The research article I selected for research example #4 is an article I found in the current periodical section of the library. The article is from the Journal of Environmental Health volume 73, number 4, November 2010. The title of the article is “Nonhygienic Behavior, Knowledge and Attitudes Among Interactive Splash Park Visitors.” The authors of this article conducted a behavioral observation study at four Idaho splash parks to determine the effectiveness of signage and attendance and to establish baseline information on non-hygienic behavior, knowledge, and attitudes among the visitors. Splash parks are popular because they are usually free, easy to get to, and many times are located within municipal parks. These splash parks are water attractions spray or pour water on visitors and have been associated with outbreaks of illnesses. The proposed research method was reviewed by the Idaho department of health and welfare IRB and was granted an exempt status. The study had two main components: (1) observation of the behavior of children visiting the splash parks and (2) administering a questionnaire to the adult supervisors. There were 145 children observed who ranged in ages to less than one year to seventeen years. thirty -eight percent of the children wore either traditional disposable or swim diapers. Twenty – three percent of the children observed placed an open mouth to the splash park water and forty -six percent of the children were observed exposing their butts to splash park water. Of the 564 adults that were surveyed, fifty – seven percent told their children not to drink the splash park water, eighty percent of the adults watched their children’s hands with soap and water after leaving the park. Only twenty – five percent of the adults told the children not to sit on top of the fountains and only twenty – seven percent bathed the children before visiting the park. Seventy -five percent of the adults thought that splash parks were safer than swimming pools. The authors concluded that splash designers and public health officials should be mindful of the fact that children engage in non – hygienic behavior in spite of the presence educational signs and attendants. Splash parks should be designed to protect against transmission of chlorine resistant organisms be installing additional disinfection technologies.

Randall J. Nett, Robin Toblin, Annora Sheehan, Wan-Ting Huang, Andrew Baughman, Kris Carter. 2010 “Nonhygienic Behavior, Knowledge and Attitudes Among Interactive Splash Park Visitors.” Journal of Environmental Health. Vol 73 (4): 8-14

• I found This article on gentrification and the connection to neo liberalism and urbanis. The article was interesting because touched on the argument that neoliberalism becomes a regulator of the market which makes capitalism more stronger and more of a social production. As a result urban cities are  growing rapidly and leading to more and more gentrification.  The paper dives into subjects and events in NY during the 90’s as a way to exemplify  sides bout the relationship between neoliberal urbanism and globalization. The social production seems to take a dip as the capitalist production increases when the neo liberalism dissipates and the new  urbanism takes hold. It touched on how global cities are becoming rapidly metropolitan economies of its continents.  It was interesting finding how the housing market played a role in the forward movement  of gentrification. These cities becoming un-urbanized are closely tied to the global capital and cultural circulation. The shifting force of turning an urban area into an area where the investment of capital takes a larger place in the area.  If i were to use this for my paper it could show me the ways in which to better understand and explain the way the US shifted our communities into capitalist pits of money opportunities for the rich.

• Smith, N. (2002, December 16). New Globalism, New Urbanism: Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8330.00249/full

As I keep reading over my research question “how does music genres affect percieved stress?” I feel like it may be to broad in a sense. However, most of the articles that i have found on my topic seem to be that music is a very theraputical stress reliever. For this article i looked up on google scholar how does music affect your mood and found an article called “memorable expeirences with sad music- reasons, reactions, and mechanisms of three types of experiences.” The article discusses how to clarify the relevant reasons, mechanisms, and emotions involved in musical experiences associated with sadness. They  wanted to focus on 4 specific questions: What are the characteristics of music-induced sadness in terms of the situations, changes in physical and mental states and physical reactions? What are the dominant psychological mechanisms and reasons behind the experiences involving sad music? what are the typical emotions associated with such experiences and the specific structure underlying these? And how prevalent are the different types of experiences previously identified in association with listening to sad music? The method they used to answer these questions was an online survey and was anonymous which was no consent from the particpants but the survey explained the volunatary use they will be using the survey for. The first section dealt with attitudes towards sad music, the second section dealt with exploration of the 24 reasons to listen to sad music, and the third section dealt with the participants chosen memorable sad music. I believe this a great method i could use to see how different types of genres of music can help with any kind of stress you may be having.

