FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN

The work presented in the present article was carried out for the purpose of evaluating the effects of the limitations imposed on children's autonomy on their acquisition of environmental knowledge. The representation of the home-school intinerary was investigated in 8–11 year old children who travelled along the itinerary in different ways (on their own, accompanied by an adult, on foot or by car). The tasks included a sketch map of the route and drawing the route on a blank map of the neighbourhood. In order to investigate the role of autonomy in the development of a full understanding of the environment in which they live, the children were asked to use landmarks to find their way around a blank map of the quarter and to mark on it the position of significant components of their environment. The children's freedom of movement in the quarter was investigated by indirect observation.The data were analysed and discussed as a function of the children's method of mobility, their age and gender. The results confirm the importance of the type of individual—environment interaction, in particular of freedom of movement, in acquiring, processing and structuring environmental knowledge. Children going to school on their own achieved the best performances in both making a sketch map of the itinerary and in drawing their movements on a blank map of the quarter. Even when the representation of the environment in which they live is taken into account, the key role played by autonomy is confirmed.     

CHILDREN'S SENSE OF PLACE IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO

In the Hispano homeland of northern New Mexico, children's lives are shaped by land, by family, by culture, and by community. The way these forces work together forms each child's sense of place and place attachments. Using short case examples, this article presents a brief overview of children's place experiences and preferences and describes some of the factors that contribute to children's sense of place in three communities, of northern New Mexico which represent a range from urban to rural. It demonstrates the important role extended family and direct experience play in shaping children's sense of place and understanding of nature.     

Children's perspectives on playground use as basis for children's participation in local play space management

Implementing children's perspectives into playground management could be a way of improving play possibilities for children in the local public space and supporting sustainable development, but it requires adults' understanding. Children's perspectives on playground use were studied through group interviews in two Swedish towns and were also compared with the understanding among the local park workers. Children described their playground use through challenges, manipulation and place-making, something which was partly recognised by the park workers. The results indicate that children's perspectives on playground use, particularly manipulation, should be implemented more fully into management work. Children's participation in on-site management activities is discussed as a way of making playgrounds more adapted to children's use and perspectives.     

Children's Access to Local Environments: A case-study of Christchurch,New Zealand

This article provides a case-study of variability in children's independent access to their local environments in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. It is based on research with children in middle childhood, parents and teachers in four schools in Christchurch, each selected on the basis of variables hypothesised to impact on children's access to their local areas. The paper outlines why such independent access is of value, not only for children, but also for adults responsible for their safety, for the wider environment and for the local community. Variability within Christchurch is related to the socio-spatial nature of local environments. International comparisons are also made, drawing out the implications of differing cultural contexts for the pursuit of child-friendly cities. The article explores the role of social traps in impeding the creation of a more sustainable, child-friendly city.     

Traffic noise and executive functioning in urban primary school children: The moderating role of gender

The objective of this study was to examine the relationships between noise and school children's executive functioning (EF). The study included 311 children (146 boys and 165 girls) aged 7–11 years, who lived in the center of Belgrade. Teachers rated children's EF on a standard scale evaluating their ability to work independently in a focused manner to achieve an end goal as well as children's ability to follow directions carefully. Residential noise exposure was estimated in three daytime intervals, one evening interval and two nighttime intervals in the middle of the streets where children lived. School noise exposure was measured on three different school days in front of children's schools. Socioeconomic status (mother's highest level of education and family income) was used as a statistical control. There were no significant main effects of ambient noise levels on EF, however, a significant interaction indicated adverse noise impacts on boy's EF. We discuss possible reasons for male EF vulnerability to noise.     

Functional wildlife parks: The views of Kenyan children who live with them

This study reports on Kenyan school children's ideas about wildlife parks in their country. A comparison is made between the responses of school children in primary school, before they receive any science education, and those of secondary school pupils at the end of the secondary cycle. The findings show little difference between the two groups of students in terms of their ideas about wildlife parks. This has serious implications for science and environmental education in Kenya. Parks are understood by these pupils in terms of real life issues, as derived from social consequences. The children's ideas are all based on the role that parks play in society, but the function of parks to support biodiversity conservation does not seem to be important to the students. While it is satisfying to note that the school children have a good understanding of parks in their social context, it is essential to address fully the scientific and ecological role of parks in order that biodiversity becomes more valued in our society.     

