THE USE OF A DIGITAL MICROSCOPE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG SCHOOLCHILDREN'S IDEAS ABOUT PLANTS, ANIMALS AND FUNGI

At present the use of technical teaching aids based on digital technologies in the educational process in primary schools is gaining special relevance, and the digital microscope is indicated in a number of syllabi for the course "Nature study" in primary schools in the section “Material and technical support”. The teacher is free to decide on what topics, in the study of what objects or natural phenomena, with the use of what methods to use this teaching tool. The aim of the study is to identify the influence of the use of the digital microscope on the development of children’s ideas about plants, animals and fungi in primary school. The pedagogical experiment was carried out for 2 years on the basis of two secondary schools in the city of Kirov, Russian Federation. 140 third grade students (72 students in the experimental group and 68 students in the control group) took part in the experiment. For the development of ideas about plants, animals and fungi in primary school children at Nature study lessons two methods were implemented: with the use of the digital microscope (in the experimental group) and without its use (in the control group). The results of testing third-graders before and after the teaching experiment showed that the use of the digital microscope in the classroom contributed to students’ better assimilation of knowledge about the diversity of plants, their respiration, nutrition, reproduction and development, the diversity of animals, their reproduction and development, and the diversity of fungi than in the lessons which did not use the microscope. This is proved by statistically significant differences in the test results of the experimental and control groups after the experiment. The findings of the study can provide a starting point for subject curriculum developers and teachers interested in using the digital microscope in primary school education.

Feathered Friends and Human Animals: General Biology and Comparative Description within the New Zealand Poultry Industry Press, c.1900-1960

<p>Within the New Zealand poultry industry press between 1900 and 1960, scientific approaches were promoted and ‘sentimentality’ discouraged, yet comparative and anthropomorphic description suggesting similarities between chickens and humans persisted. Feathered Friends and Human Animals explores this phenomenon within poultry journals, newspapers, advice books and official publications. Four key themes of comparison are identified: ideas about the chicken mind, the chicken-as-worker, poultry ‘eugenics’, and health and hygiene. It is argued that humanitarian, theological, and philosophical ideas, the ‘natural’ empathetic and humoured identification that arises through everyday contact with animals within relatively small systems, and the rationalisation of industry, were all significant factors contributing to sustained comparison. However, the public articulation of fundamental biological ideas – encapsulated in the modern, overarching concept of ‘general biology’ – validated and integrated these discourses. General biology influenced new trends in education and in the popular and public articulation of research into the life sciences of this period. It encouraged the integration of sympathetic naturalist persepectives, including evolutionary based ideas about ‘natural laws’, with emerging new science that continued to establish many fundamental biological principles through extrapolation from experimental animals to human animals. This study demonstrates that poultry experts’ attended to this same blend of older naturalist science and new scientific knowledge. Historians’ focus on emerging specialist science in the early twentieth century has tended to obfuscate the realities of science education within the applied sciences and amongst lay audiences, and the continued interest in fundamental aspects of biology within professional science. The findings of this study reveal that farming ideas did not develop within a bubble, determined only by animal husbandry traditions and industry-specific applied research. They also suggest that practitioners’ conceptions of biology within applied fields of this era were not as distinct as has been supposed. As a ‘bottom-up’ cultural history of science, this study illustrates the articulation of general biology within an agricultural context. This is the key contribution offered to local and international historiography. However, other elements of the study expand existing scholarship. In exploring ideas about race and eugenics, it offers a broader framework for social historians, who, while cognisant of the eugenic mind-set of this period, have granted little attention to general biology as a professional trend. It offers insight into the agendas and tensions within school nature study and elementary science. It is also the first comprehensive history of the New Zealand poultry industry. Poultry-keeping engaged up to around 60 percent of the nation’s households in this period, including thousands of farmers who kept sideline flocks, but as a predominantly domestic (as opposed to export) industry it has been overlooked by social and agricultural historians. The field of human animal studies, which has tended to gloss over both this era of transition prior to modern agribusiness and scientific discourses, is also advanced by this study, and this is the first New Zealand agricultural history to engage with this field and examine animal husbandry ideologically. It reveals how fundamental science knowledge, entwined with moral perspectives, continued to shape ideas about animals’ needs and behaviour well beyond the Victorian period. Assumptions of similarity however, were not always beneficial for the animal, and human-bird comparison was used to both justify and deny kind treatment.</p>

