published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

As municipalities in the developing world are struggling to deal with the ever-increasing rate of residential trash generation, many have embraced the practice of diverting organic waste to composting plants. However, because most models for implanting new Solid Waste Management (SWM) programs have emerged from the experiences of municipalities in the industrialized world, they often gloss over the particular social, cultural and economic contexts that make SWM programming particularly challenging in the developing world. In Mexico City, the absence of curbside collection, and a trash workforce comprised of both formal and informal trash collectors, have created unique challenges for the municipality’s composting program that was initiated in 2004. This report attempts to highlight that the limited success of the program thus far might be rooted in the program’s design, which has largely ignored the needs of the trash workers who are largely held responsible for its implementation. / text

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M.Ed. (Education) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

<p> Evaluating trends of historical rainfall on a weekly and seasonal basis is needed for optimizing the design and implementation of lawn water conservation strategies like outdoor water restrictions. While &ldquo;day of the week&rdquo; water restrictions are a typical strategy to limit the frequency and duration of urban lawn water use, they may not necessarily result in more conservative behaviors from end-users. Because weekly rainfall and local climate variables are seldom taken into account in water restriction strategies, they are not connected to actual lawn water demand. However, since lawn water demand is directly related to weekly rainfall totals, not to a particular number of watering days per week, water restriction schedules have the potential to unintentionally promote overwatering. This study investigated the weekly patterns of average seasonal rainfall and evapotranspiration in South Florida to determine the typical variability of weekly net irrigation needs and found that typical wet season weekly rainfall often provides a significant amount of water to meet the demand of residential lawns and landscapes. This finding underscores opportunity to reduce supplemental overwatering in residential landscapes if watering guidelines were modified to recognize seasonal average weekly rainfall in this region. </p><p> This study also tested a rainfall-based water conservation strategy to determine if providing residents with information about how local rainfall could promote more effective lawn watering behavior than just water restrictions alone. Experimental households reduced lawn water use by up to 61% compared to the control group by the end of the study. These results demonstrate that the neighborhood &ldquo;rain-watered lawn&rdquo; signs helped experimental study group households become more aware of rainfall as the primary input of water to their lawns. This study also investigated the role that lawn irrigation from self-supplied sources plays in the urban lawn water demand and investigates how the lawn water use and lawn watering behaviors of households that source from self-supply differ from those who source from the public supply.</p>

Sustainability is an area of growing pertinence as our future and the future of our planet depends on its acceptance and application. Determining patterns in pro-sustainable attitudes and behaviors, and revealing motivations behind these behaviors have important implications for the future of sustainability education. The primary objective of this study is to discover the relationships between educational experience and sustainability attitudes and behaviors in elementary school students. A secondary objective is to determine the motivation behind pro-sustainability behaviors and to establish the role this plays in educational programs. The study utilizes mixed methodology through two modes of data collection: 1. Student surveys, and 2. Teacher questionnaires. The surveys are self-report and were analyzed quantitatively to determine patterns. Ninety seven students (63 from a school with sustainability based curriculum, Sustainability Academy at Barnes (SAB), and 34 from a general curriculum school without a specific sustainability focus, CP Smith) in grades 3-5 completed a 20 question survey which measured sustainability attitudes and behaviors. Students involved in a sustainability education program scored higher on every indicator, and highest and lowest indicators for attitude and behavior were the same for both schools, showing distinct areas of strengths and needs. The average mean scores for attitudes were higher than the average mean scores for behavior for both schools. SAB students had a significantly higher amount of correlations between attitudes and behaviors than C.P Smith students did. The questionnaires are qualitative and are structured, with open ended responses. The questionnaires were completed by the five teachers of the SAB students who completed the survey. The eighteen questionnaire questions are focused on what sustainability means to the teachers, how it is used in their curriculum, and perceived student sustainability attitudes/behavior. Social justice was the most mentioned concept relating to sustainability. Other important factors were: community, opportunity, adult role models, and socio-economic barriers to sustainable attitudes and behaviors. Students from the sustainability focused program seemingly hold both sustainability based attitudes and behaviors as a higher priority; however, the schools had the same areas of needs. Future sustainability education curriculum would benefit from focusing on transportation and alternatives to consumption. Also, attitudes towards recycling/reusing and borrowing have shown to be closely tied to attitudes in other areas of sustainability; therefore, strengthening attitudes in these areas will likely affect attitudes across sustainability. A cross curricular sustainability program with a focus on social justice issues and experiential learning, experienced with strong role models, appears to develop students with more advanced sustainability attitudes and behaviors than programs with no sustainability curriculum.

