The Changing Face of Natural Resources Students,Education, and the Profession

ABSTRACT There are many challenges facing natural resources programs in North American higher education today. Pressures exerted by a new generation of students, changing workplace requirements (including undergraduate core-knowledge requirements), and an increasingly specialized professoriate are great but not insurmountable. We discuss each of these issues and pose potential solutions to address each including adopting new pedagogical techniques for content delivery (e.g., adapting courses to be inclusive of new technologies), revising curriculum to meet the needs of a new suite of learners (e.g., developing curricula that allow structured flexibility of choices, designing a core curriculum that is a mix of single-discipline courses and courses that integrate across disciplines), and new strategies for faculty engagement in discipline-specific survey courses. By remaining deliberate and effective in our pursuit of quality higher education we have the opportunity to ensure we are delivering the best possible education to the future professionals of our disciplines.     

Children’s Opinions about Zoos: A Study of Portuguese and Spanish Pupils

In this study, we analyzed the opinions of primary-school children from Portugal and Spain about zoos. The sample consisted of 560 pupils, mean age 11.38 years and in the 6th grade of schooling. For the purpose of this study, a two-part questionnaire was designed. In the first part, children were asked to name up to three positive and negative aspects of these institutions. Special attention was given to aspects related to animal welfare. In the second part, they had to express their opinion about 18 statements relating to different perspectives toward zoos: six were anthropocentric statements (in favor of zoos), six were biocentric (against zoos), and six ecocentric (partially supporting their existence). The results were analyzed for the whole sample but also according to the children’s country, gender, and type of visit (with school or exclusively with parents and relatives). Children tended to highlight the facilities and the amusements on offer, but the contact with animals and the way animals are treated were also in evidence. On the whole, the children supported the existence of zoos, and disagreed more often with the biocentric statements. Even so, the Spanish children, as compared with the Portuguese, were more in agreement with the biocentric perspective. However, children who went to zoos in a formal context (school visit) tended to be more anthropocentric than the ones who went with family/relatives. This tendency may be related to the fact that school contents tend to highlight the educational and conservationist roles of zoos and focus less on the controversial dimension associated with these places. But this tendency needs further research.     

Using the therapy and enhancement distinction in law and policy

In a first major study, the UK’s Royal Society found that 76% of people in the UK are in favour of therapeutic germline genomic editing to correct genetic diseases in human embryos, but found there was little appetite for germline genomic editing for non-therapeutic purposes. Assuming the UK and other governments acted on these findings, can lawmakers and policymakers coherently regulate the use of biomedical innovations by permitting their use for therapeutic purposes but prohibiting their use for enhancement purposes? This paper examines the very common claim in the enhancement literature that the therapy v enhancement distinction does little meaningful work in helping us think through the ethical issues, a claim that has significant implications for these lawmakers and policymakers who may wish to regulate genomic editing techniques to reflect the findings of this important study. The focus of this paper is on germline genomic editing as one of the main themes in this special issue.     

Adolescents’ Experience and Knowledge of,and Attitudes toward,Bees: Implications and Recommendations for Conservation

Invertebrates are generally regarded with apathy, distaste, and fear in Western society. These negative sentiments likely contribute to the disparity in wildlife conservation efforts, which largely favor vertebrate organisms. Bees represent one of the most ecologically and economically important invertebrate groups, yet bee diversity and abundance is declining worldwide, mirroring the general decline of invertebrate biodiversity. Developing and implementing successful conservation efforts requires interdisciplinary research that considers the ecological and social realities of today’s world. To better inform conservation efforts related to bees, we examined adolescents’ experiences and knowledge of, and attitudes toward, bees and investigated how these dimensions related to one another. A total of 794 eighth-grade science students from the suburbs of Chicago, USA completed a 48-item, paper questionnaire. The results indicated that adolescents were only somewhat knowledgeable about bee biology and services, and they confused bees with other flying insects, especially those with black-and-yellow coloration. Adolescents regarded bees with a generally neutral attitude; their knowledge and attitudes were correlated in a positive manner. Various bee-related experiences were linked to adolescents’ knowledge and attitudes and may have influenced bee-related behavior. In particular, students who engaged in gardening and lawn-care activities demonstrated higher levels of knowledge and more positive attitudes. This study provides insight into the relationships between experiences and knowledge of, and attitudes toward, invertebrates and suggests that engaging in certain outdoor activities may promote positive attitudes toward bees among adolescents.     

