Multidisciplinary initiative on environmental change takes shape

The initiatiave takes advantage of growing collective environmental science expertise among faculty in the University's social, life, and physical science departments. The initiative will create research projects and educational programs that address geological, human and biogeochemical facets, among other aspects of environmental change.

by Ricardo Howell

Thirty minutes into a nearly hour-long class, it seems that the 15 students in the "Global Environmental Change" seminar have been sucked into the time-honored tradition of diverting a class discussion to talk about current events.

It turns out, the students and their professor, Jack Mustard of geological sciences and environmental studies, are hardly digressing - they're hypothesizing how massive wildfires sweeping through California are affecting the ecosystem, particularly the Earth's natural carbon flux, which cycles carbon compounds between the atmosphere, land, geological reservoirs, and oceans.

"The goal is to get students critically thinking about the ways we conceive of the environment and what causes change to it, beyond the litany they may already know," says Mustard, who fittingly spends several moments connecting elements of the students' reading to the wildfires that are displacing carbon compounds from the trees into the atmosphere.

"Global Environmental Change," a new entry into the slate of freshman seminars introduced into the curriculum last year, examines some of the compelling questions and problems related to environmental change, engaging students with essential themes and concepts.

Among the facets of environmental change the class covers are climate change, biodiversity, population growth and its stresses on physical and biological resources, land cover and use, and human intersection with natural processes, including how policies and perspectives are determined.

The class represents one of the first products of a multidisciplinary environmental change initiative (ECI).

Endorsed last year by the Academic Priorities Committee, the ECI takes advantage of growing collective environmental science expertise among faculty in the University's social, life, and physical science departments. The initiative will create research projects and educational programs, including courses, that address geological, human and biogeochemical facets, among other aspects of environmental change.

"The initiative recognizes groups who have been doing exciting work in areas of environmental change and provides them with resources for new achievement," says Professor of Biology Mark Bertness, who, with Mustard and several other Brown researchers, wrote the ECI proposal.

The authors included faculty from geological sciences, environmental studies, ecology and evolutionary biology, economics, sociology and the Watson Institute's global environment program.

Among this semester's new ECI developments are a search for a distinguished senior scientist who will lead the ECI and direct the Center for Environmental Studies, multi-investigator research and foundational planning.

"By the start of next academic year, we hope to have in place a director who will build the Environmental Change Initiative on the existing strengths of faculty and researchers across the University, and will carry forward the superior tradition of interdisciplinary environmental education at the Center," says Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies Johanna (Annie) Schmitt, who heads the search committee. The pool of applicants is notably outstanding, she says.

Schmitt, one of ECI's authors, is also a member of a group of ECI researchers from geological sciences, ecology and evolutionary biology, and economics who earlier this year received seed funding toward understanding and modeling land cover and land use change.

"Our project is linking natural and social science perspectives to deepen our knowledge of how human activity affects parts of the earth's system, global biodiversity, and fundamental sustainability," says Mustard, the group's principal investigator.

This mode of multi-investigator, cross-disciplinary research typifies the kinds of joint environmental change research that has been made exponentially possible by the UniversityÕs affiliation with the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Mass. The affiliation is one of the initiative's cornerstone elements.

According to Bertness, several natural intellectual connections between Brown and MBL bode well for collaborative environmental change research, including links between faculty in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, and Geological sciences at Brown and scientists at MBLÕs Ecosystems Center and Josephine Bay Paul Center in Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution.

In addition to encouraging research, the affiliation will also pay dividends toward undergraduate and graduate education. "The type of student who Brown and MBL will be able to train is going to have a view that no one has ever had before," says Bertness.

"The Earth's Environmental Future," a series of visiting-faculty public lectures and seminars sponsored by the Wayland Collegium during the spring, will draw to Brown the foremost scientists from an international field.

"The major launch of the Wayland Collegium series will announce the significance of our interests in environmental change as well as BrownÕs intention to leapfrog other comparably focused programs," says Bertness.

Courses related to the Environmental Change Initiative

In addition to Jack Mustard's "Global Environmental Change" freshman seminar, courses closely related to the Environmental Change Initiative in academic year 2003-04 include "Environment and Society," also offered this fall. Taught by Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies Phil Brown, the course examines how environmental issues are defined and constructed in various arenas, including the law, literature, biology and medicine, and the media.

Also offered this semester, Professor of Physics Brad Marston is teaching "Quantum Mechanics of Global Warming," an independent study that introduces students to environmental physics, using basic quantitative analyses to create models of the earth's climatic processes.

During the spring, Annie Schmitt and geological sciences professor Tim Herbert (also an ECI author) will team teach the freshman seminar "Global Change: Ecology and Climate," which focuses on ways that global change affects ecosystems, including how temperature, rainfall, and land use can affect biodiversity.