Various Wonders of the World lists have been compiled over the ages in order to catalogue the most spectacular natural and manmade constructions. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the first known list of remarkable manmade creations of classical antiquity, and was based on guide-books popular among Hellenic sight-seers and only includes works located around the Mediterranean rim. Later lists include those for the Medieval World and the Modern World.
Contents [hide]
1 Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
2 Seven wonders of the middle ages
3 American Society of Civil Engineers Seven Wonders of the Modern World
4 Travel wonders
4.1 Man-made travel wonders
4.2 Natural travel wonders
5 Natural wonders
6 Underwater wonders
7 New Open World Corporation New Seven Wonders of the World
8 USA Today's New Seven Wonders
8.1 National lists of Seven Wonders
9 See also
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
[edit] Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Great Pyramid of GizaMain article: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The historian Herodotus (484 BC–ca. 425 BC), and the scholar Callimachus of Cyrene (ca 305–240 BC) at the Museum of Alexandria, made early lists of "Seven wonders" but their writings have not survived, except as references. They included the Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus, Colossus of Rhodes, and Lighthouse of Alexandria.
The Greek category was not "Wonders" but "theamata", which translates closer to "must-sees". The list that we know today was compiled in the Middle Ages—by which time many of the sites were no longer in existence.
See also: Eighth Wonder of the World
[edit] Seven wonders of the middle ages
StonehengeSeven Wonders lists about the Middle Ages are existing historical lists for which there is no unanimity of opinion about origin, content or name.[1] These historical lists go by names such as "Wonders of the Middle Ages" (implying no specific limitation to seven), "Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages", "Medieval Mind" and "Architectural Wonders of the Middle Ages". The lists are more properly seen as a continuing type or genre in the Seven Wonders tradition than a specific list.
It is unlikely the lists originated in the Middle Ages. Brewet's calls them "later list[s]"[2] suggesting the lists were created after the Middle Ages. This is supported because the word medieval was not even invented until the Enlightenment-era, and the concept of a "Middle Age" did not become popular until the 16th century. Further, the Romanticism movement glorified all things related to the Middle Ages, or more specifically anything pre-Enlightenment era, suggesting such lists would have found a popular audience in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Some items found on some of the lists are not technically from the Middle Ages (according to modern historical standards), but we know the lists were not created by modern medieval historians, so such standards did not apply.
Typically representative of the seven:[1][3][4][2]
Taj MahalStonehenge
Colosseum
Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
Great Wall of China
Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
Hagia Sophia
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Other sites that have been mentioned include:
Taj Mahal[5]
Cairo Citadel[6]
Ely Cathedral[7]
Cluny Abbey[8]
[edit] American Society of Civil Engineers Seven Wonders of the Modern World
In the tradition of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, many other lists of wonders have been proposed, including both human feats of engineering and wonders of Nature. However, these lists are rather informal, and there is no consensus on any particular list.
Golden Gate BridgeThe American Society of Civil Engineers compiled another list of wonders of the modern world:[9]
Wonder Date Started Date Finished Locations
Channel Tunnel December 1, 1987 May 6, 1994 Strait of Dover, between England and France
CN Tower February 6, 1973 June 26, 1976 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Empire State Building January 22, 1930 May 1, 1931 New York, NY, USA
Golden Gate Bridge January 5, 1933 May 27, 1937 Golden Gate Strait, north of San Francisco, California, USA
Itaipu Dam January 1970 May 5, 1984 Paraná River, between Brazil and Paraguay
Delta Works 1953 May 10, 1997 Netherlands, Europe
Panama Canal January 1, 1880 January 7, 1914 Isthmus of Panama, Central America
[edit] Travel wonders
Machu PicchuNoted travel writer Howard Hillman has compiled lists of the top man-made[10] and natural[11] tourist travel wonders of the world:
[edit] Man-made travel wonders
Great Pyramids of Giza
Great Wall of China
Taj Mahal
Machu Picchu
Bali
Angkor Wat
Forbidden City
Bagan Temples & Pagodas
Karnak Temple
Teotihuacán
[edit] Natural travel wonders
Grand CanyonSerengeti Migration
Galápagos Islands
Grand Canyon
Iguazu Falls
Amazon Rainforest
Ngorongoro Crater
Great Barrier Reef
Victoria Falls
Bora Bora
Cappadocia
[edit] Natural wonders
Polar auroraSimilar to the other lists of wonders, there is no consensus on a list of seven natural wonders of the world, as there has been debate over how large the list should be. One of the many lists was compiled by CNN:[12]
Grand Canyon
Great Barrier Reef
Harbor of Rio de Janeiro
Mount Everest
Polar Aurora
Parícutin volcano
Victoria Falls
[edit] Underwater wonders
Lake BaikalThis list of underwater wonders is of unknown origin, but has been repeated sufficiently often to acquire a degree of notability:[13] [14]
Palau
Belize Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef
Deep-Sea Vents
Galapagos Islands
Lake Baikal
Northern Red Sea
[edit] New Open World Corporation New Seven Wonders of the World
Chichen ItzaMain article: New Seven Wonders of the World
In 2001 an initiative was started by Swiss corporation New Open World Corporation (NOWC) to choose the New Seven Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments for profit.[15] Twenty-one finalists were announced January 1, 2006.[16] Egypt was not happy with the fact that the only original wonder would have to compete with the likes of the Statue of Liberty, the Sydney Opera House, the Taj Mahal, and other landmarks; and called the project absurd. To solve this, Giza was named an honorary Candidate.[17] The results were announced on July 7, 2007[18] and are:
Wonder Date of construction Location
Great Wall of China 5th century BC – 16th century China
Petra unknown Jordan
Christ the Redeemer (statue) Opened 12 October 1931 Brazil
Machu Picchu c.1450 Peru
Chichen Itza c.600 Mexico
Colosseum Completed 80 AD Italy
Taj Mahal Completed c.1648 India
Great Pyramid (Honorary Candidate) Completed c.2560 BC Egypt
Potala Palace
[edit] USA Today's New Seven Wonders
In November 2006 the American national newspaper USA Today in conjunction with the American television show Good Morning America revealed a list of "New Seven Wonders" as chosen by six judges.[19] The wonders were announced one per day over a week on Good Morning America. An eighth wonder was chosen on November 24 from viewer feedback.[20]
Number Wonder Location
1 Potala Palace Tibet, China
2 Old City of Jerusalem Israel
3 Polar ice caps Polar regions
4 Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument Hawaii, United States
5 Internet N/A
6 Mayan ruins Yucatán Peninsula, México
7 Great Migration of Serengeti and Masai Mara Tanzania and Kenya
8 Grand Canyon (viewer-chosen eighth wonder) Arizona, United States
[edit] National lists of Seven Wonders
Seven Wonders of Canada
Seven Wonders of Portugal
Seven Wonders of Wales
Seven Wonders of Ukraine
[edit] See also
Seven Blunders of the World — a list by Mahatma Gandhi
[edit] References
^ a b Hereward Carrington (1880-1958), "The Seven Wonders of the World: ancient, medieval and modern", reprinted in the Carington Collection (2003) ISBN 0-7661-4378-3, page 14.
^ a b I H Evans (reviser), Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Centenary edition Fourth impression (corrected); London: Cassell, 1975), page 1163
^ Edward Latham. A Dictionary of Names, Nicknames and Surnames, of Persons, Places and Things (1904), page 280.
^ Francis Trevelyan Miller, Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt. America, the Land We Love (1915), page 201.
^ Palpa, as You Like it, page 67)
^ The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Crusades (2001, page 153))
^ The Rough Guide To England (1994, page 596))
^ The Catholic Encyclopedia, v.16 (1913), page 74
^ American Society of Civil Engineers Seven Wonders
^ Hillman, Howard. World's top 10 man-made travel wonders. Hillman Quality Publications. Retrieved on 2007-07-07.
^ Hillman, Howard. World's top 10 natural travel wonders. Hillman Quality Publications. Retrieved on 2007-07-07.
^ CNN Natural Wonders
^ Underwater Wonders of the World
^ 2nd list of Underwater Wonder
^ New Seven Wonders
^ Finalist Page
^ Egypt Angered at New Wonders Idea
^ Reuters via ABC News Australia "Opera House snubbed as new Wonders unveiled" 7 July 2007
^ New Seven Wonders panel
^ The world's 8th wonder: Readers pick the Grand Canyon
[edit] Further reading
Cox, Reg, and Neil Morris, "The Seven Wonders of the Modern World". Chelsea House Publications: Library. October 2000. ISBN 0-7910-6048-9
Cox, Reg, Neil Morris, and James Field, "The Seven Wonders of the Medieval World". Chelsea House Publications: Library. October 2000. ISBN 0-7910-6047-0
D'Epiro, Peter, and Mary Desmond Pinkowish, "What Are the Seven Wonders of the World? and 100 Other Great Cultural Lists". Anchor. December 1, 1998. ISBN 0-385-49062-3
Morris, Neil, "The Seven Wonders of the Natural World". Chrysalis Books. December 30, 2002. ISBN 1-84138-495-X
[edit] External links
The World's Top 100 Wonders - a list of architectural, engineering and natural wonders by Howard Hillman, a renowned travel writer.
WonderClub.com - a "list of lists", with information about most wonders.
Seven Wonders of the Modern World - a list of modern wonders compiled by the American Society of Civil Engineers
Video about the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, a virtual satellite tour made with Google Earth [02:38]
Seven Wonders of Chicago - A list compiled by the Chicago Tribune and voted on by readers.
Wonders of the World - a website with info and photographs, describing about 30 of the greatest human construction achievements.
Europe's Greatest Wonders - a website searching for the greatest human construction achievements in Europe.
The New 7 Wonders of the World - vote for a new list of seven wonders of the world, promoted for purposes of profit, to be announced on July 7, 2007.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_World"
Friday, September 28, 2007
EDUCATION
Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgment and well-developed wisdom. Education has as one of its fundamental aspects the imparting of culture from generation to generation (see socialization). Education means 'to draw out', facilitating realisation of self-potential and latent talents of an individual. It is an application of pedagogy, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to teaching and learning and draws on many disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, sociology and anthropology. [1] Education is not a process of pouring in some knowledge in to an individual. It is a process of acquiring. It is a perfection from the perfection. Education is the manifestation of perfection already existing in man.
The education of an individual human begins at birth and continues throughout life. (Some believe that education begins even before birth, as evidenced by some parents' playing music or reading to the baby in the womb in the hope it will influence the child's development.) For some, the struggles and triumphs of daily life provide far more instruction than does formal schooling (thus Mark Twain's admonition to "never let school interfere with your education"). Family members may have a profound educational effect — often more profound than they realize — though family teaching may function very informally.
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Education systems
2.1 Primary education
2.2 Secondary education
2.3 Higher education
2.4 Adult education
2.5 Alternative education
3 Education curriculum
4 Education process
4.1 Learning modalities
4.2 Teaching
4.3 Parental involvement
4.4 Education technology
5 Education history
6 Education philosophy
7 Education psychology
8 Education economics
9 Education sociology
10 See also
11 References
12 External links
[edit] Etymology
The word "education" derives from the Latin educare, meaning "to nourish" or "to raise".
[edit] Education systems
Schooling occurs when society or a group or an individual sets up a curriculum to educate people, usually the young. Schooling can become systematic and thorough. Sometimes education systems can be used to promote doctrines or ideals as well as knowledge, and this can lead to abuse of the system.
[edit] Primary education
Main article: Primary education
Primary School in "open air". Teacher (priest) with class from the outskirts of Bucharest, around 1842.Primary or elementary education consists of the first years of formal, structured education that occur during childhood. In most countries, it is compulsory for children to receive primary education (though in many jurisdictions it is permissible for parents to provide it). Primary education generally begins when children are four to eight years of age. The division between primary and secondary education is somewhat arbitrary, but it generally occurs at about eleven or twelve years of age (adolescence); some educational systems have separate middle schools with the transition to the final stage of secondary education taking place at around the age of fourteen. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, etc., schools which provide primary education are referred to as primary schools. Primary schools in these countries are often subdivided into infant schools and junior schools.
[edit] Secondary education
Main article: Secondary education
In most contemporary educational systems of the world, secondary education consists of the second years of formal education that occur during adolescence. It is characterised by transition from the typically compulsory, comprehensive primary education for minors to the optional, selective tertiary, "post-secondary", or "higher" education (e.g., university, vocational school) for adults. Depending on the system, schools for this period or a part of it may be called secondary or high schools, gymnasiums, lyceums, middle schools, colleges, or vocational schools. The exact meaning of any of these varies between the systems. The exact boundary between primary and secondary education varies from country to country and even within them, but is generally around the seventh to the tenth year of education. Secondary education occurs mainly during the teenage years. In the United States and Canada primary and secondary education together are sometimes referred to as K-12 education. The purpose of secondary education can be to give common knowledge, to prepare for either higher education or vocational education, or to train directly to a profession.
[edit] Higher education
Main article: Higher education
The University of Cambridge is an institute of higher learning.Higher education, also called tertiary, third stage or post secondary education, often known as academia, is the non-compulsory educational level following the completion of a school providing a secondary education, such as a high school, secondary school, or gymnasium. Tertiary education is normally taken to include undergraduate and postgraduate education, as well as vocational education and training. Colleges and universities are the main institutions that provide tertiary education. Collectively, these are sometimes known as tertiary institutions. Examples of institutions that provide post-secondary education are vocational schools, community colleges and universities in the United States, the TAFEs in Australia, CEGEPs in Quebec,and the IEKs in Greece. Tertiary education generally results in the receipt of certificates, diplomas, or academic degrees. Higher education includes teaching, research and social services activities of universities, and within the realm of teaching, it includes both the undergraduate level (sometimes referred to as tertiary education) and the graduate (or postgraduate) level (sometimes referred to as graduate school). In the United Kingdom post-secondary education below the level of higher education is referred to as further education. Higher education in that country generally involves work towards a degree-level or foundation degree qualification. In most developed countries a high proportion of the population (up to 50%) now enter higher education at some time in their lives. Higher education is therefore very important to national economies, both as a significant industry in its own right, and as a source of trained and educated personnel for the rest of the economy.
[edit] Adult education
Lifelong, or adult, education has become widespread in many countries. However, education is still seen by many as something aimed at children, and adult education is often branded as adult learning or lifelong learning. Adult education takes on many forms, from formal class-based learning to self-directed learning. Lending libraries provide inexpensive informal access to books and other self-instructional materials. The rise in computer ownership and internet access has given both adults and children greater access to both formal and informal education. In Scandinavia a unique approach to learning termed folkbildning has long been recognised as contributing to adult education through the use of learning circles.
[edit] Alternative education
Main article: Alternative education
Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, is a broad term which may be used to refer to all forms of education outside of traditional education (for all age groups and levels of education). This may include both forms of education designed for students with special needs (ranging from teenage pregnancy to intellectual disability) and forms of education designed for a general audience which employ alternative educational philosophies and/or methods.
Alternatives of the latter type are often the result of education reform and are rooted in various philosophies that are commonly fundamentally different from those of traditional compulsory education. While some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, others are more informal associations of teachers and students dissatisfied with certain aspects of traditional education. These alternatives, which include charter schools, alternative schools, independent schools, and home-based learning vary widely, but often emphasize the value of small class size, close relationships between students and teachers, and a sense of community.
In certain places, especially in the United States, the term alternative may largely refer to forms of education catering to "at risk" students, as it is, for example, in this definition drafted by the Massachusetts Department of Education. [1]
[edit] Education curriculum
Main articles: Curriculum and List of academic disciplines
An academic discipline is a branch of knowledge which is formally taught, either at the university, or via some other such method. Functionally, disciplines are usually defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and by the learned societies to which their practitioners belong. Professors say schooling is 80% psychological, 20% physical effort.
Each discipline usually has several sub-disciplines or branches, and distinguishing lines are often both arbitrary and ambiguous. Examples of broad areas of academic disciplines include the natural sciences, mathematics, computer science, social sciences, humanities and applied sciences. [2]
[edit] Education process
[edit] Learning modalities
There has been a great deal of work on learning styles over the last two decades. Dunn and Dunn[3] focused on identifying relevant stimuli that may influence learning and manipulating the school environment, at about the same time as Joseph Renzulli[4] recommended varying teaching strategies. Howard Gardner[5] identified individual talents or aptitudes in his Multiple Intelligences theories. Based on the works of Jung, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Keirsey's Temperament Sorter[6] focused on understanding how people's personality affects the way they interact personally, and how this affects the way individuals respond to each other within the learning environment. The work of David Kolb and Anthony Gregorc's Type Delineator[7] follows a similar but more simplified approach.
Education can be physically divided into many different learning "modes" but the learning modalities[8] are probably the most common:[9]
Kinesthetic learning based on hands-on work and engaging in activities.
Visual learning based on observation and seeing what is being learned.
Auditory learning based on listening to instructions/information.
Depending on their preferred learning modality, different teaching techniques have different levels of effectiveness.[10] Effective teaching requires a variety of teaching methods which cover all three learning modalities. No matter what their preference, students should have equal opportunities to learn in a way that is effective for them.[11]
[edit] Teaching
Teachers need the ability to understand a subject well enough to convey its essence to a new generation of students. The goal is to establish a sound knowledge base on which students will be able to build as they are exposed to different life experiences. The passing of knowledge from generation to generation allows students to grow into useful members of society. Good teachers can translate information, good judgment, experience and wisdom into relevant knowledge that a student can understand and retain. As a profession, teaching has very high levels of Work-Related Stress (WRS)[12] which are listed as amongst the highest of any profession in some countries, such as the United Kingdom. The degree of this problem is becoming increasingly recognized and support systems are put into place.[13]
[edit] Parental involvement
Parental involvement is an important element in a child's educational development. Early and consistent parental involvement in the child's life is critical. Examples include reading to children at an early age, teaching patterns, interpersonal communication skills, getting them involved in their community, exposing them to diverse cultures and educating them about a healthy lifestyles. The socialization and academic education of a child are aided by the involvement of the student, parent(s), extended family, teachers and others in the community. Parent involvement is more than the parent being the field trip helper or the lunch lady. Parents need to be asked about how their child learns best. They need to share their career expertise with the children. Today's educators need to remember that parents are the child's first and foremost teacher; parents, too, are experts, and teachers should learn from them.
Academic achievement and parental involvement are strongly linked in the research. Many schools are now beginning parental involvement programs in a more organized fashion. In the US this has been led in part by the No Child Left Behind legislation from the US Department of Education.
[edit] Education technology
Main article: Educational technology
Technology is an increasingly influential factor in education. Computers and mobile phones are being widely used in developed countries both to complement established education practices and develop new ways of learning such as online education (a type of distance education). This gives students the opportunity to choose what they are interested in learning. The proliferation of computers also means the increase of programming and blogging. Technology offers powerful learning tools that demand new skills and understandings of students, including Multimedia literacy, and provides new ways to engage students, such as classroom management software. Technology is being used more not only in administrative duties in education but also in the instruction of students. The use of technologies such as PowerPoint and interactive whiteboard is capturing the attention of students in the classroom. Technology is also being used in the assessment of students. One example is the Audience Response System (ARS), which allows immediate feedback tests and classroom discussions.
