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My Childhood Science Heroes

They made me appreciate nature, when no one else could.

Jane Goodall. Photo retrieved from Google images.

I actually first learned of Jane Goodall 5 or 6 years ago, surprising I know, she seems so well known. The first time I learned of her, was in an introductory course in high school on Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology, and for the longest time I mixed her up with Dian Fossey (in that I believed up until about 2 years ago that Jane Goodall was murdered by poachers - imagine my surprise).

Primarily, I thought Jane was so cool because since I was a kid I’ve loved animals and wish that I could just live some sort of Tarzan life in a jungle somewhere surrounded by them. She was living my dream life.

At the time, there was never really any media where she shared her thoughts and experiences, so unfortunately all I could get of her was 1-dimensionally what she did and where she was doing it. Sometime recently though, a documentary called “Jane” came out (I recommend everyone see it, it was quite interesting). So the most I could get from her story was knowing that that kind of life was possible.

David Attenborough. Photo retrieved from Google images.

I loved and love to listen to documentaries and clips of him talking about nature and animals. I love his voice, I’m sure everyone can agree when I say his voice is very calming. It’s fascinating to learn about all of the ecosystems around the world from him. He’s so knowledgeable, kind, and I really admire his abilities and desires to educate the world about the natural world and its importance.

Christ and Martin Kratt. Photo retrieved from Google images.

When I was a young kid, I remember watching Zoboomafoo, and while I can’t exactly remember what ever happened on the show, I was completely enthralled and I loved seeing the guest animals on the show. Chris and Martin were so silly and friendly and made things simple enough for me to understand (even as a kid), it was fun watching them getting up to their shenanigans. Plus I loved animals so any chance at watching a show that could keep my child attention span, and also had an animal theme made me super happy.

mhenvs3000-19

Hey I really enjoyed reading this entry! When I wrote my own blog post I completely forgot about Zoboomafoo. Me and my siblings would watch that show every Saturday. Now that I think about it, the show was a really great example of nature interpretation aimed at younger kids. Zoboomafoo themself was really cute and fun. The interpreters were really energetic and engaging and did a great job getting kids involved.

kbenvs3000-19

Thank you, Shoshanah

As a kid I watched the typical science based TV shows like Bill Nye The Science Guy and Zoboomafoo, but I never had a true scientific hero. I wish I could say I did, but I didn’t. It wasn’t until second semester of my first year at university when I took Introduction to Biodiversity (BIOL 1070), where I was inspired by the professor, Shoshanah Jacobs. I know there are a lot of people who did not enjoy this course, as it can be challenging, but for me it was a pivotal moment in my undergrad.

Coming into university I knew I loved animals and I had a plan to apply to vet school at the end of my undergraduate degree, like 75% of the other students who start their first year in the college of biological sciences. I came to realize how difficult getting accepted into vet school would be and knew that I needed to come up with a back-up plan. If you took the intro to biodiversity class with Shoshanah I’m sure you’ve seen a Rick Mercer video or two, but this one is my favourite.

A Rick Mercer Report video, tagging bears in Algonquin Provincial Park. Video taken from youtube.

After watching this video in class, I knew I would never be happy if I got stuck working in a lab, looking through a microscope for the rest of my life. I wanted to be outside tagging bears or tracking moose or doing anything along these lines. This is when I decided that I was going to switch my major from Biology to Wildlife Biology and Conservation. Of course, I now know that you can take the Biology major in so many different directions but at the time I didn’t understand that and I wanted a little more structure with the courses I needed to take. Switching my major was probably the best decision I have made with my education so far and I am grateful for Shoshanah helping me realize this. This is no longer my “back-up” plan, this is my goal.

Shoshanah teaches in a very different way than most professors I’ve had so far. The energy Shoshanah brings to each lecture is insane, as they run around the classroom and gets immersed in what they’re trying to teach you. Even if you have never had a conversation with Shoshanah, you feel as though you have a personal connection with them, and they truly want you to do your best. The tests are difficult, but it’s so you understand the concepts of the course. This class sparked my interest in ecology, conservation biology, and so many other areas of study. Shoshanah’s research interests me as it takes place in the arctic, in rough places where you the beds aren’t the comfiest and the showers are the hottest.

mhenvs3000-19

I actually had a very similar experience! When I first started university, I was in chemistry and honestly pretty pessimistic about taking this class at all. I was annoyed we had to take biology at all. But after taking it, Professor Jacob’s passion influenced me to find a newfound interest in it! Like you said, I’d never had a professor like them before, they were so personable and excited. And the sheer joy they took sharing their experiences with field work made me want to get out there do things like that! All in all, their class was a great experience, I’m glad you found that too :)

This Blog Post Will Kill You

I don’t really like the word “hero”. It’s always felt very extreme. When I was a kid and they’d always ask us “Who is your hero?”, I never really had an answer. Why did I need a hero? I’m just doing me. When I reframe the question as “Who influenced you?” the questions a little easier for me to answer.

