 Welcome and happy new year. Thank you for joining us today for our first NCAR Explorer Series event, which is a conversation with outreach and training specialist, Tim Barnes, from UCAR SCIED, called The Art of Science Communication, Engaging with Communities at NCAR. My name is Dr. Lorena Medina Luna, and I'm an education designer and lead organizer for the NCAR Explorer Series at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which we call NCAR. And it is a world-leading organization dedicated to understanding earth system science, including our atmosphere, weather, climate, the sun, and the importance of all of these systems to our society. I'm really glad to be with you all today to learn more about the work that Tim does at UCAR. For this event, we'll be taking questions throughout the program using the Slido platform. If you scroll down the page, you can see the Slido window just below where you are seeing the live event streaming. And if you haven't already done so, go ahead and click on the join event button. And then you can ask questions on the Q&A tab and answer the poll questions on the polls tab, both of which are found in the blue bar across the top. And be sure to join Slido to add your thoughts to our word cloud question. What do you think of when you hear science communication? And we'll get to that soon. This event is being recorded and it will be available on the NCAR Explorer Series website. So if you like it, share it with your family and friends. Today we have again, UCAR, Syed, Tim Barnes, and Tim, welcome. Thank you for joining us. Hello, it's great to be here. I'm pretty excited. Yeah, and we're all coming to you from our own homes still. So from wherever you are, thank you again for joining. And Tim, let's go ahead and get started. Can you tell me briefly, you work at UCAR Center for Science Education, but can you tell me a little bit about what you do at the center? Of course, yeah. So I do work for the UCAR Center for Science Education and I work at the Mesa Lab, which you see behind me, in Boulder, Colorado on the foothills. And that building is open to the general public. We have school groups. My job is to provide visits or tours for school groups and members of the general public. And also during an open house called Super Science Saturday, and we have lots of resources on our website for teachers to use. So it's a combination of different activities that I take part in at the Mesa Laboratory. Great, and because of the pandemic, it has been closed to the public, but we're hoping we can get it back open for everybody and we could do these events again in the future. But we'll get to do a brief view of a 360 virtual tour later today. So I'm really excited about that. And since we were talking about science communication, we did have a word cloud that people are putting information into. So can we actually take a look at what have people been responding for the word cloud? Of what do you think of when you hear science communication? And we have a lot of information distilling the complexity of scientific results, educational YouTube channels, engaging audiences, explaining complexity as simple as possible. Maybe it's daunting for some people, making science accessible, public outreach, engaging, entertaining education, and knowing your audience as well. So these are all great. Thank you so much everybody and continue to put them up on Slido. We'll keep a record of it. And so Tim, how do you approach the types of science communication that are out there? Well, thank you, Lorna. I'm really excited to see in that word cloud the different challenges in doing science communication and I saw the word complexity in there. And that's a key piece of science communication for me is the complexity of conveying what it is that will help people grow in a way. So my job is to, when I see you, when I'm interacting with someone to design a way of communicating that is good for them. And that's really hard to do because I've never met these individuals before. So there's different approaches with the school groups. It's pretty straightforward. There's some standard ways of managing school groups that the students are used to that. So offering that or welcoming them with the same type of interaction, the management, having everyone, you see some of these children sitting on the floor. We come in and we gather and we set some rules which they're used to like walking in the building and using an inside voice. And one of the things you might notice is that they're sitting on the floor. So I sit on the floor with them because that's a way of letting them know that I'm not trying to be like someone the same as their teacher because it's gonna be a little bit of a different experience. They're allowed to, as they're exploring in the building, actually touch things, which typically when they might go on a school field trip, they're told, you have to be quiet, you can't run and you can't touch anything either. That's the difference in their experience. So try to welcome them in a way that they're used to but at the same time indicate things are a little bit different. Like I'm sitting on the floor with you and one of the things I always ask them is like, what are some of the rules and they'll go through the typical ones and then they'll almost always say, well, we can't touch things. And they're like, well, that's different here. You actually get to touch while you're exploring in the building. And then that works with school groups. Of course, there's always some things that pop up unexpectedly and I can talk about that later about how to deal with unexpected events. But then moving to adults, having members of the general public, I think one of the most important things to keep in mind is that this is a non, this is a, they volunteered to come. They are not captive. They can leave whenever they want. So it's very important to remember that and meet them where they are. And it may not be that they are, they were interested in coming. They might've brought someone and they weren't really excited about being there. So I have to consider like where are they when they arrive and speak to them as adults or wherever they are in their lifespan. Maybe they're young