Environmental Stewardship Center

I found an excellent reading suitable for my Developmental Psychology and Social Development classes, and engaged them in lively discussion last year. This year, I am adding guided questions in the form of a ‘scavenger hunt’ (as it’s a very rich reading, as you can see from my summary below), to help them find connections to several topics in our class and to their own lives. 

This outstanding journal article takes a life-course perspective to show how climate change-related threats can affect every stage of the life course  — beginning with risks to prenatal development before one is even born (via higher risks of birth complications related to rising temperature, air pollution, and adverse effects on maternal health); disruptions to early attachment, schooling, and stability for young children due to displacements due to wildfires, floods, droughts; negative effects on mental health caused by increased anxiety, sleep disruption, major depressive disorder in adolescents; and increased side effects of psychotropic medications (triggered by such things as excessive heat interfering with body’s ability to regulate negative effects).

REFERENCE:  Vergunst, F., & Berry, H. L. (2022). Climate change and children’s mental health: A developmental perspective. Clinical Psychological Science, 10(4), 767–785.

The standard topic for the day was ‘cell components and methods of analysis.’  A key slide that I always teach outlines the idea that molecular biologists want to detect certain components within cells, because it gives them information about what those cells are doing at the time.  I added the following new slides:

First, a slide pointing out that this approach “is relevant to your future,” with examples of how healthcare providers – public health officials – researchers – all ask versions of this question

Then, a slide broadening it to say “all of us will face ethical issues related molecular biology” (examples of cloning, genetic privacy, etc)…AND that “all of us care about the earth, and molecular biology can help!”  

Next, a graphic for the teach-in, to show that this is a big effort across many disciplines, and that we’re going to spend 5-10min on it now

Next, a slide with screen-shots demonstrating links between molecular biology / biologists and climate change (e.g. papers on combating climate change in the lab, issues with single-use plastics, the K Bio department’s doc on divestment) – I verbally emphasized that although many people think molecular bio is all about human health / medicine, whereas ecology is about climate change, ALL biologists that I know – molecular or not – are really passionate about doing what we can to protect this amazing planet

Next, a series of slides highlighting ways students can get involved here on campus (lunches, groups, talks, etc), even if they’re not getting a degree in Env Sci

Finally, a link/bridge back to the main topic, pointing out that we can in fact use the molecular techniques we’ll be learning about to directly study climate change (even aside from getting involved in our own lives) – this was the ‘teaser,’ because after teaching them the techniques that I cover every year, I showed the abstract of the paper where researchers used those techniques to study drought tolerance in plants – which is of course very relevant to coping with climate change.

In my literature courses, I ask students to reflect on how the environment influences the characters—both their motivations and their behavior and actions—and to pay close attention to the scenario where the events take place (country, geography, season, and climate).

Once the discussion reaches the point where humans are no longer isolated from nature, I ask students to imagine a natural disaster or other type of catastrophe that threatens or eradicates the environment.

The final step is to assign them to write an alternative version of the scene or story in which the characters receive different external stimuli and, therefore, change their motivations and behavior. In some cases, I allow the students to draw the new scene, but they must accompany it with an explanation in Spanish due to the nature of the course.