Youth opinions matter: retaining human capital in Coos County

As Coos County youth age, their attachment to their communities may deteriorate. This brief presents new data from the Coos Youth Study. This research indicates efforts to keep young people in Coos may benefit from efforts to show students that their views matter to adults in their communities

Northern New Hampshire Youth in a Changing Rural Economy: A Ten-Year Perspective

The Coös Youth Study was a ten-year research project about growing up in a rural county undergoing transformative economic and demographic changes. The study addressed how these changes affected youths’ well-being as well as their plans to stay in the region, pursue opportunities elsewhere, permanently relocate, or return to their home communities with new skills and new ideas. In this report, the authors describe their findings and point to specific areas for action to support and retain North Country youth. The study was sponsored by the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation as one component of the long-term research collaboration Tracking Change in the North Country

Fortalecimiento de los procesos de aprovechamiento de residuos sólidos urbanos, desde perspectivas operativas, administrativas, legales y económicas en la zona urbana del municipio de Pereira, tomando como estudio de caso la Cooperativa Multiactiva Paz y Futuro

La optimización de los procesos operativos de la actividad de Aprovechamiento realizada por los Recicladores basándose en instrumentos de la Investigación Operativa que permitan establecer unas metas operativas y económicas, así como la consolidación de una estructura organizacional que los agrupe y los represente para la defensa de sus derechos como sector integral del Sistema Productivo, se constituyen como elementos fundamentales para la inclusión de los recicladores en la formulación y ejecución de los Planes de Gestión integral de Residuos Sólidos Municipales y por esta vía, como agentes transformadores en los cambios que en la actualidad se están dando en el marco de las nuevas acciones en materia de manejo de residuos sólidos. Tal es el caso de los recicladores que hacen parte de COOPAZFU quienes, junto a los demás recicladores de Pereira deben integrar el nuevo modelo para la prestación del Servicio Público de Aseo en la Ciudad enmarcado en la Estrategia Global Basura Cero

Perceived Community Cohesion and the Stress Process in Youth

Using survey data from two youth samples, one rural and one urban, we examine the role and significance of perceived community cohesion in the stress process. In particular, we assess the extent to which community attachment and detachment are related to depressed mood, problem substance use, and delinquency net of social statuses, stress exposure, and personal attributes. In addition, we explore the degree to which those dimensions of community cohesion explain or condition the links between the above stress-process components (e.g., social statuses, stress exposure, and personal attributes) and well-being. We find remarkably similar results across samples: community attachment is related to lower odds of problem substance use and delinquency; community detachment is related to higher levels of depressed mood, problem substance use, and delinquency; and community attachment buffers the link between stress and problem substance use. With respect to depressed mood, however, the rural youth show greater vulnerability to stress than the urban youth and unique benefits from community attachment compared to the latter. Our findings highlight the roles of community attachment and detachment in the stress process and underscore the importance of each for youth well-being in rural and urban settings

Perspectivas de aplicación del compostaje de biorresiduos provenientes de residuos sólidos municipales. Un enfoque desde lo global a lo local

De los residuos sólidos municipales (RSM), los biorresiduos son la fracción másalta y de mayor potencial de contaminación; el compostaje permite disminuir el impacto ocasionado por su manejo y contribuye con la sostenibilidad de la producción agrícola. Aspectos como el alto grado de contaminación de la materia prima, el uso de tecnologías inadecuadas, mínimas actividades operativas y de control del proceso, baja calidad del producto y la poca comercialización y mercadeo del mismo, han limitado la implementación del compostaje en mayor escala en países en desarrollo como Colombia. En este artículo se plantea una reflexión sobre las perspectivas de aplicación del compostaje en Colombia y se proponen estrategias como la separación en la fuente y recolección selectiva, el posicionamiento del aprovechamientode biorresiduos en el marco político y normativo, la investigación aplicada sobreciencia e ingeniería del compostaje, la capacitación profesional, técnica y operativa,y el establecimiento de alternativas para impulsar el producto

Simple guide to starting a research group

Conducting cutting-edge research and scholarship becomes more complicated with each passing year; forming a collaborative research group offers a way to navigate this increasing complexity. Yet many individuals whose work might benefit from the formation of a collaborative team may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of attempting to build and maintain a research group. We propose this simple guide for starting and maintaining such an enterprise

A Longitudinal Study of Rural Youth Involvement in Outdoor Activities throughout Adolescence: Exploring Social Capital as a Factor in Community-Level Outcomes

This study examined youth participation in both organized and unstructured outdoor activities throughout adolescence, in a rural region in the northeastern United States. Survey data were collected at 7th, 8th, 10th, and 12th grade from 186 respondents across the region and was analyzed explore the relationship between antecedent predictors, outdoor activity participation, and outcomes related to developmental and educational achievement. Higher outdoor activity involvement was linked with positive outcomes but was also associated with other known predictors of development success including parents\u27 educational level, marital status, and involvement in future planning. The concept of social capital helps to explain overall patterns in the data, to broaden understanding of social dimensions of outdoor activity involvement, and to suggest directions for future research on positive youth development through outdoor activity

Participant Profiles, Antecedent Predictors, and Developmental Outcomes

Adolescents spend 40% to 50% of their waking hours in discretionary activities, representing an important context for youth development (Verma & Larson, 2003). Structured and unstructured outdoor activities have been acknowledged as especially promising venues for positive youth development (PYD, Mainella, Agate & Clark, 2010; Sibthorp, 2010). In the youth development and activity literature, however, outdoor activities often are undifferentiated from other options, with researchers emphasizing more generic characteristics such as adult supervision, program structure, and skill-building opportunities (see Mahoney, Larson, & Eccles, 2005). Conversely, many outdoor education scholars highlight the distinctiveness of outdoor programs, yet research designs are frequently limited to brief time periods or relatively specialized interventions; clear links between outdoor activity involvement over time and the achievement of key long-term developmental tasks are comparatively under researched