Over 15 years of ocean science and conservation online
Every year modern medicine brings more and more surprises. It really does seem that the limitations of man’s achievements are solely limited to our creative ability to dream what is possible. This week we bring you the bionic eye. As part of an ongoing trial at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital surgeons implanted a micro electric chip into a patients eye restoring part of her sight.
Catherine Macdonald is the Executive Director of Field School, an interdisciplinary field science training program. She is also a fifth year PhD student at the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy at the University of Miami, and the Intern Coordinator for the Shark Research and Conservation Program (SRC).
Like a lot of the scientists I know, teaching (outside the classroom) and outreach are a key part of the work I do, and one of the things I love most about my job. This isn’t because scientists accrue big rewards for prioritizing outreach (in the academic tenure system, we can actually pay a pretty high price for spending time on anything other than research/required teaching/publication) but because we want to get people excited about science and care a lot about the subjects we study.
Unfortunately, we aren’t always maximizing our positive impacts on students or citizen scientists who engage with our research—maybe because we aren’t familiar enough with the vast and labyrinthine social science literature on what works in education.* (I wish I had a dollar for every time a natural scientist, in talking to me about education or outreach, has said “if only someone would study this…” without being aware that education researchers have been studying it, in some cases for decades.)
This list is in no way comprehensive, but distills some key points I’ve come across that have influenced the way I teach and interact with students. My thinking here is geared towards programs like those I work with, which take students into the field and involve them in science or outreach in a direct, hands-on way. Although I think it’s great for scientists to go into classrooms and give talks, this advice is only partially applicable to that kind of outreach, and is really geared towards out-of-classroom folks.
Let’s also note that a variety of good potential outcomes have been shown to result from experiential education programs, including increased academic success, improved self-esteem and “self-concept” (i.e., how kids see themselves), increased personal and social responsibility, and better attitudes towards and relationships with adults. There’s no question that those of us who work with students above and beyond what is required or expected of us are doing a good thing. The question becomes: how do we do that good thing better?
* In this list, I am not attempting to differentiate between environmental education, experiential education, service education, scientific outreach, adventure education or any of the other various terms which can be used to describe similar programs. Although there can be important differences in approaches and goals among these categories, it is key elements that the most effective programs have in common that I am interested in.
January 2016 was different.
We blocked off an entire month, primed it with some of the best speculative fiction from our ocean’s future, wrapped it in a narrative to connect seemingly disparate topics, and launched Field Notes from the Future, 41 blog post imagining the issues we would face in 2041, 25 years in the future. This was the first time in the blog’s almost 8-year run that we dedicated an entire month to a single concept. It was also the first time that the authors collaborated and coordinated our content.
I am incredibly happy with the results. Field Notes from the Future gave us a chance to flex our creative muscles in new and exciting ways. It gave us an outlet to express our hopes and fears, to expand on our concerns, and to look beyond the horizon and imagine the conflicts that have yet to emerge.
Science and Science Fiction have always been deeply connected. For all the great work of the “heroes of science communication”, the STEM-advocates, the science outreach professionals, it was Clarke, Verne, Shelley, Wells, and Le Guin who inspired me to pursue a career in science. Science shows us the world as it is, Science Fiction imagines the world as it could be.
Read More “On spending a month publishing science fiction from our Ocean Future.” »
He showed me exactly what we needed to see. He? I, me, we. The me that is yet to be. The Nautilus is not of the future. Only data flow backwards. That much, I understand. At least I think I understand. He that is, well, me, eventually, understood. Will understand. The message was a code. … Read More “The final server update: All systems normal.” »
I really hope this old twitter embed code works, otherwise this whole thing is going to fall apart. Hey Dr. Thaler circa 2016, did you get my package? Check the infill. On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the … Read More “Happy New Years, old me” »
On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the contemporary database, we are, at this time, unable to remove these Field Notes from the Future or prevent the uploading of additional posts. Please enjoy this glimpse into the ocean future while we attempt to rectify the situation.
It came from the deep.
The heart of Zero Cloner is a snippet of cunningly concealed genetic code isolated from shrimp on the Mid-Cayman Spreading Center, retro-edited to create an easy to edit gene region to which other Cloner derivatives can latch. Zero Cloner pave the way for Omega Cloner. Omega Cloner spread across the world, locking augmented humans out of society. The Standard Deviants launched a series of attacks early Monday morning, destroying essential digital architecture needed to maintain a fully integrated world.
