One of the central ways that scientists exchange information about their academic activities is by participating in the meetings of their professional societies. These annual gatherings usually take place in large cities, and attendees tend to spend their time isolated in convention centers, which are sequestered from the populations of the cities in which they are imbedded. In general, scientists and the surrounding public remain entirely unaware of each other’s’ presence, and opportunities for synergistic exchange have been unexploited. During the 2014 meeting of the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations, I organized events that precipitated exchange between attendees at the meeting and public groups: book readings, film showings, art exhibits, slam poetry performances, and discounts on tree tattoos that all concerned trees and forests. These events were supported by the Ecosystems Program of the National Science Foundation.
Results/Conclusions
For the 2020 annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America, community engagement events have been organized to facilitate exchange, including book readings on natural history at a local independent bookstore, a film viewing and panel discussion on ecology, a tour of the Green Roof on the Conference Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and a performance by members of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, who will sing songs about nature and the Earth to reveal common interests of ecologists and people of the dominant faith in the state of Utah. I will describe the process of initiating such events, and discuss ways of sustaining them within the Ecological Society of America, by having Society Sections “adopt” events that are congruent with their missions. The collective impacts of these community engagement activities can serve as the “broader impacts” of scientific societies. They should be considered significant and complementary to an academic society’s academic meeting activities.