International Conference of Undergraduate Research (ICUR)

Hannah Antrican

“What Can I Do About It?”: Climate Anxiety in College Students

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Angela Mertig

Climate change presents increasingly worsening global social justice issues. Along with the environmental and economic effects of the changing climate come a variety of personal stressors. Mental health practitioners have noted a growing number of patients expressing distress due to environmental issues. This distress, known as climate anxiety, is a relatively new topic and thus has been used in multiple contexts with varying definitions. It is a topic of relevance to sociologists as well as mental health practitioners. Understanding climate anxiety will aid in promoting action to combat climate change. This research examines the existing literature on climate anxiety, specifically in college-age individuals in preparation for a future study measuring it in the student population of Middle Tennessee State University. Research studying climate anxiety in college students is of particular importance as they represent emerging professionals and scholars who will shape the future of climate policy. Limited research on climate anxiety in college students exists, but a study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication showed that Gen Z and Millennials have higher rates of climate anxiety compared to older adults. Existing research has found a negative relationship between climate anxiety and positive mental health in teens and emerging adults. The aim of this research is to provide an overview of research about: (a) ways that climate anxiety has been defined, (b) existing measures of climate anxiety, (c) the relationship between climate anxiety and pro-environmental behavior, and (d) climate anxiety and overall mental wellbeing.

Anna Collins

The Ordinary Price of Zero

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Justin Gardner

The standard economic model is a key player in Shampanier et al.’s Zero is a Special Price: The True Value of Free Products published in 2007. The authors argue that consumer behavior, when presented with a price of zero, or free, is irrational and inconsistent with the standard economic model. This research claims the standard model presented by that work is an inaccurate characterization of consumer theory and that their experimental research design cannot differentiate between the model they presented, and the concept of utility maximization restricted by a budget constraint. Shampanier and colleagues propose a correction to their model that, upon further examination, can easily be accounted for when the research design allows for substitution and income effects. This research demonstrates these effects using mathematical programming to
simulate consumer decision-making with various utility functions, such as the Cobb-Douglass functional form. The results show that standard economic theory does an exceptional job of predicting consumer behavior when one good is free. The predictive power of these models relies on their ability to include both income and substitution effects, which are excluded from the “standard” model. Our study shows that Shampainer and colleagues’ model is a special case of standard consumer theory and confirms why the literature has been able to reliably verify their results.

Ariel Nicastro

Modeling Disorder Effects in Quantum Materials

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Hanna Terletska

In condensed matter physics, disorder refers to asymmetries in the crystal structure at the atomic level. There, materials can undergo phase transitions such as the Anderson Localization Transition (ALT), which is responsible for the conductor to insulator transition. Understanding the impact of disorder on quantum materials is critical for material design, as materials’ properties can be manipulated to improve material durability, cost effectiveness, and other desirable characteristics. Such types of improved materials can be used in buildings, airplanes, and machinery. When studying the effects of disorder, it is important to have reliable numerical tools that can properly simulate disorder effects for various classes of quantum materials. To study the effect of disorder on quantum materials, we developed an effective medium quantum cluster method (CDMT) to simulate different types of disorder: binary, box, and Gaussian. These distributions represent different disorder scenarios in technologically important systems, such as alloys and semiconductors. In this project, we will show that our CDMT method captures the experimentally observed impact of disorder on a material’s density of states, i.e. the broadening of the spectrum by disorder. We will also investigate the importance of non-local (beyond single impurity) scattering effects which we model by a finite cluster method.

Connor Prim

Integrating Classical Music Into the Elementary Classroom

Faculty Mentor: Mrs. Leslie Trail and Dr. Kevin Krahenbuhl

Elementary music should expose children to a wide range of musical experiences. Some of those, such as pop music, are easy to incorporate into lessons due to their fun nature but many educators struggle when considering how to effectively teach music from the classical canon. Most students think it is “boring,” and the overwhelmed music teacher might just give in to their whims. However, teachers who think this way are robbing their students of the enrichment these masterworks provide. Still, educators must be strategic about how they implement them in the classroom. Sitting still for an hour while listening to a Brahms symphony might just reinforce students’ negative perceptions about this music. By utilizing movement, mutual orientation, and musical instruments, teachers can get students to engage and relate to classical music in a whole new way, transforming their future and revitalizing the genre for a new generation of listeners to enjoy