Over these past few semesters, my SGC experience has been structured around three key ideas: exercising critical & analytical thinking, a supportive, scholarly community, and scientific discovery as the key to securing a healthy, eco-friendly future. SGC kicked off semester one with a focus on how to think like a scientist. We unpacked the hypothetico-deductive method, building testable hypotheses, falsifying claims, and observing real patterns versus coincidence. We also examine the role of pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, and social responses to the bold claims of climate change, its root cause. The first semester laid the foundation for our future curricula, using scientific thinking as a means to deduce the truth in a very complex world. In semester two, we dove into the reality of climate change. Looking at current climate models and cross-examining recent trends with thousands (even millions) of years of climate data (which we gathered through ice content). Seemingly insignificant changes to large-scale climate translate to major impacts on sea levels, presence of ice sheets & permafrost, rainfall & storm patterns, and health of land/sea ecosystems as a whole. Semester two was impactful beyond just analyzing the numbers. It was a clear message that continuing ‘business as usual’ threatens irreversible changes in the ways we exist on this planet. In semester three, the focus shifts from examining the impacts of climate change to what it takes to effect real change. We dug into a variety of solution approaches: mitigation, adaptation, new policy & technology, as well as collective action at both community and international levels. During this time, it became clear that climate change is a universal problem, and it will take effort from all available solutions for us to properly tackle such a challenge. Some of these changes we can initiate now, while others will become more relevant in the future.
A truly valuable aspect of scholars is learning the content alongside students of a variety of backgrounds and majors. Working with others through colloquium discussions and group projects helps you view class concepts through different lenses, influenced by different values, interests, and ways of thinking. It is insightful to see how everyone can connect SGC knowledge to different aspects of their schooling, like public health, economics, law & policy, or engineering. I’ve also noticed how these studies affect students’ thinking towards new SGC concepts in the colloquium and discussions. It's become clear that tackling global warming is absolutely an interdisciplinary challenge, and our solution will benefit from diverse thinking. SGC has also put me in contact with new ideas that have challenged my previous thinking. Before scholars, my predisposition regarding climate change was that it was solely a scientific challenge. However, through SGC work and my extracurricular studies in Geog330 (Societies in times of change), I now have a much deeper understanding of how climate change ties into issues of equality and social justice. From Native American populations at high risk of devastating drought and heatwaves, to coastal communities in danger of sinking, or low-income communities in overly polluted areas. Not only does global warming propagate injustice itself, but our response to climate change holds the potential to as well. For example, green gentrification, where areas are renovated or repurposed to establish a greener site, but resultantly, the area becomes high-income, and previous residents get ‘crowded out’ by a steep increase in the cost of living. Overall, SGC has done a lot to expand my thinking from ‘how to fight climate change’ to ‘how to fight climate change fairly’. These new perspectives I’ve experienced through Scholars have certainly made it a living-learning program.
Something that has become truly apparent to me in recent years is the idea that we are actively living through the initial, large-scale effects of climate change. With every year, we watch news coverage of record-breaking rainfall and extreme tropical storms & floods that barrel through my family’s community in Florida. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking this is not an immediate, urgent problem. Although many people agree that climate issues are indeed serious and require attention, it's not quite evident that people understand how much effort is required and the necessary timeline to change the entire world for the greener. Climate change is a MASSIVE issue that has taken decades of global emissions and pollutive practices to develop. So, it will also take decades of real change to reverse this damage. It is important to consider the chronology, looking at when climate solutions become effective, compared to the timeline of climate models running rampant.
Semester three had a rather profound impact on how I view my education and how my future will relate to climate issues. As a Chemical Engineer, going into industry may mean working on processes that drive emissions up, or taking a role in green energy to cut emissions. Global Warming always felt like something I had just learned about. But now, we’ve looked into dozens of solutions, a variety of which directly relate to my field. I could be improving batteries, solar, and nuclear energy, or a strategist decarbonizing industrial processes. And these are real, important jobs! So now, I am thinking about how I can be much more intentional in building my university experience at UMD. My undergrad research, elective education, and future internships will shape where I end up in the future.
As I approach my upper level coursework and career in the next few years, I will carry on with skills I developed through Scholars. SGC has a continual emphasis on scientific literacy. Finding information from reliable sources, considering implications and limitations of arguments, and supporting claims with evidence. These are practices I’ll continue to apply other ideas, classes, and my general decision-making. Overall, SGC has trained me to look from a broader context, think about the long-term, and appreciate & respect the pale blue dot on which we live.