Science Outreach

OVERVIEW

Some of the most rewarding, challenging, and fun moments of my career have come from sharing science with a broader audience. Whether through teaching, guest lectures, classroom activities, public events, or collaboration with the media, scientific outreach has become an integral part of my work.

GOVERNOR'S INSTITUTES OF VERMONT

For two summers (2016 and 2017), I was one of the lead faculty members for the Environmental Science and Technology Branch of Governor's Institutes of Vermont. Each year, this program hosts several dozen motivated high school students from around the state at University of Vermont for a week of hands-on field and laboratory science. I developed and ran a new program called "The Real Lake Monsters- Tracking Human Pollutants in Lake Champlain"; our primary goal was to study how humans have impacted the health of Vermont's Great Lake. Using both Middlebury College's research boat (the RV Folger) and laboratory facilities at University of Vermont, our group studied the lake's water, sediment, and biota to search for the human fingerprint and to assess whether human impacts are tied to how the surrounding landscape is used. Our studies included quantification of invasive species abundance, assessment of sediment composition, and analysis of nitrate, phosphate, and E. coli concentrations in the lake water. After a week of hard work on the boat and in the laboratory, the students culminated their time at UVM with a scientific presentation to a public audience.

SHARING SCIENCE ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB

Writing for the Polar Environmental Change IGERT blog

I did the first two years of my PhD at Dartmouth College in the Polar Environmental Change IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) program. PhD students in the program blog about everything from fieldwork to labwork to outreach events. I was an active writer for the blog for several years, attempting to share the stories and results from my work in Greenland with a larger audience. My blog entries provide insight into my adventures in northwestern Greenland and background information about the methods I use to conduct my work.

My cohort of students in the IGERT program also got involved in the effort to get young women interested in pursuing a career in science. After seeing the European Commission's promotional video called "Science: It's a Girl Thing", we decided to make our own version of the video. While the original version focuses on short skirts, perfume, and high heels, our version, called "Science in Greenland: It's a Girl Thing" focuses on what it really means to us to be female scientists working in Greenland: collaboration, hard work, amazing places, curiosity, and passion for what we do. Both the original version and our remake can be viewed on our blog entry here. This story has also gotten picked up by the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Huffington Post. We hope that this video will show young women that a career in science is rewarding, challenging, and stimulating... and that women can succeed in this career just as well as men can (and we might even have more fun doing it!).

Collaboration with the Exploratorium Museum's "Ice Stories" program

The Exploratorium Museum, located in San Francisco, followed scientists working at both poles as part of the most recent International Polar Year. For several field seasons, "Ice Stories" reporters collected stories from polar researchers in all disciplines and shared them with the public in an easily accessible online format through the Ice Stories website. In 2008, the University of Vermont crew in Greenland happily teamed up with Ice Stories reporter Mary Miller and film guru Lisa Strong-Aufhauser for several days of fieldwork. We conducted business as usual, sampling rocks for cosmogenic dating, while Mary and Lisa interviewed, filmed, and continually reminded us of the larger significance of our work. The Ice Stories team accompanied us on fieldwork in both Kangerlussuaq and Ilulissat, and produced three reports for the Exploratorium:

July 10, 2008: "Rock Hunting in Greenland"

July 16, 2008: "How Old is the Greenland Ice Sheet?"

July 22, 2008: "Helicopter Safari for Rocks"

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COMMUNICATION TRAINING

In February 2016, I participated in a science communication training run by the Polar Interdisciplinary Coordinated Education program. The 2016 cohort of trainees was made up of both research scientists and grade school and high school science teachers. Together, we discussed and practiced making our science accessible and exciting to a diverse range of audiences. I also received training through the Polar Environmental Change IGERT program that focused on science communication, educational outreach, and media; our work in IGERT encompassed everything from working with National Geographic film makers to making our own mini-films for Greenlandic students.