Northcoast Environmental Center

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Social Media platform assistant. Taking photos of local landscapes around Humboldt County as well as events and strategically placing them onto the organization's social media platforms.

Nourishing Communities, One Meal at a Time

Petrita Rodriguez, College Corp Undergraduate Student

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Food banks around the country are working to alleviate hunger and improve food security for low-income families, seniors, and children through distribution programs and nutrition education. This poster explores the vital role that food banks play in our community and examines how federal budget cuts - especially to SNAP and TEFAP - threaten its ability to serve those in need. By highlighting both research and community data, this project underscores the urgent need to support local food systems and advocate for sustainable food assistance programs.

Oh my God. I am the highest I have ever been: User Experiences with Cannabis Edibles

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Cannabis legalization in the U.S. is associated with greater usage, new cultivation methods, increased THC potency, and new modes of ingestion. Inconsistent edibles labeling and dosage control resulted in a spike in cannabis edible related emergency room admissions. This study examined negative user experiences with edibles. We conducted in-depth interviews with a nonrandom sample of 45 medical and recreational cannabis users in California and Colorado. We asked interviewees about their prior use, negative edible experience, and short and long-term responses to their bad edible experience. We coded interviews for the sources and behavioral implications of negative edible experiences.

Old Town Eureka: A Historic Tour and Photo Collection

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

We have been working directly with the Humboldt County Historical Society over this past semester in an effort to offer them a way of gaining the community's attention and ultimately producing more members of the society. By making a Story Map, we offer the local communities in and around Eureka, California a way to digitally and physically make their way through Old Town Eureka so that they can compare the historical photos of the area to what is now there. We hope that this educates our local communities of the history that surrounds them, and encourages them to visit and support the Humboldt County Historical Society whenever and however they can.

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.

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.

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.

Painting the Medium: Digital Standardization of Archaeological Data

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

The bulk of archaeological notes taken in the field are hand-written, with pencil-sketched maps and diagrams, varying widely in legibility, clarity, and completeness of information. While this last point cannot easily be fixed in post, the former two can be through the development of a comprehensive “style guide” and tutorial for the digitization of archaeological field notes—using the free design program “Inkscape.” The guide is designed to be internally consistent and easily comprehensible, usable even by those with no experience with either the programs or raw data involved, guiding the user along the process of rendering previously inconsistent field data into a uniform visual style.