Faculty and Professional Paper Abstracts

Panel Discussion

Integrating UC California Naturalist Certification into Geography of California: A CalNat Presentation and Discussion

Gregory Ira, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

"The UC California Naturalist certification course is a partnership between the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources and over 70 community-based organizations across the state. Delivered by approved instructors from a range of organizations including museums, nature centers, park associations, land conservancies, and eleven community colleges, the course introduces participants to the wonders of the state’s unique environment and ecology. The course content and requirements have been successfully integrated into a variety of courses such as Biology, Field Ecology, Interdisciplinary Science, and Geography. As a place-based, interdisciplinary course, built around the interrelationships of people and their environment, it is particularly well aligned with California Geography. This presentation highlights the experience of Grossmont College in integrating California Naturalist into Geography of California and the use of the Honors Contract to append additional certification requirements with the course, avoiding laborious curriculum changes. Experiences from other community colleges will also be presented.

Faculty and Professional Papers

Comparing Consumption to Population: An Introductory Human Geography Lesson

Kris Bezdecny, Cal State LA

Malthusian approaches to human geography remain widely taught in introductory human and cultural geography courses, and is an explicitly required objective in the AP Human Geography curriculum (2.6).  Yet a Malthusian approach leaves out the key political, economic, cultural (and ecological) dynamics that underpin population geography.  This presentation focuses on an introductory class lesson plan that begins to approach population via economic geography by looking at consumption patterns around the world, using the UN combined geographical regions, and comparing those consumption patterns to the populations in those combined regions.  The focus of the lesson is three-fold: what is the relationship of consumption to population in different areas of the world?; What are the reasons behind the variations we see?; and What are the potential approaches we can use when confronted with this variation?  

The Stockton Survey: Creating a Sense of Place at a University Branch Campus 

Matthew Derrick, Stanislaus State University

Inspired by the Detroit Area Study (initiated in 1951 and carried out annually until 2004 by the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan), the Stockton Survey is an interdisciplinary effort drawing on the labor and specializations of six faculty members based at the Stockton Campus of Stanislaus State University. From the perspective of an administrator and participating faculty member, I look at how the Stockton Survey helps nurture a sense of place as it contributes to faculty development and community engagement at a branch campus.

What's in a name?  Exploring the Wacky World of Apartment Block Toponymy in the San Fernando Valley

Steve Graves, California State University, Northridge

Enjoy a slide show of apartments in the San Fernando Valley alongside a hopefully enlightening and entertaining discussion of the myriad means by which apartment owners, developers, and taste-makers have sought to appeal to would-be renters and/or buyers of condominiums from the post-war era to the current over-priced, overwrought and overheated real estate market.

Within and without: Notes on critical pedagogies of food geographies

Caroline Keegan, Sacramento State University

Food studies attract a diversity of students concerned with sustainability, social justice, nutrition, development, public policy, and education. It is crucial for geographers to engage and intervene in the field to provide alternative frameworks beyond neoliberal and paternalistic approaches common to philanthropic models. Both authors have their scholarly origins in food studies before developing broader intellectual pursuits focused around urban democracy and labor (respectively). As educators and mentors, we have regularly returned to an engagement with food, finding that the subject continues to grab the attention of students. We view ourselves as critical geographers who recognize food studies as a powerful point of entry to connect students to the political ecological intimacies of human-environment power relations shaping their own lives and communities across axes of difference. These efforts are not limited to  performative practices of “service learning” but rather aim to construct “situated solidarities” (Routledge and Derickson, 2015). 

In the Driver’s Seat: Using Experience Builder to Customize a Dashboard for Community Engagement

Alison  McNally, CSU Stanislaus

Community organizations often lack funding or expertise needed to develop geospatial capacity but represent a population who would greatly benefit from access to these analytical tools. The aim of this project was to create a user experience that would appeal to users of geospatial technology, from the beginning to the seasoned user.  Utilizing Esri’s Experience Builder platform, I designed an interface that supports efforts to connect with local community groups and provides access to information that could aid in decision-making processes.  Initial testing showed that community groups were receptive to the interface and plan to utilize the tool in decision-making processes.

Approaches to understanding rural environmental and climate justice in the California North State region

Alyssa A.  Nelson, UC Davis Institute of the Environment

"What is unique and important about ""rural environmental justice (REJ)"" and ""rural climate justice (RCJ)""? Drawing lessons from California's ten northernmost inland counties, this study will inform a forthcoming regional plan that is part of California’s statewide effort to promote equitable, sustainable economic development. 

Authors, UC Davis Institute of the Environment: Alyssa A. Nelson, PhD, Rural Environmental Justice Program Director for this project; Sean Treacy, Graduate Student Researcher and master's student in Environmental Policy and Management; Dr. Beth Rose Middleton Manning, Professor of Native American Studies, Associate Director of the Institute, and Director of its Environmental and Climate Justice Hub. 

Partners include Sierra Institute for Community and Environment as part of the North State Planning & Development Collective for the ""California Jobs First"" initiative which ""seeks to center disadvantaged communities as part of California’s transition to a clean energy, carbon neutral economy, creating good-paying jobs and prosperous communities for all."

Spatial Accessibility to Prosthetists in the United States

Matt Schmidtlein, Sacramento State University

The purpose of this study is to assess spatial accessibility to prosthetist providers in the US.  Adequate access to prosthetist services is key to improving patient post-amputation health and recovery times.  We used balanced floating catchment area methods to compare the supply of and demand for prosthetist services in Zip Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) nationwide.  Supply was estimated in each ZCTA as the number of prosthetic clinics certified by the American Board for Certification.  Demand in each ZCTA was represented by estimates of adults with diabetes experiencing non-traumatic lower limb amputations.  Prosthetist accessibility was found to follow broad US population patterns.  Access tends to be higher in urban areas than in rural areas.  Overall accessibility is lower in health care provider shortage areas.   Accessibility is positively correlated with concentrations of Black residents nationwide, but locally negative correlations are found, including in rural areas in the southeastern US.

Extreme Weather Patterns and Climate Change: Finding Silver Linings 

William Selby, Santa Monica College

Anomalous weather patterns and signs of climate change have increasingly dominated local, national, and global news stories. The daily barrage of death, destruction, and mayhem inflicted by such weather and climate weirdness has developed into a series of scenes resembling action-packed science fiction movies. But all of the tangible drama, pain, and suffering have also lifted atmospheric science, and human impacts on our natural systems and cycles, into the spotlight. We can use these attention-grabbing natural science demonstrations to encourage better use of critical thinking and the scientific method and to reconnect to the nature that nurtures us. Flashing warning signs in our egalitarian sky represent opportunities to focus on the ominous changes that threaten our vital natural resources and our very survival. We will share recent California sky watching examples on our website (www.rediscoveringthegoldenstate.com) and in a new publication.       

Slow Tourism at the Caribbean’s Geographic Margins: A Revisit to Treasure Beach, Jamaica

Benjamin Timms, California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo

After twenty-five years of tourism research throughout the Caribbean the author revisited one locale, Treasure Beach, Jamaica, to investigate if the promises of slow and community-based tourism as an alternative to mass tourism have held true, or had succumbed to the mass tourism growth trajectory. Mass tourism is criticized for high levels of monetary leakage, foreign control, social division, and continuing the legacy of planation economies. Slow tourism and the related community-based tourism models serve as the antithesis to mass tourism by focusing on minimizing such negatives aspects and maximizing the benefits of tourism for local populations while providing more authentic experiences for the tourist and locals alike. The results exhibit a resilient community that has thwarted the pressures of mass tourism and maintained a focus on community-based slow tourism.