A week ago, I had the honor of participating in the SEEDS field trip to Chiapas. I had been to two past field trips, and just couldn’t pass this one up, especially because it was in southern Mexico.

My name is Jallah Rouse, I am a Biology major at Johnson C. Smith University, and I recently had the extreme pleasure of attending a SEEDS field trip to the Mexican state of Chiapas.

Sustainability� sometimes it sounds like an ideal. However, on our SEEDS field trip to Chiapas, Mexico, students from the United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico were able to witness small cooperatives of indigenous agricultural workers working together with scientists to make sustainability a reality.

Read the latest biweekly Policy News from ESA’s Public Affairs Office.

This letter was prompted by the ESA Action Alert of May 11, 2007 that encouraged our members to urge Congress to provide good funding for science and education in the 2008 federal budget.

Much work is being done in the field of plant responses to climate change, where manipulative experiments (e.g., soil warming, elevated CO₂) and correlative approaches (e.g. climate envelopes) are the norm. However, we ecologists are largely failing to report on the biggest experiment on climate change: the last few decades of global warming and rising atmospheric CO₂.

The worldwide rush to develop capacity for producing biofuels has proceeded with little foresight. Facilities are being developed without a guaranteed supply of feedstocks (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0105/p01s04-wmgn.html). Orangutans may be threatened by oil palm plantations (http://www.orangutans-sos.org/ )

Read the latest biweekly Policy News from ESA’s Public Affairs Office.

This opportunity was a fantastic introduction to the to the workings of science, policy and government. I had minimal background in policy and this event was perfect for someone who is beginning to consider science/policy interactions as a career interest.

Last week, I had the privilege to spend several days in Washington DC as a graduate student representative of ESA. Along with biologists from several other organizations, we met with congressional staffers to advocate for the expansion of several federal programs that fund non-medical life science research in the 2008 budget. It was my first experience navigating the marbled halls of Capitol Hill, and although I didn’t come away with pockets full of research money (which was my secret motive for going), the trip was eye-opening on several levels.

Read the latest biweekly Policy News from ESA’s Public Affairs Office.

Earth Day as a special event once a year had never really meant much to me. But last year was different. For the first time I decided to participate in an Earth Day celebration event in my town of Reston, Virginia together with my 2-year old daughter, Anna. The event, which featured a native plant sale, stories and music by clowns, face painting, etc. was definitely fun but it was what happened afterwards that made this particular Earth Day memorable.