Research Archives | Page 9 of 27 | Social Sciences Newsblog

Students Create Web Map using GIS

Published August 21, 2018

Student interns from Calumet and Houghton High Schools, under the guidance of Don Lafreniere (SS/GLRC), Ryan Williams (GISP/GLRC) and students from the Department of Social Sciences, recently launched a new WebGIS for the Calumet and Laurium region. The map can be found at calumetmap.com.

The WebGIS is the beginning of a multi-year partnership between many local organizations including Michigan Tech Social Sciences, the Geospatial Research Facility, Western Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Region (WUPPDR), Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance (KEDA) and local municipalities to create a regional geographic information system (GIS) for local planning, economic development, heritage management, tourism and health promotion.

The WebGIS is an output of the NSF-funded Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers, “GRACE- GIS Resources and Applications for Career Education” project. GRACE is a multi-institution collaboration to bring GIS technologies to Michigan’s high school educators and intensive community-based internship experiences to high school students.

More about the GRACE project at Michigan Tech can be found in Unscripted.

On the Road

Published July 30, 2018

By Heather Powers

Angie Carter presented at the Rural Sociological Society annual meeting in Portland, Oregon on July 27 and July 28th.

Carter also presented “Photovoice and Community Development: Women in Agriculture and the Transformation of Rural Spaces,” with her collaborator Claudia M. Prado-Meza (Universidad de Colima) and facilitated a panel “Putting the Sociological Imagination into Practice: Place, Power, and Praxis” with collaborators Ahna Kruzic (Pesticide Action Network North America,Oakland, California) and Gabrielle Roesch-McNally (USFS Pacific Northwest Research Station, Corvallis, Oregon).

She also took part in a book reading and author talk about activism on July 30th at the Corvallis Public Library in Corvallis, Oregon with co-authors Kruzic and Roesch-McNally. Carter read her essay, “Homecoming,” about Iowans’ resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline, included in the recently published edited volume “We Rise to Resist: Voices from a New Era in Women’s Political Action” (McFarland 2018).

In Print

Published June 25, 2018

By Heather Powers

Barry Solomon (SS Emeritus) and Adam Wellstead (SS) co-authored “Shooting for Perfection: Hawaii’s Goal of 100% Renewable Energy Use” in Case Studies in the Environment.

Wellstead on Policy Mechanisms

Published June 13, 2018

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Adam Wellstead co-authored “Policy Mechanisms” in the Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance.

Pischke Co-Authors Article on Transdisciplinary Research

Published April 24, 2018

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Erin Pischke is one of the authors of the article, “Practicing what we preach: Reflections on the pros and cons of transdisciplinary research in Erongarícuaro, Mexico”. Revista Vínculos, Inicio 3(1).

ABSTRACT:
In November 2016, a group of students from the Americas participated
in an Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research funded
two-week course organized by professors from the National
Autonomous University of Mexico. The aim was to teach students and
young researchers how to collaborate with non-scientists to conduct
socioecological systems research in a transdisciplinary manner. This
article will review the benefits as well as the challenges to doing so.
It concludes with recommendations that other research teams can
follow when conducting similar research that crosses disciplinary and
international borders.

Schelly and Winkler Take Part in Community Solar Effort

Published April 24, 2018

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Chelsea Schelly and Richelle Winkler are part of the team looking at community solar in the villages of L’Anse and Baraga. The project is aimed at increasing low-to-moderate income household access to the benefits of rural public power community solar programs. For more information on this, read DEED grant spurs community solar effort in Upper Peninsula on the American Public Power Association website.

Robins Publishes Article on Alcohol and Oil Palm Destruction in Colonial Ghana

Published March 30, 2018

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Jonathan Robins’ article “”Imbibing the Lesson of Defiance”: Oil Palms and Alcohol in Colonial Ghana, 1900-1940″ in the journal Environmental History, Volume 23, Issue 2, 1 April 2018, Pages 293–317, https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emx135

Pischke, Rouleau, and Halvorsen Article: Public Perceptions Towards Oil Palm Cultivation in Tabasco, Mexico

Published March 23, 2018

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Erin Pischke, Mark Rouleau, and Kathy Halvorsen recently published “Public perceptions towards oil palm cultivation in Tabasco, Mexico” in the journal Biomass and Bioenergy, 112, 1-10.

Pischke, Solomon, and Wellstead Publish on U.S. Climate Change Policy in the Pan-American Context

Published March 7, 2018

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Erin Pischke (SS PhD graduate/Post Doc), Barry Solomon (SS Emeritus) and Adam Wellstead (SS) recently published “A Historical Analysis of US Climate Change Policy in the Pan-American Context” in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.

New Funding for a Study on Public Power Utilities and Solar Energy Access

Published February 28, 2018

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A $63,000 grant provided by the American Public Power Association’s (APPA) Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Development (DEED) program will allow researchers from Michigan Tech University and the Western Upper Peninsula Planning & Development Region (WUPPDR) “identify strategies to help public power utilities provide their customers access to solar energy” in the Villages of Baraga and L’Anse according to the story by UPMatters.com published on February 22, 2018. The research team includes Chelsea Schelly (MTU), Brad Barnette (WUPPDR), Bob Lafave (Village of L’Anse/MTU), Emily Prehoda (MTU), Roman Sidortsov (MTU), and Richelle Winkler (MTU).

Click here to read the full story.

Category: Research