Das Problem Bodenerosion
Der Boden unter unseren Füßen - ein Meter Erdreich, der unsere Ernährung sichert und gleichzeitig Lebensraum für Pflanzen und Tiere bietet, die wiederum als Teil der Nahrungskette das natürliche Gleichgewicht aufrecht erhalten - ist in Gefahr. 

Bodenerosion verursacht jedes Jahr enorme Schäden. In der Europäischen Union belaufen sie sich Jahr für Jahr auf 700 Millionen bis 14 Milliarden Euro. Wind und Wasser tragen Humus und fruchtbaren Oberboden ab, überschwemmen Straßen und Grundstücke und verursachen Staubstürme. Pflanzenschutzmittel, die an Bodenteilchen anhaften und durch Winderosion in die Luft geraten, können Menschen krank machen und verschmutzen Flüsse und Seen, wenn sie durch Starkregen von Feldern gespült werden.

Die Folgen von Bodenerosion
​Bodenerosion schädigt Gewässer und andere Lebensräume, und kann Menschen krank machen. Sie verursacht auch enorme wirtschaftliche Schäden für die Landwirtschaft. Verbraucher bezahlen Ernteausfälle oft durch höhere Lebensmittelpreise. Bodenerosion wirkt sich auf Versorgungsketten und Ernährungssicherheit aus, vor allem in Entwicklungsländern, in denen Menschen auf lokale Landwirtschaft angewiesen sind, um ihren Lebensunterhalt und ihre Ernährung zu sichern.

​Die Abtragung von landwirtschaftlichen Böden geschieht vielerorts weitaus schneller als deren Neubildung. Sie kann darum Böden degradieren, also die langanhaltende Verschlechterung der Bodenqualität bewirken.

Ein Workshop zu Bodenerosion und noch viel mehr
Entstanden ist der Workshop aus einem Wissenstransferprojekt mit dem Brandenburgischen Landwirtschaftsministerium. Für Behörden und Landwirte erstelle ich im Moment eine Serie von Merkblättern zu Bodenerosion und vorsorgendem Bodenschutz auf Äckern, inklusive welche Bodenschutzmaßnahmen durch die EU gefördert werden (bzw. von Landwirten gefordert sind).

Die Inhalte des Workshops knüpfen an Lehrinhalte des Geografieunterrichts in Berlin und Brandenburg an. Dieser beschäftigt sich in verschiedenen Klassenstufen zum Beispiel mit den Auswirkungen des Klimawandel, mit neuen Methoden in der Agrarproduktion, oder mit nachhaltigem Ressourcenmanagement.

​Neben dem Vermitteln von Lehrinhalten war mir wichtig, Interesse für Forschung zu wecken, zu zeigen, wie wissenschaftliches Arbeiten und Denken abläuft, die Wertschätzung gegenüber Forschung zu erhöhen, und die Hemmschwelle zu senken, mit Forschern ins Gespräch zu kommen. Wir sind schließlich auch nur Menschen.

Das Experiment
Ein Kernstück des Workshops ist ein Experiment zu Wassererosion. Mit ihm wollen wir verstehen, wie Wassererosion funktioniert und wie wichtig eine gute Bodenbedeckung ist, um die Abtragung von Bodenmaterial zu reduzieren. Es ist einem Versuchsaufbau nachempfunden, der auch in der Erosionsforschung verwendet wird, nur kleiner. Das Zusammenbauen hat zwar viel Zeit gekostet, war materialmäßig aber relativ preiswert. Die meisten Teile sind im Baumarkt oder Bastelgeschäft erhältlich.

Wir diskutierten vor dem Experiment, was passieren sollte und warum, und werteten hinterher aus, was passiert ist und warum. Das Experiment selber wurde durch zwei Schüler:innen durchgeführt. ​Sie gossen mit einer kleinen Gießkanne gleiche Mengen Wasser in der gleichen Zeit über zwei gekippte Blumenkästen, die einmal mit Erde ohne Bewuchs und einmal mit Erde mit Bewuchs gefüllt waren.

Das Ergebnis war deutlich: der Boden ohne Bewuchs wurde stark ausgewaschen, während von Gras bedeckte Boden praktisch nicht weggewaschen wurde.

Hier erfuhren die Schüler auch die Basics wissenschaftlicher Arbeit: das Erstellen von Hypothesen, also von Vermutungen, was passieren wird, und die Analyse des Experiments, also die Überprüfung, ob die Hypothese eintraf, und wenn nicht, warum nicht.

In der Zukunft wird es auch ein Experiment zu Winderosion geben, ein kleiner Windkanal. Diesen zu bauen ist aber etwas aufwendiger und kostenintensiver.

ChatGPT erlaubt
Ein weiterer wichtiger Bestandteil sind zwei Gruppenarbeiten. Die Schüler:innen erkunden in kleinen Gruppen, welche ökologischen, ökonomischen und sozialen Schäden durch Bodenerosion entstehen. Danach erarbeiten Sie an konkreten Problemen Lösungen, um Wassererosion, Staubstürme oder Gesundheitsrisiken zu reduzieren, anhand der naturbasierten Maßnahmen, die wir vorher besprochen haben.

Die Schüler:innen durften ChatGPT und andere KI-Chatbots verwenden. Es schien zwecklos es zu verbieten, denn Jede:r hatte ChatGPT sowieso auf dem Handy und war daran gewohnt, es zu nutzen. Vielmehr war mir wichtig, ihre Lösungen anschließend in der Gruppe zu diskutieren und zu durchdenken. Damit wurden die Schüler gefordert zu überlegen, was die vermeintlich passgenauen Antworten der KI bedeuteten, und ob die KI-Antwort überhaupt richtig war. So war laut ChatGPT ein ökologischer Schaden von Bodenerosion, dass sich Flussläufe ändern und Gesteine abgetragen werden. Das ist natürlich nicht richtig. Durch die Diskussion wurde deutlich, dass auch die KI nicht allwissend ist.

ProWissen Potsdam als Partner
Mein Workshop ist Teil der Schülerakademie von ProWissen, einem Verein aus Potsdam. Seit 2006 vernetzt ProWissen über 70 Wissenschaftsorganisationen und -institute in Berlin und Brandenburg. Für die Schülerakademie werden regelmäßig Forschende dieser Einrichtungen eingeladen, die über ihre Arbeit sprechen.

Danke
Ohne das Netzwerk, die Räumlichkeiten und die Erfahrung von ProWissen, insbesondere der Hilfe von Kerstin Engel, wäre der Workshop nicht zustande gekommen. Außerdem haben mir Lea Berndorfer, Maria Elisa Silva de Almeida und Marcel Kückelhaus wertvolles didaktisches Feedback gegeben und waren haben bei der Erstellung der ersten Entwürfe mitgewirkt. Wissenschaftliche Unterstützung bekam ich außerdem von Dr. Roger Funk am ZALF.

Der nächste Workshop findet am 4. November 2025 statt.

Die Beteiligung der Bevölkerung in der Stadt- und Verkehrsplanung ist ein schwieriges Unterfangen, wie kürzlich auch am Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin oder bei einem Radweg in Fulda wieder klar wurde.

In der Forschung ist das nicht anders. Forschungsfragen zu stellen, die reale Probleme angehen, und Erfahrungen und Meinungen aus der Praxis in Methoden und Ziele einzubeziehen, ist eine Herausforderung. Dabei ist Beteiligung enorm wichtig, um drängende Probleme anzugehen, vom Klimawandel bis zum demografischen Wandel.
Formate der partizipativen Forschung gibt es viele, von Citizen Science bis Open Innovation. Der neue „Leitfaden für Partizipation in der Forschung“ stellt diese Formate nun kurz und einfach vor und gibt Beispiele, wie sie angewendet werden können. Das hilft Forschenden aus anderen Disziplinen zu verstehen, wie gute partizipative Forschung funktioniert. Unter Beteiligung von acht Unis, Forschungsinstituten und gemeinnützigen Vereinen sowie dem Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) soll der Leitfaden vor allem Orientierung schaffen, erklärt Philipp Schrögel, Gastwissenschaftler an der TU Chemnitz, der die Konzeption und Erstellung leitete.

