Virtual exhibit

“There is an art to science, and science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole.”

Isaac Asimov

Tiffany Gibbs & Guillermo Ortiz

This ceramic sculpture represents the microarthropods that are commonly found in soil. Ceramics are made from clay, which is a component of soils, making a ceramic piece an excellent way to portray soil microarthropods in their natural environment. These soil samples were collected from Lapland in northern Finland, an area that is the homeland to the indigenous Sami people. We based our design upon the similarity of the petri dishes used to microscopically view microarthropods and the Sami flag. 

Lourdes Torres, Rebecca Willis, & Mohammad Eman

This trio of canvases represents how rainfall can influence heterogeneity of wildflower communities around Phoenix. The blue paint at the bottom of the canvas represents how many centimeters of rain fell from December 31st, 2018 through March 1st, 2019. Our goal was to show which species of wildflowers were most common at each site that was surveyed. The most common species of wildflowers were centered around the least common wildflower species.  

Kylie Weinzierl & Georgina Kennedy

This three-part composite image piece represents experimental groups of phytoplankton populations as both temperature and acidity increase with our simulated climate change experiment. Artistically, our goal was to show a visual representation of the future of Lake Kilpisjärvi in northern Finland if it follows the climate change trends of other freshwater lakes. Our goal is to help people understand how these projected changes will continue to affect the world around us, beginning at a microscopic level. 

Paul Cattelino & Shauny Tyson

Essential nutrients nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) nourish and sustain life in both terrestrial and aquatic environments when present in properly balanced quantities. An imbalance in nutrient levels, such as that caused by the addition of fertilizer to a terrestrial ecosystem which runs off into a nearby waterway, can cause a rapid spike in primary production, depleting resources and ultimately leading to the death of organisms within the system.

Here, an unsuspecting abundance of ciliates, flagellates, and multiple algae species swim on shimmering silver stream currents as they feast on an unexpected influx of NPK, the result of fertilizer run-off from a nearby field. Just like phytoplankton, this painting requires light to be vibrant. 

Ana Khan & Kristian Williams

This short video piece is a sonic and visual interpretation of climate change induced glacial melt in the Arctic. All of the visuals, as well as some of the audio, were captured throughout the mountainous regions near Kilpisjärvi, Finland, and is accompanied with an original music score featuring a continuous flute solo by Phoenix musician Emilio Vargas. This immersive art piece follows the journey of water as it travels from mountain tops to marshy lands, and provides a creative perspective for the feedback loop by which this ecosystem is affected. 

Christina Crow-Roberts, Brooke Crockett, & Andrew Mork

Nature and Encroachment of Man engage in themes of solitude, isolation, human vs. nature, and preservation and disturbance of the environment. The artists and environmental/forensic scientist team researched the human impact on the bird community within the ecosystem surrounding Kilpisjärvi Biological Station in northern Finland. Nature conveys the history that, since the 1970’s, birds like the Pied Flycatcher, the Bluethroat and the Great Tit have been studied in the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station as they flocked to the region to have their young during the short arctic summer. During that time students have also come to the station to study the birds, to learn measurement techniques and make their own discoveries. After 40 years of research we know bird populations are fat, healthy and reproducing in large quantities, but climate change and ecological upset can easily unbalance bird reproduction cycles. Encroachment of Man conveys that 10 years ago, the residents of the Kilpisjärvi area voted against turning the Saana & Malla Fell areas into a National Park and instead into a Recreational area to cash in on the fall and summer tourism made popular in nearby Tromsø, Norway. Since that time the area population has swelled 10 times what it was with seasonal workers coming from southern Finland and people visiting or moving from adjacent Norway & Sweden. Sami, indigenous reindeer herders, now augment their income by selling handmade wares or giving tourist tours. What impact will this have on the nature of the Kilpisjärvi area is yet to be seen. 

Mikayla Brown & Joseph Herrel

This glass tile mosaic piece highlights the impact water availability has on Saguaro cactus branching. The recycled glasses contain blue marbles, representing the availability of water to each mosaic Saguaro it sits below. Both glasses contain the same amount of marbles, due to our research determining no significant difference between the water available to a Saguaro and its number of branches. Our goal was to shed light on the complexity of Saguaro growth and the need for more research in this area. 

