Healthy or not healthy ecosystems: Is that only the case for our children’s perspective?

In the last weeks, I have been reviewing the sections related to the environment and ecology of the official syllabus for elementary schools of Mexico to obtain a more complete picture of what topics are being taught at that level.  Further, I have received several e-mails from some friends about examples on how current ecological topics (e.g., ecosystem, habitat loss, species loss) are being delivered by teachers to their pupils.  The classical emission of information within the classroom, reading the textbook and, using as additional support such as topic-related pictures on the wall are prevalent ways to support teaching explanations.  It is somewhat surprising to me that “apparently hard”, but meaninful concepts such as resilience are still not part of the official syllabus. 

The official syllabus of elementary schools can be enriched with ecological processes that form a more realistic and flexible perception of nature in children.  Children’s knowledge is inundated with conservation information coming from several sources such as television, internet, movies, magazines, books, and their own professors mostly about ecosystems, loss of habitat, pollution, and loss of species, to name a few.  Over time, these concepts provide children with a dual perception of ecosystem and life either they are living in a preserved environment with animals and plants or in perturbed environments where loss of plants and animals is the rule or our “everyday peanut butter sandwich”.  By using images of endangered plants and animals or deteriorated forests only reinforce the idea of having either a preserved (“healthy”) environment or having a deteriorated (“dying”) environment.  The point is that children observe, perceive and live in contact with their surroundings (let’s set aside nature deficit disorder) where they see that regardless all what they are taught, it does not completely match what they are told and taught.  For instance, children can still see lots of trees, shrubs, herbs, birds, mammals, insects, and so on in their surroundings.  So, if we are losing species as never before (as mentioned in the mass media and in class), where is that happening? (this question was taken from three 7 years old children during a workshop in northern Mexico).



The concept of resilience (in combination with succession) may provide children not only with a more complete picture of how ecosystems may respond to impacts, but also a better attitude towards the environment.  The property of an ecosystem of being able to recover from a certain magnitude of disturbance over time may offer more realistic opportunities to increase children’s understanding about the real properties of the current status of our ecosystems.  Children know that we have forests, prairies, fields, crops, deserts, and several other intermediate types of forest in the wilderness.  Even more they can see what some human activities can do on those forests or ecosystems.  Thus, by explaining the idea that ecosystems are capable of resist and recover from certain levels of natural or human-caused impacts, we could improve children’s understanding of what they are looking at in our current environment in space and time (words that are critical in ecology, right?). 

Further, we can promote the idea that after undergoing disturbance or impacts, ecosystems, animals or plants not necessarily have to immediately disappear from earth.  The idea that “there is not a problem because we still have lots of forest plenty of animals and plants” can be redirected into “we still have opportunities and time to help deteriorated ecosystems to recover from certain impacts or effects”.  Timber harvest, fires, overhunting, overfishing, pollution, and so on are a few examples who children usually hear as “catastrophic and irreversible”, but long time ecologically sound efforts could be implemented in order to recover or try to recover impacted ecosystems. The message it is not “the ecosystem is dying or sick so leave it alone”, but “we can do something to help ecosystems to overcome impacts”.  If we know how ecosystems are formed and function, we can help them get better, right?

Overall my point is, are we really giving a complete flexible perspective to children in understanding how ecosystems respond over time? Or, we are just trying to filling up their brains with a pessimistic perspective of either ecosystems are healthy or dying, that is it!.  In relation to processes such as resilience (in combination to succession), it might not be the concept itself the hardest part, but the way that these ideas are delivered, associated, and put in practice during the learning process, don’t you think? Maybe I am just asking too much ....

Radio spots for communicating science to the public: are we ready for this challenge?

Today I will write on the three radio spots that we were provided with to be analyzed for our weekly graduate seminar.  All of them came from National Public Radio (NPR) program called Science Friday. 

