Training – Strong Coasts

November 11, 2019

Aquaculture and Aquaponics at the MOTE Aquaculture Research Park

by Estenia Ortiz Carabantes

Located in Sarasota, Florida lies a research and development facility dedicated to increasing domestic aquaculture production to feed local residents of Florida in a sustainable manner. This facility is called the MOTE Aquaculture Research Park (MAP) and is led by senior scientist, Dr. Kevan Main and her team of experts. On October 4th, 2019, several STRONG Coast fellows and special guest, Dr. Jesse Edwards from the Chemistry Department at FAMU, met with Dr. Kevan Main a to tour the Mote facility and learn about their work with integrated aquaculture systems and fisheries enhancement.

Left to Right: Dr. Jesse Edwards (FAMU Chemistry Professor), Kris-An Hinds, Michelle Platz, Dr. Kevan Main, Adaline Buerck, Estenia Ortiz Carabantes, Michelle Henderson, and Maya Carrasquillo.

MAP focuses on marine and freshwater land-based aquaculture systems that are used for fish stock enhancement and food production. These systems are maintained in a sustainable manner in that the water that is used for production is reused. These recirculating systems at MAP use mechanical and biological treatment methods such as biofilters to purify the water and ensure conditions are suitable for the fish.

Our very knowledgeable tour guide, Tom Waldrop (Senior Biologist), showing the biofilter media that is used for water treatment at the facility.

The biological filter media allows nitrifying bacteria to colonize and oxidize ammonium, a waste product from the fish that is also toxic to them. The nitrification process, and removal of harmful concentrations of ammonium, enables the water to be recirculated. As a result, there is little to zero water discharge from this facility making it a top leader in the U.S. on developing marine recirculating aquaculture methods.

Another use of these recirculating systems is to grow plants that can be used for consumption or ecosystem restoration. MAP combines technology in aquaculture and hydroponics to grow fish, sea vegetables, and certain wetland plants. Dr. Main has worked closely with Gil Sharell from Aquatic Plants of Florida to innovate efficient and sustainable freshwater and salt-water aquaponics systems for these purposes. While most aquaponic production has focused on freshwater species, MAP expands that scope to marine aquaponics.

Sea purslane growning in a marine aquaponics system at MAP.

Sea Purslane at Laughing Bird Caye National Park taken during the Strong Coasts Field Trip to Belize in June 2019.

Current research looks at growing red drum, a hearty fish that is easy to cultivate, with sea purslane, a Florida native sea vegetable. Sea purslane is commonly found on sand dunes along coasts and is vital to stabilizing these coastal zones and substrates. Cultivated sea purslane from MAP is sold to local restaurants and farmers markets. This plant is also a common in Caribbean islands and is frequently found in markets in Asian and European regions. It is in the same family as spinach, but has a milder and saltier flavor which pairs up nicely with the fresh grown red drum fish farmed at MAP. Dr. Suzanne Boxman’s research as a master’s and doctoral student in the USF Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, focused on two of MAP’s projects. Some products from that work, include a video on cooking sea purslane and a publication, Evaluation of water treatment capacity, nutrient cycling, and biomass production in a marine aquaponic system.

Cooking with Sea Purslane. A video produced by Suzanne Boxman, Emma Lopesz, and Colleen Naughton for Reclaim Is, a social media class at the University of South Florida.

MAP currently works with four fish species: red drum fish, Florida pompano, Almaco jack, and snook. Research on each of the species provides insights into developing better methods for improving captive maturation, spawning, and health management to name a few. Not only does this system provide nutritious fish for consumption, it also works to restore declining fish populations in the wild through this research. Aquaculture and aquaponic systems are gaining great traction in many parts of the world and are of growing interest in some of the coastal communities we work with in the Strong Coast program. As demand increases for food, energy, and water resources, integrated systems such as the ones we observed at MAP will be at the forefront of ensuring we address these needs in a sustainable manner.

About the Author. Estenia Ortiz Carabantes is a 1st year Ph.D student in Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, FL. She received her BS in Environmental Engineering Sciences at the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, FL and her AA at Miami Dade College in Miami, FL. Estenia previously worked with understanding mercury capture using modified activated carbon and has served on several university executive boards involving outreach and STEM education. Her research interests include water quality, water reuse, sustainability, food-energy-water systems, food security, and human and economic development. Estenia’s current research focuses on the the food-energy-water nexus as it relates to residential food production. In order to combat urban food insecurity, she hopes to continuously examine existing green infrastructure and re-imagine their function through a cultural, educational, and engineering lens.

STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

November 11, 2019

Interdisciplinary Training is About People Not Just Ideas

By W Alex Webb

Strong Coasts — June 2019

“Kathleen?” “Kristalina?” “Kaleesha!” “yes, Kaleesha!”. Our interdisciplinary team of eight is sweating profusely in a scorching open-air bus station in Belmopan, the capital of Belize, waiting for our 4 pm bus to arrive. We’re “guessing” the middle name of one of our esteemed PIs, anthropologist Dr. Rebecca K. Zarger. She eventually tells us, but there are references to ‘Kaleesha’ over a month later during our weekly meeting. Small spontaneous moments build relationships.

*Drs. Zarger and Trotz with the Strong Coast fellows on an early morning bus to Belmopan, Belize.*

In June 2019, our Strong Coasts cohort of three anthropologists and five environmental engineers from the University of South Florida spent two weeks in Belize studying relationships between water, food, and energy. The Strong Coasts program is an exercise in many things: community-based research, global competency, and interdisciplinary training.

The need for interdisciplinary training as a means of navigating the complex challenges of our day is a common refrain in academia. But interdisciplinary work typically requires more than one person. Sure, there are polymaths out there that can do the academic equivalent of spinning plates while riding a unicycle and juggling one-handed. But for the rest of us mere mortals, understanding a discipline well enough to pass the Ph.D. finish line is challenging enough. To get to the heart of interdisciplinary training, you must have teams of people. You need to have meaningful relationships.

When researchers study interdisciplinary teams, the same relationship challenges crop up. The big three seem to be: communication (1,2), negotiating identities (3–5), and institutional support (6–8). Our program takes these obstacles head-on through a community-based problem-solving approach, pairing us off into interdisciplinary teams for specific research projects. An engineer and I look at wastewater treatment on small islands off the coast; other groups look at farming practices, gender and tourism, and seaweed farming. Each project has a stakeholder collaborator who defines the problem. Although we have group projects, we all participate in each other’s research trips. Over our time in Belize, we lived together, or at least in a string of bungalows next to each other, sharing most meals and beachside chats.

Learning Through Shared Experiences

One of the consequences of specialization is becoming entrenched in esoteric language. Analyzing the social history of the concentration of wealth and power becomes a political economy, the way that organisms break down biological material without oxygen becomes anaerobic digestion. The words might share similar etymologies, but they seem like different languages. See what I did there? Navigating different vocabularies can be a struggle. But sharing problems with colleagues from different disciplines is like live streaming on-demand YouTube tutorials. Two examples highlight how.

*A wastewater treatment system installed by EcoFriendly Solutions at the educational facility at Hunting Caye, Belize.*

During a trip to the island of Hunting Caye, I found myself staring at a series of white pipes and black tanks, skin sticky from an earlier snorkel. As an anthropologist with no environmental engineering training, staring does not reveal any secrets. But as my engineering colleagues patiently walk me through the wastewater treatment system, it becomes clearer. There are four septic tanks (2×2) that filter the solids as the remaining wastewater funnels into a digester that converts some of the nitrogen into a gas. Iteratively, as they describe systems on each of the eight islands we visited, communication gets easier. I understand their shorthand; they anticipate some of my questions. I begin to understand how the availability of water, land, and economics influences what type of wastewater treatment is possible.

Another story involves a local fisher who runs a seaweed farm. He sells most of his seaweed to local restaurants and consumers who mix it into smoothies. Recently he has begun shipping some to Texas to become a value-added product in cosmetics. He currently only sells one species of seaweed but raises three. After discussions with him and another Placencia resident, who is also developing processed seaweed products, members of our team agreed to run tests for inorganic elemental properties, like the presence of lead and arsenic, among others. A WhatsApp thread shared among the cohort keeps me in the loop. I passively participate as they decided which tests to run and explain why. Since we collectively approached our problems, these bits of knowledge stay attached to a tangible set of circumstances, people, and challenges. The training is more than the sum of knowledge. It is a peer support network and vividly drawn applications.

