while the waters may look idyllic, a century-old sewage system and dangerously high levels of bacteria have made the urban national park unswimmable for decades. now, a team of volunteers is working to change that, one water sample at a time.

no-swim zone

d.c. residents know that swimming in the city’s waterways is not the best idea — in fact, it’s been illegal since 1971. lorde shocked concert goers and made national news last year when she claimed to float in the potomac before her show. there’s a stigma around the cleanliness of these rivers from decades of pollution, but in recent years, the waterways have been slowly improving.

the environmental protection agency has been trying to make the city’s waterways swimmable and fishable since the clean water act of 1972. while the original ten-year timeline for that goal passed forty years ago, the act set in motion a clean water agenda the city is hoping to reach in the next few years.

in 2019, city officials began floating the idea of relaxing or lifting the swim ban. but even after decades of cleaning up the waterways, environmentalists question whether the water is safe enough to open to public swimming. data from the d.c. volunteer water quality monitoring project is helping shed light on the state of the city’s rivers and streams.

watching the waterways

on a cool day in early may, the ground is damp and the water is high in rock creek park. it’s the first day of the 2023 water monitoring season, an overcast morning after several days of on-and-off rain.

landrum beard, community engagement coordinator at rock creek conservancy, sits under a picnic pavilion at a table lined with small red coolers for volunteers to pick up with their water testing kits. they’ll head out toward their assigned sites, marked with ribbons, along the creek and return with the coolers filled with water samples, which are taken to anacostia riverkeeper’s lab for testing.

anacostia riverkeeper launched the d.c. volunteer water quality monitoring project in 2018 to measure and track contamination levels in d.c.’s main waterways: the anacostia river, the potomac river, and rock creek.

with a $140,000 grant from the d.c. department of energy and environment, the project has grown into a collaboration between anacostia riverkeeper, alliance for the chesapeake bay, rock creek conservancy, and nature forward. the groups have trained almost 400 volunteers from all eight wards of the city, collecting more than 2,000 water samples from 2019 to 2022.

each wednesday morning from may to september — considered the outdoor recreational season — teams of volunteers take water samples at two dozen sites across the city and test for ph balance, e. coli levels, water temperature, air temperature, and turbidity, a measure of water clarity. they also note if they see anyone in the water, as many people and their pets still wade in the creek despite park signs warning against it. the results are posted each friday and updated in the swim guide app, which lets users check the water quality of nearby beaches.

most of the volunteers are consistent, beard says. there are some newcomers on this first day of the new season, but others have been a part of the program for years.

benita veskimets is one of those veteran volunteers. veskimets, who used to work in fundraising for rock creek conservancy, is in her fourth year of water sampling. “i’m really curious to see what happens this year,” she says. “last year, i feel like it was worse than the year before.”

only a few of the rock creek sites passed with safe bacteria levels last year, beard confirms. those were mostly on dry weeks, when there was little or no rainfall impacting the stormwater sewage overflow. this morning is not one of those times. after a rainy week, the creek is likely swimming with bacteria from runoff. not the best way to kick off the season, he admits.

rock creek park’s sewage problem

the root of this problem lies with infrastructure, and if you’ve ever walked through rock creek park after a rainstorm, you can smell why. 

after just half an inch of rainfall, hazardous waste and sewage flood into the creek from the city’s old combined sewer infrastructure. in this system, stormwater and sewage flow through the same pipes — and when it rains, they quickly fill up and overflow into the rivers. rock creek is considered dangerously contaminated when that happens, and recreators are advised to avoid the waterway for up to three days afterward.

volunteers have tracked that trend at the sampling areas. “all these sites, for the most part, have a storm drain a few hundred feet or so upstream from where the sampling site is,” beard said. “so after big rain events, we always see that the sites have extremely high bacteria.”

d.c. water is now working on a $2.6 billion overhaul to the city’s sewage system with the goal of redirecting some of these sewage lines away from the city’s waterways and back toward treatment plants. this plan, the clean river project, is set to be completed in 2030. 

in the current phase of the project, the national park service is teaming up with d.c. water to take on piney branch creek, one of rock creek’s main tributaries and victims of contamination. an estimated 39 million gallons of sewage and stormwater pour into the creek each year.

