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Mapping Ethnophysiographies: An Investigation Of Toponyms And Land Cover Of Missoula County, Montana, Emily L. Cahoon

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis investigates the ethnophysiography of Missoula County, Montana via place names. Toponyms and landscape have been observed to have a relationship that can be studied through many lenses. Ethnophysiography, the study of how language and landscape relate to each other via human conceptualization, is a lens that was applied to this thesis because it recognizes the embodied information that toponyms carry and investigates landscape accordingly. Thus, the following research seeks to understand if ethnophysiographic diversity exists between toponyms in the Salish and English languages of Missoula County, Montana by analyzing place names and land cover in GIS and analyzing …

Cutbank 95

CutBank

No abstract provided.

Peacocks, Ellen Skirvin

CutBank

No abstract provided.

Five Millat Stories, Ed Falco

CutBank

No abstract provided.

Culture Connect: Diversity Resource Toolkit, Anna Potter, Abby Nurvic, Danika Bosch-Greer, Delaney Slade, Erin Landis, Mollie Lemm, Kelsey Noble

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Culture Connect: Diversity Resource Toolkit

Globally, refugees are displaced at high rates and must integrate into a society where they are an ethnic minority. Since 2016, the International Rescue Committee has resettled over 300 refugees in Missoula; about 20% of which are school-aged children. Therefore, it is important that schools facilitate refugee inclusivity and intercultural competence within student peer groups. To aid in solving this global problem, we developed a project using the three steps of Human-Centered Design that aimed to enhance teacher competence, knowledge and increase the access to resources needed to address this global problem in the classroom …

Ethnobotany Interpretive Signs At The Fort Missoula Native Plant Garden, Magalloway E. Gammons

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This is a series of 11 ethnobotany interpretive signs for the Fort Missoula Native Plant Garden. The signs contain the name, identification information, Salish ethnobotanical uses, and an illustration of each plant. Names are listed in Latin, Salish, and common English. Featured plants: Ribes aureum, Prunus virginiana, Sambucus cerulea, Lewisia rediviva, Pinus ponderosa, Populus trichocarpa, Cornus sericea, Juniperus scopulorum, Mahonia repens, and Amelanchier alnifolia.

El Argumento Para Una Tercera Opción De Género Neutro En La Lengua Española (The Argument For A Third Gender-Neutral Option In The Spanish Language), Fiona Siobhan Bean

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

All nouns, determiners, and many adjectives in the Spanish language are grammatically designated as either masculine or feminine, and the default is always the masculine form. For example, “the tall boy” in Spanish is “el chico alto”, “the tall girl” is “la chica alta”, and if there is a group of tall children the plural form is the masculine “los chicos altos” even if there are females in the group. This binary gender division and masculine default can cause harm, however, when used in reference to women and non-binary people. This paper explores the recent movement to include a third …

An Exploration Of Ethnobotanically Significant Plants To The Native American Tribes Of Montana, Margaret Magee

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Ethnobotany is the study of the human uses of plants; for the Native Tribes of Montana these uses refer to everything from food, to ceremony, to medicine and everything in between. As a collaboration with the Payne Family Native American Center Ethnobotanical gardens, I conducted research on the various plants and their uses that are of particular significance to the 11 Tribes and 7 reservations across the state of MT. I collected information from first-hand experience working as an intern at the ethnobotanical garden, through discussions lead by Native ethnobotanists, and through extensive exploration of literature and plant identification manuals. …

The Elevator, Emma E. Mcmullen

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

No abstract provided.

A Study And Application Of Nature And Empathy Based Environmental Education, Lia Volpa

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

As climate change persists and new generations are inducted into positions responsible for adaptation, it is vital that children are educated about the environment in a way that will create long-lasting motivation to address these environmental issues. This paper analyzes the methods most effective in environmental education, answering the question: what components of elementary-level education inspire children to be stewards of the earth rather than invoke fear for the future? To answer this question a series of literature was reviewed through which three themes emerged as important components of environmental education: age, exposure to nature, and cultivation of empathy. Developmental …

Religion, But Not Parents, Predict Children's Tendency To Anthropomorphize, Sarah R. Carbis

