scholarly journals Perceptions of the European Space Sector: Youth Engagement With Space Education Events

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Roche ◽  
Laura Bell ◽  
Mairéad Hurley ◽  
Aaron M. Jensen ◽  
Eric A. Jensen ◽  
...  

Space education not only plays a key role in helping young people understand the natural world and their impact on the planet but is also vital in ensuring that future generations can make meaningful contributions to the space sector at all levels. Positive perceptions of the space sector can lead young people to take roles where they can contribute to new knowledge, develop new technologies, and tackle societal challenges. As the relationship between science and society is tested by global events—such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic—scientific trust and accountability have become topics of frequent and public debate. The way in which young people engage with space education and perceive their potential involvement with the space sector is of greater importance now than ever before. This paper describes a two-year European space education project that was carried out before and during the COVID-19 global pandemic. An evaluation of the project activities showed that young people are generally enthusiastic about space, but their perceptions of the European space sector—and their connections to it—are less positive. Recommendations are made on the challenges facing the space sector and how it needs to adapt to better support the development of a more inclusive space education community.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Penuliar ◽  
Candice Clark ◽  
Debbie Curti ◽  
Cathy Hudson ◽  
Billy Philips

ABSTRACTUniversities play a central role in a rural or small town’s economy. They are often the main forms of enrichment to the lives of the longtime residents, the students, and the employees. Unfortunately, during a global pandemic, the migration and movement of young people in these communities can likely cause a rapid infection spike and drive spread easily, especially relative to larger urban areas. The current study investigates the relationship between COVID-19 case growth, university-county rurality, and time at the beginning of the Fall 2020 academic semester. Findings showed that small metro and non-metro counties with universities had a dramatic infection spike near the beginning of the semester and infection growth remained significantly higher than their large and medium metro counterparts for the duration of the study. Suggestions to slow the spread in rural communities are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Carter

What does it mean to be a part of—rather than apart from—nature? This book is about how we interact with wildlife and the ways in which this can make our lives richer and more fulfilling. But it also explores the conflicts and contradictions inevitable in a world that is now so completely dominated by our own species. Interest in wildlife and wild places, and their profound effects on human wellbeing, have increased sharply as we face up to the ongoing biodiversity extinction crisis and reassess our priorities following a global pandemic. Ian Carter, lifelong naturalist and a former bird specialist at Natural England, sets out to uncover the intricacies of the relationship between humans and nature. In a direct, down-to-earth style he explains some of the key practical, ethical and philosophical problems we must navigate as we seek to reconnect with nature. This wide-ranging and infectiously personal account does not shy away from controversial subjects—such as how we handle invasive species, reintroductions, culling or dog ownership—and reveals in stark terms that properly addressing our connection to the natural world is an imperative, not a luxury. Short, pithy chapters make this book ideal for dipping into. Meanwhile, it builds into a compelling whole as the story moves from considering the wildlife close to home through to conflicts and, finally, the joy and sense of escape that can be had in the wildest corners of our landscapes, where there is still so much to discover.


Author(s):  
Alistair Fox

This chapter examines Merata Mita’s Mauri, the first fiction feature film in the world to be solely written and directed by an indigenous woman, as an example of “Fourth Cinema” – that is, a form of filmmaking that aims to create, produce, and transmit the stories of indigenous people, and in their own image – showing how Mita presents the coming-of-age story of a Māori girl who grows into an understanding of the spiritual dimension of the relationship of her people to the natural world, and to the ancestors who have preceded them. The discussion demonstrates how the film adopts storytelling procedures that reflect a distinctively Māori view of time and are designed to signify the presence of the mauri (or life force) in the Māori world.


Author(s):  
Natasha Thomas-Jackson

RAISE IT UP! Youth Arts and Awareness (RIU) is an organization that promotes youth engagement, expression, and empowerment through the use of performance and literary arts and social justice activism. We envision a world where youth are fully recognized, valued, and supported as artist-activists and emerging thought leaders, working to create a world that is just, intersectional, and inclusive. Two fundamental tenets shape RIU’s policies, practices, and pedagogy. The first is that creative self-expression and culture making are powerful tools for personal and social transformation. The second is that social justice is truly possible only if and when we are willing to have transparent and authentic conversations about the oppression children experience at the hands of the adults in their lives. We are committed to amplifying youth voices and leadership and building cross-generational solidarity among people of all ages, particularly those impacted by marginalization. Though RIU is focused on and driven by the youth, a large part of our work includes helping adult family members, educators, and community leaders understand the ways in which systemic oppression shapes our perceptions of and interactions with the young people in our homes, neighborhoods, institutions, and decision-making bodies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 5-9
Author(s):  
Livak N.S. ◽  
Klimova I.V. ◽  
Lebedikhin V.V.

