Nature recreation can be beneficial for human health and well-being, and this article invites discussion about whether environmental behavior nature contact can influence nature contact. As human life becomes more urbanized, people interact less closely with nature, and nature connections are weakened. Tourism provides an opportunity to enhance nature contact, and hence nature connection, and may motivate proenvironmental behavior. This study uses the R statistical package to analyze questionnaire data from 679 participants who have encountered marine mammals in the wild, as part of an ecotour, and in captive settings. It considers the questions: Does a connection to nature mediate the role between nature contact and well-being? Do marine mammal experiences specifically contribute to human well-being and environmental behavior? The role of nature connection as a mediator between nature contact and well-being is described in a structural equation model. Marine mammal experiences are shown to be significantly and positively related to human well-being (three-way ANOVA) and environmental behavior (Kruskal–Wallis H test). We conclude that nature connectedness mediates the effect of nature contact on well-being, and marine mammal experiences have an effect on well-being and environmental behavior. This study adds to research on cetacean experiences by including all marine mammals across different experience types. The results assist identify paths through which recreation time may achieve a two-way benefit of well-being and environmental behavior.

Successful underwater heritage management requires a sound understanding of visitor behavior. Primary visitors to underwater heritage sites are divers whose behavior can pose risks to the integrity of site cultural heritage and tourism values. This study seeks to understand wreck diver in-water behavior. Conventional observation of diver behavior is limiting. Wearable cameras are becoming popular across many recreational activities and potentially expand the scope and quality of diver observation. Video observation is rarely used in such research. This article demonstrates the potential of video observation, describing the analysis of first-person video records to explore details of diver behavior on shipwrecks. The evidence demonstrates that while most divers behaved responsibly, a few contributed to most contact behaviors. The analysis details this behavior, identifying, for example, that deliberate holding and touching comprised most contacts. Such findings on diver behavior inform heritage and tourism management decisions and provide a baseline for future studies. Methodologically, the study demonstrates the power of this method of observing divers and other recreationists. This is particularly valuable for researching recreationalists in confined spaces, such as caves or shipwrecks. The quality of results allows for further evidence-based examination of motivations, values, intentions and meanings underlying observed diver behavior.

Recreational scuba diving has grown over the past six decades and interest in wreck diving has increased. This growth demands evidence-based management, and understanding diver behaviour is crucial to effective management. This paper presents the first formal study of diver behaviour on a particular class of underwater cultural heritage, World War II submerged aircraft at Chuuk Lagoon in the Federated States of Micronesia. Chuuk is a world-renowned dive tourism destination, providing divers access to an extensive collection of shipwrecks and a few submerged aircraft. Although it may be assumed that diver behaviour on shipwrecks and aircraft would be similar, this study identifies marked differences in diver behaviour between the two different types of wrecks. This may be due to their novelty or to their scale. The smaller and more human scale of aircraft may encourage tactile interaction, such as sitting in the cockpit. Restricted physical access increases the chances of accidental damage to the aircraft. The implication of these findings is that there are different needs for the management of shipwreck and aircraft diving, to protect both cultural heritage and dive tourism values of sites.

This article introduces an Australian adaptation of an approach to supporting school leadership and improvement pioneered by educationalists David Townsend and Pam Adams, from Alberta, Canada. Referred to as the North Coast Initiative for School Improvement, the adaptation involved school leaders, academics, and government officials who combined to implement the twin processes of collaborative inquiry and generative dialogue at about sixty primary and secondary schools across the North Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. The initiative appears from all reports to have been both well received and highly impactful, including in terms of improved student performance. This issue of the AJER offers an exploration from an Australian perspective of the principles underpinning the two processes. It also presents case studies from an Australian setting of the impact of these processes on school leadership and improvement. Key words: collaborative inquiry, generative dialogue, North Coast Initiative for School Improvement, school leadership, school improvement Cet article présente l'adaptation australienne d'une approche de soutien à la direction et à l'amélioration des écoles mise au point par les pédagogues David Townsend et Pam Adams de l'Alberta, au Canada. Connue sous le nom de North Coast Initiative for School Improvement, cette adaptation a impliqué des leaders scolaires, des universitaires et des représentants du gouvernement qui se sont associés pour mettre en œuvre les processus jumeaux d'enquête collaborative et de dialogue génératif dans une soixantaine d'écoles primaires et secondaires de la région de la côte nord de la Nouvelle-Galles du Sud, en Australie. D'après tous les rapports, l'initiative semble avoir été à la fois bien accueillie et très efficace, notamment en termes d'amélioration des résultats des élèves. Ce numéro de l'AJER propose une exploration d'un point de vue australien des principes qui sous-tendent les deux processus. Il présente également des études de cas d'un contexte australien de l'impact de ces processus sur la direction et l'amélioration des écoles. Mots clés : enquête collaborative, dialogue génératif, leadership scolaire, amélioration des écoles, North Coast Initiative for School Improvement

This article presents a rich account of school leadership development within the North Coast Initiative for School Improvement program in New South Wales, Australia. The focus is the school leader at a small rural school, whose engagement with generative dialogue and collaborative inquiry results in a growing confidence in engaging her school community. The study demonstrates the power of narrative as a mode of inquiry and leadership development as represented in the school leader’s own account of her changing relationship with her school and her developing sense of professionalism. The study evaluates the success of the approach against a model of Seven Powers derived from the work of David Townsend and Pam Adams in Alberta, Canada, that includes the positive effects of carefully constructed and managed teams, professional relationships and processes, and the use of inquiry, reflection, collaboration, modelling and narrative in supporting the professional development of a school-based leader. Key words: school leadership growth; collaborative inquiry; emotional intelligence; narrative; generative dialogue; North Coast Initiative for School Improvement Cet article présente un compte rendu riche du développement du leadership scolaire dans le cadre du programme North Coast Initiative for Schola Improvement en Nouvelle-Galles du Sud, Australie. L'accent est mis sur le leader scolaire d'une petite école rurale, dont l'engagement dans le dialogue génératif et l'enquête collaborative se traduit par une confiance croissante dans l'engagement de sa communauté scolaire. L'étude démontre le pouvoir du récit en tant que mode d'enquête et de développement du leadership, tel qu'il est représenté dans le témoignage de la directrice de l'école sur l'évolution de sa relation avec son école et le développement de son sens du professionnalisme. L'étude évalue le succès de l'approche par rapport à un modèle des Sept Pouvoirs dérivé du travail de David Townsend et Pam Adams en Alberta, Canada, qui comprend les effets positifs d'équipes soigneusement construites et gérées, de relations et de processus professionnels, et l'utilisation de l'enquête, de la réflexion, de la collaboration, de la modélisation et du récit pour soutenir le développement professionnel d'un leader scolaire. Mots clés : leadership scolaire, enquête collaborative, intelligence émotionnelle, récit, dialogue génératif, North Coast Initiative for School Improvement

This article reviews the work of two Albertan educators, David Townsend and Pam Adams, in their application of collaborative inquiry to improving school leadership. Collaborative inquiry is essentially a professional practice that has yet not been comprehensively theorized. This article seeks to lay some foundations for a theorization of the practice by identifying structures and processes that appear to underlie the remarkable success of applications of the practice in several school districts in Alberta, Canada. The emerging mode is one that envisages seven powers: the power of teams, the power of relationship, the power of the process, the power of inquiry and reflection, the power of collaboration, the power of modelling, and the power of narrative. These powers appear to underpin much of what has been written about the ways in which collaborative inquiry has become a powerful force for leadership development in Alberta, and more recently in the State of New South Wales in Australia. Keywords: Collaborative inquiry, school leadership, enabling structures Cet article examine le travail de deux éducateurs albertains, David Townsend et Pam Adams, dans leur application de l'enquête collaborative pour améliorer le leadership scolaire. L'enquête collaborative est essentiellement une pratique professionnelle qui n'a pas encore été théorisée de manière exhaustive. Cet article cherche à jeter les bases d'une théorisation de la pratique en identifiant les structures et les processus qui semblent sous-tendre le succès remarquable des applications de la pratique dans plusieurs districts scolaires de l'Alberta, au Canada. Le mode émergent est celui qui envisage sept pouvoirs : le pouvoir des équipes, le pouvoir des relations, le pouvoir du processus, le pouvoir de l'enquête et de la réflexion, le pouvoir de la collaboration, le pouvoir de la modélisation et le pouvoir du récit. Ces pouvoirs semblent sous-tendre une grande partie de ce qui a été écrit sur la manière dont l'enquête collaborative est devenue une force puissante pour le développement du leadership en Alberta, et plus récemment dans l'État de Nouvelle-Galles du Sud en Australie. Mots clés : enquête collaborative, leadership scolaire, structures habilitantes

In this article, we open up Yarning as a fundamentally relational methodology. We discuss key relationships involved in Indigenous research, including with participants, Country, Ancestors, data, history, and Knowledge. We argue that the principles and protocols associated with the deepest layers of yarning in an Indigenous Australian context create a protected space which supports the researcher to develop and maintain accountability in each of these research relationships. Protection and relational accountability in turn contribute to research which is trustworthy and has integrity. Woven throughout the article are excerpts of a yarn in which the first author reflects on his personal experience of this research methodology. We hope this device serves to demonstrate the way yarning as a relational process of communication helps to bring out deeper reflection and analysis and invoke accountability in all of our research relationships.

Increased demand by dive tourists for high-quality underwater wreck sites requires managers to balance heritage conservation and tourism at these vulnerable sites to ensure quality diving experiences while protecting underwater cultural heritage. Integral to effective management is a comprehensive understanding of wreck diver characteristics, motivations, and attitudes. This paper reports the outcomes of an international survey of 724 wreck divers including demographics, dive experience, motivations to wreck dive and attitudes to underwater cultural heritage protection. Wreck divers are motivated to see historic shipwrecks, artefacts, and marine life. Most are generally supportive of management controls to protect underwater cultural heritage. Conceptual models of wreck divers’ motivations and attitudes were developed to illustrate nuanced complexities in motivations and attitudes, which can inform management strategies to support operational decisions and destination marketing.

The concept of reciprocal healing invites consideration of how experiences in nature and with wildlife encourage mutual benefits via well-being for humans and the earth. This contrasts with using nature as a commodity for human gain without regard to the natural other. To understand human relationships with the earth we first need to consider what humans think, feel, and believe about nature. This study examined how beliefs vary between people of different ages, gender, and with various marine mammal experiences. A questionnaire asked which belief statements people agreed with, and responses from 679 participants provided either human-focused anthropocentric beliefs or earth-focused ecocentric beliefs. Based on the literature, we expected that males, older people, and those who have encountered animals in captivity would tend towards anthropocentric beliefs. The hypothesis was partially accepted. Ecocentric beliefs were more commonly chosen overall, and there were differences in beliefs depending on encounters experienced. Age group and gender affected the anthropocentric but not the ecocentric beliefs chosen. Ecocentric beliefs were more common for participants who had a combination of the two wild conditions, as expected. Unexpectedly, both anthropocentric and ecocentric beliefs were associated with a combination of all three experiences, and possible reasons are suggested. The findings from this study provide a springboard towards understanding how to activate reciprocal relationships between humans and animals. Wildlife experiences that foster ecocentric beliefs could help us move beyond a focus on one-sided human gains, towards stronger reciprocal relationships between humans and animals. Future studies may be able to tease apart this relationship further and examine the direct links between belief type, well-being, and behavior.

This research examines the sedimentological evidence of human occupation on different cultural layers at the prehistoric archaeological sites in northeast Thailand. This study focuses on the sedimentological characters of stratigraphic layers identified at the prehistoric occupation sites of Ban Non Wat and Nong Hua Raet, to demonstrate the capacity of such analyses to elucidate the modification of sediments by past anthropogenic activity, and eventually to contribute to an enhanced understanding of the behaviour of ancient people. The primary intention of this paper is, therefore, to point out potential uses of particle analysis in identifying human–landscape interventions, testing whether meaningful differentiation is possible, and if not, whether this may nevertheless be used to understand the sedimentological relationships between different features. The study finds that although there is relatively little differentiation between sediments across the archaeological site, some insight is possible in identifying relationships between the natural sediments of the floodplain, the channels associated with the archaeological sites, and the archaeological sediments themselves. It is, for example, now possible to raise new questions regarding the construction history of the sites, the history of human behaviour at these sites, socio-spatial relationships between paleo-social activity and natural resources, and fine-scale landscape associations between sites.

Traditional methods of imparting knowledge are known as yarning to Australian Aboriginal Elders and talking circles to North American First Nations peoples. Yarning is a relational methodology for transferring Indigenous knowledge. This article describes an emerging research methodology with yarning at its core, which provides respect and honour in a culturally safe environment. Yarning is highly structured, with protocols and principles providing participants control over the process and their stories. The methodology is embedded in a yarning space, which is framed by six protocols and seven principles. The protocols are gift, control, freedom, space, inclusiveness and gender specificity, and the principles are reciprocity, responsibility, relationship, dignity, equality, integrity and self-determination—to protect participants, stories and data. This is ensured through respectful and honouring relationships, responsibility and accountability between participants. The key camps in which the yarning journey is segmented are the Ancestors, protocols, principles, connections, data, analysis, processing and reporting, and the wider community.

This paper examines five principals’ insights into leading their schools in a disruptive time. The principals chosen for interview each lead a secondary school in regional New South Wales, Australia, that has been identified as educationally disadvantaged by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage algorithm. While the study’s intent was to examine the role of technology in supporting learning from home due to COVID-19 restrictions, only one of the four themes that emerged from the interview analysis was related to technology. The themes were: i) the overarching concern by principals for student, staff and family wellbeing, ii) access to technology, and student online learning, iii) the importance of effective communication, and, iv) principals’ post-disruption reflections. In addition to the thematic analysis, five vignettes are presented to provide insight into each principal’s unique experiences. In these challenging and disruptive times, all five principals exhibited leadership practices that align to the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership’s “The Role of School Leadership in Challenging Times”. While schools successfully adapted to the needs of their communities, especially in meeting the challenges of amplified disadvantage in education access, questions remain around the degree to which the pandemic crisis has triggered fundamental change in educational practice.

Conventional roles and responsibilities of the learner have placed the learner in a singular position within a hierarchy of authority and power - as the passive recipient of learning, of being taught. The socioecological learner, however, holds a special position in relation to this convention, a position mediated through a socioecological approach to understanding the world. A socioecological model provides a multidimensional perspective on social and ecological systems, in which inter-connectedness, flow of energy and materials, linkages, relationships and feedback play central roles. It follows that the roles and responsibilities of the learner should reflect such an ecology. The demands of the Anthropocene - both as global crisis and as opportunity - present an urgent need to shift the relationships between the currently siloed hierarchical, socially constructed categories of 'learner', 'teacher' and 'researcher'. The emergence of posthumanism provides stimulus that unsettle these conventions. The category of 'socioecological learner' challenges long-held presumptions around relationships between teacher, researcher, learner, participant, knowledge and data. An alternative vision is one of a post-modern and posthuman future, a future in which a milieux-contextualised shift of learner to learner-teacher-researcher encompasses a crucial shift from learner-as-human-in-society to learner-as-posthuman-in-zoe.

The New South Wales (Australia) school education response to the Covid-19 pandemic was based on the premise that children would learn from home or school through online learning. This study of the experiences of a group of rural New South Wales primary school principals challenges this premise. Rural schools in the State are mostly small, relatively isolated, and linked closely to small socioeconomically-poor communities. They are marginal to the education establishment, and thus offer opportunities to test assumptions of mainstream sector-wide approaches. This paper reports interviews with six rural principals regarding their approaches to learning for their students during the pandemic. We identify five key issues: initial concerns; the importance of communication; access and attitudes to technology; parents’ attitudes to home learning; and change on return to school. Presumptions of successful off-site learning and technology implementation are challenged by the experience of these rural schools. This study raises two questions about post-Covid-19 school education: How can preexisting social disadvantage be better dealt within the education system? What might a future education model post COVID-19 look like?

Price formation has emerged as one of the most complex and contested areas of U.S. energy law. In the natural gas markets, questions about the integrity of price indices, which serve as key benchmarks for billions of dollars in transactions and investments across the industry, have been the subject of recurring investigations, enforcement actions, and regulatory proceedings at FERC since the California energy crisis of 2000–01. In electricity, manipulation and gaming of the market-clearing algorithms that structure the organized power markets have also preoccupied FERC since the California crisis, and ongoing controversies regarding how to value various generation attributes and how to handle government subsidies within these pricing structures have become particularly acute over the last several years. Not surprisingly, issues of pricing have also given rise to extensive litigation, posing hard questions about markets, jurisdiction, and the structure of federalism that animates much of U.S. energy law. Indeed, each of the three major Supreme Court cases on energy since 2015 has focused on jurisdictional questions stemming from the ways of price making in natural gas and electricity markets. This Article argues that these ongoing challenges of market governance in natural gas and electricity need to be understood as struggles over the core technologies of price making. By unpacking these ways of price making—a task that takes us deep into the technical details of these markets—the Article develops a novel perspective on U.S. energy law, showing how larger questions of law and political economy are implicated in the highly specialized and seemingly neutral exercises aimed at constructing and maintaining the complex price-making machines at the heart of these markets. Such an approach leads to a different set of considerations for regulatory reform—one that rejects the tired dualism of regulation versus markets that has dominated energy law since the 1970s and embraces a view of price making as a delicate and contested exercise aimed at harnessing the power of competition and directing it toward public ends. It also points to a broader set of concerns that are increasingly relevant in a world marked by widespread and growing enthusiasm for designer markets and the adoption of new, often algorithmic, approaches to pricing.

This paper describes a design-based implementation research (DBIR) approach to the development and trialling of a new generation massive open online course (ngMOOC) situated in an instructional setting of undergraduate mathematics at a regional Australian university. This process is underscored by two important innovations: (a) a basis in a well-established human cognitive architecture in terms of cognitive load theory; and (b) point-of-contact feedback based in a well-tested online system dedicated to enhancing the learning process. Analysis of preliminary trials suggests that the DBIR approach to the ngMOOC construction and development supports theoretical standpoints that argue for an understanding of how design for optimal learning can utilise conditions, such as differing online or blended educational contexts, in order to be effective and scalable. The ngMOOC development described in this paper marks the adoption of a cognitive architecture in conjunction with feedback systems, offering the groundwork for use of adaptive systems that cater for learner expertise. This approach seems especially useful in constructing and developing online learning that is self-paced and curriculum-based. Abstrakt Dieses Dokument beschreibt einen designbasierten Implementierungsforschungsansatz (DBIR-Ansatz) für die Entwicklung und Erprobung eines modernen offenen Online-Kurs (ngMOOC - new generation massive open online course), der sich im pädagogischen Rahmen der Bachelormathematik bei einem regionalen australischen Universitätbefindet. Dieser Prozess wird durch zwei wichtige Neuerungen unterstrichen: (a) eine Grundlage in einer etablierten humanen kognitiven Architektur in Bezug auf die kognitive Belastungstheorie; und (b) Feedback bei den Kontaktpunkten das sich in einem bewährten Online-System basiert, und das sich der Verbesserung des Lernprozesses widmet. Die Analyse von Vorversuchen legt nahe, dass der DBIR-Ansatz für die Konstruktion und Entwicklung von ngMOOC theoretische Positionen unterstützt, die ein Verständnis dafür zulassen, wie Design für optimales Lernen Bedingungen wie unterschiedliche Online- oder gemischte Bildungskontexte nutzen kann, um effektiv und skalierbar zu sein. Die in diesem Dokument beschriebene ngMOOC-Entwicklung markiert die Einführung einer kognitiven Architektur in Verbindung mit Feedback-Systemen, die Grundlage für den Einsatz von adaptiven Systemen bietet, die für Lernkompetenz sorgen. Dieser Ansatz scheint besonders nützlich zu sein, wenn es darum geht, Online-Lernen aufzubauen und zu entwickeln, das selbstständig ist und sich auf Lehrplänen basiert.

Two academics meditate on the state of education and seek wisdom from the poets and other creative writers to illuminate their unknowing. We acknowledge the growing disquiet that all is not working well in education. Is the education on offer fit for purpose? Does it prepare students for a world of disappearing professions, spreading automation where the implications of the next disruption are unknown, unimaginable? Does it meet the urgent needs of the Anthropocene and of changing social structures of a post-human world? We sense the need to reconsider the contemporary everyday. We reach back to the past, to nature, to ground ourselves in the senses of what is real, and true, as a way to open a door to this unfathomable future. In doing so, we notice distinctions, boundaries and categories that trap us in the present, yet point to potential futures. In shining a light on these, we return to the conviction that a future education needs to be useful. An education of the future needs to return to the world and a natural order where we relinquish our human dominance. We share the questions that arise out of our meditation on the challenges of an education of the future. We hope these questions will ‘stimulate, provoke, inform and inspire’ others to collaborate on the answers.

This chapter describes an undergraduate peer-to-peer mentoring program, UniMentor, at a regional Australian university, which aims to support students in equity groups. Key benefits identified are: enhanced retention rates; improved academic performance; and strengthened social networks. While the focus is on commencing students (mentees), significant positive outcomes for third-year mentors are also apparent. Internal and external challenges that may influence access to mentoring among students include shifting institutional support and roles and curriculum change. Enablers include training, clarity of purpose, strong support networks, and fostering student sense of ownership. The effect of disciplinary culture on uptake and effectiveness of mentoring is also important. Overall, the program compares well against published frameworks of successful student mentoring. Nevertheless, critical questions remain regarding the effectiveness of general versus targeted mentoring programs for students in equity groups.