When Insiders Become Outsiders: Parental Objections to Public School Sex Education Programs

This Note argues that parents\u27 fundamental right to direct their children\u27s moral and educational upbringing includes the right to exempt their children from objectionable sex education programs in public schools. Schools usurp parents\u27 fundamental rights when they unilaterally introduce children to topics of human sexuality without parental notice or permission. Alleged violations of these rights merit strict scrutiny review from courts. When parents\u27 objections are confined to discrete, tangible events, parents are constitutionally entitled to exempt their children from objectionable activities. The efficacy of this constitutional relief is more limited, however, when parental objections are pervasive and unassociated with a particular aspect of the school\u27s program or curriculum

Exploring Implications of Synesthesia on Memory

This research proposal describes an original research procedure to study the effects of the neurological phenomenon of synesthesia (union of the senses) on memory. It provides supporting evidence as to how and why the proposed research fits into contemporary questions in the study of synesthesia

Identifying nocturnal pollinator diversity in apple orchards in Northwest Arkansas

Insects have an essential role in nature, largely in part to pollination. These animals allow for many plants to reproduce and are directly involved in many of the earth’s fruit and vegetable supply. Bees, along with many other diurnal pollinators have gained the attention of the public, which has sparked debates and change to protect them. Many nocturnal species have previously been disregarded due to the assumption that diurnal pollinators provide the only significant pollinations, although recent studies show otherwise. For example, a recent study in apples suggests that nocturnal insects increase fruit production and flower cluster pollination at comparable levels to diurnal pollinators. However, the specific species were unknown. I worked with Dr. Erica Westerman to identify different species of nocturnal pollinators of apple blossoms during different times at night. I helped capture the insects in April of 2022 via light traps set up through the entirety of the night. The traps were emptied, and the insects were collected every few hours. I also had access to insects caught in the spring of 2021. Then, I categorized the insects into groups of interest and identified these insects into the lowest taxonomic group possible. I then used the R programming software to analyze the abundance of different types of insects present to determine which insects were most prevalent in the orchard, and at what time of night. A vast majority of the insects collected were craneflies. In addition, the time of night did not impact the specific insects collected, but the temperature did. This study highlights the species of insects that visit the orchard during the blooming season. Further tests may be required to identify which of these are significant pollinators

Half-crown

Winner of the 2019 Yellowwood Poetry Priz

A Systematic Investigation of Condensation Heat Transfer Using Asymmetric Micro-Scale Surfaces

Asymmetric surfaces been shown to inducing unidirectional motion in the Leidenfrost regime; however, very minimal research has been conducted to investigate whether these surface can enhance condensation through the same means. The investigation of heat transfer of ratchets in condensation is a relatively untapped area of study, specifically ratchets with superhydrophobic properties. Anticipated difficulty lies in creating surfaces features or coatings that retain the ratchets and can adequately sustain optimal wetting state of Cassie-Baxter required to improve heat transfer performance during condensation. This study serves to investigate whether ratchets are a feasible surface feature to enhance condensation heat transfer. First, fabrication protocols for microscale superhydrophobic asymmetric structures with high throughput and at low cost are devised. Then, droplet behavior during condensation is directly observed under an optical microscope and quantified. Finally, heat transfer is performance is investigated using a custom built chamber and a liquid crystal thermography technique. Superhydrophobic coating reduced the droplet area coverage by about 25% as well as reduced the average droplet area which remained consistent regardless of ratchet period,. For non-ejected coalescence, displacement vectors showed a slight increase in preferring either ratchet direction or opposite of ratchet direction with increasing ratchet period. In the case of coalescence induced ejection, average ejection diameter remained constant at approximately 10um yet event count increased with increasing ratchet period seemingly attributed to the increased potential configurations due to the increased ratchet surface area. No individual droplets were readily identified using the surface plots extracted from MatLab image processing, however heat transfer coefficients were found and showed a trend opposite to what was anticipated. Uncoated PMMA without ratchets yielded the highest HTC and the coated 10um ratchets yielded the lowest. xi Potential investigations into surface manipulation without the use of coatings can eliminate the added thermal resistance potentially produced by the coating itself, this would also eliminate the need to have a strong bonding between the substrate surface and the coating eliminating a source of mechanical instability. Finally, improvements to the condensation chamber design can be made, specifically including a reservoir in which the flow rate of vapor that the substrate is exposed to can be controlled