This thesis presents a preliminary study on geochemical conditions within the Snapper Creek well field in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The study investigates the background groundwater chemistry within the Biscayne aquifer in order to provide information on the geochemical processes and water-rock interactions within the study site. In conjunction with hydraulic gradient information, major ion chemistry and deuterium and oxygen-18 data were used as environmental tracers to help describe the groundwater-surface water interactions between the well field and the Snapper Creek canal. Hydrologic data show there is potential for natural groundwater recharge from the canal within the shallow flow zone of the Biscayne aquifer and chemical data show evidence of canal-groundwater mixing within this zone. The limitations for the v environmental tracers employed within the study are addressed, as well as recommendations for further research involving natural geochemical tracers and groundwater-surface water interactions near municipal well fields. This study was part of a larger effort being conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in order to assess municipal well field pumping effects on the Snapper Creek (C-2) canal. / by Dominick J. Antolino. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

From 1988 to 1990 a study of the reproductive ecology of the burrowing owl was conducted to determine seasonality and reproductive success in Dade and Broward Counties. Reproductive data for each of the three years (1988- 1990) reveal a higher reproductive success rate (54%) for 1990 than 1989 (40%) and 1988 (40%). Owls using previously used burrows had a higher success in fledging young (63%) than newly excavated burrows (19%). T-tests were conducted on several appendage measurements of male and female owls to determine sexual dimorphic traits. Metatarsus lengths of males and females were different (t=2.36, p=0.02). As of 1990,197 owls had been banded in the study area. In 1989, 75% and in 1990, 83% of the banded adults were found on the same territory. Only 4 of 129 banded nestlings have been reencountered in the study sites.

Minimum Student Performance Standards in Computer Literacy and Science were passed by the Florida Legislature through the Educational Reform Act of 1983. This act mandated that all Florida high school graduates receive training in computer literacy. Schools and school systems were charged with the task of determining the best methods to deliver this instruction to their students. The scope of this study is to evaluate one school's response to the state of Florida's computer literacy mandate. The study was conducted at Miami Palmetto Senior High School, located in Dade County, Florida. The administration of Miami Palmetto Senior High School chose to develop and implement a new program to comply with the state mandate - integrating computer literacy into the existing biology curriculum. The study evaluated the curriculum to determine if computer literacy could be integrated successfully and meet both the biology and computer literacy objectives. The findings in this study showed that there were no significant differences between biology scores of the students taking the integrated curriculum and those taking a traditional curriculum of biology. Student in the integrated curriculum not only met the biology objectives as well as those in the traditional curriculum, they also successfully completed the intended objectives for computer literacy. Two sets of objectives were successfully completed in the integrated classes in the same amount of time used to complete one set of objectives in the traditional biology classes. Therefore, integrated curriculum was the more efficient means of meeting the intended objectives of both biology and computer literacy.