‘Education’ is widely regarded as the primary agent of transformation towards ‘sustainable development (SD). In England, ‘Education for Sustainable Development’ (ESD) has been an established part of the National Curriculum, but in secondary schools, the subject of music, which seems to have great potential for helping in creating interest and awareness of SD to foster responsible behaviours, appears more often to be ignored. There is a growing enthusiasm for, and anecdotal recognition of, the benefits of using music in the teaching of SD issues to young people amongst educators and musicians. However, no in-depth ESD empirical research with regard to music education and few ESD good practices currently exist. To this end, the PhD, which examines the pedagogical potential of music in ESD and the role of music as a learning medium in the development of students’ capacities necessary for a more sustainable future, fills this research gap. An ethnographical intervention, informed by constructionist and symbolic interactionist approaches, is employed in this project. Sets of music-SD lessons in the lower stages of four secondary schools in London boroughs were analysed as case studies of how SD might be taught in music classrooms. Evidence suggested that it is feasible and beneficial to embed SD into the secondary music curriculum. The findings demonstrated that a transformative pedagogical approach in ESD was achieved by combining different methods for integration, including listening, composing and performing pieces of music, raps and songs on SD and creating and performing junk instruments, with a range of strategies of ESD, such as discussion, audio and visual activities, brainstorming and co-operative work, in a holistic process. For some students, compared with the traditional subjects for ESD, such as geography and science, the particular ways of learning SD within the musical context seemingly resulted in their higher level of enthusiastic, active, participative, affective and transformative learning, and thus positively affected the achievement of the outcomes of ESD, which was manifested in the development of their SD-related understandings, skills, attitudes and potential behaviours.

The thesis deals with environmental education for the pupils of primary education in the natural localities near Kolín and shows teachers how to undertake the so called place- based education. The theoretical part is focused on the characteristics of excursion and environmental education that are based on available scholarly literature. Furthermore, it discusses documents which delimitate environmental education as a cross-disciplinary topic at primary schools and describes natural conditions in the chosen region. The aim of the research part was to find out which localities teachers use for outdoor activities and to create a methodical proposal of environmental excursion for the most frequently visited localities. Subsequently, these excursions were realized. KEY WORDS: - environmental education - excursion - qualitative research - Central Bohemia region - place-based education

Orientador: Rosa Maria Feiteiro Cavalari / Resumo: A relação sociedade-natureza decorre, principalmente, da concepção de natureza que construímos ou, como afirma Bornheim, do “modo como o homem torna a natureza presente” (1985, p.18). A sociedade moderna ocidental tem “tornado a natureza presente” a partir de uma relação dicotômica. A partir de René Descartes e Francis Bacon, o conhecimento científico passou a ter uma função intervencionista, tornando-se necessário conhecer a natureza para dominá-la. O sucesso do projeto de Francis Bacon, no qual “saber é poder”, hoje ameaça a biosfera (Giacoia Junior, 2004) e exige reflexões e ações para a superação da crise socioambiental. É o que Hans Jonas (2006) denominou de “dialética do poder”. A esta perspectiva de conhecimento, enfatizada no século XIX pela ciência positivista, a “Teoria Crítica” elaborada pela Escola de Frankfurt, que tem Theodor Adorno como um de seus principais pensadores, se opõe radicalmente. Da mesma forma, afirmamos que a atual crise socioambiental não pode ser resolvida por meio da ciência e da tecnologia, mas torna-se, fundamentalmente, uma questão política (BORNHEIM, 1985). Neste sentido, compreendemos a Educação e a Arte, em uma perspectiva política, fundamentais para a transformação da realidade. Para Adorno, em nossa sociedade predomina a “Semiformação”, que nos coloca sob a ameaça da barbárie, sendo a auto-reflexão crítica a única alternativa. No entanto, a auto-reflexão crítica, possibilitada pela teoria crítica da sociedade e cuja racionalidade ainda ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The relationship between society and nature derives mainly from the conception of nature that we construct or, as Bornheim asserts, "how man makes nature present" (1985, p. 18). Western modern society has "made the nature present " from a dichotomous relationship. Since Descartes and Bacon, the scientific knowledge started to have an interventionist function, being necessary the knowledge of nature to dominate it. The success of Francis Bacon's project in which points that "knowledge is power" threatens the biosphere nowadays (Giacoia Junior, 2004) and requires reflection and action to overcome the socio-environmental crisis. This is what Hans Jonas (2006) named as the "dialectic of power". The "Critical Theory" elaborated by the Frankfurt School, which has Theodor Adorno as one of its main thinkers, radically opposes to this perspective of knowledge, which was emphasized in the nineteenth century by the positivist science. Similarly, we affirm that the current socio-environmental crisis cannot be solved by science and technology, being fundamentally a political concern (BORNHEIM, 1985). Therefore, we understand Education and Art, from a political perspective, essential for the transformation of reality. For Adorno, in our society the "Semiformation" predominates, that puts us under the threat of barbarism, in which critical self-reflection is the only alternative. However, critical self-reflection, that was possible by the critical theory of society and whose rationality is ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor