I finally made it to San Francisco for AGU’s Fall Meeting, despite some delays in Seattle. I unfortunately missed out on the Muir Woods field trip, however.
Today we started out with the public talk about NASA’s MAVEN mission to Mars. Check out my Storify story below for the best tweets from the session:
After that, we did some sightseeing around Northern San Francisco (stay tuned for a later post about that!). Around 7, we headed over to AGU’s first “Game Night” session, where we played geosciences games. My favorite was EcoChains: Arctic Crisis developed by a team at Columbia University (and sponsored by Polar Partnership).
Playing “Ecochains Arctic Crisis” at #AGU14 game night! @PoLAR_CCEP pic.twitter.com/YXW0jftu63 — Abbey Dufoe (@abbeydufoe) December 15, 2014
The game focuses first on the delicately balanced Arctic ecosystem that usually hinges on sea ice. Throughout the game, you build your ecosystem, but hazards can change it up.
Oh no! Carbon pollution melted my sea ice 😦 @PoLAR_CCEP #AGU14 pic.twitter.com/eltZXtUZ1m
— Abbey Dufoe (@abbeydufoe) December 15, 2014
The “Carbon Pollution” cards make you “melt” your sea ice, which either kills your ecosystem or makes them migrate on to your partner’s piles. Other cards, like over-harvesting, also threaten your chain. Other actions can make up for the loss of sea ice. Cards containing instructions for policy protection and alternative energy creation can help rebuild your ecosystem, one card of sea ice at a time.
Follow me on Twitter for my live coverage of the events I attend, as I’m a digital student volunteer. Tomorrow is my poster presentation, sessions and the student mixer.
Abbey Dufoe 