“the way to do it is to build bigger pipes under the ground that can handle all the sewage and the stormwater and keep it in the pipes and get it down to the treatment plant,” said steve dryden, a local conservationist who has worked in the piney branch area for years.

the city is expanding these pipes, aiming to reduce the amount of sewage flowing into the three waterways by 96 percent. it’s part of a hybrid plan for rock creek that includes both traditional “grey infrastructure” — like basins, drains, and pipes — and new “green infrastructure,” such as rain gardens and permeable pavers in 365 acres of the surrounding urban areas. a pilot program for this green infrastructure plan reduced runoff into the creek by nearly one fifth, surpassing d.c. water’s goals.

but sewage overflow and runoff after rainfall is not the only contamination source in rock creek. the water quality monitoring project reports that some sites have had persistently high levels of bacteria even during dry weather, which may be caused by “outdated infrastructure, leaking sewer pipes, or uninvestigated point-source pollution.”

jeanne braha, executive director of rock creek conservancy, said this may also come from pet waste and houses or businesses with sewer pipes that are accidentally hooked up to storm drain pipes that flow into the creek. construction in the urban area is another contributor, veskimets adds. while the potomac and anacostia bacteria levels are a direct result of combined sewer overflows, rock creek’s contamination comes from several sources — making solutions harder to find.

one sample at a time

while solving rock creek’s water contamination problem is a long process, participants in the d.c. volunteer water quality monitoring project are ensuring that city officials and environmentalists have the data to help. 

the potomac and anacostia rivers have been slowly improving in water quality since the anacostia was once dubbed “one of the most polluted waterways in the nation.” people debate whether the rivers have recovered enough to be swimmable.

“i think we’re getting there,” said louis eby, a longtime water quality volunteer and former attorney advisor in the epa’s office of water. he’s seen a lot of progress in the two rivers, but remains cautious about rock creek.

“i wouldn’t swim in rock creek,” he said. “we’ll get there some day for rock creek, but not soon.”

sure enough, the rain in early may was a forecast of remaining challenges. both upper and lower rock creek sites reported unsafe e. coli and ph levels in the first week of monitoring.

still, citizen scientists will continue to keep tabs on the water quality each week. as soon as rock creek is finally swimmable, they’ll be the first to know. 

as the summer recreation season kicks off, people flock to d.c.’s waterways for kayaking, paddleboarding, and sightseeing — and one day soon, they might be able to safely swim in them.

but what garneau is really scouting for is roadkill. 

when coming upon a flattened porcupine or lamentable roadside squirrel, garneau pulls over. grabbing her smartphone, she opens up inaturalist, a social network that allows users to map and share global observations of biodiversity. she enters data into her device, noting the date, time, species, weather, road type, location, habitat surrounding, and more. snapping a picture, she uploads her photo to numerous studies taking place on the app. in recent years, her observations, and those of other citizen participants, have been added into global wildlife connectivity and roadkill long-term surveys. some of those projects include inaturalist’s global roadkill observations project and adventure scientists wildlife connectivity project, and squirrelmapper. 

the global roadkill observation study’s more than 15,000 international contributors have identified 3,641 species of roadkill globally. species from the crab-eating fox in cumaral, columbia to a black copper rat snake hin yung, thailand were documented with research-grade identifications. this plethora of global wildlife documentation, which garneau contributed to 227 times, will be used by scientists around the world to understand important conservation questions. the study’s page emphasizes that they are collaborating with “organizations globally to record roadkill observations as both evidence of a species occurrence and of wildlife-vehicle conflict.” 

as her prolific contributions suggest, garneau is not new to the rising world of road ecology. she has been studying and documenting roadkill since 2008. her awareness of the questions surrounding road ecology started from an education standpoint. she is one of several researchers in the area with projects that focus on roadkill patterns; others include dr. erika barthelmess at st. lawrence university and dr. tom langen at clarkson.

“i found a need in my courses, students were curious,” garneau said. “it is a good project to learn about wildlife using roadkill as an index of species abundance in the region. it helps students gain skills in animal id and spatial analysis using geographic information systems (gis). it also has the potential for community engagement and service learning.” 

garneau recalled the first launch of her initial wildlife monitoring study. 

“a former student had mentioned she rarely sees virginia opossum near suny plattsburgh during school, while in the albany region she sees a lot,” garneau said. “we were discussing dr. erika barthelmess’ roadkill research paper and commented on how interesting it was that opossum were common roadkill in st. lawrence county, in contrast to their rarity in clinton/essex county during our roadkill surveys since arriving at suny.” 

with the help of her students and dr. curt gervich, an environmental planner and fellow suny-plattsburgh professor, they commenced a survey of workers in the region who are on the roads for their jobs. school bus drivers, delivery drivers and mail carriers filled out the forms. the team started mapping for opossum hotspots. 

over the years, as the project developed, garneau went through trial and error to find a way to keep all of the data together. at first she used a handheld gps and camera to document specimens while adding relevant information to a huge excel sheet. as this became increasingly cumbersome, she then moved onto epicollect, a data-gathering smartphone platform. eventually, she even created her own project using the epicollect app. featured on npr, the epicollect project, titled roadkillgarneau, successfully documented garneau’s findings, as well as other contributors spanning the globe. in fact, in the early stages of the app project, an austrian professor reached out to translate the roadkillgarneau project, and use it in his classroom and research in austria. 

unfortunately, the app project has not been active since 2019 due to smartphone technology rollouts not keeping pace with the app code. garneau was discouraged by the issues outside of her control, but did not stop the research. instead, garneau switched to the inaturalist app, which contributes daily observations from a global network of citizen scientists. 

“(data gathering) got a lot easier with the help of inaturalist participation,” garneau said. “opossum are now one of the top roadkill species logged on my daily drive to work. the increase in frequency of opossum roadkill in essex and clinton counties likely reflects an increase in abundance –– indicating resident populations that are reproducing. we are continuing to pursue contributing factors to this trend. perhaps they are capitalizing on regional land-use changes, including on urban and agricultural habitat. it also offers us an opportunity to mitigate wildlife losses by informing the public and engaging with local organizations.”

garneau sees her roadkill research as a practice of citizen science, a new and growing field of research helping create new scientific knowledge through the collaboration of citizens in scientific research. 

according to garneau, “scientists have learned to understand the value of community participation for engagement, as well as to grow the scope of observations of particular species of interest.”

this is an important step toward helping communities understand the value of science. according to a 2015 analysis, “the direct involvement of the public in research projects ensures that they are less concerned about the findings and purpose of science as well as exposing them to the scientific process. this has the potential to combat the public skepticism of science when confronted with debates in areas such as climate change.”

beyond aiding different scientific circles with essential research, citizen science is having a tangible effect in increasing public safety and conservation impact.

a 2020 article from the journal of nature conservation found that citizen science platforms are helping to mitigate roadkill collisions on european roads. the authors found that the rise in platforms allowing citizens to report roadkill has the potential to increase public participation in both traffic safety and nature conservation. the study notes, “volunteers contribute significantly to collecting data on species that are not typically recorded in official databases.”

research like this supports that everyday citizens can have a direct impact. as of the 2015 analysis, “the term ‘citizen science’ is increasingly appearing in peer reviewed journals, indicating the wider use and acceptance of this term.” now, garneau has noticed a rise in citizen science app usage, even in her non-scientific circles.

pandemic-fueled boredom may have led to an increase in families wanting to identify the backyard birds they have been seeing more of. or, maybe people are beginning to see tangible effects of climate change in their hometowns, and they want to help in any way possible. or, perhaps more and more educators, like garneau, are introducing these growing technologies into their classrooms so students can feel a part of the change. 

