Category: Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) – OSCAR

College of Science Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

An Analysis of Eastern Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina) on Age, Sex and Habitat Population Sizes

Author(s): Jordan Davis

Mentor(s): Travis Gallo, Envirnomental Science and Policy

The Eastern Box Turtle (terrapene carolina carolina) is a rapidly declining species in many urban areas of North America. However, there are less research on rural box turtle populations. In this project, an analysis on turtle populations of habitat type, age and sex were discovered. After six weeks of fieldwork research, 105 turtles were discovered on 408 acres of The Clifton Institute’s property. Out of 105 turtles, five turtles had radio transmitters to discover the average home range of the turtles. To gather analysis, radio telemetry was used for the radio-tracked turtles, and the surveyed turtles were observed through a marked-recapture technique. Once discovering the average home range of the turtles on QGIS, the turtles on average do not move far distances, as the property has adequate vegetation, shade, and water on the preserve. Although, the females traveled farther than males in this experiment. During analysis, the Schumacher-Eschmeyer method was used to determine population estimates. There are an estimated 435 turtles on site, with 203 projected males and 245 projected females. This research contradicts many studies focusing on urbanized turtle populations, with the premier cause of turtle mortality stemming from females making vehicular contacts on roads. In addition, the most precise populated habitat was the mature forest over the wetlands. The discovery contradicted the original hypothesis that turtles preferred to live closer to water than the forest.

College of Science Honors College Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Cardiac Abnormalities Associated With Danazol-Induced Embryopathy in Zebrafish

Author(s): Jackson Kair

Mentor(s): Valerie Olmo, Biology

Danazol, and other synthetic androgens, are currently the subject of renewed interest in the clinical management of several diseases and disorders—from telomere diseases to multi-drug resistant cancer. However, very little work has studied its effect on developing organisms and it has never before been tested in Danio rerio. This project aimed to determine a non-toxic dosing program of Danazol in D. rerio and to uncover the effect of androgen exposure during embryonic development. Following treatment at 24- to 26-hours-post-fertilization, embryos show a significant decrease in basal heart rate and further evidence of cardiovascular pathology. These findings suggest that in addition to widely reported accounts of virilization in the human and rodent models, disruption to androgen physiology during early development poses increased risk for errors to normal cardiogenesis and function.

Hello, my name is Jackson Kair, and I am a senior in the Biology Department graduating at the end of the summer term. Today, I’m here to talk about my project, “Cardiac Abnormalities Associated with Danazol-Induced Embryopathy in Zebrafish” or in more lay terms, as I have taken to calling it– “Don’t Go Stopping My Heart (with a synthetic steroid)”.

This project is the culmination of my work over the past six months studying how Danazol impacts the embryonic development of zebrafish. Although most widely used in the treatment of endometriosis, adenomyosis, and fibrocystic breast disease for over 40 years—Danazol has an extensive array of biologic effects as well as diverse clinical applications in the management of countless other diseases and disorders.

My interest in Danazol, however, is due to its role as an inhibitor of adrenal steroidogenesis— the process by which steroid hormones (such as aldosterone, progesterone, testosterone, and cortisol to name a few) are synthesized by the adrenals and the gonads.

In the adult, human model: Danazol suppresses this system through the competitive inhibition of specific enzymes expressed by the adrenal glands. Likewise, once in the bloodstream, Danazol binds avidly to the sex-hormone binding globulin—displacing estradiol and testosterone. The net effect is a significant increase in the amount of testosterone in the body and a decrease in cortisol and other steroid hormones.

My question with this project was: “how do increased levels of testosterone, or the endocrine-disrupting activity of Danazol more generally, affect normal embryonic development?”. Unlike in adults, where these hormonal disruptions are actually therapeutic, I predicted that exposure to Danazol would actually induce a model of the disorders that arise to due to abnormal adrenal ontology and function.

Specifically—because Danazol is a synthetic androgen, or hormone that regulates the development and maintenance of male sex characteristics—I predicted that exposure to the drug would result in virilizing, otherwise known as masculinizing, effects: phenotypes consistent with the intersex condition congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). However, given that Danazol has never before been tested in zebrafish or another live developmental model at this stage— I didn’t have any prior work to ground these preliminary assumptions in.

Over the spring semester, as I conducted pilot studies to identify a non-lethal dosing regimen of Danazol, what I saw turned my hypothesis right on its head. Instead of observing virilizing effects, or phenotypes consistent with CAH—I saw dramatic bradycardia (or a decreased basal heart rate) along with other cardiac deformities, including pericardial and yolk sack edema and blood pooling.

The goal of this project moving forward, and over the summer term, was to repeat the same drug trials, but over a statistically significant sample size—allowing me to quantitatively describe the effects of the drug treatment, specifically the reduction in heart rate.

To conduct my experiment, embryos were obtained from the zebrafish colony housed in the Animal Facility at the Krasnow Center for Advanced Study. Once acquired, any coagulated (or dead) embryos were removed and those that remained were then sorted into four petri dishes such that each contained 75 healthy embryos.

The interrenal gland, the zebrafish organ equivalent to the mammalian adrenal glands, begins to form between 24 to 30-hours-post fertilization (abbreviated to hpf)—and the steroidogenic enzymes bound by Danazol begin to be transcribed at 24 hpf. As a result, I chose to treat the embryos by exposing them to Danazol (solubilized in 5 microliters of DMSO) between 24 to 26 hpf.

Every trial consisted of a control group (egg medium with 5 microliters of DMSO) and three treatment groups (at 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6 micrograms/mL of Danazol). A starting sample size of 300 embryos were used for each trial—and I completed 3 trials over the course of the summer.

Beginning at 72 hpf, one at a time, I recorded a 15-second video of every surviving embryo in all four groups from a lateral view. I then counted the heart rate for each embryo in every video.

Here we can see the results from each of the three trials, which suggests that Danazol does not decrease heart rate in a linear, dose-dependent manner. Heart rate data was assessed using a one-way ANOVA with a post-hoc Tukey-Kramer test for multiple comparisons. This allowed me to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between the test groups, and if so, which.

For all three trials, there was found to be a statistically significant decrease in heart rate between the control group and all three treatment groups—and, with the exception of trial 1, there was no statistically significant difference in heart rate between the three treatment groups. The significant difference between the 0.2 ug/mL and 0.4 ug/mL groups in trial 1 is likely due to experimental error and not attributable to the effects of the drug.

These findings demonstrate that in addition to widely reported accounts of virilization, exposure to androgens during embryonic development poses significant risk for cardiovascular pathology. Future work in this regard may seek to identify Danazol’s mechanism of action in interfering with heart organogenesis by recording data at the 30 and 48-hpf mark to study errors in heart looping and chamber ballooning or directly measuring the levels of steroid hormones in circulation with ELISA assays.

Finally, I would like to thank my mentor Dr. Valerie Olmo—thank you for your constant support and guidance, both with this project and over the course of my senior year. I would also like to thank Dr. Karen Lee and the rest of the OSCAR team for funding my work and giving me this opportunity. And finally—I would like to thank Nathan Ridings for his filming/audio/and editing expertise. Thank you for listening.