Eerola, Tuomas, and Henna-Riikka Peltola. “Memorable Experiences with Sad Music—Reasons, Reactions and Mechanisms of Three Types of Experiences.” Plos One, vol. 11, no. 6, 2016, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0157444.

As my research question has developed and become finalized into, “What do today’s American farmers and ranchers report to be the greatest challenge that they face in regard to their livelihood?” I wanted to focus my research on one of the six categories of challenges that I proposed in my concept paper. This time I looked at the social challenges that farmers and ranchers are facing today. Specifically, queer farmers and farmers who are part of the LBGTQ community. This is a challenge that I had originally though little about but Isaac Leslie’s article, “Queer Farmers: Sexuality and the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture” in Rural Sociology volume 82, issue 4, from 2017 brought it to my attention. Leslie poses the question, “How do queer farmers’ lived experiences illuminate the role of sexuality in the transition to sustainable agriculture?” (Leslie, 2017).

Leslie focuses on the sustainable agriculture movement and how queer farmers are struggling to be integrated into the lifestyle’s community. Leslie describes sustainable farming as being very relationship-based which is hard when some queer farmers are not welcomed into the community. Utilizing participant observation, Leslie interviewed 30 sustainable farmers (19 queer and 11 heterosexual) from New England. The members of the sample were obtained through farming events, markets, and snowball sampling. He conducted his interviews while being given a tour of the farm, while preforming manual labor with the individual, or in a normal sit-down interview setting. This was to ensure that the interviewee felt comfortable and provided candid answers to Leslie’s open-ended questions. Leslie assigned pseudonyms to each individual and made sure he had their consent before recording their conversations. He did so in order to maintain confidentiality and remain ethical throughout his study. After obtaining his 30 interviews he utilized ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software and grounded theory to analyze the responses.

Through doing these interviews, Leslie found that many queer farmers struggle to create and maintain personal relationships with other sustainable farmers. At the same time, though, he found that many of these same farmers were surprised with how accepting heterosexual farmers were. It is a common assumption that people who live in rural areas might not be as accepting to homosexual lifestyles as those who live in urban areas. When interviewing the 19 queer farmers, Leslie found that many of them were pleasantly surprised with how accepting their neighbors and business partners were with their homosexuality. But this should not disregard the challenges that these specific farmers face. When it comes to a customer-base, many people expect their food to come from family run farms where common family values are present. Another issue arises when customers are not comfortable with the fact that their food is coming from a queer-run farm where the producer does not share the same values as they do. I find this to be ridiculous and a reason that I had not thought of as an issue to begin with, but maybe I am naive.

This article was eye-opening to me any very interesting. I had not thought of this specific issue and challenge before and it only broadened my understanding of what many farmers and ranchers are struggling with today. This specific topic would fall under the ‘social’ challenges that farmers and ranchers are facing today. This article helped me to think about how I would collect a sample group for my own study and how I might analyze my own in-depth interviews. Before, I planned to do a survey for my research study, but after reading this article I am considering doing in-depth interviews instead.

Leslie, Isaac. 2017. “Queer Farmers: Sexuality and the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture.” Rural Sociology82(4): 747-771. Retrieved March 11, 2018. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.redlands.edu/doi/10.1111/ruso.12153/full