Modern youth and the student community today play a key role in the development of social and social life. Due to the peculiarities of the university space, the student community is in constant interaction and communication, both in the framework of the educational process and events of various formats, and in social and everyday conditions. In the context of interactions, this social group, which is most at risk of spreading negative ideologies that threaten not only the personal security of everyone, but also peaceful coexistence in the conditions of a multinational society in Russia. In the absence of educational measures as a prevention, an unfavorable environment arises in which it is very easy to influence the thinking of young people, their involvement in nationalist movements, extremist activities, etc. Hence the concept of «youth extremism» appears, which is manifested in the views and behavior of young people based on the manifestation of aggression and non-acceptance of dissenters. The search for new technologies of psychological support that allow to form cultural tolerance, value orientations and prevent the spread of extremist ideologies becomes relevant. The authors consider a set of measures that contribute to the generalization, dissemination, as well as the introduction into the student environment of the best practices of spiritual and moral education, the development of interethnic and interreligious dialogue, and the prevention of negative ideologies. To implement these tasks, it is necessary to form a pool of specialists in the prevention of extremism in the student environment, hold seminars and meetings for vice-rectors of universities on security and educational work, as well as educational seminars for managers of student organizations. This will make it possible to form leadership student associations that broadcast the values of cultural tolerance to the youth environment.


This book is the first to examine the history of imaginative thinking about intelligent machines. As real artificial intelligence (AI) begins to touch on all aspects of our lives, this long narrative history shapes how the technology is developed, deployed, and regulated. It is therefore a crucial social and ethical issue. Part I of this book provides a historical overview from ancient Greece to the start of modernity. These chapters explore the revealing prehistory of key concerns of contemporary AI discourse, from the nature of mind and creativity to issues of power and rights, from the tension between fascination and ambivalence to investigations into artificial voices and technophobia. Part II focuses on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in which a greater density of narratives emerged alongside rapid developments in AI technology. These chapters reveal not only how AI narratives have consistently been entangled with the emergence of real robotics and AI, but also how they offer a rich source of insight into how we might live with these revolutionary machines. Through their close textual engagements, these chapters explore the relationship between imaginative narratives and contemporary debates about AI’s social, ethical, and philosophical consequences, including questions of dehumanization, automation, anthropomorphization, cybernetics, cyberpunk, immortality, slavery, and governance. The contributions, from leading humanities and social science scholars, show that narratives about AI offer a crucial epistemic site for exploring contemporary debates about these powerful new technologies.


Author(s):  
Gary Totten

This chapter discusses how consumer culture affects the depiction and meaning of the natural world in the work of American realist writers. These writers illuminate the relationship between natural environments and the social expectations of consumer culture and reveal how such expectations transform natural space into what Henri Lefebvre terms “social space” implicated in the processes and power dynamics of production and consumption. The representation of nature as social space in realist works demonstrates the range of consequences such space holds for characters. Such space can both empower and oppress individuals, and rejecting or embracing it can deepen moral resolve, prompt a crisis of self, or result in one’s death. Characters’ attempts to escape social space and consumer culture also provide readers with new strategies for coping with their effects.


Proceedings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Sebastiano Trevisani

Modern Earth Scientists need also to interact with other disciplines, apparently far from the Earth Sciences and Engineering. Disciplines related to history and philosophy of science are emblematic from this perspective. From one side, the quantitative analysis of information extracted from historical records (documents, maps, paintings, etc.) represents an exciting research topic, requiring a truly holistic approach. On the other side, epistemological and philosophy of science considerations on the relationship between geoscience and society in history are of fundamental importance for understanding past, present and future geosphere-anthroposphere interlinked dynamics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1915
Author(s):  
Joe K. Taylor ◽  
Henry E. Revercomb ◽  
Fred A. Best ◽  
David C. Tobin ◽  
P. Jonathan Gero

The Absolute Radiance Interferometer (ARI) is an infrared spectrometer designed to serve as an on-orbit radiometric reference with the ultra-high accuracy (better than 0.1 K 3‑σ or k = 3 brightness temperature at scene brightness temperature) needed to optimize measurement of the long-term changes of Earth’s atmosphere and surface. If flown in an orbit that frequently crosses sun-synchronous orbits, ARI could be used to inter-calibrate the international fleet of infrared (IR) hyperspectral sounders to similar measurement accuracy, thereby establishing an observing system capable of achieving sampling biases on high-information-content spectral radiance products that are also < 0.1 K 3‑σ. It has been shown that such a climate observing system with <0.1 K 2‑σ overall accuracy would make it possible to realize times to detect subtle trends of temperature and water vapor distributions that closely match those of an ideal system, given the limit set by the natural variability of the atmosphere. This paper presents the ARI sensor's overall design, the new technologies developed to allow on-orbit verification and test of its accuracy, and the laboratory results that demonstrate its capability. In addition, we describe the techniques and uncertainty estimates for transferring ARI accuracy to operational sounders, providing economical global coverage. Societal challenges posed by climate change suggest that a Pathfinder ARI should be deployed as soon as possible.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document