Informal seed saving continues even in the context of an increasingly industrialized and globalized agricultural system. While some scholarship has focused on informal seed saving practices that continue to thrive in the global South, few studies have examined the dynamics of these practices in the global North, particularly in the American West. This thesis utilizes a resilience framework to assess a seed saving network and its impacts in western Montana, specifically the Bitterroot and Missoula Valleys. Two questions guide the inquiry: 1) How do significant actors connect within the seed saving network of the Missoula and Bitterroot Valleys, and 2) How does the seed saving network contribute to the social-ecological resilience of the local agroecosystem? The primary methods used to collect data were semi-structured interviews and participant observation, resulting in qualitative data that were coded to develop themes. The results of the data analysis are presented in two parts. Chapter 4 addresses the first question by describing the rich and varied actor connections and their local effects. The primary actors identified are seed, people, and the environment, which all connect and interact to develop a complex rooted network. Chapter 5 addresses the second question, first by exploring “resilience effects,” or the effects of actor interactions that may result in added resilience to the agroecosystem. Then, a pre-established indicator framework of resilience in an agroecosystem is applied to determine how the seed saving network contributes resilience. The discussion explores the impacts this research may have on studying resilience and agroecosystems in the global North, highlighting the role of resilience as a process, the importance of situated knowledge, and the agency of seed. The thesis concludes by suggesting that seed and seed saving networks could play vital roles in fostering resilience of local agroecosystems.

Starting in the 17^th century, beavers were nearly eradicated from their historic range. Though today their populations are improving, the lack of beaver dams in aquatic systems has left a lasting impact on the environment. As a result, managers of freshwater systems have turned to beaver dam analogs (BDAs) as one technique for stream restoration. BDAs are human constructed structures designed to mimic natural beaver dams and their geomorphic, hydrologic, and ecological effects. Though BDAs have proven to be a useful restoration technique, there has been little research on how they influence macroinvertebrate communities, which serve as a vital food source for fish and to adjacent riparian insectivores such as spiders and birds. My research aims to understand how BDAs influence macroinvertebrate and riparian insectivore communities in three intermountain headwater streams in western Montana by comparing unrestored reference stream segments to BDA-treated segments consisting of complexes of 7-14 BDAs. To understand the ecosystem-level effects of BDAs at these sites, I have collected macroinvertebrates from within the streams (benthic samples), macroinvertebrates leaving the streams (emergence traps) and those falling into the streams (pan traps) along with variables that describe the physical environment. I also conducted spider and bird surveys to assess how BDA influence riparian insectivores which rely on emerging insects for food. I will use these samples to quantify community metrics and compare BDA-treated segments to reference segments using non-metric multidimensional scaling and generalized linear mixed-effects models. Using these methods, BDA-treated segments are shown to have more tolerant taxa usually found in pools compared to reference segments. My research will help scientists and managers understand the impacts of BDAs on linked stream-riparian communities so best practices can be followed as they are considered for stream restoration throughout the western landscape.

This panel includes 2022 Fall students of the new experimental course, ANTHROPOLOGY (ANTY) 491 - Archaeology, Identity, and Social Justice Practicum. Students in this Practicum put both classroom and theoretical learning into practice by observing and participating in a range of hands-on activities associated with UM’s anthropological collections. The aim is to share with the academic community, the practical skills and experiences used during practicum to help prepare students for work in the dynamic and ever-changing fields of anthropology and public archaeology. These fields are amid a paradigm shift where theories and values are intersecting in unpredictable ways, requiring professionals to have relationship-building and diplomatic skills, with nuanced understandings of tribal sovereignty and cultural competence. Practicum activities revolved around “real-world” challenges associated with these ongoing changes, including repatriation and reconciliation issues. Depending on the needs of each class activity, our methods changed to contextualize project activities carried out on campus such as the September 30, Boarding School Symposium and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer’s (THPO) visits. Class activities enriched our understanding of social justice issues in cultural heritage fields.

