As scientists and professionals in the natural resources field, our best advocates are the public: community leaders, voters, and consumers, the homeowners, school-aged children, or professionals in unrelated fields. While the scientific community has largely recognized the importance of engaging with the public for several decades, it doesn’t mean we’ve gotten any good at it. If anything, contemporary events point to loss of credibility, and the proliferation of “fake news,” even the proliferation of the term “fake news,” suggests that the general public does not necessarily find our work legitimate. As we face elevated ecological challenges, and as our dialogue becomes more polarized, we must work harder to “speak the language” and engage newcomers in natural resource education.
Results/Conclusions
If the public does not understand where scientific knowledge comes from, it becomes much easier to dismiss. Citizen science provides a unique, if challenging, opportunity to re-establish credibility by training non-professionals to conduct rigorous research. It provides a lens through which the public can understand sound research and its results. Still, entering public spheres presents challenges in comprehension that we do not face among our peers. Beyond the simple overuse of jargon, we can often encounter a complete rejection of ideas that frame our work, like global warming. Even when these concepts are accepted, they may seem too large, too hopeless, to be addressed by an individual. By focusing on local issues we can not only better illustrate complex systems, but we can create an entry point for advocacy and change. We have long fallen into the trap Paulo Freire termed banking education, where “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing.” Real learning takes place when learners act as co-investigators, posing problems and interacting with teachers. Ultimately we must find a way shift everyone’s perspective, including our own, in much the same way Leopold suggests in “The Land Ethic.” He wrote, “A land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.” We must create a learning community that is participatory, engaging, and empowering, both for ourselves and to the people we strive to teach.