“Because we are all people”: outcomes and reflections from young people's participation in the planning and design of child-friendly public spaces

Child-Friendly Cities were conceived as a means to integrate children's rights into city decision-making and governance. Participatory research about child-friendly cities consistently finds overarching themes across ages and regions: children desire access to services, nature, and play; freedom from physical danger; and opportunities for inclusion within the city. This article explores a two-year visioning and participatory design process that engaged approximately 225 young people, aged 4–16, in the planning and design of a prominent public space in the City of Boulder. While participatory research with children has received much attention in the academic literature, much less attention has been given to what can be achieved through sustained integration of children into municipal planning processes, particularly in the USA. This paper thus moves children's participation beyond rhetoric and into the challenging reality of planning a city with children as a valued constituent.     

Striking the Balance Between Environment and Economy in Coastal North Carolina

A fundamental purpose of intergovernmental growth management has been to infuse regional concerns—especially regional environmental and economic development concerns—into local land use planning. This paper presents results from a study of state-mandated local planning in coastal North Carolina during the mid-1990s, addressing in particular local efforts to ‘strike a balance’ between environment and economy as required by the state's planning mandate. While acknowledging the need for coastal resource protection, coastal localities were not striking a balance between environment and economy through their planning efforts beyond stating support for the State's minimum resource protection rules. Within this context, key factors yielding less environmentally focused local planning included both local elected officials' concerns about the need for economic development for jobs and their belief that environmental protection was not a local problem. Factors that tended to shift local planning back toward environmental protection included local officials' perception that the local economy was in good shape and heightened citizen engagement.     

Indicators for sustainable energy development in Mexico

This article presents a summary of a study on the application to the Mexican energy sector of a core set of indicators for sustainable energy development (ISED), developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The study focused on the elaboration of socio‐economic and environmental indicators related to energy production and use, and was aimed at assessing Mexico's existing energy policies and identifying strategies and possible policies that could bring about improvements in major priority areas: energy intensity, atmospheric emissions, energy import dependency and use of renewables. While positive trends have been observed in relation to energy intensity and atmospheric emissions, Mexico is becoming more dependent on imports of gasoline, natural gas and other high‐value secondary energy sources, while exporting significant amounts of primary fuels, such as crude oil. Also, no significant increase has been observed in the use of renewable sources of energy. Social, economic and environmental policies need to be formulated for the energy sector and related investments (public and private) reinforced so that all economic sectors have access to energy from cleaner and more diverse sources.     

Article 4 Directions and Development Control: Planning Myths,Present Uses and Future Possibilities

This paper deals with the issue of the restriction of what is ordinarily classified as permitted development under the General Development Order (GDO) through the making of Directions under Article 4 of the GDO. The planning literature contains a number of assertions about the levels of use, procedural problems and utility of such Directions. These 'planning myths' are tested through quantitative and qualitative analyses of a stratified sample survey of 50% of the local planning authorities in Great Britain. The field of built environment conservation is shown to be the largest single user of Directions, and this aspect is dealt with in greater detail. However, the second highest use of Directions, and probably the fastest-growing field, is in the control of markets and car boot sales. As additional conservation controls were announced in 1994, this may be the area of future public pressure on permitted development rights. The potential utility of Directions in formulating area-based planning policies is discussed.     

Children's appreciation of outdoor places in a poor neighborhood

Children 7–12 years of age, living in a poor neighborhood, photographed outdoor places where they liked to go in their neighborhood. In individual interviews, they discussed their photos, selected their favorite place, and discussed the places they disliked. Children identified parks and playgrounds most often both as liked and disliked places, and spaces near an acquaintance's home as their favorite place. Liked places varied according to children's age and degree of vegetation. Children's negative perceptions of places were centered on safety threats. Children distinguish favorite places from liked places only by the greater number of positive characteristics and activities they offer children. The study highlights how positive and negative features coexist in places of importance to these children.     

