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Regina Barber DeGraaff [narrating]: Welcome to Spark Science. I’m Regina Barbara DeGraaff, an astrophysicist. And for most of these episodes, I’m your host. But not today. Today you get the opportunity to listen to WWU science students from a course I teach, where students produce press releases, letters to Congress, popular science articles, and… podcasts. This episode is the third this season featuring student final projects. I’m always proud and impressed by what they create. We hope you enjoy these two stories featuring backyard botany and bird songs.

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Liz: Hello, thanks for joining us here today. I’m Liz with Spark Science. Have you ever wondered how much gardens can actually benefit a child? Common Threads is a nonprofit organization established in Bellingham, Washington that promotes a seed-to table-approach to food production, nutrition, and environmental stewards. The mission of Common Threads is to connect kids to healthy food in the garden, in the kitchen, and at the table. They want kids to grow up making food choices that are good for their bodies, their communities, and their environment.

Here with us today is Laura Plaut, founder and executive director of Common Threads. Laura chaired the education program at Prescott College, instructed wilderness courses for Outward Bound, served as education and service learning coordinator for an inner-city conservation corps, and led international service learning programs in China, Thailand, and Costa Rica. Laura has a master’s degree in nonprofit administration from the University of San Francisco, and a bachelor’s degree in Chinese language and culture from Amherst College. In her free time, Laura loves to hike, paddle, dance, enjoys music, theater, and you guessed it, gardening.

So Laura, could you explain where the inspiration for starting the company came from?

Laura Plaut: Sure. So Common Threads was really born at the intersection of a couple different things that happened in my life. One of them was kind of waking up to wondering why nobody had ever really taught me about food, or how to grow food, or how to cook food growing up. Then the other thing that happened is walking through the world with my son was as if my knees had eyeballs. And I was seeing all of the marketing messages that were geared towards toddlers. All at the knee level of the adult shopper, right? But all of the eye level of the kid. So I had to figure out what was the peaceful resistance way to teach my son the values that were most important to me.

So my conclusion was kids aren’t going to eat healthy food because somebody tells them they should or because it’s good for them or because they have to. Kids are going to eat healthy

food because it feels good and it’s fun. How do we find ways to make the right choice the joyful and easy choice for kids? So that was really where Common Threads started.

Liz: I’d have to agree. When learning is fun, kids seem to get more involved. How far does your company reach within the communities?

Laura: So, one of the things that seemed really obvious to me early on in Common Threads was, if we want to reach all kids, and particularly in any kind of kind of equitable fashion, schools are a great place to do that. So we currently partner with five different school districts in Whatcom County. You know, my goal would be that every public school in Whatcom County that wanted a school garden and food education program had one with our support if that was helpful to them. And then we also have some partners. We have some Americorps members placed in Coupeville and at Oxbow Farm and Conservation Site. We are two years into a statewide partnership.

Liz: Wow [laughs]. I didn’t know your company was working with partners throughout the state. That is really cool that you’re working with so many local schools as well here within Whatcom County. What type of programs does Common Threads offer?

Laura: We offer gardening and cooking at schools. Kids can expect to have some sort of garden-based learning opportunity eight times a year, basically every other week in the spring and the fall, a cooking lesson once a month in the winter. Then we also do after school programs. And in a normal year, we would be doing summer camp programs.

In low-income apartments and community centers are focused is on a program that we call Kids Cook. And it’s a hands-on kid-prepared reimbursable meal. And what that means is it meets all of the USDA standards of a complete nutritious meal. You know, kids will happily eat seconds and thirds of a salad if it’s a salad that they made. The more kids are involved in growing and preparing food, the more likely they are to eat it.

Liz: That’s interesting how you have noticed that kids are more likely to eat food that they show interest in and prepare. What kind of real-world applications are children likely to take away from these programs?

Laura: We’re interested in–the transferable skill is that when you grow up loving the taste of healthy food, those are likely the foods that you will go back to throughout your life. I mean there’s been some fascinating studies done that show that, you know, the foods that we learn to identify as comfort food when we’re little; even if we have access to any food as we grow up, we’re probably going to revert to those comfort foods in times of stress.

