In the 1940s, 50s and 60s the two youth movements of the beats and the hippies emerged in the United States. Disagreeing with the progressive positivism of the previous generations these youths were part of a counter culture that adhered to an ideal of living in the present.Alan Wilson Watts (1915?1973), most known for his popularization of eastern philosophy and religion in general and Zen-Buddhism in particular, became one of the most influential and well-read advocates of the new movements. Drawing upon eastern philosophy and religion as well as modern psychology, Watts challenged the western world view by rejecting the dualism of self and environment, arguing that man is one with God and nature and claiming that nothing exists but the present experience here and now.Based on Watts? view of man and reality, and in the context of the emerging youth movements, this study examines Watts? criticism of western culture and society as well as his view on happiness and the possibility of a better life for the individual living in the west.The study shows that, according to Watts, the root of the problem facing western society lies in man?s incapability of distinguishing concept from reality, preferring abstract ideas and symbols to the experience present in everyday life.

The landscape is a great asset for Göteborg as a city and places in the landscape are much used by the public. This diploma work deals with the question of how nature in Göteborg can become more accessible and how a place in it can be supplemented with new landscape elements. It is a proposal for a new urban park at Björlanda peninsula in the western part of Hisingen, Göteborg, which today belongs to the Swedish Armed Forces and is a part of the Nature-2000 area "Nordre älvs estuarium". The reason for choosing this place is that it is the only area around the costal area in Göteborg that has not been built on and that it contains a very varied landscape. The proposal is presented as three different broschures, dated 10-20 years ahead: A map of a possible system of urban parks including a detail of such a park, Västra Hisingen (the western parts of Hisingen) The idea with a system of urban parks is to make the landscape generally more accessible and maybe open it for people that do not use it today. A broschure of the central area Välkommen, with my design proposal for an urban park at Björlanda peninsula The design aims to utilize the landscape elements water, mountains, vegetation and sky and to intensify the experience of them. A flora for Välkommen that shows a selection of plants for the design proposal.

Med en ständigt ökande stoffmängd inom gymnasieskolans biologiämne är det en nyckeluppgift för läraren att prioritera undervisningsinnehåll för att ge utrymme/möjlighet till fördjupning och progression. Styrdokumenten anger att eleverna förutom ämneskunskap av faktakaraktär även ska tillägna sig kunskap om "naturvetenskapens karaktär", Nature of science (NOS).Syftet med mitt examensarbete är att utifrån skolans praktik belysa och diskutera förutsättningarna för att använda NOS som innehållsbärande idé där NOS-aspekter utgör ett instrument (bland flera) för stoffurval. Kvalitativa intervjuer har genomförts med fem gymnasielärare i biologi rörande deras uppfattningar om och värderingar av NOS i undervisningen samt om hur de ställer sig till NOS som innehållsbärande idé. Aktuella styrdokument har analyserats med avseende på skrivningar om NOS utifrån vedertagna NOS-aspekter.Genomgången av styrdokumenten har visat att de innehåller talrika skrivningar med koppling till NOS. I intervjuerna uppgav lärarna dock att explicit NOS-undervisning förekom endast i mycket begränsad omfattning.

Abstract In order to work with historical sites, there must be an understanding of the complexity around the preservation of parks, gardens and landscapes and the approach to be used in the rebuilding and renewal. These issues are an important starting point of this essay. Historical environments give us as individuals an insight in who we are and from where we come, which is an important part of our need of identity as human beings. Without them, our roots in the past will be non-existent. The importance of this support base lies not only in the garden conservation, but also in the picture of developments, which we have through of as time mirrors of our living environment.

The following thesis is a study of the forest history on the island of Ängsön-Marskär concentrating on the last three hundred years. The island is located in the administrative province of Stockholm, the local community of Haninge and it is situated approximately seven kilometres east of the island Ornö in the south of the Stockholm archipelago. The questions this thesis attempts to answer are: How where the natural resources on Ängsön-Marskär used through the centuries? How has the state of the forests developed since the 16th century? How will the nature develop onwards? The thesis is based on archival sources for Ängsön-Marskär and the surrounding areas. A field study was conducted where the entire island was investigated using an objective forest inventory method. The first map material existing over Ängsön-Marskär is from the year 1711.

Forestry in Sweden is currently conducted in a manner aiming at equating the production objectives and the biodiversity. To ensure that biodiversity is maintained, patches that are considered to be valuable now or in the future is saved in final fellings. How the tree retention areas will grow into the future forest stands is yet unknown.The purpose of this study was to visualize how different scenarios of natural consideration taken at final felling will evolve in a long term perspective, for two rotation periods. Projections of the forest conditions were executed with the decision support system Heureka and its applications PlanStart and PlanWise. The information about the projected forests was then used for the visualizations which were created in the software Visual Nature Studio.

The hotel is located on Skatholmen in the archipelago of Stockholm, Värmdö county. The hotel building has an open structure characterized by hospitality and the nature outside. The rooms have stunning views of the island landscape and lush forest. With biodiversity and valuable nature in mind, the building has been designed with a structure that should not be too intrusive in the surrounding landscape. The building is meant to blend into the dark silhouette of the island and to give a light footprint on the topography of the landscape.The use of well-chosen materials and similar design, both in plan and facade, creates a consistent building despite the building's somewhat playful expression.

