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- Member of: ASU Regents' Professors Open Access Works
- Member of: Educating for Sustainability
- Member of: ASU Library Collection

Academic libraries seek to engage people with information resources and maximize use of library spaces. When users increasingly rely on digital rather than print resources, libraries respond by shifting space usage from stacks to user working and reading spaces. How then do we, as academic library professionals, best keep print collections on public view and maximize user engagement?
In this whitepaper, we focus on fostering engagement with print resources among\nlibrary users, particularly with open stack print collections and users within the local community. We advocate moving toward a more flexible, more user-focused service that makes library collections easier to understand and to use. Libraries need to work with their surrounding communities in the further development and presentation of their collections. We offer a flexible, a la carte approach to transforming open stack academic library print collection management. We have developed a three-tiered system of potential approaches and actions for academic libraries to foster engagement with their collections. We also include materials and tools to help guide individual libraries towards a data-driven approach to print curation that may be tailored to their local context. We hope that these approaches and tools aid academic libraries in helping users engage in meaningful dialogues with print resources.
As part of a $50,000 planning grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the analysis is aimed at fostering engagement with print resources among library users, particularly with open stack print collections and users within the local community. "The Future of the Academic Library Print Collection: A Space for Engagement" explores a three-tiered system of potential approaches and actions for academic libraries to foster engagement with their collections, and includes materials and tools to help guide individual libraries towards a data-driven approach to print curation that may be tailored to their local context.


Changing from current unsustainable production, consumption, and disposal patterns will clearly require technological, political and other structural changes, but also individual behavior change. Consumer demand and individuals’ purchasing power exerts pressure on many parts of the production system, including how crops are produced (i.e., organic), products are packaged and labeled (i.e., rBGH-free labels on milk), and even where products are distributed and how they are disposed of. Individual consumer behaviors have even led to political and structural changes overtime, such the consumer boycott of tuna which led to 1990 US legislation creating the "Dolphin Safe" tuna label.
One of the central ways to foster responsible citizenry and promote sustainable production is to harness the capacity of teachers and schools to create change. Educating for conscious consumerism is a critical part of creating changes in production, consumption and disposal systems, but our current education system and approaches often reinforce unsustainable practices that neglect subjective ways of knowing as well as action and change. Research and experience suggests that traditional, information intensive teaching about sustainability alone does not motivate the behavior change a transition to sustainability will require. Utilizing a previously developed framework that identifies four distinct types of knowledge—declarative, procedural, effectiveness and social—we hypothesize that procedural, effectiveness and social knowledge are important predictors of an individual’s participation in sustainable behaviors, while declarative (information) knowledge is not. While the knowledge domain framework has been theoretically detailed by other researchers (Kaiser & Fuhrer, 2003; Frisk & Larson, 2011) and qualitatively assessed through an intensive case study education program (Redman 2013), to date, this is the first quantitative assessment of the relationship between the four domains of knowledge and sustainability-related behaviors.
We tested our hypothesis through an extensive survey of 346 current and future K-12 teachers about sustainable food and waste knowledge and behaviors. The survey results supported our hypothesis that high levels of declarative knowledge alone did not predict increased participation in sustainable behaviors while procedural and social knowledge were statistically significant predictors of sustainable food behaviors and procedural, effectiveness, and social knowledge were all statistically significant predictors of sustainable waste behaviors. Through active incorporation of appropriate forms of procedural, effectiveness, and social knowledge into the K-12 classroom, educators can empower the next generation to make individual changes based on their vision of the future and insist on structural and institutional changes that are essential for a successful transition to sustainability.

