published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

This dissertation, a qualitative case study conducted from a constructivist perspective, focuses on the construction and implementation of strategies of emotional scaffolding by two early childhood educators in a public elementary school. This study finds that emotional scaffolding is an excellent example of a tool that could help teachers reach developmentally appropriate practices for early childhood education in an age of accountability. The primary data consist of participant observations, participant interviews and key documents. The study has two primary interests. The first aims at understanding how young children’s learning experiences are enhanced when early childhood educators integrate emotions into their decision-making and practices. The second aims at enhancing the emerging picture of what emotional scaffolding means in early childhood education contexts. My analysis highlights three major themes that contribute to these participants’ decision-making for emotional scaffolding. The first is the participants’ beliefs about their self-perceived teaching identities. The second is their deep understanding of children. The third involves their assessments and reactions to their school climates. The findings focus on four areas of divergence from the literature. First is the important role that teachers’ personal beliefs about the most pedagogically important emotion play in constructing and implementing strategies for emotional scaffolding. Second, emotional scaffolding is an important part of teachers’ mediated agency in a time of increasing accountability. Third, teachers’ capacity to balance student excitement and engagement through their emotional scaffolding is the key to establishing and maintaining children’s engagement in academic activities. Fourth is that emotional scaffolding carried out in the early childhood classroom involves emotion work, not emotional labor. The study provides several implications. The first is that our perception of the emotional scaffolding process in the early childhood education context can be expanded. The second is the importance of sufficient preservice training. The third is that a principal who respects a teacher’s decision-making and practices can help a teacher provide effective emotional scaffolding. The final and perhaps most important implication is that an awareness of self is the most important element contributing to better decision-making in creating a meaningful and engaging environment for their students. / text

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"Las practicas cotidianas castellanas: hacia el imaginario cartografico de Miguel Delibes" offers a reevaluation of the image of Castilla that informs much of Miguel Delibes's novelistic work. Numerous scholars have examined the fundamental role the author's native region has in developing the thematics of his extensive narrative corpus. What has been missing in these studies is a broadly interdisciplinary optic through which to study the formation and evolution of Delibes's cartographic imaginary--to borrow a term from David Harvey. Applying the ground-breaking work of critical geographers including Harvey, Henry Lefevbre, Michel de Certeau and Sallie Marston to an analysis of the Spanish novelist's production allows for a calibration of his novelistic evolution against the mediating factors of the extensive and fundamental real spatial transformations that Castilla undergoes from the time Delibes started to write in the 1940s to the present. The key element in making this connection is a study of how the practices of everyday life take form in his imaginary. Employing de Certeau's explanation of the ways in which these practices coalesce into tactics and strategies is especially useful in charting the evolution of the author's cartographic imaginary and how it documents, confronts and resists fundamental alterations in the nature of Castillian spaces, both rural and urban.Chapter one of my study lays out the methodology for defining the cartographic imaginary, especially its portrayal of the practices of everyday life, and considers how to connect the study of real spaces and their conceptual articulation by cultural creators. Chapters two and three discuss, in turn, the portrayal of urban and rural spaces in Delibes's fiction, most importantly in Mi idolatrado hijo Sisi­, Cinco horas con Mario, Diario de un jubilado, El camino, Las ratas, and Viejas historias de Castilla la Vieja. My final chapter (four) examines those texts in which Delibes plays rural against urban space--Diario de un cazador, El disputado voto del senor Cayo and Los santos inocentes. My investigation leads me to conclude that while deeply rooted in his own region of Spain, Delibes's work transcends local concerns.

This experiment was established in January 2000 in a block of ‘Washington’ navel orange trees at Verde Growers, Stanfield, AZ. Treatments included: normal grower practice, winter low biuret (LB) urea application, summer LB urea application, winter LB urea application plus winter and spring potassium phosphite, winter LB urea application plus summer potassium phosphite, and normal grower practice plus spring potassium phosphite. Each treatment was applied to approximately four acres of trees. For 2000-01, yields ranged from 40 to 45 lbs. per tree, and there was no effect of treatments upon total yield, and only slight effect upon fruit size, grade and quality. For 2001-02, there was a slight effect of treatment upon yield as LB urea led to improved yield, while potassium phosphite led to reduced yield. Normal grower practice was intermediate between these two extremes. For 2002-03, we noted a large increase in yield, however the yield data was lost when the block was inadvertently harvested.