The first radio spot was “Non-embryonic stem cells have more DNA damage” (http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201103046) by the biologist Sean Morrison.  I believe that this was my favorite and best interview based on how Sean presented the topic, answered the questions from the NPR interviewer and from a live call from the radio audience, and his passion and contagious interest for delivering his message.  He used a combination of technical terms, simple English and an analogy to explain his ideas and clarify some points with common important examples related to human health.  Even the NPR interviewer noticed Sean’s increasing enthusiasm over the live interview.  Sean’s objectivity, scientific approach and conciseness in speech was notable by being very careful in his statements and firmly backing up his ideas during this brief participation.

The second radio spot was “Plastics: most plastics leach hormone-like chemical (http://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134196209/study-most-plastics-leach-hormone-like-chemicals) by George Bitnner.  In this case the interviewer took the lead during most of the time.  This presentation sounded more like a lecture than a real live interview.  Although informative, clear, and organized, it did not fulfill my expectations of a good radio interview on scientific matters.

The third radio spot was “Ice: cracking the cool science of ice (http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201102114) by Investigator Eugene Stanley (Physicist) and Mariana Gosnell (writer).  This was the case that I dislike the most.  In this case the interviewer interrupted the talkative Eugene in a rude way.  The tone used in the participants’ voice was very monotonous and seemed lack of enthusiasm for communicating their awesome topic. In addition to the monotonous way of talking by the interviewing the participants, it was too long to keep me in track of the topic.  Even though it was informative and interesting, but also it leaves basic doubts among the audience.  For example they never clarified for the audience why they consider, or not, ice as a mineral.  Eugene used lots of jargon and even he tried to explain it in simple words he usually forgot who he was talking to.

These radio information capsules were very illustrative about how to tackle this kind of event.  But the only way we can really appreciate and hone our skills in this matter is by simply having some live interviews ourselves.  I have no doubt about enhancing the relevance of the paper “Fine-tune for radio and television” that we were given to read on what are key points to keep in mind for having a good radio interview: (1) use simple language, (2) paint visual pictures (i.e., describe vividly and richly your story), (3) use metaphors and analogies, (4) include personal anecdotes, and (6) speak with energy and emotion.  Reading this well-written, complete and concise material in combination with the radio spots were a good complementary exercise.  Further, some of these points have been analyzed over and over during our weekly seminar in communicating effective science to the public which should be useful and put in practice in our near future to assess our learning process.

Spring, spring, spring is here ... warblers' announcement!

For those who respect and admire nature and feel passion for being in contact with it, there is a special time called Spring!  Further, if you consider yourself one of those guys who spend hours in the forests, wetlands, prairies, and urban areas looking for those charismatic organisms with brightly colored plumages and unique regal songs called birds, then Spring has an extra-especial meaning for you.  It is amazing and well-recognized the change that our ecosystems, e.g., forests and lakes, have from season to season, but particularly from Winter to Spring.

For a bird watcher, the onset of Spring means not only the gradually increasing rise in temperature and sunny hours, but to appreciate the amazing ecological process of bird migration.  Yes! Spring, Spring, Spring time is here and that means that millions of birds will be returning to northern latitudes (e.g., Ohio) after spending from 6 to 8 months traveling and/or wintering in more friendly environments in the tropics (e.g., Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and/or South America).  During the next two months countless number of birds will be either temporarily stopping by or staying in habitats of Ohio for the breeding season.  But, instead of spending time in explaining the incredible process of bird reproduction or migration, today I want to point out a simple ecological fact that is sheer illustrative for birders of the Spring arrival.

During the past two weeks there have been returning some birds such as ducks, geese, shorebirds, cranes, hawks, egrets, kingfishers, swallows, swifts, and blackbirds which undoubtedly announce that Spring is here.  From all birds, there is a special group of small (4.5 to 7.5 inches long), light (7 to 25 gr in weight) diverse (37 species occur with regularity in Ohio), colorful (mostly yellow, but combined with a diverse hues of white, black, blue, green, red, and/or gray) migratory birds that unmistakably signal the Spring onset to birders: warblers or wood warblers. 

