The Swiss-Army person (2/6/2019)

I often explain in my classes that biologists would make the great economists. Or, maybe better that economy and biology are very closely related fields. On the first hand, you may think that I am crazy, but I'll try to make an argument for it today. 

I do not strictly believe that we all belong in our silos, but that our professions and specializations can benefit a lot from cross fertilization and interaction. In my sermon, I argued that biology, or my observations of nature, reveal order, mathematics and rhythm. Nature or biology really has so much more to offer or to teach us.

Nature offers something to the artists; just think of the greats like the photographer Ansel Adams, writers like Thoreau, painters likes Monet, and I am just scratching the surface. It offers sanity to the forest bathers, the meditators, those folks who retreat to nature. They all offer nature something in return. Without the interaction there would be no preservation of the natural world. 

About once a month do I see that picture on Facebook that offers you $3,000,000 or some crazy price to go live somewhere in nature without a phone and internet for 3 months or some period. I wish it was a true offer, I would jump at it, and disappear for 3 months, a half year.

But back to what I want to write about today. In my classes I talk about parsimony and how parsimonious nature is. Let’s look at the word parsimonious. It has become one of my favorite words and it means: “the quality of being careful in spending.” You may also call it stingy, miserly, cheap, frugal, tight, or penny-pinching. You get the idea. Not that I live that way, but nature does not waste a thing (unlike most of us humans). If you don’t live as efficiently in nature as possible something or somebody will outsmart you, out-compete you, hunt you down and have you for dinner. It is a dog-eat-dog world out there and if you don’t do it all as efficient as possible you are literally toast!

Nature is very supply and demand oriented as part of this parsimony. If you can do the same thing as your neighbor and use less of the resources available to you, you can literally do more with what is available and out-compete those guys. It is survival of the fittest, of the most efficient, or the strongest. This is the most classic Darwinian concept, but also classic economic model you can find: Supply and Demand.

Then there was the German scientist/chemist Justus von Liebig (1803-1873). Von Liebig also known as the father of the chemical fertilizer developed the “Law of the Minimum.” He figured out that plants (and in his case crops) always had one limiting factor. Once you alleviate that limiting factor, say through fertilization, something else will become limiting (another element or chemical in the soil or something else like water or light). By the way, von Liebig also invented the bouillon block that we use in soup. He was supposed to be a great chemist, philosopher and teacher.

It was around that time that biology really took off, we had Darwin who really figured out this thing called evolution; then we had Mendel who figured out genetics. It must have been an exciting time to live and learn. But both Darwin and Mendel illustrated that there are other forces in play than just biology, or maybe that biology involves economics, mathematics and statistics, just to name a few. Von Liebig had showed it involved chemistry. 

I always tell folks that I probably came the closest to a religious experience when I studied cell biology and learned what all goes on at the cellular level, or maybe what can go wrong on a cellular level. To think we have all these people and other living organisms running around on this earth, was a religious experience to me. It was absolutely amazing and kind of scary. But then I learned we have suicide organelles (or capsules) in our cells and if there is anything wrong, the cells can commit suicide (an interesting concept in itself). This works most of the time, but if not, we grow older and those cells may mutate and could develop cancer. It is all amazingly complicated and it all works; most of the time. But no, I never became overly religious, but I did gain a heck of a lot of respect and love for biology and I retained my spirituality.

Your's truly sitting behind his desk at home, trying to do some work.  It's a little cramped and I desperately need to clean it up ... maybe this weekend. (photo courtesy of my wife)

As you can see, biology can involve a lot of disciplines, ranging from spirituality to mathematics, to economics to actually life science. I do think multidisciplinary thinking is extremely important. We lose sight of the big picture by being overly specialized. While writing this post I was going through my old posts knowing that I wrote about using past experiences in development of my classes. It was amazing when I reread some of my posts. There are a lot of reoccurring themes here, and I have always wondered if I label too much. However, this shows my multidisciplinary interests, my scattered brain and my love for knowledge (or the unknown). For example, I am currently studying about the construction of embankments and how to compact soil. This is something fairly new to me, I have learned a little bit about it when thinking about the rooting of plants, but never really about building dams. It is fun, and it will be something new to think about and to teach. Life is never boring this way, and all I can say is: go out there yourself, put yourself out there and don’t be afraid to learn something new, something you had absolutely no idea about; become a multidisciplinary persons, we need more of them.  It does not have to be biology, that is just me, just do not stop learning and experiencing.

