Clara Moreno

Thermodynamics is a macroscopic or large-scale approach: all the molecules belong to a whole (system).  When learning Thermodynamics, I remember that one of the most crucial steps to solve the problems was to delimit well your ‘system’; to define arbitrary boundaries separating your system of study from the rest of the universe or ‘surroundings’ . The system is the part we are interested in…

When thinking of harvesting energy from the wind, wind turbines appear as the widespread solution. But what about kites as a renewable energy source ? What is it about? ‘Crosswind kite power’ or ‘Airborne Wind Energy’ consists of a light aerodynamic flying device which receives energy from the wind and transports it via cables to a ground station, where there is a generator module that converts…

When I was small, I used to feed ducks. At my grandparents’ house, we used to keep the bread that was left, put it inside a bag and go to the park to give it to the ducks. A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me the article inspiring this column titled: ‘Why you should never feed bread to ducks’ [1]. In sum, this article describes two harmful consequences of feeding ducks with bread. Firstly

I love cheese. So do the four characters of the tale ‘Who moved my cheese?’ by Spencer Johnson. Despite this story is a best-seller motivational fable on how to deal with change in a business environment, I think that it shares something with sustainable development too: fear to change. The four characters of the story –two mice and two lilliputians- represent four different attitudes towards…

If I had to describe this week on Texel with two words these would be ‘ zoom out’. We have been zooming out like when you shorten the focal length of a camera to capture a broader view in a picture. We have honoured creativity in our own bubble, in which we allowed ourselves to think beyond present and create future, imagine ourselves as an oracle and even judge the impacts of ‘futuristic’…

a forecast of the transition to a sustainable personal life on Texel in 2065 (have a look at the video/visuals) a general overview of the sustainable island in 2065, and possible transition pathways (report) an impression of  the development of island tourism 2015-2065 (view the documentary)

Why do students want to leave? How to make education in the island more attractive? Is ICT the only solution? Why is there a rumour that the highschool will close? Why is the highschool closing: lack of students, economical issues, lack of teachers?  Do we need to redefine our goal or impose a restriction/limit which controls population growth? Do parents trust in online learning as a high

The “teach your own” sub-system differs from the rest of the ST systems. It is both specific and general at the same time, and thus it can affect all of the Texel’s sub systems. This starts from the realization that knowledge is contained or should be contained into all aspects and activities of our lives, let alone into the effort for a sustainable transition. It is a key feature of every socio

Below a summary of 'Teach you own' system is presented. First of all, let us review the three pillars of Borras & Elder applied to our socio-technical system. What drives change?  In Chapter 1 we decribed 'Teach your own' as a socio-technical system and realized that is is a transversal or horizontal subsystem affecting and needed by the rest of them. All the subsystems of 'Texel self-sustained…

I am an old friend of texel and some years ago i visited texel a number of times. I worked with Texel energy and before that i worked with Stiftung durzaam texel (sorry about my dutch).                          We do focus a lot on education too. We are working on a nordic program for sustainable education - see the webside  http://energiakademiet.dk/9713/english-piloting-nordic-sustainability

Why change is needed As said in previous section, the current situation is a decreasing amount of true Texelaars that are emotionally connected to Texel and a decrease in higher levels of education followed and work done by Texelaars. In order to get higher education or higher levels of job opportunities, people as of now need to leave the island, leading to less and less ‘Texel identity’. In…

As mentioned in chapter 1, there are multiple problems on Texel that need to be solved. The population is low educated in comparison with the Netherlands, there are few job opportunities, the available jobs doesn't seem to match the quality of the population, the business opportunities are small. All these problem are a result of the lacking educational system. The fundamentals in primary…

In the text Islands at the Periphery, S. Moncada, M. Camilleri, S. Formosa en R. Galea, the focus is on the sustainable development of the EU and how islands are separated from these goals. There are three main problems why all the islands are excluded;  1) restrictive definition of island,  2) peripherality and insularity and  3) the lack of harmonised statistical data on fundamental factors.

Reference [1] introduces the concept of ‘ grassroot innovation’ . A grassroot innovation represents a natural and spontaneous (bottom-up) creation of movement. It differentiates from competitive market-based innovations in four different levels, ranging from organization to driving motivations. Grassroot innovations find strong resistance and difficulties even in surviving. Based on the grassroot…

Innovative technologies and relevant trends As it has been already discussed, technological innovations of our times have favored the development of new educational trends and methods. Online learning has changed the landscape of educational procedures for both students and teachers: scoring tests, grading papers, presenting subjects or giving feedback in an online environment are all totally…

This chapter is the continuation of 1.3, where the future ST sub-system was described. Here, some more details of this system will be covered. How will the technologies be embedded in culture and behaviour? In the future we can imagine the “teach your own” sub-system harmonically integrated to the socio-technical context of Texel. It is easy for Students to be adapted in new technologies; every…

How do aircrafts die? This question was triggered to me during a class on engines maintenance and certification back in Spain. The teacher was talking about life cycle assessment and he mentioned something about obsolescence costs. I had recently watched a documentary on planned obsolescence, which discussed that engineers design products (e.g. lightbulbs, printers, clothes, batteries) with a…

Natural presence is what mainly comes to our minds when referring to “presence”, i.e. being physically present in a real environment or, as Nevejan & Brazier (2015) mention, being present with a breathing body and a heart that beats . However, presence has acquired new dimensions nowadays, which are not only related to the previous interpretation. The ever spreading internet and the tsunami of…

Last July I started an internship in the industry and with it I also started a self-reflection on the concept of sustainability from a new perspective. In a few words, my task was to provide a concept of a small electricity generator to be used as a portable charger in electric vehicles. At least that is what I understood when I first read the title of my assignment and it seemed as a cool…