lost in the fog of a cosmic storm floating on
whimsical wavelengths is the norm dancing through
the stars chasing spectrums of light riding the
waves that are just out It's time for whimsical
wavelengths again. And this time, a different
type of paper. One that turns the lens on the
degree process itself. Ah, just before we get
going though, if you've got the time, the space,
you're not driving, you know, drop a review on
Apple or rating on Spotify or whatever app you're
using. It really does help the show and gets
it out to even more people to discover it. Okay,
so... A discipline, a scientific discipline,
that does not have a diverse group is missing
out. Missing out on ideas, perspectives, and
cognitive diversity. The unique ways different
minds solve complex spatial puzzles. In some
fields, part of the education happens away from
the classroom. Sometimes in a literal field.
There has always been a mantra that to do fieldwork,
you need to be a certain way. Be able to hike
up hills, handle being beside traffic -heavy
roadways, to look at rock cuts. We've treated
the outdoors as a character -building rite of
passage rather than a classroom. Perhaps I should
go on a rant of what fieldwork is. typically
is an industry long time listeners have heard
it before it's long days in rugged terrain often
in the very remote locations dealing with helicopters
bugs and animals but most importantly not all
geoscience is that not all geoscience work or
discovery happens under those conditions that
is incredibly important to recognize because
if the field is a barrier we're not just losing
students we're losing the future of geosciences
bringing in students with sensory cognitive and
physical disabilities into academically rigorous
ways needs to be part of moving the education
forward and if we do so it leads to better departments
and a healthier more innovative discipline today
we will explore a paper centered around a workshop
held right here in Vancouver, where multi -sensory
engagement and flexible delivery proved that
accessibility doesn't mean compromising academic
merit. In fact, it often enhances it for everyone.
I absolutely have the appetite to dig into this
topic. I refuse to take education for granted.
It belongs to all of us, although perhaps it
needs a little... metamorphism to reach its final
form. To explore this topic, I have a guest coming
in to discuss how physical changes to field work,
careful planning and the changing of perceptions
are all integral to this endeavor. Today's guest
is an expert in his field, pun intended, and
a master at field teaching. Please welcome Brett
Gilley, a professor of teaching at University
of British Columbia. Hello. Okay, I figured I'd
start by embarrassing you, at least buttering
you up. You sport an impressive 96 % of would
take again at ratemyprofessor .com with comments
like great teacher and comedian. So I'm definitely
looking forward to your ending punchline. But
to start, I thought perhaps the best place is
what is teaching to you or your take on pedagogy?
I mean, teaching is what I love. And, you know,
Rate My Prof is always amusing. You get the people
who love you and the people who hate you. And
at least from my perspective, I always think
the people who love me can't spell. It says something
about their abilities. I got to interject you
right there because I can't spell. I have a PhD
and I literally took geophysics because I couldn't
spell. I did not want to take anything to do
with biology because I figured that's 50 % of
my mark gone like that. So I have a big heart
for all of those who can't spell. I say it lovingly
because I am one of them. But yeah, it's just
sort of a, it's an interesting, I mean, we spend
a lot of time talking about teaching. And teaching
evaluations and those sorts of things that people
talk about teaching as if they're an objective
measure. But teaching evaluations are, you know,
done by 18 to 22 year olds who don't necessarily
have a huge amount of perspective or life experience.
And so it's one of those things that I rail against
sometimes. But yeah, teaching is something that
I love. It's a huge part of my job. And, you
know, I think that earth science is something
that everybody should do. And everybody should
learn. And, you know, you'd hope that that's
what most people feel like when they're a teacher,
that they love teaching their subject. But I
just feel like I'm really gifted that I get to
share what I love and watch people experience
it. And everybody can do it. I end up with a
lot of students who are very, they have imposter
syndrome and they often come to us as if. this
is the science that they've been dreading. And,
oh, I'm not good at science. And I'm like, well,
that's not really, there's not like a gene for
science, you know? And it's just the way they've
been taught and the way they understand knowledge,
they come in very apprehensive. And part of what
I love is being able to show these people that,
oh, no, you live on the earth. You love the earth.
The earth is really cool. And you can do this.
It's a good job. See, right there, obviously,
you're railing and being like, being, What's
the word? Humble about your 96%. But, I mean,
right there it kind of says the same. You're
not funny yet, though. Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay.
Gravity sucks. Oh, that hurts. That hurts. That
hurts so much. That's my favorite joke in lecture
because it's so bad. Well, you've got to have
at least a picture of a kid standing there with
an ice cream on the concrete, right? Well...
I actually prefer just leaving it there, because
what happens is it's such a bad joke that it's
not actually funny, and usually three or four
weeks later a student will come up and say, I
didn't get your gravity joke. And I get to explain,
oh, gravity sucks, like, down. And they're like,
oh. And you know they've been lying awake at
night wondering why they didn't get the joke.
It's just because it's so stupid. Yeah, those
are some of my favorite jokes. Yeah, me too.
