May 3, 2024 | Digital Showcase | Humboldt Library
All Presenters & Abstracts
Boundaries in Death: Deviant Burials and Mortuary Practices of Slavic Cultural Origin
Presentation Year: 2023
Rowan
Vespia
Anthropology
The goal of this presentation is to analyze the ways in which beliefs surrounding death and mortuary practices were changed in the Medieval period by the introduction of Christianity to Slavic cultures– focusing primarily on Poland and atypical burials. I have a poster and power point recorded presentation available.
Buddy Bench and Buddy Squad Programs
Presentation Year: 2023
Maddie
Pyles
Social Work
Many students continually still face with adverse mental and social-emotional health around school educations today. The buddy bench and buddy squad programs address adverse mental and social-emotional health for pre-k to fifth-grade students (e.g., depression, anxiety, stigma, shyness, coping skills, bullying, loneliness, and social isolation). Both of the programs help with positive mental and social-emotional support, creating new friendships, building social skills (e.g., problem-solving, conflict resolution, and other coping skills), and fostering students’ community. Both of the programs are excellent ways to promote positive outreach for every school.
Burnout Syndrome an Occupational Hazard for Nurses
Presentation Year: 2023
Erika
Sterling
School of Applied Health
Burnout syndrome is an occupational hazard that can affect healthcare professionals, especially bedside nurses that work in a hospital setting. It is comprised of three main components; emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced professional efficacy. It occurs when healthcare workers experience chronic stress. It can lead to mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and PTSD. It negatively affects patient outcomes and patient satisfaction. It also increases nurse turnover which results in understaffing, therefore affecting patient safety. Improving working conditions for nurses, education and quality leadership will help decrease the prevalence of burnout syndrome.
Cal Poly Humboldt 3D Digital Herbarium
Presentation Year: 2023
AJ
Bealum
Computer Science
The Cal Poly Humboldt 3D Digital Herbarium improves upon current digital herbaria by incorporating 3D models of flora in addition to images of specimens from physical herbariums. These annotated models in addition to a social component implemented with the integration of iNaturalist make for the most immersive, fun and memorable experience of any digital herbarium out there.
Climate, Competition, and Cavity-nesters, oh my!
Presentation Year: 2023
Kellie
Crouch
Wildlife
Fluctuations in climate variables, such as temperature and precipitation, have the ability to negatively influence the breeding success of birds. This study aimed to determine how these factors impact the breeding success of cavity-nesting songbirds in California. In order to do this, I analyzed relationships between nest box data from the California Bluebird Recovery Program and climate data from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Community Brochure for Open Door Community Health Centers
Presentation Year: 2023
Andrea
Jones
Social Work
My research focuses on community access to cultural and crisis resources, through networking with community health centers. My brochure will help reach a boarder population throughout Humboldt and Del Norte counties on educating and advocating for families about health services offered at their local clinic site. While Open Door struggles to retain staff, and providers, its important for the community to have additional access to other resources that are not quite at capacity. This will support small organizations that focus on cultural and diverse practices, as well as acknowledge Indigenous people by having others support and give back through their honor tax.
Community Youth Center Capacity Building
Presentation Year: 2023
John
Evans
Social Work
Dream Quest (DQ) is a youth center in Willow Creek, CA that provides positive youth development opportunities to the communities of Eastern Humboldt County and Western Trinity County. DQ is currently planning for an expansion into a new purpose built building which will extend DQ’s capacity to positively impact the community. Along with facilities expansion, DQ is planning to expand the capacity of its staff and programming, including the continual improvement of youth outcomes. DQ requested my assistance to collaborate in an effort to uncover knowledge around program evaluation and the experience of families involved with DQ.
Comparing Passerine Presence in an Urban College Town to a Nearby Rural Marsh Sanctuary
Presentation Year: 2023
Jocelyn
Lucente
Wildlife
With an ever-increasing push for urbanization, it is necessary to monitor the passerine's ability to tolerate increased anthropogenesis and ensure their persistence among changing habitats. Arcata, California is home to both a lively college campus (CPH) and a restored wildlife sanctuary (AMWS), offering ideally contrasting study sites to sample at. In order to determine if urbanization is affecting the birds’ occupancy, I will conduct a total of 30 point-counts at 15 urban and 15 rural sites to compare the number of individual passerines across land types. I hypothesize to detect a higher abundance of passerines throughout the rural settings.
Comparing Salamander Activity Through Temperature Humidity and Rain
Presentation Year: 2023
William
Jones
Wildlife
In this project I measured changes in the level of salamander activity based upon the local temperature, humidity, and the presence of rain in the Arcata community forest behind Cal. Poly. Humboldt.
Connecting Communities: Education and Resources for Humboldt County, California
Presentation Year: 2023
Joseph
Meihak
Wildlife
We created a website to promote ethical awareness and responsibility among the Cal Poly Humboldt community. The recent housing decisions have raised ethical concerns, and our website offers resources for housing, transportation, mental health, and local community services. We believe that these issues, such as food and housing insecurities and environmental impacts like pollution and resource scarcity, are interconnected. Our website aims to provide necessary resources to help address these issues and promote environmental consciousness.
Cultural Fire Behavior and Effects on Hazel Shrubs
Presentation Year: 2023
Thomas
Paulson
Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management
Prescribed fire is a widely used land management technique that accomplishes
many important cultural and ecological benefits to people and wildlife. Since 1935,
wildfires have been suppressed and prescribed fires have been largely removed from
the landscape. This has led to the loss of important cultural practices conducted by
tribes in the Klamath Mountains. Prescribed fire is particularly useful for producing
hazel plants that are optimal for basket weaving material used by the Karuk tribe. The goal of this study is to develop an allometric equation to
quantify the relationship between hazel height and basal diameter and look into fire effects interactions with hazel.
