I don't want to lose my home. I grew up in Kansas, where open space and prairie grasses are plentiful. I remember as a child I would walk barefoot along the paths that paralleled the creek near my school. I would spend hours there just enjoying the sights and sounds of nature. Sometimes I would reach into the clay by the creek bed and make little pots out of it, leaving them to dry on a nearby rock. As I grew (and the suburbs expanded) the creek got much dirtier. In some places, it stopped flowing altogether. I don't want to lose that, it's what I am fighting for through my studies and individual research.
Most recently, I have been doing quite a bit of research on bioremediation, going so far as to create an estimate for carbon sequestration by endophyte-inoculated poplars (so as to remediate the soil and air at once). In the future, I hope to find some way to communicate science more effectively. It has long been my mantra that most problems are the result of improper communication. By finding a way to make what is known, known we only put more people on our side in the fight for our environment.
The thing about creativity and storytelling is that they tend to transcend the borders of class, allowing the core message to be received and understood by the public. It is difficult not to let a little bit of your own heart into a creative work or a story one tells. Without this, the stories are bland and hard to digest. The best part of creativity is the little bit of yourself that slips into each thing you dedicate yourself to. It's the accumulation of all those little pieces of all those different people that makes something great. In working with The Creative Process, I’m using my skills to help in the creation of something beautiful and hopefully communicate some science in the process.
