News
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Open Learning Exchange Nepal (OLE Nepal) develops two new initiatives
OLE Nepal, a social benefit organization dedicated to enhancing education quality and access through the integration of technology in classrooms has recently embarked on two new projects:Game development for middle school maths and science
MIT has recently awarded a grant to OLE including the time of two MIT students working in Nepal for a summer internship to share experiences on game-based learning. In particular, developing new games for middle school math and science subjects that are now being prototyped and tested with students through the e-paath programme.
Digital EGR
OLE Nepal has partnered with ONGD-FNEL, Luxembourg for a 5 year programme developing interactive children’s stories and digital learning games to support early grade reading in Nepali. The idea is to help children learn how to read and write in Nepali through fun stories with familiar characters and environment. Currently, six stories with various games are in development. The team is also working on creating original stories and artwork for the project.
All OLE resources can be downloaded free of charge
Learn More about:
E-Paath - resources available in Nepali, Chepang and English and accessed online from OLE Nepal’s free digital library, E-Pustakalaya. It can also be downloaded and used for free.
E-Pustakalaya - an extensive free and open digital library with thousands of age-appropriate books and educational resources, course content and reference materials.
Teacher Training Programmes - a three-stage training programme to support teachers with little or no prior experience with technology to gain the skills and confidence necessary to improve teaching-learning process and enhance education.
Technology Infrastructure - deploying technology infrastructure in under-resourced rural schools is not an easy task. OLE seeks innovative solutions based on low-power, low-cost and durable technology that fit the requirements of rural schools.
OLE's interactive digital content E-Paath, and digital library, E-Pustakalaya, can also be accessed in Nepali.
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Examining Scientific Literacy through New Media
The results of a new study examining the quality of science-oriented new media and measuring the scientific literacy level of Chinese college students have just been published.Undertaken by teams in China and Texas, the main findings include that:
- science-oriented new media have become frequently used channels for scientific knowledge among college students. As two representative types, science-oriented websites had higher quality than science-oriented microblogs.
- students who obtained scientific knowledge from science-oriented websites had significantly higher scientific literacy level than the non-users. However, whether students used science-oriented microblogs or not did not bring such difference.
- students' identification ability for science-oriented new media was important. Together with their education and major, identification ability was correlated with students' scientific literacy.
The research concluded that the quality of new media varies and considerable improvements are required to expand the impact of new media to science communication. Moreover, attention should be directed toward the credibility of scientific content sources.
- A research paper summarising the study is available (open access)
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/109948
EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 2019, 15(12), em1785 ISSN:1305-8223
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The ‘Recycle Namibia Forum’
The Recycle Namibia Forum (RNF) is a non-profit membership association founded in 2011 to promote and coordinate recycling initiatives and projects in Namibia. Although recycling is one important step towards the promotion of environmental integrity, RNF is also working on the other components, namely refuse, reduce, reuse, rethink, repair and re-gift.RNF aims to ‘inspire the nation to join hands today for a cleaner Namibia tomorrow’ and foster a national network promoting effective and sustainable waste management.
Among the initiatives supported by the Forum, there is a household batteries collection, promotion of reusable shopping bags, a Schools Recycling Project, a Zero Waste store and the ‘Say No To Straw Campaign’ to protect Namibian’s wildlife.
The RNF website also offers the first national Green Directory which serves to list all the organisations and companies ranging from waste collectors to environmental management services, suppliers of ‘green’ products and more. Namibians citizens can search and locate, for example, the closest recycling points where to correctly dispose of materials like cans, glass, plastic, medical waste, broken electronics and find service providers.
Read more about RNF by visiting the website and their Facebook page to be updated about their initiatives, among which the Namibia National World Clean Up Day is taking place on September 21.
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Artistic methods bring miners’ perspectives to the fore: The Gold Matters project
The Gold Matters project explores whether a transformative approach towards sustainability can arise in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) on which an estimated 16 million people in low and lower-middle income countries are dependent as a livelihood.The project includes collaboration with artists, among which the painter Christophe Sawadogo from Burkina Faso and the photographer Nii Obodai from Ghana. Christophe’s images were inspired by the daily movement of people, using paper to collect footprints, tyre tracks and other markings, and adding from the goldfield mine dust of many hues, stones and carbon for impression.
These artistic collaborations aim to bring to the fore the perspectives of miners and to reflect on sustainability issues in small-scale gold mining. In fact, ASGM is associated with negative environmental, social, labour and health impacts, which generate critical barriers to sustainability. The research uses a multi-actor and trans-regional approach, with comparative analysis across sites in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Follow the project through the website and Twitter
The project is supported by the New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe (NORFACE), a collaborative partnership of national research funding agencies from 20 European countries dedicated to leading and developing opportunities for scientists in the area of social and behavioural sciences, and by the Belmont forum, a partnership of funding organizations, international science councils and regional consortia committed to the advancement of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science.
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The next generation of ‘Science for the People’
Science for the People is a science-activist organization dedicated to building a radical political movement in science and society. Members consist of STEM scientists, workers, educators, students and activists committed to the democratic practice of science for the benefit of humanity and the planet. Science for the People engages in research and science communications for the betterment of society, ecological improvement and environmental protection to serve human needs.The organisation had its roots in the anti-war culture of the United States in the late 1960s and lasted until the end of 1980s. In 2014, it was revived by the collaboration between the old and the new generation of members and reopened the discussion around topics of health care, climate change, social justice and science education, among others. Nowadays, there are a number of working groups dealing with topics such as biology and society, climate change, reproductive justice, science education and social responsibility, technology and others and the organisation has many local chapters with representatives, mainly from the US.
As a result of recent interest, the Science for the People Magazine, previously published from 1969 to 1989, has been relaunched online in May 2019 thanks to a fundraising campaign. View the magazine.
Read more about Science for the People mission and activities on the website
Watch the mini documentary on YouTube, to be premiered Saturday July 28, 6:30 p.m. at Caveat, 21A Clinton Street, Manhattan, New York City.
Source: Science for the People and Wikipedia
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Zooniverse: Understanding Urban Wildlife
Urbanization poses many threats to wildlife such as loss of habitat, fragmentation of habitat, roads and traffic, poisons and toxins, people, and domestic animals. The Science Literacy project Zooniverse is striving to collect information that can be used by city planners to help them make educated decisions about wildlife when planning future developments.As an initial activity a camera project in Los Angeles has been initiated to better understand what wildlife species are present and identify spatial and long-term patterns of wildlife. Cameras have been placed in urban and rural parks, golf courses, and undeveloped strips of land where permission could be obtained to mount cameras.
Background
The City of Los Angeles is working to preserve biodiversity and are in need of wildlife occurrence information to assist with their city planning. Data from this project will help fill in some areas where there is little known information about local wildlife and help the city make educated decision in future planning.
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Media, new technologies and development in Latin America: political, social and economic perspectives
A two-day conference 4/5 th July taking place at the University of London.In an age of increasing media concentration and commercialisation, how can media in development have a role for democracy? How can networked communications be better used by social movements, civil society and other marginalized groups who encounter difficulties in having a voice in the public sphere? How can ICTs (information and communication technologies) be used for development? How are feminist NGOs and women’s groups at present making use of communication tools and technologies to shape policy and pursue social change at a global and local level? What are some of the theoretical frameworks on communications and social change that we need to revisit? What are the more appropriate methodologies to study communication for social change (CSC) in the digital era?
These are some of the many questions that these workshops, which will be held at UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense) and at City, University of London, ahead of the 2019 IAMCR (International Association in Media and Communication Research) conference in Spain, seek to address.
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Open access and social justice driving African development, Cape Town, 2 - 6 December 2019
SPARC Africa will be hosting an Open Access Symposium in collaboration with University of Cape Town Libraries, sister institution libraries in the Western Cape, SPARC, ASSAf, WACREN, Library Publishing Coalition, the Public Knowledge Project, the National Research Foundation and the IFLA Special Interest Group: Library Publishing.A week of workshop engagements and invited papers for critical discourse to advance African open scholarship within a social justice paradigm under the theme Open access and social justice driving African development is being planned.
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Science on Stage Festival 2019
The next European Science on Stage festival will take place from 31 October to 3 November 2019 in Cascais, Portugal.As the largest European educational fair for STEM teachers around 450 primary and secondary school teachers from 33 countries come together to exchange best practice teaching concepts. They present their most innovative ideas from teachers for teachers in a fair, in workshops, and in performances.
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Media & Information Literate Citizens: "Informed, Engaged, Empowered", Gothenburg, Sweden
Registration is now open for the annual Global Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Week FeatureConference and Youth Agenda Forum, 24 - 26 September, Gothenburg.
The official website for the conference will be published shortly.