And we've had some really good ones on the podcast,
so I'm really looking forward to yours. I should
have saved it. You probably should have. The
paper at the center of this episode starts with
a problem, and I think let's start there. This
isn't the first discussion here on the podcast,
Whimsical Wavelinks, touching on the subject
of, like, how do we learn? How do we... point
the camera or the lens or the telescope back
at the scientist. Previously on this show, it
was wrapped up in identity of astronomy and science
more generally. Earth science is suffering from
a recruitment problem writ large. What is the
biggest problem with this in your eyes? It's
an interesting problem. We say regularly that...
we aren't going to be able to produce enough
geologists to replace retirements. I've kind
of been hearing that my whole life, and we seem
to still have a field. But there's this idea
that we need more geoscientists than we are producing.
And part of that's just because, you know, in...
Like 1905, someone in Chicago decided that instead
of doing natural history, they were going to
do biology and leave geology out. And then the
whole world followed them. So we don't have a
lot of earth science in high schools in that
way. And the earth science we do have in high
schools is sort of billed as, oh, you're no good
at science. You should do this. It's easy. It's
just rock collecting, which really troubles a
lot of my colleagues. I actually, I kind of like
it. It's nice, like I talked to my friends in
math, for example, the first year of university
is really year 13 for math. And you can't diagnose
if someone missed something key in grade five
and just could never do it after that and were,
you know, decided that they couldn't do it. That's
really hard to diagnose, whereas we can be fairly
confident that most of our first year students
are learning about a lot of this stuff the first
time. And I think in some ways that's quite freeing.
And it means that I can really spend my time
teaching, trying to convince people that, oh,
you're just majoring in the wrong thing and this
is awesome. And so I kind of like that. But I
do recognize it would be easier to fill those
positions if we had more people coming from high
school. But I'm not sure that it's that bad,
honestly. I guess it depends also what the industry
is doing at a particular time. Because I know
in the case of... The current moment. Everyone,
everyone is hiring. If you have a degree, you
obviously don't sound like your brain is on stun.
You will get hired. If you've taken a single
geology course and you don't drool at the interview,
you are welcome for the summer work. I've talked
to some companies that are hiring hundreds of
students this summer. And obviously it's very
cyclical. In the year I graduated, in the late
90s, Nothing. Oil was down. Mining was down.
Environmental science was just picking up. There
was really nothing. Several of my friends became
baristas and had to come back to geology five
or even ten years later. So this is a good time
for our students. And it helps us. We are in
a bit of a competition when it comes to choosing
majors at the University of British Columbia.
They choose their specialization at the end of
first year. And so we... We spend a lot of time
around now talking to students who are frantically
trying to make the right choice. And a crazy
number wants to go into computer science. Well,
it's nice for us to be able to say, A, we have
exactly the same salary structure with a very
high starting salary and potential for stratospheric
salaries. And also, you're probably likely to
get a job if you do geology. Yeah. What about...
the whole thing that there is a significant push
and it's a lot to do with how we fund education
and other things at the post -secondary level
so universities and colleges that we're having
closures and a reduction in the number of faculty
and yet you still have this push for making sure
we have people to be able to fill these positions.
Yeah, it's fairly dark times in post -secondary
right now. A lot of that's related to the ways
that the international student caps arrived in
the last couple of years. Sure, but it's not
just Canada. It's also Australia. It's the U
.S. It's basically all of the Western world.
Yeah, and we fund the universities strangely.
Like they are clearly a net benefit to society
to have a well -educated populace, but it's not
popular for anyone to give more money to the
universities. And so in BC, for example, and
much of Canada, the way we've been able to increase
funding is to bring in more international students.
And so in the last couple of years, when that
gets howled, it's very difficult. Universities
are like UBC is the 800 pound gorilla, right?
Like, oh. Our enrollments went down. Well, we'll
lower our entrance requirements slightly and
steal all the students from all the other institutions.
So the two -year schools and the newer, smaller
universities are really struggling right now.
And some of them, especially the ones that were
sort of overextended on international students,
are, you know, there's layoffs in permanent faculty,
which is not yet resolved into the universities.
On that dark moment. Let's start moving towards
something that actually is a bit more touchy
feely or at least feels good in the sense that
diversity and inclusion in any discipline is
absolutely important. And I can't plant the flag
any harder than those words, perhaps, unless
I literally start. drumming the earth I have
attempted to make the case for this but what
does it mean to you why is it important or rephrase
it more classically for any you know discipline
why should we care I mean when you talk about
the success of groups. What you want, a successful
group has diversity in it. People coming from
different ideas, coming from different places.
You're going to have a group that comes with
more stuff. If everybody's the same, they're
all going to come up with the same solutions.
It's not going to be as good. And so in geoscience,
for example, we've struggled a lot with a lack
of diversity. When you have, when chemistry makes
you look good, for example, for accessibility,
that's not a great sign. Like all they have to
do is... slap in a low desk and they call it
a day. But for us, having somebody with a mobility
disability out in the field can be very challenging,
right? And the knee -jerk reaction of many professors
is to say, oh, I'm sorry, you just can't come.
Whereas it's a lot easier in a lot of other institutions.
