Science journalism students learn to tell the stories of science.
It was an oppressively steamy summer day a couple of years ago when my wife and I ducked into a comically cold strip mall bookstore in Madison, Wis., to sit on stools and peddle our little book about hiking our beautiful state. The discussion took off on a topical trail that had gotten pretty well-traveled during recent such events: What about black bears?
| Photo by: John Elbers II |
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| President John Burris speaks to students in a Science Journalism course last spring. John Morgan’96, who taught the course, is to his left. |
My answer went something like this: “Um, I don’t really know much about bears. But, if there’s one thing that I am concerned about more than anything else when out in the wild, it’s the deer tick.”
The looks on the faces of the audience members were of disbelief. And it was this disbelief that led me to write an article for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the following spring about microscopic deer ticks and the Lyme disease-causing bacterium they inject after embedding their razor-sharp mouths into human flesh.
While bears might interact with a handful of people in Wisconsin each year and the result could indeed be horrific, deer ticks will cause thousands of cases of Lyme disease annually. Undiagnosed, Lyme can mean weeks, months, or years of troubling maladies like paralyzing joint pain and dementia. In my mind — the mind of a science writer — Lyme disease had crawled off our societal radar screen, and I was itching to tell people about it.
It turned out that the timing was perfect. Soon-to-be-published research had revealed that Lyme was on the move. No longer was it confined to the state’s remote and woodsy northwest corner. It was emerging in the Kettle Moraine State Forest, less than an hour’s drive east of Beloit.
And this is what we do. Science journalists serve the public periscope called journalism by constantly monitoring and reporting back on important research discoveries and issues related to science. We write for newspapers and magazines, produce stories for radio and television, and a growing number of us work hand-in-hand with researchers at universities and research centers to get the word out. The goal is to translate science-speak for the public.
So I was overjoyed last year to be invited back to Beloit College to offer a course on science journalism. This College is a place where students are enabled to cultivate their scholarly imaginations while anchoring this imagination to a broader social context; thus it serves as an inimitable laboratory for learning journalism in general, and science journalism in particular.
During the semester, students in the course were treated to visits by such illuminating people as Dr. Steven Squyres, director of the Mars Rover program; Suzanne Rust, an exceptionally talented science writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; Chris Long, former new media director of CSPAN, who is currently researching community-based journalism at the University of Wisconsin; Marion Field Fass, a teaching treasure at the College and an expert on HIV/AIDS; and College President John Burris, who, prior to joining the College, directed the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass.
But perhaps the most profound experience of all was the pairing of these science journalism students with soon-to-graduate science students so that they could learn about and report on their research projects. Each year senior science majors conduct, report, and defend original research projects to their peers in several forms, including a science journal, The Beloit Biologist, via senior theses, Keck Geology Consortium projects, Symposium Day presentations, and more. The students in this science journalism course were each assigned a science student and his or her project to cover.
The beginnings of the 13 stories written about these projects are found on the following pages, with the remainder posted online (a reality due to space constraints). The list of topics is fascinatingly varied and truly international in scope. Whether it was a student who studied the effects of global climate change on glaciers in Alaska or another who sought to better understand the effects of habitat loss on a rare gecko in Madagascar, these stories strove to satisfy a need to get the word out about the solid science and fine science education happening at Beloit College.
We were just itching to tell you.
John Morgan is the science writer for the Synchrotron Radiation Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, an electron storage ring and national laboratory where light is used to answer research questions ranging from developments in nanotechnology to treatments for brain cancer. He also freelances for magazines and newspapers, writing about outdoor recreation and environmental topics. In addition to 50 Hikes in Wisconsin, co-authored with his wife, Ellen, Morgan is co-writing the introduction to a forthcoming book about the Ice Age Trail. He has returned to Beloit this year as an adjunct instructor of non-fiction writing and journalism.
Read Morgan's article, "Lyme Disease: Time Bomb Ticking," in the online Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=324145
Going Glacial: Studying Global Warming in Alaska
By Chip Schumacher’06
Madison, Wis.
Hazel Reynolds doesn’t mind being cold — she even kind of enjoys it. In 2004, the 2006 Beloit College graduate from Bowdoinham, Maine, spent five weeks of her summer living in Alaska and conducting research on the Matanuska Glacier. Using sophisticated meteorological equipment, coupled with her own innovations, Reynolds examined how several weather phenomena affected the glacier’s melting rate.
During her month-long stay at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) camp, Reynolds gained first-hand experience and practical knowledge. But she learned more than just stream velocity measurement techniques and statistical methods of correlation.