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Anthropomorphism, or the attribution of human characteristics and behaviors to non- human entities, is not a new concept in psychology research, but is becoming increasingly more popular. This is likely to do with the emergence of artificial intelligence and other technologies in our society. Anthropomorphism is something that is encountered on a regular basis, and much research has been done looking at various aspects of this concept. Current research has investigated parental language and its relation to children’s anthropomorphism, anthropomorphism in relation to culture, how it intersects with development, among others. However, there are gaps in the research of anthropomorphism, …

Size Matters: Nanoparticles, Biological Sex, And Lung Disease, Jessica Lynn Ray

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The majority of lung diseases occur with a sex-bias is prevalence and/or severity. However, due to the historical disregard for sex as a biological variable in basic and clinical research, there is a fundamental lack of understanding on when and why respiratory inflammation preferentially affects males or females. The inhalation of engineered nanomaterials (ENM; intentionally produced by anthropogenic means and defined as having one dimension as < 100 nm) are of particular concern when considering emerging threats to lung health. Due to their extremely small size, these respirable particles are capable of reaching the functional gas exchange region of the lungs, where they cannot be easily cleared and subsequently lead to persistent inflammation, decreased lung function, and susceptibility to the development of other respiratory diseases. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) are an ENM of interest due to their widespread use in industrial, consumer, and medical applications, making them a potential hazard in both occupational and environmental settings. Alveolar macrophages (AMs) are the resident immune cells within the lungs that are responsible for phagocytosing and clearing inhaled xenobiotics, including ENM. However, typical AM clearance mechanisms are ineffective at removing persistent and pathogenic ENM such as MWCNTs, leading to the production of inflammatory mediators and the recruitment of other inflammatory immune cells. AMs have the ability to adopt a wide spectrum of functional phenotypes dependent upon endogenous and exogenous signals; these phenotypes ensure that the appropriate immune response is initiated in response to a given xenobiotic. However, when dysregulated, these phenotypes are also associated with different disease states. Interestingly, there is emerging data that sex steroid hormones (estrogen, specifically) impact AM phenotype development and inflammatory signaling, which may be, in part, responsible for the reported sex-biases observed in human lung diseases. The present research identifies sex-differences in MWCNT-induced lung inflammation, AM phenotype development, and one mechanism by which sex hormones impact AM function and subsequent inflammation.

Energy Islands: Metaphors Of Power, Extractivism, And Justice In Puerto Rico, Catalina M. De Onis

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Energy Islands provides an urgent and nuanced portrait of collective action that resists racial capitalism, colonialism, and climate disruption. Weaving together historical and ethnographic research, Catalina M. de Onís challenges the master narratives of Puerto Rico as a tourist destination and site of “natural” disasters. She demonstrates how fossil-fuel economies are inextricably entwined with colonial practices and policies and how local community groups in Puerto Rico have struggled against energy coloniality and energy privilege to mobilize and transform power from the ground up. This work decenters continental contexts and deconstructs damaging hierarchies that devalue and exploit disenfranchised rural, coastal communities. …

Investigating The Spatial Behavior And Habitat Use Of The Matschie’S Tree-Kangaroo (Dendrolagus Matschiei) Using Gps Collars And Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Uas), Jonathan B. Byers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Understanding the movement patterns and habitat needs of the endangered Matschie’s tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus matschiei) is important for their conservation and management. Endemic to the montane cloud forests of the Huon Peninsula in northeastern Papua New Guinea, these elusive arboreal marsupials are tremendously challenging to study using traditional observational methods.

This study is an assessment of novel techniques to overcome the significant challenges to in-situ data collection in remote and rugged tropical cloud forests. Animal locations are remotely tracked using purpose built altitude and motion logging GPS collars and habitat structure data is measured using photogrammetry from small Unmanned Aircraft …

The Effects Of Heavy Metal Contamination In Soil On Dna Degradation After Decomposition, Samantha Hofland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The application of DNA is an ever-expanding field of research with many implications in the field of forensic investigation. Research into DNA obtained from soil is ongoing and suggests a new avenue in forensic investigation. This research seeks to understand the effects of heavy metal on the preservation of DNA within soil after decomposition of remains. Using pigs as a proxy for human remains, the effects of heavy metal contamination on the microbial environment and endogenous pig DNA was observed. This gave broad insight into the effect of surface burial and Western Montana; summer climate has on DNA degradation.

