Students inspire

By Brandon Butler/ duboiscountyherald.com/ 23-05-2018

My first semester as an adjunct instructor ended last week. I taught a class I created called Communications in Natural Resources. It was an experience I’ll treasure forever. Over the course of 15 weeks, I came to realize if my students are a reflection of their generation, the future of our natural world is good hands.

I spend a lot of time talking and writing about topics relating to the outdoors, specifically fish and wildlife. Most of the time, I am not an expert on the subject. While I may know a little about a lot of things, it’s people who know a lot about one thing who communicators like me use as sources for stories. Unfortunately, too often, the expert sources are poor communicators. They possess incredible knowledge. Yet struggle to deliver what they know to the general public in a way that makes it relevant to the masses.

As a member of a Natural Resources Advisory Council, I have come to know and respect some of the challenges of higher education leadership. During a meeting last year, I was asked if I saw any opportunity to improve the curriculum. I suggested we do a better job of teaching these brilliant young minds how to tell their stories. I was empowered to create a curriculum and teach it.

To begin with, I examined beliefs I feel justified the need for this class. Number one being; no matter what your job is, communication is important. And the more prepared you are to offer input on the efforts of your work the more likely you are to build support for what it is you do and care about. Also, as far as personal advancement, if you become known as someone who can both complete the work and communicate the outcomes, you are much more valuable to the business, agency or organization you’re part of. Who would remember the revolutionary work of Aldo Leopold had he not written a “Sand County Almanac?”

I broke the course down into lessons about different communication platforms and had guest lecturers discuss their expertise. We covered magazine writing, letters to the editor and opinion pieces in newspapers, television and radio interviews, social media, websites, photography, public speaking and more.

Communication is critical in conservation, and not all citizens gather information in the same ways. Agencies have to communicate across the many different platforms from which the public consumes information. Through out the semester, guest speakers emphasized the importance of communications in all natural resource professions, the students listened and learned.

One great guest lecturer was my buddy Nathan McLeod who hosts a morning radio show. McLeod talked about how much he values natural resources and enjoys sharing messages of conservation with his listeners, but finds guests often struggle with the rapid fire pace of a radio interview. He wants guests on his show to talk conservation, but needs them to be fun and personable, and to talk in a way most people can relate to.

“Leave the rocket science at home,” McLeod said. “Give them the elevator speech. Quickly explain to listeners why this important and why they should care. Tell them how it impacts them personally.”

At the end of the class, students were paired into four groups with the assignment of building and implementing a communications plan around a natural resources topic of concern. The four topics they selected and worked on were: Open New State Parks, Reintroductions of Wildlife Species, Wildflowers in Urban Settings and The Effects of Climate Change on Wildlife. You can see the minds of tomorrow have their priorities.

I hope my students gained a better understanding of how important it is to communicate scientific knowledge in a way most citizens can understand. Our natural world faces incredible challenges requiring the support of the public to address and fix. Once these students are in professional roles, if I did my job, they will try a little harder to share their expertise.

See you down the trail…

*Fuente: https://duboiscountyherald.com/b/column-students-inspire-hope-for-bright-future