Teacher education for sustainability is a central part of integrating sustainability into classrooms and schools. However, educating for sustainability is not limited to increased content knowledge; rather it encompasses different forms of knowledge that embrace the normative, dynamic and action-oriented nature of sustainability. Curriculum for a summer sustainability program had previously been developed based on an interdisciplinary approach which incorporates research and practice from the fields of education pedagogy, sustainability and behavior change.
This article synthesizes the insights provided by K-12 teachers who participated in this program and another teacher who utilized the curriculum during a sustainability unit in her 8th form science class in Phoenix, AZ. Data was collected through surveys and interviews over the course of a year. The key findings indicate that one of the major barriers to moving away from traditional, didactic approaches to education is the importance placed on standardized tests. As long as external forces and incentive structures reinforce methods of lecture and assess, teachers will struggle transitioning to more experiential, real-world methods that enhance a multiplicity of knowledge. One important suggestion made by the teachers was for increased support by universities through pre-service and in-service programs focused on educating for sustainability.

Achieving a sustainable future requires that individuals adopt sustainable behaviors, which are often learned and cemented at a young age. Yet, traditional education efforts have been inadequate in fostering transformative change, in part because many programs focus on fact-heavy, teacher-centered techniques while neglecting the practices that behavioral and sustainability scholars highlight as central to creating change.
To address this gap, the pre-sent research integrates three critical yet mostly disparate bodies of research— educational pedagogy, behavior change, and sustainability competencies. This interdisciplinary approach to education was implemented and evaluated with a small group of students during an intensive summer program and year-long case study. The curriculum focused on food and waste behaviors and utilized experiential, real-world, problem-based methods in order to increase competence in sustainability and promote pro-environmental actions. The impact of the program was assessed through surveys, interviews, videos, and participant observations.
The data showed that significant changes in knowledge and behaviors were achieved, while suggesting that social knowledge in terms of food is more resistant to change as compared to that of waste. Throughout the year, students maintained significant behavior changes in terms of their waste decisions; however, sustainable food behaviors were more resistant to long-term change due to the students’ social and cultural environment. This article will detail the education program and assessment techniques while highlighting each student’s unique characteristics, barriers to change, and motivations for action.

Key
Educational interventions are a promising way to shift individual behaviors towards Sustainability. Yet as this research confirms, the standard fare of education, declarative knowledge, does not work. This study statistically analyzes the impact of an intervention designed and implemented in Mexico using the Educating for Sustainability (EfS) framework which focuses on imparting procedural and subjective knowledge about waste through innovative pedagogy. Using data from three different rounds of surveys we were able to confirm:
1. The importance of subjective and procedural knowledge for Sustainable behavior in a new context.
2. The effectiveness of the EfS framework.
3. The importance of changing subjective knowledge for changing behavior.
Yet, while the impact was significant in the short term, one year later most if not all of those gains had evaporated. Interventions targeted at subjective knowledge will work, but more research is needed on how to make behavior change for durable sustainability.

The transmission dynamics of Tuberculosis (TB) involve complex epidemiological and socio-economical interactions between individuals living in highly distinct regional conditions. The level of exogenous reinfection and first time infection rates within high-incidence settings may influence the impact of control programs on TB prevalence. The impact that effective population size and the distribution of individuals’ residence times in different patches have on TB transmission and control are studied using selected scenarios where risk is defined by the estimated or perceive first time infection and/or exogenous re-infection rates.
Methods
This study aims at enhancing the understanding of TB dynamics, within simplified, two patch, risk-defined environments, in the presence of short term mobility and variations in reinfection and infection rates via a mathematical model. The modeling framework captures the role of individuals’ ‘daily’ dynamics within and between places of residency, work or business via the average proportion of time spent in residence and as visitors to TB-risk environments (patches). As a result, the effective population size of Patch i (home of i-residents) at time t must account for visitors and residents of Patch i, at time t.
Results
The study identifies critical social behaviors mechanisms that can facilitate or eliminate TB infection in vulnerable populations. The results suggest that short-term mobility between heterogeneous patches contributes to significant overall increases in TB prevalence when risk is considered only in terms of direct new infection transmission, compared to the effect of exogenous reinfection. Although, the role of exogenous reinfection increases the risk that come from large movement of individuals, due to catastrophes or conflict, to TB-free areas.
Conclusions
The study highlights that allowing infected individuals to move from high to low TB prevalence areas (for example via the sharing of treatment and isolation facilities) may lead to a reduction in the total TB prevalence in the overall population. The higher the population size heterogeneity between distinct risk patches, the larger the benefit (low overall prevalence) under the same “traveling” patterns. Policies need to account for population specific factors (such as risks that are inherent with high levels of migration, local and regional mobility patterns, and first time infection rates) in order to be long lasting, effective and results in low number of drug resistant cases.

