Incorporating “virtual” and “real world” field trips into introductory geography modules

The “field trip” is a key pedagogical tool within geographical education to encourage deep learning, though they are increasingly difficult to implement due to reduced budgets, safety concerns and increasing class sizes. We incorporated three field-learning activities into a large introductory module. A traditional staff-led trip was the most effective activity in terms of enjoyment, knowledge, and deep thinking and awareness. Self-paced field activities and video podcasts had less pedagogical value, though can still support lectures and the staff-led field trip. An integrated approach will best maximize deep learning opportunities.     

Urban Women and the Transformations of Braedpraes1 in Honiara2

In the capital city of the Solomon Islands, brideprice is often given to formalize the marriage of young couples from the island of Malaita. For the young wife, brideprice is a reminder that she is expected to work and produce children for the lineage of her husband, an obligation that is at times strongly impressed upon her by her in-laws. Data gathered in Honiara over the last 15 years, most recently in 2015–2016, show the emergence of a variety of patterns among Malaitan women living in Honiara regarding their productive and reproductive autonomy, and their role in brideprice. Beyond their diversity, what these data reveal, we argue, is that the interstitial cultural spaces created by the urbanization of social and economic relations afford young urban women the possibility of engaging with brideprice in a way that had not been possible until then. We demonstrate that, as members of an emerging new middle-class, these women seek (either in agreement with their husbands, or in spite of them) to transform the meaning of brideprice: while showing respect to their in-laws and to tradition, their goal is to gain greater control over their lives within the confines of brideprice sociality.     

The northernmost South American fossil record of Boa constrictor (Boidae,Boinae) from the Plio–Pleistocene of El Breal de Orocual (Venezuela)

Onary-Alves, S.Y., Hsiou, A.S. & Rincón, A.D., July 2016. The northernmost South American fossil record of Boa constrictor (Boidae, Boinae) from the Plio–Pleistocene of El Breal de Orocual (Venezuela). Alcheringa 41, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518.

Boa constrictor is an extant boid widely distributed through the neotropical region, from the north of Central America to central Argentina. The fossil record of the species includes examples from several localities across the Americas that extend beyond the current distribution of the species. Here we report the first Plio–Pleistocene fossils of Boa from Monagas state, Venezuela. The material comes from El Breal de Orocual (Maturín municipality), which is an inactive tar seep deposit emplaced within the Mesa Formation. The specimens consist of two isolated anterior trunk vertebrae, an articulated sequence of six mid-trunk vertebrae and two posterior trunk vertebrae. The vertebrae are attributed to B. constrictor based on the following features: robust and high vertebrae; thick zygosphene with a notched or concave anterior edge; presence of a paracotylar, subcentral and lateral foramina; marked parasagittal ridges; epizygapophyseal process evident on the dorsal surface of the postzygapophyseal articular facets and high blade-like neural spine. The presence of B. constrictor in northern of Venezuela indicates a palaeoenvironment probably like savanna crossed by rivers with riparian forests, and suggests the predominance of a mesothermal climate with a moderate rainfall.

Silvio Y. Onary-Alves [silvioyuji@gmail.com], Programa de Pós-graduação em Biologia Comparada, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Av. Bandeirantes 3900, CEP 14040901, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil; Annie S. Hsiou [anniehsiou@ffclrp.usp.br], Laboratório de Paleontologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras, Departamento de Biologia, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Av. Bandeirantes 3900, CEP 14040901, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil; Ascanio D. Rincón [paleosur1974@gmail.com], Laboratorio de Paleontología, Centro de Ecología, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas (IVIC), Carretera Panamericana Km 11, 1020-A Caracas, Venezuela.     

Dispossession 1990s style: Aborigines,islanders and the policy making process of the Goss labor government

Aboriginal and Islander people in Queensland remain unempowered in the policy making process of government. This is achieved by downgrading and under‐resourcing the relevant portfolio, by co‐locating it with welfare, by giving other departments statutory rights in decision making on indigenous issues which are not reciprocal, by relocating key indigenous policy areas into otherwise antagonistic departments, by ghettoising the issues in Cabinet and by failing to elucidate clear policy guidelines on indigenous issues. The Goss government has also ensured that indigenous people remain unempowered outside of government by failing to legislate for regional land councils, Aboriginal majority on national parks boards of management and an Aboriginal‐controlled statutory acquisitions fund and by retaining excessive discretionary power in the administration of the 1991 Land Acts.