Mary Of The Yellow Sea, Nicole Rose Gomez

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Maria del Mar is the third of five children born to a poor seventh-generation Hispanic-Indigenous family in rural southern Colorado. Maria’s grandmother is a highly regarded midwife, and she herself is born with the healing gift. When she is twelve years old a gypsy reads her palm and predicts that she will soon receive a letter from the man that she will marry. Soon after the prophecy is made, Maria’s beloved father, Don Antonio suffers a heart attack and is left unable to work the family ranch, part of a land grant by the Spanish crown to their ancestors. Responsibility …

Aquatic Locomotion In Birds – Biomechanics, Morphometrics, And Evolution, Anthony Barrett Lapansky

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The entire diversity of life on earth exists in air or water. Whether an organism lives in air or water provides the most fundamental description of its physical world and establishes an organism’s ecological niche on the most essential level. Because these two fluids are vastly different from one another, they also dictate, via the process of natural selection, the morphology and physiology of the organisms which call them home. By studying how organisms interact with these fluids – to locomote or obtain food, for example – we have the ability to not only link organism form and function, but …

Head Heart Hand Human, Michelle Kathryn Postma

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

My art is emblematic of the practice of accepting reality. The vehicles I use to do this are a cast of characters, materials and compositional strategies that in totality, remind the viewer and myself to be in the moment.

The thesis exhibition, Heart Vomit and the Dream Army, featured mural-esque ink paintings on panels and approximately 36 - 48 inch high abstract ceramic figures covered with images. Both the 2D and 3D works feature a cast of characters. These characters originate from “Michelle Land”, an imaginary world created to house an evolving symbolic visual language. The graphic black and white …

Large Carnivore Recolonization Reshapes Population And Community Dynamics In The Rocky Mountains: Implications For Harvest Management, Tyler James Clark

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Large carnivores are re-colonizing their historical range globally, following decades of systematic eradication. The subsequent expansion of large carnivore populations is creating complex predator-prey interactions by trophically upgrading previously simpler food webs. Overlap between large carnivore and human range expansion is increasing human-carnivore conflicts, with many calling for large carnivore management to mitigate predation on harvested ungulates. However, the complexity of food web interactions in trophically upgraded systems coupled with independent management strategies for each species makes it difficult to determine what are optimal management strategies in these systems. These issues are further complicated by expectations of harvested ungulate densities …

Effects Of Wolf And Grizzly Bear Recovery On Cougars In A Multi-Use System, Jennifer A. Feltner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Disrupting Settler Stories: Learning To Live With Respect, Intimacy, And Reciprocity On Colonized Land, Anna S. Favour

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

These essays and illustrations are informed by the question of how to form meaningful connection to place and care for a place when that land is colonized; when the creation of this place is rooted in harm. The purpose is to explore questions that have arisen during four years of Environmental Studies education. I want to learn what it means to be an environmentalist – to have a deep respect for the land and its inhabitants in a manner that extends beyond conservation – a relationship centered around respect, intimacy, and reciprocity. I want to understand if it’s possible to …

Sharing The “Magic”: Exploring The Phenomenon Of Community And Nature Connectedness In Ancestral Skills Education, Anne Barksdale Graham

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

An ancestral skill is a “first” skill that may have originally been used for survival purposes but is no longer considered by Western culture to be required knowledge for human survival. Ancestral Skills Education is a method of sharing this ancestral knowledge through participatory, informal learning practices, in non-competitive environments, and from a non-commercial perspective. Ancestral Skills Education has the potential to create an eco-centric feeling of connectedness for practitioners. After experiencing these feelings of connectedness, ancestral skills practitioners may increase their pro-environment and pro-community thinking and behavior. The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to create a description …

Cop9 Signalosome Component Csn-5 Promotes Accumulation And Function Of Stem Cell Regulators Fbf-1 And Fbf-2, Emily Osterli

