K.R. Gastreich's Blog, page 6
May 17, 2019
Where Magic Resides
WordPress friends, my apologies leaving you alone for so long! Honestly, I do not know where this semester went. Every time I wanted to sit down and write an update, time was whisked away by some pressing commitment.
I won’t mourn being off line. I never do. Life feels more real when I’m away from this space. Challenges that take me off the internet always bring me closer to people – family, friends, colleagues – and the organic world in which we live.
I want to share some extraordinary experiences with you from this spring. First, there was the 5th Life Discovery Conference (LDC) that I attended in Gainesville, Florida back in March. LDC is a Biology Science Education conference. This semester the central theme was biodiversity across scale, space, and time. The conference brought together educators from K-12 through undergraduate levels. I presented two talks at this conference, an eBird module that I developed for my conservation biology course, and a related work-in-progress on bumble bee biodiversity. LDC was highly interactive, with productive workshops, discussion tables, and lively exchanges during presentations. I came away deeply inspired by the people I met and the many ideas they shared about biodiversity and education.
[image error]Sharing my KC Bee research a the MGL-SER conference in Pella, IA.
Another great conference I attended was the annual meeting of the Midwest Great Lakes Society for Ecological Restoration (MGL-SER). Like LDC, I’d never attended an MGL-SER meeting. In fact, up until last year, I never considered myself a restoration ecologist. But I work on restored prairies now, so this was a club I needed to check out. Again like LDC, I came away deeply inspired.
More than a meeting of ecologists, MGL-SER brought together a network of professionals who work in various aspects of restoration, including farmers, city planners, and highway construction managers, to name a few. It made me reflect once more on the fact that for all the noise we hear on the internet, we sometimes find very little news – at least, not of the sort that inspires hope.
Did you know, for example, that for three decades the Iowa Department of Transportation has been restoring prairie within road rights-of-way? They’ve planted 202 square kilometers of native grasses and wildflowers, just along federal, state, county, and city roadsides! I mean, I had no idea. And Iowa’s right next door to where I live.
There were many juicy tidbits like this: amazing work done by great people from all walks. Sink your head too deep into the internet, and you might never hear about it. But get out there and talk to real people in the real world doing real work? You might just find your tribe – and your inspiration.
Speaking of inspirational tribes, no spring semester is complete without Dollbaby Week, my yearly retreat with some of the most powerful women I know, free spirits and writers all, whose companionship replenishes my soul. We wrote, we shared, we howled at the moon. We released our burdens from this past year and made our wishes for the future. We saw foxes and fishing hawks and even a whale.
That’s right – a whale! For the first time from our house on Virginia Beach, we spotted one of the ocean’s largest and most stunning creatures just off shore, swimming with the dolphins. It was one of the most magical moments I’ve ever experienced, and I hope to carry in my heart for a very long time.
[image error]Dollbaby Week at Virginia Beach.
March 9, 2019
Saving the bees of Grand Staircase-Escalante
Taking a moment this week to give a shout out to my friend and colleague Matt Kelly, who together with biologists Olivia Carril and Joe Wilson, has launched a crowdfunding campaign centered on the incredible bee community of Grand Staircase-Escalante.
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is an extraordinary site in terms of bee diversity, housing some 660 native species. This rivals the number of bee species found – just 770 – in all the U.S. states found east of the Mississippi. Matt and crew not only want to go back to Grand Staircase-Escalante and find out what is happening with this very special and diverse community, they would like to make a film to tell the world about it.
You can contribute: Visit their ioby site to learn more about the project, contribute at a level that’s comfortable for you. No amount is too small – every dollar will make a difference for this very important research and science communication effort.
I’ll leave it at that and let you go elsewhere to learn more. Thank you for stopping by and for your interest in saving the bees!
The Bees of Grand Staircase-Escalante trailer from Matt Kelly on Vimeo.
February 5, 2019
Turning Point Revisited
In 2007, I sold my first short story, ‘Turning Point,’ to the speculative fiction journal ZAHIR.
