The Future Lack of Food and It's Impact

As for environmental issues that I find the most catastrophic and problematic, food has to be one of them. Now food offers so many topics to be discussed in terms of the enviornment. Food justice and making sure that everyone has the access to healthy foods is an important one... but so is the use of GMOS or genetically modified organisms/foods. While both of those are also issues that we as a society need to discuss, I think that the more problematic aspect of food is that we seem to be negatively affecting it due to climate change. Crop yield is being heavily affected due to the random and uncontrolled variability in our climate. There have been multiple studies conducted that state that "climate variability historically accounts for one-third of yield variability for maize, rice, wheat and soybeans worldwide -- the equivalent of 36 cubic tons" (Science Daily Article See Link Below.) This means that there is 36 cubic tons of food that has the potential to NOT be grown and distributed. This information is currently being used by policy makers to try to come up with a solution to grow enough food for the public, stabilize the income of farmers, and still be very cheap. This is a hard task especially since there has been a recent push to boost food security across the globe.

Reserchers hope to use this information to find "hot spots" or places where they believe crops will still grow regardless of the climate conditions. This is problematic because the response to these hot spots will most likely be to over farm and suck all of the natural nutrients out of the ground to then supplement with chemically-based fertilizers. This of course would hurt these patches of land even more detrimentally than climate change because the only solution as of right now is to wait a couple decades until the nutrients return naturally; Unfortunately,  don't have decades to wait . We have a food crisis now that will be exasperated when we over farm on the only areas that we can get crops from.

So of course the next question is what to do. Policy makers have to worry about short term solutions as of right now, or else they will have thousands of people unable to eat healthy food -maybe even starve- because they are unable to feed them. My solution would to be to share food. If bigger countries with a lot of resources and money were to ship crops to countries that don't have as much- that would save so many people. We just need to work on working together and not for "our own." Sadly, my solution is unlikely to happen in the near future. Hopefully, policy makers will see that if they care for the short term as well as the long term the method that we are using right now will have catastrophic consequences that will be seen sooner rather than later.

Science Daily Article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150122133219.htm

Summer Internship- Dr. Hull and Dr. Thomas

This summer I worked in the Yale Environmental Science Center and the Kline Yale Geology Building with Dr. Hull and Dr. Thomas learning about oceanic paleontology. I worked in this lab with three other Evo-peers and Yale undergraduate and graduate students alike. I was lucky because my internship was centered upon two ideas. The first idea was to get basic lab skills such as operating a scale and using chemicals, and the second idea was a lecture-based discussion on topics revolving around geologic principles and theories.

For the lab portion of the day, we would work right along side the Yale undergrads as we washed our foramnifera samples. Foramnifera are "amoeba-like" creatures that live, and have lived, in the oceans for a very long time. The Foramnifera samples that the lab had were gotten from the Welvis Trench off the coast of Africa and were dated back to approximately 52.6 million years ago, in what is known as the Eocene Epoch. Forams (short for Foramnifera) are especially useful because the lab is able to use carbon dating to figure out the salinity levels of the oceans that the For ams lived in when they were alive. Since Forams have a calcium carbonate shell that dissolves in water with lots of salt, the lab was able to figure out which time periods had extremely salty water by counting ad dating the forams. The Eocene Epoch, where the Forams were mostly from, was a time in the Earth's history in which the temperature and sea levels very closely match models that current environmentalists have produced to show what our world will look like if global warming keeps continuing. The lab was looking for solutions to the climate change problems that we will be seeing in as close to 75 years.

After the lab portion ended, we moved from the Environmental Science Center to the Kline Geology Tower to learn about geology. We were then supposed to use this information to start a Geology Cart for the Peabody's Sci.Corp program that uses these carts to explain science based topics to every day vistors. In order for us to start the cart, we needed to be taught the basics. The meant learning with Matt, our mentor, about environmental issues and geology as a whole.

Overall it was a wonderful experience that I know I am very privileged to have participated in.

Summary of Jan 16th 2015 B&P Meeting

January 16th was the first Bay & Paul meeting of 2015! In this meeting the new cohort of Bay & Paul (B&P) members were finally able to meet with the senior B&P to begin thinking about environmental issues that are making a name for themselves in U.S. Politics and International Trade agreements. But this meeting was also dedicated to getting to know each member of the two newly conjoined groups; the topic we learned about in this meeting was the Keystone XL pipeline.