adults. Maybe they're senior adults. Maybe they're scientists. Maybe they have no idea how scientists do their work or the difference between science and engineering. So I have to address them on their level playing deal. And it takes a while to understand where they actually are coming from and then continue to engage them through the whole process of their visit. And that can be 20 minutes. It could be an hour and a half. And then the last part is kind of special. And that's our approach to our general public event, Super Science Saturday. And that involves science educators like myself in UCAR and NCAR, but also staff who are very interested in sharing with the general public. But they're not always sure how to do that. So we approach it from an entertainment standpoint. Let's have some fun. And let's also do some science in there and distill the difference between science and magic and then offer them the opportunity to ask questions. It's rather informal. We dress in costumes. So to let everyone know, like, hey, you know, this is a big part of science is imagining and exploring and trying things new. So with Super Science Saturday, it's a pretty spectacular way of engaging people in different ways. That's so awesome. Thank you so much, Tim. Sounds like you go from K through Gray in your outreach, engaging with different audiences. Oh, that's definitely. And I saw that the Super Science Saturday in the past two years, it's been virtual. So that's been pretty awesome to see. And I think the videos are still available for people to watch them. Yes, they are. So that's one of the things you can, you can relive with those experiences with us from our new virtual work. This is our virtual studio. We've been able to pivot, as everyone always says, to helping educate, but in a virtual space. And we've done a great deal. We have a brand new virtual studio, which was an amazing addition to our capacity to do science education. And we're now reaching international and national audiences on a regular basis. That's awesome. And it's cool that we're able to do that now. And I mean, people were doing it before as well, but I think for us, it's been a big, big change. It has for me at least. Because I miss seeing everybody in person. I know there's a lot of people that would come and I'm hoping we get to experience the NCAR MESA lab in person again. But we do have a 360 virtual tour in case anybody does miss the facilities. And if they haven't visited the facilities, would you be able to tell us a little bit about like, do you work with other labs? Did you create, like how did it come about? You know, in all of those tidbits, we realized that it was important to still offer the same rich content. And as you said, we miss having people in person and have to consider like, how do we connect with people in a virtual world, the same way we might in person and the answers can't do it the same way? But we can do that by learning about the work that's going on in different ways, asking different questions and highlighting those bits and pieces and collaborating with other parts of our organization is key. The idea of having a virtual tour was absolutely brilliant. And the people who thought of that idea when I was, I mean, they brought it up to me, I was like, okay, that sounds fantastic, but it's gonna be a heavy technological lift and we're gonna need some help. And funny enough, our computational and information systems lab, which we call Sizzle, was also interested in doing the same type of work, but the COVID shutdowns put us right at the forefront. So we collaborated with Sizzle, got a 360 degree camera. And now we have a 360 virtual tour of the NCAR facilities. And here we are, we're right in it, I'm standing virtually in the driveway of the Mesa laboratory. And some of you have already been to the Mesa lab and you won't be surprised at what you see. Maybe there are some new things. So I'm gonna show people who haven't seen what it's like inside, what it does look like and then highlight the new features that some of you haven't seen. As a matter of fact, I know you haven't seen the one that's right behind me, right? Here, I'm in a virtual space. Now this is a recognition of all of the work that our Earth Observing Laboratory, and these are the observational scientists because it's great to like conceptualize what's going on, but until you actually get out there and collect data in whatever you're studying, don't really know for sure. So the, and all you have to do is simply press the screen and you're there. And this is our brand new Earth Observing or Field Campaign exhibit. This is the interface, what it looks like. If you look up above, you'll notice there's some buttons right here. You can press those buttons that'll take you to different field campaigns. And those field campaigns give us a great deal of information of what it's like to be in the field. You can do this virtually in the 360 tour. And when we open again, you can do that in person. One of the most interesting things is you'll find out about equipment like the NCAR C-130, nicknamed percules. If you look carefully, you might notice at the bottom of this aircraft, it's typically used for military purposes. This one's not. This one is designed specifically for science. And at the bottom are some of the sensing, some of the tubes are used for literally drawing in air in the aircraft to take measurements. So this is one of the experiences that you'll have when you take the virtually or you see us and take the tour virtually or see us in person. And just to give you an example, I'm gonna press on one of these buttons, see what comes up. And here is a description of what the field campaign is. So you can explore a little more deeply. So I'm really excited about people having the opportunity to do that, but that's not all that's new in the virtual exhibit. So we'll head back and look around a little bit more. Just over here, we have some stairs. I'm gonna walk up the stairs. And there we are, on the Mesa. Now behind me, what you'll notice is over here is a, what looks like a satellite. And that's because that is a satellite. When we closed down hanging from the ceiling was a scale model of the Cosmic One satellite. This