I haven’t been in the biological sciences for very long. When I first went into university I was studying chemistry, and I switched by major from there. One of the major things that influenced me to make this switch was the podcast “This Podcast Will Kill You”. Pretty cool name right? It’s actually a podcast about etymology hosted by two grad students, Erin Welsh and Erin Allmon Updyke. The podcast first premiered in October of 2017 and it had already made it to the top of the apple store charts 3 episodes in! The podcast involves the two friends talking about various diseases, explaining their history, impact, scientific mechanisms and most importantly- how cool they think they are!

The logo for the podcast “This Podcast Will Kill You”. Taken from their website: https://www.exactlyrightmedia.com/this-podcast-will-kill-you

There are a few things that really inspire me about them. Firstly is how enthusiastic they are about their field. They always seem to not only be able to have fun when they talk about various pathogens, but they’re able to do it in a way that draws you into having fun too. For example, every episode they make what they call a “quaren-tini”- a martini based on whatever pathogen they’re discussing this week. It’s always really funny, and (even though I’D probably never try any of them because martinis are gross) it gets people actively involved in the show.

Another thing I admire about them is their dedication. One thing they talk about occasionally is their work as grad students. They talk about how hard, but ultimately rewarding, it is and all the different experiences they’ve had in their field. As an undergrad, the idea of grad school can be really daunting, and sometimes seem achievable. But these girls are two, real, average humans who show that it’s absolutely possible to be successful with hard work and dedication. This is furthered by the sheer amount of work they put into the podcast. They release an episode every two weeks, so they do a whole bunch of research for their podcast on top of grad school and their everyday life stuff!

They also inspire me as nature interpreters. After taking this course, and putting some thought into it, I’ve decided that if I wanted to get serious about interpretation I would do it through social media or podcast format. These ladies do an excellent job presenting traits that I’d want to emulate doing science communication in podcast form. As mentioned previously, they do a really good job making the podcast fun, while still being informative and engaging. The name itself presents some things we’ve already talked about in class, how “hook” people into your content, and is honestly very creative.

Erin Welsh and Erin Allmon Updyke are just two of the people who inspire me though. There are many, many people in science who inspire me, ranging from my peers, to my professors to other science communicators. The determination and passion I want to emulate is found everywhere in the scientific field.

Music in Nature // Nature in Music

Music is defined as “sounds combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion”. From this definition, I don’t think it’s hard to see where music can be found in nature.

When you think of “nature in music” what comes to mind. For me, it’s whale calls on the ocean, the constant, crashing of waves on a beach, and bird songs early in the morning (I mean come on it even has song in the name). All of these things contain the components of music; rhythm, melody, sync. Furthermore, they encompass the subjective definitions of music- they’re nice to listen to. Who hasn’t been relaxed sitting outside late at night, listening to the quiet chirping of crickets? You can find hundreds of hours of “ambient nature sounds” online. There’s something very comforting and melodic about it.

This prompt ties in very well with the last one about Art. Art is a way to express emotion, to capture the feeling of something and present it to other people. Music is a type of art, and as such is an extension of this.

I personally don’t play any instruments or write music (just not something that’s every appealed to me), but there are a great many bands that use music to express their views on nature. One such band is Gojira. Gojira is a death metal band that, on the surface, seems to be just like any other heavy metal band. Because of the fact that the vocals are “rough” I wasn’t able to realize at first what the meaning in their songs actually is.

Their lyrics are heavily environmentally focused. In fact they released an entire concept album called “From Mars to Sirius” which tackles environmental issues. Their song “Into the Wilderness” contains the following lines: “Living respectful, Low your axe, And learn from the trees.” This line illustrates the idea that people’s relationship with nature has become about taking resources, and asks that people instead try to learn something from the world. The ending track of their album is literally called “Global Warming”, about humanity causing global warming and about overcoming it.

As interpreter’s, music can be a tool to deliver messages to people, be that environmental messages, or simply showing people where to find melodies in nature.

“Relaxing Music with Nature Sounds- Waterfall HD” One of the many videos of nature sounds on youtube, this one has 26 million views.

Natural Beauty

I think art can be used to connect people to nature, to draw them in, in a way that other forms of interpretation cannot. While it’s true that the informative nature of interpretation is important to many people, one of the most common things that draws people into nature is the beauty of it. Of something that they perceive as otherworldly, natural and pure. It’s for this reason that I think beauty is very important in nature interpretation.

