This thesis describes an analysis of science textbooks, eight years after the implementation of the Years 1-10 Queensland Science Syllabus, which suggested a move towards constructivist teaching in Queensland schools (QSSC 1999). The textbooks have been analysed for evidence of constructivism, and this has led to recommendations for writing better textbooks. This thesis has been written in five chapters. In Chapter 1, a review of literature develops a conceptual framework, which is the basis of this research. Chapter 2 describes the process used to develop its methodology, and Chapter 3 presents the results of this analysis. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the findings of this research and its implications for textbook content and design. In the literature review the themes of constructivism and the nature of science and the use of textbooks by teachers are explored. It suggests that textbooks continue to be central to developing curriculum, that they are used as a reference and as an independent learning tool, rather than as a guide to enacting curriculum. It also shows constructivist teaching closely aligns with authentic science, that it moves school science closer to that practised by scientists, and that it can engender improvements in teaching practice and in student interest. The data from this research has been collected using an analytical grid developed from three successive trials, after the literature review showed no previously developed analytical grid was suitable. In this final version of the grid, Likert scales are used to observe four dimensions of constructivism in textbook activities: coherence (use knowledge and concepts in a range of contexts), student-centredness of inquiries, language used and analysis questions to practice making new knowledge claims. The unit of analysis was ecology chapters of four middle school science textbooks. The research questions asked in this study are as follows: • Is a constructivist approach discernable in the textbooks reviewed in terms of the four dimensions of constructivism identified in the literature review? • What elements of constructivism are readily identifiable, and therefore are easily included in textbooks? • What elements of constructivism are not discernable? The results of this research have been synthesised and show no textbook could be considered constructivist, although one textbook had inquiries that could be considered exemplary. Two of the textbooks had no claim to be constructivist because they lacked inquiries, and this is where students experience the methods of scientists and practise making knowledge claims.   Other conclusions of this research include the following: •All textbooks reviewed were deficient in at least one dimension of constructivism, and those with one inquiry cannot be constructivist; •Activities and contexts made textbooks more coherent; •Technical terms were reduced compared to what has been traditionally covered by textbooks, however technical terms are also essential to scientific literacy and need to be used appropriately; •Most methods of inquiries are prescribed, so they do not allow students to solve problems in their own relevant contexts; even in those textbooks with more inquiries; •There was little evidence of hypothetico-deductive reasoning in inquiries rather data collection and simple analysis were usually suggested. Guidelines for writing better textbooks have become apparent from this research. Coherent textbooks are inherently constructivist because they apply concepts across contexts, and have more inquiries. Inquiries with a rigorous, authentic hypothetico-deductive approach arise naturally when the methods, concepts and language of science are applied in contexts that students are likely to find relevant and interesting, and where real-life problems need to be solved. Adopting these recommendations could lead to textbooks being more centrally positioned in enacting curriculum than now, because they are more likely to be constructivist (and represent the best thinking in the field).

Biodiversity is a concept that plays a key role in both scientific theories such as the species-area law and conservation politics. Currently, however, little agreement exists on how biodiversity should be defined, let alone measured. This has led to suggestions that biodiversity is not a metaphysically robust concept, with major implications for its usefulness in formulating scientific theories and making conservation decisions. A general discussion of biodiversity is presented, highlighting its application both in scientific and conservation contexts, its relationship with environmental ethics, and existing approaches to its measurement. To overcome the limitations of existing biodiversity concepts, a new concept of biocomplexity is proposed. This concept equates the biodiversity of any biological system with its effective complexity. Biocomplexity is shown to be the only feasible measure of biodiversity that captures the essential features desired of a general biodiversity concept. In particular, it is a well-defined, measurable and strongly intrinsic property of any biological system. Finally, the practical application of biocomplexity is discussed.

