Posted by UBC Sustainability on Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Tanis King didn’t arrive at UBC with a passion for sustainability: throughout high school and her first years at UBC, Tanis’ academic interests were reserved for the hard sciences. Last year, however, Tanis enrolled in BIOL 448 – a capstone biology course with an interdisciplinary focus on sustainability, and found that it sparked an awareness of and passion for a whole field of study. Now a fourth-year biology major with one term left at UBC, Tanis is approaching a major crossroad in her education pathway.
Tanis has always loved nature and cared deeply about the environment, but had a limited understanding of sustainability prior to taking the biology capstone course. “[Taking BIOL 448] opened up my eyes… After taking that sustainability course I saw that there’s a social sciences aspect to sustainability – like politics and economics,” said Tanis.
“I didn’t realize how complex sustainability was. I really had a superficial idea of it... We had different professors come in for each aspect of sustainability. We had someone come in and talk about economic sustainability, and some for social and ecological sustainability. That gives you an idea of how complex it is, because there’s not one person who is an expert on everything related to sustainability. There’s just so much to it.”
The BIOL 448 curriculum sees students taking on a major sustainability-related project for the course of the term. Tanis’ project was on the challenges associated with implementing electric vehicle chargers into strata complexes (such as condos) in Metro Vancouver. Interactive group work was an integral component of the course’s structure.
“I found that before class I would do my own research, because it was very much a discussion-based course and I was genuinely interested [in the material],” said Tanis. “There are not that many students and there are so many professors — it’s a great way to meet professors and to talk, to have that open dialogue. You really get to think for yourself and you really get to learn what sustainability is to you, as a person – because it means something different to everybody.”
The education that Tanis received in BIOL 448 has broadened her academic interests, not just into new areas of science but into the inherently interdisciplinary field of sustainability as a whole.
“I used to think that I was only into hard sciences and working in a lab. As the years have passed at UBC, I’ve really learned a lot about myself. I’m interested in things that I never thought I would be interested in, and part of that is because of this course,” said Tanis. “I’m just really happy that I went into it with an open mind.”
This student profile is part of a series developed by students in order to highlight student, faculty and staff leadership in sustainability.
Video production and story writing by Austen Erhardt, Communications and Engagement Assistant (a Work Learn position with the UBC Sustainability Initiative).