want to try citizen science yourself? if roadkill doesn’t suit your interest, you can document the animated birds in your backyard, catalog the critters running around at your local park or search for mollusks in nearby water bodies. plant species can also be documented. turn citizen science into a family weekend outing or a unique date idea. there are a myriad of projects to discover and impacts to be made.

cross, a social media and marketing professional, has been a fan of swift since the 31-year-old singer released “love story” in 2008. she feels she has grown up just “one era behind her’s” and views swift as an older sister of sorts. she is not alone in feeling this connection to swift; hundreds of fans expressed similar sentiments. 

for fans of swift, the last year and a half have been nothing short of overwhelming. the singer-songwriter released two surprise albums in 2020 and began releasing her re-recorded albums, with “red” slated to release this november. sister albums “folklore” and “evermore” expanded swift’s impact beyond the pop music charts and have now piqued the interest of an entirely new group: conservation scientists. 

these scientists are interested in the impact that swift’s use of nature-based language has had on environmental empathy. it could be the first domino to fall in a series of events that leads to resolving many ecological issues. 

“pop culture is part of how we see and know things,” said jeff opperman, the global lead freshwater scientist for the world wildlife fund and author of the new york times article ‘taylor swift is singing us back to nature.’ “we need artists like taylor swift beginning to integrate [nature] into their lyrics. it’s not going to solve [climate change] on its own by any means, but it’s a brick in rebuilding that bridge between us and nature.”

opperman’s interest in swift’s lyrics began when he decided to listen to the album “folklore” at the recommendation of several peers. he first noticed that all of the short videos for the album on spotify were of swift observing nature. slowly, he realized how often swift wove natural imagery into the lyrics of her songs.

“she’s in a meadow, she’s in a forest, she’s walking along a lake… it often takes a while for the lyrics to kind of sink in. you don’t really hear all the words, and then you start listening, and it’s like, ‘oh! she keeps referencing parks and trees and creeks and lakes and all this stuff,’” opperman observed. 

opperman began figuring out just how many more nature-themed words swift used compared to other pop artists. he compared the lyrics of the 32 songs on “folklore” and “evermore” to the first 32 songs on spotify’s today’s top hits playlist and found that she uses nature-based language seven times as frequently as the other pop songs. 

opperman’s analysis shows that swift’s use of nature-related words is highly uncommon in modern music. a 2017 study published by the association for psychological science titled “a growing disconnection from nature is evident in cultural products” found that the use of nature-related words in song lyrics declined by 63% from the 1950s to the first decade of the 21st century. their analysis of nature-related words in english works of fiction and film storylines found similar results. 

“it’s an indication that the culture doesn’t pay attention to nature or the most beautiful aspects of nature as much… if you value something, you would probably think more about it, talk about it more,” said selin kesebir. kesebir is an associate professor of organizational behavior at the london business school and the lead scientist on the study. 

the researchers found that as one encounters nature more frequently, it is more likely that they would include nature-related concepts in cultural creations. when they do not spend time in nature, they will not likely include a reference to it in a song, poem, or film. 

“the creative process requires creators to access elements of conceptual knowledge stored in their minds and to combine these elements (ward & kitayama, 2010). this means that nature-related concepts can make their way into cultural products if they are stored in the minds of cultural creators and are cognitively accessible to them,” the study stated. “conversely, if creators have limited encounters with nature or if these encounters do not register with them, nature is less likely to feature in their work.”

kesebir and her team found that urbanization and technological change are likely reasons for the declining interest in nature. technology has become a replacement for the joy, recreation, and entertainment that nature once provided.

the researchers also believe that these findings are of concern due to the strong evidence that documents the positive effects of contact with nature and because “cultural products not only reflect the prevailing culture, they also shape it.” this belief means that as people lose physical contact with nature and do not hear or see it in cultural products, such as songs and movies, it creates a negative feedback loop that diminishes interest in nature altogether. 

“if you don’t have these cultural role models, then you are less likely to enact that on your own… if you observed other people doing that, then you will be more likely to do that on your own,” said kesebir. 

kesebir, a ph.d. in social psychology, believes that swift’s impact on redeveloping this connection to nature could be significant, especially because she is this role model to so many people. she believes that swift has far more reach than authors like ralph waldo emerson, who wrote about nature in the past. 

