Science & Memory
Right after I finished interning at The Finder in Ghana, I traveled halfway across the world to Cordova, Alaska, an opportunity made possible by the University of Oregon's Science & Memory Program. Science & Memory is a yearlong experiential learning program that's all about bringing creativity and multimedia to climate change storytelling. In that year, we unpacked the basics of science communication, dived into wildfire discourse and talked about the ethics of reporting on climate change, which is both a technically complex and an emotionally loaded topic.
Likewise, Cordova has a loaded history. A small fishing town on the Prince William Sound in Southern Alaska, Cordova survived a 9.2 magnitude earthquake in 1964 and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. But Cordova's people are resilient, and so is its ecosystem: The Copper River Delta continues to be one of the most productive salmon fisheries worldwide, and a critical habitat for migratory shorebirds like the dusky goose.
Our job was to appreciate, explore and capture Cordova's beautiful complexity, which was very dynamic due to climate change. We traversed the Sheridan Glacier with a local artist, who had routinely painted the expanse of ice for decades and described how it's shrinking before his eyes. With the United States Forest Service, we helped restore breeding habitat for dusky geese since the Copper River's marshes are slowly giving way to open ocean. Every day, we also devoted time to photographing Cordova's bountiful wildlife, some of which I've included above.