The Human Side of Collaboration

Our program is especially ambitious as it crosses the aisle from engineering all the way to anthropology. Traversing this intellectual divide is not a short distance. Although taking a community-based approach shortens it. By starting from the resident’s perspectives, social science becomes an inherent part of the process. It flattens the hierarchy between the disciplines. We all represent multiple entry points into the problem. Plus, nothing is a better barometer of your weaknesses than working with a group of differently skilled people.

Engineering, like anthropology, is applicable to almost any facet of life. Consequently, we have members with skillsets in community-based approaches to urban environmental justice, coral reefs, water quality monitoring technology, wastewater treatment and reuse, grassroots entrepreneurship, agriculture, and chemical analysis. But working with others, you don’t just benefit from their technical knowledge; you get the whole person. To say my interdisciplinary colleagues only bring their discipline to the table would be a great disservice to them. Technical expertise is just the tips of a pyramid founded on a lifetime of experiences influencing how we perceive and talk about the problems we are trying to understand.

*Strong Coasts fellows Michelle Henderson and Estenia Carabantes Ortiz interview Mr. Lowell Godfrey about seaweed farming in Belize as other fellows observe the process.*

When advising an engineer about how to perform interviews, I leaned on my years of experience both as a social scientist and living in the Caribbean to try to help them understand how to use interviewing techniques. We had bonded previously on a few shared values. Sitting in wooden beach chairs, awaiting sunset, we bounced between the specifics of the shared problem we were approaching and our personal experiences until we reached a mutual understanding.

*“We embody a spectrum of skin tones, so much so at one point, we lined up for a photo like a color swatch.”*

For our group of three men and five women, these experiences come from diverse backgrounds. We hail from different geographic places, mellow Southern Californians to less mellow upstate New Yorkers, some Midwesterners, and even a Scandinavian. Our religious beliefs range from the devoutly Christian to the mildly hedonistic. We embody a spectrum of skin tones, so much so at one point, we lined up for a photo like a color swatch. I, with my Irish and poltergeist heritage, was at the back of the line. It takes a great deal of trust to navigate all these differences. Trust that we built singing Karaoke, playing two truths and a lie on the beach, through the shared suffering of long uncomfortable bus rides, mutual interests in understanding social justice in context, and bearing through necessary but uncomfortable conversations with each other.

We’re all back at the University of South Florida now, moving in different directions based on our dissertation interests. It is not uncommon for this to happen on interdisciplinary projects; over time, they become more parallel than integrated. The value of our experiences so far isn’t just learning the ins and outs of wastewater treatment or how solutions emerge within cultural contexts. It is in learning to be part of a diverse team. Given that future problems will involve different stakeholders, with different needs, the ability to have relationships and collaborate with other people might be the most useful interdisciplinary skills of all.

References:

1. Boer YM, Hedges M. Building bridges: Researchers on their experiences with interdisciplinary research in the Netherlands. RMNO; 2006.

2. Popa F, Guillermin M, Dedeurwaerdere T. A pragmatist approach to transdisciplinarity in sustainability research: From complex systems theory to reflexive science. Futures. 2015 Jan;65:45–56.

3. Mallaband B, Wood G, Buchanan K, Staddon S, Mogles NM, Gabe-Thomas E. The reality of cross-disciplinary energy research in the United Kingdom: A social science perspective. Energy Research & Social Science. 2017 Mar;25:9–18.

4. Strang V. Integrating the social and natural sciences in environmental research: a discussion paper. Environment, Development, and Sustainability. 2009 Feb;11(1):1–18.

5. Strathern M. Anthropology and Interdisciplinarity. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education. 2005 Jun 1;4(2):125–35.

6. Felt U, Igelsböck J, Schikowitz A, Völker T. Growing into what? The (un-) disciplined socialisation of early stage researchers in transdisciplinary research. Higher Education. 2013 Apr;65(4):511–24.

7. Thompson MA, Owen S, Lindsay JM, Leonard GS, Cronin SJ. Scientist and stakeholder perspectives of transdisciplinary research: Early attitudes, expectations, and tensions. Environmental Science & Policy. 2017 Aug;74:30–9.

8. Bridle H, Vrieling A, Cardillo M, Araya Y, Hinojosa L. Preparing for an interdisciplinary future: A perspective from early-career researchers. Futures. 2013 Sep;53:22–32.

