#302 – College and Career Connections: Women in STEM, with Dr. Ailene Ettinger, Quantitative Ecologist

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• What is a quantitative ecologist?
• What skills does a scientist like Ailene need in her career workplace?
• Which of these skills might a student develop in your classroom?
• How might you expose students to STEM careers in your classroom?
• What intrigues you the most about what Ailene has shared?

• Ailene Ettinger (official website)
• The Nature Conservancy in Washington (The Nature Conservancy)
• Greening Research In Tacoma (G.R.I.T.) (Tacoma Tree Foundation)
• Watch the Video: One Million Trees (The Nature Conservancy in Washington)
• Project Finder (SciStarter)
• iNaturalist Forest Health Projects (Forest Health Watch)
• Maine Research Internships for Teachers and Students (MERITS) (Main Space Grant Consortium)
• Occupational Outlook Handbook (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• PathwaysToScience.org (Institute for Broadening Participation)

#302 – College and Career Connections: Women in STEM, with Dr. Ailene Ettinger, Quantitative Ecologist

AVID Open Access

40 Min

Keywords

Women in STEM, quantitative ecology, data analysis, urban forestry, conservation, educational journey, role models, community engagement, mangrove restoration, tree canopy, student internships, STEM careers, environmental science, scientific research.

Transcript

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 0:00
There is lots of ecology outside the doors of your classroom that students could be engaged in collecting data and then looking at the data. So that’s, I mean, that’s really what science is. It’s like, asking questions and gathering some data and looking at the data to see if it helps you answer your question.

Rena Clark 0:18
The topic for today’s podcast is College and Career Connections: Women in STEM with Ailene Ettinger, quantitative ecologist. Unpacking Education is brought to you by avid.org. AVID believes a single teacher can change the life of a student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org. Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:49
I’m Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 0:51
And I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann 0:55
And we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 0:59
Education is our passport to the future.

Rena Clark 1:04
Our quote for today is from famous scientist Marie Curie. She said, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” All right, Paul, Winston, your turn to respond this week.

Winston Benjamin 1:25
Um, I don’t know if I completely agree with “things or not to be feared.” But I totally understand the context. I think fear is also an understanding as well as just fearing things. It’s like, once you get to know things, it’s kind of hard to be like, wow, I don’t want to unknow that. Or, some things you want to unknow. But I think fear in the context of like, not willing to make an action step is a really hard thing, right? To, the unknowing causes you to pause a little bit more, and I think sometimes those prevent you from trying new things and learning how to engage with yourself and step outside. So I think the fear of unknowing is a little bit more terrifying than the fear of understanding. So to that, I think that’s an interesting way of bringing up this quote.

Paul Beckermann 2:16
Yeah, and I like the emphasis on the positive, you know, rather than fearing, taking time to understand, because fear can be real too, but spin it to the positive. You know, it takes time and effort to do that, but I think it’s important. And I, when I think about that, I think about my time I’ve spent traveling. It’s like, the more I’ve traveled, the more I think I’ve understood the world that I live in. It provides, like, a deeper perspective that I think is really powerful. So, be curious. There’s no shortage of things to learn and go out and explore. I think it just continues to add to the context of who we are as people.

Rena Clark 2:54
Well, then I’m fearful because of all the things I don’t know, because now I know I don’t know things. [Laughs]

Paul Beckermann 3:00
And just think of all the things you don’t know that you don’t know.

Rena Clark 3:02
This goes on and on and on. No, I appreciate both of your perspectives on that. But I’m excited to continue this series. And today, as I said, we’re going to continue our series of College and Career Connections: Women in STEM. So today, I’m really excited to welcome Dr. Ailene Ettinger, a quantitative ecologist. So she works, works and intersects higher education, ecological field research, and conservation. So lots of intersections. Dr. Ettinger holds a PhD in ecology from, whoop whoop, U-Dub, University of Washington. Yes, and brings a wealth of experience in data analysis; climate change research; plant and community ecology, which I want to know more about; and urban forestry. So, welcome, Dr. Ettinger.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 3:50
Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

Rena Clark 3:54
And for those of us who don’t know a lot about ecology, and specifically quantitative ecology, I was doing some background research, but can you just share with us maybe a little bit more about that, your background?

