Florida State University Joins RCC Campus Network
Just 22 miles from the gulf and coast, Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, is a bustling city and college town with rolling hills, oak-canopied roads, and genuine Southern hospitality. Tallahassee is home to some major college campuses, Florida State University and Florida A&M University
RCC’s Assistant Director of Climate Justice, Isabella (Bella) Jaramillo visited Tallahassee to speak with students at her alma mater, Florida State University, which has undergraduate and graduate programs in earth, ocean, and atmospheric sciences. Jaramillo talked about the opportunities offered through the RCC Fellowship Program for FSU students to carry out environmental projects as part of the RCC national campus network.
Jaramillo attended a general body meeting of FSU’s Environmental Service Program and met with Dr. Tyler McCreary’s honors environmental justice class where she spoke to over 50 students about RCC’s fellowship program. Jaramillo was also the key speaker at the FSU Surfrider chapter meeting, a club she founded during her time as an undergraduate at FSU. She spoke of the importance of Rachel Carson’s long-standing work and relevance for today, the importance of practical and applied scientific knowledge, and why storytelling is crucial in environmental organizing.
Jaramillo’s trip coincided with one of Tallahassee’s most remarkable natural phenomena. The great monarch butterfly migration, like that which so moved Rachel Carson and her friend Dorothy Freeman in Maine. The Florida migration takes place during October and November of every year and is celebrated in an annual Monarch Butterfly Festival at the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, one of the oldest wildlife refuges in the United States, a half hour south of Tallahassee.
Following Jaramillo’s visit, Florida State University became the 62nd member of the Rachel Carson Council Campus Network.
“But most of all I shall remember the monarchs, that unhurried westward drift of one small winged form after another, each drawn by some invisible force.” — Rachel Carson