Saturday, June 21, 2008

How did you first learn about climate change?

It wasn't called climate change yet, I don't think. It was "global warming" or maybe the "greenhouse effect" and at school we called it "l'effet de serre." I did a gradeschool science fair project about it. I vaguely remember the cardboard poster: a larger centre piece with two folding flaps on either side.






I put some diagrams, text, and I don't remember what else. Maybe it looked like this:



Except that I think I remember redrawing a cityscape, some trees, and arrows to explain how everything moved around (I used to love making those bristol board posters, the colours, shapes, such a cool overall effect, and then you could present it as your own project.)


I learned about what's now talked about more as climate change from my science teacher. Or maybe we had an expert come into our classroom to tell us about it. I can't quite remember. But I remember seeing diagrams in the paper and my mom noticing them and showing them to me cause she knew I was interested. Seeing something in the news that I understood -- and it seemed odd to me that many adults didn't understand -- made me feel even more that there was a role to play in helping raise awareness. The story seemed fairly straightforward to me. I was somewhere between 10 and 13, grades 5 to 8, I can't remember exactly.

Friday, June 20, 2008

More scholarships

Only two of the four of us are eligible to apply, but these awards could be great.

Canadian Federation of University Women has fellowships and awards for 2009-2010. Marta and I are each eligible for several of them. Applications due November 1, 2008, so I figure I can hit up my professors for references at the same time this summer.