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a “diverse set of tools and resources used to communicate, create, disseminate, store, and manage information.”[14] These technologies include computers, the Internet, broadcasting technologies (radio and television), and telephony. There is increasing interest in how computers and the Internet can improve education at all levels, in both formal and non-formal settings.[15] Older ICT technologies, such as radio and television, have for over forty years been used for open and distance learning, although print remains the cheapest, most accessible and therefore most dominant delivery mechanism in both developed and developing countries.[16] The use of computers and the Internet is still in its infancy in developing countries, if these are used at all, due to limited infrastructure and the attendant high costs of access. Usually, various technologies are used in combination rather than as the sole delivery mechanism. For example, the Kothmale Community Radio Internet uses both radio broadcasts and computer and Internet technologies to facilitate the sharing of information and provide educational opportunities in a rural community in Sri Lanka.[17] The Open University of the United Kingdom (UKOU), established in 1969 as the first educational institution in the world wholly dedicated to open and distance learning, still relies heavily on print-based materials supplemented by radio, television and, in recent years, online programming.[18] Similarly, the Indira Gandhi National Open University in India combines the use of print, recorded audio and video, broadcast radio and television, and audioconferencing technologies.[19]
Computer assisted learning (CAL), CAL has been increasingly used to describe the use of technology in teaching.
[edit] Education history
Main article: History of education
A depiction of the world's oldest university, the University of Bologna, ItalyThe history of education according to Dieter Lenzen, president of the Freie Universität Berlin 1994 "began either millions of years ago or at the end of 1770". Education as a science cannot be separated from the educational traditions that existed before. Education was the natural response of early civilizations to the struggle of surviving and thriving as a culture. Adults trained the young of their society in the knowledge and skills they would need to master and eventually pass on. The evolution of culture, and human beings as a species depended on this practice of transmitting knowledge. In pre-literate societies this was achieved orally and through imitation. Story-telling continued from one generation to the next. Oral language developed into written symbols and letters. The depth and breadth of knowledge that could be preserved and passed soon increased exponentially. When cultures began to extend their knowledge beyond the basic skills of communicating, trading, gathering food, religious practices, etc, formal education, and schooling, eventually followed. Schooling in this sense was already in place in Egypt between 3000 and 500BC.
[edit] Education philosophy
Main articles: Philosophy of education and Epistemology
John Locke's seminal work Some Thoughts Concerning Education was written in 1693 and still reflects traditional education prioritiesThe philosophy of education is the study of the purpose, nature and ideal content of education. Related topics include knowledge itself, the nature of the knowing mind and the human subject, problems of authority, and the relationship between education and society. At least since Locke's time, the philosophy of education has been linked to theories of developmental psychology and human development.
Fundamental purposes that have been proposed for education include:
The enterprise of civil society depends on educating young people to become responsible, thoughtful and enterprising citizens. This is an intricate, challenging task requiring deep understanding of ethical principles, moral values, political theory, aesthetics, and economics, not to mention an understanding of who children are, in themselves and in society.
Progress in every practical field depends on having capacities that schooling can educate. Education is thus a means to foster the individual's, society's, and even humanity's future development and prosperity. Emphasis is often put on economic success in this regard.
One's individual development and the capacity to fulfill one's own purposes can depend on an adequate preparation in childhood. Education can thus attempt to give a firm foundation for the achievement of personal fulfillment. The better the foundation that is built, the more successful the child will be. Simple basics in education can carry a child far.
A central tenet of education typically includes “the imparting of knowledge.” At a very basic level, this purpose ultimately deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. The branch of philosophy that addresses these and related issues is known as epistemology. This area of study often focuses on analyzing the nature and variety of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth and belief.
While the term, knowledge, is often used to convey this general purpose of education, it can also be viewed as part of a continuum of knowing that ranges from very specific data to the highest levels. Seen in this light, the continuum may be thought to consist of a general hierarchy of overlapping levels of knowing. Students must be able to connect new information to a piece of old information to be better able to learn, understand, and retain information. This continuum may include notions such as data, information, knowledge, wisdom, and realization.
[edit] Education psychology
Main article: Educational psychology
A class size experiment in the United States found that attending small classes for 3 or more years in the early grades increased high school graduation of students from low income families.[20]Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Although the terms "educational psychology" and "school psychology" are often used interchangeably, researchers and theorists are likely to be identified as educational psychologists, whereas practitioners in schools or school-related settings are identified as school psychologists. Educational psychology is concerned with the processes of educational attainment in the general population and in sub-populations such as gifted children and those with specific disabilities.
Educational psychology can in part be understood through its relationship with other disciplines. It is informed primarily by psychology, bearing a relationship to that discipline analogous to the relationship between medicine and biology. Educational psychology in turn informs a wide range of specialities within educational studies, including instructional design, educational technology, curriculum development, organizational learning, special education and classroom management. Educational psychology both draws from and contributes to cognitive science and the learning sciences. In universities, departments of educational psychology are usually housed within faculties of education, possibly accounting for the lack of representation of educational psychology content in introductory psychology textbooks (Lucas, Blazek, & Raley, 2006).
[edit] Education economics
If we look at a sorted list of nations with the highest level of secondary schooling we notice these are the richest countries in the world, based on GDP per capita. High rates of education are essential for countries to achieve high levels of economic growth. In theory poor countries should grow faster than rich countries because they can adopt cutting edge technologies already tried and tested by rich countries. But economists argue that if the gap in education between a rich and a poor nation is too large, as is the case between the poorest and the richest nations in the world, the transfer of these technologies that drive economic growth becomes difficult, thus the economies of the world's poorest nations stagnate.
[edit] Education sociology
Main article: Sociology of education
The sociology of education is the study of how social institutions and forces affect educational processes and outcomes, and vice versa. By many, education is understood to be a means of overcoming handicaps, achieving greater equality and acquiring wealth and status for all (Sargent 1994). Learners may be motivated by aspirations for progress and betterment. Education is perceived as a place where children can develop according to their unique needs and potentialities (Schofield 1999). The purpose of education can be to develop every individual to their full potential. However, according to some sociologists, a key problem is that the educational needs of individuals and marginalized groups may be at odds with existing social processes, such as maintaining social stability through the reproduction of inequality. The understanding of the goals and means of educational socialization processes differs according to the sociological paradigm used.
Developing countries
Russia has more academic graduates than any other country in EuropeAccording to The Borgen project, 115 million children lack access to education. In developing countries, the number and seriousness of the problems faced are naturally greater. People are sometimes unaware of the importance of education, and there is economic pressure from those parents who prioritize their children's making money in the short term over any long-term benefits of education. Recent studies on child labor and poverty have suggested that when poor families reach a certain economic threshold where families are able to provide for their basic needs, parents return their children to school. This has been found to be true, once the threshold has been breached, even if the potential economic value of the children's work has increased since their return to school. Teachers are often paid less than other similar professions.
A lack of good universities, and a low acceptance rate for good universities, is evident in countries with a relatively high population density. In some countries, there are uniform, overstructured, inflexible centralized programs from a central agency that regulates all aspects of education.
Due to globalization, increased pressure on students in curricular activities
Removal of a certain percentage of students for improvisation of academics (usually practised in schools, after 10th grade)
India is now developing technologies that will skip land based phone and internet lines. Instead, India launched EDUSAT, an education satellite that can reach more of the country at a greatly reduced cost. There is also an initiative started by a group out of MIT and supported by several major corporations to develop a $100 laptop. The laptops should be available by late 2006 or 2007. The laptops, sold at cost, will enable developing countries to give their children a digital education, and to close the digital divide across the world.
In Africa, NEPAD has launched an "e-school programme" to provide all 600,000 primary and high schools with computer equipment, learning materials and internet access within 10 years. Private groups, like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are working to give more individuals opportunities to receive education in developing countries through such programs as the Perpetual Education Fund. An International Development Agency project called nabuur.com, started with the support of American President Bill Clinton, uses the internet to allow co-operation by individuals on issues of social development.
Internationalisation
Education is becoming increasingly international. Not only are the materials becoming more influenced by the rich international environment, but exchanges among students at all levels are also playing an increasingly important role. In Europe, for example, the Socrates-Erasmus Programme stimulates exchanges across European universities. Also, the Soros Foundation provides many opportunities for students from central Asia and eastern Europe. Some scholars argue that, regardless of whether one system is considered better or worse than another, experiencing a different way of education can often be considered to be the most important, enriching element of an international learning experience (Dubois et al. 2006).
Challenges
The goal of education is fourfold: the social purpose, intellectual purpose, economic purpose, and political/civic purpose. Current education issues include which teaching method(s) are most effective, how to determine what knowledge should be taught, which knowledge is most relevant, and how well the pupil will retain incoming knowledge. Educators such as George Counts and Paulo Freire identified education as an inherently political process with inherently political outcomes. The challenge of identifying whose ideas are transferred and what goals they serve has always stood in the face of formal and informal education.
In addition to the "Three R's", reading, writing, and arithmetic, Western primary and secondary schools attempt to teach the basic knowledge of history, geography, mathematics (usually including calculus and algebra), physics, chemistry and sometimes politics, in the hope that students will retain and use this knowledge as they age or that the skills acquired will be transferable. The current education system measures competency with tests and assignments and then assigns each student a corresponding grade. The grades, usually a letter grade or a percentage, are intended to represent the amount of all material presented in class that the student understood. Pre- and post-tests may be used to measure how much was learned.
Educational progressives or advocates of unschooling often believe that grades do not necessarily reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a student, and that there is an unfortunate lack of youth voice in the educational process. Some feel the current grading system lowers students' self-confidence, as students may receive poor marks due to factors outside their control. Such factors include poverty, child abuse, and prejudiced or incompetent teachers.
By contrast, many advocates of a more traditional or "back to basics" approach believe that the direction of reform needs to be the opposite. Students are not inspired or challenged to achieve success because of the dumbing down of the curriculum and the replacement of the "canon" with inferior material. They believe that self-confidence arises not from removing hurdles such as grading, but by making them fair and encouraging students to gain pride from knowing they can jump over these hurdles. On the one hand, Albert Einstein, the most famous physicist of the twentieth century, who is credited with helping us understand the universe better, was not a model school student. He was uninterested in what was being taught, and he did not attend classes all the time. On the other hand, his gifts eventually shone through and added to the sum of human knowledge.
There are a number of highly controversial issues in education. Should some knowledge be forgotten? Should classes be segregated by gender? What should be taught? There are also some philosophies, for example Transcendentalism, that would probably reject conventional education in the belief that knowledge should be gained through more direct personal experience. A recent book argues that children are being expected to learn too much. "There is an ongoing tendency to increase the length of textbooks. There are various reasons why people want to add to the education of children. People who work on education often believe, nobly enough, that the most important contribution is to get children to learn more. Publishers want to sell new books and adding new material is an important aspect of an effective sales pitch".[21] Also, the cost of higher education in developed countries is increasingly becoming an issue.
[edit] See also
Main articles: Glossary of education-related terms, List of basic education topics, List of education articles by country, and List of education topics
Academic Dishonesty
Adult education
Alternative education
Behavior modification
Classical education
Collaborative learning
Comparative education
Curriculum
Distance education
Home schooling
e-learning
Educational animation
Educational malpractice
Entrepreneurship education
Educational psychology
Educational Research
Educational technology
Educational Software
Efficient learning method
Experiential education
Gifted education
Glossary of education-related terms
Graduate education
History of education
Indoctrination
Instructional technology
Language education
Learning
Learning 2.0
Learning by teaching
Learning community
Legal education
Lifelong education
List of educators
Medical education
Online learning community
Over-education
Philosophy of education
Public education
School
Single-sex education
Socialization
Sociology of education
Special education
Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
Teacher
Tertiary education
University
Virtual education
Vocational education
[edit] References
^ An overview of education
^ Examples of subjects...
^ [(http://www.learningstyles.net/ Dunn and Dunn]
^ biographer of Renzulli
^ http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm
^ Keirsey web-site
^ Type Delineator description
^ Swassing, R. H., Barbe, W. B., & Milone, M. N. (1979). The Swassing-Barbe Modality Index: Zaner-Bloser Modality Kit. Columbus, OH: Zaner-Bloser.
^ Varied Learning Modes
^ Barbe, W. B., & Swassing, R. H., with M. N. Milone. (1979). Teaching through modality strengths: Concepts and practices. Columbus, OH: Zaner-Bloser.
^ Learning modality description from the Learning Curve website
^ Work-Related Stress in teaching
^ Teacher Support for England & Wales
^ Blurton, Craig. New Directions of ICT-Use in Education. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
^ ICT in Education
^ Potashnik, M. and Capper, J.. Distance Education:Growth and Diversity. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
^ Taghioff, Daniel. Seeds of Consensus—The Potential Role for Information and Communication Technologies in Development.. Retrieved on 2003-10-12.
^ http://www.open.ac.uk
^ http://www.ignou.ac.in
^ Finn, J. D., Gerber, S. B., Boyd-Zaharias, J. (2005). Small classes in the early grades, academic achievement, and graduating from high school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97, 214-233.
^ Bar-Yam,Yaneer (2005). Making Things Work. Knowledge Press. ISBN 0-9656328-2-2.
[edit] External links
"Educate a Woman, You Educate a Nation" - South Africa Aims to Improve its Education for Girls WNN - Women News Network. Aug. 28, 2007. Lys Anzia
Find more information on Education by searching Wikipedia's sister projects
Dictionary definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity
World Bank Education
UNESCO - International Institute for Educational Planning
UNESCO IBE Database: Information on almost every education system in the world
UNESCO Institute for Statistics: International comparable statistics on education systems
UNESCO Nairobi-office on education in cluster countries
Education For All - 2nd Edition Factbook
Wikipedia Education category tree
WikEd is a Wiki set up specificially for educators and education research.
The Encyclopedia of Informal Education
The Theory Into Practice Database
Education politics at Wikia
The Literacy Council Citizen Advocates for Quality Education
Montessori Education Websiteen:Education
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education"
The education of an individual human begins at birth and continues throughout life. (Some believe that education begins even before birth, as evidenced by some parents' playing music or reading to the baby in the womb in the hope it will influence the child's development.) For some, the struggles and triumphs of daily life provide far more instruction than does formal schooling (thus Mark Twain's admonition to "never let school interfere with your education"). Family members may have a profound educational effect — often more profound than they realize — though family teaching may function very informally.
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Education systems
2.1 Primary education
2.2 Secondary education
2.3 Higher education
2.4 Adult education
2.5 Alternative education
3 Education curriculum
4 Education process
4.1 Learning modalities
4.2 Teaching
4.3 Parental involvement
4.4 Education technology
5 Education history
6 Education philosophy
7 Education psychology
8 Education economics
9 Education sociology
10 See also
11 References
12 External links
[edit] Etymology
The word "education" derives from the Latin educare, meaning "to nourish" or "to raise".
[edit] Education systems
Schooling occurs when society or a group or an individual sets up a curriculum to educate people, usually the young. Schooling can become systematic and thorough. Sometimes education systems can be used to promote doctrines or ideals as well as knowledge, and this can lead to abuse of the system.
[edit] Primary education
Main article: Primary education
Primary School in "open air". Teacher (priest) with class from the outskirts of Bucharest, around 1842.Primary or elementary education consists of the first years of formal, structured education that occur during childhood. In most countries, it is compulsory for children to receive primary education (though in many jurisdictions it is permissible for parents to provide it). Primary education generally begins when children are four to eight years of age. The division between primary and secondary education is somewhat arbitrary, but it generally occurs at about eleven or twelve years of age (adolescence); some educational systems have separate middle schools with the transition to the final stage of secondary education taking place at around the age of fourteen. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, etc., schools which provide primary education are referred to as primary schools. Primary schools in these countries are often subdivided into infant schools and junior schools.
[edit] Secondary education
Main article: Secondary education
In most contemporary educational systems of the world, secondary education consists of the second years of formal education that occur during adolescence. It is characterised by transition from the typically compulsory, comprehensive primary education for minors to the optional, selective tertiary, "post-secondary", or "higher" education (e.g., university, vocational school) for adults. Depending on the system, schools for this period or a part of it may be called secondary or high schools, gymnasiums, lyceums, middle schools, colleges, or vocational schools. The exact meaning of any of these varies between the systems. The exact boundary between primary and secondary education varies from country to country and even within them, but is generally around the seventh to the tenth year of education. Secondary education occurs mainly during the teenage years. In the United States and Canada primary and secondary education together are sometimes referred to as K-12 education. The purpose of secondary education can be to give common knowledge, to prepare for either higher education or vocational education, or to train directly to a profession.
[edit] Higher education
Main article: Higher education
The University of Cambridge is an institute of higher learning.Higher education, also called tertiary, third stage or post secondary education, often known as academia, is the non-compulsory educational level following the completion of a school providing a secondary education, such as a high school, secondary school, or gymnasium. Tertiary education is normally taken to include undergraduate and postgraduate education, as well as vocational education and training. Colleges and universities are the main institutions that provide tertiary education. Collectively, these are sometimes known as tertiary institutions. Examples of institutions that provide post-secondary education are vocational schools, community colleges and universities in the United States, the TAFEs in Australia, CEGEPs in Quebec,and the IEKs in Greece. Tertiary education generally results in the receipt of certificates, diplomas, or academic degrees. Higher education includes teaching, research and social services activities of universities, and within the realm of teaching, it includes both the undergraduate level (sometimes referred to as tertiary education) and the graduate (or postgraduate) level (sometimes referred to as graduate school). In the United Kingdom post-secondary education below the level of higher education is referred to as further education. Higher education in that country generally involves work towards a degree-level or foundation degree qualification. In most developed countries a high proportion of the population (up to 50%) now enter higher education at some time in their lives. Higher education is therefore very important to national economies, both as a significant industry in its own right, and as a source of trained and educated personnel for the rest of the economy.
[edit] Adult education
Lifelong, or adult, education has become widespread in many countries. However, education is still seen by many as something aimed at children, and adult education is often branded as adult learning or lifelong learning. Adult education takes on many forms, from formal class-based learning to self-directed learning. Lending libraries provide inexpensive informal access to books and other self-instructional materials. The rise in computer ownership and internet access has given both adults and children greater access to both formal and informal education. In Scandinavia a unique approach to learning termed folkbildning has long been recognised as contributing to adult education through the use of learning circles.
[edit] Alternative education
Main article: Alternative education
Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, is a broad term which may be used to refer to all forms of education outside of traditional education (for all age groups and levels of education). This may include both forms of education designed for students with special needs (ranging from teenage pregnancy to intellectual disability) and forms of education designed for a general audience which employ alternative educational philosophies and/or methods.
Alternatives of the latter type are often the result of education reform and are rooted in various philosophies that are commonly fundamentally different from those of traditional compulsory education. While some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, others are more informal associations of teachers and students dissatisfied with certain aspects of traditional education. These alternatives, which include charter schools, alternative schools, independent schools, and home-based learning vary widely, but often emphasize the value of small class size, close relationships between students and teachers, and a sense of community.
In certain places, especially in the United States, the term alternative may largely refer to forms of education catering to "at risk" students, as it is, for example, in this definition drafted by the Massachusetts Department of Education. [1]
[edit] Education curriculum
Main articles: Curriculum and List of academic disciplines
An academic discipline is a branch of knowledge which is formally taught, either at the university, or via some other such method. Functionally, disciplines are usually defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and by the learned societies to which their practitioners belong. Professors say schooling is 80% psychological, 20% physical effort.
Each discipline usually has several sub-disciplines or branches, and distinguishing lines are often both arbitrary and ambiguous. Examples of broad areas of academic disciplines include the natural sciences, mathematics, computer science, social sciences, humanities and applied sciences. [2]
[edit] Education process
[edit] Learning modalities
There has been a great deal of work on learning styles over the last two decades. Dunn and Dunn[3] focused on identifying relevant stimuli that may influence learning and manipulating the school environment, at about the same time as Joseph Renzulli[4] recommended varying teaching strategies. Howard Gardner[5] identified individual talents or aptitudes in his Multiple Intelligences theories. Based on the works of Jung, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Keirsey's Temperament Sorter[6] focused on understanding how people's personality affects the way they interact personally, and how this affects the way individuals respond to each other within the learning environment. The work of David Kolb and Anthony Gregorc's Type Delineator[7] follows a similar but more simplified approach.
Education can be physically divided into many different learning "modes" but the learning modalities[8] are probably the most common:[9]
Kinesthetic learning based on hands-on work and engaging in activities.
Visual learning based on observation and seeing what is being learned.
Auditory learning based on listening to instructions/information.
Depending on their preferred learning modality, different teaching techniques have different levels of effectiveness.[10] Effective teaching requires a variety of teaching methods which cover all three learning modalities. No matter what their preference, students should have equal opportunities to learn in a way that is effective for them.[11]
[edit] Teaching
Teachers need the ability to understand a subject well enough to convey its essence to a new generation of students. The goal is to establish a sound knowledge base on which students will be able to build as they are exposed to different life experiences. The passing of knowledge from generation to generation allows students to grow into useful members of society. Good teachers can translate information, good judgment, experience and wisdom into relevant knowledge that a student can understand and retain. As a profession, teaching has very high levels of Work-Related Stress (WRS)[12] which are listed as amongst the highest of any profession in some countries, such as the United Kingdom. The degree of this problem is becoming increasingly recognized and support systems are put into place.[13]
[edit] Parental involvement
Parental involvement is an important element in a child's educational development. Early and consistent parental involvement in the child's life is critical. Examples include reading to children at an early age, teaching patterns, interpersonal communication skills, getting them involved in their community, exposing them to diverse cultures and educating them about a healthy lifestyles. The socialization and academic education of a child are aided by the involvement of the student, parent(s), extended family, teachers and others in the community. Parent involvement is more than the parent being the field trip helper or the lunch lady. Parents need to be asked about how their child learns best. They need to share their career expertise with the children. Today's educators need to remember that parents are the child's first and foremost teacher; parents, too, are experts, and teachers should learn from them.
Academic achievement and parental involvement are strongly linked in the research. Many schools are now beginning parental involvement programs in a more organized fashion. In the US this has been led in part by the No Child Left Behind legislation from the US Department of Education.
[edit] Education technology
Main article: Educational technology
Technology is an increasingly influential factor in education. Computers and mobile phones are being widely used in developed countries both to complement established education practices and develop new ways of learning such as online education (a type of distance education). This gives students the opportunity to choose what they are interested in learning. The proliferation of computers also means the increase of programming and blogging. Technology offers powerful learning tools that demand new skills and understandings of students, including Multimedia literacy, and provides new ways to engage students, such as classroom management software. Technology is being used more not only in administrative duties in education but also in the instruction of students. The use of technologies such as PowerPoint and interactive whiteboard is capturing the attention of students in the classroom. Technology is also being used in the assessment of students. One example is the Audience Response System (ARS), which allows immediate feedback tests and classroom discussions.
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a “diverse set of tools and resources used to communicate, create, disseminate, store, and manage information.”[14] These technologies include computers, the Internet, broadcasting technologies (radio and television), and telephony. There is increasing interest in how computers and the Internet can improve education at all levels, in both formal and non-formal settings.[15] Older ICT technologies, such as radio and television, have for over forty years been used for open and distance learning, although print remains the cheapest, most accessible and therefore most dominant delivery mechanism in both developed and developing countries.[16] The use of computers and the Internet is still in its infancy in developing countries, if these are used at all, due to limited infrastructure and the attendant high costs of access. Usually, various technologies are used in combination rather than as the sole delivery mechanism. For example, the Kothmale Community Radio Internet uses both radio broadcasts and computer and Internet technologies to facilitate the sharing of information and provide educational opportunities in a rural community in Sri Lanka.[17] The Open University of the United Kingdom (UKOU), established in 1969 as the first educational institution in the world wholly dedicated to open and distance learning, still relies heavily on print-based materials supplemented by radio, television and, in recent years, online programming.[18] Similarly, the Indira Gandhi National Open University in India combines the use of print, recorded audio and video, broadcast radio and television, and audioconferencing technologies.[19]
Computer assisted learning (CAL), CAL has been increasingly used to describe the use of technology in teaching.
[edit] Education history
Main article: History of education
A depiction of the world's oldest university, the University of Bologna, ItalyThe history of education according to Dieter Lenzen, president of the Freie Universität Berlin 1994 "began either millions of years ago or at the end of 1770". Education as a science cannot be separated from the educational traditions that existed before. Education was the natural response of early civilizations to the struggle of surviving and thriving as a culture. Adults trained the young of their society in the knowledge and skills they would need to master and eventually pass on. The evolution of culture, and human beings as a species depended on this practice of transmitting knowledge. In pre-literate societies this was achieved orally and through imitation. Story-telling continued from one generation to the next. Oral language developed into written symbols and letters. The depth and breadth of knowledge that could be preserved and passed soon increased exponentially. When cultures began to extend their knowledge beyond the basic skills of communicating, trading, gathering food, religious practices, etc, formal education, and schooling, eventually followed. Schooling in this sense was already in place in Egypt between 3000 and 500BC.
[edit] Education philosophy
Main articles: Philosophy of education and Epistemology
John Locke's seminal work Some Thoughts Concerning Education was written in 1693 and still reflects traditional education prioritiesThe philosophy of education is the study of the purpose, nature and ideal content of education. Related topics include knowledge itself, the nature of the knowing mind and the human subject, problems of authority, and the relationship between education and society. At least since Locke's time, the philosophy of education has been linked to theories of developmental psychology and human development.
Fundamental purposes that have been proposed for education include:
The enterprise of civil society depends on educating young people to become responsible, thoughtful and enterprising citizens. This is an intricate, challenging task requiring deep understanding of ethical principles, moral values, political theory, aesthetics, and economics, not to mention an understanding of who children are, in themselves and in society.
Progress in every practical field depends on having capacities that schooling can educate. Education is thus a means to foster the individual's, society's, and even humanity's future development and prosperity. Emphasis is often put on economic success in this regard.
One's individual development and the capacity to fulfill one's own purposes can depend on an adequate preparation in childhood. Education can thus attempt to give a firm foundation for the achievement of personal fulfillment. The better the foundation that is built, the more successful the child will be. Simple basics in education can carry a child far.
A central tenet of education typically includes “the imparting of knowledge.” At a very basic level, this purpose ultimately deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. The branch of philosophy that addresses these and related issues is known as epistemology. This area of study often focuses on analyzing the nature and variety of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth and belief.
While the term, knowledge, is often used to convey this general purpose of education, it can also be viewed as part of a continuum of knowing that ranges from very specific data to the highest levels. Seen in this light, the continuum may be thought to consist of a general hierarchy of overlapping levels of knowing. Students must be able to connect new information to a piece of old information to be better able to learn, understand, and retain information. This continuum may include notions such as data, information, knowledge, wisdom, and realization.
[edit] Education psychology
Main article: Educational psychology
A class size experiment in the United States found that attending small classes for 3 or more years in the early grades increased high school graduation of students from low income families.[20]Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Although the terms "educational psychology" and "school psychology" are often used interchangeably, researchers and theorists are likely to be identified as educational psychologists, whereas practitioners in schools or school-related settings are identified as school psychologists. Educational psychology is concerned with the processes of educational attainment in the general population and in sub-populations such as gifted children and those with specific disabilities.
Educational psychology can in part be understood through its relationship with other disciplines. It is informed primarily by psychology, bearing a relationship to that discipline analogous to the relationship between medicine and biology. Educational psychology in turn informs a wide range of specialities within educational studies, including instructional design, educational technology, curriculum development, organizational learning, special education and classroom management. Educational psychology both draws from and contributes to cognitive science and the learning sciences. In universities, departments of educational psychology are usually housed within faculties of education, possibly accounting for the lack of representation of educational psychology content in introductory psychology textbooks (Lucas, Blazek, & Raley, 2006).
[edit] Education economics
If we look at a sorted list of nations with the highest level of secondary schooling we notice these are the richest countries in the world, based on GDP per capita. High rates of education are essential for countries to achieve high levels of economic growth. In theory poor countries should grow faster than rich countries because they can adopt cutting edge technologies already tried and tested by rich countries. But economists argue that if the gap in education between a rich and a poor nation is too large, as is the case between the poorest and the richest nations in the world, the transfer of these technologies that drive economic growth becomes difficult, thus the economies of the world's poorest nations stagnate.
[edit] Education sociology
Main article: Sociology of education
The sociology of education is the study of how social institutions and forces affect educational processes and outcomes, and vice versa. By many, education is understood to be a means of overcoming handicaps, achieving greater equality and acquiring wealth and status for all (Sargent 1994). Learners may be motivated by aspirations for progress and betterment. Education is perceived as a place where children can develop according to their unique needs and potentialities (Schofield 1999). The purpose of education can be to develop every individual to their full potential. However, according to some sociologists, a key problem is that the educational needs of individuals and marginalized groups may be at odds with existing social processes, such as maintaining social stability through the reproduction of inequality. The understanding of the goals and means of educational socialization processes differs according to the sociological paradigm used.
Developing countries
Russia has more academic graduates than any other country in EuropeAccording to The Borgen project, 115 million children lack access to education. In developing countries, the number and seriousness of the problems faced are naturally greater. People are sometimes unaware of the importance of education, and there is economic pressure from those parents who prioritize their children's making money in the short term over any long-term benefits of education. Recent studies on child labor and poverty have suggested that when poor families reach a certain economic threshold where families are able to provide for their basic needs, parents return their children to school. This has been found to be true, once the threshold has been breached, even if the potential economic value of the children's work has increased since their return to school. Teachers are often paid less than other similar professions.
A lack of good universities, and a low acceptance rate for good universities, is evident in countries with a relatively high population density. In some countries, there are uniform, overstructured, inflexible centralized programs from a central agency that regulates all aspects of education.
Due to globalization, increased pressure on students in curricular activities
Removal of a certain percentage of students for improvisation of academics (usually practised in schools, after 10th grade)
India is now developing technologies that will skip land based phone and internet lines. Instead, India launched EDUSAT, an education satellite that can reach more of the country at a greatly reduced cost. There is also an initiative started by a group out of MIT and supported by several major corporations to develop a $100 laptop. The laptops should be available by late 2006 or 2007. The laptops, sold at cost, will enable developing countries to give their children a digital education, and to close the digital divide across the world.
In Africa, NEPAD has launched an "e-school programme" to provide all 600,000 primary and high schools with computer equipment, learning materials and internet access within 10 years. Private groups, like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are working to give more individuals opportunities to receive education in developing countries through such programs as the Perpetual Education Fund. An International Development Agency project called nabuur.com, started with the support of American President Bill Clinton, uses the internet to allow co-operation by individuals on issues of social development.
Internationalisation
Education is becoming increasingly international. Not only are the materials becoming more influenced by the rich international environment, but exchanges among students at all levels are also playing an increasingly important role. In Europe, for example, the Socrates-Erasmus Programme stimulates exchanges across European universities. Also, the Soros Foundation provides many opportunities for students from central Asia and eastern Europe. Some scholars argue that, regardless of whether one system is considered better or worse than another, experiencing a different way of education can often be considered to be the most important, enriching element of an international learning experience (Dubois et al. 2006).
Challenges
The goal of education is fourfold: the social purpose, intellectual purpose, economic purpose, and political/civic purpose. Current education issues include which teaching method(s) are most effective, how to determine what knowledge should be taught, which knowledge is most relevant, and how well the pupil will retain incoming knowledge. Educators such as George Counts and Paulo Freire identified education as an inherently political process with inherently political outcomes. The challenge of identifying whose ideas are transferred and what goals they serve has always stood in the face of formal and informal education.
In addition to the "Three R's", reading, writing, and arithmetic, Western primary and secondary schools attempt to teach the basic knowledge of history, geography, mathematics (usually including calculus and algebra), physics, chemistry and sometimes politics, in the hope that students will retain and use this knowledge as they age or that the skills acquired will be transferable. The current education system measures competency with tests and assignments and then assigns each student a corresponding grade. The grades, usually a letter grade or a percentage, are intended to represent the amount of all material presented in class that the student understood. Pre- and post-tests may be used to measure how much was learned.
Educational progressives or advocates of unschooling often believe that grades do not necessarily reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a student, and that there is an unfortunate lack of youth voice in the educational process. Some feel the current grading system lowers students' self-confidence, as students may receive poor marks due to factors outside their control. Such factors include poverty, child abuse, and prejudiced or incompetent teachers.
By contrast, many advocates of a more traditional or "back to basics" approach believe that the direction of reform needs to be the opposite. Students are not inspired or challenged to achieve success because of the dumbing down of the curriculum and the replacement of the "canon" with inferior material. They believe that self-confidence arises not from removing hurdles such as grading, but by making them fair and encouraging students to gain pride from knowing they can jump over these hurdles. On the one hand, Albert Einstein, the most famous physicist of the twentieth century, who is credited with helping us understand the universe better, was not a model school student. He was uninterested in what was being taught, and he did not attend classes all the time. On the other hand, his gifts eventually shone through and added to the sum of human knowledge.
There are a number of highly controversial issues in education. Should some knowledge be forgotten? Should classes be segregated by gender? What should be taught? There are also some philosophies, for example Transcendentalism, that would probably reject conventional education in the belief that knowledge should be gained through more direct personal experience. A recent book argues that children are being expected to learn too much. "There is an ongoing tendency to increase the length of textbooks. There are various reasons why people want to add to the education of children. People who work on education often believe, nobly enough, that the most important contribution is to get children to learn more. Publishers want to sell new books and adding new material is an important aspect of an effective sales pitch".[21] Also, the cost of higher education in developed countries is increasingly becoming an issue.
[edit] See also
Main articles: Glossary of education-related terms, List of basic education topics, List of education articles by country, and List of education topics
Academic Dishonesty
Adult education
Alternative education
Behavior modification
Classical education
Collaborative learning
Comparative education
Curriculum
Distance education
Home schooling
e-learning
Educational animation
Educational malpractice
Entrepreneurship education
Educational psychology
Educational Research
Educational technology
Educational Software
Efficient learning method
Experiential education
Gifted education
Glossary of education-related terms
Graduate education
History of education
Indoctrination
Instructional technology
Language education
Learning
Learning 2.0
Learning by teaching
Learning community
Legal education
Lifelong education
List of educators
Medical education
Online learning community
Over-education
Philosophy of education
Public education
School
Single-sex education
Socialization
Sociology of education
Special education
Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
Teacher
Tertiary education
University
Virtual education
Vocational education
[edit] References
^ An overview of education
^ Examples of subjects...
^ [(http://www.learningstyles.net/ Dunn and Dunn]
^ biographer of Renzulli
^ http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm
^ Keirsey web-site
^ Type Delineator description
^ Swassing, R. H., Barbe, W. B., & Milone, M. N. (1979). The Swassing-Barbe Modality Index: Zaner-Bloser Modality Kit. Columbus, OH: Zaner-Bloser.
^ Varied Learning Modes
^ Barbe, W. B., & Swassing, R. H., with M. N. Milone. (1979). Teaching through modality strengths: Concepts and practices. Columbus, OH: Zaner-Bloser.
^ Learning modality description from the Learning Curve website
^ Work-Related Stress in teaching
^ Teacher Support for England & Wales
^ Blurton, Craig. New Directions of ICT-Use in Education. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
^ ICT in Education
^ Potashnik, M. and Capper, J.. Distance Education:Growth and Diversity. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
^ Taghioff, Daniel. Seeds of Consensus—The Potential Role for Information and Communication Technologies in Development.. Retrieved on 2003-10-12.
^ http://www.open.ac.uk
^ http://www.ignou.ac.in
^ Finn, J. D., Gerber, S. B., Boyd-Zaharias, J. (2005). Small classes in the early grades, academic achievement, and graduating from high school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97, 214-233.
^ Bar-Yam,Yaneer (2005). Making Things Work. Knowledge Press. ISBN 0-9656328-2-2.
[edit] External links
"Educate a Woman, You Educate a Nation" - South Africa Aims to Improve its Education for Girls WNN - Women News Network. Aug. 28, 2007. Lys Anzia
Find more information on Education by searching Wikipedia's sister projects
Dictionary definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity
World Bank Education
UNESCO - International Institute for Educational Planning
UNESCO IBE Database: Information on almost every education system in the world
UNESCO Institute for Statistics: International comparable statistics on education systems
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LANGUAGE
A language is a system of symbols and the rules used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon. Though commonly used as a means of communication among people, human language is only one instance of this phenomenon. This article concerns the properties of language in general. For information specifically on the use of language by humans see the main article on natural language.
Contents [hide]
1 Properties of language
2 Human languages
3 International auxiliary languages
4 Controlled languages
5 Constructed languages
6 The study of language
7 Do animals use language?
8 Formal languages
9 Programming languages
10 See also
10.1 See also (Lists)
11 Notes
12 References
13 Further reading
14 External links
[edit] Properties of language
Languages are not just sets of symbols. They also contain a grammar, or system of rules, used to manipulate the symbols. While a set of symbols may be used for expression or communication, it is primitive and relatively inexpressive, because there are no clear or regular relationships between the symbols. Because a language also has a grammar, it can manipulate its symbols to express clear and regular relationships between them.
Another property of language is the arbitrariness of the symbols. Any symbol can be mapped onto any concept (or even onto one of the rules of the grammar). For instance, there is nothing about the Spanish word nada itself that forces Spanish speakers to use it to mean "nothing". That is the meaning all Spanish speakers have memorized for that sound pattern. But for Croatian, Serbian or Bosnian speakers, nada means "hope".
However, it must be understood that just because in principle the symbols are arbitrary does not mean that a language cannot have symbols that are iconic of what they stand for. Words such as "meow" sound similar to what they represent (see Onomatopoeia), but they could be replaced with words such as "jarn", and as long as everyone memorized the new word, the same concepts could be expressed with it.
[edit] Human languages
Main article: Natural language
Some of the areas of the brain involved in language processing: Broca's area, Wernicke's area, Supramarginal gyrus, Angular gyrus, Primary Auditory CortexHuman languages are usually referred to as natural languages, and the science of studying them is linguistics.
Making a principled distinction between one language and another is usually impossible. For instance, there are a few dialects of German similar to some dialects of Dutch. The transition between languages within the same language family is sometimes gradual (see dialect continuum).
Some like to make parallels with biology, where it is not always possible to make a well-defined distinction between one species and the next. In either case, the ultimate difficulty may stem from the interactions between languages and populations. (See Dialect or August Schleicher for a longer discussion.)
The concepts of Ausbausprache, Abstandsprache and Dachsprache are used to make finer distinctions about the degrees of difference between languages or dialects.
[edit] International auxiliary languages
Main article: International auxiliary language
Some languages are meant specifically for communication between people of different nationalities or language groups. Several of these languages have been constructed by an individual or group, as noted below. Others are seen as natural, pre-existing languages. Their developers merely catalogued and standardized their vocabulary and identified their grammatical rules. These languages are called naturalistic. One such language, Latino Sine Flexione, is a simplified form of Latin. Another, Occidental, was drawn from several Western languages.
