Insights from the Learning Sciences

By Jason van Tol|2024-04-15T20:29:32+00:002024-02-15|Education, Science|

Insights from the Learning Sciences

I recently came across an interdisciplinary field called the Learning Sciences. I would have expected to be exposed to the Learning Sciences in my teacher preparation studies, but this was unfortunately not true. And although I haven’t looked into it, I expect this is probably true for most pre-service teacher programs. I had been on the lookout for this slant on research for a long time, which, as the name suggests, examines how people learn.

The Learning Sciences (LS) is plural because it makes use of many different sciences: psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, and […]

What is the Capitalocene?

By Jason van Tol|2024-04-15T20:30:18+00:002024-02-13|Economics, History, Politics, Science|

What is the Capitalocene?

This piece was one I was preparing for The Conversation but was eventually rejected by the editor as not being fit for purpose. While this was disappointing to me, I figured I might as well post it here rather than letting it rot on my hard drive. What follows was the latest edit:

The word “Capitalocene” was coined in 2009 by Swedish professor of human ecology Andreas Malm, and is slowly becoming more widely used.

The word comes from ‘Capital’, as in capitalism, and ‘-ocene’, which refers to a measure of geological time, […]

What is the Anthropocene?

By Jason van Tol|2024-02-13T23:20:22+00:002023-06-05|History, Science|

What is the Anthropocene?

I started out writing a blog called ‘What is the Capitalocene?’, to help disseminate a paper that I wrote, and recently had accepted for publication, called ‘Education and Full Employment in the Capitalocene‘. However, I decided to split off the science-based part of the blog here, so as to keep the length more manageable.

Recently I was discussing the ecological crisis (e.g. biodiversity decline, climate change, etc.) with a senior class, and asked them what they thought was the cause of the problem. A girl in the back called out:

‘Us!’

This answer is precisely the view […]

On Time

By Jayveetee|2023-12-14T23:46:57+00:002018-09-26|Creative Writing, Education, Science|

On Time

Regardless of the object of study, learning takes time. Some lessons might take only a few minutes, others may take a lifetime. In the latter case, one may decide the object of study is not worth pursuing.

When I was in high school I was fascinated by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and, in those pre-Internet days, read as much as I could on the subject in the few books available. Although special relativity (which deals exclusively with inertial frames of reference, or those which are non-accelerating) can be studied by anyone with high school mathematics, general relativity (that dealing […]

Physical Sciences

By Jayveetee|2023-03-22T03:43:04+00:002018-07-21|

Physical Sciences

Environmental Science

This is part of a year 10 program I designed for environmental science, with a focus on ecological sustainability and its conflict with economic growth, stemming directly from my doctoral research project. It addresses the NSW Stage 5 Science syllabus outcome ES3c: “evaluate scientific evidence of some current issues affecting society that are the result of human activity on global systems, eg the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, effect of climate change on sea levels, long-term effects of waste management and loss of biodiversity.”

The preceding part of the program addresses ‘natural’ (i.e. human-devoid) […]

February 2024