“You can learn about what climates you like working in,” reflects Reynolds, who has also spent time doing fieldwork in Wyoming. She learned that the dry heat of Wyoming doesn’t suit her much. Instead, she prefers the damp chill of glacial ice.
Although not everyone shares her affinity for low temperatures, it’s fortunate that people like Reynolds exist. Many expert water-policy strategists believe that this type of research could one day prevent global disaster in the form of a worldwide water shortage. Understanding how glaciers are affected by our ever-changing climate, which was the focus of Reynolds’ research, could be central to maintaining a water supply capable of supporting the world’s growing population.
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Sleeping with Geckos in Madagascar
By Abi Houseman’08
Montclair, N.J.
Not many undergraduate science students get a chance to do research that has never been done before and may never again be possible. Alex Wolf’06 studied a nocturnal gecko from the island of Madagascar that will more than likely go extinct in the next decade.
The species is a type of leaftailed gecko called the speartailed gecko, the spearpoint gecko, or sometimes the satanic leaftailed gecko. But despite the multitude of its common names, there is little common knowledge about the species.
Wolf talks excitedly about how well these geckos have evolved to camouflage themselves in their environment. What first fascinated him about these little creatures is that they are almost perfectly disguised as leaves. Unfortunately, they are so poorly documented that no one is sure which patterns are most common or when this species began to evolve in this particular survival system. There is not even an accurate estimate of how many speartailed geckos exist on the island.
“There are so many environmental problems in Madagascar that most of them are probably going to disappear before we find out anything about them,” says Wolf.
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No Rock Unturned: Uncovering a Troubling Amphibian Decline
By Eva Szilvagyi’07
Elk Grove Village, Ill.
Every semester at Beloit College, countless students are discovering their passions. Anna Deyle’06, a biology major from Tallahassee, Fla., found hers one summer under rocks on mucky stream bottoms. During her studies at Beloit, she learned that amphibians and environmental biology were two things she’ll love forever.
“I’m really into amphibians!” says Deyle. “I think they’re cute, but I’m kind of strange.”
Every summer during college, Deyle studied amphibians like frogs and salamanders either in Ecuador or in her home state. As a junior, she searched for research opportunities that combined environmental biology and amphibians. One of the positions she applied for was a project studying the eastern hellbender, a large North American salamander, at Oglebay’s Good Zoo in West Virginia.
“I thought, ‘Oh, a hellbender; wouldn’t it be cool if that was a salamander!’” she recounts, “and I Googled it, and it was!”
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Problematic Poultry: Student Develops Better Test for a Troubling Food Bacterium
By Steve Harrison’07
Deerfield, Ill.
Most undergraduate scientists never get a chance to work on groundbreaking research. Only a select few work on projects that could save people’s lives. Esteban Oyarzabal’06, of Clive, Iowa, is one of those select few. Oyarzabal’s senior thesis work at Beloit College involved a brand new method for detecting campylobacter bacteria infection in poultry.
While most people have never heard of campylobacter, it affects millions of Americans every year. The majority of them don’t even know they’ve caught it. The typical symptoms of campylobacteriosis are diarrhea, nausea, and muscle pain, much like common food poisoning, but the disease can be severe enough to induce coma and even death. In 2004, there were 2.4 million detected cases of the disease and 124 deaths resulting from complications, but many instances of the disease still go undetected, Oyarzabal says.
Like a slippery criminal, campylobacter is hard to discover and stop from spreading throughout an animal population. Time is a crucial factor in detecting a food-borne illness, especially for campylobacter, which cannot be detected in live animals. It takes three days to determine if a chicken has a campylobacter infection with the current method, and every second is another potential contamination.
“If you slaughter a flock with campylobacter, the equipment is tainted, and the infection will spread,” Oyarzabal explains.
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Getting to the Core of the Problem: Considering Climate Change from the Bottom of Lake Keuka, N.Y.
By Megan Brown’09
Louisville, Ky.
Ben Petrick’s journey began much like a beloved choose-your-own adventure story. “I just came to Beloit, took a geology class, and decided I liked it,” he says. He hasn’t looked back since.
Petrick, a senior geology major from Chevy Chase, Md., found his passion in paleoclimatology: the study of past climates and climate change through geologic and historic time. His adventure with geology blossomed at Beloit College, resulting in an invitation to do summer research on the five Finger Lakes surrounding Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y.