Schar School of Policy and Government Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

The Persistence and Proliferation of Congressional Caucuses

Author(s): Molly Izer

Mentor(s): Jennifer Victor, Schar

While congressional member organizations (e.g., caucuses) in the U.S.
Congress are frequently trivialized by political punditry, they have been
proliferating over the past 30 years, ever since then-Speaker Newt Gin-
grich changed House rules to de-fund them. If caucuses are nothing more
than performative posturing, why do so many persist, with dozens of new
groups being formed each congress? We theorize that caucus ”birth” is
driven primarily by constituent interests and advocacy groups, while cau-
cus persistence is a function of groups’ effectiveness at connecting legisla-
tors who would be otherwise disconnected from one another. This paper
explores the persistence and proliferation of these campus clubs using a
novel data set comprised of the universe of individual caucus memberships
1993 – 2020. We statistically model caucus characteristics associated with
group survival, which include group size and bipartisan support. We use
quantitative and qualitative evidence from interviews to assess the extent
to which the explosion of caucuses on Capitol Hill has been driven by
advocacy groups. A richer understanding of this pervasive congressional
institution contributes to understanding the many ways that members of
Congress interact with one another. This understanding helps ultimately
to explain the parameters of congressional dysfunction.

Hi, I’m Molly Izer. I’m an undergraduate in the Schar school, majoring in government and international politics. And the title of my presentation is the persistence and proliferation of congressional caucuses.
And my mentor on this project is Dr. Victor also in the Schar school. So the point of this project and the research origin stems from a very important to 2013 study that was published by Dr.
Victor as well as her coauthor, Dr. Neils Ringa of the university of Wisconsin in the 2013 study. It was the first time they demonstrated a longitudinal study, which means over time on informal networks in the house of representatives.
Since the 2013 study of there have been massive changes and the ideological administrative and legislative norms governing the house of representatives and as such, it’s important to conduct a further longitudinal study on topic with our expanded dataset and in taking into account, the continuous changes that Congress simply put Congress has changing.
And so should our understanding. So this project in particular, explicitly focuses on the reasons that drive the birth and persistence of congressional member organizations also known as caucuses.
And it’s part of a larger project that explains the importance of informal networks and legislative institutions and how informal connections act as driving forces instead of large deliberative body.
Essentially, we, we hypothesize that congressional member organizations are part of the reason that people are able to coordinate collective action across the term, a broad coalition.
There are 435 members of the house of representatives, meaning one singular member. Isn’t very powerful, but when they’re in groups, they hold a little bit more power.
So a congressional member organization, essentially a way to do that, it’s almost like a informal club that members of Congress can rally around.
And there are some pretty interesting examples of types of caucuses. They range anywhere from the congressional voting caucus to the coalition for autism research to climate change related things.
There are over 700 documented caucuses that we have in Dr. Baker’s data sets and make been continuously growing. So just to emphasize the point that we need to continue to study them over a long period of time, I’m quick a picture of speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the house, flipping grudge.
And he’s infamous for having changed the rules a while ago on how caucuses operate and what their administrative statuses can be.
And that’s another example of why it’s important to continue to send them over time, to see if changes to the institutions that Gover in informal networks will actually change anything about what they do or why they exist.
So the aims of this research are threefold. The first is that we aim to further understand what drives the birth of congressional member organizations and why they continue over time.
An important thing to understand about the house of representatives is that in the house, the term limits are only two years, meaning every two years, every single member has to go through reelection processes.
And while it can be to you as a voter, it’s even more tedious when you’re actually a member of the house or of their staffers, because it means you have to essentially rebuild your entire coalition every two years.
So it’s important to understand why it is that members continue to engage in certain parts. If it’s going to add on additional work on top of their already very busy schedules, we also want to map connections and social networks within the house of representatives.
And we want to track those networks in relation to broader data on legislative activity and institutional opera, opera realization. This is really important too, because we have to consider not only how institutions bind members of Congress, but also how outside forces informal networks can have a monumental impact on them.
And finally, we want to clarify, emphasize the value of informal institutions and legislative bodies and what benefits they pose to the legislative process as a whole.
So we use two different types of data. It’s really hard to look at informal networks through a solely empirical lens, which is why this year we had to integrate the qualitative data process.
So first to explain the qualitative data process, our qualitative data consists of hours of interview transcripts from various staffers in the house of representatives.
And that includes lobbyists and independent advocates who may engage with them. These were conducted via zoom, and we’re using the transcripts by coding them in NVivo, which they qualitative did software for our quantitative data.
We’re using an original data set, but Dr. Victor created and has kept since the hundred and third Congress, the hundred third Congress heard it in 1993.
And it goes all the way through the 117, which is the current Congress we’re in. Now that will end in November.
So essentially the data records, the party caucus and leadership positions that every single member of Congress occupies at any given time, the master file consists of over 6,000 data points and is managed largely largely in our, and that’s how we manage all of our quantitative and empirical analysis.
So we have many different hypotheses that are staked out in different phrasing so that we can use empirical tests to test each one of them individually.
But our general hypotheses are that caucus birth is driven primarily by constituent interests and then advocacy groups while Congress persistence, meaning keeps going over time is a function of how effective the group is connecting people who would otherwise not really meet each other or interact at all.
So our preliminary findings are a little bit limited because we’re still going through the writing process, but we do have a couple of really interesting visualizations here.
So this first one up here is, um, a one, a one party caucus members. And as we can see, they have increased by party at disproportionate rates with Democrats on average, joining more one party groups than Republicans.
In addition to the sheer number of congressional caucuses has continuously increased up until the 116 Congress. We’re not entirely sure if the, uh, the gap in increasing after 116 Congress is due to the COVID-19 pandemic or because of the January six insurrection we’ve gathered qualitative data that suggests both either or neither of them finally moving forward with this project.
So obviously we’re going to continue the writing process. And Dr. Richter is working on a larger book apart of which this will be integrated into it a little bit, but this paper in itself was accepted to the American political science association annual conference, which this year will take place in the beautiful city of Montreal.
So we’re excited to keep moving forward and continued to report our findings.

College of Engineering and Computing Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Shape-Changing DNA Origami

Author(s): Sally Farag

Mentor(s): Remi Veneziano, Bioengineering

There is still so much to understand on DNA origami and how it may be most efficiently utilized. DNA origami is the folding of DNA molecules to form nanoparticles with specific structures and may be used as nanocarriers in drug delivery. DNA origami structures contain a single single-stranded DNA scaffold strand and several oligonucleotides (staple strands) that form specific structures. The focus of this research was to design multiple structures of DNA nanoparticles through DNA origami that would contain the same single-stranded scaffold strand and only a few variations within the staple strands. This may lead to real-time shape-changing DNA origami that respond to specific stimuli. The first step towards achieving multiple structures with the same scaffold strand was to design a tetrahedron that would serve as the core backbone of the final shapes. Each shape designed contained three of the original tetrahedron shape. A triangular structure and a crescent structure were both made with the same 1632 base scaffold strand, demonstrating that designing multiple structures from the same strand is possible, and taking a step closer towards real-time shape-changing DNA origami. After completing the design of the shapes in TIAMAT, they will be folded and their ability to transform from one shape to the next will be observed.

