In a qualitative analysis, based upon three cases of mid-career1 secondary education teachers, their strategies, philosophies, modalities, and student expectations were analyzed in an effort to understand the extent to which self-directed learning (SDL) can impact the success of studentsâ learning. These practical implications of the study by experienced teachers supported and also challenged theoretical concepts of primarily Piaget, Knowles, and Vygotsky, but also examined those of Bloom and Wlodkowski. Specifically, results demonstrated that the incorporation of some adult learning methodologies into secondary education environments has contributed significantly to the effectiveness of these teachers. Perhaps this knowledge can guide future research into how to best identify and further develop secondary education teachersâ pedagogies to utilize SDL techniques in the 21st century classroom.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas A & M University, 2003. / "Major Subject: Educational Human Resource Development." Title from author supplied metadata (automated record created on Oct. 15, 2004.). Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Water resources management is high on the agenda both locally and globally because of its important role in social, economic and environmental development. For example, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, all United Nations Member States adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 that covered thematic issues including water, energy, climate, oceans, urbanization, transport, science and technology. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) no.6, which targets universal access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030, is of particular interest in this study. The mining industry contributes to socio-economic development; however, it has also contributed to declining water quality in rivers and lakes in many regions globally. In this study, the status and governance of water resources within the Copperbelt province of Zambia over the period 2000 to 2020 was examined. The study investigated population and economic growth within the region and its correlation with changes in water quality and quantity. The research also focused on understanding the ways copper mining is affecting local water resources. The study also investigated challenges faced by regulators and institutions in the water sector, and considered how these challenges could be addressed. Secondary data was obtained from government institutions within Zambia such as National Water Supply and Sanitation Council (NWASCO), Water Resources Management Authority (WARMA) and Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA), which are the key institutions in the water sector and the environment. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with the three key institutions in the water and pollution control sectors. The results showed that the total population in the Copperbelt province has increased by 20% since 2000 to a total of 1 972 317 in 2010. The population is projected to be 2 669 635 in 2020, representing about 27% increase from 2010. The rural population is projected to be 423 511 in 2020, representing about 11% increase from 2010 while the urban population will be 2 246 124 in 2020 representing about 29% increase from 2010. The majority of this growth has occurred in urban areas, which grew by about 30% from 2000 to a total of 1 595 456 in 2010. Rural population has increased by 8% since 2000 to a total of 376 861. The results also showed increased economic activities driven mainly by copper mining. Water abstraction has generally declined since 2000 mainly due to decrease in mining activities. In 2000, about 1 million m3 /day was abstracted in the Copperbelt province and about 600 000 m3 per day in 2005. The reduction in 2005 could be attributed to reduction in mining activities and institutional changes in the water sector. Water production and consumption from commercial utilities has generally been in decline from 2000 to 2017. This is also the case with water consumption per capita and water production per capita. For example, water consumption per capita per day in 2001 was 203 liters and reduced to 113 liters in 2017, representing a 44% reduction in consumption. The results showed that water consumption from 2004 to 2008 averaged 100 million m3 while the production averaged 160 million m3 per year. NWASCO attributed the general downward trend in water production and consumption in the province to maintenance and rehabilitation of water infrastructure, and investment in new infrastructure, thereby reducing the unaccounted-for water. The other reason could be that new housing developments prefer to use groundwater sources rather than utility water (supplied by water companies). The reduction could also be attributed to the cost of water and that consumers needed to adjust from the background where utility services such as water supply and sanitation were the sole responsibilities of the mines (ZCCM), prior to privatization. In terms of water supply and sanitation coverage, there has been an increased coverage since 2000. In 2001, the population that had access to water supply and sanitation was 81% and 46%, respectively. Therefore, roughly 50% of the population had no access to sanitation. However, in 2017 the population with access to water supply and sanitation was 91% and 75%, respectively. This represented only 25% of the population in serviced areas that had no access to sanitation. Between 2007 and 2008, the sanitation coverage had seen a reduction compared to the year 2006. This was due to institutional changes on the Copperbelt province, and the 2008 economic recession – the mine townships that were previously serviced by an asset holding after privatization of the mines were taken over by other utility companies. Consequently, the service delivery in the province initially dropped, but then started increasing again in 2009.