To date, the most successful auxiliary language is Esperanto, invented by the Polish ophthalmologist Zamenhof, which has about 2 million speakers over the world and which has hundreds of songs sung in it, and a vast amount of literature written in it. The Stone City, for example, was originally written in Esperanto. Other auxiliary languages with an important group of speakers are Interlingua and Ido (however, the latter is believed to have only a few hundred speakers).
[edit] Controlled languages
Main article: Controlled natural language
Controlled natural languages are subsets of natural languages whose grammars and dictionaries have been restricted in order to reduce or eliminate both ambiguity and complexity. The purpose behind the development and implementation of a controlled natural language typically is to aid non-native speakers of a natural language in understanding it, or to ease computer processing of a natural language. An example of a widely used controlled natural language is Simplified English, which was originally developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals.
[edit] Constructed languages
Main article: Constructed language
Some individuals and groups have constructed their own artificial languages, for practical, experimental, personal or ideological reasons. For example, one prominent artificial language, Esperanto, was created by L. L. Zamenhof as a compilation of various elements of different languages, and is supposed to be an easy-to-learn language for people familiar with similar, mostly Indo-European, languages. Other constructed languages strive to be more logical ("loglangs") than natural languages; a prominent example of this is Lojban. Both of these languages are meant as international auxiliary languages.
Some writers, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, have created fantasy languages, for literary, artistic or personal reasons.
Constructed languages are not necessarily restricted to the properties shared by natural human languages.
[edit] The study of language
Main article: Linguistics
The historical record of linguistics begins in Northern India with Pāṇini, the 5th century BC grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology, known as the Aṣṭādhyāyī (अष्टाध्यायी). Pāṇini’s grammar is highly systematized and technical. Inherent in its analytic approach are the concepts of the phoneme, the morpheme, and the root; the phoneme was only recognized by Western linguists some two millennia later. Its classification of the alphabet into consonants and vowels, and elements like nouns, verbs, vowels and consonants which he put into classes, were also breakthroughs at the time.
In the Middle East, the Persian linguist Sibawayh made a detailed and professional description of Arabic in 760 CE in his monumental work, Al-kitab fi al-nahw (الكتاب في النحو, The Book on Grammar), bringing many linguistic aspects of language to light. In his book he distinguished phonetics from phonology.
Later in the West, the success of science, mathematics, and other formal systems in the 20th century led many to attempt a formalization of the study of language as a "semantic code". This resulted in the academic discipline of linguistics, the founding of which is attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure.[citation needed] In the 20th century substantial contribution to the understanding of language came from Ferdinand de Saussure, Hjelmslev, Émile Benveniste and Roman Jakobson;[1] they were all characterized as being highly systematic.[1]
[edit] Do animals use language?
Main article: Animal language
The term "animal languages" is often used for nonhuman languages. Linguists do not consider these to be language, but describe them as animal communication, because such communication is fundamentally different in its underlying principles from true language, which has been found in humans only.
In several publicized instances, nonhuman animals have been taught to understand certain features of human language. Chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans have been taught hand signs based on American Sign Language; however, they have never been successfully taught grammar. In 2003, a saved Bonobo chimpanzee named Kanzi allegedly independently created some words to convey certain concepts. The African Grey Parrot, which possesses the ability to mimic human speech with a high degree of accuracy, is suspected of having sufficient intelligence to begin to comprehend some of the speech it mimics. Most species of parrot, despite expert mimicry, are believed to have no linguistic comprehension at all.
While proponents of animal communication systems have debated levels of semantics, these systems have not been found to have anything approaching human language syntax. The situation with dolphins and whales presents a special case in that there is some evidence that spontaneous development of complex vocal language is occurring, but it certainly has not been proven.
Some researchers argue that a continuum exists among the communication methods of all social animals, pointing to the fundamental requirements of group behavior and the existence of "mirror cells" in primates. This, however, is still a scientific question. What exactly is the definition of the word "language"? Most researchers agree that, although human and more primitive languages have analogous features, they are not homologous.
[edit] Formal languages
Main article: Formal language
Mathematics and computer science use artificial entities called formal languages (including programming languages and markup languages, and some that are more theoretical in nature). These often take the form of character strings, produced by some combination of formal grammar and semantics of arbitrary complexity.
[edit] Programming languages
Main article: Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages, like human languages, are defined through the use of syntactic and semantic rules, to determine structure and meaning respectively.
Programming languages are used to facilitate communication about the task of organizing and manipulating information, and to express algorithms precisely. Some authors restrict the term "programming language" to those languages that can express all possible algorithms; sometimes the term "computer language" is used for more limited artificial languages.
[edit] See also
Autism
Base language
Broca's area - a speech-related brain region
Cochlear implant
Computer-assisted language learning - a historical perspective
Deception
Dialect
Dictionary - word catalog for a given language
Extinct language
Foreign language
FOXP2 - gene implicated in cases of specific language impairment (SLI)
General-audience description
Great ape language
Historical linguistics
ILR scale - defines 5 levels of language proficiency
Intercultural competence
Interpreting
ISO 639-3 - 3-letter ID codes for all languages
ISO 639 - 2- and 3-letter ID codes for languages
Language education
Language-predicated educational games
Language policy
Language reform
Language school
Linguistic protectionism
Metacommunicative competence
Name
Non-sexist language
Non-verbal communication
Official language
Orthography
Philology
Philosophy of language
Phonetic transcription
Profanity
Psycholinguistics
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
Second language
Slang
Speech therapy
Symbolic communication
Symbolic linguistic representation
Terminology
Thesaurus - find the best word for a situation
Tongue-twister
Transition words
Translation
Universal grammar
Verbal abuse
Visual language
Whistled language
Written language
[edit] See also (Lists)
Category:Lists of languages
Ethnologue - list of languages, locations, population and genetic affiliation
List of basic linguistics topics
List of language academies
List of languages
List of official languages
[edit] Notes
^ a b Holquist 1981, xvii-xviii
[edit] References
Crystal, David (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, David (2001). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Gode, Alexander (1951). Interlingua-English Dictionary. New York, Frederick Ungar Publishing Company.
Kandel ER, Schwartz JH, Jessell TM. Principles of Neural Science, fourth edition, 1173 pages. McGraw-Hill, New York (2000). ISBN 0-8385-7701-6
Katzner, K. (1999). The Languages of the World. New York, Routledge.
Holquist, Michael. (1981) Introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin's The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin and London: University of Texas Press. xv-xxxiv
McArthur, T. (1996). The Concise Companion to the English Language. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
[edit] Further reading
International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (Frawley 2003)
The World's Major Languages (Comrie 1987)
The Atlas of Languages (Comrie, Matthews, & Polinsky 1997)
[edit] External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
LanguageLook up language in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.Wikibooks has more on the topic of
LanguageAt Wikiversity, you can learn about:
School:Language and LiteratureListen to this article (info/dl)
This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2005-07-19, and may not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)
More spoken articles Distribution of languages on the Internet
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language"
Categories: Articles needing additional references from July 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since June 2007 | Spoken articles | Languages | Language | Linguistics | Human communication | Human skills
Contents [hide]
1 Properties of language
2 Human languages
3 International auxiliary languages
4 Controlled languages
5 Constructed languages
6 The study of language
7 Do animals use language?
8 Formal languages
9 Programming languages
10 See also
10.1 See also (Lists)
11 Notes
12 References
13 Further reading
14 External links
[edit] Properties of language
Languages are not just sets of symbols. They also contain a grammar, or system of rules, used to manipulate the symbols. While a set of symbols may be used for expression or communication, it is primitive and relatively inexpressive, because there are no clear or regular relationships between the symbols. Because a language also has a grammar, it can manipulate its symbols to express clear and regular relationships between them.
Another property of language is the arbitrariness of the symbols. Any symbol can be mapped onto any concept (or even onto one of the rules of the grammar). For instance, there is nothing about the Spanish word nada itself that forces Spanish speakers to use it to mean "nothing". That is the meaning all Spanish speakers have memorized for that sound pattern. But for Croatian, Serbian or Bosnian speakers, nada means "hope".
However, it must be understood that just because in principle the symbols are arbitrary does not mean that a language cannot have symbols that are iconic of what they stand for. Words such as "meow" sound similar to what they represent (see Onomatopoeia), but they could be replaced with words such as "jarn", and as long as everyone memorized the new word, the same concepts could be expressed with it.
[edit] Human languages
Main article: Natural language
Some of the areas of the brain involved in language processing: Broca's area, Wernicke's area, Supramarginal gyrus, Angular gyrus, Primary Auditory CortexHuman languages are usually referred to as natural languages, and the science of studying them is linguistics.
Making a principled distinction between one language and another is usually impossible. For instance, there are a few dialects of German similar to some dialects of Dutch. The transition between languages within the same language family is sometimes gradual (see dialect continuum).
Some like to make parallels with biology, where it is not always possible to make a well-defined distinction between one species and the next. In either case, the ultimate difficulty may stem from the interactions between languages and populations. (See Dialect or August Schleicher for a longer discussion.)
The concepts of Ausbausprache, Abstandsprache and Dachsprache are used to make finer distinctions about the degrees of difference between languages or dialects.
[edit] International auxiliary languages
Main article: International auxiliary language
Some languages are meant specifically for communication between people of different nationalities or language groups. Several of these languages have been constructed by an individual or group, as noted below. Others are seen as natural, pre-existing languages. Their developers merely catalogued and standardized their vocabulary and identified their grammatical rules. These languages are called naturalistic. One such language, Latino Sine Flexione, is a simplified form of Latin. Another, Occidental, was drawn from several Western languages.
To date, the most successful auxiliary language is Esperanto, invented by the Polish ophthalmologist Zamenhof, which has about 2 million speakers over the world and which has hundreds of songs sung in it, and a vast amount of literature written in it. The Stone City, for example, was originally written in Esperanto. Other auxiliary languages with an important group of speakers are Interlingua and Ido (however, the latter is believed to have only a few hundred speakers).
[edit] Controlled languages
Main article: Controlled natural language
Controlled natural languages are subsets of natural languages whose grammars and dictionaries have been restricted in order to reduce or eliminate both ambiguity and complexity. The purpose behind the development and implementation of a controlled natural language typically is to aid non-native speakers of a natural language in understanding it, or to ease computer processing of a natural language. An example of a widely used controlled natural language is Simplified English, which was originally developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals.
[edit] Constructed languages
Main article: Constructed language
Some individuals and groups have constructed their own artificial languages, for practical, experimental, personal or ideological reasons. For example, one prominent artificial language, Esperanto, was created by L. L. Zamenhof as a compilation of various elements of different languages, and is supposed to be an easy-to-learn language for people familiar with similar, mostly Indo-European, languages. Other constructed languages strive to be more logical ("loglangs") than natural languages; a prominent example of this is Lojban. Both of these languages are meant as international auxiliary languages.
Some writers, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, have created fantasy languages, for literary, artistic or personal reasons.
Constructed languages are not necessarily restricted to the properties shared by natural human languages.
[edit] The study of language
Main article: Linguistics
The historical record of linguistics begins in Northern India with Pāṇini, the 5th century BC grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology, known as the Aṣṭādhyāyī (अष्टाध्यायी). Pāṇini’s grammar is highly systematized and technical. Inherent in its analytic approach are the concepts of the phoneme, the morpheme, and the root; the phoneme was only recognized by Western linguists some two millennia later. Its classification of the alphabet into consonants and vowels, and elements like nouns, verbs, vowels and consonants which he put into classes, were also breakthroughs at the time.
In the Middle East, the Persian linguist Sibawayh made a detailed and professional description of Arabic in 760 CE in his monumental work, Al-kitab fi al-nahw (الكتاب في النحو, The Book on Grammar), bringing many linguistic aspects of language to light. In his book he distinguished phonetics from phonology.
Later in the West, the success of science, mathematics, and other formal systems in the 20th century led many to attempt a formalization of the study of language as a "semantic code". This resulted in the academic discipline of linguistics, the founding of which is attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure.[citation needed] In the 20th century substantial contribution to the understanding of language came from Ferdinand de Saussure, Hjelmslev, Émile Benveniste and Roman Jakobson;[1] they were all characterized as being highly systematic.[1]
[edit] Do animals use language?
Main article: Animal language
The term "animal languages" is often used for nonhuman languages. Linguists do not consider these to be language, but describe them as animal communication, because such communication is fundamentally different in its underlying principles from true language, which has been found in humans only.
In several publicized instances, nonhuman animals have been taught to understand certain features of human language. Chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans have been taught hand signs based on American Sign Language; however, they have never been successfully taught grammar. In 2003, a saved Bonobo chimpanzee named Kanzi allegedly independently created some words to convey certain concepts. The African Grey Parrot, which possesses the ability to mimic human speech with a high degree of accuracy, is suspected of having sufficient intelligence to begin to comprehend some of the speech it mimics. Most species of parrot, despite expert mimicry, are believed to have no linguistic comprehension at all.
While proponents of animal communication systems have debated levels of semantics, these systems have not been found to have anything approaching human language syntax. The situation with dolphins and whales presents a special case in that there is some evidence that spontaneous development of complex vocal language is occurring, but it certainly has not been proven.
Some researchers argue that a continuum exists among the communication methods of all social animals, pointing to the fundamental requirements of group behavior and the existence of "mirror cells" in primates. This, however, is still a scientific question. What exactly is the definition of the word "language"? Most researchers agree that, although human and more primitive languages have analogous features, they are not homologous.
[edit] Formal languages
Main article: Formal language
Mathematics and computer science use artificial entities called formal languages (including programming languages and markup languages, and some that are more theoretical in nature). These often take the form of character strings, produced by some combination of formal grammar and semantics of arbitrary complexity.
[edit] Programming languages
Main article: Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages, like human languages, are defined through the use of syntactic and semantic rules, to determine structure and meaning respectively.
Programming languages are used to facilitate communication about the task of organizing and manipulating information, and to express algorithms precisely. Some authors restrict the term "programming language" to those languages that can express all possible algorithms; sometimes the term "computer language" is used for more limited artificial languages.
[edit] See also
Autism
Base language
Broca's area - a speech-related brain region
Cochlear implant
Computer-assisted language learning - a historical perspective
Deception
Dialect
Dictionary - word catalog for a given language
Extinct language
Foreign language
FOXP2 - gene implicated in cases of specific language impairment (SLI)
General-audience description
Great ape language
Historical linguistics
ILR scale - defines 5 levels of language proficiency
Intercultural competence
Interpreting
ISO 639-3 - 3-letter ID codes for all languages
ISO 639 - 2- and 3-letter ID codes for languages
Language education
Language-predicated educational games
Language policy
Language reform
Language school
Linguistic protectionism
Metacommunicative competence
Name
Non-sexist language
Non-verbal communication
Official language
Orthography
Philology
Philosophy of language
Phonetic transcription
Profanity
Psycholinguistics
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
Second language
Slang
Speech therapy
Symbolic communication
Symbolic linguistic representation
Terminology
Thesaurus - find the best word for a situation
Tongue-twister
Transition words
Translation
Universal grammar
Verbal abuse
Visual language
Whistled language
Written language
[edit] See also (Lists)
Category:Lists of languages
Ethnologue - list of languages, locations, population and genetic affiliation
List of basic linguistics topics
List of language academies
List of languages
List of official languages
[edit] Notes
^ a b Holquist 1981, xvii-xviii
[edit] References
Crystal, David (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, David (2001). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Gode, Alexander (1951). Interlingua-English Dictionary. New York, Frederick Ungar Publishing Company.
Kandel ER, Schwartz JH, Jessell TM. Principles of Neural Science, fourth edition, 1173 pages. McGraw-Hill, New York (2000). ISBN 0-8385-7701-6
Katzner, K. (1999). The Languages of the World. New York, Routledge.
Holquist, Michael. (1981) Introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin's The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin and London: University of Texas Press. xv-xxxiv
McArthur, T. (1996). The Concise Companion to the English Language. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
[edit] Further reading
International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (Frawley 2003)
The World's Major Languages (Comrie 1987)
The Atlas of Languages (Comrie, Matthews, & Polinsky 1997)
[edit] External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
LanguageLook up language in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.Wikibooks has more on the topic of
LanguageAt Wikiversity, you can learn about:
School:Language and LiteratureListen to this article (info/dl)
This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2005-07-19, and may not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)
More spoken articles Distribution of languages on the Internet
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language"
Categories: Articles needing additional references from July 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since June 2007 | Spoken articles | Languages | Language | Linguistics | Human communication | Human skills
MOVIES
Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects.
Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful method for educating -or indoctrinating- citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication; some movies have become popular worldwide attractions, by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue.
Traditional films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision — whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement.
The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, photo-play, flick, and most commonly, movie. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema, and the movies.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Theory
3 Criticism
4 Industry
5 Production
6 Crew
7 Independent
8 Open content film
9 Fan film
10 Animation
11 Venues
12 Technology
13 Future state
14 See also
14.1 Wikibooks
14.2 Wikiversity
14.3 Wikiquote
14.4 Basic types
14.5 International
14.6 Other
14.7 Lists
15 Notes
16 References
17 External links
History
Main article: History of film
Mechanisms for producing artificially created, two-dimensional images in motion were demonstrated as early as the 1860s, with devices such as the zoetrope and the praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of simple optical devices (such as magic lanterns) and would display sequences of still pictures at sufficient speed for the images on the pictures to appear to be moving, a phenomenon called persistence of vision. Naturally, the images needed to be carefully designed to achieve the desired effect — and the underlying principle became the basis for the development of film animation.
A frame from Roundhay Garden Scene, the world's earliest film to date, by Louis Le Prince, 1888With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time. Early versions of the technology sometimes required the viewer to look into a special device to see the pictures. By the 1880s, the development of the motion picture camera allowed the individual component images to be captured and stored on a single reel, and led quickly to the development of a motion picture projector to shine light through the processed and printed film and magnify these "moving picture shows" onto a screen for an entire audience. These reels, so exhibited, came to be known as "motion pictures." Early motion pictures were static shots that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques.
Motion pictures were purely visual art up to the late 19th century, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the twentieth century, films began developing a narrative structure by stringing scenes together to tell narratives. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots of varying sizes and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were realized as effective ways to portray a story on film. Rather than leave the audience in silence, theater owners would hire a pianist or organist or a full orchestra to play music fitting the mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music for this purpose, with complete film scores being composed for major productions.
A shot from Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902), an early narrative film.The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the breakout of World War I while the film industry in United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood. However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang, along with American innovator D. W. Griffith and the contributions of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and others, continued to advance the medium. In the 1920s, new technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. These sound films were initially distinguished by calling them "talking pictures", or talkies.
The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction of color. While the addition of sound quickly eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color was adopted more gradually. The public was relatively indifferent to color photography as opposed to black-and-white,[citation needed] but as color processes improved and became as affordable as black-and-white film, more and more movies were filmed in color after the end of World War II, as the industry in America came to view color as essential to attracting audiences in its competition with television, which remained a black-and-white medium until the mid-1960s. By the end of the 1960s, color had become the norm for film makers.
Since the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, the succeeding decades saw changes in the production and style of film. New Hollywood, French New Wave and the rise of film school educated independent filmmakers were all part of the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force in change throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century.