You know, there really is this window of opportunity to get kids excited about healthy food and build some lifelong habits. If we’re teaching kids early on to eat healthy food, then we’re stopping diabetes and obesity before they happen in. Kids are going home and asking their parents, you know, “Will you please buy me kale?” Which are the most shocking words for

parents to hear. And they’re saying, “I can cook this.” That sense of self-confidence and excitement around food; hopefully that’s the message that a lot of kids and a lot of families are getting.

Liz: That’s fantastic that kids are showing confidence and excitement towards healthy food. Do you think that children gain a better understanding of STEM-related studies working in the garden?

Laura: I think it does. You know, we would never try to teach computer science without computers. And yet we routinely try to teach Earth and life science without Earth and life. You know, photosynthesis, which as an abstract concept is a bit of a mindbender, when you get to see it or you can run an experiment to see what happens if you put vaseline under the leaf so it can’t respirate enough, then it’s then it becomes really tangible.

Same thing with math. Area and perimeter are really valuable concepts, but so often we teach them completely decontextualized. So if you want to work on area, perimeter and volume, figure out how much soil you need to fill a garden bed. So often we’re taught in ways that don’t make sense, or where we’re kind of love saying, “Well yeah, but when am I ever going to use this?” Or “What does this have to do with me?” And I think being in authentic learning environments is a perfect answer to that question.

Liz: That’s a good point that you bring up about learning a subject with some context behind it. It would definitely give you a better understanding for the subject. So to kind of switch topics, a lot of businesses have had to alter their business in the face of COVID. What are some of the things your company is able to do during this time?

Laura: I think “pivot” is going to be the word of 2020. I sort of think of the COVID pivot as a dance step that none of us ever wanted to learn how to do. You know, the the reality that this is a disease that’s disproportionately impacting people living in poverty and people of color and people who have, you know, are already vulnerable for other reasons. It kind of shines a light on where we need to be giving some more love and care to our societal systems. With the disruptions in our food distribution systems and food production systems, I think it’s really going to bring home for us in a new way the importance of supporting local agriculture and local food systems and local emergency response.

When COVID hit, the first thing we did was started volunteering with the Bellingham Public Schools’ emergency food distribution. And fortunately, we were building on a long and positive existing relationship. So, you know, the first day they were ready to serve food, we were there ready to help distribute it. COVID hit right around planting season, so it seemed really obvious that now more than ever we should be getting seeds in the ground. Because we’re going to have hungry people or people without the financial resources to buy food.

I feel like Common Threads has reinvented ourselves multiple times since COVID hit. I mean, there was the emergency food distribution phase. There was the, “How do we get access to

school gardens?” phase Now, we’re harvesting and distributing the food that we’ve grown in school gardens, and passing it out. You know, not only are we passing out vegetables, but we’re passing them out to kids who have learned to love them. The likelihood that they’re going to get eaten is higher.

We’re also–we’re doing Zoom cooking classes. Zoom classes are great for people who have internet and for people who have enough devices in their house so that a kid can monopolize a device for an hour-long class. But we’re also thinking a lot about–through an equity lens. How do we serve the families that don’t have those resources? So we’ve been working with the Northwest Educational Service District’s Migrant Farm Worker Program and also with the East Whatcom Regional Resource Center to look at how we can distribute education to kids that don’t assume internet access and don’t assume any particular level of English language proficiency.

We’re also getting ready to both sell and giveaway windowsill microgreen kits–what we’re calling To-Grow Boxes. I’m calling this the Just Add Water Project. How do we engage kids and families in some activity? I mean, it’s so magical to watch a plant start growing. And that feeds the soul. You know, our job is to think about how do we bring all everybody to be together.

Liz: It’s really great to hear that the connection within the community has stayed strong throughout these difficult times. So many people are wanting to offer help or donate. What’s the best way for people to get in contact with Common Threads?

