We will conserve only what we love

In the end, we will conserve only what we love.
We will love only what we understand.
We will understand only what we are taught.

-Baba Dioum, Senegalese poet

Through my fellowship, I recently attended a meeting in East Lansing that was hosted by the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative and the Great Lakes Fishery Trust. The conference brought together educators and outreach coordinators from across the Great Lakes region and focused on one key theme: Place-based education. Now, I had had an abstract, opaque definition of this term floating around my head for some time, but had not yet gained a firm grip on it. Truth be told, I had not made much of an effort to understand how place-based education differed from typical, run-of-the-mill education, or why it was important. That is, until I moved back to the Great Lakes area after spending a few years on the east coast…but I’ll get to this shortly.

So, what is place-based education (PBE)? PBE “focuses learning within the local community of a student. It provides learners with a path for becoming active citizens and stewards of the environment and place where they live” (Antioch University, Center for Place-based Education). Okay, this makes sense. What may be more of a challenge, and what is embedded in the definition and philosophy of place-based education is this: a sense of place. This is a key element of environmental stewardship and of PBE. By sitting in on talks and exercises with the rest of the meeting participants, I learned that a sense of place stems from ‘place attachment,’ which stems from both ‘place dependence’ and ‘place identity.’ Think of place dependence and place identity as our functional and emotional connections, respectively, to an area where we reside. I also learned that building a sense of place is less often the direct focus of environmental and place-based education than issues like service-learning and community engagement. Now, these surely are important components of an educational model. But, if we (teachers, informal educators, scientists, etc.) can enhance our focus on helping a student to discover his or her own sense of place, we likely will continue to count stewardship among the outcomes in addition to community service and academic excellence. Now we’re on to something!

All of this has me wondering: what are our functional and emotional connections to our places? How often do we take these for granted? And, following Baba Dioum’s conviction, how can we ensure that the youth of today gain a deep enough understanding of and appreciation for their local environment that they will be moved to protect it? These are questions that I have neither all of the answers to, nor the time or space to fully address. I will offer a few thoughts, however. Over the past several years I have had many opportunities to educate students and communities on different aspects of the environment. Much of this has taken place in lower Chesapeake Bay, where there are distinct and obvious connections to both the fresh- and saltwater habitats, as well as to the iconic species that define that region: the blue crab (Callinectes sapidus), saltmarsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica), and others. These are ingrained in the ideals and lifestyles of local tidewater Virginians. As I observed these connections with an outside perspective, I found myself drawn to the bonds that those communities have with their ecosystem(s) and the layers of history that underlie those relationships. And, throughout this process, I was vaguely aware of a couple of things: 1) the people, landscapes, and ecosystems of tidewater Virginia and Chesapeake Bay were interesting and worthy of study and protection; 2) this was not my place.

Toward the end of my graduate degree in Virginia, I was consumed with thoughts of the Great Lakes – of home. As I mentioned, my return to the region ignited in me not only a desire to more fully grasp the concept of PBE, but also a strong awareness of my own sense of place and how this was instilled in me over time. So, what was it that drew me back? Why do I associate so greatly with these freshwater seas? Partly, it is because I want to study them. The Great Lakes basin is a rich, complex ecosystem that, until abandoning terrestrial ecology to delve into marine science out east, I thought little of exploring in much (professional) detail. Partly, it is because I was bred to love them. These coasts are where I swam for the first time, dug in the sand and mud, discovered my first bivalves, caught my first fish, and rolled down my first (seemingly endless and frighteningly steep) sand dune. It is also because I was taught to love them. I hiked the forests on school field trips, collected and examined countless jars of pond water, and pressed the leaves of native trees into art. We stand in the midst of one endless, freshwater science experiment; an open-ended ecological investigation; a living mural of some of the most picturesque places on the planet. I came back to the Great Lakes because I love them. I love them because I understand them. I understand them because their importance was both educationally and emotionally reinforced.

Living in Michigan for 23 years before moving away, my awareness for my own sense of place was buried, so much a part of me that I did not know how strong the connection was. However, my sense of stewardship for my place is sentient and energetic – a creature of its own. With or without an awareness of why, this has never wavered. Periodically, I question whether or not kids today have a solid appreciation for the lakes, rivers, and forests of this region. Is their sense of place at risk of being underdeveloped or overlooked? I think not. At the PBE Conference, aside from two refreshing days of ‘sharing’ games and arts and crafts, I gained two days worth of perspective on just what it takes – and what our formal and informal educators are doing – to implant in today’s youth the knowledge that this is their place. This is our place. If we stay on the path being paved by my fellow meeting attendees and those who came before them, I happily predict that the youth of today and tomorrow will come to love, understand, connect with – and fight to protect – the Great Lakes ecosystem well into the future.