Prior to beginning our research, Andrea asked each of us how much we knew about the Keystone XL pipeline, our responses ranged from knowing a lot about the XL pipeline to just hearing about it for the first time in that meeting. After watching a short video explaining the logistics of the pipeline, we all took the time to share out questions that we still had about the pipeline or new questions that arose after watching the video. When we read all of the questions, it was evident our inquiries fell under three main categories; the impact on international trade (specifically the Middle East), the impact on the environment, and the domestic impact of the pipeline.

According to our interest we split into three groups and began researching and myth busting, mainly figuring out the reality behind political propaganda. I was in the international trade impact group, and despite knowing a good deal about the logistics of the pipeline, I found out many of my assumptions about the impact of the Keystone pipeline on Middle East oil trade was proven to be false. After reading abstracts and pages of research and predictions about the Keystone XL pipeline written by the Department of Energy and other bureaucracies, I was surprise to learn that the XL pipeline would have little to no impact on trade with the Middle East and developing countries. In fact the XL pipeline would actually cause an increase in demand for oil GLOBALLY, for every one barrel of increased production there would be a .6 barrel increase in demand. This would result in TransCanada (the company owning the Keystone Pipeline) to increase production of crude oil subsequently causing an increase of CO2 into the atmosphere ranging from 0 to 110 million additional tons.

The environmental group found that there have been frequent spillages from the Keystone Pipeline, one of which no one knows how to stop. This pipeline also will be crossing through Native American Reservations and National Parks, the reservation is home to roughly 30+ tribes. The domestic group found that most of the oil produced would not be using in the U.S., rather it would be traded internationally and secondly it would have little to no impact in gas prices within the U.S.

It was interesting to begin really researching and understanding the complexities of environmental issues, however what it made me realize is how difficult it is for a common citizen to take the time to research, develop a solid understanding of a political or social issue and use that knowledge to create their own opinions. It took B&P roughly 90 minutes to even hit on all of the major issues surrounding the Keystone Pipeline. For an average American with children to take care of and a job to hold down, that is a lot of time to commit to just ONE issue in the government. With that in mind I now understand why many Americans are in favor of the Keystone pipeline, political propaganda is not fact, business ads are not fact, but if that is all that a person is surrounded by... perhaps they can not help but believe it.

-Mairead Brennan

Dinosnore Event 2014

We had the annual Dinosnore event in December this year. There were approximately 75 people that attended, these people were Evo students as well as students in a similar program from the New York Hall of Science Museum. As a Bay and Paul leader we spent a bunch of time preparing our 3 hour slot for this event. 

This event was our first predatory step to planning the Maya Conference that we are hosting in August. The dinosnore event is our first chance to lead a large group in a workshop. In my opinion it was a huge success.

For our part of the event, we were easily identified by the green shirts that I made (green for environmental consciousness.) The participants were split into three groups that we randomly split up, which served to introduce them to people they may not have spoken to or worked with before. Our six Bay and Paul fellows ran three stations, and had rotations of approximately 25 students between each of them.

My friend George and I ran and created the icebreaker station that included two games. The first activity called for all 25 people to be in a circle. Small notecards and crayons were passed around, and they each shared out loud and wrote down one item they own that best represented them. After everybody in the circle had gone around, mentioning things like a laptop or fishing rod, they were assigned numbers one to three, again splitting up the group. These smaller groups were each a team, and they had all been shipwrecked on a deserted island. The only materials they had were the items on their cards. Each group had to come up with a solution to either survive on the island, or escape to safety using the items within their group. The activity turned out to be a lot of fun, and the groups really enjoyed it. We tied the icebreaker together with a lesson on looking at things in different ways, and being creative in their re-use of items.

The second game was a bit different; the students involved were split into 3 separate groups. This time, their objective was to create the lamest environmental-themed superhero they could, with three unique powers. The group with the most creative, lamest, and overall original superhero won. Our example was Captain Planet, holding several amazing powers, such as the ability to turn into a tree, but only once, and it's permanent. The power to summon unlimited amounts of wasps, but he can't control them, or make them go away. And perhaps his greatest earth-saving gift: He can turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, but only one molecule at a time. The groups really enjoyed this activity, and we had fun hearing their crazy ideas.

The only thing that I would change for next time is making the two activities more environment focus, our station was supposed to be based on meeting new people and networking, and we received feedback that this shouldn't have been the main focus. The other four Bay and Paul fellows ran stations about using materials that incorporated environmentally conscious words and the third station hosted a debate.

