My journey into my current discipline began with a search for the perfect society when I was a freshman in High School. By the age of 14 my history lessons led me to draw the conclusion that there is no place on the planet today, or even in the past, that is perfect, fair or even satisfactory. People are always trying to improve their society through democratic means, but society is still so far off from being equal for all people and in harmony with the environment. This led me to conspire to create my own society where I had my own ideas on how I would run things. Wondering where I could possibly establish my own society I looked at islands and abandoned structures in the ocean (check out the country Sealand) until I settled on the idea of Antarctica.
Antarctica is a large continent. It is not like the north pole that is just ice, there is land under the snow. And there are no sovereign nations on the entire continent. When I first learned about how greenhouses work, I thought why can't we build a greenhouse in Antarctica for people to live in? By this time I was 16 in my Junior year of High School and when people asked what I wanted to do in life that was my answer. For a French project about my future I did some research and found some architecture companies that were building things that inspired me. Orproject in London has a bubbles project (pictured below) which interested me. It was basically my first introduction to biospheres.
This furthered my excitement towards the possibility of building one of these in Antarctica. By spring 2015, it was time to seriously choose a career path and apply for colleges. I told my parents that I was serious about this Antarctica endeavor and wanted my education to empower me to one day accomplish my goal. My mom knew about Biosphere 2 and the University of Arizona, which coincidentally my uncle had gone to (we are from Pittsburgh so it's quite far). So she proposed for spring break we travel to Arizona and tour the UofA and Biosphere 2. I loved Tucson, the University and Biosphere 2 and instantly knew that this was where I wanted to be.
I got to the UofA in August 2016 and started a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry. I wasn't sure yet where I belonged since my dreams were so abstract but I thought science was the best place to begin. A few months later I found out Biosystems Engineering (BE) exists and the faculty of the department agreed that this was where I belong. I officially changed my major to BE at the start of my second semester. At first, it looked like the closest I would get to my dream was controlled environment agriculture (CEA) , so I chose a CEA focus in my studies. I am now involved at the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC). I take courses in the classroom here and help at the front desk whenever I am needed. I still felt more like a scientist than an engineer, but I have been working towards gaining competency in engineering so that I can be a creator of the future I imagine.
Spring 2018 I took an honors general education course called Knowledge, Power, Nature. The course was taught by a team of professors, Dr. Victor Braitberg, an anthropologist, and Dr. Joost van Haren, a environmental scientist and employee of Biosphere 2. The class gave me great insight on understanding multiple worldviews in the context of environmental conservation and society. Towards the middle of the semester, we embarked on a role playing assignment involving the stakeholders of Biosphere 2. My assigned role was the Biospherians, or the 8 people who lived inside Biosphere 2 for 2 years in the early '90s. This gave me an opportunity to dive into research on the history of Biosphere 2. For class I read Rebecca Reider's book, Dreaming the Biosphere, which gives a lot of the background information on the people who created Biosphere 2. I also opted to read Mark Nelson's new book, himself one of the Biospherians, Pushing our Limits: Insights from Biosphere 2. Everything I learned from these books and in this class was very motivating for me to get involved at the Biosphere. It also really inspired me that there were people that have the same mission as me.
I believe this is where my goals shifted. As I was becoming more aware of climate change I recognized that I could really have a hand at helping the planet and I could still build biospheres like I dreamed. I would now consider Antarctica as a hopeful but now secondary plan. Primarily I would like to work in bio-remediation and ecological restoration using biosphere controlled experiments. I constructed this idea for a communications course I took Fall 2018 where we had to develop a strategic campaign over the semester. That campaign is Biospheres For Research. I had to create this blog and make my first post for an assignment, but I decided to keep the platform and share my unusual endeavors with the world because I believe the causes I fight for need more attention and action. By educating more people on the issue of climate change and young people choosing to pursue a profession that can put them in a position to make the necessary changes, we will save the planet. So with that I want to continue working with Biosphere 2 and the University of Arizona to bring awareness to the need for environmental education and how biospheres are a solution.
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