Four from region travel the world to study climate

HIRAM — Four area students are among a group of 19 people from Hiram College about halfway through a 12-week intensive field trip that is literally taking then around the world.

They are spending their time studying the impact of climate change.

The journey is part of a Hiram class — “Biomes of the World” — an interdisciplinary program examining the impact of climate change on people and the environment by looking at selected terrestrial, freshwater, marine and human-dominated “biomes,” which are ecological units that correlate with regional climate types and life-form responses.

The 16 Hiram students and one alumnus are being led by two Hiram professors and will visit nine destinations — Alaska, Hawaii, Thailand, India, Maldives, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Turkey and Germany.

The local students on the trip are Megan Taylor and Matthew J. Wilson of Cortland, Angela L. Booher of East Liverpool and Daniel Factor of Hiram.

Taylor, a senior biology major, is keeping a running log of their adventures, reporting her observations of the trip at aroundtheworldwithmegan.blogspot.com.

The trip began Jan. 20, and the students will be back in the United States March 29.

They are following in the footsteps of German naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt, who proposed that similar regional climates produce similar morphological responses. Students become modern-day “natural historians,” recording their observations while deciphering the impact of global warming on themselves, the biomes and the indigenous people. Students examine the science behind global warming and the ways in which various cultures respond to rapid climate change.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.