by Kees Klein Goldewijk.

Once a while you get a chance to talk to a completely different public about your work, and I don’t mean in the pub or at birthday parties. In this case, I was given the opportunity to give a lecture to 12 year old kids from group 8 at the ‘First van der Huchtschool (a Dutch primary school in Soest, the town where I live and where my wife is a teacher in group 4).

Our colleague Mart Verwijmeren has successfully defended his PhD thesis on interspecific facilitation and critical transitions in arid ecosystems, for which he did lots of heavy fieldwork in Spain (as can be read in a previous blog).

Last Friday he was, as is customary in science, questioned by a committee of professors. The questions touched upon the different subjects he wrote about in his thesis: theory, field experiments and the model he created using his experimental data. Even a question that bordered on social/political science was asked by one of the committee members. We are very proud, as Mart kept his cool and did not let himself be coaxed into giving answers outside his comfort zone. He kept to what he knew based on his research. Overall: very well done and congratulations! He was handed his diploma which was received with loud applause and cheers. His daily supervisor, Prof. Dr. Chris Smit, gave a nice speech, which of course featured the story of Mart, the rental car and fifteen goats. The day was completed with a nice party.

Mart will continue working in our group as a junior lecturer, combining teaching with research. We wish him the best of luck!

By Ineke Roeling

It is a strong image. Search online for 'Dutch grasslands' and you will find pictures of green grass, black-and-white cows, a ditch and a mill. These are agricultural grasslands. However, when I think of grasslands, I think of semi-natural grasslands, basically nature reserves. These are grasslands filled with grasses and herbs, many of them also endangered plant species. These semi-natural grasslands have been protected for years, but are still threatened. For the past years I have been studying the effect of eutrophication on the species richness in these grasslands. 

​Despite scientists’ strong commitment to the pursuit of knowledge, the public has shown changing trust in the scientific community since the mid 1970’s.  This erosion of trust is often blamed on scientists’ difficulty with communicating their research to the public.  It is up to scientists, then, to find effective ways to communicate their research without compromising the truth.  This call to action is beautifully illustrated by a quote from a Scientific American blog post about communicating science:
“We need to learn to engage without sensationalizing, enchant without deceiving, compel while staying true to the underlying science.”

As young scientists, my research partner Jetske Vaas and I (Elizabeth Haber) are beginning to navigate the world of outreach and public discourse regarding our research.  Briefly, our project aims to provide resources and expertise to facilitate decision-making for invasive plant management in the Caribbean.  You can read a bit more about our project in this previous blog post. 

Earlier this year, we were approached by Sea & Learn Saba, an environmental education and awareness program occurring every October on the island of Saba, to be experts in this year’s program.  We enthusiastically agreed!  During Sea & Learn, each expert presents a public lecture, leads a public field excursion, and goes into 3 classrooms to present an interactive activity.  From 24-28 October, Jetske and I performed these duties and we found the experience extremely rewarding. 

One of the most valuable lessons we learned while completing our whirlwind week of activities came from a source familiar with media and communication: Chizzilala productions on Saba.  Being Sea & Learn experts, Jetske and I were invited for an interview to be aired on Saba TV.  Since neither of us had done a scientific interview with the press before, we prepared as best as we could the answers to general questions such as:

• What are we doing on Saba?
• What is Coralita (our invasive plant species of interest)?
• Why is it a problem on Saba?
• What can Sabeans do to control Coralita?
• What is the goal of our research?

We sat down in a park in Windwardside with Adam from Chizzilala and over the course of 2 hours we told the story of Coralita on Saba as we know it so far.  There were times when we got tongue-tied and times when the interview was interrupted by a garbage truck or a group of free-roaming roosters or rabbits, but overall the interview went very well.  We were able to articulate what we wanted to say and we were able to do so in a clear and thorough way. 

When the interview had wrapped-up and Jetske and I were preparing to leave the park, Adam asked us if this was our first press interview as scientists.  He was asking not because we had done poorly in his opinion, but because we are young and at the beginning of our scientific careers.  He has had the opportunity to interview many scientists in all stages of their careers and offered us some thoughtful advice, for which we are very grateful.  Media training is something that many scientists do not receive, although media savviness is an extremely important skill to have.  I’ve summarized his advice below, with hope that you (the reader) may find a helpful tip for your future interactions with the media:

• You have more than one chance to say what needs to be said.  With taped interviews, it’s easy to re-do a segment.  Sometimes we forget that it’s completely fine to say, “Can I re-do that last part?” 
• Always restate the question in the answer.  Unless the interview is going to be aired with the interviewer on screen, the producer will edit out the interviewer’s questions.  Restating the question helps the audience know what you’re going to talk about and allows the producer to easily find the segment of the interview on a certain topic.
• It’s okay to pause.  It’s much easier for the producer to remove a pause than to add one.  As scientists, we sometimes try to squeeze in everything we need to say in a small amount of time.  That’s what we are trained to do when we present our results to our peers in 15-20 minute presentations.  During a taped interview, we can slow down a bit.
• Show your enthusiasm.  Scientists have gotten a reputation of being boring, although I’ve met many scientists who are incredibly enthusiastic.  Viewers will tune out if you are also tuned out.  Forced enthusiasm is just as repelling as boringness.

​Our interview is still in the hands of the producer, so I can’t include a link to it in this blog post just yet.  The interview should be available on Chizzilala’s Facebook site in a few weeks.  Stay tuned for a link to the interview once it’s published!  If you're interested in following our adventures with Coralita in the Caribbean, you can go to our Facebook page The Coralita Girls

by Brian Dermody

The European Geosciences Union conference takes place every year in Vienna. It hosts around 15,000 scientists on all topics to do with geoscience. This year I was invited to take part in one of the daily press conferences they organise. The topic of the press conference was Past civilisational resilience and collapse. 

by David Gernaat

As environmental scientist I’m confronted with the effects humans have on the environment every day. At a given moment I read about the effects of livestock and agriculture. I began to delve in and got shocked. In various scientific literature you can find that the consumption of animals products cause 18% of global greenhouse gases, a large part of deforestation (70% in the Amazon), desertification, rapidly declining fish stocks, water scarcity, increasing risk of resistant diseases through antibiotics, terrestrial and aquatic nitrogen pollution, loss of biodiversity, animal cruelty, et cetera.  In addition to these environmental problems I read that humans can live perfectly well without eating any animal products. There is even evidence that high intake of animal product cause several health problems known particularly in the west. And then I asked myself: why I should be part of this damaging system if I can have a perfectly happy life with a plant based diet?