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 4:06
Totally. Totally, yeah. So, ecology, I mean, I was, it comes from sort of like many words, I guess, Latin and Greek roots of “eco,” which means house, but it’s really the study of organisms in their house, or the study of organisms in their environment and how they relate to one another. And it’s often focused on kind of understanding what determines the distribution, so where organisms are, as well as the abundance of organisms in their environment. So, what determines how many there are and where they are. So that’s kind of ecology, and quantitative ecology in particular uses mathematical and statistical tools to address those ecological questions about where organisms are, and how they’re distributed, and how many there are in the environment. And I’m a quantitative ecologist at the Nature Conservancy, which is a global conservation organization, and we have a mission of conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends. So it’s quite a broad mission, and a global organization. I think we’re in over 70 countries across the globe now. But our vision is really, like, a world where the diversity of life thrives and where people act to conserve nature for its own sake, but also for its ability to fulfill our needs as people and enrich our lives. And so as a quantitative ecologist, I help develop the evidence base that the Nature Conservancy uses to decide where we should focus our efforts, and whether our protection and restoration efforts are working, how people are affected. So I help you analyze data in ways that can help us make decisions and provide support for our conservation work.

Winston Benjamin 5:55
I really appreciate the fact that, there’s a lot of times where people talk about science, they think about people in the labs, and they don’t think about how that actually impacts the outside world. So I love that your work bridges the gap between the inside and the outside. But I would like, do you mind if I ask this question, Dr. Ettinger, can you share a little bit about your educational journey? What inspired you to pursue a career in ecology? And then a follow-up, and how did your school experience shape your career path, right? Like, the process, if those questions make sense.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 6:29
Yeah, I love, I love these questions. I love thinking about my educational journey, because I always loved school, and maybe that’s why I went to school for a long time. I went and got my PhD. So I spent a lot of my life in school because I love learning and I love school. But, I guess, thinking about what inspired me to pursue a career in ecology, and how my educational journey fit in with that, I think, so I grew up in a family that really loved the outdoors and spent a lot of time outside, hiking and camping and gardening. And so I think a lot of my interest was really shaped by the family culture and environment that I grew up in, even outside of school as well. But I think one of the first, one of the experiences I had that really made me realize that I could have a job that took me outside, and I could get paid to do the kinds of things that I loved and my family loved doing outside was, it was actually my first paid job other than like babysitting and mowing lawns. So in high school, I had the great opportunity to take part in a summer internship program. I grew up in Maine, and this program was called Maine Research Internships for Teachers and Students, or MERITS. And it’s still around. This program is still around, but it was for, I think, sophomore or juniors in high school, and it provided paid summer research experiences to high school students. Also to teachers. But so there was a matching process where you shared your interests and you were matched with an organization that needed, like, a 6- or 8-week intern for the summer. And for me, my internship was with the Maine Audubon Society, and my job was to go out every day and walk the beaches. [Laughs] What a hard job to have in the summer. Walk the beaches of Maine and look for these endangered birds that nest on the shores of Maine beaches. There were two species, least terns and piping plovers. So I had to go out walk beaches every day and find these birds and record what they were doing and count how many nestlings they had, how many eggs they had,

Winston Benjamin 8:38
Oh, that’s cool.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 8:38
And if they appeared to be doing well. So that was the first time when I really, well, first of all, I mean, I can’t really think of a better job in the summer than walking down the beach and looking for birds. Although, you know, it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Like many jobs, it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. So the least terns are very protective of their nests, so they would dive bomb me. [Laughter] So I would, like, they’d fly straight at my head with their beak. And then they also, part of their protection was, like, pooping on you. So I’d get dive bombed and pooped on all day on the beach with my binoculars. So it’s not, it’s not like I was, you know, sunbathing all day. I was having to wear, be covered in, like, clothing to protect myself, but that was the first time where I was like, wow, this is awesome, that I could be outside doing something that I love, like, learning about organisms in their environment, but also getting paid. And I just, I loved, I loved that experience, and it led me to be, to major in environmental science in college. So I just, you know, went on to college, and then eventually get a PhD in ecology.