Feathered Friends and Human Animals: General Biology and Comparative Description within the New Zealand Poultry Industry Press, c.1900-1960

<p>Within the New Zealand poultry industry press between 1900 and 1960, scientific approaches were promoted and ‘sentimentality’ discouraged, yet comparative and anthropomorphic description suggesting similarities between chickens and humans persisted. Feathered Friends and Human Animals explores this phenomenon within poultry journals, newspapers, advice books and official publications. Four key themes of comparison are identified: ideas about the chicken mind, the chicken-as-worker, poultry ‘eugenics’, and health and hygiene. It is argued that humanitarian, theological, and philosophical ideas, the ‘natural’ empathetic and humoured identification that arises through everyday contact with animals within relatively small systems, and the rationalisation of industry, were all significant factors contributing to sustained comparison. However, the public articulation of fundamental biological ideas – encapsulated in the modern, overarching concept of ‘general biology’ – validated and integrated these discourses. General biology influenced new trends in education and in the popular and public articulation of research into the life sciences of this period. It encouraged the integration of sympathetic naturalist persepectives, including evolutionary based ideas about ‘natural laws’, with emerging new science that continued to establish many fundamental biological principles through extrapolation from experimental animals to human animals. This study demonstrates that poultry experts’ attended to this same blend of older naturalist science and new scientific knowledge. Historians’ focus on emerging specialist science in the early twentieth century has tended to obfuscate the realities of science education within the applied sciences and amongst lay audiences, and the continued interest in fundamental aspects of biology within professional science. The findings of this study reveal that farming ideas did not develop within a bubble, determined only by animal husbandry traditions and industry-specific applied research. They also suggest that practitioners’ conceptions of biology within applied fields of this era were not as distinct as has been supposed. As a ‘bottom-up’ cultural history of science, this study illustrates the articulation of general biology within an agricultural context. This is the key contribution offered to local and international historiography. However, other elements of the study expand existing scholarship. In exploring ideas about race and eugenics, it offers a broader framework for social historians, who, while cognisant of the eugenic mind-set of this period, have granted little attention to general biology as a professional trend. It offers insight into the agendas and tensions within school nature study and elementary science. It is also the first comprehensive history of the New Zealand poultry industry. Poultry-keeping engaged up to around 60 percent of the nation’s households in this period, including thousands of farmers who kept sideline flocks, but as a predominantly domestic (as opposed to export) industry it has been overlooked by social and agricultural historians. The field of human animal studies, which has tended to gloss over both this era of transition prior to modern agribusiness and scientific discourses, is also advanced by this study, and this is the first New Zealand agricultural history to engage with this field and examine animal husbandry ideologically. It reveals how fundamental science knowledge, entwined with moral perspectives, continued to shape ideas about animals’ needs and behaviour well beyond the Victorian period. Assumptions of similarity however, were not always beneficial for the animal, and human-bird comparison was used to both justify and deny kind treatment.</p>

Leader Tolerance of Ambiguity: Implications for Follower Performance Outcomes in High and Low Ambiguous Work Situations

Individuals high in tolerance of ambiguity (TOA) are comfortable with, desire, and strive to manage ambiguous situations. We predicted leader TOA would be associated with better follower performance outcomes, depending on the level (Study 1) and nature (Study 2) of follower role ambiguity. Data were collected from employees (Study 1, n = 423) and managerial employees (Study 2, n = 326) who rated their leader on three facets of TOA and provided self-reports of their own performance outcomes. Positive implications of leader TOA for follower learning goal orientation and job performance (Study 1) were most pronounced when followers perceived low role ambiguity and, in the prediction of situational coping (Study 2), when ambiguous work situations were categorized as challenges (unexpected events requiring problem-solving) compared to hindrances. Findings have theoretical implications for understanding when TOA in leaders is optimal and have practical relevance for leaders seeking to adapt to the situational needs of their followers.

