Peer Academic Coaching for Environmental Studies and Sciences
Support for ES 100
cis 226
Peer Academic Coaches available to help you develop your content knowledge and study skills pertaining to the environment. There is no need to sign up. Simply stop by!
| Sun 7-9PM | Tues 7-9PM | Wed 7-9PM |
|---|---|---|
| Holly | Holly | Caroline |
| Aidan | Aidan | Elleanora |
Upcoming Academic Sessions
GMO Discussion & Debate Prep
Tue 11/5, 7-9PM, CIS 226
This event is intended to help students prepare for their GMO Discussion &Debate. The PACs will play the role of moderator and present questions for the students topractice their position.
MEET THE PAC TEAM FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND SCIENCES
Aidan Darling '27 - PAC Captain
Major: Environmental Science Minor: Studio Art 
³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ me: Hi, my name is Aidan! I’m a sophomore, and I’m also on the swim team here at ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ. I’m from Annapolis, MD, so I grew up around the water, and love being out kayaking or going for a swim (shoutout to the Chesapeake Bay).
Why PAC?: I love Environmental Science and want to help anyone in or out of the major find something they can love about it too!
Fav Class: ES 105! The semester-long study of Loughberry Lake was cool and so applicable to our everyday life here in Saratoga Springs. It’s a great intro course for the best field!
Academic Advice: Schedule time every day for a brain break that gets you up and moving. Go for a little walk, throw around a football, or pop into the gym! Getting some energy out and having a dopamine kick helps a TON with studying.
Elleanora da Silva '27
Major: Environmental Studies and Economics 
³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Me: Hello! I’m Ella and am a sophomore. I’m originally from the beautiful island country of Timor-Leste, so I love swimming in the ocean and exploring nature. In my free time, I love to hang out with friends and family, sometimes go food hunting (especially spicy food!), and learn new languages.
Why PAC? As a PAC tutor, I’ll be able to help other fellow students taking ESS classes better understand the subjects and delve more into their interests in the area. This will also be an opportunity for me to learn more, revise, and share with others with similar interests. I’ve always found PAC to be helpful just as a space to focus on one’s work or to get help on ESS-related questions, so I want to contribute to this accommodating space.
Fav Class: My favorite class is definitely ES100 with Karen Kellogg! I especially loved the Discussion and Debate sessions as the class delved into the intricacies of environmental topics like nuclear energy and genetically modified organisms.
Academic Advice: Set realistic goals and priorities. I’ve found it very important to set academic and personal goals that are realistic to my work speed and focus. Usually, I categorize things into different levels of priorities, divide my work into smaller chunks ahead of time, and then start working from the most urgent priorities first. This works like a charm because then an assignment starts becoming less daunting.
Caroline Ettinger-Delong '26
Major: Environmental Studies Minor: Anthropology
³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ me: I am a junior from Potsdam, NY (near the Canadian border). I’m super passionate about environmental and food justice. In my free time, I love to create art, cook, explore new places, take walks in nature, and spend time with my friends and family.
Why PAC?: I love all of the ESS classes I’ve taken so far, and I want to help others better understand environmental issues and concepts (as well as myself) as they are so important and connected to everything. I’ve always found it helpful to work with others when I don’t understand something or want a second opinion; PAC is the perfect space to do that.
Favorite class and why: It’s definitely hard to choose, but I loved taking Environmental Psychology with Professor Harrison Schmitt and learned so much. It was fascinating to think about how humans shape the environment and how the environment shapes us. I would recommend that class to anyone, ESS/psych major or not.
Academic advice: Stay organized and on top of your assignments. I always make a weekly to-do
list to figure out what I need to do, when I need to do it, and keep track of everything.
I find
work so much more manageable when I get assignments done ahead of time.
Holly Staats '26
Major: Environmental Science  Minor: Sociology 
³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ me: Hi there! I’m Holly and I’m from Middlebury, Vermont. Some fun facts about me are that I’m on the ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ swim team and that I spent this past summer soil sampling at a regenerative farm in Rhode Island. In my free time I love hiking, playing guitar, and cooking.
Why PAC?: As an underclassman I would frequent PAC for help understanding things as big as foundational concepts to things as small as how to format a graph in excel. My desire to become a PAC is to provide the same support I was so thankful to receive while keeping my ESS knowledge sharp.
Favorite Class and Why: My favorite class so far has been Environmental Engineering and Sustainability (ES 206), which is taught by Karen Kellogg. In that class you learn about closed-loop designs like eco-machines, anaerobic digestion, and phytoremediation to treat water and soil waste streams, which are so cool!! The course also has many fun field trips, labs, and opportunities to critically analyze and design sustainable solutions to environmental problems.
Academic Advice: Don’t be afraid to use your resources! Take advantage of PAC, your professors' office hours, and classmates to help you study. Also, participate in class! You learn more by being an engaged listener than a passive one. Even if you’re afraid of making a mistake, still try to participate. You’re allowed to make mistakes, it’s called learning