Matching Items (156)
Description
This paper addresses the issue of conservation funding in Arizona, particularly for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. This department is traditionally funded by the Pittman-Robertson act, which places excise taxes on hunting equipment to fund species conservation, and sales of hunting tags and licenses, but there is concern that these sources are unable to cover the increasing costs of climate change. A decrease in hunter participation and expenditures on hunting equipment also brings into question the stability of these revenue sources. This paper explains and analyzes four methods to supplement the department's funding to ensure adequate financial resources are available to conserve state wildlife and wildlife areas and draws conclusions about which method is best for the state of Arizona.
ContributorsGibson, Braxton (Author) / Leonard, Bryan (Thesis director) / Abbott, Joshua (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
The Difference Engine at Arizona State University developed the Women’s Power and Influence Index (WPI) in order to combat the systemic inequality faced by women in the workplace. It aims to analyze data, such as Equal Employment Opportunity data, from various Fortune 500 companies to provide a measure of workplace inequality as well as encourage these institutions to adopt more equitable policies. By rating companies based on what truly matters to women, ASU’s Difference Engine hopes to help both women in existing career paths as well as women seeking a new career or position in companies.
However, in order for the WPI to become a relevant scoring metric of gender equality within the workplace, we must raise awareness about the issue of gender equality and of the index itself. By raising awareness about gender inequality as well as inspiring companies to further equality within their workplaces, the WPI will serve to have an integral role in increasing gender equality in the workplace. Our approach for raising awareness utilizes two different strategies: (1) establishing a new version of the WPI website that is both informative and aesthetically pleasing and (2) generating social media content on TikTok that appeal to a variety of audiences and introduce them to the WPI and our mission.
ContributorsTieu, Lienna (Author) / Howard, Brooke (Co-author) / Thomas, Elisa (Co-author) / Zaffar, Ehsan (Thesis director) / Gel, Esma (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
High levels of surface ozone pollution have been shown to have adverse effects on human health and our environment. For at least the past decade, ozone concentrations in Phoenix, Arizona have been above the federal health standard, set in place by the Environmental Protection Agency. It is crucial that all factors contributing to rising tropospheric ozone levels within the Phoenix metropolitan area are analyzed to better understand this risk for future mitigation efforts. Consequently, the primary objective of this study is specifically to examine meteorological factors' influence on Phoenix’s ground level ozone by comparing days of ozone exceedances with ozone non-exceedances days over the course of 2010-2020. To carry out this research, various weather conditions for both exceedance and non-exceedance ozone days were studied using unpaired Student’s t-tests and Pearson product-moment correlation tests. The results of this study suggest that the most significant factors that are associated with the occurrence of surface ozone exceedances in Phoenix are wind speed and temperature, whereas the least significant variables are wind direction and sky conditions. This indicates that more stable synoptic conditions in which skies are clearer, allowing for higher temperatures and more stagnant air movement, are ideal for ozone production leading to an ozone exceedance. The results from this honors thesis will be useful as it will aid in greater understanding of the relationship between Phoenix’s surface ozone and weather, aiding future ozone forecasting.
ContributorsLeffel, Jessica (Author) / Cerveny, Randall (Thesis director) / Pace, Matthew (Committee member) / Krahenbuhl, Dan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Political polarization, or the inclination to align with the identity, ideologies, and candidates of a party that results in subsequent partisan animosity that creates divisions between these groups, can prevent important policies from getting passed. Policies related to sustainability, defined as that which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” have been found to be particularly vulnerable to polarization (Brundtland, 1987). This research analyzes literature and expert interviews to provide recommendations and strategies that can be employed by sustainability advocates to get important policies passed despite the divisive political arena. The research concluded that public salience of sustainability issues, presentation of the co-benefits of sustainability policies, relationships amongst elected officials, and use of politically neutral language are especially important to garnering bipartisan support for sustainability policies. Based on these conclusions, strategies were recommended for sustainability advocates to use to overcome political polarization including bolstering communication skills to demonstrate how people are affected by sustainability issues and can benefit from sustainability policies and giving careful and continuous consideration to the words, phrases, and labels used to describe sustainability policies. A final recommendation is to examine political polarization and sustainability at the municipal level since this research indicated that this is a relatively under-examined context.
ContributorsBarlett, Riley (Author) / Melnick, Rob (Thesis director) / Kay, Braden (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)
Created2023-12
Description
There are unfortunately very few curricular guides that focus on community engagement within the higher education of landscape architecture. A Beginner’s Guide to Community Engagement in the Curriculum of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning to Improve Social Justice and Sustainability helps resolve this issue and serves as a resource to students, educators, designers, and more. The guide centralizes a diverse collection of resources, guides students through learning materials, shares insight, and proposes potential community engagement methods. The booklet aims to help readers understand the importance of community engagement in design and shares different curricular approaches to introduce the work to students.
