Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Helpful or Harmful?

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPC) are nonprofit organizations whose purpose is to provide free resources to pregnant women. Currently, there is much controversy over CPCs and their legitimacy as a nonprofit resource for women. To ascertain the prevailing perceptions of CPCs, a literature review was conducted. Materials were analyzed and synthesized to produce a comprehensive view of current feelings about CPCs. Trends reveal a negative characterization of CPCs as dishonest. Several articles call for new legislation that would either restrict or compel speech for CPCs. This study examines the conflict between reproductive rights and free speech laws and how it emerged.

Cultivating Environmental Education Through School Gardens

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

In a moment when there is a need to increase social knowledge and skills for addressing environmental issues, gardens are an important resource. Garden programs address multiple learning styles, help physical development and provide opportunities for interdisciplinary lessons for children. Within these programs, kids practice locomotor skills, patience, and responsibility. In this study, we looked at accessibility to gardens within elementary schools in Arcata & McKinleyville. In addition to observing accessibility, we looked at the limiting factors for schools that do not have access to gardens and see if there are correlations to social implications such as class and wealth.

Culture Differences in Nonverbal Communication

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

This poster illustrates nonverbal communication in different cultures through the examination of facial behaviors and emotional expression.

Defending the Environment: From Grassroots to a Business

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

A common practice through the waves of environmental movements is for grassroots organizations to eventually form a non-profit that continues to support the environment. This was clearly observed at the Environmental Protection Information Center in Arcata, California. The study of this nonprofit and others like it have painted a clearer picture about how environmental nonprofits organize and mobilize. EPIC follows the patterns of other organizations, being a 45 year old environmental nonprofit, it has seen a lot of changes from its original grassroots mobilization. The focus is now on how to best fulfill its mission statement and maintain a complex membership based business.

Deliberative Democracy for Climate Resilience: Can this Make a Difference?

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Considering how climate change is an ongoing issue, the basis of the project will explore the concept of deliberative democracy and it's potential effects on climate resilience. Deliberative democracy essentially focuses on how citizens engage with issues and the deliberation aspect of it can help make otherwise complicated political issues easier to comprehend. The research for this project will include a forum on this topic at HSU as well as an analysis of countries employing this strategy and its effectiveness.

Delving into the Significance

College of Natural Resources & Sciences

Understanding the significance of basket weaving such as the materials that are used and the importance that it holds for indigenous communities.

Design of a ChiA surface expression system for enhanced biofuel feedstocks.

College of Natural Resources & Sciences

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.

Developing Interdisciplinary Anti-Violence Pedagogy

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

The Students for Violence Prevention first year experience program faculty cohort will present key strategies learned in developing interdisciplinary anti-violence pedagogy. The faculty will cover strategies for community building, how classroom work weaves with activist strategies, and tactics for supporting students in trauma.

Development and Stable Integration of Tetracycline Inducible Tools for Genome Editing and Genome Regulation in Cultured Human Embryonic Kidney Cells

College of Natural Resources & Sciences

At Humboldt State University we aim to create a robust CRISPR/Cas9 toolkit which enables one to overexpress, repress, inhibit transcription and perform double strand DNA cuts allowing one to undertake research on genes associated with cancer, autophagy and neurological diseases. These tools will enable future students, private sector, and academia to investigate a wide range of biological questions. Currently in the CRISPR/Cas9 system there are inherent problems ranging from indel mutations, poor gene locus targeting, low efficiency, and in vivo applications.We built upon the knowledge in Dr. Steele’s lab and chose to perform Hi-Fi assembly to overcome technological limitations that lowered.

Deviant Leaders: Examining the Effect of Group Consensus on Individuals' Attitudes Towards a Leader's Position

College of Professional Studies

The current study investigates how high or low consensus around a leader who holds a deviant or normative position influences individual attitudes, all contingent on the perceived group’s attitude towards said position. We hypothesized that exposure to a leader with a deviant position who was elected by a landslide (high consensus) vs. marginally (low consensus) will convert individual attitudes to align with the perceived group attitude, which is supportive of the deviant position.