Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Hearing In The Juvenile Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia Mydas): A Comparison Of Underwater And Aerial Hearing Using Auditory Evoked Potentials, Wendy Dow Piniak, David A. Mann, Craig A. Harms, T. Todd Jones, Scott A. Eckert

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Sea turtles spend much of their life in aquatic environments, but critical portions of their life cycle, such as nesting and hatching, occur in terrestrial environments, suggesting that it may be important for them to detect sounds in both air and water. In this study we compared underwater and aerial hearing sensitivities in five juvenile green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) by measuring auditory evoked potential responses to tone pip stimuli. Green sea turtles detected acoustic stimuli in both media, responding to underwater stimuli between 50 and 1600 Hz and aerial stimuli between 50 and 800 Hz, with maximum …

Commentary: Are National Parks Still Relevant?, Randall K. Wilson

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

On the occasion of the National Parks centennial comes an irreverent question: Are the parks still relevant?

Famously christened as America's "best idea" by writer Wallace Stegner and reaffirmed in Ken Burns' 2009 PBS documentary, it seems brazen, if not blasphemous, to pose the question. [excerpt]

The Feasibility Of Using Drones To Count Songbirds, Andrew M. Wilson, Janine M. Barr, Megan E. Zagorski

Environmental Studies Student Conference Presentations

Point and transect counts are the most common bird survey methods, but are subject to biases and accessibility issues. To eliminate some of these biases, we propose attaching a recorder to a consumer-grade quadcopter (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAV) to estimate songbird populations from audio recordings. We conducted a blind experiment using broadcast recordings to estimate the detection radius of a compact recorder attached to a UAV, and found that the detection radius did not vary significantly when the UAV was flown at elevations of 20, 40 and 60m. We field tested our system by comparing UAV-based bird counts with …

Now Hear This! Orientation And Behavioral Responses Of Hatchling Loggerhead Sea Turtles, Caretta Caretta, To Environmental Acoustic Cues, Bethany Holtz

Celebration

Although the visual and geologic orientation cues utilized by sea turtle hatchlings during seafinding, when they move from the nest to the sea after hatching, have been well studied, the potential for auditory stimuli to act as an orientation cue has not been well explored. Over the past several decades our knowledge of the auditory capacity of sea turtles has increased greatly, yet little is known about the biological significance of this sensory ability. To investigate whether hatchlings can use ocean sounds during seafinding, we measured the behavioral responses of hatchling loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) collected from nesting beaches …

Crafting A Campus Sustainability Action Plan: A Grassroots Approach, Jolina A. Kenney

Celebration

In recent decades, colleges and universities have taken a leadership role in developing institution-based Sustainability Action Plans (SAPs). A SAP includes a summation of past achievements, current initiatives, and the prioritized goals and implementation strategies for future action in terms of promoting environmental sustainability. These plans can also serve as pedagogical devices that teach students, staff and faculty important lessons of intentional living, global citizenship, and environmental responsibility. While many plans are adopted as top-down initiatives, there is great value in finding ways to engage the entire campus community in such endeavors at the grassroots level. This project documents a …

Fearless Friday: Laila Mufty, Laila M. Mufty

SURGE

In today’s Fearless Friday, Surge would like to honor the work of Laila Mufty ‘18. Laila is a sophomore from the Bay Area in California and is majoring in Environmental Studies. Currently, she is one of the CPS Program Coordinators with Big Brothers Big Sisters and is the Immersion Project Leader for the New Orleans trip in May focused on the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. In addition to her work with CPS, Laila participates in multiple cultural organizations on campus and has volunteered with El Centro, Painted Turtle Farm and Casa de la Cultura. Laila has also written and …

Crafting A Campus Sustainability Action Plan: A Grassroots Approach, Jolina A. Kenney

Student Publications

In recent decades, colleges and universities have taken a leadership role in developing institution-based Sustainability Action Plans (SAPs). A SAP includes a summation of past achievements, current initiatives, and the prioritized goals and implementation strategies for future action in terms of promoting environmental sustainability. These plans can also serve as pedagogical devices that teach students, staff and faculty important lessons of intentional living, global citizenship, and environmental responsibility. While many plans are adopted as top-down initiatives, there is great value in finding ways to engage the entire campus community in such endeavors at the grassroots level. This project documents a …

Friends Of Musselman Library Newsletter Spring 2016, Musselman Library

Friends of Musselman Library Newsletter

From the Dean (Robin Wagner)

Library Receives 9/11 Commission Papers (Fred Fielding '16)

Library News

Digital Scholarship Fellows

From Paupers to Presidents

Fair Use Week

Reading About Race

Student Workers Save the Day (Nadia Romero Nardelli '19)

Life in the Fishbowl (Brittany Barry '17)

In Memory of Douglas R. Price; Former Aide to Eisenhower

Special Purchases

From the Piano Bench (Jay P. Brown ’51, Doug Brouder ’83, Julie Caterson ’84 and Mr. & Mrs. Michael Fiery)

Research Reflections: The Spirit of Gettysburg (Timothy Sestrick)

Gift of Art

Old Gettysburg Back to Thee (Jenna Fleming '16, Avery Fox '16, Melanie Fernandes …

Fracking In Pennsylvania: A Spatial Analysis Of Impacts On Land Cover And Land Use, The Viewshed, And The Audioshed, Kelly A. Collins

Student Publications

Hydraulic fracturing is the process of extracting natural gas from layers of shale rock beneath the surface of the Earth. The largest source of natural gas in the US is the Marcellus Shale, largely located in Pennsylvania, and it is believed to hold about 141 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in its shale deposits. My study examined the impacts of well sites on land cover and land use, the viewshed, and the audioshed. To study the effect of wellpads on land use and land cover, we overlaid a layer of wellpads over land cover data as well as a …

How The Federal Government Went From Realtor To Landlord In The American West, Randall K. Wilson

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Disputes over public land rights have a long history in the United States. But the past 18 months have seen a growing number of confrontations over Western federal lands, culminating in the current standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. [excerpt]

Feeling And Healing Eco-Social Catastrophe: The "Horrific" Slipstream Of Danis Goulet's Wakening, Salma Monani

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Cree/Métis filmmaker Danis Goulet’s science fiction short Wakening (2013) is set in Canada’s near future, yet the film reveals a slipstream of time where viewers are invited to contemplate the horrors of ecosocial crises—future, past, and present. I argue Wakening, as futuristic ecohorror, produces horrific feelings in the moment of its viewing that are inevitably entangled with the past, inviting its audiences to experience the monstrous contexts of Indigenous lives across time. To articulate this temporal dynamism, I overlay two key conceptual understandings: Walter Benjamin’s critiques of Western progress and historicism, and Indigenous notions of a Native slipstream. When brought …

In God’S Land: Cinematic Affect, Animation And The Perceptual Dilemmas Of Slow Violence, Salma Monani

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

In this paper, I argue that Indian independent filmmaker Pankaj Rishi Kumar's documentary In God’s Land (2012) blends animation and live-action to illuminate the destructive nuances of postcolonial literary scholar, Rob Nixon's notion of slow violence. In turning to cinema, I also suggest that In God’s Land’s “aesthetic strategies” further eco-film scholarship’s recent interests in animation, which have tended to highlight the mode's "feel good affect." I draw attention to In God's Land's hybrid of dark, discordant animation spectacle interspliced in the documentary live-action to articulate the potential of eco-animation outside of this affect. Ultimately, the film not only draws …