James Lovelock and Henry Thoreau propose a world view based on the connections between an individual and their personal landscape. This viewpoint is an alternative to the more prevalent world view of our mass society. The pervasive outlook disregards these connections and concentrates instead on isolationism. By viewing elements of the natural world as isolated entities, individuals are unable to comprehend the larger context, or environment of which these entities are a part. William James, a philosopher of the early twentieth century, poses a philosophical foundation which reinforces Lovelock's and Thoreau's ideas. James' philosophy is "pragmatism, proposing ideas of relational thinking and the absence of absolutes. Lovelock and Thoreau il1ustrate the philosophy of James in the exploration of three concepts: (1) Beauty; (2) Spirituality; and, (3) Human Experience and Knowledge. The acknowledgment and internalization of these concepts leads to a different understanding of an individual's place in the world. Since this conception is not the prevalent viewpoint of the general public, this difference has the potential of creating a communication gap between student and professor, and between landscape architect and client. The implications of this communication gap are discussed. / Master of Landscape Architecture

Bibliography: leaves 209-232.

Moral judgments have tended to be made through the application of certain moral principles and it seems we think we need principles in order to make sound moral judgments. However, the theory of moral particularism, as put forward by Jonathan Dancy (2004), calls this into question and challenges the traditional principled approaches to moral reasoning. This challenge naturally began a debate between those who adhere to principled accounts of moral rationality, and those who advocate a particularist approach. The aim of this thesis is thus to assess the theory of moral particularism as recently put forward by Jonathan Dancy. In pursuing this project I initially set up a survey of the field of environmental ethics within which to explore traditional approaches to applied ethics. This survey suggests that applied ethical problems have traditionally been solved using various principled approaches and if we are inclined to take the particularist challenge seriously, this suggests a philosophical conundrum. On the one hand, increasingly important and pressing applied environmental ethical concerns suggest there is a practical need for ethical principles, whilst on the other hand, the particularist claim is that we do not need principles in order to make sound moral judgments. The survey of environmental ethics then establishes the first side of the philosophical conundrum. I then move to explore the second side of the conundrum; the theory of moral particularism, looking at why the challenge it presents to traditional principled approaches needs to be taken seriously. I then move to explore theoretical challenges to moral particularism; this is done to establish the current state of the theoretical debate between the particularist and the generalist. I conclude from this that the theoretical debate between the two has currently reached a stalemate; it is, at present, simply not clear which account is correct. As the main goal of this study is to evaluate particularism, this apparent stalemate led me to explore certain practical challenges to particularist theory as a means of advancing the debate. As particularism is a theory that challenges our traditional conception of how to make moral judgments, there will be important implications for applied ethics if particularism turns out to be correct, and 1 thus finally apply particularism to a practical environmental problem in order to assess the validity of practical challenges to particularism. In order to do this, a particularist ethic is applied to the question of whether or not to allow mining in Kakadu National Park in Australia. This provides a means of seeing what an applied particularist ethic could look like, as well as providing something of an answer to the practical challenge to particularism and achieving the goal of evaluating it within the applied context of environmental ethics. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