Hi, my name is Sally Farag. I am a senior at george mason university majoring in bioengineering with a concentration in biomaterials and nanomedicine and today I am going to be talking about the research that I conducted this summer for my URSP project. The work that I did focused on DNA origami, which just like it sounds is the art of folding DNA molecules into specific nanoparticle structures through the design of its base sequences, and these can be used for drug delivery. DNA origami consists of one single-stranded DNA scaffold strand that runs through the entire nanoparticle structure. It’s like the backbone if you will. This scaffold strand is held together by oligonucleotides, which we call staple strand, to form the desired structure. What I set out to do was to take one singular scaffold strand and fold it into various structures by changing just a few staple strands. Now this is really cool because it can lead to real-time shape-changing DNA origami that responds to specific stimuli for purposes such as biosensing. My first step towards this was I needed to design a structure that I would use to build up the rest of my structures. A tetrahedron. In order for me to be able to design the tetrahedron from DNA, I first had to upload a Computer-Aided Design file, a CAD file into DAEDALUS, which stands for DNA Origami Sequence Design Algorithm for User-defined Structures. DAEDALUS takes CAD files of 3D solid objects and converts them into synthetic DNA sequences, and this information can then be used to build these 3D designs from DNA on a program called TIAMAT. My CAD file for the tetrahedron was provided to me by my mentor Dr. Remi Veneziano from his science paper called Designer nanoscale DNA assemblies programmed from the top down. After uploading the file and obtaining this information from DAEDALUS, I was able to make my tetrahedron design. As you can see, if I highlight my scaffold strand, it has 504 bases and runs through the entire tetrahedron structure. This is in contrast with the staple strands, which, if I select one, you can see it has only 78 bases, much smaller than the scaffold strand.
So after making my tetrahedron, I focused on designing a structure out of it. I took three of the same tetrahedron and designed what I call a triangle. Of course, it’s not actually a triangle, but it has three outer points to it, so. As you can see, if I again select my scaffold strand, it has 1632 bases.
Keep that number in mind. When I finished making that design, I built another one. Again, it was made by taking three of the same tetrahedron. I call this structure a crescent, because it reminds me of a crescent moon. If you squint you’ll see it. Now, I’m going to select the scaffold strand, and would you look at that. 1632 bases. The exact same length as the triangle structure. In fact, it is the exact same sequence.
Now of course I didn’t just design my triangle structure and design my crescent structure and it just worked out like that. I did have to go back a few times and make adjustments in order to reach and maintain the same scaffold strand length so that I could have the exact same scaffold strand in both structures. There are actually only 8 different staple strands between both structures. For reference, there are 32 staple strands in the crescent structure, and 33 in the triangle structure.
This is what I’ve accomplished so far, but I am going to continue my research in this. My next step is to go ahead and actually fold these structures and observe how well they are going to take form. I am very hopeful, but we will see how that goes. Thank you for watching.

College of Humanities and Social Science Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

HEALTH IN RESTRICTED HOUSING: Resident Perceptions of Physical Health While Living in Solitary Confinement

Author(s): Andrey Arcidiacono and Kate Mitcham

Mentor(s): Taylor Hartwell, Criminology, Law and Society

This project, completed over the summer of 2022, focuses Restricted Housing Units, known generally to the public as “solitary confinement.” These have been used in the American correctional system throughout history. Our research aims to develop a broader understanding of the effect these living environments have on inmate health. We took this indepth view of Restricted Housing Units and looked at what inmates reported in interviews about their living conditions. It was reported by inmates that it was difficult to maintain their hygiene as well as reports of not receiving food in a timly manner. We hope in future research to broaden the understanding of prison environments by enhnacing research methods for targeted data collection.

Andrey: Hi! My name’s Andrey, and this is my partner Kate. We’re undergraduate researchers at George Mason University working with the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence! We’re looking at residents’ perceptions of physical health while living in solitary confinement.
Kate: First, we’d like to start by defining Health, which is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Solitary confinement negatively affects all the aspects of health that I just named physical, mental, and social. Since it’s such an extreme form of confinement, oftentimes, residents have reported that their physical, mental, and social health have deteriorated while living in restricted housing units. This is shown as poor appetite, weight loss, and aggravation of pre-existing medical problems. Actually, in a study of more than 200,000 people, those who had spent time in solitary were 78 times more likely to die from suicide within the first year after their return to the community than those who have been incarcerated but not placed in solitary.
Andrey: Our research question focused on health, specifically what health changes residents perceived after being placed into RHUs. We looked at health in two areas: Physical and mental health. And in our interviews, we looked at how residents perceived mental health services and their physical and mental well-being.
Kate: Our research data was collected in 2017 by a team of researchers that we got to work closely with during the summer. The data was collected between 4 prisons, one female and three male. It was a set of interviews between inmates and correctional officers that ranged between 45 and 60 minutes with a series of pre-structured questions. However, we would like to clarify that our research was just the inmate interviews, not the correctional officers. Ethnographic observations were also part of the data collection.
So what did we find? Some common trends we found over the four institutions were poor mental health, poor Health Services, loss of appetite, and weight loss. And actually, in the women’s prison in institution 3, that was the lowest reported decline in health among the inmates. Whereas institution one had the highest reported decline, 71.4% of inmates reported that their health had declined while in restricted housing units.
Andrey: When it comes to the implications of our research, we first look at our theoretical implications. The prisoners discussed poor appetite and weight loss through their reports and interviews. This data supports the literature and research done by past researchers. This means our findings are similar to those found in past research. Practically, if residents are being affected mentally and physically during their time in restricted housing, our research shows the possible side effects of living in Solitary Confinement. our research will better inform policymakers and other prison decision-makers.
When we look at the limitations of our research, we first have to look at our data collection. Because we were unable to collect the data ourselves and couldn’t go into the prisons ourselves, the data we relied on was collected by past researchers. Those past researchers had their own goals and research questions in mind. This means that we could not target our research to fit our specific research question. In the future, we’d like to address those research limitations by being able to look at our research firsthand, collect data, and ask follow-up questions to pinpoint as specific questions to get specific data. Expanding our research to broaden our knowledge of the prison environment would be very helpful and would not only allow us to look at how the physical environment affects inmates but also how their mental health is being affected by solitary confinement.
Kate: That was our presentation, Health in Restricted Housing: Resident Perceptions of Physical Health While Living in Solitary Confinement. We would like to give a special thank you and shout out to Taylor Hartwell and Danielle Rudes, who were our mentors throughout this summer research project. We would also like to thank everyone we worked with in the Surviving Solitary Research Project this summer.
Andrey: Thank you.

College of Education and Human Development Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Middle School Teacher Experiences Regarding Implementation of a Student-Engaged Design Course

Author(s): Asuka Nuwere

Mentor(s): Anastasia Kitsantas, Educational Psychology, Research Methods, and Education Policy

Student-Engaged Design (SED) incorporates teaching students how to become independent learners by incorporating key principles of learning, motivation, and cognition. The purpose of the present study is to examine teachers’ perceptions of the function, utility, and implementation of an SED intervention focused on developing the self-regulatory functioning of middle school students. The sample consisted of nine teachers (n=9) who received professional development on how to implement this SED course. All teachers were interviewed and were asked to provide reflections on their experiences regarding the function and utility of SED. Classroom observations were also conducted. Using a thematic analysis, findings revealed that the SED intervention promoted student self-advocacy, curiosity, growth mindset, and self-regulation. Educational implications and future suggestions are discussed.

Hello everyone, my name is Asuka Nuwere. I am a Psychology Honors student at Mason.
I will be presenting my research about Middle School Teacher Experiences
regarding the Implementation of a Student-Engaged Design Course, which is aimed to help students to develop self-regulated learning skills and improve academic learning and achievements.

My research is part of a larger funded project to test the effectiveness of a Student-Engaged Design course. The purpose of this study is to examine teachers’ experiences
implementing an SED course by capturing their perceptions of its function and utility.

Prior Research shows that middle school is a crucial phase in every student’s educational career. Another research suggests that SRL is an important skill that middle school students need to develop to succeed in school, and teachers can be trained to facilitate student’s SRL skills. However, most SRL interventions focus on college students.

Not only does SED teach students how to become self-regulated learners, but it provides educators the tools to support their students by including seven components crucial for effective learning and development. SRL, Motivation, Deep Learning, Curiosity, Growth Mindset, Self-advocacy, and School Connectedness

In my study, I ask three research questions. My first research question is What does an SED intervention look like in middle school classrooms? My second research question is How do teachers perceive the function and utility of the intervention with respect to developing middle school student’s SRL skills? My last research question is To what degree do middle school teachers use the key features of the intervention while teaching?

My method of examining these research questions involves a sample of nine in-service middle school teachers in the rural Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. The majority of the participants were white and female, and the targeted middle school is a medium poverty level school.

Nine teachers participated in four professional development workshops, and the SED course was embedded in the curriculum. Following their implementation of the course, four teachers were observed for one class period, and semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted on Zoom. Three teachers completed reflections at the end of the academic year.
Data were collected through three different instruments. I used MaxQDA to perform thematic analysis of teacher interviews and reflections. I used descriptive statistics to analyze teacher observation data.
To answer research questions 1 and 2, I coded teacher interviews and found a total of 260 codes. Preliminary results show that all of the key components of the intervention were found in the data. Among the codes, SRL and Deep learning were found most frequently.

Two themes were found through the thematic analysis. Project Learning and SRL skills learning. Project learning refers to student learning by engaging in and working on projects and getting more hands-on learning of the content as they learn. SRL Skills Learning refers to the students learning of SRL skills that will help them manage their own learning.
Here are the sample quotes.

Three main themes were identified as SED intervention function themes. Enhancing Student Motivation, Fostering Collaboration Skills, and Differentiation. Enhancing Student Motivation refers to the impact of teaching style and project-based learning on student motivation. Fostering Collaboration Skills refers to supporting students’ collaborative work
to make progress toward their learning goals. Differentiation. This theme refers to teachers’ awareness of students’ needs despite students not expressing them. Here are the sample quotes for the three themes.

The results of teacher observation show that among all the key components, Student Self-Advocacy and Growth Mindset were found the highest and the SRL performance phase was the lowest. The results showed that teachers dedicated themselves to helping students
speak up, however, teachers did not explicitly encourage their students to use the performance phase, and monitor their progress. Overall, the observers found that teachers were able to develop students’ learning through the intervention.

I coded the teacher reflection data and found a total of 54 codes. Preliminary results show that among the codes, SRL, deep learning, and growth mindset are found most frequently.
Participating teachers indicated that the SED intervention was useful for improving students learning and development. These findings are consistent with prior literature that show
curiosity, self-advocacy, and deep learning improved student learning and performance.
Our preliminary results may have important educational implications for teachers.

Based on the findings, SRL and other crucial components such as deep learning, self-advocacy, and growth mindset were most useful for improving student’s learning and development. Teachers should focus on having students work on projects of student’s choice
and encourage students to apply SRL skills in a practical manner while students are working on projects. Moreover, to enhance student’ motivation, teachers should support students to work collaboratively with peers to achieve goals.

This study has limitations worth mentioning. Some teachers did not provide the end-of- reflections. Participation in this study was voluntary, and the participating teachers may have been already motivated. The generalizability of the findings is limited. The findings of this study should be validated with other samples in the future study.

I am still in the process of finishing all the analysis of our data, but my goal is to disseminate the findings and present them at conferences. I would like to express my special thanks and gratitude to the OSCAR, Dr. Lee, Dr. Kitsantas, as well as my team members who helped me in doing this wonderful project. Thank you for watching.

College of Science Honors College Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Comparing Growth Rates of Somaliland and Namibian Cheetah Cubs

Author(s): Gwendolyne Fields

Mentor(s): David Luther, Environmental Science and Policy

Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) are classified as endangered species by the IUCN, facing major threats of habitat loss, illegal pet trade and human-cheetah conflicts. With approximately 7,500 individuals left in the wild across Africa, research is significant to understanding and ensuring their species’ survival. At Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), located in Namibia, research has been ongoing since its establishment in 1990, and was once known as the cheetah capital of the world. CCF also has a campus in Somaliland, where currently 86 cheetahs of the “Tanzanian cheetahs” (Acinonyx jubatus raineyi) are being cared for, and 29 “South African cheetahs” (Acinonyx jubatus jubatus) at Namibia’s facility. This project investigates the comparison of growth rates between Somaliland and Namibian cheetah cubs. Through CCF’s data of cheetah cubs rescued between 2006-2022 within Somaliland and Namibia, weights, meat and milk consumption has been recorded from 0-6 months and organized in a new Excel Spreadsheet. 19 individuals are recorded from Namibia, and 46 are recorded from Somaliland. Few statistics through RStudio have been done, however significant results of the sum of weights from 0-6 months with other covariates indicate males have a higher growth rate than females, and Somaliland has a lower growth rate than Namibian cheetah cubs. Further statistics will be conducted to understand more about growth rates and what affects it, as well as the difference between Namibian and Somaliland cheetah cubs.

Good Afternoon! My name is Gwendolyne Fields, and you are joining me here today with Peter, Tiger-lily and Senay in Namibia. For the past two months I have been here at Cheetah conservation fund, also known as CCF. CCF was established in 1990 by Dr. Laurie Marker, where the goal is to help conserve these endangered species.

So, a lot of our cats here are permanent residents. So, this means that a lot of them have come in before the age of 6 months and because of that, their mothers were not able to teach them the proper skills to actually survive in the wild. So, some skills including what prey to hunt, such as duikers, steenboks, springboks, kudus and oryx’s as well as what predators to avoid: lions, snakes and hyenas. And so, a lot of them have actually also been useful for research and understanding more about the species themselves and how to conserve them the best.

So here on our Namibian campus, we have 29 cheetahs and on Somaliland’s facility we have 86 cheetahs. So a lot of these cheetahs have come in at very different ages, so these siblings came to us at the age of four weeks. Others have come in at 5 days, 10 days, so very young. A lot of the cheetahs that have come in were rescued with different scenarios, so some farmers actually might have killed the mothers, some farmers might have captured them and in other cases people have kept the cheetahs as pets as well. So, like I mentioned before, having them here has been very useful for research and also their conservation.

