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2061. [Article] Localized Ecological and Educational Effects of Environmental Service-Learning in Portland, Oregon
Environmental service-learning is an intentional educational experience(s) wherein learners engage in meaningful activities designed to serve the environment. Environmental service-learning activities ...Citation Citation
- Title:
- Localized Ecological and Educational Effects of Environmental Service-Learning in Portland, Oregon
- Author:
- Braun, Steven Matthew
- Year:
- 2015
Environmental service-learning is an intentional educational experience(s) wherein learners engage in meaningful activities designed to serve the environment. Environmental service-learning activities vary according to their learning and service goals and include ecomanagement, persuasion, legal action, economic action and political action. The purpose of this mixed methods research was to explore the ecological and educational impacts of grades 6-12 environmental education, with special attention to environmental service-learning throughout Portland, Oregon. Ecological impacts considered restoration and conservation outcomes of several environmental service-learning programs including plant communities, soils, litter removal and trail maintenance. Educational outcomes considered aspects of environmental literacy including locus of control, environmental sensitivity, indicated environmentally responsible behaviors, investigating environmental issues and knowledge of physical systems. The relative influence of some significant life experiences on youths' response to environmental education, including environmental service-learning, was also considered. Telephone surveys were used to gather data from 22 Portland metropolitan area environmental education programs. Data included 2014 annual biophysical impacts (e.g., area of invasive species removed, pounds of litter removed) and information on programming (e.g., length of program, % time outside). Eleven programs administered a 33-question environmental literacy assessment to participants of their programs (n=393). The assessment included the New Environmental Paradigm, the Inclusion of Nature in Self, questions from Environmental Identity Scale and self-constructed questions. One 8th grade program was identified for a detailed case study. In this 8th grade programs, slight variations in educational activities occurred among three treatment groups which varied the amount of time youth spent engaged in ecomanagement. Youth from the three treatment groups and a control group were administered the environmental literacy assessment at the beginning and end of the program. Qualitative data for the youth in the treatment groups were gathered to further consider how environmental literacy was impacted by participation in the program. Stronger associational correlations to environmental literacy occurred for the percentage of time an environmental education program spent outdoors rather than the percentage of time an environmental education program engaged in environmental service-learning (e.g., "With other people, I can work to make a positive impact on the environment." rho: .276 vs. "I have the skills necessary to make a positive impact on the environment" rho: .176). Random forests indicated that environmental education program features and some significant life experiences could predict collapsed environmental literacy variables (locus of control, environmental sensitivity and environmentally responsible behaviors). 22.4% of the variance in a collapsed environmental sensitivity variable was explained by nine predictor variables; those variables with the strongest influence were youth response to "Before this program, how frequently did you spend time in the outdoors," age and the presence of a positive adult role model who cares for the environment. Youth participating in environmental education programs showed higher environmental literacy than control groups (e.g., "I feel an important part of my life would be missing if I couldn't get out and enjoy nature from time to time" U: 3642.500, p: 0.025). Youth with significant formative life experiences (e.g., those indicating previous environmental education or a positive adult role model that cares for the environment) responded better (higher environmental literacy) to environmental education than those youth without ("I pay special attention to things outdoors" chi 10.633, p: 0.031). This research provides insight on the efficacy of environmental service-learning. Environmental service-learning positively affected environmental literacy, but outdoor environmental education was more effective in terms of environmental literacy. Results corroborate the body of literature regarding significant life experiences. Further, results suggest that significant life experiences are a critical development milestone necessary for youth to respond to environmental education on a developmental trajectory to empowered environmentally literate citizens.