Ein junges Format im Bund der partizipativen Forschung ist die Reallaborforschung. Hier findet die Entwicklung und das Testen von Innovationen unter Praxisbedingungen statt, zusammen mit Akteuren aus Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik. Das können Technologien, Dienstleistungen oder auch Instrumente der Politik wie Subventionen oder Regulierungen sein.

Das Format ist beliebt. Das SAMSax-Reallabor an der TU Bergakademie Freiberg zum Beispiel arbeitet mit Industriepartnern an der Wiederverwertung von Plastik-Reststoffen im 3D-Druck. In Bayern, Niedersachsen und Brandenburg werden landwirtschaftliche Praktiken entwickelt, um Insekten und anderen wichtigen Lebewesen bessere Lebensbedingungen zu bieten und so für mehr Biodiversität auf Äckern und Wiesen zu sorgen. In sechs EU-Ländern, von Spanien bis Litauen, wird experimentiert, wie die urbane Landwirtschaft der Zukunft aussehen kann. Auch außerhalb der Wissenschaft gibt es Reallabore, zum Beispiel das Reallabor Energie der Deutschen Bahn oder das Reallabor Radbahn in Berlin.
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Im weitesten Sinne sollen Forschung, Praxis, Politik und Gesellschaft auf Augenhöhe zusammenarbeiten – etwas, das in der Wissenschaft selten stattfindet –, um gemeinsam Innovationen zu entwickeln und unter realen Bedingungen zu testen. Ziel ist auch, Forschung durch Input aus der Praxis zu lenken, indem Fragestellungen und Probleme eingebracht werden, die gemeinsam angegangen werden.

Reallabore sind im Idealfall dauerhafte Forschungsinfrastrukturen, die über Jahrzehnte an bestimmten gesellschaftlich relevanten Themen forschen und nicht nur für einzelne Projekte eingerichtet werden. Im Quartier Zukunft in Karlsruhe zum Beispiel entwickeln Forschende seit 2012 mit Anwohnern nachhaltige Wohnformen in Städten. Die Utopiastadt in Wuppertal beschäftigt sich mit nachhaltigem städtischem Verkehr und der Neuentwicklung von Stadtraum. Am Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF) bei Berlin gibt es ab nächstes Jahr das Innovationszentrum für Agrarsystemtransformation (IAT). Am IAT sollen zusammen mit Partnern an den Unis Gießen und Kassel sowie der Hochschule Geisenheim University fünf dauerhaft finanzierte Reallabore in Brandenburg und Hessen aufgebaut werden, die sich Themen wie Weinbau, Tierhaltung oder Ackerbau widmen. Kanada, eines der Vorreiterländer in der Entwicklung von Reallaboren, unterhält seit 2018 ein Netzwerk von 14 Reallaboren im Agrarsektor.

Solche festen Institutionen, wie sie es in anderen Forschungsbereichen gibt, gibt es in der Reallaborforschung aber erst selten, kritisiert Markus Egermann, Leiter des Forschungsbereichs Transformative Kapazitäten am Leibniz-Institut für ökologische Raumentwicklung (IÖR) in Dresden. Viel findet derzeit noch auf Projektebene statt. Dabei ist stetige Finanzierung essenziell, um etwa Akteursnetzwerke, die die Reallaborforschung erst ermöglichen, aufrechtzuerhalten und so projektübergreifend langfristige Ziele zu verfolgen. Auch die meisten Reallaborprojekte des IÖR sind nicht dauerhaft angelegt. So war Dresden von 2015 bis 2022 eine von acht Zukunftsstädten, in denen verschiedene von der Bevölkerung vorgeschlagene Projekte zur nachhaltigen Stadt- und Regionalentwicklung durchgeführt wurden.
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Eine Verfestigung des Formats geht trotzdem voran. Vergangenen November wurde ein Entwurf für ein Reallaboregesetz auf den Weg gebracht, das einen rechtlichen Rahmen für die Arbeit in Reallaboren geben soll. Vergangenes Jahr fand die zweite Auflage einer Reallaborkonferenz statt, im Dresdner Hygiene-Museum, mitorganisiert vom IÖR, die Forschende und Praktiker zusammenbrachte, um Ideen zu entwickeln und auszutauschen. Im deutschsprachigen Raum ist die Reallaborforschung im Netzwerk Reallabore der Nachhaltigkeit organisiert. International ist das European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) eine Dachorganisation.

Der Leitfaden für Partizipation in der Forschung spielt auch für Egermann eine wichtige Rolle für Nachwuchsforschende, weil er Orientierung bietet und wichtige Aspekte der Partizipation beleuchtet, etwa wie Transfer funktioniert, was bei der Evaluation beachtet werden muss oder wie Wertschätzung zum Ausdruck gebracht werden kann. „Das ist unglaublich wertvoll“, sagt der IÖR-Forscher, „gerade für Student:innen und junge Wissenschaftler:innen oder auch Kolleg:innen, die bisher wenig eigene Erfahrungen dazu haben und ja nicht in die gleichen Fallen tappen müssen wie viele Forschende vor ihnen.“

​2024 was the hottest year on record for planet Earth, with most of the warming coming from human activities that release climate-warming greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide (CO2) or methane (CH4), into the air. Nature around us – for example, trees and soils – can absorb these gases and act as a sink. But as the planet continues to warm, nature can become a source of planet-warming gases, accelerating global warming even more and creating a vicious cycle. One question scientists are trying to answer, is to what extent natural areas are contributing to global warming.

​Scientists have now developed a more accurate way to estimate just this for the second most important greenhouse gas and a long overlooked ecosystem dominated by it: methane from natural wetlands in the Arctic. One third of global methane emissions originates in wetlands, and although most of that comes from wetlands in the Tropics, the Arctic is an important piece of the puzzle, too. Here, methane has been stored in permafrost soil over millennia and is now being released as Earth heats up. So far, the processes behind this have not been well understood, and as a result, models are doing a poor job estimating how much methane is released from these regions, a recent study in Nature showed. As a result, it is unclear by how much methane emissions will increase in the future due to global warming.

​In the short-term (in the first 100 years after emission), the warming effect of methane is 27 to 30 times stronger compared to the same amount by weight of emitted CO2, making it a much more powerful greenhouse gas. 159 countries (including the US) have signed the Global Methane Pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 based on 2020 levels. However, a direct comparison of the effects of methane and CO2 on the climate, ecosystems and health, is more complicated. The source of the methane is also important to consider.

​The new study, conducted by three researchers from Lund University in Sweden, looked at Scandinavia and the Baltic region in Northern Europe. It was funded by the World Meteorological Organization and Horizon Europe, a funding instrument by the European Union to support adaptation to climate change. The study found that the model tested in the study currently overestimates methane emissions from Arctic wetlands. But that is not the true novelty of the research. 

​The researchers worked with a dynamic global vegetation model called LPJ-GUESS, which uses climate data to simulate what how various ecosystems on the planet would be distributed, what they would be composed of, and how they would function. The researchers also used two other components: LUMIA and GRaB-AM. This approach is what is most novel, a “joint use of two independent approaches, LUMIA and GRaB-AM, that leads to the same result”, saysGuillaume Monteil, now at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC) in Spain and lead investigator of the project.

​Monteil explains, “both systems fall in the ‘data assimilation’ category of approaches,” meaning both integrate many different data and feed them into specific models to predict an unknown variable. “LUMIA is an atmospheric inversion system. It uses observations of the atmospheric composition to refine estimates of greenhouse gas emissions. GRaB-AM is a data assimilation framework built around LPJ-GUESS. It is used to determine the configuration of LPJ-GUESS that leads to the most realistic methane emissions, based on its performance in reproducing flux observations at multiple sites.” 