But because field work is a central focus of
our discipline, we're necessarily obsessed with
about that. And that resolves itself in strange
ways. All right, and I'll come back to maybe
some examples or some comparisons to other fields
in a moment. But now to the paper, or the papers,
if you will. Making geoscience fieldwork inclusive
and accessible for students with disabilities
is the title of at least one of them. And the
two of them together look at the process or the
event from two different... viewpoints. So setting
it up briefly in two to three sentences, what
was the event? So we did an accessible field
trip as part of a geologic conference in Vancouver
several years ago. And the whole point was to
bring students with disabilities together with
professors and to sort of show best practices
for having an accessible trip. That was the goal.
Of course, everything immediately goes off the
rails. What we discovered is we had some students
with disabilities, some without, but we ended
up with a lot of professors with disabilities
who wanted to join the trip as well. And so already
our perspective was too narrow. And we ended
up with many people with many different disabilities
on what you would normally call a first year
field trip up to Whistler and back. Just because
I know the corridor relatively well, because
I live in, obviously, I think I can easily walk
to your house, actually. Probably, if you're
interested, you still can. So was this like to
see, just to keep people in the mind, that geology,
you go out and see the rocks. Are we talking
about some of the basaltic columns? Like what
other things are you seeing along this particular?
So we do it as an integrated trip that can include
most of the first year courses in our Earth,
Ocean and Atmospheric Science Department. So
we can bring in different things. You know, we
start off. At Stanley Park on the beach, looking
at beach processes and combining that with winds
and storms. And, you know, we go up and we look
up the lower mainland at Cypress Mountain. We
go look at landslides. We look at glacial stuff.
You know, we look at a whole variety of things.
And it's just because we're lucky enough that
we can look at all those things in a very simple
trip. I mean, I literally did this on Saturday.
We went just past Squamish and back. We left
at 9. We were home by 4 .30. We're really blessed
with how much geology we can access so quickly.
That's the reason why we call it beautiful British
Columbia. Or did we switch it to supernatural?
Probably both. Okay, so how does this make it,
just in general, we'll get into more of the details
eventually, but how is this more accessible?
So, I mean, there's a certain point where I should
take a step back and talk maybe about how I even
got involved in this. I was at the Geologic Society
of America conference and I met a guy and we'd
been talking about stuff and he said, oh, I'm
presenting. I said, I'll go watch your presentation.
And he was presenting on his PhD work where he
took eight quadriplegic and paraplegic students
into Mammoth Cave. which was not accessible at
that time, and had them doing mapping, and I
was watching this. Wait, just for the listener,
what is Mammoth Cave? Mammoth Cave is a gigantic
cave complex in the southeast U .S. It's one
of the biggest in the world. Caves formed by?
Pardon? Caves formed by? Formed in carbonate
rock and formed by the process of... water erosion
carbonate rock is susceptible to acid rainwater
naturally is slightly acidic and so therefore
it's very easy for it to make huge cave complexes
and when people think of caves carbonate caves
are really what they're talking about we don't
get that type of cave in our mountains here for
example because the rock's not right so this
is a huge cave complex he's presenting on this
and i'm sitting in the audience thinking i did
a field trip last week and I have two people
in my class of 500 who are in wheelchairs, and
this is an optional trip. I said, oh, come join
us on the trip, I said to the whole class. And
if these students had come to me, I would have
said, no, you can't come, because we don't have
a lift on the bus, and it wouldn't be safe. And
after watching this guy's presentation, I was
thinking to myself, well, what a jerk I am. Because
my field trip, like, he's taking people down
in an elevator and having them map in this really...
difficult environment, I would just have to throw
a lift on the bus. Like 80 % of our stops are
in a parking lot. It's like as accessible as
it could be. And I suddenly realized, oh, I need
to be involved in this group. This is the International
Association for Geoscience Diversity. And we
were just building the group up then. And as
part of the discussions. There was going to be
a conference in Vancouver. And they said, well,
why don't we try and do an accessible trip? And
I said, perfect. I can run this. And the most
difficult thing was getting a bus with a lift.
And in fact, two days before the trip, the bus
company called us in a panic and said, oh, you're
going outside of Vancouver and you're having
accessible students. We can't fund. We can't
let you do this. The liability is too high. You'd
have to pay for more insurance. And they were
trying to cancel us. And I said. Oh, well, how
much was the extra insurance? And they went,
$100. I'm like, we're paying two grand for the
bus already. Great, we'll pay an extra $100.
I'll pay it in my pocket. But they were like,
that's the sort of interesting barrier that you
get. And this isn't accessible. This is a bus
with a lift, and they didn't want to take people.
