Instituting issue-based civics in the 11th grade classroom

There were several goals of this study. The first goal of this study was to identify if issue-based civics would produce any difference in a student\u27s attitude for and appreciation in civics. The second goal was to identify if issue-based civics would produce any difference in a student\u27s comprehension levels in civics. The last of these goals was to identify if the school a student attended had any impact on their attitude toward and appreciation of civics and comprehension levels in civics. The study was conducted on a sample of 70 11th grade students enrolled in American History II college prep classes available during a spring 2002 student teaching placement. The study was conducted at two different area high schools in southern New Jersey. An attitudinal survey was used to assess the participants\u27 attitude toward and appreciation of civics before and after treatment. The surveys were administered to both a traditional lecture-based group and an issue-based group. Results of the survey revealed that the participants of the issue-based group did not have a greater attitude toward and appreciation of civics as the researchers predicted. The results did not show a level of statistical significance (p\u3c.05) but did approach a level of statistical significance with a score of .086. A test was also administered to both groups before and after treatment

Forest stand structure and biotic community data from Fort Robinson State Park, Nebraska, USA

Data includes coarse woody debris percent coverage, tree density, bird community composition, and understory woody plant community composition/cover taken in 2016 at Fort Robinson State Park, Nebraska, USA. Sampling location coordinates (latitude, longitude) are also included. Sampling locations were distributed in a stratified-random design according to burn severity classes from a wildfire that occurred in 1989

The Perpetual State of Emergency That Sacrifices Protected Areas in a Changing Climate

A modern challenge for conservation biology is to assess the consequences of policies that adhere to assumptions of stationarity (e.g., historic norms) in an era of global environmental change. Such policies may result in unexpected and surprising levels of mitigation given future climate-change trajectories, especially as agriculture looks to protected areas to buffer against production losses during periods of environmental extremes. We assessed the potential impact of climate-change scenarios on the rates at which grasslands enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) are authorized for emergency harvesting (i.e., biomass removal) for agricultural use, which can occur when precipitation for the previous 4 months is below 40% of the normal or historical mean precipitation for that 4-month period. We developed and analyzed scenarios under the condition that policy will continue to operate under assumptions of stationarity, thereby authorizing emergency biomass harvesting solely as a function of precipitation departure from historic norms. Model projections showed the historical likelihood of authorizing emergency biomass harvesting in any given year in the northern Great Plains was 33.28% based on long-term weather records. Emergency biomass harvesting became the norm (\u3e50% of years) in the scenario that reflected continued increases in emissions and a decrease in growing-season precipitation, and areas in the Great Plains with higher historical mean annual rainfall were disproportionately affected and were subject to a greater increase in emergency biomass removal. Emergency biomass harvesting decreased only in the scenario with rapid reductions in emissions. Our scenario-impact analysis indicated that biomass from lands enrolled in the CRP would be used primarily as a buffer for agriculture in an era of climatic change unless policy guidelines are adapted or climate-change projections significantly depart from the current consensus

Relationships Between Wildfire Burn Severity, Cavity-Nesting Bird Assemblages, and Habitat in an Eastern Ponderosa Pine Forest

Historically, eastern ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests were described as sparse patches of old-growth trees maintained by frequent, low-severity fires; however, in recent decades, there have been a number of large mixed-severity wildfires throughout the range of these forests. Wildlife responses to severe fire disturbance in eastern ponderosa pine forests are not well understood. Our study investigates how cavity-nesting bird species in an eastern ponderosa pine forest are impacted by burn severity. The objectives of our study were to: (1) identify the community composition of cavity-nesting birds in a 27 y old burn of mixed severity, (2) assess how habitat variables important to cavity-nesting birds differ in the mixed-severity fire, and (3) determine what habitat variables best predict bird occurrence 27 y after mixed-severity fire. We surveyed 56 sites across four burn severity classes, ranging from unburned to severely burned forest, in the Pine Ridge region of Nebraska. We measured multiple habitat characteristics (tree and snag diameter at breast height (DBH), coarse woody debris (CWD), tree and snag density, shrub height, and shrub cover) in May–August 2016 and conducted bird count surveys between 25 May and 8 June 2016. Cavity-nesting bird species’ occurrence varied among the burn severity variables. Burn severity class (unburned, low severity, moderate severity, high severity) was a significant predictor of habitat characteristics for cavity-nesting birds, including tree density, snag density, mean snag DBH, variance in DBH, and CWD, which also was the best indicator of cavity-nesting bird community composition. We report evidence that mixed-severity wildfires in eastern ponderosa pine forests create variation in habitat characteristics and cavity-nesting bird occurrence

Data from: Fire legacies in eastern ponderosa pine forests

1. Disturbance legacies in structures communities and ecological memory, but due to increasing changes in disturbance regimes, it is becoming more difficult to characterize disturbance legacies or determine how long they persist. 2. We sought to quantify the characteristics and persistence of material legacies (e.g., biotic residuals of disturbance) that arise from variation in fire severity in an eastern ponderosa pine forest in North America. We compared forest stand structure and understory woody plant and bird community composition and species richness across unburned, low-, moderate-, and high-severity burn patches in a 27-year-old mixed-severity wildfire that had received minimal post-fire management. 3. We identified distinct tree densities (high: 14.3 ± 7.4 trees per ha, moderate: 22.3 ± 12.6, low: 135.3 ± 57.1, unburned: 907.9 ± 246.2) and coarse woody debris cover (high: 8.5 ± 1.6 % cover per 30 m transect, moderate: 4.3 ± 0.7, low: 2.3 ± 0.6, unburned: 1.0 ± 0.4) among burn severities. 4. Understory woody plant communities differed between high severity patches, moderate- and low- severity patches, and unburned patches (all P < 0.05). Bird communities differed between high- and moderate- severity patches, low-severity patches, and unburned patches (all P < 0.05). Bird species richness varied across burn severities: low-severity patches had the highest (5.29 ± 1.44) and high-severity patches had the lowest (2.87 ± 0.72). Understory woody plant richness was highest in unburned (5.93 ± 1.10) and high severity (5.07 ± 1.17) patches, and it was lower in moderate (3.43 ± 1.17) and low severity (3.43 ± 1.06) patches. 5. We show material fire legacies persisted decades after the mixed-severity wildfire in eastern ponderosa forest, fostering distinct structures, communities, and species in burned versus unburned patches and across fire severities. At a patch scale, eastern and western ponderosa system responses to mixed-severity fires were consistent

Ecology lab 01

<p>Data was collected randomly asking individuals whether they are wearin any types of corrective lenses either glasses or contact lense. Twentyfive individuals were found randomly as they walk in the campus road and asked for their age and corrective lense worn. In this experiment, variables are listed as below. Gender : - Gender was written down as lookin a them; Participants weren't asked about the gender.</p> <p>Age : - Age was asked from each of the participants; They were not asked to confirm their age by providing a documetation at all. Age was taken as what they've said. Could be true or untrue.<br>Variables/DATA : - Participants were asked whether they are wearing any corective lenses. It could either be the glasses or contact lenses they wear. Glases were seen as interviewing the participants and contact lenses were hard to be idetified unless condestants say the truth about wearing it or not.</p> <p> </p