Science Advocacy

I am by no means a great advocate or activist for science. My education in the sciences is limited to what I learned in high school. While I did graduate from a four-year university with a BA in Anthropology I took no science courses as an undergrad. And my education ended there as I did not pursue graduate studies. I will, however, share a little about science via articles on social media and in blogs like this with whatever limited reach I have.

There were several March for Science events throughout the country this past Saturday. Last year's event was a rally and an actual march. This year the organizers here in Chicago made the event a science fair at the Field Museum of Natural History. I originally would have preferred a march and a rally because it would have drawn a bigger crowd, and I wanted to get shots of signs and the sea of people on the city streets. The weather we had here on Saturday would have put a dampener on the proceedings anyway so this was perhaps the better option. At the event I realized that the science fair was a better vehicle to get information to kids (and adults). It is more effective to have people see and touch and learn versus marching and chanting.

It was very cool seeing kids engage in learning. I do not have children myself so maybe it seemed extra cool to me.

Big roach

Luminescent

STEMinist

We cannot afford to ignore or deny science. It is the bridge to our understanding of the world and universe around us. That is the philosophical view of science overall. The more pragmatic and immediate concern is our direct effect on the Earth. If we are just asking ourselves what we are doing wrong or if we are in fact affecting our environment then we are way behind. We have to decide yesterday what kind of planet we will leave the next generations.

Nothing special on the photography side in this blog. It was relatively dark in the museum. To make the process more interesting to me I created a film look for the otherwise not very interesting shots.

For more information on science related events near you visit http://marchforscience.com. The Illinois Science Council will be presenting the Chicago Science Fest next month from May 8-16, 2018. Visit http://chicagosciencefest.org for tickets and information.

Click images to view on black.