ContributorsNeeson, Margaret (Author) / Cheng, Chingwen (Thesis director) / Coseo, Paul (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / The Design School (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
Traditional crop production faces a significant challenge due to overapplication, mining, and decreased supply of mineral nutrients. In addition to this, the urgent need to address global food waste has become increasingly apparent, as discarded food scraps in landfills contribute to harmful greenhouse gas emissions. A promising solution that addresses both of these critical challenges includes the innovative utilization of food waste anaerobic digestate as a fertilizer for crop production. This study investigated whether using anaerobically digested food waste as fertilizer can fully replace or reduce the use of chemical fertilizer in vegetable and ornamental crop production. The seeds of lettuce (Lactuca sativa) ‘Nancy’ and petunia (Petunia × hybrida) ‘Easy Wave Velour Berry’ were sown into a soilless medium and grown in the indoor vertical farm at 22℃ under sole-source lighting at a photosynthetic photon flux density of 180 µmol∙m–2∙s–1 with a 20-h photoperiod. Four weeks after sowing, seedlings were transplanted and grown for three weeks in a greenhouse with an average daily temperature of 20 °C under ambient sunlight with an average daily light integral of 22 mol∙m–2∙d–1. The plants were fertilized using tap water mixed with different fertilizers, including a chemical fertilizer (15N-2.2P-16.6K), an organic fertilizer derived from anaerobically digested food waste (0.06N-0.026P-0.1191K), or a blend containing 50% chemical fertilizer and 50% food waste-based fertilizer, at the electrical conductivity of 0.7 mS·cm-1 during the young plant stage and 2.1 mS·cm-1 after transplant. At the young plant stage, lettuce and petunia have similar growth characteristics, including leaf number, SPAD index, and shoot and root fresh mass, when treated with either chemical or chemical + food waste fertilizer. In contrast, in both species, leaf area was 93-152% larger and fresh mass was 82-141% greater in plants treated with chemical or chemical + food waste fertilizer compared to food waste fertilizer. At the finishing stage, lettuce and petunia also showed similar growth and flowering characteristics under chemical or chemical + food waste fertilizer. However, in the lettuce finishing plants, fresh mass was 127-199% larger when supplied with chemical or chemical + food waste fertilizer compared to food waste fertilizer. In petunia, the number of flowers was 123-190% greater in chemical and chemical + food waste fertilizer compared to food waste fertilizer. In both lettuce and petunia at the finishing stage, the SPAD index, leaf number, root fresh mass, and root dry mass were similar among all treatments. These results suggest that food waste fertilizer applied as the sole source of plant nutrition is insufficient in comparison to chemical fertilizer at the same electrical conductivity. However, partially substituting some food waste fertilizer for chemical fertilizer reaps similar plant yield to chemical fertilizer on its own.
ContributorsGoode, Jasmine (Author) / Park, Yujin (Thesis director) / Chen, Zhihao (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor)
Created2023-12
Description
Cycling is the most energy efficient mode of transportation. Bikes are critical for addressing climate change, and contribute to a more active population, safer streets, and lower household expenditures on transportation. Given this, understanding how existing cycling infrastructure is being used, including where and when, helps decision makers know what to invest in. This project does exactly that, counting cyclists and other active travel users in the city of Tempe across a whole day, and across the whole north of the city. Cycling in Tempe is already attractive in some areas of the city, but not others. The findings from this project were shared with stakeholders and community members in an interactive web map.
ContributorsLemarchand, Dorian (Author) / Salon, Deborah (Thesis director) / Jamme, Hue-Tam (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor)
Created2024-05
An Analysis of the East Valley’s Homeless Services Compared with the Needs of the Unhoused Community
Description
This thesis shows the research results conducted in the East Valley of the Phoenix
Metropolitan Area and the thematic analysis of that data. Data were collected from a
small sample of interviews conducted by the researcher with staff of homeless outreach
organizations and clients of those organizations. A thematic analysis of the interview
data was conducted. The resulting analysis shows that a more significant focus should be
placed on reducing the number of clients in need who decline to use their services by
improving safety, trust, and access to resources and that organizations would benefit
from more consistent funding and a more considerable amount. Finally, as this thesis
shows, both organizations and their clients tend to agree that a lack of access to helpful
resources is a more significant problem than a lack of resources.
ContributorsHults, Clayton (Author) / Kelley, Jason (Thesis director) / Rosales Chavez, Jose-Benito (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
This project seeks to answer the question, "How do different years of college students access their food and how does access to transportation impact their access?" To answer this question, a survey was conducted amongst ASU students to understand their preferences and uses of various transportation methods and venues for food access. Additionally, interviews were conducted with five students to get a more individualized look at their food sources, transportation access, and overall daily habits, uses, and opinions. It was found that first-year students typically have the least access to transportation methods and rely mainly on on-campus food sources. Other undergraduate students (second year and above) have increasing access to transportation and food sources. Recommendations include increasing student access to public transit options through fare reduction, increasing price transparency amongst on-campus food sources, and encouraging student use of local and campus-sponsored food pantries.
ContributorsBarrett, Karli (Author) / Kelley, Jason (Thesis director) / Rosales Chavez, Jose Benito (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Since the start of U.S. hostilities against Iraq in 2003, International Relations scholars have begun to characterize the U.S. as potentially an empire. This is because the traditional notion of sovereignty under the Westphalian nation-state system is held as a constant in the prominent theories that govern how it is thought how nation-states interact with each other. The blatant violation of international laws and norms with impunity by the U.S. have led to a re-questioning of the true dynamics underlying this system. Some scholars have characterized the recent research as a popular fad, but most of the research is aimed at just attempting to show how the U.S. could be an empire. What the current research is missing is how the U.S. became an empire, with that analysis anchored in an historical comparison. A complete chronological review of each system in its entirety is required, with all of its components, to more fully understand these phenomena. This has required researchers to devise a new methodological process of qualitatively and quantitatively analyzing macro structures. We believe the implications of the insights that can be obtained with this new method could be of use to many fields and can generate many new hypotheses to test in the future.
ContributorsRoche, Joshua Nathan (Author) / Crittenden, Jack (Thesis director) / Walker, Stephen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-12