BROWN UNIVERSITY undergraduate Mara Quinn, center, works with teachers and students in an outdoor garden at Fortes Elementary School in Providence. / COURTESY BROWN UNIVERSITY
Brown University junior Sophie Purdom, an environmental economist, was sharing tea with a fellow student and geologist in the kitchen at the Building for Environmental Research and Teaching in late October, when their conversation took a productive turn. “She said she does research on the changing geography of the Arctic as climate change melts the…