This paper examines the role of art in environmental education. It explores the creative use of fine arts for students' environmental awareness. The literature review carried out shows that artistic creation, in all its forms, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, dance, literature, theater, cinema, photography, comics can activate the senses, stimulates and enrich students' experiences, develops their imagination and critical thinking, provides new ways of expressing emotions, perceptions and reflections, enhances their creativity and develops their creative thinking. The pedagogical use of art in educational programs for enhancing children's contact with the environment helps children deepen their knowledge and strengthen their relationship with it. Art substantially contributes to environmental awareness, as it cultivates through an emotional approach the familiarization and the development of a connection with the environment. Therefore, educational planning is of scientific interest, which includes the utilization of various forms of artistic expression with the assistance of creative pedagogical techniques for the formation of active citizens.
Dynamic characterization and Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) are crucial tools, of increasing demand, for reliable operation and predictive maintenance of large infrastructures, as the percentage of critically ageing infrastructures is growing steadily. We present a minimally invasive and synchronous fiber optic monitoring system for SHM, based on Phase-Optical Time-Domain Reflectometry (Phase-OTDR), and we assess its applicability and performance on a modular Bailey-type bridge of 1 : 2.5 scale. Phase-OTDR systems, along with other fiberoptic-distributed techniques have proven their capabilities in long-range SHM applications, although their complexity and high cost limits drastically their applicability and SHM market penetration. Here, we propose the use of a prototype Phase-OTDR system, featuring customized interrogation instrumentation with a balanced trade-off between performance and cost. Its experimental validation is achieved by comparison with well-established commercial monitoring systems, such as Ground-Based Radar Interferometer (GBRI), laser tracker, and multipoint optical Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs), in various excitation conditions and structure-damage scenarios, easily implementable in the model bridge. Finite-element modelling (FEM) and simulations were employed to study the bridge behaviour and provide a reference and comparison framework for the experimental characterization. The Phase-OTDR system successfully detected the structural behaviour in an efficient distributed manner, demonstrating comparable performance to commercial point sensor systems, thus demonstrating its application potential.
The present paper aims to explore preschool teachers' perspectives on the protective factors of preschool children's psychological resilience. The sample consisted of 156 preschool teachers. The data collection method was a questionnaire which was based on the theoretical background of psychological resilience. In particular, the perspectives of preschool teachers on the intra-individual, family and school factors that are considered resilience-enhancing were explored. The analysis of the research data shows that the teachers of the sample consider that parents' involvement in the development of children, parents' emotion understanding skills, communication within family and support from family members are among the main family factors that contribute to the development of psychological resilience of preschool children. As far as the intra-individual protective factors are concerned, problem solving skills, self-esteem and decisiveness are regarded as the most significant. Teacher support, school safety and positive relationships within the peer group are among the school factors that are considered that can serve as protective factors for promoting psychological resilience of preschool children. The extent to which teachers regard that psychological resilience is a stable characteristic has an effect on their perceptions about the significance of the protective factors.The above findings can contribute to the design and development of psychological resilienceenhancing programs.
This research paper aims to study the function of the traditional festivals on the island of Rhodes during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to explore community members and official institution representatives’ views on their psychological and socio-economic consequences. A structured interview was designed, which was given online to 168 subjects, of which 96 community members in the villages of the island of Rhodes and to 72 official institutions, representatives of cultural and local authorities, within the context of the beginning of the festivities with some restrictions, in August 2021, in the light of the pandemic. The results of the research show that the majority of community members and official institution representatives of the sample emphasize the communicative, cultural, recreational, and social dimensions of the festivals, however, some claim that there are no longer events that arise interest. Regarding their cancellation during the pandemic period, the majority of community members answer that the entertainment - communication sector was most affected, while the representatives of the institutions emphasize the economic consequences. In general, regarding the consequences of the pandemic on the behavior and psychology of individuals, introversion, isolation, antisociality, belligerence, tension and nervousness, are emphasized, while mistrust seems to prevail even in close family settings. Moreover, the majority of community members and representatives emphasize that social offer and solidarity are not exhibited to a satisfactory degree, while volunteering activities are limited. Regarding the pandemic, vaccination is suggested as the most effective means, mainly by the official institution representatives. Regarding the events of 2021 that shocked them most, the community members focus on economic, social and psychological - personal problems, while the official institution representatives focus on environmental and economic problems. Finally, most of them state that they do not want the transformation of festivals, however, they regard the emphasis on tradition as a sustainable perspective of local festivals.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0415/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.