Transcriber: Mishal Ali Reviewer: Denise RQ
Imaging, if you will
that all the adults in the US are in these ten figures.
According to the most recent censuses,
it is about roughly equal in terms of gender balance.
What if I tell you, that only two of them can understand this?
I'm not talking about the verbal literacy necessary to read a newspaper.
I'm talking about the scientific and environmental literacy
necessary to read the science section of the New York Times,
or watch a Nova program on TV.
And sorry ladies, this is actually wishful thinking for us.
Men are actually more inclined to be scientifically literate than we are.
and as a female scientist, I think this needs to change.
Giving the complex environmental issues
facing us today like global climate change, fracking and GMOs
- genetically modified organisms, if you are not familiar with the acronym -
it's no wonder than many people feel powerless to affect change.
Often people feel intimidated by science, putting up a wall to understanding.
But how are we, as a society, supposed to make the best decisions
if only 20% of us can actually understand what's going on?
And this is an improvement from 1957,
when only 1 out of 10 had sufficient scientific literacy.
I'm not suggesting that everyone run out and become a scientist tomorrow,
but I'm saying that we need to have a basic scientific understanding,
so that we can understand key terms like knowing there's actually a difference
between climate change and global warming, because there is.
Climate change is an all encompassing term;
global warming is just an aspect of it,
so, winters don't actually negate global warming.
Oceans' acidification, changes in precipitation patterns
and changes in frequency, and intensity of storms
like hurricane Sandy that affected us all so deeply,
and the recent typhoon in The Philippines.
This is not just something that we need to worry about for the future
this increases our resiliency as a society.
Thus, to be civically minded, I'll argue, we must first be scientifically literate.
Miller describes a scientifically literate citizen
as someone who has a basic vocabulary of scientific terms and constructs,
and understands the nature of scientific inquiry.
Now, many of us think we understand scientific inquiry,
because we know the scientific method from school.
but, if you ask people what's a hypothesis, a lot of them say:
"What you think will happen, and what you trying to prove."
And in fact, this, from Scholastic, has the hypothesis as:
predicting the outcome to the problem.
And I'm sorry, but that's just not how science works.
Well, not good science that is.
Science is all about inquiry and discovery,
not going into an experiment with a preconceived notion
of how it's going to turn out.
For me, experiential learning is my favourite way to learn.
I love the hands-on, fingers dirty,
'let's grab-a-sample-of-soil- and-run-it-throw-our-fingers method,
and figure out the percent of sand, silt, and clay, which is actually real;
it's called the texture-by-feel method and soil scientists used it.
That's how well I want to know the Earth we live on.
and I bet that I'm not the only one, am I?
Let's see a show of hands of who likes to learn by doing.
Oh, my goodness, even better than I was hoping for.
So, once I realized how effective
just being outside and being able to answer questions were,
much less doing scientific inquiry,
it became clear that this is how we can get people to understand
critical scientific information
that isn't otherwise reaching the general public.
Since adults spend the majority of their lives learning outside of school,
we need non-classroom based strategies to get them engaged
and address the low scientific literacy in our society.
People need opportunities to discern what's actually happening
from the one-sided terms in the media,
otherwise, it just looks like a jumble like this.
But not only do we want people to know this information,
we want it to be so recognized that it inspires a behaviour change.
That's when I became passionate about citizen science,
and I'm here today to tell you
how we can overcome low scientific literacy
and empower people to become
active solutions to our nations and environmental problems.
So, what exactly is citizen science?
It's really as simple as people participating in scientific research.
Contact with nature has been shown to decrease anxiety levels
stimulate creativity, promote civic advocacy, increase sustainability.
Citizen science programs provide access to these natural areas,
especially on urban settings when it's not quite as obvious,
or providing opportunities for interactive and participatory learning.
Citizen science is not a new concept, it can be traced back to 1900,
when the Audubon Society created the Christmas bird count.
Avid bird watchers would go out during a two-week period in the winter time,
and they would submit their observations to professional scientists,
who would then use this information to do things
like population studies, and migration studies,
and then, they can also document changes associated with climate change.
Citizen science programs are incredibly diverse:
they could be water, birds, insects, even stars.
