Environmental Education Commons^™

Oil

Activities

We are a country that runs on oil. From the gasoline in our cars to the plastic in our computers to the detergents that we put in our dishwashers, we rely on oil for our modern way of life. It cannot be understated just how strong of a role it plays in our economy and politics. It is used in tractors that plow and harvest food. It is used to power manufacturing plants and as feedstock in commercial goods. It powers all the trains and trucks that bring goods to market. It runs our cars, heats and cools our homes, …

Nuclear Energy Capstone

Activities

The United States has a problem with energy independence. The problem has nothing to do with a lack of energy production or availability. We are the largest producer of energy in the world, and have centuries’ worth of fossil fuels, as well as an enormous supply of nuclear and alternative energies, at our disposal. Our energy dependence on other countries is a result of the fact that we are also the leading consumers of energy in the world, being second only to Canada (population 32 million, compared to the 283 million in the U.S.) in per capita consumption of energy. …

Radiation Exposure

Activities

Nuclear energy was going to make the world a much better place during the 1950’s. The promise of an almost limitless supply of cheap energy that did not produce any soot or atmospheric pollutants almost seemed to good to be true. During the 1960's and 1970's, the United States nuclear industry expanded, as fears of a looming end to oil and gas reserves fueled construction. But by the late 1970’s, though, the wheels had come off of the nuclear wagon. The cheapness of the energy never did pan out, as prices of electricity from nuclear energy rivaled those of fossil …

Nuclear Power Plants

Activities

As we discussed in the last activity, energy is released when isotopes decay. This energy can either be in the form of electromagnetic radiation or the kinetic energy of the nuclear fragments. The important question for us is, “How can this energy be converted into a useful form like electricity?” The most obvious thing to do is to allow either of these forms of energy to be absorbed by a substance in order to increase its internal energy and thus, increase its temperature. As the substance warms up above its surroundings, a temperature difference is created, and allows for any …

Nuclear Decay

Activities

Almost any phrase that has the word “nuclear” in it has a bad reputation. The term conjures up images of mushroom clouds and radioactive mutants. It is interesting to note that in the 1940’s and 50’s, the term that applied to energy derived from the decay radioactive material was atomic energy. This term was somewhat correct, since the energy was coming from the breakdown of the atom. It was not until later that the more appropriate term nuclear energy was used as more people began to understand that the energy was coming from the breakdown of the nucleus of the …

Home Energy Capstone

Activities

The other three weeks of the Home Energy Module study energy flow and usage in our homes. In the R-Factor activity, we observed that the material used in the construction of our homes has a tremendous impact on the rate at which heat flows through its exterior surfaces. In Home Audit and Home Analysis activities, we performed an energy audit of our homes to estimate the amount of money that it costs to power it. As you have seen during our studies, there are many factors that affect the cost of energy in our homes. The right choices of materials, …

Home Analysis

Activities

The average household spends over $1,300 a year for energy to run the many devices found in the home. In this week's lab, we are going to investigate ways to save both energy and money that will not seriously impact your current lifestyle, i.e. you can keep watching as much television as you like, but you might want to put on a sweater to do it. In order to do this, we are going to have to use the measurements of our homes that we made two weeks ago. Last week, we studied how different materials affect the amount of …

R-Factor Of Various Materials

Activities

Even though it has been over 150 years since the First Law of Thermodynamics was discovered, we still find that heat is misunderstood. For example, the many environmental science textbooks define heat as "the total kinetic energy of atoms or molecules in a substance not associated with bulk motion of the substance." THIS IS WRONG! What these books are describing is the thermal energy of a system. This is a common misconception. While heat is energy, it is not a containable form of energy since, by its very definition, heat is energy that is transferred. In particular, heat is the …

Home Energy Audit

Activities

In the 1800's, scientists found, empirically, that rules exist that determine how energy can be transferred. The first of these rules is called the First Law of Thermodynamics. This law is usually stated as, "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transferred from one form to another." This often leads to the re-titling of this law as the Conservation of Energy Principle since it says that energy must be conserved. This statement of the First Law does not say anything about how energy can be transferred, though. It turns out that there are only two ways. …

Basic Skills Capstone B

Activities

If you look at the leaves that fall off of the trees in autumn, you will notice that not all leaves of the same kind are alike. Some are larger than others, some are longer or wider, some have different stem lengths, and some may have slightly different shapes. This is not surprising if you consider that they may be from different trees. Just as two people have hands or feet of different sizes, so different trees may have leaves of different sizes. If you do further observations, however, separating out leaves found under one tree from leaves found under …

Basic Skills Capstone A

Activities

In the late spring and summer, many parts of the United States experience smog alert days - days when the concentration of pollutants in the air has been considered unhealthy. Many of these pollutants are produced by automobiles - particularly hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and, indirectly, ozone. Most discussion of the adverse effects of smog center on humans, and the effects on other forms of life, such as plants, are scarcely mentioned. So how does air pollution from automobiles affect plant growth? Let's think about how this hypothesis might be tested. Two problems must be addressed. The first is …

Measurement

Activities

In general, you are quite familiar with measurements, as almost any occupation requires measurements of some kind. Carpenters measure boards for cutting, nurses measure blood pressure in patients, tailors measure fabric for garments, and advertising executives measure the public's acceptance of their sales pitches. You will therefore undoubtedly be utilizing measurement in your chosen career, regardless of the field you enter. Measurement plays a particularly large role in science. In their studies, scientists gather data, and to do this they use measurements. Scientists measure the concentration of gases in the atmosphere, the growth of organisms under varying conditions, the rate …

Statistics And Graphing

Activities

Statistics - they're all around us, and we're exposed to them every day. They allow us to summarize large volumes of mathematical information, and so are found wherever there's data to be presented. Let's say you're watching your favorite college football team, and the game has come down to a last second thirty-five yard field goal attempt for the win. When describing the kicker's past performance in this range, the play-by-play announcer doesn't list all of the kicker's attempts one by one and their outcome, he simply states the percentage of kicks made in this yard range. If the kicker's …

Experimental Analysis

Activities

Central to good science are accurate observations, testable hypotheses, well-designed experiments or other tests, and reasonable data analyses. The purpose of Laboratory 1 is to introduce you to the basics of designing and analyzing experiments. The following two laboratory exercises will provide you with further steps in organizing and analyzing data. Many interesting experiments are impossible to do in a normal undergraduate science laboratory setting. For this reason, your introduction to designing an experiment that has relevance in “the real world” involves a computer simulation. The program involves a growing industry, that of farming fish. What is your favorite kind …

Walking As Ontological Shifter: Thoughts In The Key Of Life, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With walking as ontological shifter I pursue an alternative to the dominant modernist episteme that offers either/or onto-epistemologies of opposition and their reifying engagements. I propose this type of walking is an intentional turning towards a set of radical positions that, as integrative aesthetic and therapeutic practice, brings multiplicity and synchronicity to experience and being in an expanded sociality. This practice facilitates the conditions of possibility for recurring points of contact between the interiority perceived as ‘body’ and the exteriority perceived as ‘world.’ While making evident the self’s at once incoherence with it-self, it opens to a space beyond the …

Towards Food Service Sustainability In Suburban Environments By Optimally Locating Shared Anaerobic Digester Units, Rebecca Loraamm, Joni Downs, Robert Alonso Bair, Daniel Yeh

Suburban Sustainability

Anaerobic digestion is an effective method for reducing food waste at the consumer level. Drawbacks associated with this strategy include high construction costs for multiple digester units and limited public awareness of the method’s commercial potential. Given the large scale problem of food waste, an approach establishing community partnerships between local businesses and primary schools is offered to combat the problem of food waste. Optimizing the placement of shared digester units enabling utilization by multiple stakeholders is the suggested mitigation method. This research explores application of the p-median problem to determine the set of optimal sites for shared anaerobic digester …

Acoustic Signatures Of Habitat Types In The Miombo Woodlands Of Western Tanzania, Sheryl Vanessa Amorocho, Dante Francomano, Kristen M. Bellisario, Ben Gottesman, Bryan C. Pijanowski

