It’s easy to notice kids who may some day become scientists. They may stare, fascinated for hours, at ants following pheromone trails through the backyard, hide flinty rocks in the crevices of their homes and embark on experiments with the most basic of household equipment, cooking up fake food for wolves with your pots and pans.
But kids with this innate curiosity often lose sight of what originally drew them to science after a few years in a college classroom memorizing physics formulas or the periodic table of elements.
Pictured Above: Renuka Ramcharan’s photograph of a mute swan
This semester at the Stony Brook Southampton campus, 13 students, mostly in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) Semester By the Sea program, have had a chance to reconnect with why they love the natural world, and how to share that love with the people around them.
Christopher Paparo, the manager of the Marine Science Center at Stony Brook Southampton and the marine photographer behind Fish Guy Photos, created a new elective class, “Nature Writing and Photography,” with Sustainability Studies professor David Taylor at Stony Brook’s main campus last fall, and this spring he’s been teaching the class at the Southampton campus with outdoor writer and editor Tom Schlichter, a longtime friend.
The class culminated May 8 with a student photography show and a reading of their essays about the natural world at the Avram Theater Gallery on campus.
“We work with a lot of grad students. They’re doing amazing stuff, but they don’t communicate it,” said Mr. Paparo as the students each prepared three photographs to hang for the show. “I go to the defense of their theses, and I don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s way over my head. That’s science, but many of the environmental problems we face are because scientists don’t know how to communicate to the public. We thought, let’s teach these kids how to be better communicators, in a way that’s not dumbing it down, and connect it to photography.”
After Dr. Taylor was unable to teach this spring, Mr. Paparo reached out to Mr. Schlichter, a friend “who’s mentored me in writing, and given me a break as an editor several times,” he said.
“Our writing part is designed to help students simply journal or be published in nature or outdoors-themed publications and websites,”said Mr. Schlichter. “We have no doubt that improving their writing skills overall will help them publish to a wider audience while also improving their ability to write science-based themes and for grants.”
The students were also grateful for the break from the hard science they’re studying in other classes, and for the time the class gave them to spend in the natural world.
“Ten years ago, I was a sixth grader in an independent research class, and Dr. Artie Kopelman of the Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island came to our class to lead seal surveys at Cupsogue Beach,” said Jenna White, who grew up in East Patchogue and is now studying marine invertebrate biology at SoMAS. “We did photo analysis, counts and took behavior notes. It was really amazing for me, ten years later, to do the same exact study for a college class here.”
Ms. White decided to do her project for the writing and photography class about harbor seals, and the nostalgia it evokes for her.
“I’ve been able to do what I love since I was a kid, but the seals have always been here,” she said. “Those conservation efforts back then are still affecting us now, and it’s so important to continue that legacy.”
She added that her grandfather was an underwater photographer and scuba diver, and “I wanted to bond with him over that use of the gear that he leant me when he passed away.”
Em Strife is a junior in the marine science program who is minoring in journalism. She grew up near Albany but visited the beach every summer as a child.
“I was eight years old when I told my mom I wanted to be a marine biologist, and I never wavered,” she said. “I always loved writing, but I didn’t know I could combine it with my love of marine science.”
Ms. Strife’s final project for this class is a photo and essay about Ral and Mary, an osprey pair that nests at the SoMAS Marine Science Station in Southampton. They’re named for Dr. John Ralvan Welker, the founder in 1965 of the marine science program at the college, and his wife Mary.
“He passed away in 2012, but I had the privilege of speaking with Mary. My piece is about our connection of this campus and my program to the work he did and his passion,” said Ms. Strife.
“It’s important to remember where we started,” she said. “The opportunities I’ve been given here didn’t just magically appear. They were started because people were passionate. I’m grateful that because of the work Dr. Welker did, I’m here following my dreams. Also, Ral and Mary are really cute.”
Shania Ryckman, who is majoring in environmental policy, also found this class reconnected her to why she entered this field. Her project revolved around a school boat trip to observe seals.
“You can tell when a really scientific person writes an article — wooah,” she said. “We’ve been writing technically, but this forces us out of our comfort zones. Professor Schlichter talked to us about how to use our writing to talk about environmental activism, which I think all of us in SoMAS are interested in.”
“If you want to convince policy makers to make policy, you have to communicate that, translating scientific speak into normal speak,” agreed student Lawrence Pak.
“My project entails focusing on common animals — the mute swan, the Canada goose and harbor seals,” said student Renuka Ramcharan. “I grew up in Guyana, so I’m really here just for school and visiting. But despite growing up in a nature-centered environment, I had difficulty taking the time to appreciate the nature around me. I also wanted to share the aspect of boundaries when it comes to approaching wild animals. Geese and swan are know for their nuisance and aggressive behavior, but I was able to approach these animals with caution, allowing me to be within their presence. This is something that everyone should learn to do.”
Eily Montenegro lives on the North Fork, and after the intensity of writing a draft thesis last semester, she was happy to be “spending three hours in the woods with a camera looking at what’s around me and seeing things I never knew were there.”
“I had no idea we have foxes on the North Fork,” she said. “And once I saw one fox I saw another fox and another.”
Student Donovan Bauman, who is from Center Moriches, is finishing his undergraduate degree in marine invertebrate biology, and plans to continue with graduate studies in the same field.
With an old Canon T7, he set off to photograph Warner’s Island, which is just east of the Ponquogue Bridge in Shinnecock Bay in Hampton Bays, while on a class trip to clean up the island.
“There are duck blinds, and gulls on their nests with eggs,” he said of the uninhabited island. “I wrote about the island and its history and link to the Warner family and the wild birds that nest on it,” he said. “When you get so buried in the academic side of studying the natural world, you can sometimes get detached from those direct experiences that really endear you to caring about nature in the first place.”
“College life becomes a blur, but the photography is allowing us to stop and make memories,” said Avery Nix. “There’s not a place for your feelings in the scientific world. When you’re writing for an audience of normal people, you’re able to put those emotional experiences into writing.”
Here’s more info about the class.
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