Due Date:December 08, 2014
Science is a particularly confusing and complicated field. Along with being applicable to just about anything in life, science also spans a huge diversity of topics. The problem with the vast majority of the population of the World is that though many people have received an education, few actually are educated in matters of science that will affect us as a human race every day in the near future. It’s the important, imminent and oncoming topics in science that are sometimes the hardest to grasp, but are yet the most pivotal. This is where the Scholars Science & Global Change Program (SGC) comes into play: SGC makes science applicable to our daily lives with topics such as climate change, energy use, and more relevant issues.
The program of SGC centers on the education of climate change in order to prepare for a better tomorrow. The first step to learning science according to SGC was to understand logic. From here, I learned probably one of the most useful lessons that I’ve learned from school: understanding logical fallacies. Logical fallacies exist in just about any source - in the news, from our colleagues, and the relevant use of fallacies in scientific papers. We had to learn and understand logical fallacies in order to understand science. We had to realize and acknowledge moments when the science presented was not really scientific, but rather biased or simply incorrect.
After that introduction, the process of understanding the science behind climate change started to happen. We had to learn into the past of climate change in order to develop a bright future. One seemingly unrelated assignment was a Museum field trip to the Natural History Museum in DC. Having been to the museum before, I was predicting a pretty boring afternoon. But, when I really looked at the museum’s exhibits with a SGC standpoint of analyzing science and climate change, everything was so relevantly important. I learned a lot about climate change and science from the past – from the days before the Homo sapiens to information of warming oceans. I was starting to see the bigger picture.
If that picture wasn’t clear by this point, the search for solutions group project in the final part of the course made me see it in high definition quality. The goal of the search for solutions project was just that: To search for ways to slow down climate change and to find a way to combat it. This was accomplished by assigning each group to research a known method of curbing climate change. My group was assigned with low impact waste management. I can now say that I truly understand what happens when trash is thrown out now and how to make every piece of trash as efficient in the extraction of its energy as possible. Some of the other intriguing topics included learning about nuclear fusion and grey water. Nuclear fusion is such a wonderful idea with the most potential. I am a huge advocate now because my eyes have essentially been opened to the reality of it now.
The social aspect of SGC/Scholars was amazing. I can honestly say that the relationships that I have built and the friends that I have made in college will last me a lifetime. Being able to live with people who are in the same major as me and who are in the same classes was really conducive to being able to learn a lot. It made study groups a natural thing to do and studying in general was done a lot more. Because we are all living together, we actually formed a community. I can honestly say that without the people I am living with and friends that I have made in college, I would not be where I am today in terms of my academics and my learning. These people are all amazing, and I don’t believe that I would have been able to become this close with them without scholars. This is how the Scholars community formed. We all grew really close, developed bonds and through that the program also grew and developed. Me personally, because of my friends, I was more inclined to go to scholars events, social gatherings and even guest lecturers. The small gatherings, such as Scholars s’mores night really helped to grow us all closer to each other. It’s those moments that I’ll remember forever.
I’ve met so many different people and have been exposed to so much in the past year and a half. The friends I have made are practically all from different backgrounds with different viewpoints of life. Different religions, cultures, backgrounds, personalities, sexual orientations –Scholars is truly an amazing way to be exposed to these things. I have amazing friends from so many different places and it’s made me a better person. I’ve been considering going vegetarian for a long time a year ago, and my now best friend convinced me to do it. I’m now a year in and I’m not looking back! Sometimes though, different viewpoints were exposed and the fun thing about those moments are that they can conjure up some riveting conversation! For example, a conversation that started up with politics led into one of those “meaning of life” conversations where everything is mind-blowing.
Besides the educational aspect of Scholars with learning about climate change, the most important thing I will take away form Scholars are my relationships that I have built with people. I think that that is the true beauty of scholars –people. Everything is better when you are surrounded by wonderful people literally every second. These people will be there for the rest of my life and I know will give me strength later on and for sure will provide even more amazing memories. Without the SGC Scholars program, I’m one hundred percent sure that my college career would not have turned out as amazing as it is going now.