TRACKING TRASH at Worcester Polytechnic Institute


Photo by Gordon Peabody, passionate environmentalist.

Yesterday I spoke to students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute about TRACKING TRASH. It was an interesting coming-full-circle sort of a day.

You see, I graduated from WPI in 1991. It was there that I committed myself to a career in science and there, interestingly, that I completed work on an undergraduate thesis on ‘Realism in Contemporary Children’s Literature’. It is only in hindsight that I see how this place helped to shape me and my work and set me on the way to a career in writing about science and scientists for young people. It was fun to go back a couple years later (if you can call seventeen a couple!) and see clearly what was so muddy back then: I am drawn to stories of science and the people who practice it, telling these stories is what I am called to do.

I spoke to students in a chemical engineering course called ‘Transport & Transformations in the Environment’, and they were a great audience. TRACKING TRASH was required reading for this class (!), and these future engineers were genuinely interested in the issues it raises and how those issues relate to their curriculum and to their world.

After class, Professor Bob Thompson took me and several colleagues and friends (both old and new) to lunch at Higgins House. What animated conversations ensued! We talked about oceans, the environment, science education, horseshoe crabs, citizen science and so much more. It was a fabulous afternoon, and Professor Dan Gibson–the the man who taught me all I know about horseshoe crab physiology—thought to bring a camera. (Thanks, Dan!)