is Cosmic Two. And these satellites are amazing in what they have or how they have advanced our understanding of Earth system science. What you're experiencing now is our virtual object. This is a 3D representation of Cosmic Two. You can see probably what is familiar here, solar panels. And if you look on here, you'll see GNSS, that's GPS. This is one of the many technologies that NCAR and UCAR can create or 3D representation of it. It is amazing in that it provides three robust data sets that are really revolutionizing the way we understand planet Earth. Cosmic One was launched in 2006 and Cosmic Two was launched in 2017. And all of those data, or there are six of them in each of these constellations and there were enough of them operating at the end by 2017 that our data set has continued, has been brought down continuously, allowing us to understand the upper atmosphere, better understand severe weather because the way Cosmic Work, it can reach humidity inside of clouds in space. Absolutely amazing. And it also gives us the most robust climate record for the entire planet. All those data are shared worldwide. So you can come in, you can explore with Cosmic Two virtually at our 3D object, but you can also come into the building and see it in person. That's awesome. Yeah. And I thought we would walk up to our final, we're gonna walk through the building a little bit. Here we are, off into the building. Now we're up on our climate floor and you'll see this is where we have information about the history of climate and climate change and some of what's happening currently. And then as we make our way down to the end of the hallway, there's climate basics. And then keep turning around right here, what you'll see is the entrance to Sound and Climate, which is a musical interface for one of the most robust data sets in the world from a very large ensemble run, which means a lot of scientists put these data together. But the new thing about Sound and Climate is that it's now online. So here we are. If I press one of the buttons like this, it takes us right to the interface of Sound and Climate. And this is the online version. Within this version, you can select some of the data right by touching the screen. These are six different versions of what will happen or has happened and will happen at the North Pole. And with sea ice, you can also look at surface temperature changes and precipitation. And every time it changes, it sounds different because this is a musical interface. All of those changing data are represented by different musical instruments, change the speed of how fast it's played and slow down. I would love for people to just close their eyes and listen to see or to experience climate data, which is one of the things you can do with Sound and Climate. And that's a brief kind of foray into what is offered in the Sound and Climate. But you can, and just keep in mind, you can access this 360 Virtual Visit Free anytime on our website to explore. But you can also, this is new Lorena, I don't know if you've heard about this, but you can also sign up for a free guided tour with me. Yes, you're gonna have a group tour for at least eight people starting on March 7th. We're gonna offer a free online public tour for the first, on the first Monday of each month at noon for anyone to join as well. So there's two different ways you can actually take a tour with me. That's so great because I miss going on tours with you and being able to just explore and learn. Like every tour is unique and different. And every time I was able to follow you around, I would just learn something new. So I'm so excited that our guests can join you still coming up. And if everybody is on, if you're not on Slido, go ahead and go on Slido on the top left of the screen of Slido, you'll see three dashed lines. And there we have a couple of links for the listening to climate, and then the taking a self-guided tour as well. And then links to how to get to join Tim on a live tour as well. And Tim, we did have a question from the audience which I could just read out. We don't have to, oh, there it is. Yeah. So the question I'm gonna take first was because we just talked about the 360 tour is what platform do you use for your virtual 360 tour? That is Bing Link. And it's an amazing platform that provides for us the capacity to modify an app without making a huge, because it was new. And without making a huge investment in this, it allowed us to do this in baby steps. But it's amazingly robust for what we're trying to do. Great, thank you. And I did see that we had a second question. As you went through the tour, you mentioned that there's a whole floor about climate and the changing climate. And I wonder, how do you handle negativity or skepticism from guests or in general? I'm still glad someone asked because that's the elephant of the room. Because there are people who are just not okay with the idea that it could be that the climate system is changing. They're like, it's not actually changing. That's the way that they perceive the world. And then there are also people who just have it, their understanding is that there's no way humans could have that big of an impact. And I completely understand these observations. And the way I handle it is to listen to them and understand what is it that actually is problematic for them. And the first one of understanding if the climate system is actually changing gets to the question of whether these weather events that we're, whether the weather events we're seeing are the result of climate change. And even climatologists will say like, not everything is a result of climate change, but there are some that are specifically a result of that because historically in written records and then by going backwards in time with the Community Earth System Model which is one of the most respected simulations of climate in the world, we can go backwards in time and have it give us a peek into what maybe was going on in a historically or an ancient climate and then see if we can find processes that represent that. Stromatolites are some of the oldest living things on the planet. I believe they can go back like 800, since 800 billion, it's not a trillion years. And they're very