Tuesday, August 5, 2008: 4:20 PM
202 B, Midwest Airlines Center
Mitchell Pavao-Zuckerman, Biosphere 2, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, Travis E. Huxman, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA and Barbara Morehouse, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Background/Question/Methods Environmental and ecological problems are complex outcomes of biological, physical, social, and economic interactions that complicate and add uncertainty to environmental understanding, decision making and management. A goal of outreach and education programs is often to foster an ecologically literate community that possesses the knowledge to make informed personal decisions and also contribute to a process of environmental policy and decision making. Uncertainty and variability that is both inherent in ecological systems and that also arises from the scientific process itself can confound such goals of improved ecological literacy. Citizen science programs have the potential to engage lay-persons in the scientific method, allowing them many different opportunities to experience science in action and confront these uncertainties face-on. Here we discuss approaches to citizen-science and outreach programs that are being developed at the University of Arizona Biosphere 2 facility that focus on soil-water-atmosphere-plant interactions and their roles in the impacts and causes of global environmental change and variation. Biosphere 2 is unique in the world in its ability to link earth system and ecological science research activities in a large scale controlled environment setting with outreach and education opportunities.
Results/Conclusions Since the University of Arizona took control of Biosphere 2 in July 2007, the research component of Biosphere 2, B2 Earthscience, has worked in close collaboration with the education and outreach component to develop integrated research and outreach programs. Programs include Research-Docents and Science and Society Fellows, undergraduate and graduate students that use their active research within Biosphere 2 as a platform for developing skills and approaches to discussing and communicating their research to the visiting public. More active research experiences will include controlled environment and field experiments that will vary the degree of participation in the scientific method and degree of interaction. Citizen scientists and B2 visitors can be engaged as facilitators of data collection or with more active involvement in the actual production of environmental information. We argue that a revised conceptual framework of the scientific method with a more open role for citizens in science, and one that allows citizens to produce information rather than data, will have greater success in fostering ecological literacy and produce a citizenry that is equipped to tackle complex environmental decision making.
