News Archives | Page 46 of 68 | Social Sciences Newsblog

Winkler Receives Funding for Geothermal Energy Feasibilty Guide

Published September 3, 2014

Richelle Winkler was recently awarded a Phase 1 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency’s P3 (People, Prosperity, and Planet) program to supervise an interdisciplinary team of students to develop a guide that former mining communities can use to self-evaluate the feasibility of tapping into water in abandoned mines for geothermal energy. The student design team, led by Environmental and Energy Policy MS student Edward Louie, will present their guide at the Sustainable Design Expo in Washington DC in April 2015 and compete for a Phase 2 award of $90,000 to implement the project. Social science students are partnering with an Alternative Energy Enterprise team led by Jay Meldrum (Michigan Tech’s Keweenaw Research Center) on this project. The full team is also working closely with a community advisory board made up of leaders in the Calumet, MI community. It was Calumet community members partnering in Winkler’s community-engaged research with Main Street Calumet that started the idea for this project.

West Point Foundry Recognized by Sustainable Sites Initiative

Published September 3, 2014

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Waterwheel sculpture at the West Point Foundry Preserve — Waterwheel sculpture at WPFP

The Sustainable Sites Initiative—a program designed to ensure that built environments are planned, designed, developed and maintained as healthy, functioning landscapes—has awarded a one-star designation to the West Point Foundry Reserve in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. The foundry is the site of several years of research and a number of graduate theses in the Department of Social Sciences’ Industrial Archaeology Program. The conversion was also overseen by a MTY-IA graduate. See West Point Foundry.

The foundry rehab was also recently noted in the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation magazine in an article entitled, “Industrial Strength: Cold Spring, N.Y.,” as well as in Hudson Valley Magazine, in an article, “History and Preservation of the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring.”

Winkler’s research cited in age segregation article

Published September 2, 2014

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Richelle Winkler, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Demography, was cited in a recent article published in The Boston Globe for her research on age segregation. Her work has shown that effects of segregation by age can be as profound as those of more widely-understood racial segregation.

Read the full story in the article entitled, What ‘age segregation’ does to America. From grade schools to senior villages, we now spend much of our lives on separate generational islands. Can we reverse the trend?

Rouleau receives funding for degrading organic compounds

Published August 20, 2014

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $330,000 for a three-year project to Daisuke Minakata (PI: Civil & Environmental Engineering) and Mark Rouleau (Co-PI: Social Sciences) for a project on “Coupling Experimental and Theoretical Molecular-Level Investigations to Visualize the Fate of Degradation of Organic Compounds in Aqueous Phase Advanced Oxidation Systems.” Rouleau’s contribution will be to design and implement an agent-based computer simulation to forecast the fate of organic compounds during the process of waste water treatment. His goal is to develop a simulation that will be capable of “grading” treated waste water for potential chemical contaminants prior to public reuse. For the full abstract see NSF Award Abstract #1435926.

Wellstead compares policy workers in Canada and the Czech Republic

Published August 20, 2014

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Assistant Professor Adam Wellstead has written an article on “Comparing Sub-National Policy Workers in Canada and the Czech Republic: Who are they, what they do, and why it matters?” The article, written with co-authors Arnošt Veselý (Charles University in Prague) and Bryan Evans (Ryerson University, Toronto), appears in Policy and Society 33.2 (2014): 103–115.

From the abstract:

This article compares profiles and policy-related activities of policy workers in 13 Canadian provinces and territories with PWs in the Czech Republic regions. In the two countries the proportion of men and women is similar and PWs are equally highly educated. [However,] when compared with the Czech PWs, Canadian PWs tend to be older, more often having social science educational backgrounds, more frequently recruited from academia, stay in a single organization for a shorter period of time and anticipate staying in their current position for only a short time. Canadian PWs are much more involved in evidence-based work, especially in evaluation and policy research. They also deal more with policy analysis activities such as identification of policy issues and options. In contrast, Czech PWs are more engaged in consulting with the public and briefing managers and decision-makers.

Download a pdf copy of the article at ScienceDirect.

