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Teaching Legacies of the Carlisle Indian School
Get PDFThe horrifying news of the discovery of hundreds of graves of children at Native American boarding schools in Canada has a contemporary companion: the tears of Latinx kids on the border in the summer of 2018 (Kelly 2018). You may recognize these voices as those of the immigrant children who were separated from their parents upon crossing the US/Mexico border in the summer of 2018. I’d like you to juxtapose them with any of the thousands of Native American children separated from their parents and forced to attend US-run boarding schools in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A different time and different languages, indeed. But the emotion is likely the same: the fear and desperation of dark-skinned children forced to live in the crossroads of US colonization. To highlight this connection I share my experiences teaching a class on boarding schools, which I believe is one effective response to today’s encounters with colonialism. Although I have always included some boarding school material in my Native American Literature survey class at West Virginia University, in the fall of 2019 I had the opportunity to design a one-credit Native American class entitled “Carlisle Indian School Legacies.” As a one-credit course focused on the experience of visiting Carlisle, it was less involved than a normal three-credit class. Therefore I share here some of the literature and assignments I plan to use when teaching a larger version of this course
A Christian World System: Christian Identity and Indigenous Agency in Spanish America, 1521–1810
No full textThis thesis presents the Spanish Empire as seeking to spread a Christian world system - Christendom on a universal scale. By focusing on Spanish America, this thesis seeks to give evidence that a new Christendom was being established in America, one which was sustained through the collection of ecclesiastical revenues. This approach is taken in order to analyze the identities which were forged by the individuals who participated and who were transformed by this empire. Specifically, I focus on the Indigenous and their mixed raced descendants, the castas. Rather than portraying them as passive figures, I seek to give them agency by presenting them as active figures who actively participated within this Christian world system. Through their active participation, a Christian identity was able to be forged. A Christian identity which was not a carbon copy of the Spaniards, but one which was uniquely theirs. Through this Christian identity the Indigenous and their mixed raced descendants were able to blur the lines between who were the conquerors and who were the conquered. This would result in the Indigenous and their mixed raced descendants transforming the Christian world system, from a system which was of European origins, to a system that became distinctly American
Measuring Accessibility for Pedestrians, Bicyclists, and Transit Riders to Grocery Stores in the Excelsior/Outer Mission Neighborhoods of San Francisco
Get PDFGrocery stores are an important amenity in neighborhoods and access to grocery stores is important for health and well-being. While grocery store accessibility is a popular topic of research, studies measuring access for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders are extremely rare. When a new store opened in the Excelsior/Outer Mission districts of San Francisco on a street lacking basic infrastructure for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders, the importance of this study became apparent. The Excelsior/Outer Mission neighborhood has a shocking number of collisions (over 1,100 between 2015 and 2019), elevated levels of walking, biking, and transit ridership, and minimal safe infrastructure for these modes compared to other residential areas in San Francisco. To account for the effects of these conditions on accessibility, a rating system to measure infrastructure for users was used in addition to the more traditional gravity model.
Combining results into a composite accessibility score highlights how using only a gravity model to measure accessibility may conceal some of the nuances of accessibility as perceived by pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders. While it appears from gravity indices that stores in the Excelsior/Outer Mission are only slightly less accessible, the sensitivity analysis shows that infrastructure can have a large effect on overall accessibility. Specifically in the Excelsior/Outer Mission neighborhood, with its rather low infrastructure scores, the higher the weight attributed to the importance of infrastructure the lower is composite accessibility.
