California State University, Monterey Bay
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Benefits of Using the Montessori Method to Teach Literacy to TK-2
Get PDFThe focus of this senior capstone is to examine the benefits of using the Montessori method to teach literacy to TK-2 grade children. This encompasses children ranging from ages four to eight. Through the use of literature review on how the Montessori method developed, reviews of records, and interviews with Montessori professionals, the result findings indicate that the use of the Montessori method to teach literacy does indeed benefit TK-2 children. In addition, children educated in the Montessori method have a deeper understanding of literacy and possess the knowledge and skills of reading and writing when introducing the concepts of print to them than those taught in traditional methods
Mesopredator Occupancy and Passerine Richness Along an Urbanization Gradient in Central Coastal California
Get PDFAs anthropogenic activity such as urbanization and agriculture destroys and fragments wildlife habitat, some patches may grow too small or isolated to support apex predators, which may allow mesopredator populations to flourish in the absence of predation and competition pressure. In areas where mesopredator occupancy is high, increased predation pressure may be placed on mesopredator prey species such as songbirds, which are already experiencing declines due to habitat loss. Here I used camera traps to collect occupancy data of the region’s most commonly occurring apex predators (coyotes) and three mesopredator species (bobcats, gray foxes, and domestic cats) at 35 sites along an urbanization gradient prominently featuring agriculture in California’s Salinas Valley, and I conducted avian point counts to estimate passerine richness at 70 sites along the same gradient. I evaluated the influence of apex predators on mesopredators with single-season occupancy models, and I assessed the potential impact of mesopredators on passerine richness with Random Forest regression analysis. Gray foxes displayed a strong negative relationship with coyote activity and a strong positive relationship with mountain lion presence, while coyotes were negatively associated with mountain lions. Distance to wildland patches was the top predictor for both felid species, neither of which were notably impacted by coyotes. While natural landscape and topography predictors had the greatest explanatory power for passerine richness, domestic cat activity also had a notable adverse effect on passerines, with more explanatory power than all other carnivore and human-related metrics. Agricultural metrics typically displayed only moderate or weak predictive power in all models despite having higher carnivore and passerine richness than all other landscape classes, suggesting that there is greater complexity to how wildlife use agricultural habitat than I captured in this study
Growing Leaders: Empowering Youth Through Enhanced FFA Programs
Get PDFThe focus of this Capstone Project is on the benefits of an FFA program and how it could be improved. This is an important issue for current and future FFA students because the program is a basis for future leaders in the industry. An argument is made that students who join their high school FFA program will gain tools and experiences they will use throughout the rest of their lives. The primary stakeholder perspectives chosen were previous and current FFA students because they have not only been through the program but are reaping its benefits in their current lives. Three themes emerged from an analysis of the data and were explored as ways to address the issue presented. Based on an analysis of the interviews and the relevant research literature, the researcher used what they learned to formulate an action that responded in a way that inspires, informs, or involves a particular audience
If Stress Is the Lock Is Communication the Key
Get PDFThe focus of this Capstone Project was meant to analyze the possible issues high school student-athletes may face academically as well as mentally while in school. This issue is important to note because there is an increase in students participating in sports and the offered school support should reflect the growing population. An argument that was found was the possible overlook of the mental well-being of the student-athletes if they are academically succeeding or are accomplished athletes. The primary stakeholders perspectives chosen were current high school student-athletes because they are able to provide insight into the current issues that student-athletes face. Three themes emerged from an analysis of the data: 1) Providing student-athletes with tutors, study programs, and other resources for academic support. 2) Seasonal mental health and time management training for teachers. 3) The creation of an online platform where teachers and coaches can keep track of the student\u27s grades, homework, tests, and schedules. Three action options have suggested the creation of an online platform for the streamlining of communication between teachers, coaches, and students. is argued to be the most effective way to achieve the goals of supporting high school student-athletes
Landscape transcriptomics as a tool for addressing global change effects across diverse species
Get PDFLandscape transcriptomics is an emerging field studying how genome-wide expression patterns reflect dynamic landscape-scale environmental drivers, including habitat, weather, climate, and contaminants, and the subsequent effects on organismal function. This field is benefitting from advancing and increasingly accessible molecular technologies, which in turn are allowing the necessary characterization of transcriptomes from wild individuals distributed across natural landscapes. This research is especially important given the rapid pace of anthropogenic environmental change and potential impacts that span levels of biological organization. We discuss three major themes in landscape transcriptomic research: connecting transcriptome variation across landscapes to environmental variation, generating and testing hypotheses about the mechanisms and evolution of transcriptomic responses to the environment, and applying this knowledge to species conservation and management. We discuss challenges associated with this approach and suggest potential solutions. We conclude that landscape transcriptomics has great promise for addressing fundamental questions in organismal biology, ecology, and evolution, while providing tools needed for conservation and management of species
The Coral Bleaching Automated Stress System (CBASS): A low‐cost, portable system for standardized empirical assessments of coral thermal limits
