Mr. Billy McGuire’s Takeaway
By Spencer Villanueva '21
While the whole world seems to be shut inside these days, outside, nature is in full bloom. Upper School Science Teacher Billy McGuire took advantage of this year’s Earth Day to teach his environmental science students about the effects of COVID-19 and quarantine on the environment.
Mr. McGuire describes spring semester of AP environmental science as “depressing.” The topics discussed revolve around the destruction of the environment and ecosystems. However, this year, there is a bit more hope.
To round out their learning of the first Earth Day in 1970, Mr. McGuire showed his students a sermon by the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, an author, retreat leader, and priest who spoke about how nature is thriving during our time of self isolation. She talked about the decreasing pollution and carbon dioxide levels which illustrate just how directly humans impact the environment.
“My students enjoyed the sermon because it gave them some hope,” Mr. McGuire said. It is important to have hope in these dark times, and find a silver lining. Mr. McGuire enjoyed the sermon because of how Rev. Dr. Bullitt-Jonas “tied the situation to the Gospel.” She used the story of Thomas doubting Jesus’ resurrection to tell us to not doubt our scientists whether it is about the environment or the coronavirus.
“There are people out there trying to undermine scientists,” said Mr. McGuire. These people deny that humans are responsible for climate change or even ignore quarantine laws. This rapid improvement of the environment indicates otherwise and demonstrates that some good can come out of a bad situation.
“The earth is resilient,” said Mr. McGuire. “This improvement will only last for as long as we are in quarantine, but it proves that the earth can improve so quickly and drastically by just changing our habits.” If people have the opportunity to get away from their screens, I would tell them to enjoy nature with all this time we’re given.”