Back-to-school is a strange concept for me at this stage in my education. I did the math this year--mostly because my mom thought it was funny--and this is my 22nd First Day of School, if you don’t count preschool. It used to be a big point of celebration. I’d go to bed early after having laid out my favorite new outfit, and I’d be so excited I couldn’t lie still. For probably the only time of that academic year, I’d wake up early. But it doesn’t feel like that anymore. The excitement doesn’t buzz around in my head, and I don’t do any more outfit planning than I do on any other day of the year. If anything, the First Day of School has morphed into a transition point from “Outdoor Work” to “Indoor Work”. As an ecologist, I spend most of my summer outside, awake at unpleasantly early hours of the morning to catch the sweet spot where you can simultaneously minimize the exposure to the dawn-and-dusk mosquitoes and the heat of midday. It’s a pretty typical summer plan.
But, while many of my colleagues embark on journeys to exotic field stations or remote back-country campsites, I spend evenings at home with my family, sleep in my own bed, and don’t have to pee in the woods. Not that I wouldn’t love to (just once) spend 10 weeks scuba diving off O'ahu or trekking in the Yukon, but urban ecology has the benefit of integrating nicely with a summer schedule of weekend hammocking, evening barbecues, and pool parties. Being an urban ecologist also means that just about everything I do and experience is part of my study system. I recently heard a speaker talk about how awesome it is that “I can tie up my boots, walk out my backdoor, and be in the field”. And it’s true; ecological processes surround us, wherever we are. Whether it’s the predator-prey interactions between resident orb-weavers in your garden and the mosquitos, or the defense mechanism of a skunk spraying your dog in the face, species interactions exist everywhere. Part of what I’m most fascinated by is how humans are one of those interacting species. Every one of us makes choices that influence other species around us, and we reap the benefits or pay the consequences of the biological community in the areas where we live, work, and recreate. In short, we are the ultimate ecosystem engineers. Actions like cultivating a garden or setting out a bird feeder directly change environments in our yards, either by carefully managing a plant community or by providing different food sources for resident wildlife. These types of behavior are pretty easy to identify, even if the effects are complex. People typically pursue these hobbies because they like nature. But what about other behaviors we engage in? What happens when we do things like mow our lawns or follow an unintentional footpath through a planted area? What happens when the space we’re interacting with is not our own yard, but rather belongs to someone else? Or what if we don’t know who a space belongs to? Space and ownership are familiar and fairly unambiguous concepts to urbanites. We always seem to want to own more space, or at least know who owns what space. And in many parts of the city, it’s pretty clear which space is being used by whom and for what purpose. But there are areas of the city where these two concepts don’t jive. These areas are home to a disproportionately high number of vacant lots, which are arguably the largest urban land resource, especially in the cities of the American Rustbelt. Where I work, on the south and west sides of Chicago, there are some city blocks where upwards of 70% of the land area is vacant! This means that there are no structures on these spaces, and does not include vacant or condemned buildings. This is a huge area. Vacant land owned by the city of Chicago make up over 780 hectares of area. This is approximately one-third the size of the entire Forest Preserve District of Cook County! And, this is probably only approximately half of the vacant land. Other lots are owned by banks or private citizens, and these numbers are much more difficult to estimate. Typically, cities have between 12-15% vacant land in total, but looking at this statistic on a city-wide basis does not do justice to the environmental and social differences of the neighborhood-based system in Chicago. While some neighborhoods have hundreds of vacant lots, others have none. Numbers of vacant lots in a given area tracks very closely with income, with more vacancy in low-income areas, which are also disproportionately home to communities of color. How these spaces are handled is as much a social justice concern as it is an ecological concern. The potential exists for using vacant lots to improve environmental quality, and there are several ways to approach that. For example, focusing on population ecology and successional patterns can support a mission to get rid of noxious plants like ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) which produces allergenic pollen and contributes to asthma and rhinitis. Current management tries to suppress ragweed by mowing occasionally, but populations persist and can continue to expand under these practices. Other ecological improvements to vacant land could feasibly come from a restoration ecology perspective. Installing trees or herbaceous plants to improve soil quality, habitat provisioning, and CO2 uptake, and could also potentially help mitigate urban heat island effects. There are also social considerations to take. Beautifying a landscape with trees or flowers or getting rid of trash could boost morale and encourage connections with nature. Developing a place that is safe for kids and adults to socialize and play can build community and encourage organization and activism. Vacant lots can successfully be converted to community gardens, which provide food benefits, as well as a social shared space. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The questions at the intersection of ecology and human experience/well-being fascinate and inspire me to keep coming back to school, year after year. When I look back on the course of my 22-year education, sometimes it seems like it took me a long time to find passion and inspiration. I mean, I didn’t even take a science class my senior year of high school, but things change. And, when I break down those 22 First Days of School, 13 of them were primary education and the next 4 were undergraduate glory days. In that light, 5 years of graduate First Days of School seem more like like the beginning of a bigger First than discrete points marking the passage of time. As an early career scientist, I’ve got decades ahead of me to devote to using science to make the city a better and more sustainable place to live. And so the transition from Outside Work to Inside Work represents another opportunity to bring the knowledge from the field into the lab and the classroom. It’s tantamount to making the information I’ve gained from the world known to others, either through teaching, publication, or presentation. And while my First Day of School outfit offers little-to-no concrete improvement to the world, the opportunity to share information, passion, and skills with a new class of undergraduates or a conference audience is part of why I went into the sciences in the first place. And with that, Indoor Work is calling my name, complete with a warm beverage, a mid-morning snack, and a comfortable chair, it promises to be a fulfilling year.
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Dr. Elsa AndersonCome play in my yard! Archives
January 2024
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