Only Birds Can Start Wildfires

College of Natural Resources & Sciences

Our creative project is going to revolve around the ecological knowledge of the Chicken Hawk that is from Indigenous people of the Humboldt County area. We want to show the significance that Chicken Hawk has in their culture and how it correlates to scientific research that has been done and is being done on them today. We aim to show how ecological knowledge can be applied to current research and assist modern day scientists.

Open Pit Iron Mining on Michigan's Upper Peninsula

College of Natural Resources & Sciences

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is an iron rich region in the Marquette Iron Range (aka Negaunee Iron Formation) that has been mined since the mid-1800's. By the 1950's most of the easily accessible high grade ore had been mined, forcing the mining companies to dig deeper for less valuable ore. The entire complex depicted in this map is commonly referred to as the National Mine, but it is broken up into two separate facilities: the Empire Mine to the east (which closed in 2016), and the Tilden Mine to the west (the last active Iron mine in Michigan). While these mines have been great for the local economy, this has come at the cost of major environmental impacts.

Open Textbooks in Higher Education

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

INSTRUCTOR PERSPECTIVES ON OPEN TEXTBOOKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION With this presentation, I explore the costs associated with higher education and how those costs may impact access. I explore the implementation of open textbooks as having the potential to bridge gaps between low and high-income students by making college less expensive and more accessible to students from all income levels. I will show prior research and stats on student approval and success with open textbooks, discuss how little research there is on instructors assessments of them, and show my survey findings from a survey I conducted on instructors at Ocean View University.

Ophiocordyceps Sinensis: A Study of Tibet’s Caterpillar Fungus, and the Possible Anthropogenic Nature of its Recent Population Decline

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Ophiocordyceps sinensis, or Caterpillar fungus, has been used as a cure all for millennia by Tibetan nomads. The fungus which parasitizes the larva of moths is also used in China. Supply of the prized fungus, which only grows on the Tibetan plateau and northern slope of the Himalayas, was not always available to the Chinese given the remote nature of the plateau. In recent decades however, developing relations between China and the Tibetan region have led to increased gathering of the fungus. This poster will discuss the history of O. sinensis as medicine, as well as the modern relationships between the fungus and the people who use it, and what that means for the fungi’s future.

Optimizing Resistance During Multiple-Set Weight Training to Increase Training Volume for Rural Firefighters

College of Professional Studies

We hypothesized that a greater training volume would be produced using a training protocol where resistance is decreased with each set (DR) compared to a constant resistance (CR) protocol. In order to develop DRs, we used the subject's fatigue ratio (using an individualized regression equation) from a CR training protocol where the number of repetitions declines with each set. 20 active-duty male firefighters (mean±SD, age = 32± 7yr, height = 180±5 cm, body mass = 96±16 kg, fire service = 9±7 yr) completed 4 sets at 65% of their 1RM CR and DR bench press, lat pulldown, and leg press exercises to failure with 30 second rest intervals.

Orchid Micropropagation and the Potential for Conservation

Rebecca Bendzick, Biological Sciences Undergraduate Student

College of Natural Resources & Sciences

Orchidaceae is one of the most diverse flowering plant families. Despite the worldwide popularity of Phalaenopsis for floral aesthetics, many other ecologically important species are either endangered or threatened and require elaborate cultivation strategies. Currently one of the top conservation approaches utilizes clonal propagation techniques via tissue culture, resulting in vegetative propagation in mass numbers. We present successful sterile introduction, cultivation and maintenance of Phalaenopsis seedlings with the hope that this tissue culture method can be applied to native orchid species here in Humboldt County.

Osteoarthritis in Anglo-Saxon Groups

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

There are many cases of osteoarthritis observed in western England skeletal remains from the 5th to 9th century. I investigated the potential connections and causes of the high rates of osteoarthritis within Anglo-Saxon remains as described in case studies. Current research indicates there is a link between occupation and osteoarthritis. These data shed light on how lifestyle affects overall health. These findings are valuable because they can be used to describe the connections between lifestyles and diseases through the remains of Anglo-Saxons through the observation of osteoarthritis within their remains.

Outcomes of a Disconnected Society: Tough on Discipline and the School to Prison Pipeline

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

In this study a triangulation of teacher testimonies and school policies is used to address how systemic inequalities are maintained through institutional rules and individual understandings and how teachers understand their role in a system that unjustly criminalizes students of color. With a grounded theory approach, four main themes were identified: 1) causes of disproportionate discipline according to educators; 2) “tough on discipline”; 3)policing, surveillance, and intolerance of student misbehavior; 4) bureaucratization of school discipline. Possible solutions are discussed and other avenues for future research are addressed.

Outgroup Influence

College of Professional Studies

The research reveals the complex dynamics of intergroup context, particularly with the presence of extreme outgroups in comparison to moderate outgroups. Results supported the hypothesis that the presence of an extreme outgroup might pull perceivers’ perceptions more negative, possibly because it reminds them of the intergroup comparison process. In addition, results supported the hypothesis of lower perceptions of warmth than competence for relevant outgroups. The work has implications for many social and political situations where individuals may change their opinions of groups in a similar manner based on the presence of extreme outgroups in comparison to relevant and moderate outgroups.

Outreach at CCAT: Evolving, Facilitating, and Encouraging Local Activism

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

This ethnography focuses on how outreach is cultivated, idealized, and put into action by employees and volunteers at CCAT. The research takes place at Humboldt State University at the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT). This project aims to ask how the outreach programs at this particular Associated Students organization are structured, interact, utilized, and overall encourage local activism. The methods conducted include participant observations, collected artifacts, naturally occurring conversations, surveys, formal and informal interviews. The findings of this research highlight the necessities for student run organizations and awareness-building communities.