Winston Benjamin 9:44
That’s awesome. Thank you for that, and—thank you for that.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 9:47
Yeah.

Paul Beckermann 9:49
You know, I love how those experiences have shaped you, and I’m wondering too if maybe you’ve had some role models along the way that have shaped you as well, either in school or in your career. Because role models, you know, can be another really powerful influence.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 10:01
Yes, role models have played a huge, and mentors have played a huge role in my life. And I think, I think one of my really early role models was actually my aunt, my aunt Ailene, which I was named after her [laughs]. But she was, she was probably the first woman that I knew of who was a doctor, got a doctorate in environmental science, or, I think her doctorate was actually in botany, but it was the first woman I knew who had gone to get a PhD and was working in the fields of environmental science. And she was just, she was also so passionate about the outdoors and just got so excited about everything. So I think that combination of, just like, you know, someone who’d been really diligent and dedicated and worked hard to go to school while she was raising her four kids and taking care of her family. But that combination of her curiosity and passion as well as her dedicated hard work was really inspirational to me, and I always loved talking with her about the great outdoors. But then, when I went to school, another important mentor I had was my first, my undergraduate thesis advisor, whose name was Annie, Annie Schmidt, Dr. Schmidt. And she was, she was a member of the National Academy, which I didn’t really know at the time, but she studied evolutionary genetics of a plant called jewelweed, Impatiens capensis. And I had, the class that I took with her that I just really loved was this class called Diversity and Adaptation of Seed Plants, but it was learning about plant families all around the world and how they’re different from one another, and how they’re, how plant families are related, and just learning about the structure and how to identify different plant families. And I just learned all kinds of fascinating things, like, I don’t know, that cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels sprouts are all the same species; they’ve just been bred to look very different. And just her passion for finding, like, really interesting science in everyday foods or everyday things that you might see when you walk down the sidewalk in Providence, Rhode Island, and you wouldn’t expect. Most people might not see anything sort of fascinating or botanical there, but she would notice really interesting differences, like, oh, this plant looks different in the shade versus the sun, and that kind of, like, everyday curiosity and passion was really inspiring for me.

Rena Clark 12:34
Yeah, I can tell just by the way that you’re talking how excited that they made things. And then I think about, how do we create that kind of environment for our students? So from your own experiences, we just wonder, what are some strategies you might suggest educators use to help encourage—we want to encourage everybody, especially young women, to pursue careers in science, in STEM, in ecology, any of these fields. And, like you said, not even knowing that there’s possibilities out there for things that they might truly love and already enjoy.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 13:08
Yeah. Yeah, I think . . . So, I’m not an educator, so it’s sometimes hard for me to know what will be effective strategies for educators to use. But I think what, I think just showing students the wide variety of STEM and science opportunities that are out there, I guess, I think can help encourage. And showing them the, and just representation, also, just showing them the wide range of people, including many women, who are out there doing this work. Because there’s so much variation in STEM. I think that’s something that people often don’t recognize is science, and all STEM, like, there’s so much variation in the sorts of things you can do. You can be in a lab wearing a lab coat and goggles, and the sorts of things I think people think of when they first think of the word “scientist.” But most of the scientists I know don’t have jobs like that at all. Most of us are outside, or talking to people, or doing, using our computers as a tool to do our research, or . . . There’s just such a wide range of science careers out there. So I think sharing some of the breadth of what’s available is one way that might help more young women to realize that they can see themselves pursuing something in that field. And there’s just, there’s also not just one way to be an ecologist or a scientist. Like, the day-to-day work that women and men do in these fields is just incredibly diverse and exciting.

Rena Clark 14:44
And I think if we want to have the STEM field be more diverse, also making connections to, you know, our students, their cultures.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 14:53
Totally.

Rena Clark 14:53
How can we make connections to what they’re interested in? Because, as you said, they just don’t know. They don’t have that knowledge.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 14:54
Yes, I certainly didn’t know that there was, quantitative ecologist was, like, a job that you could have when I was growing up.

Rena Clark 15:06
Didn’t have that opportunity knowledge, yeah.

Winston Benjamin 15:09
So, in particular, speaking of opportunity knowledge and “I don’t know what I don’t know,” and the fear that that can cause, right? Like, I’m a science teacher, I’m a schoolteacher, I’m a math teacher, I am an English teacher trying to engage my students in potentially engaging in the STEM field. I don’t know the fields. Is there, are there any examples of cool or interesting experience experiments that you might have done that you could give? Like, oh, this could be something that would be a nice little gateway that could be used into the classroom. So, do you have any cool little ideas from what you’ve done that could be translated into the classroom?

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 15:59
Yeah, I think, I think there’s really a lot of opportunities. So, well, one, I do urban—I do a lot of urban forest research, and this is work that you certainly could, if there’s an opportunity to leave your classroom, even for a short time, there is lots of ecology outside the doors of your classroom that students could be engaged in, collecting data and then looking at the data. So that’s, I mean, that’s really what science is. It’s, like, asking a question, then gathering some data and looking at the data to see if it helps you answer your question. And there’s lots of ways to do that. We use tools, temperature loggers, that are really small computers that you could put out and put in different environments. One of the research questions that I work on a lot is, How can trees be deployed to help increase climate change resilience of people? So like, how can we plant trees and help people better survive the challenges of climate change like high heat, which is something people are facing more, especially in cities where it’s hotter. And so those, those kinds of questions, can be explored by students with pretty simple tools, thermometers or temperature loggers that they can take in and out and look at data under trees and not, and on pavement, or see how different surfaces may affect temperature. So those are some sort of basic questions that we’ve done exercises with students to just, I think just sometimes getting outside, even in places that you’re very familiar with, but with a different, looking at it in a different way can be such a helpful exercise for students. Asking, being, you know, led in asking some ecological questions, or some other kinds of science questions about environments that they’re really familiar with because they spent a lot of time in but maybe haven’t thought about in this way can be exciting for students.

Paul Beckermann 18:04
Yeah, and I wonder if teachers can kind of connect it to their curriculum areas themselves. So even if it’s not, like, scientist kind of framework, but like, I was an English teacher. If I took my poetry class outside, and we’re writing poetry about nature just to kind of connect.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 18:22
Yeah, I do think there’s a lot to be said for just getting outside sometimes. I know for me, it really changes my mental health and, like, how I feel just being outside.

Paul Beckermann 18:35
I was gonna ask too, before we went on the air, you were actually talking about, you and Rena were talking about you visiting Rena’s kids’ school and kind of getting into the classroom to share some of the things. So that’s another way that teachers can engage your students in that. Could you talk about that experience? Like, how did that go with the kids? How do they respond to hearing about your career and such?

