Den här studien handlar om barns trygghet i förskolan. För att få fram ett resultat till studien valde jag att genomföra kvalitativa intervjuer. Under intervjuerna ställdes frågor som handlade om pedagogers syn på barns trygghet i förskolan samt hur de arbetar med barnens trygghet i förskolan. Resultatet visade på att trygghet är en förutsättning för att barn ska lära sig i förskolan samt för att de ska våga utforska förskolans värld. För att få barnen trygga i förskolan visade resultatet att det var av stor vikt att pedagogerna var engagerade i barnen för att på så sätt skapa relationer till barnen. Även respektera barnens integritet var en del i arbetet med att skapa trygghet för barn i förskolan. / This study is about educators ' views on children´s safety in preschool. To produce a result for the study, I have chosen to conduct qualitative interviews. During the interviews, questions were asked about teachers ' views on children's safety in preschool and how they work with children's safety in preschool. The result showed that security is a prerequisite for children to learn in preschool and for them to dare to explore the preschool world. To get the children safe in the preschool, the result shows that it was of great importance that the educators were engaged with the children in order to create relationships with the children. Also respecting the integrity of children was part of the work to create security for children in preschool.

<p>Products are displayed in a shelf to market and sell to the public. It creates an interest and attracts people towards it. Likewise, any country or city can showcase itself by using Web over the internet which will attract the tourists from around the world. This example can be used for the city of Hyderabad. Hyderabad has truly become an international city and there are many multinational companies establishing themselves. It is rapidly becoming a hot spot for tourists from around the world because of its exotic locations and facilities provided by the government. The city has been famous for historical monuments and culture, but in the recent years it has developed into a world class IT destination for many multinational IT companies and due to this it has attained world recognition on the global scenario. The time is to reap the benefits of this image and promote the city’s tourist sector by globally marketing the tourist attractions, facilities and services in an innovative and better way so that tourists from around the world visit the city and thereby contribute to the country’s economy with the foreign currency.</p><p>This research deals with developing a Web-based GIS application that can promote the city’s tourist activities and also provide the users with an innovative way to access the spatial content of the city. GIS content forms the core component of this application as it provides the users with the spatial information about the place that is very close to reality. It supports the human tendency of “What you see is what you believe” by displaying the spatial information on the map. The application has been developed with the latest mapping server technology provided by Environmental Science Research Institute’s ArcIMS 9.1. This server software provides simple and easy methods to launch a Web-based GIS application over the Internet.</p>

I denna studie undersöker jag barn i förskolan mellan fyra och fem år. Vad de har för tankar i ett möte med för dem ett okänt djur, vattenloppan. Aktiviteten där jag även ställt frågor till barnen angående bl.a. vattenloppans utseende och livsmiljö. Samtidigt som jag filmat har jag kunnat observera två grupper som möter dessa djur antingen med hjälp av bild och video eller med verkliga djur. Genom att barnen fick dokumentera sitt möte med att måla vad de varit med om har jag kunnat få en bild om hur barnen uppfattat djuren. Resultatet visa att flera barn i gruppen som fick uppleva de riktiga djuren kunde detaljera sina upplevelser via deras teckningar. Bildgruppen visade dessutom sämre perceptionsförmåga då de hade en vag bild om vattenloppans storlek och att flera barn såg vattenloppans antenner som vassa och farliga tänder. / In this study, I examine children in preschool between four and five years old. What they have in mind in a meeting with them an unknown animal, water flea. The activity where I asked the children about such as the water fleas appearance and habitat while I was filming, I have been able to do an observation in two groups that could watch these animals either by image and video or as living animals. The children got afterwards documenting his meeting with painting, I was able to get a picture of how the children understood the animals. The results show that several children in the group who got to experience the real animals could detail their experiences through their artwork. The Picture group also showed poorer perception since they had a vague idea about the water flues size and that several children misunderstood the water flues antennas for sharp and dangerous teeth.

