Well Bust My Buttons!

Students will understand and use the concepts of site and situation to evaluate the distribution of both original and current button factories in Muscatine

The Color Run Project: Day One

Students can define location as a theme of geography and apply it to a city in the world

Mapping for Impact: Actionable Spatial Literacy through Counter-Mapping

Counter-mapping is a technique that young people can use to take informed action on community issues through the mapping process. This mixed-methods study examined how ninth-graders in a large urban district in Iowa developed spatial thinking skills while engaging in counter-mapping in their community and the extent to which they used those maps to take informed action. A nine-week learning progression for counter-mapping scaffolded progress variables across three different spatial thinking standards and one inquiry standard. Findings indicated that students improved throughout the learning progression, but some needed teacher support to conduct spatial inquiries. Chances of reaching the upper anchor on a learning goal were positively associated with prior opportunities to grapple with complex spatial reasoning tasks. Students shifted over the learning progression from viewing maps as navigational tools to using them as communication tools. The extent to which students could use counter-maps to take informed action depended on their level of spatial literacy. Student reflections demonstrated that the hypothesized upper anchor of the inquiry standard and the lower anchor of the mental maps standard needed revision. Ninth-graders in the study could not take community-level informed action, but they could take personal action and propose potential solutions to spatial problems. Some significant results showed female students performed better than male students early in the learning progression. Latino students outperformed White students on two tasks. Counter-mapping is a place-based and assetbased pedagogical tool that can build critical spatial thinking skills while affirming students’ identities

The Geography of Rwanda\u27s Genocide

Students can (1) use Google Maps or Google Earth to examine the physical features of Rwanda; (2) apply knowledge of the Demographic Transition Model to Rwanda; (3) evaluate the role culture plays in conflict

The Color Run Project

Students apply knowledge of the five themes of geography to an authentic project and use Google Earth to demonstrate their geography skills

Exploring the Generational Evolution of Black-White Wage Inequality across Geographic Regions of the United States

Wages of black men trail those of their white counterparts despite decades of generational socio-political change. This paper examines the extent to which the black-white wage gap has evolved from individuals born in the Baby Boomer (births between 1956 and 1964) to the Millennial (births between 1977 and 1995) generation, an era assumed to reflect great shifts in anti-racist sentiments and opportunities in the late 20th century. Despite presumed progressive attitudes developed in this time period, I find that the black-white wage differential of the labor market in its whole has worsened from black earnings lagging 28.1% behind white to a greater 31.2% in the later generation. There is significant discussion exploring how the ability to gain academic skill pre-entry into the labor market equates to higher earnings upon stepping foot into the workforce, and how there is a racial difference in the ability to acquire said skills that equip individuals for greater rates of pay in later life with disproportionate barriers posed to black men. Under my findings that controlling for disparities in academic skill scores reduce yet do not eliminate the black-white wage gap, I break down my sample by region to examine the extent to which specific geographic areas of the United States are responsible for the unconditional inequity, and the trend the racial wage inequalities of these respective areas have followed from the Baby Boomer to Millennial generation. I find that while the South region has had a significant fall in its racial wage gap by roughly 36%, all other regions’ black-white earnings differentials have grown across these generations, apart from the West region not holding significant impact in the earlier generation presumably due to an insufficient sample size

The State of Adaptation in the United States: An Overview

Over the past two decades the adaptation landscape has changed dramatically. From its early days as a vague theoretical concept, which was often viewed as a threat to advocating for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it has developed into a widely, albeit not universally, recognized governmental mandate to reduce societal vulnerability to climate change. While it is important to appreciate the progress that we are making on this issue, it is impossible to ignore the urgent need to do more. Smart investment can be made by reflecting on what is already underway in order to determine where to build on existing efforts and where to innovate new approaches to fill the gaps in the path forward. In this report we provide illustrative examples of the variety of work on climate change adaptation that is underway in the United States. This is by no means an exhaustive survey of the field; however it does provide insight into the dominant focus of work to date, the resultant gaps, and the opportunities available for advancing this essential aspect of sustainability. We focus on four areas of activity -- agriculture, natural resources, human communities, and policy. The general trends relevant to these sectors can be applied more broadly to other sectors and countries. Adaptation can be thought of as a cycle of activities that ultimately -- if successful -- reduces vulnerability to climate change. This process starts with identifying the impacts of climate change to determine the types of problems climate change might pose. This includes all of the research on the causes and the global, regional, and local manifestations of climate change, often referred to as impacts assessments

Consumer Preferences for the Attributes of Equine Oil Supplements

The equine nutrition market is expected to grow with higher household disposable income. However, there is hardly any research on consumer attitudes toward equine oil, a key supplement to promote healthy weight gain for horses. The objective of this study was to understand consumers’ preferences regarding the nutrition, product, and package attributes of equine oil supplements when making purchase decisions. Among 110 equine owners or renters who responded to the anonymous online survey, approximately 64.55% had used fat supplements for their horses, and 23.64% had tried rice bran oil in particular. When rating the importance of nutritional attributes on a scale of one to five, consumers identified the following three factors as the most important: horses find the oil highly palatable and do not refuse to consume it (mean = 4.10), promoting weight gain for hard keepers (mean = 4.03), and good source for fat supplementation (mean = 3.90). Consumers considered being grown and made in the USA (mean = 3.44), top dress on current ration (mean = 3.11), and family or farmer owned (mean = 2.99) as the most critical product attributes. In terms of packaging, unit price per ounce (mean = 3.85) and ease of use (mean = 3.56) were the most important, and 90.91% of participants would prefer that an equine oil supplement be packaged in bulk with a pump dispenser. The findings from this study will shed light on the packaging and labeling practices of equine oil supplements and provide guidance on how to promote their nutritional benefits

Drought Impacts on Bioenergy Supply System Risk and Biomass Composition

Bioenergy is an important renewable energy option worldwide, but the industry is susceptible to a myriad of risks including biomass supply, of which drought plays a role. Crops yields decrease during drought, increasing year-to-year risk for the agricultural industry. For the renewable energy industry, in particular, the effect of drought on crops is substantial and complex. This chapter discusses the current state of knowledge regarding how drought affects biomass destined for renewable energy as it relates to dry biomass yields and chemistry, the latter of which heavily impacts cost of production and final product yields. Advanced supply systems are one option for reducing biomass supply risk. These systems lead to higher, less variable crop yields during uncontrollable events like drought; however, the quality of material supplied in a drought year may still vary as drought impacts plant chemistry. This chapter provides analysis for chemical composition of four bioenergy crops observing that both carbohydrates and lignin decrease during a drought year compared to a year with minimal to no drought. These chemical changes can impact biochemical conversion through inhibitor formation and altering degradability during pretreatment