Digital Commons Network^™

Where's The Justice? A Review Of The Local Food Movement Through A Reflexive Lens, Colyn Kilmer

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

As the local food movement has gained momentum over the past several years, so too has it garnered critiques from academic scholars. This literature review identified academic critiques of the local food movement. These critiques were organized into four general categories. A fifth category, reflexivity, was identified, which functioned as both a critique and a way to address the other four categories of critique. This review paired the four categories of academic critique with ways in which several academic scholars suggested reflexivity could be used to resolve these critiques. This review was designed to give scholars, practitioners, and consumers associated …

Stream Trailer Demonstrations, Usu Extension

All Current Publications

The stream hydrology trailer is a hands-on educational tool that allows participants to examine the natural movement of streams and rivers. The stream hydrology trailer contains a large flat “land area” composed of plastic grit.

Process To Develop Rewarding Natural Resources Internships, Michael F. Butkus

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

A successful natural resources internship experience is a result of good planning, execution, and follow-up. The internship can be beneficial to the student involved, the employing entity, and the sponsoring university or college. This presentation will focus on a process designed to produce rewarding internship experiences for students in natural resources disciplines. The College of Natural Resources (CNR) at Utah State University is made up of three departments: Department of Environment and Society with majors in Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Geography Teaching, and Recreation Resources Management. Department of Watershed Sciences with majors in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Physical Geography, and …

First-Year Experience Course: Problem Solving, Inquiry, And Integration, Kimberly H. Cowgill, Donald J. Orth, Eric P. Wiseman, Dean F. Stauffer

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

In an effort to address academic deficiencies outlined in recent studies, Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment redesigned its first-year experience class to fit their activities into three components of activities: problem solving, inquiry, and integrative learning. The problem solving component required students to define a problem, identify problem-solving strategies, and propose solutions and hypotheses. The inquiry component of the first-year experience included selecting a research topic, learning how to access information about the topic, learning how to evaluate existing information about the topic, and deciding which information to use to achieve desired results about the topic. The …

Factors Influencing Undergraduate Enrollment Trends In Natural Resources, Terry Sharik, Robert Lilieholm, William Richardson

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

Our 30-year record of undergraduate enrollment trends in natural resources shows pronounced cyclical swings over time, well beyond those for enrollments across all disciplines in four-year U.S. institutions of higher learning. Despite large increases in overall student enrollments, current natural resources enrollments are at about the same level as historic highs in the early 1980s and mid 1990s, and are increasingly dominated by broad degrees in natural resources. The reasons for these cycles are many and complex, and appear to be influenced by the political climate, unemployment rates, changing public values towards forests, a perceived lack of jobs and low …

The Utah Statesman, March 23, 2012, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

06 Climatology Of The U.S. Inter-Mountain West, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Robert R. Gillies

Modern Climatology

The Inter-Mountain West (IMW) of North America is a region that lies between the Rocky Mountains to the east and the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to the west (Fig. 1). The climate of the IMW is generally semi-arid but this varies by location and elevation. An estimated 50- 80% of the IMW’s streams and rivers are fed by mountain snowpack (Marks and Winstral 2001), while the majority of the streams and rivers flow into desert sinks or closed-basin lakes such as the Great Salt Lake (Fig. 1). These streams and rivers create some agriculturally productive areas in the otherwise dry …

International Handbook Of Research And Development In Technology Education, Dan L. Householder

Engineering Education Faculty Publications

This is by far the most comprehensive volume yet issued by Sense Publishers in their excellent contemporary series, International Technology Education Studies. Earlier books in the series are the International Handbook of Technology Education: Reviewing the Past Twenty Years, edited by Marc J. de Vries and Ilja Mottier (2006); Analyzing Best Practices in Technology Education, edited by Marc de Vries, Rod Custer, John Dakers, and Gene Martin (2007); Researching Technology Education, edited by Howard Middleton (2008); and The Cultural Transmission of Artefacts, Skills and Knowledge: Eleven Studies in Technology Education in France, edited by Jacques Ginestié (2008). The books, available …

A Cpted Bibliography: Publications Related To Urban Space, Planning, Architecture, And Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, 1975-2010, Sean E. Michael, Gregory Saville, Joel W. Warren

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Faculty Publications

This compendium is the result of two different bibliographies. The first was completed by Sean Michael, Professor and Department Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planing at Utah State University. The second was completed by Gregory Saville, urban planner and Principal of AlterNation Consulting, started during graduate work at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Consolidation and expansion of the two works was overseen by Joel Warren, during his Masters of Landscape Architecture at Utah State University.

