We present the design, implementation and evaluation of a research-informed teaching sequence that aims to promote conceptual understanding about energy among Cypriot students, ages 15-16. The design addressed the requirements of the official curriculum and was underpinned by Feynman's (Feynman, Leighton, & Sands, 1963) abstract perspective. Two design tools were used to inform design decisions: learning demand and communicative approach. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare the conceptual understanding of students in a group (n=18) who had followed the designed teaching sequence, with a comparison group (n=18) who had followed the school's usual approach. Students who were taught through the designed teaching sequence were significantly better at producing energy descriptions of physical systems than were students who had followed usual traditional teaching, demonstrating that a conceptual treatment of energy can be accessible to students at this age and stage of their physics education.

This chapter examines the biological underpinning to cognitive changes that occur during an emergency situation and considers the role of individual differences and the impact of environmental pressures that might explain why some people survive whilst others perish. There are three cognitive components that underpin behaviour during an emergency. During our everyday life, the brain continually scans the environment for signs of danger and, if detected, passes the sensory input to the amygdala, which processes emotional information. The sympathomedullary (SAM) pathway and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis elicit a physical response to the perceived threat from an emergency. The impact of environmental pressures, such as cold and hunger, are minimal; however, as an emergency enters the recoil phase, the human body can be put under pressure from several prolonged factors, such as exposure to the elements, potential dehydration, hunger, sleep deprivation and acute withdrawal from drugs.

In most countries, immersion represents the second most common cause of accidental death in children and the third in adults. Between 2010 and 2013, 561 deaths worldwide involving recreational divers were recorded by the Divers Alert Network. Consequently, there is no room for complacency when diving. Being lost at sea is a diver's worst nightmare. In 2006, a diver was lost at sea off the coast of New Zealand for 75 hours. It is unprecedented that, after such a long time immersed in temperate (16-17°C) waters, he was found and survived. His case is presented and utilised to illustrate the many physiological and psychological factors involved in prolonged immersion and what might determine survival under such circumstances. We also briefly review options for enhancing diver location at sea and a few issues related to search and rescue operations are discussed.

During the past 2 decades, the psychosocial landscapes of the military and elite sport have drastically changed, with the presence of stress an increasing health and safety concern. For example, in modern warfare, fighters must have the psychological capabilities to counter terrorism and undertake extended deployments in extreme environments against enemies with increasing skills for rapid development and dissemination of information and weaponry via global communication networks. In sport, performers have also reported being affected by globalization, reporting a hazardous array of stressors (e. g., roles, relationships, development issues, and organizational structure and climate) associated with preparation for and performance at major international competitions. The result of such developments is the need for leaders in both the military and sport to better understand optimal performance, and in particular the preparation of their charges, the war fighter and athlete, for the demands of their respective competition arenas. Therefore, in this narrative review we identify strength-based concepts of common interest and potential knowledge transfer in the study of psychology of excellence in the face of adversity between sport and military domains. Specifically, we highlight a value of 6 strength-based concepts for elite performance environments in sport (i.e., Olympic performance) and the military (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Extraction: SERE); mental toughness, positive emotion, learned optimism, resilience, posttraumatic growth, and self-and emotion regulation. In line with this discussion we highlight commonalities and knowledge transfer considerations regarding interventions in these spheres of psychological practice, the potential value of humanism and existentialism, the importance of post career and rehabilitation intervention, and readiness to change and engagement in training.

BACKGROUND:During emergencies maladaptive behavior can reduce survival. This study compared the effects of a basic firefighter training course on 21 volunteers (with no firefighting experience) with age and gender-matched controls.METHODS:Stress reactivity (salivary cortisol and anxiety) were monitored across the course: day 1 (classroom), day 2 (physical equipment training), and day 3 (simulated fire emergency). Cognitive performance (visual attention, declarative and working memory) considered important in surviving a fire emergency were measured immediately post-training or after a 20-min delay.RESULTS:Prior to threat subjects showed an anticipatory cortisol increase but no corresponding increase in self-reported anxiety. On day 3 cortisol was higher in firefighters tested immediately after (10.37 nmol x L(-1) and 20 min after training (7.20 nmol L(-1)) compared to controls (3.13 nmol x L(-1)). Differences in cognitive performance were observed post-threat, with impairments in visual declarative memory in the firefighting subjects tested immediately, and working memory impairments observed in those tested after a 20-min delay.CONCLUSIONS:Cognitive impairments were found following a simulated emergency and could explain maladaptive responses observed during real fires. Moreover, the results suggest the type of cognitive impairments observed may be time dependent, with different cognitive difficulties becoming evident at different times following an emergency.

Alice is a 14-year-old high school student, and in her science classes she has been taught quite a lot about the scientific concept of energy. Prior to these lessons Alice certainly used the word “energy” in her every day speech, whether in talking about “having no energy,” referring to the “high energy music” of her favorite band, or trying to reduce “energy consumption” to preserve the environment. During the lessons, Alice struggled to come to terms with some of the scientific ideas, which often seemed to go against common sense. Indeed, her teacher had warned that “this is always a difficult topic to get hold of.” Nevertheless, by the end of the teaching, Alice (who is a bright girl) was able to use the idea of energy in answering questions about batteries and bulbs, chemical reactions, and photosynthesis. However, she still struggled, for example, to see how the products of an exothermic chemical reaction could have the same mass as the reactants, even though “energy has been transferred to the surroundings,” and it didn’t make sense to her that a soda can on her desk “has gravitational potential energy,” even though it “just sits there.”

The implications of a societal aversion to inequality for the optimal structure of the health care system are studied. The agents are assumed to be ex ante identical, but to differ ex post in the state of their health. Inequality aversion is introduced by postulating a strictly concave ex post social welfare function. It is shown that the optimal public health care system allocates health care differently than would private health insurance; specifically, people who are relatively unhealthy with and without treatment receive more health care, and people who are relatively healthy with and without treatment receive less health care. The aggregate quantity of health care under the optimal public health care system can be either greater or smaller than under private health care insurance. If the public health care system is optimally designed, allowing agents to purchase supplementary private health care insurance cannot raise social welfare and is likely to decrease it.

Over the last 20 years, states and provinces have become increasingly involved in the financing and administration of elementary and secondary education. Local school boards, however, still retain control over key aspects of the provision of education. Historically, these boards were organized at the community level so as to meet the wants of the local community. Today, states and provinces have become more interested in consolidating school boards and moving to a more centralized funding scheme. Do these changes result in improved student achievement? This paper attempts to answer these questions by examining the school board consolidation and funding changes instituted by the province of Ontario. We differentiate the effects of the policy changes based on observed differences in the school boards prior to consolidation. We show that students in previously high wealth school boards perform worse after the policy change compared to students in previously low wealth school boards.

An ex post social welfare function is used to evaluate alternative healthcare systems. If a society is averse to inequality and there is some income disparity, social welfare under private healthcare insurance is sometimes higher and sometimes lower than social welfare under public healthcare. However, a third system-public healthcare with the option to purchase supplemental healthcare insurance-is always socially preferred to private healthcare insurance. Moreover, it is either socially preferred to public healthcare or equivalent to it.

This paper is about the process of designing and evaluating teaching sequences. It presents a framework to inform the design and evaluation of science teaching (Ametller, Leach and Scott, 2007); the use of the framework is illustrated through discussion of examples. Three short teaching sequences (around 5 hours) are used to exemplify the use of the framework in the design and evaluation of teaching. Each teaching sequence was developed to address conceptual content in the lower secondary school (age 11-13). The sequences addressed Electricity, Plant Nutrition, and Modelling (Physical and Chemical) Change. Each sequence was implemented by at least three teachers. Students’ learning was evaluated using diagnostic questions for conceptual understanding, and compared with that of similar students following the school’s usual teaching approach. Data about the implementation of the teaching were collected through video recording, and teachers were interviewed before and after implementation. The Modelling Change teaching sequence was the first to be developed. Students’ performance, and teachers’ reactions to this sequence, fell considerably short of our design intentions. Significant changes to the design approach were therefore made for the Electricity and Plant Nutrition sequences, which were very well received by teachers, and resulted in statistically significant learning gains by students (Leach et al., 2006). The Modelling Change sequence is therefore presented in more detail, to illustrate how the framework can inform judgements about the success or failure of attempts to design science teaching.

This paper is about the process of designing and evaluating teaching sequences. It presents a framework to inform the design and evaluation of science teaching (Ametller, Leach and Scott, 2007); the use of the framework is illustrated through discussion of examples. Three short teaching sequences (around 5 hours) are used to exemplify the use of the framework in the design and evaluation of teaching. Each teaching sequence was developed to address conceptual content in the lower secondary school (age 11-13). The sequences addressed Electricity, Plant Nutrition, and Modelling (Physical and Chemical) Change. Each sequence was implemented by at least three teachers. Students' learning was evaluated using diagnostic questions for conceptual understanding, and compared with that of similar students following the school's usual teaching approach. Data about the implementation of the teaching were collected through video recording, and teachers were interviewed before and after implementation. The Modelling Change teaching sequence was the first to be developed. Students' performance, and teachers' reactions to this sequence, fell considerably short of our design intentions. Significant changes to the design approach were therefore made for the Electricity and Plant Nutrition sequences, which were very well received by teachers, and resulted in statistically significant learning gains by students (Leach et al., 2006). The Modelling Change sequence is therefore presented in more detail, to illustrate how the framework can inform judgements about the success or failure of attempts to design science teaching.

This paper develops a model in which competing governments offer financial incentives to induce individual firms to locate within their jurisdictions. Equilibrium is described under three specifications of the supplementary taxes. There is no misallocation of capital under two of these specifications, and there might or might not be capital misallocation under the third. This result contrasts strongly with that of the standard tax competition model, which does not allow governments to treat firms individually. That model finds that competition among governments almost always leads to capital misallocation.