Set in the highland forests of Costa Rica, ‘Turning Point’ chronicles the tensions between three field entomologists who must decide what to do when a faerie falls into one of their malaise traps.
The meticulous Ruth, dedicated to documentation and hard facts, argues in favor of preserving the hapless creature in ethanol. The nameless protagonist, through whose eyes this story is told, can’t bear to sacrifice their extraordinary find for the sake of science. Instead, she tries to record the faerie’s existence through photographs and sketches – but a creature of magic can’t be documented by human technology, so all her efforts fail.
Caught between the hard-nosed Ruth and the fanciful protagonist, a young grad student, Jenn, manages to strike a balance between remaining focused on science and accommodating a world where faeries exist – even if proof of them cannot be had.
In the end the protagonist, unable to reconcile science and magic, feels forced to choose between two worlds. Submitting to the realm of magic, she vanishes with the faerie into the forest deep.
Lately I’ve been reflecting on this story, wondering what would happen if that protagonist came back today, stepping out of the faerie ring to reconnect with the world she’d left behind?
In the final scene of ‘Turning Point,’ as she hovered on the edge of the realm of magic, the protagonist’s thoughts turned toward what might happen in the mortal world after her disappearance. Of all the possibilities she pondered, not once did the enchanted entomologist ask, “Will insects survive after I’m gone?”
Just ten years after my protagonist stepped into the faerie ring, we are now reading about the insect apocalypse. What seemed unimaginable – a precipitous decline, even a collapse, of insect populations – is being documented across multiple studies worldwide.
[image error]If I were to write a ‘Turning Point part II,’ it might feature a protagonist shocked to return to a world with 75% fewer insects than the one she left behind.
News entire communities of insects are caught in a downward spiral would have astounded the main character of ‘Turning Point.’ How could such a thing be conceived? In grad school, we used to joke how easy it was to get collecting permits because no one cared if insects were killed; their abundance was taken for granted. (I cared, but that’s a topic for another day.)
Yet in the twelve years that passed between the time I finished grad school and the year I sold ‘Turning Point,’ studies had already documented declining species in different localities. Indeed, when Issue 17 of ZAHIR was published, the Kreffeld Entomological Society had gathered about two-thirds of the data that would stun the scientific world by documenting a 75% drop in insect biomass in German nature reserves – nature reserves, mind you. Protected areas that should be buffered from the impact of human mismanagement.
My protagonist, it seems, stepped out of this world at precisely the moment when highly skilled entomologists like her were needed the most.
Fortunately, Ruth and Jenn stayed on task. I imagine them these past ten years working hard on various aspects of this problem. Ruth has gathered as much data as she can. Jenn, perhaps, has been bridging the gap between the data-drenched world of science and the broader public – getting the word out in manageable bites.
Insects are the engine that run this planet. Yes, they can be annoying and have a reputation as pests, but the vast majority serve critical purposes within every ecosystem. The fact of the matter is we cannot live without them. They perform millions of unseen jobs that keep us alive, happy, and healthy. And they should have been the hardiest part of this planet. They were supposed to take everything we threw at them and still survive. Every. Single. Time.
I cannot tell you how deeply disturbing it is for me, as a life-long ecologist, to watch the sum total of the data coming in. The fact that insect populations are failing so dramatically shakes me to the core. It is unlike anything I have seen in the scientific literature over the past three decades.
What would happen if the protagonist of ‘Turning Point’ were released from the faerie realm today, if she stepped out of the ring to discover the forest she once loved was now silent and devoid of insects?
She’d be horrified by the specter of ecological collapse. After overcoming the initial shock, she would descend from the mountain, find Ruth and Jenn, and get back to work. Together, they would do everything in their power to reverse this terrible trend – and they would implore all of us to do the same.
Looking for a way to get involved? A good place to start is the Xerces Society. They can direct you to several opportunities, from simple backyard conservation tips to regional citizen science programs where you can participate directly in monitoring insect species of conservation interest. Don’t put this off; the time is now. Every small effort makes a big difference.