About the Author. W. Alex Webb is a cultural anthropologist currently interested in the relationship between critical infrastructure transitions and rapid tourism development in the Caribbean. His research emphasizes human-environment relationships, economic anthropology, systems thinking, and the study of science and technology.

Alex’s previous research focused on natural resource management in St Thomas, USVI, tourism development in Southern Utah, and socio-technical systems transitions in Belize. He is currently a student in the Applied Anthropology Ph.D. program at the University of South Florida. He received his BS in Psychology from Westminster College and MS in Marine and Environmental Science from the University of the Virgin Islands.

STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

July 31, 2019

Unity Through Nature

By Estenia Ortiz Carabantes

As the Strong Coasts cohort waited to catch Ritchie’s bus to Placencia, Belize that summery Friday afternoon, determined vendors passed by selling a variety of goodies such as tamales, tortillas, and mini seaweed shakes. This initial glimpse into Belize captured my attention as tamales and tortillas are a staple in my Floridian household. Even more exciting was seeing the seaweed shakes on the first day as my colleague, Michelle Henderson, and I were were responsible for focusing on seaweed farming in Belize while we were there!

For two weeks, we traveled by bus and chatted with the residents of Belize over rich cuisine overlooking a gorgeous landscape. The goal of this trip was for our team to explore interdependencies among food, energy, and water systems with coastal communities.

Mr. Lowell Godfrey, Placencia Fisherman’s Cooperative & Placencia Seaweed Farmers at Little Water Caye showing seaweed farms.

We spent the first week caye hopping, investigating how land practices impact marine environments, and deep diving into the ridge-to-reef approach. Moreover, visiting the seaweed farms at Little Water Caye and talking with seaweed guru, Mr. Lowell Godfrey (aka Japs), further demonstrated ideas of the blue economy. According to Mr. Godfrey, harvesting 75% of the seaweed grown at the farms leaves 25% to serve as starter for the next cycle. The seaweed acts as a nursery for marine life, including juvenile fish, conch, crabs, and spiny lobsters — all essential to local and international fishing industries.

Seaweed on ropes at Little Water Caye in Belize. Photo by Maya Trotz, June 2019.

Seaweed, after it has been washed on freshwater and then dried in the sun for about 24 to 48 hours, changes color from golden to white. Small crabs are individually removed during the drying process because they are difficult to shake off during the harvesting process.

Seaweed washed in freshwater & sun dried. Image showing small crab that was removed from seaweed post harvesting. Photo by Maya Trotz, June 2019.

We learned that persons on the Placencia peninsula have been innovating with this superpowered algae for food, skin care, hair care, and even for burns. Seaweed shakes in Placencia are a popular way to cool off after a long day on the water and are found in several restaurants along the peninsula, including the Shak and Brewed Awakenings. Sustainably farming seaweed has allowed for the thriving of many markets furthering its demand.

Gelatinous seaweed that is added to seaweed shakes at Brewed Awakening. Photo by Estenia Ortiz, June 2019.

Belize taught me about the tradeoffs in food, energy, and water systems and the importance of community perspectives to provide robust context. We met people working at these intersections who are striving to be more sustainable. They have helped me to see the strong, valuable connections between natural and social systems. For instance, some are using their resources and cultivating crops only when they are in season. Their profound understanding of the environment allows new creativity and innovation to blossom. Moreover, this awareness and holistic thinking are engraved in their culture which continues to draw communities to lead various conservation efforts, protecting the beautiful scenery we enjoyed.

Overall, my goal as an engineer and researcher is to work alongside the community partners we met and provide extra support where possible. As I have learned more about the ways the community uses their resources, I have become more interested in improving the benefits of these systems through a food, energy, water nexus lens.

About the Author. Estenia Ortiz Carabantes is a 1st year Ph.D student in Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, FL. She received her BS in Environmental Engineering Sciences at the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, FL and her AA at Miami Dade College in Miami, FL. Estenia previously worked with understanding mercury capture using modified activated carbon and has served on several university executive boards involving outreach and STEM education. Her research interests include water quality, water reuse, sustainability, food-energy-water systems, food security, and human and economic development. Estenia’s current research focuses on the the food-energy-water nexus as it relates to residential food production. In order to combat urban food insecurity, she hopes to continuously examine existing green infrastructure and re-imagine their function through a cultural, educational, and engineering lens.

STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

July 11, 2019

Community Cacao Agroforestry

By Atte Penttilä

In Belize, close to the village of Trio, there is a community-based cacao agroforestry concession that was established in 2015. This concession is a first of its kind in Belize and employs an interesting technique wherein the community has access to a protected area which they can use for the improvement of their livelihoods.

After a controlled burn the land will be planted with corn.

The path to the founding of the agroforestry concession was not a simple one and it was not without interactions of different levels of actors: local communities, Belize’s federal government, and the global political economy. In short, in early 2000s the Maya Mountain North Forest Reserve was being encroached upon by citrus and banana plantations. In addition to paid labor at the plantations, the workers needed additional means to support their families . As such, the people used the forest reserve for farming and resources gathering. Eventually in 2012, through multiple steps, the government of Belize evicted the people form the forest.

The people who were displaced took it upon themselves to contact the Belize Forest Department to gain legal access to the forest. It became a community effort and Ya’axché Conservation Trust was (and still is) a critical partner in the process. In 2015, Trio Farmers Cacao Growers Ltd. was established as a cooperative to support community agroforestry in the concession area. Their main goal was to support local livelihoods in Trio.

In June 2019, the Strong Coasts cohort from the University of South Florida visited the cacao agroforestry concession with guidance by Gustavo Requena from Ya’axché Conservation Trust. Gustavo is a farmer who uses different agroforestry and agroecological growing methods on his own farm in San Pedro Columbia. This is important because his work with Ya’axchéis remarkably similar to extension work by agricultural officers. Because he is a farmer and uses the methods he tells other people about, he has gained credibility with the cooperative farmers.

During our trip, Gustavo lead us off the main highway towards the village of Trio. “It is six miles, and then another six miles,” he says right before he drives off the gravel road. The road takes us through newly deforested tropical forests that are now barren, awaiting banana plantations. The plantations spread year by year, leveling more and more forest. It reminds me of what anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose explains in “Reports From a Wild Country” about settler colonialism and frontiers. The wild (in this case the forest) is awaiting transfiguration to become agricultural land. As our journey continued, the Jeep could hardly overcome the road which had turned into a watery, muddy trek that stretched along cattle pastures, burnt land, and tropical forest.

The encroaching banana plantations on land that used to be old growth forest.

Eventually, we made it to the end of the road, left our vehicles, and started a hike into the concession. We crossed the Trio Branch of Bladen River on a newly built bridge which was put in place for the cacao growers to have an easier access to the markets. The first part of the concession is reserved for annual plants. These are planted for farmers to have an immediate source of income for their families as they wait for the cacao which will not produce right away. Gustavo explains the importance of planning for the short-term, middle-term, and long-term as farmers need year-round provisions for their families. A farming system that relies on monocrops does not have this type of imbedded resilience planned and is more vulnerable to stresses.

You have to cross a newly built bridge to cross the Trio Branch of River Bladen to reach the agroforestry concession.

Finally, we reach our destination, the cacao agroforestry lands. Gustavo shows how cacao is grown and what is needed to keep the plants healthy. He elaborates on what farmers should do in order to promote higher yields while maintaining biodiversity. It becomes clear that shade is an important part of the cacao systems. The farmers control shade by trimming and pruning of the cacao and the surrounding trees. There is a trade-off between the shade, cacao yields, and biodiversity. With greater amounts of shade there is more biodiversity, but less shade yields more cacao. Ya’axche recommends that the farmers optimize the amount of shade so that production of cacao is plentiful. By the looks of the nearby markets, it seems that there is plenty of shade and that cacao is being produced in abundance.

As we make our way through the stands in the heat and humidity, Gustavo cannot help himself but to remove suckers from the cacao trees left and right. “These need to be removed in the next week or two, otherwise the farmer will be in trouble as the suckers will become branches and less cacao will be produced.”

Gustavo Requena from Ya’axché Conservation Trust showing the best way of trimming and pruning a cacao plant. You should leave four branches for optimal yields.

