Culture, Civilization, Societal Institutions (Mod 1)

Precise mapping, spatial structure and classification of all the human settlements on Earth
Emanuele Strano, Filippo Simini, Marco De Nadai, Thomas Esch, Mattia Marconcini

Human settlements (HSs) on Earth have a direct impact on all natural and societal systems but detailed and quantitative measurements of the locations and spatial structures of all HSs on Earth are still under debate. We provide here the World Settlement Footprint 2015, an unprecedented 10 m resolution global spatial inventory of HSs and a precise quantitative analysis and spatial model of their coverage, geography and morphology. HSs are estimated to cover 1.47% of the habitable global dry-land surface and can be classified, by means of their deviation from scaling structure, into four main pattern typologies. A minimal spatial model, based on dynamic interactions between dispersal and centralized urbanization, is able to reproduce all the settlement patterns across regions. Our dataset and settlement model can be used to improve the modelling of global land use changes and human land use cycles and interactions and can ultimately advance our understanding of global anthropization processes and human-induced environmental changes.

Then the pandemic hit, and along with it, the enforced work-from-home orders, and Haynie began questioning his figures. A survey he conducted a month in revealed that roughly half of the company’s 27 Austin employees would be perfectly happy to continue working from home. Maybe Pinpoint could get by with 3,000 or 5,000 square feet — less than half the amount of space he’d thought he needed — foregoing desks for basically a conference room and a little collaborative working space. And maybe, given that fewer employees might need to commute regularly or during rush hour, it could be in a neighborhood far cheaper than the Domain, the hot tech cluster where Facebook and Amazon also have offices. “It’s not something I was even thinking about six weeks ago, but it’s definitely something I’ve been talking about now with my investors,” Haynie says. “Overall it’s a win-win.”

An expedition in the jungles of Central America uses advanced technology to search for the remains of an ancient civilization

Why do we need STEAM?

STEAM incorporates the benefits of STEM in and through the arts to give a more complete, well-rounded education. Although some feel this distinction is unnecessary because regular STEM incorporates creativity, leaders of the STEAM movement feel that the arts provides a critical missing piece to STEM education that then prepares students to not only understand science, technology, engineering, and math but know how to apply principles from each of these disciplines to creatively solve problems. Here's how educationalist Sir Ken Robinson discusses STEAM in his TedTalk.

While the STEAM movement is still relatively new, it's gaining "steam." In fact, the revered children's education program Sesame Street has added STEAM to its program. Problem-solvers in the future will have to look beyond what first feels like a limitation and approach challenges with inquiry, wonder, and innovation. These are skills that the arts exercise.

In order to create a successful STEAM program, it is essential that the arts are included in STEM in an authentic way. It’s not about adding creativity to STEM, but rather to apply art in real-world situations. For example, if students had an assignment to create a product as a STEM project, incorporating arts in an authentic way would be to improve the appearance or design of the product using principles of industrial design.

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://www.scoop.it/topic/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=STEAM

Habermas, building on the work of his teacher Adorno and Marx, critiqued capitalism and was firmly in favour of equality and democracy. We see here a neutered from of Marxism that looks for ideological causes of oppression in capitalism and a philosophy of action to bring about change, albeit in the context of social democracy. 

The coworking and flexible work space trend, essentially a post-Great Recession phenomenon, continues to bloom and grow. According to Colliers International, coworking is one of the few expanding office demand sources. And there’s plenty of room for it to run. Even with all its growth over the past decade, flexible office space still comprises just a fraction–less than 2%—of all office space in primary office markets, Colliers reports.

When it comes to prognosticating about the future of coworking and flexible office space, one of the best-informed sources is the Instant Group. The company maintains the largest data set focused on the coworking and flexible office market, and incorporates company insights based on managing offices across the globe.

The last decade witnessed the meteoric rise of online learning. The next decade will be about edtech that expands connections.

Today, employees spend around 10–20% of their time on mundane, repetitive tasks that can be easily automated. With Robotic Process Automation (RPA), businesses can offload these cumbersome tasks to their Digital Workforce, giving human workers more time for productivity and innovation.

According to Forbes, automation can save employees up to six to nine weeks of effort each year, saving businesses four million dollars annually. This recovered time can be reinvested into career development and personal growth opportunities, making work more human.

Read this whitepaper, sponsored by Automation Anywhere, to find out:

Remote work is here to stay. A new set of tools, rules, norms, and culture have arrived. Are you ready?

After two decades of education debates that produced deep passions and deeper divisions, we have a chance for a fresh start. A growing movement dedicated to the social, emotional, and academic well-being of children is reshaping learning and changing lives across America. On the strength of its remarkable consensus, a nation at risk is finally a nation at hope.

