Terrascope

Terrascope is a learning community with curricula designed to give students the tools to address important, complex problems that require integrative, multidisciplinary solutions. Students work as part of an interdisciplinary team to solve problems related to the Earth’s environment and sustainability and that offer a unique way to explore the feedbacks that characterize the behavior of complex dynamical systems.

During the fall term, Terrascope students explore how teams of scientists and engineers approach difficult problems that require multidisciplinary approaches. Solutions are published on a class website and participants defend their work before a panel of outside experts. This final presentation is broadcast live over the internet. In the spring, students develop and expand some of the solutions proposed in the fall. Students fulfill General Institute Requirements by attending mainstream core subjects with other first-year students.

Terrascope students are advised by faculty and staff affiliated with the program. Fieldwork and close interactions with researchers and others are an important part of the Terrascope experience. Terrascope students attend weekly lunch seminars during which researchers and others speak about their work. Students in the program can choose to participate in a weeklong field trip over spring break to a site related to the year’s work. Past locations have included Abu Dhabi, Alaska, the Amazon rainforest, Arizona, Chile, the Galapagos Islands, Iceland, and New Orleans.

Why focus on Earth?

Many students who participate in Terrascope do so because they are curious about the Earth system -- how it works, how it has changed over the 4.567 billion years of earth history, and how it will change in the future. Some will want to learn what they can do to promote responsible stewardship of the planet. But Terrascope isn't just for students with an interest in the Earth sciences or the environment. Terrascope students come from many different areas across MIT.

Terrascope is a great way for anyone to explore the remarkable feedback relationships that characterize the behavior of complex dynamical systems, using Earth as a giant laboratory.

Most first-year subjects at MIT focus only on the basics. Terrascope gives students a head start on learning how to deal with urgent real-world problems that have no simple solutions. Large-scale problems are usually solved by teams of researchers working across the boundaries that separate traditional disciplines. In Terrascope, studnets get to work as part of a cross-disciplinary team at the very beginning of their undergraduate career.

Terrascope began as an educational component of MIT's Earth System Initiative. Terrascope's goals are: to provide first year students with experiential learning as an alternative to the traditional lecture format of MIT’s core program; to show that Earth Systems provide a context for learning how to frame and solve complex problems using an integration of science, engineering and the humanities; to teach students how to do independent research and work in teams; to improve all types of communications skills; and foremost to create and provide a community of scholars that will nurture and support one other throughout their MIT career. In 2002, Terrascope incorporated the class Solving Complex Problems (12.000) as a required class for the fall semester and to establish the Terrascope theme for the year. Also in 2002, the class 1.016 was initiated for the Spring semester with the goal of teaching students how to communicate complex scientific issues to the public by designing and building museum exhibits.

Terrascope joined MIT's cluster of learning communities when it admitted its first group of freshmen in the fall of 2002. Terrascope’s home is on the first floor of Building 16 where the administrative offices are located as well as the Terrascope learning center (Room 16- 177). In 2002-3, students focused on ways to monitor the ecological systems of the rainforest and devise strategies for ensuring its future health. The highlight of the year was a spring break trip to the Brazilian Amazon. In 2003-4, students turned their attention to an issue that has captured significant media attention: proposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The year culminated in a weeklong visit to Alaska. In 2004-5, protecting the delicate ecology of the Galapagos became the focus of attention. Students balanced their classroom work with a week in the Galapagos under sponsorship of the Luce Foundation. In 2005-6 students focused their work on developing an early warning system for tsunamis in the Pacific region, followed by a weeklong field visit to Chile. Most recently, they proposed a redevelopment plan for New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and visited New Orleans.

Three years ago Terrascope developed Terrascope Radio (MIT subject SP 360). This subject satisfies the Institute humanities communication requirement. Student teams work to produce, assemble, narrate, record and broadcast/webcast radio programs on topics related to the theme of the year.

Terrascope is sponsored by the Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education and draws its administration and faculty from the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth and Planetary Sciences. The Directorship of Terrascope is on a two year rotation.