“For my project, I took sediment core from the bottom of Lake Keuka to analyze and determine the indicators of environmental and climactic change,” he says. The deep lakes provided a perfect location for research, as they contain low amounts of oxygen and preserve sediment well. “The goal of the project is to use the gathered sediment to construct high-resolution models to make a very detailed climate model of the Finger Lakes.”
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Beloit CSI: Student Uncovers Evidence of Global Climate Change by Using Geologic DNA
By Ariel Choinard’06
Rockford, Ill.
Geology major Jean Taggart’06 can see the past. As part of her senior thesis project, a mammoth capstone effort for geology majors at Beloit College, Taggart studied fossilized shells that were formed thousands of years ago to learn more about possible changes that are occurring in the world today. Like a geological detective, she was on the hunt for evidence of climate change. Her clue of choice: shells.
“The shells are like DNA,” the senior from Glencliff, N.H., explains, referring to the proxies that serve as a medium for recording change. “I like the word ‘proxy.’ We have no direct evidence of climate change. It’s like looking for clues at a crime scene, like CSI, and the shells are like DNA.”
In particular, Taggart was examining “geologic DNA” that was formed about 10,000 years ago, during a time known as the Holocene — the recent past in geologic history. In fact, roughly translated from Greek, the term Holocene means “very recent.” Geologically speaking, Taggart was looking at a pretty fresh crime scene.
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Learning in the Land of the Lost
By James Meade Atkinson, V’06
St. Louis, Mo.
In an ancient world, long gone, there lived great beasts. Some were larger than a house; still others were as small as a cat. They were dinosaurs. Living in a humid world with gigantic coniferous trees dotting the landscape, these dinosaurs or “great lizards” were once rulers of the world. But some 65 million years ago, these creatures vanished. Today, with bodies decomposed and fossilized, these amazing animals exist only in the imagination of humans.
But for certain individuals, this imagined world is still a reality. Katie Loughney’06 of Rochester, N.Y., lived this dream as she explored the world of dinosaurs through her senior project as a geology major.
“When I look at the bones of a Sauropod or a T. Rex, it’s easy to imagine these towering giants moving through the world,” Loughney says. “Vicious and monstrous, beautiful and natural, they were the rulers of the world, and it’s easy to see why. Their bones take on a life of their own. Every day that I study these creatures is like reliving my childhood dreams of adventure all over again.”
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Geology Student Gets in the Game and Learns by Doing Research about the Earth’s History
By Joe Reistetter’06
Gurnee, Ill.
In the past, learning science could be pretty boring. It meant memorizing terms, learning equations, staring at graphs. It rarely meant teaching students the processes that allow scientists to make great discoveries. All of this has changed dramatically at Beloit College, where students are encouraged to learn by doing and to see the aforementioned terms, graphs, equations, and more as tools for learning through exploring.
“All of us in the [geology] department try to be quite interactive, like a lot of the faculty on campus,” says Assistant Professor of Geology and Peterson Junior Professor of the Sciences Sue Swanson. “We have students do an exercise in class and figure out principles rather than us lecturing and stating the principles.”
Kate Hedrick’06, a geology major from Broadlands, Ill., is a case in point. This kind of experiential approach enabled her to gain a truer understanding of what it means to do science. During the summer of her junior year, Hedrick landed a research position funded by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of Minnesota-Morris. The program allowed her to conduct eight weeks of independent research in the Blue Mounds of Minnesota, where she studied various landforms to try and discern how glaciers moved through the area in the past.
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Faster than a Speeding Plant: Research Group Develops Photosynthesis Learning Tool Using Fast Plants
By Anna Williams’08
Reed City, Mich.
When you were a kid, you may have studied botany by planting a lima bean in a Dixie cup. But today’s tools are called Wisconsin Fast Plants, and they’re just what they sound like — a plant related to radishes that grows super-quickly, producing flowers in two weeks and seeds in about 40 days.
Because of their quick growth, teachers no longer have to wait for the time it would take a lima bean to grow. And a new program developed by Beloit College biology undergraduates promises to provide teachers with an incredible tool for using Fast Plants when teaching photosynthesis.
“We wanted to make a model that would make it easy to overcome misconceptions,” says Leah Feeley’06, of Haverford, Pa. She’s referring to misconceptions about photosynthesis — the process by which plants convert energy from light into food. Students in science classes very rarely get to delve into the exact science of photosynthesis. Most students learn what the term means — that plants convert light into food — but few learn exactly how the plant manages this or what nutrients and gases are used during the process.
Thus, Feeley and five other students worked with Associate Professor of Biology Yaffa Grossman on the project, which included watching and monitoring the plants with the utmost care and scrutiny, and measuring not only the plants’ growth and development, but also more difficult things like the plants’ gas exchange.
