Grad Assistant Liz Bowman guest lectures at Washington high school
October 28, 2019
Questions of conflict and climate change often refer to the unique situation of the Arctic, a region characterized by a unique geopolitical landscape and some of the most significant impacts of global warming. Liz Bowman, a University of Alaska Graduate Student Assistant for the Center of Arctic Policy Studies, has examined these intersections in her research on China’s engagement in the Arctic.
Bowman was recently invited to share her expertise with a group of high school students at Garfield-Palouse High School in Palouse, WA (outside of Moscow, ID) as part of follow-up event to the University of Idaho’s 2019 Borah Symposium on “Climate and Conflict.” Faculty at the Martin Institute and Program in International Studies at the University of Idaho reached out to Bowman, who completed her bachelor’s degree in International Studies there in 2014, to share her Arctic expertise following a talk by US Naval Captain Shaun C. McAndrew on “Considerations on the U.S. Navy and Climate in the Arctic” on October 8.
The goal of Bowman’s invited talk was to help round out the high school students’ experience as part of a “comprehensive Arctic day” after attending the formal Borah Symposium talk. “My discussion with them [was] more generic about how the Arctic functions politically and what connections they can draw locally to the Arctic,” said Bowman, who video conferenced in for the event.
Outreach activities, such as Bowman’s guest lecture, make current research at the University of Alaska more accessible and are one of the key functions of CAPS. As a Graduate Assistant with CAPS, Bowman is also working on a paper on China in the Arctic, which will be published later this fall.