This particular area in the concession for growing cacao was chosen because it was a place where local cacao was already growing. This finding shows that the soil in the area is suitable for cacao, so sophisticated analyses of soil samples are not needed to figure that out. The taste of the local cacao is slightly different and presumably the markets are better for the imported variety. If you pick a cacao pod from the tree, open it, and pop a seed in your mouth it does not taste like chocolate, but more like a sweet fruit. Then if you bite on it the taste turns bitter, like dark chocolate. Better not to chew, but to just cherish the fruitiness covering the seed. In order to reach the chocolatey flavor, the seeds need to be fermented and roasted. They say that chewing on cacao beans can give you energy and relieve hunger. I had quite a few beans one day, and subsequently forgot to eat dinner. I guess it did something but wouldn’t recommend it for that purpose.

About the Author. Atte Penttilä is pursuing a PhD in Applied Anthropology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He has a BSc in environmental engineering from Tampere Polytechnic, University of Applied Sciences and an MSc in agroecology from University of Helsinki. His multidisciplinary and international background brings together different aspects of the food-energy-water nexus. In his Master’s thesis, Atte studied the effect of dung beetles on greenhouse gas emissions from cow dung. The results were published in PLOS One and featured in several news outlets and magazines, including National Geographic. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, Atte worked in the field of development in Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Finland. His work focused on agroforestry with regards to local farmers’ associations. Atte is interested in how food production relates to local livelihoods, sustainability, and climate change.

STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

June 2, 2019

Laughing Bird Caye National Park, Belize

By Michelle Platz

On June 2nd, Strong Coasts visited Belize’s Laughing Bird Caye National Park (LBCNP), home to one of the most successful coral restoration sites in the world. In addition to marveling at the immense thickets of coral surrounding the island, the purpose of the team’s visit was to explore the dynamics between food, energy, and water at the caye; we found LBCNP to be the perfect microcosm of the food-energy-water systems we came to Belize to study.

Strong Coasts cohort with Fragments of Hope and colleagues from UNC Chapel Hill at Laughing Bird Caye National Park in Belize, June 2nd, 2019. Photo by Victor Faux, Fragments of Hope.

Snorkeling around the island, the innumerable schools of fish clearly demonstrate how the coral restoration work at LBCNP impacts the fish populations there; as Fragments of Hope reminds us on their billboards seen throughout Placencia, Belize, More Corals = More Fish. While Laughing Bird Caye National Park is a no take zone, many of the fish that use the area as a nursery will eventually venture outside the park and become part of the fish stocks that support the Belizean fishing industry.

Images of Laughing Bird Caye National Park by Maya Trotz, June 2019. Reef restoration work by Fragments of Hope and the park is managed by the Southern Environmental Association.

Water comes into context when considering tourism. The national park attracts numerous visitors, sometimes on the order of 200 snorkelers and divers per day. While the park fees paid by tourists help maintain the health of the caye, with these visitors comes waste water. If unmanaged, waste water negatively impacts the coral by fostering algal blooms which compete with coral for space, light, and chemical resources.

Algae, *Chaetomorpha linum*, seen closer to where toilets are located at Laughing Bird Caye National Park in Belize, June 2nd, 2019. Similar sightings were seen in 2015 by Lisa Carne, Founder and Executive Director of Fragments of Hope. Coupled with erosion challenges, the facilities were moved to this new location and upgraded by EcoFriendly Solutions Ltd.. Photograph by Maya Trotz.

To protect coral from this excess nutrient runoff, the caye’s decentralized wastewater system was recently upgraded with larger tanks and additional treatment steps, however, there may be room for improvement. As for energy, tourists rely on tour boats for transportation to the caye, and the boat fuel used to get there constitutes the largest energy requirement and financial expense incurred by many seafarers. Additionally, the non-renewable fossil fuels used to get to the caye contribute to the greenhouse gasses driving global warming and ocean acidification, which impose stress on coral.

Food Energy Water Systems (FEWS) conceptual model for Laughing Bird Caye National Park, Belize. Arrow polarity is based on the relationship between the variables linked. If two variables share the same direct relationship e.g. both positively or negatively related to each other the arrow is positive. Conversely, if the variables share an inverse relationship the arrow is negative. Created by Michelle Platz with guidance from Dr. Christine Prouty.

In short, much can be learned from the dynamics of this minute yet complex system. Optimizing the operation of Laughing Bird Caye National Park may give way to insights on how larger systems, such as the Placencia Peninsula, could likewise be optimized to benefit both the people and the ecosystems in which we are a part.