​The study also uses what is known as ‘inversion’ in mathematics, an approach to estimate the amount of something based on its measured impact, like guessing the size of a meteorite based on the crater it left. Or as Monteil explains it: “It's about determining an unknown, or poorly known value, in our case the CH4 emissions, based on their observed impact, in our case the observed CH4 concentrations.” The way of finding an unknown factor or variable is turned on its head - inverted. 

​One of the goals of the project is to improve the LPJ-GUESS model, or as Monteil describes, to “compare [the modeled] output to observations (flux observations in GRAB-AM, concentration observations in LUMIA), and then adjust the initial values to improve the fit to the data.

​Monteil stresses not to overinterpret the results that the LPJ model overestimate arctic methane emissions, because the study is based on only one year of data and a very small geographic region in northern Europe. The results cannot be generalized and need to be tested elsewhere. He says, what the study does do is “it provides a cross validation for the LUMIA and GRaB-AM system, which is quite new.” As a result, processes in sparsely monitored ecosystems, like Arctic wetlands in Europe or North America, can be modeled more accurately and reliably, and the new procedure could help scientists develop better models for other environmental processes. Although the study focused on Northern Europe, Arctic wetlands in Alaska and northern Canada face similar warming and methane emission, a recent study has found. This approach might improve estimates in US and Arctic Regions, as well.

​In the grand scheme of things, however, it might be a key puzzle piece in figuring out how just much more warming humans and nature will have to deal with in the future, and perhaps also inform other projects about the value of wetlands for storing global warming gases. This is the focus of other scientific endeavors, for example how to return drained peatlands to former glory as storage champions of greenhouse gases while also allowing agricultural use on these lands. To learn more about this, check out the project Re:Peat in Colombia and WetNetBB and MOOSland in Germany.

The study by Guillaume Monteil and his colleagues is currently in review with the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The preprint publication is available here: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-312

Um junge Wählerinnen und Wähler zur Wahl zu motivieren und ihnen aktuelle Themen und die Positionen der einzelnen Parteien näher zu bringen, organisierte der Parkclub Fürstenwalde, ein Treff für Jugendliche in der 25.000-Einwohner-Stadt südöstlich von Berlin eine Reihe von vier Podiums-Veranstaltungen. In der ersten Veranstaltung diskutierten und erläuterten Experten drängende Themen in der Region Ostbrandenburg, und in den folgenden drei Veranstaltungen erläuterten Vertreter der Parteien auf dem Stimmzettel für die EU-, Landes- oder Kommunalwahlen ihre Positionen und Prioritäten.

Ich war als einer dieser Experten eingeladen, zusammen mit Professor Ralf Kohlen, ein Verkehrsforscher an der TH Wildau. Wir lieferten Explainer und Hintergründe zu Themen wie Digitalisierung, Biodiversität, oder auch dem Ausbau der Strom- und Verkehrsnetze. Der Klimawandel ist für die Landwirtschaft eine zentrale Herausforderung, das wurde schnell klar: Verlust der biologischen Vielfalt, Ertragsschwankungen und damit verbundene Einkommensunsicherheit, das immer weniger attrativ werdende Berufsfeld eines Landwirtes. Mögliche Lösungen Agrar-PV, Digitalisierung und Robotik sowie die Entwicklung neuer landwirtschaftlicher Produkte und kürzerer Wertschöpfungs- und Lieferketten.

Die Idee war, die übliche Kombination von Wissenschaftlern und Politikern zu vermeiden, und zuerst Erklärungen zu aktuellen Themen zu liefern, bevor über die Positionen und Prioritäten der verschiedenen Parteien diskutiert und gestritten wird. Die Stimmung in unserer Sitzung war auf jeden Fall viel entspannter als in den folgenden Events.

Dieses Format - eine Podiumsdiskussion mit einem Live-Publikum, die auch per Livestream auf Youtube übertragen und dort für die Nachwelt festgehalten wurde - war für mich neu und trotz der entspannten Atmosphäre etwas nervenaufreibend. Letztendlich verlief die Veranstaltung aber reibungslos, auch dank der guten Vorbereitung meinerseits auf einige Leitfragen, die uns der Moderator im Vorfeld zugeschickt hatte.

Ob es ein Erfolg war, lasse ich Sie entscheiden: www.youtube.com/live/8ngWuNH-xR4?si=RmlcYQ9dhxPe83Xx&t=56

Die drei Folgeveranstaltungen mit Politikern der zur Wahl stehenden Parteien:
Europawahl: www.youtube.com/live/i7we5BvozMM?si=ylwW7WMLtSVBOFkM
Kreistag Oder-Spree: www.youtube.com/live/0BvKCpyUe3U?si=1drHB3kvntWz3FkY
Stadt Fürstenwalde/Spree: www.youtube.com/live/ooQtBfUGMEQ?si=hRHxxYf76w93xAUX

On June 9 and September 6, important elections will determine the direction of the European Union, the federal states in Germany, and some local districts and cities for the next few years. A dizzying spectrum of 35 parties are on the ballot for the EU election next week, from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the far-left Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD), and everything in between. Read more here: www.bpb.de/themen/parteien/wer-steht-zur-wahl/europawahl-2024/ (in German).

Dr. Sarah McAnulty, the Executive Director, told me in a podcast interview, the idea came from an emerging distrust and denial in science after Donald Trump won the presidential election in the U.S. in 2017. The organization is based in the U.S., but it operates globally.

I started participating in 2018, and have talked to two to five school classes per semester, in English and German and mostly in the U.S., about climate change and its impacts on food production, grasslands, and natural ecosystems in general, about the water cycle, and about environmental topics in general. Preparation usually starts with an email from me to the teacher introducing myself, and the teacher emailing me more specifics about their interests, or with specific questions from their students. These questions are always fascinating to me. Over the next few weeks or months, until our scheduled session, I would look up resources, find photos, and put together some slides for the class. I always try to make it interactive, so I leave room for questions or include questions of my own that we then discuss during the session. I would often be on a huge screen or projector wall in classrooms, but during COVID when everyone was at home, I sometimes had Zoom calls with students in their PJs lounging on the couch (not that I’m complaining, I wasn’t exactly dressed for work either).

“How fast can wind go?” middle schoolers from a science class in California asked me two years ago. The younger the students, the more mind-boggling their questions. “Where is the cleanest water on earth?,” 3rd-graders from Switzerland wanted to know last spring. Younger students seemed to be more easily fascinated by our natural world, while older students would often have more specific questions. High schoolers from the U.S. East Coast asked me in 2018, “How much does climate change affect wildfires?” and “What do you consider to be the thing most impacted by climate change and why?” It's important not to overthink answers, but to keep them short and simple. High schoolers are also often interested in my career path, and how I got to where I am, since many of them will soon start college.

After our sessions I usually share my slides and resources with the teacher, and include a list of additional resources — websites, literature, or online tools — that I like to share for their educational value.

This semester, I was matched with two elementary classes in Florida and Louisiana. For me, Skype A Scientist is about more than restoring trust in science. As a climate scientist, it’s also a bit of therapy. It’s hard to describe the amazing feeling when students ask me what we can do about climate change. It is restoring my faith in humanity that we are not doomed yet (along with unplugging from ever more toxic social media, like Twitter/X). In addition, it is a way to humanize science, to show that scientists don’t all wear white lab coats and goggles and look down from an ivory tower. We are people like everyone else (the sign-up form also asks scientists — optionally — about race and gender, as a way to match minority classes with scientists from the same group). We don’t always have an answer (lots of times, no one does). But most of all, it is a way to get students interested in becoming  scientists and channeling their natural curiosity for the betterment of the planet.

Participating is free and on a voluntary basis for everyone. If you want to support Skype A Scientist, you can sign up as a scientist, teacher, or another group, or become a Patreon.

