It has been a concern among educators and academics that U.S. students suffer from a lack of knowledge about the world around them. This is reflected in low history scores, particularly in world history. The common explanation for this is that there is some systematic deficiency in American students, in that they either do not know the material or…

How do you stage the world? This article reviews how a series of performance installations by the theatre company Stan's Cafe have approached global space. It examines the way "Plague Nation" and "Of All the People in All the World" tackle national and global scale through the representation of populations. Drawing on a…

Colleges of agriculture in the US have been challenged to produce candidates prepared with the knowledge, skills, and disposition to engage in a global agricultural industry. Studies show that one of the most influential factors in secondary student perceptions and outlook is their secondary teachers. The adult learning theory of transformative…

Like the Roman god Janus, whose twin faces look both forward and back, "Campus Technology" ("CT") is using the new year as an opportunity to reflect on some of the biggest IT trends and issues of 2011 and predict their fate in 2012. In the turbulent world of higher ed IT, this is no easy task--yesterday's news can easily become tomorrow's snooze.…

Certain dates stand out in history--October 12, 1492; July 4, 1776; and May 8, 1945, to name a few. Will December 21, 2012, become such a date? The popular media have seized on 12/21/12 to make apocalyptical prognostications, some venturing so far as to predict the end of the world. Scholars reject such predictions. But major archeological finds…

Will African farmers watch and learn from videos featuring farmers in Bangladesh? Learning videos on rice seed management were made with rural women in Bangladesh. By using a new approach, called zooming-in, zooming-out, the videos were of regional relevance and locally appropriate. When the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) introduced them to…

Congress is currently considering updating the key legislation that governs K-12 public education--the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Noticeably missing from the current law, more commonly known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), is a comprehensive early learning agenda, which span from preschool through 3rd grade. The Obama…

During World War II, human rights violations against women took on gargantuan proportions of indescribable horror. The Japanese military engaged in the systematic abduction of women from China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and other nations and confined them to military installations in Japanese-occupied territories to serve…

In 2014, Jonathan Zimmerman published an op-ed in the "Christian Science Monitor" in which he wrote, "The last time I checked, [men] held most of the important positions of power and influence in American society. And yet, college admissions offices lower the standard for young men--effectively raising it for women--simply to make…

Discusses the relation of technology to the green revolution, the role of plant breeders in inducing change in stagnant agriculture and the tools required by production scientists to increase yields of basic food crops in developing countries. (BR)

"The Internet and the Google Age" commemorates the 25th Anniversary of the Internet in March 2014 and celebrates the achievements and benefits while also pointing out the limitations and perils of the Internet. It identifies the broad characteristics of the Internet age, and includes several studies that outline the educational benefits…

Science education scholars emphasize the significance of an integrative, interdisciplinary STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education that encourages students to learn about the natural world through exploration, inquiry, and problem-solving experiences. This article reports on a professional development program aimed at…

The United States does more than just talk; it invests a lot of money in public education. While students are the major focus of concern, teachers are a mainstay in the enterprise. In 2002, the U.S. invested $192 billion in teacher pay and benefits. More than 50% of all dollars allocated by the government for education is paid in salaries for…

We evaluate the argument that international trade influences disproportionate cross-national utilization of global renewable natural resources. Such uneven dynamics are relevant to the consideration of inequitable appropriation of environmental space in particular and processes of ecological unequal exchange more generally. Using OLS regression…

In this article, the author presents a truer picture than economic historians have previously had of the economies of Tokugawa Japan, and Britain during the Industrial Revolution. Though substantially different, both societies were prosperous compared to most of the rest of the world. Japan's economic success began in the Tokugawa period…