Category: News

Three Present at Graduate Research Colloquium

Three graduate students from the Department of Social Sciences presented at the 2015 Graduate Research Colloquium Poster & Presentation Competition.  The Colloquium is an opportunity for graduate students at Michigan Tech to share their research with the university community and to gain experience in presenting research to colleagues.

Gohman
Sean Gohman

Sean Gohman, PhD student in the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program, gave a presentation titled “The Residues of Industry:  Identifying and Evaluating Mine Waste in Michigan’s Copper Country”.

 

 

 

Louie
Edward Louie and Abhilash Kantamneni

Edward Louie, MS student in the Environmental and Energy Policy program and Abhilash Kantamneni, graduate student from the Department of Computer Science presented about the impact of potential solar net metering policy changes and how it will impact people unequally in different states.

 

Strozier
Ronesha Strozier

Ronesha Strozier, MS student in the Environmental and Energy Policy program gave her presentation titled “Making Connections: Mobility, Accessibility, and Policy Failure”.

Schelly to Present on American Rainbow Gatherings

9781612057453_p0_v1_s260x420Dr. Chelsea Schelly, Assistant Professor of Sociology will present on “The Rainbow Way: Participation and Experience in Rainbow Gathering Culture” on Wednesday, March 25, in the Van Pelt and Opie Library East Reading Room at 4:15 pm with refreshments at 4 pm.

Her talk is based on her recently published book, Crafting Collectivity: American Rainbow Gatherings and Alternative Forms of Community (Paradigm Publishers).

This event is part of the Library’s Nexus: The Scholar and the Library series.

 

Visiting Lecturer Dr. Kristin Floress to Present on Community and Watershed Management

 

Photo by USDA Forest Service.
Photo by USDA Forest Service.

Dr. Kristin Floress, a social scientist with the USDA Forest Service in Evanston, IL is giving a talk in 201 AOB from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Monday, March 16 titled “Community Capacity for Watershed Management.”

Her visit co-sponsored by the Visiting Women & Minority Lecturer/Scholar Series (VWMLS) which is funded by a grant to the Office of Institutional Equity from the State of Michigan’s King-Chavez-Parks Initiative, the Center for Water and Society, and the Social Sciences Department.

Abstract: An individual’s ability to engage in actions that are protective of water resources is driven by a variety of factors at the individual and community scale.   This presentation explores several cases of watershed and lake management in Wisconsin using the community capacity for watershed management framework (Davenport and Seekamp, 2013).  Individual indicators and governance principles are assessed and used to provide direction for designing effective water programs.

LaFave Receives “Spark Plug Award” for Community Development

Keweenaw Chamber of Commerce Spark Plug Award Winners.
Keweenaw Chamber of Commerce Spark Plug Award Winners.  LaFave-second from the right.

Bob LaFave, PhD graduate student in the Environmental and Energy Policy program and Village Manager for the Village of L’Anse, was awarded the “Spark Plug Award for Community Development” on February 12th at the annual Spark Plug Awards Dinner hosted by the Keweenaw Chamber of Commerce, the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance, Keweenaw Young Professionals, and the MTEC SmartZone.

LaFave, village manager since 2008, has worked to bring in $21 million in projects to the Village including water and sewer infrastructure projects, road improvements, replacement of the Falls River bridge, and WiFi service within the Village.

 

 

SS Students and Faculty Published in Land Use Policy Journal

S02648377Students Jennifer Lind-Reihl, Shelly Jeltema, Margaret Morrison, and Gabriela Shirkey and  SS faculty Audrey Mayer, Mark Rouleau, and Richelle Winkler published a paper, “Family legacies and community networks shape private forest management in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan (USA)” in Land Use Policy.

Abstract

Nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) owners make thousands of uncoordinated land use decisions that collectively and critically impact forest ecology. Prior research generally assumes private land use decisions adhere to the rational choice paradigm, driven primarily by cost–benefit calculations, such as financial considerations. Thus, when aiming to coordinate land use change in landscapes dominated by private property, policy makers often use economic or educational incentives to encourage enrollment in voluntary programs. Despite these incentives, enrollment in voluntary programs is notoriously low. The current study offers a possible explanation for this problem. It highlights the role of social influence in shaping NIPF land use decision-making. Our research draws on qualitative data gathered from interviews with 37 landowners in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA, to discover how social influence affects land management practices, such as decisions to join voluntary programs. We find evidence that family traditions, community relationships, and locally defined social norms play key roles in shaping the land use decision options available to individual landowners. Local norms against clear cutting and trust (or lack thereof) in local experts and organizations were found to be particularly important. We also found evidence of cognitive dissonance associated with conflict between Scandinavian versus American traditions of public access to private lands.

Schelly Publishes on 3D Printing for Education

3DPrinterFrom Tech Today:

Chelsea Schelly (SocSci), Gerald Anzalone (MSE), Bas Wijnen (MSE), Joshua M. Pearce (MSE/ECE) published a paper on “Open-source 3-D printing technologies for education: Bringing additive manufacturing to the classroom” in the  Journal of Visual Language and Computing.

 

ABSTRACT:

Objective

3-D printing technologies have the potential to improve both Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and Career and Technical Education (CTE), as well as integrating these two educational emphases and providing opportunities for cross-curriculum engagement. The objective of this study is to investigate the potential of open-source (OS) technologies in an educational setting, given the combination of economic constraints affecting all educational environments and the ability of OS design to profoundly decrease the cost of technological tools and technological innovation.

Methods

This paper reports on a 3-day workshop augmented with online instructional and visual tools designed for middle school and high school level educators from a wide array of disciplines (including traditional science, math, and engineering as well as computer, shop, and art). Teachers (n=22) submitted applications to participate in the workshop, the workshop was observed for both evaluation and research, teachers participated in focus groups (n=2) during the workshop in order to discuss their interest in OS 3-D printing technology and its potential role in their classrooms, and teachers completed a voluntary post-workshop survey and responded to follow-up after printers were in the classroom for one year.

Results

During the workshop teachers built 3-D printers using OS technologies that they were then able to take back to their schools and into their classrooms.

Conclusion

Through workshops augmented with online instructional and visual tools designed to provide facilitated yet self-directed engagement with a new, relatively unknown, and relatively complex technology, paired teacher teams were able to successfully build and use RepRap 3-D printers based on OS design in just three days.

Practice

Here, we discuss both what the teachers learned and what we learned from the teachers regarding the potential for educators to construct OS 3-D printing technologies as a tool of empowering and transformative education.

Implications

Open-source 3-D printing technologies have the potential to improve education through a sense of empowerment resulting from active participation, as well as through cross-curriculum engagement.

Solomon Published in Environmental Practice Journal

From Tech Today:

EPCoverProfessor Barry Solomon  published a paper, “Socioeconomic Analysis Options for Pesticides Management in Developing Countries: A Review” in Environmental Practice, March 2015.

Abstract:

“Many factors must be considered by environmental officials tasked with managing pesticides. Several socioeconomic analysis techniques can be used to quantify these issues and help improve management, including the full consideration of alternatives. The most popular and commonly used techniques are Cost-Benefit Analysis and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, and additional guidance and reference materials are readily available. Another group of methods, known as Rapid Rural Appraisal and Participatory Rural Appraisal, can be more appropriate, faster, and have lower cost to use in developing countries. Finally, qualitative decision making under uncertainty, such as through the use of the Precautionary Principle (not a socioeconomic analysis technique), also can be valuable. The precautionary approach requires that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action. Ideally all of the analytical techniques will need complete and reliable socioeconomic data, though in reality, data are often incomplete and fraught with uncertainties. In these cases, the application of the precautionary principle decision rule may have strong justification. The application of these techniques in several decision contexts for pesticides in developing countries will be discussed.”