in order to study different aspects of their commitment, attitudes, practices, and motivation towards sustainability. In addition to the overall analysis of the survey, three specific studies were carried out with the aim of comparing the responses of different population groups: (i) Students who completed the proposed assignment and students who did not, (ii) female and male students, and (iii) roles played in the assignment. The results of the analysis revealed the high commitment of the students with respect to sustainability, but also a lack of active participation and awareness of their impact as future engineers. The activity was not only a way to introduce sustainability concepts, but in many cases, it also became a motivation for the participants, especially for the female students.

scholarly journals Analysis of preferences of agro-pastoralists for the attributes of traction dromedaries in harness cultivation: A case study of the Koro district of Mali

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bakary Traoré ◽  
Benoit Govoeyi ◽  
Issa Hamadou ◽  
Fikremariam Geda ◽  
Abdoulaye Touré ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Disease Resistance ◽  
Morphological Characteristics ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Work Attitude ◽  
Conditional Logit ◽  
Attribute Analysis ◽  
Functional Nature ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractThe aim of this study was to characterize agro-pastoralists’ preferences in dromedary rearing in the Koro district of Mali, which has experienced a decade of spontaneous development in using dromedaries for harnessed cultivation. Five criteria for assessment of dromedary types used for traction were identified through nine focus group discussions. The assessment criteria developed and estimated rates were the morphological characteristics (23.2%), disease resistance (14.1%), work attitude (26.3%), colour of the coat (25.3%) and docility (11.1%). A multi-attribute analysis method was applied with 115 dromedary owners. Conditional logit was used to estimate utility function and willingness to pay (WTP) for different attributes. Work attitude seems to be an important parameter for decision-making with a WTP amounting to 558.94 euros (614.94 USD). Disease resistance comes second position in decision-making for the selection of dromedaries, with a WTP of 348.77 euros (383.40 USD). To a lesser extent, the white coat with a WTP in the order of 54.45 euros (59.86 USD) intervenes in agro-pastoral decision-making. The agro-pastoralists have a strong reluctance for the dark brown coat. In conclusion, the present results showed that further studies should be conducted on materials and traction technologies to promote harnessed cultivation by dromedaries to preserve and strengthen the multi-functional nature of the dromedary.

Decision making support in security forces command centers at open air music festivals: Localization of resources and sharing information

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 229-238
Author(s):  
Armin Köfler ◽  
Viktoria Pammer-Schindler ◽  
Alexander Almer ◽  
Thomas Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Situation Awareness ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Music Festivals ◽  
Functional Prototype ◽  
It Artifact ◽  
Command Center

AbstractWe describe a case study on decision making in command centers of security forces at major open air music festivals. Our goal was to assess current modus operandi and to identify design implications. We have carried out two expert interviews, two field observations and four group discussions with experts based on a fully functional prototype as IT artifact to concretize discussions. Key insights are that in this case localization of relevant resources is the most important aspect of situation awareness, and that state of current knowledge needs to be clearly shared within the command center.

Education for Citizenship as a Permanent Laboratory

2019 ◽  
pp. 517-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Balconi ◽  
Elisabetta Nigris ◽  
Luisa Zecca
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Teacher Professional Development ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Focus Group Data ◽  
Teacher Professional

In this chapter, the authors discuss the results of three focus group discussions conducted in the context of the teacher professional development project STEP (school territory environment pedagogy) undertaken by researchers and teachers from three EU Countries—France, Spain, Italy—and one non-EU country, Switzerland. Specifically, they present findings regarding changes in how the teachers in the Milano Bicocca case study represented citizenship education practices. The focus group data was subjected to content analysis, using a set of categories drawn from the national reference documents on curriculum design and the transnational curriculum defined in the STEP project. The changes in the teachers' representations concerned three main aspects: dialogue with the local community and territorial context, the gap between teachers declared intentions and actual educational actions, and the adoption of a complex perspective in the choice of knowledge to be mobilized.

Decisions in Product Platform Development Projects

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 1550001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter E. Harland ◽  
Haluk Yörür
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Project Managers ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Product Platform ◽  
Product Platforms ◽  
Platform Development ◽  
Product Platform Development

Introducing "product platforms" in companies to achieve competitive advantages, like decreased costs and increased product variety, is a widely recognized strategy in research and industry. Nevertheless, there are certain challenges involved in developing product platforms. In order to address this complexity, we focus on the decision-making perspective of platform development in this paper. Based on a systematic literature review, we identify the decisions in product platform development projects (PPDP) and categorize them. We identified 21 decisions that are made within PPDP, which represent a greater scope of decisions than presented in the literature sources reviewed. The plausibility of these platform project decisions is illustrated with a case study of a perennial platform development project within the automotive supply industry. While most of the literature sources only mention very few decisions, the case study shows the complexity and high number of decisions required for an actual PPDP. In addition, it also recognizes all of the prior reviews of the decisions identified. Unlike in the literature, the decisions in the case study were made over a certain period of time. Therefore, we propose that the dynamics of the decision-making process in PPDP have to be taken into account. The set of PPDP decisions identified will help project managers to structure future PPDPs better and support researchers in building related product platform models.

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