If you are as romantic as I am, you would go to the beach or enjoy looking at water, as water is the main source of life. However, a scientist looks at water differently, he or she looks at it as a combination of oxygen and hydrogen, and also sometimes mineral, and other things that can affect the water quality. Now the water I am talking about here is the drinking water. Where does it come from?
Drinking water can come from wells, from rainwater, from springs, from natural lakes, or from seawater after it was purified ( I worked in a smelter that did this and our water was used by the whole of the city). Once while converting the water to steam to generate electricity, a turtle came in the area, and we were all worried about it. The turtle was healthy, and all we did is to return it to the sea. We had a group just looking after the health of the environment that surrounded us. Those that looked after the sea life, and those that made sure that oil is not spilled. All of these people had studied environmental science, marine science, geology, Marine Biology, Marine engineering, Marine Ecology and Aquaculture, marine biochemistry, marine mammal science, Oceanography, Limnology, Biogeochemistry, Ecology, Evolution, etc.
In general, a student who is interested in saving the earth and making life possible for our future generation will opt to study these majors; studies prove that if we do not look after our water and water sources, we will all perish and die. For example, I want you to remember the tsunami that happened in 2004 in areas like Japan, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and many others on that region, what did the water do? Whether it’s a lot of water or lack of it, we must know what to do. We must find out the causes of these natural calamities, we must know what is affecting the global warming, are we going to have snow at all in the future? Can we still go diving if we wanted to? Will we eat fish? Are there going to be fish at all? Or are we going to kill them with our environmental unfriendliness?
I can give so many examples of how studying about the water and the life within it, as there are many stories, but I cannot stress more on the importance of studying these subjects. Did you know that Antarctica may not be there for long? Can we reverse this? Can we make life in Antarctica better for the penguins and the other animals? Can the albatross live? Or is it going to feed on the trash that we through in the sea? Can the Sperm whales live again? All of this work is part of the studies when you become a marine scientist, you will be saving these species. As a marine/environmental scientist, you will not only be saving these species, you will also making life possible for all of us, and for our future generations.