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2062. [Article] Leveraging Digital Technology in Social Studies Education
Today's K-12 classrooms are increasingly comprised of students who accomplish much of their informal learning through digital media and technology. In response, a growing number of educators are considering ...Citation Citation
- Title:
- Leveraging Digital Technology in Social Studies Education
- Author:
- Lundy, Sarah Elizabeth
- Year:
- 2014
Today's K-12 classrooms are increasingly comprised of students who accomplish much of their informal learning through digital media and technology. In response, a growing number of educators are considering how they might draw upon these informal learning experiences to support student engagement and learning in the classroom through technology. The purpose of this study is for social studies educators, school administrators, teacher educators and curriculum developers to understand more about the potentials and limitations of integrating technology such as a digital text. This research focuses on the differences in experiences using a digital text and a printed text from the perspective of four high school social studies classes. The curriculum for the printed and digital texts was developed in collaboration with the Choices Program for the Twenty-First Century at Brown University. This research was based on the assumption that the thoughtful integration of a digital text in the classroom can support student engagement and differentiation while facilitating learning that students can readily transfer to multiple political, economic and social contexts beyond the classroom. Critically, students of poverty and students of color have the most to gain from increased access to digital technology in the public education system. People of color and people of poverty in the United States have significantly less access to technology at home than their white and middle class counterparts. Therefore, the classroom presents an opportunity for students who lack access to digital learning opportunities in their home environments to develop the technological fluency and digital literacy that are increasingly necessary to engage in multiple political and economic spheres in the United States. The current literature on digital technology in education lacks sufficient empirical evidence of the potential benefits and challenges that digital technologies may offer secondary social studies education from the perspective of the classroom. Therefore, the classroom field test that was undertaken for this research offers a more empirical understanding of digital texts from the important perspectives of students and teachers in the classroom learning community. This research was conducted in a large, suburban high school in the Portland Metropolitan area and compared the experiences of tenth-grade World History classes working with a print text to the experiences of tenth-grade World History classes working digitally. The mixed-methods multiple-case study design addresses the following research questions: a) In what ways, if at all, does a digital text provide high school social studies' students different affordances and academic skills than a printed text? and b) How, if at all, do high school social studies students interact differently with a digital text from a printed text? The analysis of data offered evidence that the use of the digital text supported technological fluency, the creation of more sophisticated learning products, differentiation for multiple learning styles and a more supportive reading experience due to its multimodal features. These unique academic affordances were not equivalently supported by the use of the print text. However, the type of text did not demonstrably influence students' ability to communicate their thinking in analytical writing. The analysis of data also suggested that students were somewhat more cognitively and behaviorally engaged in the digital case studies. Importantly, the digital text did not create a negatively discrepant learning experience for students of color but, rather, supported increased student engagement for both white students and students of color. The data also suggested that the digital text posed significant challenges for both students and teachers. The digital experience required students to learn new and challenging technology skills. The digital text also required more class time and created more classroom management challenges for teachers than the print experience. Despite these additional challenges, both students and teachers expressed a preference for the digital experience. Thus, the digital text seemed to provide both a more challenging and a more rewarding experience for students. This study has implications for educators that are interested in thoughtfully integrating a digital text or, a similar digital technology, in comparable classroom contexts.
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2063. [Article] Assessing Possible Cruise Ship Impacts on Huna Tlingit Ethnographic Resources in Glacier Bay
This report provides a thematic summary of an ethnographic study addressing the effects of cruise ships within Glacier Bay proper on the people known as the Huna Tlingit. Occupying the heart of Glacier ...Citation Citation
- Title:
- Assessing Possible Cruise Ship Impacts on Huna Tlingit Ethnographic Resources in Glacier Bay
- Author:
- Deur, Douglas, Thornton, Thomas
- Year:
- 2014