 These birds belong to the family Parulidae that is native to the American Continent, has 116 species, and are iconic signals for birders that it’s time to be efficient in everything you do to go out and spend time at your favorite birding spots to witness the arrival of these mostly insectivorous yellow song birds. 

 Warblers are nor the first migratory birds coming back to Oxford or Ohio (e.g., ducks), nor are the most conspicuous birds in the forest (e.g., raptors), but they do arrive irrespective of the forest have completely leaved out or is lushly green to start setting up territories for the forthcoming breeding season. 

Next time that you go out to the field, your garden, park, school, Zoo, or walking down street, pay attention to bird songs or bird movements in the vegetation and see if you can detect a small yellowish bird that looks like a “warbler”.  Even more and just out of curiosity, if you are in the field and see a group of people holding binoculars and observing to some vague spot in the woods, ask them about if they have seen any warbler.  You will be amazed and intrigued by their answers, try it out!

  It is fascinating how some small birds can systematically announce the onset of a new season and a Spring day!

Note: Warblers' pictures were taken from internet (the Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

Poetry or penis fencing which way should I go today?

Today, I feel like a fish out of the water and sitting in the desert or, being less dramatic, perhaps like a single  black bean trying nervously to camouflage in a box of kiwis,  ….. just reading, staring and trying to organize a couple of ideas about what to comment on the “Field Day in Curacao: Poems by Erin Sams”.  I must be honest and say that poetry is not part of me.  Perhaps, in my entire life I have read and enjoyed a few poems by Pablo Neruda (Chile), Gabriela Mistral (Chile), or Octavio Paz (Mexico) and that is it!  I feel bad on making comments on something that I do not know or lack knowledge of, but I will do my best in the following brief sentences.

1.       I can perceive how sensitive and watchful Erin is as a person and her tact to mix those feelings with her experiences in the field.  The transmission of emotions to a reader is a critical step in poetry which drives me to believe that she is doing a good job.

2.       She presents her “world or perception” of different temporal stages of a day with very few orchestrated words mixing subtleness and commonly used words in addition to a few subliminal emotional messages.

3.       What I did not get, perhaps just a personal bias, is whether these poems are concatenated or standing alone.

4.       In short, I think she did a god job presenting her sensitiveness in brief words and with her own style.  From the poetry point of view, I reserve my right of saying more about it due to the limitation of my poetic skills and knowledge.

As concerns for the suggestive title of “Penis Fencing” by Michael Sitvarin, I wish I had read this article before preparing my class for BMZ115 in Fall 2009 on the topic 6 “Sex and the C-fern” ….. Mike’s perspective had opened my mind of other ideas about how to present this topic to my class and his advice on being careful when “googleing” penis fencing would have kept me out of trouble and embarrassment.  A few comments on the article would be:

1.       The article is well biologically argumented without going in detail and uses a few analogies and short passages with a nice tinge of his “personal smart sarcasm”. 

2.       It seems totally directed to people with some level of education in biology or ecology to understand the hold idea.  Although he does a good job in explaining most topics in simple words, there is a considerable number of concepts and processes that he makes reference in the text.

3.       To increase the reader attention, I would mix his pictures (perhaps adding a couple more depending on the paragraph) throughout the text to make it more convincing and appealing to the reader.

4.       Although I enjoyed reading it, this article seems is a little too long. But, it will depend where he is planning in publishing it.  As concerns for me, I have no idea of any suitable magazine for it.

5.       I think that Mike is another person that can clearly convey his personality and way of thinking when he writes, and gives seminars as well!.

Learning or just visiting?: a commentary on the effectiveness of informal environmental education activities

Today, one day after the Spring break 2011 is over, I want to write on the importance of communicating scientific information and educating people through nonformal educational activities (i.e., activities that do not form part of a formal class or classroom educational program) related to environmental education actions.

