Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences

I keep having to look these up, so I thought I'd make a post for everyone's future reference!

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Environmental science often refers to the Grand Challenges. These are the key issues facing humans in the 21st century, and there is some back and forth discussion about what they are, of course. But a report from the National Academy of Sciences in 2001--"Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences"--synthesized the results of a prestigious working group exploring this issue over several years, capturing the concept in 8 challenges:

1. BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES: The challenge is to understand how the Earth's major biogeochemical cycles are being perturbed by human activities; to be able to predict the impact of these perturbations on local, regional, and global scales; and to determine how these cycles may be restored to more natural states should such restoration be deemed desirable.
2. BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING: The challenge is to understand the regulation and functional consequences of biological diversity, and to develop approaches for sustaining this diversity and the ecosystem functioning that depends on it.
3. CLIMATE VARIABILITY: The challenge is to increase our ability to predict climate variability, from extreme events to decadal time scales; to understand how this variability may change in the future; and to assess its impact on natural and human systems.
4. HYDROLOGIC FORECASTING: The challenge is to predict changes in freshwater resources and the environment caused by floods, droughts, sedimentation, and contamination in a context of growing demand on water resources.
5. INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND THE ENVIRONMENT: The challenge is to understand the ecological and evolutionary aspects of infectious diseases; to develop an understanding of the interactions among pathogens, hosts/receptors, and the environment; and thus to make it possible to prevent changes in the infectivity and virulence of organisms that threaten plant, animal, and human health at the population level.
6. INSTITUTIONS AND RESOURCE USE: The challenge is to develop a systematic understanding of the role of institutions—markets, hierarchies, legal structures, regulatory arrangements, international conventions, and other formal and informal sets of rules—in shaping systems for natural resource use, extraction, waste disposal, and other environmentally important activities.
7. LAND-USE DYNAMICS: The challenge is to develop a systematic understanding of changes in land uses and land covers that are critical to biogeochemical cycling, ecosystem functioning and services, and human welfare.
8. REINVENTING THE USE OF MATERIALS: The challenge is to develop a quantitative understanding of the global budgets and cycles of key materials used by humanity and of how the life cycles of these materials may be modified. Among the materials of particular interest for this grand challenge are those with documented or potential environmental impacts, those whose long-term availability is in some question, and those with a high potential for recycling and reuse. Examples include copper, silver, and zinc (reusable metals); cadmium, mercury, and lead (hazardous metals); plastics and alloys (reusable substances); and CFCs, pesticides, and many organic solvents (environmentally hazardous substances).

You'll note that "Climate Change" is not listed, but it drives and aggravates all of the other challenges. There is much more to say about why these particular issues are so critical. You can read more about it in the report.

Long-awaited paper now out

The Integration of the Humanities and Artswith Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine inHigher Education: Branches from the Same Tree (read online, or order a hard copy).

The National Academy of Sciences commissioned this report on the value of STEMM integration in higher education. From a highlights document:

"This study examined an important trend in higher education: integration of the humanities and arts with sciences, engineering, and medicine at the undergraduate and graduate level—which proponents argue will better prepare students for work, life, and citizenship...This movement in higher education raises an important question: what impact do these curricular approaches have on students? 

To address this question, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine formed a 22-member committee to examine 'the evidence behind the assertion that educational programs that mutually integrate learning experiences in the humanities and arts with science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) lead to improved educational and career outcomes for undergraduate and graduate students.' The committee conducted an in-depth review and analysis of the state of knowledge on the impact of integrative approaches on students."

 The results are encouraging:

"Aggregate evidence indicates that some approaches that integrate the humanities and arts with STEMM are associated with positive learning outcomes. Among the outcomes reported are increased critical thinking abilities, higher-order thinking and deeper learning, content mastery, problem solving, teamwork and communication skills, improved visuospatial reasoning, and general engagement and enjoyment of learning. 

An important observation was that the kinds of outcomes associated with certain integrative approaches in higher education are the educational outcomes that many employers presently seek. Employer surveys consistently show that employers want well-rounded individuals with a holistic education who can take on complex problems and understand the needs, desires, and motivations of others. Importantly, these learning goals and competences are similarly valued by institutions of higher education. The committee considered multiple forms of evidence as it developed the following recommendations for institutions, faculty, administrators, scholars of higher education, and federal and private funders. The recommendations fall under four main areas:"

1. Support for Integrative Approaches
2. Evaluating Integrative Courses and Programs
3. Enhancing Inclusivity Through Integrative Courses and Programs
4. Removing the Barriers to Integrative Approaches 

The paper concludes that:

"Higher education should strive to offer all students—regardless of degree or area of concentration—an education that exposes them to diverse forms of human knowledge and inquiry and that impresses upon them the fact that all disciplines are 'branches of the same tree.' Such an education should empower students to understand the fundamental connections among the diverse branches of human inquiry—the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences, mathematics, engineering, technology, and medicine."

The Art of Ecology: Interlochen Center for the Arts

"In the fall of 2017, Interlochen Arts Academy launched an initiative that explores the nexus of art and ecology, as a collaboration between the Visual Arts and R.B. Annis Math and Science Divisions."

More info here.

Article from Conservation Biology, and book from Oxford Press

Here's an interesting 2007 article by Jacobson, McDuff and Monroe from the journal Conservation Biology, titled Promoting Conservation through the Arts: Outreach for Hearts and Minds:

Emotions play a central role in the decisions we make. For example, we often make poor investment choices because we are driven by our emotions rather than rational judgment (Tversky & Kahneman 1991). On the positive side, when emotional input is added to learning experiences, it makes them more memorable and exciting. The brain deems the information more important and enhances memory of the event. Presenting facts alone is less likely to result in long-term changes in feelings and behaviors (Sylwester 1994; Weiss 2000; Cable & Ernst 2003). 

The arts offer a way to make an emotional connection to people, and the visual and performing arts can help conservation practitioners reach new audiences. Art can provoke reactions that typical education and outreach methods do not. Art has the potential to inform audiences or participants in a new way about conservation topics, and it can stimulate new dialogues and actions...

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The essay was based in part on the planning, implementation, and evaluation guidelines for using the arts in conservation, published as a meaty and thought-provoking chapter in Conservation Education and Outreach Techniques, Susan K. Jacobson, Mallory D. McDuff, and Martha C. Monroe.

Leonardo Abstract Services (LABS) for art/sci theses

Dear Faculty:

This is a reminder that you recommend to your students who have successfully finalized an MA, MFA or PhD thesis that in some way explores the intersection of art, science and/or technology to submit an abstract of their thesis to Leonardo Abstract Services (LABS). This database, which has over 500 thesis abstracts, can be found at collections.pomona.edu/labs/.

LABS offers an international platform for graduate work so that artists and scholars can participate in a dialogue with peers from around the world. Your support of their work and this project helps to invigorate the next generation and faculty who guide them. Thanks for your help with this.

All the best,

Sheila Pinkel
LABS English Language Coordinator

Call for submission of evidence

From Roger Malina...
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Dear Colleague,

We are seeking your input on a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study that is examining the evidence behind the assertion that educational experiences that integrate the humanities and arts with science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine lead to improved educational and career outcomes for undergraduate and graduate students.

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/bhew/humanitiesandstem/index.htm

The committee undertaking this study began its work in July of 2016 and the final product of our deliberations will be the publication of a detailed, evidence-based report in the spring of 2018 that will describe the known impact of integrative approaches to teaching and learning in higher education on students' academic performance and career readiness. We are currently in the information gathering stage of the study process and we would like to ask whether you, or others at your institution, have data and information to share that could inform this study.

Are there programs or courses at your institution that integrate the arts and humanities with science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and/or medicine? If so, what is known about the impact of these educational experiences on the students at your institution?

Has your institution ever evaluated or assessed these educational experiences formally or informally? If so, what data can you share?

Are there factors at your institutions that make integration across disciplines difficult to achieve? If so, what are they? Have any educational experiences or programs at your institution that integrated the arts and humanities with sciences, technology, engineering, math, and/or medicine ended or been discontinued? If so, why did the experience or program end?

We would greatly appreciate your input as we work to meet the charge of this study. The data and information you share will not only contribute to the evidence base the committee will examine, but will also aid us in our effort to gather sufficiently broad input to ensure that we consider all important perspectives and information pertinent to this topic. In addition to your input, please also forward this request for content to those colleagues and thought leaders, as well as affiliated partners in higher education, who you think might make a unique contribution to this study. Please note that any information you or your colleagues share with the committee will be made public, consistent with the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

If you have information to share, please submit it using this link:

http://nas.integration-questionnaire.sgizmo.com/s3/

It would be very helpful to us if you could contribute your input by May 1, 2017 to allow ample time for the committee to consider your contribution before the drafting and publication of the report. If we have follow-up questions regarding your letter, we may contact you by phone or e-mail, or we may request that you present more details directly to our committee at a future meeting. For further information on the study, you may emailAshley Bear.

Your efforts and input will be greatly appreciated.

On Behalf of the Committee,

David Skorton
Secretary, Smithsonian Institution

Science, Technology, and Art in International Relations (STAIR)

"The International Studies Association (ISA) has been the premier organization for connecting scholars and practitioners in fields of international studies since 1959. 

 ISA was founded in 1959 to promote research and education in international affairs. With well over six thousand members in North America and around the world, ISA is the most respected and widely known scholarly association in this field. ISA cooperates with 57 international studies organizations in over 30 countries, is a member of the International Social Science Council, and enjoys nongovernmental consultative status with the United Nations."

One program section of ISA is Science, Technology, and Art in International Relations (STAIR).

"This newly chartered section recognizes that science, technology, and art are at the core of global politics. They shape much of the everyday reality of international security, statecraft, development, design of critical global infrastructures, approaches to social justice, and the practices of global governance. Science, technology and art (i.e., in the form of creativity, the arts, architecture and design) permeate international affairs in the form of material elements and networks, technical instruments, systems of knowledge and scientific practices. Yet, they also challenge existing conceptual approaches and prompt us to step beyond IR canons to seek inter-disciplinary collaborations. Through this new section we generate the space for international Relations (IR) as a discipline and field to engage these matters through productive intellectual research conversations with existing subsections as well as other disciplines. Our intention is that this will facilitate theoretical understandings of how we go about creating, assessing, and deliberating scientific, technological and artistic design and their impact on the shifts of contemporary world order. To use a methodological metaphor, if science, technology and art are held constant in most IR models, STAIR aims to make them variable!"

Music changes perception

Do artists and scientists actually see different things?

A recent study suggests that what we are capable of perceiving depends on our past experience:

"Music is not only able to affect your mood -- listening to particularly happy or sad music can even change the way we perceive the world, according to researchers from the University of Groningen...

...your brain continuously compares the information that comes in through your eyes with what it expects on the basis of what you know about the world. The final result of this comparison process is what we eventually experience as reality."

Jacob Jolij, Maaike Meurs. Music Alters Visual Perception. PLoS ONE, 2011; 6 (4): e18861 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018861

What does art/science collaboration really mean?

Eric Magrane is a Ph.D. candidate in Cultural Geography at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Eric's work is, "particularly interested in the encounters that ensue when creative practices occur within environmental research or tourism sites and how contemporary artworks and poetries may reflect, complicate, or disrupt environmental narratives."

Magrane is Poet in Residence at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, leading the design for poetry installations at the museum. Eric is currently in a van with a group of students somewhere in the Great Basin, leading a class that is visiting many of the iconic land art sites, and several field research facilities in the American Southwest.

He also maintains a blog for the Institute of the Environment called, "Proximities". Here is a great post about what art/science collaboration means. The article includes this thought-provoking quote from Barbara Morehouse:

"This is not about making scientists out of artists or vice versa; it is perhaps more about rethinking the Renaissance ideal of intellectual versatility in the context of very complicated times. It’s about developing a fully developed understanding of the environments we enjoy and on which we must necessarily depend."

Stories generate culture

Field science has not always done a great job of connecting itself to the broader culture in a way that resonates. Left with a vacuum, politicians and the media often step in to help the public figure out what emerging science means. Their messages are not always what the scientific community would prefer.

Gwen provided this link to an excellent report that points out that, "Our brains are designed for stories. They are the best way for us to grasp deep truths. Understand a complicated sprawl of facts." The document provides some interesting ideas about using story to convey messaging.

Researchers in many fields are discovering hard evidence that stories shape culture. This video suggests that the even the scientific theories of seminal thinkers like Darwin were shaped by their literary preferences, and not always toward greater accuracy.

Mathematical Impressionist art.

Recent analysis shows that in paintings produced during psychotic episodes, Vincent Van Gogh was able to capture mathematically correct depictions of turbulence, one of the most difficult natural phenomena to describe scientifically.

This representation predates scientific recognition of the phenomenon. More here.