Theory
Main article: Film theory
Film theory seeks to develop concise, systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art. It was started by Ricciotto Canudo's The Birth of the Sixth Art. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, and Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality, and thus could be considered a valid fine art. André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent analysis spurred by Lacan's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory and others.
Criticism
Main article: Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media.
Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only a day or two to formulate opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on films, especially those of certain genres. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of any film review can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.
The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some claim that movie marketing is now so intense and well financed that reviewers cannot make an impact against it. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily-promoted movies which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent movies indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Others note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this usually backfires as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result.
It is argued that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and true film critics are those who take a more academic approach to films. This line of work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics attempt to come to understand how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their works published in newspapers or appear on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities.
Industry
Main article: Film industry
The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898 was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. Already by 1917, Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.
In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world.[1] Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.[citation needed] Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.
Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits.
There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.
Production
Main article: Filmmaking
The nature of the film determines the size and type of crew required during filmmaking. Many Hollywood adventure films need computer generated imagery (CGI), created by dozens of 3D modellers, animators, rotoscopers and compositors. However, a low-budget, independent film may be made with a skeleton crew, often paid very little. Also, an open source film may be produced through open, collaborative processes. Filmmaking takes place all over the world using different technologies, styles of acting and genre, and is produced in a variety of economic contexts that range from state-sponsored documentary in China to profit-oriented movie making within the American studio system.
A typical Hollywood-style filmmaking Production cycle is comprised of five main stages:
Development
Pre-production
Production
Post-production
Distribution
This production cycle typically takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, post-production and distribution.
Crew
Main article: Film crew
A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company, employed during the "production" or "photography" phase, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew interacts with but is also distinct from the production staff, consisting of producers, managers, company representatives, their assistants, and those whose primary responsibility falls in pre-production or post-production phases, such as writers and editors. Communication between production and crew generally passes through the director and his/her staff of assistants. Medium-to-large crews are generally divided into departments with well defined hierarchies and standards for interaction and cooperation between the departments. Other than acting, the crew handles everything in the photography phase: props and costumes, shooting, sound, electrics (i.e., lights), sets, and production special effects. Caterers (known in the film industry as "craft services") are usually not considered part of the crew.
Independent
Main article: Independent film
The Lumière BrothersIndependent filmmaking often takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a major movie studio. Creative, business, and technological reasons have all contributed to the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st century.
On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads to conservative choices in cast and crew. There is a trend in Hollywood towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987).[2] A hopeful director is almost never given the opportunity to get a job on a big-budget studio film unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. Also, the studios rarely produce films with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.
Before the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional studio film. The cost of 35 mm film is outpacing inflation: in 2002 alone, film negative costs were up 23%, according to Variety.[2].
But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution digital video in the early 1990s, have lowered the technology barrier to movie production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVDs, FireWire connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas and Apple's Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Apple's Final Cut Express and iMovie make movie-making relatively inexpensive.
Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a movie, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratized, financing, distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system. Most independent filmmakers rely on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. The arrival of internet-based video outlets such as YouTube and Veoh has further changed the film making landscape in ways that are still to be determined.
Open content film
Main article: Open content film
An open content film is much like an independent film, but it is produced through open collaborations; its source material is available under a license which is permissive enough to allow other parties to create fan fiction or derivative works, than a traditional copyright. Like independent filmmaking, open source filmmaking takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems.
Fan film
Main article: Fan film
A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book or a similar source, created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in length, from short faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to rarer full-length motion pictures.
Animation
Main article: Animation
Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of continuous movement (due to the persistence of vision). Generating such a film is very labour intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.
File formats like GIF, QuickTime, Shockwave and Flash allow animation to be viewed on a computer or over the Internet.
Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry.
Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television.[3]
Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends on film. Cameraless animation, made famous by moviemakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector.
Venues
When it is initially produced, a feature film is often shown to audiences in a movie theater or cinema. The first theater designed exclusively for cinema opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1905.[4] Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years.[5] In the United States, these theaters came to be known as nickelodeons, because admission typically cost a nickel (five cents).
Typically, one film is the featured presentation (or feature film). Before the 1970s, there were "double features"; typically, a high quality "A picture" rented by an independent theater for a lump sum, and a "B picture" of lower quality rented for a percentage of the gross receipts. Today, the bulk of the material shown before the feature film consists of previews for upcoming movies and paid advertisements (also known as trailers or "The Twenty").
Historically, all mass marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The development of television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters. Recording technology has also enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on VHS or DVD (and the older formats of laserdisc, VCD and SelectaVision — see also videodisc), and Internet downloads may be available and have started to become revenue sources for the film companies. Some films are now made specifically for these other venues, being released as made-for-TV movies or direct-to-video movies. The production values on these films are often considered to be of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases in similar genres, and indeed, some films that are rejected by their own studios upon completion are distributed through these markets.
The movie theater pays an average of about 50-55% of its ticket sales to the movie studio, as film rental fees.[6] The actual percentage starts with a number higher than that, and decreases as the duration of a film's showing continues, as an incentive to theaters to keep movies in the theater longer. However, today's barrage of highly marketed movies ensures that most movies are shown in first-run theaters for less than 8 weeks. There are a few movies every year that defy this rule, often limited-release movies that start in only a few theaters and actually grow their theater count through good word-of-mouth and reviews. According to a 2000 study by ABN AMRO, about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view).[6]
Technology
Film stock consists of transparent celluloid, acetate, or polyester base coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive chemicals. Cellulose nitrate was the first type of film base used to record motion pictures, but due to its flammability was eventually replaced by safer materials. Stock widths and the film format for images on the reel have had a rich history, though most large commercial films are still shot on (and distributed to theaters) as 35 mm prints.
Originally moving picture film was shot and projected at various speeds using hand-cranked cameras and projectors; though 1000 frames per minute (16⅔ per second) is generally cited as a standard silent speed, research indicates most films were shot between 16 and 23 fps and projected from 18 fps on up (often reels included instructions on how fast each scene should be shown) [1]. When sound film was introduced in the late 1920s, a constant speed was required for the sound head. 24 frames per second was chosen because it was the slowest (and thus cheapest) speed which allowed for sufficient sound quality. Improvements since the late 19th century include the mechanization of cameras — allowing them to record at a consistent speed, quiet camera design — allowing sound recorded on-set to be usable without requiring large "blimps" to encase the camera, the invention of more sophisticated filmstocks and lenses, allowing directors to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of synchronized sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same speed as its corresponding action. The soundtrack can be recorded separately from shooting the film, but for live-action pictures many parts of the soundtrack are usually recorded simultaneously.
As a medium, film is not limited to motion pictures, since the technology developed as the basis for photography. It can be used to present a progressive sequence of still images in the form of a slideshow. Film has also been incorporated into multimedia presentations, and often has importance as primary historical documentation. However, historic films have problems in terms of preservation and storage, and the motion picture industry is exploring many alternatives. Most movies on cellulose nitrate base have been copied onto modern safety films. Some studios save color films through the use of separation masters — three B&W negatives each exposed through red, green, or blue filters (essentially a reverse of the Technicolor process). Digital methods have also been used to restore films, although their continued obsolescence cycle makes them (as of 2006) a poor choice for long-term preservation. Film preservation of decaying film stock is a matter of concern to both film historians and archivists, and to companies interested in preserving their existing products in order to make them available to future generations (and thereby increase revenue). Preservation is generally a higher-concern for nitrate and single-strip color films, due to their high decay rates; black and white films on safety bases and color films preserved on Technicolor imbibition prints tend to keep up much better, assuming proper handling and storage.
Some films in recent decades have been recorded using analog video technology similar to that used in television production. Modern digital video cameras and digital projectors are gaining ground as well. These approaches are extremely beneficial to moviemakers, especially because footage can be evaluated and edited without waiting for the film stock to be processed. Yet the migration is gradual, and as of 2005 most major motion pictures are still recorded on film.
Future state
While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon of fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts predicted the demise of local movie theaters. Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s, such as the development of color television and large screens, motion picture cinemas continued. In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing, industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local cinemas.
In the 1990s and 2000s, the development of digital DVD players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction. These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past, only local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker sound system. Once again, industry analysts predicted the demise of the local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 2000s and moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for easier, quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their predicted demise.
See also
Film Portal
Wikibooks
Movie making manual
Movie making directory
Wikiversity
Film and television
Wikiquote
Film
Screenwriting
Basic types
Narrative film
Film genre
Documentary film
Experimental film
Animation
Web film
International
World cinema
Cinema of Europe
Asian cinema
East Asian cinema
Southeast Asian cinema
South Asian cinema
West Asian cinema
African cinema
North American cinema
South American cinema
Australasian cinema
Other
Digital film
Filmmaking
Film criticism
Film journals and magazines
Film festival
Film manifesto
Film theory
History of film
The Internet Movie Database
Lost film
Movie star
Sound stage
Lists
Main lists: Lists of films, List of basic film topics, and List of film topics
Film genres
Cult films
Films considered the greatest ever
Films considered the worst ever
List of film series
List of character-based film series
List of film festivals
List of film formats
List of film techniques
List of films by location
List of films that most frequently use the word "fuck"
List of highest-grossing films
List of longest films by running time
List of songs based on a film or book
List of US box office bombs
Lists of film source material
List of open content films
Notes
^ Bollywood Hots Up cnn.com. Retrieved June 23, 2007
^ a b Sharing Pix is Risky Business variety.com. Retrieved June 23, 2007.
^ Savage, Mark (2006-12-19). Hanna Barbera's golden age of animation. BBC News. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
^ Timothy McNulty (2005-06-19). You saw it here first: Pittsburgh's Nickelodeon introduced the moving picture theater to the masses in 1905. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
^ Pre-Nickelodeon/Nickelodeon. University of Maryland Libraries (2005-07-05). Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
^ a b PBS Frontline: The Monster that Ate Hollywood: Anatomy of a Monster: Now Playing ... And Playing ... And Playing ... pbs.org. Retrieved June 23, 2007
References
Acker, Ally (1991). Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, 1896 to the Present. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0826404995.
Basten, Fred E. (1980). Glorious Technicolor: The Movies' Magic Rainbow. Cranbury, NJ: AS Barnes & Company. ISBN 0498023176.
Basten, Fred E. (writer); Peter Jones (director and writer); Angela Lansbury (narrator). (1998). Glorious Technicolor [Documentary]. Turner Classic Movies.
Casetti, Francesco (1999). Theories of Cinema, 1945-1995. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0292712073.
Dabashi, Hamid (2007). Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema. Mage Publishers. ISBN 093421185X.
Faber, Liz, & Walters, Helen (2003). Animation Unlimited: Innovative Short Films Since 1940. London: Laurence King, in association with Harper Design International. ISBN 1856693465.
Hagener, Malte, & Töteberg, Michael (2002). Film: An International Bibliography. Stuttgart: Metzler. ISBN 3476015238.
Hill, John, & Gibson, Pamela Church (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198711247.
King, Geoff (2002). New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231127596.
Ledoux, Trish, & Ranney, Doug, & Patten, Fred (1997). Complete Anime Guide: Japanese Animation Film Directory and Resource Guide. Issaquah, WA: Tiger Mountain Press. ISBN 0964954257.
Merritt, Greg (2000). Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Film. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 1560252324.
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey (1999). The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198742428.
Rocchio, Vincent F. (2000). Reel Racism: Confronting Hollywood's Construction of Afro-American Culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN 0813367107.
Schrader, Paul (Spring 1972). "Notes on Film Noir". Film Comment Vol. 8 (Issue 1): pp. 8-13. ISSN 0015-119X.
Schultz, John (writer and director); James Earl Jones (narrator). (1995). The Making of 'Jurassic Park' [Documentary]. Amblin Entertainment.
Thackway, Melissa (2003). Africa Shoots Back: Alternative Perspectives in Sub-Saharan Francophone African Film. Bloomington, IL: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0852555768.
Vogel, Amos (1974). Film as a Subversive Art. New York: Random House. ISBN 0394490789.
External links
Find more information on Film by searching Wikipedia's sister projects
Dictionary definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity
All Movie Guide - Information on films: actors, directors, biographies, reviews, cast and production credits, box office sales, and other movie data.
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Movies at the Open Directory Project
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Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful method for educating -or indoctrinating- citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication; some movies have become popular worldwide attractions, by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue.
Traditional films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision — whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement.
The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, photo-play, flick, and most commonly, movie. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema, and the movies.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Theory
3 Criticism
4 Industry
5 Production
6 Crew
7 Independent
8 Open content film
9 Fan film
10 Animation
11 Venues
12 Technology
13 Future state
14 See also
14.1 Wikibooks
14.2 Wikiversity
14.3 Wikiquote
14.4 Basic types
14.5 International
14.6 Other
14.7 Lists
15 Notes
16 References
17 External links
History
Main article: History of film
Mechanisms for producing artificially created, two-dimensional images in motion were demonstrated as early as the 1860s, with devices such as the zoetrope and the praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of simple optical devices (such as magic lanterns) and would display sequences of still pictures at sufficient speed for the images on the pictures to appear to be moving, a phenomenon called persistence of vision. Naturally, the images needed to be carefully designed to achieve the desired effect — and the underlying principle became the basis for the development of film animation.
A frame from Roundhay Garden Scene, the world's earliest film to date, by Louis Le Prince, 1888With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time. Early versions of the technology sometimes required the viewer to look into a special device to see the pictures. By the 1880s, the development of the motion picture camera allowed the individual component images to be captured and stored on a single reel, and led quickly to the development of a motion picture projector to shine light through the processed and printed film and magnify these "moving picture shows" onto a screen for an entire audience. These reels, so exhibited, came to be known as "motion pictures." Early motion pictures were static shots that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques.
Motion pictures were purely visual art up to the late 19th century, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the twentieth century, films began developing a narrative structure by stringing scenes together to tell narratives. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots of varying sizes and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were realized as effective ways to portray a story on film. Rather than leave the audience in silence, theater owners would hire a pianist or organist or a full orchestra to play music fitting the mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music for this purpose, with complete film scores being composed for major productions.
A shot from Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902), an early narrative film.The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the breakout of World War I while the film industry in United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood. However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang, along with American innovator D. W. Griffith and the contributions of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and others, continued to advance the medium. In the 1920s, new technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. These sound films were initially distinguished by calling them "talking pictures", or talkies.
The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction of color. While the addition of sound quickly eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color was adopted more gradually. The public was relatively indifferent to color photography as opposed to black-and-white,[citation needed] but as color processes improved and became as affordable as black-and-white film, more and more movies were filmed in color after the end of World War II, as the industry in America came to view color as essential to attracting audiences in its competition with television, which remained a black-and-white medium until the mid-1960s. By the end of the 1960s, color had become the norm for film makers.
Since the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, the succeeding decades saw changes in the production and style of film. New Hollywood, French New Wave and the rise of film school educated independent filmmakers were all part of the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force in change throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century.
Theory
Main article: Film theory
Film theory seeks to develop concise, systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art. It was started by Ricciotto Canudo's The Birth of the Sixth Art. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, and Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality, and thus could be considered a valid fine art. André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent analysis spurred by Lacan's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory and others.
Criticism
Main article: Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media.
Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only a day or two to formulate opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on films, especially those of certain genres. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of any film review can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.
The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some claim that movie marketing is now so intense and well financed that reviewers cannot make an impact against it. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily-promoted movies which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent movies indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Others note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this usually backfires as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result.
It is argued that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and true film critics are those who take a more academic approach to films. This line of work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics attempt to come to understand how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their works published in newspapers or appear on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities.
Industry
Main article: Film industry
The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898 was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. Already by 1917, Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.
In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world.[1] Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.[citation needed] Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.
Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits.
There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.
Production
Main article: Filmmaking
The nature of the film determines the size and type of crew required during filmmaking. Many Hollywood adventure films need computer generated imagery (CGI), created by dozens of 3D modellers, animators, rotoscopers and compositors. However, a low-budget, independent film may be made with a skeleton crew, often paid very little. Also, an open source film may be produced through open, collaborative processes. Filmmaking takes place all over the world using different technologies, styles of acting and genre, and is produced in a variety of economic contexts that range from state-sponsored documentary in China to profit-oriented movie making within the American studio system.
A typical Hollywood-style filmmaking Production cycle is comprised of five main stages:
Development
Pre-production
Production
Post-production
Distribution
This production cycle typically takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, post-production and distribution.
Crew
Main article: Film crew
A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company, employed during the "production" or "photography" phase, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew interacts with but is also distinct from the production staff, consisting of producers, managers, company representatives, their assistants, and those whose primary responsibility falls in pre-production or post-production phases, such as writers and editors. Communication between production and crew generally passes through the director and his/her staff of assistants. Medium-to-large crews are generally divided into departments with well defined hierarchies and standards for interaction and cooperation between the departments. Other than acting, the crew handles everything in the photography phase: props and costumes, shooting, sound, electrics (i.e., lights), sets, and production special effects. Caterers (known in the film industry as "craft services") are usually not considered part of the crew.
Independent
Main article: Independent film
The Lumière BrothersIndependent filmmaking often takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a major movie studio. Creative, business, and technological reasons have all contributed to the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st century.
On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads to conservative choices in cast and crew. There is a trend in Hollywood towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987).[2] A hopeful director is almost never given the opportunity to get a job on a big-budget studio film unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. Also, the studios rarely produce films with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.
Before the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional studio film. The cost of 35 mm film is outpacing inflation: in 2002 alone, film negative costs were up 23%, according to Variety.[2].
But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution digital video in the early 1990s, have lowered the technology barrier to movie production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVDs, FireWire connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas and Apple's Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Apple's Final Cut Express and iMovie make movie-making relatively inexpensive.
Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a movie, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratized, financing, distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system. Most independent filmmakers rely on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. The arrival of internet-based video outlets such as YouTube and Veoh has further changed the film making landscape in ways that are still to be determined.
Open content film
Main article: Open content film
An open content film is much like an independent film, but it is produced through open collaborations; its source material is available under a license which is permissive enough to allow other parties to create fan fiction or derivative works, than a traditional copyright. Like independent filmmaking, open source filmmaking takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems.
Fan film
Main article: Fan film
A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book or a similar source, created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in length, from short faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to rarer full-length motion pictures.
Animation
Main article: Animation
Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of continuous movement (due to the persistence of vision). Generating such a film is very labour intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.
File formats like GIF, QuickTime, Shockwave and Flash allow animation to be viewed on a computer or over the Internet.
Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry.
Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television.[3]
Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends on film. Cameraless animation, made famous by moviemakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector.
Venues
When it is initially produced, a feature film is often shown to audiences in a movie theater or cinema. The first theater designed exclusively for cinema opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1905.[4] Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years.[5] In the United States, these theaters came to be known as nickelodeons, because admission typically cost a nickel (five cents).
Typically, one film is the featured presentation (or feature film). Before the 1970s, there were "double features"; typically, a high quality "A picture" rented by an independent theater for a lump sum, and a "B picture" of lower quality rented for a percentage of the gross receipts. Today, the bulk of the material shown before the feature film consists of previews for upcoming movies and paid advertisements (also known as trailers or "The Twenty").
Historically, all mass marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The development of television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters. Recording technology has also enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on VHS or DVD (and the older formats of laserdisc, VCD and SelectaVision — see also videodisc), and Internet downloads may be available and have started to become revenue sources for the film companies. Some films are now made specifically for these other venues, being released as made-for-TV movies or direct-to-video movies. The production values on these films are often considered to be of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases in similar genres, and indeed, some films that are rejected by their own studios upon completion are distributed through these markets.