We have heard through several mass media, our peers, colleagues, friends, neighbors, and coworkers that environmental education activities are important actions in informing and educating people in several aspects with the end of engaging them into a more friendly behavior, attitude, and knowledge towards the environment, flora, and fauna and their interrelationships.  Additionally, we know and heard every passing day about the rapidly increasing concerns on our environment problems (e.g., pollution, climate change) and biodiversity conservation (e.g., loss of habitats and species). 

We have also heard that there are diverse financial sources for funding (perhaps not big enough!) such type of actions in favor of increasing the awareness in and actively engaging the society into hands-on actions.  We have visited Zoos, Aquaria, Centers for Environmental Education, State parks, Museums, and the like providing materials, conveying information, and motivating people to engage into local activities in favor of the environment or biodiversity. 

My academic and personal point for today’s topic is, how many of these activities are being assessed in their level of success?  Are they really meeting their goals set a priori?  I do not want to create a false image on nonformal environmental education activities are not worth at all, but to hit another specific nail on its head.  If over the last three decades informal environmental education activities have been increasing in number and frequency, and getting more economical support from the government, private agencies, donors, stakeholders, and volunteers, why we don’t add a little piece more to this puzzle to make it more complete , more effective and real?  This tiny piece that I am trying to reach is the evaluation process.  There are several techniques, depending on the audience and preestablished goals that we can use to assess how well our environmental education efforts are meeting our planned goals.  Starting with simple predesigned surveys and interviews, we can have some evidence on the effectiveness of our efforts in educating and changing attitudes and behaviors. 

A few days ago, I read a scientific paper by Barney et al. 2005 (Journal of Environmental Education 36:41-55) where they developed a study on how nonformal environmental education activities can be assessed in their success and further provide evidence on which direction to go after the first evaluation.  In other words, it shows how we can estimate our success in our environmental activities, get feedback towards the “primary” concerns are and allow us to redirect our efforts towards them.  By using a “megafauna” example (a charismatic species of dolphin) they illustrate a case study and induced me to go to check one popular place with informal environmental education activities during my Spring break;  The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum! 

My surprise started and went through the roof when looking at the facilities, top quality educational material, qualified people, animals and plants, and number of volunteers participating into it.  In addition to the amazing Natural Museum, displays, aviaries, bird and reptile shows, etc that work continuously during the year, it was hard to believe not to have found a systematic way to assess the effectiveness of this “incredible educational natural center”. 

Although people in charge of activities of this Museum do run some quick evaluations in a few activities, most of them are not being assessed.  From now on, every time I visit an environmental educational center, I will be more interested and active in asking about their ways of assessing the effectiveness of their goals and exchange ideas about how to do it … and not just eating, and taking pictures and walking along!

“Megafauna” and “tiny species”: are we using an ecological link for conveying conservation messages to society?

Since I was a child I could see and understand how people (e.g., my family, relatives and neighbors in my hometown) had relationships based on their way of being, work, homes, titles, to name a few, that resulted in friendship, affection, respect, money, problems, and to certain level of “dependency”.  Over time, I got increasingly interested in the area of ecology (i.e., a science that allows us to understand and use relationships between living and nonliving entities in nature).  So, relationships have always captivated me in different levels; one of them is the reason that I am still struggling for learning into this field.

Last week, I wrote about how people are more oriented towards looking, thinking of, and caring for animals from a utilitarian and charismatic point of view.  Today I will try to intertwine my past opinion with another link: the unnoticeable minute species.  In the literature, we can find several articles on conservation focused on big mammals and birds particularly addressing on site conservation issues.  Using big charismatic vertebrate species as a flagship (i.e., a selected species used as a conservation cause or to represent an environmental cause to increase awareness and favorable efforts) for conservation has been proved to have some utility since the 80’s.  Research has shown that by having only “cute” endangered mammals (sometimes called megafauna in risk of extinction), we could be missing entire islands where these species are absent or gone already.  