Orientadora: Maria Eunice Quilici Gonzalez / Banca: Leonardo Ferreira Almada / Banca: Mariana Claudia Broens / Resumo: O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar a relação entre informação e ação moral. A informação é aqui entendida como o substrato que pode ser empregado por agentes para desempenhar ações morais. A ação moral, por sua vez, expressa comportamentos de agentes humanos e/ou não humanos em suas relações individuais, coletivas e com o ambiente. Os problemas centrais que direcionam a presente reflexão podem ser assim enunciados: (1) qual é a relação entre informação e ação moral? (2) A relação informacional está necessariamente limitada ao domínio da razão? (3) Quais as vantagens e desvantagens de se investigar a relação entre informação e ação moral a partir de uma perspectiva não-antropocêntrica (ainda que necessariamente antropomórfica)? Para investigar esses problemas, vamos situá-los no contexto da Ética Informacional, que propõe subsídios teóricos para o estudo de temas da Ética relacionados às novas tecnologias da informação. Num primeiro momento, tecemos um panorama geral da abordagem Ética Informacional que adotamos como fundamento para a perspectiva Ética que pretendemos delimitar. A seguir, analisamos a hipótese da Filosofia Ecológica segundo a qual a percepção está diretamente ligada à ação, dispensando mediações representacionais abstratas na captação de informação: a informação ecológica é diretamente percebida pelo organismo e constitui um elemento essencial à percepção/ação. Embora a Ética não seja objeto de investigação da Filosofia Ecológica, analisamos a relação entre informação ecológica e ação moral inspirados em alguns de seus pressupostos com o objetivo de ressaltar a interdependência entre ação, complexidade e ambiente. Por fim, apresentamos elementos que poderiam auxiliar na elaboração de uma abordagem Ética Ecológica Informacional. / Abstract: The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the relationship between information and moral action. Information is understood here as the substrate that can be used by agents to perform moral actions. Moral actions, in turn, express the conduct of human and nonhuman agents in their individual, collective, and environmental relations. The main problems that guide the present reflection can be indicated as follows: (1) What is the relation between information and moral action? (2) Must informational relations necessarily be limited to the domain of reason? (3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of investigating the relation between information and moral action from a non-anthropocentric (but still necessarily anthropomorphic) perspective? To address these problems, we will situate them in the context of Information Ethics, which provides a theoretical basis for the study of ethical issues related to the new technologies of information. Firstly, we provide an overview of the Ethical Information approach that we adopt as a foundation for the Ethical perspective that we intend to elaborate. We then analyze the hypothesis of Ecological Philosophy according to which perception is directly linked to action, independent of abstract representational mediations in the acquisition of information: ecological information is directly perceived by organisms, constituting an essential element in perception/action. Although Ethics is not directly an object of investigation of Ecological Philosophy, we use some of its tenets to investigate the relationship between ecological information and moral action, aiming to highlight the interdependence among moral agency, complexity, and environment. Finally, we present elements that could help with the constitution of an Ecological Informational Ethics approach. / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-07T19:20:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 15-02-13. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2016-03-07T19:24:33Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000858796.pdf: 1315279 bytes, checksum: 8e0d706d7fbe51684467f81a5811e71a (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar a relação entre informação e ação moral. A informação é aqui entendida como o substrato que pode ser empregado por agentes para desempenhar ações morais. A ação moral, por sua vez, expressa comportamentos de agentes humanos e/ou não humanos em suas relações individuais, coletivas e com o ambiente. Os problemas centrais que direcionam a presente reflexão podem ser assim enunciados: (1) qual é a relação entre informação e ação moral? (2) A relação informacional está necessariamente limitada ao domínio da razão? (3) Quais as vantagens e desvantagens de se investigar a relação entre informação e ação moral a partir de uma perspectiva não-antropocêntrica (ainda que necessariamente antropomórfica)? Para investigar esses problemas, vamos situá-los no contexto da Ética Informacional, que propõe subsídios teóricos para o estudo de temas da Ética relacionados às novas tecnologias da informação. Num primeiro momento, tecemos um panorama geral da abordagem Ética Informacional que adotamos como fundamento para a perspectiva Ética que pretendemos delimitar. A seguir, analisamos a hipótese da Filosofia Ecológica segundo a qual a percepção está diretamente ligada à ação, dispensando mediações representacionais abstratas na captação de informação: a informação ecológica é diretamente percebida pelo organismo e constitui um elemento essencial à percepção/ação. Embora a Ética não seja objeto de investigação da Filosofia Ecológica, analisamos a relação entre informação ecológica e ação moral inspirados em alguns de seus pressupostos com o objetivo de ressaltar a interdependência entre ação, complexidade e ambiente. Por fim, apresentamos elementos que poderiam auxiliar na elaboração de uma abordagem Ética Ecológica Informacional. / The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the relationship between information and moral action. Information is understood here as the substrate that can be used by agents to perform moral actions. Moral actions, in turn, express the conduct of human and nonhuman agents in their individual, collective, and environmental relations. The main problems that guide the present reflection can be indicated as follows: (1) What is the relation between information and moral action? (2) Must informational relations necessarily be limited to the domain of reason? (3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of investigating the relation between information and moral action from a non-anthropocentric (but still necessarily anthropomorphic) perspective? To address these problems, we will situate them in the context of Information Ethics, which provides a theoretical basis for the study of ethical issues related to the new technologies of information. Firstly, we provide an overview of the Ethical Information approach that we adopt as a foundation for the Ethical perspective that we intend to elaborate. We then analyze the hypothesis of Ecological Philosophy according to which perception is directly linked to action, independent of abstract representational mediations in the acquisition of information: ecological information is directly perceived by organisms, constituting an essential element in perception/action. Although Ethics is not directly an object of investigation of Ecological Philosophy, we use some of its tenets to investigate the relationship between ecological information and moral action, aiming to highlight the interdependence among moral agency, complexity, and environment. Finally, we present elements that could help with the constitution of an Ecological Informational Ethics approach.

An ecological paradigm shift from the "balance of nature" to the "flux of nature" will change the way we aesthetically appreciate nature if we adopt scientific cognitivism-the view that aesthetic appreciation of nature must be informed by scientific knowledge. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, though we talk about aesthetic qualities as if they were objectively inherent in objects, events, or environments. Aesthetic judgments regarding nature are correct insofar as they are part of a community consensus regarding the currently dominant scientific paradigm. Ecological science is grounded in metaphors: nature is a divine order, a machine, an organism, a community, or a cybernetic system. These metaphors stimulate and guide scientific practice, but do not exist independent of a conceptual framework. They are at most useful fictions in terms of how they reflect the values underlying a paradigm. Contemporary ecology is a science driven more by aesthetic than metaphysical considerations. I review concepts in the history of nature aesthetics such as the picturesque, the sublime, disinterestedness, and formalism. I propose an analogy: just as knowledge of art history and theory should inform aesthetic appreciation of art, knowledge of natural history and ecological theory should inform aesthetic appreciation of nature. The "framing problem," is the problem that natural environments are not discrete objects, so knowing what to focus on in an environment is difficult. The "fusion problem" is the problem of how to fuse the sensory aspect of aesthetic appreciation with highly theoretical scientific knowledge. I resolve these two problems by defending a normative version of the theory-laden observation thesis. Positive aesthetics is the view that insofar as nature is untouched by humans, it is always beautiful and never ugly. I defend an amended and updated version of positive aesthetics that is consistent with the central elements of contemporary ecology, and emphasize the heuristic, exegetical, and pedagogical roles aesthetic qualities play in ecological science.

The planet is in a dismal environmental state. This state may be remedied by way of an integrated approach based on a holistic vision. This research examines which ecological ideology best suits current conditions for humans to re-examine their metaphysical understanding of nature; how we can better motivate people to embrace a more intrinsic ecological ideology; and finally, how we can motivate people to be active participants in their chosen ideology. I will attempt to show that Deep Ecology is the most suitable ecosophy (ecological philosophy) to embrace; in doing so I will look at how Oriental and occidental religion and philosophy altered (and continues to alter) the way we perceive nature. I will show how destructive, but also caring and constructive, humanity can be when interacting with the environment. The Deep Ecological and Shallow Ecological principles will be look at, as well as criticism and counter-criticism of these ecosophies. KEY TERMS: Deep Ecology, Shallow Ecology, anthropocentrism, ecocentrism, extrinsic values, intrinsic values, motivational drive, ecosophy © University / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.A. (Philosophy)

Environmental issues are often complex with many different constituents operating according to a broad range of communication techniques. In order to foster negotiations, different perspectives need to be articulated in lucid ways sensitive to various viewpoints and circumstances. In my thesis I investigate how certain approaches to environmental discourse effect dialogue and negotiation. My first two chapters focus on environmental problems surrounding rangeland ecology along the U.S./Mexico border; whereas the last two chapters explore more theoretical conflicts concerning the philosophy of nature. Throughout the thesis I show the significance of nonhumans (prairie dogs, cattle, biological assessment sheets, environmental laws, etc.) in the human community. Only by considering the roles of nonhumans do we broaden and enrich the conversation between ourselves concerning environmental issues.