Here are three of our cheetah cubs at CCF who arrived when they were 3 weeks old. Speaking of cheetah cubs for my research project, I have been working with Dr. Laurie marker, and other CCF staff members as well as my mentor Dr. David Luther where I am investigating the comparison of Somaliland and Namibian cheetah cubs growth rates. From data collected back from 2006 until most recently 2022, I have been gathering all this information on a new excel spreadsheet from individuals between the ages 0-6 months.

Other than spending time on my research project, I have been part of the cheetah team working to take care of the cheetahs by feeding them, giving their meds if needed, cleaning and managing their enclosures.

Moving on to the results for the project so far. I have created some graphs as well as produced some statistical analysis of the data through RStudio.

This first graph demonstrates the average weights of Somaliland and Namibian Cheetah cubs from the age of Day 1-14. As you can see there is a linear relationship between the weights and days of the cubs. The R-squared value is around 0.59 indicating a moderate goodness of fit of the model. We notice the Somaliland average weights are less than the Namibian weights. The second graph demonstrates the average weights of Somaliland and Namibian Cheetah cubs from the ages of Week 3-26. The R-squared value of 0.91 demonstrates a very strong linear relationship. Once again, the Namibian weights are larger than the Somaliland weights on average.

The third graph is a boxplot displaying the first two weeks of age. We notice the Namibian data appears to have more range and a higher average weight. The last graph is a boxplot displaying weeks 3-26 of age. We notice the Namibian data appears again to have more range and a higher average weight; however, it appears less robust than the previous graph. Running these last two graphs’ data through R, we found no significance in terms of their weights and comparing them between the two locations. Meaning the p-value was greater than 0.05.

Last but not least, the sum of the weights for all weeks did not appear to have significance with meat and milk consumption, yet the location of Somaliland was significant indicating their cubs are less likely to survive, and the males in general appear to have higher growth rates than females (indicating greater chance of survival).

We still have many questions to answer, such as how much the cheetah cubs grow in general, what month they grow the most and how exactly does diet affect their growth, especially relating between the two locations of cheetahs.

Thank you so much for watching and for everyone who has helped me on my project so far! Bye!

Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Studying COVID-19 Spread Through Spatiotemporal Mapping and Phylogenetics

Author(s): Steven Tai

Mentor(s): Hamdi Kavak, Computational & Data Sciences Department

There have been several studies about COVID-19 about the spread of the virus, alongside with the construction of its phylogenetic tree. Phylogenetic trees allow us to view the branching of strains from the root, where each strain comes from and their connection to each other. The relationship between phylogeny and disease spread is not explicit but by combining the two, there could be underlying information that could help researchers gain more insight. GISAID provides large datasets of various diseases, including sample data for COVID-19 cases each with varying location subsets and strain identifiers. They also provide a large phylogenetic tree with the same strain identifiers on their leaf edges. Sample, tree, coordinate, and other metadata can be combined through data-frame merging and mapped. The significance of this relationship can tell researchers not only where strains are but also from where they came.

Hello, Welcome to my presentation!

My name is Steven Tai, I am an undergraduate biology major with a concentration in bioinformatics. My research project for OSCAR is about studying the spread of covid-19 using spatiotemporal mapping and phylogenetics

My mentor is Dr. Hamdi Kavak, and he specializes in modeling and simulation, machine/statistical learning, and network science.

For this presentation, I will do a brief overview of the project and go over some key definitions

Next, I will discuss the methods and resources that I’ve used

Then, I’ll show results and conclusions

Finally, I’ll discuss any issues and possible solutions

Let’s start with an overview of the project

Researchers have been coming up with ways of understanding the spread of the disease ever since it start and many have used different methods to predict and track the spread.
As the virus mutates, a phylogenetic tree was constructed to represent it

For this research, it is possible to use spatio temporal data, and mapping with the relations from the phylogenetic tree to gain insight to not only where the strain is but also “from where”?

The data for this project comes from the GISAID Initiative. They are an organization dedicated towards providing fast and large datasets for all influenza and most recently, COVID-19.

They also provide an updated Phylogenetic Tree in Newick format.

Next, we’ll go over the methods

There were the four steps that were taken to preprocess the data and I’ll go over what those are.

Only samples that contain human strains were used.
Data was also filtered for complete dates, with year month and day
The phylogenetic tree was also downloaded from GISAID

Duplicate entries and samples not pertaining to human were filtered out again using a python script.

The Geopy package for python was used to find coordinates of the geolocations

A list of unique geo_location from our dataset was inputted into the script,
the output gives the geolocation names with matching coordinates.

The error list was manually corrected and fed back into the script, while unsalvageable names were discarded

The final corrected list was then saved into a dataframe

An inner join was then performed using the sample data and coordinate data, matching using the unique names of geo_locations.

This will return only matching records of geo locations from both tables, and exclude everything else

The data is then uploaded to a PostGreSql Database, hosted on a local machine, allowing for easy access to the dataset

The phylogenetic tree was parsed from newick format and converted into a dataframe to inner join with the dataset.

These are the number of samples at the start versus the end of cleaning and joining.
We started with 10,697,090 downloaded samples.
After preprocessing and joining, the number comes to 10,524,757 samples.

Finally, we can see the resulting mapping

This is a preview of the mapping of the sample data using a custom program.
The biggest issue is that the program can only take up to 10,000 samples due to memory limitations
Also, there needs to be more inferences of transmission using internal nodes

I’ll now discuss some issues and solutions

Internal nodes infer branching within the tree, but the location of the branching can never be known.

A way we can find the locations is by using ancestral character state reconstruction(ACSR) algorithm.

One such algorithm is ACCTRAN, which does,
a downward pass where it assigns character states from the tips to the root,
and an upward pass that goes from root to tip, reassessing character states.
By assigning the character states using the locations of each known tip, internal nodes can be annotated with the most likely location predicted by the algorithm

Here is a diagram of a proposed pipeline for finding internal node locations

It inputs a newick tree and a list of locations with its leaf edge

Using phangorn’s acctran function, it annotate the internal nodes with the most likely location based on character states

This approach isn’t without it’s issues
When running the full tree, the memory usage was too large.
A possible solution is to split the tree down into smaller ones and run them separately through ACCTRAN.

It was estimated that creating subtrees and running them through ACCTRAN takes about 60 hours total

Another concern is that breaking down the decreases the accuracy of the locations, since the tree could be cut off from other sister clades at different points, preventing comparison between edges. However, given the limited resources this may be a trade off we must accept

There are also other algorithms that could be tested, and could be visited in later research.

That concludes my presentation. I would like to give a big thank you to Dr. Hamdi Kavak for providing excellent mentorship throughout the program. Thank you so much for listening, I hope this presentation gives insight into what I’ve been working on and I hope to continue this research in the future.

College of Humanities and Social Science Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

How We Can Empower NGOs to Use Food Waste as a Solution to Food Insecurity

Author(s): Samantha Dawkins

Mentor(s): Younsung Kim, Environmental Science and Policy

This research aims to explore the ways to empower NGOs and other anti-hunger organizations to use food loss/waste as a solution to local food insecurity. As rates of food insecurity continue to skyrocket due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising inflation rates, individuals experiencing food insecurity must rely on NGOs and anti-hunger organizations for support. Additionally, current rates of food waste cause significant environmental and social detriments, with over 915lbs of edible food discarded per person a year and more than 190M tons of greenhouse gases (GHG) released each year in direct correlation (CEC, 2017).
Many food-related corporations based in Northern Virginia already participate in the donation of their excess food products, but NGOs continue to struggle with the development and continuation of their food distribution services due to a lack of refrigerated infrastructure and consistent financial support. Like many businesses, these local NGOs, who serve a combined 30K+ Northern Virginia residents, received additional financial benefits and grants through COVID-19 relief programs. However, with the initial urgency of the pandemic fleeting, these organizations are struggling to provide the same services to the extent that they have over the past two and a half years, despite an increase in need.
Through one-on-one interviews with NGO representatives and corporate organizations, review of current legislation, and analysis of related peer-reviewed studies, this research is able to suggest direct action that can be taken to better support anti-hunger NGOs and the communities they serve. It implicates the expansion of refrigerated infrastructure, government supported grants, and nutrition & food label education as the primary solutions to local food insecurity.

Hello, my name is Samantha Dawkins and I would like to introduce you to my research on how we can enable NGOs to use food waste as solution to food insecurity. Firstly, I’d like to share with you these two different definitions relating to food. The first being food insecurity, which is the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food, while food waste refers to food that is fit for consumption but consciously discarded at the retail to consumption phases. These two definitions are not just related by food, but by their relationship to humans and the natural environment, which we will discuss as we continue.

I’d like to provide you with some background information on the impacts of both food waste and food insecurity, starting with food waste. Food waste in North America releases approximately 193 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year, and is the equivalent to each person in North America discarding 915 pounds of food each year. Additionally, food waste takes up 38.6 million cubic meters of space in the landfill each year; where biomaterials, such as produce, are unable to biodegrade, leading to the release of the aforementioned greenhouse gases. $278 billion in market value products are discarded a year, and over $1.8 billion is spent on tipping or discarding fees each year, which is a significant loss for our economy.

Regarding food insecurity, current Virginia SNAP benefits require an individual to be living at or below the poverty line to receive benefits, with the maximum income requirement for a single individual equating the average yearly rent for a one bedroom apartment in Northern Virginia. Researchers Booth and Pollard suggest that food insecurity has socially determinant traits that go unrecognized by local governments. But if able to be recognized, maybe these determinants could assist in the reduction of food insecurity, if support can be provided early on. Additionally, the need for assistance is increasing. The Virginia Emergency Allotment fund is currently serving 435,000 households a month with over $83 million in support. But, when COVID-19 is no longer considered a pandemic this support will be lost.

This concept map shows the food waste flow from grocers and NGOs to individuals who lack food security. From grocers who produce food waste to local NGOs who are able to redistribute edible food waste to individuals facing food insecurity, and inedible food waste going through a compost system prior to noncompostable food waste being sent to the landfill. This will prevent over 90% of food waste from being discarded in landfills and releasing significant amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The current actions being taken in America fail to address the social determinants of food insecurity, holistic & sustainable suggested solutions, or it’s connection to food waste. Senate bill 1383 in California is one of the very first pieces of legislation to address the environmental impacts and health safety issues related to food waste. They plan to reduce majority of their food waste by 2050 by encouraging citizens to use composting services. Additionally, the White House is having a conference on hunger in September 2022, but according to their website they’ve failed to include any mentions of environmental impacts of food waste or hunger, which connects food insecurity to all Americans. Not all individuals can relate to being food insecure.m, which is why it’s important that we connect the issue back to average Americans who do face the impacts of climate change on a day to day basis.

The initial goal of this research was to understand how partnerships between NGOs and corporate entities like grocery stores could be enabled, but many local food distributors already partner with NGOs and nonprofits to donate their excess food waste. But they serve the community with different values in mind. When surveyed 75% of NGO representatives claimed that they felt that environmental impacts of food waste were most urgent to address, while 25% said that the environmental and social impacts were equally urgent. But 100% of grocery store representatives felt that the social impacts were most urgent and were the primary reason why they donated their excess food waste. Corporate donations, such as the donation of excess food waste from grocery stores, can be increased through the expansion of refrigerated infrastructure for nonprofits and anti-hunger NGOs in the area.

My suggested solutions include the expansion of joint use refrigeration infrastructure. Meaning, that local NGOs and anti-hunger organizations can share one primary location to store their excess food, where it can be stored and remain viable for consumption between receiving the food donations and the redistribution of food through the community. My second solution is consistent government supported grants to assist in the management of services of these NGOs. During the COVID-19 pandemic many of these organizations received supplemental financial assistance that encouraged them to expand the communities in which they were serving. But now that the initial urgency of the pandemic has reduced these organization must now stretch their resources to serve the same amount of people that they have been over the past two years. And finally, nutrition and label education, as well as the expansion of financial literacy and workforce development programs will significantly reduce the rates of food insecurity in our local communities. Much of the misinformation about the safety of food comes from a lack of knowledge on nutrition and labels, including but not limited to ‘best by’ labels and expiration dates. And the expansion of financial literacy and workforce development programs allow individuals experiencing food insecurity to expand their skills and further the opportunities that they may be offered, hopefully reducing their likelihood of food insecurity.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to my presentation, if you have any questions or comments please feel free to reach out to me at the email listed below.

College of Science Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

The Detection of Magnetic Fields Using Optically Pumped Atomic Magnetometers

Author(s): Cicely Motamedi

Mentor(s): Karen Sauer, Physics and Astronomy

An optically pumped atomic magnetometer (OPAM) is an instrument that detects magnetic fields. In an OPAM, alkali atoms are made to rotate around an applied static magnetic field. Only components of a magnetic field that rotate in the same sense and at the same frequency as the atoms are detected by the OPAM. The focus of this project involved the difference in the way OPAMs detect linear versus rotating fields. Test signals, including linearly alternating and rotating fields, were measured using two magnetometers. The test signals were created by running an alternating current through coils of wire. The amplitude and phase of the current going into the coils was changed to create test signals in different directions. Researching the detection of magnetic fields using OPAMs could result in a better way to detect objects that create radio frequency fields. The results of this project would be specifically useful for the detection of landmines.

My name is Cicely Motamedi. I’m a senior at George Mason University studying physics and mathematics. For my summer URSP project, I worked on determining the direction of magnetic fields using optically pumped atomic magnetometers. Knowing the direction of the magnetic field would be useful in applications where noise from radio interference is known to be perpendicular to the signal. In this case, the direction could be used to distinguish between the signal and interference. One such application is the detection of landmines. For my project, I used two magnetometers to determine the directions of the test signals I created.

An optically pumped atomic magnetometer is an instrument that detects magnetic fields. It consists of a glass cell filled with alkali atoms placed in a static magnetic field, here labeled B0. The dipole moments of the atoms will have random orientations until a circularly polarized laser, called the pump beam, goes through parallel to the applied field. Light consists of an oscillating electric and magnetic field that propagate through space. If light is circularly polarized, that means the direction of the electric and magnetic fields rotate as the light propagates. When the circularly polarized pump beam goes through the atoms in the same direction as B0, it puts most of the atoms in the same energy state, causing them to line up with the field. There will then be a net magnetization in the direction of the static field. If a radio frequency field is present that matches the resonance frequency of the atoms, the magnetization vector will tip and precess around B0 at the resonance frequency. The resonance frequency is given by the equation ω=γB_0, where ω is the frequency of the atoms’ rotation and gamma is the gyromagnetic ratio of the atoms. The amount by which the magnetization vector tips can be measured with a linearly polarized laser, called the probe laser, placed perpendicular to the static field. This is a laser whose electric and magnetic fields don’t change direction as the light propagates. But due to the Faraday effect, the polarization of the laser will rotate by an amount proportional to the component of the magnetization parallel to the probe laser. This is how radio frequency fields at the resonance frequency of the atoms can be detected by the magnetometer.