Taken from http://www.hickerphoto.com/arctic-wildlife-hudson-bay-polar-bear-canada-29110-pictures.htm

As everything in life, this approach has its own shortcomings and drawbacks waiting for researchers to address and improve them.  Birds, amphibians, and plants under different status of conservation concern and/or charismatic to people are also considered as flagships either for educating or informing our society of specific aspects of them and their environments.  

In general species such as some small noncolorful birds, amphibians, insects, and, very especially, the “microbes” are frequently overlooked from conservation workshops, outreach activities, and education activities when addressing the open society.  Microbes and invertebrates alone conform about 95% of all living species on Earth! so, are oriented to care for what is numerously dominant or by the size of what we see?.  

Bacteria Nitrobacter.  Taken fromhttp://ozsoapbox.com/goldfish/why-do-i-need-to-cycle-my-goldfish-tank/  

Informing people about the past and current status, ecological values, basic natural history and relationships of these small creatures (e.g., invertebrates) with the “megafauna” and vital ecosystem services can improve the understanding of how several biological entities (inconspicuous or noncharismatic species) and environmental processes (e.g., nutrient cycling or regulation of population size) are interrelated and depend on each other at least in certain period of their life.  For instance the flow of nutrients coming from the permanent change or shed of feathers, hairs, skin cells, leaves, branches, carcasses, and all organic material in decomposition are dependent on the activity first of small sensitive leaf litter creatures (insects, worms) and secondly of microbes (e.g., fungi and bacteria) to break them down into smaller particles (e.g., nutrients such as different presentations of nitrogen that is a structural element of protein for all living organisms) make them available over time to plants. 

Plants use them for their own good (i.e., absorbing and transforming them into their bodies to create more live tissue or biomass) and then make them available (e.g., flowers, fruits, leaves, bark, wood) again to countless species of small and large terrestrial and aquatic organisms.  All unnoticeable tiny species (i.e., fungi and bacteria) are very likely to gain appreciation of people as mammals, birds, amphibians and plants do.  To put a cherry on this cake, let’s say that microbes in collaboration with plants are responsible agents driving agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.  These activities mean food, work, money, health and several other prime services to us.  

Thus, by informing people of the importance of appealing “megafauna” (e.g., polar bears, monkeys and jaguars), other charismatic species (e.g., colorful birds, frogs and plants) and their basic relationships with other non-attractive species of invertebrates (e.g., earthworms and beetles) and the imperceptible microbes (e.g., fungi and bacteria) we can provide a more complete image of how relationships and interdependencies play a key role in our ecosystems.  Further, if we link these interrelationships among species to environmental factors and the ecosystem services resulting from them, there will be a better way to see and understand ecology in our society and to enhance the societal valuation of wild species and ecosystems.  We can develop our major scientific topic during our conservation activities and, when possible, make a link to the other "imperceptible and little treasured" living species to provide a more complete ecological idea of our topic.  Outreach and environmental education (in any format!) are two “open doors” to everyone who understand, cares, and wants to cooperate in giving a more complete picture of ecology to our society in favor of ecosystem conservation.   Are we in? As for me concerns, I am in!

A need for communicating ecological values: a like me, like me not attitude?

Today I will write on a topic that I usually think of and use when talking to the open non-scientific society about conservation: charismatic and non-charismatic animals.  In general, people tend to care for mammals and birds over all other animals, especially for those who are amazingly colorful, or sing harmoniously, or are catalogued as “cutest little things”, right?  This tendency is partly due to the fact that these animals are warm-blooded and we identify ourselves with them to certain level.  The point is, do we have the right of becoming judges in deciding if we should care for species considered “nonatractive” and subconsciously assign them a lack of value? Based on our taste, mood, background, homeland, friends circle, lack of information or a combination of some of these and other factors people have the perception of doing what they considered they should with animals, and fairly frequently holding only a utilitarian perspective.  For this, I broadly mean, if a species or object can be of some benefit, I will care for or do something for it.

