Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Development, Line By Line: An Introspective Case Study On Narrative Identity And Development Through Poetry, Milla Miller

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Situated at the intersection of creative writing and psychology, this project analyzes the author’s adolescent poetry alongside her current work to explore psychosocial and narrative identity development. Specifically, the work contrasts poems written about developmental stages in process with those written in reflection of previous stages in order to reveal how the understanding of self evolves. In addition to the complexities revealed by these temporal differences, structural elements unique to the poems provide further levels of understanding: choice of form and figurative dexterity show cognitive and narrative advancement; themes reveal psychosocial conflicts; and repetition across a poetic lifespan identifies the …

Honoring The Gift: An Epistolary Exploration Of An Alternative Approach To Learning Grounded In Reciprocity And Gratitude, Tegan Keyes

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

In this project, I explore what it means to honor knowledge as a gift. This document includes a selection of letters I wrote to my teachers to express my gratitude to them, along with a written narrative in which I describe my vision of an alternative approach to undergraduate education that centers gratitude, reciprocity, and self-determination. This narrative weaves together lessons from emergence theory, Indigenous systems of education, and gift economies to tell a story of a life-sustaining education system that is grounded in the understanding that knowledge is a gift.

Language Barriers Among Immigrant Communities, Rosia Aning

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

This research explores the challenges presented by language barriers among immigrant communities. The study focuses on the impact of limited English proficiency on different aspects of immigrant life, including education, employment, healthcare, cultural integration, and social interactions. Immigrants are individuals who have relocated to a foreign country that is not their country of origin, and they face significant challenges due to language barriers. The inability to communicate effectively with native speakers can lead to social exclusion, economic disadvantage, and restricted access to important resources and information. This project aims to shed light on these challenges and provide potential solutions to …

Adapting To Challenges: K-12 Education In The Time Of Covid, Connor Farrand

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

During the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the disruptions across society were both intense and varying along pre-existing structural and social lines of inequity, especially in the US. Research has shown that this pattern was particularly true in the context of K-12 education. To assess when, why, and how school districts and charter management organizations (CMOs) chose to adopt and execute new policies for the delivery of education during the pandemic, I review existing theories of organizational inertia and analyze four general characteristics of school districts/CMOs for their ability to predict districts’ likelihood of implementing new instructional delivery …

Advancing Technology & Digital Lifestyles: Facilitating A Group Independent Study, Kailey Droz

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

For my senior capstone project, I facilitated a group independent study (ISP) through Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University called Advancing Technology and Digital Lifestyles. A small group of students and I critically and creatively analyzed our relationship with technology, and its impacts on the individual, interpersonal relationships, culture, and society. Prior to facilitating, I did research within the fields of cyberpsychology, social psychology, communication studies, and media studies. I am sharing my syllabus and facilitation notes, my final project (two short stories), an annotated bibliography, and a reflection on the group ISP and my process.

Here …

Eco-Justice Poetry: An Emotive Transgression, Nicola H. Follis

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Dualistic value-hierarchies that are deeply embedded within Western culture assign certain identities, traits and ways of knowing as superior to others. According to eco-justice frameworks, these hierarchies allow some humans to be valued over others and all humans to be valued over the Earth. I specifically talk about the mind/body and human/nature split as two dualities present in Western discourse. Emotions are deemed inferior to the mind’s rational and objective ways of knowing while humans are considered separate and superior to nature. I argue that eco-justice poetry acts as a small transgression against a value- hierarchized culture that devalues emotional …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Empathy-Based Education In The Modern Zoo, Annika Brinkley

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Approximately 10,000 zoos exist in the world, attracting an estimated 600 million visitors annually. At the most basic level, these zoos are tourist destinations dedicated to assembling animals in confinement from around the world. The arguably most modern and conservation-minded zoos today form the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. In January of 2019, twenty AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums created the Advancing Conservation through Empathy Network (ACE). AZA facilities that are part of the ACE Network engage visitors through a process known as Empathy-Based Education (EBE). EBE encourages compassion and emotional connection to animals by having the visitor take the place …

Challenging Deficit Discourses: Human Services And Trauma-Informed Practice, Brielle Lamphere

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study by Kaiser-Permanente has significantly influenced trauma practice in many contexts. As a medicalized model, ACEs was intended to collect population information about traumatic experiences. However, many of its current applications are harmful in practice and in need of critique. More specifically, school systems must reconsider how ACEs is used in curriculum since providing screenings or “trauma-informed” models off of this study often portrays trauma as a deficit. By carefully examining my own education on ACEs and trauma theories at Western Washington University, alongside the experiences of other students and several professors, this deficit discourse …