The movie theater pays an average of about 50-55% of its ticket sales to the movie studio, as film rental fees.[6] The actual percentage starts with a number higher than that, and decreases as the duration of a film's showing continues, as an incentive to theaters to keep movies in the theater longer. However, today's barrage of highly marketed movies ensures that most movies are shown in first-run theaters for less than 8 weeks. There are a few movies every year that defy this rule, often limited-release movies that start in only a few theaters and actually grow their theater count through good word-of-mouth and reviews. According to a 2000 study by ABN AMRO, about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view).[6]
Technology
Film stock consists of transparent celluloid, acetate, or polyester base coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive chemicals. Cellulose nitrate was the first type of film base used to record motion pictures, but due to its flammability was eventually replaced by safer materials. Stock widths and the film format for images on the reel have had a rich history, though most large commercial films are still shot on (and distributed to theaters) as 35 mm prints.
Originally moving picture film was shot and projected at various speeds using hand-cranked cameras and projectors; though 1000 frames per minute (16⅔ per second) is generally cited as a standard silent speed, research indicates most films were shot between 16 and 23 fps and projected from 18 fps on up (often reels included instructions on how fast each scene should be shown) [1]. When sound film was introduced in the late 1920s, a constant speed was required for the sound head. 24 frames per second was chosen because it was the slowest (and thus cheapest) speed which allowed for sufficient sound quality. Improvements since the late 19th century include the mechanization of cameras — allowing them to record at a consistent speed, quiet camera design — allowing sound recorded on-set to be usable without requiring large "blimps" to encase the camera, the invention of more sophisticated filmstocks and lenses, allowing directors to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of synchronized sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same speed as its corresponding action. The soundtrack can be recorded separately from shooting the film, but for live-action pictures many parts of the soundtrack are usually recorded simultaneously.
As a medium, film is not limited to motion pictures, since the technology developed as the basis for photography. It can be used to present a progressive sequence of still images in the form of a slideshow. Film has also been incorporated into multimedia presentations, and often has importance as primary historical documentation. However, historic films have problems in terms of preservation and storage, and the motion picture industry is exploring many alternatives. Most movies on cellulose nitrate base have been copied onto modern safety films. Some studios save color films through the use of separation masters — three B&W negatives each exposed through red, green, or blue filters (essentially a reverse of the Technicolor process). Digital methods have also been used to restore films, although their continued obsolescence cycle makes them (as of 2006) a poor choice for long-term preservation. Film preservation of decaying film stock is a matter of concern to both film historians and archivists, and to companies interested in preserving their existing products in order to make them available to future generations (and thereby increase revenue). Preservation is generally a higher-concern for nitrate and single-strip color films, due to their high decay rates; black and white films on safety bases and color films preserved on Technicolor imbibition prints tend to keep up much better, assuming proper handling and storage.
Some films in recent decades have been recorded using analog video technology similar to that used in television production. Modern digital video cameras and digital projectors are gaining ground as well. These approaches are extremely beneficial to moviemakers, especially because footage can be evaluated and edited without waiting for the film stock to be processed. Yet the migration is gradual, and as of 2005 most major motion pictures are still recorded on film.
Future state
While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon of fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts predicted the demise of local movie theaters. Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s, such as the development of color television and large screens, motion picture cinemas continued. In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing, industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local cinemas.
In the 1990s and 2000s, the development of digital DVD players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction. These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past, only local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker sound system. Once again, industry analysts predicted the demise of the local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 2000s and moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for easier, quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their predicted demise.
See also
Film Portal
Wikibooks
Movie making manual
Movie making directory
Wikiversity
Film and television
Wikiquote
Film
Screenwriting
Basic types
Narrative film
Film genre
Documentary film
Experimental film
Animation
Web film
International
World cinema
Cinema of Europe
Asian cinema
East Asian cinema
Southeast Asian cinema
South Asian cinema
West Asian cinema
African cinema
North American cinema
South American cinema
Australasian cinema
Other
Digital film
Filmmaking
Film criticism
Film journals and magazines
Film festival
Film manifesto
Film theory
History of film
The Internet Movie Database
Lost film
Movie star
Sound stage
Lists
Main lists: Lists of films, List of basic film topics, and List of film topics
Film genres
Cult films
Films considered the greatest ever
Films considered the worst ever
List of film series
List of character-based film series
List of film festivals
List of film formats
List of film techniques
List of films by location
List of films that most frequently use the word "fuck"
List of highest-grossing films
List of longest films by running time
List of songs based on a film or book
List of US box office bombs
Lists of film source material
List of open content films
Notes
^ Bollywood Hots Up cnn.com. Retrieved June 23, 2007
^ a b Sharing Pix is Risky Business variety.com. Retrieved June 23, 2007.
^ Savage, Mark (2006-12-19). Hanna Barbera's golden age of animation. BBC News. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
^ Timothy McNulty (2005-06-19). You saw it here first: Pittsburgh's Nickelodeon introduced the moving picture theater to the masses in 1905. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
^ Pre-Nickelodeon/Nickelodeon. University of Maryland Libraries (2005-07-05). Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
^ a b PBS Frontline: The Monster that Ate Hollywood: Anatomy of a Monster: Now Playing ... And Playing ... And Playing ... pbs.org. Retrieved June 23, 2007
References
Acker, Ally (1991). Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, 1896 to the Present. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0826404995.
Basten, Fred E. (1980). Glorious Technicolor: The Movies' Magic Rainbow. Cranbury, NJ: AS Barnes & Company. ISBN 0498023176.
Basten, Fred E. (writer); Peter Jones (director and writer); Angela Lansbury (narrator). (1998). Glorious Technicolor [Documentary]. Turner Classic Movies.
Casetti, Francesco (1999). Theories of Cinema, 1945-1995. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0292712073.
Dabashi, Hamid (2007). Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema. Mage Publishers. ISBN 093421185X.
Faber, Liz, & Walters, Helen (2003). Animation Unlimited: Innovative Short Films Since 1940. London: Laurence King, in association with Harper Design International. ISBN 1856693465.
Hagener, Malte, & Töteberg, Michael (2002). Film: An International Bibliography. Stuttgart: Metzler. ISBN 3476015238.
Hill, John, & Gibson, Pamela Church (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198711247.
King, Geoff (2002). New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231127596.
Ledoux, Trish, & Ranney, Doug, & Patten, Fred (1997). Complete Anime Guide: Japanese Animation Film Directory and Resource Guide. Issaquah, WA: Tiger Mountain Press. ISBN 0964954257.
Merritt, Greg (2000). Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Film. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 1560252324.
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey (1999). The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198742428.
Rocchio, Vincent F. (2000). Reel Racism: Confronting Hollywood's Construction of Afro-American Culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN 0813367107.
Schrader, Paul (Spring 1972). "Notes on Film Noir". Film Comment Vol. 8 (Issue 1): pp. 8-13. ISSN 0015-119X.
Schultz, John (writer and director); James Earl Jones (narrator). (1995). The Making of 'Jurassic Park' [Documentary]. Amblin Entertainment.
Thackway, Melissa (2003). Africa Shoots Back: Alternative Perspectives in Sub-Saharan Francophone African Film. Bloomington, IL: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0852555768.
Vogel, Amos (1974). Film as a Subversive Art. New York: Random House. ISBN 0394490789.
External links
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All Movie Guide - Information on films: actors, directors, biographies, reviews, cast and production credits, box office sales, and other movie data.
Film Site - Reviews of classic films
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Movies at the Open Directory Project
Rottentomatoes.com - Movie reviews, previews, forums, photos, cast info, and more.
WORLD RECORD
A world record is the best performance in a certain discipline, usually a sports event. In the United States the form world's record was formerly more common. The term world best was also briefly in use. The latter term is still used in athletics (track and field) to describe performances not recognized as an official world record, either because the event is a non-qualifying event (e.g. the 500 yards run) or because it does not fulfill other criteria of an otherwise qualifying event (e.g. the Great North Run half-marathon, which has an excessive gradient).'
Outside of conventional sports, world records can also be set in virtually anything that is measurable, but verifying these records is often very difficult. Guinness World Records (formerly Guinness Book of Records) collects and tries to verify all kind of world records.
Malaysia is one country where world record-breaking has become something of a national fad[1]. India also enjoys setting and breaking records: the country has a local version of the Guinness Book of Records, called the Limca Book of Records, after a local soft drink brand.
[edit] See also
Athletics world record
Aviation world record
Beer drinking records
Cycling records
Twin Galaxies - Video Game World Records
Water speed record
Weather records
World records in chess
[hide]v • d • eRecords
World record List of world records • Category: World records • Guinness World Records
Human Anatomy • Physiology • Oldest
Sporting Records List of Commonwealth records
Athletics • Basketball • Chess • Cricket (Test - One Day International) • Cycling • Formula One motorsport • Hockey • World Rally Championship • Speed Skating • Swimming
In track and field: 100 metres men, 100 metres women
In Australia: List of NRL records
In the US: NBA • NFL (individual) • NFL (team)• NHL • MLB • Track and field
History Military history
Culture and society Collections • Media • Movie • Music • Internet • Eating and Drinking • Painting • Language
Politics and Economics Political Entities • Money
National Records United States: Music track and field • United Kingdom • Japan
Motion Records Speed : Air (Transcontinental) • Land speed record (Railed • Road car • Motorcycle • British) • Water speed record (Underwater) • Sound barrier • Speed of light
Distance : Flight distance record • Flight altitude record • Ocean depth record • Flight endurance record • Boundary of space
Other : Spaceflight records • List of transport records • FAI records
Records in Nature Atlantic hurricane records
Man-Made objects Tallest structures • Category on tallest structures • Buildings • Food • Sculpture • Transportation • Places of worship
Physical phenomena Extremes on Earth • List of weather records
Biological Phenomena Animals • Bachteria and archea • Plants
[edit] External links
World Records in Earth Science
International Association of Athletics Federations Records
Guinness World Records
Swimming world records
Speedskating world records
Open Record Book - Free World and Local Records
Outside of conventional sports, world records can also be set in virtually anything that is measurable, but verifying these records is often very difficult. Guinness World Records (formerly Guinness Book of Records) collects and tries to verify all kind of world records.
Malaysia is one country where world record-breaking has become something of a national fad[1]. India also enjoys setting and breaking records: the country has a local version of the Guinness Book of Records, called the Limca Book of Records, after a local soft drink brand.
[edit] See also
Athletics world record
Aviation world record
Beer drinking records
Cycling records
Twin Galaxies - Video Game World Records
Water speed record
Weather records
World records in chess
[hide]v • d • eRecords
World record List of world records • Category: World records • Guinness World Records
Human Anatomy • Physiology • Oldest
Sporting Records List of Commonwealth records
Athletics • Basketball • Chess • Cricket (Test - One Day International) • Cycling • Formula One motorsport • Hockey • World Rally Championship • Speed Skating • Swimming
In track and field: 100 metres men, 100 metres women
In Australia: List of NRL records
In the US: NBA • NFL (individual) • NFL (team)• NHL • MLB • Track and field
History Military history
Culture and society Collections • Media • Movie • Music • Internet • Eating and Drinking • Painting • Language
Politics and Economics Political Entities • Money
National Records United States: Music track and field • United Kingdom • Japan
Motion Records Speed : Air (Transcontinental) • Land speed record (Railed • Road car • Motorcycle • British) • Water speed record (Underwater) • Sound barrier • Speed of light
Distance : Flight distance record • Flight altitude record • Ocean depth record • Flight endurance record • Boundary of space
Other : Spaceflight records • List of transport records • FAI records
Records in Nature Atlantic hurricane records
Man-Made objects Tallest structures • Category on tallest structures • Buildings • Food • Sculpture • Transportation • Places of worship
Physical phenomena Extremes on Earth • List of weather records
Biological Phenomena Animals • Bachteria and archea • Plants
[edit] External links
World Records in Earth Science
International Association of Athletics Federations Records
Guinness World Records
Swimming world records
Speedskating world records
Open Record Book - Free World and Local Records
AGRICULTURE
Agriculture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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General
Agribusiness · Agriculture
Agricultural science · Agronomy
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Particular
Aquaculture · Christmas trees · Dairy farming
Grazing · Hydroponics · IMTA
Intensive pig farming · Lumber
Maize · Orchard
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Sheep husbandry · Soybean
System of Rice Intensification
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Issues
Animal rights · Animal welfare
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Battery cage · Biosecurity · BSE
Crop rotation
Ethical consumerism
Environmental science
Foie gras
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Gestation crate
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Categories
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Agropedia Portal
Agriculture (encompassing farming, grazing, and the tending of orchards, vineyards and timberland) is the production of food, feed, fiber and other goods by the systematic raising of domesticated plants and animals.
Agriculture is the proccess of producing food, otherwise known as farming.
Agri is from the Latin ager ("a field"), and culture, from the Latin cultura ("cultivation" in the strict sense of "tillage of the soil"). A literal reading of the English word yields "tillage of the soil of a field". In modern usage, the word agriculture covers all activities essential to food/feed/fiber production, including all techniques for raising and "processing" livestock. Agriculture is also short for the study of the practice of agriculture — more formally known as agricultural science.
The history of agriculture is a central element of human history, as agricultural progress has been a crucial factor in worldwide socio-economic change. Wealth-building and militaristic specializations rarely seen in hunter-gatherer cultures are commonplace in agricultural and agro-industrial societies—when farmers became capable of producing food beyond the needs of their own families, others in the tribe/nation/empire were freed to devote themselves to projects other than food acquisition.
As of 2006, an estimated 36 percent of the world's workers are employed in agriculture[1] (down from 42% in 1996), making it by far the most common occupation. However, the relative significance of farming has dropped steadily since the beginning of industrialization, and in 2006 – for the first time in history – the services sector overtook agriculture as the economic sector employing the most people worldwide. Also, agricultural production accounts for less than five percent of the gross world product (an aggregate of all gross domestic products).[2]
Contents [hide]
1 Overview
2 History
2.1 Ancient origins
2.2 Agriculture in the Middle Ages
2.3 Renaissance to present day
3 Crops
3.1 World production of major crops in 2004
3.2 Crop alteration
4 Livestock
5 Environmental impact
5.1 Conventional hybridization for higher yield, Genetic Engineering and the resulting loss of Biodiversity, a threat to Food Security
6 Policy
7 Further reading
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
[edit] Overview
The term "farming" covers the wide spectrum of agricultural practices. On one end of the spectrum is the subsistence farmer, who farms a small area with limited resource inputs, and produces only enough food to meet the needs of his/her family. At the other end is commercial intensive agriculture, including industrial agriculture. Such farming involves large fields and/or numbers of animals, large resource inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), and a high level of mechanization. These operations generally attempt to maximize financial income from grain, produce, or livestock.
Modern agriculture extends well beyond the traditional production of food for humans and animal feeds. Other agricultural production goods include timber, fertilizers, animal hides, leather, industrial chemicals (starch, sugar, alcohols and resins), fibers (cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax), fuels (methane from biomass, ethanol, biodiesel), cut flowers, ornamental and nursery plants, tropical fish and birds for the pet trade, and both legal and illegal drugs (biopharmaceuticals, tobacco, marijuana, opium, cocaine).
The twentieth century saw massive changes in agricultural practice, particularly in agricultural chemistry and in mechanization. Agricultural chemistry includes the application of chemical fertilizer, chemical insecticides (see pest control), and chemical fungicides, analysis of soil makeup and nutritional needs of farm animals.
Up to and including the 1970s, surface runoff of fertilizer and pesticides was a growing, uncontrolled problem. Starting roughly in 1980, many Western nations, prodded by dozens of environmental action groups, began to implement effective controls on farming-related pollution, and this green revolution spread many of the benefits of agricultural chemistry to farms throughout the world, without the extreme pollution that originally accompanied them. Between 1950 and 1984, as the green revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%.[3] Mechanization has also enormously increased farm efficiency and productivity in most regions of the world, due especially to the tractor and various gins (short for "engine") like the cotton gin, semi-automatic balers and threshers and, above all, the combine (see agricultural machinery).
Other recent changes in agriculture include hydroponics, plant breeding, hybridization, gene manipulation, better management of soil nutrients, and improved weed control. Genetic engineering has yielded crops which have capabilities beyond those of naturally occurring plants, such as higher yields and disease resistance. Modified seeds germinate faster, and thus can be grown on an accelerated schedule. Genetic engineering of plants has proven controversial, particularly in the case of herbicide-resistant plants.
Engineers may develop plants for irrigation, drainage, conservation and sanitary engineering, particularly important in normally arid areas which rely upon constant irrigation, and on large scale farms.
The processing, packing and marketing of agricultural products are closely related activities also influenced by science. Methods of quick-freezing and dehydration have increased the markets for many farm products (see food preservation and meat packing industry).
Animals, including horses, mules, oxen, camels, llamas, alpacas, and dogs, are often used to help cultivate fields, harvest crops, wrangle other animals, and transport farm products to buyers. Animal husbandry not only refers to the breeding and raising of animals for meat or to harvest animal products (like milk, eggs, or wool) on a continual basis, but also to the breeding and care of species for work and companionship.
Airplanes, helicopters, trucks, tractors, and combines are used in Western (and, increasingly, Eastern) agriculture for seeding, spraying operations for insect and disease control, harvesting, aerial topdressing and transporting perishable products. Radio and television disseminate vital weather reports and other information such as market reports that concern farmers. Computers have become an essential tool for farm management.
Ploughing rice paddies with water buffalo, in Indonesia.According to the National Academy of Engineering in the United States, agricultural mechanization is one of the 20 greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century. Early in the century, it took one American farmer to produce food for 2.5 people. By 1999, due to advances in agricultural technology, a single farmer could feed over 130 people.[4]
In recent years, some aspects of intensive industrial agriculture have been the subject of increasing debate. The widening sphere of influence held by large seed and chemical companies, meat packers and food processors has been a source of concern both within the farming community and for the general public. Another issue is the type of feed given to some animals that can cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle. There has also been concern over the effect of intensive agriculture on the environment.
A field of ripening barleyThe patent protection given to companies that develop new types of seed using genetic engineering has allowed seed to be licensed to farmers in much the same way that computer software is licensed to users. This has changed the balance of power in favor of the seed companies, allowing them to dictate terms and conditions previously unheard of. The Indian activist and scientist Vandana Shiva argues that these companies are guilty of biopiracy.
Soil conservation and nutrient management have been important concerns since the 1950s, with the most advanced farmers taking a stewardship role with the land they use. However, increasing contamination of waterways and wetlands by nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus are concerns that can only be addressed by "enlightenment" of farmers and/or far stricter law enforcement in many countries.
Increasing consumer awareness of agricultural issues has led to the rise of community-supported agriculture, local food movement, "Slow Food", and commercial organic farming.
[edit] History
Main article: History of agriculture
Ancient Egyptian farmer, copied from archaeologically preserved specimen by a modern artist guessing at original colors.
Source: http://www.kingtutone.com
[edit] Ancient origins
Developed independently by geographically distant populations, systematic agriculture first appeared in Southwest Asia in the Fertile Crescent, particularly in modern-day Iraq and Syria/Israel. Around 9500 BC, proto-farmers began to select and cultivate food plants with desired characteristics. Though there is evidence of earlier sporadic use of wild cereals, it was not until after 9500 BC that the eight so-called founder crops of agriculture appear: first emmer and einkorn wheat, then hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax.