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The Miombo Woodlands of Tanzania comprise several habitat types that are home to a great number of flora and fauna. Understanding their responses to increasing human disturbance is important for conservation, especially in places where people depend so directly on their local ecosystem services to survive. Soundscapes are a powerful approach to study complex biomes undergoing change. The sounds emitted by soniferous fauna characterize the acoustic profile of the landscapes they inhabit such that habitats with the highest acoustic abundance are considered as the most diverse and possibly more ecologically resilient. However, acoustic variability within similar habitat types may pose …

University Sustainability: Assessing College Sustainability Rating Systems, James M. Albis

Journal of Environmental Sustainability

This paper seeks to assess the three major university sustainability rating systems in the United States on their ability to drive positive sustainability outcomes. Since the mid-2000s the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, the Princeton Review, and the Sierra Club have attempted to rate universities on their sustainability policies and practices. A wide range of actions are rated by these organizations, from energy usage to transportation to procurement to academic offerings in the field of sustainability. This analysis shows that each organization values sustainability in different ways – for example, academics/co-curricular activities accounted for anywhere from 16%-49% …

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- July 2017, Natalie Umphlett, Bill Sorensen, Crystal J. Stiles

Prairie Post: Quarterly Newsletter of the High Plains Regional Climate Center

Inside this issue:

Message from the interim director........................................1

Staff spotlight...........................1

Drought update.......................2

Update on regional climate conditions..................................2

Product highlights..................3

AWDN information.................4

Climate adaptation award announcement.........................4

Workshops update..................5

Recent and upcoming travel and activities.............................6

Strategies For Environmental Education For Youths And Adults, Chumbe Island Coral Park, Zanzibar, Samantha Pfeffer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Chumbe Island Coral Park (CHICOP) is a privately-owned business that strives to follow the best principles of ecotourism, conservation, and environmental education. Their environmental education initiative is award-winning and has affected thousands of students and community members in Zanzibar. This study looked at the environmental education techniques that CHICOP already has in place by observing two pre-visits, three island-visits and one-post visit, and determined where there was a need for enhanced and new techniques for teaching about the environment. Evidence of climate change on Chumbe Island was also recorded to aid in the educational tools and to create a database …

Bat Community Composition And Monitoring For White-Nose Syndrome At First State National Historical Park, Delaware And Pennsylvania, Juliet Nagel, J. Edward Gates

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

In recent years, bats have faced increasingly deadly threats on multiple fronts. Cave-dwelling bats have been decimated by the emergence of a disease, white-nose syndrome (WNS), caused by a fungal pathogen, Pseudogymnoascus destructans; and tree bats are dying in large numbers at wind power facilities. First State National Historical Park (FRST) is a new national park unit located in northern Delaware and Pennsylvania. Prior to this study, little information was available on bat species and their activity and distribution within FRST. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted an inventory of bat species present at FRST. We used …

Ecological Restoration, Elizabeth P. Mccann, Tania Schusler

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Ecological restoration involves revitalizing neglected, degraded, damaged, or destroyed habitats.

• Restoration-based education involves learners in ecological restoration with an intentional educational purpose.

• Urban restoration-based education can enhance personal and community well-being while improving ecosystem services in degraded environments.

• Restoration-based education can benefit from consciously forming partner ships, integrating local values alongside socioeconomic and ecological considerations, and being sensitive to issues of power and diverse cultures.

Postitive Youth Development, Tania Schusler, Jacqueline Davis-Manigaulte, Amy Cutter-Mackenzie

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

• Positive youth development is an assets-based approach for cultivating competencies essential to personal well-being.

• When environmental education enables children and youths to contribute to improving urban environments, it can not only increase cities' sustainability and resilience but also foster young people's personal growth.

• Participatory action research, peer education, and youth civic engagement are three educational approaches that can lead to positive change for both urban environments and youths living within them.

Economic Evaluation Of Coastal Land Loss In Louisiana, Stephen R. Barnes, Craig Bond, Nicholas Burger, Kate Anania, Aaron Strong, Sarah Weilant, Stephanie Virgets

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

Louisiana has lost approximately 1,880 square miles of land over the past eighty years. Projections suggest that in a future without action, the next fifty years could result in the loss of 1,750 additional square miles of land area. As land loss continues, a large portion of the natural and man-made capital stocks of coastal Louisiana will be at greater risk of damage, either from land loss or from the associated increase in storm damage. We estimate the replacement cost of capital stock directly at risk from land loss ranges from approximately $2.1 billion to $3.5 billion with economic activity …

Environmental Health, Tessa Oliaro

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

There is a very important intersection between the environment, public health, and socioeconomic factors (Braveman, 2014). These include waste disposal, water use and quality, road safety, ecosystem services, and many more. Environmental health stresses, “the health impacts of physical, chemical, and biological agents in the environment and workplace, and learns to develop strategies to measure and control major environmental health problems both locally…and in settings around the globe” (UC Berkeley School of Public Health, 2017). This overarching umbrella can have emphases in environmental epidemiology, exposure science, climate change, ergonomics, home and industrial hygiene, and molecular epidemiology. Exploring each of these …

Increasing Public Skepticism In The Face Of Imminent Dangers From Climate Change: A Call For Science To Repair Rifts Between Society And Academia, Matthew W. Morrissey, Joshua Schmidt

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This project is a composition of a literature review, our learning process, and an attached experimental project. The project as a whole sought to understood how and why policies/corporations resist environmentally sustainable practices/laws and makes suggestions for how to convince people to change their behaviors and utilize their power as consumers. Overall, our goal was to investigate and understand the relationship between science and the public by composing a literature review of environmental science, sociology, and psychology papers, and then compose a presentation that would communicate the threat of climate change. The interdisciplinary nature of climate change made this research …

Microspora Competition For Sunlight, Christina Sauer

Celebration of Learning

The focus of this project was to study the primary production of the filamentous green algae, Microspora, and its potential to inhibit its own photosynthesis as well as the potential for rooted aquatic plants to inhibit its photosynthesis. The spatial distribution of Microspora could be explained by this competition between organisms. To test this, I set up buoys in areas of rooted aquatic plants, Microspora mats, and direct sunlight. The buoys held Biological Oxygen Demand bottles in which Microspora was held in-situ for net primary production measurements. Net primary production was defined as the difference between the final and …

Soil Science Lesson Plan For The Cal Poly Learn By Doing Lab, Kelsey Ormonde

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

To increase interest in soil science and other related sciences, educational materials need to be tailored to appeal to younger students. The purpose of this project was to create a soil science lesson plan that could be utilized by the Cal Poly Learn By Doing Lab. Information from several articles, textbooks, lesson plans, and websites was reviewed to create a soil science lesson plan for students in 5-8^th grade. The lesson plan focused on the three sub-disciplines of soil science; physical, chemical, and biological. Activities were created to correspond to the three sub-disciplines. Alternate activities were created to allow …

Ocean Optimism, Jenna Pannone, Madison Mark, Crista Kieley

Environmental Studies Student Projects

In our class, Intro to Environmental Issues, we focused on marine mammals for a section. We chose to highlight two cases, the Hawaiian Monk Seal and the Vacquita, in which severely endangered species may have a chance at survival due to the work of highly dedicated individuals and organizations. We wanted to raise awareness of these species, the work being done, and the power we have to create change.

Elucidating The Effects Of Thiamethoxam Neonicotinoid On Honey Bee Learning Using The Proboscis Extension Response, David J. Shepherd

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this study, the effects of the neonicotinoid pesticide, thiamethoxam, are examined through the Proboscis Extension Response (PER) in honey bees (Apis mellifera). PER is a form of classical conditioning applied to honey bees through scent and reward association which quantifies learning rates. Results between groups treated with thiamethoxam did not differ significantly from untreated control groups. Potential reasons for these results are discussed. The method and experimental apparatus for testing the PER assay are also discussed.