Digital Commons Network^™

Ecosystem Food Web Lift-The-Flap Pages, Dana L. Atwood-Blaine, Audrey C. Rule, Hannah Morgan

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

In the lesson on which this practical article is based, third grade students constructed a “lift-the-flap” page to explore food webs on the prairie. The moveable papercraft focused student attention on prairie animals’ external structures and how the inferred functions of those structures could support further inferences about the animals’ diets. In general, most students made simple causal connections between an animal’s observable characteristics and the food it would probably eat. Some students were also able to make multi-agent connections to develop a more complex mental model of a food web. Ultimately, the lift-the flap project was engaging to students …

Editorial: The Journal Of Stem Arts, Crafts, And Constructions As An Ideal Venue For Showcasing Application Of The Next Generation Science Standards, Dana L. Atwood-Blaine

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

The Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions is an ideal venue for disseminating new ideas, lessons, and research developed in response to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). This editorial explains how arts integration is well-suited to addressing the Science and Engineering Practices and the Cross-cutting Concepts. The research articles in this issue provide evidence that arts integration is also effective at improving student retention of disciplinary content over time. Using specific examples from the articles in this issue, this editorial elaborates on the three-dimensional nature of NGSS and how the integration of arts, crafts, and constructions into science …

Twenty Fourth Annual Csbs Student Research Conference [Program] April 12, 2017, University Of Northern Iowa

INSPIRE Student Research & Engagement Conference Programs

A program for the INSPIRE conference where undergraduate and graduate students present their research, internship, volunteer and study abroad experiences, club activities and creative performances.

Stem Stories, April 2017, #2, Mir Ashfaquzzaman

STEM Stories

Featured Event - STEM Summer Camps

A Qualitative Comparison Of General Chemistry And Advanced Placement Chemistry Students’ Misconceptions Regarding Solution Chemistry, Megan Vandersee

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

There has been much research on student misconceptions regarding the particulate nature of matter and its relation to solution chemistry (e.g. Adadan & Savasci, 2012; Calik & Ayas, 2005; Calik, Ayas, & Coll, 2009; Pinarbasi & Canpolat, 2003; K. J. Smith & Metz, 1996). However, there is a lack of information regarding student misconceptions in areas of solution chemistry such as factors affecting solubility, polarity & molecular interactions and colligative properties. This research compared the misconceptions in solution chemistry held by students who are approaching the end of an Advanced Placement (AP) chemistry course in the high school setting with …

Misplaced Priorities: How County Health Departments Overlook The Leading Causes Of Death, Jeremy Whitaker

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

Problem: Most Iowans die from chronic diseases, or diseases developed over time, often influenced through behavioral choice. The top three, heart disease, cancer, and lower respiratory diseases account for over half of all death in Iowa and in the nation. However, most public health funding focuses on infectious disease and treatment, leaving little or nothing for primary prevention of chronic diseases.

Method: The 2014 Local Governmental Public Health Survey, annual reports, and Health Improvement projects were analyzed for primary prevention of chronic diseases at county health departments. This was compared to a review of federal and state funding for chronic …

Antiproliferative Effects Of Hibernating American Bullfrog (Rana Catesbeiana) Blood Plasma On Thp-1 Cells, Sean Robbins

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

Hibernation is an incredible adaptation that allows an organism to go dormant during the winter, when food is scarce. Much is unknown physiologically about hibernation, and most current research comes from mammalian models. During hibernation, the cells of mammals are impeded from going through mitosis. 13-lined ground squirrels (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus) and woodchucks (Marmota monax) have a protein, alpha-2-macroglobulin, in their blood plasma, which has significant antiproliferative effects on spleen cells. The goal of my study was to determine if an exothermic organism, the American Bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana), also actively suppresses mitosis while hibernating and if so, determine if it is …

Making Inventions Using Scamper And Animal Adaptation Ideas With Elementary Students, Mahjabeen Hussain