About the Author. Michelle Platz is an Environmental Engineering PhD student at University of South Florida whose dissertation research applies engineered environmental monitoring technology to reef restoration efforts to improve coral mariculture and transplant techniques. She is working with a suite of previously developed monitoring technologies known as the Benthic Ecosystem and Acidification Measurement System, or BEAMS for short. She is using BEAMS to quantify coral metabolism in situ: the processes involved in cycling carbon for coral calcification and biomass production. By improving restoration practitioners’ understanding of the metabolic, environmental, and hydrodynamic processes which drive coral growth within nurseries, she hopes to gain a better understanding of how to develop more robust, storm-resilient coral restoration initiatives in the shortest amount of time.

April 30, 2019

Science from the Inside Out: Science Communication and Science Policy

By Maya Carrasquillo

Strong Coasts prioritizes community engaged research, but researchers and academics often struggle to translate their work to broader audiences outside of academia, and rarely are we trained on how to do this effectively. On April 5^th, 2019, the Strong Coasts cohort hosted a Science Communication and Science Policy workshop to provide an opportunity for the USF community to learn science communication strategies to various audiences and also to learn about opportunities to engage in policy spheres.

The workshop started with a presentation by Dr. Drew Story who currently serves as a Congressional Fellow in the office of Sen. Chris Coons (DE) working on the energy and environment. Based on his diverse experiences as a science teacher, academic researcher, and now congressional staffer, Drew was able to offer a well-informed and practiced perspective of how to communicate science, including nuggets like making our communication memorable, meaningful, and miniature (short and sweet). Where we often fall short as researchers, is starting with the ‘what and how’ not the ‘why and who’ of our research. Why does our work matter? Why is it important? Who does our research impact? Who can benefit from knowing and applying this work? As researchers we’re trained to start with the details to make our case, but depending on the audience, whether it’s K-12 educators and students, policymakers or our family, the why is more important than the what.

One of the key points that resonated with me most from this session was that all of our research has a ‘why’ and it’s our responsibility to not only understand what that is, but to be able to communicate that driver to any audience. That is our key hook to making sure our message doesn’t get lost in the weeds when we strive to communicate with any audience.

Following this session, we also hosted a panel discussion featuring several AAAS Science, Technology and Policy Fellows (all USF alumni), who currently work in varying industries from water utility, to academia and policy. Each of the panelists shared their experiences of successfully applying to the AAAS Fellowship. They then discussed the ways in which they use the transferrable skills of engaging in science policy in their current roles for communication, and networking. They stressed the imp\

I think for each of us, this skillset of adaptability is critical to not only our successes as researchers, and communicators of that research, but also as our careers transform, there is great value in having the ability to shift and adjust as necessary to still reach a desired yet sometimes unexpected outcome. Whether that adjustment is in approach, or expanding partnerships, as researchers we’ve grown accustomed to making changes to still achieve a desired result, and to not let those changes hinder our progress. Connecting both segments from the day, our ability to know why we do what we do and stay rooted in that core ‘why’ of research, yet maintaining flexibility to adjust strategies towards achieving that ‘why’ is ultimately what will make us effective scientists and communicators, striving for a broader impact.

This was an excellent introduction to this topic and as we move forward in our Strong Coasts program, we are committed as a cohort to continue dialoguing on similar topics to ensure that we are not only being trained as productive scientists, but contributing and thoughtful global citizens in the work that we strive to do within and for communities!

About the Author. Maya Elizabeth Carrasquillo is an Environmental Engineering PhD student at the University of South Florida. Her research interests are at the intersection of water, sustainability, and social justice. Her current research looks at stormwater management through an environmental justice lens to develop a community-based framework of sustainability, promoting more equitable development of stormwater best management practices in coastal African American communities. Her work includes community partnerships in East Tampa, Florida and Bayview-Hunters Point in San Francisco, California. Maya holds a B.S. in Environmental Engineering with a minor in History from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Maya is also a recipient of the National GEM Fellowship, the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship and the Alfred P. Sloan Graduate Minority Scholarship Program, and has industry experience with Intel Corporation working on environmental treatment systems and diversity and inclusion projects.

