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School of Environment and Natural Resources

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SENR Seminar Series welcomes PhD Student Presentations

The School of Environment and Natural Resources Seminar Series welcomes Lily Mank and Casey Ortbahn, PhD students who will present their research starting at 4:00 p.m. in room 103 Kottman Hall or via Zoom

Lily will present "Play Room Collaboratory: A Mixed Methods Exploration of Equitable Outdoor Play for College Student Well-being"
Abstract:  Emerging adults transitioning from high school to college experience dramatic shifts in peer networks, sense of belonging, and identity, which, among other factors, impact well-being. Between 2020 and 2021, over 60% of undergraduate college students and 33.7% of U.S. adults aged 18-25 reported symptoms of at least one diagnosable mental illness, the highest rates ever recorded for these groups (HMN, 2023; SAMHSA, 2022). Thus, there is an urgent need to provide undergraduate college students with health-promoting resources, which I propose must include equitable access to outdoor play.

This presentation discusses findings from a mixed-methods study-in-progress that explores qualitative and quantitative aspects of college students’ relationship with outdoor play. In 2024, a survey exploring undergraduates’ conceptualizations of, relationship with, and barriers to outdoor play was administered to undergraduate students via the Campus Sustainability Survey (N=737). Initial results indicate statistically significant declines in students’ outdoor play upon entering college (p<0.01), in part due to lack of time and peers to play with. While respondents indicated awareness of the benefits of play amongst all demographic groups, gender, race, and international student status influenced their perceived barriers to and overall conceptualizations of outdoor play. Inspired by these results and a desire to better understand how college students define play, I developed the Play Room “Collaboratory”, an outdoor pop-up installation using participatory, co-design methods to explore outdoor play, scheduled to be launched in March-April, 2025.

This presentation will demonstrate the need to shift dominant design paradigms that relegate play to children’s playgrounds and sports fields, toward more flexible greenspaces that accommodate diverse notion of play for equally diverse user groups. Practitioners and researchers alike should thus view outdoor play as a health-promoting resource, the design of which could significantly impact public health and environmental justice at local, national, and global scales.

Casey will present, "Youth as experts: using co-design to center youth voices and advance environmental education and positive youth development goals"

Youth urban agriculture programs connect youth with nature and support positive youth development (PYD). In this seminar talk, I will first share findings from a photovoice project that we conducted in the summer of 2023 to amplify high school youths’ voices and explore their perceptions of how participation in an urban agriculture program supported their confidence and sense of belonging. Using thematic analysis of photos and interviews, we identified several program mechanisms that supported confidence and belonging, including social interactions and connections with nature and more-than human beings. We theorize that connections with nature, which are commonplace in gardening programs, are an essential element that supports PYD. Second, I will discuss some ideas that I’ve been having for my dissertation research, which will include analyzing how PYD models conceptualize the role of nature in youth development as well as partnering with a local youth program to study how co-design can advance both environmental education and PYD goals.