It doesn't matter what the subject is,
it's just that people are participating in scientific research.
and it's all part of the ever growing citizen science movement.
I first found out about citizen science when I moved to California,
to run a creek monitoring program.
it was a really special place
because our program was actually initiated by the people themselves.
We had a lot of active friends of creek groups.
This group was collecting information on apples,
and this one was collecting information on grapes,
and this one was collecting information on bananas.
All really amazing, but nothing was comparable.
So, the county stepped in, and we took control of the program,
and we initiated protocols that people can then use.
And we had two different programs that we ran:
a GPS program and a bioassessment program.
GPS is,
we would take GPS units, and we would go out,
and we would document and map both natural and man-made features,
so that we could establish a database.
And in our bioassessment program, we collected benthic macro invertebrates,
really just a fancy way of saying aquatic bugs.
And because these bugs live in the water
for a certain time period in their live cycle,
what we can do is we can look at
how they integrate information over time,
and they tell us not only about water quality but also habitat quality.
So they become really, really powerful tools,
and they tangible, and people can touch them, learn, see and explore.
Everyone taught at this program is being revolutionary,
and it was really well received;
you can see how much data they produced.
The county also like it because it also satisfied their outreach efforts too,
so it was a twofer.
I eventually realized that well, data is great,
- are great really -
Thank you for knowing the data is plural.
While I realized that data are wonderful,
the real story were the citizen scientists themselves.
So, I had the opportunity to go out
with the friends of Penhorn Creek Watershed one time,
and we were doing a bioassessment.
We got to this place, and it was really dirty, there was a lot of garbage.
and this women said: "Oh! I cannot believe
that people just stand on the bridge and throw garbage into the creek."
And I said: "Oh no, it's not thrown in, there is probably an outfall right there."
She said: "What's an outfall?"
I said:" Oh, you know on the storm drains, if you've ever seen the sign
"No Dumping" as it drains to ocean, to river?
It goes directly from your storm drain through a pipe into you local water body."
And she said:" Really? I thought it was treated first!"
And I said: " It's not even filtered."
She was absolutely appalled, and collected trash the rest of the time.
Then, every time I went out with that group,
we brought this sled, and we named it Rover,
so when people had their arms too full of garbage, they would yell:
"Red rover, red rover! Send rover right over!"
(Laughter)
Or the friends of Alhambra Watershed
We were doing a GPS survey one time,
and we heard this woosh! of water,
and it would stop, and then it would start again, and then,
it would stop again.
And they dug throw the invasive ivy in the bank,
and they found a small tube that was gushing water,
and it turns out it was
the laundry facilities from the senior citizens center.
and they had been dumping their washing machine loads
directly into the creek for who knows how long!
The center didn't even know that the connection existed.
Thanks to the effort of the friends of Alhambra Creek, they contacted the City
and the tube was disconnected, and their laundry was then put
in the sanitary sewer to be treated before being discharged.
I realized through all this that to truly reach people,
they need to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves.
and that they can actually affect change.
After five years in California,
I decided I needed to learn
how to teach to different learning styles,
and I moved here to Jersey City, because honestly,
it is the closest to the Midwest I've ever found, and I love it.
(Laughter)
And as [Leigh] would have it, my department Head it an NYU,
who later became my adviser, mentor, and role model
had just received a grant to start a citizen science program
for grades 5 through 12, using the Hudson River as our laboratory.
She brought me on to help her launch the program.
Since 2011, approximately 450 students
in grades 5-12 and adults have had the opportunity
to go out to live and learn about biology and chemistry of the Hudson River.
10 graduate students, some sitting right here,
have learned how the design facilitate and manage
this type of environmental monitoring program.
These kids go out, having never set foot near the water before,
thinking it is polluted, thinking it's dirty.
and certainly not thinking about the biology, the chemistry of it at all.
We explore, and we engage in scientific inquiry,
and we learn over in time, but more importantly, we inspire.
We inspire students to engage with their local environment.
What we were doing is not novel research by any means,
but it's valid and accurate, and more importantly,
if during this program
we can inspire just one student to become a scientist someday,
then I feel that we have done more for the body of science,
the new research ever could.
