The SGC Colloquium represents a series of 1 credit classes (CPSP 118G for Semesters I and II; CPSP 218G for Semester III) in which the students and faculty meet to explore aspects of scientific understanding and global change. It also serves as the means through which field trips and other out-of-class opportunities are organized, and in which general Scholars matters are conducted.

In the SGC Colloquium, we hope to:

Each semester of the Science & Global Change program forms one coherent whole that also contributes to a three semester long exploration on the methods and perspectives of global change science and its implications for human society. The breakdown of topics listed below reflects our plans over the course of the first three semesters (Freshman year and the first semester of Sophomore year).


Left: Mt. Cotopaxi in Ecuador, showing the interaction of the atmosphere, glacial ice, volcanism, and the living environment. Photograph ©2004 Thomas R. Holtz Jr.
Right: Thermohaline circulation, the predominant driver of Earth's oceanic currents and climate system. Figure from NOAA.gov.

Semester I "The Search for Solutions: Science and its Methods": In an age when the activities of human society and technology can greatly affect Earth's systems for decades, centuries, and even millenia to come, we must be able to evaluate the merits of ideas as they relate to the actual natural world, independant of our personal, political, or philosophical preconceptions. In this semester, students will learn the basic intellectual "tool kit" of the scientific enterprise. They will discuss how Science differs from other fields of human endeveour, with a particular emphasis on distinguishing scientific ideas from pseudoscientific thinking. Students will also discuss the influence of our understanding (and often misunderstanding) of Science upon contemporary society. We will examine real cases of Science gone bad, and the effect (good and bad) of popular portrayals of Science and scientists has on the public. We will also begin exploring the details of the origin, use, and effects of the energy resources which we use to run our world.

Readings for the semester include selections from Thomas Kida's Don't Believe Everything You Think, Robert Park's Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud, and Alfred W. Crosby's Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity's Unappeasable Appetite for Energy. Additionally, we will guide the students (both experts and novices) in website design, and the students will construct and mount their own professional academic website to be used for the rest of their tenure in SGC.


Fig. SPM 4 of the IPCC FOURTH ASSESSMENT REPORT, CLIMATE CHANGE 2007 (AR4), comparing temperature models with (pink) and without (blue) human factors; observed data shown as solid black line.

Semester II "Life in the Anthropocene: Understanding a Human-Dominated World": Some geologists have proposed the word "Anthropocene" for the current geologic epoch, in recognition of the fact that the industrial and agricultural activities of humans have reached a level where they impact Earth systems on scale comparable to natural systems. Whether the Anthropocene is regarded as a geological epoch or "merely" as an event, we humans will be living in a world dominated by the products of our actions for the foreseeable future. This semester we will explore the Earth's systems; how they operate; how human activities impact them; and what that means for the world in which we will be living the rest of our lives.

Readings will include Edmond A. Mathez's Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future, Chris Turney's Ice, Mud and Blood: Lessons from Climates Past, and David Archer's The Long Thaw: How Humans are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate.


Figure I-1 of the IPCC CLIMATE CHANGE 2007: SYNTHESIS REPORT, showing the interrelationships between natural and human systems in global change.

Semester III "The Scientist & Global Change: Careers and Futures in Science": Having developed a scientific understanding of the issues, what can we as individual citizens and as members of our larger societies do? All of us will live in a human-dominated future, but our decisions and actions can help direct what changes may come and how we deal with them. It is better to make those decisions and actions based on accurate science than on criteria other than those which govern global change. In this semester students will address how scientists are acting to deal with the effects of natural and human-induced changes; what some of the options for changes in our own lives and technologies might be; and how we can contribute (through new scientific discoveries and own personal actions) to our future situation. Additionally, students will learn how to critically evaluate scientific claims in the media. Furthermore, each student will develop a plan for an individual research, internship, or service-learning project involving the discovery, application, or transmission of scientific information for their fourth-semester Sophomore Practicum.

Readings include Michael E. Mann & Lee R. Kump's Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming (the Illustrated Guide to the Findings of the IPCC), Sherry Seethaler's Lies, Damned Lies, And Science: How To Sort Through The Noise Around Global Warming, The Latest Health Claims, and Other Scientific Contraversies , and other material. In preparation for their fourth semester independent practicum projects, we will teach students some basics of raster and vector graphics software.