The annual Keene State College Academic Excellence Conference concluded with poster presentations and exhibits held in the West Dining Room and Lantern Room of the student center.
The presentations were given by a number of KSC students in almost every academic study offered at the college.
Students performed intensive studies in everything from testing horse saliva to seeing how the media effects breast-feeding.
KSC senior Aimee Montminy is an athletic training major who gave a poster presentation of an original study that she and two other classmates conducted.
Sam Lewis / Equinox Staff:
Athletic Training majors (from left) Jordan Desrochers, Arielle Connolly and Aimee Montminy present their research on taping materials and ankle range of motion.
“The study was looking at two different taping materials and ankle range of motion. We were trying to find out which material is better for taping ankles and which would hold its structure better after exercise,” Montminy said.
Montminy said the main point of their presentation was, “to show the results of our research and discuss future research needs and possibilities when discussing taping materials and the effects of exercise on the tape.”
Senior and athletic training major Jordan Desrochers worked alongside Montminy in the research study, along with Arielle Connolly.
She elaborated on the study and said the research included athletic tape, cohesive tape and adhesive tape, “to see which would restrict ankle range of motion better after thirty minutes of exercise.”
Desrochers said, “We found that the cohesive tape significantly restricted ankle inversion [rolling the ankle so the bottom of the foot faces the midline] over the adhesive tape. This is the major mechanism of injury for ankle sprains.”
Students who participated in KSC’s study abroad program focused their presentations on comparing their foreign experience to the American lifestyle.
Leighanna Moore, a KSC senior and dual major in elementary education and psychology, worked with a fellow student and created a presentation about international nutrition.
After traveling to Ecuador through the Honors Program Global Engagement course, they created a project that conveyed the differences between the role food plays in Ecuador when compared to the United States.
“I was thrilled to be able to participate in such a great campus event. I not only enjoyed explaining our project, but also enjoyed seeing all of the amazing work my peers contributed. There was a great turnout of both presenters and observers, including students, professors and other community members. Everybody had great questions and were very respectful and seemed to be genuinely interested in everybody’s projects,” Moore said.
Julia Oberst, a sociology major, and biology and art history minor, conducted a study for her senior seminar course of the honors program and a poster for her biology independent study.
Oberst explained both her presentations and said, “In my first presentation I hoped to express the importance of intrinsic case study research in studying one’s journey through life. In my second, I expressed the process through which I determined that therapeutic riding horses were chronically stressed and what can be done to alleviate this stress and ensure the health of the animal.”
Sam Lewis / Equinox Staff:
Senior Alexandra Kirk points to her board on her environmental studies.
Oberst said she received encouraging feedback from professors that saw her presentation and was pleased with the outcome of the conference.
“It was nice to see people come out to support such hard and advanced work at the undergraduate level,” Oberst said.
KSC senior Kristin Carlson is a geography major with a minor in environmental studies. Carlson presented her senior seminar project along with her fellow geographers.
“The main point we hoped to get across is an understanding of Natural Resources Inventory (NIR). We worked on only two parts, wildlife habitat and recreational amenities.”
She continued, ”NIR identifies the changes in natural resources by completing a new inventory about every ten years or so.”
Carlson said, “The understanding of the change in natural resources will help towns, like Surry, N.H., know the different area in which the town has changed and what land areas they might want to conserve,” Carlson said.
She said she felt as though the conference in the poster presentation setting was very rewarding; as it gave students the opportunity to both vocally and visually present all of their hard work.
Jenna Lambert can be contacted at jlambert@keene-equinox.com