This report provides a thematic summary of an ethnographic study addressing the effects of cruise ships within Glacier Bay proper on the people known as the Huna Tlingit. Occupying the heart of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Glacier Bay proper is considered to be the core homeland of Huna Tlingit. The Huna occupied the Bay prior to its most recent glaciation and, though they now live nearby in Hoonah and other communities, they have continued to use, occupy, and value the lands and waters within the Bay since the glaciers began to retreat over two centuries ago. Simultaneously, since the designation of Glacier Bay as a unit of the National Park Service, Glacier Bay proper has become the focal point of a thriving tourist industry, with most park visitors arriving in the Bay by cruise ship. In past consultation, Huna representatives have expressed to NPS staff that cruise ships have various adverse effects on lands, resources, and values that are of concern to Huna people. Also, in recent years, the NPS has identified locations within Glacier Bay proper that appear to be eligible for designation as “Traditional Cultural Properties” (TCPs), a type of property that is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places by virtue of its cultural and historical importance to the Huna Tlingit. In light of the presence of these TCPs, as well as a variety of other federal mandates, the NPS must assess the potential adverse effects of park operations on lands and resources of importance to Huna Tlingit— including park specific vessel quotas and operating requirements that set limits on the number and operation of cruise ships. Recognizing this, the NPS initiated the current study to systematically identify the scope and nature of the impacts of cruise ship traffic on lands and resources of importance to Huna people, to illuminate the cultural context of those impacts, and to recommend potential avenues for minimizing or mitigating any adverse effects. No fewer than 50 Huna Tlingit served as formal interviewees for this study, and many others contributed informally to the project’s success. Through interviews with these people, as well as repeat visits to Glacier Bay proper with Huna Tlingit interviewees, the researchers systematically documented the nature and extent of cruise ship effects, as described and understood by Huna people. Interviewees identified a number of “tangible” adverse effects, some historical and some ongoing: air and water pollution, trash dispersal, noise pollution, wakes, fish and wildlife disturbances, various impacts on Tlingit boaters, and increased region-wide exposure to shipborne diseases. Interviewees also identified “intangible” adverse effects: displays of “disrespect” by people on ships, the disruption of Huna connections to Glacier Bay, inappropriate public interpretation, and the effects of outside observers on the character of traditional activities. While particular attention is directed here to the effects of cruise ships on TCPs, most of the effects are understood to have broader effects, throughout large portions of Glacier Bay proper and beyond. Positive effects were also noted, especially economic advantages. Seeking to illuminate some of the challenges and potentials of cruise ship tourism from a Huna perspective, interviews also contrasted cruise ship tourism in Glacier Bay with the Icy Strait Point facility, a cruise ship port with tourist facilities that is run by Huna Totem Corporation. Certain key cultural issues required to conceptualize these effects are also addressed, such as Huna protocols for “respecting” Glacier Bay, traditional Huna concepts of Glacier Bay as uniquely “clean” and spiritually potent, as well as Huna discomfort with the loss of their traditional role as “host” to visitors in their homeland. These elements represent key context for discussions of Huna perceptions of cruise ships, we suggest, and Huna discussions of specific impacts are often only understandable with reference to them. Interviewees recommend a variety of opportunities for minimizing or mitigating these adverse effects of cruise ships in the future management of TCPs and other park lands, waters, and resources. The document advances both specific recommendations and general principles that may be of value in future consultation and communication between Huna and the NPS on matters relating to the future of Glacier Bay.
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2064. [Article] Responses of Aquatic Non-Native Species to Novel Predator Cues and Increased Mortality
Lethal biotic interactions strongly influence the potential for aquatic non-native species to establish and endure in habitats to which they are introduced. Predators in the recipient area, including native ...Citation Citation
- Title:
- Responses of Aquatic Non-Native Species to Novel Predator Cues and Increased Mortality
- Author:
- Turner, Brian Christopher
- Year:
- 2017
Lethal biotic interactions strongly influence the potential for aquatic non-native species to establish and endure in habitats to which they are introduced. Predators in the recipient area, including native and previously established non-native predators, can prevent establishment, limit habitat use, and reduce abundance of non-native species. Management efforts by humans using methods designed to cause mass mortality (e.g., trapping, biocide applications) can reduce or eradicate non-native populations. However, the impacts of predator and human induced mortality may be mitigated by the behavior or population-level responses of a given non-native species. My dissertation examined the responses of non-native aquatic species to the risk of predation by novel (i.e., no previous exposure) predators in the recipient community and indicators of potential compensatory responses by non-native populations to increased mortality resulting from removal efforts. My dissertation addresses four primary questions. 1) Can first generation, naïve invaders recognize and defend against predators found within the region of invasion through the expression of inducible defenses? 2) Can the overcompensatory potential of a population be predicted though examinations of intraspecific interactions of individuals from the population? 3) What is the relationship between removal effort outcome (i.e., successful or unsuccessful reduction of the target population) and compensatory population responses? 