Rather than measuring accessibility using only travel time via a gravity model or other spatial model, this study shows the importance of combining physical proximity measurements with infrastructure information to provide a more complete picture. This is particularly important for those walking, biking, or riding transit where safety is an important consideration. This study provides one such way to include the unique considerations of pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders by including an infrastructure scoring system. Not only does this highlight the importance of including infrastructure measures, but it provides a framework for future infrastructure improvements around stores
A Fresh Look at a University Website: Redesigning the Graphic Communication Website
Get PDFDesigned over ten years ago, the landing page of the Graphic Communication website does not reflect the artistic talents of the department and exhibits poor navigation and usability. Colleen Twomey, the department chair, has expressed that prospective students, transfers, guardians, and other visitors have trouble finding relevant information on the website. As a university-affiliated site, the landing page should guide both new and returning visitors to their destination in a quick and intuitive manner. The primary goal of this project is to effectively educate new visitors who are interested in the Graphic Communication program but have minimal knowledge of what the program is. By combining hierarchy with visual aesthetics, the redesigned landing page will allow users to clearly and smoothly navigate the website based on their selected audience segment
Deep Ocean Vehicle (DOV) Scientific Payload
Get PDFThis report aims to provide technical insight into the Deep Ocean Vehicle project performed by the Barrel Eye Explorers. The project was a part of the 2021-2022 Interdisciplinary Senior Project class at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The team consisted of Nikki Arm, Mason Gariepy, Brianna Roberts, and Kyle Walsh who were engineering students in the Mechanical, Materials, General, and Industrial engineering departments, respectively. This project was sponsored by Dr. Crow White and overseen by Karla Carichner
Low-Cost UAV Swarm for Real-Time Object Detection Applications
Get PDFWith unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, becoming readily available and affordable, applications for these devices have grown immensely. One type of application is the use of drones to fly over large areas and detect desired entities. For example, a swarm of drones could detect marine creatures near the surface of the ocean and provide users the location and type of animal found. However, even with the reduction in cost of drone technology, such applications result costly due to the use of custom hardware with built-in advanced capabilities. Therefore, the focus of this thesis is to compile an easily customizable, low-cost drone design with the necessary hardware for autonomous behavior, swarm coordination, and on-board object detection capabilities. Additionally, this thesis outlines the necessary network architecture to handle the interconnection and bandwidth requirements of the drone swarm.
The drone on-board system uses a PixHawk 4 flight controller to handle flight mechanics, a Raspberry Pi 4 as a companion computer for general-purpose computing power, and a NVIDIA Jetson Nano Developer Kit to perform object detection in real-time. The implemented network follows the 802.11s standard for multi-hop communications with the HWMP routing protocol. This topology allows drones to forward packets through the network, significantly extending the flight range of the swarm. Our experiments show that the selected hardware and implemented network can provide direct point-to-point communications at a range of up to 1000 feet, with extended range possible through message forwarding. The network also provides sufficient bandwidth for bandwidth intensive data such as live video streams. With an expected flight time of about 17 minutes, the proposed design offers a low-cost drone swarm solution for mid-range aerial surveillance applications
The Role of Psychotherapy in Effective Integration of Spiritually Transformative Experiences
Get PDFBuilding upon the rich literature in the discipline of spiritually transformative experiences (STE) studies, this paper examined the role of psychotherapy in facilitating the integration of STE narratives. STEs are broadly defined as a discrete experience of an altered state of consciousness that brings about a profound transformation in the spiritual identity and life expression of the experiencer (Brook 2017). STEs include near death experiences, mystical experiences, spiritual energy or kundalini awakenings, diverse psychic experiences, and inspired creativity (Kason 1994). Current psychological frameworks, theories, and interventions for STE integration were reviewed. Additionally, one clinician registered with the American Center for Integration of Spiritually Transformative Experiences (ACISTE) was interviewed to determine the most effective therapeutic approaches with this population . It is hoped that the results of this research will bring awareness to the mental health field about the importance of tailored treatment plans for STEs and highlight the role therapists can play in integrating profound spiritual maturation in these individuals
Prehistoric Subsistence Strategies on the Pecho Coast: An Experimental Collection of California Mussels and Turban Snails
Get PDFShellfish exploitation by ancient Indigenous people can be observed in archaeological assemblages from shellfish middens throughout California (Erlandson 1988; Glassow 1992; Kennett 2005; Kennedy 2005; Whitaker 2008). Indigenous Californians relied upon the resources from open rocky coast ecosystems as early as 9,000 years BP, yet archaeological researchers continue to debate the actual dietary value of and energy required for procurement of such shellfish (Erlandson 1988; Jones 2003; Jones and Richman 1995). In order to discern the costs and benefits associated with shellfish exploitation, researchers have conducted archaeological experiments to try to replicate prehistoric shellfish foraging. The empirical data produced from experimental archaeology yields predictive models for the optimal diet of foragers, which can then be compared to data acquired from archaeological excavations to predict past ecological and social circumstances (Jones 2003; Kennett 2005; Whitaker 2008). For this project, I conducted a shellfish collection experiment at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant harbor in San Luis Obispo to determine the energetics involved in the exploitation of California mussels, Mytilus californianus, and turban snails, Tegula funebralis