Skype A Scientist: www.skypeascientist.com
​My podcast interview with Sarah McAnulty (Executive Director): ECCN Podcast ep. 2

​Agriculture is going through a transformation in Europe. The European Green Deal and the EU's Farm to Fork strategy increasingly limit the use of chemical pesticides, such as glyphosate, and push towards nature-based solutions in weed and pest control. The war in Ukraine jeopardizes grain exports from "Europe's bread basket" and fertilizer exports from Russia, both threatening the global supply chain of food and agrochemicals. At the same time, consumers demand more local produce, which creates opportunities for regional markets, shorter supply chains, and products that cause fewer transport emissions. On top of this, climate change exposes crop and livestock production to more extreme drought, heat, and rainfall.

Actionable research and development have a big role to play in the transformation of agriculture. Horizon Europe and its predecessor Horizon 2020, funding programs by the European Union, have been funding research aimed at bringing together researchers and practitioners to accelerate innovation in agriculture. For example, by 2027, the Horizon Europe Soil Mission will fund 100 so-called "living labs" and "lighthouses" across Europe to advance research and practices towards healthier soils.

Against this backdrop, agricultural researchers met at the University of Potsdam, Germany for one week last August and early September, at the biennial meeting of the European Society of Agronomy. Embracing the increasing digitization of Agriculture 4.0 and the push towards more environmentally friendly practices, the conference ran under the motto “Diversification & Digitalisation – Trends that shape future agriculture”.

​As living lab researcher, I was most interested in collaborative, actionable research with farmers, conservation organizations, policy makers, and other non-scientist. As this was my first conference since moving back to Germany at the end of 2021, I was also eager to learn about advances in model development, agricultural production, natural fertilizers, and pesticide reduction on this side of the pond.
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​Participatory and transdisciplinary research involve the public and expert stakeholders and use their expertise, or simply the power of the crowd, to improve research. Participatory research can be used to augment and improve computer models. Citizen science projects, like the Mückenatlas at ZALF, or the Cooperative Observer Network of the US National Weather Service, are considered participatory research. A frontrunner in this research is INRAe, the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment.

One challenge to combine information from participants with mathematical models, because the two rarely talk the same language. Marine Albert, a Ph.D. student at INRAe (France), and colleagues developed SMART variables to use in a vulnerability assessment for maize production. These SMART variables (specific, measureable,assignable, realistic, time-related, coined by George Doran in 1981) convert survey responses from farmers and are used in DPSIR, a quantitative model framework. Working with farmers as equal partners and reimbursing them fairly for their time was essential for her success.

How should we measure transformation of agricultural systems towards sustainability? Sophie Plassin and colleagues (INRAe) identified gaps in assessing the performance of conservation agriculture and its ability to cope with climate change in temperate zones. Most methods, they found, are focused on the field or farm scale over short times (<5 years), without considering the “big picture” (larger-scale and longer-time). They also found, that assessments are too often focused on crop productivity with little attention to social and economic aspects. However, these aspects are important criteria for transforming the agri-food system, according to a recent publication of the EU Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (SCAR). Maryline Darmaun and colleagues (INRAe) worked with stakeholders to evaluate 14 methods to assess agroecological transitions, to develop a prototype for these transitions and then test it in a village in Senegal.

​Replacing chemical pesticides with alternative methods to control pests on fields, such as Integrated Pest Management (IPM), is another challenge in transforming agricultural systems. Much work has been done in labs, but testing methods on real fields involves research on a different scale. Sandie Masson (Agroscope Changins) and Nicolas Munier-Jolan (INRAe) developed IPMWORKS, a European network of 246 trial farms in 16 countries (e.g., the Julius-Kühn-Institut in Germany) to develop a holistic IPM that integrates crop rotations, mechanical weed management, precision pest management, and decision support systems to aid site-specific management (here is a video about their work).

​What difference can seasonal climate forecasts make in crop management? Marlene Palka (Ph.D. student at IPB Vienna and research assistant at IIASA in Austria)  conducted on-farm experiments on four farms in eastern Austria, comparing crop management that followed her seasonal climate forecasts (forecasts for the next 1 to 12 months) to conventional management informed by seasonal averages calculated from observed historical data. Seasonal forecasts did improve decision making in general, but not so much in extreme conditions, like heavy rainfall, extreme heat, and severe drought. This is a common problem in seasonal forecasting, because extreme conditions are particularly difficult to forecast.
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Nitrate is a necessary fertilizer in farming, but overuse causes it to wash out of the soil into creeks, rivers and lakes. This is a major problem in conventional farming that uses synthetic fertilizer, because it can cause eutrophication of streams and lakes, and because fertilizer is expensive (both in the US and the EU, in part due to the war in Ukraine). However, this is also a problem in organic farming, which use legumes or manure fertilizer. Legumes are plants that help bind nitrogen from the soil or air (where it is the most abundant gas), store it, and release it when needed.

Tackling practical hurdles in reducing nitrogen wash-out, Malick Ouattara, Ph.D. student at INRAe and AgroParisTech, worked with farmers, researchers, and advisors to develop crop mixes that require less synthetic nitrogen, reduce nitrate leaching, and use available nitrogen more efficiently.

Ph.D. students Tsvetelina Krachunova (ZALF) and Florian Tröber (HTW Dresden) used ribwort plantain (Spitzwegerich), a legume, as cover crop and found 20 to 40% less nitrate leaching in fields with ribwort, a very good result (video about their research). Less leaching reduces pollution downstream and reduces costs of fertilization for farmers. Ribwort as forage has antibacterial effects in sheep stomachs and reduces emissions of N2O, a potent greenhouse gas, from sheep. However, ribwort seeds are expensive (ca. 200 Euro per ha), which makes an expensive source of forage. Its effects on other soil organisms are also largely unexplored. Farmers also need to remove ribwort as a cover crop before it matures and forms seeds or else its seeds will germinate and grow in the following grain crop.
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​Globalization is evident in many supply and value chains in agriculture, Luis Lassaletta (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) explained in her keynote talk. For example, in animal production, grain crops are used as high-protein feed. The grain is often grown in one country, but the fertilizer used on the fields is produced in another country, and the grain forage is eventually shipped to yet another country where hungry livestock are awaiting. This creates an imbalance, because livestock manure (rich in nitrate) accumulates far from where it was used to grow crops. This drives soil and water nitrification, while mineral nitrogen has to be produced in a very emission-intensive way to be used in crop production.

Emissions and pollution could be much lower in shorter supply chains, where producers and consumers of agricultural goods are closer together. FoodSHIFT2030, an EU Horizon 2020-funded project, is working with administrators, citizens, businesses, and scientists to transform the agrifood system first in nine and later in 27 European cities, including Berlin, towards shorter supply chains, which could benefit local producers and create fewer emissions.
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There is no shortage in technical and technological approaches to reducing agricultural emissions, creating shorter supply chains, and yet produce affordable food in a sustainable way. Senthold Asseng, who in 2021 took over the professorship in digital agriculture at TU Munich, discussed indoor vertical farming (such as infarm,www.infarm.com) as a way to allow year-round farming with fewer inputs, reduced pest risk, and yields that are “impossible in conventional farming.” 

Robin Lieb and colleagues (Julius-Kühn-Institut, Germany) tested “if pesticide-free cereal production is possible” in a project they called “NOcsPS.” They combined conventional and organic production methods by replacing chemical weed removal with mechanical weed removal (by farm robots) and by using less mineral fertilizer (they called this system MECS). Their method did reduce diseases, but also revealed problems with some fungi and weeds, which thrived on the mineral fertilizer. 
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Intercropping grows two different crops in the same field at the same time. Wopke van der Werf (Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands) explained, there are different ways to intercrop two crops, for example in alternating rows or by choosing crops that grow at different rates and don't compete for the same soil nutrients. This allows both crops to be harvested separately. Intercropping can reduce the spread of pests and diseases, and it increases the land efficiency ratio, which means the two intercropped varieties need less space to achieve the same yield compared to if both were planted separately. Intercropping systems differ based on where they are located. For example, Chinese systems benefit from cheaper manual labor for harvesting, which allows for a greater variety of crops to be combined. European systems with higher labor costs are restricted to combinations that are suitable for machine harvesting. Kairsty Topp (Scotland’s Rural College) studied intercropping in ReMIX, also an EU Horizon 2020-funded project (www.remix-intercrops.eu) and found that intercropping improved pest and disease control, Nitrogen storage in the ground, and increased yields by 20-40% compared to monocropping. Intercropping affects habitats of farm birds and other critters that live on fields, which is still largely unexplored and an area of active research, for example by Dirk Apeldoorn (Wageningen University and Research).
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​Lab and field experiments, like NOcsPS or ReMIX, help improve agricultural models that predict crop yields and ecological benefits of changes in agricultural management. These models can be connected to user interfaces that allow managers to use them to improve management decisions. Mathieu Delandmeter (University of Liege, Belgium) evaluated how well the French STICS model simulates biomass production, evapotranspiration, yield, plant nitrogen, and carbon exchange in a four-year crop rotation in Belgium. Ashifur Shawon, researcher in the project RYE-SUS (Julius-Kühn-Institut, Germany), tested four different calibration strategies for the crop-growth simulator DSSAT for German growing conditions using crop, climate, and soil data. Frauke Geppert (ZALF) works on the German Naturschutz-App (NatApp 2.0), a smartphone and web app co-developed with farmers that allows planning, tracking, and compensating biodiversity measures on farms (so-called agro-environmental schemes). Alesia Perego (University of Milan, Italy) described LANDSUPPORT, a land management tool with a simple user interface that that is connected to the ARMOSA model to aid decision making.
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ESA 2022 tried to connect the technical aspects of agricultural research, social science studies, and showcase approaches to transfer scientific advances into practice. The conference motto, “Diversification & Digitalisation – Trends that shape future agriculture,” nodded to the challenges of our time for sustainable food production, both poised to change what foods we consume and how we produce them.

Much of the conference still focused on production aspects of the transformation to sustainable agriculture, appearing like we can “science” our way out of the climate crisis. Perhaps that's the case, but for scientific innovations to succeed in the real world of farm management, policy making, and food production, it requires collaborative between scientific, political, private sector, and societal stakeholders. 

It seems, participatory, transdisciplinary, and living lab approaches are still a niche (11 out of 242 poster and presentations had „participatory”, „participation“, „participating“, or „participated“ in the title or abstract. None contained “living lab”.). I’m excited to see what ESA 2024 (in Rennes, France) holds. With INRAe as organizer and Edith le Cadre as the new ESA president, I’m hopeful that living lab and other participatory approaches will play a larger role.

​A call for contributions to the ESA 2024 program will be available on the ESA website: www.european-agronomy.org


Related reading:
Reallabore in Agrarlandschaften: Gemeinsam mit Praxis, Wissenschaft und Politik zu Lösungen für die Transformation des Agrarsystems (2022, German)

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​​It was not always like that. The river used to be deprived of wildlife, because foresters cleared it from trees that fell into it, thinking they would help the ecosystem. It took years of research to understand that those dead trees in the water created the very habitat that made the river teem with life, and even more work to reverse what was once thought was right.

I grew up feeding sheep, making hay, and harvesting apples on my family’s small farm in eastern Germany. I knew milk didn't come from the grocery store, and neither did bread or  jam. To enjoy a good breakfast, I knew a farmer had to raise a cow, nurture an orchard, and grow a crop from the soil and the water God gave us.

Through research, we learned we could produce more by using fertilizer, fight weeds and bugs with herbicides and pesticides, and grow in new places through irrigation. We produced more abundant, more affordable food, and fewer people starved. Somewhere along the way, however, things went wrong. Wells dried up. The chemicals we put in the ground started polluting our rivers and lakes, killed fish and plants, and disrupted the food chain that all life depends on. That which feeds us was starting to harm our planet.

 “Love your neighbor as yourself” is an often-cited passage from the Bible. To me, that has never meant just my literal neighbor, but everyone around me, everyone I interact with, and everyone who is affected by what I do (or do not do). I care for others as I hope they would care for me reciprocally. But what if that neighbor is not a fellow human, but the earth, the foundation our lives depend on? Earth provides me with clean air to breath, clean water for my morning tea, and healthy soil to grow the food I eat and the cotton that makes my clothes. It does that for all of us, so why shouldn’t we care for it, too?

When God created everything, They gave us dominion over creation. But God also created us as caretakers of that creation, and I’m not sure we are doing such a good job with that, given that species are going extinct, oceans are becoming more acidic, and rainforests are disappearing at rates never seen before. Science tells us we are hurting our planet.

Some people are convinced that humans don't have the ability to change the planet, only God can, and thus, all that happens happens for a good reason. I disagree. Not only do we change our planet, God gave us brains to understand our actions and to change our path when we see that we are moving in the wrong direction. Global change, the collective term for what is occurring to our environment, from climate change to species extinction, is happening because we are moving in the wrong direction, but also because we are not changing course. 

Through science, we know that certain plants help enrich the soil without chemical fertilizer, that we can reduce weeds without glyphosate, and that flower strips in crop fields nourish birds and pollinators that in turn reduce pests without pesticides. Science gives us tools to change. We just need to conjure up the will to do it.

Episode 1 - Dr. Kristen Weiss (science communicator)
November 21, 2019 (25:57 min)
​Kristen is the communications coordinator for the US Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) Network at US Santa Barbara. She is a video producer, photographer, and blogger with an impressive science background. She earned a Ph.D. in policy and natural resource management in Australia and did a science communication postdoc in California. She visited Texas A&M to speak in our departmental seminar series "From Knowledge to Action" about her work at the LTER Network.

Kristen was actually my second interviewee, but because the launch of our podcast lined up well with her participating at an all-female sailing expedition to study ocean pollution, I decided to put her first to advertise the expedition in the outro and the episode description.

While her interview was an improvement over the first one (with Sarah McAnulty below), the episode still had plenty of obstacles. The biggest one was recording the intro, intermission, and outro, to bookend and loosen up the episode. My office was neither quiet or echo-free enough for that, so I booked a one-person, very dark sound booth at the university library for two hours one day after work, thinking that would be plenty to record a few minutes of me reading some text off a screen. Needless to say it wasn't, because the slightest pause, slip of the tongue, mispronunciation of a word, or other proverbial hiccup put me back to the starting line. I learned to cut and paste together good segments, but even then, small changes in volume, pitch, or speed would turn the result into a patchwork of sounds rather than fluent lines of spoken word. An even when everything was recorded in good quality, I sometimes found that what I said didn't quite sound as good as I thought when I wrote it, or I wanted to add one piece of information, and scrap the recording to do it all over again.

​Episode 2 - Dr. Sarah McAnulty (Skype A Scientist)
December 23, 2019 (24:31 min)
I was really excited to interview Sarah! She is the founder and Executive Director of Skype A Scientist, a global organization that connects scientists with school teachers for classroom chats about their research, what it means to be a scientist, how they became one, and much more. I've been a participant of Skype A Scientist since early 2018 and talked to over a dozen school classes since then, about my work, myself, the impacts of climate change, and what we can do to adapt. Like Kristen, Sarah was on campus to give a departmental seminar about her work as a squid biologist at the University of Connecticut, and of course to talk about Skype A Scientist, which was also the focus of this podcast episode.

Unlike Sarah, who had been on NPR's "Brains On!" and many other podcasts, this was my first podcast interview ever. So, needless to say I was nervous. I had interviewed people for newspaper articles before, but the technology part here was all new, and the thought of messing up an interview with Sarah McAnulty was a bit terrifying, despite much testing and practicing. First, the microphone I borrowed (an AudioTechnica AT2020+USB, for audiophiles) was uni-directional (a so-called cardioid recording pattern), perfect for one person speaking but not so much for a conversation between two people. I solved it by pointing it upwards, which resulted in some echo from the ceiling, though. Second, Sarah had quite a strong voice, louder than mine, and the mic was positioned closer to her, so during editing I had to painstakingly lower the volume when she spoke and raise it again when I spoke. Apple Garageband is pretty intuitive to use, but this took forever. And third, the fridge at the end of the conference room we recorded in! Barely noticeable during the interview, it left a very annoying buzz on the recording. Garageband doesn't have a noise filter, but thankfully Audacity does, which took care of this. When all was done, we posted the episode two days before Christmas.

