My Worldview:

Growing up I spent countless hours exploring nature. The Pennypack Creek was just a short walk from my house, just outside Northeast Philadelphia. Wading in the water, finding mollusk shells, and chasing frogs were some of my favorite pastimes. Away from the creek, my brothers and I could be found collecting cicada shells, lifting up rocks to find roly-polies, or simply making mudballs. The hours spent outside exploring and learning in my childhood makeup part of the foundation of my sustainability worldview.  

 

My grandfather, Bap, also played a critical role in shaping my worldview. Bap, a former engineer, spent retirement teaching the Science Club at the local middle school and devoted hours to developing lesson plans and corresponding experiments. Bap also shared these lessons with his grandkids. With every visit came at least one experiment, be it launching bottle rockets or creating and comparing lemon clocks to potato clocks, he taught me how to think like a scientist. From Bap I learned how to question the natural world, think critically, and developed a deep love for science.  

 

I brought my love of nature and science to Dickinson, where I gravitated due to its reputation for sustainability and quickly delved into the environmental science department. I wasn’t expecting how my perceptions of Environmental Science and my own worldviews would expand as I learned the social elements of environmentalism and Environmental Justice. During the introduction to Environmental Studies, my mind was continually blown as I learned about the social construction of nature, the implications of a science-only approach, and the intersectionality of sustainability. Each semester at Dickinson my understanding of environmentalism and environmental science has grown. 

 

My sustainability worldview hasn’t just been shaped in the classroom or lab; my off-campus experiences on campus were perhaps the most formative. Through my other major, Studio Art, I have been able to participate in photography projects, each altering and further developing my worldview. I was able to intern in Kensington, Philadelphia with the photographer Jeffrey Stockbridge, who had previously documented the presence of the opioid epidemic there. This project was designed to celebrate the community in Kensington by taking free portraits and providing free prints to community members. Though I’m from the Philadelphia area, I hadn’t previously visited this part of the city, and I was warned to be careful. While working there I met countless new people, heard their stories, shared laughs, and tried to capture their personality through the camera lens. In Kensington, I learned about my own prejudices and the importance of compassion. My understanding of my privilege as a white woman who grew up in the suburbs increased exponentially, as did my awareness of systemic racism and other social justice issues.  

 

Other photography projects took me farther from home. I was able to travel to Rwanda and learn about the 1995 Genocide and the country’s process of rebuilding. After learning about the genocide and meeting both survivors and perpetrators my worldview was dramatically altered again. The resilience and forgiveness I saw were inspiring and showed me what real compassion and strength look like. I took these lessons with me when I traveled to Idaho a few months later. I was in Idaho to document the stories of immigrants, refugees, diaspora, and displaced Native Peoples there. I met people from all over the world, with drastically different backgrounds. I was able to hear their stories and work to help share them. With each of these experiences, I further assessed my beliefs and biases, questioning my role as a visitor, a white American, and a college student. Hearing the stories of others, both inspiring and devastating, deepened my understanding of compassion and made me further aware of social injustices. 

 

Traveling to the Turks and Caicos Islands to study marine resource management was a culmination of my past experiences. My curiosity and desire to explore flourished while performing marine science. This included assessing conch population, investigating the invasive lionfish, and other activities both in the classroom and the water. I also learned about local fisheries management as well as issues of food security, which required me to synthesize scientific research with local social justice issues to develop community-based solutions. Learning the challenges of protecting both the environment and respecting the culture and needs of locals pushed me to question my role as a scientist and my approach to sustainability. I continue to mull over the dichotomies that lay within developing sustainable fisheries management plans, while also meeting the needs of a community where fishing is significant economically, culturally, and for food security. 

 

As I move forward in my career, I intend to bring all of these values along with me. It’s important I continue to grow, assess my biases, and fight for social justice wherever life takes me. As I move forward toward a career in marine field research, I will bring with me my curiosity, compassion, and love of community engagement. Wherever I go I will strive to learn the stories of new people, learn the issues they face, and look for sustainable community-based solutions.  Developing sustainable solutions that are culturally appropriate and socially equitable is my ultimate career goal, and has been shaped by my worldview.