Much of the citrus produced in southwestern Arizona is grown on sandy soils. Because these soils have a low ion exchange capacity, are highly permeable to water, and are prone to nitrate leaching, achieving efficient N management presents a continuing challenge. A field study was conducted on a superstition sand to evaluate the response of lemons to combinations of soil and foliar applied N. Lemon yields significantly increased by soil applied N. Foliar N increased yields of lemons the first harvest at the lower soil N rates. However, there were no other significant responses to foliar N. Overall, there were few meaningful changes in fruit quality to N fertilization. The N content of the leaves increased linearly to soil N application

‘Newhall’ navel oranges on ‘Carrizo’ rootstock were planted in Mar. 1997 at the Citrus Agricultural Center. The objectives of this experiment, conducted during 2000 - 2003, were to i) determine the effects of N rate and fertigation frequency for microsprinkler-irrigated navel oranges on tree N status, and crop yield and quality; and ii) develop Best Management Practices which promote optimum tree growth and production while minimizing nitrate leaching. The trees were equipped with a microsprinkler irrigation system. The experiment was a randomized complete block factorial with N rates of 0, 0.15, 0.30, and 0.45 lb N/tree/year, and fertigation frequencies of weekly, monthly, and three times per year. Each of the ten treatments was replicated five times. The trees were harvested in December or January of each growing season. Fruit were processed through an automatic fruit sizer, and fruit from each plot were further evaluated for fruit quality. Leaf N concentration and fruit yield of 4-6 year old trees were responsive to N rate, but not to fertigation frequency. Fruit quality and packout were not significantly affected by either N rate or fertigation frequency. Fruit yield was optimized at annual N rates of 0.25 lb/tree (four-year-old trees) to 0.35 lb/tree (six-year-old trees) during this experiment. We propose new tissue guidelines for guiding N fertilization of young microsprinkler-irrigated navel oranges.

An experiment was initiated in 2000 to study the feasibility of growing organic lemons in the southwest desert of Arizona. An eight-acre field was selected on Superstition sandy soil at the Mesa Agricultural Research Center to conduct this investigation. Lemon trees were planted at 25 x 25 feet spacing in 1998. The initial soil test in top 6 inches was 5 ppm nitrate-nitrogen and 4.9 ppm NaHCO3-P. Soil pH was 8.7 in the top 6 inches. Four treatments were applied in randomized complete block design repeated four times. The treatments were beef cattle feedlot manure and perfecta, clover and guano from 2000 to 2002, cowpea and guano in 2003, and guano and perfecta, and standard practice treatment. Soil samples were collected from 0-6 and 6-12 inches the first week of March 2003 and analyzed for available nutrients. Results showed a difference for most nutrients in 0 to 6 and 6 to 12 inches between treatments. Nitrate- nitrogen increased significantly from 3.25 ppm in standard treatment to 19.10 ppm in the manure treatment. Similarly, soil organic matter increased from 0.1% in standard treatment to 0.2% in the manure perfecta treatment. Phosphorus level increased significantly from 7 ppm in guano perfecta to 56.5 ppm in manure perfecta treatment. Leaf tissue analysis indicated that nitrate level was influenced by treatment. Both commercial standard and organic treatments were equally effective in controlling citrus thrips, but repeated applications were required. Mite population has been detected at low level with no significant differences observed among treatments.

Much of the citrus produced in southwestern Arizona is grown on sandy soils. Because these soils have a low ion exchange capacity, are highly permeable to water, and are prone to nitrate leaching, achieving efficient N management presents a continuing challenge. Studies were conducted during 1999, 2000, and 2001 to evaluate the response of micro-sprinkler irrigated lemons to N rate (0, 1.8, and 3.6 kg N tree-1 yr-1) and N source (UN32, CAN-17, CN9, and mixed program) on Superstition Sand. Lemon yield increased by N rate during the first and second harvests in 1999, 2000, and 2001. In 1999, yields increased linearly to 3.6 kg N tree-1 yr-1 but in 2000 and 2001 yields were maximized at 1.8 kg N tree-1 yr-1. In 1999 where larger increments of N were applied over a smaller time period relative to the other seasons, UN32 seemed to decrease yields at the highest N rate. There were no significant effects to N source in 2000 and 2001.

Subsurface drip irrigated broccoli received experimental combinations of N rate (176 and 268 lb N/ac, and fertigation frequency (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly) at the Maricopa Agricultural Center during winter 1998-99. Marketable broccoli yields were increased slightly with N applications of 268 lb/acre compared to 176 lb/acre. However, neither marketable yield, head diameter, nor petiole nitrate concentrations were significantly affected by fertigation frequency. Nitrogen fertigation frequency does not seem to be a critical management variable for subsurface drip irrigated broccoli grown on medium-textured soils in Arizona.