Growing plant love : park user perceptions of invasive plants in two parks of Kelowna, BC
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Many current discourses of invasive plant species as malicious promote campaigns of eradication (Lidström et al., 2016; Subramaniam, 2001). However, in the context of climate change and colonialism, native ranges of plants and other species have changed dramatically and will continue to do so; interdisciplinary research is urgently needed to rethink human interactions with local ecosystems, as all species (humans, plants, and others) will have to adapt to these changes together (Grenz, 2024). Using the framework of environmental humanities, this study investigated park user interactions with introduced/invasive plant species in two parks in Kelowna, BC, on unceded syilx territory. My master’s thesis asks: what perceptions do community members have of invasive plants and how can community-engaged methods offer local perspectives that might challenge, complement, or extend notions of invasive plants in conservation biology and related fields? Importantly, the goal of this thesis is not to comprehensively present or critique scientific perspectives on invasive plants. Rather, it trials methods for engaging local park users and presents their perspectives on these issues, in recognition that the success of plant management actions will be strengthened with local user input and engagement. The study was split into three phases investigating Woodhaven and Mission Ridge parks spanning Jan. – Dec. 2024. Phase I: multispecies ethnographic observation using sketching, multimedia recording, notetaking and thick description methods. Phase II: community-engaged walking interviews with 8 participants in the two parks. Phase III: two community arts-based workshops (collaborative zine-making) to facilitate deeper, participatory, and collective exploration of these views. Arts-based methods allowed for building community trust and exploring latent perspectives. This thesis begins with an introduction to research on invasive species and critiques from Indigenous and environmental humanities scholars. The second chapter introduces the place this research was conducted (Kiʔláwnaʔ, on unceded syilx territory). Each body chapter takes its name from one plant encountered in this research – dandelion, Oregon grape, baby’s breath, great mullein, and tree of heaven – and explores issues that arose in relation to these species. I finish with a coda on future possibilities for how we could relate to introduced plants.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".