Products are displayed in a shelf to market and sell to the public. It creates an interest and attracts people towards it. Likewise, any country or city can showcase itself by using Web over the internet which will attract the tourists from around the world. This example can be used for the city of Hyderabad. Hyderabad has truly become an international city and there are many multinational companies establishing themselves. It is rapidly becoming a hot spot for tourists from around the world because of its exotic locations and facilities provided by the government. The city has been famous for historical monuments and culture, but in the recent years it has developed into a world class IT destination for many multinational IT companies and due to this it has attained world recognition on the global scenario. The time is to reap the benefits of this image and promote the city’s tourist sector by globally marketing the tourist attractions, facilities and services in an innovative and better way so that tourists from around the world visit the city and thereby contribute to the country’s economy with the foreign currency. This research deals with developing a Web-based GIS application that can promote the city’s tourist activities and also provide the users with an innovative way to access the spatial content of the city. GIS content forms the core component of this application as it provides the users with the spatial information about the place that is very close to reality. It supports the human tendency of “What you see is what you believe” by displaying the spatial information on the map. The application has been developed with the latest mapping server technology provided by Environmental Science Research Institute’s ArcIMS 9.1. This server software provides simple and easy methods to launch a Web-based GIS application over the Internet.

The purpose of the study is find out what understanding the children at the age of 3 and 5 have of the physical phenomenon float and sink and to investigate whether a practical activity contributes to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. Children at two departments at two different preschools participated in the study. Piaget’s stage theory was used to study how the children of different ages acted and expressed themselves during the activity. The investigations started with an initial discussion about the concepts of float and sink, which then turned into a practical exercise where the children had to make hypotheses and investigate the buoyancy of different objects. The activity ended with a discussion about what they had experienced through the pracitical activity. Sound recordings and field notes from the four groups’ implementation of the activity were complied and analyzed qualitatively. The results show that the practical activity contributed to the children creating a better understanding of the concepts of float and sink and that they began to use concepts relating to density. The practical activity helped to create curiosity and good communication, where the children themselves got to try it out practically. The three-year-olds created an understanding of where an artifact is in the water when it floats or sinks during the practical activity. The children began to use some concepts related to density, such as size, shape and weight. The survey showed that the 5-year-olds had an understanding of floating and sinking, but the practical activity contributed to them also them also starting to use concepts related to density concepts, and to a greater extent that the 3-year-olds. / Syftet med studien är att ta reda på vilken förståelse barnen i 3-årsåldern respektive 5-årsåldern har för det fysikaliska fenomenet flyta och sjunka samt att undersöka om ett praktiskt inslag bidrar till en fördjupad förståelse för fenomenet. I studien deltog barn från två avdelningar på två olika förskolor. Piagets stadieteori användes, för att studera hur barnen i de olika åldrarna agerade och uttryckte sig under aktiviteten. Undersökningarna startade med en inledande diskussion kring begreppen flyta och sjunka, som därefter övergick till en praktisk övning där barnen fick ställa hypoteser och undersöka olika föremåls flytförmåga. Aktiviteten avslutades med en diskussion om vad de har upplevt genom det praktiska inslaget. Ljudupptagning och fältanteckningar från de fyra gruppernas genomförande av aktiviteten sammanställdes och analyserades kvalitativt. Resultatet visar på att det praktiska inslaget bidrog till att barnen skapade en bättre förståelse för begreppen flyta och sjunka samt att de började använda sig av begrepp relaterade till densitet. Den praktiska aktiviteten bidrog till att skapa nyfikenhet och en god kommunikation, där barnen själva fick testa praktiskt. Treåringarna skapade en förståelse för var en artefakt befinner sig i vattnet när den flyter eller sjunker och under den praktiska aktiviteten började barnen använda några begrepp som relaterar till densitet som storlek, form och tyngd. Undersökningen visade att 5-åringarna hade en förståelse för flyta och sjunka men den praktiska aktiviteten bidrog till att de också började använda sig av densitets-begrepp, så även i högre grad än 3-åringarna.

Responsible design practice should include environmental advocacy and a focus on community — subjects often lacking in design education. My creative project is the result of investigations into how designers integrate nature into their design process. By increasing their awareness for communal and environmental advocacy at the undergraduate level, students can develop responsible design practices at the beginning of their career. The result is the student's accumulation of integrity.

The purpose of this work is to investigate how 4-5 year olds perceptions of materials and material properties can be developed through an educational activity. The study is based on two interviews with eight children in that age category. The interviews were conducted before and after an activity where the children were first introduced to the subject by the tale of The three little pigs (Harris, 2009) and then given the opportunity to explore various materials related to the book. The kids got to experiment and explore how water affected materials and to compare different materials properties. The children were also attracted to build and create the material that was offered during the activity. The results of the survey show that children through practical exploration and surveying of the material increased their perceptions of concepts, properties and use of the materials in question. The children explored the materials with their minds and with the body in interaction with their peers and participating adult. The children were inspired by the book and each other in their creative work. Through dialogue and communication during the activity, similarities and differences were compared and the children developed their conceptual understanding.