Bridging conceptual “silos”: bringing together health promotion and sustainability governance for practitioners at the landscape scale

Environmental health issues are examples of “wicked problems” that require cross-sectoral collaboration at the community level, yet health practitioners and environmental stakeholders find it challenging to see how and why they could be working together. Supportive organisations have been identified as the most vital enabler for individual professionals to participate actively in cross-sectoral initiatives. Ability to justify inter-professional cooperation makes it easier for practitioners to gain the necessary approvals within their institutional mandates. This paper introduces a new conceptual framework that bridges health promotion and sustainability governance to facilitate practical cross-sectoral collaboration that targets complex health-related environmental and social-ecological challenges. The proposed framework integrates six concrete overlapping themes linking health promotion and sustainability governance. The framework also highlights examples of areas where the fields could benefit from one another. Moreover, children's environmental health is proposed as a desirable overall outcome and an attractive venue for potential collaboration, because of its critical role in the public health and well-being of future generations. As a determinant of adult health, children's environmental health emphasises the vital interdependencies between health and the environment.     

Assessment of outdoor school environments and physical activity in Ankara's primary schools

Outdoor school environments are sites for play and physical activity for many children, and shortcomings within these environments are considered significant factors that contribute to children's inactive lifestyles and high levels of childhood obesity. This study explores the associations between the physical characteristics of schoolyards and the physical activity of third and fourth year students in five Turkish primary schools. Data were collected through multiple methods, including behavior mapping of student activities during recess, physical assessments of schoolyards, and interviews with students, teachers and administrations. The findings show similarities in the landscape features and physical qualities of schoolyards, particularly in the types of play and activities in which students engage. Results indicated that active students who walk to and from schools have lower body mass index (BMI) values than passive students, and students in schools with larger yards have lower BMI values. Most of the students prefer spacious and vegetated yards. A major concern is the crowdedness of the yards during recess that limit children's activity. Schoolyards with advanced landscape features are preferred more, and this in turn affects students’ positive satisfaction. Outdoor school environments have a correlation to health outcomes and should be designed to promote more activity. Improving the physical and landscape qualities of the public schoolyards should be the primary concern of the designers in order to increase awareness of natural environment and more important, increase the health of children.     

Two Paths to Industrial Ecology: Applying the Product-based and Geographical Approaches

The development of the practical side of the concept of industrial ecology has taken two different but interrelated paths during the last two decades: the product-based systems perspective; and the geographically defined local-regional industrial ecosystem approach. Both approaches focus on material and energy flows aiming at reducing the industrial system's virgin resource use and waste and emission outputs. The ideal has arisen to mimic the model of a sustainable natural ecosystem, which relies solely on solar energy as the input and creates cyclical flows of materials (and related energy cascades) between organisms and in the food chain. It is argued in the industrial ecology literature that wastes, as defined in human industrial system terms, are non-existent in the natural recycling system. In this paper, an application of the product-based systems approach is given with paper life cycles and a basic life cycle inventory model. An application to the regional approach is presented in the regional energy supply system of the city of Jyväskylä in Finland. The paper aims at discussing the two approaches in industrial ecology and considers their contradictory characteristics as well as their similarities. When the basic vision and the overriding goal is the local industrial ecosystem, the product-based approach can serve as an inventory tool to support the project. In this situation, the two approaches would seem to be each other's complement. When the two approaches are adopted as each other's substitute, they may support conflicting decisions for environmental policy and management. This may create difficulties in the implementation of industrial ecology. On the basis of both of the approaches to industrial ecology, the external environment of an organization is considered to comprise the societal material and energy flow environment and the natural material and energy flow environment .     

