Adrianne Kinnear

The reluctant primary school teacher

The study attempts to identify the factors which affect teachers reluctance to teach science, then explains an approach to help teachers teach science in a worthwhile manner over the school year while monitoring any changes in their confidence and competence. It was found that the condidence and competence of the teachers improved during the year such that they were able to teach successful science lessons on a regular basis.

Detritivores as indicators of landscape stress and soil degradation

Detritivores are small- to medium-sized invertebrates that comminute and break down organic materials such as leaves, twigs and roots, especially within or upon the soil surface, or nearby. Detritivores constitute the majority of the invertebrate biomass pyramid in most environments and provide a key role in organic matter turnover; they also provide alternative food for polyphagous predators that can be active in pest control on crops. Many arthropod taxa are detritivores in soil and litter layers. Here, we focus on the bioindicator potential of three key detritivore groups: slaters, millipedes and oribatid mites. There are possibly 300 species of slaters (terrestrial isopods or Oniscidea) in Australia with 13 of these being introduced, mostly from north-western Europe. These non-native species are the dominant species in disturbed environments such as intensively managed forests and agricultural fields. Slaters are promising indicators of landscape disturbance, soil contamination and tillage. Millipedes are potentially important indicators of stress in agricultural landscapes, given their sensitivity to litter and soil moisture gradients and to physical and chemical perturbations. However, because there is a close association between the millipede fauna and moist plant communities in Australia, they are generally absent from drier landscapes and, therefore, their use as bioindicators in agricultural environments here is problematic. An exception to this association is the increasingly ubiquitous introduced Black Portuguese millipede. This species is tolerant of much drier conditions than most natives, and is likely to change the nature of nutrient cycling processes in pastures and native grasslands in much of southern Australia. Oribatid mites are present in all Australian terrestrial ecosystems. The few studies that have examined their response to disturbance and land use in Australia are consistent with the body of work conducted outside Australia. This consistent response means that the oribatids may be developed as indicators in agricultural, pasture and forested environments. However, the paucity of information on oribatids over appropriate spatial scales in Australia makes the use of this group extremely difficult at this time.

Grazing impacts on soil mites of semi-arid chenopod shrublands in Western Australia.

This research describes the effects on the soil mite fauna of two sheep-grazing intensities applied to chenopod shrublands in both good and poor conditions. Soil was sampled from within and between bluebush (Maireana polypterygia) accretion mounds, 9 and 18 months following a 10-year grazing trial. There were major differences in the mite assemblages associated with the grazing treatments. Heavily grazed sites had reduced abundances of most mite species and substantially reduced diversity. In this ecosystem, soil accretion mounds below bluebush are important sites of acarine diversity and abundance. Of a total of 75 species, 49% were found only in this habitat. The decline of mite assemblages associated with vegetation degradation and mound decay mirrors declining soil properties, which have been described for these sites. These soils have particularly high species richness, with broad similarities in mite composition (at family and generic levels) with similar environments elsewhere in the world, continuing the trends found by other researchers.

An Evaluation of Curriculum Materials for Teaching Technology as a Design Process

Abstract This paper describes the evaluation of three curriculum models to Teach technology in an education system where there have been no clear guide‐lines to teachers about how the introduction of technology might be achieved. The three modules, which are concerned with animal cage construction, toys and the bicycle, present technology as a design process involving problem identification and analysis, generation and evaluation of alternative solutions, planning and construction of models, trialling, modification and evaluation. The curriculum evaluation was designed to determine whether or not teachers can teach technology as a design process, a technique which is not usually part of their preservice education; not: whether technology can be taught where there are limited resources available; and whether or not the approach taken was gender inclusive. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to gather data in the evaluation. The results indicated teachers found the materials successful for l...

Gender-inclusive technology materials for the primary school: A case study in curriculum development

This paper describes how an idea for technology education materials developed into a process for producing unique curriculum modules for teaching technology in a gender-inclusive way to primary children. Using a case-study format, the paper describes the interaction between participants, the sequential evolution of the materials themselves and the degree to which success was achieved in terms of the original goals. The study demonstrates how an awareness of gender bias needs to be a feature from the earliest stages of curriculum development, through to the trialling and modification stages. The curriculum materials were a product of effective cooperation between teachers, science educators and community representatives. They utilise a “process” approach to the teaching of technology and in this presentation, we demonstrate how this same approach is a useful framework for describing this particular curriculum development.