Only components of a magnetic field that rotate in the same sense and at the same frequency as the atoms will cause the magnetization vector to tip. Since a linearly alternating magnetic field is equivalent to the sum of two oppositely rotating components, the component that rotates in the same sense as the atoms will cause the magnetization vector to tip, but the other component will not. The magnetometer only sees one of the rotating components. In my experiment, two magnetometers with their atoms rotating in the opposite sense to each other were used to measure both rotating components at the same time. The direction was determined from these two measurements.

I created my test signals by running current through coils of wire that the magnetometers were placed in. I created linearly alternating signals, where the x and y components were in phase with each other, as well as rotating signals, where the x and y components were 90 degrees out of phase.

After the measurements of the test signals were taken with a spectrometer, the data was analyzed in MATLAB. The measurements from the two sensors were combined to find the x and y components of each test signal. The plot here shows the x and y components of each test signal in pT. From left to right, the plots show a signal along the x axis, along the y axis, along a line 45 degrees up from the x axis, along a line 45 degrees down from the x axis, rotating counterclockwise, rotating clockwise, and again along the x axis. The plot correctly shows the real and imaginary components of signals with these directions, in agreement with the way the test signals were designed. Using the measurements from the two magnetometers allowed me to correctly identify the directions of my test signals.

I would like to thank my mentor, Dr. Sauer, and I’d like to thank OSCAR for funding my research. Thank you for watching my presentation.

College of Education and Human Development College of Public Health College of Science Honors College Summer Team Impact Project Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

How do sleep, physical activity, and diet contribute to aerobic fitness in U.S. firefighters?

Author(s): Hana Khan

Mentor(s): Joel Martin, Marcie Fyock-Martin; Kinesiology

Abstract: Firefighting involves high intensity work and requires firefighters to maintain optimal levels of health. Unfortunately, due to the nature of their occupation, firefighters’ sleep, diet, and physical activity (PA) are often compromised, contributing to low aerobic fitness.

Purpose: To determine how sleep, PA, and diet behaviors contribute to low respiratory fitness in U.S firefighters. Methods: Participants included [10 males, 3 females, age: 36(30, 41), years of service: 14(10, 18), height(cm): 181.9(177.5, 185), mass(kg): (122.4(109.6, 121.7)] and needed to be Prince William County Firefighters and have no prior history of CVE, pulmonary, renal, and metabolic disease. Participants took a diet (REAP-S), sleep (PSQI), and PA survey (IPAQ-SF). Anthropometric measurements were taken using a BOD-POD®. The 3-minute step test was used to determine aerobic fitness. A Mann-Whitney U test with a p value of 0.05 was used to determine significant variables between two groups: those who performed poorly on the step test versus those who performed above poor. Effect size was calculated using Glass rank biserial correlation coefficient. The project was exploratory, so alpha was set to <0.01. Results- Variable(W-score, p-value): BF %(15, 1), PSQI(18.5, 0.6086), REAPS(18.5, 0.6066), and MPA(21, 0.3458), LPA (18, 0.6709), and Sitting time(12, 0.6709) FFM(11, 0.5541) showed no significant differences between groups. However, FM(4, 0.07593) and VPA(29, 0.02139) were statistically different between the groups. Conclusion: Post- statistical analysis showed that only VPA(29, 0.02139) and FM(4, 0.07593) were statistically different between the two groups. Vigorous physical activity is necessary in firefighters given the intense nature of their work. Excess fat mass is also a hindrance to performance and health as it can increase risk for cardiovascular events. Fire stations need to work towards implementing fitness programs to sustain firefighter aerobic fitness.[/expand] [expand title="Audio Transcript"]Hello! My name is Hana Khan. I'm currently an undergraduate student at George Mason and I am majoring in Community Health with a concentration in Nutrition. I'm so excited to share my research question with everyone that I worked on during my Summer Team Impact Project. So, my research question is: How do sleep, physical activity, and diet contribute to aerobic fitness in U.S. firefighters? You might be wondering, why is this an important or relevant question to ask? As I spent time in the project, it became apparent to me that many firefighters are not able to maintain healthy fitness levels, despite often having to perform physically difficult tasks. Their sleep, diet, and physical fitness levels have been shown in numerous studies to be sub-optimal, and studies have pointed to correlations between these three. Research has shown that aerobic fitness is especially important in firefighters- and yet, many do not have the required fitness levels needed to safely perform their jobs. It turns out, CVD is a leading cause of death in firefighters, most likely due to their work duties. Aerobic capacity is also correlated to CVD, where a low capacity means a higher risk. So I really wanted to focus on that with this topic. There were 13 participants in total, and their specific demographic information is listed on the slide under the methods section. The participants took a few surveys to assess their diet, sleep, and physical activity status. They then had some measurements taken, such as height, weight, body fat, etc. And finally, they performed a three minute step test, which is essentially a test that is used to determine aerobic fitness that involved stepping on and off plates raised to 12 inches to a metronome set to 96bpm. We divided the participants based on how they performed on the 3 minute step test. So one category was for those who performed poor, and one was for those who performed above poor. So after looking at all these variables from the surveys and measurements as seen in the table, and running them through a Mann-U-Whitney test, we found that only Vigorous Physical Activity (which we got from the physical activity survey) and Fat Mass (which we got from the anthropometric measurements) were significantly different between these two groups. Now, I will say that a limitation of this study is definitely that the surveys have self reported values, which means the participants may over or underestimate their responses. However, it cannot be ignored that fat mass and vigorous physical activity are both very important to firefighter fitness and performance. Vigorous physical activity is needed on the job when climbing and carrying things is needed, and excess fat mass can be a hindrance to performance and also increase CVD risk. Thus, I believe it would be beneficial for fire stations to provide individualized fitness programs aimed at targeting aerobic fitness and keeping firefighters active instead of launching them into a physically intense situation from a very low active situation. That's all from me, thank you for listening and I hope you gained something valuable from this presentation![/expand]

College of Humanities and Social Science College of Science Summer Team Impact Project Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Supporting Tribal Sovereignty & Environmental Governance: In collaboration with the Chickahominy Indian Tribe and the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe

Author(s): James Condo, Adam Edwards, Domi Hannon, Sara Jefferson, Brian Jimenez, Paloma Jimenez, Maiya Justice, Guadelupe Meza-Negrete, Jasmine Okidi, Patricia Troup

Mentor(s): Jeremy Campbell, Institute for Sustainable Earth; Tom Wood, School of Integrative Studies

The Indigenous Environmental Mapping and Resilience Planning Project has worked over the summer with two of the federally recognized Native American tribes of Virginia, the Chickahominy Indian Tribe and the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe. Historically, Western academia has participated in an exploitative, extractive relationship with Indigenous tribes. Conversely, our project challenges the structures of settler society by aligning our research objectives with goals and values provided by the Chickahominy and Upper Mattaponi. These objectives include establishing environmental data baselines for their ancestral lands, such as recognition of Indigenous food sovereignty and biodiversity mapping. The Indigenous Environmental Mapping and Resilience Planning Project is grounded in collaborative practices and support for Indigenous environmental stewardship while upholding Indigenous data sovereignty. This project is the first step in establishing long-term reciprocal relationships between George Mason University and the Chickahominy and Upper Mattaponi. Project deliverables for the food sovereignty portion include an Indigenous gardening booklet, a presentation on composting, and signage for a community garden. Project deliverables for the wildlife assessment portion include an ethnobiology booklet covering bioculturally significant species and a breeding bird survey and an invasive species survey conducted on recently repatriated Chickahominy ancestral lands.