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 18:57
Yeah, it’s so fun to be able to talk with kids about science, my scientific research, because they always ask such fascinating questions and questions that I often wouldn’t think of. So for me, it always helps me see my science in a new way. But it’s also just interesting to see how they’re thinking about it. And there is often, I think there’s sort of a, I feel like there’s a lot of sense of, like, people read about scientists, but don’t often see them like in their everyday lives. So it’s kind of a novelty. And I feel like that’s like one thing that I hope that by going into the class, I’m helping people realize that, like, scientists are people too, and we go about our lives, and we live in society, and, very much like anyone else. But also, there is a lot of excitement about the work, and it doesn’t have to be done in a lab. But so, I’ve had the great chance to go into Sartori and talk with students there, and one thing that I do, that I find is a really useful tool, so, if you’re not able to go outside, another thing you can do is, like, bring things into the classroom. And so I usually bring some samples, some tree cores that I have collected through my research, which, you might know that if you were to cut down a tree or see a tree stump, you could see—where we live, in temperate areas, you can see there’s a ring that’s produced each year. It’s like a record of how much the tree grew that year. And ecologists like myself who study trees and tree growth often will collect, instead of cutting down a tree to measure those ring widths, you can collect a small sample by drilling into the tree and pulling out like a straw-sized sample of wood. And then you can measure the ring widths that way without harming the tree. So I brought in a bunch of those for students to look at. And you can see, you know, how much they might have grown in a cold year versus a warm year, or other sorts of, or how much trees at high elevation grow versus low elevation. And so those, just bringing in some some samples like that can be a fun way to get students thinking about, probably things that they haven’t really thought that much about before, about how trees grow and how they record their growth over time. So that’s always a fun question.

Paul Beckermann 21:15
That’s cool.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 21:15
Yeah, it is cool, and one of the, one of the questions that, I loved that a student asked me this, I feel like, something an adult has never asked me before, but was just, “How does it feel to be a scientist?” Which I thought was such a cool question, and not something that, I don’t know, I don’t get asked that sort of question very much. [Laughs] So that, I always love, I learn a lot by going in to talk with students.

Rena Clark 21:38
[Laughs] Well, now we’re curious. What was the answer?

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 21:42
Yes, I mean, I said it feels different on different days. Sometimes it feels exciting because, you know, you’re helping solve problems and answer unanswered questions, and that’s exciting. And sometimes it feels boring because you’re, you know, counting tree rings for many hours in a row. [Laughs]

Paul Beckermann 21:42
And it feels different when the birds are dive bombing you. [Laughter]

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 21:53
Yeah, and sometimes, I mean, I was thinking of, I think about this in relation to your quote at the beginning, like, I think another question that I get asked a lot more by adults, actually, than children is, because I work a lot in climate change and climate change research, is, like, Do you feel depressed all the time because you’re thinking about climate change all the time? And it’s interesting because, no. I think I probably experience a lot less hopelessness and anxiety because I think about it all the time and because I think a lot about and study, like, what can people do to help address that problem, and what can we do differently? And there’s so many answers to that. You know, the more you learn about, like, different things that we could do, or different ways that we can change, it’s, I don’t find it depressing. I just feel like we’ve got a lot to do. [Laughs] Let’s do it. So it does, that quote resonated with me for that reason. It’s just, yes, sometimes understanding a problem more helps you get over some of the fears. Not all of them, maybe, but.

Rena Clark 22:18
So, it’s interesting, as I’ve been listening to you talk, it sounds like there’s lots of question asking, problem-solving, maybe data analysis. I’m just thinking about, what are those essential skills that we think we might focus on with students to really prepare them for these jobs, like, once they leave, or in these STEM fields? What are those, some of those essential skills that we might want to focus in on?

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 23:42
Yeah, I think math and problem-solving are really important, and logic sort of skills as well as I think coding can be quite helpful in terms of developing some of those logic skills, and certainly a skill that I use a lot. But I also think there’s, you know, alongside some of those, I feel like people often call those hard skills, there’s really like the the human-centered skills and social-emotional stuff is also really essential and a critical part, especially in combination with those more, like, math and problem-solving skills. Like, developing whole people that have all of those things is really important.

Winston Benjamin 24:30
So one of the things that’s really interesting as you’ve spoke to us is about how people ask about how you feel about your work or things. So, you’ve been involved in a wide array of projects. Could you describe your favorite one? Also, going on the other end, the most challenging one that you might have learned a lot from?

Rena Clark 24:56
Maybe it’s the favorite too.

