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Teen Maptivism Through Participatory Mapping
No full textThis paper explores an innovative way to develop geospatial skills in high school students while connecting colleges and universities with future scholars. Using Participatory Mapping, a pilot program was established at two U.S. schools to engage students directly. The program connected students with leaders of geospatial companies, government entities, and non-governmental organizations in learning mapping techniques, ethical issues in mapping and how their involvement contributed to humanitarian efforts. Although much of the effort to increase geospatial awareness in schools has been aimed at educators, increased participation has been a challenge. After establishing the pilot program, this initiative has been expanded to campuses across the United States. The Covid-19 pandemic forced this pilot program to go all virtual, but this proved to be a net-benefit as students were able to participate in the comfort of their homes or classrooms. The next phase of the program also connected students with Geography Departments and geography-related organizations at the college/university level. This student-led organization also aims to serve as a bridge among the geographies and to provide college and career readiness. This paper argues for continued expansion of the program to encourage the next generation of geographers
Renovating the Master’s House: Resistance Through Pedagogy
No full textHigher education in the United States has an illustrious but tarnished history; slave labor built many of our oldest universities and reminders of this systemic oppression is still visible in the operations of contemporary institutions. While many universities today boast of strides toward campus diversity, these efforts are often superficial, leaving most students unchanged and unchallenged. Built upon generations of racial and class disparity, current movements toward diversity may look good on paper, but do little to change foundational university culture. Educator scholars have responded by integrating critical race theory into their pedagogies, demonstrating how, just as community organizers can better their neighborhoods more efficiently than they can change the world, those of us privileged to teach in classrooms must recognize these spaces as places to enact equitable ideals– even while larger institutions have yet to uphold them. My capstone attempts to explore classroom practices that disrupt university inequity. The project consists of a critical essay which examines Marshall University’s own shortcomings as well as broader inequities and develops a specific curriculum which seeks to combat this. Ultimately, my goal for this project is to examine how “high level” university policy affects the classroom, and how individual educators can push against that
Birds of a Feather : Pan-Americanism in FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy and Walt Disney’s Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros
No full textDuring World War II, Franklin Roosevelt’s administration used his Good Neighbor Policy to improve relations with Latin American countries. The policy made use of rhetoric related to the Americas as friends, family, and neighbors to create a sense of Pan-American cooperation against threats outside the Western Hemisphere. To promote the policy, the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs used cultural means, including teaming up with Walt Disney Studios to produce two feature-length and several short films. It was an opportunity for Disney to show his patriotism and to make money for his studio through government contracts. The resulting feature films, Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1943), were Orientalist in their representation of Latin America in order to appeal to American audiences and make Latin America seem like a desirable ally. Both films romanticized and Westernized Latin America to make it seem strange yet familiar and enticing. At the same time, the films provided positive, even if inaccurate or stereotypical, representation to Latino audiences. In the end, the films and the policy were all successful. However, with the end of WWII, Hollywood and the U.S. government quickly abandoned their appeals to Pan-Americanism, leaving many to feel the U.S. never fulfilled its promises of being a good neighbor
Behind the Screens: “Slacktivism” Turned Activism in the Modern Digital Age
No full textSince the beginning of the digital age, there have been questions regarding the efficacy of online activism. Many scholars have labeled the act of merely sharing, liking, or reposting posts about social issues as “slacktivism” — a form of noncommittal activism that they argue functions more to help individuals feel better about themselves, rather than to inspire any actual change or real-world impact. However, this study argues that with the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down most traditional avenues of activism, online activists were able to shed the “slacktivist” label and demonstrate that online activism can lead to consequences that transcend the digital sphere. From the prevention of dissemination of white supremacist ideologies to reserving tickets to a rally with no intention of going, this new age of online activism has shown that the Internet is more than just a tool that can be used to work from home or connect with loved ones from afar, but that activism and social reform must overwhelm every system and tool that has been used to uphold systemic oppression and white supremacist ideologies regardless of the social sphere
What Behaviors and Personality Traits Diminish Perceptions of Attractiveness?
