Climate change can be difficult to talk about in everyday settings. At a recent family-friendly event in the Laurel Highlands climate change communication tools were being used to engage the public about the issue and what they can do.
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Powdermill Nature Reserve in Westmoreland County is a field station and lab of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. But on this sunny Saturday in April, there was a special event.
“Science in the Stream is a day where the public can come and have a chance to meet our researchers, get a sense of the science that goes on here at Powdermill,” said Laurie Giarratani, director of community learning at the museum, “and also talk with community partners who are doing really amazing conservation and climate resilience work that’s related to streams.”
A few years ago, Giarratani was co-lead on a research project, the Climate and Rural Systems Partnership, also known as CRSP. It brought educators and scientists together to develop tools, such as card games and conversation prompts, to get people in Western Pennsylvania talking about climate change, especially in rural areas like the Laurel Highlands.
“Climate change can be tough to talk about,” said Giarratani. “It is very complex scientifically. The solutions that are needed on the global scale can be overwhelming. In addition, there’s misinformation and political rhetoric that makes people really not want to talk about climate change.”
She said the CRSP project dug into the issue and found that, to take action on climate, people do need to be talking about it.
The research portion is over, but tools that came out of that work are being used by CRSP partners, including those participating in the Science in the Stream event.
Critters as climate talking points
One partner is the Mountain Watershed Association, located nearby. Carla Ruddock, director of conservation, hosted a table where kids, parents and even grandparents could get a closer look at macroinvertebrates in a small tank of water.
“It starts with just getting the kids interested and involved in the stream health and knowing what’s there,” said Ruddock. “And then as they grow older, they can see the full circle.”
The crayfish, mayflies and stoneflies in the tank were collected in the nearby stream. Ruddock said climate change impacts like warmer temperatures alter the habitat of macroinvertebrates, which are important fish food.
‘Some bugs are more tolerant than others, and can take those temperature changes. More of your sensitive, better quality species can’t tolerate those changes, and they will start to die off, and then we’ll see a decrease,” Ruddock said. “That could be one of the impairments that we see.”
Colleen O’Neil, communications specialist at Mountain Watershed Association, said climate is one factor in the studies the organization does on stream health. There are other pressing factors, like pollution.
“It’s all part of the same system,” O’Neil said. “And there are things that are maybe accelerating other impacts from climate change that we’re working on, but they’re also interconnected.”
O’Neil said that through CRSP, Mountain Watershed Association received a grant to place educational signs along the Indian Creek Valley Trail, which they manage. She said the signs are soft nods towards climate change, such as pointing out the importance of wetlands in resilience.
“I think that’s the broader point of the program, to connect all these things together and bring it down to earth for everyday folks,” O’Neil said.
Trout Unlimited is also a CRSP partner. Rick Yaksic is the president of the Forbes Trail chapter. At the event, he and volunteers taught kids to fly-cast with rods and velcro fish.
“Because of climate change, last year was a rough year for the streams. It was so hot, there was so little rain that the streams virtually almost dried up, which caused the native brook [trout] to… where can they go?” Yaksic said.
He said a focus for them is teaching kids about the conservation needed to maintain these high-quality streams.
Recognizing climate action
Inside Powdermill’s welcome center, Laurie Giarratani stood behind a table with five clear buckets, each a climate solution visitors could vote for with a colorful pom pom. The activity came out of the CRSP project.
She talked with 6-year-old Silas Buckham from Somerset County.
“I’m curious what kind of climate solutions you have noticed?” she asked him.
“We have seen all of these,” Buckham said.
Giarratani encouraged him to place a pom pom in each of the buckets, representing food waste, solar and wind farms, protected forests – which had the most pom poms – and riparian buffers, which involve intentional planting in areas that are susceptible to flooding.
Mom Tina Buckham said she loves free events like these.
“I think it gets the kids outside and gets them educated,” she said. “ And then they start coming back at me with stuff.
Laurie Giarratani said people in the Laurel Highlands have a deep connection to their waterways. Fun events like Science in the Stream do the work of getting families outdoors.
“Then once you’re here, there’s a chance to learn about a lot of scientifically grounded work that is going on, how people can use science to protect streams and take action,” Giarratani said.
