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This study presents thermal comfort and relevant parameters for kindergarten children in naturally ventilated classrooms in Seoul, Korea. The dry-bulb temperature, relative humidity, the airflow velocity, and the globe temperature were measured at 10 randomly selected kindergartens from April to June, 2013, and a survey was conducted three times a day for 119 kindergarten children (age: 4–6) to investigate their thermal comfort, clothing insulation, and metabolism. The effects of these...

We use recent panel data on Tanzanian farm households to investigate how previous exposure to weather shocks affects the impact of a current shock. Specifically, we investigate the impact of droughts on agricultural outcomes and investments in children's health, measured by their short- and long-term nutritional status. As expected, we find that droughts negatively impact yields, and more so the more severe the drought is. We also find suggestive evidence that the more shocks a household has...

The study investigated the awareness and sources of climate change information among the secondary school students in Nairobi County. The objectives of the study were to find out whether students and teachers are aware of climate change and their sources of information on climate change. It also investigated the extent to which climate change information has been covered in the integrated environmental education. The study applied the descriptive survey design. The target population...

A predictive models were developed to determine the thermal comfort level for the academic classroom by using artificial neural networks (ANNs). The paper reports experimental and theoretical analysis on a problem of achieving a desired thermal comfort level. The proposed method focused on the classical artificial (feed forward) neural networks (ANN) and the time-series NARX feedback neural networks to achieve the thermal comfort assessed using the predicted mean vote (PMV). The field...

Existing studies report on secondary school students’ misconceptions related to climate change; they also report on the methods of teaching as reinforcing misconceptions. This quasi-experimental study was designed to test the null hypothesis that a curriculum based on constructivist principles does not lead to greater understanding and fewer misconceptions on acid rain, global warming, greenhouse effect, and ozone layer depletion than the traditional Malaysian curriculum. For this purpose,...

Climate change science is part of the Australian National Curriculum. Understanding current perceptions of climate change among pre-service teachers and the Australian public is important for designing effective teacher training on climate change communication. This study employed a survey to examine self-reported knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards climate change among adults (n=1240) and pre-service teachers (n=156) in regional Australia. Results highlight knowledge and understanding...

The paper describes the application of a combined neuro-fuzzy model for indoor temperature dynamic and automatic regulation. The neural module of the model, an auto-regressive neural network with external inputs (NNARX), produces indoor temperature forecasts that are used to feed a fuzzy logic control unit that simulates switching the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system on and off and regulating the inlet air speed. To generate an indoor temperature forecast, the NNARX...

A thermal comfort field survey is carried out inside a naturally ventilated laboratory in the tropical climatic region of India. The building chosen is used for courses in an undergraduate engineering curriculum. We aimed at assessing how the occupants perceive their thermal environment in a free running building while carrying out their normally scheduled tasks. A total of 121 acclimatized subjects were interviewed and 338 responses were collected during the months of spring semester....

Human migration attributable to climate events has recently received significant attention from the academic and policy communities (1-2). Quantitative evidence on the relationship between individual, permanent migration and natural disasters is limited (3-9). A 21-year longitudinal survey conducted in rural Pakistan (1991-2012) provides a unique opportunity to understand the relationship between weather and long-term migration. We link individual-level information from this survey to...

Aims: In February and March 2014, more than 300,000 households were affected by water rationing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and the surrounding State of Selangor. Further south, reservoir levels in Singapore were dropping, prompting the government to raise the water conservation rhetoric, but falling short of implementing water rationing schemes. The region experienced a dry spell that was unprecedented in the last 30 years. Preparedness for storms has been the talk of the town since the 2001,...

Education has been acknowledged as the most important factor in sustainable national development. Also, teacher education is a principal factor in the education endeavour. Thus, the importance of quality in teacher education is well recognized in Nigeria as in all education communities all over the world. The Nigerian national Policy on Education affirms that no education system can rise above the quality of its teachers (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2004). With the coming into existence of...

Since the inception of higher education (HE) over one hundred years ago, its purpose has been to cater for the religious and social leaders who will be competent enough to run the country. Paradigm shifting in HE has made society realise that every profession demands competent professionals to provide balanced development across all educational sectors in order to see national development progress. As a result, universities now provide a wide range of training and education in the arts,...

Climate change as a new reality is the latest challenge to sustainable human development.  The scientific evidence is clear: climate change is likely to have negative impacts on efforts to achieve Nigeria’s development objectives, including the targets set out in Nigeria Vision 20:2020 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  The paper tries to look at financial accounting as an indispensible part of every human endeavour which curriculum development in this climate change era should be...

The study was carried out to identify content areas of climate change for integration into the senior secondary school agricultural science curriculum in countries such as Nigeria. Two research questions were developed and answered by the study while two null hypotheses were formulated and tested. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study was 441 while the sample was 249. A 34-item structured questionnaire was developed for data collection....

The study was carried out to identify content areas of climate change for integration into the senior secondary school agricultural science curriculum in countries such as Nigeria. Two research questions were developed and answered by the study while two null hypotheses were formulated and tested. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study was 441 while the sample was 249. A 34-item structured questionnaire was developed for data collection....