September 9, 2024: Scavenger Hunt
by Jose Meza-Pantoja
I waited for the SPARK class to begin. It was the third week of the fall semester, and yet it was our first time meeting together for a class. I got there several minutes early and took a seat. There weren’t many people there with me, just one or two waiting in their seat like I was. The room was filled with silence and the time seemed to drag. Like all classrooms in the Admin building, the room was very plain, colored by varying shades between black and white. The colors just seemed to slow down time even more.
Then the door opened, and it felt like a switch was turned on. People began arriving in pairs and groups. The dull lifeless colors of the room were now being overpowered by something brighter and stronger. It was green. Our first class activity was a scavenger hunt, where students would find different locations around the UC Merced campus while wearing their Carson House t-shirts, which were a bright green color. Now there were 20 bright green T-shirts talking and moving around the room, filling the room with energy.
The silence washed away and was replaced by noise. The noise came from people moving around the room and, surprisingly, talking! As a 3rd year UC Merced student, I’ve never been in a class with that sort of atmosphere; everybody was eager to talk with one another and didn’t hesitate to begin. The prevalence of smartphones has caused a culture in which students are very hesitant to strike up conversations. It is so much easier to be distracted and pass the time on your phone than to put the effort into starting and maintaining a conversation. This did not seem to be a problem for the Carson House students. Prior to our first class, LLC-exclusive events were hosted to allow students to connect with one another and now I was seeing these connections being brought over to the classroom.
In short time, the class began, and the students were arranged into different groups t
o begin the scavenger hunt. I started the walk over from the Admin building to the UC Merced Library. It was a hot Merced summer afternoon, and the groups scattered around the campus in different directions. As I walked over and looked around, flashes of green could be seen all around campus.
I got to the library and took a seat. I was stationed near the Yosemite Seasons mural, one of the checklist items for the Scavenger Hunt. Even though I had worked at the library for two years, I had never really taken the time to sit down and look at the mural before. In the summer light, it was beautiful. The checklist items were chosen for their practical utility, like the Iris Booth which gives undergraduates a place to get professional headshots for free; their importance as landmarks on campus, like the New Beginnings Statue; and because of their relevance to sustainability, like the solar panels on SE2.
At the end of the scavenger hunt, everybody returned to class, but not where we started in the Admin building, but rather in the Student Services Building. On top of taking the SPARK class, all Carson LLC students also had to take Intro to Environmental Communications (EH001), which takes place immediately after our SPARK class across campus. The end of our SPARK class seemed to blur with the beginning of the EH001 class, as SPARK students waited for class to begin while EH001 students began coming into the classroom and signing in. Despite the SPARK class being over, bright green could still be seen moving around the room and the class never went silent. Even in this big lecture room, the connections made in the LLC and its SPARK course remained. Overall, the SPARK class began on a great note, exemplifying the special connections and experiences between students only LLCs are able to create, connections that will be built on over the course of the semester and the rest of the student’s time at UC Merced.