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

This study explores to what extent the SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Rearrange) technique combined with animal adaptation ideas learned through form and function analogy activities can help fourth graders generate creative ideas while augmenting their inventiveness. The sample consisted of 24 fourth grade students (14 female, 10 male) ages 9-10 at a suburban Midwestern elementary school. A repeated-measures design involving all participants alternately in the two conditions measured students under each treatment condition. In the experimental condition, students used SCAMPER charts with animal adaptation ideas to generate ideas to improve a product using …

Tenth Annual Graduate Student Symposium [Program], 2017, University Of Northern Iowa

Annual Graduate Student Symposium Programs

Table of Contents
--Welcome From Dr. Mark Nook
--Graduate Education for the Greater Public Good-Alumni Panel
--Poster Presentations
--Creative Performances
--Oral Presentations

Beauty Outside Our Doors: Conservation Stories Of Black Hawk County, University Of Northern Iowa. Environmental Literature (Spring 2017).

Environmental Literature Project

Beauty Outside Our Doors collects stories, poems, essays, and interviews with people of Black Hawk County, Iowa, giving voice to their relationship to the land, in their own words. From beekeeping to family farms to kayaking down the Cedar River and nature therapy, this work serves as a witness to the beauty to be found here—and the challenges we still face as citizens and lovers of the natural world.

Published as a collaboration between the Soil and Water Conservation District and students in the Spring 2017 Environmental Literature class at the University of Northern Iowa, this unique anthology invites you …

Earth News, V40, Spring 2017, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Earth And Environmental Sciences.

Earth News

Inside this issue:
-- From the Department Head Siobahn Morgan
-- Department Growth
-- Faculty Updates
-- SGE Newsletter
-- Congratulations 2016
-- Sunday at the Quarry
-- Alumni Spotlight: Aaron Stolley
-- Alumni Spotlight: Allyson Anderson
-- Congratulations to Faculty
-- Carver Grants
-- Hydrology News
-- Student Research
-- Donor Spotlight: Leslie Knapp

12th Annual Research In The Capitol [Program], March 28, 2017, University Of Northern Iowa. University Honors Program., University Of Iowa. Honors Program., Iowa State University. Honors Program.

Research in the Capitol Programs

Program of research presentations given at the Capitol by students from the University of Northern Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Iowa.

Stem Stories, March 2017, #2, Ryan Lockard

STEM Stories

Faculty Profile - Marek K. Sliwinski, Part 2

Eco-House: Creating A Space For Eco-Arts Education, Angela Waseskuk

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The beginnings of Eco-House were formed through conversations I had with undergraduate students enrolled in Elizabeth Sutton’s art history course “Art, Ecology, and Empire” in the fall of 2015. The discussions always began with great enthusiasm for the content, and then turned towards the depressing reality of what that content meant for the future of our planet. Significantly, the students also understood the surprising closeness of issues presented in class—extractavism, water quality and availability, animal exploitation, and Native American displacement and colonialism—on their own lives and the local ecology of the Cedar Valley. I heard passion, anger, and frustration in …

Iowa Transplant, Mark Myers

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

As a professor in the Biology Department at UNI, one of my primary jobs is to teach young Iowans about ecology and the conservation of biodiversity. When I first encounter students in my classes, many view “nature” or “biodiversity” as unfamiliar and distant, perhaps something to be visited or experienced on vacation. I aim to teach these students about the historic transformation of Iowa’s landscape, the ways in which human activities alter the state’s ecosystems, and what ecologists and conservation biologists are doing to promote the conservation and restoration of biodiversity in Iowa. But learning is a two-way street. A …

Contributors

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Weathering In Iowa: Not What You May Think, Alexa Sedlacek

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

When I look at the limestone bedrock of Iowa, as I did just the other day with my daughter (figure 2—[credit: Aaron Spurr, Quarry October 2, 2016]), I see long-term carbon storage. I do not mean a place to sequester modern atmospheric CO2 into the subsurface. Rather, limestones in Iowa and around the world represent carbon that was removed from the atmosphere through geologic processes and stored in these carbonate rocks. Carbon storage in rocks such as limestone and fossil fuels are responsible for the large scale changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations throughout Earth’s history.