Culturally-Relevant End of Life Care in Humboldt County
Presentation Year: 2023
Chandler
Macik
Social Work
The purpose of our community project is to explore and assess whether any formalized local Indigenous palliative & hospice care services and resources exist in Humboldt County. Research was conducted to gauge the availability and accessibility of culturally-relevant end of life care services.
Destigmatizing Care In Pregnant People with Substance Use Disorder
Presentation Year: 2023
Nicky
Edwards
School of Applied Health
Pregnant people and families with substance use disorder who receive care at local rural clinics and hospitals need more recovery resources. Community nurses can assist by educating parents and families about proper Narcan use and first aid. Public health departments can assist by utilizing a collaborative referral system for additional resources. Physicians can be educated about compassionate care practices in communicating with patients. These interventions will lead to goals of pregnant people feeling safe seeking support from their providers, fewer newborns experiencing withdrawal symptoms, and less children being placed with child protective services thus keeping families together.
DETERMINE THE EFFECTS OF HIGH-INCLINE WALKING ON BIOMECHANICAL VARIABLES AND EMG PATTERNS ON DIFFERENT TREADMILL DECK SYSTEMS
Presentation Year: 2023
ROHIT
KUNDU
School of Applied Health
While walking on the ground and using a treadmill are the standard mode of exercise, treadmill walking has gained popularity recently. Treadmills are more efficient and reliable because of the better control of speed, and grade, and can be used in all weather conditions. Even though multiple studies looked over the impact of surfaces at different inclines at biomechanics (gait, impact forces, tibial acceleration, and muscle activation), still the impact of surfaces has not been examined using different treadmill manufacturers while comparing high-incline (20%) with low-incline (1%).
Diversity Among University Students in the U.S.: An Analysis of Student Ethnic Group Preferences and its Impact on Campus Diversity
Presentation Year: 2023
Joseph
Pang
Psychology
The current study explores students' ethnic identity, ethnocentrism, and friendship diversity and how they these variables relate to with whom students interact. The study uses research from intergroup relations, friendship diversity, and ethnic identification. Specifically, the study will examine how ethnic identification, ethnocentrism, and student cultural group involvement relate to intergroup anxiety which, in turn, relates to intergroup bias. Through this work, we seek to understand how intergroup relations stands amongst People of Color (POC) in the United States.
Does Having Siblings Affect Caretaking Responses to Infants?
Presentation Year: 2023
Joshua
Worthington
Psychology
Because siblings often fulfill a caregiver role in the home, this study investigated whether having siblings, and younger siblings in particular, impacts the reward value of and perceptual sensitivity to the ‘baby schema’. Participants completed a cuteness sensitivity rating task and an effort-based keypress task to measure the reward value of cuteness. They also reported whether they had siblings, and if so older vs younger siblings. Contrary to our hypotheses, having siblings did not influence the reward value of or perceptual sensitivity to ‘babyschema’.
Does Having Siblings Affect The Recognition of Children’s Emotional Displays?
Presentation Year: 2023
Nathan
Boone
Psychology
The present study investigated the relationship between sibling caretaking experience and the ability to recognize emotions in children’s faces. Accuracy for recognizing emotional displays in children's faces was compared among individuals with younger siblings, older siblings, and no siblings. We did not find any evidence that having siblings impacts sensitivity to emotional displays in children's faces. We did, however, find evidence that some emotions are more easily assessed than others regardless of sibling status.
Does the Thatcher Effect Extend to Infant Faces?
Presentation Year: 2023
Adnan
Alyna
Psychology
You will spend more time looking at faces than any other type of object in your lifetime. Because faces are such an important social signal, humans have developed a perceptual expertise for faces. Decades of research on the mechanisms of face processing have demonstrated we more heavily on configural processing strategies when viewing faces due to this expertise. However, this work has been done using almost exclusively adult facial stimuli. The current study uses a well-established configural disruption known as the Thatcher Effect to investigate the use of configural processing for infant faces. We find evidence that infant face processing may be less reliant on configural information.
Effects of Competitor Species on Black-Crowned Night Heron Activity at Different Times of Day
Presentation Year: 2023
Korinn
Trinies
Wildlife
Black-crowned night herons (Nycticorax nycticorax) share the same niche with various competitor species, influencing and effecting their behavior accordingly. Recent studies show that black-crowned night herons are mainly active during dusk and dawn due to the decreased presence of competitor species at these times, suggesting there nocturnal behavior is an adaption. During my study, I observed the proportion of high and low activity of black crowned night herons in relationship to presence of competitor species and the time of day. My data suggest greater numbers of black-crowned night herons with high presence of competitors, and higher activity level with less competiton.
Effects of Environmental Pressures and Physical Characteristics of Tide Pools on Marine Invertebrate Community Ecology
Presentation Year: 2023
Jessica
Hoone
Wildlife
Intertidal invertebrates are an integral part of tide pool ecosystems, so what is the intertidal invertebrate’s ideal habitat? Which tide pools foster the greatest abundance and species diversity? This study was conducted to determine whether five major players in the northern California invertebrate community fair better in the rocky tide pools of a sheltered bay or the sandy tide pools of a beach exposed to the full force of the waves.