Interview with Wendy Lull
New Hampshire may have the smallest amount of coastline of any coastal state in the nation (either 13 or 15 miles long, depending on how you count it), but within that short distance stands a gem of ocean education, the Seacoast Science Center (SSC). The SSC is a not-for-profit science education facility located in Odiorne State Park in Rye, NH. The Center's exhibitions interpret four themes: the Gulf of Maine, New Hampshire's Coastal Connection, Changes to the Sea and Sky and Working Under the Sea. Through these exhibitions and their supporting programs, visitors and students attain a sense of the natural history of the park's seven habitats and how people have interacted with those habitats over time. Since opening in 1992, over 1 million people have visited the Center. There are over 60,000 visitors each year, 15,000 of whom are students from throughout New England.
When the Center opened in 1992, it was considered a model of public/private partnership. Managed by the Audubon Society of New Hampshire under contract with the state, Center operations were also overseen by an affiliation with UNH and another non-profit, the Friends of Odiorne Point State Park. In 2001, the Center became an independent non-profit organization. A year later, the Friends merged with the Center. Today, the SSC, still operating under contract with the state, has over 1,300 member households, 58 corporate sponsors and a year-round crew of 18.
Since its inception, the SSC and the University of New Hampshire have been closely affiliated and the UNH Marine Docents have been actively involved in many SSC programs. Today, UNH faculty and marine educators continue to partner with the SSC to provide a critical link between UNH research and the citizens of the region, and UNH students obtain hands-on educational opportunities at the SSC.
Recently we spoke with SSC President Wendy Lull.
First, what’s the focus of the SSC?
Our mission statement says it: Creating connections to nature through personal experience. We do education in a variety of formats, but our biggest asset is our location: Odiorne is a 136-acre sea side park with a rich human history and eight distinct habitats. We have a lot of programs and activities that interpret the area’s environmental history, showing the human connection to this environment from the 1600s on. And we also highlight the connection to the coast. In fact, the Center is right on a point of land surrounded by water on three sides. The incredible view and close proximity to the marine environment can take your breath away. Step out in front of the Center and you can look out to the Isles of Shoals, up the Piscataqua River and down the coast of Maine for miles!
What’s your role at SSC?
Since I came on board as the founding director 14 years ago, my job has evolved to be an ``over the horizon’’ job. Thanks to the Center’s great crew, now I spend most of my time thinking about what we’re going to do next, and about how we can connect and fit into larger initiatives. As the Center’s spokesperson I have the opportunity to represent the Center within our community and industry, which is how we became involved in efforts to advance OSL. I attended a COSEE-NE planning meeting and recognized the opportunities to advance our mission by participating in a regional collaborative. One of the commitments we made was to incorporate OSL in our institutional web sites, which we were able to do quickly because we were already working on a major site re-design. We had an in-house team of five working on it and they did a great job!
It has a page devoted to Ocean Science Literacy (OSL). What is the role that informal science education institutions can play using OSL?
What can’t we do? Institutions like the SSC are the first and last place people connect with nature: when they’re kids and then when they’re retired, perhaps bringing their grandchildren. Studies show that people who are intimidated by science trust informal science education institutions more than schools because they feel more comfortable in a museum setting. We manage to slip science into our programs and exhibits in ways that are fun and not so intimidating. We break down some inculcated barriers. Our mission is to help people make connections to nature, which is increasingly challenging as people spend more and more time in heavily built environments. However, everyday we see how quickly humans are fascinated by nature: it’s almost a default setting. So when people visit a nature center they are susceptible, and we are able to move them more easily through the stages of OSL. Then they start making larger connections about how their own behavior affects nature.
How does OSL come into your role as president of SSC?