The Queer Agenda: A Fluid Education, Charlee Corra

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Throughout this paper, I weave together various aspects of my identity in order to investigate how fluidity and questioning form an undercurrent of my being and therefore of the way I teach. Through metaphors and narratives of my experiences within environmental education and experiential learning I seek clarity and expansiveness rather than definitive answers, leaning into the certainty that change is inevitable and there are rarely any static answers. Using queerness, Judaism, and my scientific background as the layers of my unique identity lens and positionality, I explore the ways in which the power of questioning, critical thinking, democratic education …

Educate Me: The Use Of Solutions Journalism In The Seattle Times’ Education Lab, Audra Anderson

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Podcast Link: https://soundcloud.com/user-202190427

Click the Download button to access the script for the podcast.

Legacy journalism norms value a concept of objectivity, yet coverage often contains implicit biases. Such biases can influence the message the audience draws from a story. The narratives in a story can determine whether it will make a difference, or whether it will be lost in a myriad of stories with the same skeleton. The term solutions journalism began floating the field in 1998. Solutions Journalism Network partnered with The Seattle Times to create the Education Lab, a solutions-oriented reporting beat. Solutions journalism and reporting done …

Farm Camp Fun, Rebecca Moore

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

This piece is a personal narrative about the journey of a young woman in the constant process of becoming an educator. The wonder of children is what drives this individual, discussed here through the lenses of thought of adultism and with a focus on play. The fallacies of higher education and the systemic injustices the US is built on are touched upon, with specific reference to the industrialized standardized school system. The author promotes the notion that this nation needs educators who see the inherent wisdom in children, because kids are the ones who are the hope for bringing this …

White Guy Hiking: How I Learned To Think Critically About My Ecological Identity, Nick Engelfried

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Our encounters with the “natural” world are made possible by a complex of historical, political, social, and economic forces that shape each person’s ecological identity, or the way in which we relate to nature. I grew up in a White, middle-class family with easy access to green spaces, and this contributed to my growing up to become an environmental activist and educator. I now realize the doors which opened to allow me to embark on this path did not do so by chance and that many other people are prevented from engaging with nature in the ways I did as …

The Education Beat In A Declining Industry, Jon Foster

Scholars Week

The collapse of the newspaper industry and the disappearance of the education beat on many local and national newspapers can have profound impacts on journalism, civic engagement and our democracy. In this paper, I look at the the current state of education reporting in America and examine the ethical dilemmas local and national news agencies face as well as the hopeful future it has in a transforming news industry.

Evaluating Comprehensive School Safety Through A Global Baseline Survey Of Disaster Risk Reduction Policies In The Education Sector, Adriana Varchetta

WWU Graduate School Collection

As disaster risk increases across the globe a growing attention has been placed on how disasters and emergencies impact children and youth’s access to education. International humanitarian agencies, national governments, non-governmental organization, researchers, practitioners, and advocates have coalesced to identify strategies to address school safety in the presence of disaster risk. The Comprehensive School Safety (CSS) framework developed out of this movement. CSS aims to protect students and educators from physical harm, plans for the continuity of education, safe safeguards investments, and incorporates resilience topics into curriculum. This study uses Save the Children’s 2016 CSS Baseline Dataset to identify the …

When Dark Flakes Fall, Realizing A Visionary Indigenous Origin Story, Kona Ongoy

WWU Graduate School Collection

The purpose of this work is to explore the current children’s literature that represents and presents lived experiences of underrepresented peoples within North America. Narratives in children's literature are historically homogenous in themes rooted in dominant colonial culture. This can be problematic with regards to supporting the diversity, equity, and inclusion of all people, in and out of educational settings.

Using myself as a site of study, I examined the sensations and current state of my mixed racial identity. In addition, I have collected and reviewed currently available children’s literature as a point of inspiration to write my own story. …

Self-Determined Exploration Of The Outdoors And What Students Can Teach Themselves: A Report On The Beach Investigators Summer Program, Mark F. (Mark Franklin) Bryant

WWU Graduate School Collection

For my masters field project, I designed and ran a five-day week long summer program called Beach Investigators that teaches about the beach, and observing and investigating out surroundings. The Program aimed to provide 5th through 9th grade students with skill and internal motivation they could use to engage in more thoughtful and in-depth exploration of their local ecosystem. This program is based in Self Determination theory (SDT), which has the potential to aid in the aims and goals of EE. I found that SDT programming has the potential both increase student ecological knowledge, as well as increase motivation for …