The asset-based approach has been studied within the South African context. Up to now, primary school learners’ meaning of the experienced phenomenon, “assets for learning support” however remains an under-explored topic. The intent with this study was to qualitatively explore and discover the essence of the phenomenon, ‘assets for learning support’, as experienced by learners who attend an urban primary school. This phenomenon was explored from an interpretive/ constructivist paradigmatic perspective, which also informed the study’s qualitative methodology. A phenomenological research design was utilised. The study was conducted in a mainstream primary school, situated in an urban context. The participants for this research were eight female participants in Grades 5-7 that were confronted with and overcame extrinsic barriers to learning, while attending an urban primary school. They participated in a focus group discussion within a classroom on the school premises. During the focus group, the learners’ relevant and natural unit of significant statements were listed (horizontalisation) and structured into central clusters of meanings. Textural themes (what) and structural themes (how) were identified. The study found that human resource assets are integrated assets connecting other assets that support learning. The study also found a significant compound effect of assets upon each other. The essence of the experienced phenomenon is that the identified assets (how) interrelatedly mobilise (what) other assets (textural findings) on one of five levels (structural findings) within various systems and contexts, which contribute to mobilise learning support as an asset. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Like other animals, humans explore to learn about the world, and exploit what we have learned in order to maximize reward. The trade-off between exploration and exploitation is a widely-studied topic that cuts across multiple domains, including animal ecology, economics, and computer science. This work approaches the explore-exploit dilemma from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. In particular, how are our decisions to explore or exploit represented computationally? And how is that representation implemented in the brain? Experiment 1 examined neural signals following outcomes in a risk-taking task. Explorations – defined as slower responses – were preceded by an enhancement of the P300, a component of the human event-related brain potential thought to reflect a phasic release of norepinephrine from locus coeruleus. Experiment 2 revealed that the same neural signal precedes feedback in a learning task called a two-armed bandit. There, a reinforcement learning model was used to classify responses as either exploitations or explorations; exploitations were driven by previous rewards, and explorations were not. Experiments 3 and 4 extended these results in three important ways. First, evidence is presented that the neural signal observed in Experiments 1 and 2 was driven not only by the upcoming decision, but also by the preceding decision (perhaps even more so). Second, Experiments 3 and 4 involved increasingly larger action spaces. Experiment 3 involved choosing from among either 4, 9, or 16 options. Experiment 4 involved searching for rewards in continuous two-dimensional map. In both experiments, the feedback-locked P300 was enhanced following exploration. Third, exploitation was the more common strategy in Experiments 1 and 2. Thus, it was unclear whether the exploration-related P300 enhancement observed there was due to exploration per se, to exploration rate, or to the fact that exploration was rare compared to exploitation. Experiment 3 partially address this by eliciting different rates of exploration; the exploration-related P300 effect correlated with rate of exploration. In Experiment 4, exploration was more common than exploitation (in contrast to Experiments 1–3); even so, exploration was followed by a P300 enhancement. Together, Experiments 1–4 suggest the presence of a general neural system related to exploration that operates across multiple task types (discrete to continuous), regardless of whether exploration or exploitation is the more common task strategy. The proposed purpose of this neural signal is to interrupt one mode of decision-making (exploration) in favour of another (exploitation). / Graduate

In response to social trends whereby children are spending less time outside, school administrators have developed certified Nature Explore Outdoor Classrooms (NEOCs) intentionally designed to support whole-child learning within a natural environment. Despite the documented benefits of nature-based education, the literature and NEOC sites report challenges in facilitating this type of space. The purpose of this study was to investigate what prevents teachers in a certified NEOC from facilitating student/teacher engagement with the natural outdoor environment. Kolb's, Piaget's, and Vygotsky's theories of constructivism served as the study's framework to explore the problem from the teachers' perspectives. A qualitative case study was used to gain insight into the potential barriers to facilitating a NEOC. Eight teachers were recruited using purposeful sampling. Participant criteria included (a) >18 years of age, (b) >3 years early childhood teaching experience, (c) >1 year experience in selected NEOC, (d) prior NEOC training, and (e) willingness to share experiences. Data collection included classroom observation, individual interviewing, and review of relevant documents. All data were analyzed using comparative and inductive analysis and coded into 5 emergent themes. Identified barriers included teacher involvement, rules and regulations, volunteers, materials, and weather. By creating a 3-day professional development program that supports the benefits of nature-based learning environments and introduces strategies to overcome identified barriers, this study may promote positive social change in nature-based education. Children, families, and communities may expand their nature-based knowledge and interaction skills to pass to future generations.