Get PDFOcean warming is increasingly affecting marine ecosystems across the globe. Reef-building corals are particularly affected by warming, with mass bleaching events increasing in frequency and leading to widespread coral mortality. Yet, some corals can resist or recover from bleaching better than others. Such variability in thermal resilience could be critical to reef persistence; however, the scientific community lacks standardized diagnostic approaches to rapidly and comparatively assess coral thermal vulnerability prior to bleaching events. We present the Coral Bleaching Automated Stress System (CBASS) as a low-cost, open-source, field-portable experimental system for rapid empirical assessment of coral thermal thresholds using standardized temperature stress profiles and diagnostics. The CBASS consists of four or eight flow-through experimental aquaria with independent water masses, lighting, and individual automated temperature controls capable of delivering custom modulating thermal profiles. The CBASS is used to conduct daily thermal stress exposures that typically include 3-h temperature ramps to multiple target temperatures, a 3-h hold period at the target temperatures, and a 1-h ramp back down to ambient temperature, followed by an overnight recovery period. This mimics shallow water temperature profiles observed in coral reefs and prompts a rapid acute heat stress response that can serve as a diagnostic tool to identify putative thermotolerant corals for in-depth assessments of adaptation mechanisms, targeted conservation, and possible use in restoration efforts. The CBASS is deployable within hours and can assay up to 40 coral fragments/aquaria/day, enabling high-throughput, rapid determination of thermal thresholds for individual genotypes, populations, species, and sites using a standardized experimental framework
Prediction of strawberry yield based on receptacle detection and Bayesian inference
Get PDFThe receptacle of strawberry is a more direct part than the flower for predicting yield as they eventually become fruits. Thus, we tried to predict the yield by combining an AI technique for receptacle detection in images and statistical analysis on the relationship between the number of receptacles detected and the strawberry yield over a period of time. Five major cultivars were cultivated to consider the cultivar characteristics and environmental factors for two years were collected to consider the climate difference. Faster R–CNN based object detector was used to estimate the number of receptacles per strawberry plant in given two-dimensional images, which achieved a mAP of 0.6587 for our dataset. However, not all receptacles appear on the two-dimensional images, and Bayesian analysis was used to model the uncertainty associated with the number of receptacles missed by the AI. After estimating the probability of fruiting per receptacle, prediction models for the total strawberry yield at the end of harvest season were evaluated. Even though the detection accuracy was not perfect, the results indicated that counting the receptacles by object detection and estimating the probability of fruiting per receptacle by Bayesian modeling are more useful for predicting the total yield per plant than knowing its cumulative yield during the first month
Resting Blood Pressure in Master Athletes: Immune from Hypertension?
Get PDFAgeing is associated with decreased physical activity, obesity and increased risk of hypertension (HTN). Master athletes (MA) have either pursued a physically active lifestyle throughout their life or initiated exercise or sport later in life. We assessed resting blood pressure (BP) in male and female World Masters Games (WMG) athletes. This was a cross-sectional, observational study which utilized an online survey to assess the blood pressure (BP) and other physiological parameters. Results: a total of 2793 participants were involved in this study. Key findings included differences between genders with males reporting higher resting SBP (+9.4%, \u3c 0.001), resting DBP (+5.9%, \u3c 0.001) and mean arterial pressure (+6.2%, \u3c 0.001). Significant differences ( \u3c 0.001) were also identified when comparing WMG athletes\u27 resting BP results (genders combined) to the general Australian population with WMG athletes having a lower SBP ( \u3c 0.001, -8.4%) and DBP ( \u3c 0.001, -3.6%). Additionally, 19.9% of males and 49.7% of female WMG participants were normotensive whereas 35.7% of the general Australian population were normotensive. Only 8.1% of the WMG athletes (genders combined) were found to be HTN compared to 17.2% in the general Australian population. These findings reflect a low prevalence of HTN in WMG participants and support our hypothesis of a low prevalence of HTN in an active, but aged cohort of MA
Compatibility of Biological Control and Pesticides Mediated by Arthropod Movement Behavior and Field Spatial Scale
Get PDFIntegrated pest management programs frequently rely on a combination of pesticide use with cultural controls such as diversifying agroecosystems to control pest populations. Selective pesticides can impose both lethal and sublethal effects on natural enemies. However, understanding the compatibility of pesticide use with biological control strategies is critical for pest management success. The population dynamics of natural enemies subjected to the effects of pesticides, especially those that experience sublethal effects, is critical to this understanding. Although lethal effects of pesticides on natural enemies are well-studied, sublethal effects of pesticide exposure such as the impact on natural enemy movement is less well understood – especially across different habitat spatial scales. We present a simulation model using coupled partial differential equations to explore the sublethal effects of pesticide use, via reduced predator movement, on pest suppression across a gradient of farm spatial scales. Using a beetle-aphid model system, we find that in small fields, increased abundance of natural enemies can reduce the need for pesticide sprays. However, in mid-sized fields, we find that impaired predator mobility caused by pesticide sprays has a negative impact on biological control by the natural predator community. We also demonstrate how timing of predator introduction to a field can complement timing of pesticide sprays. We discuss the implications of these results for biological control planning and implementation
Taxonomic Analysis of Video Game Instrument Usages
Get PDFThis paper seeks to break down into categories the various ways in which video games utilize instruments and to determine the musicality of these interactions