While documents and art are limited in their ability to encompass the other’s properties, often leaving documents devoid of interest and art devoid of fact, photographs can encompass both sides becoming an incredibly powerful tool for social change. Photographs can be both visually arousing and factually evident (in so far as they portray the photographer’s interpretation of the action.) For this reason, I believe it is important to expose students to the nuanced techniques and capabilities of photography. For the past three years I have worked with the Asheville High School student-begun photo club creating some basic digital assignments. This year, my community partner Kristina Shriver – the photo club faculty sponsor – and I introduced alternative analog processes such as pinhole cameras and cyanotypes. Through these projects, the students explored principles such as line, composition, and exposure time as well as the relationship between an interconnected person, place, and thing (the title of our end of the year photo show.) I also curated a gallery show so that the students could gain exposure for their work. Finally, I created various promotional tools (posters, a website) and an instructional binder of such tools, assignment worksheets, and gallery contact information to promote sustainability of the club. This presentation explores the process of reevaluating the goals of the club, what we did to ensure progress, the difficulties in doing both tasks, and ultimately the benefit to the school and art communities.
The United States has an alarming increased rate of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease and stroke. As a nation we spend 86% of our healthcare dollars on treating these chronic diseases and their symptoms. Instead we should start to shift our focus towards prevention through community engagement and health education. Flying Fish CSA is an organic, four season, vegetable farm located on the edge of North Asheville in Weaverville, NC. This is a small family business that provides locally grown produce with the help of community volunteers. They believe whole-heartedly that as more Asheville residents eat locally, they will improve their health and strengthen the community a whole. This local farm was in dire need for new marketing and to be able to provide education on the importance of eating fresh organic produce as well as the health benefits of a primarily plant based diet. For this public service project I worked with Seth Salmon, the owner of Flying Fish CSA, to find ways to get connected in the community and provide educational resources which would benefit his farm as well as the community. We decided to create marketing materials that educate and inform the public on the health benefits of purchasing locally grown organic vegetables. We also wanted to create an opportunity for people in the community to get hands on experience working on the farm. I led a group of volunteers on a project to convert a shed into a tiny house for seasonal interns to get an insightful experience while living on the farm. This project taught me the skills necessary to better communicate health information to the public and to create a sustainable opportunity for future volunteers and interns to learn, grow, and thrive through community agriculture.
This presentation will report on the progress made regarding the epitaxial growth of graphene on 6H silicon carbide through carbon dioxide laser ablation. Alongside the continuing collaboration with nanomaterial specialists at Clemson University and the previous set of results, we have made significant changes to the experimental setup, which are reflected in our current analysis. The most notable changes include the introduction of a constant argon flow across the substrate and shortened ablation time periods. These updates will continue to refine our method of producing graphene and approaching our goal of identifying the correlation between ablation time and temperature with the number of graphene layers formed.
A climatology of tropical cyclone eye sizes classified by “citizen scientists” through Cyclone Center, a website dedicated to the analysis of the Global Tropical Cyclone record of infrared satellite images, will be presented. Through this global analysis, a record of tropical cyclone eye size is determined from classifications of over 8,000 people for storms forming between 1978-2009. Images of tropical cyclones classified as “eye storms” are tabulated and placed into categories of eye sizes which form the basis of the climatology. Intensity estimates for individual tropical cyclone images are calculated through a process of synthesizing multiple weighted user classifications to form a consensus for the individual image. Tropical cyclone intensity estimates are then correlated to the specific categories of eye diameters in order to better distinguish the relationship between eye size and storm intensity.
Standing before a threshold can be quite stimulating, both physically and mentally. Confronting the Threshold: Perceptions of a Passageway represents liminal spaces through paintings and drawings of doors. People often pass through these margins focusing only on their destination. Marginal spaces or thresholds are known as “liminal spaces” and can be difficult to recognize, as they are undefined territory. These short, transitional passes are incredibly significant, as stimulating thoughts occur during the passageway from one space to another. This could be a place where someone is leaving their past behind, eager to find a new beginning. This could be the waiting room, awaiting the next milestone, or an upcoming event in one’s life. On the other hand, it could be when one is indecisive. It may also be as simple as the process of opening a door and crossing a physical threshold. In addition to the more commonly known physical and anthropological contexts, there are spiritual and psychological transitions. These changes were recognized in ancient Rome regarding Janus, the god of doorways, who is often thought to be the god of beginnings and endings. This research will be represented in a series of paintings and drawings: the paintings depict life-size doors; the drawings provide details of door knobs, door handles and other elements. The art work signifies transitional zones provoking the formulation of questions in viewers’ minds. Doorways are excellent physical representations of liminal spaces, and like most liminal spaces, doors are often overlooked. Confronting the Threshold signifies transitional zones, providing an opportunity to appreciate the beauty and significance of transitions.
Environmental anthropology examines the relationship between humans and the environment, emphasizing the idea that culture is partly the outward expression of a need to maintain homeostasis. According to this view, cultures develop over the course of generations in part to maintain ecological balance through sustainable resource use. The traditional food production system of the Cherokee Indians, which has sustained the Cherokee people for thousands of years, exemplifies the importance of cultural tradition in ensuring the long-term survival of a population. In the years since Western contact, however, a shift in Cherokee food ways has accelerated, threatening not only a rich cultural tradition, but also the food security of the Cherokee community, the crop biodiversity of southern Appalachian agroecosystems, and the ability of an increasingly tenuous global food system to provide for an expanding population. Geographic displacement, forced acculturation, and a culturally appropriative tourist industry, all products of an institutionalized system of racial oppression, are identified as three significant modern barriers to traditional agricultural practice in Cherokee. The environmental detriments that stem from this agricultural decline thus substantiate the idea that culture and environment are closely intertwined, and that sudden upheaval of a deeply rooted indigenous society will inevitably disrupt the delicate environmental equilibrium had been previously sustained by traditional culture and generations of collective ecological knowledge.
Groundwater contamination from agricultural runoff and residential wastewater is a growing environmental threat. Common veterinary and human medications, pesticides, fertilizers and other environmental contaminates often make their way into local rivers and streams through septic system leakage, surface runoff, and treated wastewater disposal. The ultimate fate of pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, pesticides, and personal care products in surface and groundwater depends on several factors, including the surrounding vegetation and soil composition. Electrostatic interactions between soil minerals and ionized compounds cause certain contaminates to have a higher affinity for specific soils, affecting the adsorption and relative mobility of contaminates in the environment. Therefore, understanding the mineral composition of soil is vital to predicting the fate of environmental contaminates, like pharmaceuticals, in local ecosystems. X-Ray powder diffraction is a characterization technique that helps to identify which minerals are present in a soil, however determining the weight percentage of the minerals is not a trivial task. Several methods have been proposed for quantifying XRD data using an internal standard as a matrix flushing agent. This study attempts to quantify the clay minerals in Western North Carolina soils using X-Ray powder diffraction and a reference intensity ratio analytical method.