Tag: Honors

Elena Kazakevicius

Transforming FYS: an Analysis of Other Institutions FYS Courses  

As institutions are becoming increasingly aware of the individual concerns of incoming students, higher education intends to find a way to make the transition smoother Danitz, Suvak, Orsillo (2016). Through this, First-Year Seminar courses have been implemented within different institutions in varying ways. Analyzing the research on three institutions’ First-Year Seminar courses, one might draw on the benefits of these programs for integration in such existing courses. For example, it has been suggested by Danitz, Suvak, Orsillo (2016), that in order to create the smoothest transition possible, one must first focus on how to interact with one another appropriately and in a helpful way. In response to the literature on First-Year success courses, recommendations for future First-Year Seminar courses at Northwest Christian University will be addressed.   

FYS 101, First Year Seminar 

Falyn Edwards & Nani Skaggs 

L203, poster #1 

10 AM – Noon 

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Elena Kazakevicius

Logic and Critical Thinking: Through the Lense of Forensics 

My presentation explores Logic and Critical Thinking, specifically the latter, in relation to Forensic Psychology. Critical Thinking can be defined by two separate types of reasoning, rational and rationalized reasoning. Forensic psychologists study the ways criminals use reasoning skills to rationalize their behavior to themselves and others.  Reasoning can also take the form of “rationality,” which involves following premises to a true conclusion. Forensic psychologists do this when they create profiles for criminals, attempting to rationally understand the rationalization processes of criminals in order to create patterns that assist in stopping them from committing more crimes in the future. Through my research into forensic psychology, I expose a tension in critical thinking: reasoning skills can be used both for truth-seeking and for justifying violent and immoral behavior. 

PHL 201, Logic and Critical Thinking 

Joshua Kerr 

P103 

1:30 – 2 PM

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Katy Matteucci

Biodiversity Decline in the Great Barrier Reef 

This presentation reviews the biodiversity of organisms that dwell within the Great Barrier Reef, and analyzes how various human activities have been ushering a destructive wave against this complex ecosystem. As a result of the augmenting carbon levels in our atmosphere, overfishing procedures, and the addition of numerous toxic chemical substances and other pollutants, many species are being affected. As coral growth and development are inhibited, the natural homes, food sources, and breeding grounds of many aquatic creatures are being uprooted. In addition, many larger species, such as sea cucumbers, fish, and turtles, are facing draconian challenges due to overharvesting and pollution. Fortunately however, these conditions are not irremediable. By establishing a clean energy economy and imposing regulations regarding mismanaged fishing and toxic waste, the potential for the revival of this biome will again be attainable, eventually restoring the vibrancy of the Great Barrier Reef. 

Paul Allee 

P114 

10 – 10:30 AM

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Joshua McCluskey

Genetic Effect on Common Diseases 

The management and treatment of different diseases can be directly related to the origin of the disease. Diseases that have strong genetic ties can be treated in different ways than disease that have no correlation to the genetics of a person. In this review we discuss the different variations of effects of genetics on phenotypic diseases in an organism as well as discuss possible ways for treatment of these diseases. We discuss how we can prevent the spread of diseases that are not genetically tied as well as upcoming technology that allows us to correct any genetic abnormalities that can cause diseases.   

BIOL 310, Genetics 

Paul Allee 

P114 

10:30 – 11 AM 

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Joshua McCluskey

Comparing the effects of different classes of medication in the management of hypertension 

The diagnosis of hypertension is common and treatment is frequently viewed as very simple. Treating hypertension takes more than just lowering the blood pressure of an individual. There are comorbidities that affect and are affected by the treatment of hypertension: kidney disease and cardiovascular disease. In this review we discuss the different preferences of using either Angiotensin Converting Enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, Calcium Channel blockers, Beta Blockers, and Diuretics when managing hypertension with the use of medications. It appears that Angiotensin Converting Enzyme (ACE) inhibitors were preferential to the management of kidney disease secondary to hypertension. Calcium channel blockers were additionally found to have an advantage with many cardiovascular diseases while beta blockers were also considered for cardiovascular issues including atrial fibrillation and tachycardia specifically. Beta blockers and Diuretics had minute differences in secondary management of cardiovascular disease and kidney disease when compared. 