on the bus that's designed to take people to
accessible areas right and this is important
for other people to listen to because sometimes
geology can go off the beaten track you're on
dirt roads everything else this is a hundred
percent on paved roads yeah well maintained like
there's a couple places where people scramble
down but when we did that if someone was in had
mobility issues we paired them with someone who
didn't and so they would go down and collect
a sample and bring it back and and we just tried
to sort of Make sure that everybody had some
amount of access. You can't have perfect access,
but you could say, hey, come with us. So this
trip was fascinating from that perspective because
it felt very easy once I actually had the idea
that I could do it. But it was groundbreaking
that people didn't do things like this. And the
really funny thing that we didn't consider, when
most of the people on the trip are disabled,
nobody is disabled. Everybody had a different
disability. This is very different than when
you're trying to apply to a class where you might
have one or two people with a disability and
they feel singled out. And so that's one of the
struggles moving forward. But that trip was totally
fascinating. And we had people with a wide variety
of disabilities. We had two people who were visually
impaired. We had a man who was almost completely
deaf. And we got ourselves an ASL... American
Sign Language translator for this and then we
discovered that he was from India and he didn't
speak American Sign Language. But it actually
worked out well because that student who was
the translator just sat next to him with a tablet
and just was typing what people were saying at
all times around him. And so he was getting the
gist of what was going on and he... felt incredibly
included because he could participate there was
someone next to him who was constantly translating
for him and he could read some lips and then
get the gist of what was happening and he would
sit in the front of the vest and just smile and
nod when we're talking about stuff right and
so it was this really fascinating experience
where we had a bunch of people who were very
apprehensive about being on the field trip who
ended up having this awesome time and the feedback
the data we'll talk about later was phenomenal
yeah In fact, that's where we're going right
now. Sounds great. The data. Now, I, being, you
know, a volcanologist and, you know, really been.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not always that the
data gives you a direct answer because sometimes
the answer is incredibly fuzzy. Yeah. But it's
different. And then when you typically think
of science, you're thinking of, like, lots of
data. And I'm totally ignorant of this. Sunk
my proverbial teeth into only one other study
for this show of a smaller sample size. And one
event means only those who attended. So how can
we put that data or numbers here into context?
Yeah, so it's one of the constant interesting
things about academia is this struggle between
qualitative and quantitative data. I was once
in a research talk where we spent an hour talking
about the value of qualitative data and how even
having one person's account can be seen as a
valid data source and you can learn from that
one person's account. And then someone came in
late. We were talking about this qualitative
project where they had five people had given
qualitative interviews. And the person who came
in late said, oh, it's too bad you didn't get
enough numbers. Like even with qualitative data,
people think, oh, well, then you can bin it and
make it quantitative. And we only believe in
quantitative data. You got to have a number on
it. And so part of what's exciting about this
work was this phenomenology that they call, you
know, exploring the experience of people. And
we did have quite large numbers when you look
at things. So we had. focus groups both before
and after and we had groups of students and then
we have groups of professors and we basically
just tried to typify their experience in this
context to to elucidate you know how doing a
trip like this changed these people's lives because
it was very transformative for several of them
and like I read the papers now years later and
they still bring me to tears some of them Some
of the quotes are just spectacular. I wasn't
the slowest. Everyone wasn't waiting for me.
One professor said it's the first time I've been
able to be on a field trip in years. He had a
progressive disability and he'd go on trips and
just sit on the bus. just just to be close enough
to the geology and here he was there and he and
i were arguing about whether it was water or
glaciers that carved this thing you know and
that experience is something he missed we had
a we had a visually impaired student who was
a going into geophysics and when people asked
what are you majoring in they would say She would
say, oh, I'm going to go in geophysics. And they
would go, oh, honey, why are you making it hard
on yourself? And she said, it feels like I'm
giving people the wrong answer because science
is too hard for someone with a disability. And,
you know, from this person, you know, who arrived,
had a seeing eye dog that was brand new to them
and like was struggling to get out on the bus
and afraid to ask for help to the end of the
day where we're standing next to an outcrop and
halfway up the hill. The little scramble is an
intrusive dyke. And at the end of the day, she
was comfortable enough to just turn to someone
she knew who they was and say, here, hold my
dog. And then scrambled up the cliff by herself,
following somebody. And one of the observers
on the trip came up behind me and said, all the
risk analysis people at my... at my university
just died of a heart attack i'm like yeah it's
fine she's comfortable it's not actually that
dangerous but you know like it was really transformative
for people who haven't had that experience and
she she as an example said i now feel like i
can do this whereas before i felt like i was
giving people the wrong answer when i said geophysics
wow i right i Okay. I mean, you saw my facial
expressions, but I didn't want to interrupt you
at all throughout any of that. And I was definitely
giving some colorful expressions like shock and
awe. Yeah, me too. Wow. I mean, you weren't just
now, but I bet you were at the time or at least
internalizing it. I wasn't at the focus group.
I got to read it later and it's like, oh, that's
great. Oh, so you, although lived the experience
of this event, you didn't realize the impact
it had until well after. I did because we talked
about it a lot, and I did on the day of, and
I spoke to people on the day of who were just
like, thank you. It was very strange for us because
it really wasn't hard, and that was one of the
big takeaways. It's not like we did some Herculean
task here. I got a bus with a lift, and I was
prepared for people who had other disabilities.
And we had a variety, as I said. We had some
veterans from the US who had trauma, like brain
trauma from explosions. We had people with mental
disabilities. We had learning disabilities. There
was a woman who was supposed to be on another
field trip, and that field trip left early without
her. And we're like, well, come with us. and
she was on the trip and she sort of became part
of the group and about halfway through the day
she goes wait a minute i have chronic back pain
i have a disability right i mean and like most
of us hope to live long enough to become disabled
right i mean this is this is what all of our
lives are going to be but we have this strange
focus on ability no one can scale a 500 meter
cliff but that technically is a disability glasses
Glasses are a disability, but glasses are so
perfect that they're not really an issue. And
people even wear them, you know, to look cool.
