Integrating social justice into higher education conservation science

Because biodiversity loss has largely been attributed to human actions, people, particularly those in the Global South, are regularly depicted as threats to conservation. This context has facilitated rapid growth in green militarization, with fierce crackdowns against real or perceived environmental offenders. We designed an undergraduate course to assess student perspectives on biodiversity conservation and social justice and positioned those students to contribute to a human heritage-centered conservation (HHCC) initiative situated in Uganda. We evaluated changes in perspectives using pre- and postcourse surveys and reflection instruments. Although the students started the course prioritizing biodiversity conservation, even when it was costly to human well-being, by the end of the course, they were recognizing and remarking on the central importance of social justice within conservation. We present a framework for further integration of HHCC approaches into higher education courses so as to conserve the integrity of coupled human and natural systems globally

Sharpness overconstancy in peripheral vision

Although much has been learned about the spatial sampling and filtering properties of peripheral vision, little attention has been paid to the remarkably clear appearance of the peripheral visual field, To study the apparent sharpness of stimuli presented in the periphery, we presented Gaussian blurred horizontal edges at 8.3, 16.6, 24, 32, and 40 deg eccentricity. Observers adjusted the sharpness of a similar edge, viewed foveally, to match the appearance of the peripheral stimulus, All observers matched blurred peripheral stimuli with sharper foveal stimuli, We have called this effect \u27\u27sharpness overconstancy\u27\u27. For field sizes of 4 deg, there was greater overconstancy at larger eccentricities. Scaling the field size of the peripheral stimuli by a cortical magnification factor produced sharpness overconstancy which was independent of eccentricity. In both cases, there was a slight sharpness underconstancy for peripherally presented edges blurred only slightly, We consider various explanations of peripheral sharpness overconstancy