Stephanie Gonzalez & Diego Lopez

Time Will Tell is a collaboration between artist Stephanie Gonzalez and environmental scientist Diego Lopez who studied the impacts of future climate change on seven different plant species abundant in the ecosystem surrounding Kilpisjärvi Biological Station in northern Finland. This data visualization work represents existing research that was used to predict a decrease in birch tree and an increase in shrubby plants in the Arctic. Each colored dot represents a plant species. The colors accurately reflect a characteristic of the palette of each species, and how these species will fluctuate over time. 

Jared Rusnak & Irvin Cruz Enriquez

Bridging the gap between art and science has never been more important as misinformation runs rampant. Being able to communicate science in a simple manner to the general public ensures that those not of a scientific background, stay informed and make conscious decisions based on facts. This landscape blueprint gives an overhead view of a desert rain garden including plants that truly belong in the Sonoran Desert ecosystem, but also provide a more tangible benefit to the community. The garden consists of three terraces: the ground level, level two at 2’ down, and level three at 3’ down. The blueprint features natural colors from the biotic elements with highlights of the pink milkweed flower and purple fruit from prickly pear. The abiotic elements are made to match the Sonoran Desert aesthetic. Most notably the six foot high grated bridge which provides a high vantage point and a way for water to infiltrate below. The bridge is also high enough for people to walk underneath at the lower levels. The pathways are outlined by gray steppingstones following the natural layout made by the plants. The top layer steppingstones flow naturally, curving around the trees and the lower levels are uniform following the hedges of milkweed and side oats gramma. Along the border you’ll find drawings of the leaves from milkweed (top left), mesquite (top right), and palo verde (bottom).

The use of an infrared gas analyzer allowed us to decide which plants are more water use efficient and therefore whether to include more or less of a plant. The rain garden includes the likes of palo verde, mesquite, and milkweed which were measured for their water use efficiency (WUE). Milkweed was not readily available, so oleander (which is similar) was measured, but the garden is still intended to have milkweed. Throughout the ground level of the rain garden, you’ll find a larger abundance of Palo verde as they had the highest WUE. Palo verde are known to have edible seeds and will serve as one of the garden’s food sources. Mesquite had lower levels of WUE and so only two are present at ground level, but they also have edible seeds that can be ground up and made into a flour. Both of the trees were placed at ground level because of their deep root systems which need more space before reaching the impenetrable caliche layer. Oleander WUE came in as a close second and so milkweed can be found along the 2nd and 3rd levels. The Milkweed serves to provide an abundance of cotton like fabric, which can be used to make clothes or bags. Milkweed is found at the lower levels because its root systems are substantially shorter than either of the trees’. Prickly pear and Christmas cholla cacti, like all cacti are well known to be adapted to the desert environment. Both of the cacti provide food from their fruits and are found at the ground level because they could potentially be over watered from runoff at lower levels. Side oats gramma is a hardy grass and is placed along the walls of the 2nd layer in order to prevent erosion. 

Annabella Duncan & Kali Van Keuren

These two-canvas watercolor paintings demonstrate the findings of the effects of decreasing snow percentage decline in the Arctic on the species interactions of the Arctic Fox. They illustrate snapshots of time, the first canvas demonstrating the “before” of how the species interactions in the Arctic are happening and the landscape before climate change drastically alters the environment. The first canvas exemplifies the Arctic foxes alongside the species they rely on for food, shelter, and other resources that help them survive such as polar bears, sea otters, and narwhals and also shows the landscape with snow cover and sea ice which the animals rely on to survive. The water is a bright blue to make the white of the snow stand out more and to get the point across that snow cover is a huge factor in the species interactions of the arctic fox and the other animals living in that ecosystem. The second canvas exemplifies how as snow percentage is decreasing due to climate change, new interactions are happening as new species such as the red fox which are in competition with the Arctic foxes take over their land, food, and resources. They are shown standing on stone that is taller, as it makes the ice and snow cover missing more evident. There are also less Arctic foxes shown because the competition of new species such as the red fox causes them to have less reproductive success and they die out easier. Orca whales, another invasive species, are also shown in the water as they eat many of the keystone species the Arctic fox relies on to survive as the polar bears, sea otters, and narwhals which are now missing from the water. Less snow is present, and the colors are greyer and more washed out to demonstrate the sadness of the negative effects of climate change and decreasing snow percentage and to make the viewer want to help in some way. 