By 7000 BC, small-scale agriculture reached Egypt. From 9000 BC the Indian subcontinent saw farming of wheat and barley, as attested by archaeological excavation at Mehrgarh in Balochistan. By 6000 BC, mid-scale farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile. About this time, agriculture was developed independently in the Far East, with rice, rather than wheat, as the primary crop. Chinese and Indonesian farmers went on to domesticate mung, soy, azuki and taro. To complement these new sources of carbohydrates, highly organized net fishing of rivers, lakes and ocean shores in these areas brought in great volumes of essential protein. Collectively, these new methods of farming and fishing inaugurated a human population boom dwarfing all previous expansions, and is one that continues today.
By 5000 BC, the Sumerians had developed core agricultural techniques including large scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organized irrigation, and use of a specialized labour force, particularly along the waterway now known as the Shatt al-Arab, from its Persian Gulf delta to the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. Domestication of wild aurochs and mouflon into cattle and sheep, respectively, ushered in the large-scale use of animals for food/fiber and as beasts of burden. The shepherd joined the farmer as an essential provider for sedentary and semi-nomadic societies.
Maize, manioc, and arrowroot were first domesticated in the Americas as far back as 5200 BC. [3] The potato, tomato, pepper, squash, several varieties of bean, Canna, tobacco and several other plants were also developed in the New World, as was extensive terracing of steep hillsides in much of Andean South America.
In later years, the Greeks and Romans built on techniques pioneered by the Sumerians but made few fundamentally new advances. The Greeks and Macedonians struggled with very poor soils, yet managed to become dominant societies for years. The Romans were noted for an emphasis on the cultivation of crops for trade.
Sumerian Harvester's sickle, 3000 BCE. Baked clay. Field Museum.
[edit] Agriculture in the Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, Muslim farmers in North Africa and the Near East developed and disseminated agricultural technologies including irrigation systems based on hydraulic and hydrostatic principles, the use of machines such as norias, and the use of water raising machines, dams, and reservoirs. They also wrote location-specific farming manuals, and were instrumental in the wider adoption of crops including sugar cane, rice, citrus fruit, apricots, cotton, artichokes, aubergines, and saffron. Muslims also brought lemons, oranges, cotton, almonds, figs and sub-tropical crops such as bananas to Spain.
[edit] Renaissance to present day
A tractor ploughing an alfalfa fieldThe invention of a three field system of crop rotation during the Middle Ages, and the importation of the Chinese-invented moldboard plow, vastly improved agricultural efficiency.
The amount of workforce dedicated to agriculture tends to decreaseAfter 1492, a global exchange of previously local crops and livestock breeds occurred. Key crops involved in this exchange included the tomato, maize, potato, cocoa and tobacco going from the New World to the Old, and several varieties of wheat, spice and coffee going from the Old World to the New. The most important animal exportations from the Old World to the New were those of the horse and dog (dogs were already present in the pre-Columbian Americas but not in the numbers and breeds suited to farm work). Although not usually food animals, the horse (including donkeys and ponies) and dog quickly filled essential production roles on western hemisphere farms.
By the early 1800s, agricultural techniques, implements, seed stocks and cultivars had so improved that yield per land unit was many times that seen in the Middle Ages. With the rapid rise of mechanization in the late 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the form of the tractor, farming tasks could be done with a speed and on a scale previously impossible. These advances have led to efficiencies enabling certain modern farms in the United States, Argentina, Israel, Germany, and a few other nations to output volumes of high quality produce per land unit at what may be the practical limit.
Agricultural output in 2005In 2005, the agricultural output of China was the largest in the world, accounting for almost one-sixth world share followed by the EU, India and the USA, according to the International Monetary Fund.
[edit] Crops
[edit] World production of major crops in 2004
Specific crops are cultivated in distinct growing regions throughout the world. In millions of metric tons, based on FAO estimates.
Top agricultural products, by crop types
(million metric tons) 2004 data
Cereals 2,263
Vegetables and melons 866
Roots and Tubers 715
Milk 619
Fruit 503
Meat 259
Oilcrops 133
Fish (2001 estimate) 130
Eggs 63
Pulses 60
Vegetable Fiber 30
Source:
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)[5]
Top agricultural products, by individual crops
(million metric tons) 2004 data
Sugar Cane 1,324
Maize 721
Wheat 627
Rice 605
Potatoes 328
Sugar Beet 249
Soybean 204
Oil Palm Fruit 162
Barley 154
Tomato 120
Source:
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)[6]
[edit] Crop alteration
Main article: Plant breeding
Tractor and Chaser Bin
An agricultural scientist records corn growth
Netting protecting wine grapes from birdsDomestication of plants is done in order to increase yield, improve disease resistance and drought tolerance, ease harvest and to improve the taste and nutritional value and many other characteristics. Centuries of careful selection and breeding have had enormous effects on the characteristics of crop plants. Plant breeders use greenhouses and other techniques to get as many as three generations of plants per year so that they can make improvements all the more quickly.
Plant selection and breeding in the 1920s and 1930s improved pasture (grasses and clover) in New Zealand. Extensive radiation mutagenesis efforts (i.e. primitive genetic engineering) during the 1950s produced the modern commercial varieties of grains such as wheat, corn and barley.[citation needed]
For example, average yields of corn (maize) in the USA have increased from around 2.5 tons per hectare (t/ha) (40 bushels per acre) in 1900 to about 9.4 t/ha (150 bushels per acre) in 2001. Similarly, worldwide average wheat yields have increased from less than 1 t/ha in 1900 to more than 2.5 t/ha in 1990. South American average wheat yields are around 2 t/ha, African under 1 t/ha, Egypt and Arabia up to 3.5 to 4 t/ha with irrigation. In contrast, the average wheat yield in countries such as France is over 8 t/ha. Variation in yields are due mainly to variation in climate, genetics, and the use or non-use of intensive farming techniques (use of fertilizers, chemical pest control, growth control to avoid lodging).[citation needed] [Conversion note: 1 bushel of wheat = 60 pounds (lb) ≈ 27.215 kg. 1 bushel of corn = 56 pounds ≈ 25.401 kg]
In industrialized agriculture, crop "improvement" has often reduced nutritional and other qualities of food plants to serve the interests of producers. After mechanical tomato-harvesters were developed in the early 1960s, agricultural scientists bred tomatoes that were harder and less nutritious (Friedland and Barton 1975). In fact, a major longitudinal study of nutrient levels in numerous vegetables showed significant declines in the last 50 years; garden vegetables in the U.S. today contain on average 38 percent less vitamin B2 and 15 percent less vitamin C (Davis and Riordan 2004).
Very recently, genetic engineering has begun to be employed in some parts of the world to speed up the selection and breeding process. The most widely used modification is a herbicide resistance gene that allows plants to tolerate exposure to glyphosate, which is used to control weeds in the crop. More herbicide may be applied to herbicide-resistant than non-GM crops, with a possible increase in environmental damage. A less frequently used but more controversial modification causes the plant to produce a toxin to reduce damage from insects (c.f. Starlink). This, in contrast, permits less chemicals to be applied to the crop as toxins are produced by the plant locally in response to attack instead of the entire crop being sprayed with pesticides.
The same effects are occurring to this day. The only changes made are presented in the technology to day. There are specialty producers who raise less common types of livestock or plants.
Aquaculture, the farming of fish, shrimp, and algae, is closely associated with agriculture.
Apiculture, the culture of bees, traditionally for honey—increasingly for crop pollination.
See also : botany, List of domesticated plants, List of vegetables, List of herbs, List of fruit
[edit] Livestock
Main article: Livestock
The farming practices of livestock vary dramatically world-wide and between different types of animals. Livestock are generally kept in an enclosure, are fed by human-provided food and are intentionally bred, but some livestock are not enclosed, or are fed by access to natural foods, or are allowed to breed freely, or all three. Approximately 68% of all agricultural land is used in the production of livestock as permanent pastures.[7]
[edit] Environmental impact
Severe soil erosion in a wheat field near Washington State University, US (c.2005)Agriculture may often cause environmental problems because it changes natural environments and produces harmful by-products. Some of the negative effects are:
Loss of biodiversity
Surplus of nitrogen and phosphorus in rivers and lakes
Detrimental effects of herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and other biocides
Conversion of natural ecosystems of all types into arable land
Consolidation of diverse biomass into a few species
Soil erosion
Depletion of minerals in the soil
Particulate matter, including ammonia and ammonium off-gassing from animal waste contributing to air pollution
Weed Science - feral plants and animals
Odor from agricultural waste
Soil salination
According to the United Nations, the livestock sector (primarily cows, chickens, and pigs) emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to our most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. Livestock production occupies 70% of all land used for agriculture, or 30% of the land surface of the planet.[8]It is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases—responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. By comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2. It produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2). It also generates 64% of the ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems [4].
[edit] Conventional hybridization for higher yield, Genetic Engineering and the resulting loss of Biodiversity, a threat to Food Security
In agriculture and animal husbandry, green revolution popularized the use of conventional hybridization to increase yield many folds. Often the handful of breeds of plants and animals hybridized originated in developed countries and were further hybridized with local verities, in the rest of the developing world, to create high yield strains resistant to local climate and diseases. Local governments and industry since have been pushing hybridization with such zeal that several of the wild and indigenous breeds evolved locally over thousands of years having high resistance to local extremes in climate and immunity to diseases etc. have already become extinct or are in grave danger of becoming so in the near future. Due to complete disuse because of un-profitability and uncontrolled intentional, compounded with unintentional crosspollination and crossbreeding (genetic pollution) formerly huge gene pools of various wild and indigenous breeds have collapsed causing widespread genetic erosion and genetic pollution resulting in great loss in genetic diversity and biodiversity as a whole[9].
A Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using the genetic engineering techniques generally known as recombinant DNA technology. Genetic Engineering today has become another serious and alarming cause of genetic pollution because artificially created and genetically engineered plants and animals in laboratories, which could never have evolved in nature even with conventional hybridization, can live and breed on their own and what is even more alarming interbreed with naturally evolved wild varieties. Genetically Modified (GM) crops today have become a common source for genetic pollution, not only of wild varieties but also of other domesticated varieties derived from relatively natural hybridization[10][11][12][13][14].
It is being said that genetic erosion coupled with genetic pollution is destroying that needed unique genetic base thereby creating an unforeseen hidden crisis which will result in a severe threat to our food security for the future when diverse genetic material will cease to exist to be able to further improve or hybridize weakening food crops and livestock against more resistant diseases and climatic changes.
[edit] Policy
Agricultural policy focuses on the goals and methods of agricultural production. At the policy level, common goals of agriculture include:
Food safety: Ensuring that the food supply is free of contamination.
Food security: Ensuring that the food supply meets the population's needs.[15][16]
Food quality: Ensuring that the food supply is of a consistent and known quality.
Conservation
Environmental impact
Economic stability
Satellite image of circular crop fields characteristic of center pivot irrigation in Haskell County, Kansas in late June 2001. Healthy, growing crops are green. Corn is growing leafy stalks, but Sorghum, which resembles corn, grows more slowly and is much smaller and therefore paler. Wheat is a brilliant gold as harvest occurs in June. Brown fields have been recently harvested and plowed under or lie fallow for the year.
[edit] Further reading
[edit] See also
Main lists: List of basic agriculture topics and List of agriculture topics
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[edit] References
^ ILO Key Indicators of the Labour Market 2007, chapter 4 p. 6
^ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html#Econ.
^ Can We Feed the World Without Industrial Agriculture?
^ http://www.greatachievements.org/greatachievements/ga_7_2.html.
^ http://faostat.fao.org/.
^ http://faostat.fao.org/.
^ FAO Database, 2003
^ Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N. retrieved 27 jun 2007
^ “Genetic Pollution: The Great Genetic Scandal”; Devinder Sharma can be contacted at: 7 Triveni Apartments, A-6 Paschim Vihar, New Delhi-110 063, India. Email: dsharma@ndf.vsnl.net.in. CENTRE FOR ALTERNATIVE AGRICULTURAL MEDIA (CAAM)., [1]
^ THE YEAR IN IDEAS: A TO Z.; Genetic Pollution; By MICHAEL POLLAN, The New York Times, December 9, 2001
^ Dangerous Liaisons? When Cultivated Plants Mate with Their Wild Relatives; by Norman C. Ellstrand; The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003; 268 pp. hardcover , $ 65; ISBN 0-8018-7405-X. Book Reviewed in: Hybrids abounding; Nature Biotechnology 22, 29 - 30 (2004) doi:10.1038/nbt0104-29; Reviewed by: Steven H Strauss & Stephen P DiFazio; 1 Steve Strauss is in the Department of Forest Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-5752, USA. steve.strauss@oregonstate.edu; 2 Steve DiFazio is at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Bldg. 1059, PO Box 2008, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-6422 USA. difazios@ornl.gov.
^ “Genetic pollution: Uncontrolled spread of genetic information (frequently referring to transgenes) into the genomes of organisms in which such genes are not present in nature.” Zaid, A. et al. 1999. Glossary of biotechnology and genetic engineering. FAO Research and Technology Paper No. 7. ISBN 92-5-104369-8
^ “Genetic pollution: Uncontrolled escape of genetic information (frequently refering to products of genetic engineering) into the genomes of organisms in the environment where those genes never existed before.” Searchable Biotechnology Dictionary. University of Minnesota. , [2]
^ “Genetic pollution: Living organisms can also be defined as pollutants, when a non-indigenous species (plant or animal) enters a habitat and modifies the existing equilibrium among the organisms of the affected ecosystem (sea, lake, river). Non-indigenous, including transgenic species (GMOs), may bring about a particular version of pollution in the vegetal kingdom: so-called genetic pollution. This term refers to the uncontrolled diffusion of genes (or transgenes) into genomes of plants of the same type or even unrelated species where such genes are not present in nature. For example, a grass modified to resist herbicides could pollinate conventional grass many miles away, creating weeds immune to the most widely used weed-killer, with obvious consequences for crops. Genetic pollution is at the basis of the debate on the use of GMOs in agriculture.” The many facets of pollution; Bologna University web site for Science Communication. The Webweavers: Last modified Tue, 20 Jul 2005
^ Rising food prices curb aid to global poor
^ Record rise in wheat price prompts UN official to warn that surge in food prices may trigger social unrest in developing countries
Artz, F. B, (1980), ‘The Mind of the Middle Ages’; Third edition revised; The University of Chicago Press,
Bolens, L. (1997), `Agriculture’ in Encyclopedia of the history of Science, technology, and Medicine in Non Western Cultures, Editor: Helaine Selin; Kluwer Academic Publishers. Dordrecht/Boston/London, pp 20-2
Collinson, M. (editor): A History of Farming Systems Research. CABI Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-85199-405-9
Crosby, Alfred W.: The Columbian Exchange : Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Praeger Publishers, 2003 (30th Anniversary Edition). ISBN 0-275-98073-1
Davis, Donald R., and Hugh D. Riordan (2004) Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 23, No. 6, 669-682.
Friedland, William H. and Amy Barton (1975) Destalking the Wily Tomato: A Case Study of Social Consequences in California Agricultural Research. Univ. California at Sta. Cruz, Research Monograph 15.
Saltini A.Storia delle scienze agrarie, 4 vols, Bologna 1984-89, ISBN 88-206-2412-5, ISBN 88-206-2413-3, ISBN 88-206-2414-1, ISBN 88-206-2414-X
Watson, A.M (1974), ‘The Arab agricultural revolution and its diffusion’, in The Journal of Economic History, 34,
Watson, A.M (1983), ‘ Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World’, Cambridge University Press
Wells, Spencer: The Journey of Man : A Genetic Odyssey. Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-691-11532-X
Wickens, G.M.(1976), ‘What the West borrowed from the Middle east’, in Introduction to Islamic Civilisation, edited by R.M. Savory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Coffee Plantation in São João do Manhuaçu City - Minas Gerais State - Brazil.
[edit] External links
Agriculture encyclopedia
Agriculture semantic wikipedia
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Genes, Technology and PolicyAt Wikiversity you can learn more about Agriculture at:
The School of Agriculture
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
AgricultureRetrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture"
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Agropedia Portal
Agriculture (encompassing farming, grazing, and the tending of orchards, vineyards and timberland) is the production of food, feed, fiber and other goods by the systematic raising of domesticated plants and animals.
Agriculture is the proccess of producing food, otherwise known as farming.
Agri is from the Latin ager ("a field"), and culture, from the Latin cultura ("cultivation" in the strict sense of "tillage of the soil"). A literal reading of the English word yields "tillage of the soil of a field". In modern usage, the word agriculture covers all activities essential to food/feed/fiber production, including all techniques for raising and "processing" livestock. Agriculture is also short for the study of the practice of agriculture — more formally known as agricultural science.
The history of agriculture is a central element of human history, as agricultural progress has been a crucial factor in worldwide socio-economic change. Wealth-building and militaristic specializations rarely seen in hunter-gatherer cultures are commonplace in agricultural and agro-industrial societies—when farmers became capable of producing food beyond the needs of their own families, others in the tribe/nation/empire were freed to devote themselves to projects other than food acquisition.
As of 2006, an estimated 36 percent of the world's workers are employed in agriculture[1] (down from 42% in 1996), making it by far the most common occupation. However, the relative significance of farming has dropped steadily since the beginning of industrialization, and in 2006 – for the first time in history – the services sector overtook agriculture as the economic sector employing the most people worldwide. Also, agricultural production accounts for less than five percent of the gross world product (an aggregate of all gross domestic products).[2]
Contents [hide]
1 Overview
2 History
2.1 Ancient origins
2.2 Agriculture in the Middle Ages
2.3 Renaissance to present day
3 Crops
3.1 World production of major crops in 2004
3.2 Crop alteration
4 Livestock
5 Environmental impact
5.1 Conventional hybridization for higher yield, Genetic Engineering and the resulting loss of Biodiversity, a threat to Food Security
6 Policy
7 Further reading
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
[edit] Overview
The term "farming" covers the wide spectrum of agricultural practices. On one end of the spectrum is the subsistence farmer, who farms a small area with limited resource inputs, and produces only enough food to meet the needs of his/her family. At the other end is commercial intensive agriculture, including industrial agriculture. Such farming involves large fields and/or numbers of animals, large resource inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), and a high level of mechanization. These operations generally attempt to maximize financial income from grain, produce, or livestock.
Modern agriculture extends well beyond the traditional production of food for humans and animal feeds. Other agricultural production goods include timber, fertilizers, animal hides, leather, industrial chemicals (starch, sugar, alcohols and resins), fibers (cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax), fuels (methane from biomass, ethanol, biodiesel), cut flowers, ornamental and nursery plants, tropical fish and birds for the pet trade, and both legal and illegal drugs (biopharmaceuticals, tobacco, marijuana, opium, cocaine).
The twentieth century saw massive changes in agricultural practice, particularly in agricultural chemistry and in mechanization. Agricultural chemistry includes the application of chemical fertilizer, chemical insecticides (see pest control), and chemical fungicides, analysis of soil makeup and nutritional needs of farm animals.
Up to and including the 1970s, surface runoff of fertilizer and pesticides was a growing, uncontrolled problem. Starting roughly in 1980, many Western nations, prodded by dozens of environmental action groups, began to implement effective controls on farming-related pollution, and this green revolution spread many of the benefits of agricultural chemistry to farms throughout the world, without the extreme pollution that originally accompanied them. Between 1950 and 1984, as the green revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%.[3] Mechanization has also enormously increased farm efficiency and productivity in most regions of the world, due especially to the tractor and various gins (short for "engine") like the cotton gin, semi-automatic balers and threshers and, above all, the combine (see agricultural machinery).
