Earth and Environment

On Earth Day, Albion College’s new Sustainability Council shares some of the important sustainability initiatives of this past year.

Thomas Wilch, professor of geological sciences, has been teaching his Natural Disasters course for years, but this spring semester the class has taken on a very different, and all-too relatable, feel. And it’s led him to incorporate the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic into the syllabus—now and in the future. “It is,” Wilch says simply, “a teachable moment that every person on the planet is implicated in.”

The annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) attracts 5,000 scientists from around the globe, but Albion College’s presence is not lost there. At this year’s GSA meeting, held in September in Phoenix, Alex Horman, ’20, became the fourth Albion student in 10 years to win Best Undergraduate Poster Presentation at the conference.

There are stories in the rocks, and nothing makes Albion College’s Carrie Menold happier than figuring out the tale they’re trying to tell. With a grant from the National Science Foundation, the associate professor and chair of geological sciences and resident petrologist (rock expert) hopes to tell some of that story with a colleague and friend from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Geology professor Thom Wilch has been invited to help direct the course of Antarctic research funded by the National Science Foundation. This week Wilch began a one-year appointment in Arlington, Virginia, as NSF program director of Antarctic Earth Science in the Division of Polar Programs.