Episode 3 - Dr. Jeff Martin (bison researcher)
February 13, 2020 (13:29 min)
​At the time of our interview, Jeff was a doctoral student in a department one floor down from me (he just defended, woohoo!). His research on the effects of climate change on bison body size across the Great Plains is amazing, and it overlapped quite a bit with my work on cattle ranching, so naturally I wanted to talk to him.

Thanks to a brand-new Blue Yeti (a Christmas gift from my wife), audio issues were a thing of the past. However, pressed for time, I didn't have a good set of questions when we got together. So as scientists do, we got into the weeds of our work and got sidetracked way past the interests of any listener. Thankfully, Jeff, despite being in the middle of thesis writing, agreed to record the entire interview again, this time with a list of questions, less jargon (we tried), and more commitment to staying on topic. The interview went well, but I made the unfortunate decision to try and make this a shorter episode focused primarily on his research results. That meant I cut out much of him talking about the relationships he had to form with bison ranchers and organizations to get access to grazing land, animals, and fossil records. A big mistake in retrospect, because it was essential to the success of his work and is often undervalued in our pursuit of fast results.

​You can read more about Jeff's work on his website, including many articles about his work he wrote for a general audience.

Episode 4 and 5 - Dr. Jessica Whitehead (North Carolina's Chief Resilience Officer)
March 27 and April 6, 2020 (29:19 min and 38:38 min)
These two episodes were less work for me, because my colleague, Dr. Adrienne Wootten, a climate scientist in Oklahoma, took care of the interview part. Jessica's career path is anything but straight and her day job was nothing short of fascinating, so Adrienne's chat with Jessica was long. So long in fact, that we decided to split the interview into two parts (and still produced the two longest episodes at the time), covering her career path in part one and her day job in part two. We ended part one on a small cliffhanger, and posted them about ten days apart.

Jessica's interview presented two new challenges. One, we needed Jessica's boss' approval for the interview (because she is a federal employee), and two, it was the first one we recorded remotely, not in person (not because of COVID-19, but because of the distance between Oklahoma and North Carolina). Adrienne used Zoom, which records audio and video on the host's computer (set the location under Preferences > Recording). Even better, audio streams from each participant can be saved in separate files (also under Preferences > Recording). This makes fixing issues with quality, volume, or background noise much easier.

In noisy environments, it helps to wear headphones with integrated microphone, like Apple's EarPods, instead of using the computer's microphone, because the headphone mic picks up a person's voice better and reduces the ambient noise. Bluetooth headphones are not a good idea, because they cause delays and chop off the beginning of a person's audio, Adrienne and I found out the hard way. We assume the bluetooth connection enters a kind of power-save mode if a person doesn't talk for a while (which was the case here), and it needs a second to "wake up" when the person does say something. We did not test with bluetooth headphones and only found out after the interview that Adrienne's audio turned out choppy and distorted. So, corded headphones with integrated mic is the way to go.

Thanks to COVID-19, I had to record intro, breaks, and outro from home, which made logistics easier, but recording harder. Even though our apartment is fairly quiet, the occasional train, plane, or car would still torpedo my hard work, in addition to a noticeable echo off the walls. The solution was a make-shift sound booth constructed from a collapsable box and a blanket hung from two lamp posts to reduce the echo. It was inspired by Michael Barbaro's setup for "The Daily" podcast, which, like UCS's "Got Science", Pew Research's "After the Fact" and every other podcast I listen to, had to content with the same problem: working from home. To avoid our neighborhood's noisy A/C units, which slowly woke up from hibernation (we had a very warm March), I recorded mostly in the mornings.

I can't be sure, but I'm just going to tell myself that all this effort made my voice extra crisp and the episode even more fun to listen to.

Episode 6 - Dr. Hailey Wilmer (social rangeland scientist)
May 6, 2020 (38:54 min)
​Hailey is a social scientist who studies decision making in rangeland management. With a bachelor's degree from Cornell and a Ph.D. from Colorado State University, she was a postdoctoral fellow with the USDA Northern Plains Climate Hub in Fort Collins, Colorado. She was part of the Collaborative Adaptive Rangeland Management (CARM) project, which is what I wanted to talk to her about. CARM is a large-scale, long-term field study in Colorado that involves ranchers and scientists to study the effects of different rangeland management styles on the health of grasslands and the economic benefits for ranching. It epitomizes the idea of science co-production, the collaboration of scientists and stakeholders to better inform decision making in the real world (Djenontin and Meadow 2018 provide a good "how to" guide).

I wanted to talk to Hailey, because I love her kind of work. It brings together academic researchers, government agencies, NGOs, and ranchers, and combines the strengths of systematic inquiry (you know, scientific research) in a range of disciplines from social science and meteorology to agronomy and ecology, with the expertise of decision makers on the ground.

The episode with Hailey did not really make any trouble, so maybe by now I have aced the Podcast 101. Like Jessica Whitehead, Hailey (a federal employee) had to request her boss' approval (a formality in both cases), and we recorded the episode during a conference in Denver that we both attended back in February. Hailey and I met at the end of a conference day, I brought my Blue Yeti, and we found a quiet room in a corner of the conference hotel. The audio was excellent, and the only mishap you will hear at the beginning, was when we knocked against the table a few times while the mic was recording.

​Climate change is a huge, complex problem that no one can solve alone, and tackling it means scientists across disciplines have to work together and to understand each other. But that can be difficult for many reasons: different culture and traditions, differences in terminology (or the same terminology but different meanings), or expertises that don't overlap much, to name a few. A social scientist, an ecologist, and a meteorologist might study climate change, but from very different perspectives. In order to help a city planner create green spaces to reduce the urban heat island effect and keep cities livable for an aging population, all need to seamlessly work together.

If you're like me, you found the text on the right easier to understand. The text on the left is clearly written for experts like anthropologists, geneticists, and bio-molecular engineers (the research fields of the authors). The text on the right is for an interested, but non-expert audience. It is less specific but uses fewer technical terms and more general phrases that a broader audience can more easily understand. Technical language can convey a concept or message very efficiently, but only to a small group of experts. In research, we often work with peers in our field and thus communicate in ways that exclude a broader audience. Our workshop was intended to help  researchers and stakeholders communicate to each other.

​In our workshop, Cait and I used the Compass Message Box concept to illustrate how research can be reframed for a range of audiences, to describe:

1. the broader issue,
2. the concrete problem the work addresses,
3. why it is important,
4. possible solutions to the problem,
5. and what the overall benefits are.

​Here is what my research at Texas A&M University may look like, reframed for a broader audience. My advisor, David Briske, our colleague Matt Reeves (U.S. Forest Service in Montana), and I study the impacts of climate change on cattle production in the Great Plains, specifically the consequences of more frequent and intense droughts on grasslands, through the lense of ecology (David and Matt) and a climate science (me). Thanks to other colleagues (John Ritten at the University of Wyoming and Amber Campbell at Kansas State University) we also looked into the economic impacts on ranching and into societal challenges of adapting range management to climate change. In short:

Next, I broke down our research into the five segments of the Compass Message Box.

​​Now to the consequences, why it should matter to the legislator. Note that the language is more science-y, but because of the context we created previously, most of this should be clear. I focus on economics, because cattle ranching is a multi-billion dollar industry in Texas, and I imagine representatives are most concerned about economic impacts and tax expenses on livestock insurance or flood damage, before thinking about protecting natural habitats and endangered species (which we mention later).

​What are my suggestions for solutions? This needs to be phrased carefully to not appear like I'm the expert on this (which we're not). I am merely suggesting solutions that could help the problem from my perspective. Phrasing solutions should take place with a team spirit in mind - I want to help the legislator and their team solve the problem, and I acknowledge that other interests might conflict with mine, and I might not get it my way.