No full textExtensive research has been conducted on the factors that determine whether an individual is perceived as attractive. Researchers have examined the relationship between physical attributes such as body shape, body mass index, facial symmetry, height, skin color, hair length, breast size, chest hair and perceptions of attractiveness (e.g., Choi, Kim, & Pasnak, 2014; Dagnino, Navajas, & Sigman, 2012; Swami, Furnham, & Joshi, 2008). Researchers have also studied the relationship between both positive and negative personality traits (e.g., honesty, intelligence, rudeness, sense of humor, lack of empathy, narcissism, manipulative) and perceptions of attractiveness (e.g., Jonason & Webster, 2010; Lewandowski, 2007; Whitbourne, 2013). The present study will seek to advance our understanding of attractiveness by examining the extent to which behaviors and personality traits that are perceived negatively by society diminish the perceived attractiveness of an individual. Participants will complete an anonymous, online survey and will first provide demographic information (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, relationship status, area type (rural, suburban, urban), religious orientation, open-mindedness when identifying individuals whom they find attractive). Participants will then be asked to imagine there is a man or woman to whom they find themselves extremely attracted and evaluate the extent to which their perceptions of attractiveness would diminish if they were to learn that the man or woman engaged in behaviors or displayed personality traits viewed negatively by society. Analyses will examine gender differences in perceptions of these behaviors and personality traits and identify the behaviors and personality traits associated with the greatest diminishment in perceived attractiveness
Buffalo Creek Disaster and the Culture it Helped Shape
No full textThis paper talks about the Buffalo Creek Disaster and how the survivors and the community tried to build back to some form of normalcy. After reviewing information about the area, we can see how the community has shifted its views and created a culture that is distrustful of outsiders and wary of big corporations. It is a cultural view that is all too common in Appalachia, and Buffalo Creek is one of the first of many to be forced into this mindset. This tragedy and the impact it had on the victims led to the start of a cultural shift in Appalachia. This led to a deep and enriching culture with a strong sense of community, and a group of people that will never forget the disaster that happened in Buffalo Creek
Panel Discussion on Social Determinants of Health
No full textAbstract for Panel Discussion on Social Determinants of Health Tre Hart, MA, Sabel Meadows, MA & Kimberly Vance, MA
There are many health factors that have the potential to impact longevity of life. The World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health Social has defined social determinants of health as characterized by “the conditions in the environment under which people are born, grow, live, work, and age” and “the fundamental drivers of these conditions”. In considering these conditions and the causes of these conditions many factors become of paramount importance. These issues would include factors such as access to housing, educational factors to make competent decisions regarding vaccines, food security, socioeconomic status, access to health care, reliable transportation, access to healthy food, safe housing, neighborhood characteristics, recreational areas, and an intact, healthy social support system. These factors have been shown to have a strong influence on individuals’ health outcomes across the lifespan. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report that social determinants of health can be grouped into five domains, which they identify as “economic stability, education access and quality, healthcare access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social and community context”. We believe that these domains have the ability to shape individuals’ health. We plan to discuss several studies that have culminated or are in the current process. These exploratory studies on participants are based on a variety of health-specific topics that impact individuals on a societal and even global level. The first study is on the rationale behind failure to adhere to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions\u27 guidelines for health promoting behaviors at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Appalachia. The second study is on challenges unhoused individuals in rural Appalachia face on a day-to-day basis that could directly impact their ability to maintain health. The third study is on the relationship of a male’s misperception of their genitals and their socioemotional health. Overall, we find that there exists a systematic disadvantage related to health literacy, ability to access preventative medical and psychiatric care, and individuals’ ability to attain access to basic daily human needs necessary to maintain activities of daily life conducive to healthy living standards. Galea, et al., used a meta-analysis to correlate that the number of deaths inferable to social factors in the United States in 2000 and found that the number of yearly deaths related to cardiac disease and lung cancer were comparable to the number of annual deaths that were directly attributable to low education, lack of social support, and racial segregation. This panel’s fundamental goal is to shed attention to the nature of factors that impact health in our communities
Manga Versus Comics: Clannad’s Transnationalism and Reader-Response Theory
No full textManga and U.S. comics have been around for a long time. However, manga has been taking U.S. comic books by storm. However, manga has been taking over U.S. comic books by storm. It has become an international staple within the United States. Starting in 2019, the discussion of manga’s popularity grew to the extent where videos and articles created discussion. It has led to questions about the involvement of politics in literature and what affects the global market in terms of sales. Globalization and reader-response theory highlights why manga has made its mark within the U.S. and the comic book industry. Destruction becomes necessary within the scope of literature, following the concepts of Roland Barthes and Wolfgang Iser. Using Clannad as the main manga to observe, these theories will discover what makes manga popular. It follows a Japanese high-school boy named Tomoya Okazaki, who is in his third year. He does not take his studies as seriously as his peers, and he goes through his life as normal before he meets a girl named Nagisa Furukawa. Along the way, he meets more people, and his life changes. There is a deeper layer behind how stories are told to an audience
On 2-primitive triangle decompositions of cocktail party graphs
Get PDFA decomposition of a graph Γ is a collection C of subgraphs, perhaps nonisomorphic, that partition the edges of Γ. Analogously, consider a group of truck drivers whose non-overlapping routes jointly cover all of the roads between a set of cities; that is, each road is traversed by precisely one driver. In this scenario, the cities are the vertices of the graph, the roads are the edges between vertices, and the drivers’ routes are the subgraphs in the decomposition. Given a graph H, we call C an H-decomposition of Γ if each subgraph in C is isomorphic to the graph H. Continuing with the previous analogy, this would imply that each truck driver travels a route which is identical in connectivity between neighboring cities, but differs in locale. A subdecomposition of C refers to a nonempty subset of C which partitions the edges of an induced subgraph of Γ, and C is said to be t-primitive when there exist no proper subdecompositions of C containing t or more subgraphs. To visualize this, we consider a scenario in which t of our truck drivers, along with their respective routes, are infected with an illness that spreads to any healthy driver that travels directly between two sick towns. Assuming that an infected driver will infect their entire route, we ask the natural question of whether this illness spreads to the entire collection of drivers and cities, or whether it ends up confined to some subset of them. If any t sick drivers result in universal infection, the highway network which their routes partition is t-primitive. In this work we examine decompositions of cocktail party graphs into triangles. In particular, we establish the existence of 2-primitive triangle decompositions of cocktail party graphs with 6k + 2 vertices for each nonnegative integer k. Coupled with the results of a recent undergraduate capstone, this work completes the classification of when such decompositions exist for all cocktail party graphs
