This study is concerned with the problem of determining whether there is a relationship between achievement and specific ethnic and profile characteristics of Anglo-American and Mexican-American junior and senior high school students who are enrolled in a large metropolitan public school district. The purposes include (a) delineation of demographic data on these students in terms of specific group membership, gender, age, and educational concerns; (b) identification of the attitudes and values of these students; (c) evaluation of the relationships between the demographic data and the degree to which ethnic membership and interpersonal concerns impact participation in the classroom.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / William P. Winslow III / MDI Superfund is an abandoned 36 acre metal casting foundry site in the Fifth Ward Houston, TX. The site was recently remediated and cleared of nearly all industrial remnants including more than 16,000 cubic yards of lead contaminated soil. Completion of the remedial action allows the removal of fences that have been separating this tract of land and the community for nearly ten years. Proximity to downtown Houston makes this a desirable location for new development, which has threatened to displace the poor and elderly in recent years. This project explores design alternatives that facilitate affordable housing without isolating it from new development. The integration of affordable housing with community needs is necessary to improve the dynamic in a mixed use, mixed income development. This research is intended to shape redevelopment of MDI Superfund, while providing community needs, minimizing gentrification, and improving quality of life of its inhabitants. The achievement of these goals relies upon the application of specific design principles that minimize conflict and increase success in similar communities.

Houston is one of the fastest growing metropolis’ in the country. Driving this growth is the oil and gas industry and also the Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical center. With such growth comes various problems. One of the leading problems according to its citizens in 2014 was traffic and the lack of access to public transportation. This project aims to help find solutions to this problem by locating areas that could help improve public transportation access and take a look at Houston’s accessibility via roadways. Using datasets from various Houston agencies such as the City of Houston and the Houston-Galveston Area Council, overlay analysis was used to help find prime areas that could be improved. Using ESRI ArcMap, models were completed in order to automate the analysis process. Tools such as raster conversion, Euclidean distance, zonal stats as table, and reclassify were used. In order to analyze Houston accessibility via the roadways, ArcGIS Online was used. Several Proximity analyses were run in order to view various types of dating dealing with the accessibility of Houston using roadways. The results show areas that do not currently have access to public transportation and areas that would be suitable locations for improvements based on different criteria. For roadway access, the results show average commute times, drive-time accessibility, and freeway access. This will allow for the accessibility of Houston to be shown whether it is by public transportation or by roadway.

The Acres Homes Transit Company in Houston, Texas is Texas' first African American owned and operated bus company. Some say it is the first in the South. The company was developed during the height of the civil rights period. It serves as an establishment of economic empowerment during the oppressive civil rights era. The video is a historical visual documentation of the bus company from its beginning to its end. An accompanying written profile describes the research process, the pre-production, production and post-production stages, as well as future proposals for the documentary.

A linked collection featuring a young gay man -- the son of a black mother and a Mexican father -- coming of age in contemporary Houston.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Abilene Christian University, 2006. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-141).

The goal of my dissertation was to describe the dynamics of a group of Houston toads located at the Griffith League Ranch (GLR), Bastrop County, Texas. My research included using statistical modeling to predict activity and abundance, mark-recapture techniques to estimate survivorship, and simulation modeling to explore the impacts of the difference in age at first reproduction and to project the future dynamics of the population at the GLR. From 2001 – 2005, 225 individual Houston toads (199 M : 26 F) were captured using two methods: breeding pond surveys and drift fences. Houston toads were neither caught equally among capture methods, nor across years. Toad activity was mostly confined within their breeding season, and activity was not continuous. A logistic regression indicated activity depended on time of year, mean precipitation, mean minimum daily temperature, and mean percent lunation as well as two-way interactions with moon-phase and other variables. Abundance depended on time of year, current precipitation, minimum temperature, and two-way interactions between time of year and the other two variables. Twenty-one of the 199 males (10.5%) and no females were recaptured among years. The probability of male survival was estimated using program MARK. Eight of 16 candidate models were supported and all but one contained precipitation as a covariate, indicating precipitation is important for Houston toad survival. Survivorship estimates varied from 0.1 to 0.41. The sex ratio was significantly male-biased. The odds of catching females in traps were 3.5 greater than capturing females in a pond, while the odds of capturing males in a trap were 0.28 compared to ponds. Results from a simulation model indicated the sex ratio is biased because of the difference in maturation times between males and females, coupled with high juvenile mortality. Results from an individual-based, spatially-explicit, stochastic simulation model, indicated a relatively low probability (~ 0.013) of B. houstonensis going extinct at the GLR within the next 10 years. Emergent properties of the model were similar to results observed in the field or reported in the literature. The model also identified that dispersal of Houston toads should be a future research priority.