January 22, 2019
Farewell, Friend and Colleague
We got off to a sad start this semester with the passing of our dean at the College of Science and Health, Dr. Larry Garrison Sullivan.
Larry’s death was unexpected and came just a few days before the start of classes. He had served Avila University for 47 years and was my dean and supervisor since I joined the faculty in 2006.
Larry was the person who first called to tell me I would be offered the position that would bring me back to my hometown of Kansas City, after some two decades of living and working in Costa Rica. He presided over a School – recently designated a College – where collaboration and mutual respect were ideals to be sought after and upheld.
He was very conflict-averse; he did not enjoy upsetting people and while I never asked him directly, I often thought this must have been the most difficult aspect of his job, because you can’t be a dean without upsetting someone at some point. Larry always listened, even to blunt criticism and even when his faculty got angry – and we could be quite curmudgeonly! He always found something positive to say about every situation, no matter how seemingly dire.
One of Larry’s greatest gifts as an administrator was that his meetings were always well-organized, concise and to the point. Meetings never ran over time, yet he still somehow found a way to allow everyone a chance for input.
He loved our students, every single one of them. He always saw the greater potential of each individual, no matter where that person came from or what challenges they were facing. It’d be difficult to count the number of people in this world now who owe some aspect of their happiness and professional success to the faith Dr. Sullivan had in them, and the support he gave.
I miss Larry. It’s so hard to imagine Avila University without him. Yet here are, almost two weeks after his death, moving forward with classes, students, projects. It’s what he’d want us to do, of course. Nothing was more important than the students and this institution that he dedicated most of his life to.
But sometimes when death happens, I wish I could stop the clock, stand still in time and fully absorb, for one more precious moment, everything the world was when the person who’s now gone was still here.
Rest in peace, Dr. Sullivan. You were well-loved, and you will always be well-remembered.
December 21, 2018
City of Reconciliation
Whenever I’m away from internet for an extended period, it’s because real life has once again insisted on taking me back into its organic embrace. This is always a good thing.
Over Thanksgiving, I had the great privilege of visiting the city of Berlin, where I stayed for ten days visiting friends (who are nearly family) and attending a workshop in landscape genomics run by Physalia at the Stadt Universität. Upon returning home, I was sucked into the end-of-semester whirlwind of final exams and grading and general holiday merry making. Today is Winter Solstice, and as I look toward the longest night of 2018, I stand in awe of the year that has gone by.
Berlin is an extraordinary city. As many times as I’ve been to Germany, I’ve never had the opportunity to properly explore its torn and healing heart; this historic city that has lived through glory, terror, war, and division to become a modern-day, world-class center for culture, politics, media and science.
The word that kept returning to mind when I was in Berlin was reconciliation. I saw how reconstruction can erase division as I traced the line of the Berlin Wall and moved freely between neighborhoods formerly divided between east and west. I witnessed how the German people have openly confronted the brutal history of the 1930s and 40s through museums and monuments that chronicle the awful consequences of white supremacist ideology and the Nazi machine that enforced it.
Eighty years ago, the powers that ruled this city tried to crush its complexity and diversity. Shortly thereafter, Berlin was bombed to the ground and then torn asunder by communists and capitalists who were allies turned enemies. Now, after undertaking the challenging process of reunification, Berlin lives and breathes again, one hundred percent diversely German and also home to people from all over the world.
Not a day passed when I didn’t hear a new language on the bus or in the streets. Individuals whose grandparents fled this city in fear for their lives have now returned and reclaimed their citizenship, welcomed as honored scholars, happy to consider Berlin their home with its vibrant intellectual life and bustling city center, its museums and theaters, its bustling markets and peaceful neighborhoods.
Reconciliation.
The word permeated my workshop, as well, though in a different way.
“Landscape genomics” is the study of genetic diversity across complex terrains. It’s a very exciting and emerging field that integrates genetic data with computer mapping technologies, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS). I don’t know if my research will eventually extend into landscape genomics, but there are tools from the field that I want to use.