Glasses that have no prescription in them, right?
It's different than a hearing aid. I have never
worn my glasses to look cool. Several people
wear glasses for fashion. People do that. I mean,
sunglasses, sure. But also people wear glasses
that have done a prescription in them because
they don't have the connotation of growing up
and feeling different, right? Oh, my gosh. The
number of times I got called four eyes. Of course.
I would beat the crap out of you. You're wearing
glasses, so I'll give it a pass because I feel
sorry for you. I always say, my mother said,
never be afraid to sucker punch a girl just because
she's wearing glasses. I will say she gets very
angry when I say that. Obviously, you've just
kind of gone through a little bit of how it really
did work for the students, which clearly it did.
But did it impact what could be taught? So this
is one of the things that people were worried
about. I would argue that a traditional field
trip is not actually a great learning environment.
The way I went through, it was great. But when
I went through field trips in my undergrad, We
would drive somewhere and someone would lecture
at us and maybe we would write notes and produce
a report on what they had said. And that's not
an ideal learning situation. So the way that
this trip worked, and we did the same thing for
all trips, and I do this on all my trips now
still, we go to the location, I say get in groups
and go explore the area. And specific to this,
we added the phrase, use all of your senses to
explore the area. and we would do that and people
would see different things and feel different
things and do different stuff and even be able
to go to different places the very first stop
had a ramp that went down to the seawall and
that ramp said no wheelchairs because it was
quite steep and we had one person in a scooter
and this woman who was in a wheelchair and I
walked over I said it's up to you if you want
to go down here um and the person on the scooter
said no and turned around and went back to a
platform where they could observe what's happening
and the woman on the wheelchair i said are you
okay with that and she eyed me popped a wheelie
and then rode down the hill pulling the wheelie
while eyeballing me as they went down the hill
i'm like okay everyone has a different level
of risk tolerance and obviously she was fine
right and so she could get down closer to the
material and look at other certain things and
so but that idea that we're what we're doing
is we're exploring this area we're all finding
different things i specifically said bring back
samples to the people who can't make it down
uh you know have a discussion show what you know
and it it really it really lent that community
and then we would come back and say okay well
what would we what did we discover and the We
had a field trip handout that maybe had a couple
guiding questions for each spot. But as an example,
the first stop we would go to is Third Beach
at Stanley Park, where you can look at the sand.
There's little indicators of landslides. At the
far end of the beach is a sandstone outcrop that's
Eocene -aged and fluvial. There's groins on the
beach to protect sand from longshore drift. There's
a long view of the Salish Sea, where you can
see... weather coming a long way we can talk
about huge wind storms that affected stanley
park there's a whole bunch of things to look
at and especially having a group a diverse group
of geoscientists you got really interesting discussion
and people were excited because everybody learned
something from someone else so i still do that
with first years they're a little shyer but they
still they observe things you know all right
well i'll leave the the jargon in there alone
for our non -geology listeners sorry But I do
remember, like, the one thing that I truly remember
that was grilled into me via these sorts of field
trips that you're describing was describe, describe,
describe, describe, describe. Yeah. That was,
like, which is, to be fair. It's the learning
goal verb that we love the most in geology. So
it almost seems like I'm a generation ahead of
you because the way you make it seem is that
the next crew of teachers learned to, you know,
use your senses, talk about what you feel, what
you see, what you, and you're just taking it
the next step further as part of the study. I
literally had the classic where we drove an hour.
We got out of the bus and the professor said,
behind this concrete wall is the best example
of an outcrop. Well, it's not here anymore because
they covered it. But he drove us there and then
talked about it. I had another professor in the
Channel Scablands, which is an area of huge basalt
and beautiful columnar basalts and features are
gorgeous, like Giant's Causeway, who we went
to eight different locations and in a trip of
40 people held up an eight and a half by 11.
a geochemical excel graph and talk for 45 minutes
about the geochemistry of these rocks. What?
Which was the most horrifying field trip I've
ever been on in my life. I have never been on
anything that could approach that monstrosity
of terribleness. Well, I'm an angry old man,
Jeff. Wow. Wow. You've lived through some...
I've seen some stuff. Yeah. Okay. But that idea
of having activities and doing things there.
And yeah, describe is part of it. But we go for,
especially with a first year trip, what do you
observe? And then what can you interpret from
that? And we try not to get too far into the
just take some notes. Well, I mean, what do you
observe? That's the describe, right? It is. It
is. Although it's a little friendlier to the
students. Sure. Because it's describe is. You
want to find the thing that I want you to find,
whereas what do you observe is literally what
do you see here? What's interesting to you? What
stands out? It's funny. I never got that impression.
The impression that I got from describe was write
down everything you notice. Everything. It doesn't
matter if it's useful or not. Well, that's good.
And now interpret. And if your interpretation
is wrong, as long as your description has everything
there, you can always reinterpret. Fair. Yeah.