Dinosnore Planning Meeting

This week, Bay and Paul fellows met and began to brainstorm ideas to host an educational activity during the annual Peabody Evolutions DinoSnore event. Our group came to the decision that we will create a mock-conference between several different nations, such as China, Brazil, Nigeria, Fiji, and the United States. Each group's nation will have economic interests such as protecting their resources, which will take the form of oil, forests, and goods so that they may gain or retain wealth, and also environmental concerns. These concerns will include problems that these nations face in real life, such as poor air quality, deforestation, and pollution. The Bay and Paul fellows will perform a short skit demonstrating these needs and issues that countries face, and then the students participating in the activity will be assigned a role as a nation and collaberate to reach a consensus that will benefit all of the nations, and protect their interests. We have chosen certain countries to create a diverse and representative list of developed, developing, and undeveloped nations across 6 continents. These include The United States of America, China, Brazil, Fiji,Tanzania, Australia, and the Netherlands. The skit will lay down rules and guidelines for the younger students, and set up a series of problems that are similar to those our world faces today. The student's activities will follow, working in conjunction with the skit to attempt to resolve as many of the issues that they can in order to help the environment and promote international cooperation. Our meeting today was very productive, and we turned several different ideas into one solid project to work on for the December 6 event.

George Baldwin

Dinosnore Blog Post

George Baldwin

The 2014 Dinosnore event was a huge success. 75 people attended, including guests from Queens, New York. The introduction events went smoothly, and we all had a great time eating pizza, playing Dance Dance Revolution, and meeting new people. The Bay and Paul fellows, wearing festive custom Bay and Paul t-shirts, soon took over, and introduced the Bay and Paul aspect of the event. The students were split into three groups using color coded name tags, which served to introduce them to people they may not have spoken to or worked with before. Our six Bay and Paul fellows ran three stations, and had rotations of 25 students between them.

Zariah and I ran an icebreaker station that included two games. The first activity organized the group members into a circle. Small notecards and crayons were passed around, and they each shared out loud and wrote down one item they own that best represented them. After everybody in the circle had gone around, mentioning things like a laptop or fishing rod, they were assigned numbers one to three, again splitting up the group. These smaller groups were each a team, and they had all been shipwrecked on a deserted island. The only materials they had were the items on their cards. Each group had to come up with a solution to either survive on the island, or escape to safety using the items within their group. The activity turned out to be a lot of fun, and the groups really enjoyed it. We tied the icebreaker together with a lesson on looking at things in different ways, and being creative in their re-use of items.

Our second activity ran a little differently. The students were again split into three groups, but this time with different people. Their objective was to create the lamest environmental-themed superhero they could, with three unique powers. The group with the most creative, lamest, and overall original superhero won. Our example was Captain Planet, holding several amazing powers, such as the ability to turn into a tree, but only once, and it's permanent. The power to summon unlimited amounts of wasps, but he can't control them, or make them go away. And perhaps his greatest earth-saving gift: He can turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, but only one molecule at a time. The groups really enjoyed this activity, and we had fun hearing their crazy ideas.

These activities were a lot of fun to run, and we enjoyed getting to know the Evolutions kids from other classes. We received a lot of positive feedback, and good constructive criticism. The lessons we learned will help us run the Maya conference, and make the activities run much smoother by decreasing transition time, clarifying directions, and getting more involvement and enjoyment out of our participants.

Jessica Glass Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Marine Fisheries Research from Alaska to Africa

Today we had a visit from Jessica Glass, a Yale Ph.D student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department who actually went on a trip with the Bay & Paul students to visit the Maritime Aquarium where were got to meet other teens and dissect a dog fish. Another interesting fact is that she got her undergraduate degree at Yale and was on the Polo Team! For her graduate work she participated in MESAS which stands for Marine Ecosystem Sustainability in the Arctic and Subarctic at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In Alaska she was researching the scallop industry there to learn about the ecosystems in the benthic zones around the large Alaskan coastline. To do this she befriended Alaskan fishermen who allowed her to look at their bycatch before throwing it into the ocean.

At Yale this year she will be working on correcting the phylogenetic tree of carangiforms (flounders, flatfish and billfish). Her research will be taking place on the islands around Madagascar and also the coastline of South Africa. She is interested in finding some driving forces of marine fish evolution in the western indian ocean and relating her work in phylogenetics to marine conservation efforts as well. Some of her planned methodologies include discovering these fishes’ position on the food chain, taking genetic samples (fin clips) and tagging the fish as well.

I personally found this presentation really interesting and I enjoyed it thoroughly.It was obvious that she had a passion for what she does and wants to share her knowledge with others, this encompasses the Bay & Paul Fellowship goal of learning and then distributing that knowledge with others. It was really nice to see professionals with the same goals in mind.  

Mairead Brennan

12-8-14