<p>Syftet med mitt examensarbete var att undersöka, om det finns något samband mellan förskolegårdens utformning och barns utveckling. Litteraturgenomgången i bakgrunden ger en klar bild av förskolegårdens och utomhuspedagogikens betydelse. Utomhusvistelsen påverkar hela kroppen, både psykiskt och fysiskt enligt Szczepanski (2007). Jag gjorde en kvantitativ undersökning, om hur pedagoger ser på sin utemiljö. Sexton förskollärare från tre olika förskolor fick min enkät. Resultatet av min undersökning ger en samstämmig bild av, hur förskolegården kan användas till både lek och lärande. Gårdens utformning är viktig, och det bör finnas en rik variation av lekmaterial. Många pedagoger betonar att barnen utvecklar motorik, samspel, empati och respekt under utevistelsen. Eftersom min undersökning gäller endast tre förskolor, kan det diskuteras, i vilken grad resultaten kan generaliseras. Dock är samstämmigheten så stor i svaren från förskolorna, att pedagogernas uppfattningar om förskolegårdens betydelse och möjligheter troligtvis gäller även övriga förskolor i landet.</p> / <p>The purpose of my study was to examine, whether there is any connection between the preschool yard’s design and child development. Literature review in the background provides the importance of the yard and outdoor education. Outdoor stay affects the whole body both mentally and physically under Szczepanski (2008). I did a quantitative study on how teachers view their outdoor environments. Sixteen preschool teachers from three preschools got my survey. The result of my study gives a unanimous picture of, how the preschool yard can be used for both playing and learning. The design of the yard is important, and there should be a rich variety of toymaterials. Many educators stress that children develop motoric skills, interaction, empathy and respect during the outdoor play. Since my study is based on just three preschools, the results possibly can’t be generalized. However, the answers from the preschools are nearly unanimous, and the result is probably valid all over the country.</p>

This study presents a formative evaluation of an afterschool program that combined youth development and school garden curricula. This program used a novel approach to teach elementary school children about fruits and vegetables and to engage them in advocacy for the physical activity and nutrition environments in their community. The youth development curriculum included sessions on team building, community pride, healthy eating and physical activity, and advocacy. Photovoice was used as a method to allow participants to assess their community and communicate findings with leaders. Participants selected community leaders to invite to their school and shared their findings via a presentation of the photographs and a plan for action. The school garden curriculum included lessons on plant parts, plant nutrients, site evaluation, and pollination. Participants planted and harvested vegetables in a raised bed constructed at their school. Formative evaluation was conducted through the use of an evaluation form to collect information about each session. Evaluations were examined to provide recommendations to strengthen future program design and implementation. Themes of the evaluation were: successful methods for engaging youth, issues within the social environment, and implications for program management. Successful methods for engaging youth included creative activities, working in pairs, and experiential activities. Issues in the social environment were behavioral problems, shyness, gender groups, and competition. Areas of concern for program management included recruitment, attendance, volunteer training, team building activities, and survey administration.

Syftet med mitt examensarbete var att undersöka, om det finns något samband mellan förskolegårdens utformning och barns utveckling. Litteraturgenomgången i bakgrunden ger en klar bild av förskolegårdens och utomhuspedagogikens betydelse. Utomhusvistelsen påverkar hela kroppen, både psykiskt och fysiskt enligt Szczepanski (2007). Jag gjorde en kvantitativ undersökning, om hur pedagoger ser på sin utemiljö. Sexton förskollärare från tre olika förskolor fick min enkät. Resultatet av min undersökning ger en samstämmig bild av, hur förskolegården kan användas till både lek och lärande. Gårdens utformning är viktig, och det bör finnas en rik variation av lekmaterial. Många pedagoger betonar att barnen utvecklar motorik, samspel, empati och respekt under utevistelsen. Eftersom min undersökning gäller endast tre förskolor, kan det diskuteras, i vilken grad resultaten kan generaliseras. Dock är samstämmigheten så stor i svaren från förskolorna, att pedagogernas uppfattningar om förskolegårdens betydelse och möjligheter troligtvis gäller även övriga förskolor i landet. / The purpose of my study was to examine, whether there is any connection between the preschool yard’s design and child development. Literature review in the background provides the importance of the yard and outdoor education. Outdoor stay affects the whole body both mentally and physically under Szczepanski (2008). I did a quantitative study on how teachers view their outdoor environments. Sixteen preschool teachers from three preschools got my survey. The result of my study gives a unanimous picture of, how the preschool yard can be used for both playing and learning. The design of the yard is important, and there should be a rich variety of toymaterials. Many educators stress that children develop motoric skills, interaction, empathy and respect during the outdoor play. Since my study is based on just three preschools, the results possibly can’t be generalized. However, the answers from the preschools are nearly unanimous, and the result is probably valid all over the country.

