Marianne Lamarche

Hello! I’m so excited to be in a class with all of you, and thanks in advance to anyone who reads this post!

I don’t have that much experience with science classes beyond basic honors chem and bio in high school, as well as AP Physics. My favorite may have been physics because of its high math focus and typically macro lens. However, science has always been my toughest subject, so I feel very grateful to be in this non-science-people bio class!

In this class, I would love to discover a greater interest for biological sciences. I hope to increase my environmental awareness, and maybe learn some cool facts about genetics!

I would be so happy to participate in the outreach with Clarke Central High School students! I have lots of prior experience in programs involving tutoring/mentorship/education that I would love to contribute to this project (even if I don’t have that much expertise to bring to the table!). It would be interesting for my fellow students and me to gain experience working in science classrooms, as well as investigate the bacteria in the soil around our campus – an issue that should concern us all!

Participating in this project would help me grow in my civic engagement in a new way, as in the past, I have focused my community involvement solely in fields that I felt very comfortable and knowledgeable in. This would be a different but necessary experience, and I hope my participation would help both the high school students and our shared environment.

Within the field of biology, I’m interested in family genetics, the intersection of biology with psychology/neuroscience, and what I can do every day to protect the biodiversity around me. Since we are studying water and bacteria, I would also love to know the truth about how often/if/why we need to wash reusable water bottles if we only keep water in them — something admittedly pretty insignificant but that I’ve debated about with friends for a long time!

Travis Introduction

In high school, I took biology freshman year, chemistry sophomore year, physics junior year, and computer science senior year. I have always been more interested in the technology based sciences. Since my major is computer science, I get to take a lot of courses about software and hardware development/engineering.

It has been quite a long time since I have studied biology, so I am excited to see what I remember and also learn more about what I don’t know. I am mostly looking forward to learning about not just the specific processes and definitions that make up biology, but also how it applies to our day to day lives.

I believe that the outreach with Clarke Central High School students project is the most interesting and beneficial project. Every student will be able to collect their own samples and test them, which gives everyone their own results and sense of involvement in the project. I haven’t had any experience with a project like this, but it seems like an exciting opportunity. I think other students would enjoy this too because it is dealing with harmful bacteria that can end up affecting the entire world.

The harmful bacteria we would research in the outreach with Clarke Central High School is an issue that I haven’t heard of until today. This is something that I am sure a lot of others don’t know about that we can raise awareness for. We could learn if there is anything we could do to help or if there are things that other companies can change to prevent these bacteria from forming and spreading.

I want to learn more about the environmental effects of human actions. I want to know more about how human actions with the environment has harmed or changed the climate on earth.

Silvy Park

2) a) I have taken honors biology, honors chemistry, and AP chemistry in high school.

b) I preferred the biology class more, although I took more chemistry classes.

3) From this class, I would like to learn concepts about biology that will be helpful in my life. I want to apply the learned concepts to my life instead of just learning and forgetting about them after the course is complete.

4) In my opinion, group projects, especially when it comes to helping out the environment, are very fun and interesting. At my high school, we had many service projects that included cleaning up and restoring the exterior of the school. Thinking about my peers, I believe issues that affect them like water quality will be the most appealing.

5) By helping with the service-learning, I would learn the extent of how we as humans are affecting the planet and feel a sense of community. I believe that seeing the effects firsthand will teach me to change the way I think and live. Additionally, I would learn about how to implement public strategies.

6) In general, I would like to learn more about the quality of water (the pathogenic organisms) since it affects human health.

Chase Rasem Ghannam – go to US; 30.3195° N, 86.1374° W

My name is Chase Rasem Ghannam. It means Hunter – Reflection – Shepherd. The coordinates above are for my grandparents restaurant in Seaside, Fl (go there for great food). I’ve taken High school Biology, Chemistry (I liked Chemistry the most), and Physics. I appreciate the sciences as my grandfather was an allergist and created simethicone while studying at the University of Michigan. While I am a business major, I plan on continuing my education in science to satisfy my natural curiosity of the brain. I plan on taking a course in some field of neuroscience at some point. For now, I will enjoy learning basic concepts from this class that should lead me to a greater understanding of future options of interest relating to this field. As a student, I am interested in the Outfall Inspections project as I am curious to learn the process of a scientific inspection and how it might relate to business practices of financial data collection and even analysis. I would like to gain a greater understanding of how connected the sciences are to civic engagement outside of sustainability efforts commonly publicized. I want to learn more ways to connect Biology to business and have a personal knowledge set where I can create more connections.

