Impact of moving an international aviation design competition to a virtual environment: challenges, benefits, and lessons learned (Evaluation)

Starting in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on STEM competitions for high school students. With the shutdowns during the early part of the pandemic, competitions with an in-person component were forced to either cancel or adapt as virtual. The Real World Design Challenge (RWDC) competition was no exception. In April of each year, teams invited to participate in the National/International portion of the RWDC competition travel to the Washington, DC area to give presentations before a panel of judges. In a little over a month in 2020, RWDC was able to successfully transition the National/International competition to a virtual event. With the success from 2020, the 2021 competition again went virtual, and with the continued uncertainties related to the pandemic, the 2022 event was virtual. This paper discusses the impact that a virtual final event has had on the RWDC competition. The move to a virtual event in 2020 and the subsequent virtual events led to many challenges but also provided several benefits. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Screening for HCV infection combined with SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in the Campania region

Background and Aims: The health emergency caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has negatively impacted the management of HCV infection, potentially jeopardizing the achievement of the goal of eliminate hepatitis C by 2030. To take advantage of the current sanitary situation, associated screening for HCV and SARS-CoV-2 infection have been carried out. We decided to propose HCV screening also to people who undergone SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. [Formula presented] Methods: Screening for hepatitis C was carried out by finger-prick test to search for HCV antibodies. It took place in the minutes following the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, in two different vaccination centers of the Campania region, and in two different time frames. In the period 1 May-20 July 2021, screening for hepatitis C was offered to the general population who got the vaccine at the Fisciano (province of Salerno) vaccination center. In the period 20 September-11 October 2021, screening for hepatitis C was offered to the general population who underwent vaccination at the San Leonardo Hospital (Castellammare di Stabia, metropolitan city of Naples). In both sites, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines were used. Results: Out of 5095 people who underwent vaccination at the Fisciano vaccination center, 1952 (38,3%, average age 41,6 years) performed screening for hepatitis C. 5 of these (0,25%, average age 54,2 years) resulted HCV-Ab positive;all 5 were aware of their condition;4 had previous treatment;1 (0,05%) was found to have active HCV infection. Out of 2202 people vaccinated at the San Leonardo Hospital, 1207 (54,8%, average age 43,1 years) underwent screening for hepatitis C. Among these, 9 (0,7%, average age 54,3) resulted positive. 5/9 tested negative on the confirmatory test;2/9 were aware of their condition and had previous treatment;1 subject (0,08%) was found to have active HCV infection;1 subject is awaiting the results at time of writing. In both sites a consistent percentage of people refused the HCV-Ab test. Moreover, the prevalence of HCV-Ab positivity and HCV active infection was found to be lower than the national data. Frequent reasons for refusing the test were lack of knowledge of the disease, fear of a positive result, and distrust in the test's effectiveness. Someone refused the test because vaccination was considered a particularly stressful event. The low prevalence of HCV infection found in these projects could be at least partly attributable to the under-participation of the elderly, as at the time the screenings were carried out most of them had probably already received the expected doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Conclusions: In conclusion, we believe that SARS-CoV-2 vaccination could be an opportunity to screen for HCV infection, but to maximize the benefits of this screening, the characteristics of the subjects to be tested should be reconsidered, by focusing particularly on the elderly population.

How can the technology be integrated in Outdoor Movement Education for children and the youth with special needs?

The technological innovations of the last decade have caused countless changes to everyone's lifestyle, especially in the number of hours spent in front of a screen. These generational differences are even more marked if the new generations of students are taken into consideration, in fact, even at the school level, technological innovations have brought changes. Just as lifestyle and teaching have changed, what is considered as the " needs" of pupils and how they live and relate both in formal and informal environments have also changed. Considering the emergency period caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, greater attention has been paid to the importance of exercising and everyone has also re-evaluated the beauty and benefits of exercising outdoors. Outdoor Movement Education in this sense can be a key that allows the new generations to experience the emotions and sensations that can be felt during outdoor moving activities. This work is a reflection on how technology can be a tool to increase the benefits in Outdoor Movement Education considering children and youth with special needs. The results of this work have shown how the use of technology in Outdoor Movement Education brings numerous advantages both under the didactic profile ( i.e., life skills) and with regard to the cognitive (i.e., attention and concentration), motor (i.e., motor skills, fundamental movement skills) and affective (i.e., enjoyment) domains of learning respectively.

Reflections that know of “new normal”: The complex role of physical educators during the covid-19 pandemic

The contribution of this study is a reflection on the physical education teaching and learning processes in primary school throughout COVID-19 pandemic. In this difficult time, the role of physical education has been more than ever an important instancefor all students to channel the accumulated negative emotions. Due to the legal limitations related to COVID-19, the practice of physical and sport activities during school time has encountered several difficulties.The group-based games, whichare mainly represented by sharing and being together in a group, had to give way to individual games played by the place in a condition of social distance with a distance of 2 meters to the right and left, front and back for each student. In this scenario, the outdoor space has become a learning environment in which to combine the educational model of outdoor education with the educational learning aims of physical education.It was possible to carry out outdoor activities and help children in the management of negative and stressful emotions related to the pandemic by means of outdoor education. Children had feelings of anger at the difficulty of understanding this negative event, but they had also feeling of suffering and disappointment. The observance of the anti-COVID-19 rules represented by the use of masks and social distancing has contributed to live a suffering period. For this reason, the psychophysical benefits related to physical activity were significant. For this aim, the use of outdoor-based educational activities has allowed to the teachers to reachlearning aims related to the knowledge of the external environment. © JPES.