Remembering Sacred Reason: A Humboldtian Way Of Knowing The World Sustainability Symposium [University Of Northern Iowa, March 30, 2016], A. James Wohlpart

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

An autumn afternoon about ten years ago, I found myself lying on the ground in the shade of a hundred-year-old live oak tree in Myakka River State Park in southwest Florida. The broad limbs of the ancient tree at once rose up like arms honoring the heavens and bowed down to the ground in an elegant semblance of thanksgiving.

Human Migration And Environmental Degradation: The Toll On Vulnerable Women And Children, Catherine Zeman, Mark Grey, Michele Devlin

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The early years of the 21st Century have seen major changes in the world’s demographic profile. The world’s total population is currently just over seven billion. Middle-range projections by the United Nations Population Fund suggest the world’s population will grow to ten billion by about 2050 and about eleven billion at the end of the century. Higher and lower projections for the end of the 21st century are 16.5 billion and 7 billion respectively depending on trends in fertility rates, which in general are projected to decline. Global average fertility rates have also dropped from 4.5 children in 1970 to …

Barriers To Breastfeeding Among Rural Women In The United States, Kimberly Aschbrenner, Disa Lubker Cornish

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Breastfeeding is well-established as a beneficial practice for both infants and mothers; substantial evidence from a wide variety of international settings supports the positive impacts of breastfeeding. However, a significant proportion of U.S. infants are not fed according to this standard. While poor breastfeeding rates can be found in all parts of the United States, the problem is particularly prevalent among mothers living in rural environments where health outcomes are consistently worse than national averages. Significant differences have been found between urban and rural women in many breastfeeding behavioral outcomes, including consistently lower rates reported among rural populations. The problem …

Rodcon, Program, 2017, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

RodCon Documents

Inside This Program:

--RodCon 2017 at the Rod Library, Saturday April 1, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
--Welcome to RodCon
--Locations
--Schedule
--What's That? Event Descriptions
--Sponsors

Linking Nutrient Reduction Practices With Biomass Energy, Eric Giddens, Laura Jackson, Kamyar Enshayan

Tallgrass Prairie Publications and Reports

This report outlines options for prairie biomass harvesting, storage, processing, and conversion equipment, and it provides a payback period calculator to analyze a range of scenarios of biomass production and processing costs versus the cost of propane.

Root Kerplunk, Tallgrass Prairie Center

Open Educational Resources

With the help of jumps ropes and nerf balls, students explore two ecosystem services provided by prairie roots: nutrient reduction and invasive weed control.

Root Community, Tallgrass Prairie Center

Open Educational Resources

Pairs of students play a battleship-style game to show how roots explore the soil to obtain resources.

Incredible Carbon Journey, Tallgrass Prairie Center

Open Educational Resources

Students become a carbon atom and experience the movements of carbon through the environment, including its time sequestered in prairie roots.

Muddy Waters, Tallgrass Prairie Center

Open Educational Resources

With the help of jumps ropes and nerf balls, students explore two ecosystem services provided by prairie roots: nutrient reduction and invasive weed control.

Roots - Why So Fine?, Tallgrass Prairie Center

Open Educational Resources

Using root models made of commonly available materials, students explore how the size of roots affects their ability to exchange materials with soil.

Prairie Roadshow, Tallgrass Prairie Center

Open Educational Resources

Students turn a school hallway into a prairie roadside, while learning about the important services provided by prairie roots.

School Of Roots, Tallgrass Prairie Center

Open Educational Resources

Students learn about ecosystem services provided by prairie roots by matching them to services provided by various components of a school.

Prairie And Culture: Roots That Bind, Tallgrass Prairie Center

Open Educational Resources

Students learn the similarities between cultural roots and prairie roots. Both provide a foundation for understanding Iowa's rich soil and how it's defined the state's cultural heritage.