In their semester-long study, the students studied photosynthesis and what plants do with the biomass that they make in this process. And, after they compiled all the data from their experiments, they created a program to teach other students and teachers about it.
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The Right to Remain Innocent: Studying the Science of False Confessions
By Emily Chase-Ziolek’07
Chicago, Ill.
In the spring of 1989, five teenagers confessed to being involved in the attack and rape of a 28-year-old jogger in New York’s Central Park. And, in 2002, DNA evidence proved that the confessions had been false.
False confessions do happen. And in a criminal trial, they can make the difference between imprisoning an innocent person and setting him or her free.
“It’s something that a lot of people don’t know about,” says Danielle Chojnacki’06, a psychology and legal studies major from South Milwaukee, Wis. Which is why as a senior at Beloit College, she spent her last two semesters researching how much potential jurors know about false confessions.
After all, in a courtroom, jurors decide the verdict. “They’re the ones who are going to determine guilt or innocence,” Chojnacki says.
And a verbal confession of guilt can make a profound impression on any jury. Second only to eyewitness testimony, a confession is most likely to signify guilt to a jury and result in wrongful conviction. Although Chojnacki was originally interested in studying eyewitness testimony in light of psychological explanations, “the newest up-and-coming topic is false confessions,” she explains.
According to The Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic for clients whose cases could be exonerated by DNA evidence, 175 people have had their names cleared and sentences repealed since 1992. In their first 130 cases, 35 were convicted because of false confessions, the leading factor next to mistaken identity (in 101 cases).
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Making Theory Tangible: Student Designs Computer Simulator to Teach Island Biogeography
By Ben Petrick’06
Chevy Chase, Md.
Math and science: Scary huh?! Both are concepts that can cause eyes to glaze over and lumps to develop in throats. That’s why a Beloit College student took on a project to help make math and science more palatable. Recent graduate Jennifer Spangenberg’06, a biology major from Lombard, Ill., spent a summer building a computer program to illustrate the concepts behind the theory of island biogeography.
Spangenberg feels that learning how math applies to science is an important skill for science majors to learn, but that the public is turned off by math and befuddled by its abstractions.
“If students were able to look beyond the fact that there is math involved in science and learn the math as it applies to the concept they are working on, I think they will realize that the mathematics behind sciences is not as abstract,” she reflects.
This was the idea behind her project that included designing a computer program to educate students about the theory of island biogeography, based on a set of mathematical equations that help describe the diversity of a special kind of biological habitat.
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Study Seeks to Better Understand Stillbirths
By Reed Apostol’07
Malvern, Pa.
As many as one in 10 pregnancies ends in stillbirth, and the cause of one-third of them is not understood. Research by recent Beloit College graduate Matt Buechler’06, of Rapid City, S.D., may help shed light on this troubling topic and offer potential solutions.
Like many Beloit students, Buechler applied to numerous summer internships for the break between his sophomore and junior years. But in the summer of 2004, the one that caught his eye the most was at the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) in San Antonio, Texas, studying stillborn and normal birth placentas from baboons and humans.
The placenta is a temporary organ. During pregnancy, it is the interface between the mother and the child. Material in the mother’s veins and arteries around the uterus diffuse through the placenta into the baby’s veins and arteries, and vice-versa. The researchers posited that the answer to stillbirths was hidden in the biology of the placenta — in particular, the tissue within the placenta that is responsible for nourishing the growing baby.
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Rocky Mountain Low: How Alpine Plants Respond to Climate Change
By Drew Chesnutt’06
Evergreen, Colo.
Most scientists agree that the earth is warming abnormally quickly. As a consequence, plants and animals are being forced to respond to radically different habitats than those for which they have adapted. Joe Reistetter’06, a biology major from Gurnee, Ill., left the classrooms of Beloit College for the mountains of Colorado and Alaska to learn more about how climate change is affecting alpine plants.
“My experiment tried to determine if an earlier date of snowmelt will change the demographics of which plants inhabit alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains,” says Reistetter, “and indirectly to see if earlier snowmelt would change how nutrients cycle through the system, which could change which plants grow there.”
Reistetter ran his tests in alpine environments near Crested Butte, Colo., and Alaska’s North Slope. He says he used this alpine environment because, “you can think of it as an indicator habitat. It’s very sensitive to changes, especially in climate, and so scientists think it will respond to the effects of climate change quicker than other ecosystems at lower elevations.”
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