On trainers and teaching, Part V on new courses and old experiences (9/15/2015)

These past two months I have been working on the development of two new courses that I am supposed to be rolling out this fall.  They are both on subjects that I am very familiar with,  so it should be a breeze,  shouldn't it?  Well, not so fast.  I think familiarity makes it often more difficult to explain a subject to a novice in such a way not to blow him or her out of the water.  Making things understandable and a learning experience without being condescending or dumbing it down too much as in being offensive is a challenge.  Up to now I have been relatively successful with it, but I don't want to fail now.

The courses I am working on is a course on wetlands and a course on soils.  Both are geared towards practitioners in erosion and sediment control and stormwater management.  These are people who need to know the basics but definitively do not need to become experts.  In a way they need to be able to interpret reports that they get to review or understand that they need a report when they did not get one.  Having worked intensively as a wetland scientist since 1994 and been involved in soils all the way back since the early 1970s, it is fun developing classes that interesting and applicable.  Thanks goodness, I have a friend, a fellow teacher and a soil scientist (all wrapped up in one person) who is partnering me on the soils class.  David will also be helping me teach it; we make a great team when we are on the road.

For my wetland course I am teaching my students how to recognize a wetland in the field.  So I went out back, behind my home to take pictures, braving ticks, mosquitoes and chiggers.  These trees show clear signs of flooding.  So nice to be out in the field tromping in the woods.  These trees show clear signs of seasonal flooding, the dark wood is how far up (3-4 ft.) the water gets in the winter.

In my class design and delivery I rely on my life experience, dating all the way back to my college years in the mid 1970s.  Yes, I have that advantage, I have all this experience.  However, I feel that in the past six years I have somewhat stagnated in my professional field.  I can't believe that I've been away from field work and into the class room (and class design room) for that long, having to rely on my past experience and on stories that I now hear from colleagues.

This realization that I have such a multifarious experience came rushing back to me these past few weeks or so since I received a surprise email from an old high school friend of mine who lives in a foreign country.  It was fun to hear from her, and in writing back made me relive a lot of my life back then, but also between the time that we parted our ways and now.  I wrote her a very brief email where I described what happened to my wife and I during the passed 38 years and our world travels.  Just thinking about that email makes my head spin, which is why we typically don't mention it to people, because when we do, we mostly get blank stares.  But yes, I (we, my wife and I) need to write (a book?) about our experiences in particular about the time we lived in Uganda in the late 1970s under Idi Amin.

Idi Amin

But come to think of it, all these 38 years worth of experiences are what I bring to class development and teaching, and I hope many teachers do the same.  When I teach, I tend to tell stories, anecdotes, and give examples of what I have seen (no I don't teach about Idi).  It is relatively easy, having worked for almost 40 years.  However, I sparingly use my international experience in my classes.  When I teach the stormwater classes I will mention my experience in Nepal where deforestation resulted in the disappearance of streams, of firewood and fodder for livestock, or worst, landslides.  I sometimes see students look at each other and smile (kind of in disbelieve that I also worked in that field) when I start a story with: "When I worked in the mining industry in New Mexico ..."  But I really did work in the mining industry.  I hope that these stories makes the classroom experience more fun for my students, and of course more interesting and a better learning experience.    For myself, I do think it is so invaluable to be able to bring real life work experience with me in the class room and I even  gladly borrow examples from other people's experience to illustrate points (I will give credit and will not claim them as my own).

I kind of miss being out there in the field and making new experiences.  I am starting to notice that I am getting rusty.  Thanks goodness I still learn and gain other experiences and expertise by fixing my sail boat, sailing and traveling through Virginia; I will never stop learning.  Hopefully I can apply my boat stories to my teaching one of these days.  If you are a teacher I hope you too reach in that big bag of experience you are carrying on your back.

On a work trek with my wife (and one of our two dogs) in the mountains of Nepal in 1982 or 83.  I sometimes had to walk 7 days for a an one hour meeting and walk back seven days.  Thanks goodness it was through the project area and I always had my eyes and ears open to do project (extension) type work and talk natural resources conservation.  This is probably close to the hill (looking at it) that dammed the Kali Gandaki valley by a landslide after this year's earthquake.