Dana: Okay the tribe is headquartered in Charles City County, Virginia at an area known as Chickahominy Ridge. My name’s Dana Adkins, I’m a Chickahominy Tribal Citizen and the tribe’s environmental director since 2019.

Sara: Soo my name’s Sara Jefferson, I’m a member of the Chickahominy Indian Tribe, and I’m also a student here at Mason studying psychology, and I’m also a team member of this STIP project going on here down in Charles City.

Dana: Some of the deliverables we are hoping to get from this project are maybe introducing us to some methods that can help us to see what lands we have, understand what’s there, what’s not there, and how to best utilize those lands so that as we grow, we can have growth that’s environmentally friendly.

Sara: To me, sovereignty means kind of taking back what was already ours, if that makes sense, being that we were one of the first tribes to have direct contact with the colonizers back in 1607, and so much of our culture was lost and we weren’t able to get all of that back, but now that we are a sovereign nation, we are able to get these tools that we once lost back in an easier manner, if that makes sense.

[A group of four undergraduate researchers are standing against a white wall]

Domi: Our project, the Indigenous Environmental Mapping and Resilience Planning Project, has been working over the summer with two of the federally recognized Native American tribes of Virginia – the Chickahominy Tribe and Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe. Our overall goal has been to establish environmental data baselines for the two tribes, using specific guidelines given to us by the tribe’s environmental offices.

Guadelupe: Since the beginning of our relationships with the tribes, we’ve focused on maintaining tribal sovereignty over data and knowledge, as historically, Western academia has participated in an exploitative, extractive one-sided relationship with Indigenous tribes and their knowledge across North America, also known as Turtle Island.

Patti: Having a reciprocal relationship built on trust and honoring Indigenous knowledge is key to our project – we want our work with the Chickahominy and Upper Mattaponi to be additive and beneficial to the tribes. By participating in this work, we are attempting to decolonize academia and environmental studies.

Adam: An important part of our research has been honoring Indigenous data sovereignty – that means not everything we’ve worked on over the summer we can show, as the tribes do not want all data available for access to non-tribal members.

[Footage of the Powhatan River]

Dana: The site we’re standing on now is a piece of property that we have named “Chickahominy on the Powhatan.” Uh, this would have been a traditional village site, uh, the rivers uh in the state served as great village sites for the tribes. Uh, the tribes in this state are actually known as tributary tribes because of our villages being along our namesake rivers. Uh, this particular river would have been called the Powhatan River, pre-contact. Uh, post-contact it was renamed the James River.

[A single undergraduate researcher stands with a glass door behind her, with different screenshots interlayed over her at different points in time]

Jasmine: Indigenous and settler scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang explore how the metaphorization of the term “decolonization” has strayed the operational form of the word away from the objectives of Indigenous rights and sovereignty. This metaphorization may look like conflating decolonization with other social justice movements. This metaphorization may also manifest in “settler moves to innocence,” or methods of alleviating settler guilt from Indigenous erasure and forced assimilation. This is achieved by creating distance from the settler to the system of settler colonialism without actually absolving themselves of oppressive power or returning stolen land. Rather than falling into these inappropriate comparisons or settler moves to innocence, it is important that we recognize decolonization as a distinct project on the repatriation of Indigenous land and lifeways. For our project, that means challenging the structures of settler society by supporting Indigenous environmental stewardship and ensuring Indigenous sovereignty over data and, crucially, guiding our work with the stated goals and values of the respective tribes with which we are working.

[Three different voice overs over footage of Chickahominy lands as well as the Potomac Heights Community Garden]

Paloma: Over the summer, we have been working closely with Dana Adkins, the Tribal Environmental Director of the Chickahominy. He’s been working on establishing community gardens for the tribe to ensure healthy living for tribal citizens. With Dana, we’ve been working on establishing food sovereignty for the tribe through these community gardens as well as creating a curriculum on how to teach food sovereignty and the issues of food deserts and accessibility.

Patti: Food sovereignty is the right for peoples, especially native peoples, to have access to healthy, environmentally sound, traditional food. This includes both the ability to cultivate, harvest, and consume those foodways. Food sovereignty does not listen to market demands, but instead, focuses on the need of the people of the respective culture. Food sovereignty is being used across Turtle Island and worldwide to combat food deserts. Food deserts are when an area has a rate of poverty exceeding 20%, with rural folks being unable to access a large grocery store within ten miles of their home. The area in which the majority of the Chickahominy people live in is considered a food desert. The community garden and eventual future gardens established by Dana will help combat the lack of access to healthy, in-season food.

Maiya: One of the ways our team has worked on the community gardens is through research at George Mason University’s own community gardens, maintained by the Office of Sustainability. Guided by Doni Nolan, the Sustainability Program Manager for the Gardens and Greenhouse, we gained insight and ideas to present to Dana on working on the garden to best benefit the citizens of the Chickahominy nation.

Dana: Well we received a grant from the EPA this year to start a community garden. We as a tribe have gotten away from gardening, as a general rule. Like most of society we live fast paced lives and we rely more on fast food and prepared food, rather than stuff than we would have cultivated ourselves out of our gardens and cooked at home. The thought behind having the community garden was to kind of reintroduce some of those gardening techniques to our youth before it’s lost. We also have, like other communities, we have seen an increase in diseases such as diabetes and we feel this is probably attributed, again, to too much fast food, not enough of the foods that we grow ourselves, that are generally healthy, uh foods that you’d want to consume.

[An undergraduate researcher walks along a green path and his voice is overlaid with footage from Chickahominy lands]

For the Chickahominy, we also began collecting data on the wildlife on the lands that currently have regained ownership over. The two lands, Chickahominy on the Powhatan, or James River, and Mamanahunt on the Chickahominy River, were both recently (re)acquired through purchase by the Chickahominy. We participated in a bird survey, led by Dr. Wood, and collected data on the birds, other animals, insects, as well as the flora growing on the Chickahominy properties. We also conducted basic water monitoring from the Powhatan, or James River, and the Chickahominy River as well. One of our deliverables will be an ethnobiology booklet focusing on a select number of native flora and fauna.

[Footage from the Upper Mattaponi Powwow of Women’s Fancy Shawl Dancing]

Domi: Our work with the Chickahominy tribe of Charles City, Virginia in food sovereignty and wildlife data collection is only part of what we’ve been doing this summer – check out our second video to learn more about our mapping efforts with both the Chickahominy and the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe!