Showing posts with label science policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science policy. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Research and science policy share the stage at the 2016 AGU Fall Meeting

As it has for decades, the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) took place this month in San Francisco, CA. AGU is a professional society representing earth and space scientists, who study a broad variety of sub-disciplines such as Hydrology, Biogeosciences, Atmospheric Sciences, Seismology, Oceanography, Geophysics, and more. Although each of these specialties sound fairly niche on their own, together they compose a huge community of scientists. The AGU Fall Meeting attendance in 2015 amounted to 24,000 people, making this conference the largest annual gathering of geoscientists in the world. Every day while walking up the stairs of the conference center, I remarked to myself that the geoscientists on each floor looked like ants flooding out of a mound.


The AGU Fall Meeting includes hundreds of oral and poster presentations. World-class scientists from all over the globe attend this meeting to present recent scientific findings and meet with old and new colleagues. As a result, the networking opportunities at the AGU Fall Meeting are unmatched, and students have easy access to renowned researchers throughout its duration.


With 2016 being an election year, this year’s Fall Meeting included several notable talks related to science policy and politics. California Governor Jerry Brown spoke to the crowd on topics related to science funding for the geosciences, as well as “green” policies that California state legislators have spearheaded.


Sally Jewell, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, was another notable speaker at this year’s meeting. Secretary Jewell spoke of the importance of ensuring that science has a seat at the table, because “if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.” She also emphasized the need for scientists to fight disinformation with relatable facts, which requires effective communication of science’s real-world impacts. In addition to speaking, Secretary Jewell attended the conference, and even stopped by the poster session. The networking doesn’t get much better than this, folks!



In addition, Dr. Waleed Abdalati, former NASA Chief Scientist (2011-2012), gave an enlightening talk on the history of earth observations from space. He highlighted several old NASA promotional materials and news snippets from decades past that emphasized how much we’ve learned about the earth in a short time period. For example, it wasn’t until 1969 when satellites captured imagery of Hurricane Camille that we understood the scale, magnitude, and organization of hurricanes. That’s only 37 years ago! Dr. Abdalati ended his presentation by sharing some of his wisdom on the topic of science communication, particularly on potentially divisive issues:



As you may have noted, talk of science policy and politics always veers towards the topic of science communication. AGU’s operations include staff devoted to science policy. This group of public affairs specialists and analysts hosted several events at this year’s Fall Meeting, which speaks to how expectations for scientists to communicate effectively are increasing. At some of these events, you could find science communication cards that highlighted how commonly-used words in science can come across as confusing and misleading to laypersons:


Effective science communication was also in focus at the poster sessions. Thousands of students present posters, and about 5,000 choose to compete for the Outstanding Student Paper Award (OSPA). Of these 5,000, the top 3-5% presenters in each sub-discipline of AGU will be awarded with an OSPA. Scientists attending the conference are asked to judge the posters. The judges never reveal to presenting students that they are judges, which requires all presenters to give their best throughout their allotted time in in the poster session – I thought this was a great idea! I presented two posters this year: one in an educational session, and one in a session on hydrology:


The Fall Meeting is always in San Francisco, but, due to renovations taking place at the conference center in which the meeting is hosted, next year’s conference is coming to New Orleans, LA! For those of us in Florida, that makes for a much shorter journey, which is a great opportunity. Don’t pass it up!

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Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Messages, Asks and Leave-behinds: Geosciences Congressional Visits Day 2016

By Natalie Nelson

 For the past 9 years, a collective of professional societies representing earth and space sciences, or “geosciences,” has invited scientists to travel to our nation’s capital and participate in Geosciences Congressional Visits Day (Geo-CVD). Geo-CVD aims to connect scientists with policymakers on the Hill in order to increase legislators’ awareness and appreciation of geoscience and science research. You might be wondering, what exactly falls under the umbrella of geoscience? Answer: anything related to the dynamics of earth and space! This includes, but is not limited to, the disciplines of geology, meteorology, climatology, oceanography, and – most relevant to this crowd – hydrology and water resources. As a PhD student and researcher studying Hydrologic Sciences through UF’s Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department, I’m also a geoscientist.


This year, I applied to partake in Geo-CVD through the American Geophysical Union, and was ultimately invited to participate! In addition to being involved with all of the science policy goodness, I “took over” the AGU Instagram account as a #guestgrammer to give its followers a glimpse into Geo-CVD happenings. Some of those posts are included below, but you can also check them out directly @americangeophysicalunion.


Day 1: Communicating with Congress Workshop
Geo-CVD includes two parts: a half-day workshop to inform participating scientists of current legislation and the ways of the Hill, followed by a full day of meetings with congressional offices. At this workshop, we learned that each meeting on the Hill includes a message, asks, and leave-behinds. The message describes the driving motivation for the visit. Asks are specific actionable requests of policymakers, such as creation or co-sponsorship of legislation to address a particular need. Finally, leave-behinds include flyers and informational materials that can be left with the office for future reference.
At AGU Headquarters (top), scientists learned about the way in which meetings with congressional offices are structured. Below, a picture of part of one of the leave-behinds we gave to Florida legislators.

For Geo-CVD, we were armed with a message, asks, and leave-behinds (including one leave-behind I made on Florida’s Water Resources: Pertinent Issues and References). Our message was that strong and sustained federal investments in geoscience will support resilient communities, strengthen our global and economic competitiveness, enhance national security, and sustain a highly skilled workforce. Our ask was for congress to support strong federal investments in geoscience research and education, and we also asked that members of the House join the newly-formed House Earth and Space Science Caucus, and members of the Senate sign as co-sponsors on the Earth Science Week Resolution.    



Day 2: To the Hill!
We split into geographically-specific teams and made our way to Capitol Hill. Team Florida turned out to be a one-woman show (me!). With the company of Brittany Webster, Public Affairs Specialist, and George Marino, Public Affairs Intern, of AGU, I made my way to the offices of Florida Senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and Florida Representatives Alcee Hastings, Ted Yoho, and David Jolly. We mostly met with legislative aides focusing on environment and energy policy, and met with Representatives Ted Yoho and David Jolly directly.

A photo posted by American Geophysical Union (@americangeophysicalunion) on

While going from office to office, I quickly realized how important it is for scientists to visit with the men and women in charge of appropriating and authorizing federal funding for science research, and creating policies that are (hopefully) informed by our objective and non-partisan science. The need for engaging both sides of the aisle on science issues is great, and there are no better stewards for science than scientists themselves! You don’t have to go to DC to advocate for science - a simple phone call carries more weight than you would probably expect. One Legislative Assistant (from a non-Florida office) shared with us that his office receives almost no calls from constituents concerned about issues related to science and funding for scientific research, and that this problem was not unique. Let’s change this!



If you’re interested in sharing your science with policymakers on the Hill, AGU hosts three Congressional Visits Days (CVD) per year – Climate Science CVD (Februrary) AGU CVD (April), and Geo-CVD (September). Apply!

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