Today started out with my poster presentation!
For my research, which was conducted independently from my thesis or anything else relating to school, I looked at a small sample of news stories relating to sport science. Most of the articles were about the science behind the sport, or physics, but some talked about the strength of athletes and advances in technology/equipment. I found that a lot of news organizations used the “news hook/peg” of sports competitions, mostly large global ones like the World Cup or the Olympics, to share scientific articles and inject them into the discussion about a certain sport or competition.
As always, I went into this thinking of a different outcome! I was pleasantly surprised that this presentation allowed me to help people think about their own science and scientific field and how to share their science. After talking through it with a few people who stopped by my poster, I was able to suggest that scientists use these global events, or pop culture, to compare their science to make it relevant and make it part of the discussion.
Side note, I finally got to meet (and selfie with) Liz Neeley, science communicator extraordinaire of Compass Blogs (and chair of my session)!
Met @LizNeeley at my #AGU14 poster and I’m pretty much starstruck! (she’s taller than me in real life) pic.twitter.com/39hxwm83lP
— Abbey Dufoe (@abbeydufoe) December 15, 2014
After my presentation, I headed to the Frontiers of Geophysics lecture, featuring Dr. Jeffery Sachs (economist, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University). His work focused on the sustainable future of our world in terms of economics and global change. His takeaway message? We can all come together and help the world recover from the overconsumption of resources and growing population from policy changes, starting with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, of which is is a big part.
I attended posters in the afternoon, my favorite being “There’s an elephant in the room!” Alison Rockwell (part of NCAR’s Earth Observing Lab), one of the presenters, explained how they use a certain climate change model for communicating. Instead of asking people what they think about climate change, they ask people what their hobbies are, or what they enjoy doing. Once you connect with a common ground, it’s easier to start talking about how climate change effects that hobby. Rockwell used ice hockey on me as an example to connect with me, then asked me how pond hockey rinks are faring as a result of climate change. The tweet about her poster was my most popular of the day:
Learn about how to talk about climate change without talking about climate change (#3468) @ncareol #AGU14 pic.twitter.com/afPxErXJb4 — Abbey Dufoe (@abbeydufoe) December 15, 2014
After all of this excitement, I watched an episode of the series Years of Living Dangerously. First of all, I was amazed I’d never seen it prior to this! The documentary film (episode called “Rising Tide“) followed MSNBC journalist Chris Hayes around Staten Island NY, where he interviewed Pat Dresch, a Staten Island resident who lost her husband and daughter during the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. Hayes also followed around Congressman Michael Grimm, a conservative Republican who doesn’t believe in human-inflicted climate change, or that Hurricane Sandy was exacerbated by climate change.
Another part of the movie included scientist Kim Cobb and her quest to figure out climate change on shores Christmas Island in the Southern Pacific Ocean. She collects coral samples to use as time capsules to show the change in ocean temperatures, therefore measuring climate data that corresponds with known temperature measurements.
Check out an excerpt below:
Long day today, and longer tomorrow filled with Water Science Pop-ups (session in which I presented last year), posters, the bloggers forum, and more! I’ll leave you with my second most popular tweet of the night:
“When hundreds of scientists say to be alarmed, you should be alarmed.” -Joe Romm. Use http://t.co/jlnOFvdL4v to find rebuttal. #AGU14
— Abbey Dufoe (@abbeydufoe) December 16, 2014
Abbey Dufoe 