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The nonhuman world is under substantial threat from human activities and economies. Rewilding gardens and community action can build relationships of care with the nonhuman, restore habitat, connect people and land, and empower humans to work with and for the nonhuman. Stories about family relationships to land and through land, and creating a wild garden are used to explore place attachment, creating relationships of care through gardening, and purposeful rewilding of a garden; stories about participation in a community service organization examine how collective action can take rewilding ideas out into the larger community. By consciously creating care for the nonhuman and participating in rewilding, we can actively build ecological paths forward for ourselves and our nonhuman neighbors.

The nature-based solutions (NBS) integrated in urban open spaces are a precious tool that provide better and wider ecosystem services in cities. An ecosystemic approach in planning, designing, and also managing green areas furthermore helps to improve the whole quality of life and perceived well-being of the citizens, increasing too their sense of belonging and fostering the neighboring communities. Under this point of view, greenery should not be considered as a cost but as an investment of public money finalized to improve the quality of life in the cities especially in facing climate change.

A comparison between costs and benefits produced by the green features in the cities allows to evaluate the advantages to include those solutions in planning and designing urban green areas. In the following chapter a step-by-step procedure is proposed to assess the ecosystem services provided by green areas in cities, compared to design, building, and maintenance costs. Some national and international examples are provided too.

This essay provides evidence that the invention of agriculture was not a dramatic technological advance in the history of humankind and that agriculture was quite consistent with nomadic hunting and gathering. The available clues also suggest that exact origins of agriculture do not seem important. Rather, the crucial question is why certain societies dramatically increased their dependency on agriculture for subsistence two to ten millennia ago. Unfortunately, most of the major theories purporting to explain the neolithic revolution – either the origins or the spread of agriculture – are either untestable or inconsistent with the available evidence. What is at stake for economic historians is to rethink the process of the adoption of agriculture using a multi-causal approach.

Sri Lanka is an island described as a “pearl” situated between latitudes 5.55° 9.51′ N and longitude 79.41° 81.54′ E in the Indian Ocean. It has a coastline of 1,585km (Coast Conservation Department [CCD], 1986a, 1986b). From the coastline, the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extends 200 nautical miles. This is 6.7 times the country's land area, occupying 437,400km². Coastal waters extend from the continental shelf to the other limits of the EEZ. The coastal area forms a dynamic interface of land and water and is of special significance in the country's economical, ecological, and social fabric. Thus, a “coastal zone” has been defined where activities are regulated by the government (Coast Conservation Act of Sri Lanka [CCD], 1981). Sri Lanka's coastal zone is defined in the Coast Conservation Act as the area lying within a limit of 300m landward of the mean high waterline and, in the case of rivers, streams, lagoons, or any other body of water connected to the sea, either permanently or periodically, the landward boundary shall extend to a limit of 2km perpendicular to the strait baseline drawn between the natural entrance points thereof and shall include waters of such water bodies.

The importance of early and developmentally appropriate science education is increasingly recognized. Consequently, creation of common guidelines and standards in early childhood science education has begun (National Research Council (NRC), 2012), and researchers, practitioners, and policy makers have shown great interest in aligning professional development with the new guidelines and standards. There are some important issues that need to be addressed in order to successfully implement guidelines and make progress toward accomplishing standards. Early childhood teachers have expressed a lack of confidence in teaching science and nature (Torquati, Cutler, Gilkerson, & Sarver, in press) and have limited science and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) (Appleton, 2008). These are critical issues because teachers’ subject-matter knowledge is a robust predictor of student learning outcomes (Enfield & Rogers, 2009; Kennedy, 1998; Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2002) and is seen as a critical step toward improving K-12 student achievement (National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century (NCMST), 2000; NRC, 2000). We argue that the same is true of preschool teachers.

This chapter discusses: (a) theories and practices in early childhood science education (i.e., preschool through 3rd grade) in relation to teaching for conceptual change, (b) research on methods of professional development in early childhood science education, and (c) innovative approaches to integrating scientific practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas with early childhood professional development.

In this paper, we discuss methods to integrate ecological resources, ecosystem services, risk, and the transition to long-term stewardship on Department of Energy lands. Three types of information are required about ecological resources before decisions can be made about remediation, site transitions, and long-term stewardship: (1) the ecological resources and ecosystem functions (such as productivity) present on site and their spatial pattern, (2) the ecosystem services these resources provide to people, and (3) the risks from the interactions between people and these ecosystems. Once the ecological resources and ecosystem services are evaluated, then decisions about future land use, preservation, conservation, or protection of ecological resources within a designated land use can be implemented. Long-term stewardship requires both ecosystem protection in terms of biological resources and ecosystem function as well as biomonitoring to ensure minimal radiological or chemical risk and to inform future management. In some cases, protection of ecological resources may be preferable to cleanup that is physically disruptive, provided land use designation is consistent with ecological protection. In such instances, less site cleanup can prove preferable to more.

In this chapter we discuss the dynamics of convergence-divergence between organic and non-organic farming systems. We are specifically interested in how and in what ways organic systems emerge into a new system that synthesizes the diverse qualities of competing systems. Or, will these systems continue to diverge because of their path dependencies and contradictory, unresolvable logics? Alternatively, are we confronted with conversion? Following a discussion of the origin of organic agriculture and the IFOAM Principles, we explore differentiation of two agricultural paradigms that was developed more than 20 years ago before the rise of GMOs. This comparison identifies the key features of both systems and a first interpretation on the potential of convergence-divergence. Third, we take a macro-look at agro-food chain that offers insights on the convergence-divergence potential in the context of global, economic, market, political, and societal dynamics. Fourth, we discuss convergence-divergence at the production level comparing the four agricultural systems. Finally, we reflect and assess on the explanatory potential of our study for the future development of organic and non-organic agriculture/farming. We conclude that there is more evidence for conversion than for convergence.

The urban–wildland interface (UWI) poses a series of challenges to both rural and urban communities in the United States. Some efforts have been developed to promote the use of fire-resistant building materials and creation of defensible space; few comprehensive laws address the threat of external ignitions on structures. Most problems associated with the private side of the UWI are centered on land planning methods. Communities and counties must be encouraged to take more active roles in wildfire protection and this will require a fundamentally new method of land planning and review authority. Without substantial changes in land planning, we will continue to experience large losses of structures and life in the UWI.