Urban centers are major sources of contaminants to the surrounding air, water and soils. Above all, combustion-derived carbonaceous aerosols, especially black carbon (BC) and associated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), make significant contributions to the pollution in these systems. Here sedimentary records are used to produce a series of historical reconstructions of such contaminants to the Houston Ship Channel (HSC) system and compare these to point source inputs of hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOC). Analytical data on total organic carbon (TOC), BC, PAHs, dioxins and lignin (likely discarded from a pulp and paper mill along the Channel) were determined. This multi-proxy approach revealed that over the last several decades, HOC inputs to the system have been derived from a complex mixture of combustion processes, industrial point-sources, and oil spills. In particular, widespread dioxin contamination was observed throughout the study region with a particular site of the HSC showing total concentrations over 20,000 pg/g and 5000 pg toxic equivalent (TEQ)/g dry weight of sediment. Using two models based on sorption constants of total OC and BC, porewater concentrations were estimated to be lower than expected, at 20 pg/L and 5 pg TEQ/L. These values, however, are recognized as being extremely high for freely dissolved concentrations in porous media. The pulp and paper waste pit has recently been declared a Superfund site based on dioxin concentrations alone. The relationship between lignin biomarkers and dioxins observed in these sediments confirms that discharges of pulp and paper effluents were responsible for such high dioxin levels. Concentrations of BC, amorphous OC, and TOC were then used to calculate sediment binding of dioxins in sediments of the HSC. Our study found BC to be extremely low in HSC sediments (0.04 to 0.20%) indicating minimal dioxin sorption capacity. This suggests strong potential for fluxes of dioxins from sediments to the water column both through passive diffusion and physical mixing during natural and anthropogenic sediment remobilization events in this shallow system (hurricanes, storms, and dredging). The purposeful addition of BC to these sediments might be promising as a remediation strategy.

This thesis researches the perception of our surroundings while in motion. The bicycle is the primary focus and is conceptualized as an apparatus, once activated by its rider. New measure is applied to the city through the spatiality of the bicycle from which new mappings and experiences emerge. Liberated from the restrictions of the urban grid, the rider constructs new forms of judgement enabling him to navigate the “diagonal.” The architectural project is sited in the “vehicular shadows” of Houston and proposes the Veloduct as a new strategy for occupying and experiencing a new velo-centric landscape. A traversable canopy structure stitches together the shards of unclaimed ground acting as a megastructure under which formalized program and event spaces are distributed. The Veloduct simultaneously creates new spatial experiences and recasts old ones from a new perspective, that of the bicycle.

Houston, Texas, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States, has several structures named after historically male leaders of the city―George R. Brown Convention Center, Mickey Leland Federal Building, William P. Hobby Airport, and Jesse H. Jones Hall. However, Houston women have also had a history that included positions of leadership in the community. Not only were women instrumental in creating the city’s cultural institutions such as the Houston Symphony, Alley Theater, and Houston Public Library, but female community leaders were also responsible for social and political reforms including the integration of public facilities in Houston and the campaign for women’s suffrage. These women leaders have not been recognized, and there are no public buildings in Houston that bear the names of women. This study seeks, in part, to make known the achievements of two women―one white, one black―who played an integral part in the political and cultural fabric of twentieth century Houston. The purpose of this dissertation was to analyze the relationship between educational experience and community leadership in the lives of two female community leaders in Houston, Texas, Ima Hogg and Christia Daniels Adair. Utilizing published interviews, government records, and manuscript collections, I detail the beliefs and values taught and modeled by parents and reinforced by church, school, and community, as well as the knowledge and skills developed through organizational work and self-directed study. Upon initial observation, the lives of Ima Hogg and Christia Adair seemed quite different, separated by issues of race and class. However, by examining both the formal and informal educational experiences of these two women, common patterns or themes emerged. The themes were identified as service to community, expectations of success and leadership, a belief in the value of education and lifelong learning, and the development of leadership skills. The informal educational experience, in particular, proved to be especially significant in the development of leadership skills for these women and in their eventual roles as community leaders. Using these themes, this study analyzes the education of two female community leaders as a way of understanding the relationship between women’s education and women’s achievement.