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Articles 1 - 17 of 17
Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Effects Of Seaweed Farming On Local Ecosystems In The United States, Reid Cohen
The Effects Of Seaweed Farming On Local Ecosystems In The United States, Reid Cohen
Pitzer Senior Theses
In my thesis, I explore how seaweed farming contributes to the regeneration of marine ecosystems, supports biodiversity, and assists in harmful nutrient removal. Seaweed farming is a relatively unexplored industry in the United States with huge carbon capturing potential. Seaweed farming poses a significant opportunity for a project that has the potential to sequester carbon, increase biodiversity, protect coastal ecosystems, naturally clean water, provide biofuel capabilities, substitute as livestock fodder which then decreases methane emissions, along with many more benefits. Kelp supports biodiversity in marine ecosystems and provides essential habitats for various species. The seaweed farming industry holds profound potential …
From Bloom To Bouquet: Unearthing The Toxic Cut Flower Industry, Addie Wasikonis
From Bloom To Bouquet: Unearthing The Toxic Cut Flower Industry, Addie Wasikonis
Pitzer Senior Theses
The commercial cut flower industry is an expansive network of growers, laborers, airlines, government workers, wholesalers, retailers, supermarkets, and florists, which deliver a crafted bouquet to the consumer for those special occasions. We often buy flowers during our weekly trip to the supermarket, call our local florist for an arrangement, or make a last-minute order online to be shipped within hours. For this demand to be supplied, the cut flower industry has spread to equator-localized countries where the labor is cheap, the land is plentiful, and the sun shines all year round in order to grow any type of flower …
Heat Stress During Larval Stages On Coral Survivorship For M. Capitata, Sarah Woo
Heat Stress During Larval Stages On Coral Survivorship For M. Capitata, Sarah Woo
Pitzer Senior Theses
Very little is known about how heat stress during larvae stages effect larvae survivorship, early coral recruit settlement, and later stage coral survivorship. We focused on determining how heat stress during larvae stages effected Montipora capitata survivorship over time. After thermally stressing larvae, we asked how many larvae survived the treatment, how the treatment affected settlement, how many larvae survived the heat treatment but did not settle, and later stage coral survivorship experienced residual effects from the heat stress treatment. We exposed coral larvae to ambient seawater temperatures at 30°C and heated seawater temperatures to 34°C for an hour and …
Plastics Derived From Derelict Fishing Gear In The Arctic: Looking At Sustainable Fisheries For A Strategy Of Mitigation, Remediation And Prevention In Iceland And Alaska, Natalie S. Armstrong
Plastics Derived From Derelict Fishing Gear In The Arctic: Looking At Sustainable Fisheries For A Strategy Of Mitigation, Remediation And Prevention In Iceland And Alaska, Natalie S. Armstrong
Pitzer Senior Theses
Marine plastics are not just a problem, they are a silent, sinister epidemic. Marine plastics are the largest economic and ecological threat to our marine ecosystems, particularly marine plastics derived from lost and or discarded fishing gear, which affects sensitive marine communities, the chemical composition of the ocean water, and the physical makeup of the seafloor. With 6.4 million tons of marine debris entering our oceans annually, a third of which is lost fishing gear, it is estimated that, by weight, in 2050 there will be an accumulation of more plastic than fish in the ocean (Heath, 2018; Wilcox, 2015). …
Sustainability-Efficiency Paradox: The Efficacy Of State Energy Plans In Building A More Sustainable Energy Future, Austin Zimmerman
Sustainability-Efficiency Paradox: The Efficacy Of State Energy Plans In Building A More Sustainable Energy Future, Austin Zimmerman
Pitzer Senior Theses
State energy plans are created at the request of a sitting governor or State Legislature in order to provide guidance set goals for the state’s energy sector. These plans will be critical indicators of energy trends such as the future market share of coal, natural gas, and renewables. If the future of energy in the United States is to be remotely sustainable, low-carbon policies must headline state plans. The strength of a state’s energy plan in terms of sustainability is directly related to that state’s willingness to prioritize and commit to incorporating energy sources that produce negligible carbon emissions. Questions …
Stormwater Capture In The Built Watershed: Fostering Public Awareness Of Water Conservation Through A Parcel-Level Approach To Stormwater Management, Benjamin Rigby
Pitzer Senior Theses
