Research is one of the best tools that a climate scientist has. I started to realize this as I took my first Oceanography class back in 2013, to understand something you need to find as much data as possible that references the topic. Back then my research consisted of looking up the information on Wikipedia.  My own research capabilities have had to be strengthened as I went through my environmental degree. I went from looking on Wikipedia to reading scholarly articles and data tables. These three artifacts show how I have changed my research practices over several years of coursework.

One of my earlier course works was a look at how the Chaparral and Coral reef biomes operated. This was a project that I had done with two classmates of mine Parker and Yunhui; the project was called Species Interaction. We had focused on the species in the biomes to show how animals could survive with different species. Our research was very limited since we were all very new to scientific study, but we were able to focus our research onto two specific species, the Mouflon and Trapezia crab. While we had solid facts in our statements they were often not backed up by detail or a quote from the source. Focusing on one species helped me realize how everything is connected together– by researching one species you start to see connections with other creatures since no species can survive without help. Our research consisted of government websites and organizations that focused entirely on the study of the two biomes, with many pictures and not many connections to other big ideas. We also had a vague idea of what the biomes were so a portion of our “research” was prior knowledge. 

As I continued my college career, I started to home in on understanding big picture concepts. I continued my trend of understanding something by researching an individual species, in this case the Green Turtle. Researching the Green Turtle was a look into how green turtles were affected by climate change and human intervention. In this short research piece, my knowledge of researching a topic already changed to using data taken from the source specifically. I practiced more on using quotations and data points in my research because it provides more evidence to what the point is. In this case my point was showing all of the risk factors that green turtles faced, and the ways that people can do to help keep them safe. Like my species interaction artifact, I still relied on government websites since they were the most credible— However I then used this research directly in the paper to back up any claim I would make. 

After researching the Green Turtle I wanted to research and understand other topics that were vaguely related to climate change. One such topic was a website article I made in 2023, focusing on how the United States justifies mass consumerism, Consumption and Waste.  This webpage was one piece of a larger group project related to climate change– I felt like I wanted to explore how philosophy and climate change were connected. This webpage has many ideas that were placed together; specifically, three different eras of consumerism in the United States and three different ideologies that are the major ideals of American citizens. My research for the web page consisted of a lot of facts and data leading to my conclusion of wanting to change mass consumerism. Unlike my previous artifacts I started to branch out to different sources, all of which were backed up by peer reviews or multiple authors. I often found a different source because of a small detail or subject mentioned in the original article of consumerism. Researching for this webpage has been one of my biggest accomplishments to date as I learned how to disseminate scholarly articles from biased articles– I also better understand how one idea can branch out into many paths if you pay close attention to the topic you are researching.