Blog posts for the Environment & Society course

School’s Out

Enid C. Muñoz Ruiz ·
11 December 2019
   5 comments

By: Enid C. Muñoz Ruiz … Our last Environment and Society class was structured differently than normal. This was the second lecture where everyone was required to attend class in person. I was thrilled to visit the MEES lecture halls with all of their unique artifacts that I’d heard about from other students. Instead of our awe-inspiring instructors, Michael Paolisso, Bill Dennison and Suzi Spitzer, teaching us, we gave them a break by lecturing in their place.

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Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Kayle Krieg ·
20 November 2019
| Environmental Literacy | Learning Science |     11 comments

By: Kayle Krieg … Sandra “Sandy” Cheeks is a scientist and inventor who is working on a research project funded by Texas (as explained in Episode 70a: Chimps Ahoy). For those of you who have never seen Spongebob Squarepants, Sandy Cheeks is a squirrel that is living underwater in Bikini Bottom alongside various marine creatures, including the series namesake, Spongebob, and his best friend (forever) Patrick Star.

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Take off your blindfold. There’s an elephant in front of you.

Taylor Gedeon ·
13 November 2019
| Applying Science | Learning Science |     10 comments

By: Taylor Gedeon … Last week, the Environment and Society class discussed the need for transdisciplinary research, which cuts across typically separate disciplines in order to solve the complex problems facing our world today. This week in class, we examined one example of such research, which is a conceptual model that attempts to link human and environmental dynamics – the socio-ecological system, or SES.

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Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat?

Kayle Krieg ·
30 October 2019
   10 comments

By: Kayle Krieg … In the Disney animated movie, “The Little Mermaid,” adapted from Hans Christian Andersen's original story,1 there is a scene in which Ariel sits down to dinner with Prince Eric and Grimsby. She is very excited to see a fork at the table and begins brushing her hair enthusiastically. Thanks to some misinformation received from Scuttle (the seagull), she believes that this “dinglehopper” is intended for grooming, not eating.

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