simple, but these very old objects help us understand how close our simulations are to representing what has gone on on the planet and then look at today, compare it to today and then look into the future. And there are things that don't show up in many of the different records. So I point out for people who are thinking like it's not actually changing, I point out things that can only be explained like in 2003 there was a heat wave that was extraordinary and couldn't be explained by anything other than excessive heat. And if that excessive heat continues, then we have a problem. But historically there's no physical representation or physical reason for that to happen outside of artificially putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So I bring up and I'm just providing what climatologist would offer in response to a question like, is it actually changing? And then there's people who are pretty sure that humans couldn't possibly be driving this change. And then I point out that that is the starting point for climatologists. They say, well, if something's going on and it's this, let's prove it's not that. So they're constantly trying to work out how this could happen, the climate change that we see, how it could happen in some other way. And even to the point of looking at cosmic rays, the cosmic rays that actually be changing the temperature on planet Earth. And this is not a new question. These are not new questions. So I present to people who are skeptical the reality that scientists are skeptical. They come up with an idea and then they spend most of their time trying to figure out if that could actually be right and if it's wrong, they find out how it's wrong. And that's just one piece of climate change. But there are a lot of people who are pretty sure that there's an airplane spraying them with mind control chemicals. And I talked to them about what that would require and the dynamics of the atmosphere, what's going on up above. And again, people will understand what they're going to understand. I try to provide to them answers to questions that scientists have and then hopefully they take that with them. One of the fantastic things about the Visitor Center at the Mesa Lab is that it's an environment that provides information that's accessible to a large population of people. And people will decide for themselves where they stand. One of the other important things to listen for is what value structures people have. That's where the conversation goes for me is let's talk about the value that you hold and how that plays out in relationship with climate change. So that's a long answer, but that's how I deal with that question. No, it's great because I think that's the important part is being able to listen to each other and have open conversations, being able to take it information and then kind of that leads to new questions, right? And hopefully new scientists who will tackle those questions. So if you're a young scientist and are interested in this type of work, you're definitely in the right space to be able to still answer unknown questions. So I'm really excited about that. And one of the things I was interested to see in the 360 tour was that you had aircraft. So it's about field campaigns. And we do have a lot of videos on our NCAR Explorer Series field campaigns webpage where people can explore the videos of what it's like to be in the field. But as part of your work with UCAR SCIED, you also have a program called Meet the Experts, which I saw on March 3rd, you're going to be talking in collaboration with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science about aircraft and people who specialize on research airplanes and aviation. So I'm really excited for that program and people can check out if you go on our website for Meet the Experts with SCIED. To be able to explore that program. And one question we also had about accessible materials for elementary school students is where could people access that material? The materials for school groups. It says, where could I access educational materials for elementary school students? That would be right on the SCIED website. We have a very robust collection of offerings for teachers, and I'll step back a little bit. So you can see this is just a glimpse of what's available. And we have recently, and if you're a teacher, you might not recognize this interface. We've just upgraded and then very intentionally been much more clear about how to download those resources. Sorry, download those resources. You can see hurricane resilience, project resilience, globe weather is an incredibly robust collection of materials. If you want to take a deep dive into the weather, those will support your interest. But if you are at a level where you're maybe a pre-K or K level, there are some materials that are much more simple that you can also download from our website. And again, on that Slido interface, if you go on it, there's those three lines. There's also a link that you can then click on to get to these resources. Thank you, Tim. And we have the virtual tour. It's going to be available whether or not the Mesa Lab is open to the public. And there was a question. Do you think that the lab will be open to visitors in 2022? And I think I can answer a little bit. I think we're working on it. We're a federally funded agency, so we're a little bit going into we have a whole working team that is responsive for saying when it's appropriate for our facility to open to the public. So I know it's in the works and crossing our fingers that 2022 will be a year of reentry for everyone. But we'll definitely make those announcements on our social media page and on our website when we have more information. But I don't know, Tim, if you wanted to add on to that. Yeah, Lorena, that's as clear as it can be at this point. And unfortunately, that's what this pandemic has added is a lot of uncertainty. And being a science laboratory, we follow the science. And when it's right and OK, then we will be open. Open again. And unfortunately, it's just not yet. And we don't know, but we will know when it's clear. And hopefully that's in 2022. So we're not taking it lightly. We we respect everyone's safety, the staff who are in the