Friday morning was a bittersweet moment. Everybody in the group was elated to have learned so much from so many people in the span of two weeks in Europe. However, Friday was the program’s last, full day. Fortunately, nobody had time to be depressed. It was going to be a jam-packed, whirlwind of a schedule.
The group quickly had breakfast, and then everybody hopped on the train. Robby, our CIEE guide, was taking us all the way to Potsdam, a smaller subsidiary city of Berlin. Potsdam used to be home to the royal families of Prussia and the German empire, and now it is home to the well-to-do’s of Germany. In the morning, though, we took a tour of another important feature of the city: the Potsdam Telegrafenberg.
Two centuries ago, the Prussians used a machine exactly like the one pictured to the left. They are called optical telegraphs. One of these mechanical towers was located every couple dozen miles, stretching all the way from the French border to Potsdam and Berlin. The military would use them to communicate in code, by raising each of the six arms to a certain direction and angle.
The area was not only dedicated to the telegraph system. It was, and remains, a location for an array of world-class research institutes. The group learned that in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, if anybody wanted to become a prominent researcher in astrophysics or geosciences, they needed to come study in Potsdam. For example, Albert Einstein worked in the area for a decent part of his career. He even had his own personally designed facility, the Einstein Tower. It looks like it’s from an early 20th-century sci-fi film set.
It was incredible to learn that so much history in the field of science was made in the area, and that to this day, the campus is still home to seven important research organizations. Among them is the PIK, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the foremost international research institution in the field of climate change. The founding director, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, was the Pope’s climate advisor when he wrote the Papal Encyclical on the Environment. If you want to learn about the effects of climate change, you must visit or study at the PIK. And lucky for us, we were getting a lecture there in the afternoon!
Before that presentation, the group needed lunch to refuel and reorganize. We scurried back into the town of Potsdam. While there, Simon gave us a quick tour of Sans Souci, the personal palace of Frederick the Great. Simon explained the great balls and gatherings that Sans Souci witnessed. Simon’s talk, as always, was very informative.
We quickly had lunch (kebab, per the usual), and then the group headed back to PIK for a very interesting lecture from Jobst Heitzig, a hip researcher in transdisciplinary concepts and methods–he was barefoot! Here is the amazing PIK facility. Our lecture hall was located in the basement.
His discourse specifically pertained to the stability and resilience of power grids, and how renewable energy fluctuations interact with the grid. This presentation was so fascinating to us (probably more to us engineers) because on several occasions Heitzig used terminology and equations that engineers have already learned about. It was great to see expressions like equilibrium, game theory, nodes, and clustering used in real-life applications! We also learned so much about the energy grid, specifically how there is an efficient equilibrium between global and local redundancy. There is so much important research happening at PIK, and it was great hearing from a prominent researcher who is contributing to its success.
With the lecture bordering on almost two hours, we gave our many thanks to Heitzig and busted out of the room to catch our river tour of the many waterways surrounding Potsdam. Luckily, the group made it to the boat on time, and we jumped on for our tour. We saw the former palaces of many Prussian and German nobles and royals, like Schloss Babelsberg pictured here.
After about an hour, we hopped off the boat tour and had our final meal together at a Biergarten on the edge of Berlin (because did you really go to Germany if you didn’t visit a Biergarten?). Everyone was quite emotional, and several shared sentimental thoughts about the trip. The group agreed that we all learned so much and have gotten so close to one another. We also thanked Simon for being a great instructor and friend, and even revealed to him the photo we’d been using for our student group chat: an edited photo of Simon laid before the backdrop of the formidable Maeslantkering storm surge barrier, eyes twinkling with blue lasers, with “sustainability” printed across the photo. Simon was laughing so hard, I think I saw tears. He hopes Marvel will know where to find Sustainability Man when they need him! We concluded that this trip was an amazing experience, and something we will never forget.
From Simon’s Sustainability Squad to you, peace out!
– Ayrton