4) Is there a relationship between characteristics of removal efforts that are typically available to managers (e.g., target area size, target area connectivity, removal methodology) and compensatory population responses that could indicate the relative likelihood of compensation resulting from removal efforts? An invading species should be more likely to establish if it can successfully identify and defend against predators in the recipient range, such as through the expression of inducible defenses. Inducible defenses are behavioral or physiological changes that reduce an organism's susceptibility to predation. Through a series of laboratory experiments, I tested whether inducible defenses, in the form of increased burrowing depth, may have benefited the early stage of invasion of Nuttallia obscurata (purple varnish clam), an established Northeast Pacific invader. Specimens of N. obscurata were collected from introduced populations in the Northeast Pacific and from a native population in Japan. The clams were exposed to chemical and physical cues from Northeast Pacific crab predators, including the native Metacarcinus magister (Dungeness crab), an abundant and frequent predator of N. obscurata. While introduced N. obscurata increased their burrowing depth in the physical presence of M. magister, clams collected from their native range showed no such response. This lack of increased burrowing depth by naïve clams in response to a predator native to the newly invaded range, but a significant increase in depth for clams from populations established in the range suggests that while inducible defenses likely did not contribute to the initial establishment of N. obscurata in the Northeast Pacific, they may contribute to their continued persistence and expansion in their introduced range. Some efforts to reduce invasive populations have paradoxically led to population increases. This phenomenon, referred to as overcompensation, occurs when strong negative density-dependent interactions are reduced through increased mortality within a population, resulting in an increase in the population's recruitment rate sufficient to increase the population's overall abundance. Increases in a population's recruitment rate can result from reduced cannibalism of juveniles resulting in lower mortality of new recruits, from increased adult reproductive output, which increases the number of potential recruits, or from reductions in size and/or age at maturity of the unharvested population, which increases the number of reproductive individuals. I predicted the overcompensatory potential of a population of Carcinus maenas (European green crab) in Bodega Harbor, California, using a series of laboratory and field experiments examining intraspecific pressures of adults on juveniles in the population. This measure of intraspecific pressure was used to predict the overcompensatory potential of the population in response to increased mortality from ongoing removal efforts. This prediction was then assessed using pre- and post-removal surveys of juvenile recruitment in Bodega Harbor compared to nearby populations, testing for evidence of overcompensation. While adult C. maenas in Bodega Harbor had limited negative impacts on juveniles, I concluded it was unlikely to result in overcompensation. Relative juvenile abundance did not statistically increase in removal compared to reference populations, consistent with my conclusion from the experiments. Increases in recruitment rates can occur as a result of efforts to remove non-native species. This increase in recruitment can result in overcompensation, but more commonly results in compensation, where recruitment rates increase relative to pre-removal recruitment but does not result in in the population's abundance exceeding pre-removal levels. However, a detailed and accurate prediction of the response of a population to harvest is time consuming and data intensive. This is not feasible for most efforts to eradicate non-native species, which have the greatest chance of success when enacted rapidly after detection. For my final chapter, I performed a literature review and accompanying statistical analysis to determine if typically available information related to the removal effort (site size, site connectivity, and removal technique) could be used to determine increased risk of compensation for a given effort to remove aquatic invasive species. Compensation was closely linked to unsuccessful removal efforts and was observed only among efforts utilizing physical removal methods. However, the frequency with which compensation occurred varied with the exact technique employed, occurring most frequently in removal utilizing electrofishing. Additionally, evidence of compensation was more frequent among larger removal areas with variable connectivity. While other predictors (temperature, effort, etc) might add to the predicative power, the findings of the review provide criteria for managers to determine the relative risk of compensation prior to the start of removal. Further understanding of how invasive species respond to lethal biotic interactions, including anthropogenically mediated control measures, can aid in assessing the risk of invasion for a given species and inform managers of the risk of complications resulting from removal efforts. While inducible defenses may contribute to the long-term success of an introduced species in their recipient range, my findings did not support the idea that inducible defenses triggered by predator cues contributed to their initial introduction in this case. However, research on other non-native species and offspring of previously naïve prey would allow for a clearer picture of the role of inducible defenses in the invasion process. Compensation resulting from removal efforts does not guarantee failure, and certain characteristics of removal efforts seem to indicate increased risk of compensation. Together these components help identify how biotic interactions surrounding mortality risk of an invading species help shape the trajectory of invasion.