Teaching Intro to Web Development with React
Get PDFThroughout the years, the field of computer science has increasingly become in demand and it is projected that in the next decade, job prospects are expected to grow much faster than the average rate for all occupations. With the reliance of technology in our daily lives and technology always evolving, the need for professionals with backgrounds in computer Science has risen dramatically. One of the things that we as educators can do to bridge this gap is to introduce students to web development at the beginning of their college career to get more students interested in the field of computer science
Detection Methods, Occupancy Rates, Management and Conservation for Rodents
Get PDFChapter 1. Species’ occurrences are dependent on a variety of habitat characteristics, including physical landscape factors and anthropogenic land use and change. Understanding the influence of habitat attributes on species occurrence is essential to successful wildlife and habitat management, specifically in areas with active human use. We tested the influence of vegetation alliance, fragmentation, and human recreation in the form of off-highway vehicles (OHV) in an area of active land management in coastal California, with a focus on the occurrences of six small mammal species. The area is composed of sand dunes subject to natural habitat fragmentation. OHV recreation occurs around a portion of the habitat fragments, but not within the fragments. We used model selection and model averaging on single season occupancy models in program R to compare probability of occupancy across three habitat attributes: vegetation alliance (two states), fragmentation (present – absent), and recreation (present – absent). Vegetation alliance was the best predicter of occupancy for Dipodomys heermanni, Peromyscus maniculatus, Peromyscuscalifornicus, and Neotoma macrotis. Fragmentation influenced occupancy for three species, conferring a positive effect for N. macrotis and Microtus californicus, and a negative effect for Chaetodipus californicus. Only two species showed a response in occupancy to recreation, N. macrotis and M. californicus, but the responses showed an increase in occupancy in habitat surrounded by OHV use. Occupancy for the three remaining species (D. heermanni, P. maniculatus, P. californicus,) was not impacted by fragmentation or recreation. The response to fragmentation is larger than the response to OHV recreation. Taken together, these results indicate that direct management of dominant vegetation and habitat fragmentation will have more of an impact on occupancy than the direct management of OHV recreation, except where recreation contributes indirectly to fragmentation.
Chapter 2. Determining best methods to detect individuals and monitor populations that balance effort and efficiency can assist conservation and land management. This may be especially true for small, non-charismatic species, such as rodents (Rodentia), which comprise \u3e40% of all mammal species. Given the importance of rodents to ecosystems, and the number of listed species, we tested two commonly used detection and monitoring methods, live traps and camera traps, to determine their efficiency in rodents. An artificial-intelligence machine-learning model was developed to process the camera trap images and identify the species within them which reduced camera trapping effort. We used occupancy models to compare probability of detection and occupancy estimates for six rodent species across the two methods. Camera traps yielded greater detection probability and occupancy estimates for all six species. Live trapping yielded biasedly low estimates of occupancy, required greater effort, and had a lower probability of detection. Camera traps, aimed at the ground to capture the dorsal view of an individual, combined with machine learning provided a practical, non-invasive, and low effort solution to detecting and monitoring rodents. Thus, camera trapping with A.I. is a more sustainable and practical solution for the conservation and land management of rodents.
Chapter 3. One third of missing mammal species thought to be extinct have been rediscovered as extant. Therefore, determining extinction correctly, without misinterpreting negative evidence, is difficult and takes a large amount of effort, especially for small, cryptic species. The Morro Bay kangaroo rat (MBKR), Dipodomys heermanni morroensis, is a small nocturnal rodent that has not been detected since 1986 and is suspected of being extinct. While numerous surveys have been done, additional work is still needed to determine if the subspecies is truly extinct. This work summarizes a survey of the Morro Bay sandspit, an area not previously considered part of its range but that has the potential to be occupied by the subspecies, given habitat characteristics of its closest subspecies. Inferences from the closest relative, Dipodomys heermanni arenae, were used to inform surveys and detection probability for D. h. morroensis. Visual surveys in areas with greatest probability of detecting sign (burrows, bipedal prints, tail drags, etc.) were carried out and yielded only a few occurrences of possible sign. Camera traps, which provide an efficient, accurate, and precise detection method, were deployed both in winter and summer at locations with possible sign but yielded no detection of MBKR. Combining our survey results with inference from Dipodomys heermanni arenae, the possibility that individuals are present on the sandspit but were undetected by cameras is extremely low. We conclude that the MBKR is not present on the Morro Bay sandspit, at least not in the habitat where its presence was most likely to be detected