Journal of Undergraduate Research

Carson Stam and Dr. Ryan Jensen, Geography As the principal habitat of the human race, urban areas require a high degree of attention and research. The United Nations has estimated that slightly over 50% of the world’s population now lives in urban areas. This number is projected to increase steadily in the coming decades. The […]

Nicholas Davis and Dr. Ryan Jensen, Department of Geography Global bio-diversity is being threatened by many different factors. Most of this is man induced. One of these factors is the introduction of non-native organisms to new locations. One hypothesis that explains why some non-native invasive organisms are so successful is that the native organisms have […]

Vaughn Robert Pickell and Dr. Samuel M. Otterstrom, Geography When the European explorers came to America they brought with them their pattern of city design. Jorge Hardoy (1982) asserts that the Spanish “built cities that in layout, architectural styles, technology, land-use patterns and even in criteria used to select the location of the new settlements” […]

Daniel N. Dubei and Dr. Sam Otterstrom, Geography Johann Von Thunen’s model of agricultural land use has done much to explain the use of agricultural land in Europe prior to industrialization. His theory predicts the type of crop produced by the distance from the market. Modern transportation (1) though has improved the spatial pattern of […]

Greg B. Hall, Department of Geography Introduction Inter-Mountain West counties who historically have tied their economic livelihood to the exploitation of primary resources have been susceptible to cycles of boom and bust. The history of Grand County, Utah, depicts this precise paradigm. In the 1950’s, when a young Texan discovered uranium in the resource rich […]

Benjamin A. Thomson, Geography To introduce this research summary, I would like to include a brief background to my research topic. Since the creation of the Hopi and Navajo reservations in 1880, these two tribes have disputed the use of the land. By 1974 the Navajo, living on a reservation surrounding that of the Hopi, […]

Stacey Petersen, Geography In fulfillment of !he responsibilities of a recipient of !he scholarship for Undergraduate research, I submit !his final report on Timber Dependency and Geographic Change in Lane County, Oregon. The scholarship enabled me to do !he following: a. Observe and Photograph three former mill towns in Lane County, Oregon for geographic changes […]

Michele N Richardson and Dr. Samuel Otterstrom, Geography Introduction At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Trianon divided the former Austro-Hungarian Empire into multiple autonomous states including Czechoslovakia. Hungarians vociferously decried the southern border around the Slovak portion of this state, which became the independent Slovak Republic in 1993, claiming that it […]

Daniel Reeves and Dr. Samuel Otterstrom, Geography From the Middle Ages to the present there has been—to varying degrees—a German minority among the Slovak people. Though nearly nonexistent today, this minority has historically been an important part of Slovakia’s population. German settlers were drawn to Slovakia for several reasons over the centuries, and in the […]

Donald Ludlow, James Davis and Dr. J. Matthew Shumway, Geography Recent technological advances in police record keeping and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software enable police departments and security specialists to better identify the spatial patterns of criminal activity. This research project utilizes both Provo Police Department database outputs and ArcView GIS software to examine the […]