Supportive Work Environment and Successful Science

Bonnie Eyestone is the Rangeland Monitoring Network Coordinator for Point Blue Conservation Science (Point Blue), and she and her son were recently featured by Point Blue in a social media post celebrating her fieldwork with her child.  They wrote "Training the next generation of scientists is helpful with an early start! Check out our #RangelandMonitoring Network Coordinator Bonnie Eyestone monitoring vegetation this past field season in Sonoma County with her baby boy in tow. This mama is getting work done! Bonnie sent these photos to us, saying, " I am incredibly grateful to Point Blue for their family friendly culture, allowing me to bring my baby to work and inspire the next generation of conservationists." We are inspired by your multitasking prowess Bonnie! And little guy Axel looks like a great field partner "

Bonnie Eyestone and Axel, getting fieldwork done. Photo by Taj Hittenberger

The family friendly environment at Point Blue is so obvious from the celebration of Bonnie's accomplishments in that post. Bonnie shared some more stories, and they further confirmed what a positive experience doing fieldwork while parenting in that supportive environment has been like.

"With my first son, my team at work gifted me an Osprey child carrier backpack so I could take the baby along with me for work.  My second boy was born in February and got to join me for fieldwork when I returned from leave.  I brought a pop-up sun tent for him to take naps in and play in the shade while my coworkers and I collected vegetation data.  Newborn child care is hard to find, especially without family living nearby, so I am grateful I'm able to bring him with me.  My team at work is supportive and flexible even when our work gets interrupted for breastfeeding or to calm a fussy baby.

A great Covid work-from-home parenting moment occurred this past January when I was hosting a virtual event and set my "office" up in the back yard so I could watch my then 18-month-old play while I gave a presentation.  Of course, he was playing happily and safely during the whole event until it was my turn to present.  Nine-months pregnant I had to dash off-screen to rescue him out of some landscaping and proceeded with the rest of the presentation with him on my hip, snuggled against my huge belly.  Everyone was gracious about it and his smile charmed the audience."

Bonnie Eyestone and Axel, taking a break in the shade during fieldwork. Photo by Taj Hittenberger

We applaud Bonnie for all the good work she does as a scientist, a field scientist, and a mother.  We also applaud Point Blue for providing the kind of culture and environment that makes sure the good work done by scientists in their organization can continue through many life phases, including parenting young children.  This is good for the science, it's good for parents, particularly women in science, and this is a wonderful model for other organizations.  

Survey Assistant and Habitat Restoration Helpers

I like to say that while I can't do everything with kids that I could do without them, I can still do everything I need to in order to excel at many field jobs.  One of my favorite field activities with my children is checking wildlife cameras.  It is exciting for me to see which wildlife came by, and the children are as excited or more.  There are also many parts of the activity that they can help with, even from a young age.  The following photos are from some work we did on the River Otter Ecology Project.

At the time, this project was just starting to document the return of this species to the region.  The work involved driving to beautiful locations in Marin County, California, hiking into a survey site, and setting up cameras or downloading images.

Here are some photos taken by the Executive Director of the organization, Megan Isadore, of me and my youngest son setting and checking cameras.

Setting up a camera station

Reviewing images in the field

Most of the sites involved short hikes, which the kids are great at and enjoy.  This photo was taken at a beachside field site.  The children just played nearby in the sand while I set the camera.  My older boy was fabulous at pretending to be an otter, to check if we had set up the camera properly.

The logistics of doing the camera trapping work were fairly easy.  I was able to get a child carrier backpack with space for gear in a lower compartment.  If I needed more space, I used a large hip pack, worn in the front.  Plenty of the child carriers are now made for people doing backpacking trips with their children, and doing a lot of fieldwork is really not all that different.  I found bringing a sarong was very useful for multitasking as a field changing table, sun shade, and wiping sand off of the camera lenses.  

  
I have also had the boys with me during habitat restoration work.  Thank you to Jude Stalker at the Invasive Limonium Removal project for this photo of my assistant during invasive species removal.