机动车尾气对人体健康的危害

随着城市机动车保有量的不断增加,机动车尾气已经成为影响我国城市大气环境的主要问题之一。本文以儿童和交通警察两类人群为例,分析了机动车尾气污染给人体呼吸系统、免疫系统、心脑血管系统等造成的危害。结果表明,由于儿童的呼吸带与机动车尾气排放带非常接近,交警在机动车尾气环境中暴露事件太长,导致这两类人群的呼吸系统极易遭到破坏,发生支气管炎等疾病的概率大大增加;而免疫球蛋白水平和血压发生改变导致了抵抗能力的下降。最后建议通过采取发展公共交通、加强城市交通管理、完善检查维修制度等有效措施加强机动车尾气治理,减少对人体健康产生的危害。     

The Environment and Postmodern Spatial Consciousness: A Sociology of Urban Environmental Agendas

Planning generally views the environment as an objectively definable set of natural resource systems and relies on the natural sciences to reveal and describe its problems, such as pollution, loss of biodiversity, energy consumption or waste disposal. But why do the mass of people with little scientific knowledge or interest in the environment as a 'big issue' accept and even contentiously push forward planning's environmental agenda? This paper explores the sociological basis of environmental concern. It argues that the social dilemmas arising from the contemporary experience of space are drawn towards the environment and that it is this non-ecological, non-expert field of preoccupations which both legitimizes the environmental turn of contemporary planning and provides the real impetus behind environmental issues.     

Evaluating an Employer Transport Plan: Effects on travel behaviour of parking charges and associated measures introduced at the University of Sheffield

Journeys to work form a significant proportion of all car journeys and employer transport plans have been advocated as a way to manage the transport needs of workers in order to contain the level of car trips and, therefore, emissions and other negative effects. A questionnaire survey and focus group interviews were used to evaluate the success of an employer transport plan implemented by the University of Sheffield in September 1997. The policy was associated with a marginal (7%) reduction in car use and promoted a limited increase in travel diversity. An objection to the principle of paying to park at work and ineligibility for a permit both deterred car use. The policy caused a re-evaluation of the journey to work. Nevertheless, a number of factors worked against switches in behaviour, particularly employees' perceptions of the university's motivation for introducing the plan and attitudes towards car use and public transport. Disincentives to car use need to be much more significant to persuade more employees to leave their car at home, and need to be tied to substantial improvements in the availability of non-car alternatives.     

Reducing carbon emissions through improved household energy efficiency in the UK

A number of schemes to increase household energy efficiency have operated in the UK over the last 5–10 years. This paper evaluates their effectiveness in terms of reducing household energy use, carbon emissions and fuel poverty. It then draws on the quantitative results of these schemes, and published plans for their continuation, to model an extended and expanded Household Energy Efficiency Scenario to 2020, using an integrated economy–energy–environment model of the UK. The results suggest that while such schemes can play a significant role in reducing carbon emissions from households, much more ambitious schemes than those currently implemented will be necessary to offset the underlying growth in these emissions. Finally, the results are compared with the UK government's own estimates, in its Climate Change Programme, of carbon emission reductions from such schemes to 2010. The paper concludes that the government's estimates are somewhat optimistic, and that it will need substantial new policy measures beyond those already announced if its carbon reduction targets in this area are to be met. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CHILDREN AS PARTNERS IN NEIGHBORHOOD PLACEMAKING: LESSONS FROM INTERGENERATIONAL DESIGN CHARRETTES

This paper investigates how children can be engaged as active participants in neighborhood placemaking through the use of a design charrette, an intensive, hands-on workshop in which designers and citizens collaborate to solve a community design problem. The charrette methodology has been reconceptualized through the lens of new theoretical perspectives on children, social justice, and spatiality to encompass intergene- rational, interskill, and inter-institutional participation. A formative evaluation of two design charrettes provides lessons on the benefits of and barriers to bringing 4th–5th and 9th–12th graders into a partnership with university students, design professionals, and community constituents. Benefits to younger participants included indications of social and environmental awareness, evidence of environmental competence, and opportunities to influence public decision-making. Barriers included the difficulties all parties experienced in taking new social roles, realizing new learning modes (including the design process), and overcoming institutional hierarchies. A six-level scaffold of interdependent adult and institutional support is proposed to facilitate children's neighborhood placemaking.