Scholarship & Research
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Item The effect of place-based education on achievement, attendance, and environmental attitudes in a high school environmental science classroom(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2018) Day, Nathaniel Rush; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Greg FrancisPlaced-based education is the idea of using local contexts as a starting point for classroom learning. This study aims to evaluate a new program's effectiveness at increasing student attendance, attitudes towards the environment, and academic achievement through a place-based study of the environment. In an 11th grade environmental science class, ten students carried out year-long investigations at a 300-acre parcel of land set aside for conservation. The results indicated that the treatment improved student perception of school but did not increase actual attendance rates. Sixty percent of students in the treatment either met or exceeded the state standards as evaluated by the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, and student views of the environment remained high throughout the treatment.Item Technological divergence and the portrayal of nature in outdoors programming(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2011) Harrison, Henry Huntington; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Dennis Aig.The progression of film technology, both its production and distribution, has followed a steady path of greater diversity of distribution channels and lower minimum cost of production. This paper looks at the portrayal of Nature in outdoor programming (hunting and fishing programs) as a way of illustrating what this means for filmmakers. I survey the history of outdoor films and programming in terms of its portrayal of humans and nature following a Dominion model or a Stewardship model. I then analyze two main types of outdoor programming, hunting programs and fly fishing films, and their main channels of distribution and how they have come to diverge in their portrayal of nature. I conclude that the trend towards divergence will continue and that this means filmmakers have the opportunity and possibly the obligation to speak more directly to ever more specific demographics.Item Nature/culture and fly fishing in the New West(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2006) Hostetler, Jeffrey William; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Susan KollinCultural theorists define the New West as the region including most portions of the states of Washington, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the entire portions of Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. Their term assumes, as does anything new, that there was an Old West as well, possessing distinct characteristics from the New. What analyses of historical, cultural, and theoretical texts reveal is the seamlessness of terms such as New and Old; that throughout this region, the complications and conflict involved around limited resources like water, wildlife, and timber have always existed. No particular date signifies when the Old began, nor when the New commenced. However, to illustrate these complications, many define the New West with stuff- -private jet ports, jet skis, ski resorts, espresso bars, and micro brew pubs are all characteristics of a New West rife with competition and commodities. One crucial concept to acknowledge is the wider perception that the environment of the West offers a regenerative therapy unlike any other region in the U.S. Herein I utilize the activity of fly fishing and its corresponding literature in the last half of the twentieth century as a microcosm of the larger New West cultural (political, economic, recreational, environmental) condition to illustrate many of the same occurrences in other activities of the region. What surfaces throughout the analysis of the aforementioned texts is the notion of the paradoxical retreat-that nothing specifically in the Nature of the New West offers a retreat from Cultural pressures. When one escapes something, that thing is waiting upon arrival. Even the terms Nature and Culture do not work in a twenty first century discussion of the West; neither term stands alone, distinct and identifiable from its traditional opposite. Culture cannot impose itself on Nature anymore than Nature can redeem the ills of Culture, although throughout fly fishing texts we see a perpetuation of this myth of the West as a panacea. Seeing the cure-all as a myth will offer all readers the opportunity to rethink their actions within this region.