Teaching Genetics : The Practical Problems of Breeding Investigations

Biotechnology, microbiology, and schools, Brian Bainbridge     

Investigating the risks of removing wild meat from global food systems

1. Download : Download high-res image (157KB)
2. Download : Download full-size image

     

Identifying the spatial effects and driving factors of urban PM2.5 pollution in China

Exploring exactly where air pollution comes from, and identifying the key factors that influence it, can provide a scientific basis for the rational formulation and effective implementation of air pollution policies in China. Based on the data from 2001 to 2012 covering PM_2.5 concentrations in 285 Chinese cities, we use dynamic spatial panel models to empirically analyze the key driving factors of this air pollution. Results show that China’s urban smog demonstrates both obvious global spatial autocorrelation and local spatial agglomeration. There is a significant inverted “U-shaped” curve between economic development level and air pollution, and most cities are in the phase in which pollution is increasing in conjunction with improvements to the economy. Due to a rapid increase in population in built up areas, a high-proportion of secondary industry, a coal-dominated energy structure and increasing traffic intensity, China’s smog problem is becoming more and more serious. FDI probably will not play a future role in mitigating the air pollution. Central heating in winter in northern China further aggravates local smog to a certain extent. Because China’s haze pollution presents path-dependent characteristics and spatial spillover effects in the time dimension and in the space dimension respectively, so smog alleviation policies should be implemented based both on the strategies of maximizing effort and regional joint prevention and control.     

Conflicts of interest in e-cigarette research: A public good and public interest perspective

The tobacco industry’s involvement in the electronic cigarette research that informs public health policy is controversial. On the one hand, some are concerned that their involvement presents conflicts of interest that bias research outputs and invalidate the policies that use them. On the other hand, some have argued that the tobacco industry may support valid research and contribute to the goals of public health, for instance, if the interests of the e-cigarette industry could be part of a tobacco smoking cessation policy. We approach this debate from the ethical perspective of the public interest and the public good, considering how legitimate researchers can square their expert opinion with validating tobacco industry-funded research, given the perfidy of the tobacco industry and paucity of robust, conclusive evidence on the public health impacts of liberalizing e-cigarette use.     

A prospectus for ethical analysis of ageing individuals' responsibility to prevent cognitive decline

As the world's population ages, governments and non‐governmental organizations in developed countries are promoting healthy cognitive ageing to reduce the rate of age‐related cognitive decline and sustain economic productivity in an ageing workforce. Recommendations from the Productivity Commission (Australia), Dementia Australia, Government Office for Science (UK), Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (USA), Institute of Medicine (USA), among others, are encouraging older adults to engage in mental, physical, and social activities. These lifestyle recommendations for healthy cognitive ageing are timely and well supported by scientific evidence but they make implicit normative judgments about the responsibility of ageing individuals to prevent cognitive decline. Ethical tensions arise when this individual responsibility collides with social and personal realities of ageing populations. First, we contextualize the priority given to healthy cognitive ageing within the current brain‐based medical and social discourses. Second, we explore the individual responsibility by examining the economic considerations, medical evidence and individual interests that relate to the priority given to healthy cognitive ageing. Third, we identify three key ethical challenges for policymakers seeking to implement lifestyle recommendations as an effective population‐level approach to healthy cognitive ageing. The result is a prospectus for future in‐depth analysis of ethical tensions that arise from current policy discussions of healthy cognitive ageing.     

Moral bioenhancement and agential risks: Good and bad outcomes

In Unfit for the Future, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu argue that our collective existetial predicment is unprecedentedly dangerous due to climate change and terrorism. Given these global risks to human prosperity and survival, Persson and Savulescu argue that we should explore the radical possibility of moral bioenhancement in addition to cognitive enhancement. In this article, I argue that moral bioenhancements could nontrivially exacerbate the threat posed by certain kinds of malicious agents, while reducing the threat of other kinds. This introduces a previously undiscussed complication to Persson and Savulescu's proposal. In the final section, I present a novel argument for why moral bioenhancement should either be compulsory or not be made available to the public at all.