A good example to illustrate these ideas comes from birds and bats (part of my personal passion in life!). 

 

Birds are nearly 10,000 species worldwide and roughly 10% are under some category of conservation concern.  Most bird species are active during day hours (another reason for being more in contact with them) and can use and live in the air, land, fresh, brackish and sea water.  Speaking of mass or size, birds cover from 2 gr (Bee Hummingbird in Cuba) to 160 Kg (Ostrich in Africa and introduced by humans to several other regions of the world).  Birds are well-known for pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds of several hundreds of plant species, eating tons of insects, other invertebrates and vertebrates every year, eating up putrid road-killed animals along our highways, contributing to the recycle of nutrients by excavating nests on trees, leaving animal and plant remains almost everywhere where they eat or defecate or die, or simply by allowing us to enjoy either their beautiful elaborate songs or majestic plumages in the sunny days of the breeding season right in the background of our homes, backyards or forests.  So, why we should not care for birds right? Even more, we do not have to read a long, dully-written scientific paper to perceive these roles.  By just paying attention and watching our natural surroundings in any day of our lives we could easily witness and appreciate the presence of birds.

As concerns for bats, there are about 1100 bat species recorded in the world and nearly 10% of them with different categories of conservation concern.  In terms of numbers, birds and bats seem pretty even, right?  Now, when speaking of ecological roles, amazingly enough is to mention that bats perform pretty much the same roles that birds do: disperse fruits, pollinate flowers, and, when eating, regulate outstanding numbers of invertebrates and vertebrates.  Unfortunately for bats, they do not sing nor have brightly colorful feathers.  The vast majority of bat species are nocturnal (partly explaining why we do not see them as frequently as birds) and live in almost all types of ecosystems (except in the poles).  Interestingly, bats are the only mammals with the capacity of real flight, have a few species that feed exclusively on blood and have developed “echolocation” (a sensory system that works like sonar) to move around (small insectivorous bat species have this sonar system well developed).  The smallest bat in weight is the Bumblebee bat with 1.7-2 gr (southeastern Asia) and the heaviest bat species is the giant golden-crowned fruit bat reaching up to 1.5 Kg (southeastern Asia).  So, when comparing birds and bats is some easy to remember characteristics, they are similar with the exception of being unattractive to the human eye!  To make this matter uglier for bats, very unfortunately, bats have an undeservedly bad, or even worse evil, reputation among humans.  Movies, science fiction novels, and word of mouth have contributed to this undesirable reputation.  There are currently many more movies, video clips, documentaries, books, magazines, articles, and journals on birds than in bats in internet and in libraries.  If you are curios enough, give it a try and compare the number of any of this examples in nearest library of just check on your favorite internet search tab.

Birds and bats have a tremendous relevancy in the stability and well-being of our ecosystems where we obtain most of our vital resources every day (oxygen through plants and food to mention a couple).   Very sadly, both of them have species that are being negatively affected by several factors related to humans.  When asking people about the importance and preference between these two groups of warm-blooded vertebrates, 80% of adult attendees in the audience (over 18 years old) have preference for birds over bats and did not know about the similar ecological role of them. If preference and/or lack of information play a key factor towards this attitude, is there anything that people with a graduate education level in environmental sciences can do about it? Perhaps share our knowledge with the public in any facet that we feel comfortable with and have abilities with: writing for the mass media? Speaking in public? blogging? Creating web pages? At the end, being cataloged or called “ugly or unattractive” in our human society has not been ever an issue, right?  My co-responsibility in conserving our biodiversity (e.g., birds and bats) goes beyond generating knowledge and developing scientific papers.  I am always questioning myself on how to direct my capability and abilities towards making society more aware of our current environmental situation and engaging them into local hands-on actions.