The panel discussion begins with a brief summary presentation on the ANTY 491 practicum group work in Autumn 2022 related to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and repatriation in general; then highlight how students with different fields expertise address questions on how such differences impact interpretation of social justice issues; how forming connections with collections and repatriation work can improve health and well-being of communities; how important it is to listen and work in collaboration with fellow students and tribal colleagues; and how institutions we are affiliated with should take proactive responsibility with land acknowledgements. The significance of this practicum is to use the mundane as evidence to unravel how victims of social injustices continue to wipe tears in the journey of emotional healing.

Abstract

Social Justice Archaeology

University of Montana Anthropological Collections (UMACF) Past, Present, and Future

This panel includes 2022 Fall students of the new experimental course, ANTHROPOLOGY (ANTY) 491 - Archaeology, Identity, and Social Justice Practicum. Students in this Practicum put both classroom and theoretical learning into practice by observing and participating in a range of hands-on activities associated with UM’s anthropological collections. The aim is to share with the academic community, the practical skills and experiences used during practicum to help prepare students for work in the dynamic and ever-changing fields of anthropology and public archaeology. These fields are amid a paradigm shift where theories and values are intersecting in unpredictable ways, requiring professionals to have relationship-building and diplomatic skills, with nuanced understandings of tribal sovereignty and cultural competence. Practicum activities revolved around “real-world” challenges associated with these ongoing changes, including repatriation and reconciliation issues. Depending on each class’s activity needs, our methods changed to contextualize project’s activities carried out on campus such as the September 30, Boarding School Symposium and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer’s (THPO) visits. Class activities enriched our understanding of social justice issues in cultural heritage fields.

The panel discussion begins with a brief summary presentation on the ANTY 491 practicum group work in Autumn 2022 related to the state of UMACF collections, including past, present, and future; then highlight how students with different fields expertise address questions on how such differences impact interpretation of social justice issues; how forming connections with collections and repatriation work can improve health and well-being of communities; how important it is to listen and work in collaboration with fellow students and tribal colleagues; and how institutions we are affiliated with should take proactive responsibility with land acknowledgements. The significance of this practicum is to use the mundane as evidence to unravel how victims of social injustices continue to wipe tears in the journey of emotional healing.

This panel includes 2022 Fall students of the new experimental course, ANTHROPOLOGY (ANTY) 491 - Archaeology, Identity, and Social Justice Practicum. Students in this Practicum put both classroom and theoretical learning into practice by observing and participating in a range of hands-on activities associated with UM’s anthropological collections. The aim is to share with the academic community, the practical skills and experiences used during practicum to help prepare students for work in the dynamic and ever-changing fields of anthropology and public archaeology. These fields are amid a paradigm shift where theories and values are intersecting in unpredictable ways, requiring professionals to have relationship-building and diplomatic skills, with nuanced understandings of tribal sovereignty and cultural competence. Practicum activities revolved around “real-world” challenges associated with these ongoing changes, including repatriation and reconciliation issues. Depending on the needs of each class activity, our methods changed to contextualize project’s activities carried out on campus such as the September 30, Boarding School Symposium and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer’s (THPO) visits. Class activities enriched our understanding of social justice issues in cultural heritage fields.

The panel discussion begins with a brief summary presentation on the ANTY 491 practicum group work in Autumn 2022 related to the historical trauma and First Nation boarding schools; then highlight how students with different fields expertise address questions on how such differences impact interpretation of social justice issues; how forming connections with collections and repatriation work can improve health and well-being of communities; how important it is to listen and work in collaboration with fellow students and tribal colleagues; and how institutions we are affiliated with should take proactive responsibility with land acknowledgements. The significance of this practicum is to use the mundane as evidence to unravel how victims of social injustices continue to wipe tears in the journey of emotional healing.

To best support school-aged children in their academic careers, it is important to understand factors that contribute to their overall wellbeing within the school setting. Research shows that school belonging may impact a student’s quality of life in several ways, including academic engagement, motivation, achievement, emotional regulation, and social rejection. A student’s sense of school belonging may be influenced by several variables including bias-based victimization (being bullied because of one or more social identities) and the quality of teacher-student relationships. This study investigates the relationships between bullying, teacher-student relationships, and school belonging to better understand how to best support school-aged children.

This study sampled participants using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online crowdsourcing platform that is used to disseminate surveys. The participants reflected upon their experiences with bias-based bullying (specifically, bullying on the basis of one’s race/ethnicity, gender identity/sexual orientation, and/or disability status), their quality of teacher-student relationships, and their sense of school belonging.

Despite ample research on bias-based victimization, teacher-student relationships, and school belonging, a gap in the literature exists in examining the influence that all three variables may have on each other. The first aim of this study is to determine the levels of bias-based victimization, perceived school belonging, and quality of student-teacher relationships. Another aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between bias-based harassment and school belonging. Finally, the current study seeks to explore whether the quality of teacher-student relationships moderates the impact of bias-based victimization on perceived school belonging.

Understanding the factors that influence a student’s perceived school belonging may help in creating intervention programs for school-aged children that help foster academic, social, and emotional success through the support of positive teacher relationships.

Behavioral synchrony, or the act of moving in time with others, is linked to a broad range of positive social cognitive and moral outcomes (e.g., empathy, perspective-taking, prosociality). Although behavioral synchrony has demonstrated such positive outcomes for children, there is little known about how synchronizing with others will influence children’s tendency to attribute mental states or sociality. Yet, it is unclear whether synchrony effects are (1) limited to synchronous movements with human partners, (2) applied more broadly to social agents, including social robots, or (3) applied to any synchronous entity, such as a mechanical device. The current study investigated how participating in synchronous and asynchronous action with either humans, social robots, or metronomes influenced how children attributed mental and social capacities and shared stickers with partners. Participants (n = 86; 5-8-year-olds) played a clapping game twice, once with a synchronous partner and once with an asynchronous partner (order counterbalanced). After each test trial (clapping game), participants responded to a Mental Other Scale (Kahn et al., 2012; Girouard-Hallam, Streble, & Danovitch, 2021) and a Social Other Scale (Birch et al., 2020; Kahn et al., 2012; Severson & Lemm, 2016) for the partner they had just played the game with. After both test trials, participants completed a resource allocation task with seven stickers to allocate to the two partners, where the use of an odd number of stickers forced a decision between giving more stickers to the synchronous or asynchronous partner. Results from this study address whether and to what extent synchrony effects manifest in children’s preferential sharing, mentalizing, and social ascriptions to technologies and inform on theoretical questions regarding the pervasiveness of behavioral synchrony effect.

According to the Buck Institute for Education (n.d.), Project Based Learning (PBL) engages learners in problem-solving, deeper learning, and building community connections. PBL with preschool aged learners is often seen as not possible. For community members, preschoolers are often seen as babies and need support. For educators, there is concern about how research and independent learning will work with emergent readers and writers (Lev et al., 2020). Through the work of Lev et al. (2020), early childhood educators are discovering how PBL can be implemented in a preschool setting.

When implementing a new approach in classrooms it is important to have a process to reflect and make adjustments to affect change. This case study action research is in the beginning stages and can provide insight into the process, pitfalls, and successes that such an approach can have in a preschool setting where children attend four days a week for three hours. Questions included are how do we plan the PBL while honoring child-driven interests and how do we document the learning of our children.

During the summer the leadership team of the LAB preschool participated in training via an online platform. From the platform the team chose an established unit, Creating Our Classroom Community, as the starting point for the Fall semester (Lev et al., n.d). Using the Plan- Do-Study-Act (PDSA) protocol throughout the semester, adjustments were made as the PBL was being implemented. The data showed that teachers needed ample time to collaborate, problem solve together, specifically plan to update the PBL boards in the classroom to become consistent and the need to further investigate how to use anchor charts with preschool children. The data from the PDSA is now informing the implementation of a second PBL for the spring semester.