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Griffin Forestry Intern
No full textThis summer I had the opportunity to intern with Griffin Forestry, a small forestry consulting company that provides consulting services such as forest management planning, timber harvest planning, and drone imagery to Whidbey Island and the North Puget Sound region. My jobsite supervisor prepared a comprehensive curriculum of reading materials, GIS labs, and field work to ensure that this internship would familiarize me with the typical day-to-day experience of a consulting forester. My goals for this internship were to learn how to write a forest management plan, the basics of forest management, conduct a timber cruise, analyze data collected through field work, and create maps to inform forest stewardship actions. I was able to accomplish each of these goals and more; my experience interning with Griffin Forestry was a valuable addition to my environmental studies education
Water Quality Sampling and Metal Transport in a Constructed Wetland Senior Project
No full textWetlands play a vital role in maintaining ecosystem health, especially in urban environments. They help filter runoff from surrounding areas by sequestering contaminants, improving water quality, and providing valuable habitat and green space for wildlife. While natural wetlands form over time through ecological processes, constructed wetlands are humandesigned systems built for specific environmental goals. In this case, the wetland I studied was created to filter stormwater runoff collected from Western Washington University’s south campus parking lots. After flowing into an underground holding tank beneath the tennis courts, the runoff is routed through the wetland via an inlet, where it undergoes natural filtration before eventually reentering the watershed connected to Bellingham Bay
The Outrage at St. John: Fostering Local Consciousness of an Understudied Pacific Northwest Race Riot
No full textThis project took historical research by the author on the 1910 St. Johns Riot, an understudied Pacific Northwest race riot, and attempted to translate it into greater practical consciousness within the community of St. Johns through presentations to students at Roosevelt High School. In 1910, two-hundred White residents in the small town of St. Johns, now an incorporated Portland neighborhood, attacked the small community of Indian immigrant laborers who worked industrial jobs in the town and violently expelled them. One day later, the Indian men returned to St. Johns and opened a unique legal case against their attackers. Most importantly, the riot incited the beginning of an international Indian anticolonial organization called the Ghadar Party, who agitated in India for the end of British Rule. Ghadar leadership included men who had been attacked in St. Johns. The St. Johns Riot, although its aftermath had global effects, has only recently had a revival of interest through the work of Portland scholar Johanna Ogden. My project sought to bring the Ghadar party to the attention of St. Johns community members, and I chose to do so through Roosevelt High School as it serves a wide swath of St. Johns teenagers. I am an alumnus of Roosevelt High School, so my connections there allowed me to reach out to teachers and schedule a series of presentations with Mr. George Bishop’s Social Studies classes. These presentations took place over May 5th and 6th of 2025, assisted by Ms. Lily Grant. Through these presentations, students encountered the topic of the St. Johns Riot for the first time, and subsequently engaged with multiple topics of local and international history. I suggest that building local consciousness of emerging academic research is a highly important endeavor, and an ethos of practical engagement with academic topics may be developed through dialogue between those conducting research and more public venues. Ultimately, these forms of engagement make academic topics more relevant and accessible to those who do not have access nor seek access to academic venues.
[The presentation slides and a document with a link to the video are included as supplementary files.
We’ll Be Okay, Together: An Applied Hope Workshop Guide
No full textThis guide outlines the steps for a workshop on applied hope and community joy, all required non-physical materials, and notes for the facilitator. It is intended to help new facilitators address feelings of hopelessness in their communities due to large-scale crises. To do this, the workshop builds dialogue about reframing individual and community actions by emphasizing individual strengths and the importance of participating in and creating uplifting spaces. The guide includes guidance on setting group norms, building definitions for the two key terms, and an activity called the “Applied Hope Blueprint” which will lead participants through applying their own experiences to this framework, and concludes with goal setting. Through discussion, attendees will have space to analyze their own positive impact on the world and hear about the impacts of others. This will reduce burnout, spur further hope centered conversations, and increase community between attendees. It has a run time of around an hour and a half and is intended for groups of 10-30 participants
The Timber Wars: The Framing of the Spotted Owl Controversy in the Media
No full textThe northern spotted owl is a threatened species that resides in old-growth forest throughout the Pacific Northwest. As the owl\u27s numbers dwindled, the ensuing management debate pitted loggers against environmentalists. While environmentalists argued that exports and mechanization were to blame for timber job losses, loggers alleged that overly stringent regulations threatened their livelihoods. The media fomented this debate by framing it through a conflict lens and interviewing involved interest groups but few independent experts. This study randomly sampled 50 Seattle Times articles from the years 1990-1995 using the keyword search \u27spotted owl.\u27 The resulting mixed-method quantitative and qualitative analysis evaluated types and numbers of sources interviewed for articles, headline bias, and overall framing. This study corroborated previous findings from the literature review, confirming that the media had a pro-timber bias and that few scientists or economists were consulted throughout the coverage. As journalists cover environmental stories, they should consult relevant scientific experts and seek to find solutions rather than foment conflict