As California contends with climate change and more extreme cycles of drought and deluge, water management agencies and conservation groups are looking towards solutions to the decreasing reliability of imported water supplies. Stormwater has historically been perceived as a threat to development but when captured properly, it presents a resource that can augment local water supplies. Solutions to water supply issues in California have traditionally employed technical and centrally controlled methods for importing water, but there is a growing understanding that parcel-level capture through vegetated swales presents an opportunity for reducing the impact that development has on California’s hydrology. Vegetated …
“It’S Like We Are Free”: An Analysis Of Soccer-Based Programming In A California Prison, Lillian S. Barrett-O'Keefe
“It’S Like We Are Free”: An Analysis Of Soccer-Based Programming In A California Prison, Lillian S. Barrett-O'Keefe
Pitzer Senior Theses
The concept of space goes well beyond just buildings and infrastructure; it can represent feelings of attachment and belonging, it can interact with us and generate meaning. The built environment is not just the “backdrop” of our lives, but rather it plays a major role in them. In the state of California prisons have become a prominent element of our communal landscape, now housing 2.4 million Americans today. This paper explores prisons as a rich site of analysis in terms of how our built environment affects our daily lives. In order to delve into this analysis, I will explore sport-based …
Cultivating Human-Nature Relationships: The Role Of Parents And Primary Caregivers In Development Of Environmental Identity, Anne E. Bremer
Cultivating Human-Nature Relationships: The Role Of Parents And Primary Caregivers In Development Of Environmental Identity, Anne E. Bremer
Pitzer Senior Theses
Industrialized societies have been characterized by a trend of disconnecting humans from our natural environment, leading to environmental and psychological damage. Therefore, in order to work toward repairing such damage, reconnecting humans and the natural environment is critical. One way of conceptualizing human-nature relationships is through “environmental identity,” a term that describes self-identification as part of a larger ecosystem, aesthetic, spiritual, or recreational enjoyment of nature, environmentally positive behaviors, and a social, political, or moral identification with environmentalists. Despite the literature having emphasized childhood experience in nature as being essential to the development of an environmental identity, parental influence in …
Missing Voices, Hidden Fields: The Gendered Struggles Of Female Farmworkers, Keiko A. Budech
Missing Voices, Hidden Fields: The Gendered Struggles Of Female Farmworkers, Keiko A. Budech
Pitzer Senior Theses
Known for its fertile soil and ideal climate, California has been one of the most agriculturally productive areas in the world. Often left out of this picture are the farmworkers who make it possible. Within this farmworker community, females are a sub-class that has been even more marginalized. This thesis investigates the gendered aspects of fieldwork and exposes female leadership working towards changing these specific struggles, such as sexual harassment in the fields, domestic abuse, pesticide exposure, and the perpetuation of submissive gender roles in the household and workplace. An in-depth case study of Lideres Campesinas, a community- based grassroots …
A Discussion Of The Impact Of Political And Economic Forces On Equitable Access To Potable Water In Ecuador And Recommendations For Improvement Through Better Watershed Management, Eliza States
Pitzer Senior Theses
This thesis will address the impact of political and economic forces on the equitable access to fresh water in Ecuador. Demographic factors such as the rural-to-urban migration and the political and economic forces have strongly influenced the debate over the privatization of the provision of potable water and sanitation services. Within the context of Ecuador, two different approaches by the largest cities, Quito and Guayaquil, are analyzed; in Guayaquil, the services were privatized, while in Quito, the public utility was corporatized, remaining under public control. It concludes arguing that in the face of political instability and a lack of regulatory …
Let's Not Eat Alone: A Search For Food Security Justice, Emma Shorr
Let's Not Eat Alone: A Search For Food Security Justice, Emma Shorr
Pitzer Senior Theses
The food justice movement has taken off in recent years. Despite its call for justice in the food system, it has been critiqued as being inaccessible to people who need food the most. The food system marginalizes women, minorities, and low-income people, making these groups the most at risk for food insecurity. Solutions to food insecurity come from both government and non-governmental avenues. This thesis calls for a merger of solutions to food insecurity and food justice in food security justice, and assesses the ability of solutions to food insecurity to confront issues of injustice. Community-based solutions currently have the …
Decolonizing Ecology Through Rerooting Epistemologies, Lauren M. Bitter
Decolonizing Ecology Through Rerooting Epistemologies, Lauren M. Bitter
Pitzer Senior Theses
My project is centered around a community garden in Upland, California called the People and Their Plants garden. This garden represents a five hundred year living history designed to show the changes in the ecological landscape of Southern California caused by colonization. This autoethnographic thesis works towards personal, interpersonal, and community-wide decolonization through building reciprocal relationships with Indigenous Elders. I explore, critique and problematize research and ethnography by examining the politics of knowledge, language, history, and ecology. I interrogate my own learned knowledge systems as well as colonial/capitalist food systems—and recognize how those systems/relations have worked to render Indigenous ways …
Fertile Lands And Bodies: Connecting The Green Revolution, Pesticides, And Women’S Reproductive Health, Sarah M.K. Cycon
Fertile Lands And Bodies: Connecting The Green Revolution, Pesticides, And Women’S Reproductive Health, Sarah M.K. Cycon
Pitzer Senior Theses
Environmentalists, social scientists, and economists have long critiqued the enduring impacts of the Green Revolution’s diffusion of agricultural technologies throughout the Global South. However, largely missing from the myriad analyses is the relationship between those technologies, namely pesticides, and health outcomes. This thesis explores the social and biological mechanisms through which excessive pesticide use culminated into adverse reproductive health outcomes for rural women in the Global South. Drawing together the history of the Green Revolution’s use of DDT, its social and economic impacts, and the biology of pesticide contamination in women’s bodies exposes how the Green Revolution situated women in …
“Dismantling The Big” Critiquing The Western Development Model And Foreign Aid And Analyzing Alternatives For Domestic Development Of Dams In Nepal, Ana Berry
Pitzer Senior Theses
This paper argues for the importance of scale, management and sovereign-led development in considering a more human-centric model for Third World development. It begins by reviewing the history of the mainstream Western development model through the evolution of modernization theory and foreign aid. It explores general critiques of this model offered by scholars, focusing on unequal power relations, the high cost of aid, and problems with ‘cookie cutter’ style development projects that don’t take into account disparate environments. As the paper progresses, focus shifts more specifically to hydropower development and ‘Big Dams’. Nepal is the main case study for exemplifying …
San Antonio High School Food Justice Program: A Handbook And Evaluation Of Edible Education, Katherine B. Tenneson
San Antonio High School Food Justice Program: A Handbook And Evaluation Of Edible Education, Katherine B. Tenneson
Pitzer Senior Theses
This senior environmental studies thesis explains and analyzes edible education through a food and gardening program at a continuation high school in Claremont, California. The first chapter situates the program-specific analysis by providing background information of the edible education movement, a history of the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, California, and an explanation of why food is a powerful teaching tool. The second chapter delineates the program by describing all of its components and compiling essential resources and teaching documents. The third chapter is based on interviews with 9 of 12 involved students and 7 teachers, and thoroughly explains the outcomes …
Sediment Removal From The San Gabriel Mountains, Mary C. Ferguson
Sediment Removal From The San Gabriel Mountains, Mary C. Ferguson
Pitzer Senior Theses
The issue of sediment removal from the San Gabriel Mountains has been a complex issue that has created problems with beach replenishment, habitat destruction and the need to spend millions of dollars at regular intervals to avoid safety hazards. Most recently 11 acres of riparian habitat, including 179 oaks and 70 sycamores, were removed for sediment placement. Other sites including Hahamongna Watershed Park and La Tuna Canyon also face a similar fate. This thesis questions: How did we get to this point of destroying habitat to dump sediment which is viewed as waste product? What are the barriers for creating …
Exploring German And American Modes Of Pedagogical And Institutional Sustainability: Forging A Way Into The Future, Lindon N. Pronto
Exploring German And American Modes Of Pedagogical And Institutional Sustainability: Forging A Way Into The Future, Lindon N. Pronto
Pitzer Senior Theses
Rooted deep in Germany's past is its modern socio-political grounding for environmental respect and sustainability. This translates into individual and collective action and extends equally to the economic and policy realm as it does to educational institutions. This thesis evaluates research conducted in Germany with a view to what best approaches are transferable to the United States liberal arts setting. Furthermore, exemplary American models of institutional sustainability and environmental education are explored and combined with those from abroad to produce a blueprint and action plan fitting for the American college and university.