Our thanks go to the many students, colleagues, and friends who contributed to this work over the years. …

Faculty Senate Agenda, January 9, 2012, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

• ASUSU Annual Report - Erik Mikkelsen
• Council on Teacher Education Report - Francine Johnson
• Scholarship Advisory Board Report - Patti Kohler
• EPC Items for December
• PRPC Section 402.3.2 and 402.3.4 Vacancies (Second Reading)
• Open Access
• Extra-Service Compensation

The Role Of Fine-Scale Habitat Associations In Structuring Spider Assemblages: Determinants Of Spatial Patterns In Community Compostion, Stephanie M. Cobbold

Green Canyon Environmental Research Area, Logan Utah

No abstract provided.

“First You Must Master Pain:” The Nature And Purpose Of Apprenticeship, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The goal of this study is to distill from a large body of literature on children learning crafts, such as pottery and weaving, the characteristics of apprenticeship as a distinct phenomenon. Currently apprenticeship is considered indistinguishable from other, more informal, means of skill transmission. From the literature survey, eleven attributes are identified as belonging to the archetypal apprenticeship. The analysis then advances to consider the genesis or raison d’etre for the apprenticeship. The argument is advanced that the apprenticeship is designed to simultaneously train novices in specific craft or trade skills while socializing them to join the social and cultural …

The Chore Curriculum, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The term “curriculum” in chore curriculum conveys the idea that there is a discernible regularity to the process whereby children attempt to learn, then master and finally, carry out their chores. While the academic or “core” curriculum (of Math, English, Science) found in schools is formal and imposed on students in a top–down process, the chore curriculum is informal and emerges in the interaction of children’s need to fit in and emulate those older, their developing cognitive and sensorimotor capacity, the division of labor within the family and the nature of the tasks (chores) themselves. The primary theme of this …

Unmasking Children's Agency, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The goal of this paper is to identify (unmask) and critique the movement to promote children’s agency as a cornerstone of research, care, education and intervention with children. The article makes a case that this movement is harmful to a scientific approach to the study of childhood, distorts or ignores key understandings of the evolution of childhood and culture. The article demonstrates that the agency movement is ethnocentric, classist and hegemonic representing the dominance of contemporary bourgeoisie child-rearing. It imposes a single, privileged ethnotheory of childhood upon the diverse societies of the world with alternative ethnotheories and practices. Lastly, the …

Contributions Of Cultural Services To The Ecosystem Services Agenda, T. C. Daniel, A. Muhar, A. Arnberger, O. Aznar, J. W. Boyd, K. M.A. Chan, R. Costanza, T. Elmqvist, Courtney G. Flint, P. H. Gobster, A. Gret-Regamey, R. Lave, S. Muhar, M. Penker, R. G. Ribe, T. Schauppenlehner, T. Sikor, I. Soloviy, M. Spierenburg, K. Taczanowska, J. Tam, A. Von Der Dunk

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Cultural ecosystem services (ES) are consistently recognized but not yet adequately defined or integrated within the ES framework. A substantial body of models, methods, and data relevant to cultural services has been developed within the social and behavioral sciences before and outside of the ES approach. A selective review of work in landscape aesthetics, cultural heritage, outdoor recreation, and spiritual significance demonstrates opportunities for operationally defining cultural services in terms of socioecological models, consistent with the larger set of ES. Such models explicitly link ecological structures and functions with cultural values and benefits, facilitating communication between scientists and stakeholders and …

“I Just Wikipedia It”: Information Behavior Of First-Year Writing Students, Megan Whitney Olsen, A. R. Diekema

