Courses / University of Washington

Fall 2018: ESS 490C – Exploration Seminar group meeting

During Fall quarter, our Exploration Seminar group we will continue to meet and keep the discussions and interactions going! See the main page for a summary of the early-Fall start Exploration Seminar.

 

For class participants, all of the presentations during Fall quarter will be shared on the Drive here

Final reports are due 30 November 2018. Here are the guidelines: Final_paper

Final media-project submissions are due 2 November 2018. Submit to me by email or transfer on a hard drive, as needed.

Below are some links and resources shared in each meeting.

 

Meeting 1

Craft of Scientific Writing

Odegaard Library Writing and Research Center

UW Libraries search engine

Saturn V rocket in common words: Up Goer Five

Ten hundred most common words — a science communication challenge

Challenge for the next week: Handle all your writing (especially email) as if it were part of a professional exchange. Think in advance about your writing styles and when you use these different styles and why you use them.

 

Meeting 2

Contact elected officials: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Let’s consider how to draft a formal group letter that we could send to University officials, elected officials, agencies, companies, boba shops, … anyone, and maybe everyone. Something that all interested could sign and share perspectives. Here is a shared doc to get started…

Here is an ideas heap doc in case we need an outlet for that.

I think we should start a blog/tumblr/meme maker/? where you can all enter answers to: when have you decided to put the environment first? [help me refine this question]

Especially in light of this latest UN Special Report on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15

NSF Big Ideas Challenge — help me put together an entry

Refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle. How to cut down on plastics in your life? One list of options. Another perspective. What do you do?

Challenge for the next week: 1) Draft a sentence (or few) that expresses points you want to share in a letter — add thoughts to the draft. 2) Think of one thing you always do that is a decision made for the environment, and think of one thing that you could do and try to do it for this week — share it here.

Meeting 3 / 4

We talked about Initiative 1631 and carbon fees (or different, a carbon tax)

We also talked about the NSF Big Ideas Challenge, and the 10 Big Ideas

 

Meeting 5

All that I shared is on the Drive under meeting5.pdf

 

Meeting 6

Sea-level change / sea-level fingerprinting:

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html

https://sealevel.nasa.gov/

A recent article

Meeting 7

Sea-level projections:

https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/12/

Washington Coastal Hazards Resilience Network (WCHRN)

Data access from the WCHRN

Seattle sea-level change planning tool

Climate Central — homes and rising seas

Lidar is really amazing

 

Meeting 8

We discussed policy and the relationship between science (research) and policy. See the Drive for more information.

For example, here were some statements from the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Some examples of research and policy designed together:

Washington Coastal Hazards Resilience Network (WCHRN)

Disproportionate Risks from Climate Change

Groups doing this, for example: Climate Impact Lab: http://www.impactlab.org/ and the Global Policy Lab at UC Berkeley: http://www.globalpolicy.science/

Fourth National Climate Assessment: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States

https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/ — This just came out (23 November 2018)

Follow-on to Climate Science Special Report, Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), Volume I

This report is an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change, with a focus on the United States. It represents the first of two volumes of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, mandated by the Global Change Research Act of 1990.

https://science2017.globalchange.gov

 

Meeting 9

Earth Optimism, some examples.

https://earthoptimism.si.edu/

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6335/225

How to recycle: http://www.how2recycle.info/sdo

Call elected officials: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/how-call-congress

A realistically inspiring perspective about hope, by author and thinker Rebecca Solnit