Brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), (Halyomorpha halys, Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) is an invasive species that damages numerous agricultural crops including grapes. Related damage include lower berry weight with increased exposure and cracked berries as a result of BMSB feeding activity. The insect is currently detected in 43 US states including Oregon,...
Past studies have shown that students struggle with main concepts of potential energy, such as reading graphs, understanding that potential energy can be negative, and, most pertinent to this research project, connecting potential energy to force. I designed an activity to help introductory physics students address these struggles. The activity...
The effects of a subliminal auditory stimulus on the
motor activity and task performance skills of hyperkinetic
children were investigated. Fifteen boys between seven and
twelve years of age, who were enrolled in one of three
treatment groups for hyperactivity, were recruited for
this study. Each child participated, weekly, in...
The diverse community of bacteria living within and on host organisms, known as the microbiome, has an important role in maintaining host health. Dysbiosis, known as a change in the healthy community of the microbiome, has been associated with a number of diseases across host organisms and body sites including...
Units and dimensions are seldom addressed formally in science classrooms, despite being one of the most fundamental and ubiquitous tools available to scientists. Even worse, science and engineering graduates are often moving into careers without fundamentally understanding units and their importance, leading to struggles in developing scientific literacy and to...
Burnout, a problem that relates to an individual's occupation or vocational life, is a prolonged manifestation of emotional exhaustion, cynicism related to work, physical ailments, and reduced accomplishment of work tasks. Recently, the literature has shown that faculty in higher education experience Burnout as do other professions.
However, there is...
Thermodynamic potentials are energies that can describe a thermodynamic system in terms of different mathematically independent variables. Some of these potentials describe particular thermodynamic systems or processes in particularly convenient ways. In this dissertation, I discuss the different ways that students and experts reason about quantities in thermodynamics within the...