Gold mining generates large quantities of tailings waste. These tailings can have a significant negative impact on the surrounding environment, with concomitant effects on local ecosystems, as well as on human health and quality of livelihoods. The latter is a concern in the Witwatersrand goldfields of South Africa, where communities are located in close proximity to gold mining operations and/or both current and defunct tailings dumps. This research project was, therefore, aimed at developing a better understanding of the facts, perceptions, concerns, and expectations associated with Witwatersrand gold mine tailings storage facilities, and how these are related. In order to fulfil this aim, a desktop study was conducted which involved a detailed review of published academic literature, company reports, newspaper articles, gold mining magazines, and specialist reports with specific emphasis placed on the Central Rand goldfields of the Witwatersrand Basin. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with representatives from the community, civil society organisations and independent experts, using the defunct Princess gold tailings dump in Davidsonville Suburb (West of Johannesburg) as a case study. The literature review of the study has shown that there is environmental pollution (air, water and soil) due to gold tailings dumps in current and historic gold mining areas. These findings were found to be largely consistent with perceptions and concerns of the community members, civil society organisations and subject matter experts. The long-term impacts of this pollution are not only environmental but cause a huge social burden on health and quality of livelihoods. Not only is dust considered a nuisance, particularly in the windy season, but the dust has been proven to contain crystalline silica and radionuclides. The long-term exposure to this dust can lead to skin problems and respiratory illnesses. There is higher exposure of ambient particulate matter (PM10) in areas around tailings even at distances up to 2 km downwind from the tailings dumps. Acid mine drainage, on the other hand, increases metal load in watercourses and soils, ultimately affecting the ecosystems as the metals are toxic to plants. Metal contamination has adverse impacts on animal and human health. In addition to literature survey, results from the semi-structured interviews revealed that there are conflicts between the communities, government and mining companies, with communities associating their health problems with gold mine tailings. This has led to court cases and gained media attention. The complex relationships between mine waste, the environment, and community health and livelihoods are still not well understood, making it difficult to justify and motivate the implementation of meaningful interventions to mitigate risks associated with gold tailings dumps. To date, little attempt appears to have been made to support community concerns and perceptions with factual evidence and information. Overall, this study has demonstrated the existence of longstanding issues associated with defunct gold tailings dumps and the communication gab that existing between various stakeholders, i.e. community, government and mining houses. These emphases the importance of having adequate remedial actions to prevent further pollution, the need to engage all relevant stakeholders when dealing with gold tailings and implementation of regulatory frameworks associated with gold tailings reclamation and rehabilitation.

Mining, by its nature, provides enormous investment to the mining nations and by extension contributes to the socio-economic development of the host communities. Where these communities exist, they remain a cause of concern since they are predominantly dependent on the economic opportunities generated by the mine. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) functions in mining are somewhat of a risk reduction activity, even though the potential of halting projects is comparatively rare in situations where proposals are deemed to be of national interest and politically significant. This study highlights the environmental and socio-economic impact of lack of land use planning in host communities where the phenomenon of mine closure is a lived reality and evaluates alternative post-mining land use. In this study a case study, qualitative research approach is used to comparatively evaluate three mining EIA reports (EIA on the extension of mining operations at the Vlakvarkfontein Coal Mine; consolidation of high extraction mining impacts in the Trichardtsfontein; and rail loop, road diversion and pipeline project associated with Temo Coal) on the extent of post-mine land use consideration in the EIA process. Furthermore, the study, inter alia, assessed the extent to which the interested and affected parties' input was considered in EIA reports. In rehabilitation, the applicant is only reinstating the area, as closely as possible, to that which existed pre-mining, and should not be confused as post-mining land use. There is nothing new in providing for rehabilitation in EIA – it is a standard practice. However, the mining EIA reports extensively covered the environmental components, particularly the specialist studies, as they assessed whether projects conformed with the regulatory requirements. The emphasis of the mining EIA reports was mainly on the environmental component with – other than employment and economic benefits – no post-mining land use and socio-economic impact indicators. These trends were found to be further reinforced when the input of the interested and affected parties (I&APs) was analysed. In view of the findings of this study, the main recommendations to improve the EIA systems would be to clarify and simplify the mandates of the several institutions involved in the EIA process and system; and to improve and increase public access to EIA reports, including electronic means. This is pertinent due to the conspicuous absence of EIA reports in the public domain, which contributed to the limited number of EIA reports that were reviewed in this dissertation. In addition, public participation processes (PPP) should be conducted in most common languages of the stakeholders; and specialist social impact assessment should go beyond the traditional socio-economic issues faced by I&APs to include post-mining land use, as well as sustainable post-mining economy.

