AN ALLIANCE FOR SCIENCE IS LOOKING FOR YOU

Ed and Elly Styskel retired to Newport, Washington, after long careers in science and the outdoors: Ed was a wildlife biologist, and Elly had been at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. But they found they couldn’t quite leave their scientific work behind.

So they gathered a couple dozen like-minded individuals in their community and formed the Selkirk Alliance for Science in 2018. The organization has conducted events and presentations on everything from water quality, soils, wildlife, and snow water forecasting to the more esoteric aspects of human memory and nature as healer.

The SAS aims to help citizens use science to make informed decisions, and be able to recognize misinformation and pseudoscience. It collaborates with a variety of other organizations, including the Kalispel Tribe, whose Indian Creek Community Forest in Newport has been the setting for several of their events.

An annual science trivia contest, held online over several weeks in the dead of winter, includes scientific subjects from the local (How much of the Pend Oreille River is actually in Pend Oreille County?) to the cosmic (Where is the Crab Nebula?). Hyperlinks from the questions lead to other websites where the answers can be found—and to a bottomless trove of explorable data.

You can join the Alliance, sign up for the newsletter, participate in the annual quiz (next winter), and explore the website to find local opportunities to become involved in citizen science.

Learn more at www.selkirkscience.org

– Cate Huisman