Garden of Eden imagery is ubiquitous in contemporary print advertising in North America, especially in advertisements directed at women. Three telling characteristics emerge in characterizations of Eve in these advertising reconstructions. In the first place, Eve is consistently hypersexualized and over-eroticized. Secondly, such Garden of Eden images often conflate the Eve figure with that of the Serpent. Thirdly, the highly eroticized Eve-Serpent figures also commonly suffer further conflation with the Garden of Eden itself. Like Eve, nature becomes eroticized. In the Eve-Serpent-Eden conflation, woman becomes nature, nature becomes woman, and both perform a single narrative plot function, in tandem with the Serpent. The erotic and tempting Eve-Serpent-Eden character is both protagonist and antagonist, seducer and seduced. In this dissertation, I engage in an ecofeminist narratological analysis of the Genesis/Fall myth, as it is retold in contemporary fashion magazine advertisements. My analysis examines how reconstructions of this myth in advertisements construct the reader, the narrator, and the primary characters of the story (Eve, Adam, the Serpent, and Eden). I then further explore the ways in which these characterizations inform our perceptions of woman, nature, and environmentalism. Using a narratological methodology, and through a poststructuralist ecofeminist lens, I examine which plot and character elements have been kept, which have been discarded, and how certain erasures impact the narrative characterizations of the story. In addition to what is being told, I further analyze how and where it is told. How is the basic plot being storied in these reconstructions, and what are the effects of this version on the archetypal characterizations of Eve and the Garden of Eden? What are the cultural and literary contexts of the reconstructed narrative and the characters within it? How do these contexts inform how we read the characters within the story? Finally, I examine the cultural effects of these narrative reconstructions, exploring their influence on our gendered relationships with each other and with the natural world around us.

Företag och organisationer arbetar mycket med att förstärka sin position på marknaden, att leva upp till sin image och stärka sin identitet. En viktig del i arbetet handlar om att bygga ett starkt varumärke utifrån verksamhetens kärnvärden som når ut till kunderna. Det gäller att vara tydlig i sin kommunikation. Ofta kan man se en röd tråd genom ett företags grafiska profil, hur lokalerna är utformade och hur man marknadsför sig. Att inomhusmiljön speglar företagets profil och värden är lika vanligt som att ha en tydlig grafisk profil och en logotype på sitt visitkort. Däremot har de flesta företag inte någon tydlig koppling mellan miljön inomhus och den yttre miljön. Ofta är det bara företagsnamnet och loggan på husfasaden som vittnar om att företaget huserar där. Genom Corporate garden kan företag som en del i en genomtänkt företagsprofilering kommunicera sin verksamhet. Syftet med mitt examensarbete är att undersöka hur ett kommunalt tjänsteföretag kan kommunicera sitt varumärke eller sitt verksamhetsområde genom den yttre miljön.  Jag har använt mig av Sandviken Energi som studieobjekt. Till dem har jag gjort ett gestaltningsförslag, en Corporate Garden, som en del i examensarbetet. Min grundtanke har varit att kombinera funktion med kommunikation där jag använt mig av material från verksamheten som delvis kommunicerar vad företaget arbetar med. Genom att göra en processbeskrivning kommer arbetet kunna följas löpande fram till ett slutförslag. Processen omfattar informationsinsamling, analys av platsen, skissfas, skissmetod, problemlösning kring bristen på parkeringsplatser, resonemang kring idéer samt ett slutförslag som visar en utemiljö där innehållet speglar företaget och dess verksamhet.

Food insecurity is defined as “a household‐level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA Economic Research Service 2009). Low‐income households tend to be food insecure for many reasons. The first and most obvious would be the access to monetary resources. If a household does not have a sufficient income, it is difficult to keep an adequate amount of food for all household members at all times. Another reason would be that many low‐income households cannot afford a car and/or do not have easy access to public transportation or reliable private transportation.