Entire nations are grinding to a halt. We needed a cure, and we needed it fast.
It also came from the deep.
Read More “How to fight invasive software: the cure to the cyborg crisis.” »
On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the contemporary database, we are, at this time, unable to remove these Field Notes from the Future or prevent the uploading of additional posts. Please enjoy this glimpse into the ocean future while we attempt to rectify the situation.
“The sea is big. The sea is cruel. She takes more than she gives. That’s how it’s always been.”
This line from my long forgotten first science fiction novel still resonates with me. The ocean is a tough place. No matter how good we get at working at sea, the sea always finds new and creative ways to totally undermine our endeavors.
The last quarter century has seen a tremendous rise in our collective faith in technology’s power to save us. When hundreds of thousands were dying on the roads, we made car that drove themselves, reducing traffic fatalities by several orders of magnitude. After the last great recession, we created new digital currencies to protect our savings from market forces. When we could no longer afford to burn coal and oil, we finally built an alternative energy infrastructure.
When firearm deaths and mass shootings were out of control, we built “safe” guns with sophisticated biometric locks, and developed clothing and shields to reduce fatalities. These measures had almost no effect, but we continue to throw technology at the problem.
That is the problem with technocracy.
On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the contemporary database, we are, at this time, unable to remove these Field Notes from the Future or prevent the uploading of additional posts. Please enjoy this glimpse into the ocean future while we attempt to rectify the situation.
Any female scientist my age (Generation Pre-Internet) can remember when sexism was a standard rite of passage. Truly, you hadn’t ‘made it’ in science until you could one-up your colleague’s harassment story. I remember being enlisted into the Sisterhood of the Travelling Confidants (to quote an old classic), where we laughed at the futility of filing complaints while helping new members process their anger. We were powerless back then… but many.
Then came the advent of ‘social media’, sharing and liking posts, hashtags, connectivity and a voice. This led to the realization that all institutes of every field of science had their own Sisterhoods. One by one, reluctantly, these groups came out of the libraries on the second floor (there’s a second floor??), hidden basement kitchenettes, and forgotten conference rooms. New members, who were younger and more internet savvy than the old guard, took to social media to process their anger. The sisterhoods became solidarities when male colleagues used their position to amplify the messages. Soon, a spotlight was put on our inside joke that reporting harassment to higher-ups was as effective as one of David’s remote petitions, and titans of torment began to fall, one by one, each story more disturbing – at least to those outside of the sisterhood – than the last.
Read More “Remember when sexism in science died? Me neither.” »
On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the contemporary database, we are, at this time, unable to remove these Field Notes from the Future or prevent the uploading of additional posts. Please enjoy this glimpse into the ocean future while we attempt to rectify the situation.
Underwater robotics has come a long way since I started working on it in the early ‘noughts. From the massive industrial beasts of the old guard to the small, sleak, eminently hackable sprite of the Connected Exploration movement to this new crop of fully autonomous, decision-making and directive setting AI-powered drones of the last few years, everything keeps getting smaller, cheaper, and more capable. It’s a great decade to be exploring the deep.
Last month, we deployed our first swarm of artificially intelligent deep diving robots designed to patrol the abyssal plane, identify regions of unique biodiversity, and recommend critical ecosystems for international protection in advance of biomining operations. What’s unique about this project is that we’ve assigned all decision-making authority directly to the swarm. They get to decide where in the world they go and how and when they sample. This came after years of debate and negotiation with stakeholders from science, conservation, and industry, and has been accepted through international agreement as the most unbiased and equitable solution to the challenge of getting groups with vastly different goals to agree upon dividing up the deep.
Read More “Welcome to the Future: Three Rules for Artificially Intelligent Underwater Robots.” »
On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the contemporary database, we are, at this time, unable to remove these Field Notes from the Future or prevent the uploading of additional posts. Please enjoy this glimpse into the ocean future while we attempt to rectify the situation.
Twenty-five years ago this month we tried a radical experiment. For 31 days, every single post we made came from the future. This future, to be exact. We explored the nature of change, the fate of our ocean, the cycles of environmentalism–from problem to proposal to success to complacency to new problem. We imagined solutions and their consequences. We envisioned struggles that would continue, and struggles that would fade, unremembered. We shifted the baseline and watched it crumble.
It seems weird, looking back now that the day has come, on those old posts. We got a few things right, and a lot of things wrong.