English Faculty Publications

First-year writing students are a very large, diverse, and ubiquitous information user group, as writing courses are typically required of all undergraduate students, regardless of major. While in their institution's writing program, students frequently must utilize research (information) in their writing assignments. While this formal, task-related information behavior is important for stakeholders in the fields of information science and the humanities to understand, little research has been done on this significant group of students. This study arrived at key exploratory findings by collecting data and context from first-year writing students through semi-structured interviews. The researchers found that students continue to …

Wittgensteinian Support For Domain Analysis In Classification, Andrew Wesolek

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

Hjorland contends that in order to further the goal of linking researchers to relevant information ‘domain analysis’ should be used in concept classification. He thinks that concept classification should not strive to classify on the basis of the properties of objects, but rather on descriptions of objects that are loosely derived from human activity and social negotiation. Currently, most information scientists operate under a ‘positivist’ view of concept classification, which, Hjorland maintains, mistakenly strives for universal classification schema while muddling the comprehension of individual researchers. Though he tends to include Wittgenstein in the positivist camp for classification, Hjorland’s domain analysis …

Closing A Sediment Budget For A Reconfigured Reach Of The Provo River, Utah, S. O. Erwin, John C. Schmidt, Joseph Michael Wheaton, Peter Wilcock

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

We quantified all components of a fluvial sediment budget for a discrete flood on an aggrading gravel bed river. Bed load transport rates were measured at the upstream and downstream ends of a 4 km study area on the Provo River, Utah, during a dam-controlled flood. We also collected high-resolution measurements of channel topography before and after the controlled flood for the entire reach. Topographic uncertainty in the digital elevation models (DEM) was characterized using a spatially variable approach. The net sediment flux provided unambiguous indication of storage. Sediment input to the reach (319 m3) exceeded output (32 m3), producing …

The Mediterranean: What, Why, And How, Richard W. Clement

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

Many of us who study the Mediterranean have been confronted with surprise and even disbelief that such a subject could be considered a legitimate field of study. Yet we all accept the traditional “area studies” concentrations in Latin America, the Slavic countries, the Middle East, and East Asia, among others. Why, then, is there so much resistance to the idea of Mediterranean Studies? Perhaps the fact that it is a sea and not a contained landmass, or that it represents disparate cultures, makes it seem different and less appropriate as an individual field of study. But clearly, there is a …

Widespread Triploidy In Western North American Aspen (Populus Tremuloides), Karen E. Mock, Colin M. Callahan, M. Nurul Islam-Faridi, John D. Shaw, Hardeep S. Rai, Stewart C. Sanderson, Carol A. Rowe, Ronald J. Rye, Michael D. Madritch, Richard S. Gardner, Paul G. Wolf

Biology Faculty Publications

We document high rates of triploidy in aspen (Populus tremuloides) across the western USA (up to 69% of genets), and ask whether the incidence of triploidy across the species range corresponds with latitude, glacial history (as has been documented in other species), climate, or regional variance in clone size. Using a combination of microsatellite genotyping, flow cytometry, and cytology, we demonstrate that triploidy is highest in unglaciated, drought-prone regions of North America, where the largest clone sizes have been reported for this species. While we cannot completely rule out a low incidence of undetected aneuploidy, tetraploidy or duplicated loci, our …

Widespread Triploidy In Western North American Aspen (Populus Tremuloides), Karen E. Mock, Colin M. Callahan, M. Nurul Islam-Faridi, John D. Shaw, Hardeep S. Rai, Stewart C. Sanderson, Carol A. Rowe, Ronald J. Ryel, Michael D. Madritch, Richard S. Gardner, Paul G. Wolf

Aspen Bibliography

No abstract provided.

Brown Treesnakes: A Potential Invasive Species For The United States, Samantha Sue Kahl, Scott E. Henke, Marc A. Hall, David K. Britton

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Brown treesnakes (ˆ) are mildly venomous, exotic snakes that have the potential to become an invasive species in North America, Hawaii, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The snake is native to northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea, and other islands of northern and western Melanesia. The snakes were first found outside their native range on Guam in 1953. The exact date they reached the island is uncertain, but they are believed to have arrived on military cargo transport vessels some time during or just after World War II. During the years that followed, the population of brown …

Plant Scientist Seeks Understanding Landscape Architect For Meaningful Soil-Plant-Water Relationship, Kelly L. Kopp

