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Description
The Refugee Education and Clinic Team (REACT) is a local organization led by students at Arizona State University and the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine with the purpose of improving the health of refugees and asylees. One way in which REACT aims to improve the health of refugees and asylees is through health education workshops, which inform refugees about health conditions and management options. The purpose of this project was to analyze how REACT’s health education workshop about obesity impacted refugees’ understanding of healthy living. This project implemented a pre- and post-presentation survey at REACT’s obesity workshop to measure refugees’ understanding of healthy living. Overall, a pre-existing understanding of the importance of healthy eating and daily exercise was measured and an improvement in their understanding of the symptoms associated with obesity was recorded.
ContributorsPatel, Reeti (Author) / DiVito, Brittany (Thesis director) / Kenny, Katherine (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
This thesis contains three chapters, all of which involve using culturally inclusive education to explore the experiences of religious undergraduate biology students. The first chapter is an essay entitled "Toward Culturally Inclusive Undergraduate Biology Education," which describes a literature review performed with the aim of characterizing the landscape of cultural competence and related terms for biology educators and biology education researchers. This chapter highlights the use of 16 different terms related to cultural competence and presents these terms, their definitions, and highlights their similarities and differences. This chapter also identifies gaps in the cultural competence literature, and presents a set of recommendations to support better culturally inclusive interventions in undergraduate science education. The second chapter, entitled "Different Evolution Acceptance Instruments Lead to Different Research Findings," describes a study in which the source of 30 years of conflicting research on the relationship between evolution acceptance and evolution understanding was determined. The results of this study showed that different instruments used to measure evolution acceptance sometimes lead to different research results and conclusions. The final chapter, entitled "Believing That Evolution is Atheistic is Associated with Poor Evolution Education Outcomes Among Religious College Students," describes a study characterizing definitions of evolution that religious undergraduate biology students may hold, and examines the impact that those definitions of evolution have on multiple outcome variables. In this study, we found that among the most religious students, those who thought evolution is atheistic were less accepting of evolution, less comfortable learning evolution, and perceived greater conflict between their personal religious beliefs and evolution than those who thought evolution is agnostic.
ContributorsDunlop, Hayley Marie (Author) / Brownell, Sara (Thesis director) / Collins, James (Committee member) / Barnes, M. Elizabeth (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Schools across the United States have been subject to a rise in violent incidents since 2013. Reading about school shootings, racist acts, and violent demonstrations in schools has unfortunately become commonplace, which is contributing to inequitable outcomes for some student populations. These equity gaps have triggered demands for more equitable solutions in schools, a responsibility that falls on the shoulders of stakeholders like school governing boards, principals, and parents.
Chandler Unified School District (CUSD), a large school system in Arizona that serves 45,000 students from preschool through high school, has been unable to escape similar structural and frictional inequities within its schools. One instance of a racially charged student performance at Santan Middle School motivated CUSD to take a more immediate look at equity in the district. It is during this response that our team of New Venture Group consultants engaged with Matt Strom, Assistant Superintendent of CUSD, in analyzing the important question of “how CUSD can take steps towards closing equity gaps within the district?”
CUSD defines an equity gap as any difference in student opportunity, achievement, discipline, attendance, etc. contributable to a student’s ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status. Currently, certain student populations in CUSD perform vastly different academically and receive different opportunities within schools, but as was our problem statement, CUSD is aiming to reduce (and eventually close) these gaps.
Our team approached this problem in three phases: (1) diagnosis, (2) solution creation, and (3) prevention. In phase one, we created a dashboard to help principals easily and visually identify gaps by toggling parameters on the dashboard. Phase two focused on the generation of recommendations for closing gaps. To achieve this goal, a knowledge of successful gap-closing strategies will be paired with the dashboard. In our final phase, the team of consultants created a principal scorecard to ensure equity remains a priority for principals.
Chandler Unified School District (CUSD), a large school system in Arizona that serves 45,000 students from preschool through high school, has been unable to escape similar structural and frictional inequities within its schools. One instance of a racially charged student performance at Santan Middle School motivated CUSD to take a more immediate look at equity in the district. It is during this response that our team of New Venture Group consultants engaged with Matt Strom, Assistant Superintendent of CUSD, in analyzing the important question of “how CUSD can take steps towards closing equity gaps within the district?”