For example, I would like to explore mapping technologies to estimate the likelihood that native bees will be able to travel between habitat patches in urban landscapes. Coupled with this, I would like to use genetic data to determine whether bees from different habitat patches are able to meet and mate with each other.
Both of these questions are important because bees in small, isolated populations are more likely to go extinct. If we can determine to what extent bees are able to move from one suitable habitat to another, this will help us make good management decisions that contribute to bee survival and diversity.
During the workshop, I realized that all the participants, like me, are involved in projects connected to the impact of human activity. For example, one of the participants is studying the long-term impact of radioactive fallout from Chernobyl on mammalian populations; another is trying to get a handle on how to better control the pine bark beetle, which continues to ravage forests of the North American continent; a third is looking at mechanisms of controlling the spread of chagas disease in Central America. Whether the focus is conservation, pest control, or public health, there is an underlying need to restore balance to a situation; to reconcile some difficult aspect of the interface between humans and the natural world.
We all have a tough job ahead of us. We were a good group of biologists at this workshop, but occasionally grim in our outlook for the world. I’ve said this elsewhere, but oh, how the field has changed since I began my professional journey as a graduate student! Back then, we were concerned about protecting natural and pristine environments – and there seemed quite a lot left to protect. Today wilderness continues to dwindle, and while we push to preserve what little is left, we turn our attention increasingly to restoring what we have lost.
Thirty years ago, I would never have considered Kansas City a possible haven for critical bee habitat. Now I know I have see every inch of the planet in this way: As a place where nature and people might live together again.
As a stage that’s been primed for reconciliation.
November 10, 2018
Battle of the Bees
The number of bees we’ve identified from our summer collection topped 160 this week. We won’t finish identifying all the specimens collected before the deadline for my student’s final written report, but we’ll get through most of it. She’ll certainly have enough data to say some interesting things.
Between our garden and prairie sites, we’ve mapped out some twenty genera divided among five families. Within genera there are multiple species, but that likely won’t get sorted out until the spring. It’s been a tough journey, keying out all these organisms. One bee can take anywhere from a few minutes to hours. Even then, we have to wait for expert confirmation, at least in some cases, to make sure we got this right.
This week, though, I could tell how much I’ve learned as I whipped through a set of specimens under the scope. I know now the moment I look at a bee what characters to jot down, what will likely be important in determining its final identity. I also have a gestalt feel for where things belong in the grand scheme of bee classification.
Even the statement, “I haven’t seen this before,” is now useful information – because the list of bees I haven’t seen is getting smaller relative to the list of bees I have.
Since I began learning how to identify bees, one character has been the bane of my existence: facial foveae. Like bulerías in flamenco dance, facial foveae should be fun and whimsical. But they’re just hard, and I don’t get them.
“What are facial foveae?” you say.
I’m so glad you asked!
Facial foveae are shallow depressions found on the face of bees, just between the eyes. If you google “facial foveae,” you’ll find a diagram that shows where they can be found, with facial foveae clearly marked as stippled ovals. Something like this:
[image error]
Should be easy, right? Except when you look at a real bee face, this is what you see:
[image error]Andrena fragilis, Discoverlife.org
Now, I ask you: How am I supposed to know whether there are foveae beneath all the fuzz on that cute little face? Especially when pretty much every bee out there has fuzz on its cute little face? You have to get the angle and the lighting just right and most importantly, you have to train your eye to recognize what you’re looking for.
Facial foveae tripped me up for the first time just over a year ago, when I sat down to identify my very first bee from Jerry Smith Park. I thought I saw facial foveae where there were none. As a result, I misidentified a species of Melissodes as Andrena – putting the bee not only in the wrong genus but the wrong family.
How could I make such an embarrassing mistake, you ask? Well, to give you an idea, here’s an example of what a Melissodes face looks like:
[image error]Melissodes trinodis, Discoverlife.org
Compare this image to the Andrena above, and you tell me: Which of these two is the obvious case of a bee with facial foveae?
Elementary, my dear Watson. It’s the first one, of course! Right? Right?
See what I’m saying?
