Coverage: March For Science

Hello lovelies, welcome back to a week full of final papers and the last days of class. For some us, including your truly, this will be my last week as an undergraduate college student, wooo!

This week I wanted to talk about something that I experienced that I think is very interesting.

As we all know, or at least as we all should know, the Trump administration is changing and overturning a lot of what Obama’s administration has achieved. This includes being one of the leading nations that curbs emissions. This also includes a lot of science based policies that allow for more environmentally friendly policies.

The march was intended to be an event calling for support in the science fields. Of course,while  that’s what it was supposed to be; a lot of what was being chanted revolved more on climate change, a different march all together, as well as chants protesting the current president.

What was truly interesting was the distinct difference you could see between Trump protestors and actual march for science participants.

The need for the march arose when current EPA director Scott Pruitt stated his belief that climate change was not directly impacted by humans, something heavily refuted by science. The march was also a result of the administration scrubbing climate change information from the EPA website and Trump himself stating that climate change is a hoax.

For the event, there was a stage that was set up that was part of the teach-in section of the march. This allowed an allotted time for multiple speakers to share experiences involving the science community as well as sharing networks and coalitions that aim for scientific advances that help the majority of people.

One of the most famous speakers that not only helped organize the march but attended the march was Bill Nye. That was pretty cool, he was actually the last and most charismatic speaker. He called us the biggest group of nerds he had ever seen. I agree, only because there were people wearing hats that were knitted to look like brains.

The majority of the experience was actually just a lot of waiting in the rain. Waiting for the lectures, waiting for the march to begin. Waiting for people to start walking. Waiting for the bathroom. The march itself was actually really fun, there were really fun people that were easy to talk to, chants that were really funny, it was an overall great experience. After the group I was with walked the entirety of the march we decided to go to the Botanical Gardens.

It was my first time in D.C. and I basically got to see the whole city within a matter of hours, just walking in the rain and enjoying the company of a bunch of nerds. I got to see the Washington monument, walk around the mall, look at the capitol building, go to the gardens, I even saw the white house from where I was standing during the teach-ins. I really enjoyed myself and the group of people I chose to go with.