Letter to your grandchild

      Introduction Given that our current situation is a once in a century event the idea of giving a traditional final seems contrary to what we should be doing as a part of our studies and work. That thought seems especially relevant since we are a Jesuit university where meaning is often achieved through service to others that is grounded in thoughtful reflection. In this regard, we are going to treat our final something in the same vein as the word “Selah” plays in passages throughout Psalms in encouraging one to pause and consider what was just said or read. The purpose of our final is to help us to pause and consider what the current situation has meant to us and how upon thoughtful consideration, you would be able to explain the nature of this event to your future grandchildren. In school a common assignment that is given to children is for them to go home and interview a family member about what it was like 40, 50, 60 or more years ago. We are going to flip the idea around and create a document or a type of media where you explore how the pandemic has impacted you, the people around you, the positive things you observed, experienced, and saw, and what lessons (particularly about science) you think should be learned from this experience. Those lessons learned could be about anything included how the lessons learned from our global reaction to the pandemic could be used to address climate change, how people reacted in terms of helping each other, what did we learn about controlling a pandemic (after-all these things seem to appear roughly every 100 years as there was one in 1918 and in the early 1800s and 1700s). Lastly, be sure to explore what you learned about scientific aspects regarding the virus (this could be anything, looking at data, how the virus works, etc…) and what potential implications your new knowledge could have if you were an advisor to a governor or other leader (after-all this is technically a science class).