On February 4th, Bush sent the FY09 Budget request to Congress. This means a shuffle of money for the sciences with the DOE expecting gains (avert the energy crisis) and losses for the DIH and USGS (among others). What can we do? I am particularly upset that the Nataional Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) will suffer budget reductions of over $10 Million (with a new annual budget of 54.1 Million). During the summer I was 19, I worked for the Minnesota NAWQA as a UNIX-GIS mapper as part of an effort to monitor the health of the Red River and Mississippi Basins. A few years later, I found my way back to NAWQA as a undergraduate hydrology employee for the Wisconsin office. Maybe I was young and impressionable, but my memory hasn't faded. I cannot say enough about NAWQA and the importance of their efforts. The long term data sets established by NAWQA provide a sense of the changing quality of our waterways through time and space. This information is necessary to evaluate our past, current, and future water management practices. NAWQA also provides a baseline of hydrology data that complements new research on hot topics.
In Science Magazine, the Chief Executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Alan Leshner, urged (2/15/08)
"We should take up "glocal" science advocacy to complement the traditional approach. This strategy involves taking a global issue and making it meaningful to society at the local level. Scientists and citizen advocates should recruit their nonscience friends and neighbors to promote science funding to decision-makers. Recruiting efforts can be as simple as discussing science-related issues at dinner parties or as ambitious as meeting with community groups, school boards, or city council members. The appeal should be locally focused for two important reasons: Policy-makers often seem to listen better in their home districts, where they are less distracted by the press of life on Capitol Hill; and they need to see clearly that science funding is not only a national but a local issue for all their constitutents, not just those who are scientists."
As mentors to K-12 and undergraduate students, we must build classes with local relevance... this is especially important to introductory science classes, where students may receive their only exposure to conducting, evaluating, and valuing scientific research.
On February 4th, Bush sent the FY09 Budget request to Congress. This means a shuffle of money for the sciences with the DOE expecting gains (avert the energy crisis) and losses for the DIH and USGS (among others). What can we do? I am particularly upset that the Nataional Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) will suffer budget reductions of over $10 Million (with a new annual budget of 54.1 Million). During the summer I was 19, I worked for the Minnesota NAWQA as a UNIX-GIS mapper as part of an effort to monitor the health of the Red River and Mississippi Basins. A few years later, I found my way back to NAWQA as a undergraduate hydrology employee for the Wisconsin office. Maybe I was young and impressionable, but my memory hasn't faded. I cannot say enough about NAWQA and the importance of their efforts. The long term data sets established by NAWQA provide a sense of the changing quality of our waterways through time and space. This information is necessary to evaluate our past, current, and future water management practices. NAWQA also provides a baseline of hydrology data that complements new research on hot topics.
Looking for a picture for a talk, I came across this oldie- but goodie... Sadly, the scientist standing in the left has passed away, hit by a car while out for a jog--- after surviving many deep-field misadventures subsisting on bumper bars (a butter-based granola bar) in the middle of the TransAntarctics.
One more look at that amazing sediment layer within a supraglacial stream channel on the Canada Glacier below (the dark band is about a meter from the surface of the glacier).
And below LeeAnn and I enjoy a lovely austral summer evening on the beach (sandy outwash from Canada Glacier). I'll add a link to her blog in the sidebar.
Below is an incredible example of the physical erosion that occurs in the Taylor Valley. Behind our camp at Lake Hoare a large piece of mountain broke off (perhaps in response to freeze-thaw) on Christmas morning. We rushed outside to make sure that cause of the rumble wouldn't crush us. (The camps on the other side of the glacier also heard the noise and gave us a call to check on us...).
And the satellite tracker (Nik led us into the inner world of the golfball)
(Andrea is pictured listening above).
Anyway, I'll be heading up the hill again soon, with big red on, and my fingers crossed. I hope I'm home for New Year's, otherwise, I'll be blogging from Icestock and the great Antarctic Chili Cookoff. (and working on my dissertation from the office here). I went black-light bowling last night. A few folks act as pin-resetters, strategically wearing boldly striped socks to not get mowed over by over-eager bowlers.
