Scientists in Our Communities

Imagine you are living in a town with polluted water and land, resulting in unsafe drinking water and contaminated playgrounds for your kids (where would the children play?) Asking for the government’s help alone may not be very effective in solving the problem. Instead, your town will probably need scientific facts on the exact quality of the water and land and the consequences of the pollution to the community in order to get your voice heard. In this way, science is probably the most important part of an environmental problem. Researching the problem is key to understanding the situation and finding a solution.

The streams in my town and state have been monitored by scientific organizations that get the public involved. In 2005, I was part of a group of more than 30 volunteers that surveyed a stream near my home as part of a River Watch Program (see picture). After going through a short training workshop, we went out into the field to record different features of our section of the stream, such as how deep, how wide and how clear the water was. We then submitted our information to the science organization to be compared to previous years’ results. The River Watch Program has shown that not only scientists are gathering evidence on environmental issues, but the public, on a local scale, are being encouraged to get involved. In this way, scientists are acting as researchers, advocates and public supporters and I think this is the way it should be.

If anyone is to be an advocate for environmental issues, scientists should. If they don’t someone else will, whether it’s the government, religious organizations, or the general public. Since scientists probably have the most accurate and fact-based information regarding any environmental problem, they should have the ability to influence the public to act accordingly.


For example, if the government is given primary authority, they might focus more on the problem of funding an environmental cleanup rather than on the health and safety of a community. They might therefore conclude that the problem is not worth fixing (perhaps even end up like the video above). While funding is a legitimate problem, I don’t think money should be the primary focus of a problem that could lead to more danger.

Religion should also not be the authority for deciding on environmental actions. Unlike religion, there is generally only one belief in science. While both are, in some way, universal, science is often given more credit and is therefore less opposed to than many religious beliefs.


I think scientists have priorities to manage the health of the planet and its inhabitants and therefore should be given primary authority in the case of any environmental issue. When facts are publicized, they are based on what scientists, and the public in cases like the one mentioned above, have discovered. Since these scientists have discovered the problem and are most likely to understand the true nature of a situation, they should be the ones to not only educate others about the problem, but offer solutions to fix it.