|
Nalini M. Nadkarni, Ph.D. Prisons, Pulpits, and Poets: Disseminating Conservation Research Beyond Academia
PowerPoint slides with notes PDF
Two major problems facing our society are the growing gap between nature and people – especially youth – and the lack of connections between science and society. As an academic ecologist who studies forest canopies in temperate and tropical rainforests, I have grown increasingly motivated to communicate conservation research to non-scientific audiences. In 2003, I created the Research Ambassador Program (RAP) to train a cadre of “Research and Conservation Ambassadors” to communicate with audiences that have a compelling interest, hobby, avocation, or trade that can be related to the scientist’s conservation research. Conservation Ambassadors have presented their work in such venues as Baptist churches, Jewish synagogues, urban skateboard parks, medium-security prisons, retail clothing stores, and rap music studios. Other outreach projects include the invitation of artists, poets, and musicians to primary and managed forests to create compelling interpretive materials. The key concept is that if scientists can find elements of their research in common with the values and interests of non-scientist groups, they will become welcome guests to share their passion and knowledge. In turn, the non-scientists are often able to contribute new perspectives and novel questions to the scientist.
Although scientists are often portrayed as being reclusive, shy, and incapable of expressing themselves beyond the narrow enclave of their fellow researchers, we have been successful in drawing researchers out of their field laboratories and university offices. Funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society, the program provides appropriate rewards and incentives to scientists to reach out and become ambassadors of their own work to groups, institutions, and networks that reside entirely away from academe. The program is now at a stage of expansion to include more scientists and researchers from a wider range of disciplines, with a long-term vision of increasing awareness and stimulating interest in nature to people who might otherwise care little about the environment. Dr. Nadkarni has been both a pioneer in forest canopy studies and in fostering the communication of canopy research among scientists and to the general public around the world. She is on the faculty at The Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Washington and the adjunct faculty at the University of Washington. Her research concerns the ecology of tropical and temperate forest canopies, particularly the roles that canopy-dwelling plants play in forests. She carries out field research in Monteverde, Costa Rica and in Washington State, supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. She has published over 80 scientific articles and two scholarly books. Her recent awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship for excellence in scholarship and creativity, the J. Stirling Morton Award of The National Arbor Day Foundation, an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowship, and the Presidency of the Association for Tropical Biology.
In 1994, she co-founded the International Canopy Network, a non-profit organization to foster communication among researchers, educators, and conservationists concerned with forest canopies. Her work has been featured in popular magazines such as Natural History, Glamour, and Ranger Rick, and she has appeared in numerous television documentaries. Dr. Nadkarni’s recent efforts are to integrate aspects of artistic expression with scientific documentation of the natural world, and she has brought artists, musicians, and Inuits to the canopy. She has recently expanded her outreach work by establishing the NSF-funded “Research Ambassador Program,” in which she trains other scientists to do outreach to non-traditional public audiences. |