And you can thank Kelly Russell, which is also
a UBC professor, actually, even though there
is, I guess, maybe not at the faculty level,
never at the faculty level, but the institution
level from where I graduated to at SFU to UBC,
there is some kind of competition, I guess. So
having come from SFU. I know from SFU's perspective
that UBC is the rival school. And having been
at UBC, UBC occasionally remembers that there
are two universities in the lower class, which
I find very adorable. It is very adorable. But
that's almost an aside because I want to get
back to what we're talking about and kind of
switch it on its head because the other part
of the whole story is the staff or the teachers.
Yeah. Were they surprised about how it all went
and what did they say? Well, and we thought it
would all be teachers who were able -bodied paired
with disabled students or students with disabilities,
I should say. But it wasn't because many of the
professors had disabilities and their discussions
were interesting. For example, the professors
spent a lot of time trying to define disability,
which was an interesting part of their discussion.
And several of them had a disability and were
still... grappling with this thing but yeah they
also many of them also had a similar experience
like oh i didn't feel like i was a bother but
this idea that they were also trying to think
through the meta level of like who gets to be
here and who belongs and which disabilities are
valid which was a very interesting discussion
and does mirror professors without disabilities
as well like which disability is valid right
like wow that is so human right like someone
in a wheelchair you know has a mobility disability
but somebody who has like a chronic pain who
appears not to have a disability that's a much
different problem we did uh years later we did
a similar trip to mammoth cave coming full circle
and they brought a photographer to take pictures
of the trip And I was watching the photographer
at the first stop. We were actually inside the
cave. And he kept taking pictures of the two
people in wheelchairs. And I finally went over
to him and said, hey. He goes, yeah. I go, everybody
on this trip has a disability. And he went, what?
Because the photographer was only thinking of
the people in wheelchairs. And so I guess the
professors or the ones that were. In the lecturer
position, we're also struggling with this idea.
Yeah, yeah, it's a hard idea. Disability is a
hard thing to define, and we tend to, as a knee
-jerk reaction in our society, consider it as
a medical model. This is a deficiency that medicine
can cure. Or this is an identity rather than
this is an attribute that a human has, right?
It's very, and I'm being inarticulate as someone
who is mostly able -bodied. You know, I'm coming
to these ideas late, obviously. Like, I was the
person saying, who would have said, no, you can't
come on the trip because you're in a wheelchair.
Which I, the regret I have about this is staggering.
It's kind of amazing. But, I mean, that's, I
guess. One of the wonderful things about science
is having the curiosity to ask questions and
learn, right? Yeah. And maybe this is something
I'm coming to late, even within the podcast,
is in science we try so hard to remove the human
from the whole conversation. Maybe the human
doesn't need to be in the equation, but you can't
remove them from the conversation. I often start
out my first year classes by reminding them that
they are in fact a bag of meat and the meat is
driving. And if you're tired or hungry or cranky,
like that's a thing you have to consider as a
scientist is how that affects you. I remember
my professor saying to me, don't go out in the
rain because you won't be able to trust the data.
you're going to have to go back and remeasure
those things because you're going to do a bad
job. And I thought that was a really sort of
interesting perspective. It's hard in Vancouver
if you're in the winter, but it's an interesting
perspective that you want to plan what your fieldwork
is so that it's things you can rely on and remembering
that if you're cold and your hands are shaking,
you're not going to be working hard on getting
that fracture measurement the way you might on
a beautiful sunny day. So moving forward. Given
your position in the pedagogy of the earth science
department at UBC, I assume some of this is being
incorporated into the classroom writ large and
I guess into the field trips as well? Yeah, so
in this classroom we often, so there's an architectural
term called universal design. So for example,
sliding automatic door makes life easier for
everyone. but is also helpful for people with
a disability. So you want to universal design
things that affect the broadest amount of people.
So in universal design for learning, for example,
having a white background with black text and
high contrast makes it easier for people with
visual disabilities, but also makes it easier
for everyone. If you have a yellow background
and red text, that's hard to read, right? And
so... So that's one of the ways that it goes
in there. It's very tricky. Making a class accessible
is not like a one and done because so often the
accommodations you want to make for people are
going to be unique. The way one person who's
visually impaired deals with their disability
is going to be different than another. One of
the people on that trip actually has a genetic.
a deteriorating uh deterioration of the cones
or the rods i forget which in her eye and her
she is an identical twin but uh her deterioration
started earlier so she was completely blind at
18 and spent much of her life pretending not
to have deterioration of vision well her sister's
vision didn't go until like 29 so this friend
of mine you can't tell that she's almost completely
blind and when you talk she'll look you in the
eye awesome her sister tries to do it and can't
and they both have a very different expression
of genetically identical disabilities right so
how you accommodate people is tricky and what's
challenging for us at the university is you often
find out about accommodations on the first day
so you aren't Finding out in June that you're
going to have a person who's visually impaired
in your paleontology lab, for example, you find
out on September 5th that that happens. That
makes that difficult. And so communities like
the International Association for Geoscience
Diversity are wonderful. We have these listservs
that are super quiet. And then September and
January are flooded with people saying, I have
a person with this disability in this class.
Does anyone have resources? How do you... How
do you show three -dimensional models to a student
with a visual disability? I was very lucky to
have a TA once who was hired as a note -taker
for a person with low vision. And I handed her
a pile of Silly Putty one day, and she was able
to quickly shape the Silly Putty. into things
that this person could touch and so he was able
to see the three -dimensional things because
he could hold them oh wow and she had just come
up with it on the fly because i happened to hand
her some silly putty so he could feel it i would
not be able to create that I wouldn't have either.
But she had the bandwidth and was hired to try
to accommodate for him and was a really keen
and engaged note -taker in the ability to do
this. So now I know, if I have a student with
a visual disability, I need to make sure they're
paired with someone who has silly putty. And
the ability to quickly shape something reasonable.
It's rough and ready, right? Sure, to a point,
but I mean... It's got to be something. So it
turns out things like paleontology are actually
wonderful because there's actually several well
-known blind paleontologists because you can
really feel the fossils, right? So it's knowing
where those things are more useful and where
in some cases might actually be an advantage.
Okay. So I suppose it's time to kind of like
circle back to the problem in a different way.
Okay. As framed at the top, I think by and large,
science, we buy in. We realize we want, again,
this is by and large the community as a whole
and supposed to the individual. We want to make
things better. That is, we want to learn things
better. We want to, you know, move forward our
understanding. Let's change the world for better.
At least that's the sentiment. But we also have
this other side of us, which is also like too
slow to move. Yeah. So in practice, are we starting
to see things change? Definitely. Definitely.
Hugely so. So, you know, we did this paper years
ago. Lots of people have... How many years ago?
10, I think was the... 2015 was the original
work. the field trip the last paper was like
2018 or 19 when it was published when we finally
got i think it was the professor's uh paper was
finally published we had some trouble getting
it published for bad reasons um anyway reviewer
oh pardon me reviewer three it's always uh yeah
reviewer three had no uh experience with accessibility
and was challenging us on definitions in really
ableist ways And we actually eventually pulled
from that paper and went somewhere else, which
was that was we were kind of laughing about it.
But, you know, it spread things out nicely. But
no, things have changed a lot. So in our department,
for example, the faculty of science has. program
every summer where you can basically apply and
you can join the Universal Design for Learning
Scholars program and rework one of your courses
to be more accessible. So, for example, I think
the first project we did a few years ago, they
redesigned mineralogy to account for a fairly
common disability, colorblindness, which is a
struggle in mineralogy. Not as much as it could
be, but, you know, color can be important. Yeah,
especially in biology and under the microscope.
Yeah. And so knowing how to deal with that, we
now have that built into this lab. So that's
a great example of the type of thing that's happening.
There's been a lot of good work done in my department
alone because I've been doing this work. You
know, when a student with a disability enters
third year field school, the professors immediately
come to me and say, OK, well, what can we do
here and how can we help this person? You know,
COVID actually in some ways helped this a lot
because we had to struggle with the idea of online
learning. And so there's days in the field, in
our field school, where if someone can't go,
potentially just because they've been injured
and rolled their ankle, they can instead do the
online module for that day. Which, that's great.
Yeah. The fact that we have this alternate process.
We also are more likely... I think 10 years ago,
if someone said, I can't do field school, we
would have said, you can't be a geologist. Whereas
now, people are more open to finding alternatives.
And there are alternative field schools that
are built around accessibility. So a colleague
of mine, Anita Marshall from the University of
Florida, I think, somewhere in Florida, has an
accessible field school that's modeled after
NASA missions. And so they split the class into
two groups. And one of the groups, is mission
control. And they might even be at home and they're
interacting completely in an online setting and
they design what the day is going to be and they
design what the plan is going to be and the people
who are able -bodied and able to be there, they're
the ones who are actually doing the away mission,
as it were. And it's a beautiful design and then
everyone works together to produce an output.
How often do they have Miami? We have a problem.
Right, exactly. They actually go to Arizona.
Right, right. The people are back in Florida,
right? I don't know where in Florida. Or Seattle
or wherever. And so we actually, we sent a student
there from... vancouver who actually went down
and was part of the away team a student who had
a variety of disabilities that didn't affect
their mobility and so they were able to participate
in this right and so that's an example of the
type of things that are happening i think people
being really creative and i think you know the
the thing about accessibility when i said uh
you can't or when i would have said you can't
come that's a rude but be probably illegal and
would open the university up to like a charter
of right and freedom challenge right like i i'm
required to have something that they could do
right and in the u .s title nine i think the
laws are called like that you have these things
where you're required to accommodate and accommodation
doesn't mean make it perfect it's to do something
that makes them involved that helps them replace
the learning and that that's what's happening
more i find so there's hope Before we move on
to some of the lighter side of things, thank
you. Oh, my pleasure. It's a conversation that
I don't, we don't have enough in sciences as
like between sciences, like between scientists
in the open. It does happen, but it's never like
fully out in the open. Like, and I don't know
about you, but, and I'm not willing to get into
it ever in a public sphere. There is a lot of
stuff that goes on in academia and not necessarily
with the colleagues right beside you, but like
it is an institutional level where you're kind
of like, damn, we really need to do more. Yeah.
