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The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast explores efforts to reduce nutrients in Illinois waterways from agricultural runoff to municipal wastewater with host Todd Gleason and producers Rachel Curry, Nicole Haverback and Luke Zwilling with University of Illinois Extension.
Read the blog at extension.illinois.edu/nlr/blog.
Episode 69 | Constructed Wetlands for Water Quality: Perceptions in Today's Society
Todd Gleason 00:06
This is the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy Podcast, episode 69. Constructed wetlands for water quality. Perceptions in today's society. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Today, we're going to talk with two professors at the University of Illinois about their work and their research related to wetlands and how society perceives them. I'm gonna start with Jeff Matthews.
Jeff Matthews 00:34
My name's Jeff Matthews, and I'm an associate professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. And I teach courses in wetland ecology, plant ecosystems, and plant identification. Most of my research involves wetlands. And I addressed challenges in plant conservation and restoration. Um, and much of my research focuses on wetland restoration and invasive wetland plants.
Todd Gleason 01.04
How'd you get involved in wetlands? Why was it an interest to you?
Jeff Matthews 01:07
So I've always been interested in the natural world. And, one of my first positions out of, uh. Out of my master's degree was working for the Illinois Natural History Survey on a contract with the Illinois Department of Transportation delineating wetlands.
Jeff Matthews 01:26
So we would identify wetlands in the field. Map those wetlands, and then when Department of Transportation would do road construction projects, they could either avoid impacting those wetlands, or compensate for any kind of impacts.
Todd Gleason 01:39
Is this something you found of interest from the time you were very young?
Jeff Matthews 01:43
Well, for me, I've always been interested in natural environments, not just wetlands, but forests, grasslands, um… I've always been interested in plants and animals, so it's been, it's been kind of a lifelong passion for the natural world. And I was lucky enough to get involved in wetlands, and I just found some really interesting as a, kind of a unique ecosystem type.
Jeff Matthews 02:14
And was lucky enough to work in them and gain a lot of experience, and um… And so I've been working in wetlands for a few decades now.
Todd Gleason 02:22
It was the ecology of it all, the interaction between the plants and the animals and the environment.
Jeff Matthews 02:27
Yeah, yeah, that's what I've been mostly interested in.
Todd Gleason 02:31
So you've written an article recently, on how wetlands are represented on film? Why?
Jeff Matthews 02:39
So, my collaborators on the project and I had noticed that when wetlands are shown in films. They tend to be portrayed in pretty stereotypical ways. They're often shown as kind of dark, misty, foreboding environments.
Jeff Matthews 02:53
And characters in film that enter wetlands often face some kind of trial or tribulation in the wetland. Maybe they sink into quicksand, or they're ambushed by a, by an alligator. So filmmakers seem to be tapping into a negative preconceptions about these ecosystems, and then… either corrupting them, or exaggerating them for dramatic effect.
Jeff Matthews 03:18
And Dr. Jack Zinnan, my collaborator on the project at the Illinois Natural History Survey, came- happened to come across some large data sets with tens of thousands of film plot summaries. And he came up with this idea that we could use those as a starting point to analyze wetland depictions in films in a more systematic way.
Jeff Matthews 03:39
So, we started by scanning those plot summaries, searching for particular keywords that might be related to wetlands. And we were able to identify 163 films that were released between 1980 and 2019 that depicted swamps, marshes, bogs, or some other type of wetland.
Jeff Matthews 03:59
There were four of us on the project and we divided those 163 films among the four researchers. We watched each film in its entirety, paying particular attention to all the scenes that showed wetlands.
Jeff Matthews 04:14
And we were particularly interested in how those wetlands were portrayed in the film. How were they used as plot elements? What were the underlying themes that were portrayed about the wetlands?
Jeff Matthews 04:24
And what general attitudes were portrayed about wetlands through the film. Were they positive, negative, or… maybe more neutral background settings in which characters just happen to be interacting or passing by.
Todd Gleason 04:37
Beyond the negative views of wetlands that you already discussed, was there anything you found out in the process of reviewing the films?
Jeff Matthews 04:45
Yeah, so our main finding was that, in fact, wetlands are primarily portrayed negative. And 50% of those 163 films that we viewed portrayed wetlands in an unambiguously negative way. And that was compared to only about 10% that portrayed wetlands positively.
Jeff Matthews 05:06
So, we found a few common underlying themes and plot elements that were repeated motifs across a large number of films. One of these was that wetlands are predominantly used in film to present some kind of trial for the film's protagonist. Um, they become physical obstacles to get somewhere else. Um, and they're often the site of some sort of conflict or chase scene.
Jeff Matthews 05:32
And a good example of this might be, um, when Gollum leads Frodo and Sam across the dead marshes in Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers. Um, it's… it's an obstacle on their way to Mordor. And Frodo sinks into the waters and has to be rescued by Gollum. The waters are… floating in the water are the corpses of old soldiers that kind of draw Frodo in into the water. The physical difficulty of moving through wetlands kind of heightens the dramatic effect of these kinds of scenes.
