PROJECT OCEANIC
PI: Katie Jarriel
Undergraduate research team (current): Allyson Dinwiddie, Jake Dorson, Danielle Ejiogu, Chris Farber, Gio Stabile, Hannah Stegall, Connor Underwood
Residents of small Pacific islands face devastating effects from climate change, such as sea level rise, loss of biodiversity, and intensifying ocean storms. This project aims to combine Indigenous and local peoples’ environmental knowledge (ILEK) from communities in the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and Hawai’i with quantitative computer models of archaeological and paleoclimate data. By focusing on traditional, sustainable seafaring, this research project directly engages with a pressing issue that thousands of island communities across Oceania face: how to adapt to environmental hazards when global post-disaster relief systems fail.
Project oCEANIC supports on-going research collaborations at the Universities of Hilo and Manoa at Hawai'i with communities from the Marshall Islands, Yap, and Hawai'i. The research team will travel to Hawai'i in Summer 2024 to present preliminary research findings.
Undergraduate research team (current): Allyson Dinwiddie, Jake Dorson, Danielle Ejiogu, Chris Farber, Gio Stabile, Hannah Stegall, Connor Underwood
Residents of small Pacific islands face devastating effects from climate change, such as sea level rise, loss of biodiversity, and intensifying ocean storms. This project aims to combine Indigenous and local peoples’ environmental knowledge (ILEK) from communities in the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and Hawai’i with quantitative computer models of archaeological and paleoclimate data. By focusing on traditional, sustainable seafaring, this research project directly engages with a pressing issue that thousands of island communities across Oceania face: how to adapt to environmental hazards when global post-disaster relief systems fail.
Project oCEANIC supports on-going research collaborations at the Universities of Hilo and Manoa at Hawai'i with communities from the Marshall Islands, Yap, and Hawai'i. The research team will travel to Hawai'i in Summer 2024 to present preliminary research findings.
CAST: COMPUTATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND SEAFARING THEORY
Founders: Marisa Borregine (Harvard University), Helen Farr (Southampton University), Katie Jarriel (Purdue University), Justin Leidwanger (Stanford University), and Emma Slayton (Carnegie Mellon University)
An interdisciplinary community for seafaring, its past, and its traditions, the CAST network brings together scholars brings together an interdisciplinary group of archaeologists, ocean scientists, anthropologists, and practitioners with a shared interest in the study of past seafaring and its continuing traditions.
People’s relationship to the sea has profoundly influenced social, political, cultural, and economic systems. Despite this connection, the sea is dynamic. Marine environments present a special challenge to those looking at the relationship between humans and the sea. We aim to better understand humans’ relationships with the marine environment through computer modeling, studies of maritime heritage, working with seafaring communities, and researching the past.
Dr. Jarriel is a co-founder of the CAST community. In December 2022, they held an inaugural workshop at Stanford University. Since then, CAST has been working on several projects and a collaborative publication.
Visit our website for more info: castseafaring.wixsite.com/home
An interdisciplinary community for seafaring, its past, and its traditions, the CAST network brings together scholars brings together an interdisciplinary group of archaeologists, ocean scientists, anthropologists, and practitioners with a shared interest in the study of past seafaring and its continuing traditions.
People’s relationship to the sea has profoundly influenced social, political, cultural, and economic systems. Despite this connection, the sea is dynamic. Marine environments present a special challenge to those looking at the relationship between humans and the sea. We aim to better understand humans’ relationships with the marine environment through computer modeling, studies of maritime heritage, working with seafaring communities, and researching the past.
Dr. Jarriel is a co-founder of the CAST community. In December 2022, they held an inaugural workshop at Stanford University. Since then, CAST has been working on several projects and a collaborative publication.
Visit our website for more info: castseafaring.wixsite.com/home
TEAMWORK LEVELUP!
Co-PIs: Adam Watkins and Katie Jarriel
Undergraduate research team (current): Leanne Alsatie, Alexa Gonzales-Tuesta, Alexander Harman, Gabriel Iskander, and Viashnavi Riparthi
Previous undergraduate researchers: Mehul Dhillon, Riona Vaghchhipawala, Visv Shah
According to the 2021 Employer Survey conducted by AAC&U, collaboration tops the list of skills that college graduates need to thrive in their early careers. However, students in high school and college consistently have poor teamwork experiences where little coaching or feedback is offered, which in turn leads to little learning about effective collaboration practices. The aim of Teamwork LevelUp! is to develop a video game that will provide young adults with an immersive experience that trains them on key elements of successful teamwork and collaboration. Based on cutting edge research in teamwork efficacy and educational game development, it will offer real-time feedback through point and penalty systems embedded in the game. Teams will also receive a recap that highlights areas of success and strategies for improvement as they progress through iterative scenarios.
This project presents undergraduates with a meaningful opportunity to get involved with an interdisciplinary approach to applied research. Developing a game with educational outcomes will require faculty and student collaborators to engage with a variety of fields and research approaches, including scholarship on teamwork and collaboration, research on gaming as a pedagogical tool, game design theory, practical applications of computer graphic technology, product testing and learning outcome assessment, and marketing.
The team recently presented their work at the National Collegiate Honors Council Annual meeting in Chicago (2023), where the undergraduate researchers won first prize in their division for research posters.
Undergraduate research team (current): Leanne Alsatie, Alexa Gonzales-Tuesta, Alexander Harman, Gabriel Iskander, and Viashnavi Riparthi
Previous undergraduate researchers: Mehul Dhillon, Riona Vaghchhipawala, Visv Shah
According to the 2021 Employer Survey conducted by AAC&U, collaboration tops the list of skills that college graduates need to thrive in their early careers. However, students in high school and college consistently have poor teamwork experiences where little coaching or feedback is offered, which in turn leads to little learning about effective collaboration practices. The aim of Teamwork LevelUp! is to develop a video game that will provide young adults with an immersive experience that trains them on key elements of successful teamwork and collaboration. Based on cutting edge research in teamwork efficacy and educational game development, it will offer real-time feedback through point and penalty systems embedded in the game. Teams will also receive a recap that highlights areas of success and strategies for improvement as they progress through iterative scenarios.
This project presents undergraduates with a meaningful opportunity to get involved with an interdisciplinary approach to applied research. Developing a game with educational outcomes will require faculty and student collaborators to engage with a variety of fields and research approaches, including scholarship on teamwork and collaboration, research on gaming as a pedagogical tool, game design theory, practical applications of computer graphic technology, product testing and learning outcome assessment, and marketing.
The team recently presented their work at the National Collegiate Honors Council Annual meeting in Chicago (2023), where the undergraduate researchers won first prize in their division for research posters.
MOVABLE DESKS, FLEXIBLE MINDS?
Co-PIs: Katie Jarriel and Liz Brite
Previous undergraduate researchers: Aubrey Bennett, Cheney Gertz, Joel Hulsizer, Kylie LaChapelle, Owen Pierce, Megan Roffers, and MJ Thompson
In this study, we apply methods of archaeological practice to evaluate the impacts of a major project of classroom redesign in an Honors College setting. The establishment of active learning classroom spaces within a new, $90 million living-learning community for Purdue University’s John Martinson Honors College provided an ideal context to evaluate how inhabitants (students, faculty, and staff) utilize and amend their spaces to facilitate the learning experience.
Utilizing honors classroom spaces, data collection was collected by student research assistants with archaeological “locus forms” specifically created for the purposes of classroom observations (a locus form is a data collection instrument used widely on archaeological research projects, meant to guide the recording of data about material associations and architecture in a given space). Students performed observations of the Evolution of Ideas first-year seminar in Fall 2020 over an eight-week period.
Data from the classroom locus forms were digitized and used to construct models of changes in cumulative classroom visibility and individual inhabitant focus across time in a Geographic Information System (GIS). The GIS application used for this modeling is Esri ArcMap’s Visibility (Spatial Analyst) tool. Inputs for the model include data on room architecture, movable furniture positioning, technology usage, and human body orientations during the observed class session. The resulting maps depict areas of varying visibility and inhabitant focus during periods of observation. Statistical analysis of the data yielded distinct spatial patterns depending on the mode of teaching and classroom configuration, emphasizing the strong relationship between spatial affordance and pedagogical practice.
Previous undergraduate researchers: Aubrey Bennett, Cheney Gertz, Joel Hulsizer, Kylie LaChapelle, Owen Pierce, Megan Roffers, and MJ Thompson
In this study, we apply methods of archaeological practice to evaluate the impacts of a major project of classroom redesign in an Honors College setting. The establishment of active learning classroom spaces within a new, $90 million living-learning community for Purdue University’s John Martinson Honors College provided an ideal context to evaluate how inhabitants (students, faculty, and staff) utilize and amend their spaces to facilitate the learning experience.
Utilizing honors classroom spaces, data collection was collected by student research assistants with archaeological “locus forms” specifically created for the purposes of classroom observations (a locus form is a data collection instrument used widely on archaeological research projects, meant to guide the recording of data about material associations and architecture in a given space). Students performed observations of the Evolution of Ideas first-year seminar in Fall 2020 over an eight-week period.
Data from the classroom locus forms were digitized and used to construct models of changes in cumulative classroom visibility and individual inhabitant focus across time in a Geographic Information System (GIS). The GIS application used for this modeling is Esri ArcMap’s Visibility (Spatial Analyst) tool. Inputs for the model include data on room architecture, movable furniture positioning, technology usage, and human body orientations during the observed class session. The resulting maps depict areas of varying visibility and inhabitant focus during periods of observation. Statistical analysis of the data yielded distinct spatial patterns depending on the mode of teaching and classroom configuration, emphasizing the strong relationship between spatial affordance and pedagogical practice.