How does all this work benefit Texas and Texans? I try to point out how my proposed solutions can help reduce future costs due to droughts, the problem I stated initially (also, droughts are more concrete than climate change, so I use that) and what else might benefit.

This was only one example we gave our workshop participants. ​Not all research is relevant for legislators, but might be relevant for or could benefit from input by engineers, sociologists, ecologists, economists, city planners, or policy makers on local, federal, or international levels. What we aimed for was to inspire our participants by the multiple ways their research could be enriched and expanded, and give them some tools for how to do that.

Feedback
During the practice part, Cait and I went around the room and listened in on how everyone was doing. Some participants really struggled finding the right words and cutting down on jargon (ranchers and federal agency officials as much as researchers). Cait and I were worried about what we were putting people through, whether our approach actually made sense, or if this activity would actually deter them from working in interdisciplinary groups, given how hard it.

Thankfully, that didn't happen.

Participants really liked the workshop and thanked us for putting this together. Most agreed, that yes, it was difficult to talk across disciplinary boundaries, and because of that they rarely do it. However, this workshop pushed them out of their comfort zone and to talking across disciplinary boundaries. It also helped them see their work and the value it has from someone else's perspective and understood how their work was important to others, which felt very motivating. Not least, one person said, and others agreed, that they found new potential collaborators in researchers they normally wouldn't talk to, but probably should.

But good graphics are only half the story. Answering essential questions with confidence and good language is also key in these calls. What, where, when, why, who cares, and so on, without diving into methodological details or listing all the limitations of the results (although, touching on them might not be a bad idea).

Being too much of a scientist (i.e., going on and on about minute details and using too much jargon) you could run the risk of "losing" a person, or even worse, make them misunderstand and misinterpret important information, and then unknowingly misinform millions of people. One of the journalists on the call, Seth Borenstein, writes for the Associated Press, and his reporting from today (all accurate by what I could tell) was published by the Washington Post, several regional news organizations in the U.S., and even an Italian news website.

After 45 minutes, I got back to my own research, made some more progress, and at the end of the day (literally, 5.45 pm) finally got some graphic results myself. They're not quite ready for sharing, yet, but they generally suggest that in the next decades, drought years similar to 2011 or 2012 could occur much more frequently, with extremely dry or wet years representing up to five years per decade in the Southern Plains, especially after the 2050s, and one to two years in the Northern Plains.

I still have a lot more analysis ahead of me, most importantly to understand what this means for ranchers, but this is a very important and valuable step.

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Here are Friday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And if you wonder what this about, here is the intro blog post.

The one the left has Safari running R Studio, which I use to write code and manage files. The one on the right has three blue Terminal windows up and a data viewing app. Terminal is a Mac OS tool that emulates a command-line interface, which I use to tell the computer which files to run and to see some results. The fourth window, the data viewer, is Panoply, a very handy app by NASA to view NetCDF data, the type of data I work with. It comes in handy when I check results.

Despite the looks, my computer doesn't actually do much work. All of my commands and every line of code are sent 360 miles north to the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center at the University of Oklahoma. There, all our data and most of my code is stored on a data server. Folks there also have NCL and several other programming languages, which makes our life here a lot easier.

A good day always becomes better when it ends well. ​On the third Wednesday of every month, the Texas A&M Postdoc Association organizes a "networking event," a fun hangout with fellow postdocs to chat over snacks and drinks at a bar or restaurant in town, courtesy of the organization. It's a good way to meet peers and make friends, to bring up workplace problems, or just to talk nerdy to fellow nerds. I always enjoy these gatherings! However, today I had to pass it up for something even better – a dinner at an Italian restaurant with my wife.

​Here are Thursday, Monday, and Tuesday. And if you wonder what this about, here is the intro blog post.

​
A quick note about the heatwave that is bound to hit many parts of the U.S. starting Thursday. If you live between Oklahoma and New England, it will get much warmer than usual in the next few days. Please avoid staying outside for long periods of time, and if you do, make sure you take a water bottle, put on a cap, and try to stay out of direct sunlight.
If you want to know how climate change is changing the odds for heatwaves like this, check out yesterday's episode of the "Got Science" podcast by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

At a geography conference in Boston, I recently learned about the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. The ten-week long program, which run every summer, funds travel and housing for its participants, many of which applied at an REU program at a different university. The program doesn’t focus on collaborative research or communication per se but is meant to give undergraduate students a general taste of research and let them explore other disciplines, for example for graduate school. That said, some schools do run programs in which interdisciplinary work and communication are very much part of the deal. The REU program at the University of Central Florida, for example, sends student from different fields in groups to coastal communities in Belize to work with locals on environmental problems, like disaster management and ocean waste. Not only do students have to speak Spanish to participate. These supervised projects also train students to be open about their work and to avoid jargon when communicating with the public. A similar approach takes Clark University in Massachusetts with their REU program called HERO (Human-Environment Regional Observatory). Undergraduates study the impact of a tree planting program on wildlife, noise pollution, or air quality through tree surveys and interviews with residents, and present all their findings to the public, improving their own knowledge about human-environmental interaction and qualitative analysis, as well as their communication skills. At the University of Oklahoma (for example at the South Central Climate Science Center), REU students from any discipline can study weather and climate topics, like tornados, severe weather, or societal impacts of weather and climate extremes.

Welcome to part two of the series.

​My overall goal of being at Toastmasters is to be less nervous about public speaking. And while the study book is great at teaching me all kinds of things that help me be less nervous, there is nothing more effective than to actually doing a speech. You don’t learn to swim if you don’t get in the water.

The ice-breaker (which I did several weeks ago, sorry about the delay) is a gentle way to get your feet wet without fearing to drown. It’s the first prepared speech everyone gives, and it’s by no means impossible. My assignment was to introduce myself (in four to six minutes), something we’ve all done over and over, but to create a talk with the basics of any speech: a beginning, body, and ending.

The key was to not get carried away in details be selective to create an interesting theme, like unusual jobs during college, places you lived while growing up, or stories about boy- or girlfriends in school if you feel brave. Some dry (self-deprecating) humor also never hurts. And thankfully, notes are totally fine.

I drafted my speech somewhere between midnight and 2 am (just like this blog post), read it aloud to my girlfriend to make sure things make sense and I stayed within four and six minutes, got her feedback, and improved over time.

I decided to talk about growing up in East Germany (communism always seems like an interesting topic in the U.S.) and what traveling around Europe and the world meant and means for my family and me after the end of the wall. You can read the final version below.

I’m happy to report that not only did people enjoy the talk (and asked me lots of questions after the meeting), but I was glad to see my jokes working and people laughing at the right moments. After four minutes and 32 seconds, everyone applauded and I sat down again, happy and relieved.

Presenters, me included, often make the mistake of speaking faster or skipping slides when their speaking time runs out. We can never present all the information in as much detail as we would like to. Even if we had all the slides and all the time, our audience would just stop listen. But simple steps like focusing on a few things and keeping a basic structure can help people remember what’s important about my research. And if they found it interesting, maybe they’ll ask me for more.


Toastmasters Lesson #1  , Feb 13, 2017
Growing up Behind the Wall

I grew up on the third floor of a farm house, surrounded by big trees and lush fields of green on the edge of a small town in East Germany, called Pausa. Making hay, feeding sheep, and walking to school, much of growing up for me and my younger brother meant being outside. My hometown claims to be at the center of the earth, the place that everything else spins around, proudly symbolized by a huge, rotating, stained-glass globe on the roof of our town hall and proven by the earth’s axis sticking out of the ground in the basement underneath it. We even have an organization that takes care of lubrication, the Erdachsendeckelscharnierschmiernippelkommission. (I’m going to make that the word of the day one day!)

