Throughout my three semesters in Science and Global Change (SGC), I expected to learn, of course, about global change, that including global warming and climate change. I always only knew the information that I am constantly told: the greenhouse effect, pollution from cars is causing the warming, and the Earth’s temperatures are getting warmer, but SGC has helped me see how much more in depth this topic goes.
First I would like to go into the action of exploring evidence of the global changes happening. Through the “Science and the Media” project, I found that researching these topics is easier said than done and the information we quickly hear about in everyday news outlets is not always reliable. The media distributes only the information they see fit. The information being distributed through the news that is based on studies and findings has been altered to fit the channel’s views or what they feel is the most important. These news channels take bits and pieces of the actual research and studies and they bring in “scientists” that don’t specialize in that certain type of science. They pick and choose what they think is important from a study and report it, causing the public to be misinformed about today’s science and today’s world.
Next, through the “Searching for Solutions” project, I learned about many new ways our current global state can be mitigated. I also learned that the many possible solutions take a great amount of money. Without SGC, I would have just thought about why mitigation steps are not being taken if the technology has been developed, but through SGC and this project, I learned that many steps need to be taken to put something into effect, and a big part of that comes from funding which is not always easily accessible.
A lecture that has stayed with me is one from this semester with our guest speaker who talked about sustainability. He made me realize that we all can do little things to make a difference in our world and if everyone were to do those little things, then it could impact our world as a whole, therefore helping our current global state. He helped me realize how one small, great idea can help our community and how we live. That lecture has really helped me connect his information with our “Searching for Solutions” project. Funding, that can be so hard to find and receive, can easily be granted to students here at the University of Maryland for having a great idea that can potentially change our lives.
During my first semester, I took a geography class, which acted as a supporting course that opened up a new view for me on how the world’s natural features can easily be altered and how that creates drastically negative effects. Something that really has stuck with me from this class is sea level rise. Sea level rise is a very big problem that could potentially take the lives and homes of thousands of people in hundreds of cities. SGC and this class has inspired me to become very passionate about this topic. My english101 class, which was one of my required SGC classes, required for everyone to pick a topic that we would be reporting on all semester and I chose sea level rise. The fact that our seal levels can rise up to six feet in the next couple centuries has really opened my eyes on how our world’s health is decreasing.
Taking the scholars version of English101 helped me not only interact with SGC students outside of class, but also interact with other students in other scholars programs. Talking to the class about my topic throughout the semester and hearing their opinions through peer reviews was very interesting. Teaching people from other scholars about these changes in the world felt like a great thing, because others were now getting a glimpse on what was going on around us and what SGC is about, as well. Living in the same hallways, and even the same room, with my fellow SGC classmates helped me engage more in topics that we learn about in SGC and see how everyone else interpreted the same lectures and activities I was getting as well.
As mentioned before, I have become passionate about sea level rise and had incorporated into my English101 papers last semester. This semester, I have incorporated this topic, along with climate change in general, into my speeches in my communications class. By sharing what I have learned in SGC to other scholars and non-scholars students of many different interests and majors, I feel I have contributed to SGC. SGC is about teaching us about what is going around in the world around us and I contributed to that by expanding SGC’s knowledge to others who had no idea about these things.
These students from different classes and majors all come from different backgrounds and have different stories. I, myself being Hispanic, am a big minority at this school and have been raised with a different language and different ways to interpret things. By sharing my views and receiving responses from many different kinds of people I get a glimpse at different cultures. Even with my fellow Hispanic peers, their different viewpoints help me see the various ways people are raised to interpret things within my own culture and guide me in understanding other points of view.
I never really thought much about the Earth and I always had told myself that in one hundred years, I would not be alive to even experience the after effects of climate change so it wouldn’t even matter, but with SGC and the research I have done rooting from it for other academic projects, it really challenged my previous belief. I now worry future generations and fear for them. I now think about the world that my grandchildren’s grandchildren will have to live through and refuse to accept that.
Scholars and SGC has definitely affected me and will certainly determine the classes and papers I will do in the future. I have been thinking a lot about my remaining undergraduate and post-undergraduate life and what direction I would like to go in now that I have found a passion for a certain topic. I will continue sharing what I have learned in SGC and my findings from now on and it will always come back to SGC.