Familiar arguments over national standards and the definition of accountability are not as relevant as they once were. The federal Every Student Succeeds Act passed in 2015 devolved a great deal of authority and power to states and communities—placing the future of education more directly in the hands of parents, teachers, and school leaders. This presents an obligation and an opportunity.

Devolution creates an obligation on the part of adults to use their influence in creative, effective ways to serve every student. Local control is not a release from rigor and responsibility; it is the broader distribution of responsibility. This sense of obligation should extend to all of the adults who constitute a child’s whole universe.

Devolution also creates a tremendous opportunity to get beyond the rutted debates of the last generation and to seek solutions that are both hopeful and unifying.

We began with the simple intention of listening—really listening—to young people, parents, teachers, school and district leaders, community leaders, and other experts. This document, in many ways, is a report from the nation. What we heard is profoundly hopeful. There is a striking confluence of experience and science on one point: Children learn best when we treat them as human beings, with social and emotional as well as academic needs. As one teacher put it, “I don’t teach math; I teach kids math.” To reach a child’s mind, we must be concerned for the whole person.

More specifically, children require a broad array of skills, attitudes, and values to succeed in school, careers, and in life. They require skills such as paying attention, setting goals, collaboration, and planning for the future. They require attitudes such as internal motivation, perseverance, and a sense of purpose. They require values such as responsibility, honesty, and integrity. They require the abilities to think critically, consider different views, and problem solve. And these social, emotional, and academic capacities are increasingly demanded in the American workplace, which puts a premium on the ability to work in diverse teams, to grapple with difficult problems, and to adjust to rapid change.

Helping children to learn these traits and skills may sound ambitious. But it is—and has always been—central to the educational enterprise. It is the reason that education begins with concerned and involved parents, who provide emotional support and set high expectations. It is the reason that community institutions that mentor children and encourage self-respect are essential allies of parents and schools. It is the reason that good teachers can change lives, helping students find unsuspected gifts and inner purpose. And it is the reason that everyone involved in education shares an amazing calling: to foster in children the knowledge, skills, and character that enable children to make better lives in a better country.

This calling is an honor, but not an elective. Since all education involves social, emotional, and academic learning, we have but two choices: We can either ignore that fact and accept disappointing results, or address these needs intentionally and well.

The promotion of social, emotional, and academic learning is not a shifting educational fad; it is the substance of education itself.
The promotion of social, emotional, and academic learning is not a shifting educational fad; it is the substance of education itself. It is not a distraction from the “real work” of math and English instruction; it is how instruction can succeed. And it is not another reason for political polarization. It brings together a traditionally conservative emphasis on local control and on the character of all students, and a historically progressive emphasis on the creative and challenging art of teaching and the social and emotional needs of all students, especially those who have experienced the greatest challenges.

In fact, the basis of this approach is not ideological at all. It is rooted in the experience of teachers, parents, and students supported by the best educational research of the past few decades. More than nine in 10 teachers and parents believe that social and emotional learning is important to education.1 At least two-thirds of current and recent high school students think similarly.2 As one student said, “Success in school should not be defined just by our test scores … but also by the ability to think for ourselves, work with others, and contribute to our communities.”

Solving a Rubik’s Cube tests key mind skills – memory and visual thinking and sometimes challenges in life can be overcome.

“Charter” schools? Uniforms? STEM? Endless testing? Sitting for hours in windowless, airless rooms? (Training for corporate dronedom)? Armed police in schools? Overpriced, diabetes inducing junk food in school vending machines? Highly processed slop being dished out as “lunch?” Teachers paid a pittance for taking care of your idiot child all day? Deteriorating buildings and equipment? Overcrowded classrooms; often in trailers? Overpriced, highly biased textbooks? Making families pay for recreational or arts programs? 

Gee, I wonder why kids don’t want to go to school?

Many workplace and higher education experts agree. We talked to six professionals whose work involves predicting the nature of education and upskilling in 2040 and what the workforce is likely to demand from employees. They all shared the consensus that change is the only certainty. Workers, employers, and education providers alike need to be agile, flexible, and prepared to adapt as technology continues to disrupt industries and change what jobs will and will not be available. Here’s what else they had to say:

I imagine a future in which AI and robotics will allow us to find answers and accomplish tasks quickly and easily, simply by stating our desires.

It’s happening. We’re there. We’ve reached the tipping point and we think we’re going to look back and say that this was the moment when things started to change. Remote work is going mainstream. For some, this is welcome news, for others this is troubling. No matter which side of the equation you’re on, we believe most companies aren’t well prepared to effectively harness remote talent. We couldn’t be more excited to be launching Telescoped with a vision to impact the biggest change in how we work since the industrial revolution.