For me personally, beauty is a big part of the appeal of the natural world. Because of this, I have a lot of tattoos that are nature inspired and am hoping to complete a full nature-themed sleeve at some point. I do this not only because I personally find much of the imagery in nature aesthetically pleasing, but also because as a biologist these things are very important to me. As with much art, it’s a way for me to express the things I love.

Picture of my most recent tattoo. Peony with mushrooms and various other flora.

Another way I interpret nature through art is photography. I like photography because it’s really easy to capture the beauty of nature very quickly. It doesn’t require much artistic talent to take a simple picture, and most phone cameras have the capability to take pictures at a good quality. That being said, I always find that it’s very difficult to fully capture the experience of an actual image through pictures. It takes patience and time to take what you are seeing and make it into something you can show others. I’m not the best at photography, but it’s something that brings me joy, and it’s allowed me to capture natural areas in a way I would be completely unable to otherwise!

A few pictures I’ve taken over the last couple years. First picture is of the sunset on Vancouver Island. Second is of an old tree at the Watson trails in Guelph.

Not all beauty can be expressed in a picture. ---- state “A fifth distinctive quality of Nature's beauty is that it encompasses all of our senses. The smell of the forest after rain. The breath of acool alpine breeze. The song of a meadowlark or trembling aspen leaves. The sweet taste of a mountain stream. The colorful flash of a monarch or tiger swallowtail on the wing. Or the unfurling leaves of a black oak in spring the ineffable colors of a ripe peach.” (Beck and Cable, 2011). One of the goals of nature interpretation should be to bring this experience to others. I think Beauty is something that is subjective, but as nature interpreters I think it’s important to bring this beauty to other people.

References

Fighting Climate Despair with Education, Action and Self-Care

Are you worried about climate change? Have you ever felt a deep, existential fear caused by it’s inevitable arrival. Do you feel paralyzed by this fear? Congratulations, you’re not alone. You share a feeling with many people called Climate Despair. Climate despair is a term for the fear people feel when thinking about the vastness of climate change. The issue with it (besides the fact that it’s unpleasant) is that it has a tendency to cause people to feel paralyzed by the weight of this problem, unable to act because they feel that there’s nothing they can do. This week I’m going to talk about 3 ways we can fight climate despair in yourself and others-education, action and self-care.

Negative messages are all around us. Every day new articles come out about how we’re running out of time, and highlight new and more frightening ways that climate change has become more apparent. While it’s important to stay educated on the reality of the damage of the changing climate, what isn’t covered enough is the positive strides that are being made towards climate action. Green technologies, renewable energy, solutions to waste and environmental policies- new solutions are created every day, but this information only get a small amount of media coverage compared to the apocalyptic doom and gloom. Furthermore, what’s often not covered are the economic benefits of switching to these technologies. It’s important to search out this information, and be aware of what we *are* doing to help with the climate crisis, as much as what we are not.

Nothing conquers despair like action. One of the largest parts of climate despair is the hopelessness, something I hear commonly is “why try when there’s nothing we can do?”-a question that comes from a feeling of irrelevancy. This is not true! There are loads of things you can do as a citizen to help. Being part of a democracy means that your vote counts, and politicians must listen to you if they want that vote. By making it clear that you value policies that aim to combat climate change, parties will realize that they have to change their platform to address this if they want your vote. Just look at the climate week protests we had the past month following Greta Thunburg, individuals may not think that they’re voice counts, but when those individuals all band together it’s clear how huge their impact can be. If you’re interested in becoming more involved, there are even some activism groups here in Guelph! Friday’s for Future Guelph meets every friday from 12-1pm at city hall to discuss climate action (I go to this one!), and Youth Climate action meets at 6pm on Wednesdays (which is more accessible for people who are busy with class during the day).

Information about Youth Climate Solutions Group

Picture taken last Friday at Fridays for Future Guelph who meet at City Hall every Friday. Retrieved from their instagram @fridaysforfutureguelph

Finally, while discussing the mental health aspect of climate change, it’s important to take care of yourself. It’s easy to become depressed with all the negative messages, but there is help for those who feel this way, and they are not alone. Take it easy, and remember if you’re feeling overwhelmed, to take time for yourself.

This issue is very new, it’s something that hasn’t really been addressed before so I’m looking forward to hearing others' thoughts on it. What are your thoughts on climate action? Additional ways to fight climate despair? Ways to fight climate change itself?

#climate change

Looking to the Past

There is a lot to unpack in this quote for sure. It can be a little hard to understand exactly what the authors getting at at first, so I had to read it about 10 times before it started to sink in. After reflecting, I think I get what they’re trying to say. The first part of this quote states “...integrity entails the keeping together the parts of any whole...”.When it comes to any one thing, the past of that thing is an important part to understanding the whole. This is especially true when it comes to nature and natural areas since these places are much, much older than any of us. As a nature interpreter, you simply cannot understand the whole of what you’re explaining unless you understand the past. A good example of this is the Guelph history tour we went on last week. Our tour guide did a really good job of connecting the past to the present, like the stories he told about the Albion Hotel, and I think that’s something that’s important to keep in mind as a nature interpreter.

