Humanities

• Amplifying humanistic scholarship through initiatives such as the ACLS Open Books Prizes helps cultivate a twenty-first-century ecosystem in which humanistic publications can thrive.
• Sign up to receive additional information about the ACLS Open Access Book Prize and Arcadia Open Access Publishing Award.
• Formed a century ago, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is a nonprofit federation of 80 scholarly organizations.
• Arcadia is a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge.

• Whatever the reason, many high school teachers say something significant happens to school engagement levels around Year 9.
• Read more:
  20% of Australian students don't finish high school: non-mainstream schools have a lot to teach us about helping kids stay

Lost, disengaged and ‘in never-never land’

• One Year 9 teacher told me students at this age see themselves
  as that in-between stage.
• What if I’m neither?’ Students at this age often strongly feel they no longer fit in.
• Year 9 teachers described this year to me as “the lost year”, where students often drift off to “never-never land”.
• This suggests an opportunity for schools to design their Year 9 curriculum to help these students see the relevance of school.

Specialist Year 9 programs

• Some schools have implemented specialist programs for Year 9.
• Some have large-scale residential programs, where students live and learn away from home for extended periods.
• Other programs focus on students learning about and through their local communities.
• Other programs are conducted entirely offsite over the course of a term.

A different approach

• In the Renewal program, the careers unit and mock job interviews are done at the start of the year to support students to get part-time employment.
• Students are given more agency than a traditional approach would allow.
• School work might be done, for example, via essay-writing, painting, drawing, in the form of a radio interview or other formats.
• The kids have more opportunity in regards to choosing their own destination […] to be able to find their own learning.

Resonating with students’ lives

• The success of Year 9 programs hinges on a tailored curriculum that resonates with students’ lives, taught by teachers dedicated to fostering strong connections.
• Read more:
  'I would like to go to university': flexi school students share their goals in Australia-first survey

Josh Ambrosy is on the board of Outdoors Victoria, the state not-for-profit peak body. He runs professional development sessions related to Year 9 programs and other middle years curricula.

• Most of them grow from southern Oregon down into northern California, snugged up against the rugged Pacific coast.
• Redwoods, like all trees, are engineered marvels.
• They even have two kinds of leaves that help the trees adapt to both wet and dry conditions.
• Researchers and horticulturists at the botanical gardens are thinking about trees, and how to integrate them into larger landscapes, in new ways.

Redwood communities

• A structure or building typically is a sort of island unto itself, separate from its neighbors; in contrast, the coast redwood is an ecosystem with enormously broad consequences for other life forms.
• Some of these life forms rely on the tree; others on occupants in and around the tree.
• The coast redwood hosts so many different ecological interactions that it’s faintly ridiculous.
• Nestled into extensive mats of ferns that grow high up in redwood canopies, researchers find aquatic crustaceans called copepods that normally would live in larger bodies of water.

Enduring but not static

• Even species as enduring as coast redwoods are affected by climate change.
• New fire dangers put them at risk, and more frequent floods erode the big trees’ footing.
• Since these trees are so networked and interconnected, the sum is greater than its parts and isn’t easy to quantify.

New territory

• I’ve resisted giving names to this duo, although many giant redwoods have monikers like Adventure, Brutus, Nugget, Paradox and Atlas – most named by the scientists who first quantified their extreme heights.
• The redwoods outside my window are perhaps 100 feet tall – puny by comparison to their northern brethren.

Daniel Lewis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• The university found that for students, the digital twin helped them familiarize with the space and ease apprehension.
• "This scan and quiz has been invaluable," said Alexander Gagatsis, Director of Performance at the Department of Music, University of Manchester.
• “It’s been incredible to hear the positive feedback from both faculty and students about the convenience and accessibility Matterport has provided to the Martin Harris Centre,” said Natalie Lamb, Managing Director, International, Matterport.
• To learn more about how the University of Manchester is applying digital twins to its curriculum, you can read the full case study , or access the MHC Virtual Induction here .