Binary adsorption of [Pb(II) + Co(II)] from aqueous solution using thiolated saw dust

Technology advancement contributed to an increase in industrial activities, resulting in the introduction of metal ions into water resources at concentrations well above the WHO limits. Heavy metals are highly toxic and carcinogenic; usually occur as multicomponent mixtures in aquatic environment. In present study, batch experiments have been conducted to study the dependence of varying concentration, time, pH and temperature on the uptake of Pb(II) as pure component under equilibrium conditions using thiolated saw dust. Saw dust has been chemically modified with thioglycolic acid and characterised using proximate and FTIR analyses, degree of thiolation has also been determined. To determine the effect of presence of Co(II) ions on the uptake of Pb(II) ions, batch experiments for [Pb(II) + Co(II)] mixture have been carried out for concentration ratios of 1:0, 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 of Pb:Co at pH 5 and data has been interpreted using Langmuir competitive isotherm shows that adsorption of Pb(II) has been suppressed by the presence of Co(II) ions in the binary solution, hence the adsorption process is antagonistic in nature. Study also indicates the possibility of simultaneous removal of both metal ions using low cost bioadsorbent, which is economical specially for application in small scale industries.

The Role of Mathematics in the Formation of Pupils’ Creative Activity

The article is devoted to the problem of the development of the creative activity of students in grades 5–6 in the process of teaching mathematics. It is noted that the fulfillment of a creative task requires from students not a simple reproduction of information, but creativity, since the tasks contain a greater or lesser element of obscurity. A creative task is the content, the basis of any interactive method. A creative task (especially practical and close to the student's life) gives meaning to learning, motivates pupils. To develop the creative activity of students, you can use specially developed various software tools (Learning Apps, Mentimeter, Quzizz, etc.) in the lesson. With the help of a huge number of online services, you can create a whole collection of interactive tasks of the following nature: study an interactive lecture and answer the questions; answer questions of the test, quiz (with one or many correct answers); build a timeline and others.

Removal of phenol from aqueous solution using biochar produced from Araucaria Columnaris Bark

Abstract This work investigates the removal of phenol from aqueous solution using Araucaria Columnaris bark (ACB) as biochar. Five different types of biochars were developed through pyrolysis at different temp from 300 to 500°C. The effects of initial concentration, contact time, pH and temperature on adsorption behavior were studied in batch mode for each biochar. The optimum contact time observed for equilibrium condition was 60 mins for every biochar. And, the maximum adsorption followed the order 298 K > 308 K > 318 K. Adsorption equilibrium data were fitted to Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms by non-linear regression method and kinetic data by linear regression method, and fitted to pseudo-first order, pseudo-second order and Intraparticle diffusion models. Adsorption kinetics was reasonably described by pseudo-second order model with R 2 value 0.99. Thermodynamic parameters were also estimated that implied, the adsorption process was spontaneous and exothermic in nature. Study further showed that the acidic pH increased adsorption capacity of biochar but decreases continuously towards basic side. The removal of phenol with prepared biochar was achieved as high as 100 % for ACB-500. The maximum iodine adsorption value of prepared biochar was found to be 453.3 mg/g.

”La naturaleza viva debe ocupar el primer plano”. Un estudio sobre el Diccionario de Pedagogía (1936) de editorial Labor y la enseñanza de las ciencias físico-químicas y naturales

We present the study of one of the great projects of the Barcelona publisher Editorial Labor, namely the Diccionario de Pedagogía (1936), from a new perspective: the analysis of entries on the teaching of scientific subjects. The axis of the methodologies proposed by the work is the study of living things in their natural environment from an ecological perspective, both outside the classroom via excursions and inside through aquaria, terraria, herbaria and school kitchen gardens. These methodologies can be seen to have been be influenced by New Education principles, the English Nature Study movement and the Spanish Institución Libre de Enseñanza. Coordinated by Luis Sánchez Sarto, the Diccionario de Pedagogía recorded the state of pedagogy and education worldwide, counting on a hundred or so anonymous authors most of whom were German, Austrian, American or Spanish. John Dewey, Vilhelm Rasmussen and Georg Kerschensteiner are the dictionary’s pedagogical references in science teaching. In our article, we present arguments suggesting that Margarita Comas Camps and Rafael Candel Vila were the authors of the dictionary’s two entries on teaching methodology.