Schelly publishes new article on residential dwelling

Published August 20, 2014

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Chelsea Schelly, assistant professor of sociology in Social Sciences, has had her article on “Are Residential Dwellers Marking and Claiming? Applying Concepts to Humans Who Dwell Differently” appear in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32(4) 672-688.

From the abstract:

the typical and mainstream modern home dweller is contrasted with several different empirical case studies of people who dwell differently, using alternative technologies, practices, and forms of organization in residential dwelling.

Read the Full Abstract at EPD: Society and Space

Frontiers and Fortresses blogs summer school

Published August 3, 2014

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This year marks the fifth year that Prof. Carl Blair has run the Frontiers and Fortresses summer study abroad program in Cumbria, England, and the first year that he has had the students blog their experiences. The Track B summer program has just wrapped in Carlisle, their base of operations, but you can read all about the experience through the four-week experience on their Weebly blog.

Presley talks about local food systems

Published August 3, 2014

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Paavola: From Farming Community to Wetlands Preserve

On Thursday 24 July PhD candidate Anna Lee Presely presented a walk-n-talk at the Paavola Wetlands Nature Area in the “Fourth Thursday in History” series, presented by the Keweenaw National Historical Park. Presley talked about her work this summer with the Keweenaw Land Trust researching the history of the Paavola settlement, its population, relationship to area mining, the village businesses, ethnic background of the people, cultural practices, and farming––especially dealing with the wetlands. The Land Trust is continuing to raise money to stabilize the one remaining farmhouse (shown in the pictures), and her work will become part of the exhibits that describe the history.

Her talk was also covered by the local paper in Houghton, the Daily Mining Gazette, and was featured on the front page: Program focuses on agricultural history [subscription required].

—Photos and synopsis courtesy of Melinda Quivik.

Proposals in Progress for July 22, 2014

Published July 22, 2014

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PI Timothy Scarlett (SS) and Co-PI Junhong Min (SBE), “Cuyuna Range Heritage Tourism Project,” Brainerd Lakes Area Economic Development Corporation.

Archaeologists receive a grant for Fort Wilkins

Published July 21, 2014

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Prof. Patrick Martin and Ph.D. candidate Sean Gohman of Social Sciences have been awarded a two-year grant for archaeological surveys at Fort Wilkins State Park in Copper Harbor. The grant, for $19,487 each year (total of just under $39,000), comes from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and will be used to support graduate students investigating the remains of the Pittsburg and Boston Copper Harbor Mining Company sit, now located on the Fort Wilkins property. This summer and fall the crew of archaeologists from Social Sciences will survey the site, and next year do some selected test excavation and recordation. If funding becomes available in 2016 and beyond, the team hopes to continue similar work on the Copper Harbor Range Lighthouse site.

Fort Wilkins was built in 1844 by the fifth U.S. Infantry Regiment to keep order in the Michigan copper mining district, though it was abandoned two years later (but re-garrisoned from 1867-70). In the absence of the military (1847-66 and 1871-1923) civilians frequently occupied fort buildings as residences and later as hunting camps and cottages until the property became a state park in 1923. Today Fort Wilkins State Park interprets three primary themes: early Keweenaw copper mining by the Pittsburgh and Boston Copper Harbor Mining Company, Lake Superior maritime history with the Copper Harbor Lighthouses, and nineteenth-century military history at the fort itself.

Since 1974 the Michigan Historical Museum has been responsible for historical activities within the park. Today, there are nineteen historical buildings: twelve original structures from the 1840s and seven reconstructions based on the historical and archaeological record. Archaeological research has been carried out intermittently at the fort from 1975 to present under state contracts and over that time various projects have investigated a number of the military buildings, the fort’s blacksmith shop, the Copper Harbor lighthouse, various trash and dump sites (often excellent windows into past material culture) as well as parts of the Pittsburgh and Boston Copper Harbor Copper Mining Company activities. This current grant will support phase I and II (surface survey and selected test dings, respectively) archaeological projects in the P&BCMC site along the northern boundary of Fort Wilkins State Park along the southern shore of Copper Harbor.

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