When students describe physics, they often associate this science with facts, formulae, and objectivity. Unfortunately, all too often, STEM classes completely overlook cultural influence and when it is discussed, it is described as a historical and static phenomenon. This can block students from connecting physics to their own experiences. In our research, we asked students to reflect on their sense of the nature of physics and how their own experiences influence their perception. We used a phenomenological qualitative analysis to investigate 51 students’ ideas across five introductory physics classes at a two year college. Using an emergent theming analysis, we coded students’ written descriptions of physics and how their background shaped their ideas. Students described their own familial, cultural, and professional backgrounds, as well as their instructors’ identities and teaching methods, as impacting their perspective of subjectivity and objectivity in physics. By making space in class to compare and contrast physics culture with students’ own experiences, we hope to show students that their individual background is key to shaping their learning and improving the often inequitable field of physics.

Within STEM, physics ranks among the least aligned with the US population regarding racial and gender representation. This not only has the potential to hinder new discoveries and innovations, it also highlights a lack of equitable opportunities for individuals. In an effort to identify ways in which teaching practices may contribute to this problem, our research explores correlations between active learning strategies and growth in students’ conceptual understanding. The data analyzed are from a pre/post survey in a two-year college calculus-based introductory university physics class with a primarily Vietnamese, Black, and white population. We present topics including force and free-fall that show either substantial or limited improvement in student learning gains. We compare data across several demographics, and relate corresponding learning activities. We provide recommendations to improve both learning outcomes and instructional methods, with the aim of increasing opportunities for all identities to complete degrees and pursue career goals.

American military Veterans with a history of trauma exposure have a high prevalence of comorbid mental health diagnoses (e.g., traumatic brain injury (TBI), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorder (SUD)) with many overlapping symptoms, resulting in difficulty in diagnosis and treatment matching. Increasing attention has focused on understanding how the direct interactions between these medical and psychiatric diagnoses vary across military subgroups. Critically, current research lacks the usage of larger datasets encompassing wide arrays of interactions between these comorbidities and their unique relationships to disproportionately prevalent diagnoses such as TBI and PTSD. This study aims to investigate the interaction between TBI severity and psychiatric outcomes as well as explore these interactions using a comprehensive network analysis of prevalent psychiatric comorbidities. Data was obtained from Veterans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who received VA healthcare in clinical visits between 2005-2019 and the United States Veterans Eligibility Trends and Statistics database (USVETS). Veterans will be stratified by TBI severity ranging from 1 (low severity) to 5 (high severity) using Comprehensive TBI Evaluation (CTBIE) and Neurobehavioral Symptom Inventory (NSI) scores. Incidence of all prevalent psychiatric comorbidities will then be calculated for each TBI category to determine the individual relationships between TBI and its comorbidities. This analysis will be followed by a network analysis of co-occurring psychiatric diagnoses to determine their associations in prevalence with one another. In doing so, we hope to create a more nuanced understanding of the mechanisms behind TBI and its psychiatric comorbidities to improve the physical and mental wellbeing of US Servicemembers.

The Pacific Northwest (PNW) saw an unprecedented heatwave between June 25 to July 3 of 2021, with temperatures reaching up to 15℃ above the climatological mean. Previous research has examined the impact of this event on plants in Western Washington and Oregon through observational studies, and has focused on the economic implications for poor crop turnout. We used remote sensing data to take a top-down approach and examined how all plants throughout the PNW fared during and after this historical heatwave. Solar induced fluorescence (SIF) and Near-Infrared Reflectance of vegetation (NIRv) are two remotely sensed products that have been used to estimate plant health and gross primary productivity (GPP). SIF is more closely connected to plant processes like photosynthesis but has a short record (2018-2021) compared to VIIRS NIRv (2012-2021). We compared the responses of SIF to NIRv and found that both vegetation indices increased in trees and woody savannas, but decreased in grasslands and crops. However, SIF showed more intense and geographically larger increases in areas covered by trees. We then compared these vegetation indices to in-situ flux tower measurements of carbon fluxes, which did not always agree with SIF during the heatwave in woody areas. This study shows how remote sensing can further our understanding of how extreme events impact plant health, which is increasingly important as heatwaves become more intense and frequent in the future.