Meeting the Needs of Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders During the COVID-19 School Closures

The COVID-19 global pandemic left many educators making an emergency transition to remote instruction when schools were initially closed. Although this transition was likely difficult for most students, it may have been particularly difficult for students with emotional or behavioral disorders who have complex and resource-intensive social, emotional, and behavioral needs. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which special educators and related service providers felt they were able to meet those needs in the context of the pandemic occurring in the Spring of 2020. Results indicated respondents’ perceptions of their ability to meet students’ needs and implement their students’ individualized education programs (IEPs) were moderated by policies on remote instruction and students’ access to technology. In addition, respondents suggested district- and school-level response strategies, professional development on remote instruction, access to the internet at home, and additional technology would be helpful in future school closures. Implications and limitations are discussed.

How Subsistence Communities Reconfigure Livelihood Systems in Response to Climate Change: A Coupled-Systems Perspective

A defining societal challenge in the era of climate change is ensuring consumption adequacy in subsistence communities. To understand the intricacies of this challenge, we have conducted an ethnographic study of a low-income community that relies on subsistence fishing to maintain consumption adequacy. Based on our data analysis, we advance a conceptualization of subsistence livelihood systems that models the tight coupling among its three constituent subsystems: the market system, the social system, and the environmental system. These three subsystems are highly interdependent and operate in concert to maintain consumption adequacy. We then show how climate change-induced environmental disruptions threaten consumption adequacy by disequilibrating livelihood systems in subsistence settings, as well as unpack the self-directed adaptation and mitigation strategies employed by the community in response to the threat of consumption inadequacy. These response strategies create feedback loops to either preserve or attenuate the tight coupling among the three subsystems.

Comparing COVID-19 Control Model Between Iraq and Iran

The coronavirus pandemic has reached almost every country in the world. The pandemic and its response have had several short-term as well as long term impacts on human health, society, economy, and environment. For instance, the severe lockdowns imposed in certain countries have caused a widespread economic and humanitarian crisis. Therefore, it is crucial to draw important lessons from this pandemic to amplify our future preparedness and response capacities to similar situations. In this paper, the response strategies utilized by Iraq and Iran is analyzed with comparison of the impacts and outcomes of each strategy used for controlling the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The results show that travel ban, restrictive containment, and supports from the international community in controlling the spread of the virus had a more positive impact in Iraq compared to Iran.

Farmers’ Perception about Climate Change and Response Strategies

The crop production response strategies to climate change and variability vis-à-vis theirsocio-personal characteristics in North-Eastern Karnataka region were identified andanalysed. A multi-stage random sampling technique was employed to elicit informationfrom 120 respondents. Ex-post-facto research design was adopted as manifestation of eventwas already accrued. Data were collected through a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaireTotal 52 strategies were collected from different literature, website, thesis etc., and testedamong the respondents. The study revealed that there were eight commonly adopted cropproduction response strategies which were scrutinsed from the 30 selected strategies usingprincipal component analysis namely, soil-water retention and integrated farming, followedby, contingency crop planning, crop diversification and risk aversion strategies, seekingadvice from extension personnel and others, improving irrigation facilities, maintaininglivestock, crop insurance, and migration to cities. The farmers’ education, mass media useand source of weather information were significantly contributed in their perception aboutclimate change and variability at 5% level of probability.

Review of disaster response strategies for sustainable development in the wake of flood risks in Zimbabwe’s rural-urban settlements

This paper aims to review the disaster response strategies implemented by the Government of Zimbabwe to mitigate the effects of floods in between 2016 and 2019. The daunting impacts of climate change are manifesting through floods, hurricanes, heat waves and drought in Sub Saharan Africa. As such, Zimbabwe is on record of falling victim to floods caused by torrential rains. Floods that struck Zimbabwe had calamitous consequences recorded where hundreds of people died, thousands displaced, infrastructure was destroyed, and people left vulnerable to diseases. Despite the country’s participation in international and regional conventions that recognizes climate change impacts and the need to develop modest disaster preparedness and recovery plans, Zimbabwe has been crawling to proactively formulate and implement disaster recovery mechanisms. As such, the country has been ravaged by floods unprepared where reactive disaster response strategies would be ignited. Having said that, this paper examined how the Government of Zimbabwe responded to the unusual occurrences of flash floods in both rural and urban settlements. The empirical analysis is based largely on data from databases such as the national surveys and literature. This paper argues that there is a robust need for the country to invest in disaster risk and recovery plans and disaster early warning systems where communities are not ambushed by gruelling occurrence of floods and its associated risks.