My previous experience with science pretty much comes from the courses I had to take in high school. I took robotics, physical science, biology, chemistry, and physics. I enjoyed robotics and biology the most. Robotics because you were given the chance to be creative and think outside the box, and biology because there wasn’t much math involved.
I would like to get a true knowledge of biology and the world around us that I won’t immediately when the course is over.
The tailgating and rivers alive watershed clean up projects interest me the most. This is because both projects involve going out into the community and actively doing things as opposed to sitting in a lab or just staring at a computer. I was deeply involved with my high school’s Key Club, and we often had neighborhood trash clean up days. I had to organize and execute these clean ups, and I believe these experiences would help me complete the aforementioned projects. I think the issues of trash on our campus and in our rivers would appeal to my fellow students because the aspects of the issue are tangible and students see the issue everyday. This might be more appealing than testing the bacteria samples from a river because it’s an issue that’s invisible to most people. I’m not saying this to invalidate the issue of fecal coliform bacteria in the river, but I just believe people will care about it less since it’s not a very visible issue.
Relative to civic engagement, these projects would teach us the most effective ways to educate the public on issues. Cleaning up trash is one thing, but educating the students of UGA to prevent the littering is another. We would also learn how to collaborate with others by working with the high school students.
I would like to learn the effects things like pollution and extreme litter have on a biological level. In my opinion, putting biology in the context of real life issues makes it much more interesting.