Now, as you work with bees not only do you learn how to see facial foveae, you learn there are other characters that can be used to distinguish one genus from another. Melissodes, for example, also have a particular color pattern to their antennae. But sooner or later, you have to nail down hard characters like facial foveae if you want to be a successful bee taxonomist.
This past spring, we collected several Andrena that finally allowed me to have a first-hand look at the “velvety facial foveae” that set them apart from all other bees. That made me a very happy camper and greatly shored up my confidence in my bee identification skills.
Summer passed. Autumn arrived. The number of bees I identified passed the 100 mark, then the 150 mark, and then a couple weeks ago, I ran into something that looked like this:
[image error]Heriades carinata, Discoverlife.org
I sat back from my microscope and thought, “Okaaay…Are those ‘velvety facial foveae’ or is that just fuzz between the eyes?”
With this one question, almost all the confidence I’d gained identifying bees flew out the window. I mean, I didn’t think I was seeing facial foveae, but how could I be sure?
And if those were facial foveae and this was an Andrena, it almost certainly meant I’d misidentified the other bees from earlier in the season. Those bees had been large and fairly robust, while this one was itty bitty, black and bullet-shaped.
And if I’d misidentified that first batch of spring bees, for all I knew, I’d misidentified the last 100 bees I’d gone through because gosh darnit how am I supposed to know whether I’m recognizing all these crazy obscure characters correctly?!
Fortunately, nowadays biologists have more than one resource to work with when identifying our critters. In addition to Mike Ardhuser’s Key to Missouri Bees, which has been my primary reference for Jerry Smith Park, I use the colloquial but very handy The Bees in Your Backyard by Joseph S. Wilson and Olivia Messenger Carroll. I also have a list of bees previously collected at Jerry Smith. By cross-referencing this list with Discoverlife.org and my other resources, I was able to confirm my new bee belongs not to Andrena but to the genus Heriades, part of the family Megachilidae.
Heriades do not have facial foveae, just fuzz between the eyes. They are overwhelmingly cute, and not just because they’re tiny. They are widespread, but not many species are known; only three native species have been recorded east of the rocky mountains. These little bees nest in cavities in wood, or occasionally in pine cones.
Yes, that’s right – they nest in pine cones from pine trees. I guess that makes Heriades the original Christmas tree bee! So Happy Holidays, my bee friends from around the globe. May your winter nights be warm and joyful, and filled with fuzzy facial foveae.
October 26, 2018
100th Bee
Not too long ago, I hit a milestone in the native bee project I’ve been working on with my Avila honors student, Laura Presler: We identified the 100th wild bee in our summer research collection.
A lot of people out there have identified many more bees than that, so by some standards 100 bees is no great shakes. But for me, it’s an important milestone. Certainly, I know a lot more about prairie bees now than I did 100 bees ago.
Bee No. 100 has a unique identifier in our collection: LP18100. “LP” indicates Laura’s initials; “18” the year in which her project was (will be) completed. And 100, of course, this bee’s place in the long line of specimens that we’re identifying for her study.
Bee No. 100 belongs to the species Augochlora pura, a small metallic green bee that you might recognize as the sweat bee. They are beautiful bees with colors that range from iridescent turquoise to sun-fire orange-green.
During the summer months, you can find them on wildflowers where they not only feed on pollen and nectar, but also court and mate. In fact, males dedicate their lives to waiting on flowers in hopes of wooing the females. (How romantic is that?)
Females who mate then lay eggs in burrows made in rotting wood. They supply those burrows with food for the larvae. Unlike many bees, A. pura lead solitary lives. They may collect in small groups where they nest, but they do not form large colonies or have queens or worker casts.
A. pura was super common in our June collection this past summer at Jerry Smith Park, comprising about 40% of the individuals from the remnant and restored prairies. This isn’t all that surprising. The species is widespread, ranging throughout the eastern U.S. from Maine to Minnesota down south to Texas and Florida. A recent study found that up to 91% of woodland bees can be individuals of A. pura (Ulyshen et al. 2010). I don’t have any comparison numbers from prairie studies, but I’ll be doing my homework on that.
One would expect A. pura numbers to decline in more open prairies, in part because the bees depend on ready supplies of rotting wood for their nests – and wood is in short supply on the vast grasslands. Jerry Smith Park probably supports large numbers of A. pura because its prairies are embedded in a woodland matrix. This makes it an ideal site for species like A. pura that require diverse habitats and resources.
That’s the story of my 100th bee. There’ll be other bee stories to come as we continue to sort through this collection; every species we’ve identified has an interesting story behind it. The picture of what’s happening at the Jerry Smith prairies and Laura’s garden sites is only just beginning to emerge.
Stay tuned for more to come…
Ulyshen, Michael D.; Soon, Villu; Hanula, James L. (2010-08-01). “On the vertical distribution of bees in a temperate deciduous forest”. Insect Conservation and Diversity. 3 (3): 222–228. doi:10.1111/j.1752-4598.2010.00092.x. ISSN 1752-4598.
October 16, 2018
Avila in Puerto Rico
[image error]I’m thrilled to announce that for the first time next spring, we will be offering Avila students an interdisciplinary field course in Puerto Rico!
IS 377 Tropical Environments: Diversity, Resistance, and Resilience will spend 12 days on the island in May. I’ll be co-teaching the course with fellow Avila professor and historian extraordinaire, Dr. Kelly Watson. Together, we’ll integrate historical, sociological, and ecological aspects of the tropics in the dynamic and beautiful setting of Puerto Rico. The course will incorporate impacts and recovery from hurricane Maria as well as an in-depth look at Puerto Rico’s status as an unincorporated territory of the U.S. We will also be engaging in community service and ongoing recovery efforts.
For logistical arrangements, we’re working with professionals at Isla Mar Research Expeditions, who will also give our students an introduction to marine biology and coral reef ecology, including the relationship between terrestrial and marine ecosystems. For our land-locked students from Kansas and Missouri, this will be an especially amazing experience!
While I have spent many years living and working in Latin America, I’ve had very little experience with the Caribbean beyond the coastal towns of Costa Rica and Panama. My first foray into the Caribbean islands was just one year ago, when I had the extraordinary opportunity to visit Cuba as part of an alumni course at Avila. Puerto Rico will be my second island-hopping experience. I’m very much looking forward to sharing this new journey of discovery with our students.
We’re gearing up for spring registration, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we sign up enough students to make this great opportunity available to everyone. Actually, I’m not just keeping my fingers crossed – I’m working hard to get the word out! We’ve had a lot of interest expressed so far, but we’ll have to see how the numbers play out when registration actually begins.
Keep your fingers crossed, too! If the course fills, I’ll be taking all my blog followers on a virtual tour of Puerto Rico!
October 2, 2018
A place where race doesn’t matter
In the summer of 2014, I co-coordinated the Native American and Pacific Islander Research Experience (NAPIRE) Program. Funded by NSF and the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, NAPIRE was designed to encouraging undergraduate Native American and Pacific Islander students to pursue careers in science. The program brought together undergraduate students from Tribal Nations and Pacific Islander Peoples to work closely with an international group of professional research mentors at Las Cruces Biological Station in Costa Rica. While I was involved with NAPIRE, I wrote extensively about it on my blog. All in all, NAPIRE was a wonderful experience and one of the most formative undertakings of my career.
At some point during that summer four years ago, while we labored together in the misty mountain forests of Costa Rica, one of the NAPIRE students commented that for the first time ever, she had found among us a community where race did not matter.
Those of us who were part of NAPIRE – students, staff, and faculty mentors – represented multiple races, ethnic backgrounds, nationalities, and creeds. We shared and pursued knowledge as community, united by respect for each other and the natural world. For a few short weeks, we lived as an extended family and in that ephemeral space, what my student said was true: race no longer mattered. This is not to say race ceased to exist; we honored and celebrated our unique cultural and ethnic backgrounds, but diversity ceased to be a reason for division.
Recently I was reminded that such places do not appear simply because we wish them into existence.
This fall at Avila University, I am co-teaching Ecology Through the Writers Lens, an interdisciplinary field-based course. The syllabus includes a four-day visit to a tall grass prairie reserve, where students explore the ecosystem through both scientific and literary/creative modes of inquiry. This is the third time I’ve taught the course with my colleague, English professor Dr. Amy Milakovic. It has always been a wonderful experience. The field station where we stay has consistently offered a place of joy and peace where we can disconnect from the outside world, engage with the natural environment, and focus on creative and scientific interpretation of our individual and collective experience.
This year, unfortunately, that experience was marred.
Accustomed to having freedom to move about the installations as required by any field course, for the first time we found ourselves followed, confronted, and in the end harassed. Our dogged pursuer was a belligerent member of the station staff who we soon dubbed “the Angry Lady.” Angry Lady questioned our presence at every opportunity, fretted that we would make other groups “uncomfortable,” and scolded us to be silent when we weren’t making noise. Angry Lady went into panic because while on our way to a nearby trail head, we passed through a building where someone was going to set out tables with merchandise a few hours later. (Implying that we were thieves and scoping out the place, I presume.) Angry Lady could not sit still while we were there, to the point where Dr. Milakovic and I worried she would jump on our students as they wandered the trails to complete their individual assignments.
Mind you, nothing had changed in the way Dr. Milakovic and I ran our course this year. We had the same schedule as always and implemented the same set of non-invasive field and classroom activities. Our small group of students was dedicated and hardworking as ever. But there was one difference from the courses we had taken to the field station in previous years: This year’s group was the most racially diverse we’d ever had. Apparently, Angry Lady – who had received our two previous groups with not even a whisper of discontent – couldn’t handle color.
I was not to be prepared for this – something I consider it a failure on my part. It simply didn’t occur to me we’d run into this sort of attitude at a field station. In reflecting on why, I realized that in my mind every field station had become a NAPIRE field station: a place to get away from the uglier side of human nature, a remote stage where one could create small, if ephemeral, communities more in line with our highest ideals.
Indeed, I was excited about the diversity of students we had recruited for this course. I knew they would bring a great tapestry of creative energy to our collective journey, and my expectations were not disappointed. In terms of our academic experience, this year’s iteration of Ecology Through the Writers Lens was amazing. There are several students in this group I hope to inspire toward science-related careers. Unfortunately, it’s likely Angry Lady has soured their vision of what life as a field ecologist is like.
The saga of Angry Lady will not end here. Dr. Milakovic and I have had conversations with station administration, and we will follow up with a formal complaint. If we don’t see concrete steps toward addressing this situation and resolving it, we will look for a new destination for our course. There are a lot of field stations out there; we can find a more friendly place.
In the months before NAPIRE 2014 began, the program coordinator, Dr. Barbara Dugelby, and I worked tirelessly to lay the foundation upon which that unique community was built. Early in the year, Dr. Dugelby hosted a workshop that brought together representatives from Tribal Colleges, Pacific Island universities, and previous NAPIRE programs – including former students and mentors – to discuss best practices for mentoring students from underrepresented groups in the sciences. Research mentors slated to participate in the 2014 program had a separate workshop to get to know each other and prep for their summer experience. NAPIRE 2014 students received individual attention and follow up as they made arrangements to spend the summer away from their families and home communities, many of them for the first time.
Dr. Dugelby and I also planned the program itinerary with great care, paying close attention to developing activities that would allow our summer community to share, honor, and celebrate cultural differences as part of our group identity. The program was realized in the context of a field station, Las Cruces, with a dependable staff who were not only attentive to our faculty and students but also unfailing in their friendly and caring attitude. They wanted all of us to consider Las Cruces a home away from home, and they never let us doubt that.
Most importantly, the students knew what to do. They walked onto the stage we set and without hesitation, danced a dream into reality.
This is not to say the undertaking was without conflict or logistical headaches; but every person involved understood our common purpose. Together, we worked hard and made the magic happen.