Removing Invasive Plants

And Jude also took the photo below of my older son helping with oak tree plantings at a restoration site.  He eventually got a shovel and started digging the holes in the soft dirt to put the acorns in.  Kids are great at digging in the dirt.  We need to go and check on those oaks.  This little boy is 10 years old now, and I bet the oaks may have outgrown the both of us.

Planting Oaks

Here is that same little boy 10 years later, taking a chorus frog from a pitfall trap 

I have found participating in citizen science field days is a great way to introduce kids to field work and get them experience with data collection in a low stress (for me!) situation.  We helped out in a Bioblitz, which was documented for a PBS special, shown here.

And this now budding wildlife biologist assisting with roosting bat surveys, part of the Great Causeway Bat Count, at nearly 12 years old.

And doing cast net surveys at 13 years old. 

and, at 16yo, starting to launch on his own beyond working with Mom - here he is participating in a Field Research Course, his first college credits.  

Working with Dr. Rosemary Smith, dye marking rodents as part of a study. 
Photo Credit: Kierstin Thompson

5-year-old Field Assistant for Soil Sampling

By Jessica Ernakovich

At the first weekly lab meeting of the semester, I asked everyone for summer highlights. Many had traveled abroad this summer for one reason or another, so those highlights were pretty self-explanatory. I too almost shared my summer highlight as a great two weeks in the field in Sweden, where I was exploring new collaborations and opportunities to study the effects of warming on permafrost thaw and Arctic biogeochemistry.

But, that wasn’t my highlight. This was!

Taking my 5-year old son, Clark, with me in the field at our local field site was the highlight of my summer. Even more, listening to my undergraduate student (thanks, Sam McNeil) explain science to my son was a highlight.

My 5-Year Old, Clark, slathered with sunscreen and ready to work.

Clark had been dying to know what a day in the field looks like. He begged to come along to the Arctic, but this didn’t pan out. So, when our local sampling got scheduled at the same time as a daycare closure, we decided that he would join me. We spent the day sampling local agricultural soils for our work exploring the effect of management on microbial diversity in New England. (Thanks to Dr. Jessica Mackay for coordinating and leading this effort, and to the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station for funding!) It was much easier than arranging a big field campaign with Clark, because we could be close to the car and he could run around the field site (a flat hayfield) without safety concerns. But, we both still got the experience of doing fieldwork together.

Of course, we had ups and downs that day. To me, the major pros were:

• Clark got to see what I do every day;
• Clark had lots of questions about soils, and it was fun to hear Sam explore the answers with him;
• This actually solved a real problem of daycare being closed, and I still got all of the sampling I needed to do that day done. 

And the cons:

• There were meltdowns and some pouting (it was 95F!), although they were brief and easily solved with diversions;
• While we started completely safe from sun and ticks, this devolved into nakedness (Clark only!) so we relied on a very thorough tick check for safety;
• I was definitely distracted. It took more mental energy to make sure the sampling was done correctly, and our sampling was roughly 10% slower with Clark than on days without him.

But, we ended the day with a race to pick up the flags. And the meltdowns and slower work pace were all worth it when I saw Clark racing Sam (who is graciously letting the 5-year old win) to pick up every flag. Clark was having fun, and he was part of our team. And now he is a passionate advocate of the importance of soils, and that is a great payoff.

When I do this again, I will prepare for success a bit differently. We brought toy trucks as his activity this go around. Both Clark and I thought this made sense since I’d be digging in the soil. Next time, I plan to design an activity relating to the fieldwork so that Clark gets really engaged. For example, I might have him do a drawing of the site, record weather data, sieve the soil, or match it with color charts. It’s not that I’d expect my son to produce useable data, but it was clear that the more that he felt an integral part of the project—rather than a bystander playing with his trucks—the happier he was. And who knows what breakthroughs might come from the random insights of a child? Would I take Clark to the field again? Absolutely. I’ll need another summer highlight! But, would I be ready to take him to my Arctic field station? Not yet. But, if he gets really good at the color chart over the next few summers of local sampling, then who knows—I’ll have to take him!

