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Required Summer Reading for First-Year Students
Accepted Undergraduate Students

"Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" by Bill McKibben

Welcome to ESF! We are looking forward to your participation in the academic community. We are a diverse community of scientists, activists, engineers, writers and landscape architects, yet we share the common goal of exploring and protecting the natural environment. In order to provide common ground for discussions among diverse disciplines, all new first-year students at ESF are required to complete a reading assignment during the summer before arriving on campus (you will need to purchase over the summer).

This year, the ESF First-Year summer reading book will be: Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, by Bill McKibben. You can order the book through your local bookstore or from any of the online bookstores such as amazon.com.

In September, you will be asked to attend a discussion of McKibben's book. To prepare for that discussion, we suggest that you take notes in some way. You could underline and write notes in the margins of the book, you could make an outline on a pad of paper, or you could keep a computer file in which you take note of what you think are the most thought-provoking ideas in the book.

Bill McKibben’s latest book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, looks at the harsh reality of global climate change and offers a vision for living on a changed planet. James E. Hansen, the director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says of the book: "Bill McKibben foresaw ‘the end of nature’ very early on, and in this new book he blazes a path to help preserve nature’s greatest treasures."

First-Year students, we look forward to talking more about this exciting book when you arrive on campus!