Science is about stories.
How are discoveries made? What leads up to the asking of the questions that lead scientists to even go out and try to find answers? What random things happen that lead to the right person being in the right place at the right time?
This week I’ve been really interested in hearing the stories that everyone brings. In the midst of doing our work, whether as scientists or teachers, we experience events - interesting, strange, surprising, humorous, tragic – that are part of our story of who we are and what drives us to do what we do. What is often most fun about getting to know new people is hearing their stories. What series of events has brought them here, to this moment, to this place in time and space?
One of the reasons I have become so interested in geology is the idea that the surface of the earth holds amazing stories of the past. Pick up a rock – this rock has ended up, by an amazing coincidence of events, to this moment, to this place in time and space. What remarkable stories are hidden in that rock and how can we crack open that story?
Like any rock, this enormous glacial erratic called 'big house rock' in Weymouth, MA, has a fascinating story to tell.
Where I live, in New England, each rock holds two dramatic stories - a very ancient story of geologic change, and a much more recent and dramatic story of the ice sheets carving and scouring the surface. Part of what I enjoy about teaching New England geology is bringing those two stories alive and helping to connect them.
So what are the stories I hope to learn more about this summer?
I hope to learn more about the story of how glaciers form, grow, shrink, change. I hope that this new knowledge will help deepen my understanding of the glacial history in my backyard.
I’m also eager to learn about the geologic story of the island of Svalbard and how the glaciers that cover it have altered its surface.
View from Ny Alesund across the fjord.
And now, there is the ever-emerging story of our changing climate. What do the sediments, left behind by melting glaciers, tell us about how our climate has changed?
I’m also eager to learn the personal stories of the two scientists I’ll be working with, Julie Brigham-Grette and Ross Powell. What has led them to this time and place? And I’m sure the students who will be on this adventure will each bring their own stories to tell.
Science is about stories, and I’m looking forward to hearing many of these stories. And coming back with a few of my own!