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Spatial Conversions And Alternative Futures: Sitla / Blm: A Preliminary Analysis, Richard E. Toth

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Characteristics Of Serial Title Changes And Recognition Of New Serial Works: Theoretical And Practical Implications, Mavis B. Molto

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

The paper reports findings from a study to identify characteristics of serials with title changes and then make recommendations for recognizing new works for these serials. Findings show title changes occur due to underlying subject, function, corporate, geographic, frequency, or format changes, with 80.8% of the changes being subject or function changes. It is recommended that reasons for title changes be determined from clear statements in text or elsewhere, and that new works be recognized based upon the requirements of a definition of a work. With the FRBR definition, a new work would be recognized only for a significant subject …

Have Introduced Brown Trout (Salmo Trutta) Affected Native Aquatic Vertebrates In Western United States Streams?, Nora K. Burbank

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The introduction of exotic species to areas outside of their native range is one of the greatest threats to the biodiversity of native freshwater organisms. Exotic species have outcompeted native species for resources such as food and shelter, and in some cases these interactions have resulted in local extinctions or reductions in abundance of those native species. Brown trout are native to Eurasia, but have been introduced to much of the rest of the world, including the United States. In some parts of their introduced range, brown trout have substantially reduced the abundance and home ranges of some native fish …

Using Species Distribution Models To Assess Invasion Theory And Provide Management Recommendations For Riparian Areas In The Eastern Columbia And Western Missouri River Basins, Diane R. Menuz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Globalization has created opportunities for plant and animal species to be transported to novel ecosystems. A subset of these species become invasive species, which are able to persist and spread rapidly to become influential components in their new ecosystems. Invasive species are often able to out-compete co-occurring native species and can alter fundamental ecosystem properties, such as soil nutrient availability or time between wildfires in a region. The United States is estimated to lose $34 billion per year to invasive plant species through costs to control unwanted species and lowered crop and forage production.

We used statistical models to better …

Gendered Livelihoods And The Politics Of Socio-Environmental Identity: Women’S Participation In Conservation Projects In Calakmul, Mexico, Claudia Radel

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

A livelihoods approach positions individuals, situated within households, as active agents within processes occurring at various scales. Environmental conservation efforts represent one such process with direct implications for local sustainable livelihoods and the gendered nature of livelihood strategies. In this article, I examine collective processes of socio-environmental identity construction as gendered sustainable livelihood strategies, articulated in and through the activities of women's agricultural organizations in communities bordering the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in rural southern Mexico. I present group histories and visual evidence from group activities – adapted from participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methodology – to highlight two important concepts. These …

A Comparison Between Cluster Busting Technique And A Classification Tree Algorithm Of A Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (Modis) Land Cover Map Of Honduras, Samuel Rivera, John H. Lowry, Alexander J. Hernandez, R. Douglas Ramsey, Ricardo Lezama, Miguel A. Velasquez

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

A national land cover map derived from moderate resolution imaging spectrometer (MODIS) imagery products was developed for Honduras, Central America. We compared two methods of image classification: a cluster busting (CB) classification technique and a classification and regression tree (CART) algorithm. Field data samples were used to validate the resulting classifications. Inthe classification process, we used: a Google Earth™ sampling scheme, a time series of MODIS's Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and digital elevation data(shuttle radar topography mission, SRTM). The CART classification method provided a more accurate classification (Kappa coefficient, K = 74%, overall model accuracy = 79.6%) while compared to …

Estimating Landscape Irrigated Areas And Potential Water Conservation At The Rural-Urban Interface Using Remote Sensing And Gis, Fayek A. Farag, Christopher M. U. Neale, Roger Kjelgren, Joanna Endter-Wada

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Research goals were to analyze patterns of urban landscape water use, assess landscape water conservation potential, and identify locations with capacity to conserve. Methodological contributions involved acquiring airborne multispectral digital images over two urban cities which were processed, classified, and imported into a GIS environment where landscaped area were extracted and combined with property and water billing data and local evapotranspiration rates to calculate landscape irrigation applications exceeding estimated water needs. Additional analyses were conducted to compare classified aerial images to ground-measured landscaped areas, landscaped areas to total parcel size, water use on residential and commercial properties, and turf areas …