Sheldon Jackson College

Shellfish harvesting holds cultural significance for Alaska Native coastal communities, yet consuming untested shellfish poses serious health risks, with Alaska Natives facing disproportionately higher exposure to shellfish toxins. Traditional knowledge has historically informed risk mitigation, but climate change is altering exposure patterns, diminishing the predictability of exposures and challenging the reliability of traditional practices. In response, the Southeast Alaska Tribal Ocean Research (SEATOR) network—a tribally led initiative—maintains a near real-time toxin data website, while the Sitka Tribe of Alaska has developed culturally grounded environmental education programming to enhance toxin risk awareness and support safe harvesting practices. This study assesses the impact of a middle school program aimed at increasing awareness of toxin risks, promoting safe harvesting, and encouraging the use of the SEATOR website to check toxin levels. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), we evaluated shifts in children’s beliefs and behavioral intentions regarding shellfish harvesting and toxin exposure risk mitigation. Participants included 50 middle school students across three communities in Southeast Alaska—Sitka, Hoonah, and Juneau. Research activities included pre- and post-program surveys and interviews and a one-year follow-up survey. Using the survey data, we used generalized estimating equation linear regression to investigate pre-post program changes in TPB beliefs and behavioral intentions related to shellfish harvesting and consumption and a specific risk reduction strategy: checking the SEATOR website for toxin levels. We also assessed how changes in TPB beliefs relate to changes in harvesting and risk reduction behavioral intentions. Interviews were intended to contextualize the changes in beliefs and behavioral intentions measured in surveys. Results indicated pre-post program shifts. Overall, participants reported more positive perceptions and increased behavioral intentions towards shellfish harvesting and checking the SEATOR website, but differences emerged across sites and reported race. Participants’ understanding of the risk reduction strategy and confidence in their ability to check the SEATOR website increased and suggests that encouraging the use of an accessible risk reduction strategy is effective in promoting the adoption of safe environmental and health behaviors. Participants also indicated that family involvement in harvesting shaped perceptions, underscoring the need for family engagement in youth environmental education. Our findings emphasize that culturally tailored environmental education that integrates risk perception and practical risk reduction strategies within local ecological and cultural contexts can influence children’s safe harvesting intentions. This work suggests the broader applicability of culturally informed ocean literacy programs in promoting public health and environmental stewardship.

ABSTRACT In-fill aluminum bar is a lightweight product with high energy absorption, weight ratio, and mechanical, chemical, and physical qualities. Al6061 bar in-filled with Stainless Steel Structure (SSS) is mould cast to test its flexural response. The experimental investigation has two stages: the first predicts the binding ability between the Stainless Steel (rod & wire) core and aluminium, and the second estimates flexural, pull-out, and compression properties to ensure fit. Pull-out and SEM tests evaluate SS304 rod and wire reinforced with AL6061 matrix binding. Secondary evaluations of SSS-filled composites use several material characterisation methods. MIG is used to wire and rod-form SS304 in-fill structures. The mechanical properties of wired and rod-in-fill SSS with aluminum bar have been experimentally examined. After heat treatment, the rectangular bar’s energy absorption and flexural strength improved. SEM examination is used for micro and macroscopic analyses to show the in-fill structure’s role in the aluminum matrix. Higher flexural strength of about 1559.5 MPa is attained after heat treatment process for perforated small hole specimen with energy absorption rate of 988.5 J on comparing other specimens. Finally, in-fill structure with aluminum bar outperforms higher than raw Al6061 alloy.

Inclusive, participatory governance is a key enabler of effective responses to natural hazard risks exacerbated by climate change. This paper describes a community-level co-design process among academic, state, and federal scientists and the community of Sitka, Alaska to develop a novel landslide warning system for this small coastal town. The decentralized system features an online dashboard which displays current and forecast risk levels to help residents make their own risk management decisions. The system and associated risk communications are informed by new geoscience, social, and information science generated during the course of the project. This case study focuses on our project team’s activities and addresses questions including: what activities did the project team conduct, what did these activities intend to accomplish, and did these activities accomplish what they intended? The paper describes the co-design process, the associated changes in system design and research activities, and formal and informal evaluations of the system and process. Overall, the co-design process appears to have generated a warning system the Sitka community finds valuable, helped to align system design with local knowledge and community values, significantly modified the scientists’ research agendas, and helped navigate sensitivities such as the effect of landslide exposure maps on property values. Other communities in SE Alaska are now adopting this engagement approach. The paper concludes with broader implications for the role of community-level, participatory co-design and risk governance for climate services.

According to the data provided by WHO, about 15% of the world population i.e. about 1 billion people experience disability with various impairments. Studies reveal that of these, 10% of people have motor disability requiring a wheelchair. Individuals with severe motor impairment face difficulty with the existing wheelchair using joystick control in steering it. Hence the proposed system aims at designing and developing a hand gesture controlled semi-autonomous electric wheelchair that is adaptable both indoors and outdoors. The system is designed in such a way the user can operate the wheelchair using hand gestures and android application. Hand gesture control is employed through the MEMS sensor. It is a three-axis accelerometer sensor that measures the hand orientation of the user and by analysing the motion, Arduino microcontroller processes the data and helps in propelling the wheelchair accordingly. An android application with directional buttons where the user can operate and control the wheelchair by pressing the specific button as a command. Bluetooth module interfaced with Arduino is integrated with the android application to recognize the command and process the data respectively. The developed system incorporating the user interface helps to easily navigate and reduces the effort in manually propelling the wheelchair. Experimental results demonstrate the viability of the proposed system. The future development as speed control system, and ergonomic design with safety belts make it highly advanced mobility solution and improves the reliability of the system.

Abstract We explore a “Go With the Older Fish” (GWOF) mechanism of learned migration behaviour for exploited fish populations, where recruits learn a viable migration path by randomly joining a school of older fish. We develop a non-age-structured biomass model of spatially independent spawning sites with local density dependence, based on Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii). We compare a diffusion (DIFF) strategy, where recruits adopt spawning sites near their natal site without regard to older fish, with GWOF, where recruits adopt the same spawning sites, but in proportion to the abundance of adults using those sites. In both models, older individuals return to their previous spawning site. The GWOF model leads to higher spatial variance in biomass. As total mortality increases, the DIFF strategy results in an approximately proportional decrease in biomass among spawning sites, whereas the GWOF strategy results in abandonment of less productive sites and maintenance of high biomass at more productive sites. A DIFF strategy leads to dynamics comparable to non-spatially structured populations. While the aggregate response of the GWOF strategy is distorted, non-stationary and slow to equilibrate, with a production curve that is distinctly flattened and relatively unproductive. These results indicate that fishing will disproportionately affect populations with GWOF behaviour.

Grasses are, economically, the most important group of plants; they belong to family poaceae and provide major and minor cereals, fodder and raw material of papers, medicine, drugs etc. The tribal and rural people of Vidisha District use different parts of grasses in crude from as cure for many diseases. This paper deals with 18 grass species used in fungal infection, haematuria, urinary diseases, intestinal warm, fever, cough, body ache, wounds, snakebite, gonorrhoea etc.