I'm going to be doing my research on how the Indigenous people are reintroducing bison back from the brink of extinction on the great plains. The tribes along the Great Plains have started several programs for the reintroduction of the bison along the Great Plains.

For ideafest, we plan to enlighten our fellow Humboldtians on how Native tribes are helping to save the bison from extinction. Bison have played a key role in Native culture, especially in the great plains . The Sioux and Assiniboine tribes of Fork pecks currently have the largest restoration herd, with up to 340 bison living and thriving on their lands. We major in zoology, so we decided to focus in on this subject because we are passionate about the wellbeing of animals and it is a clear bridge between Indigenous people, animals, and their culture. Thereby, a connection between NAS and Zoology is born and recognized :) .

For our Idea Fest “Idea” we are planning on using native T.E.K within the field of Botany in terms of medicinal uses, identification and importance of plants the ecosystem in relation to native burnings. To better improve and drive the field of Botany. We will be focusing the the different types of T.E.K within the tribes surrounding humboldt county and seeing how we can incorporate it with general Botany and Ethnobotany practices such as surveying and identifying plants based on medicinal and overall characteristics of native plants around humboldt county. For this project we plan on obtaining our research through the library and hopefully the native tribes around Humboldt county.

I will be providing information on how different tribes utilize parts of the deer and add insight on how it varies throughout area and season. I will include tribes from Wisconsin, California, and Oregon.

Native Tribes have been and continue to be an instrumental part in the protection of eagles throughout the United States. Due to their work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and researchers, they have made substantial progress in furthering their conservation areas and techniques to protect the different species of eagles from extinction. These initiatives are depicted by the Eagle Summits that have been held, as well as eagle rehabilitation areas created on tribal land. Through my research, I will be educating attendees on the work of the tribes to conserve eagle populations and rehabilitate injured eagles while continuing their cultural traditions within the Midwest.

We hypothesize that leaves from pyrophytic species (highly flammable species with historically frequent fire regimes) will disperse farther than leaves from mesophytic species (less flammable species with lower frequency fire regimes). To test this, we examined the leaf fall velocity and dispersal distance of four mesophytic and four pyrophytic oaks species from California by dropping ten leaves of each species from five different heights in the absence of wind. Preliminary results indicated that mesophytes dispersed farther than pyrophytes, and mean leaf fall velocity was slower in pyrophytes. Mesophytes could have traveled farther due to having lower surface area-to-mass ratio.

The ChiA protein from Serratia marcescens is responsible for the hydrolysis of 1,4 glycosidic bonds in N-acetyl-glucosamine chains, that comprise chitin. Chitin, being the second most abundant polymer, has untouched potential as a source for biofuel feedstocks. Here we aim to enhance chitinase activity through displaying the ChiA on the surface layer proteins (S-layers) of Caulobacter vibrioides. The S-layer of C. vibrioides is a nanometer scale hexagonal 2-D crystalline lattice composed of a single protein, RsaA, and covers the entire surface of the organism. In this study, the chiA gene isolated from S. marcescens was designed and amplified for expression in the C. vibrioides S-layer.

Global climate models predict a more variable climate in the future through increased frequency of extreme wet and dry years. Since water is the most limiting resource in the Chihuahuan desert, investigating how semi-arid plants respond to precipitation extremes is pertinent to understanding how desert ecosystems will be altered in the future. To study these responses, I experimentally applied an extreme precipitation treatment to black grama, a dominant desert grass, during June and July 2018 in the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge before the monsoon season. This experiment supports black grama's ability to survive in the desert with few precipitation events due to its growth response.

Research on various land/ resource management and conservation techniques employed by Native communities in California; their foundations in Traditional Ecological Knowledge, influence on the natural history of Californian ecosystems/ habitats, and their relevance in today's California. Furthermore, the differences between Native community and State and Federal government attitudes toward land/ resource management and conservation will be explored, as well as the overlap/ cooperation between attitudes, especially in the case of the State of California and Native Californian communities.

A study on how using Traditional Ecological Knowledge can help sustain the wilderness and natural resources