Christmas !

MERRY X MAS 2010

AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011

Wish you another year of happines :)

Scientist Work to Make Livestock Happier

Scientists Work to Make Livestock Happier—Even if It Must Die
-(Shocking Nature News)-
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/101208_animals.htm

Sci­en­tists have em­barked on a new re­search pro­gram aimed at en­sur­ing farm an­i­mals live more hap­pi­ly—e­ven if they’re doomed to be killed and eat­en.

The aim is to en­hance an­i­mal well-be­ing when pos­si­ble, re­search­ers say, but the ben­e­fits are al­so meant to be redi­rected back to hu­mans. More con­tent an­i­mals are more pro­duc­tive, some sci­en­tists ar­gue: even in death, for ex­am­ple, hap­pi­er cows pro­duce tastier meat.

“With in­creased pub­lic con­cern about the wel­fare of an­i­mals, and con­sumers seek­ing ‘an­i­mal wel­fare-friendly’ prod­ucts, Aus­trali­a’s live­stock in­dus­tries are fo­cused on im­prov­ing farm­ing prac­tices to meet chang­ing ex­pecta­t­ions,” said re­searcher Car­o­line Lee of Aus­trali­a’s na­tional sci­ence agen­cy, the Com­mon­wealth Sci­en­tif­ic and In­dus­t­ri­al Re­search Or­ga­ni­sa­t­ion.


Lee and oth­ers at the agen­cy’s Live­stock In­dustries di­vi­sion are stu­dy­ing “sci­en­tific” meth­ods of as­sess­ing an­i­mals’ emo­tion­al state that go be­yond tra­di­tion­al, and lim­it­ed, tech­niques.

In a study pub­lished in the Sept. 10 on­line is­sue of the jour­nal Psy­choneu­roen­do­crin­ol­ogy, for in­stance, Lee and col­leagues re­ported on a tech­nique for as­sess­ing “pes­simistic” out­look in sheep. The an­i­mals were trained to ex­pect that ap­proach­ing a buck­et would lead ei­ther to a pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive event—a food re­ward, or the ap­pear­ance of a sheep dog—de­pend­ing on the buck­et’s loca­t­ion. Lat­er, buck­ets were placed in add­ition­al, “am­big­u­ous” loca­t­ions; the sheep were as­sessed re­gard­ing their con­fi­dence in ap­proach­ing the buck­et.

“The chal­lenge is to gain in­sights – in a sci­en­tif­ic­ally rig­or­ous way – in­to how an­i­mals’ minds work,” Lee said. Tra­di­tion­al meth­ods largely fo­cus on quan­ti­fy­ing bi­o­log­i­cal in­di­ca­tors of stress, she not­ed – for ex­am­ple, via blood tests that show changes in an­i­mals’ phys­i­ol­o­gy or im­mune sys­tems. Stud­ies of an­i­mal be­hav­iour have al­so been used to in­di­cate ob­vi­ous emo­tion­al states such as pain or dis­com­fort, or pref­er­ences for dif­fer­ent foods. But all of these stud­ies pro­vide rel­a­tively lim­it­ed in­forma­t­ion, Lee ar­gued.

“Un­til now the ma­jor gap in our abil­ity to as­sess an­i­mal wel­fare has been our ca­pacity to un­der­stand the emo­tion­al states of an­i­mals in dif­fer­ent farm­ing situa­t­ions, such as in in­ten­sive fin­ish­ing sys­tems or dur­ing droughts,” said Lee. Some of her re­search has al­so ex­am­ined sheeps’ re­sponses to, and po­ten­tial al­ter­na­tives to, mulesing—a prac­tice in which a piece of flesh is cut off the rump to pre­vent deadly mag­got in­festa­t­ions.

It’s “in­terna­t­ionally rec­og­nised that we must quanti­fy not only the bi­o­log­i­cal cost but al­so the emo­tion­al cost of an­i­mals used for pro­duc­tion of food and fi­bre,” Lee said. “This re­quires new meth­ods to bench­mark the wel­fare of an­i­mals in their on-farm en­vi­ron­ment.”

But for sci­en­tists in­volved in the re­search, the wel­fare of the an­i­mals them­selves is a mo­tiva­t­ion only up to a point.

Sci­ent­ist Drewe Fer­gu­son of the Live­stock In­dustries di­vi­sion told the Bris­bane, Australia-based Cour­i­er Mail news­pa­per that meat from un­hap­py cows is “dark, firm and dry in ap­pear­ance, with a tough tex­ture,’’ be­cause of low ac­id­ity lev­els. “It al­so has a re­duced shelf life be­cause of the bac­te­ri­al growth,’’ he added.

Picture taken from radenbeletz.com

Red and Blue Cooperation

Red and Blue Cooperation
-(Facilitation Technique, Communication, Enhancing Group Dynamics)-

This is a game that we can used to describe about conflict and importances to do cooperation-negotiation to achieve personal and group goals. It also describe that sometimes we have to choose between to take care all mistakes behind first, or to move forward with new system that everybody trust.

We did this game a couple weeks ago with Woman Group in Cimande - Indonesia. I choose this method to show participants that by cooperate together they can achieve greater result (for all), rather than working alone.

Needs
Cards : red and blue for each group.