Like the fact even though it's called the Hudson River, it's actually an estuary
it's this magical place where the salt water of the ocean,
and the fresh water from the river up stream mix
and because it is such a magical place
only really truly remarkable creatures can live there, like glass eels
which were these translucid eels that will then grow up to be American eels
but they are so tiny and fragile in their juvenile state.
Or, did you know that there are seahorses in the Hudson River?
And blue crabs?
And it's just wonderful.
I get excited about this kind of stuff.
(Laughter)
so, I realized that science and citizen science allow us
a one-on-one interaction with people
and so, we begin at a personal level.
In addition to citizen science, I also teach environmental literacy for adults
and I asked my students one time
to keep track of all the garbage they throw out for just two days.
Just to see. Normal days.
And weather they put it in the garbage, recycle, composed,
or if it is battery and light bulbs that need to be handled separately.
And one of my students, [saw] the assignment and said:
"Oh, I don't recycle."
And afterwards, I said:
"OK, does anybody have any observations that they made?"
And she looked at me, and she went, "Plastic."
I said, what?
she said: "Everything in my garbage was plastic. I couldn't believe it.
That's it. I'm recycling."
And just like that, her behaviour had changed.
So those are types of interactions that are facilitated,
that one-to-one level,
and once we inspire people, and we get them motivated,
then they become community leaders,
then we can step it out to the community level,
where we start realizing that,
diesel trucks are actually belching out
asthma producing particles in our children.
so that even breathing becomes deadly for them.
What we thinking of often as social justice issues
are actually environmental justice issues.
and environmental health issues.
Once we inspire our community to get involved,
and find out more information,
and inquire about their environment and their communities,
we can step it out and our society become more sustainable.
My favourite part of being both a scientist and an educator,
is speaking to people.
I feel that by broadcasting this message
that people can be powerful agents of change.
both through their personal behaviour and collective action.
We will be able to influence decision makers
and truly change the trajectory of our societies for the better.
The more this message can be heard,
the more I think people will be willing to take the necessary steps
to make our cities more sustainable.
And that's exactly why I think we need citizen science.
How do you get involved? Because really that is the key here.
First, I would say, what do you like to do?
What are you curious about?
if you love birds, go get involved with the Audubon Society.
if you love water, and you are a teacher, I would love to take out on the Hudson,
and live and learn and explore with your students.
if you interested in urban issues and green infrastructure,
Sustainable Jersey City is an wonderful, local organization
working to do just that.
And if you interested in food
and you're concerned about your health, yours and your family,
get involved, find a community garden.
support a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture
or, meet your farmers at the local Farmers Market at the Path Station.
I leave with one last short story,
about when I first realized the power of the individual.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer an environmental education,
strangely enough,
Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic,
I was invited to this, very public reforestation event.
We had local dignitaries, and my, weren't they pleased to take a picture
with a Peace Corps Volunteer as well!
And what we did all day was we planted trees
that came in these little plastic bags you can see all the saplings there.
Everybody dutifully dug our holes,
and took it out of the plastic bag, and planted the tree into the ground,
and throw the plastic bag on the ground.
And I was appalled.
And I thought, "Oh no, what we have done?
we've come here to do such a good thing
and, yeah, we've littered this landscape."
I was walking around, picking up all that plastic bags,
and this teenage boy comes up to me, and he says: "What are you doing?"
And I said: "well, I am picking up the plastic bags."
And he says: "Why? They will be gone in a day or two."
Because for him, 'gone' was blowing away.
And I said: "Oh, but this is plastic,
it's actually takes thousands of years to decompose,"
and so we had a conversation about that.
And then he looked at me, and he said:
" Yeah, but you're just one person, you cannot make a difference."
And I walked away and thought about that, and I thought: "well,
I don't know, I feel like I've always lived my life
feeling that one person can make a difference.
And then I looked up on the hillside and there were six people,
including that same teenage boy, and I looked at them, and I said:
"I thought you said one person can't make a difference,"
and he said: "but you are not one any more, now, we're six."
So, "never doubt that a small group of a thoughtful, committed citizens
can change the world indeed," as Margret Mead said.
"It's the only thing that ever has."
Thank you.
(Applause)