While growing up in the forests and fields of northeastern Pennsylvania, I spent time with some of the best homegrown naturalists in the country. Anglers, hunters, and trackers taught me firsthand how to look at nature, as they themselves had been instructed by previous generations – and I was gifted with taxonomic keys for identifying plants and wildlife, which sparked what would be a lifelong desire to understand the natural world. It was not until after I left rural Pennsylvania and found my way into higher educational spaces when my “formal” introduction to ecology started.

But while I continued on an ecologist's path I began to repeatedly ask myself an important question: “Do I belong here?” The further I became involved in my research and schooling, the more I felt the need to adopt scholarly language, at the expense of being able to speak to the community of naturalists in the forests and fields where I grew up. As I pursued my degrees, I delved deeper into ecology until it was all I could see. It was not until after graduating with my master's degree, when I began work at a small nonprofit land trust, that I realized I had become disconnected from the sense of wonder that had first drawn me to this discipline. Bogged down by the constant news of habitat loss due to development, the loss of protections for sensitive ecosystems, and the brutality of climate-change-driven disasters, I questioned the impact of my efforts. If I were to key myself out in my professional landscape, I would not know where I belonged.

I have met many scientists pursuing critical ecological questions who feel either separated from the impacts of their work or unwelcome in decision-making circles where their voices are desperately needed. Ecologists are trained to identify, to question, and to probe relationships in nature, but how many of us learn the ways to share that information with a wide public audience? How can we bridge the divide between the rigors of scientific research and the broad discussions of policy or application of theory to the natural places we love? In my experience, the answer is straightforward: first listen, understand the social context, then share.

In my transition from academia to a nonprofit I was forced to reckon with a painful reality: my degrees in science are effectively in a language that the people in my local community do not speak. Only by recentering on my community's needs was I able to understand where my work was necessary: helping residents in local watersheds build emotional connections with their neighboring streams. These people did not feel passionate about the population dynamics of stream insects or patterns in eel migrations; instead, they cared about the danger of their homes flooding and the safety of their children from potentially polluted waters. It is my responsibility to meet community members where they live and ensure they feel welcome where discussions about water resources are taking place.

As a community of ecologists, we must continue to adjust our communication, to create spaces where all people belong. In shifting from leading conversations to listening to concerns, I regained my lost sense of connection to the natural world. I began to share with my community as the naturalists of my youth had shared with me: we went outside and got wet and dirty. No pretext, no expectations, and no jargon, just a shared sense of discovery and wonder and growing trust.

I joined the Darby Creek Valley Association, a local watershed organization, to train residents as community scientists. What happened was remarkable – the community scientists who collect water chemistry data began making their own discoveries within their stream system. They developed a connection to their sample sites and began advocating for better land development strategies in their neighborhoods. They even started to feel more comfortable sharing their observations and knowledge of their communities’ needs in spaces previously reserved for scientists and decision makers.

Ecological research is critical to our collective future but without finding ways to share these lessons with a broader audience our scientific impact is diminished. We shortchange ourselves by not listening to the residents of the communities in which we work and live. Increasing local scientific literacy helped my community and, in so doing, helped me rediscover my passion for ecology and promote local action to conserve the precious ecosystems on which my community relies.

当我在宾夕法尼亚州东北部的森林和田野长大时，我与该国一些最优秀的本土博物学家一起度过了时光。钓鱼者、猎人和追踪者直接教会了我如何看待自然，因为他们自己也受到了前几代人的教导——我被赋予了识别植物和野生动物的分类学钥匙，这激发了我终生了解自然的渴望。世界。直到我离开宾夕法尼亚州乡村并进入高等教育领域后，我才开始“正式”接触生态学。

但当我继续走生态学家的道路时，我开始反复问自己一个重要的问题：“我属于这里吗？“我越深入地参与我的研究和学校教育，我就越觉得有必要采用学术语言，而代价是无法与我长大的森林和田野中的博物学家社区交谈。当我攻读学位时，我深入研究了生态学，直到我能看到它为止。直到硕士学位毕业后，当我开始在一家小型非营利性土地信托公司工作时，我才意识到自己已经脱离了最初吸引我进入这一学科的好奇心。由于开发导致栖息地丧失、敏感生态系统失去保护以及气候变化导致的灾难的残酷性等不断发生的新闻让我陷入困境，我对自己的努力的影响提出了质疑。如果我把自己置于我的职业领域，我将不知道自己属于哪里。

我遇到过许多追求关键生态问题的科学家，他们要么感觉自己与自己工作的影响无关，要么在迫切需要他们的声音的决策圈中不受欢迎。生态学家接受过识别、质疑和探索自然界关系的培训，但我们中有多少人学会了如何与广大公众分享这些信息呢？我们如何才能弥合科学研究的严谨性与政策或理论应用到我们热爱的自然地方的广泛讨论之间的鸿沟？根据我的经验，答案很简单：首先倾听，了解社会背景，然后分享。

在我从学术界转向非营利组织的过程中，我被迫面对一个痛苦的现实：我的科学学位实际上是用当地社区的人们不会说的语言编写的。只有重新关注社区的需求，我才能明白我的工作有必要在哪里：帮助当地流域的居民与邻近的溪流建立情感联系。这些人对溪流昆虫的种群动态或鳗鱼迁徙的模式不感兴趣；相反，他们关心的是房屋被洪水淹没的危险以及孩子们的安全，以免受到潜在污染的水域的影响。我的责任是与他们居住的社区成员会面，并确保他们在讨论水资源问题时感到受欢迎。

作为一个生态学家群体，我们必须不断调整我们的沟通方式，创造所有人都有归属的空间。在从主导对话转向倾听担忧的过程中，我重新找回了失去的与自然世界的联系感。我开始与我的社区分享，就像我年轻时的博物学家与我分享的那样：我们走到外面，浑身湿透。没有借口，没有期望，没有行话，只有共同的发现和奇迹以及不断增长的信任感。

我加入了达比溪谷协会（Darby Creek Valley Association），这是一个当地的流域组织，旨在将居民培训为社区科学家。发生的事情是引人注目的——收集水化学数据的社区科学家开始在他们的河流系统中做出自己的发现。他们与样本地点建立了联系，并开始倡导在其社区制定更好的土地开发策略。他们甚至开始更愿意在以前为科学家和决策者保留的空间中分享他们对社区需求的观察和知识。

生态研究对我们共同的未来至关重要，但如果不找到与更广泛的受众分享这些经验教训的方法，我们的科学影响力就会减弱。我们不听取我们工作和生活社区居民的意见，从而欺骗了自己。提高当地的科学素养帮助了我的社区，从而帮助我重新发现了对生态学的热情，并促进了当地采取行动来保护我的社区所依赖的宝贵生态系统。