Reframing Humans in Nature as a Tool to Create Care for the Environment: Lessons from Spanish Speakers Rebecca Gutshall * Project Mentor(s): J. Hope Amason, PhD; Rodrigo Rentería-Valencia, PhD Outdoor education is an underutilized tool in climate advocacy and environmental awareness. With current US policy lifting environmental protections, it is clear that more effective climate education is necessary. This study illustrates why outdoor education is an effective tool for inspiring environmental stewardship. The study also shows the effectiveness of audience-led outdoor education across multilingual settings catering to different cultural groups (in this case, bilingual English and Spanish speakers), producing a similar degree of “Care For the Environment” (CFE) across these groups. This consistency shows the value of expanding access and accommodating Spanish speakers. At the same time, however, the study hints at the fact that Spanish speakers may think differently about care for the environment (CFE), and that difference may be valuable for climate advocacy. In this study, Spanish speakers and English speakers are both shown to be in favor of conservation efforts, but upon further interviews, Spanish speakers typically saw themselves as a cohesive part of the environment; whereas their English-speaking counterparts often defined “environment” in opposition to human presence. This perceived difference can inform educators about how these different groups of speakers relate to environmental policies and advocacy. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation (May 21, 9:30am–3:00pm) Keywords : free-choice learning, climate change, linguistic relativity, bilingual, intercultural SOURCE Form ID: 259
7000-year Anthropogenic Fire History Reconstruction Near Progresso Lagoon in Northern Belize
Bronwen Hardee*, Megan Walsh, PhD Project Mentor(s): Megan Walsh, PhD
This research uses multiproxy paleoenvironmental data to infer how humans living in northern Belize interacted with fire, climate, and vegetation changes during the Holocene, specifically filling a gap in our understanding of these interactions during the early to middle Holocene. Charcoal records are especially important to this investigation given the use of fire in agriculture throughout the region, and the rarity of natural fire in the region’s tropical lowland broadleaf forests. We are reconstructing past fire activity using macroscopic charcoal analysis on a sediment core collected from Chiwa Lake, a small karstic cenote one mile east of Progresso Lagoon. These efforts have produced one of the first macroscopic charcoal analysis-based fire history reconstructions for any site in northern Belize, and one of only three such studies in Belize as a whole. Our reconstruction shows widespread use of fire during the past four thousand years, peaking at circa 2000 cal yr BP and ca. 3200 cal yr BP. Low levels of burning occurred near Progresso at the start of this record ca. 7000 years ago, indicating a continuous human presence on the landscape for the entirety of the record. The record also clearly illustrates the reduced level of burning starting between ca. 1800 and 1500 cal yr BP, aligning with the start of the Early Classic Period, and continuing until ca. 200 cal yr BP. When combined with climatic and sedimentological data, this research will provide needed Holocene paleoenvironmental context to the archaeological findings from the Progresso Lagoon region. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation (May 21, 9:30am–3:00pm) Keywords: Paleoecology, Fire, Maya, Climate, Macroscopic Charcoal Analysis SOURCE Form ID: 114
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