building, the visitors who come to us and people who work temporarily there. So we're we're making sure that because it's clear before we do open the building. Thank you. And I look forward to being able to see you again. It'll be awesome. And then in addition to the virtual work that you're doing, I heard that there's some work being done for visually impaired accessibility to museum spaces. Can you talk a little bit about that? Absolutely, we do. We we have we have the with baby steps. We are moving into that realm and our direct John is leading the way has expertise in that area that he will lend towards continuing to offer or help us offer to the visually impaired. We do have something that is quite classic already available, and it's even wheelchair accessible. And that is a copy of one of the largest hailstones to fall from the sky in 1970. The Coffee Bill Kansas Hailstone fell and was recovered by Charlie Knight, one of our scientists and put in the freezer and then cut open to verify that it was a single hailstones. Turns out it is when the Guinness Book of World Records and weighed 1.67 pounds. And this is a copy that you're saying on the trunk of a Honda cord from Denver. They had a little hail damage, but you can reach up and touch up. This is a plaster copy of that same hailstone. I'll hold that up so maybe you can see it a little bit better. Now, the spikes on the top of it are something that if you are visually challenged, you might not expect with what you've heard is a sphere of ice. And these spikes are due to the water freezing as this hailstone dropped. This was the bottom. The top has these spikes on it and the crystals are frozen. So this is one of the items that we have began to explore with. And this is not just for visually impaired. Compared to everyone who can run their hands over this and tell like, oh, this is what an incredibly large hailstone might be like. We also. In the exhibit, because it's our architecture is a big. Draw for people to come to the building I am pay is world famous. And this was the building that he created that elevated his career to where he went towards my pathway in 2017. But there's some unique characteristics. This building arguably is the first building of the postmodern era. And that is a result of him using a treatment on the side of the building called Bush hammering. That just might sound a little odd, but that's a metal chisel that goes on the bottom of a pneumatic hammer. And it was used to grade the sides of these of the building. If you've ever wondered about if you have been to the building and look at that corduroy texture, that's where it came from. We have a replica of the Bush hammer on display now. Again, it looks here accessible. And you can run your hands across that chisel and get an idea of what tool was used in order to create that texture. And you can also just run your hand along because some of the former outside of the building is inside the visitor senses. You can you can feel the surface that resulted from using that Bush hammer. We one of my favorites that we have is called the Sea of Clouds. And this is an exceptional exhibit from the exploratory in San Francisco that we adapted to Colorado. It didn't quite work like they thought it would at sea level. And our staff modified it. So it puts out a massive amount of cloud droplets. And this is not evaporated. It's recondensed or the water is condensed from the mister in the base of it and literally fills up this tub, which is about a meter and a half across. And you can put your hands in there and touch a cloud and move that cloud around and experience what it might be like if you could be in the atmosphere in a cloud and it makes different types of clouds. Like in the middle, you might feel a little cumulonibus on the outside, a little k-h waves, which means a lot more when you start exploring the clouds. But this is one of those. That's one of the exhibits that you can that's accessible that you can feel. You can actually feel that cloud. The last one is our white light coronal camera from our group that we call altitude observatory, the Earth Center of Connections Group. And in our right in our virtual tour, you can get a look at it as you walk by it and see that it's it's fully accessible with your hands right on that instrument. And know that it's something that went out to the field and give an idea of what it's like to machine that instrument. So the hailstone, the bush hammer, the sea of clouds and the white light coronal camera. And we are still considering other ways that we can honestly make things that are more accessible to the visually impaired. That's awesome. And I had also heard the NCAR and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture have teamed up to develop augmented reality application for use in museums and exhibit spaces, which I think is going to be really great for accessibility purposes. So I'm glad to hear that we're doing things at the Mesa Lab and nationally. And I wanted to ask, you know, you do a lot of engagement in education and science, but I wanted to ask, how did you get interested in working in informal science education? So it started when I was in high school. I I did forensics, which is public speaking and later on, actually worked as a critic, a judge, if you will, for a high school speech and debate and really had to learn to listen to arguments. And by arguments, I mean, people put together descriptions of why they think as they do. And after I graduated high school, I enlisted in the US Navy, where I learned even more types of logic as I was trained to work on advanced avionics. And some of you wonder what I'm talking about. You might remember from the movie Top Gun, if you saw Top Gun, here's a picture of Tom Cruise and standing next to him is Sundown. He's the radio, the radar intercept officer. He sat in the back of the F-14 and actually worked on the weapons system, which is incredibly complicated. This is a picture of the inside. I was trained to understand how this system works electronically and interfaces with the mechanical parts of the plane and the human to fix this in a very short amount of time through logic. I had to understand, like, what should be happening and what's