The Impact of Gender, Sexuality, and Self-Worth on Gym Anxiety and Avoidance
No full textMany undergraduate college students engage in minimal exercise, preventing their enjoyment of the mental and physical benefits of exercise. This study examined the role of gender identity, sexuality, and self-worth contingencies in promoting gym anxiety, and how these psychological processes may impact people’s gym behavior and intentions. 601 undergraduate students responded to our survey (57.9% cisgender women, 71.5% white, 52.2% heterosexual). Women and LGBTQ+ respondents reported higher levels of both appearance and other’s approval-related gym anxiety, as well as lower levels of gym attendance, gym intentions, and strength-training participation compared to men and heterosexual/cisgender respondents. We found evidence of marginal significance to suggest that being contingent on other people’s approval is associated with stronger gym intentions and more strength-training participation, as long as gym anxiety related to other people’s approval is low. Through exploratory three-way interaction effect tests, we find evidence to suggest that being contingent on appearance may be particularly impactful for men’s gym attendance and intentions. Overall, our findings suggest that gym anxiety impacts both men and women, gym anxiety is related to gym avoidance, and gym anxiety may be moderated by self-worth contingencies, especially for men
Hydrodynamics and residence time in a newly constructed clam garden
No full textSince time immemorial, the Indigenous Peoples of the Salish Sea, British Columbia, and Alaska have thrived in their environment. In these regions, the traditional practice of building clam gardens has been a central means for bivalve harvesting. These gardens are created by a low rock wall built parallel to the shore along the lower edge of the intertidal zone. They create an extended, terraced, and ideal habitat for bivalves (Groesbeck, 2014; Deur, 2015). In the summer of 2022, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community (SITC) constructed a new clam garden to resume their ancestral practice.
In a study that took place in June 2024, we conducted a physical oceanographic field campaign to assess the influence of flow on water properties in the clam garden. We deployed three acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP) in and around the clam garden to compare flow inside the clam garden, directly outside the clam garden, and at an adjacent, unwalled beach. We found that the residence time in the clam garden is double what it is at the unwalled control beach (average 23 minutes and 10 minutes, respectively), water slows down when it enters the clam garden, and bed friction velocity and vertical shear are reduced in the clam garden. We suspect that this combination increases larval recruitment of clams and contributes to increased availability of food and nutrients for clams in the clam garden, thus creating a more favorable habitat. In previous clam garden literature, increased biomass and density of clam populations have been found in clam gardens when compared to unwalled beaches, but the potential hydrodynamic influences on this pattern have not been quantified until now. The results from this study not only further our understanding of hydrodynamics in clam gardens but will also be used by the SITC to inform potential management and growing procedures for clams in their clam garden
WWU MACS Internship
No full textThe main goal of this project is to describe the distribution and abundance of invertebrates throughout the lower Snohomish Estuary during salmon outmigration. To calculate the energy density flow of invertebrate salmon prey, we chose to follow a sampling plan that included collecting water quality and invertebrate samples on ebbing tides from March through June, sorting the samples into major taxa, and using the Ash-Free Dry Weight method to determine energy density at four sites. We then compared invertebrate variability based on site characteristics and explored variation in invertebrate communities across multiple spatial and temporal scales
Vamos Outdoor Project Student Policy Intern
No full textBeginning in January 2025, I began working for Vamos Outdoors Project to assist in implementation of an “Advancing Meaningful Engagement” grant received from the Washington State Department of Commerce. I worked under Vamos leadership team member Julian Medina-Schroeder, a graduate of WWU’s Urban Planning program. Under the grant, Vamos is responsible for creating policy recommendations for the City of Bellingham, City of Everson, and City of Nooksack that respond to existing and proposed policies in the city and represent identified interests of Latine communities in/around each city. During the internship duration, Bellingham released their draft Land Use, Housing, and Community Design chapters. Therefore, I performed analysis and provided recommendations on these chapters using community feedback from workshops held by Vamos, Julian’s existing background knowledge from working with Latine communities through Vamos, and alignment with state legislation. Throughout the course of the internship, I engaged with youth and families both by participating in community workshops and assisting with Vamos’ climbing programming at Vital, Bellingham’s bouldering gym. My internship culminated in a memorandum to planning staff and commissioners at the City of Bellingham, which included specific policy recommendations responsive to draft chapter materials
NSEA Community Partner Internship
No full textCommunity Partnership with Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association