Jeff Matthews 06:07
Second, wetlands were often depicted as sites of some sort of danger, lurking danger. Ambush from hostile predators or monsters. Some examples of this might be in the animal monster films, like Primeval and Anaconda. Where hapless visitors to the wetlands are, one after the other, kind of picked off by some giant animal monster.
Jeff Matthews 06:37
And then another common plot element we found was that wetlands are frequently depicted as locations of some sort of deep emotional tragedy for the protagonist. An example of this might be the never-ending Story. In which the hero of the film, a boy named Atreyu, on his epic quest, has to cross through the swamps of sadness. And as he's passing through the swamps of sadness, his horse becomes mired in quicksand.
Jeff Matthews 07:00
And slowly disappears while Atreyu pleads and cries to no avail. It's a very emotional and sad scene in the film. So wetlands were… wetlands… naturally, our kind of physical sinks on the landscape. They're lowlands.
Jeff Matthews 07:15
They collect runoff from their surroundings. And this is one reason why they're so particularly important for providing ecosystem services to people. They store flood waters; they remove nutrients that's flowing across the land.
Jeff Matthews 07:29
But in film, they become both physical sinks as well as these kinds of emotional sinks that characters get mired in. Um, and one of the most surprising findings that we found was that our most common theme in wetland scenes was death. Wetlands were associated with death, and 57% of the films we viewed.
Jeff Matthews 07:50
And over a third of the films depicted a character either encountering a corpse in a wetland, or disposing of a corpse in a wetland. So there seems to be this association between wetlands and death and decay.
Todd Gleason 08:06
Considering what you've learned from this project, do you have any insights on how to shift the needle when talking about wetlands in public discourse?
Jeff Matthews 08:14
Yeah, so for many audience members, unfortunately, their only experience of wetlands might be on screen. And these negative depictions could perpetuate an aversion to wetlands, maybe even hinder conservation efforts. So first, I'd encourage people to visit wetlands, experience them firsthand. And recognize that the negative story tropes, the negative stereotypes that they see on screen are not necessarily accurate depictions of real wetlands.
Jeff Matthews 08:46
Second, in terms of moving the needle, um, I'd point to some of the more positive portrayals in film. I think two really good examples of that are the animated films Shrek and The Princess and the Frog.
Jeff Matthews 08:59
Both of these films initially lean into, kind of, negative stereotypes about wetlands as either gross or dangerous places, but they gradually subvert those stereotypes and show wetlands in a positive light as the film develops.
Jeff Matthews 09:13
They show them as refuges. As resource-rich environments with lots of food, places of camaraderie, joy, and even romantic love. So, I think that these point the way to a way to kind of capture people's attention.
Jeff Matthews 09:30
Maybe first focusing on the strange, the slimy, the uncivilized aspects of wetlands, and then using that as a way to pivot to the value of wetlands as, that's really rich, biodiverse habitats that provide numerous benefits to people.
Todd Gleason 09:47
What are your favorite wetlands in the state of Illinois to go visit?
Jeff Matthews 09:50
Well, some great wetlands to visit in Illinois are Emiquon. This is a restored wetland on the Illinois River, restored by the Nature Conservancy. It's a great time to visit is anytime during the spring and fall waterfowl migrations. It's teeming with birds. Another nice spot is Volo Bog.
Todd Gleason 10:12
That's Jeff Matthews talking about some of the fun research he's been doing in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. One of his colleagues, Caitlin Bloomer, has been putting together an online course to teach people about wetlands.
Todd Gleason 10:29
I called and spoke with her as well.
Caitlin Bloomer 10:32
I'm Dr. Caitlin Bloomer, I'm currently a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. So I'm originally from Ireland, but I moved here to Champaign to do my PhD at the U of I.
Caitlin Bloomer 10:49
And I've stayed in town since, so I'm slowly becoming a bit of a Midwesterner. Um, I now focus mostly on teaching these online courses for the new Certificate in Wetland Science and Conservation. But before this position, I spent my PhD and my postdoctoral position studying burrowing crayfish, they are a very specialized group of animals, kind of semi-aquatic, semi-terrestrial. And I was researching a bit into how they respond to wetland management.
Caitlin Bloomer 11:18
Since then, I've continued that research a bit more broadly into what restoration practices in wetlands can maximize biodiversity. And I also spent some time working for the Institute for Genomic Biology on campus, teaching for their new Masters of Science in Journalism program.
Caitlin Bloomer 11:35
So I'm a big fan of these new educational offerings that the university's been putting out recently.
Todd Gleason 11:40
Do you teach a course on campus and online that people are able to take?
Caitlin Bloomer 11:47
So, everything's taught online. You don't have to be on campus to take any of these courses. Some of it is delivered asynchronously through Coursera, and then some of it's delivered through live sessions on Zoom with myself.
Todd Gleason 12:00
And what courses do you teach that way?
Caitlin Bloomer 12:02
Oh, all three of the Wetlands courses that form the certificate.
