STRATA
STRATA, the STudent Research, Academic, and Talent Archive, is a collection of selected Fort Lewis College student work, including undergraduate research, senior seminar papers, published works, conference presentations, and other creative and artistic projects. Search by name, subject, title, or academic department.
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- Leaf Series 3
- Artwork by Kristina Orlovsky from Fall 2012 - Winter 2013 issue of Images
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- Lepidoptera Larvae as an Indicator of Multi-Trophic Level Responses to Changing Seasonality in an Arctic Tundra Ecosystem
- Earlier snowmelt and warming temperatures in the Arctic will impact multiple trophic levels through the timing and availability of food resources. Lepidoptera are a vital link within the ecosystem; their roles include pollinator, parasitized host for other pollinating insects, and essential food source for migrating birds and their fledglings. Multiple environmental cues including temperature trigger the emergence of Lepidoptera. In response to changes in seasonality, including earlier snowmelt and warming, we expect caterpillar abundance to increase. We determined the abundance of caterpillar larvae in relation to the timing of snowmelt through two approaches: 1) a climate change experiment in which we accelerated snowmelt by 15 days through the use of radiation-absorbing fabric and warmed air and soil temperatures using open-top chambers, individually and in combination and 2) an observational 50 km transect study with 4 sites that naturally vary in the timing of snowmelt. Caterpillar abundance was determined by pitfall traps in all study plots, and we also did visual searches for caterpillars in the climate change experiment. In the climate change experiment, observations began one to three weeks after snowmelt. In the observational study, observations began prior to when study sites were completely snowfree. We characterized caterpillars by skin type (hairy, spiked, or smooth). The animals were examined for braconid wasp and tachinid fly parasites. Where snowmelt was experimentally accelerated and temperatures were warmed, caterpillar abundance was greatest and more were seen earlier in June. Within the transect study, we observed two seasonal peaks in caterpillar abundance. One occurs within two weeks of snowmelt and one occurs four to six weeks following snowmelt at all four sites. In both studies, we found that caterpillars found soon after snowmelt were hairy or spiky, and smooth skinned caterpillars were most abundant later in the season. Proportion of parasitism was up to 54% of the observed animals and was greatest for caterpillars observed visually in the climate change experiment compared to those observed in pitfall traps in the experiment and across the transect. An earlier, warmer Arctic summer will alter the timing of Lepidoptera and pollinator-dependent life cycles, which could then affect food availability for migrating birds and their offspring.
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- Lepidoptera Larvae as an Indicator of Multi-Trophic Level Responses to Changing Seasonality in the Arctic
- Poster presented at 7th Annual Natural & Behavioral Sciences Undergraduate Research Symposium, Fort Lewis College.
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- Letting Down Her Hair: Learning Gender Through Fairy Tales
- Fairy tales are often dismissed as entertainment for children, however, they also serve as educational tools that illustrate both appropriate and inappropriate ways of behaving within a given society. The cultural values expressed in these stories, and the transformation of these values and stories over time, can be examined using the example of the fairy tale Rapunzel. This study compares the gender ideals expressed in three different versions of this tale: the original story published by the Grimm brothers, a version published in 1966, and its most recent adaptation in Disney's animated movie Tangled. Changes over time are explained by examining the historical and cultural context in which each version was produced.
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- Levels of Acceptance, Compassion, and Stereotype Towards Mental Illness
- The goal of this research was to investigate attitudes toward specific mental illnesses: Schizophrenia, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), and Bipolar Disorder. Participants (N=92) viewed one of three cinematic video clips portraying each mental illness and then answered questions designed to measure stereotyping, acceptance, and compassion. Results did not reveal differences in acceptance, compassion, or stereotyping between the three mental illnesses, although ratings of acceptance and compassion were high for all three disorders, suggesting a possible ceiling effect. There was no difference in levels of acceptance or stereotyping between genders. Males responded with higher levels of compassion towards all three mental illnesses than did females.
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- Life on the Fence: The Hidden Power of the "Tragic Mulatto"
- Race is a socially constructed concept born from colonialism and brought to life by the system of slavery and exploitation that followed. It is a concept that is slowly placed in our conscious mind filling us with confidence and self-consciousness in accordance with prevailing narratives about who we are and what we can be. At the moment of our birth we are un-aware that we are Black, White, Native, Mexican, or Asian. We are more preoccupied with the great mystery of our toes and our parent's ability to remove our noses and replace them using some form of dark magic. Race has been the "great organizer," giving a form to our hierarchical social structure and separating each other by space and emotion for as long as this nation has existed. The Sixties brought a revolution on how we thought about race. People of all colors took to the streets to establish a law that says that we cannot be discriminated against in social settings despite what color we may be. We even have a black president, and despite his failures, there would be no possibility for him to be there only thirty years ago.
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- Lighting Up the Future: An in Depth Look Into Quantum Dots and Their Application in Bio-Medical Imaging
- The recent discovery of fluorescent nano-crystals "Quantum Dots" have opened up a entirely new field of research in bio-medical imaging. Because of the semi-conducting nature of these nano-crystals certain properties are observed that conventional organic dyes do not have: resistance to photobleaching, very high quantum yield, and tuneable emission. By integrating this technology into existing procedures, the success of the procedures are amplified exponentially.
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- Lightning Detector and the Study of Sprites
- When lightning strikes it emits very low frequency, 3 kHz to 30 kHz, and extremely low frequency, 3 Hz to 30 Hz, electromagnetic waves that propagate between the ionosphere and the Earth. We will build a single station lightning detector to detect the very low frequency electromagnetic waves. The characteristics of these waves will allow us or future researchers, in principle, to establish the direction and distance to the stroke and whether that particular strike had the correct criteria to initiate a transient luminous event known as a sprite. Sprites are large scale electric discharges that are mainly triggered by positive cloud to ground lightning in an underlying thunderstorm. New research suggests that the charge moment change (changes in the amount of charge built up separated by the distance between the cloud and the ground) in lightning is directly related to the ability of that strike to initiate a sprite. We will build the detector and create a step by step manual to support research into a single station very low frequency detector.
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- Linear Transformations on Torus
- This semester I studied the dynamical system of taking a point in the real plane and sending it down to the torus, which is a 2-dimensional tube. I looked at periodic points of this mapping and showed "and if" and "only if" relation between rational points and periodic points. I then looked at the conditions for chaos of a map that creates a line with an irrational slope.
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- Linearly Inclined Zealots
- We will model a slackline park with graphs. We are modeling the flow of the slackers through the park with Euler Paths. We will show that with certain graphs with n vertices there exist n - 1 unique Euler Paths where no edge of a path coincides, in sequencing, with another edge of any of the remaining n - 2 paths.
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- Little Rags of Thought
- Poem by John Landon from Fall 2012 - Winter 2013 issue of Images.
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- Locus of Control in Relation to Attitudes Toward Gun Laws
- The gun debate has become controversial and prominent in today's society. This study aimed to identify characteristics that determine whether an individual is in favor of gun rights or gun control. Specifically, we wanted to identify whether an internal or external locus of control is a predictor of attitudes toward gun laws. Locus of control refers to the degree to which individuals believe they can control events in their lives. Undergraduate students (N = 70) at Fort Lewis College were administered a survey containing the locus of control scale (Rotter, 1966) and a survey assessing their stance on gun control that was developed for this study. The results indicated that individuals with an external locus of control significantly favor stricter gun laws, while those with an internal locus are more strongly in favor of gun rights. This offers valuable insight into a popular political and cultural debate and the motivating factors for individual attitudes on the issue.