February 21, 2019

Training Researchers to Inform Policy

by Daniel Delgado & Estenia Ortiz

Strong Coasts’ central research question asks what are the leverage points, or places in a system’s structure where a solution can be applied, (technological, regulatory, and organizational) with food-energy-water systems to improve sustainability of the overall system across different scales. On Friday 2/8/19 some of the cohort attended the Scholars Strategy Network (SSN) all-day workshop, “Training Researchers to Inform Policy,” to better understand policy, one of these leverage points.

While it is important to inform the public and have their support, building relationships with policy makers and organized interest groups is the key component in informing policy as a researcher. The training talked about how to choose the policy makers you align yourself with and how to best communicate with them. Showing up to events and actively engaging with key players will be more effective in having your work used than simply disseminating it in an unilateral manner. Another take home message from the workshop was the multiple uses for research evidence in policy. The four main categories in which research evidence is used by policymakers are 1) Instrumental, 2) Conceptual, 3) Imposed, and 4) Tactical.

Instrumental research informs policymakers with the potential outputs from the implementation of a certain policy. Conceptual research shapes the concepts policymakers are thinking about on a certain issue and may help them understand it better. Imposed means research evidence used by policymakers or practitioners may be needed by an external player for legal, regulatory, or funding requirements. Finally, tactical research is used to support an already existing policy.

The workshop was broken into several activities to align with the lecture. One of my favorites was drawing a web that was centered at a problem and that terminated at a position or person with whom we can communicate with directly to inform these policies. My second favorite was a roundtable discussion where we talked about our work with six other people, mostly from different disciplines, and advised each other on how to inform policy.
Daniel Delgado, NRT Strong Coasts Fellow, USF

The activities following this presentation were extremely beneficial as they made us reflect on our own research and where we think we fit on this spectrum. I left equipped with helpful tools to use in my research career and with a feeling of empowerment. Sharing our strengths and weaknesses in policy and public engagement was a memorable experience for me in which I not only found more room for growth, but also found a larger community of change makers.
Estenia Ortiz Carabantes, NRT Strong Coasts Fellow, USF

It seems frustrating to have a solution to one of the many problems in the world, but be unable to implement it because the policies are not there to support your work. It must be further frustrating to try to change these policies with no success. We went to the training to learn how to most efficiently contribute to sound environmental policies and left content.

February 11, 2019

This is Us: Forming a System Family

by Michelle Henderson

Our class discussion started with a brief discussion on property and ownership. In many of the places where our research is focused, there is a constant discussion of who owns the land and what the land is used for. These conversations affect people in Placencia, Belize and U.S. Virgin Island St. Thomas and commonly include dialogue on beaches and other public and tourist areas. These discussions often evolve into conversations on environmental justice issues.

We were introduced to new ideas and terminology in systems thinking such as reductionism, interconnectedness, perspective and worldview. When doing systems modeling, the idea of reductionism can be helpful in designing a system boundary. Reductionism focuses on one component of a system as opposed to the interconnectedness of a system. Interconnectedness focuses on how the whole system interacts instead of the separated components.

One point of major discussion was the differences in perspective and worldview. Based on our learning module, perspective is how we view things from our current situation, and that perspective can change if our situation changes. A worldview is an ingrained belief that does not typically change with a changed situation or environment. This led to a further discussion on emic (perspective of the subject) and etic (perspective of the observer) points of view. In our research emic would be stakeholders and individuals in the community while an etic perspective would be institutional. But as a group we wondered how we find the balance between emic and etic. How can we engage the community with intentionality by building relationships and also retain a form of objectivity? We also started to garner our vocabulary on “what is a system” and how do we define causal relationships. As we move forward, we will implement these ideas into our systems models by not only using these terms in our speech, but also by incorporating the ideologies into our research.

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Michelle Henderson is an environmental scientist whose work focuses on water reuse at the decentralized level. Michelle’s work adds a small solution to the much larger problem of water disparities around in the United States and across the world. During her undergraduate degree, she was a National Institute of Health (NIH) Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program scholar. During her time at USF, Michelle obtained her Master’s degree in Engineering Science with a concentration in Environmental Engineering. While pursuing her PhD in Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF), Michelle has developed skills related with microbiology and systems thinking. During 2018, Michelle had the unique opportunity to conduct research abroad in Israel to quantify antibiotic resistant genes (ARG) in greywater systems. Outside of her research Ms. Henderson is involved with various community organizations and NGO’s. She serves as the Environmental Programme Director for Impact Global International.

October 24, 2018

Category: Training