Todd Gleason 12:06
And tell me about them as a whole, again. What is the NRES graduate certificate?
Caitlin Bloomer 12:11
Sure, so it's a certificate in wetland science and conservation, so the first class that I teach is a 400-level class on the principles of wetland science and conservation.
Caitlin Bloomer 12:22
And then I teach, um, advanced wetland theory and techniques, so that is the course that focuses a little more heavily on wetland delineation and techniques you might use as a field biologist in wetland science.
Caitlin Bloomer 12:35
And the third course is the Wetland Science and Conservation in Context, so that is the course that focuses a little more heavily on the cultural importance of these ecosystems, um, the different conservation and management methods from around the world. So the point of the certificate is to take you through three major courses on wetlands. Uh, the first course introduces wetlands a bit more broadly. Their major components, ecosystem services, what impacts we as humans are having on wetlands, the good and the bad.
Caitlin Bloomer 13:06
Uh, the second course is a little more specifically focused on the techniques that you might use as a wetland scientist. So we spend a lot of time in class on wetland delineation, and you'll do your own self-guided field visit to try and conduct your own delineation.
Caitlin Bloomer 13:22
And then the last course I teach is Wetlands in Context. So we focus more on the global perspectives, how wetlands are conserved around the world, traditional ecological knowledge, and the cultural importance of these ecosystems to many, many people. So those are the three courses together that form the graduate certificate.
Todd Gleason 13:42
Because these are 400-level classes, or at least one of them is, are there prerequisites to join the certificate program?
Caitlin Bloomer 13:50
So there are some prerequisites, but the point of the certificate is to try and offer this further education to a broader audience, so they're not anything crazy. It's aimed as a graduate certificate, so you do need to have a bachelor's degree already.
Caitlin Bloomer 14:05
If you have a bit of academic science background, that's great, but we also have a lot of folks that come to these programs and succeed with their science background being from volunteering. Or their own personal education, passion projects that they've pursued. So we do try and keep it really open to diverse educational backgrounds, and when you apply to the certificate. You also submit your CV, so you get a chance to kind of highlight any relevant background that you might have.
Todd Gleason 14:31
What would the certificate empower you to do?
Caitlin Bloomer 14:33
So wetland science is a growing field, especially with some of the recent Supreme Court cases that have rolled back some of the federal protections for wetlands. We're seeing several states several local conservation districts that are trying to fill those conservation gaps by hiring more wetland scientists.
Caitlin Bloomer 14:52
And there's also environmental consulting firms that are a big employer for wetland delineators, because that's often federally required for construction projects. And a lot of people don't get the chance to take a wetlands course during their undergraduate. There are even fewer people that get the opportunity to have several specialized courses.
Caitlin Bloomer 15:11
So we're hoping that this certificate is a chance for people to prepare for wetland careers, be it delineation, restoration planning, managing state conservation areas. I've already heard from some folks who've taken the courses last semester that they'd love to move into careers in wetlands.
Caitlin Bloomer 15:28
So we're hoping that the certificate will empower people to do that.
Todd Gleason 15:31
If somebody can't join the course, what are the other avenues for learning?
Caitlin Bloomer 15:37
Absolutely, so this is my favorite aspect of the certificate, because tuition's expensive, right? Um, signing up to this certificate, it's a big investment in yourself, your education, your career. But we're also making a bunch of these small, stackable steps so that this information can be more accessible to broader audiences. So currently, we have 4 short modules available on Coursera, which hosts online courses from universities, and we have two more coming out at the end of February.
Caitlin Bloomer 16:05
These courses play into the certificate classes. They're a portion of your asynchronous learning. But you can also take them on your own, at your own pace. I think they're just under $50 for a 4-week course But you can sign up to a free trial of Coursera to check them out and decide if they're for you.
Caitlin Bloomer 16:22
Um, there's also a subscript… there's also a subscription service for around $60 a month. So if you're a fast learner, you can get better bang for your buck that way.
Caitlin Bloomer 16:32
If you choose to take the Courseras now. You can apply them to your class requirements if you choose to sign up to the certificate later. And then if you take the certificate and it gets you really jazzed about graduate education, you can apply those credits towards an online master's degree if you choose to do that later. The idea is just about making this easy, buildable pathway for people if they choose to follow it.
Caitlin Bloomer 16:55
But if people choose to do the free trial, sign up to one Coursera module, and call it a day, then, yay for that! There's one more person out there that knows about the importance of wetlands, and I'd call that a win. So, the Coursera modules are definitely where I'd recommend everyone to start and figure out if this is something that you would want to pursue.
Todd Gleason 17:13
Caitlin Bloomer is a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. She teaches the certificate course, related to wetland science and conservation. That course was also developed in partnership with Jeff Matthews, whom you heard earlier.
Todd Gleason 17:30
He's an associate professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences on the Urbana-Champaign campus. If you'd like to learn more about the courses, you can do that by searching them out online. Look for Wetland Science and Conservation Certificate.
Todd Gleason 17:47
I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. You've been listening to the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast.