Environmental Impact of Mobility in Higher-Education Institutions: The Case of the Ecological Footprint at the University of A Coruña (Spain)

Analysis of Ecological Environment Problems and Countermeasures in Ideological and Political Education in Colleges and Universities

At present, there are many problems in the mode and method of ideological and emotional education of college students. The state attaches great importance to this aspect and continues to increase investment, but the effect is not satisfactory. As an important field for cultivating high-level socialist talents, colleges and universities have played a huge role in promoting the ideological development and emotional education of college students. The emergence of this contradiction shows that traditional educational methods have their own shortcomings and need to expand their thinking and explore new research areas. Since the new era, the ideological education venues and teaching activities of colleges and universities have been greatly improved, but they are also facing many problems and challenges, which seriously affect the moral quality of college students and destroy the ideological education ecosystem of colleges and universities. From the perspective of the ecological crisis of education, this paper awakens and pays attention to the ecological problems of education, making it an inevitable trend of current education development and paving the way for future research. On this basis, the current situation of the ecology of political education of college students is analyzed, and the necessity of research is proposed. Analyzing the ideological and emotional education of college students from the perspective of ecology is essentially to regard the ideological education of college students as an ecosystem and deeply analyze the distribution of various components and elements of college students' ideological and political education. The ecology of college students' ideological education is the process, law, and overall ecological balance of various factors in the ideological education system of college students, as well as the methodological thinking and value orientation of the interaction between various factors and the environment. The changes of the ecological environment have a significant impact on people's state of mind. As college students growing up in the new environment, their thoughts, emotions, and values are all affected by the development of the ecological environment. Therefore, changes in the ecological environment, air quality, and water environment have increasingly obvious impacts on the living environment.

Erasmus Staff Mobility in the Building of a European Network: The Case of a Central European University

Globalization now applies to almost all aspects of life, and it also applies to the world of science. Internationalisation and interdisciplinarity are fundamental determinants of modern research and education. The foremost factor of functioning in the international world of science is the mobility of students and scientists. Considering this context, the objective of this study was to analyse the staff mobility for teaching under the Erasmus+ programme at the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences (UPWr). The research took into account the mobility of staff for teaching (STA) within the period of the academic years from 2009/2010 to 2020/2021. The methodological approach applied in this study is based on the concept of mobility network analysis and mobility flows. The geo-visualization was prepared with the use of a spider diagram. Using this approach, the connections between spatial locations and domains of scientific activity were analysed. The results show that the mobility flow at UPWr rose significantly after the authorities of the university decided to increase the funding for STA, and eventually was slowed down by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the findings in the geographical aspect show that there were two main regions of destination, which were the Iberian Peninsula and the closest neighbouring countries, where the predominant institutions could be observed. The most mobile group of teachers were the ones representing environment sciences. The STA flow is not reflected in the students’ mobility flow. COVID-19 has enhanced the virtual component of learning, resulting in the strengthening of the blended mobility model.

Developing the Ecological Footprint Assessment for a University Campus, the Component-Based Method

Global warming has become an increasing challenge due to the impact of human activities on the environment. In this regard, university campuses with various activities and departments have a great impact on the environment. Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) is a natural resource depletion assessment tool, with a high level of accuracy, that measures the impact of human activities on the environment. Considering the Ecological Footprint (EF) capabilities, this study developed a method to assess the environmental impacts of a university campus using component-based parameters. The goals of the study are to explore the effective components of EF and to propose some policy guidelines to diminish the human impacts on the environment on university campuses. Five components, including natural gas and electricity consumption, water and food usage, and waste production, were measured in a survey from 2013 to 2016 at the building scale. The mean EF of the campus was 16,484 global hectares (gha). Fossil fuel energy had the highest level of environmental impact with 70.73%, followed by waste production and food and water usage with 26.87%, 1.28%, and 1.12%, respectively. The results demonstrate that the EF Index (EFI) of the case study campus was −0.82, which reveals an unsustainable performance. The EF results were illustrated on an Ecological Footprint Map (EFM), which shows the east and west parts of the camps were more unsustainable.