“i think it’s this key sort of on-ramp to becoming an active conservationist. that first step is like, ‘oh, the woods are pretty. taylor swift liked it; maybe i should go outside, take some pictures.’ i think that’s definitely a key first step on that continuum. at sustain, we like to just take that to the next step further and link it to a call to action,” said betsy mortensen, the ceo and co-founder of sustain. this non-profit organization partners environmental organizations with the music industry. 

sustain holds song-writing retreats that bring people into national parks to connect with nature and form an emotional connection to public lands. sustain also has a program called trail sessions, which pairs outdoor concerts with guided educational hikes at public lands. 

“70% of people that attend trail sessions have never visited our featured locations before, which kind of stunned me. so it is like a big part of the reason that people are coming out to these is because of the music component that they’re attracted to, like, ‘oh, i know this band, this sounds cool. i feel comfortable going to this place that i’ve never been because the band is there,’” said mortensen, who has a master’s degree in environment, society, and development. “95% of people intend to return to these places on their own.”

however, mortensen and sustain co-founder, harrison goodale, said that swift’s nature-related lyrics are just the first step in inspiring people to connect to the outdoors. 

“i think that there is significance if the artists were able to promote the conservation efforts in terms of explaining why they’re choosing to do nature, rather than just be like, ‘oh, this is an aesthetic,’” said goodale.

goodale has a degree in music education and is a musician himself. he believes that albums like swift’s should do more than just use nature as an aesthetic. instead of just explaining why she likes trees, goodale thinks that a call to action that explains the importance of these trees could do a lot to preserve them. 

both opperman and kesebir also believe that swift’s music on its own will not solve issues like climate change. still, swift may unintentionally disband this negative feedback loop by creating cultural products that increase interest in nature. 

however, cross is an example of a fan of swift’s who has found herself caring more about nature due to the lyrics in “folklore” and “evermore.” on top of spending more time with her chickens to pose them for photos, cross has connected with specific lyrics that have drawn her closer to nature. one of the bonus tracks on the “folklore” album is titled “the lakes,” which includes vivid imagery in the lyrics. an example of these lyrics is, “i want auroras and sad prose // i want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet.” this song, in particular, led to cross paying more attention to her environment.

“i would say i paid more attention to lakes, which is so weird because obviously, lakes are pretty big here in vermont; we have a ton of them. i never really loved looking at them, but i never noticed how beautiful they were with the mountains behind them, and now i always feel like in my head i can really take me to the lakes, and i want to go there and spend more time there,” cross said. 

although there is no empirical evidence that swift’s music has led to more people becoming conservationists, anecdotes like cross’ prove that it is possible.

“there is this cultural deficit, and if the biggest pop star in the world does this, well, that’s at least a start in repairing the cultural deficit,” opperman said.

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volunteer researchers, more commonly known as “citizen scientists,” are everyday people who lack formal training in scientific fields yet contribute to scientific work. citizen scientists, now more than ever, are volunteering and collaborating with university research labs and government agencies, like the national oceanic and atmospheric administration (noaa), by assisting with data collection and field research. 

shark scientists rely on the use of citizen scientists for data collection to monitor population growth and habitat shifts. local citizen scientists notice something’s amiss and contact the appropriate agencies and facilities. for example, californian citizen scientists noticed an influx of juvenile white sharks (carcharodon carcharias) in bays and along beaches within the last several years as their coastal waters warm. these juvenile shark populations were observed much further north than usual. 

salvador jorgensen, a research associate at the institute of marine sciences at the university of california, santa cruz, recently co-authored a paper in the journal scientific reports on this range shift of juvenile white sharks. the monterey bay aquarium led the research, and jorgensen and colleagues incorporated data that citizen scientists gathered.

juvenile white sharks are endotherms. they need to stay in water that is warm enough to maintain their core temperature but not too warm to elevate it, jorgensen explained.

