In recent years, there has been a growing interest in planets outside of our solar system, also known as exoplanets. Our research involves looking for trends in these planets’ potential habitability, through archival information about the planet’s radius, its distance from its parent star, and its atmospheric composition. The latter is obtained using transmission spectroscopy, which shows absorption on different regions of the planet’s spectrum depending on the composition of the atmosphere. We are working in collaboration with Dr. Stephen Kane, the creator of the Habitable Zone Gallery, to include the spectroscopic information in this database, which will allow the community to access it.

This project is a Cultural Exploration that I completed in 2024 as part of my Cultural Psychology class at the University of Alaska -Fairbanks. I wanted to immerse myself in Basque Culture as I am a Basque Diaspora born in the U.S. but have grown up largely disconnected from Basque Culture. I attended Palm Sunday at the Notre Dame Des Victoires in San Francisco, CA participating in the events preceding Easter. I also visited the Basque Cultural Center on Palm Sunday and interviewed Alain Camou the manager at the restaurant in the Cultural Center about Basque Culture. I hope that presenting this work at the Ideafest will help to share Basque Culture with others and help further this research.

The purpose of the research was to determine if a relationship exists between biodiversity and specific functions. Specifically, if individual organism function influences the broad function of the ecosystem. To test this, a model system was devised using fluid collected from Darlingtonia californica, chosen for having a bacterial ecosystem with the observable broad function of insect degradation. A dilution series was used to modify the biodiversity of this system, expected to alter specific organism function, and by extension influence the broad function of the system. Initial results of the experiment indicated that broad function increased as individual specific functions decreased.

The presence of Sea Star Wasting Disease (SSWD) has caused fluctuations in the abundance of sea stars in the intertidal. Pisaster ochraceus is a keystone predator of the intertidal (Bates, et al., 2009) and has an increased potential to alter the food web now that SSWD has manifested itself within the population. It is a consumer of several species of chiton, snails, and limpets (Paine, et al.,1980) found in our coast’s intertidal communities. Due to the fluctuation in populations of the Pisaster ochraceus, fluctuations of predation should occur as well. Like most predator prey population models predator population size should inversely affect prey population size.

This project is an interpretive panel designed to highlight some of the effects of climate change on the Florida Everglades. Multiple consequences have risen, many of which are reflected through decreases in the populations of a number of key species that make up the Everglades ecosystem. In this panel, I selected just some of these devastating effects to help bring light to the horrors that this ecosystem is experiencing. The goal of this panel is to both inform the public about the issues we are facing from the effects of sea level rise, as well as inspire them to want to take actions that could make a difference.

The main objectives of this study are to determine the variation in forage habitat selection of each of these species located in the Arcata Community Forest, and to see what might influence their forage site selection. I hypothesize that forage site selection for woodpeckers will be influenced by their prey choosing certain tree species and trees in moderate to high stages of decay. The data collected and used to complete my objectives as gathered by surveying multiple trails throughout the Arcata Community Forest, taking note of any woodpeckers engaging in foraging activity along with the species of woodpecker, the species of tree, and the stage of decay the tree was in.

The poster will be about how Native American studies go hand in hand with the field of Zoology and natural resources and management as well as wildlife and game management. It will delve into the benefits of applying Traditional Ecological Knowledge to conservation-related issues as well as some of the social and economic issues that we are facing. In particular, This poster will address some of the issues regarding the environment today and how TEK can help to both resolves and benefit from the initial problems. In addition to the management benefits that Traditional Ecological Knowledge offers, I want to include how TEK can help bridge the gap between different communities.

The research aimed to compare the capabilities of two single strains of bacteria in their ability to hydrolyze a common peptide found in the seawater. The research is important in adding to knowledge of the carbon cycle, and how organic matter is processed on incredibly small scales. The data collected over the course of ten weeks turned out significant and more data is going to be added in the future to compile a database for the different bacteria strains which may one day help in environmental restoration projects.

#RepresentationMatters is a social media campaign to educate the world on why representation matters in literature, education, and entertainment media. For those who began the hashtag, it means that the storytellers are people of color, women, LGBTQ+, disabled, neurodivergent, or any combination thereof. The stories by these artists do not center on being a member of these communities, but do not erase the character’s experience of belonging to them, either. The artists hope to show the world the impact of being heard and seen, and to draw attention to how literature, education, and the entertainment industry currently depict their experiences.

The Long Canyon Dome (LCD) is a 185 ka rhyolite dome in south-central Sierra Nevada, California. The rhyolite pumice from the pre-eruption contains less SiO2 and a different mineralogy, than the rhyolite magma erupted from LCD. This suggests the dome was tapping into two different rhyolite magma bodies during one eruption, or a hotter rhyolitic magma intruded into a cooler magma, triggering the eruption. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy’s (EDS) point and shoot method was used to measure the chemical signature of sanidine crystals in pre and post eruption sample. The rhyolite pumices’ at LCD represents similar but slightly different magmas compositions.