The OSL principles give me more focus. It clarifies the subject and makes it easier to start conversations. Although the ocean is an incredibly complicated system the OSL principles distills and simplifies complex topics into what I call “digestible bits”. On a strategic level, it creates higher level conversations. For example, we can say to a potential corporate sponsor, ``This is what’s being done nationally’’ and the sponsor sees us, as well as their sponsorship, as part of a much larger effort. The Chairman of our Board now talks about the call for a nation of ocean literate citizens – what could be better than that?
You’re a member of NEOSEC. How does it fit in to your work?
That’s why the OSL page is on our new website, for one thing. Thanks to the pledge we all made at the last NEOSEC summit, we started incorporating OSL into our materials and new web site immediately. I do a lot of networking and NEOSEC offers another way to start the conversation at a higher level by saying, ``As a member of NEOSEC we’re committed to OSL.’’ It gives the conversation more structure. NEOSEC also exposes SSC to new schools and teachers, and I get good information from and about them, too. Principally, it’s an opportunity to think about OSL regionally and nationally, and there’s real value to getting that larger perspective. That will only happen if there’s a forcing function, such as the NEOSEC summits. And if I wasn’t in NEOSEC, the TV show on OSL would never have happened!
What was the TV show all about?
We had an opportunity to do a World Ocean Day segment on 207, the southern Maine TV newsmagazine that runs on the local NBC affiliate. Because of NEOSEC, I wanted to do something on OSL, and I had met people at the summits that I knew I could work with, which is how I got to Annette DeCharon at Bigelow Labs. The 207 producers were up for it too, since it was different from the usual story on Maine lobstermen. Their story editors realized that they’d never aired a show about ocean science education. So we got together with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the World Ocean Observatory (which is a virtual institution), and Annette at COSEE-OS, and put together a half-hour show that aired on World Ocean Day. It was so successful that we’ve got the go-ahead to plan another one. That is the kind of OSL project that could be done wherever there’s a local TV news magazine.
In addition to the media, how does the SSC implement Public Education and Outreach?
Although we’ve always had a connection with UNH our relationship has evolved from project level to partner level. (The Director of their marine program sits on our board.) Their faculty is doing great research, and some of their research funders now require outreach projects as part of the proposed research. That’s where our relationship comes in: by incorporating their research results into our exhibits, we get exhibits that incorporate the latest science, the funders get real outreach products and the scientists get better grant reviews and more funding.
For example?
The UNH scientists have great data on undersea mapping, and we both wanted to get it into the public sector. Together, we developed a virtual undersea-voyage exhibit that uses their data sets in a new way. We also have an exhibit using data from the GoMOOS buoys, called Seasons of the Sea. [Originally begun as a COSEE-NE Sharing the Challenge project.] People love the underwater world, but may not realize that there are seasons underwater just as there are on land. Ru Morrison of UNH has been working with us on this multi-station exhibit for two years. We also got funding to work with Dartmouth faculty for a touch-screen station on estuary conservation. By touching the screen, you “add” things to the water. The computer program shows how the particles move around the estuary and how many tidal cycles it takes to flush it out to sea.
Does developing these exhibits work as a partnership?
These exhibits are a perfect fit for the partnership level. The university’s researchers are producing the primary data we need for our science education. Together we can take that new information and turn it into exhibits and programs for the public. Again, institutions such as ours are seen as friendly sources for understanding complex scientific issues. We need to make sure that what visitors learn here is accurate and current, even though we are not a research institution. That’s why our partnership with UNH is so important.
Is this kind of partnership unique?
I guess what we’re doing is new, since I was asked to give a presentation on it at a national meeting, but I would assume it is happening elsewhere. Either way, this is a model that should be easily transferable to other informal science education and research institutions. The interaction between the SSC staff and the UNH faculty works because we found faculty members who understand and value public outreach. When you can put together the right team, you can achieve a real synergy. Not only is everyone involved committed to producing an excellent exhibit, I like to think that working with us is fun for scientists. After all, they’re passionate about their work and seeing other people become passionate about it and really understand its context has to be incredibly rewarding.