Parade on Wyndham Street, Guelph 1913. Taken from Guelph Public Library Archive.

The second part of this quote states “ the maintenance of integrity entails a memory, knowledge, of ancient things”. I believe this reflects on the importance of considering the past when making decisions in the present and for the future. An important example of this is climate change. A large part of understanding the span and scope of climate change involves comparing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to the amount of it in the past. Furthermore, we can look at periods of time on Earth that have experienced similar changes in climate to extrapolate the consequences.

It’s important to understand the past, both so that we can accurately describe the present, and appropriately predict the future

Privileged

When I hear the word privilege,I think of a special opportunity given to someone based on things beyond their control. People who have privilege have more advantages in life than someone else because of the circumstances in which they were born into. Before this class, I’d honestly never thought of privilege in the context of nature interpretation.

Generally I’d thought of privilege as something applied more to money, job opportunities and how people are treated by others, but I’d never applied the concept to hobbies, especially those related to nature. I’ve always thought of “nature” as something free that can be experienced by anyone, but this class has made me realize that that is not always the case. As it turns out a lot of my best experiences with nature have been facilitated by my own privilege. I’m a white caucasian girl from a middle class family. Furthermore, I’m lucky enough to be able to live at home with my parents while I got to school, I don’t have to worry about rent or food. It’s for this reason that I have enough disposable income to go on trips to different natural areas of the world, like Iceland or the trip I took to vancouver island this summer with my dad.

[My dad falling down Mount Becker in BC, taken by me]

For many people, these opportunities are not available. For those that live in cities it can be difficult to even get to areas of wilderness, and driving long distances to get there is not an option. Getting into nature can also be time consuming, and time is often a luxury. Furthermore many outdoor activities, such as camping and canoeing, can be expensive and require money for equipment and rentals. There’s also a barrier to overcome in regards to society's perceptions on what someone who can appreciate nature in the context of guided hikes and nature interpretation, looks like- like the pictures we looked at in class, this is often someone who is young,white and middle class. Clearly there are a number of factors to consider when considering nature interpretation and privilege.

One thing that stuck out for me on this specific topic was when we went to the Art gallery and were shown some of the indigenous art pieces on display. What really struck me was when our guide mentioned that one big thing she hears from people is that the art seems very “primitive”, but she pointed out that perhaps the person making it had never used a pencil before and this was their first time. It made me think about how privilege can be as simple as never having used writing utensils before.

[Indigenous art piece in the “Hot to Warm, Warm to Cool” exhibition on display at the Art Gallery of Guelph (I didn’t get the artist name my bad)]

Nature interpretation is at its core about people. For this reason, it’s really important to consider people’s backgrounds when interpreting, if you do not consider where they are coming from, how can you expect to connect with them?

Into the Woods

Pretty much all my life I’ve enjoyed being outside. As a kid, me and my brother would spend all of our time playing in the fields and woods around our house, catching frogs and playing pretend. But it’s really my dad I owe for taking me from my backyard to the actual wilderness. Almost every day he’d take me and my siblings on long hikes with our dogs, take us camping and canoeing. It was through this that I gained a love and appreciation of outdoor activities that prevailed through most of my childhood.

(Above) Me at the Watson trail, a hike me and my dad went on a bunch when I was a kid

Despite this, for most of my life I didn’t want a career in the environment. It wasn’t until my second year of University that I started getting outside again. Me and my friend went on a week long camping trip in Tobermory, which truly ignited my old love of the outdoors. It was also around this time that there was the American election, and a lot of political discourse surrounding climate change. These things in combination really made me rethink my priorities. I decided that my connection to nature and the environment was something I wanted to have for the rest of my life. Furthermore, I realized that helping protect and preserve it was a path that I would find a lot of fulfillment in (also biology is just really cool!). So, I switched my major to Wildlife Biology and Conservation and here I am :)

(Above) A cool slug me and my friend found on the Tobermory trip.

If I had to describe my current relationship with nature I would say it’s a big ol combination of respect and appreciation. While a big part of my perspective on nature comes from the enjoyment I get out of it, and how much I like being in and around it, I’ve also come to appreciate that it’s far more than just aesthetic value. The “environment” and society are very interconnected I feel, and I think that by protecting and advocating for it, we’re advocating for ourselves. It’s for this reason I choose to be in conservation.

My big hope is that this class will help me share this perspective with others!

Disclaimer

This blog was created for ENVS 3000, University of Guelph.

The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of the University of Guelph.

The University of Guelph is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by this blog.

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