Environmental Studies Commons^™

King Of The Jungle: Comparative Analysis Of The Geopolitical Narratives Surrounding Fordlandia And A Proposed Resort Park In El Mirador, Rachel Jaeger

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Environmental geopolitics is a field of study in which narratives about the environment are analyzed to reveal the underlying motivations and objectives they support. Using Shannon O’Lear’s (2020) framework of environmental geopolitics, I conduct a comparative analysis of the narratives surrounding two distinct development projects: Henry Ford’s historical company town in the Brazilian Amazon, Fordlandia, and a proposed ecotourism resort park in El Mirador, Guatemala. Analysis of Fordlandia reveals a narrative of American frontierism and a man-versus-nature perspective that served to paint the environment as belligerent and thereby justify corporate control and Indigenous assimilation. Narratives surrounding El Mirador differ, representing …

Greenspace Access In The Denver Metro Region: Historical Housing Policy Impact On Modern Greenspace Distribution, Brody Petig, Susan Dagget

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Access to safe, high quality, urban green spaces is widely recognized as a determinant for physical health, mental well-being, and social cohesion. Existing literature has demonstrated that race, age, gender, and socioeconomic status frequently dictate the allocation of resources and shape disparities in access to greenspace. These disparities are also often reflective of historical housing policy and zoning decisions. This paper examines greenspace access in the Denver Metro Region (DMR) and the City and County of Denver (CCD) through a social justice lens, with particular attention to the relationship between historical housing policy and contemporary trends in greenspace distribution and …

Improving Human-Wildlife Coexistence: An Ecological And Educational Approach To Rewilding Grizzly Bears (Ursus Arctos Horribilis) In California, Amanda C. D. Rosales

Master's Projects and Capstones

Megafauna extinction during the Holocene has been both caused and amplified by climatic changes and human influence. By the last half century, large carnivores were diminished in Europe and the United States, but policies increasingly addressed species decline and their territories expanded. This research examined large carnivore rewilding across the European Union and United States, specifically for rewilding brown bears, Ursus arctos, in historic habitat. Next, case studies for the health status of climate-impacted whitebark pine, Pinus albicaulis, a high energy food for bears, was assessed. Ultimately, research case studies, human perspective surveys, and the California Department of Education content …

Crop Yield Shocks And Conflict In Sub-Saharan Africa: Subnational Evidence From Satellite-Based Yield Predictions, Benson I. Adomako

Master's Theses

This paper examines whether crop yields affect violent conflict at the subnational level across seven Sub-Saharan African countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, and Tanzania, over the period 2010 to 2024. A central identification challenge is that observed yields are endogenous to conflict: armed violence disrupts planting, cultivation, and harvest. To address this, I train a machine learning model on observed maize yield and satellite and environmental features to generate predicted yields for 1,338 second-level administrative districts annually. These predictions serve as the key regressor in a two-way fixed-effects panel with district and year fixed effects. I find …

Kev's Dinghy Boat Workshops, Ruiyang Xiao

Masters Theses

In a culture where convenience replaces process, this project argues that making — even when inefficient, imperfect, or unnecessary — enables forms of engagement that buying cannot.

Technologies and Services nowadays are able to fulfill human’s desire to travel and explore at ease. However, this convenience proposes a mode of engagement based only in deeper knowledge of context and thus our experience with the world around us is hence diminished. Our engagement with the world becomes heavily mediated, regulated and controlled.

This project investigates how hands-on engagement with water can reintroduce + restore our sense of joy, curiosity, consequence, and …

Care Ecologies Between Knots, Eliza R. Marris

Masters Theses

Discarded fibers like raw wool behave the way harm reduction does. Harm reduction resists stigma and works to move beyond assumptions and oversimplifications of substance use and addiction. Wool is irregular, complicated, and emotionally charged. It resists compression and maintains its own being even when pulled apart. Working with raw wool is in relationship with complexity, as is harm reduction.

At its core, harm reduction is grounded in thoughtfulness and empathy towards people, their lived experience, and its nuances. It is a witness to lives, memories, and imprints, acknowledging the entangled realities of addiction. Our detachment from fiber remainders, materials …

Weaving Grounds: Connecting Canyons And Empowering Borderland Communities, Maria D. Lopez Vazquez

Masters Theses

National policies materialize in the United States-Mexico political divide, also known as the borderlands. Willow Canyon is a dissected land form inextricably linked to the Tijuana River watershed, forming with the adjacent landforms on both sides of the border one landscape. The Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty¹, signed in 1848 by the US and Mexican governments, traced an arbitrary line across these landscapes, disregarding their relationship. The consequences of these actions are visible in the physical deterioration of the landscape and ecology, as the hydrological cycle has been modified. In the 1940’s, the picturesque flow of Willow Canyon was dissected by urbanization, …

American Paradise, Virginia Hanusik

Masters Theses

The following is a collection of stories and ideas about the making of our physical and emotional worlds, along with their fracturing, deconstruction, and degradation within the American industrial landscape.  It suggests the value of the unknown and the grace of mistakes, emotional and material friction, and the hiccups that come with learning.

For American Paradise, I’m bringing my interest in landscape extraction, and the people and families within them, to my own autobiography. In this work I turn to where I grew up, the people that brought me there, my connection to manual labor, and the use of specific …

Hidden Systems, Samuel Choi

Masters Theses

Across buildings and cities, moisture is managed, concealed, and discharged through convoluted systems of containment. Still, water ultimately resists this framework. It reveals itself as leaks, puddles, condensation—moments typically understood as technical failure. Hidden Systems reframes these conditions as architectural knowledge, one that becomes evidence of water’s material capacity, limits of infrastructure, and a record of time.

NYC is constructed on, powered by, and profiting from water. Although it hosts a robust network, seepages disrupt control, allowing systems to be traced across scales. As pipes expand, contract, and freeze, the project unfolds seasonally, moving through water’s three states: solid, liquid, …

Environmental Mercury Alters Immune Pathways Linked To Autoimmune Risk In Mice Mirroring Humans, Maurgan Lee, Paul Stemmer, Randall Gill, Allen Rosenspire, Anil Aranha, Heather Gibson

Medical Student Research Symposium

Background and Purpose: Mercury is a pervasive environmental contaminant, and human epidemiologic studies have linked chronic low-level exposure to increased autoimmune disease-risk. Dysregulated lymphocyte activation and impaired signaling tolerance are central mechanisms in human autoimmunity. Protein phosphorylation governs lymphocyte differentiation and function, alterations in phosphoproteomic networks may represent a signature of immune disruption. This study evaluates how low dose mercury exposure modifies B and T cell abundance and intracellular signaling patterns in BALB/c and Diversity Outbred (DO) mice.

Methods: BALB/c and DO mice were exposed to low dose HgCl2 in their water for two weeks or provided standard water controls. …

From Agroecology To Democratic Resilience: Community-Based Food Security And Climate Adaptation In West Sumatra, Dina Yulianti, Virtuous Setyaka, Arry Bainus, Deasy Silvya Sari, Akim Akim

Jurnal Wacana Politik

The West Sumatra has a high index of food security and because of its dependence on modern farming systems that are chemical based, farmers are susceptible to environmental degradation and market forces worldwide. Through the Critical International Relations (CIR) approach of Robert W. Cox, this paper analyzes how community-based agroecological practices can be the solution to a transition between climate change adaptation and democratic resilience in West Sumatra. The current study is dedicated to the case of Cheap Staple Rice Fields (Sawah Pokok Murah - SPM) an agroecological farming system, a grassroots movement that helps to break free of the …

The Environmental Cost Of Artificial Intelligence, Ava G. O'Connor

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper addresses the increasingly innovative and evolving world of artificial intelligence. As artificial intelligence becomes more integrated within global economies and infrastructures, its  environmental and economic impact has grown significantly, but still remains understudied in the conversation surrounding societal advancement and growth. This thesis delves into the history and development of artificial intelligence, AI's integration into modern life, Big Tech jumping to get ahead of AI development through investment, the cost of artificial intelligence, and the ethical and environmental implications of increasing artificial intelligence usage. Using multiple case studies, this thesis deeply explores the emergence of artificial intelligence as …

Fluid Identities: Using Seattle's Diverse Water Narratives To Shape Cultural Values And Adaptive Conservation Strategies, Brooke J. Vanden Berg

Honors Projects

This paper explores human interactions with the environment in and around Seattle, Washington, following its trajectory from the Vashon glacial episode to its present standing as a city on the frontier of future urban climate resilience. By examining the shift from indigenous stewardship to a twentieth-century settler-led industrial “taming” paradigm, ecological vulnerabilities are considered through the lens of ill-advised hydraulic regrading and the centralization and privatization of water infrastructure and rights. This history is contextualized in the 21st century as climate projections indicate that Seattle's reliance on mountain snowpack, increasing thermal extremes, sea-level rise, and hydraulic instability caused by climate …

Perception, Payment, And Pollution- Examining The Effects Of Air Quality On Health And Healthcare, Colin Sleeper

Economics ETDs

Abstract

This dissertation examines how air quality and public attention to environmental shock affect perceived health status and healthcare utilization. The first chapter uses publicly available survey data from BRFSS and a triple difference framework to analyze the effects of the 2018 wildfire season in Oregon on self-reported mental and physical health. Findings indicate that those in Oregon in 2018, during the period of heightened attention to wildfire smoke, experienced approximately 1.4 additional poor mental health days, on average. The second chapter includes Merative MarketScan commercial insurance claims data to test whether these changes translate into a behavioral response. Results …

Agricultural Water Management, Farmer Decision-Making And Climate Adaptation In Dryland Agriculture: A Case Of The Middle Rio Grande Basin, Oluwatosin A. Olofinsao

Economics ETDs

Agriculture in dryland regions faces mounting pressure from climate change, water scarcity, and shifting land-use demands. The Middle Rio Grande Basin (MRGB) of central New Mexico exemplifies these challenges, where irrigated agriculture relies on increasingly variable surface water supplies. This dissertation examines agricultural water use, farmer decision-making, and adaptation strategies across farm types and climate conditions in the MRGB. The first study presents a spatial descriptive analysis of farm size, crop patterns, groundwater access, evapotranspiration (ET), and effective ET, revealing a landscape numerically dominated by smallholder farms that account for a substantial share of irrigation water use. The second study …

Plastic Bottle Transformation Drawing, Molly Szado

Bryant University Undergraduate Journal

No abstract provided.

Plastic Bottle Transformation Drawing, Kylie Sweren

Bryant University Undergraduate Journal

No abstract provided.

Plastic Bottle Transformation Drawing, Troy Stockwell

Bryant University Undergraduate Journal

No abstract provided.

Plastic Bottle Transformation Drawing, Jill Sexton

Bryant University Undergraduate Journal

No abstract provided.

Plastic Bottle Transformation Drawing, Gannon Moore

Bryant University Undergraduate Journal

No abstract provided.