CHEM 415, Biochemistry 

Heike McNeil 

P114 

11:30 AM – Noon 

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Brittany Ralston

Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tears in Female Athletes 

The knee is the largest and the most complex joint within the body, because of this, injury within this joint is a common occurrence. The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is a tough band of connective tissue that connects one bone to another. The ACL originates from the anterior intercondylar area of the tibia and extends to the lateral condyle of the femur. The ACL’s purpose is to keep the femur and the tibia from extending beyond their normal range. The ACL prevents anterior movement of the tibia as well as hyperextension from the knee. When injured, the ACL does not offer the stability that the knee joint needs for performance among athletes. When an athlete tears their ACL, the person may report hearing, as well as feeling a pop within their knee. Soon after an ACL is ruptured the knee swells. After some of the swelling goes down, individuals can usually walk on their knee but the joint feels unstable and may give out. Because of this, an ACL reconstruction surgery is needed in order to restore full stability to the knee joint and allow athletes to resume normal activities within their sport. The purpose of this review is to systematically look at some of the major risk factors associated with tearing the ACL in order to come to a conclusion on certain preventative measures that need to be taken by athletes in order to successfully lower the risk of an ACL tear.  

BIOL 311, Anatomy and Physiology 

Tammy Bovee 

P114 

11 – 11:30 AM 

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Gabrielle Morales

‘Uncertainty was attached to everything he knew’: The Intergenerational Transmission of Functional Illiteracy
When the U.S. federal 2020 fiscal year budget was announced in March of 2019, the notice of an 11.4% cut in k-12 programs generated an uproar among educators, journalists, and news broadcasters (U.S. Department of Education, 2019, p. 119). Yet, little attention was given with respect for the 24.3% cut in Adult Basic and Literacy Education, as well as an identical 24.3% cut in English (Speakers of another Language) Literacy and Civics Education—of which equal a combined decrease of 48.6% in adult literacy programs (U.S. Department of Education, 2019, p. 120). Little effort has been made for the functionally illiterate parent. President Bill Clinton’s efforts to, “end welfare as we know it,” in 1996 sought to decrease the number of families on welfare rather than decrease the number of families living in deep poverty. With this reform came stringent welfare eligibility requirements and uncompromising General Educational Development assessments (GED) within Adult Basic Education programs (ABE). Meanwhile, within the past three years, there have been zero cutbacks in Career and Technical Education or Vocational and Adult Education grants—thus confining impoverished and illiterate citizens to careers within the manufacturing industry; such programs offer diminutive literacy education. Historically, welfare and adult education reforms have denied opportunities for low-literate and functionally illiterate adults. In thwarting one’s ability to read and write, the intergenerational transmission of functional illiteracy remains. To be clear, this thesis does not serve as a claim against the alleged ‘brokenness’ of the K-12 education system or welfare system. Rather, it serves to take part in the current body of literature—of which asserts the need for improvement within the adult education system.
Keywords: intergenerational functional illiteracy, united states, adult education
ENG 499, Capstone
Jenee Cazares & James Watson
P114
10-10:30 AM
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Gabrielle Morales

Genesis 15: A Single Seed

The life of a plant is produced by what we know as the germination of a seed. From the single seed of one man, Abraham, came the Son of God. Dormant as man may view it—the descendants—the covenant God made with Abraham was eventually fulfilled a near 2,000 years later. This former infertile seed went on to germinate and produce a plant, which dropped seeds, creating more plants, generating more life; just like the stars, the life produced by this single seed was and is all too much to count. But it did not stop with the birth of Jesus. It had only begun at the cross. This nearly 4,000-year-old covenant carries on today.

BTM 101, Engaging with the Bible: How to Read the Bible in the 21st Century

Joshua Little

9 AM – 3:30 PM

Banquet Room

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Gabrielle Morales

Namibian Dreams for the American, German, & Native

In the spring of 2013, Eddy Alvin Fuller embarked on a trophy hunting expedition in Namibia. With him, he took his wife and a journal to record his experiences. With the rise of veganism and the boom of exposing poachers through social media, big-game hunting has been frowned upon—especially in Southern Africa. Some may see it as heinous for an outsider—specifically a white man—to hunt on someone’s land and shoot their animals for hobby. However, many are unaware that the hunting “export” has many benefits for locals. In Namibia, many locals work as trackers, skimmers, and packagers. Also, meat is used to feed nearby villages. These journal entries, along with an examination of the colonized Namibian culture, and a brief analysis of the modern hunting culture in Namibia will prove to have both positive and negative affects on the state of Namibia.

HIST 161, World History

Ron Palmer

P103

1:30 – 2 PM

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Allison Keeney

Grammar Instruction in High School

In many of today’s high schools, grammar instruction is not a part of the English Language Arts curriculum. Much of the focus is placed on expanding reading and writing skills in preparation for college, rather than readdressing or expanding grammar skills. The main reason for this focus is that school authorities believe that most students should have learned about grammar while in elementary school or possibly middle school. Regardless of what the previous model of the public education system looks like, is grammar instruction at the high school level conducive for high school and college success? If it is, then there should be no question on whether it should be implemented at the high school level or not. If it is not, then we may keep to our old ways. This question can be answered by looking at what research says about grammar instruction and adolescent learning, some case studies, two grammar instruction surveys, and a few interviews with students and teachers.

