DalSpace Institutional Repository

DalSpace is a digital service that collects, preserves, and distributes digital material produced by the Dalhousie community.

To learn about content guidelines, policies, and how to deposit, view the Help documents.
Contact us to get started submitting content to DalSpace at dalspace@dal.ca

Communities in DSpace

Select a community to browse its collections.

Now showing 1 - 10 of 19

Recent Submissions

Access status: Open Access ,
Love at First Site: The Role of Social Media in Modern Dating
(2026-04-20) Wardlaw, Heather
This paper aims to discover how the norms of social media based communication when building a relationship are shared and understood by young adults, and if they are seen as an advantage or hindrance in dating. Through ten interviews with participants aged 20-24, I intended to find out how young adults use social media in their dating lives, what they think and feel about its relevance in dating, and how they understand others’ use of social media in dating. This research found that young adults have varying preferences for the frequency and type of social media communication they use, but always see it as something that is necessary in building a romantic relationship, and that they use the norms to their advantage to present themselves in favourable ways, indicate their interest in someone, and choose the best way to approach a romantic interest. I analyze these findings using Gagnon & Simon’s (1973) Sexual Script, Cooley’s (1902) Looking Glass Self, and Goffman’s (1959) Impression Management to explain young adults’ use of social media norms. I suggest that the increased inclusion of social media in young adults’ sense of self and identity and their understanding of the norms allow them to use social media to their advantage in dating, even when it may not be their preference.
Access status: Open Access ,
Punctuating Political Apathy: How News Coverage Ends the Sentence
(2026-05) Mulligan, Jadeyn
Access status: Open Access ,
Assigning Responsibility: Ethical Fashion in The New York Times
(2026-05-11) Haines, Leah
Access status: Open Access ,
The Nature of Accessibility: Exploring Perspectives on Accessible Environmental Education from Non-Profit Organizations in New Brunswick
(2026) Blair, Brianna Murphy
Accessibility is an ever-growing concept that fundamentally seeks to reduce barriers and create more sustainable societies and environments for all. Despite the evidence that engaging with nature through avenues like environmental education (EE) can lead to significant health and well-being benefits for people and the planet alike, there is little research regarding access for disabled people in educational and environmental spaces. This thesis explores the current approaches, gaps, and barriers to accessibility in EE programming from non-profit organizations in New Brunswick (NB). A bilingual, mixed methods online survey was distributed to non-profit employees with the aid of partner organizations Nature NB and the New Brunswick Environmental Network, and responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics and qualitative, inductive coding to reveal trends in the data. Results indicate that while accessibility is widely considered a priority, gaps remain in the implementation and consistency of tangible accommodations. Additionally, there are strides to be made toward reducing systemic barriers, such as greater employment of educators with disabilities and improving inclusive design for public infrastructure. These findings support a pattern identified across many fields in which accessibility initiatives must shift from theory to practice through collective action. This research contributes to a gap in disability literature authored by disabled people and helps lay the groundwork for improving accessibility in the EE non-profit sector.
Access status: Open Access ,
Can we assess whether national wellbeing is globally sustainable? Examining the environmental domains of eight national wellbeing measurement frameworks
(2026-04-24) Pontefract, Claire N.
Access status: Open Access ,
Beyond the Bucket: Renewable Desalination in Water-Scarce Regions — Life Cycle Assessment of a Plasmonic Titanium Carbide Solar Still
(2026-04-29) Ashall, William (Aidan)
Water scarcity is a problem that has long evaded sustainable solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where the gendered burden of water collection falls disproportionately on women and children. Across 24 SSA countries, 13.54 million adult females and 3.36 million children spend over 30 minutes daily collecting water, resulting in physical injuries, psychological distress, spousal violence, and socioeconomic loss. Traditional reverse osmosis (RO) desalination technology requires high energy and centralized infrastructure impractical for SSA regions. However, the advent of portable renewable desalination technology attempts to address this challenge, offering a low infrastructure alternative for decentralized water access. This thesis conducts a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of a 3kg plasmonic titanium carbide (TiC) floating solar still that uses upcycled waste tire rubber and passive interfacial solar evaporation to produce clean water. The LCA uses openLCA software and the Ecoinvent 3.12 database, influenced by ISO 14040 standards, to evaluate six ReCiPe 2016 impact categories. The results validate the Hotspot Shift Hypothesis (H2), as the environmental burden shifts from the operational phase to material synthesis and manufacturing. The device generates 20.88 kg CO2-eq per unit, with a carbon intensity of 9.30 g CO2-eq/L. This upfront carbon debt enables 640 days of near-zero operational emissions, producing over 2150 litres of potable water that meets World Health Organization (WHO) standards. The Levelized Cost of Water (LCOW) ranges from $0.005 to $0.0086 per litre. Critically, the device carries a net “water debt” of 2942.5 litres due to the cotton wicks that it uses to facilitate evaporation, though substituting other materials such as polyester would reduce this to just 149 litres. Thus, the TiC solar still offers a defensible intervention for water-scarce SSA communities, where its environmental trade-offs are outweighed by its social utility and economic accessibility.