Gas hydrate is a potential energy source that has recently been the subject of much academic and industrial research. The search for deep-water gas hydrate involves many challenges that are especially apparent in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, where the sub-seafloor is a complex structure of shallow salt diapirs and sheets underlying heavily deformed shallow sediments and surrounding diverse minibasins. Here, we consider the effect these structural factors have on gas hydrate occurrence in Garden Banks and Keathley Canyon blocks of the Gulf of Mexico. This was accomplished by first mapping the salt and shallow deformation structures throughout the region using a 2D grid of seismic reflection data. In addition, major deep-rooted faults and shallow-rooted faults were mapped throughout the area. A shallow sediment deformation map was generated that defined areas of significant faulting. We then quantified the thermal impact of shallow salt to better estimate the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) thickness. The predicted base of the GHSZ was compared to the seismic data, which showed evidence for bottom simulating reflectors and gas chimneys. These BSRs and gas chimneys were used to ground-truth the calculated depth of the base of GHSZ. Finally, the calculated GHSZ thickness was used to estimate the volume of the gas hydrate reservoir in the area after determining the most reasonable gas hydrate concentrations in sediments within the GHSZ. An estimate of 5.5 trillion cubic meters of pure hydrate methane in Garden Banks and Keathley Canyon was obtained.

Urban green spaces are one of the layers of urban pattern. The urban environment is created through the complex relationships between natural, social, economic, and politic dynamics. Similar to the urban environment, as a produced landscape, characteristics of urban green spaces vary according to the social, economic, cultural and ecological context of urban society. In the last few decades, the &ldquo / quality of urban life target&rdquo / included in the sustainability approach, has became an important touchstone to increase the quality of urban environment in today&rsquo / s world / with its tendencies of covering of perpetual subjective values and in addition to objective conditions to identify &ldquo / individual&rsquo / s satisfaction&rdquo / as a target the by, of keeping its evaluation scope broad and holistic, and of deriving supporting the daily life practices which derive from participatory processes. Among the quality of life perspective, urban green spaces are interpretated in a holistic and broad framework in boundaries of their contributions to the inhabitants&rsquo / well-being through their physical, social, economic and ecological links with life in a broad scale spectrum ranging from individual level to city scale. In today&rsquo / s urban environment, Ankara&rsquo / s urban green spaces are planned by the responsible agents within a narrow framework / separated from urban and urban life, lacked of this multi-scale and multi-dimensional perspective, stucked in the sectoral targets of institutions. At this point, the study identifies the priorities and conditions to re-establish a well-functioned planning process for the green spaces of Ankara with a particular attention to quality of life.

This research aimed to apply the theory of environmental benefits valuation to assess the plan of reformation in Zhongtun and Jiangmei village¡¦s wetland. Environmental change affects economy. Therefore, through people¡¦s feedback and tourists¡¦ participation of ecotourism, this paper discussed the economic benefits in transforming Zhongtun and Jiangmei village¡¦s wetland into an eco-garden. Thus, the research adopted the Payment-card method of the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), categorized under the Non-market Valuation Techniques (NVT), analyzing the economic benefits of eco-tourism¡¦s virtual market at Zhongtun and Jiangmei village. That is, the amount of people¡¦s Willingness to Pay (WTP) was analyzed to discover the project¡¦s multiple values. Further more, by comparing and contrasting people¡¦s background information, people¡¦s data and differences among other facets were discovered. Finally, in responding to the urgent need in tourism development, this paper integrated tourists and residents¡¦ data to discover the amount of WTP. Such research mode provided a tourism benefits assessment of Zhongtun and Jiangmei village¡¦s eco-garden project, and its conclusion supplied some suggestions to government control and also future plans of the eco-garden. There are 236 respondents (including 162 residents and 74 tourists) willing to take the questionnaire survey assuming the correspondence among people¡¦s background information (resident or tourist), attitude and other variables and WTP. After analysis, the result demonstrates that sex and age have little effect on many variables. On the other hand, people¡¦s background (resident or tourist), education level, average income do have obvious influence. However, the both results are valid, showing the principle this research applied is reliable. The CVM results included: 1. People shows positive attitude toward the ten facets of Zhongtun and Jiangmei¡¦s eco-garden tour. 2. The average accommodation rates for visitors willing to pay for Zhongtun and Jiangmei¡¦s eco-tour is 4000 NT dollars. And each year, about 127000000NT/year dollars 3200NT/year dollars donation per person can be expected in total. 3. The average amount of willingness to pay for people to join in an eco-tour is: 400NT dollars for eco-tour; 400NT dollars for fishing village experience; 400NT dollars for farm life experience, 1200NT dollars in total. 4. The potential tourism benefits of Zhongtun and Jiangmei¡¦s eco-garden are about: 79000000NT/24000000NT year for tourists and 55000000NT/9940000NT year for residents,and 7370000NT/1840000NT year for compensation. In the end, this research hoped to tribute some advices to Zhongtun and Jiangmei¡¦s eco-garden¡¦s management, turning ecological resources into financial sources, for Penghu County to be an ecotourism paradise.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 173-201). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.