Two diamondback terrapin hatchlings, Artemis and Athena, visited a University of Maryland climate science education course Thursday where students learned about the human-accelerated effects of climate change by interacting with the terrapins.
The class, Decolonizing Climate Change Education: Fostering Inclusivity, Equity, and Holistic Understandings, explores how climate science is taught in K-12 schools, according to Amy Green, the course’s professor. The hatchlings’ visit gave students experience with the species and was a way to increase their interest in conservation and sustainability, the assistant clinical education professor said.
“It’s one thing to learn about animals in general or turtles or terrapins, kind of in the abstract of the textbook,” Green said. “It’s another thing to see one up close, and hold one, and look at one and have it look at you.”
The diamondback terrapins were brought to this university’s education college through the Terrapin Education and Research Partnership. The TERP program places hatchlings from Poplar Island, a Maryland wildlife refuge, in classrooms across the state, according to Green. Professors raise and study the hatchlings, which are later released back into their natural habitat.
[Maryland leaders, fishermen split over proposed Chesapeake Bay preservation bill]
Green referred to the hatchlings as “empathy ambassadors,” or as a way for students to build their empathy with the species. Empathy is a driver for human behavior, ethics and beliefs, and is an important factor in environmental conservation and sustainability, she said.
Assistant clinical education faculty member Angela Stoltz, who has helped take care of the hatchlings since December, described them as “smart and curious.”
She also said having firsthand experience with animals is important for caring for their environments.
“It draws out a different kind of response from a person when you’re able to touch and communicate and use all your senses to observe and come into a relationship with something,” Stoltz said.
During the class, students made connections between human-accelerated climate change and its consequences that affect terrapins, including sea level rise disrupting their marshy habitats and nesting sites, Green said. Warming temperatures also risk skewing the ratio of male to female hatchlings, as a nest’s temperature determines the sex of the terrapin, she added.
Green said the lack of shade on Poplar Island combined with the summer heat during hatching season results in many of the terrapins in the program to be female, including Artemis and Athena.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the diamondback terrapin as a vulnerable species.
“It’s important as we are making sense of some of these issues related to global warming and the changing planet, to make sense of them in the context of some of the non-human species that are impacted,” Green said. “Accelerated climate change is affecting all life on this planet, and not just human life.”
Students also made models to reflect how terrapins interact with their environment and humans’ impact on it, while taking breaks to hold and handle the hatchlings, Green said.
[20 organizations petition to classify diamondback terrapins as endangered species]
Daphne Arthur, a senior human development major, described holding the terrapins as an “unreal experience” that highlighted the importance of viewing the environment beyond a human-focused perspective.
“This whole idea of an empathy ambassador is important,” she said. “We should have a more ecocentric view of animals, of wildlife, of plants — just everything that is not a human — so we can restore the planet.”
Arthur said learning how to implement climate science education into elementary school classrooms is important to influence younger generations to make more sustainable decisions in the future.
Science education doctoral student Gianna Fogelbach, who is taking the class as an independent study, said she thinks it’s important to make climate science accessible to everyone.
“We have some folks who are business majors, who are computer science majors, and they may not get this content in an academic setting outside of K-12 education,” Fogelbach said.
The class of 35 has students from 23 different majors, according to Green.
Fogelbach said it was powerful to see the variety of students who chose to take this class as an elective.
Stoltz hopes the TERP program will become permanent at this university, so both students and the public can learn more about terrapins beyond being a “token mascot.” She said she feels community members have a responsibility to care for the health of terrapins and their ecosystem.
“[Diamondback terrapins] are iconic around here, culturally and ecologically,” Green added.
