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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Ecoscience + Art Initiative: Designing A New Paradigm For College Education, Scholarship, And Service, Changwoo Ahn Sep 2015

Ecoscience + Art Initiative: Designing A New Paradigm For College Education, Scholarship, And Service, Changwoo Ahn

The STEAM Journal

The paper presents a new initiative, EcoScience + Art, which blooms at George Mason University. The creator explains the background, history, and recent activities of the initiative, and also introduces an on-going special project called “The Rain Project”, a student participatory project to design, construct, and monitor a green infrastructure (i.e., floating wetland) for sustainable stormwater management on campus. The special project is geared to design and present a new paradigm to integrate college education, scholarship, and service. The relevance of the initiative and the special project to STEAM education is discussed.


Discovery Islands, Earth Islands: The Theory And Practice Of Island Imagery In Environmental Thought, Naomi A. Bosch Jan 2015

Discovery Islands, Earth Islands: The Theory And Practice Of Island Imagery In Environmental Thought, Naomi A. Bosch

Pomona Senior Theses

Earth Island is a core metaphor of activist thought often applied in Environmental Analysis and related fields as a tool for thinking about the planet’s limited resources. It puts forth the claim that if only we thought of the earth as more like an island, we would better understand our connectivity to other living things and be drawn to develop better and more extensive practices of environmental stewardship. This thesis uses personal accounts of environmental life philosophies and political practices collected from residents of the Discovery Islands in British Columbia as a site for analytical comparison between the theory and …


Reforestation, Renewal, And The Cost Of Coal: Opposing A Manichean Worldview In Central Appalachia, Elizabeth R. Hansen Jan 2015

Reforestation, Renewal, And The Cost Of Coal: Opposing A Manichean Worldview In Central Appalachia, Elizabeth R. Hansen

Pomona Senior Theses

Surface coal mining is a major form of land change and environmental degradation in Central Appalachia. Traditional mine reclamation iresults in unmanaged, unproductive grasslands that fail to mitigate many of the environmental costs of coal mining and are of minimal use to communities. Forestry reclamation is an alternative reclamation tactic that has the potential to address both environmental and socioeconomic concerns in Central Appalachia. A case study of Laurel Fork Mine in Eastern Kentucky is included.


Looking Beyond Fossil Fuel Divestment: Combating Climate Change In Higher Education, Robin Xu Jan 2015

Looking Beyond Fossil Fuel Divestment: Combating Climate Change In Higher Education, Robin Xu

Pomona Senior Theses

The young fossil fuel divestment movement is altering the landscape of climate change activism on US campuses. Student-run divestment campaigns are now pushing for institutions of higher education to withdraw their investments from the top 200 public fossil fuel companies. Despite student fervor, however, divestment has remained a controversial tactic for combating climate change. The first half of this thesis examines the stated motives of a selection of institutions that have officially agreed or declined to divest, and investigates the hypothesis that pushing for divestment alone will not achieve broad success because it does not appeal to a wide enough …


An Examination Of El Niño's And Agricultural Runoff's Effect On Harmful Algal Blooms And California Sea Lion (Zalophus Californianus) Health In Monterey Bay, Nadine Lafeber Jan 2015

An Examination Of El Niño's And Agricultural Runoff's Effect On Harmful Algal Blooms And California Sea Lion (Zalophus Californianus) Health In Monterey Bay, Nadine Lafeber

Scripps Senior Theses

An increase in marine mammal stranding and die-off events has been observed along the California coast. The exact cause to explain for these recent events is unknown, but El Niño and harmful algal blooms are established sources for temporary decreases in marine mammal health. To determine whether El Niño could be causing and amplifying harmful algal blooms, particularly in Monterey Bay where they occur frequently, data was analyzed from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California. Data analysis focused on California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), because they have the largest data set and are directly affected by harmful …