Being at the center of the entire world, naturally there is adventure lurking in every direction. Sadly, our mode of transportation was far from ideal for long-distance traveling. This Trabant [holding up the Trabant model car] was literally one of two car models in East Germany, and with four people inside it felt about as small as this model. Of course, traveling in East Germany was also limited for another reason. Without formal invitation from a relative or friend “in the West”, there was no way we could get past the Iron Curtain. My mom remembered that every time her parents would take her and one of her three sisters on a vacation to Hungary, my grandma would point to the right as they went through Czechoslovakia and say to my grandpa: “I wish we could go to Austria.”

When I was in second grade, someone decided, for reasons that were beyond my little mind, to combine East Germany and West Germany, which I liked because it meant I didn’t have to go to school on Saturdays anymore. With no wall to keep us from traveling (and soon better cars, too), my family started exploring the rest of Europe. Five years later, when I was 12, I had seen Florence, London, and Stockholm and most countries in between, some of them even two or three times. In 1995 — maybe because we ran out of places to see — my parents decided to book plane tickets for all of us across the pond to North America. I had never been inside of an airplane before, so I was very excited. In fact, all of us were, so we kept coming back, and the next few summer vacations were filled with road trips through national parks, gorgeous landscapes, and buzzing cities with skyscrapers and lots of people. We were stunned by the Grand Canyon, which looks even grander when you’re little, we watched Old Faithful in Yellowstone, we drove across the Golden Gate bridge and around the Great Lakes, visited Plymouth Plantation, and saw New York City from the top of the World Trade Center, twice. The second time during a visit in 1999, but the first time we managed do get up there and back to the airport despite only having a three-hour layover at JFK. German precision planning. By the time I graduated from high school, I had visited Canada, Mexico, and 39 out of the 50 US states.

Exploring places must be in my family’s DNA. A few years later, before my mom went on a one-year journey across the Asia-Pacific region, my cousin and I hiked through a remote national park in Australia, with 40-pound backpacks and nothing but a small map with a dot that marked a cabin in the woods where we would spend the night. After finding our accommodation, by a pristine lake surrounded by mountains, we spent a night literally in the middle of nowhere, enjoying tranquility after a long day of travel.

I eventually studied — no surprise — geography, like my mom did, because I wanted to learn more about this complex world we live on. After seven years in classrooms, though, the travel bug bit me again and I ended up here in Oklahoma, with a lot more geography to study and a lot more places to explore.

As I am nearing graduation, I am reminded of the glass globe on our town hall slowly turning and watching the little dot that marks Pausa as it moves around, and being amazed by just how much of our world there is that I haven’t seen yet.


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This is the first part of a blog series.

​If you ever had to speak in front of a large audience or a small group of really important people (like say, your committee), you probably know how tough that can be. Talking coherently, avoiding fill words, and following a storyline or reasoning that people understand — speaking well is hard.

I realized how much I had to work on this for myself last December. I had applied to be a student speaker at the University of Oklahoma's annual  TEDx conference every January. I’ve been involved with TED for many years behind the scenes, translating subtitles of TED talk from English into German, and doing photography at TEDxOU since I started my Ph.D. in Norman. This was my moment to shine on stage — and I failed big time. Despite planning and preparing for over 6 months, collecting information and developing a storyline, the audition session went anything but smoothly. I stuttered, lost my trail of thoughts, forgot key points of my talk, and even went overtime. Not surprisingly I was not selected as a speaker. What did surprise me, though, was that the selection committee liked my topic, science communication, and I got invited to speak at next year’s TEDxOU as a regular speaker.

All I need to learn until then is how to pull off the perfect TED talk. But being a good speaker helps for more than TED talks. I can become better at presenting my research at conferences, deliver elevator speeches, be more confident in my dissertation defense, or simply get a point across at a party or on the plane. So, in this blog series I will share some of my experiences, lessons learned, and funny stories along the way.
In mid-January, I decided to take become a member of Toastmasters International, a non-profit that teaches speaking and leadership skills. I joined a group that two of my coworkers were already part of, at first as a visitor, and after a few weeks as a (paying) member. (Just to be clear, this series is not sponsored or endorsed by Toastmasters. I’m paying my membership fees just like everyone else and don’t get any special treatment for writing about it.) Toastmasters is a bit like school for grown-ups. Our group is a cheerful mix of a dozen or so researchers, business managers, and retirees, and in each of our weekly meetings there are one or two prepared speakers, a round of table topics — themed questions on topics like traveling, Christmas, or gardening that people need to answer on the spot — and the word of the day, selected by a group member for people to incorporate into their speeches. Someone leads the meeting while others carefully evaluate all speakers, keep an eye out for grammatical errors, fill words, if the word of the day was used, by whom, and how many times, and most importantly of all if people went over their allotted time. Or under. The rotating schedule is meticulously planned, to say the least.

This article was originally posted on the Early Career Climate Forum in December 2016.

On November 2nd and 3rd, the first ever National CSC Early Career Training was held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. For two days, students from across the U.S. heard about peer reserach ranging from butterflies in North Carolina, paleoclimatology along the Gulf Coast, to the impact of wildfires on wild berries in Alaska, along with so much more. In case you missed it, Andrew Battles wrote a short summary a few weeks ago.
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But because a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a short video I made showcasing the training to give you more of an inside look and let some of the participants and organizers speak about their experiences and the purpose of the training and of the research conducted at the Climate Science Centers. Enjoy!

There is this sketch of a Venn diagram with two non-overlapping circles, one being a person’s comfort zone, and the other one showing “where the magic happens”.

A few months ago, my advisor sent me to a conference in Salt Lake City that felt exactly like this Venn diagram. While many of my early career co-workers were at a science communication workshop at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, I was en route to a joint conference on agricultural and forest meteorology, boundary layer climates, and biogeosciences. The areas might not reflect it as much, but I was way out of my comfort zone.

This post was originally written for the Early Career Climate Forum and posted in August 2016.

Earlier this year, I wrote an ECCF blog about a fall semester undergraduate class at the University of Oklahoma (OU) that taught students about climate science, the impacts of climate change, and that gave them a look behind the scenes of the climate negotiations at the Paris COP21 meeting last December.

​Well, I’m happy to report that this fall this class is back — and it’s gotten even better.

Starting August 17th, the South Central Climate Science Center (SCCSC) will be offering “Managing for a Changing Climate”, an interactive class based on the experiences and feedback from last fall. “Participants will hear from a wide variety of experts from both the research and management worlds”, says Aparna Bamzai, University Assistant Director at the SCCSC and coordinator of the course. They will teach lessons about the components of the climate system, including the range of natural climate variability and external drivers of climate change, in addition to impacts of a changing climate on sectors such as the economy, policy, ecosystems, and indigenous populations.

The best part: this year the class will be available not just to OU students but also — for free, thanks to funding from USGS and NASA — to natural resource managers, tribal environmental professionals, and anyone else who is interested in the science and impacts of climate change, because almost everything will take place online, on OU’s interactive learning platform Janux.
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Professionally produced videos will feature experts from across the south-central U.S., and participants will conduct readings and discussions on the online course page. All participants will be evaluated through online quizzes, while university students enrolled for credit will also produce individual term papers and — similar to the class last fall — a group project culminating in a mock negotiation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

To produce the class videos, the SCCSC teamed up with Next Thought, a company that specializes in online education and produces all of OU's online classes. On the course website, videos and other online content will be released successively as the semester progresses instead of all at once. That way class and online participants can engage in discussions about the same course material.

The class is open to enroll at janux.ou.edu. I will participate as one of the online students. I’m excited about this class, because it will bridge the gap between different fields: science, management, and policy-making.

If you plan to enroll in the class and what to share your experience in a guest blog post during or after the semester, please let us know via email at info@eccforum.org or through Facebook or Twitter.

Development of this course was funded by the USGS through the South Central Climate Science Center on Grant #G15AP00136, NASA through the Oklahoma Space Grant Consortium on Grant #NNX11AB54H, and the University of Oklahoma College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences. The contents of this course are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the funding agencies.


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