Thank you, Kali, for not keeping your mouth shut! You make some very important points and I love your suggestion of having more opportunities for local public to participate for free. A free family ecology day like the science day they have at AAAS meetings would be a fantastic way to engage with the public. This particular meeting does have a couple of free events for the public, but I don't think they've been advertised well enough to actually draw many members of the public.
As for media coverage, a local science reporter, JP, who heard about this meeting via someone's tweet about my blog post, is keen to cover the meeting - but got a real runaround trying to contact someone for credentials! JP left several comments describing his/her efforts, and the rather inadequate media outreach efforts from ESA - I hope Nadine Lymn and anyone else from among ESA officials read the comments and think about how to improve communications. Here again is the link to my post where you will find the comments: http://leafwarbler.posterous.com/a-few-thousand-ecologists-meet-in-the-city-to We clearly need to do a better job of outreach, and I am glad my post has generated some discussion about the issue. Madhu __________________ Dr. Madhusudan Kat Associate Professor, Dept of Biology California State University, Fresno On Aug 8, 2011, at 1:58 PM, Kali Bird <[email protected]> wrote: > I have never posted to Ecolog before, but I felt I couldn't keep my mouth > shut about this one. > > First, I don't think we can necessarily know why the news doesn't pick up > on ESA more. Likely, it's because the general public doesn't care, but > perhaps it may be that they are tired feeling like ecologists tell them that > their lifestyles and values are wrong. Personally, I think it's because > people don't care. In my experience speaking with the public, I always > proffer an explanation of what I do immediately after saying that I am a > 'microbial ecologist,' because most people I speak with don't even know what > ecology is. > > Second, if these thousands of ecologists really want to engage the > public, how about letting the locals come to ESA? I know that non-members > are invited to attend, but honestly, you have to be wealthy or have a > wealthy grant pay for you to come to be able to pay 500$ and take off days > to a week from work to be involved in the meeting. My mother reads my > Frontiers magazine religiously. She loves it. She is also part of a > 'sustainability' group at her international corporation. She lives very > close to Austin, has the ability to take time off of work, but as a > middle-class citizen, simply cannot afford it. If these thousands of > ecologists are really interested in engaging with the public, how about > creating events at ESA for the locals that are affordable? My mother has no > scientific background, but is smart, learns fast, and loves to learn. There > are a lot of people like this everywhere we have meetings. Yet we preach > engagement with the public from our over-air-conditioned conference rooms, > doors closed and barred to those we wish to engage with. Phenomenal. > I know our over-air conditioned convention centers cost a lot of money to > rent and ESA is an expensive venture to host, but surely we can create some > sort of scholarship fund for locals, special free events for public > engagement (THIS is how you get in the news), or even a lottery for one-day > passes to attend talks. Let's help people understand what in the world it > is we do. If I could have afforded to send my mom to ESA, I would have done > it in a heartbeat. She would have loved it and told all her friends, > co-workers, and her church group all the things she learned. Do we want to > engage more with people across religious boundaries? In the heart of a red > state, what a boon actually engaging with the religious public would be. > > > > Kali Bird > > Graduate Student > Kellogg Biological Station, > Michigan State University
