Orientation

Orientation week is over, and I must say, it doesn't feel like school has started yet. One quick day of safety procedures, and we were off on an assortment of rainforest hikes, cultural immersions and aboriginal tourist attractions. It's still sort of a jumbled mess in my head, but I'll try to summarize some of what I learned: Australia is cool. I've seen wild tree kangaroos, forest dragons (green lizards), large spiders, all kinds of birds, nad even a platypus! In a habitat reservation, we also saw live koalas, wallabies, pythons, and a cassowary (a large flightless, seed-eating bird). All of these creatures are adept at surviving in Australia's varied climate and unpredictable weather patterns. I won't go into detail here, just know that these things wouldn't still be alive if not for their pouches, weird hopping motions, absurdly large foreheads, and all the other features that make them unique to the world.

Sadly, a lot of these animals are being threatened by human activity. With modern advances in medicine, agriculture, and technology, populations are booming and productivity is soaring, at least temporarily. The problem is, as in most European-inspired societies, is that it isn't sustainable. Human beings and the plants and animals they have brought with them are crowding out the natives, which despite their resilience, have historically had a lot more space to work with. It's quite trendy to say we should help the environment, but how? We can't just stop everything and plant a few trees, because too many human beings would starve to death. Clearly, economic concerns need to be integrated with environmental concerns. This IS possible, and the research I do at the end of this semester should yield some practical ideas.

Even if we could just drop everything and leave, it would take a lot more than planting a few trees to reverse the damage that has already been caused. Where do we even start? That's where biology comes in. Like them or not, the prevailing theories in ecology and evolutionary biology are powerful predictive tools. They work. If they didn't, scientists wouldn't keep them around. Already, many applications of modern science have shown to be helpful in the development of long-term solutions to the environmental problems plaguing this planet, which, contrary to common opinion among Christians, is what a lot of them are after. I'm conviced that most of the animosity between scientists and Christians is caused by misunderstanding each others' motives. More on that in a later post.

Alright, enough science for now! To summarize, I've had an absolute blast with SIT's "hands-on" approach to learning, and I;ve made some great friends along the way. Stay tuned for more next week. (pictures should be up within the next few days as well)