Losing Passion but Finding it Elsewhere

By the end of the fall semester last year, I was starting to lose interest in my schoolwork. My chemistry classes weren’t making enough of a connection to the environment for me and I wasn’t able to find that connection for myself.

I was glad I chose to go on the J Term trip Sustainable Public Policy in Arizona. Not only was the climate and landscape new and exciting, my education was focusing on the environment again. We traveled around Northern Arizona looking at sustainability through the lens of public policy and economics. As I mentioned in my previous post, we looked at sustainability through the lenses of water, immigration, National Parks, and Native Americans. We did a lot of hiking, for which the weather was perfect, and had the opportunity to explore a lot of the natural world in Arizona and see much of it from a great perspective. As a environmental science student, I had taken Environmental Geology and enjoyed relating what I learned in that course to the sustainability of Arizona’s geology, especially in Jerome, a mining town built into the mountainside where they have had a history of buildings sliding down the hill. I absolutely loved traveling to the National Parks and am keeping the National Park Service (NPS) on my list of potential employers for when I am ready to enter the workforce. Check out my photo blog for more stories about and photos from Arizona!

I also learned about the GeoCorps program between the NPS and Geological Society of America (GSA), while attending the GSA North East Regional conference in March with Z (Dr. Zsuzsanna Balogh-Brunstad), my academic advisor. The conference was at the Mount Washington Resort in New Hampshire and the snow cover was beautiful. Attending the conference with Z was very exciting for me because I had the opportunity to learn much about the environment from another perspective. I learned that geology is very interesting to me, but even more so I learned that the interface between geology and chemistry interests me. This interest was reinforced by my spring semester classes as well. I took Environmental Chemistry but the lab did not fit into my schedule so I took the geochemistry lab class.

I greatly enjoyed both. Environmental Chemistry took our fundamental chemistry knowledge and showed us how it applied to understanding and protecting the environment. The geochemistry lab was great because it showed me the environment from another perspective and also gave me a chance to share some of my chemistry knowledge with others since geology students don’t get as much of a chemistry background. My geochemical research of the Ouleout Creek also showed me that I enjoy the interface between geology and chemistry. This research also reinforces my idea that I really like to work with water since I enjoy this research and as I have mentioned before, I was excited to sign up for the water presentation when we were in Arizona.

This past spring I also started to move away from my traditional chemistry classes in another direction. I took two more political sciences classes with possible applications to the environment. Dr. Sara Rinfret was the Political Science professor who taught the Arizona class and she was my advisor for my summer internship with Roots & Wisdom last year. I decided to take two of her classes this spring, Regulatory Politics and Policy and Public Policy. If you had asked me in high school if I would ever take a political science class willingly I would have said no. I have learned, though, if you put the right spin on something you can find how to make it interesting to you. If there is a way to look at something with an environmental focus, I can develop a passion for it and find motivation through that passion. By the end of the semester, I enjoyed learning about policies and regulations. I now plan to graduate with a minor in political science. I think it is important for people in the science field to understand the public policy process so they can understand how their research can make a difference; it is also important for policy makers to understand the science relevant to the decisions they will be making. With all this knowledge, I went into my summer internship unsure about where I wanted my future to take me but excited to meet professionals in the environmental field and to learn more about working with a federal agency where environmental policies and regulations are very important.

Sustainable Public Policy in Arizona

Hartwick has a one month term during January called J Term. J Term gives students who may not otherwise have the opportunity the chance to study abroad. As much as I would like to travel somewhere abroad for the experience, I chose to study in Arizona this J Term. The class focuses on Sustainable Public Policy in Arizona. Even though I won't be going abroad, I will still get to experience different cultures and climates. The most interesting aspect of experiencing these difference is that they are still part of the country I live in. Other than a trip to Niagara Fall, Canada, and a trip to Puerto Rico, I have not left the East coast of the Continental U.S.

We fly to Phoenix on Saturday. While in Arizona, we will be learning through the lens of sustainability. Three key approaches to sustainability that we will use are water, immigration (cross boarder migration as Dr. Malone calls it), National Parks, and Native Americans. We had a mini prep class this week on campus. While completing the first reading assignment, which was about sustainability, I already started to get excited about this course. Prepping for this class has reminded me how much sustainability and environmental policy applies to me. I was able to link some of what we are learning in this class to the Environmental Politics and Policy course I took as well as Environmental Geology.

During our time in Arizona, we will travel from Phoenix to Jerome, Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Camp Verde, and back to Scottsdale. We will hike much and meet many different experts. Our assignments for this trip include an outline for our presentation about a specific topic or issue in Arizona, a photo story presentation that represent the meaning a sustainability to us, and a reflective journal. I choice to present on "Contemporary Water Policy Issues and Concerns in the Grand Canyon." My partner, Sam, and I will decide how to approach sustainability in our photo story, but she mentioned focusing on water there as well. For our journals, we need to reflect upon what we learn each day and link it to sustainability and our readings. Some days, we will have free time to explore our interests on our own but Dr. Rinfret and Dr. Malone may give us a topic to think about while we are out and to reflect upon in our journals for the day.

I think this course will be very exciting, educational, and beneficial to all who are participating in it. I am waiting until next week to make my final decision for which EPA projects to interview. I choose three projects and will conduct phone interviews and eventually choose where I will be this summer. The environmental justice programs appeal most to me, but some of the projects with a research experiment component also appeal to me too. I think some experience with public policy in Arizona may influence my choice.

Happy New Year everyone! Look out for more posts about Arizona and sustainability soon.