Laura: Probably the best way is for people, honestly, just to go to our website and fill out the volunteer form. That’s always the best way. But right now our needs keep changing, and so people know what they want to do and the form is pretty clear about where would you like to volunteer and what’s your time availability, and that sort of thing. So we welcome volunteers. We welcome donations. We welcome partnership ideas. I mean, I’m a big believer that it takes a village to make anything good happen. So we’re always happy to make new friends.

Liz: Making new friends is nice. Well, if you’re looking to help out the local community with healthy food, Common Threads is a great resource to check out. For cooking classes to garden lessons, Common Threads is here to help the community. Thanks so much for joining us here today, Laura.

Laura: Well thanks, Liz!

Liz: Hope you enjoyed the podcast and learned that giving children the opportunity to learn in a garden setting can be very beneficial. Do you plan to show your support to the garden communities?

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Regina Barber DeGraaff [narrating]: We just heard about the importance of gardens in our community and how to share gardening skills with the next generation. Now we pivot from land to air and sea. The next segment showcases the work from a WWU professor who studies bird and whale songs.

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Liz Chiang: Hi, I’m Liz Chiang. I’m a correspondent for Spark Science. Today I’m speaking with John Bower, and ornithologist and professor at Western Washington University’s Fairhaven College. We’ll talk about his research and his path to where he is in his career. I hope this interview gives you a new appreciation for birds and helps to give some insight into the process of science. To start out, I asked him about the research he did for his PhD.

Dr. John Bower: So my graduate studies were in evolutionary contexts for animal behavior. I studied the singing that birds do during times of conflict. I spent three springs, from March til June, in an old farm field every morning from about 4 a.m. to 11 a.m. watching a neighborhood of song sparrows, who each had their own territories.

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And I watched as they worked out their territory boundaries and had conflicts over who owned what? And at the same time, I had eight microphones running in the field so that I could record the singing that they did.

Liz: That sounds really interesting. Were you bring all the equipment by yourself? Or did you have anyone to help carry it out?

Dr. Bower: Being a poor starving grad student, I had $10,000 worth of recording equipment in the trunk of my 1976 Buick Regal [laughs] . It always rode around with me. I figured no one would ever want to steal from my car because it was such an old beat-up car anyway. I did have some help from a student helper, but for the most part I just went out and did my own thing.

Liz Chiang: So I know you have been birding for a while. Is that what got you interested in research?

Dr. Bower: I had a terrible freshman year at college. And after that year, I think the college and I both decided it’d be better if I wasn’t there. Which was dispiriting to me, because I always saw myself as being successful in college. When I went home, a friend of mine came home and had taken an ornithology class. And on a very cold December day, he took me out bird watching.

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I thought it was a weird thing to go do, but by the end of the day, I was kind of hooked. I loved the beauty of the birds. I loved being outdoors. And there was, there’s a sport to it. What are you going to see today when you go out? Are you going to see a rare bird? Or are you going to see a huge flock of cedar waxwings? What’s going to happen? So I was kind of hooked. So I just started doing a lot of birdwatching. I didn’t really have commitments, so I would hitchhike around the country and birdwatch different places.

And as I did that, over time I started to see different behaviors. And I got interested in why they are doing what they do. They do a lot of weird things. And so that’s what led me eventually to the academic study of ornithology, where you’ basically are asking these types of questions.

Liz Chiang: Wow, that’s great that you were able to pursue a career in something you enjoyed so much. So, going back to your research on communication between birds, have the findings been applied to any other fields?

Dr. Bower: Well that research, that’s more of the basic research trying to just understand how animals communicate with each other. Basic research has unexpected benefits. I’m not going to claim that that research has necessarily made the world a better place by [laughing] carrying a virus or something like that.

I do think that as we understand how other species communicate, it does give us a lens to sometimes understand human communication more. I’m a very strong believer that humans are a natural species. And while we are a species for which culture is very, very important, in ways it is for no other species in the world. Still, we’re a biological species. And I think when we look at other species, we learn about ourselves.

And let me just throw out another thing. So as an ornithologist, they’re a pathway to understanding how nature works. And I think any work that we do in that way teaches us about nature, which all then teaches us a lot of things about how to preserve the environment for the birds, but also for all the other species. And of course humans need a natural environment in order to do well ourselves [laughs]. So, you know, it all kind of wrapped up in one thing, ultimately.