Method
- Divide participants into 3 groups.
- Give instructions that each group must choose between show blue card or the green one in each round. There are 10 round in this game.
- They must not speak to other groups, but they can have discussion between group members to decide card color each round.
- Give them instruction to collect highest score in total 10 rounds by stick into this rules:

a. All groups choose red card, everyone get 2 point
b. All groups choose blue card, everyone get 1 point
c. 2 groups choose red card (@1 point), 1 group choose blue card (3 point)
d. 2 groups choose blue card (@1 point), 1 group choose red card (2 point)

- Facilitator make a table to show groups score
- Give 2 minutes to all groups in every round to make a strategy
- This game is over after 10 rounds

Situation
- Generally, each team will compete againts each other in first 5 rounds to collect highest score but the result will show the oposite, that while one group collect good score, the other one will get bad score.
- Participants will get aware, in round 1-3 they will play this activity as a game only - hardly understand the purpose of this game. As facilitator you must explain this game further after round 3, to show them that they collect bad score.
- Do short break after round no 5. Tell them to send negotiator (1-2 person) to have discussion with other negotiator to maximize group score.
-  Start again this game for round 6. After round 7 do another short break, and tell each group to send negotiator once more, to negotiate and make a strategy how to improve group score. You, as facilitator should encourage or give them hints how to get win-win situation in this break.
- The game is finish after round 10. Summarize all score and have a discussion.

Hints
- If all groups stay in point A (choose red card all the time), all of them will get full point (20 point) after round 10, or a total score of 60 for all group score. But this situation rarely h appened cos usually everybody compete each other in round 1-5.
- After round 5, after short break sometimes they start to realize that they should cooperate. Maybe they will play just the same as before if the negotiation failed, or play in another direction (cooperate) if the negotiation success.They can choose play point A (choose red card) or try to close the gap between each group.
- A short break after round 7 should make them cooperate and choose point A, but there is possibility that they still try to close the gap between groups. Just let the situation happened.

Discussion / Refflection
- You may make an analogy about group player as multistakeholder, working unit, or individual in the community
- How they deal with internal/external conflict and personal interest?
- How they deal with technical mistake (like taking wrong card),time limitation, decision making process in the game? Do they meet same problem in their daily activity?

Education System

Education System

-(Personal Notes)-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

An animation and lecture by Ken Robinson you should watch if you want to know about education system. Well, it's not an ordinary one. It's provocative and that's why I like it :)

Folding Paper

Folding Paper
-(Improve Listening and Observation, Facilitation Technique, Communications)-

This is a game that we can use to demonstrate that it easy for even simple instructions to be misinterpreted by the recipient, especially if ambigous words are used, or the recipient does not (or cannot) ask for clarification.

My friend Abdul Waheed Jamali from Pakistan used this method in a training held by ANGOC a year ago. My friend from Indonesia also used this method a couple years ago, so I think it is a universal game that has been played everywhere.

Needs
Several square / rectangle paper sheets

Method
- Give paper to all participants.
- Tell participants to obey these two rules: 1. each person must close their eyes during activity, and 2. they may not ask any questions
- Instruct them to fold their paper:

a. Fold in half and tear off the bottom right corner of the paper.
b. Fold the paper in half again, tear off the upper right hand corner.
c. Fold the paper in half again, tear off lower left hand corner.
d. Fold the paper in half again, tear off in the middle of paper.

- Instruct them to open their eyes and display the unfolded paper to each other and all the audience.

Discussion
There is a great probability that they will not all be the same. Use the following questions to start teh debriefing:
- What words in the instructions could be interpreted in different ways?
- How could the directions have been clearer to reduce the ambiguity?
- How can we encourage people ask for clarification when they do not understand something?
- Also relate this exercises with posibility that sometimes it is not instructor fault, but also depend with participants (community) ability to interprete instructions. Local knowledge, language barrier, experience also affect their action.

And hey, don't forget to clean all the paper after finish doin all this thing ^_^

Source : Participatory Learning and Action, A Trainer's Guide by Jules N Pretty, Irene Guijt, John Thompson, Ian Scoones - modified by Indra N Hatasura 

Knotty Problem

Knotty Problem
-(Enhancing Group Dynamics, Facilitation Techique, Communication)-

This game is a game to show that groups empowered to solve their own problems are much more succesful than if instructed by outsiders. I used this method when we had a meeting / training a couple days ago with woman group in Cimande - Bogor. This is a group that proclaimed itself as "CAHAYA" or "the light" in English and produce hand made bag to generate extra income for their family.

I used this game cos this group has a problem that sometimes they depend to much to outsider to solve their problem. And I think they must do something. I try to encourage this group to do internal communication and problem solving rather than ask somebody from outside to tell them what they must gonna do (I think they have learn before this and this exercise will refresh their memories and encourage them to do better).

Needs
Some ropes (I use simple plastic ropes, about 50 cm long and as much as participants).

Method
- Select one, two or three participants to act as managers. They are asked to leave the room while you instruct the rest of the group.
- Ask the remaining participants to make a circle and tie themselves into as entangled knot as possible by using plastic rope. Just tie each one hand into another participant hand sporadicly until it everybody get tied.
- They must not let go of each other's hands at any cost.
- Tell the participants to follow the manager's instruction literally and not make it easier for them by doing what they have not been told to do.
- Once the knot is complete, the managers are asked to return and to unravel the knot, using verbal instructions only.
- Instruct the managers to hold their hands behind their back. They are not allowed to touch the group, only instruct them verbally.
- The first attempt is generally not successful and sometimes even produce a more complex knot. After 5 minutes, repeat the exercise without the managers (insider). Tell the participants to "get out of the knot yourselves".

Hints
The second untying process is usually much easier and quicker. Ask participants to comment on what relevance this has to the real world. Some key questions that you can asked:
- What does the game tell us about the role of outsider/insider manager?
- What does the exercise tell us about the effectiveness of "outsider" and "manager" in organizing people?
- What does the game imply for facilitating participation in community development?

Source : Participatory Learning and Action, A Trainer's Guide by Jules N Pretty, Irene Guijt, John Thompson, Ian Scoones - modified by Indra N Hatasura