The karst Biscayne aquifer is characterized by a heterogeneous spatial arrangement of porosity, making hydrogeological characterization difficult. In this dissertation, I investigate the use of ground penetrating radar (GPR), for understanding the spatial distribution of porosity variability in the Miami Limestone presented as a compilation of studies where scale of measurement is progressively increased to account for varying dimensions of dissolution features. In Chapter 2, GPR in zero offset acquisition mode is used to investigate the 2-D distribution of porosity and dielectric permittivity in a block of Miami Limestone at the laboratory scale (< 1.0 m). Petrophysical models based on fully saturated and unsaturated. water conditions are used to estimate porosity and solid dielectric permittivity of the limestone. Results show a good correspondence between analytical and GPR-based porosity estimates and show variability between 22.0-66.0 %. In Chapter 3, GPR in common offset and common midpoint acquisition mode are used to estimate bulk porosity of the unsaturated Miami Limestone at the field scale (10.0-100.0 m). Estimates of porosity are based on the assumption that the directly measured water table reflector is flat and that any deviation is attributed to changes in velocity due to porosity variability. Results show sharp changes in porosity ranging between 33.2-60.9 % attributed to dissolution areas. In Chapter 4, GPR in common offset mode is used to characterize porosity variability in the saturated Biscayne aquifer at 100-1000 m field scales. The presence of numerous diffraction hyperbolae are used to estimate electromagnetic wave velocity and asses both horizontal and vertical changes in porosity after application of a petrophysical model. Results show porosity variability between 23.0-41.0 % and confirm the presence of isolated areas that could serve as enhanced infiltration or recharge. This research allows for the identification and delineation areas of macroporosity areas at 0.01 m lateral resolution and shows variability of porosity at different scales, reaching 37.0 % within 1.3 m, associated with areas of enhanced dissolution. Such improved resolution of porosity estimates can benefit water management efforts and transport modelling and help to better understand small scale relationships between ground water and surface water interactions. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has shown that carbon monoxide (CO) exposure levels which can induce carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) formation in excess of 5 percent can result in serious health consequences. In Dade County, Florida county vehicle inspectors are routinely exposed to CO on the job. To evaluate CO exposure levels, a Ecolyzer direct reading CO meter was placed in inspection lanes in 10 Dade County vehicle inspection stations. The results of this study indicate that in 3 stations, an 8-hour time-weighted exposure to carbon monoxide will induce inspector COHb levels in excess of 5 percent, and all stations have work sites where inspectors encounter ceiling exposure levels which may alter their predicted level of COHb formation. Although CO exposure in Dade County vehicle inspection stations was found to be influenced by several factors, the extent and severity of exposure can be reduced by engineering and administrative controls.

The purpose of this study was to describe the effects of evacuation from Hurricane Andrew in August of 1993 and subsequent relocation following the storm on the young children of six families from Homestead Air Force Base, Florida. Interviews were conducted over a three-month period; these were supplemented with samples of the children's drawings and observations of the children at play. The resulting case studies illustrate various coping strategies utilized by the six families to deal with the loss of home, goods, and community in the wake of the storm and the ways in which these impacted the young children in each family. Parental coping styles were an influence on the children's ability to make the adjustments necessary during this especially stressful transition.

Decomposition of soil organic matter by microbial processes results in carbon sequestration within soils and/or carbon loss via atmospheric emission of carbon dioxide and methane. Natural as well as anthropogenic factors have been documented to impact soil microbial diversity and the associated biogeochemical functions. The soil microbial communities co-inhabiting Miami-Dade County soils, Florida are under threat because of the ongoing restoration efforts in the adjoining Florida Everglades Parks, predicted climatic changes such as sea-level rise and high rainfall, as well as urbanization. Therefore, an improved understanding of the current microbial functional communities is essential to better assess the impact of soil communities when anthropogenic or climatic disturbances occur. The objectives of the current study were to characterize the biodiversity and distribution of: a) cellulose degrading microbial community, and b) methanogenic guilds responsible for producing the gas methane, across four different Miami-Dade County, Florida soil types using the high throughput technique of GeoChip 5.0 functional microarray. In addition, the influence of vegetation cover, organic content, soil moisture content, pH, and soil texture in shaping the soil functional microbial community was also investigated. The function of cellulose degradation was distributed across wide range of taxonomic lineages with the majority belonging to the bacterial groups of Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, Alphaproteobacteria, and Gammaproteobacteria, whereas Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the only detected fungal phyla. The cellulolytic bacterial community correlated more with the vegetation cover while fungal groups showed influence of moisture and organic content as well as percent silt. Six out of the seven methanogenic orders, with the greatest numbers found in the Methanomicrobiales, Methanosarcinales, and Methanomassiliicoccales, were identified across all four soil types of Miami-Dade. The abundance of the mcrA gene sequences was significantly greater with respect to soil moisture content. Additionally, the recently classified order Methanomassiliicoccales was identified across all four soils, including soils with lower moisture content not thought to provide ideal redox conditions to support methanogens. The greater number of correlation network interactions amongst the methanogenic guilds in the Florida Everglades wetlands versus the urbanized Miami-Dade County soils depicted the impact of the historical drainage of the Florida Everglades on the methanogenic community. Overall, the current study characterized the biodiversity of cellulolytic and methanogenic organisms across dry and saturated soils of Miami-Dade County and demonstrated that microbial guilds were functionally redundant and were influenced to some extent by the soil abiotic factors. Also, results from network analyses provide a platform to assess the future impacts of disturbances on the microbial community.