Liz Chiang: So after you got your PhD, what kind of research were you doing then?

Dr. Bower: So I went straight from my PhD to Fairhaven College and Western. I assumed I would do more bird song research. But there were a few problems. One problem is dawn comes so early here, [laughing] you’d have to get up at like 2:00 in the morning! And I wanted to do research that students could do with me, and there weren’t a lot of students who wanted to get up at 2:00 in the morning. I didn’t want to either [laughs]!

Anyway, I quickly realized that the birds on the saltwater are really the best bird stuff going on around here. There’s about 45 species of birds that come here for the winter. It’s just amazing out there. Loons, grebes, cormorants, sea ducks, alcids, and so many cool birds out on the saltwater. And I also realized that there was preliminary data showing that a lot of their populations were in trouble. So, I switched my focus to studying marine bird abundance in Northwest Washington. So, that’s what I’ve done for most of my time at Western most of my 20 years.

Liz Chiang: So could you tell me how you were collecting data on the marine birds?

Dr. Bower: The most ambitious project that I did (and I did this in collaboration with many Western students), was a 4-year study where we went out and counted birds from about 120 different spots along the coast. That was in the 2000s. We basically were repeating a study that was done in the 1970s so we could look at how the abundance of different species had changed over about a 30-year period. And so basically we just went out and did a lot of bird counting. We also rode the ferries. Because the study in the ’70s, they rode the fairies and counted birds. So that was really fun. Cold though, very cold. [both laugh]

And if you’ve never been standing in the front of a ferry for 2 hours straight when it’s 38 degrees and half-snow, half-rain, you don’t know what cold is. [Liz laughs]

We did a lot of bird counting. Basically, you know, you go out, take your time, and your use a telescope and binoculars and you count every single birds that you can see. It’s really tough work, but really fun work.

Liz Chiang: That sounds like a really fun study to do. I’m sure the students had a fun time getting involved with that.

Dr. Bower: Yeah they did. I mean, I had over 200 students play some role. There were about 15 who were my leaders. I have to say, some students would get involved for a quarter and they’d say, “Yeah, I don’t think so.” And that was fine. It really was a very special time in my career at Western. And those students, the ones who were really deeply involved, are still good friends of mine.

Liz Chiang: I know that you’ve also studied whale song. How did you get from birds to whales?

Dr. Bower: When I was an undergraduate, I was a birdwatcher. I was not an ornithologist. I just loved watching birds and I spent a lot of time doing it when I should have been studying. After I graduated, I was very, very lucky to get a job in a whale research lab. It was a lab that studied whale vocalisations. I spent six years working on that lab. I wasn’t ready to go to grad school yet. And why would I? I mean, I got to go to Alaska twice and spend several

months camping on the ice over the Arctic Ocean while recording the sounds of migrating whales. And then I got to go out on boats and study humpback whales in the Atlantic.

But after a while, I decided I really want to work for myself. As much as I loved my boss–and I really did, he’s one of my best friends–I just had this feeling that I wanted to do it and not be told what to do so much, maybe. And so that motivated me. The other thing that motivated me was part of my job was supervising undergraduate interns. And I just enjoyed it so much. I literally had the light bulb go off when I was working with a couple of students. We were having a lot of fun, laughing, getting work done. And I thought, “I could be a professor!” At that point I was like 28 years old. I had never thought–it just had never crossed my mind.

So all of that stuff kind of happened. And what made sense to me was to go back and use some of the advanced acoustic techniques that we were working on for studying whales and apply them to questions with birds. And so I kind of had a plan, and it all worked out quite nicely.

Liz Chiang: Could you tell me about the research that you do now?

Dr. Bower: Quite frankly, the big census that we did in the 2000s, I feel like it almost killed me. It was so much work. I loved it. But I had a family and whatnot. So I, when I got tenure I scaled back a little. And eventually I just felt like I couldn’t handle a big second job. So what I’ve been doing for the last six or seven years is I have been helping citizen science marine bird monitoring in Washington State. And I do that out at Cherry Point where there was a proposal for a huge coal terminal. And so we wanted to do bird monitoring, if they put the terminal in, to see the effect that there would be on the birds. And then I just help citizen science groups who asked for help in designing their studies. I really enjoy that. It’s nice to get out with the public. It’s really educational for the public to be involved in citizen science.