Stumbling and toddling through (field)work: the first two years

By Seeta Sistla

Setting up micrometeorological stations 39 weeks pregnant and consumed by an early summer heat wave was less challenging than I had imagined it would be. Holding my month old child while trying to coordinate a small new field project proved more challenging – and ultimately unfeasible.  In the 2 years since the birth of our first child, my learning curve combining motherhood with ecological research has been sometimes steep but always worthwhile.

I became a parent early in my career as an ecology professor at a small liberal arts college. Without the support of family due to a combination of distance and our own aging parents, my husband (also an academic) and I have been largely on our own to embark in the new world of parenting while also trying to build our field research-based careers.  In the first year of my son’s life, my remote field work took a break while I focused on learning to be a new parent, navigating occasional stints of lone parenting while my husband was away for extended periods for his own research, 8-hour field courses which required (subtly) pumping milk in a class van, and those who remarked that parental leave is like a holiday (which I am grateful was balanced by others who recognized a period of reduced professional responsibilities after becoming a parent should be the norm rather than the exception).

While there have been distinct challenges – ranging from scheduling field and lab work around my son’s daycare schedule to attending a national meeting with a 14 month old while my husband’s research project took him across the world – we’ve also experienced a myriad of unexpected benefits. When my son has joined me in the field and lab, we have always been with students, whose curiosity and excitement is amplified by showing him why they’re doing the tasks at hand.

Our son's first time in daycare was at the 2017 Ecological Society of America meeting. The childcare providers were wonderful.  But frightened by the myriad of changes, he didn't last more than 2 hours. We attended the meeting together after that, which was challenging, but mostly successful

Earlier this summer, I had my first major field excursion since becoming a parent– over 2 weeks in a remote area of western Alaska accessible only by float plane – while my son stayed home with my husband. Although I would love to introduce my son to the Arctic, because of the nature of my field work, traveling as a family is neither practical nor safe. While I deeply worried for how our son would deal with my travel and lack of communication, in the end, I am grateful to report it was me who suffered his absence rather than the reverse. While my husband had already been away for multiple weeks in far flung locales since our son was born, I had serious reservations about traveling for so long and with so little potential for contact when my son had just turned two. In retrospect, it was a liberating experience for our whole family, and I encourage other young parents to feel confident in their decision to continue to pursue their research ambitions flexibly – with or without their children as possible and desired.

I’m writing this piece from Namibia – where I am the trailing spouse for my husband’s work. We’ve visited beautiful national parks and an ecological research station in the Namib Desert, walked across dunes and besides one of world’s largest sea lion colonies. My son has picked up every imaginable iteration of scat and skeleton fragment, combed the red Kalahari sand, and exclaimed with joy when we found fluorescent scorpions on night hikes. But, finding childcare was a large stumbling block, leading to moments of profound frustration as we tried to manage work obligations while also entertaining a 2 year old (who was missing other kids) in an extended stay hotel where freely playing outside was impossible.

Exploring the Namib Desert.
Scorpions, sand-hiding snakes, and the scorching sun
could not stop our son.

We ultimately found a combination of a playgroup and babysitter by asking US Embassy staff (who often travel as families) and local parents that we met in passing for advice. Learning from our experience, we now realize that when planning lengthy travel for field work, we must be proactive in finding a space and context that will accommodate the shifting needs of our growing son, which will likely mean extending our planned time away to accommodate finding necessities (i.e. a playgroup, safe and reliable childcare).  

Parenting in general, and especially when trying to combine the endeavor with one’s work, requires remembering to laugh when things don’t go as planned. Like when we tried to participate in the opening event for artist David Buckley Borden’s ‘Hemlock Hospice’ instillation within the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research Site, which went well until we and had to step off to tour while our son wailed at not being able to touch the art.

Things were going well until they weren’t.
A family visit to the Hemlock Hospice exhibit
among the dying hemlocks in the
Harvard Forest LTER, Pertersham, MA. 

Having our son has changed my relationship with my work and in many ways fundamentally shifted how I move through my days. Our tiny child also makes me all the more aware of the enormous environmental challenges he will face and motivates me as an educator while also encouraging me to live in the moment and continue to find wonder in the natural (and human) world.