I found a really important article about the importance of community/family involvement in the education of students especially young students. It can define the students whole academic experience and attitude towards school. The achievements of students with involved familial support are clearly visible when comparing test scores. The simple fact is that students with little familial involvement just tend to preform poorly in school. The article I found that spoke of this is called, Linking School-Family-Community Partnerships in Urban Elementary Schools to Student Achievement on State Tests. It was important for me to understand what aspects of the students education or background are beneficial to their success. Student’s achievement is not defined solely on what happens in the classroom or on teacher’s teaching techniques, the students come having had experiences that we as teachers may not have even had. Divorce, physical/emotional abuse, refugees, immigrants and maybe even parental pressures. It is important for the teacher to understand where the student is coming from to accurately teach for them. What is important to understand about family involvement though is that the lack of involvement is often not intentional or because the parents don’t care. It could be because the parents or family have work all day and doesn’t get home till late. It is also possible that the family at home does not speak English. This article talks not only about how the involvement of family is important but also how to get familial involvement. Sending home instructions for the homework in the language of the family so that they can help the student is a good start. Giving parents little tasks to do when they get home from work such as read a bed time student with their kids or review homework and give feedback. This is all important information for me to learn because I can’t just focus on the curriculum itself. Including teaching techniques such as make sure you know your students and you bring in the family themselves to be a part of the education of their student. All this builds the confidence of not only the student, but the family of the student and they put more support in to the teacher. This will, hopefully, build confidence in the students, and will therefore increase test scores at the end of the year. Right now I’m still trying to develop the curriculum and teaching methods I would like to implement in the classrooms. This article has been helping me to do that.

2003. Sheldon, Steven B. 2003. “Linking School-Family-Community Partnerships in

Urban Elementary Schools to Student Achievement on State Tests.” The    

        Urban Review35(2):149-165

(http://ezproxy.redlands.edu/docview/751988396?accountid=14729). doi:

http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.redlands.edu/10.1023/A:1023713829693.

The article I found this week is called “Poverty and Serious Mental Illness: Toward Action on a Seemingly Intracatable Problem” by John Sylvestre (2017). It is a literature review that argues for community health programs that address larger groups of people rather than just individuals. The program would utilize collaboration of expertise between community psychologists and practitioners from other various fields. The question the article wants to answer is “what would be an effective strategy to combat poverty on a large scale?” and uses previous research that has been done to argue their points. When discussing the definition of what constitutes poverty and how it comes about, the author focuses on the lack of voice people stuck in poverty have and the shame and stigma they have experienced as a result. He claims that the relationship between serious mental illness and poverty is due to marginalization of people who suffer from them, resulting in lack of opportunities to advocate for themselves or find a way of making an income in order to meet their basic needs. The article suggests improving methods of tracking poverty throughout the country and taking steps towards the CMH community adopting a policy that benefits these people that matches the level of investment put into individual-level interventions. Inaction on a community level by CMH services and the government ignores the root issue of what causes poverty for people who suffer from serious mental illnesses. I found this article really interesting and found that it made a lot of good points that I am interested in including while further developing my research project proposal. I did think the article could have been a bit more organized regarding the points the author was trying to make. While the community based psychology programs and getting to the root of what the authors pinpoint to be the cause of poverty for people with mental illnesses, there were a lot of other sub-points that were mixed in and easy to gloss over or side-tracked from finishing a previous thought (at least that’s how I saw it, it could just be me).

Sylvestre, J., Notten, G., Kerman, N., Polillo, A., Czechowki, K. (2017). Poverty and Serious Mental Illness: Toward Action on a Seemingly Intractable Problem. American Journal of Community Psychology. (Volume 61, Iss. 1-2, pp. 153-165).

For this blog post I used google scholar to find Tracing Teachers’ Use of Technology in a Laptop Computer School: The Interplay of Teacher Beliefs, Social Dynamics, and Institutional Culture. By Mark Windschitl and Kurt Sahl. These authors tracked how multiple middle school teachers evolved their teaching techniques to include laptop programs. They watched how they integrated them over time and how it affected the productivity of the classroom. The topic was technology in the classroom. This being the lead into the question, as teachers integrate laptop usage into the classroom, how does that change the beliefs, social dynamics, and culture in the classroom. To conduct this research they used and ethnographic approach to examine the changes over time. I personally believe this be an amazing experiment and type of research. They took a very direct and personal approach living the lives of the people they are looking at through ethnography. I would advise my peers to look into people doing ethnographic work because of the interesting things that you may find out while eon the inside.

Windschitl, Mark, and Kurt Sahl. “Tracing Teachers’ Use of Technology in a Laptop Computer School: The Interplay of Teacher Beliefs, Social Dynamics, and Institutional Culture.” American Educational Research Journal, vol. 39, no. 1, 2002, pp. 165–205., doi:10.3102/00028312039001165.

I found an article titled, “Technology in the Classroom: Good or Bad?” This report comes from a teacher who discusses the benefits and drawbacks of implementing technology in the classroom and academic setting. The study mainly includes younger students at the elementary level and the article analyzes the possible benefits of technology in the classroom as well as looking at how it changes student’s learning outcomes. The author uses a list of pros and cons to evaluate the state in which students learn and says that the benefits of technology include computer skills, more engagement with readings, and better communication abilities. The drawbacks of using such technology in the classroom involve shorter attention spans, teachers are not as equipped at using the technology, and funding is also an issue. The author lists more benefits than negative outcomes and argues that the integration of technology at an early age is more helpful to develop skills that will be useful in a competitive society. Important technological tools include ipads, phones, and computers that allow students to play interactive games that promote good learning habits. The fact that this information comes from a teacher provides insight into the activities and learning capabilities of young students. This study involves expert knowledge and reports of acts, behaviors, and events. This study is important in comparing the level of technology needed in the classroom to get results from students and to see which tools work best to promote good learning habits.

Curtiss, Ella. “Technology in the Classroom: Good or Bad?.” The Smiling Classroom, 7 Aug. 2017. Accessed 9 Mar. 2018.

For this research example I looked at an article titled “Mismanaging concussions in intercollegiate Football.” I was interested in this article because the concussions that NFL players experience before they are playing professionally are extremely damaging to the development of their brains. This article uses examples to express the dangers of competing with a concussion, and mismanaging to let athletes compete with a concussion. Athletes are competitive and want to play hard all the time. It is hard for athletes to rest when they are competing for a spot on a team. Additionally, a lot of coaches admire players for going all out. This can lead to several problems. For instance, in the article a player for Eastern Illinois University in 2006 experienced several concussions but was repeatedly cleared to play days after experiencing them. As a result, the player (Adrian Arrington) was forced to drop out of school because he was having memory problems, suffering from depression, and experienced daily migraines. Years later, he mentioned how his coaches mentality was “play hard every day” and that he never stressed the importance of tackling properly and players safety. These examples are seen everywhere now, especially with the development and publicity of CTE. The research question they sought to answer was; does coaching styles effect the health of college football players? This article answers it well and goes into depth about examples of coaches taking the right action to prevent concussions, and coaches taking the wrong action and putting players in higher risk of CTE.
This article used in-depth interviews to find the data. Reports of Acts, behaviors and events was another type of data. Lastly, a data gathering method for this research was public and private records.

The research example I am using for this exercise is titled “Organophosphate Pesticide Exposure and Neurodevelopment in Young Mexican-American Children”, this research can be found in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The topic of my research has been changed, instead of looking at the effects of pesticides of human health I will be looking at the environmental injustice linked to the widespread use of pesticides. The study conducted an investigation of the neurodevelopment and behavior of a cohort made up of Latino children from farmworker families in the Salinas Valley of California. Some background, billion pounds of pesticides are used per year in the United States, most of them are used in agriculture. The exposures of pesticides are widespread, this includes pregnant woman and children. This study researched the relationship of prenatal and child Organophosphate urinary metabolite levels. 6 nonspecific metabolites in maternal and child urine. The effects of organophosphate overtime were measured using the different age groups 6, 12, and 24 months of age. This form of testing better explains how the pesticides effect children as they develop in their first years of life. Each child was assigned Mental Development and Psychomotor Development Indices and a report on the Child Behavior Checklist. Fetuses and young children may be more susceptible to the neuro effects of pesticides. This has to do with how fast their brains are developing and their already lower-than-adult levels of detoxifying enzymes. Organophosphate and been known to break down an enzyme which prevents acetylcholine from building up in the neuronal junction. The research topic here is the environmental injustice’s related to pesticides and minorities, the research question is ‘are young Mexican-American Children at a higher risk of improper neurodevelopment due to organophosphate pesticide exposure’. The type of data needed to answer this question is demographic data, however in this case the study was conducted on a cohort so there was more data of the report type.

Eskenazi, Brenda, et al. “Organophosphate Pesticide Exposure and Neurodevelopment in Young Mexican-American Children.” Environmental Health Perspectives, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, May 2007, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1867968/.