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

RNA-binding proteins FBF-1 and FBF-2 (FBFs) are required for stem cell maintenance in C. elegans, although the mechanisms by which FBFs protein levels are regulated remain unknown. Using a yeast two-hybrid screen, we identified an interaction between both FBFs and CSN-5, a component of the COP9 (constitutive photomorphogenesis 9) signalosome. This highly conserved COP9 complex can affect protein stability through a range of mechanisms including deneddylation, deubiquitination, and phosphorylation (Wolf et al., 2003). Mapping protein-protein interactions between FBFs and CSN-5 suggested that the MPN (Mpr1/Pad1 N-terminal) metalloprotease domain of CSN-5 interacts with the RNA-binding domain of FBFs at physiologically …

The Expansion Of Shrimp Farms In The Gulf Of California And Potential For Restoration To Support Migratory Waterbirds, Miles Scheuering

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Wintering and stopover areas provide crucial habitat for migratory birds yet are often understudied. The estuaries of Sonora and Sinaloa on the Gulf of California in Mexico provide critical wintering and stopover sites for migratory waterbirds in the Pacific Flyway. Shrimp farms are the greatest threat to these areas and their full impact is not well understood but they provide poor habitat for waterbirds. A significant portion of existing farms may be abandoned based on a disparity between active area reported by the Sonora and Sinaloa state commissions and observed area based on remote sensing. Abandoned farms represent potential area …

From The Eyes Of Yellowstone National Park Visitors: Current And Future Desired Conditions, Glenna J. Hartman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

"Its Own Little City": Service Work In Truck Stops, Michelle Elizabeth Williams

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Montana truck stops act as a meeting place for long-haul truckers, vacationers, local commuters, and the workers simply trying to earn a living. The employees at such truck stops must navigate working-class customer service norms while interacting with a unique and diverse set of customers. The ethnographic and interview data that I collected during the 2020 offers a unique view of how customer service employees fared during political unrest, global health concerns, and financial struggle. Additionally, this study highlights the power dynamics that exist in the service industry by examining how such dynamics manifest in the interactions surrounding face masks, …

Ungulates Search For The Ideal Home: How Predation And Forage Differentially Affect Males And Females In A Partially Migratory Population, Hans William Martin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Migration is a strategy used across taxa to access resources in temporally heterogenous landscapes. Migratory species can attain higher abundances because access to higher quality resources, and/or reduction in predation risk. However, most migratory species occur in partially migratory populations, a mix of migratory and non-migratory, resident individuals. I first investigate the potential mechanisms maintaining partial migration in a partially migratory elk (Cervus canadensis) population. I test whether the theory of Ideal Free Distribution (IFD) can explain the coexistence of different migratory tactics in a partially migratory population. IFD predicts that individuals exhibit density-dependent vital rates and should select different …

Effects Of Weather, Parental Behavioral Plasticity, And Life History Traits On Offspring Growth, Development, And Energy Expenditure In Songbirds, Adam Elliot Mitchell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Weather creates energetic and survival challenges for organisms that can influence demography. Harsh weather often causes increased energy expenditure in adults, but how weather affects other life stages is less well understood. Juveniles are especially vulnerable because they must use energy to survive weather effects and maintain growth and development while having poorly developed thermoregulatory capabilities. Juveniles that spend energy overcoming harsh weather can have delayed growth and maturation, which can negatively affect competitive abilities, survival, and lifetime fitness. Understanding weather effects on offspring is particularly challenging in altricial species because parents have evolved strategies to ameliorate such effects. However, …

Prepare To Pivot: Shifting From The Projection Surface To The Zoom Screen Necessitated By Global Pandemic, David E. Mills-Low

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Design for theatre is an endeavor in which the physical, the corporeal, the defined, is applied to an ephemeral artform, one meant to happen only in the moment and then fade away. As such, building the world of the theatrical space, whether physical or digital, is similar to shooting at a moving target. While one angle of approach may be perfect for a moment, being ready and flexible enough to pivot, whether to reimagine due to limitation or to adjust an entire project due to calamity, like the shift from in person to online streaming. This paper investigates the joy …

Cobalt Blue, Connor W. Southard

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Cobalt Blue is a collection of three pieces of fiction. The first piece is the titular short story, “Cobalt Blue.” The second is the short story “The Martyrdom of St. Canisius.” Finally, there is an excerpt from a novel-in-progress, Hawkfeather. Thank you for your reading and consideration.