And I think we're getting a lot better. I think
that things are less likely to happen and have
the bad outcome. We're more likely to have people
accommodated. We have the Centers for Accessibility,
which is common everywhere. They're mostly focused
on exams. But for people with more severe disabilities,
like my students who are visually impaired, they
do other things and they focus on lectures. So
I think improvements are happening. In one of
our lecture rooms, there's a sign on it. There's
an office chair, a rotating, comfortable office
chair with a sign on it that says, please leave
this here. This is for students with disabilities,
a specific disability who can't sit on the hard
plastic chair. You know, you see this more and
more often. So it does give me hope. OK, so with
the harder side of the conversation done. Do
you know you have an IMDB page? I did not. Oh.
You told me. I went and looked it up. Yeah. So
as longtime listeners know, I actually do give
a fair bit of the questions, not all of them,
to the guest ahead of time. And this was one
of the questions you saw. So you did not know
you had one. No. And then I looked at it, I think.
It must be that Global News automatically uploads
all interviews, which is funny because it makes
me want to go in there and put in like the Czech
and the CTV and the CBC, maybe throw on. I have
one ridiculous YouTube video that a colleague
of mine who is a little more tech savvy filmed
me answering questions. frequently asked questions
from students and generally being a goof and
he titled it brett geo dude gilly which i find
very funny okay so well thus far you haven't
been terribly funny on the podcast but to be
fair it's because of the context of what we're
talking about so you need to send me that link
so i can put it in the show notes okay i'm serious
i'm gonna hold you to that i will send it to
you it's horrifying but um Do you have plans
to be a film star or a comedian based on this
page? No, not so much. Not yet. I mean, the hope
is always there, right? I will say, having taught
classes, there's been times where I taught like
a quarter of all UBC students took one of my
classes. We had like 2 ,000 people a year were
taking our natural disasters course. There's
this weird minor celebrity that would make me
never want to be a celebrity. I could not go
to a restaurant near UBC without having a server
come up to me and say, hey, I took your class.
And that's weird. And that parasocial relationship
is really strange. So I'm not aiming for being
a comedian or a movie star anytime soon. But
I'm happy to play geologist number two in the
background if they need someone to swing a hammer.
Geologist number two. Yeah. I mean, Glyn Williams
-Jones famously has his hand in the movie Supervolcano.
Is it famous? But at any rate, we have totally
got into inside baseball. Glyn Williams -Jones,
as we know, if you're a longtime listener, we've
had him early on this year in January. We're
talking about Mount Meager. Was my PhD supervisor.
And we're just throwing some shade there. He
literally was in the movie. But he literally
was in the movie and he was their science attache,
which they partly ignored him or mostly ignored
him. It's a pretty good, as far as volcano movies
go, that one did pretty well. They mostly stayed
true to the science. It's not like Volcano, for
example, which is, I don't know what they're
doing there. Yeah, but at least it was entertaining.
Yes, it's true. Terrible. but entertaining. But
now we're at the perfect point of the whole show
where you get to do any call -outs, projects,
co -workers, other studies. Maybe your favorite
rock of the week? Don't take me for granted because
I'm nice. That's not your joke, I hope. That's
not my joke. No, that's a classic. I would call
out something I mentioned a couple times. The
International Association for Geoscience Diversity
is an international group that works towards
making geology more accessible for people with
disabilities. And just recently, they created
a Canada chapter. So I would encourage anyone
who's interested to go and see if they can join
the Canadian chapter of the IAGD. Yeah. Okay.
That leaves only the infamous final question.
Your favorite science joke. I mean, I told you
my one earlier, which is gravity sucks. But that
one's not really my favorite. That's more just
I like to say a stupid joke in front of 200 people
and hear the dead silence. Oh, I love that. Actually,
you know what? When I taught, it was like one
of the funny things is that I would say something
that I thought was objectively funny. And I thought
for sure it was funny. And then you'd hear silence
like a pin could drop. And then you're like,
and I would say this, I would literally say this.
I know that was bad, but I didn't get a word.
And then all of a sudden the whole class, 200,
300 people would start laughing. And I was like,
did I need to give you permission? Yeah. I mean,
the classroom is a strange place. I once had
a class that did not once laugh, laugh the entire
semester. Dead silence. I was like. going a little
crazy, like waiting for my laughter and not getting
it. And at the end of the term, every single
student talked about how funny I was in the evaluations.
How big was the class? 30. Oh, okay. It was just
really weird. Classes have weird culture, right?
Yeah. My favorite science joke. Yeah. So I tell
this in my disasters class. We often talk about,
I mean, if you ask a geologist where to build
a house, the geologist will say, don't bother.
It won't even last 10 ,000 years. But if you
ask an engineer where to build a house, they'll
say, how much money do you have? And I like that
one because it talks a little about the mindset
of geologists and engineers who are constantly
in some sort of strange battle. Yet still covered
by the same professional designation group. That's
right, but not the same procedures. Perfect.
Thank you so much for taking the time out of
your day to come on Whimsical Wave Lines. My
pleasure. Thanks for having me. If this topic
is something you want to get further into, please
check out the show notes for some of the links,
including the YouTube video mentioned about Professor
Brett Gilley here, Geodude. And remember, I'll
see you again in two weeks. As the galaxies fly
by. J.