Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurism are Democracy: STEM Possibilities for Humanizing Pedagogy in Education

For many years, literature has documented the benefits of project-based learning (PBL) and its impact on student learning especially at the high school level. More often than not however, students are still losing interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education because current educational teaching pedagogies have become antiquated and are not impacting student learning, as it should. With that said, our discovery through elicitation of high school educators has cited the main reason for such disinterest is due to the inability of students to connect STEM abstract concepts and theory with STEM application to appreciate the value of learning STEM. With access to information easier than ever, students are forgetting that learning is not about getting the right answer but understanding how to solve a complex problem. In the past, PBL has benefited students in engaging them in hands-on learning however, with a more complex paradigm shift in student learning style, PBL and lecture-based learning are no longer the most effective methods of teaching. Engineering-based learning has the opportunity and potential to modify STEM education and revolutionize STEM teaching pedagogy by changing the one-size-fits-all model to an individual, student-centered learning approach where education is mass customized. This paper discusses a new teaching pedagogy dubbed Engineering-Based Learning (EBL) that is a more systematic approach to high school STEM teaching for open-ended problems. This paper presents the EBL model, the EBL tools, and its impact thus far on high school students. It also presents sample feedback from both teachers and students and how it has influenced their outlook of engineering and STEM in the real world. The purpose of this paper is also to disseminate this new teaching pedagogy to support the notion that STEM education can be successfully taught and provide students with a structured, systematic, hands-on approach, as well as the appropriate tools and resources allowing them to connect complex STEM theory and real-world application.

This research is focused on exploring the importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education in the development of critical competencies among secondary school students in the 21st century. This was aimed to assess the impact of STEM-based activities on students' creative and computational thinking skills. A quasi-experimental design that included 77 secondary school students from public and private schools in Bandar Lampung, Indonesia, who participated in STEM interventions for over 5 weeks, was adopted. Data were collected through creative thinking tests and questionnaires on CT and STEM attitudes. The results showed that students who participated in STEM activities exhibited significantly higher creative thinking scores compared to peers taught with the traditional curriculum. Specifically, the experimental group showed a progressive increase in weekly test scores, suggesting that STEM methods improved students' performance over time. Structural equation modeling (SEM) disclosed strong positive associations between attitudes towards STEM, CT, and creativity. The implications of these results outlined the need to integrate STEM education into curricula to foster essential skills for future challenges. This research contributes to the understanding of effective educational strategies and also advocates for a shift towards more interactive and integrative methods in secondary education to meet the demands of the contemporary workforce.

Rethinking the Ph.D. dissertation in botany: Widening the circle.

Although at least thirty-five women were buried in the earlier necropolis at Vron during the period between ca. 370 / 75 and ca. 435 / 45, only three of them were equipped with typically Germanic brooches or other elements of dress. Such a low proportion of women whose dress was secured according to the Germanic custom by means of brooches, is not unusual in the burial sites of Northern Gaul, and indeed clearly distinguishes these from the burial grounds on the right bank of the Rhine in free Germania, where practically all the women used one or more brooches to fasten their clothing, and were subsequently buried with them. The evidence from Vron, as from other comparable military burial sites to the west of the Rhine (e.g. Oudenburg, Vermand, Vireux-Molhain), attesting how few women were buried with brooch jewellery , may indicate either that in actual fact very few Germanic women had accompanied their men-folk into Northern Gaul, or that the majority of women of barbaric origin had, in the process of cultural assimilation, abandoned their exotic costume at a very early date and now favoured Gallo-Roman dress. Among the typically Germanic dress ornaments observed at Vron, one may distinguish five different brooch types and one hairpin type, analysed below: 1. Simple cross-bow brooches belong to the most frequently attested and geographically widespread group of Germanic women's brooches in the 4 th and 5 th centuries (mid-4 th to mid-5 th centuries) between the Elbe and the Loire (fig. 2). They are almost invariably made of bronze, as are the two examples from Grave 163A and Pit 9. The brooch from Grave 163A, worn as a single item, is remarkable for its greater length, its short spring, and upper chord. These rather unusual features appear most frequently in the simple cross-bow brooches from the Lower Rhine and Westphalia. There, this unusual form may be dated chiefly to the first half of the 5 th century. This corresponds to the chronology proposed by Cl. Seillier, who attributes, on other evidence, Grave 163A to his Phase 3 (= ca.415/20-435/45). 2. Cross-bow brooches with a trapezoid foot-plate represent a further typological development of the simple cross-bow brooch. The silver brooch from Grave 242A possesses in addition a beaded wire decoration on the bow, together with a stamped metal plaque covering the trapezoid foot-plate, features which enable it to be classed with the Vert-la-Gravelle variant (fig. 3). This form of brooch, known almost exclusively by the archaeological evidence from the left bank of the Rhine is probably to be interpreted as the product of workshops in Northern Gaul, which are known to have manufactured other types of Germanic costume ornaments for the wives of foederati (see below). Comparison with the very similar brooches from Grave 7 at Vert-la-Gravelle (Mame) enable this example from Vron to be dated at the earliest to the last third of the 4 th century or to the turn of the century. The location of the inhumation within the burial ground suggests a date within Seillier's Phase 2 (= ca. 390-415/20). 3. The bronze hairpin from the same grave, over 17 cm long, with a small round head, belongs to the Fecamp type (fig. 4), known chiefly from the Germanic female burials and other archaeological evidence found in Westphalia and the Lower Rhine.

Gravity wave momentum flux generation close to mid-latitude Andes in mesoscale simulations of late 20th and 21st centuries

Introduction. The world of work is undergoing a global shift fuelled by technological innovation, demographic changes and environmental problems. This heightens the demand for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) competencies which are seen as a catalyst for social and economic development. The purpose of this study was to investigate learner views on STEM professions, the learners’ overall attitudes regarding STEM, as well as their aspirations and willingness to choose a career in STEM and identify factors which are crucial in forming young people’s interests in studying STEM and pursuing STEM careers. Materials and Methods. This pilot study was conducted in May 2019 across three schools in the Moscow region. The authors used a slightly modified version of the learner questionnaire used by the European study “ECB-inGenious” to investigate perceptions of STEM careers among Russian learners in grades 8–9 and 10–11. Results. Overall, it was determined that a combination of intrinsic (cognitive and attitudinal) and extrinsic (social, cultural and economic) factors were responsible for learner engagement in STEM. Learners showed a strong awareness of STEM’s significance to society and displayed positive perceptions of STEM careers, although jobs in industry appeared less popular than those in other areas of STEM. Some factors, such as a learner’s personal experiences of STEM in and out of the classroom can even play a decisive role in shaping aspirations towards STEM careers. Younger learners expressed more enthusiasm for STEM careers than their older counterparts. Learners enrolled in classes specialising in STEM and learners whose parent(s) worked in STEM-related professions showed stronger positive attitudes to STEM careers. Discussion and Conclusion. To make an informed decision, learners require practical information and advice regarding STEM careers; schools can play an important role in this process. This guidance must begin early, ideally from primary school when learners are more enthused and interested in learning about STEM careers. It is also advisable for learners to be given more opportunities to join extracurricular STEM activities; consequently, a learner’s understanding of STEM subjects is expanded outside the academic curriculum which can spark a longlasting interest in the subject. Additionally, STEM subjects’ curriculums require enriching with real-life examples and should be contextualised in terms of relevant careers. Finally, schools should be encouraged to organise regular engagements with STEM professionals.

Simulations of late 20th and 21st century Arctic cloud amount from 20 global climate models (GCMs) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) dataset are synthesized and assessed. Under recent climatic conditions, GCMs realistically simulate the spatial distribution of Arctic clouds, the magnitude of cloudiness during the warmest seasons (summer–autumn), and the prevalence of low clouds as the predominant type. The greatest intermodel spread and most pronounced model error of excessive cloudiness coincides with the coldest seasons (winter–spring) and locations (perennial ice pack, Greenland, and the Canadian Archipelago). Under greenhouse forcing (SRES A1B emissions scenario) the Arctic is expected to become cloudier, especially during autumn and over sea ice, in tandem with cloud decreases in middle latitudes. Projected cloud changes for the late 21st century depend strongly on the simulated modern (late 20th century) annual cycle of Arctic cloud amount: GCMs that correctly simulate more clouds during summer than winter at present also tend to simulate more clouds in the future. The simulated Arctic cloud changes display a tripole structure aloft, with largest increases concentrated at low levels (below 700 hPa) and high levels (above 400 hPa) but little change in the middle troposphere. The changes in cloud radiative forcing suggest that the cloud changes are a positive feedback annually but negative during summer. Of potential explanations for the simulated Arctic cloud response, local evaporation is the leading candidate based on its high correlation with the cloud changes. The polar cloud changes are also significantly correlated with model resolution: GCMs with higher spatial resolution tend to produce larger future cloud increases.

Statement of the problem. Despite the considerable number of studies devoted to the history of the Mass, musicological works concerning the works of Polish artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in this genre are limited. Therefore, it is important to comprehend the innovative approaches of contemporary Polish composers to the interpretation of the Mass, to reveal the connection between tradition and innovation, and to explore the peculiarities of modifications of the genre canon. Polish religious choral music has been the subject of many studies, including the works by M. Tomaszewski, S. Dąbek, S. Szymanski, R. Borowiecka, K. Kiwała, M. Karwaszewska, T. Malecka, K. Kostrzewa, S. Godziemba-Trytek, and others. However, the newly composed works by Polish musicians in the genre of Mass have not yet been comprehended in the scientific works of both, Polish and Ukrainian musicologists, so they deserve special attention and comprehensive analysis. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to identify the genre transformations of the Catholic Mass in the works by artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The holistic analysis of the compositions basing on systemic, genre, stylistic, spiritual and semantic approaches are exploited in the study. The article is the first experience of researching little-known works by Polish composers in the genre of Mass or expands information about liturgical cycles that have already been under considering. Research results. Examples of the most original works of the late 20th and early 21st centuries demonstrate the continuing and enrichment of the canonic tradition of the liturgical cycles, transformation of the genre constants of the Catholic Mass, the expansion of its sound field and the horizons of composer thinking. As a result, the cycles, along with tradition and canon, vividly present: 1) the national orientation of creativity, represented by authorial dedications (P. Lukaszewski’s “Missa Sancti Papae Ioannis Pauli Secundi Magni”), quoting folklore themes and rhythms (the Maklakiewicz brothers), translating parts of the Mass into Polish (S. Szymanski’s “Missa spei”), adding excerpts from the Polish literary works; 2) the synthesis of the Mass and other musical genres (I. Zalewski’s “stage cantata” “Missa Sine Nomine”); 3) experiments with modern styles (M. Maliszczak’s jazz “Missa nova”, P. Janczak’s “film” Mass “Missa Film Stetinum”) and technological innovations (B. Schaeffer’s “Missa elettronica”). The analysis of the compositions allowed us to state the presence of two main lines of development of the genre of the Catholic Mass at the turn of the centuries: 1) the prevalence of the traditional approach, the confession of a sacred, reverent attitude to prayer, the preservation of the genre model, reliance on ‘cantus planus’; 2) an experimental view of the genre canon of the mass, its author’s vision: modernization of the presentation of musical material, the play by timbres, by manners of performance, synthesis of voice and electronic track, the prevalence of the author’s concept of the composition of the Mass. However, a clear separation of today’s compositions is an extremely difficult task, because despite the dominance of one approach or another, the contemporary Mass is constantly being modified due to the interpenetration of secular and religious components. Conclusion. We note that the Masses of the late 20th and early 21st centuries raise questions that concern humanity, being the musical meditations, reflections on the spiritual quest of a modern human. That is why the study of this genre turns out to be a complex and at the same time interesting current challenge.

Assessments of future changes in the climate of Northern Hemisphere extratropical land regions have been made with the IAP RAS climate model (CM) of intermediate complexity (which includes a detailed scheme of thermo- and hydrophysical soil processes) under prescribed greenhouse and sulfate anthropogenic forcing from observational data for the 19th and 20th centuries and from the SRES B1, A1B, and A2 scenarios for the 21st century. The annual mean warming of the extratropical land surface has been found to reach 2-5 K (3-10 K) by the middle (end) of the 21st century relative to 1961-1990, depending on the anthropogenic forcing scenario, with larger values in North America than in Europe. Winter warming is greater than summer warming. This is expressed in a decrease of 1-4 K (or more) in the amplitude of the annual harmonic of soil-surface tem- perature in the middle and high latitudes of Eurasia and North America. The total area extent of perennially frozen ground S p in the IAP RAS CM changes only slightly until the late 20th century, reaching about 21 million km 2 , and then decreases to 11-12 million km 2 in 2036-2065 and 4-8 million km 2 in 2071-2100. In the late 21st century, near-surface permafrost is expected to remain only in Tibet and in central and eastern Siberia. In these regions, depths of seasonal thaw exceed 1 m (2 m) under the SRES B1 (A1B or A2) scenario. The total land area with seasonal thaw or cooling is expected to decrease from the current value of 54-55 million km 2 to 38-42 in the late 21st century. The area of Northern Hemisphere snow cover in February is also reduced from the current value of 45-49 million km 2 to 31-37 million km 2 . For the basins of major rivers in the extratropical latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, runoff is expected to increase in central and eastern Siberia. In European Russia and in southern Europe, runoff is projected to decrease. In western Siberia (the Ob watershed), runoff would increase under the SRES A1B and A2 scenarios until the 2050s-2070s, then it would decrease to values close to present- day ones; under the anthropogenic forcing scenario SRES B1, the increase in runoff will continue up to the late 21st century. Total runoff from Eurasian rivers into the Arctic Ocean in the IAP RAS CM in the 21st century will increase by 8-9% depending on the scenario. Runoff from the North American rivers into the Arctic Ocean has not changed much throughout numerical experiments with the IAP RAS CM.

This essay provides an intellectual history for the cultural turn that transformed the human sciences in the mid-20th century and led to the creation of cultural sociology in the late 20th century. It does so by conceptualizing and contextualizing the limitations of the binary primitive/modernity. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, leading thinkers – among them Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Freud – confined thinking and feeling styles like ritual, symbolism, totem, and devotional practice to a primitivism that would be transformed by the rationality and universalism of modernity. While the barbarisms of the 20th century cast doubt on such predictions, only an intellectual revolution could provide the foundations for an alternative social theory. The cultural turn in philosophy, aesthetics, and anthropology erased the division between primitive and modern; in sociology, the classical writings of Durkheim were recentered around his later, religious sociology. These intellectual currents fed into a cultural sociology that challenged the sociology of culture, creating radically new research programs in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

We present an analysis of observed and simulated June–July–August (JJA) West African climate during the last 2 decades of the 20th and 21st centuries. The National Center for Atmospheric Research coupled atmosphere‐ocean climate system model (CSM) simulation is compared to long‐term observations and National Centers for Environmental Prediction reanalysis with an emphasis on the wet season during the late 20th century. While there are significant improvements in the simulation of the African Easterly Jet (AEJ) and African easterly waves relative to the uncoupled Community Climate Model, version 3, biases still exist. These biases are related to a poor simulation of the Azores high, which extends into eastern Europe, allowing for cold air advection into North Africa. There is also little improvement in the upper troposphere Tropical Easterly Jet in the CSM, which is too weak and does not extend westward over the Atlantic Ocean. In the late 21st century, JJA summer temperatures in West Africa have warmed 1.5°–2.5°C relative to the 1951–1980 period. Moreover, the Sahelian region is wetter in the late 21st century in association with an increase in atmospheric moisture, stronger meridional winds from the Gulf of Guinea, and a slightly stronger AEJ.

“Bohemia” can refer to the Kingdom of Bohemia proper or, as a shortened form, to the Bohemian Crown Lands (Czech Země Koruny české), a small but diverse and important group of lands in premodern Europe consisting of a number of constituent territories: the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Margravates of Moravia, Upper and Lower Lusatia, and the Principality of Silesia, all ruled by the Bohemian crown. Between the early 15th century, when a religious reform movement native to Bohemia evolved into one of the greatest social and political upheavals of the late Middle Ages, known as the Hussite revolution (beginning 1419), to the early 17th century, when an estate revolt in Bohemia (1618) expanded into the first all-European total war of the modern age, the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), Bohemia served as a microcosm, barometer, and focal point for change in central Europe and Europe as a whole. Despite Bohemia’s importance during this period, most of the key scholarship remains unknown and inaccessible to English-speaking readers. Two of the main reasons for this have to do with developments of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Specific aspects of state formation and national revival associated with the foundation of Czechoslovakia (1918), the successor state to the Bohemian Crown Lands, and the emergence of the liberal progressive narrative of European history relegated the history of the Bohemian Crown Lands to the margins of Western civilization. Communist rule throughout most of the second half of the 20th century reinforced the view that these lands were different and served to isolate Czech historians and Czech scholarship from Western historiography. However, since the fall of communism during the Velvet Revolution (1989) and the subsequent entry of the Czech Republic (one of two successor states to Czechoslovakia) into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, interest has grown among western Europeans and North Americans in premodern Bohemian history, and dialogue has increased among Czech scholars, their neighbors in central Europe, and the broader historical community in western Europe and North America. The late 20th and early 21st centuries witnessed the fruition of efforts since 1989 to reintegrate the Bohemian Crown Lands in the Early Modern period into the central narrative of early modern European history. This is a core bibliography containing approximately 150 key works dealing with the history of the Bohemian Crown Lands from the aftermath of the Hussite Revolution in the mid–15th century to the late 18th century. Most of the works in this core bibliography are recent monographs and anthologies that provide access to earlier and wider scholarship, but a number of major articles are also included. Most of the works are in Czech, German, or English, which are the major languages of scholarship, but some works in French, Italian, and Dutch are also included, illustrating the connections of this relatively small central European society to other historical and historiographical traditions in Europe. Recent years have witnessed the anniversaries of some major events in Bohemian history, such as the 600th anniversary of the execution of the reformer Jan Hus by the Church Council of Constance (1415), the 400th anniversary of the Estate Revolt of 1618, and the battle of White Mountain (1620). These anniversaries served as occasions for a number of conferences and symposia and reassessments, which would have been greater in number if not for the COVID-19 pandemic (see Smrčka and Vybíral 2015 [cited under Conference Proceedings, Collected Papers, and Festschriften]) and Dosatík 2018, Uhlíř 2017, and Bůžek 2021 [all cited under the Estate Revolt of 1618, the Battle of White Mountain]).

Oxford Bibliographies in Social Work includes three articles describing the scholarly writings of a select group of deceased social workers who have been especially prominent and influential in the profession within the United States. We refer to these individuals as social work luminaries. These three bibliographies can be used to identify the publications of prominent individuals who have been most influential in the development of social work. We identified these individuals by first reviewing the biographies of significant social workers in the Franklin’s article on Encyclopedia of Social Work and obituaries collected by the Council on Social Work Education since the publication of the Encyclopedia of Social Work. From this list we reviewed the biographical material and publications, selecting the most prominent luminaries for each of the three articles. For each luminary we provide a brief biographical overview and one to five annotated citations of their most important publications. Respectively, the three articles describe the publications of luminaries (1) who were involved in the founding and creation of the social work profession in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, (2) who subsequently contributed to the clarification and elaboration of social work practice and theory, and (3) who contributed to social work theory and scholarship in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This article presents social work luminaries who made major contributions to research and practice in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Luminaries in this era often made more use of scientific findings than those luminaries in the previous two articles. They related practice and theory to the social conditions of this more current period, and they often were concerned about a research-based (i.e., empirical) practice and incorporated contemporary ideas of social justice into their thinking. In this period, as in the previous one, most luminaries fell into one of several categories in terms of their contributions to social work scholarship, although several luminaries contributed to more than one category. We have organized this article around these different categories, which include contributions to social work methods; specific fields of service; the overall field of social work; diversity, multiculturalism, and empowerment; and social work research.

Advances in science and technology drive the economic growth of a nation. In order to ensure continued economic growth, a workforce that is well-trained and highly-skilled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is needed. For a society like Japan where the population is decreasing and ageing at a rapid rate, securing such a workforce in sufficient numbers is a critical issue. In Japan, it is anticipated that by 2030 the working-age population (15–64 years of age) will be 63% of that of 2015. Currently, the economic participation of women in Japan is 59.5% of that for men. In the field of STEM, the ratio of women among total STEM workers is 16% in 2017, which places Japan at the bottom of 23 developed countries. Further, data show that Japanese women have the talent and qualifications to pursue STEM careers that are equal to men. It seems clear that increasing the participation of women in STEM goes a long way to mitigate the anticipated workforce shortage needed to sustain Japan’s economic growth. There are a number of factors that are preventing full participation of women in STEM. These factors include both conscious and unconscious biases toward women’s ability to pursue scientific careers, and the separate roles for men and women assigned by society. These factors existed/exist in many countries, but some countries have made efforts to increase the participation of women in STEM with success. This article introduces three such efforts: US National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE Institutional Transformation; EU Horizon2020; and UK’s AthenaSWAN. It is hoped that learning best practices from these successful approaches may provide Japan a way forward to break out of the current situation before it is too late.

Few areas of medieval research have been so polarised in the late 20th century as castle studies. With two schools of thought pulling in opposite directions, one towards the castle as fortress, one towards the castle as residence, efforts have been channelled into justifying these camps rather than exploring common ground. Yet many of the approaches on offer are compatible both with each other and with a more inclusive examination of medieval society that examines castles as venues and stages for human behaviour rather than as mere architectural forms. The key to moving forward and opening up new vistas is multi‐ and inter‐disciplinarity; using a wider range of models and sources to examine function and use, and using our historiographical skills to reduce mechanism and determinism in favour of a holistic approach to medieval ‘real’ life.