The mining industry has remained Zambia's dominant industry for almost a century. According to the report by International Council for Mines and Minerals (ICMM) for 2013, Zambia is highly dependent on copper mining as the core productive industry. Mining contributes to direct employment (approximately at 1.7%), foreign direct investment (approximately at 86%), gross domestic product (more than 12%) and government revenue (more than 25%). Regardless of these economical enactments, the accident frequency across the mines is very significant. In general, the mining industry is perceived to be a high-risk industry. The increase in the number of mining accidents is extremely costly, whether measured in terms of medical expenses and disability compensation, loss of production and wages or damage to plant and equipment. The human cost, in terms of death and suffering, is beyond calculation. In recent years, there has been some innovations in terms of technology regarding mining methods, and this has resulted in decreased accident occurrence in the mines. The human factors involved in the mine accidents need to be addressed further to reduce these rates. Therefore, the best approach is first to understand mine accident causality, and then this will be a foremost step in a pursuit to diminish the high rate of accidents. Effective remedies and measures can be designed if only accident process is properly understood. The understanding and interpretation of causes of accidents at workplaces can only be achieved by accident modelling techniques. The effective way of analysing industrial accidents has been proven by the Swiss Cheese Model, which is also applicable to this study. The Swiss Cheese Model describes an accident as an event which happen within organization due to the combination of different unsafe acts which may include latent conditions and front-line operators. The purpose of this study was to determine how systemic factors contribute to accidents at a copper mining company in Zambia. The analysed results were compared with those of other local mines as well as mines from developed and developing countries. The approach in this study involves using the existing framework developed by Bonsu (2013). The framework had used the concepts from the Mark III of the Swiss Cheese Model, Incident Cause Analysis, safety management principles and the Nertney Wheel. The sections involved in the existing framework of Bonsu (2013) are metadata, accident barrier analysis and causal analysis. The accident causality section is designed and described in the same way as the Mark III version of the SCM. This section is used for analysis of accident causality and is categorized into proximal, work place and systemic factors. The metadata section offers explanations on different factors that influence the happening of accidents at this copper mining company in Zambia. Metadata section captures the information on accidents analysed under the barriers and causing agency section of the framework. The variables under the metadata are time and date of accident, place of the accident, accident type, activity involved which resulted in the accidents, task schedule of the accidents, age of the victim, experience of the victim, job status, etc. The last section of the existing framework is the agency and barrier analysis and was designed by Bonsu (2013) to capture data on the safety barriers which were breached and accident causing agents in the accident report. The accident reports collected from the copper mining company in Zambia were used in the existing framework and the analysed results were presented as unsafe acts, workplace and systemic factors with linkages to each other. The most prominent type of unsafe acts recognized were routine violation (recognized in 38% of all the accident analysed), closely followed by slips and lapses (identified in 30%) and then mistakes (21%). Exceptional violation and non-human cause were the lowest at 9% and 2% respectively. Systemic and workplace factors were involved in 78.2% of the accident reports that were analysed. The most prominent workplace factor recognized was behavioural environment (25.8% of all cases analysed), closely followed by physical environment (23.4% of all cases analysed), then unsafe work practices (18.8% of the accidents analysed), then fit-for purpose equipment (16.4% of the accidents analysed) and finally competent people (15.6% of the accidents analysed). In general, under the category of accident analysis on workplace factors, all the five factors were significantly contributing to the causes of accidents at the mine site that was investigated as demonstrated by the closeness in percentages. In the case of systemic factors, inadequate supervision or leadership was the most prominent factor identified (22.6% in all accidents analysed). It was also found that physical environment (23.4% of all cases considered) was the second most dominant workplace factor recognized. The results obtained also revealed that some systemic factors were associated with specific workplace factors more than others. For instance, the result of behavioural environment (workplace factor) was usually due to poor leadership problem (systemic factor), problems seen in housekeeping (systemic factor), hazard identification (systemic factor), risk management (systemic factor), and designs (systemic factor), these were also the causes of poor physical environment. In the unsafe work practices (workplace factor), hazard identification was the most common systemic factor that was recognized whereas in fit for purpose equipment (workplace factor) the most common associated systemic factors were risk management, leadership, hazard identification and design. The results obtained in this study were compared to those obtained in the study of Mwansa (2021), which also applied the framework used in this study to the analysis of accident reports from another mine site of the same mining company in Zambia as used in this study. Similarities and differences were obtained under the accident characterization and causation sections. The operations in both studies are different in terms of mining methods and metallurgical processing plants. This may be responsible for some of the differences in the results obtained in both studies. For instance, in Mwansa's (2021) study, the most dominant unsafe act recognized was also routine violation (36% of all cases considered) whereas the most prominent workplace factors recognized were physical environment (36% of all cases considered) and unsafe work practices (27% of all cases considered). In Mwansa's (2021) study, the most prominent systemic factors recognized as contributing to physical environment were hazard identification, work schedule, risk management, maintenance management, leadership, housekeeping, and contractor management. The results obtained in this study were also compared with previous studies from different commodities across the globe. This was done to have broader picture when dealing with mine accidents. The causes of accidents identified in this study are of significance to the safety of the industry. Overall, based on the analysis carried out in this study for the copper mining site investigated, it can be concluded that systemic factors are the main causes of accidents rather than human error and violations.

No

The Alaskan Arctic region is estimated to hold the largest undiscovered Arctic oil deposits---about 30 billion barrels. Realizing this immense potential, however, will not be easy, as firms face technical, political and regulatory barriers in their quest to explore and develop this frontier. To overcome these challenges, energy companies should adopt a comprehensive education and engagement strategy. This document formulates key elements of a strategy to help alleviate concerns of the stakeholders who have the power to thwart development. At a time of uncertainty over offshore oil and gas development in the U.S. Arctic, a combined education and engagement campaign promises to help interested parties protect and expand their license to operate in the region. / text

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas A&M University, 2005. / "Major Subject: Education Human Resource Development" Title from author supplied metadata (automated record created on Feb. 23, 2007.) Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.