Summit Institutional Repository @ PSU
Summit Institutional Repository @ Plymouth State University is a digital repository for gathering, indexing, preserving, and making available a treasury of research and scholarly work generated by PSU faculty, students and staff. Based on the principle of Open Access, one of Summit's key missions is to ensure that these scholarly and creative endeavors are accessible to the widest possible audience.
These collections are freely available, organized, made accessible by PSU's Lamson Library. They demonstrate the summit of academic production at the University and its commitment to encourage transformational teaching and connected learning, to advance the Plymouth State University motto - Ut prosim (That I may serve). The content is available to be used responsibly under fair use US copyright law for personal and educational purposes or with the permission of the authors and/or copyright holders. For more information about submitting your work to Summit, please contact us at psu-lamson-repository@plymouth.edu.
Recent Submissions
Item type:Item, Item type:Item, Cold-Air Damming During Significant Late-Season Winter Precipitation Events in New England(2025-09)The late cold season in New England often presents the most challenging forecast environment for meteorologists in the region. Northern New England especially experiences a wide variety of impacts from significant precipitation events which can halt transportation, disrupt economic activity, damage property, and jeopardize people’s lives. A high degree of accuracy is needed to properly identify the risks from these systems and communicate them effectively to the public. Cold air damming (CAD) plays a large role in the types of impacts significant precipitation brings. When cold air is pushed up against the eastern side of the Appalachians, these areas are at risk of more impactful wintry precipitation from significant precipitation events. Much of the existing CAD research focuses on the southern Appalachians and does not directly investigate the relationship between CAD and such systems. This study modifies a previous Cold Air Damming Index (CADINX) to quantify the strength and duration of CAD events leading up to and during significant late-season precipitation events in northern New England. Late-season winter precipitation events were identified between 1 March and 30 April during a 10-year period from 2014 to 2024. CADINX values were calculated for three locations, Concord, NH Municipal Airport (KCON), Waterville, ME Robert LaFleur Airport (KWVL), and Eastern Slopes Regional Airport in Fryeburg, ME (KIZG) in tandem with a precipitation site in Tamworth, NH. Statistics regarding the duration and strength of CAD, precipitation type and rate, and storm system type and track were subsequently collected. This, combined with composite analysis and a case study on a particularly long event from 3 to 6 April 2024, revealed that CAD is frequently associated with significant precipitation events in this region. Fifty-one events were identified, of which 19 occurred simultaneously at multiple stations resulting in 32 unique events across the three central locations. Roughly 60% of hours of precipitation also had CAD, with 80% of precipitation being snow, freezing rain, or a mix. The majority of significant precipitation events were coastal lows, of which those with less intense pressure gradients that remained offshore being the most favorable for extended CAD events. CAD frequently peaked shortly before precipitation onset, with a secondary peak starting in the second half of the precipitation systems across all CAD events. Future work will focus on identifying how well NWP models represent these findings and expanding the temporal and seasonal duration of the CAD-precipitation relationship.Item type:Item, To Engage or Disengage? A Look at Student Engagement(2026)Student engagement is paramount to effective teaching and learning in a classroom setting. If we are to nurture more creative, well-mannered, and intelligent individuals through education we must have their attention. What are the biggest factors influencing student participation? I find this question important and relevant as a middle school educator to my daily work and my profession at-large. Student participation is the core factor that drives everything I do each day. Some lessons and classroom discussions fully engage students. Other topics they completely tune out and participation lacks. As teachers we try to create some level of excitement or curiosity for students. We do this with our personality or enthusiasm, varying lesson styles, different subject matter, and many teaching tactics we’ve learned along the way throughout our careers. There are other teachers who leave students watching the clock wishing for class to end through their style and approach. I want to know more about what are the specific factors that cause students to engage with their learning and what specific factors cause them to disengage with their learning. Specifically, I want to know more about how instructional design, lesson format, subject matter, and the educators themselves influence students' own perception of their participation. Moreover, I’d also like to know which factors have the biggest impact on whether or not students engage or disengage. This is very important because it’s the challenge educators face daily. How can I better engage students to participate in classroom activities, instead of just being a passive participant as they move from class to class?Item type:Item, From Forester to Educator- A Documentary(2026)From the introduction: The initial idea for this project came from a couple of sources, interactions, with fellow students and faculty. During the initial introduction into the University, and specifically this graduate course work, as I described my reasoning for following along this curriculum, and some of the work I had done, accolades I had been awarded, projects that I had been part of, and organizations that I had been involved with, my first advisor mentioned: ‘If you put that all down on paper, that could be your Capstone Project.’ As I continued along the graduate course of study, one of my student colleagues asked and commented: ‘How did you go from Forester to Educator! I’ll bet that is an interesting story!’ From then on, I started thinking about exactly what they had been talking about. An ‘Educator’ was something that was never really considered, until I began my current position with Cooperative Extension. This thought was expanded and accentuated once this graduate course work was begun. As a Field Specialist in Natural Resources, my responsibilities are firmly grounded in educating and advising forest landowners, school students, other professionals, and other educators about all things forestry and natural resources related. Once I began posting thoughts and answering questions as they related to specific course modules, comments were being made about my ‘teachings’ and ‘educating style’, with questions from professors like: ‘Would you be interested in changing careers?’ This all really got me thinking about what I am currently doing, as well as some of the things I had done and places I had been throughout my career journey. There were even comments from references mentioning that I had been considered an ‘educator’ as long as they had known me. The forests of the world have been our teachers, educators, perhaps since the beginning of time, and throughout all societies. Our forests are patient, resilient, adaptable, and central to our environment, and even life itself. Their lessons may be seen in their rings of time, and the seasons of growth, death, and rebirth. The quiet majesty of their existence, and all they have endured and witnessed, is all around us and ready to be shared with those who desire to listen. For me, the forest and our natural world have always been more than just a landscape. It has been a perpetual classroom, a calling if you will, a beginning. So, the ‘Who’ would be me, Ray Berthiaume, but would have to include some of my colleagues at UNH Cooperative Extension, my professors in the graduate course with Plymouth State University, and some of my co-students in these courses. These people have all had a lasting e\ect on my position as an educator, and especially for my own belief and understanding that perhaps I really am an educator. The ‘How’ and ‘Why’ should be more apparent as I begin to document this journey and share some of the important moments and highlights that have brought me to this point in my career, and life.Item type:Item, Low Level Wind Shear at Patrick Space Force Base during the Summers of 2023-2024(2025-05)One hazard to pilots is low level wind shear. Low level wind shear is a change in winds speed or direction that occurs between the surface and 2,000 ft above ground level. One cause of low level wind shear in coastal locations is the sea breeze. A sea breeze is caused during the day when the air over the surface of the land heats more quickly than the air over surface of the nearby body of water. Low level wind shear caused by a sea breeze was identified at Patrick Space Force Base (KCOF) in east-central Florida for two meteorological summers. Surface maps were analyzed for a sea breeze between 12Z and 18Z. The sea breeze was identified by a west to east wind shift during the time frame. Once the sea breeze days were identified, VAD wind profiles were collected from the radar in Melbourne, FL from the NCEI’s NEXRAD archive. The VAD wind profiles were then uploaded to NOAA’s Weather and Climate Toolkit. The VAD wind profiles were used to find vertical directional low level wind shear as well as vertical speed low level wind shear. The vertical directional low level wind shear was found by comparing the wind direction at the surface to the wind at 2,000 ft AGL. The vertical speed low level wind shear was calculated for two layers. The first layer was the surface to 1,000 ft AGL and the second layer was 1,000 ft AGL to 2,000 ft AGL. Overall, there were 40 sea breeze days found for the two summers. 36 of the 40 days had VAD wind profile data that could be analyzed for the times of 12Z, 15Z, and 18Z. Out of the 36 days, vertical directional low level wind shear was found for 18 days at 12Z, 23 days at 15Z, and 32 days at 18Z. There was only one day that had no vertical directional low level wind shear for any of these times. Additionally, there were 15 days out of the 36 days that had vertical speed low level wind shear of at least 5 kts per 1,000 ft in both layers for one or more hours within the time period of 12Z, 15Z, and 18Z.
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