Last Wed, Apr 21st, Katie Murphy told the large audience (over 50 people – our biggest yet!) all about her work on urban plants. She mixed in some of the lessons she has learned working as a landscaper in the Seattle area with what she has learned in her research and classes. We are lucky to live in such a green city as Seattle, but even around here we are losing lots (and I mean *lots*) of trees and green spaces.
Katie’s talk had a great crowd of people from both the university and the general community, many of whom had a fair bit of experience gardening, but all of whom know what it’s like to live in an urban area and to see the way that people use their yards and in particular the parking strip to grow grass or plants.
We are very glad so many people were able to come out and hear about Katie’s research. We are also delighted that a young scientist like Katie had the opportunity to share her work. Her research is not only scientific, but also deals directly with policy (what are the rules that the city should have regarding planting vegetables in parking strips?) and people. All scientists need to be able to explain their research and to explain the effects of what they study on people. But scientists like Katie who work directly in public areas need to be especially good at clearly explaining what science can tell us about our decisions. So thanks to all who attended and gave Katie the opportunity to work on this very useful skill.
We are hoping to build on last week’s crowd and have great attendance at Chelsea Macleod’s talk on May 5th called Survey Science: The Universe at our Fingertips.
