How the World has Changed Since I Started Teaching
Robert Sterner
Director, Large Lakes Observatory and Professor, Department of Biology, University of Minnesota Duluth
11:15 am CST, Tuesday, April 16, 2024
570 Vincent Hall (also streamed via Zoom)
I began lecturing as a tenure track faculty member in 1988, and I gave my last lecture as 2023 was coming to a close, a span of 35 years. The syllabus said the lecture topic was “Global Ecology” so I chose to create a set of figures about how the Earth has changed over my teaching lifetime. After class I put those figures into a series of posts on X, which then garnered more than 70,000 views and became a story in USA Today. In this presentation I will share those plots and add some new ones more specifically about changes in freshwater resources. One big take away from this experience is how important it is for science messaging to appeal to human nature in order for it to have the broad impact that is so needed today.
The meetings are held in 570 Vincent Hall at 11:15 am Central Time on Tuesdays, followed by an extended discussion over lunch at the Bona Restaurant. If you would like to participate remotely, please contact Richard McGehee <mcgehee@umn.edu>.
Richard McGehee,
School of Mathematics,
<mcgehee@umn.edu>
Clarence Lehman,
College of Biological Sciences,
<lehman@umn.edu>
This seminar examines some of the simpler mathematical models of climate in the recent literature. Participants are encouraged to read a paper and report on it to the other participants, but passive participation is also welcomed. Course credit can be arranged either through the School of Mathematics or the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior by arrangement with the organizers.