Rachael King & Anastasia Stats

Cholla cacti, or members of the genus Cylindropuntia, are hypothesized to spread via active dispersal when tubercles (short arms) attach to the pelts of various desert mammals.  In order to demonstrate the action of a tubercle being removed from the plant, we created a short video and an interactive cactus model.  You can press play on the video to hear the sound of a tubercle being ripped from the cactus body as it would be by a desert mammal.  Tubercles stick to mammalian pelts because of tiny barbs on the cactus arms, ripping the tubercle off the main body like Velcro is ripped apart.  This is the reasoning behind creating the interactive cactus model – arms are attached to the cactus body via Velcro, so you can experience the sensation of ripping a cactus arm off the main body.  Watch the video first to understand the Velcro-like action of the arms detaching from the body, then try it out yourself with the cactus model!  

Mariam Hirmiz, Karla Delgado, & Alexandra Nguyen

This 3-demensional art piece represents the plastic that lies within the Arctic Ocean as well as the species/marine life being affected by plastic pollution. The two poster boards themselves are fundamentally colored with watercolor to correlate the artwork with the real life ocean water. Plastic caps accumulated by the group members were painted different shades of blue, representing the deeper parts of the ocean, a deeper blue, as well as the more shallow parts of the ocean, the color being a lighter shade of blue. The caps are specifically snaking throughout the art piece to represent the general widespread of plastic throughout the entire ocean, not just in one particular place. On the lower half of the piece, there are species drawn and painted, representing the marine life that is being impacted and disturbed by the ongoing plastic pollution within the Arctic Ocean. Our ultimate achievement is to present a more assessable visual representation of the effects of plastic as well as how much plastic pollution is found within the Arctic Ocean.

Kamber Bonner & Brittany Richardson

This short film is a visual and auditory representation of the Sonoran Desert and some of the many species of organisms that inhabit it. All photography and videography is original work inspired by our driving question of: “Does human interaction in the Sonoran Desert affect overall soil fertility?” Although experimentation heavily relied on test tubes and various lab work, immersing ourselves in the environment of interest and sharing these experiences through photographs and video has helped support our findings. Yes, human interaction in the Sonoran Desert affects overall soil fertility. We are striving to help others understand that even something as basic as “dirt” is actually nutritionally complex soil in need of our protection. Through both art and science, we can make the world a better place. 

Deauna Johnson & Jeremy Mey

This 3D Environmental model was created to simulate Mt. Saana Reserve, allowing the viewer to witness the effects of trampling versus staying on the trail. The flooring simulates the spongy, buoyant vegetation that was preserved outside the trails. The samples taken from the spongy areas were more difficult to obtain because of the plant roots that intertwined throughout reserve. The plant matter on the fabric is a visual representation of the different kinds of plants that were observed over the entire reserve. Many of the plants were layered over one another, and that layered effect was captured by bleeding the leaves on to the fabric. The green vegetation was the most abundant, so it was the first color to be hammered into the fabric. On top of the green color were plants that ranged in colors from red to yellow to purple. Finally, the last piece to simulate the environment is a visual and audio recording of trampling and hammering. The trampling was important to capture because of how it affects the land that we did research on. Each recording was taken on the different areas affected by trampling. To illustrate the creation of our installation, we shot a video with low lighting to focus the viewer’s eye on the hammering process. During this process, the noise from the hammer overwhelmed the quiet surroundings of Kilpisjärvi. Upon viewing this installation, your environment is meant to be transformed into the serene landscape where we had the privilege of working. You may choose to follow the trail to view the scientific poster or walk your own path. 

Xavier Morett & Jose Suarez

This piece consists an audio-video display depicting the process of examining slides under a microscope. The camera captures the movement of several slides under the lens as an examiner searches for pollen spores. The video is accompanied by the recorded sounds of the environment in which evidence from clothing at the crime scene was discovered

 Warning: To simulate a crime, the video starts with a loud scream.





Showcased on the bulletin board are pictures taken at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Research Station. They show where several pieces of clothing evidence at the crime scene simulation contained various pollen spores.  Red string is used to convey the possible connections between the photos. In the upper right corner, a newspaper speculating about the crime scene simulation is on display.