The maintenance of chromosomal integrity is an essential task of every living organism and cellular repair mechanisms exist to guard against insults to DNA. Given the importance of this process, it is expected that DNA repair proteins would be evolutionarily conserved, exhibiting very minimal sequence change over time. However, BRCA1, an essential gene involved in DNA repair, has been reported to be evolving rapidly despite the fact that many protein-altering mutations within this gene convey a significantly elevated risk for breast and ovarian cancers.
Results
To obtain a deeper understanding of the evolutionary trajectory of BRCA1, we analyzed complete BRCA1 gene sequences from 23 primate species. We show that specific amino acid sites have experienced repeated selection for amino acid replacement over primate evolution. This selection has been focused specifically on humans and our closest living relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus). After examining BRCA1 polymorphisms in 7 bonobo, 44 chimpanzee, and 44 rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) individuals, we find considerable variation within each of these species and evidence for recent selection in chimpanzee populations. Finally, we also sequenced and analyzed BRCA2 from 24 primate species and find that this gene has also evolved under positive selection.
Conclusions
While mutations leading to truncated forms of BRCA1 are clearly linked to cancer phenotypes in humans, there is also an underlying selective pressure in favor of amino acid-altering substitutions in this gene. A hypothesis where viruses are the drivers of this natural selection is discussed.

African American women report insufficient physical activity and are disproportionally burdened by associated disease conditions; indicating the need for innovative approaches to promote physical activity in this underserved population. Social media platforms (i.e. Facebook) and text messaging represent potential mediums to promote physical activity. This paper reports the results of a randomized pilot trial evaluating a theory-based (Social Cognitive Theory) multi-component intervention using Facebook and text-messages to promote physical activity among African American women.
Methods
Participants (N = 29) were randomly assigned to receive one of two multi-component physical activity interventions over 8 weeks: a culturally-relevant, Social Cognitive Theory-based, intervention delivered by Facebook and text message (FI) (n = 14), or a non-culturally tailored print-based intervention (PI) (n = 15) consisting of promotion brochures mailed to their home. The primary outcome of physical activity was assessed by ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometers. Secondary outcomes included self-reported physical activity, physical activity-related psychosocial variables, and participant satisfaction.
Results
All randomized participants (N = 29) completed the study. Accelerometer measured physical activity showed that FI participants decreased sedentary time (FI = −74 minutes/week vs. PI = +118 minute/week) and increased light intensity (FI = +95 minutes/week vs. PI = +59 minutes/week) and moderate-lifestyle intensity physical activity (FI = + 27 minutes/week vs. PI = −34 minutes/week) in comparison to PI participants (all P’s < .05). No between group differences for accelerometer measured moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity were observed (P > .05). Results of secondary outcomes showed that in comparison to the PI, FI participants self-reported greater increases in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (FI = +62 minutes/week vs. PI = +6 minutes/week; P = .015) and had greater enhancements in self-regulation for physical activity (P < .001) and social support from family for physical activity (P = .044). Satisfaction with the FI was also high: 100% reported physical activity-related knowledge gains and 100% would recommend the program to a friend.
Conclusions
A culturally-relevant Facebook and text message delivered physical activity program was associated with several positive outcomes, including decreased sedentary behavior, increased light- and moderate-lifestyle intensity physical activity, enhanced psychosocial outcomes, and high participant satisfaction. Future studies with larger samples are warranted to further explore the efficacy of technology-based approaches to promote physical activity among African American women.