30 min
Water water everywhere and not enough drops to drink The Round Table: A Next Generation Politics Podcast
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- News Commentary
At this week's Round Table, Inica and Madeline spoke with Bhawani Venkataraman, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chair and Departmental Faculty Advisor for Natural Sciences and Mathematics at The New School. Professor Venkataraman focuses on how chemistry can be made relevant to students and to issues of social justice and equity, and to how to get students thinking deeply and becoming informed voters—pretty cool, right? Connect macro with molecular with social
Making sense of the world today requires integrating multiple disciplines, and so she strives to connect the molecular world with macro social issues. More specifically, Professor Venkataraman’s work tackles challenges around safe drinking water. We all have an intimate relationship w water and know it is essential to keeping us alive but what is it about the properties of good old H2O that makes it so? Water dictates so much about public health, safety, educational opportunities and is a POWERFUL medium for exploring the interconnections of human existence yet we rarely examine its centrality to our way of life, until after a tragedy like Flint, Michigan occurs. Professor Venkataraman works to make the invisible, visible–and visceral! She encourages us not to look at individual issues discreetly but rather to connect dots and look at systems, and to always hold issues of justice and equity at the forefront.
She has a book coming out in February that connects the chemistry of water to the policies and management issues around drinking water, a connection we found fascinating and think you will as well. Life cycles should be at the forefront of policy making, esp for vulnerable populations. As such, Professor Venkataraman’s work also focuses on how best to communicate basic scientific research on issues such as water quality, air pollution, and climate change to non-scientists–something we non-scientists really appreciated. Thank you for listening!
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nextgenpolitics/message
At this week's Round Table, Inica and Madeline spoke with Bhawani Venkataraman, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chair and Departmental Faculty Advisor for Natural Sciences and Mathematics at The New School. Professor Venkataraman focuses on how chemistry can be made relevant to students and to issues of social justice and equity, and to how to get students thinking deeply and becoming informed voters—pretty cool, right? Connect macro with molecular with social
Making sense of the world today requires integrating multiple disciplines, and so she strives to connect the molecular world with macro social issues. More specifically, Professor Venkataraman’s work tackles challenges around safe drinking water. We all have an intimate relationship w water and know it is essential to keeping us alive but what is it about the properties of good old H2O that makes it so? Water dictates so much about public health, safety, educational opportunities and is a POWERFUL medium for exploring the interconnections of human existence yet we rarely examine its centrality to our way of life, until after a tragedy like Flint, Michigan occurs. Professor Venkataraman works to make the invisible, visible–and visceral! She encourages us not to look at individual issues discreetly but rather to connect dots and look at systems, and to always hold issues of justice and equity at the forefront.
She has a book coming out in February that connects the chemistry of water to the policies and management issues around drinking water, a connection we found fascinating and think you will as well. Life cycles should be at the forefront of policy making, esp for vulnerable populations. As such, Professor Venkataraman’s work also focuses on how best to communicate basic scientific research on issues such as water quality, air pollution, and climate change to non-scientists–something we non-scientists really appreciated. Thank you for listening!
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nextgenpolitics/message
30 min