not. And if it's not happening, why isn't it happening? And then from there, I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship to the University of Colorado where I earned my degree in communication, which involved organizational communication, family communication, interpersonal and public speaking, which I'm still learning how to do. And one of the takeaways from that is that when humans are interacting with one another, 80 percent of what they're communicating is nonverbal and something that a Canadian philosopher by the name of Marshall McLuhan has said or said in his understanding of the experience on earth is that the medium is the message. How you say what you're saying, how you present the colors you use, the reflection you use, how you do that shows your honesty. If you're being sincere in your communication, then it shows and it will move you forward, which helped me when I started working in the child clinical psychology lab after graduating and helping children who were not not reaching their full potential in class who had challenges communicating. I worked with some incredible graduate students. I was an undergrad and we literally had to understand what it was that would help them refocus. And part of that was being able to communicate their needs. What we accidentally found out is that if there is an adult that really cares about them and they communicate with that person, it helps them calm down and self-regulate. It's called poly bagel theory today. And luckily, I was there to see that it actually works if you can have teach children to look at someone when they're communicating and say things that are important and have the person within their speaking recognize those bits and pieces and breathe through their nose. All of these actually help calm down the parasympathetic nervous system, which is part of what I'm doing when I'm interfacing. I mentioned earlier, sometimes there are discipline, there are challenges with school groups and there's little people who just are having a rough time. And that's when that those skills kick in. And I got excited about NCAR because when I started working in NCAR, I wasn't really restricted on how I approach the interaction with individuals. And that really led to where I am today with these three different ways of approaching groups. Is like I call on those different experiences to understand an argument logically to the communication that's honest. And if someone is just having a hard time, you know, maybe it's time to wait and then that little person or maybe the older person who's having a rough day. It's maybe we talk about how hard day is and then, you know, an appropriate way and leave it at that. So I really liked working because at NCAR I got the opportunity to really explore my interest in complex systems and through communicating. That's awesome. And it's it sounds like it was an intense training that you had from the plane and being able to figure things out. And I'm glad you were able to talk about a couple of advice for communicating with the public because we have a question from Osamu. And on Slido and the question had said, do you have any advice for young scientists on how to better communicate their work or field with the public? I think you might have touched upon some of that already. Yeah, absolutely. And one of one of the most important things that we kind of overlook is listening. And if you're going to do your research, find out what your audience is, what their background might be, as best you can. And, you know, don't be invasive, but kind of know who your audience is. That's a key piece. And as the interaction progresses, if you have someone who's like that, that's your nonverbal cue to be like, I'm not interested in opening up to you. So notice that or if they're leaning forward in their chair, watch these nonverbal cues and then listen to what they say. If they say something like, I just don't believe it. Then it's it's not about the logic. It's not about the data. It's all about why they don't believe it. And these are the things that will help you communicate is. Keep your message simple and something that Michael, Nikki Glantz, who was one of the mentors that I had and, oh, my goodness, Katherine Hayhoe, these are science communicators that are idols that I follow. And of course, Warren Washington, who's the father of climate change and works at Incarnate. One of the things that they do is they present the science in a way that's accessible and that might mean telling stories. And those stories can also have metaphors in them. So what for what you're trying to convey for the young scientist, try explaining it to someone who is not really interested. And this this is this is before you communicate to the audience that your target audience, find your grandpa or your neighbor next door or bus driver or other driver, somebody who has a moment to listen to you. Practice on that. And your elevator speech is key. You know, you want some quick points. You want to know that they're listening to you on some quick, simple points, a story and metaphors. And that will take you a long, long ways. The other thing to remember is to stop talking at some point because, you know, once you once you've gotten, you know, acknowledgement that they are with you in there. Awesome. Thank you so much. And because you mentioned a couple of different types of thinking processes, there's a question from John that asks, how does your organization use design thinking to research, develop and launch your communications? That's a universal design. It is our regular conversation with us. And that means we need to consider all possible takers, if you will, or audiences that we're producing for and then what our capacity is to meet those needs. And like with the visually accessible exhibits, we're still we're still being very careful that we can meet the needs of people who the science has to be brought forward and people's capacity, their abilities have to be addressed as well. And designing for those people is one of the reasons why we move in iterations. And when we finally come up with a an exhibit or an offering or a resource, they are very well respected, these these offerings that we have. But it did not