Ted Otto

2. I took a Biology and a Chemistry class in high school, but most of my experience is with Physics. I liked Physics the most largely due to the scale of the knowledge.
3. I’m looking for a more context and connections between Biology and the world.
4. I think that the watershed cleanup project is interesting as it targets the problem itself, creating a solution while mitigating the damage already done. It seems to be focused on a sustainable, permanent solution.
5. By participating in service learning, I’m able to further my learning while making a visible difference in the community where I live. I’ll gain the knowledge that I made a difference in the environmental well-being of the area.
6. I’d like to learn more about how people interact with the environment and with organism we cannot see.

Ashley Nelson

Last semester I took a geology course for nonscience majors and I took IB SL Chem in high school.
I would like to gain an interest in biology. I have always loved chemistry but could not find the same fascination with biology, excepting genetics units which I have always found fascinating.
I really like the idea of working to educate people about the dangers of littering and contaminating watersheds. I feel like you always hear about how your trash goes to the ocean and not the other bodies of water (that are so crucial to our environment) that are affected. I think that focusing on more local issues may resonate more with people (we are more likely to act when immediately affected). I have worked on different community education projects in the past, though never any science-based ones.
I expect to learn more specifics on how our community and others are affected by these issues. I also believe it will teach me more about how to successfully interact with and educate the community.
I would really love to learn more about genetics, especially about the causes and effects of mutations. I think mutations like red hair and heterochromia (and not only total heterochromia) are particularly interesting as they seem to have little effect on survival (positive or otherwise) but still occur fairly often. I also think that learning more about biochemistry could be interesting though I have no specifics that I want to know more about.

Nico Fontova

-I took AP Chemistry and AP Physics C (Mechanics) in high school, and Honors Bio and Chem my freshman and sophomore year. I liked chemistry the most because it felt very quantitative and it was interesting.

-I’d like have a better understanding of biology and more of an enjoyment of it by then end of this course.

-Probably the tailgating/watershed clean up because I’ve done trash cleanups before and I feel that it’s a straightforward and effective way to clean up the environment. I don’t know my classmates well, but I feel that they would also like an environmental clean up-type project because most people feel like everyone should do their part in cleaning nature.

-I think I can learn how to effectively clean the environment and learn about ways to get easily involved in community.

-I would enjoy learning about ecosystems and how pollutions or other factors affect them, and about genetics and evolution.

Emily Larking

2. I’ve taken biology, chemistry, marine biology and environmental science in high school. I liked environmental science because the class had a lot of applications into everyday life.

3. I would like to learn a little bit more in depth information about biology and how we can look at the environment through that lens.

4. The outreach with local high school students interests me the most. tutored other students throughout last year and I like teaching other people topics that I know a lot about. Resistance to antibiotics is a very real and relevant issue that isn’t as common knowledge as it maybe should be.

5. I think I could learn a lot about how other people process information and they incorporate that into their lives. For example, showing the aftermath of tailgating and how much trash is left behind could really change how someone approaches their next tailgate.

6. I’d like to learn more about how organisms adapt to climate change.

Zach O’Connor

In high school, I took biology, chemistry, physics, and forensics. I enjoyed forensics the most because of the application with the material.
I would like to learn about the real world applications for the material in class. I hope to utilize the material outside of the class.
The tailgating project interests me the most. I’ve been on a couple of outings where we went through retention bases collecting trash. I think these issues with trash after tailgating would appeal to people. It’s something not many people consider while tailgating.
Through service learning, it may help me gain initiative by advocating for clean-up after events.
Genetics and diseases would be some things I would like to learn about.

Intro: Eryn Hasty

Hey y’all! My name is Eryn Hasty and I am a sophomore. I have had a good bit of exposure to science, as I am a pre-nursing major. My freshman year I took Honors Chemistry 1. This semester I am taking this biology class along with Anatomy & Physiology 1. In high school I took Biology, Chemistry, Physical Science, and Anatomy & Physiology. A & P is definitely my favorite science course as I am super interested in the human body (hence why I am pursuing a nursing career!) I also enjoyed chemistry last year because I have always been a “math” person, and chem had a lot of math aspects to it.

I am most looking to get out of this course a strong foundation for biology and life sciences so that I will be more than prepared as I enter higher level courses once starting nursing school.

I am most interested in the Rivers Alive Watershed Clean up Project. I love rivers and lakes, and have noticed before how litter not only affects the beauty of the nature for our enjoyment, but also the ecosystems living in these streams, rivers, lakes, etc. In all honesty, I have not been exposed to a lot of awareness about these issues, so I am sure my fellow students have not either. This project will give the opportunity to spread awareness about the issue and hopefully others can find a passion to help make Athens and surrounding areas cleaner.

By exposing more students to the problems we face in our own community through this project, I think we will be able to create a chain effect. Hopefully students can continue to make a change and engage in other communities such as their hometown or future places of residency to help with stream, river, and lake cleanups.

I would love to dive into genetics and diseases in this class, as it is relevant to the healthcare field. These topics are also applicable to all in our everyday life, no matter what major one may be pursuing!