ENVS 160 is a breed of course like no other: it aims to connect science with opinion and everything in between while remaining scholarly. I have often found it difficult to navigate through the course as the material twists and turns through the streets of Portland, Oregon where I studied public opinion, to the far reaching […]
Swimming up my own stream
This weekend I participated in the March for Science in downtown Portland, to celebrate science in the US and stand up to policies that aim to discredit and defund it. As we followed giant cardboard and foam salmon down the stream of people filling the road I thought of the power of people to create institutional […]
The Power of the Social Rule
Climate change is an issue that crosses boundaries: whether it be effecting communities across borders, or changing the economy. As it is such a multifaceted issue, climate change can not be responded to like global problems in the past; it requires breaking the status quo and shifting how we think about social rules. In Who Rules the Earth? […]
Creating an Individual Spiderweb of Ideas
In reading responses from my peers in the first individual post, I was surprised to see so many common themes between my peers and myself: namely the influence the course had on student’s ideas of what climate change was and meant to citizens all over the world. This thread has spanned across all of the […]
The Metamorphosis of an Adolescent Opinion
The first year of college provides challenges that are unavoidable and unexpected. Oftentimes I have days where it seems nothing goes the way I thought it would socially, academically, or emotionally. Unlike high school, where opinions are fed to you through parents and teachers and you are told to trust everything you have learned, college […]
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism Definition: Neoliberalism is the transfer of power (social, economic, etc.) from the public sector to the private sector. It sees competition as the defining characteristic of human behavior, maintaining a market economy. Context: Some people argue that neoliberalism is an entirely new concept that arose around the time of the most recent economic depression […]
What’s the Point? Graphite as more than just a sharp pencil
Graphite Graphite is a crystalline form of carbon. It is relatively stable, which is why it is often used in thermochemistry. It is also found commonly in pencils, batteries, and steel making. Graphite has a layered structure and each individual layer is called graphene. Graphite is highly valued for it’s ability to conduct electricity. As […]