CUSD defines an equity gap as any difference in student opportunity, achievement, discipline, attendance, etc. contributable to a student’s ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status. Currently, certain student populations in CUSD perform vastly different academically and receive different opportunities within schools, but as was our problem statement, CUSD is aiming to reduce (and eventually close) these gaps.
Our team approached this problem in three phases: (1) diagnosis, (2) solution creation, and (3) prevention. In phase one, we created a dashboard to help principals easily and visually identify gaps by toggling parameters on the dashboard. Phase two focused on the generation of recommendations for closing gaps. To achieve this goal, a knowledge of successful gap-closing strategies will be paired with the dashboard. In our final phase, the team of consultants created a principal scorecard to ensure equity remains a priority for principals.
ContributorsFerrara, Justin Christopher (Co-author) / Lee, Cynthia (Co-author) / Weston, Joshua (Co-author) / Licon, Wendell (Thesis director) / Strom, Matthew (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
The maintenance of proper oral health has been shown to be an integral facet of overall well-being, with relationships studied between the progression of life-threatening diseases and improper oral care. Heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and arthritis are some of the most common types of diseases that can progress as a result of oral negligence, particularly within the United States, where there is a lack of a universal health care system that encompasses dental care. In addition to the lack of proper access to quality oral care, a lack of adequate education surrounding oral care has been found to be present, particularly in rural and suburban areas in the United States. Project Tooth Fairy, a non-profit volunteer program, was established in order to delve deeper into these issues. This review aims to educate on the correlations between severe disease progression and oral health, as well as to acknowledge the importance of keeping a healthy mouth in regards to overall well-being, through a synthesis of Project Tooth Fairy’s findings.
ContributorsGeorge, Sarah (Author) / Wharton, Christopher (Thesis director) / Topal, Emel (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Over the years from 2009 to 2017, the people of Arizona witnessed the state consistently defunding the schools, its students academically underperforming, and as a result, the poverty achievement gap widening. Even with the efforts in recent years to re-invest in education, Arizona’s education funding falls below its level at 2008 and the national average. Among Arizona’s funding sources is the Public School Tax Credit, a unique legislation for the state that allows for taxpayers to donate money to certain programs at Arizona public schools and reduce their state income tax liability dollar-for-dollar. Because of the already severe achievement gap in Arizona, this funding source which relies on surrounding neighborhoods’ income raises the concern that, instead of helping Arizona students, it is exacerbating the existing achievement gap. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between income and donations received by schools to determine the validity of this concern. To ensure a comprehensive examination of the relationship between income and donations received, regression tests are run on both the aggregate level and individual level. The tests find that, although income does have a statistically significant correlation with the donations received, it is only positive for the effect of total income on total donations, negative for the effect of average income per return on average donation per donor, and negative for average income per return on total donations. The results imply that to garner high donations, it matters less to be located in a high-earning neighborhood and more important to be located in a moderate-earning neighborhood with a lot of people donating using this credit. Therefore, the concern of income’s effect on donations is valid, but perhaps not in the straightforward way that we would expect.
ContributorsChen, Vivian Young (Author) / Kenchington, David (Thesis director) / Brown, Jenny (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12
Description
In the Spring of 2021, I had an internship with Butterfly Wonderland, where I worked in their conservatory and learned about the ecological relationship between butterflies and plants. As part of my internship, I encouraged guests to learn more about gardening for pollinators. That experience inspired me to complete a creative project in which I would design a butterfly garden of my own that would highlight wildlife benefits and be accessible to people like myself, who do not have their own gardens and don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on gardening supplies.
In collaboration with Dr. Gwen Iacona and Liz Makings (director and second committee member respectively), I planted accessible gardens. By “accessible”, I mean that the gardens were affordable (less than $100 total), included free/upcycled materials wherever possible, and are easily replicable. For my project, I made ‘prototypes’ of the gardens by using freely available seeds and soil sources, germinating those seeds in the ASU Greenhouses, and documenting my process so that it could be shared. Freely available seeds and other materials came from a variety of places including the ASU seed library, local Free Little Libraries, donations, as well as purchases from on campus fundraisers. The germination and growth of seeds in the ASU greenhouse took place over the course of several months in the fall and winter. That documentation has taken on several forms, including an informational pamphlet about wildlife gardening and flyers specific to locally available plant seeds. I find this to be very important because my end goal was to create something that other students or people in our community can use in a practical way. I wanted to create something that will bring gardening into the homes of people who didn’t think they were able to participate in it.