Liz Chiang: Have any of the findings been published?

Dr. Bower: Yeah, those are mostly published through technical reports that the state Fish and Wildlife Service looks at, the Department of Natural Resources looks at. It really takes about 10 years before you can really detect trends, but I think they’ve been useful.

Actually, pretty much everything coming out of these types of efforts in this region of the Salish Sea are showing that since the mid-2000s, most species seem to be stable. Between the 1970s and the 2000s, many species showed large declines. Some as much as 90% declines. And birds like marbled murrelets, western grebes, redneck grebes, common murres; these are very special birds that they really rely on the Salish Sea for their winter survival. A number of these species really were showing big, big declines.

It seems for most species to have stabilized since the mid-2000s. An exception being western grebes that continues to decrease. In Bellingham Bay, 1970s and prior, it was not unusual to

see 5,000 to 10,000 western grebes in Bellingham Bay. And now if you go out there on a January day, you will be lucky if you see a 100.

Liz Chiang: Wow.

Dr. Bower: Yeah, so there are big, big changes that have happened. Most seem to have stabilized. Which is really good news because all the work we’re doing to try to improve the environment, to preserve the environment, seem to be paying off for the water birds in this area.

Liz Chiang: So is the decline mostly attributed to habitat loss? Or to pollution?

Dr. Bower: Yes, so I said there’s about 45 species that really, this is a very important wintering place. Each one of those species has their own life history. You know, they all go to different places to breed. Some go to Alaska. Some go to Utah. We even have a species of gall called a Heermann’s gull that flies to Mexico in the Sea of Cortez to breed. And it breeds in February down there and then comes up here for the summer. Each species has its Its own set of conditions that influence its population. But yes, pollution is clearly–has been, maybe not quite so much now–a problem for some species.

Problems on their breeding grounds; for instance, western grebes go to Manitoba and Saskatchewan largely to breed. And the lakes there have changed. They have motor boats on them that make waves that swamp the nests. There’s bigger raccoon populations because of the growing human population. And so they’ve really been hurt on their breeding grounds. Changes in fish composition. The decrease in herring, for instance, has certainly hurt some species. There’s a set of issues and they affect different species differently.

Liz Chiang: What areas would you hope to see improvements in to allow the populations to increase?

Dr. Bower: So the health of our rivers is very important because those Rivers put water into our estuaries. So clean rivers, rivers that don’t have tremendous spikes in flow because of logged lands or cleared lands that increase the flow during big high rain events. Really, you know, all the different types of efforts that are going on to restore ecosystem quality and restore habitat–all of those things are helpful to the birds.

Liz Chiang: Well, thank you for speaking with me. I learned a lot. And I hope you had a fun time.

Dr. Bower: I did! You were really well prepared. You asked really good questions. Thanks, Izzy!

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Izzy: Well, that was the interview. As someone who has recently begun birdwatching, I had a lot of fun talking with such an experienced and knowledgeable birder. This interview was recorded remotely by video call, and it was produced in partnership with Western Washington University and KMRE. Baier sounds were recorded in my backyard. Theme music by Ketza. Thanks again to John Bower for the interview. I’ve been Izzy Chiang. Take care.

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Regina Barber DeGraaff [narrating]: Spark Science is produced in collaboration with KMRE and Western Washington University. Today’s episode was recorded in Bellingham, Washington by WWU students in the spring of 2020. Our producers are the students Liz Cunningham and Izzy Chiang, nd myself, Regina Barbara DeGraaff. Our audio engineer, in addition to the student producers already listed is Zerach Coakley.

If you missed any of our show, go to our website sparksciencenow.com. If there’s a science idea you’re curious about, send us a message on Twitter or Facebook at SparkScienceNow. Thank you for listening to Spark Science.

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