Research Archives | Page 12 of 27 | Social Sciences Newsblog

Options For Calumet’s Future Discussed

Published December 22, 2016

The Villages of Calumet and Laurium and Calumet Township all have highlights and their own challenges.

Dwindling populations and median household incomes well below the state average–especially in Calumet Village–have reduced the availability of services to residents over the years.

A team from Michigan Tech’s Department of Social Sciences has spent the last four months looking at the advantages and disadvantages of several options for the area.

Doctoral Student Kelley Christensen said, “We looked at five different possibilities. We looked at keeping the status quo, we looked at intergovernmental agreements, revenue sharing, the possibility of the Village of Calumet dissolving into the township, and we also looked at the possibility of Laurium and Calumet Village becoming a city.”

Changes could take years to implement and a monumental effort would be needed by all community members involved, but Christensen says it all starts with people willing to talk about the possibilities.

Christensen said, “We just really hope that this starts a conversation. Our purpose here was to provide information to them and give them a list of options, and then we’re hoping that it will facilitate discussion and participation in government.”

Their report is online for the public to review.

http://www.mtu.edu/social-sciences/research/reports/

The team will also post the power point presentation from Monday’s meeting online. Questions can be directed to Dr. Richelle Winkler of Michigan Tech’s Department of Social Sciences.

Baeten Publishes on Historical Mine Waste

Published December 9, 2016

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John Baeten, IHA PhD Candidate, recently had a post published by NiCHE (Network in Canadian History and Environment) for their “Seeds: New Research in Environmental History” Series, titled: “Busting Ghosts: Building an HGIS to Reveal Historical Mine Waste Producers and Develop Strategies to Mitigate Future Risk”

A Geospatial Approach to Uncovering the Hidden Waste Footprint of Lake Superior’s Mesabi Iron Range

Published December 9, 2016

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John Baeten, Nancy Langston, and Don Lafreniere recently published an article titled: “A Geospatial Approach to Uncovering the Hidden Waste Footprint of Lake Superior’s Mesabi Iron Range” published in The Extractive Industries and Society.

The article is available for download until January 26, 2017 at the following link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1UAjI,oMyQ5uEu

Article Abstract: “For decades, the Lake Superior Iron District produced a significant majority of the world’s iron used in steel production. Chief among these was the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota, a vast deposit of hematite and magnetic taconite ores stretching for over 100 miles in length. Iron ore mining in the Mesabi Range involved three major phases: direct shipping ores (1893–1970s), washable ores (1907– 1980s), and taconite (1947–current). Each phase of iron mining used different technologies to extract and process ore. Producing all of this iron yielded a vast landscape of mine waste. This paper uses a historical GIS to illuminate the spatial extent of mining across the Lake Superior Iron District, to locate where low- grade ore processing took place, and to identify how and where waste was produced. Our analysis shows that the technological shift to low-grade ore mining placed new demands on the environment, primarily around processing plants. Direct shipping ore mines produced less mine waste than low-grade ore mines, and this waste was confined to the immediate vicinity of mines themselves. Low-grade ore processing, in contrast, created more dispersed waste landscapes as tailings mobilized from the mines themselves into waterbodies and human communities.”

Vaidya and Mayer Publish a Critical Review of the use of Millennium Development Goals in Nepal

Published October 24, 2016

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Audrey Mayer and Ashma Vaidya, who recently completed her PhD degree requirements in environmental and energy policy, published an article “Critical Review of the Millennium Project in Nepal” in Sustainability 2016, 8(10), 1043; doi:10.3390/su8101043

On the Road: Durfee Travels to Iceland

Published October 14, 2016

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Mary Durfee (SS), participated in the Polar Law Symposium and Arctic Circle held in Akureyri and Reykjavik, Iceland, October 5-9, 2016. She gave a paper, “Free Trade: The Expected Impacts of TTIP and CETA on the Arctic” and chaired a panel devoted to Sovereignty and Its Contestation at the Poles.

G.R.A.C.E Project Featured in National GIS Publication

Published October 6, 2016

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Keweenaw Time Traveler and National Park Service received media attention for their NSF-ITEST GRACE Project collaboration in Directions Magazine, a national GIS periodical. The article, G.R.A.C.E Project team creates ‘time machine’ with GIS, outlines some of the detail of the summer career education program that brought local high school students to work with the KHNP and the Keweenaw Time Traveler team as paid interns.

PhD Research Assistantship Opportunity

Published October 6, 2016

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Energy Conservation PhD Research Assistantships at Michigan Technological University – Drs. Chelsea Schelly and Kathleen Halvorsen seek motivated applicants for two fully funded three-year research assistantship positions available for students pursuing a PhD in Environmental and Energy Policy at Michigan Technological University (MTU).

Students will be involved in a National Science Foundation Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water (NSF INFEWS) funded interdisciplinary research project. The project focuses on understanding and seeking ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through conservation of household-scale food, energy, and water. FEW PhD Position Description-1

Schelly Co-PI on the Project “Reducing Household Food, Energy and Water Consumption: A Quantitative Analysis of Interventions and Impacts of Conservation”

Published September 1, 2016

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Dave Watkins is the principal investigator on a research and development project that has received a $1,477,068 grant from the National Science Foundation. Buyung Agusdinata, Chelsea Schelly, Rachael Shwom and Jenni-Louise Evans are co-PIs on the project, “Reducing Household Food, Energy and Water Consumption: A Quantitative Analysis of Interventions and Impacts of Conservation.”

This project starts on Oct. 1 and is scheduled to finish in 2021.

From Tech Today.

Vaidya Published on the Sustainability of Woody Biomass

Published August 17, 2016

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Ashma Vaidya, who graduated in summer 2016 with a PhD in Environmental and Energy Policy, has published three papers on the sustainability of woody biomass in the UP for bioenergy:

Vaidya A and AL Mayer. 2014. Use of the participatory approach to develop sustainability assessments for natural resource management. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology 21(4):369-379.

Vaidya A and AL Mayer. 2016. Use of multiple criteria analysis to develop a regional assessment tool for bioenergy production. Biomass and Bioenergy 94:1-11.

Vaidya A and AL Mayer. In press. Criteria and indicators for a bioenergy production industry via stakeholder participation. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology. DOI:10.1080/13504509.2015.1135830

Contact Audrey Mayer for reprints.

From Tech Today.

Local High School Students Learn Historical GIS with the Keweenaw Time Traveler Team

Published August 4, 2016

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Careers that incorporate geospatial technologies are among the fastest-growing nationwide. That’s why Michigan Tech and Eastern Michigan University have teamed up on the NSF-funded GRACE Project to introduce high school students to GIS techniques and tools that can be used to tackle community issues.

This summer, eleven students from CLK and Houghton high schools are working as paid interns with researchers in the Department of Social Sciences and the Great Lakes Research Center to help build the Keweenaw Time Traveler, an NEH-funded project directed by Assistant Professor Don Lafreniere (SS). This innovative online historical atlas will allow users to pinpoint data about changes in the built, social, and natural environments of the Copper Country. The students have joined our team of “Time Travelers,” which includes graduate students in the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program as well as undergraduates from departments across Michigan Tech. Together, they are learning to use GIS to identify, digitize, and follow changes in thousands of buildings and features from 1888-1950.

During the six week program, students are exploring the many exciting opportunities provided by mobile geospatial technologies by participating in interactive hands-on field trips, including an afternoon in Lake Linden with Carol MacLennan (SS) exploring the vast milling and processing systems that once studded the western shore of Torch Lake, a related trip on the Agassiz Research Vessel learning about the changing shoreline and water quality, and a day conducting active data collection with mobile tablets and GPS in Calumet to capture the students’ perspectives on how to improve non-motorized transportation in conjunction with the Keweenaw National Historical Park’s Complete Streets initiative. The student interns, who are paid through the GRACE project, will present their work in a final celebration on August 11^th in GLRC 2020. Details forthcoming. The Keweenaw Time Traveler is co-directed by Sarah Fayen Scarlett (SS) and John Arnold (SS)

Category: Research