Winston Benjamin 24:58
True, exactly. How did you approach, though, taking those tasks on?

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 25:03
It’s incredibly hard for me to choose just one, but I’ll focus on one that I’m excited about right now, because I’m working on writing up the manuscript for it. So I’ve been thinking a lot about it. And this project is based on work that took place, is taking place all the way on the other side of the world, in Papua New Guinea, so just kind of north of Australia, an island nation that is incredibly diverse and an amazing country that I had the great opportunity to visit a couple years ago as part of this work. But, I’m helping them with a mangrove restoration project that they’re working on, and it’s my favorite project, because I think it’s a really great integration of science and, doing good science, but also community engagement and engaging people in the science. And so it’s, and I just think that’s a really powerful combination, and I think it’s leading to really important work for them that hopefully will last longer because the community is really engaged in it. So they’re working on restoring—the team that I’m working with in Papua New Guinea, which is also part of the Nature Conservancy and the organization I work for, is working to restore mangroves in a location outside the capital of Port Moresby. And mangrove forests are forests that grow in coastal areas, and so they really do a lot. Provide a lot of benefits to people through buffering storm surges and sea level rise that’s happening more with climate change, but they also provide really important habitat for fish and shellfish and other organisms that provide a lot of benefits for people, and they also provide wood and other benefits for the human communities that live along coastlines. We’re losing mangroves around the world through deforestation and in some cases sea level rise. And so this project is working to restore a mangrove forest in a place where it’s been lost due to deforestation. And so they’re, the the science that they’re doing is trying to understand what are the most effective techniques for planting trees, and so they’ve, but they’ve really been engaging the community in all levels of that work. So, people went out and helped collect seeds in the forest to grow the plants, and then they’ve paid people living nearby to establish mangrove nurseries and to grow the plants for them, and then help them plant them out and help with the monitoring of the planted trees once they’re out there along the beach. And so, anyway, that’s just a really exciting project to be part of. I’ve been helping them just analyze the data, so doing some of those statistics and data analysis, and then helping them write up the manuscript, which is just also really rewarding, because this is, Papua New Guinea is a colonized nation and so because of that it has a challenging history where they haven’t had access to a lot of the same tools and science and research that countries like nearby Australia have. So it feels exciting to be part of them getting to publish. It’ll be one of the first mangrove restoration papers published by a Papua New Guinean scientist, and so it’s just, it’s really exciting to be part of that work. Yeah, so that’s one of my favorites. [Laughs] We can stop there.

Winston Benjamin 28:33
No, no, no, if you want to talk about the challenging. I was gonna say that’s that sounds like more fun, like I want to go there with you.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 28:40
Oh, yeah, yeah. It’s another, well, you know, walking on the beach type of research, which you can tell I really like. [Laughs]

Winston Benjamin 28:48
I was gonna say, I can see a pattern. [Laughs]

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 28:53
Yeah. I mean, okay, so one of the most challenging projects, I think it’s also one of my favorite projects, but it is challenging, and it’s closer to home here. So this is a project called GRIT, Greening Research in Tacoma. And for this project, we’re studying the impact of trees in cities, in particular, in a neighborhood in Tacoma that has some of the fewest trees, or the lowest tree canopy cover. It’s one of the lowest tree canopy cover neighborhoods in Tacoma. And Tacoma is one of the cities in the Puget Sound area that has the lowest tree canopy cover. So this is, like, one of our cities with the least trees. And this is a problem because trees provide a lot of benefits to people, especially in the climate change context, and especially in the summer. As we approach the hot summer months in, you know, the Seattle area we don’t often think of it as being a place where, you know, heat is a problem, but it actually is. In the past couple years, you know, we’ve had some high heat events that have led to a lot of hospitalizations and even some deaths associated with heat-related illnesses, and these problems are increasing across the globe, but here in the Pacific Northwest as well. And so one way that we can help bolster the resilience to climate change and resilience to these heat events in cities is by having more trees. And so this project is just focused on quantifying some of the effects of trees and understanding how people are experiencing those benefits. So we also have, like, a social science component; we’re interviewing people to see how they’re experiencing these new trees that are going in in their neighborhood. So it’s a complex project, and it’s challenging, partly because I think it’s challenging to . . . it’s a challenging problem of getting more trees in the ground where they can benefit people. And so I don’t, I think it’s challenging because we struggle with, how do we solve this problem? There’s so many challenges to overcome. And so, it’s like, a lack of funding and a lack of space and so much pavement. And then there’s lots of inequities associated with all of those issues, even going back to historic redlining, but also ongoing challenges of just high housing costs, and we do need more housing, so how can we both get more trees and get more houses, and more houses that are affordable to people, at the same time? So it’s, yeah. These are the kinds of challenging questions. And so, I think one of the challenges is just coming up with solutions to that problem of increasing trees that people can reap the benefits that they can provide, but also increasing housing. Stay tuned. We’re working on a solution.