“i kind of call it ‘the goldilocks zone’ for juvenile white sharks. it’s between 60 and 70 degrees [fahrenheit],” he said.

juvenile white sharks were mostly found in the warmer waters south of point conception, the headland where the pacific ocean and santa barbara channel meet, according to jorgensen. this is considered the point that separates southern and central california. however, during the 2014-2016 north pacific marine heatwave, juvenile white shark sightings reached unprecedented rates in central california. despite the marine heatwave ending five years ago, juvenile white sharks are still spotted along central california beaches.

kisei tanaka, a research marine biologist for noaa and lead author of the paper, said that the primary source of their data came from online open-access databases where people can use a website or phone application to take photos of a plant or animal for identification and upload the information to free public sources. scientists may even have the latitude and longitude of the species sighting if someone geotagged the uploaded photo with the exact location.

tanaka and jorgensen looked at the public access databanks along the california coast over the last five years to confirm the uptick of juvenile white shark sightings further north of point conception. then, marine scientists conducted their scientific survey expeditions looking for juvenile white sharks. the public access databanks utilized, like inaturalist, allowed the scientists to pinpoint which areas appeared to be the most juvenile white shark heavy, based on citizen scientist sightings.

“this [method of data collection] is very novel and effective in terms of capturing the change in the species distribution that weren’t affected by the scientific survey [our research team conducted] but may be able to be conducted at a much more local scale by more participants,” said tanaka.

 through the research described in their paper, the shark scientists determined that juvenile white sharks are moving poleward as their initial nursery ranges, like south of point conception, are too hot for their temperature-sensitive bodies. while rising ocean temperatures have been a concern to marine scientists for years now, citizen scientists quickly caught the attention of researchers with the influx of juvenile white sharks spotted further north and submitted to these databases.

“white shark is a very charismatic species that a lot of people pay close attention to, and they happen to be the one that responds to the climate very abruptly,” said tanaka.

tanaka discussed how sharks tend to capture the eye of the public which makes them one of the best species to use as a flagship for conservation initiatives regarding climate change. the international union for conservation of nature red list of threatened species categorizes white sharks as “vulnerable” and were last assessed in november 2018.

chelsea black is a ph.d. student studying marine conservation at the university of miami’s shark research and conservation program. as the shark satellite tracking coordinator, black monitors all their satellite-tagged sharks and verifying that the transmissions are accurate. she also works as the adopt a shark program manager. if someone donates the amount of a satellite tag, black assigns them their “adopted” shark. the donors can then name the shark and create an origin story of said name. the donors can then check up on their tagged shark at sharktagging.com.

before the covid-19 pandemic, black’s lab actively engaged the public to try more hands-on citizen science by having designated days where groups, such as corporate organizations or students on field trips, go on their boats and help with shark tagging. during these expeditions, citizen scientists get to measure sharks, attach a satellite tag to sharks, take a biological sample of a fin clip and write down field data. they even hold special expeditions where they take young girls out for tagging events with an all-female crew. the program is called females in the natural sciences (fins), and the goal is to excite young girls about shark science and demonstrate that science needn’t be a male-dominated field.

“it’s really cool seeing people come out on the boat with us who sometimes have never been on a boat, have never seen a shark. we will have people who are, you know, kind of afraid of sharks or are not sure what to expect, and by the end of the day, everyone is just like, ‘that was so amazing! i didn’t realize how calm sharks are.’ they’ll see us handling the sharks, obviously very safely, but without fear of the shark harming us,” said black.

for black, changing people’s opinions on sharks while contributing to scientific data collection is one of her favorite parts of working with the shark research and conservation program. she believes that informing and engaging the public in citizen science is crucial for shark conservation.

“we’re losing sharks at such a significant, you know, percentage each year that it will be in our lifetime that we will see species go extinct,” said 27-year-old black.

according to black, if you look at the data, there was a massive spike in shark killings after “jaws” came out in 1975. however, the rise in concern over sharks led to more shark research facilities. after over forty years of adverse publicity, white shark perceptions are finally changing for the better.

christopher lowe is a professor of marine biology, co-author of the juvenile white shark research paper, and has worked as the director of the shark lab at california state university, long beach since 1998. lowe said that for the first time in years, he feels hopeful about shark populations returning thanks to conservation initiatives. he feels that people are genuinely excited about protecting and celebrating sharks.

“i would argue that sharks are now as much a part of our [american] culture as baseball and the fourth of july,” said lowe.

lowe believes conservation citizen science is growing because people are interested in “reconnecting with nature.” according to lowe, some people want more than seeing a piece of nature at face value but to learn something about it.

white sharks are “apex predators;” they reside at the top of the food chain. they prey but are not preyed upon, and they remain a crucial part of oceanic ecosystem conservation by keeping all the other levels of the food web in check. if the apex predators disappeared, the ecosystem’s natural balance would fall. lesser predators would grow in population thus until their prey was depleted, leading to mass die-outs. by protecting white sharks, whole ecosystems are being sustained.

“if we are conserving ecosystems and we’re interested in health of the ocean, for example, we should be concerned with the health of all the species from the smallest, lowliness of phytoplankton all the way to its top predators,” said jorgensen.

with the popularity of a range of volunteer monitoring growing, marine scientists are feeling cautiously optimistic about the future. many shark species are returning to the american coasts. but for marine life, current conservation efforts may not be enough if the symptoms of climate change continue to worsen.

“it’s going to take the planet. it’s going to take everybody, and that is a bigger challenge,” said lowe.

the research says that if sharks, and marine ecosystems as a whole, want to persist, humans have to combat climate change. shark populations are shifting and reacting to people changing the planet explained jorgensen. as ocean temperatures continue to rise, it is up to humankind to save sharks from extinction.

as a child, this was my space. the orchards were my playground. i would spend afternoons with my great grandma at the fruit stand. we would count the cars by color as they passed by. i grew up in a house situated between my grandfather and my great-grandparents. they built the orchards i found refuge in and cultivated the land i called home.

place attachment is fundamental to developing environmental attitudes. connection to place is the emotional connection an individual feels toward their surroundings. this is often developed through childhood interactions and life experiences. the deeper the place attachment, the more likely a person is to be concerned about their local environments.

it can be easy to imagine place connections in rural areas where you are “closer” to nature. but not everyone grew up on an orchard (like me), in the woods, or on a farm. everyone experiences place connections in different ways regardless of where they live.

even though cities may seem vastly different from the countryside, there are some key similarities in how we relate to our surroundings. our inherent affinity toward the natural world can extend beyond cultural reservations. though many may be hesitant at first, good environmental education programs and citizen science initiatives can help people feel connected to their natural communities no matter where they are. a better understanding of local ecology will give people the confidence to stand up for environmental protection in their communities. 

currently, most citizen science programs are directed at studies of local ecology. these are beneficial on their own, but they also create possibilities for new types of engagement. we can adapt citizen science to environmental justice projects. programs that teach people how environmental issues personally affect their communities can help people get a broader understanding of the importance of these issues in their neighborhoods and can help them make connections with other people who want to make their community a safer, healthier, and more enjoyable place to live. if we nurture our place connections and learn how they relate to our local ecologies and environmental issues, we can all become powerful advocates for the environment.

once we understand our own connections, we can connect with our neighbors. the people we live near often have a similar sense of attachment to place. we often share many of the same values and concerns regarding our local environments. personal actions to save the environment are great. reducing our own carbon footprint with eco-friendly methods is a good practice to keep, but we know it will not end climate change. additionally, governments change rapidly and bend to the whim of money and politics. they have consistently proven themselves unwilling to meet the demands of climate change mitigation.

so, what can we do? we can heal our environment through community efforts. collective place attachment and community empowerment can uplift people to take direct action in helping their local environments. citizen science initiatives can be used to increase place attachment and build community efforts. a system of community-lead organizations to support local environments that interact with and learn from one another can develop a grassroots initiative uniquely tailored to regions with a disregard for political borders. we have the potential to create a global matrix of communities working to protect the environment. 

i hadn’t heard of this possibility until recently. on my first night of a recent antarctic voyage, expedition leader robert gilmore gave us passengers a unique opportunity: as citizen scientists, we could participate in real, cutting edge research in fields such as marine biology and meteorology.

one of the projects gilmore mentioned specifically caught my attention: fjordphyto, based in the scripps institute of oceanography in san diego. allison lee, the project operations manager, is a second-year ph.d. candidate at scripps. the research team is investigating the impact of climate change-driven glacial melt on the influence of phytoplankton communities. phytoplankton are a key species in the antarctic, lee explains, as they are the main food source of krill, which feed nearly all antarctic megafauna (and  their prey) including whales, seals, and penguins. “globally diatoms are said to produce nearly 20% of earth’s oxygen!” she said with emphasis, implying that changing these communities can have spillover effects in regions beyond the antarctic. i was fascinated that something so microscopic foreshadowed big changes happening in the earth’s oceans.

lee and gilmore both belong to the polar citizen science collective (pcsc). gilmore explains that pcsc members work with polar scientists and tourism companies to create a productive and educational combination of data collection and citizen science participation. he furthers: “the pscs effectively design(s) programs that eliminate collector bias, while also streamlining the process so as not to infringe on the tourism’s regular operations schedule.” polar research is difficult and expensive to conduct, so the pcsc was formed when a group of polar guides, including gilmore, had the idea of helping scientists conducting research in the western antarctic peninsula (wap).

the program, which has been implemented on cruise ships like the one i traveled on, has seen success from both the scientists’ and tourists’ perspectives. “(we’ve shown) scientists that we can contribute directly to their investigations by taking accurate, detailed, and valuable data sets for them” gilmore explains, “(while) creating educated, motivated people that will be returning home with a message for their friends and family.” this is one of the greatest benefits of citizen science, as people re-discover that sense of wonder regarding the natural world that they might have lost over the years.

i asked lee about her fondest memory regarding citizen science, and she recalls a moment after collecting samples in a zodiac where a man came up to her and said: “i’m an entrepreneur and i’ve owned a lot of businesses. i came to antarctica feeling like it was the last place on earth i could search for inspiration in my life. doing this fjordphyto project i felt for the first time in my life that spark of childlike curiosity.”

gilmore has a similar experience as a polar guide, describing that his most impactful memory with the pcsc is seeing the “light-bulb moment” in a passenger: when they begin to become more engaged with a topic or issue, and start to ask more questions.

most of us don’t have enough background information to fully conduct our own experiments in meteorology, zoology, or geology — and that’s ok. what we all can do is do our best to preserve our sense of wonder and curiosity. we can always be open to learning about new experiences and information.

i’ve always been fascinated by the ability of the right presentation and narrative to capture someone’s attention: i’ve learned about phytoplankton in a few science classes, but before boarding this ship, i never thought twice about them. but after my experience learning about the fjordphyto project, i’ve done extensive research — and obviously felt compelled to share the story with others.

i asked gilmore how he manages to engage passengers without extensive background information on marine biology on topics like trophic levels and phytoplankton blooms.

he recommends an educator build their lesson or curriculum around painting a larger picture: “you don’t want to go too deep into the science… convey the information that is most important for them to go home with.” and that way, you focus on your audience understanding, which is the most important thing.

“treat them like you would your own family,” he said.

when we talk to our family members, we want them to understand and care about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it — not just give them a set of facts to memorize. this is where science education goes wrong, i think. we don’t teach to understand, and students don’t learn to understand either.

we can all learn from this experience — both scientists and ordinary citizens. plus, crowdsourcing data collection makes conducting projects easier and more affordable. lee mentions that citizen science is incredibly useful in many areas of data collection, including geographic scope and duration. additionally, involving the general public in projects is great for increasing scientific literacy, and providing more educated and involved populations overall.

for citizens, getting involved in science is as simple as observation. it’s never too late, and it doesn’t have to be boring or difficult.

“we all have a responsibility to understand and protect our last remaining wild places,” gilmore said. “and we all have the capability to make a difference.”