ContributorsBernat, Isabella (Author) / Iacona, Gwen (Thesis director) / Makings, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Due to the elimination of the established instructional methods from the impact of COVID-19, the implementation of mass synchronous learning created a new strain of educational experiences for students that took a toll on social interaction. In the Spring 2022 semester, a survey was conducted of students that were previously or currently enrolled in the principal undergraduate biological sciences course, BIO 340: General Genetics, to assess both the prevalence of social interaction in the lives of the students and the potential ways this information could be molded to improve student’s educational and motivational experience. The results of this survey indicated that there was a considerable lack of social interaction and motivation among students that have taken or are taking BIO 340. Through a process of collecting qualitative data of students by 1-on-1 interviews, the majority of students requested that professors communicate with each other to learn more about ways they can incorporate social interaction as external technological applications and tools have been developed. Students brought up many external tools that professors in other biological sciences courses have been utilizing to engage student-to-student interaction and found these resources to increase their level of understanding and motivation. The driving interest behind this creative project is to understand the importance of peer-to-peer learning that may help guide professors that are new to synchronous teaching so that they may increase their level of understanding and comfortability of accessing resources that students themselves have shown to increase their educational experiences. The mixed-method design served as a means to understand what types of social interaction enhance students’ education and motivation.
ContributorsMisra, Radhika (Author) / Hartwell, Leland (Thesis director) / Pate, Amy (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Upon analyzing the literature that is available on refugee populations in conjunction with our personal experiences with these populations, we ultimately decided to develop a mobile app that targeted the source of the numerous disparities we saw. These disparities ranged from increased prevalence of chronic diseases to difficulty in going to doctor's appointments due to transportation challenges. We focused on the three areas of government assistance, clinical health, and general well-being through our mobile app, Refugee Aid Initiative. This mobile app is designed to provide refugee populations with the resources necessary to build healthier, happier, and more independent lives for themselves and their families. Here, we focus on not only highlighting resources that are available but also adding supplementary information that helps refugee populations fully take advantage of the resources that are available to them.
ContributorsElsabbagh, Zaid (Author) / Bcharah, George (Co-author) / Sellner, Erin (Thesis director) / Jakubczak, Laura (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
The Founders lab is a year-long program that gives its students an opportunity to participate in a unique team-based, experiential Barrett honors thesis project to design and apply marketing and sales strategies, as well as business and financial models to create and launch a new business. Initially, our team focused on creating a product that would provide those who have received basic genetic testing from services such as 23andMe with nutrition, exercise, and health/wellness educational resources. Over time, we transitioned our focus to creating a community forum that would also provide those resources to people who had not received basic genetic testing, but were still interested in accessing educational resources about the specific conditions that basic genetic testing services provide reports for. To accomplish this, we have produced a website that allows users to post content and interact with each other.
ContributorsChapman, Isabelle (Author) / Umana Fleck, David (Co-author) / Niu, Hardy (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Lee, Christopher (Committee member) / Balven, Rachel (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Theories about the human origin in evolution and religion are fundamentally countering beliefs that are still debated to this day. This study continues to explore this relationship in the college population at a public university with the intention of targeting a diverse religious population. This research hopes to answer the question: does having greater literacy in evolution lead to a noninterventionist perspective on evolution? The prediction is that evidence of increased evolution comprehension will influence students to have a more agnostic, or noninterventionist, view on evolution. An evolution class was given a survey that had two parts broken into demographic and evolution sections with one question that asks about compatibility between evolution and religion. This was given twice in a single semester to track the growth of evolution knowledge and any other differences. There were 265 students in the initial survey, but only 223 responses in the post-survey. The compatibility question had 8 statements that range from creationist to atheistic perspectives and was divided into two sides: interventionist (divine involvement) and noninterventionist (deity may be present but does not intervene). More than 70% of the class had a noninterventionist perspective on evolution despite the Christian categories being the second largest group students identified with after agnostic. The agnostic statement was the top choice followed by the atheistic answer on the noninterventionist side. Lastly, there was some growth of evolution knowledge for each religious category in the evolution section but is not significant for interpretation. Based on the collected data, it is not sufficient to answer the question and requires more data collection via a longitudinal study.
ContributorsLam, Monica (Author) / Kappes, Janelle (Thesis director) / Sterner, Beckett (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Watts College of Public Service & Community Solut (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05