Honors Thesis

James Watson

P103

10 AM – Noon

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Joshua McCluskey

CRISPR

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, Crispr for short is a dna sequence that can be used by the cas9 system of rna guided nucleases that effectively cleaves the section of dna containing a specific genome to repair or alter that specified genome. The crispr system is an adaptive immune system that is used and regulated by microbes and cells to defend against foreign substances and viruses by recognizing and eliminating the specific dna sequence associated with that virus. Most crispr systems contain 20-24 regularly spaced palindromic bases separated by spacers. The crispr cassettes are found in almost every archeon and almost half of bacteria studied. This provides a wide range of uses for the cas9 system and adds to the versatility of the system. We can use this system to replicate and code for specific genomes in animals and further understand how their traits are coded and replicated, we can create complex models for human inherited diseases or cancers, it can also be used to pinpoint the cause for underlying genetic processes by genome wide screening of the dna in any human cell. The origin of crispr however is the most intriguing aspect of the system. Being a biological system that was discovered and not a human engineered system, the origin is not entirely clear.

BIOL 200, General Biology

Paul Allee

P003

1:30 – 2:00 PM

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Joshua McCluskey

Applied Calculus in Medicine

Medicine utilizes calculus in many ways, through the use of derivatives we can optimize uses of material as well as calculate the effect of a surgery. angioplasty uses calculus to calculate the effect of widening an artery to increase blood flow. Calculus lets us know definitively to what extent the blood flow will increase. we can also use calculus in a crime scene. determining the time of death.

MATH 251, Calculus I

Connie Wilmarth

Banquet Room, Poster #8

10 AM – Noon

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Michael Buss, Tanner Dean

An Attempt at Visual Arguemnt

Visual arguments are heavily dependent on their context and enthymematic nature. The visual must make a claim, or claims, that are understood by the audience and also provide reasons why those claims are true. We have attempted to translate these concepts to a visual debate: Resolved: Digital photography is better than film photography.

COMM 325, Argumentation and Debate

Doyle Srader

P003

3 – 3:30 PM

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Kristyn Dodge

The Heresy Gospel: A Comparison of the Gnostic Gospels to the Synoptic Gospels

72 years ago, two Egyptian brothers found 13 leather bound books of parchment in a clay pot deep in a cave along the Nile. Not only were these books an amazing find, they came with a long and controversial history. In the early days of the Church, our Church Fathers had to struggle with what carried Christ’s true message and what didn’t. One of the dangers they had to face were found in these bound volumes that preached a different Christ while promoting the highly valued principles of sophia (wisdom) and gnosis (knowledge). When they accepted the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke as well as John, they created the Church’s official canon. Together we will look at the Gnostic Gospels and ask ourselves the questions: what is it about the Gnostic Gospels that are so compelling? And why were they rejected while the Synoptic Gospels became canon?

BTM 365H, The History of the Bible in English

Steve Silver

P114

1:30 – 2 PM

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Matthew Geronimo

Agape Word Study

This presentation explores the meaning of the Greek word agape as it occurs throughout the New Testament. The presentation discusses the meaning of agape in ancient Greek, the Old Testament, and Judaism. This includes multiple words and interpretations in ancient Greek and both religious and secular understanding of agape in the Old Testament. It identifies the frequency in usage of the word by New Testament authors and the meaning of agape according to Jesus, John, and Paul. From studying these authors, the detailed comprehension of agape is applied to our lives in this presentation.

GRK 301, Elementary Greek

Dennis Lindsay

P114

1 – 1:30 PM

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Allison Keeney

Musical Influences in Middle Earth

When J.R.R. Tolkien created Middle Earth in his book The Hobbit, he was influenced by previous literary, musical works. Tolkien was a scholar of the epic Beowulf and used this tale to influence his famous story. He was also influenced by The Song of Nibelungs and other Norse and Germanic sagas. When Tolkien was a young man, before he started writing The Hobbit, Richard Wagner and his opera, The Ring of Nibelung, was very popular in Europe. There are many similarities between Wagner and Tolkien’s works, but Tolkien claims that “both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases.” This presentation will be exploring the musical influences that Tolkien drew from to create his stories in Middle Earth, as well as look at the similarities between Wagner’s opera and Tolkien’s books.

MUS 321, Survey of Music History

Lynn Kane

Banquet Room, Poster #5

1 – 3 PM

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Austin Dame

DameGood Innovation

This presentation will address the following: innovation, creation, evolution, and future direction of a student-created product. The opening priority is to address what innovation is, and how this concept was applied towards discovering a solution to a problem within the outdoors industry. The next approach in this presentation is to expand on the benefits the product offers and the variety of ways it can be utilized. In this segment, the product will be examined and compared. The following section is to explain the evolution of the product and break down the research and development process. In this stage, the variety of materials, suppliers worked with, and environmental necessities that have been applied to the product will be addressed. The final step is to break down the personal learning process, while expressing the personal future objectives with this product. Essentially, this presentation will take an in-depth look at what happens when a student is developing a product.

