Every day brings a fresh barrage of bewildering claims about science and technology. How non-scientists tell the difference between the hyperbole and those developments that are important? With a modest amount of critical thinking, an understanding of how science is practiced, and a qualitative understanding of the two most sacred principles in science - the first and second laws of thermodynamics - anyone can make the distinction. Critical thinking and the practice of science are not emphasized in undergraduate science courses for non-scientists, while exposure to the first and second laws is usually reserved for physical science and engineering majors. This book introduces non-scientists to these topics and provides detailed applications to a variety of topics.

Every day brings a fresh barrage of bewildering claims about science and technology. How non-scientists tell the difference between the hyperbole and those developments that are important? With a modest amount of critical thinking, an understanding of how science is practiced, and a qualitative understanding of the two most sacred principles in science — the first and second laws of thermodynamics — anyone can make the distinction. Critical thinking and the practice of science are not emphasized in undergraduate science courses for non-scientists, while exposure to the first and second laws is usually reserved for physical science and engineering majors. This book introduces non-scientists to these topics and provides detailed applications to a variety of topics.

Using the rich and vital Australian Aboriginal understanding of country as a model, People and Places of Nature and Culture affirms the importance of a sustainable relationship between nature and culture. While current thought includes the mistaken notion—perpetuated by natural history, ecology, and political economy—that humans have a mastery over the Earth, this book demonstrates the problems inherent in this view. In the current age of climate change, this is an important appraisal of the relationship between nature and culture, and a projection of what needs to change if we want to achieve environmental stability.

In this fascinating new book, Affrica Taylor encourages an exciting paradigmatic shift in the ways in which childhood and nature are conceived and pedagogically deployed, and invites readers to critically reassess the naturalist childhood discourses that are rife within popular culture and early years education. Through adopting a common worlds framework, Reconfiguring the Natures of Childhood generates a number of complex and inclusive ways of seeing and representing the early years. It recasts childhood as: messy and implicated rather than pure and innocent; situated and differentiated rather than decontextualized and universal; entangled within real world relations rather than protected in a separate space. Throughout the book, the author follows an intelligent and innovative line of thought which challenges many pre-existing ideas about childhood. Drawing upon cross-disciplinary perspectives, and with international relevance, this book makes an important contribution to the field of childhood studies and early childhood education, and will be a valuable resource for scholars, postgraduate students and higher education teachers.