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How our first jobs shape the rest of our lives

We all start somewhere. And our first jobs — no matter if you’re an ice cream scooper or an investment intern — leave lasting marks on us. First jobs teach us about ourselves and the world around us. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

MPR News host Angela Davis talked with WSU sociologist Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson about how our first jobs shape our minds, habits and futures.

Listen to the full interview:
Minnesota Public Radio News

 

New program emphasizes service learning

A partnership between Washington State University’s Center for Civic Engagement and the LAUNCH Program is bringing service-learning into the classroom, with positive impacts on student success.

The two offices collaborated on an effort to include service-learning in Psychology 105 and Human Development 200 courses in the 2023-24 academic year. More than 800 students were asked to engage in service-learning experiences scaffolded into the courses and then reflect on the experience as part of their fall semester course curriculum.

“Our goal was to give students the space and opportunity to think about who they are, where they want to go, and what learning experiences could help them in that developmental process,” Samantha Swindell, psychology professor and associate dean of undergraduate studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Service-learning doesn’t just give students an opportunity to live their values – it also has a substantial impact on their success. A study conducted by biology faculty and CCE staff during academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19 found that students who participated in a similar service-learning project received an academic boost: end-of-semester grades for participants were almost 10% higher than non-participants’ grades, and participants’ fall-to-fall retention was 9.3% higher. The impact was particularly pronounced among students of color.

“We have every reason to believe that the benefits of service-learning are as true for our students as they were in the group that was studied,” Swindell said. “Service-learning helps students be more civic-minded, feel more like a member of the community, improves self-efficacy, and is great practice in stepping into an unfamiliar situation and seeing it as a learning opportunity.”

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KHQ News
WSU Insider

‘Exploding head syndrome’? Inside a mysterious, disturbing sleep condition

A musician and guitar luthier who’s no stranger to loud noises, Dave Lovos admits to being a bit undone by the boom he heard in his head one night earlier this year. It hit just as Lovos was drifting off to sleep, the force of it snapping him to attention.

What Lovos experienced is known by the unscientific but evocative moniker “exploding head syndrome” (EHS), a mysterious example of a parasomnia, or sleep disorder. Parasomnias include sleepwalking, sleep talking, sleep paralysis, and pesky muscle spasms known as “myoclonic jerks.” In most cases, these parasomnias are normal and harmless, except when physical danger or pain is involved.

“My office would be a lot messier if heads were actually exploding,” says Brian Sharpless, [former WSU psychology faculty member and] a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in sleep. Sharpless is among the handful of psychologists and others researching EHS. He says the condition is harmless.

Classified as a sleep disorder in 2005 by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the small number of studies to date have dismissed earlier clinical claims that women over 50 were more prone to EHS. Data today show that the incidents are almost equally divided among men and women. In a study out of Washington State University, authored by Sharpless, upwards of 13 percent of college students reported at least one episode.

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National Geographic Magazine

How does a river breathe? The answer could lead to a better understanding of global carbon cycle

Take a deep breath. Pay attention to how air moves from your nose to your throat before filling your lungs with oxygen. As you exhale your breath, a mix of oxygen and carbon dioxide leaves your nose and mouth. Did you know that streams and rivers “breathe” in a similar way?

One of the drivers behind understanding how streams and rivers breathe is a set of processes known as respiration—a collection of chemical reactions that together determine how much carbon stays put and how much enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

It’s important to understand whether water or sediment in rivers and streams has more respiration. To answer this, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory partnered with researchers at Washington State University and the University of Montana. The team found that in the Columbia River, most respiration is done by organisms in the water. This is likely because the Columbia River contains a lot of water in which respiration can happen.

Research has produced models and data that can help predict how to protect the nation’s streams and rivers and the communities that depend on them. The work is published in the journal Frontiers in Water. Co-authors include PNNL earth scientist James Stegen, an affiliate faculty member in the School of the Environment.

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Phys.org
Smart Water Magazine

Meet the ice worm, one of the most mysterious creatures in the world

When Peter Wimberger of the University of Puget Sound was first told about ice worms, he thought that his colleagues were pranking him. Imagine his surprise when he learned that not only are these creatures real, they are full of mysteries that if solved, could help answer one of the biggest questions in science.

There are millions of these animals across the world and yet despite their abundance, they have barely been studied, with scientists treating them as a mere curiosity. Scott Hotaling, a glacier biologist [at Utah State University and a former postdoctoral researcher at] Washington State University, and his colleague Peter Wimberger have been studying ice worms for several years.

“There are more mysteries than there are solved things with ice worms”, says Hotaling.

Unlike humans, who lose energy when they are in a cold environment, ice worms thrive in the cold and their energy levels go up when they are subjected to low temperatures. They live comfortably at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius), but if temperatures dip slightly below that, they die.

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AfricaPress