Four years later, the wheel continues to turn. As part of a new community of colleagues and students embedded in a wholly different context, I continue looking for ways to construct a place where race doesn’t matter. To construct that place, deliberately and methodically, in cooperation with others, because the truth is we will never find that place on our own, or by going into the wilderness and hoping the ugliness we’ve left behind will simply disappear.
Sometimes in my darker and more fatalistic moods, I feel like all I have feeding my hope is the memory of a few short weeks during an already faraway summer when NAPIRE achieved what so often seems impossible.
But that’s a powerful memory, and it’s so much more than most of the people fighting this battle have. This memory is a gift given to me that must be used. I carry it like a light in my heart and share it whenever I can.
And I keep on fighting, because the place we’re looking for can be found. I know. I’ve been there.
September 17, 2018
Yes, it’s innate
One of the most common questions I hear is how I got interested in writing.
I actually have a very clear memory of the first story I wrote, based on a dream I had when I was a little girl. I always point to that as the initiation of my interest in story telling. Similarly, when thinking about how I became interested in dance, I remember watching the ballet on TV when I was very young and asking my mother afterwards if I could take dance classes.
Not so long ago, I was asked for the first time how I got interested in science. The question caught me by surprise. It just seemed a strange thing to ask, like “How did you get interested in eating?” Or, “Why do you like breathing so much?”
Unlike writing or dancing, I can’t point to a moment in my personal history when an interest in science began. As far back as I recall, science has always been a part of me. Ever since I became aware of the world, I’ve been exploring and asking questions and trying to understand how things work.
This isn’t something that set me apart as a child. In fact, when you watch how children interact with the world, you realize that with respect to innate curiosity, everyone is born a scientist.
So maybe the question we should ask is not how interest in science begins. Maybe the question to ask is how that interest can be cultivated, nourished, and encouraged to grow – rather than squashed or worse, transformed into hate or fear?
These thoughts were running through my head as I read the story of astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, recent recipient of the Breakthrough Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in science.
Born in 1940s Northern Ireland, Burnell had to fight for the opportunity to study science past the age of 12. Even her adult career was an endless cycle of starting over, because the scientific establishment – for all its brilliant minds – couldn’t come up with a way to accommodate women among its ranks.
Yet Burnell not only persisted, she made landmark contributions to her field. Conscious that many of the barriers she faced persist today, Burnell is now using her lucrative prize to establish a scholarship fund for women, under-represented minorities, and refugees to become physicists.
I grew up in a later era, on the heels of the Women’s Movement that battered down the gates that kept us out of so many fields for so long. Through grade school and high school, my interest in math and science was never discouraged. On the contrary, I enjoyed support from my family and a steady supply of wonderful mentors. Being the smart girl in class set me apart and sometimes made me feel lonely, but there was always someone among my friends and teachers to make sure I understood the only thing that mattered was doing what I truly loved to do.
It wasn’t until college, grad school, and beyond that I began to perceive the glass ceiling that still affects many women and other underrepresented groups in the sciences today. Fortunately, by the time I started college I knew what I wanted; I had a strong foundation of self-confidence and the instinct to seek out mentors to support my journey. Still, there were many moments when I considered turning away from this career. I’m glad I stuck with it. Science has been my most constant companion. It’s brought me joy, fulfillment, and what I am most grateful for, autonomy and independence.
Today I strive to be a mentor in my own right, supporting new generations of students as they start their path toward careers in science. It distresses me to see that even now – even in our own country – bright students with an innate passion for science are turned away from the discipline, often through subtle and insidious means. Implicit bias gets in the way, as does economic background and lack of basic resources and educational opportunities. Sometimes even students who have opportunity find their interests squashed because they end up being bored in the classroom, never making the connection between their innate wonder for life and the power of exploration that science brings.
At a time when it’s more important than ever to recruit people into STEM fields, we need to keep these questions in mind. How do we spark interest in science? And, perhaps more fundamentally, how do we keep innate interest in science alive?
The answers are complex and multi-faceted, impacting students at every grade level and adults at every stage of their career. But if we can remember it’s a natural thing to want to know how nature works, perhaps the rest is just a matter of keeping the flame alive.