Happy holidays (wherever your place may be)!
-Cassie
GLC Sea Grant fellow, 2011-2012

Gone with the Wind...

It’s hard to believe that the first quarter of my fellowship with the Great Lakes Commission is already behind me! I’ve spent the past three months settling into a groove at the Commission and getting to know all of my coworkers, and am happy to report that GLC staff welcomed me with open arms in June. Aside from quickly acquainting myself with new colleagues and the city of Ann Arbor, I managed to hit the ground running with the fellowship itself. Coming into this position after several years in the scientific/academic world has definitely been challenging. However, I am learning to see the world through a policy lens, and I could not ask for a better opportunity to gain this professional perspective.

It didn’t take long to become immersed in several of the many ongoing projects at the Commission. [A quick aside: I continue to be amazed at the number of interesting and work-intensive projects that GLC staff members take on. Their tireless commitment to creating high-quality products and to strengthening the environmental and economic integrity of the Great Lakes region is truly admirable.] I think it may be less overwhelming for all of us if I stick to one focus area per blog post, so I’ll just give you an extremely hurried and generalized idea of the types of projects I’ve been working on. Here are some of the heavy-hitters:

- Updating the Great Lakes Commission’s online database of legislative priorities (and other odds and ends in the realms of policy and advocacy)
- In partnership with the Michigan Departments of Natural Resources and Environmental Quality, writing and revising a strategic framework for the management and control of invasive Phragmites sp. for the state of Michigan
- Extensive work in the final stages of Phase I – and the initial stages of the Phase II proposal – of the Great Lakes Energy-Water Nexus Initiative. Check it out, it’s pretty cool!

And now for a little more detail…

A large portion of my work during this first quarter has been driven by the ongoing efforts of the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative (GLWC), an organization housed at the Great Lakes Commission. The GLWC is a multi-sector coalition of wind energy stakeholders working to facilitate the sustainable development of wind power in the binational Great Lakes region. I’ve been involved in every GLWC workgroup in some respect (e.g., Economic Development, Offshore Wind, Siting; Permitting, etc.), allowing me to familiarize myself with the many complexities of the broad field that is wind energy. It’s always interesting to study new topics, especially for life-long learners like myself, but let’s get real for a minute –the jargon was slightly irritating. Megawatts, shadow-flicker, JEDI analysis (alright, that one sounds pretty awesome), and on, and on, and on. It became clear to me in my first few days of working with the GLWC that I would potentially spend more fellowship hours with a dictionary and a copy of Wind Power for Dummies than I would spend making any sort of meaningful contribution to the Collaborative over the next year. But, as anyone could have predicted, I had no choice but to catch on – and fast – so I did. In fact, faster than I could have believed, the nuts and bolts of wind energy started to make sense, and soon I was approaching a level of professional comfort. It also doesn’t hurt to have a little fun on the job…

Perhaps the most fun – and most helpful – aspect of my early work with the GLWC was my participation in a public perception survey in partnership with Grand Valley State University. For this project, I traveled with several GLC colleagues to maritime festivals throughout southeast Michigan, where we talked with coastal communities about offshore wind energy development in the Great Lakes. Local participants were asked to examine several photo-simulations of offshore wind farms, and to express, via the ever popular throw-marble-in-bowl technique, their approval, disapproval, or uncertainty about the hypothetical development based on their visual assessment. We wanted to get a general sense of how the average person – that is, the portion of the public with neither a strong commitment to nor repugnance for offshore wind energy – would receive such a project if it was given legs. The results were interesting (a healthy majority in favor of wind energy development regardless of the distance offshore, in case you were wondering), but what was more interesting was the dialogue we were able to foster with the local communities.

Through these interactions, I spoke with people of varying levels of education and experience, and responses were all over the map: concern, anger, benign interest, enthusiastic support, aggression, trepidation, etc. You name it, we talked with someone who felt it. The entire experience was fun, informative, and eye-opening. I realized that a lot of people in Michigan and in the Great Lakes Basin in general, regardless of what side of the fence they happen to be on, want to talk about offshore wind energy. They care. They are informed. If they are not informed, they want to be informed. I believe that public buy-in is an integral factor in the process of offshore wind power getting off the ground in the Great Lakes. There are sizable knowledge gaps that may hinder our ability to take advantage of the tremendous wind resources in this region (and to move toward a more sustainable energy future) if they remain unfilled. The better informed we all are, the better equipped we will be to make smart decisions for our environment and our economy. This particular project may be at a close, but the issue certainly is not. Let’s keep the dialogue going. Ask questions; feed your mind. Get out there and talk wind, people!

Stay tuned for what’s in store for my second quarter as a Sea Grant Fellow!
-Cassie B.
GLC Fellow, 2011