May/June 2010
Around the Quads
Student Spotlight: Rebecca Chan ’12 and Jordan Hollarsmith ’12
Rebecca Chan ’12 and Jordan Hollarsmith ’12 raise awareness about climate change
By Nathalie Alonso ’08
Rebecca Chan ’12 (left) and Jordan Hollarsmith ’12 have traveled abroad to study the effects of climate change. PHOTO: Jane Zellar ’12EA shared concern about environmental issues and the effects of climate change has led Rebecca Chan ’12 and Jordan Hollarsmith ’12 down converging paths.
In March 2008, Chan and Hollarsmith were among 15 high school students named California Climate Champions in a competition sponsored by the California Air Resources Board in conjunction with the British Council’s broader International Climate Champions Program. Both initiatives seek to create a network of young adults equipped to educate their communities about the impacts of climate change and ways in which individuals can reduce their carbon emissions. Winners, selected based on communication skills and knowledge of and enthusiasm for the topic, engaged in online networking with peers and attended a “climate camp” where they met and learned from experts.
“There was a big emphasis on media training and getting to know how environmental policy works at different levels of government,” explains Hollarsmith, who hails from San Francisco.
As California Climate Champions, Chan and Hollarsmith also were expected to undertake individual projects to raise awareness about climate change. They chose to get involved with CU Earth Tutors, an afterschool program for middle school students at the Urban Science Academy in the Bronx and the Future Leaders Institute in Harlem. The program, designed to educate youth about environmental issues, meets on Fridays throughout the school year and is run entirely by Columbia students.
“We would direct science experiments and have the students develop a hypothesis, perform tests and discuss the results. Then we would bring that discussion to the larger scale of what they can do in their everyday lives,” explains Hollarsmith, who was involved with the program as a first-year student.
Chan, still an active member of Earth Tutors, adds, “It’s not just a tutoring program but also a mentoring program. It’s about exposure to college and college students as well as learning about the environment.”
Chan, from Encinitas, was one of three California Climate Champions selected to represent the United States at the G8 Summit Environment Ministers Meeting in Kobe, Japan, in May 2008. Chan and other climate champions from around the world first met in London in March to develop a series of goals, three of which were to be presented in Kobe. In an effort to achieve a broader representation, the three most popular goals — education about climate change through school curricula and a government-funded mass media campaign, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and humanitarian aid for developing nations most affected by changes in global climate — were selected through an online ballot that had more than 20,000 votes.
“The idea was really to draw attention not only to the issue of climate change but also to point out that the younger generation needs to be involved,” says Chan.
Chan also was one of two American students selected to attend a climate camp in Okinawa, Japan, in August 2009, during which she studied the effects of climate change on the local coral reef.
After these enriching experiences, Chan has a clearer idea regarding the career path she’d like to pursue.
“My goal is to bridge the gap between science and policy,” says Chan, who majors in chemistry and political science and plans to attend law school. “I’m hoping that with a scientific background, I will be able to understand what ’s going on well enough to help implement policy.”
Like Chan, Hollarsmith’s passion has taken her far — literally. As a junior in high school, she spent three weeks in Bangladesh, which experts predict would be among the countries most affected by rising sea levels as a result of changes in global temperatures. During her time in Bangladesh, Hollarsmith met with numerous humanitarian and environmental NGOs and became familiar with local grassroots environmental movements. She lodged in a hotel in Dhaka for part of the time and also stayed on a boathouse on the Bay of Bengal.
The trip was an exchange program organized by the nonprofit Relief International as part of the U.S. Department of State’s Linking Individuals, Knowledge and Culture initiative, which pro-vided all the funding. The second leg of the trip was a stop in New Orleans, where participants stayed at Tulane to learn about disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
“We learned a lot about disaster relief in Bangladesh, and then we got to hear Tulane professors speak about the science behind the hurricane and how changes in the local environment made the consequences of the storm even worse. The depletion of the low wetlands led to a greater storm surge,” explains Hollarsmith, who is an editor of Catalyst: the Undergraduate Journal of Energy and Environmental Policy, which is affiliated with the Roosevelt Institute, a national, student-run policy research group.
After exploring both the policy and scientific aspects of climate change, Hollarsmith discovered that she prefers the latter and has decided to major in environmental biology.
“I would rather be in the dirt collecting the data for the policy makers,” says Hollarsmith, whose childhood hero was Captain Planet. “It’s extremely important to have the strong science to back up the issues. Without that science, nothing would get passed.”
Nathalie Alonso ’08, from Queens, is a freelance journalist and an
editorial producer of LasMayores.com, Major League Baseball’s official
Spanish language Web site.