Ugly Duckling: My Audubon CLI 2018 Experience

This semester I was chosen to attend the Conservation Leadership Initiative (CLI). This is a program hosted by Audubon Florida. CLI motivates college age students (a "younger" crowd) to get involved with the Audubon Society and learn more about their conservation work, local Audubon chapters throughout Florida, and the joy of birding. The following are some of my reflections on CLI, the Audubon Society, and the events that transpired through a lens of sustainability and rhetorical analysis of the messages they may or may not have been intentionally sending but I certainly received:


The moment I realized I was in for a internally confusing day was when my lunch dish was presented to me. The main lunch dish was chicken. Chicken. Bird. At the Audubon Conference for the entire state of Florida. I took a quick scan of my table and no one else seemed to be questioning the lunch that had been put in front of them. I quietly heard my friend Alex Basili's voice in my head, "you can't be an environmentalist and eat meat". I flagged down a waiter and felt relieved I had requested the vegetarian option pre-CLI.

Now, I am by no means trying to discredit the work that the Audubon Society is doing. They have made great strides in protecting natural lands in Florida and cleaning up the ones already polluted. Especially for coastal restoration for wading birds, even purchasing an island near St. Marks for their efforts. I am merely reporting on what I saw, what I felt, and hopefully this provides a situation to hold their organization accountable for the messages they are sending and steps that they can take to continue to grow an already established organization with a legacy of conservation leadership.

CLI recognizes and was born out of a need for diversity. That fact is undeniable. Audubon is a predominantly made up of white, older people so by providing scholarships for any college age student to attend a day of the weekend long conference and pair every student with a mentor who is a member of an Audubon chapter works two fold. It allows students to consider paths in conservation and ecology through Audubon but it also allows the mentors to meet students and talk about ways to grow their programs and create space to include groups who have historically not thought to join Audubon. But still I felt like the "ugly duckling" during this experience because I was the odd one out: I was bringing both environmental and social justice lenses to a conference seemingly more concerned with solely the environment rather than the people living in it.


In all of the sessions I attended at the conference I kept thinking: which issues are grey areas? Which are not? One one hand, Wells Fargo was one of the sponsors for the conference so is it okay to forgive their racist and predatory lending practices if they are willing to financially support Audubon's environmental conservation efforts? I felt it was morally wrong to accept sponsorship from such a company but leaders of Audubon had different opinions. Such as Heather Starck, VP of Grassroots Capacity Building for Audubon National who, during the break out session for students to talk everything resumes and applications, suggested that working with "big" companies to alter their practices is a current move to make because the alternative of these companies running with reckless abandon is much worse. I wanted to continue the conversation yet the small group ran out of time. I wanted to suggest that yes, while conversation is important and I do would want to continue fixing the root so restoration doesn't have to be the talk of the day, and people can be treated fairly by these large companies.


Ultimately, this conference gave me hope again. People want to gather and make things better and they are now willing to include more perspectives. I was blown away by one attendee who was recognized for staying the course as the gentleman had been working with Audubon for 46 years! Although, I could not stress enough to everyone I talked to and even now: equity needs to be part of conservation. Even though it was odd that mentioning social sustainability created dissonance, it also encouraged me that I am in the right field of work. That the three pillars of sustainability must be shared with more people lest we risk sustainability movements spreading messages of whiteness, hetero-normativity, or caring more for the environment than for people.

My CLI mentor Amy Koch and I posing with a bald eagle named Francis! It was wonderful to be paired with Amy as she is also new to Audubon.

Why is There a Need For Scientific Literacy?

The relevancy of infusing rhetorical theory into a blog advocating for science communication could not come at a more fitting time. Daily it is demonstrated for the American society and broadcast all around the world that "feelings" and spur-of-the-moment decisions seem to be outweighing rationality and reflective policy making.

As an undergraduate student double majoring in both Biology and Editing, Writing, and Media I have experienced two distinct fields: science and writing. Science helps make sense of the natural world. Rhetorical theory aims to make sense of perception. The foundation of the scientific method is to inquire and experiment ethically. Rhetorical theory allows humanity to examine our relationship with morality and reflect on what experiences we can share and which experiences we cannot—an example of Kenneth Burke's concept of Terministic Screens. Furthermore, at the upper levels both writing and science are not about brute memorization but rather using concepts and applying them to think through different situations.

Now, I am not trying to make the argument that science and rhetorical theory are one in the same. Yet, there are significant parallels to where if an evolutionary ecologist and a rhetorical theorist who looks at rhetoric with a interactive web/systems view (aka "ecologies") I would argue the two could have a decent conversation about critical thinking and what it means beyond the desk or lab bench. And still, because traditionally science and writing have been arbitrarily separated, the types of conversations that need to happen are not happening.

The importance of non-formal science education will continue to grow as more people have the means to experiencing or amounting scientific data (i.e. online scientific journals, reports, studies) but lack the expertise to tease out the details and make sense of how it applies to their daily routine. Thus, science communicators will become an important part of this genre because they are the link between experts who devote their lives to a field and the general public. With a recent lack of trust in experts, it is the role of science communicators to show people that in some capacity experts must be taken seriously because not one person can be an expert in everything. This brings the conversation around science communication and scientific literacy to one surrounding genre—what is required of scientific literacy/communicators and what defines it? Anis Bawarshi and their notion of genre as interactive/reciprocal is an excellent way to look at this developing field. Writing in genre takes practice and an appreciation that the genre might change over time. We must provide spaces for this practice to happen and more importantly for people to disagree. Addressing misinformation ("fake news") within the genre of science communication/lay-person scientific literacy must be present but instead of vilifying it, rather use other approaches such as Inoculation Theory against attacks on scientific reasoning.

A major tenet I live my life by is this: critical thinking extends to more than just science and rhetoric. It can help analyze how policy has brought us to the point where we are separating immigrant children from their families and what are the next steps to vote the representatives allowing this out of office. Critical thinking can help you rationalize what to keep and what to sell when you are moving out of your childhood home of the past 14 years. Critical thinking helps you navigate what to say to a friend who loses their father just after her 21st birthday. Now, while these may all be personal situations unique to me, I firmly believe that a time and place to legitimize scientific literacy and reap the benefits of a more conscious public will prove not just substantial, but imperative to the continual development of society.