This thesis explores the narrow spaces between closely built houses in the over 300-year-old wooden town center of Mariestad, Sweden, and their potential as time capsules and sources of knowledge in cultural-historical building investigations. By interpreting well-preserved carpentry work on a facade in one of these spaces, the study aims to provide an example of how these preserved spaces can serve as a source of knowledge and understanding of craftsmanship and the history of the place. The thesis also addresses the municipality of Mariestad's work with cultural heritage, as well as maps out more of these potentially interesting interstitial spaces. Old Swedish wooden towns possess a high degree of uniqueness both nationally and internationally; nevertheless, they are subjected to relatively significant threats of demolitions and substantial changes, often in the form of many smaller restorations or changes over a long period of time. The focus of the case study is a window from the 16th or 17th century and the facade's old, hand planed wooden cladding.

The last hundred years humans have drastically changed the amount of available nitrogen in nature. Today human activities release twice as much available nitrogen as all natural processes are doing together. We also have degraded nature´s possibilities to take care of nitrogen through the draining of wetlands and straightening of rivers. In order to regain the potential of nitrogen retention in the water systems there now requires a reshape of the landscape we live in. A planned expansion of the mining activities in Garpenberg, Dalarna, would double the content of nitrogen in the waters below the mine.

The focus of this study is to identify important factors affect, how teachers' professional identity and role are shaped and changed during and after teacher training. Study's focus is to identify important factors bearing on how teachers' professional identity and role are shaped and changed during and after a teacher training. Respondents included in study are all teachers in vocational subject in upper secondary school. They also have experience from at practical profession before they began to work as teachers and started the teacher training. Method used in this study is the life stories of narrative nature.

To build a sustainable future should we first understand that; every aspect of our daily lives can affect the environment. It?s important that we take responsibility for understanding how we impact the environment and change our actions accordingly. The worlds total energy consumption equivalent to 80 million MWh / year. This corresponds to about 220 million MWh / day.Energy consumption is one of the main reasons for increased greenhouse gases when the reduction of this consumption has a great demand worldwide.In order to prevent the energy that consumed the buildings must be energy efficient but there is a conflict between radon ventilation and energy conservation in a building, given that ventilation can consume as much energy (currently 29-59% of energy-efficient houses use), especially in a cold climate as in Norway.

?Think of the best for the child? that?s a sentence we been hearing before, but the question is, do we really? Does the child get the opportunities to develop to healthy, safe, creative, mobile,concentrated, invention, curious, harmony child? Preschool outdoors is about time. On a preschool outdoors, gets the child opportunities to shape materials and the place they are on, the environment on preschool outdoors is formable and the children fantasy is big. Nothing is decided on a preschool outdoors ahead and nothing is static, here is the place where the child creates together with the nature and landscape. The landscape has a central part in the child?s play and in the child development and there are often no limits.

This plan of multiple-use is made on the private owned forestproperty Äspinge 2:2 in the middle of Skåne. The term ?multiple-use? came to Sweden in the beginning of the twentieth century and has slowly grown until about 30 years ago when the laws of Nature conservation and sustainability was written into the forest law. The so called ecoturism got more and more popular and people began to seek space and silence in difference to the life in the highly populated areas. This also encouraged foreign tourists to come to Sweden. Mostly danish, german, and dutch people.

Abstract The extraction and usage of energy give rise to immense environmental problems which helps to accelerate climate change. Energy is an important resource for the community and there are a variety of different types of energy sources available, that are either classified as renewable or non-renewable energy sources. The usage of renewable energy sources cause less environmental impact than the usage of non-renewable energy, which in turn means that the energy?s strain on the environment is strongly affected by the type of energy source used.The aim of the study is to describe to what extent attitudes towards renewable energy are affected by whether the individual is male or female, by examining the hypothesis regarding how women have a closer connection to nature and to a larger extent shows on an pro-environmentally friendly behavior than men, and if it also can be detected on issues related to renewable energy and thus imply that women have a friendlier approach towards renewable energy than men. A number of ecofeminist believe that women have a stronger bond with the nature through her embodiment as a woman and by her maternal role, which according to previous research also leads to the fact that women shows on a more extensive environmental behavior.Through a qualitative research method in the form of semi-structured interviews has three female and three male respondents been asked questions with regards to the environment, individual responsibility and energy.

This thesis puts together general guidelines for the design of outdoor environment at nursing homes for people with dementia. The goal is to give the residents a greater quality of life with the garden.The garden must be safe and secure while offering places for fellowship or retirement and experiences of joy and competence. The plant material and other elements in the garden are inserted to stimulate the senses and to inspire to different activities. The paper describes the health promoting effects of nature and gardens by referring to scientific studies. These studies encompass the impact of nature on all human beings as well as how the outdoor environment affects our target group, elderly people with dementia. An essential part of the work focus on the conditions in a garden for people with dementia, on the contact between residence and garden and the access to surrounding life. Eventually, the general guidelines are applied to a real building project ? the Vega project in Lomma,a new nursing home for persons with dementia.