MKTG 434, Consumer Behavior

Pete Diffenderfer

Banquet Room, poster #3

10 AM – Noon

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Allison Keeney

Maundy Thursday: A New Commandment of Love

The season of Lent ends with the Triduum, a period of three days that represent the journey Jesus took into his crucifixion and resurrection.  These three days include Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.  Most church populations know what Good Friday and Easter Sunday are, but in today’s churches most of the population does not know what Maundy Thursday is.  Maundy Thursday is a day for us to remember the new commandment of love that Jesus gave to his disciples as he washed their feet in John 13, and therefore a new commandment of love that he gives to each of us.  How can we take this new commandment of love and represent it in our daily walk with God?

MUS 375, History of Worship in the Church

Karen De Young

Banquet Room, poster #7

10 AM – Noon

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Michael Buss

Nonverbal Communication in Worship Band Settings

When worship bands play live, they need to communicate in order to make the music as fluent and flawless as possible. Verbal communication is limited if not absent during a live set, therefore band members must communicate non-verbally. Rehearsal times are essential to achieving a fluent live set. It is beneficial to have more than one rehearsal before playing live. Rehearsals are the place to coordinate song road map and dynamics which are managed through corrective and expressive behaviors primarily displayed by the band leader. The first rehearsal is the coordination stage, the second rehearsal is the dress rehearsal and finally, the culmination of events, the live performance.

COMM 430 Nonverbal Communication

Doyle Srader

Banquet Room, Poster #3

10:00 AM – Noon

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Chelsea Chittim

Restraints in Special Education

The use of restraints has been a controversial and impactful topic of discussion in our education system for decades. Progress has been made in the last fifty years to better protocol in regards to such restraints to increase the safety for our students and security of students, but there is still much work to be done. We must continually review our current standards, employee training methods and models, to ensure that students are given the best opportunity to succeed and get an equal opportunity education.

EDUC 380 School Law

Johnny Lake

PFB 003

10:00 – 10:30 AM

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Kristyn Dodge

Whoever Has the Gift

Ever since the earliest days of Christianity, the role for women in the Church has been a matter of hot debate that even today has yet to be resolved. However, there has been a shift in the way a woman’s role is defined with the help of laborers like Macrina, Hildegard von Bingen, Catherine Mumford Booth, Catherine Bramwell Booth and Aimee Semple McPherson in the white fields of ministry. We will be exploring each of these women and how they have contributed to a question we have been trying to answer for many years: should women be allowed to preach and lead in pastoral ministry?

HIST 490 Historical Methods and Research

Steven Goetz

PFB 103

2:30 – 3:00 PM

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Joshua Higashi

Language of Leaders

I will be presenting a poster comparing two speeches I wrote. I wrote a speech for current NCU President Joseph Womack and for former President of New Hope Christian College Guy Higashi. I will be comparing the differences in speeches based on the speaker’s cultural and ethnic background as well as the audience’s demographic.

COMM 311 Speechwriting

Doyle Srader

Banquet Room, Poster #2

1:00 – 3:00 PM

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Allison Keeney

Religion in School

When it comes to spending time in our public school system, either as a student or as a teacher, what is lawful when it comes to religion?  As our educational system has progressed over the years to where it is now, there have been many issues that have created court cases to help us explore and understand the laws pertaining to religion in schos.  In order to explore and understand these laws for both teachers and students, we will be looking at the First Amendment, several court cases, and the observation of religious holidays.

EDUC 380 School Law

Johnny Lake

PFB 003

10:30 – 11:00 AM

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Gabrielle Morales

Bloom: A Short Story of Poverty and Identity

My name is Gabrielle, and I am a product of the so-called “American Dream.” I was born of an uneducated family, and I am first of that line to break the chain of teen pregnancy. More importantly, I am the first to attend college. My paternal grandfather passed away when my father was just seven. Being the oldest, my father was forced to drop out of the third grade and support his mother and siblings. And then, when he was fourteen, he left his ranch-house in Tamazula de Gordiano, Jalisco, Mexico, to “make something of himself” by migrating to America.

But it was not until recently that I began to wonder what my life would look like had my grandfather lived. These thoughts are futile, but I can’t help but wonder: would my own father still be illiterate? And if not, would he still have entered America under the same conditions, and would I have found reason to write this? Would my parents have met? It is through this story, my father’s story— a deeply rooted bloom of self discovery— that I hope to put these thoughts to rest.

ENG 211 Survey of American Literature

James Watson

PFB 114

1:00 – 2:00 PM

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