come easily. Super Science Saturday, we spent a great deal of time discussing what words should we use and how should we use those? The one example, we were with a group of scientists who are atmospheric experts and one of them said, well, let's talk about a warm air holds more water. And the others were like, yeah, that's not actually true. So that discussion went on for an hour and a half and then a couple of days. And that's one of those little tiny bits and pieces that you might not think is important, but it's key. And we have such a diverse group of researchers at NCAR and the population of its staff is becoming more diverse, which it needs to. There are other issues about science literacy and underserved populations. If we come at people who have never had the opportunity to engage in Earth system sciences, if we come at them with materials that were designed for people who've been better served and they don't immediately take what we are providing, then we haven't done our job. So a lot of what we're doing is spending time listening to those who have said, you know, we've no one's ever really paid attention to us before. So we don't really care about what you're offering because it's not designed for us. And then we have to say, like, OK, what is it that resonates with you and what can we do? So design thinking is very much of what we're doing and reaching the underserved is something we haven't done well, but we hope to do much better in the future. Great. Thank you, Tim. And I know we have still a couple of more topics to touch upon, but I wanted to ask if you can answer really briefly one of the questions from Adriana that we received. And they're watching from Canada and it asks, what is your advice for people working in science communication that come across restrictions, such as budgets being low priority, etc. Restrictions, budget, budget being, oh, so I'm guessing that means there's not necessarily enough budget for science communication. If I get that correct, incorrect, let me know. The one of the one of the fantastic qualities of science is that it's everywhere and it is possible. And I mentioned metaphors and stories. It's also very important to find simple ways to represent what it is you're communicating. You have the budget to do some to do very elaborate visuals. Do what you can with those visual pieces and then augment with what you might have that's already available. If you are, if it's chemistry that you're trying to highlight, there are professionals who can volunteer with you just to describe the chemistry on a basic level. And they might not be used to doing that. So you might have to teach them that to be very short is what they do. But I would I would say use resources that are used what you have and think about how what you want to convey is available with with the budget that's available and also virtually it's growing the capacity to do work virtually as a piece and look for local experts. If you want to reach a population that can't get to you, find people who are there who you could also train. Mentoring is a big piece of that. Great. Thank you. And talking about mentoring, I know that in addition to the work that you do for the public, you also work with a program called the undergraduate leadership workshop, which is for students. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Absolutely. Then undergrads, undergraduates in the Earth System Sciences or at a university who are interested in the Earth System Sciences really don't have a great great opportunities to find out what professional researchers do. The undergraduate leadership workshop is designed to bring in those students with advice from their their departments on what it is or which students they think would benefit greatly from learning more about their careers. And what you're watching right now is an interaction. These are the undergraduate leadership workshop students interfacing with former ULW participants who are now broadcast meteorologists. So all of the undergraduates in the room have a personal audience with people who are doing what they're thinking of doing. So the ULW is to, number one, to let the students ask questions about what their career field might look like, but also to build their leadership capacity. So here they are. This is a young lady in the ULW who'd never launched the weather bulletin before. So the undergraduates who had were like, oh, you definitely need to do this. And we're out at the Center for Severe Weather Research with Storm Chase who's had all kinds of equipment so they get to see where these researchers work. And they also need to be able to work well with one another. And the center of this group pointing is Olga Tweedy who is an amazing career scientist right now. But when she was in the undergraduate leadership workshop, she used her skills to build leadership skills and teamwork skills to train other groups. She literally came back for following on years of undergraduate students to help them gain a better understanding of what teamwork looks like and leadership to learn leadership skills. And speaking about leadership, I'm gonna ask about the work that you do outside of NCAR. You are doing a lot. You are the city of Lafayette, counselor, you're in the city of Lafayette board. Can you tell us what you do? Thank you. Yes, I was elected to the Lafayette City Council which is about nine miles outside of Boulder and a population of 30,000 individuals. And one of my big concerns is preparing for the impacts of climate change and I couldn't sit still and not try to help my local municipality and with incredible support from other community members. I was elected and now go through bi-weekly and pretty much every day there's a little bit in peace of discussions that we have about how the city should move forward. And we have discussions about the basics of how the city should operate but also I try as often as I can to infuse an understanding of how what we do is preparing or to not preparing us for climate change impacts, looking at vulnerability and resilience underrepresented and underserved populations that live in our community are disproportionately impacted. So I hope to continue to bring that up housing, transportation, climate