Urbanization is a fundamental reality in the developed and developing countries around the world creating large concentrations of the population centering on cities and urban centers. Cities can offer many opportunities for those residing there, including infrastructure, health services, rescue services and more. The living space density of cities allows for the opportunity of more effective and environmentally friendly housing, transportation and resources. Cities play a vital role in generating economic production as entities by themselves and as a part of larger urban complex. The benefits can provide for extraordinary amount of people, but only if proper planning and consideration is undertaken. Global urbanization is a progressive evolution, unique in spatial location while consistent to an overall growth pattern and trend. Remotely sensing these patterns from the last forty years of space borne satellites to understand how urbanization has developed is important to understanding past growth as well as planning for the future. Imagery from the Landsat sensor program provides the temporal component, it was the first satellite launched in 1972, providing appropriate spatial resolution needed to cover a large metropolitan statistical area to monitor urban growth and change on a large scale. This research maps the urban spatial and population growth over the Miami – Fort Lauderdale – West Palm Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) covering Miami- Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties in Southeast Florida from 1974 to 2010 using Landsat imagery. Supervised Maximum Likelihood classification was performed with a combination of spectral and textural training fields employed in ERDAS Image 2014 to classify the images into urban and non-urban areas. Dasymetric mapping of the classification results were combined with census tract data then created a coherent depiction of the Miami – Fort Lauderdale – West Palm Beach MSA. Static maps and animated files were created from the final datasets for enhanced visualizations and understanding of the MSA evolution from 60-meter resolution remotely sensed Landsat images. The simplified methodology will create a database for urban planning and population growth as well as future work in this area. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

While much attention has been given to the ways local communities may be impacted by climate change, this dissertation focuses ethnographically on the local agencies decision-making processes, a less-studied aspect of this topic. The primary purpose of this dissertation research is to understand how government agencies in southern Florida integrate climate change into their decision-making processes while dealing with political resistance. This research expands our understanding on the cultural politics of a new kind of environmental change, where national and international climate-change politics is brought into local water politics to illuminate how new and not so new visions about life in the contemporary metropolis collide and collude. Using multiple research methods including ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document research, I analyze the activities of the Miami-Dade County Climate Change Advisory Task Force Committee (MDC-CCATF) as well as the water management practices of the regional water management agency, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). My findings include the following: (1) the Task Force activities have spearheaded Miami’s institutional adaptation to climate change; (2) historic legacies have expanded and complicated decision-making processes at the District; (3) a focus on the certainties of climate-change science allows climate change to persist in politically contentious planning contexts. My dissertation concluded that while planning for potential climate-change impacts can be difficult due to multiple institutional constraints that resource agencies like the District have, scientists and policy-makers have crafted an innovative culture that is particularly visible at sites where science and decision making intersect.

From the moment children are born, they begin a lifetime journey of learning about themselves and their surroundings. With the establishment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, it mandates that all children receive a high-quality education in a positive school climate. Regardless of the school the child attends or the neighborhood in which the child lives, proper and quality education and resources must be provided and made available in order for the child to be academically successful. The purpose of this ex post facto study was to investigate the relationship between the FCAT 2.0 mathematics scores of public middle school students in Miami-Dade County, Florida and the concentrations of a school’s racial and ethnic make-up (Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics), English for Speakers of other Languages (ESOL) population, socio-economic status (SES), and school climate. The research question of this study was: Is there a significant relationship between the FCAT 2.0 Mathematics scores and racial and ethnic concentration of public middle school students in Miami-Dade County when controlling SES, ESOL student population, and school climate for the 2010-2011 school year? The instruments used to collect the data were the FCAT 2.0 and Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) School Climate Survey. The study found that Economically Disadvantaged (SES) students socio-economic status had the strongest correlation with the FCAT 2.0 mathematics scores (r = -.830). The next strongest correlation was with the number of students who agreed that their school climate was positive and helped them learn (r = .741) and the third strongest correlation was a school percentage of White students (r = .668). The study concluded that the FCAT 2.0 mathematics scores of M-DCPS middle school students have a significant relationship with socio-economic status, school climate, and racial concentration.