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The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of the state of knowledge of students and faculty on the Michigan State University (MSU) campus; identify relevant gaps in knowledge and misconceptions about recycling; and provide recommendations regarding how these gaps and misconceptions may be addressed through education and outreach.

Using mental models analysis, the current state of knowledge possessed by students and faculty was compared with a comprehensive inventory of on‐campus recycling procedures and opportunities.

By combining data from individual mental models elicited from students and faculty members, an overall mental model that depicted the frequency with which subjects understood MSU‐specific recycling concepts was developed. This composite model, and the accompanying statistical analysis, revealed important gaps – on part of both students and faculty – in understanding for several key recycling concepts that are relevant to established campus‐based waste reduction practices.

The mental models approach, which to the authors' knowledge has yet to be applied to campus sustainability initiatives, provides program managers and outreach specialists with a constructive and transparent opportunity to develop and deploy program information that builds on existing knowledge while also meeting the new information needs of key stakeholders.

Michigan State University developed an undergraduate, academic specialization in sustainability based on the learning paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to share initial findings on assessment of systems thinking competency.

The 15‐week course served 14 mostly third and fourth‐year students. Assessment of learning arose through one short answer exam, one interactive small group dialogue exam, homework assignments, completion of an online community engagement tutorial, and completion of a final reflective project (either in a group or individual).

The range of assessments enabled the authors to provide “frequent and ongoing feedback,” “a long time horizon for learning,” and “stable communities of practice.” Students had multiple opportunities to demonstrate their learning progress in a variety of forms and contexts across multiple intelligences.

Despite attempts to actively promote the kind of frequent and authentic assessment advocated in the literature, the authors' results suggest the need for a consistent and valid assessment measure with an agreed upon rubric and stable assessment across multiple reviewers.

The authors recommend that the proper activities and rubrics exist to match a program's competencies before implementing the approach.

The examples described in the paper provide some concrete assignments and approaches linked to the pedagogy of teaching and learning amenable to many other educational institutions in support of the UN Education for Sustainable Development effort.

The authors' approach provides a unique attempt at implementing and assessing a competency‐based approach to implementing the learning paradigm to foster sustainability systems thinking.

January: Special couriers are des‐patched from the Central Office of Information with the Folio edition of the Works of George Orwell. Book Marketing Council special promotion for National Book Sale is 101 answers to 1001 questions (Guinless Superlatives). Management buy‐out of British National Bibliography is followed by an agreed takeover of The Standard Book Numbering Agency Ltd. Avon County equips mobile libraries with CB radio. Aslib Marketing Group buys European rights in new personal computer for information managers, the Avocado. In a draughty ceremony at Walton Corner, Maurice Line is given the freedom of Thorp Arch Industrial Estate, and invested with a Gannex raincoat. Task Force to consider LA insignia merchandising operation meets at offices of Touche Ross. Unusual weather conditions at Heathrow delay departure of Royal Party for Trinidad and Tobago.

The purpose of this paper was to document the food-related environmental beliefs and behaviours of undergraduate university students. More specifically, this research was focussed on determining if environmental sustainability is a consideration in students’ food choices, identifying the specific choices and behaviours adopted to reduce their food-related environmental footprint, and documenting the role of gender and pro-environmental values in these food-related environmental beliefs and behaviours.

This research employed a mixed methods approach, i.e. focus group discussions and a survey, to document the food-related environmental beliefs and behaviours of undergraduate university students. The survey was informed by the results of the focus group discussions, and included standard measures of pro-environmental values and worldview.

Results from focus group discussions revealed a broad array of beliefs and behaviours related to the connection between food, food production and the environment. The survey confirmed these results, but indicated a preference for such actions as recycling and reducing food waste in contrast to such alternatives as reducing meat consumption or avoiding processed foods. These results suggest that educational campaigns could focus on strengthening beliefs about the food-environment connection, as well as help to empower students to take a greater variety of actions to reduce their food-related environmental footprint.

Relatively little attention has been focussed on individual beliefs and practices with respect to achieving more sustainable food consumption, particularly on university and college campuses. The research also represents a departure from previous work in that it utilizes both qualitative and quantitative methods, and takes a broad approach to the food-environment connection.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how consumers perceive, experience and engage with the art of filmmaking and the industrial film production process that the film studios present to them during their guided film studio tours.

Drawing on the author’s own film tourist experiences, observations and participatory interactions with fellow visitors at a major Hollywood film studio, this paper takes an autoethnographic “I’m-the-camera”-perspective and a hermeneutic data analysis approach.

The findings reveal that visitors experience the “authentic” representation of the working studio’s industrial film production process as an opportunity and “invitation to join” a broader filmmaker community and to share their own amateur filmmaking experiences with fellow visitors and professionals – just to discover eventually that the perceived community is actually the real “simulacrum”.

Although using an autoethnographic approach means that the breadth of collected data is limited, the gain in depth of insights allows for a deeper understanding of the actual visitor experience.

The findings encourage film studio executives, managers and talent agents to reconsider current practices and motivations in delivering film studio tours and to explore avenues for harnessing their strategic potential.

Contrary to previous studies that have conceptualised film studio tours as simulacra that deny consumers a genuine access to the backstage, the findings of this study suggest that the real simulacrum is actually the film tourists’ “experienced feeling” of having joined and being part of a filmmaker community, which raises question regarding the study of virtual communities.

This paper aims to address a central concern in modeling and simulating electric grids and the information infrastructure that monitors and controls them. The paper discusses the need for and methods to construct simulation models that include important interactions between the physical and computational elements of a large power system.

The paper offers a particular approach to modeling and simulation of hybrid systems as an enabling technology for analysis (via simulation) of modern electric power grids. The approach, based on the discrete event system specification, integrates existing simulation tools into a unified simulation scheme. The paper demonstrates this approach with an integrated information and electric grid model of a distributed, automatic frequency maintenance activity.

Power grid modernization efforts need powerful modeling and simulation tools for hybrid systems.

The main limitation of this approach is a lack of advanced simulation tools that support it. Existing commercial offerings are not designed to support integration with other simulation software products. The approach to integrating continuous and discrete event simulation models can overcome this problem by allowing specific tools to focus on continuous or discrete event dynamics. This will require, however, adjustments to the underlying simulation technology.

This paper demonstrates an approach to simulating complex hybrid systems that can, in principle, be supported by existing simulation tools. It also indicates how existing tools must be modified to support our approach.

The use of dialogues within and across organizations is on the rise. This increase is a tacit acknowledgement of the relational foundations from which new meaning is created and social innovations emerge. However, coming together for a dialogue doesn’t assure constructive conversation or transformative engagement. Dialogue participants, even when they are asked to “suspend assumptions,” are generally still embedded in the mental models and familiar frameworks that distance them from one another and prevent real generativity and novelty.

This paper proposes Appreciative Inquiry as an approach particularly conducive to creating public dialogues that are generative and transformative. It suggests that a community is best served by inquiry into strengths, assets and past successes. It further proposes that this mode of inquiry tends to produce positive emotional states, which expand the resources and pro-social inclinations of those in the dialogue. It offers five conditions that support generative and transformative public dialogue and explains how Appreciative Inquiry creates these conditions.