Other recent changes in agriculture include hydroponics, plant breeding, hybridization, gene manipulation, better management of soil nutrients, and improved weed control. Genetic engineering has yielded crops which have capabilities beyond those of naturally occurring plants, such as higher yields and disease resistance. Modified seeds germinate faster, and thus can be grown on an accelerated schedule. Genetic engineering of plants has proven controversial, particularly in the case of herbicide-resistant plants.
Engineers may develop plants for irrigation, drainage, conservation and sanitary engineering, particularly important in normally arid areas which rely upon constant irrigation, and on large scale farms.
The processing, packing and marketing of agricultural products are closely related activities also influenced by science. Methods of quick-freezing and dehydration have increased the markets for many farm products (see food preservation and meat packing industry).
Animals, including horses, mules, oxen, camels, llamas, alpacas, and dogs, are often used to help cultivate fields, harvest crops, wrangle other animals, and transport farm products to buyers. Animal husbandry not only refers to the breeding and raising of animals for meat or to harvest animal products (like milk, eggs, or wool) on a continual basis, but also to the breeding and care of species for work and companionship.
Airplanes, helicopters, trucks, tractors, and combines are used in Western (and, increasingly, Eastern) agriculture for seeding, spraying operations for insect and disease control, harvesting, aerial topdressing and transporting perishable products. Radio and television disseminate vital weather reports and other information such as market reports that concern farmers. Computers have become an essential tool for farm management.
Ploughing rice paddies with water buffalo, in Indonesia.According to the National Academy of Engineering in the United States, agricultural mechanization is one of the 20 greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century. Early in the century, it took one American farmer to produce food for 2.5 people. By 1999, due to advances in agricultural technology, a single farmer could feed over 130 people.[4]
In recent years, some aspects of intensive industrial agriculture have been the subject of increasing debate. The widening sphere of influence held by large seed and chemical companies, meat packers and food processors has been a source of concern both within the farming community and for the general public. Another issue is the type of feed given to some animals that can cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle. There has also been concern over the effect of intensive agriculture on the environment.
A field of ripening barleyThe patent protection given to companies that develop new types of seed using genetic engineering has allowed seed to be licensed to farmers in much the same way that computer software is licensed to users. This has changed the balance of power in favor of the seed companies, allowing them to dictate terms and conditions previously unheard of. The Indian activist and scientist Vandana Shiva argues that these companies are guilty of biopiracy.
Soil conservation and nutrient management have been important concerns since the 1950s, with the most advanced farmers taking a stewardship role with the land they use. However, increasing contamination of waterways and wetlands by nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus are concerns that can only be addressed by "enlightenment" of farmers and/or far stricter law enforcement in many countries.
Increasing consumer awareness of agricultural issues has led to the rise of community-supported agriculture, local food movement, "Slow Food", and commercial organic farming.
[edit] History
Main article: History of agriculture
Ancient Egyptian farmer, copied from archaeologically preserved specimen by a modern artist guessing at original colors.
Source: http://www.kingtutone.com
[edit] Ancient origins
Developed independently by geographically distant populations, systematic agriculture first appeared in Southwest Asia in the Fertile Crescent, particularly in modern-day Iraq and Syria/Israel. Around 9500 BC, proto-farmers began to select and cultivate food plants with desired characteristics. Though there is evidence of earlier sporadic use of wild cereals, it was not until after 9500 BC that the eight so-called founder crops of agriculture appear: first emmer and einkorn wheat, then hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax.
By 7000 BC, small-scale agriculture reached Egypt. From 9000 BC the Indian subcontinent saw farming of wheat and barley, as attested by archaeological excavation at Mehrgarh in Balochistan. By 6000 BC, mid-scale farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile. About this time, agriculture was developed independently in the Far East, with rice, rather than wheat, as the primary crop. Chinese and Indonesian farmers went on to domesticate mung, soy, azuki and taro. To complement these new sources of carbohydrates, highly organized net fishing of rivers, lakes and ocean shores in these areas brought in great volumes of essential protein. Collectively, these new methods of farming and fishing inaugurated a human population boom dwarfing all previous expansions, and is one that continues today.
By 5000 BC, the Sumerians had developed core agricultural techniques including large scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organized irrigation, and use of a specialized labour force, particularly along the waterway now known as the Shatt al-Arab, from its Persian Gulf delta to the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. Domestication of wild aurochs and mouflon into cattle and sheep, respectively, ushered in the large-scale use of animals for food/fiber and as beasts of burden. The shepherd joined the farmer as an essential provider for sedentary and semi-nomadic societies.
Maize, manioc, and arrowroot were first domesticated in the Americas as far back as 5200 BC. [3] The potato, tomato, pepper, squash, several varieties of bean, Canna, tobacco and several other plants were also developed in the New World, as was extensive terracing of steep hillsides in much of Andean South America.
In later years, the Greeks and Romans built on techniques pioneered by the Sumerians but made few fundamentally new advances. The Greeks and Macedonians struggled with very poor soils, yet managed to become dominant societies for years. The Romans were noted for an emphasis on the cultivation of crops for trade.
Sumerian Harvester's sickle, 3000 BCE. Baked clay. Field Museum.
[edit] Agriculture in the Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, Muslim farmers in North Africa and the Near East developed and disseminated agricultural technologies including irrigation systems based on hydraulic and hydrostatic principles, the use of machines such as norias, and the use of water raising machines, dams, and reservoirs. They also wrote location-specific farming manuals, and were instrumental in the wider adoption of crops including sugar cane, rice, citrus fruit, apricots, cotton, artichokes, aubergines, and saffron. Muslims also brought lemons, oranges, cotton, almonds, figs and sub-tropical crops such as bananas to Spain.
[edit] Renaissance to present day
A tractor ploughing an alfalfa fieldThe invention of a three field system of crop rotation during the Middle Ages, and the importation of the Chinese-invented moldboard plow, vastly improved agricultural efficiency.
The amount of workforce dedicated to agriculture tends to decreaseAfter 1492, a global exchange of previously local crops and livestock breeds occurred. Key crops involved in this exchange included the tomato, maize, potato, cocoa and tobacco going from the New World to the Old, and several varieties of wheat, spice and coffee going from the Old World to the New. The most important animal exportations from the Old World to the New were those of the horse and dog (dogs were already present in the pre-Columbian Americas but not in the numbers and breeds suited to farm work). Although not usually food animals, the horse (including donkeys and ponies) and dog quickly filled essential production roles on western hemisphere farms.
By the early 1800s, agricultural techniques, implements, seed stocks and cultivars had so improved that yield per land unit was many times that seen in the Middle Ages. With the rapid rise of mechanization in the late 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the form of the tractor, farming tasks could be done with a speed and on a scale previously impossible. These advances have led to efficiencies enabling certain modern farms in the United States, Argentina, Israel, Germany, and a few other nations to output volumes of high quality produce per land unit at what may be the practical limit.
Agricultural output in 2005In 2005, the agricultural output of China was the largest in the world, accounting for almost one-sixth world share followed by the EU, India and the USA, according to the International Monetary Fund.
[edit] Crops
[edit] World production of major crops in 2004
Specific crops are cultivated in distinct growing regions throughout the world. In millions of metric tons, based on FAO estimates.
Top agricultural products, by crop types
(million metric tons) 2004 data
Cereals 2,263
Vegetables and melons 866
Roots and Tubers 715
Milk 619
Fruit 503
Meat 259
Oilcrops 133
Fish (2001 estimate) 130
Eggs 63
Pulses 60
Vegetable Fiber 30
Source:
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)[5]
Top agricultural products, by individual crops
(million metric tons) 2004 data
Sugar Cane 1,324
Maize 721
Wheat 627
Rice 605
Potatoes 328
Sugar Beet 249
Soybean 204
Oil Palm Fruit 162
Barley 154
Tomato 120
Source:
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)[6]
[edit] Crop alteration
Main article: Plant breeding
Tractor and Chaser Bin
An agricultural scientist records corn growth
Netting protecting wine grapes from birdsDomestication of plants is done in order to increase yield, improve disease resistance and drought tolerance, ease harvest and to improve the taste and nutritional value and many other characteristics. Centuries of careful selection and breeding have had enormous effects on the characteristics of crop plants. Plant breeders use greenhouses and other techniques to get as many as three generations of plants per year so that they can make improvements all the more quickly.
Plant selection and breeding in the 1920s and 1930s improved pasture (grasses and clover) in New Zealand. Extensive radiation mutagenesis efforts (i.e. primitive genetic engineering) during the 1950s produced the modern commercial varieties of grains such as wheat, corn and barley.[citation needed]
For example, average yields of corn (maize) in the USA have increased from around 2.5 tons per hectare (t/ha) (40 bushels per acre) in 1900 to about 9.4 t/ha (150 bushels per acre) in 2001. Similarly, worldwide average wheat yields have increased from less than 1 t/ha in 1900 to more than 2.5 t/ha in 1990. South American average wheat yields are around 2 t/ha, African under 1 t/ha, Egypt and Arabia up to 3.5 to 4 t/ha with irrigation. In contrast, the average wheat yield in countries such as France is over 8 t/ha. Variation in yields are due mainly to variation in climate, genetics, and the use or non-use of intensive farming techniques (use of fertilizers, chemical pest control, growth control to avoid lodging).[citation needed] [Conversion note: 1 bushel of wheat = 60 pounds (lb) ≈ 27.215 kg. 1 bushel of corn = 56 pounds ≈ 25.401 kg]
In industrialized agriculture, crop "improvement" has often reduced nutritional and other qualities of food plants to serve the interests of producers. After mechanical tomato-harvesters were developed in the early 1960s, agricultural scientists bred tomatoes that were harder and less nutritious (Friedland and Barton 1975). In fact, a major longitudinal study of nutrient levels in numerous vegetables showed significant declines in the last 50 years; garden vegetables in the U.S. today contain on average 38 percent less vitamin B2 and 15 percent less vitamin C (Davis and Riordan 2004).
Very recently, genetic engineering has begun to be employed in some parts of the world to speed up the selection and breeding process. The most widely used modification is a herbicide resistance gene that allows plants to tolerate exposure to glyphosate, which is used to control weeds in the crop. More herbicide may be applied to herbicide-resistant than non-GM crops, with a possible increase in environmental damage. A less frequently used but more controversial modification causes the plant to produce a toxin to reduce damage from insects (c.f. Starlink). This, in contrast, permits less chemicals to be applied to the crop as toxins are produced by the plant locally in response to attack instead of the entire crop being sprayed with pesticides.
The same effects are occurring to this day. The only changes made are presented in the technology to day. There are specialty producers who raise less common types of livestock or plants.
Aquaculture, the farming of fish, shrimp, and algae, is closely associated with agriculture.
Apiculture, the culture of bees, traditionally for honey—increasingly for crop pollination.
See also : botany, List of domesticated plants, List of vegetables, List of herbs, List of fruit
[edit] Livestock
Main article: Livestock
The farming practices of livestock vary dramatically world-wide and between different types of animals. Livestock are generally kept in an enclosure, are fed by human-provided food and are intentionally bred, but some livestock are not enclosed, or are fed by access to natural foods, or are allowed to breed freely, or all three. Approximately 68% of all agricultural land is used in the production of livestock as permanent pastures.[7]
[edit] Environmental impact
Severe soil erosion in a wheat field near Washington State University, US (c.2005)Agriculture may often cause environmental problems because it changes natural environments and produces harmful by-products. Some of the negative effects are:
Loss of biodiversity
Surplus of nitrogen and phosphorus in rivers and lakes
Detrimental effects of herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and other biocides
Conversion of natural ecosystems of all types into arable land
Consolidation of diverse biomass into a few species
Soil erosion
Depletion of minerals in the soil
Particulate matter, including ammonia and ammonium off-gassing from animal waste contributing to air pollution
Weed Science - feral plants and animals
Odor from agricultural waste
Soil salination
According to the United Nations, the livestock sector (primarily cows, chickens, and pigs) emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to our most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. Livestock production occupies 70% of all land used for agriculture, or 30% of the land surface of the planet.[8]It is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases—responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. By comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2. It produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2). It also generates 64% of the ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems [4].
[edit] Conventional hybridization for higher yield, Genetic Engineering and the resulting loss of Biodiversity, a threat to Food Security
In agriculture and animal husbandry, green revolution popularized the use of conventional hybridization to increase yield many folds. Often the handful of breeds of plants and animals hybridized originated in developed countries and were further hybridized with local verities, in the rest of the developing world, to create high yield strains resistant to local climate and diseases. Local governments and industry since have been pushing hybridization with such zeal that several of the wild and indigenous breeds evolved locally over thousands of years having high resistance to local extremes in climate and immunity to diseases etc. have already become extinct or are in grave danger of becoming so in the near future. Due to complete disuse because of un-profitability and uncontrolled intentional, compounded with unintentional crosspollination and crossbreeding (genetic pollution) formerly huge gene pools of various wild and indigenous breeds have collapsed causing widespread genetic erosion and genetic pollution resulting in great loss in genetic diversity and biodiversity as a whole[9].
A Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using the genetic engineering techniques generally known as recombinant DNA technology. Genetic Engineering today has become another serious and alarming cause of genetic pollution because artificially created and genetically engineered plants and animals in laboratories, which could never have evolved in nature even with conventional hybridization, can live and breed on their own and what is even more alarming interbreed with naturally evolved wild varieties. Genetically Modified (GM) crops today have become a common source for genetic pollution, not only of wild varieties but also of other domesticated varieties derived from relatively natural hybridization[10][11][12][13][14].
It is being said that genetic erosion coupled with genetic pollution is destroying that needed unique genetic base thereby creating an unforeseen hidden crisis which will result in a severe threat to our food security for the future when diverse genetic material will cease to exist to be able to further improve or hybridize weakening food crops and livestock against more resistant diseases and climatic changes.
[edit] Policy
Agricultural policy focuses on the goals and methods of agricultural production. At the policy level, common goals of agriculture include:
Food safety: Ensuring that the food supply is free of contamination.
Food security: Ensuring that the food supply meets the population's needs.[15][16]
Food quality: Ensuring that the food supply is of a consistent and known quality.
Conservation
Environmental impact
Economic stability
Satellite image of circular crop fields characteristic of center pivot irrigation in Haskell County, Kansas in late June 2001. Healthy, growing crops are green. Corn is growing leafy stalks, but Sorghum, which resembles corn, grows more slowly and is much smaller and therefore paler. Wheat is a brilliant gold as harvest occurs in June. Brown fields have been recently harvested and plowed under or lie fallow for the year.
[edit] Further reading
[edit] See also
Main lists: List of basic agriculture topics and List of agriculture topics
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[edit] References
^ ILO Key Indicators of the Labour Market 2007, chapter 4 p. 6
^ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html#Econ.
^ Can We Feed the World Without Industrial Agriculture?
^ http://www.greatachievements.org/greatachievements/ga_7_2.html.
^ http://faostat.fao.org/.
^ http://faostat.fao.org/.
^ FAO Database, 2003
^ Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N. retrieved 27 jun 2007
^ “Genetic Pollution: The Great Genetic Scandal”; Devinder Sharma can be contacted at: 7 Triveni Apartments, A-6 Paschim Vihar, New Delhi-110 063, India. Email: dsharma@ndf.vsnl.net.in. CENTRE FOR ALTERNATIVE AGRICULTURAL MEDIA (CAAM)., [1]
^ THE YEAR IN IDEAS: A TO Z.; Genetic Pollution; By MICHAEL POLLAN, The New York Times, December 9, 2001
^ Dangerous Liaisons? When Cultivated Plants Mate with Their Wild Relatives; by Norman C. Ellstrand; The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003; 268 pp. hardcover , $ 65; ISBN 0-8018-7405-X. Book Reviewed in: Hybrids abounding; Nature Biotechnology 22, 29 - 30 (2004) doi:10.1038/nbt0104-29; Reviewed by: Steven H Strauss & Stephen P DiFazio; 1 Steve Strauss is in the Department of Forest Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-5752, USA. steve.strauss@oregonstate.edu; 2 Steve DiFazio is at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Bldg. 1059, PO Box 2008, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-6422 USA. difazios@ornl.gov.
^ “Genetic pollution: Uncontrolled spread of genetic information (frequently referring to transgenes) into the genomes of organisms in which such genes are not present in nature.” Zaid, A. et al. 1999. Glossary of biotechnology and genetic engineering. FAO Research and Technology Paper No. 7. ISBN 92-5-104369-8
^ “Genetic pollution: Uncontrolled escape of genetic information (frequently refering to products of genetic engineering) into the genomes of organisms in the environment where those genes never existed before.” Searchable Biotechnology Dictionary. University of Minnesota. , [2]
^ “Genetic pollution: Living organisms can also be defined as pollutants, when a non-indigenous species (plant or animal) enters a habitat and modifies the existing equilibrium among the organisms of the affected ecosystem (sea, lake, river). Non-indigenous, including transgenic species (GMOs), may bring about a particular version of pollution in the vegetal kingdom: so-called genetic pollution. This term refers to the uncontrolled diffusion of genes (or transgenes) into genomes of plants of the same type or even unrelated species where such genes are not present in nature. For example, a grass modified to resist herbicides could pollinate conventional grass many miles away, creating weeds immune to the most widely used weed-killer, with obvious consequences for crops. Genetic pollution is at the basis of the debate on the use of GMOs in agriculture.” The many facets of pollution; Bologna University web site for Science Communication. The Webweavers: Last modified Tue, 20 Jul 2005
^ Rising food prices curb aid to global poor
^ Record rise in wheat price prompts UN official to warn that surge in food prices may trigger social unrest in developing countries
Artz, F. B, (1980), ‘The Mind of the Middle Ages’; Third edition revised; The University of Chicago Press,
Bolens, L. (1997), `Agriculture’ in Encyclopedia of the history of Science, technology, and Medicine in Non Western Cultures, Editor: Helaine Selin; Kluwer Academic Publishers. Dordrecht/Boston/London, pp 20-2
Collinson, M. (editor): A History of Farming Systems Research. CABI Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-85199-405-9
Crosby, Alfred W.: The Columbian Exchange : Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Praeger Publishers, 2003 (30th Anniversary Edition). ISBN 0-275-98073-1
Davis, Donald R., and Hugh D. Riordan (2004) Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 23, No. 6, 669-682.
Friedland, William H. and Amy Barton (1975) Destalking the Wily Tomato: A Case Study of Social Consequences in California Agricultural Research. Univ. California at Sta. Cruz, Research Monograph 15.
Saltini A.Storia delle scienze agrarie, 4 vols, Bologna 1984-89, ISBN 88-206-2412-5, ISBN 88-206-2413-3, ISBN 88-206-2414-1, ISBN 88-206-2414-X
Watson, A.M (1974), ‘The Arab agricultural revolution and its diffusion’, in The Journal of Economic History, 34,
Watson, A.M (1983), ‘ Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World’, Cambridge University Press
Wells, Spencer: The Journey of Man : A Genetic Odyssey. Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-691-11532-X
Wickens, G.M.(1976), ‘What the West borrowed from the Middle east’, in Introduction to Islamic Civilisation, edited by R.M. Savory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Coffee Plantation in São João do Manhuaçu City - Minas Gerais State - Brazil.
[edit] External links
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