change, water. These are all issues that are going to be exacerbated exacerbation in the future. So I try to be that voice of saying, hey, you know what? We need to really be honest about what can happen and how underserved populations are not getting their needs met and could we get worse? And for the work that you do, you recently received the Boulder County Multicultural Award and also at UCAR we received an Outstanding Accomplishment in Diversity Award. So congratulations for that and thank you so much for speaking up. That's so awesome. Thank you, yes. And the Diversity Award was for supporting the African and African-Americans that are within the Earth System Sciences and specifically at NCAR and UCAR. And that's something I learned over time is that the population of African and African-Americans in the Earth System Sciences and in the city of Boulder has not increased since the 1960s. And what I've learned over time is that it's because there's not a resilient community to support us. And under the guidance of Dr. Warren Washington who is an amazing influence on the Earth System Sciences and has been and still is, I thought maybe we should build more community and it came to be that we were the first employee resource group and it's still growing and we provide policy guidance on how to continue to recruit and support African and African-Americans. Again, that and across the Earth System Sciences. So I'm really appreciative of that recognition. I wouldn't have done it anyway. So, but it's nice to get the award. That's amazing, I'm so glad because I think that's the important part is having that community of support wherever you might be and being able to bring your whole self into your workspace. And yeah, it's so important. So thank you for all of your work. And because we're coming up too close to the end of our program here, I wanted to ask if you can tell us a little bit about what projects are you excited about moving forward? Ooh, well, one of my, I have to say, super excited about having people come back to the building and explore and continuing to engage with individuals virtually and growing with the awareness that it's possible to interact with our Earth System but also to be aware of the impacts of climate and climate change. And with that said, there's a lot of research going into actually intervening in our climate system in order to correct the misalignment, if you will, or the problems with our climate system, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So NCAR, a group of very concerned scientists at NCAR have reached out to their colleagues and created the Community Climate Intervention Strategies Research Program. And these are people who understand that natural systems don't function in silos. There's a great deal of interaction. And if one were to adjust one part of the system, that necessarily is going to impact other parts of the system. And because we're talking about planetary extinction events potentially, it's very, very important to do this wisely. And they have said, we will cross-launt. We're gonna work outside of our silo with scientists that we never worked with before to understand what they're doing. This is, it's a huge communication piece and I'm involved with the steering committee for that effort to say, how do we talk to people that we haven't talked to before about their research to ensure that the science community is very aware of what's going on around them in regards to climate change. And with that said, we also are moving towards bringing in an additional online exhibit in the NASA Lab that is based on output from, as I mentioned earlier, the Community Earth System Model, CESM. And just behind me, right, here it is. We're in the virtual world. This one is called Choose Our Future. And it uses the worst case scenario in a climate change environment to allow individuals to experiment with the way they live their lives. The inputs are right here. You can add those inputs to the system to see what positively impacts our future. And those are ways that you literally can live your life differently based on what the science data is. This was brought to us by our kind of research scientists. They said, we need to have the public understand what is and what isn't really impactful to climate change. Well, for the longest time, it's been sitting here on the floor for people to use when they're visiting, but we will have an online version of that. Stay tuned, that's still coming. It's being adapted, so I'm super excited for the online version of Choose Our Future. Thank you so much, Tim. And just to close up, I wanted to ask if you had any final thoughts or comments for our audience? Yeah, I would like to acknowledge, and what I'm learning is that there are bodies of knowledge that have existed for a long period of time, and I'd like to recognize that I live and work on the traditional territory of the Arapaho, Chayansu, and Yut. And Colorado's Front Range is a contemporary and traditional site of trade and gathering for many indigenous peoples. And as we reach out to different populations in our efforts to bring in more diverse populations to keep in mind that traditional ecological knowledge has a great deal for us to learn. And the communication styles, the way that indigenous populations see our planetary system is a place for me to grow. And I encourage everyone to take a second look at where you are and who was there before you, and try to understand what it is that maybe you haven't even seen yet. Great, thank you so much, Tim. And thank you everybody for joining us. I saw that there was a former ULW participant here, Karen. So he said, thanks, Tim. And thank you again, everybody for joining us today. Thank you, Tim, for sharing about your experiences, your work that your whole team is doing in Karyukar. And I look forward to exploring the virtual world and hopefully seeing all of you in the future back at the Mesa Lab. And if you come travel to Colorado once it's open, we'll look forward to seeing you at that time as well. With that, we'll say goodbye. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, everybody. Elia, Dan, Brett, Katie for supporting this program. And we'll see you at the next event.