Hi everyone, my name is Molly McLaughlin and I am a sophomore in the College of Education. I currently live at University Park on campus but grew up in Bucks County, PA aka the typical “outside of Philly” town. I’m majoring in Early Childhood Education which is preschool to 4th grade and possibly a minor in English as a Second Language (ESL) where I would help non-English speakers learn English. For my major I need three sciences and this one will fulfill my last required class plus I’ve been wanting to take an online course. I also took a meteorology class last semester which I found very interesting and thought this one would have some similarities to it. Hopefully this one will be just as interesting and make me be more aware of our environment.
I typically do not like anything science related therefore what interests me the most is the social perspective of this class and what I find important is human’s impact on our environment. Only recently have we realized how much harm we are doing to the world by putting gases and other harmful substances into the environment. However, when we do try to help the environment there can be some consequences for that too. Sometimes when we try to alter the environment to fix what we did, it causes more damage to the earth instead of us letting it naturally fix itself. If we can just lessen the amount of pollution we put in the air instead of adding things to the earth in order to fix it, I think that the environment can naturally adapt to these changes.
Hi Molly, my name is TJ Diaz. You say that you have only recently discovered the affect humans are having on our environment; something you might find interesting about this topic is that it is likely not an important concern if we continue down the path we have started. Yes, this sounds crazy, but hear me out! Currently, the economy and living conditions of people in the United States is largely dependent on using fossil fuels. In the near future, we will run out of said energy source and need a replacement. Increasing renewable energy sources are not being increasingly utilized at a rate that will allow us to replace our current energy use with renewable energy. When fossil fuel prices increase, this will cause the prices of literally every commodity and necessity we currently consume to skyrocket (since they all require fossil fuels to grow, produce, transport, etc.). This impact will destroy the stock market, make our current standards of living unlivable and decrease our ability to provide resources for the worlds’ population. If this problem is not solved, we may not get to see the extent to which we impact the environment.
Anyway, nice to meet you,
TJ
My post: http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/01/20/getting-to-know-you-tj-diaz/
Hi Molly, I am enrolled in the College of Education and pursing a major in Early Childhood Education as well!
Here is a link to my post: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/20/getting-to-know-you-mara-bunting/
I really liked what you said about when we try to alter the environment to fix what we did, it causes more damage to the earth instead of us letting it naturally fix itself. I totally agree with your point and I think this is very important when talking about helping the environment.
Hey Molly, I’m Brian and I’m at University Park as well. Here’s the link to my post:
http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/20/learning-activity-1/
I also wrote about environmental impacts, and I like how you mentioned that only recently have we realized the extent of human impact on the environment. I think that this point needs to be more urgent to the public.