Winston Benjamin 31:54
Stay tuned. So as our listeners are hearing, any of you who live in an urban area, if you have a student who might like to go outside and want to be a part of the push to help get their area cooler by figuring out how to balance out trees and homes, you know, engaging in the STEM development in your classes. But it’s time to ask the question . . .

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 32:17
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit, what is in the toolkit, what’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Winston Benjamin 32:30
What’s in your toolkit? Paul, Rena, what are you taking away from this, what do you want to add in your toolkit from this conversation?

Rena Clark 32:30
Well, I think what Ailene talked about at the beginning is just the opportunity for internships. There’s, you know, look in your community, there’s probably a thousand different emails y’all might get in your inbox, there’s lots of opportunities for students to have internships, and also educators. I know I’ve had a couple friends go and dig dinosaur bones in Montana in the summer, and they talk about just how great that experience was. But as you know, an internship is a great opportunity for a student to experience what it’s really like in career, and it might really put them in that path, or at least push them into a different career path. Maybe it’s they just develop some understanding of what they need to do.

Paul Beckermann 33:19
I am, like, so jealous now, Rena, because that was my dream job when I was a kid. I wanted to be an archeologist.

Rena Clark 33:28
They have an awesome program. Hey, I’ll send you the info. You could still go do it.

Paul Beckermann 33:32
I could! Yeah, that’s true. It could be another career, right? Why not? It’s never too late.

Rena Clark 33:36
It’s just a little summer internship. [Laughs]

Paul Beckermann 33:38
Sure, sure. My tool is not specific to STEM, but it certainly includes STEM. And that’s the Occupational Outlook Handbook from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. And you can find it at www.bls.gov/ooh for Occupational Outlook Handbook. But it’s really great because you can search for jobs, you can browse for careers. You know, as we kind of talked about in this episode and a couple others, students don’t always know what’s available out there. So it can be a place to kind of browse opportunities. You can even filter by pay range, and educational degree, and growth rate, and available training programs, and all kinds of things like that. There’s even a teachers’ guide in there, if teachers want to leverage that with their students. So I think it’s a great resource just to expand the opportunities for kids anyway.

Winston Benjamin 34:32
I love that because that connects to mine, which is like such a career, but the younger kids don’t even know what they want to do or even have an idea. So, (A) bringing in a scientist, where they’re like, oh my God, a scientist, a real human being. Because for me, growing up, a scientist was Einstein, and that was it. I did not have a person that I could actually say I know. So having that part, and also, as Ailene mentioned, taking them outside, maybe they can go to a place and learn and see an experiment happening, or seeing a place within their community that there is science going on that could help them recognize that they are part of the STEM ideology as well. So, Ailene, I’m gonna drop it to you. Like, what’s in your toolkit? Is there anything you’re like, hey, try this, check this out, an idea, a saying, anything that you want to drop in our . . .?

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 35:23
Yeah, there’s some, there’s some great resources of scientists who are, you know, looking to engage people in their work and could use community scientists to help with them. And so, like, I think that those are some great opportunities for students to, or classes to collect some data and see it feed into a bigger project, and that could be a cool thing for teachers to engage their students in at some point.

Paul Beckermann 35:51
All right, it’s time for . . .

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 35:53
It’s time for that one thing.

Paul Beckermann 36:05
All right, time to share our final takeaways today. What’s one thing that’s kind of on your mind, or that sums up, or maybe a final statement about our conversation today? Rena, you can go first.

Rena Clark 36:17
I just love the idea of looking at it in a different way. So even if you have a small schoolyard. I just, I know I’ve worked with some kids with different projects, like they look at different phenomena, but even our youngest learners, where they’re looking at puddles, and it used to just be a puddle, and instead they’re looking at it in a very different way. And, why are there puddles? And, how might we make sure there aren’t puddles on our playground? So, you can go out and find so many things just right in the schoolyard. I mean, I have a burning question, why there are so many ants in my greenhouse right now and wasps, and I would really love to solve that problem, so. [Ailene laughs]

Paul Beckermann 36:57
Phenomena-based science, right there.

Rena Clark 36:59
I don’t understand. They really like it, and they scare me. Well, not the ants so much, but I do not like wasps.

Paul Beckermann 37:07
Well, if they’re fire ants, they’re no good. They’ll bite you.

Rena Clark 37:12
Yeah, so, just look at it in a different way.

Paul Beckermann 37:16
Winston, how are you? What are you taking away today?

Winston Benjamin 37:18
So, I’m taking it away from the idea of connecting family cultures to career. Ailene talked about how she enjoyed going out, her family were into trees and the outdoors, and having an opportunity to connect her love and her hobbies to her career makes it a lot easier to feel joy in the career, even when you’re not . . .

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 37:42
[Laughs] I don’t spend every day at the beach to be clear. [Laughter] To be clear, that’s not how I spend most of my days. I know, I should, I should.

Paul Beckermann 37:59
Well, you can put a beach screensaver on your computer, then you’ll be at the beach.

Winston Benjamin 38:04
But again, like, you start—your love for this led to your career. So again, we don’t have to take kids away from their loves. We can figure out how to connect their loves to their career. So that’s what I’m taking away.

Paul Beckermann 38:18
I think it’s just exposing kids to opportunities and ideas. You know, you talked about the internship that you had, Ailene, and how that just opened up this whole new world for you. I think by you going into schools and sharing your story with students, we’re opening doors for people. If we do little activities in our classrooms, and connect them to careers, and just tell kids, you know, well, what if, or this is a possibility, somebody is going to connect with that, because we’ve got a wide variety of kids in our classrooms, and they’re all looking for something a little different. So let’s expose them to these options. Ailene, what would you like to leave our listeners with today? Do you have a final thought?

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 39:01
Oh, I mean, it’s been so great talking with you and just hearing your questions, and how thoughtful you’re being about, you know, connecting kids with science and careers is really an inspiration to me, and so I hope more scientists can take sort of that approach, too, and think about not just what they can do for solving scientific problems, but how could, might they be able to bring that to to kids as well and share it with others.

Rena Clark 39:33
No, I appreciate that. I love the idea of, you know, scientists sharing in their community so more kids can see themselves in the sciences.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 39:42
Yeah, me too.

Rena Clark 39:44
I appreciate that so much, and thank you so much for being here. We enjoyed having you.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 39:49
Thank you.

Rena Clark 39:51
And so we look forward to hearing maybe more about how these projects end or continue, in another way of thinking about it. So thanks so much, Dr. Ettinger.

Dr. Ailene Ettinger 39:59
Thank you. Thank you for all you do.

Rena Clark 40:02
Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 40:05
We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org, where you can discover resources to support student agency, equity, and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 40:20
We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 40:24
And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 40:28
Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 40:29
You make a difference.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai