The Center for Open Exploration, Women in STEM, and Antarctica with Erica Moulton

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Erica Moulton, STEM Director at St. Petersburg College about The Center for Open Exploration, Women in STEM, and Antarctica.   Read her full bio below.

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form

Showtimes: 
3:34  Nic & Laura discuss the hazards of fieldwork
8:47  Interview with Erica Moulton starts
9:21   Women in STEM
24:42  Antarctica
35:28  The Center for Open Exploration
44:28  Field Notes

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Erica Moulton at www.linkedin.com/in/erica-moulton-1587335

Guest Bio:
Erica Moulton has over 20 years’ experience in STEM education and research in the marine technology and biology field. She owns a small business PVC ROV providing kits to classes and programs around the world.  Erica created a non-profit Center for Open Exploration (C4OE) for grant allocations to citizen science projects. She has worked across the US and abroad, in the non-profit and for-profit sectors teaching marine technology.

One of 16 Honorees’ named to the Explorer’s Club on the 40th Anniversary of women being admitted to the organization.  Erica was awarded NAUI’s Worldwide Environmental Enrichment Award and American Geophysical Union award for Sharing Science.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Nic  
Welcome to EPR your favorite environmental enthusiast Nick and Laura. On today's episode, Laura and I discussed the hazards of fieldwork. We talked to Erica Moulton about the center open exploration when instead and inadequate. And finally, I actually have a question for you instead. Laura, what is the largest desert in the world? Sahara? That is second. I'll give you a hint. I already said it in the intro. And maybe Erica talks about it too. Cool. It is cool. I agree. Antarctica. is actually technically the largest in the world is it's really just more about rainfall than anything else or precipitation, right? It does not rain there. And it's effectively barren is a desert. But yeah, we just don't think of it that way. Because you know, it's cold. So, how about that, you know, oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. Excellent. Okay, don't ask the question again. Kind of

Laura 
like deer in the headlights. Well, I'm just picturing like, okay, it's a desert with penguins instead of camels.

Nic
Yes. That's exactly yeah. It just doesn't. It's not like we know it's Oh, yeah. Rains there all the time. No, definitely not. It's very, very dry. It's like one of the it's not the driest desert in the world, but it's one of them pretty high. So how about that? We all learn something today.

Laura
Yeah, I don't remember learning that in school.

Nic
I don't think I didn't either. Anyway, it that means.

[NAEP Event News]

Laura 
All right, folks, it's that time of year again. Come join us for the 2023 na P annual conference and training symposium in Phoenix, Arizona from May 7 to 10th Enthusiastic environmental professionals like ourselves from across the country gather each year at the NAEP conference to share the opportunity to learn about projects, share technical knowledge that were with industry professionals, like ourselves, and engage with leaders environmental technologies and practice. Check it out at na p.org Alright, next. So finally, we have sponsors coming up because someone literally said I will sponsor some Nick doesn't have to do this. Yes, so it's working. But anyway, we don't have a sponsor today. So ready? 30 seconds.

Nic 
All right. You know, there's a craze sweeping the nation and it's mustaches right and I'm sure we all wish that we could all grow lustrous and full mustaches. And so don't worry, Laura, I have a solution for you. It's called stash for life. That's right. Mustache. All you have to do is apply the paste and scream because it will burn. But once it's in there, it will be lush, full, wonderful. If you definitely won't let someone do a tattoo on your lip. That's ridiculous. And anyone that says that is lying. I'm telling you, this is gonna revolutionize the way we look at everyone, not just men. Anyone can get a mustache. We all know. So why not embrace the trend dive full in. They definitely never go out of style. There. We go. Stasha life three easy payments.

Laura 
Right on the line. Three seconds. Ding ding ding

Nic  
like I was like, Yeah, I didn't hear the doorbell like oh, well, that was

Laura 
about I was like, You know what? He's almost done.

Nic 
Okay, perfect. There we go. Awesome. Yeah, I'm not buying that product.

Laura 
So let's get to our segment.

[Nic & Laura discuss the hazards of fieldwork]

Nic 
We talk a lot about, you know, working in the field and the joys and the wonders of doing so. I don't know if we've spent a whole lot of time talking about the challenges. Some of the scary things can happen. Oh, I think we

Laura 
have we have like Wes wasn't less a story. Yeah. It was after the fact funny, but during during lunch, you have your sneak stories that we all will ever sneak stories from being from Florida. We all have our alligator stories.

Nic 
So I got to ride in the butt by a dog. You know, fieldwork you know, it was pretty fun. Because it was

Unknown Speaker 
it was done was it.

Nic 
It was we were surveying, you know, on the road and I have no idea it was somebody's dog like the neighbor I think was that close his house, his dog, but I was scared to death. Yeah, it wasn't great. I was surprised by but it was just a nip. And then you know, realizing that the dogs you know, gonna be like that and you just don't turn your back to them again. But, you know, that was that was fun. So it's like, you know what I think we're doing with this wetland delineation right now. We were leaving anyway, but it was kind of like, man, it was not fun. I did not enjoy that. But it happens. You know, like, I think we've talked about injuries in the field, you know, knocking myself out by myself, you know, very foolish, but that's our story. So I was when I was doing it in grad school, and I was doing like, I was using a radio thing to try to find box turtles. Like oh, yeah, you're still there. Great. And so there was like one spot and you know, it's it's, there's a wetland near you know, huge wetland here because the lake basically had been drained and returned to its original state, which was big swampy wetlands. So for us on either side wetland mill, and I'm kind of on the edge of the wetland. And so I'm just trying to I'm trying to go from one bank to the other. And I see like, you know, Japanese still grass, you know, invasive, by the way. So even worse, I'm very angry about this story. It's all the same height, right? And so, I find myself foolishly think that the ground is also all the same height. And so I'm walking towards a down to like, you know, ancient oak tree had fallen over. And so I'm walking towards that. And then I take a step what I think is going to be level ground and it's actually two feet deeper. So I fly forward and my hands and the tree, and then I wake up, you know, seconds later, pretty sure, staring at the sky, you know, like, Well, that was dumb, you know? But you know, and it's kind of like the that's the life lesson. Always have someone with you. That's where I learned it. I should have done it. But I'll be fine. And there you go. Oh, yeah,

Laura 
I used to. We used to do this wire monitoring events a couple times a month, and we would have to walk out on planks to get to the equipment that was a few feet out in the water. So it was checking levels and turbidity and stuff. And we would go out by ourselves. And I when I became a manager, I was like, No, we're not going out by ourselves anymore. And all they cared about was how much it cost to have two people go and I was like, no sometimes these waters were raging. And the shorelines are always eroding. And I'm like, No, my staff are not going out by themselves doing this. No.

Nic 
could end up like a die, you know? Yeah. The Hazards of fieldwork you really could lose your life doing it. It is not a joke. It's really hard work sometimes.

Laura 
Yeah, people do die. I think I remember being terrified on a boat one time. We were doing one of our boat runs in Tampa Bay and you know, Florida storms. They come up real fast out of nowhere, lots of thunder lightning sometimes hail. And my coworker is just like driving full speed and whiteout. And I'm like, no, no, I was terrified. Like I could feel this like hitting a barge or something like any second I was like, stop. And that's the worst part for me when you're in the field with someone who doesn't have the same or like, you know, it doesn't respect your level of respect for safety.

Nic 
That's how people get injured. It's how people die. It's really scary stuff. And yeah, it's I say there's there's lots of fun things that happen. But yeah, there's real, real danger out there. But you know, it's like the simple things like it's small stuff, like turning your ankle in the middle of a forest by yourself. is terrible. Like one of my friends tore her Achilles on her own in the middle of a forest and had to crawl her way back out, you know, and you know, she survived, you know, she's alive. But if she had someone with her, that ordeal becomes far less fun. Right? Yeah, like when

Laura 
my ankle and field want to be alone. Right away.

Nic 
And, you know, I think we've all done something like that right? Step on a rock. Funny. Goes right

Laura 
yeah, but I don't know anyone with a story like Erica's so let's get into her interview and whatever you do, listeners, stay tuned.

[Interview with Erica Moulton starts]

Laura
Welcome back to EPR. Today we have Erica Moulton, stem director at St. Petersburg College and Antarctic explorer. Welcome Erica.

Erica Moulton 
i Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

[Women in STEM]

Laura 
Well, I'm super excited to have you here. I've been dying for you to meet Nick because you check all of his enemy boxes and Arctic adventures diving, amazing career history going back to diving starting at 13 and you're pretty good. At social media posts, which he sets out so.But I think I met you maybe for the first time when we were planning women in STEM with TVP like eight years ago or something?

Erica Moulton  
Yeah. It had to be in the eight to 10 year range for sure.

Laura 
Right because now they're on their eighth or so workshop, which is really exciting. So that at that time I remember I think that was when the center that you're working at also just opened. So tell us about the STEM lab at St. Pete college and what programs do you have there?

Erica Moulton 
Sure. So St. Petersburg College about that timeframe was building a STEM center and acquaint hadn't gotten the job just yet. So this coming October will be my sixth year here. But I was well aware of it being built. I was in the process of looking for a career change, and I kind of you know, kept my eye on the prize and monitored the progress here. So essentially, it's a single standalone campus separate from our main campuses within the college. And the center is essentially a building on stilts and a humongous outdoor classroom. It's 50 acres containing tons of different examples of micro habitats from a pine upland to a mangrove to estuaries, seagrass beds to oysters. Yeah, so we have a lagoon out here and college owns a submerged land rights. A lot of local mariners would know it as Hurricane haul. It's definitely a place where people sort of stash their boats in an incoming storm, but we've restored it over the past years that I've been here through some federal local and private funding. We've removed derelict vessels remove seawall, we removed invasive plants. We reintroduced animals and students studying that all the time. And then we have two classrooms here and then a community room and then a lab slash Research Room. So full complement and sort of the experience you might get if you are in a graduate program someplace else or a small private college that had the opportunity to really focus on their undergraduate so really focused on our four year degree seeking students and the opportunity to give them an internship hands on research experience. And since St. Petersburg College is not a research institute, our faculty get to do research because they want to not necessarily because they have to. And it's a real neat opportunity for our small class size students to be involved in really cool hands on stuff. And then we partner with tons of community organizations from Mote Marine Lab to Clearwater Marine Aquarium, keeping those beautiful the Tampa Bay estuary program, the National History program, and then lots of community organizations who come out and help us with cleanups Tampa Bay Rays have been out here, new before with just the computer company in town. Raymond James, just the list goes on and on. So in the past year and a half, two years with most projects we've done out here we've had almost 800 individual volunteers who've given us about 2700 hours of their time, and they represent 10 Different organizations outside of the college who've worked on things up here at the city center. So it's a pretty unique campus a really fun opportunity. It's something you don't normally find that a community four year program.

Laura 
Yeah, it's really awesome. The building is so beautiful with all the lagoon and all the

Erica Moulton 
pine trees and everything out there is the reason that all of my windows are away from my forward right out the wall because otherwise and there's a bald eagle nests out here they have they're monitored by Audubon, they have babies every year. I mean, it's ridiculous so dolphins outside Yeah, it's a it's a horrible place to have it. And try to be fair because you've got to face the you got to face the ball otherwise.

Nic 
I mean, like, Can we sit on we have a Libyan crew just like a minute. That's a cool thing to say. It's just like, no big deal. I mean, we've got a look no big deal.

Erica Moulton 
That's awesome. That's really impressive body of water. Yeah, it's now a non motorized vessel entrance. So there's only one entrance and exit the same way in and out of this body of water have been only average is about eight to 10 feet in depth. I see manatees and dolphins and shorebirds and all that come in all the time, lots of fish. So it's passive. You know, we have kayaks and canoes and paddle boards and things like that. So anybody's Welcome to kayak. In but yeah, for students who have kayaks and it's pretty new place. Yeah.

Laura 
Come visit next time unique opportunity. Yeah,

Nic 
super cool. I love it. Yeah.

Laura 
Yeah. I love it. Right. So you've been there for six years now and working with the students in these programs with Probert what career career degree programs are they in and what kind of work how do you help them? Are you just teaching are you doing leading these projects? How are you

Erica Moulton  
are so here? I'm the director of the center right? So that means I'm the highest administrator on this campus. So that means everything from like, you know, light bulb out to like the printer not working. That responsible party, so that's me. But in the big picture, our faculty self select to teach here. So most of them this is not their main campus. This is actually nobody's main campus except for you know, mine and the other staff that helped keep the building running but they self select to teach on their courses here. So more like contextualized curriculum. So if you were going to teach a literature course here, you would teach it but in the line of STEM thinking so one of our faculty has taught that course here, Dr. Sally Rosengarten teaches the class. So they start with a reading of Thoreau and a walk in the woods and then they go on a walk in the woods. So it's this contextualized curriculum within the space that you're here. And it's a really unique opportunity for anyone who's going to teach a class here or to take a class to kind of answer that question about like, I want to be an environmental scientist, why am I taking history? Well, you know, the study of maps could potentially lead you to discovering a Spanish galleon. If you understand and interpret, you know, GIS data, you can actually help map and protect and preserve other spaces. And so can you read and can you write those are all vital to communicating your science and so the opportunity to have those classes here is really unique. So different faculty from different campuses teach here every semester and then of course, as you would expect, we do have classes that are more aligned with field studies, right? So a sampling methods class or an independent research class, microbiology class, those kinds of things that would fit into a normal kind of sciency sort of building as you would think.

Nic 
Cool. Um, can you can you say one more thing for me again, are the reading and writing is what? Yes.

Erica Moulton 
Reading and writing. Yeah,

Nic  
super important. Oh, yeah. Yeah. 100%.

Erica Moulton 
Right. It's hard. It's really hard to figure out a way to tell people why your science is important. And yeah, it's definitely a challenge every day.

Nic 
Yeah. I mean, if you can, if you are a biologist, and you can write well, yeah, you know,

Erica Moulton 
for sure. I'm actually working on that project for one of my students. Right now. We're actually reading the science journal articles. To take the information about gopher tortoises and why burrow aprons the Big Sandy pit that surrounds the gophers burrow, why it's important ecologically for other species. And we've been monitoring the field cameras data for months and months and months. And actually, previous students have to we've presented at the bases conference with the Estuary Program, but now we're looking at trying to create some journal articles that are not scientific base, but more layman terminology to get people to understand why gopher tortoise burrows are important. And it's not just the tortoise that's using them and what's left behind and maybe we shouldn't fill that hole in because even if the tortoise isn't there, there's other critters that are still using it and now we have photographic and video evidence that here

Nic 
is the coolest Okay, she worked with turtles till you didn't tell me that Laura Come on.

Laura 
All of the ENV things in the very first sentence but yes, there was more.

Erica Moulton 
That was started my career. Yeah, so I started. I really looked at graduate school doing work with sea turtles. And I worked with Dr. Peter Pritchard. And the goal really was to do documentation of sea turtles and their presence in habitat in Guyana, and His work of Arawak Amerindians. And then when I got there the first time I absolutely just fell in love with the ethnographic approach of trying to understand how this indigenous group of people chose to practice conservation methods. Whereas in the rest of the world, we've had nongovernmental organizations or volunteer organizations from the United States, go to different countries and say like, please stop individuals and here's how to practice conservation and similar been sort of managed by exterior forces. And I got really enamored by the fact that the folks there were practicing conservation of their own volition, which is really the way that it should happen. So I didn't focus so much on the turtles as I did end up focusing on the people I'm interaction with conservation.

Nic 
It's really cool. I mean, my so when I went to grad school, I worked with Box turtles and Oh, cool. And honestly, you know, part of what we were doing with wildlife management, but the other half of it was also about kind of like the, you know, the snazzy terms conservation medicine, right? What do we do? How does that impact animals in the wild from a health standpoint, so yeah, totally. I love that kind of holistic approach to things because it's you're right, they're they're very connected to each other, whether we know we're not doing

Erica Moulton 
particularly in places where they have been a food source traditionally, so yeah, fascinating.

Nic  
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I'm excited. Okay, I know it's your friend Laura.

Speaker 2 
Good. I don't even know where to start with Erica. There's just so much stuff. So but I guess you mentioned your guy on experience, I believe looking back at like your college choices and your degree choices and the work you did at those programs like how did you you started diving, we were 13 Were you already into environmental stuff and then you or did you like I accidentally landed in biology? No, you know,

Laura  
I grew up here and do the cool stuff. Ya

Erica Moulton 
know, I grew up here in St. Petersburg. Like momento was over near Wheaton. Islands. And at that time, there was still you know, a larger number of dirt roads. And so my parents house was at the end of a dirt road and the only houses on one side of the street and then the mangrove estuary of Wheaton islands on the other side. And so, you know, I also grew up in a time where he sort of went out the front door and didn't come back till the streetlights came. On. Right. So we went out to the Accra forest, and, you know, I have no idea how we didn't get bitten by venomous snakes like, right, we collected them. I did stuff on bite wasters. So you know, I think tetanus shots were part of my annual boosters, not just the 10 year plan. But yeah, so I grew up just being completely enamored and it what's interesting is even back then turtles and tortoises were part of my life where there were people who would come out there to the X ray and find turtles and tortoises and bring them back and they would store them under their car along the dirt road. And we would wait for them to go back into the woods to look for another turtle or tortoise whatever it was that they were collecting different species like soft shell and all sorts of stuff terrapins and climb under their cars and then pull the tortoise out and let them go like in our backyard, and then wait till they've left, right. So it's been kind of saving turtles since I was a kid. Right but I mean, yeah, climbing under people's cars. What was he thinking? But yeah, that's just how we did it and played outside all the time. And yeah,

Laura  
I love it. So when you decided to go to college, you you knew that you wanted to do this program and me Yeah, I knew we were on another ship for one of your semesters, right?

Erica Moulton 
Yeah, I wanted to do biology and I knew that I was interested in conservation I knew as Houston marine sciences. I wasn't necessarily interested in the marine sciences in the capacity where I think some folks are like really driven by whales and dolphins the sharks right the charismatic megafauna, even though turbos fall into that category, it's just driven by the whole thing. And yeah, so I went off to school and I haven't always been the bestest and brightest of students in terms of academic performance on exams and tests and things like that. And so I found the process of, you know, taking those tests to get into colleges really to be a challenge because it wasn't my forte. And so I kind of went off to one of the first schools that said yes to me, and while I was there, I saw a poster on the wall, which I'm guessing now would probably be like a Facebook post, right. But as opposed to on the wall about a Semester at Sea, and you filled out a little business card and postage required, right and mailed it off, and, you know, ended this whole application process by mail called a Semester at Sea from Long Island University, Southampton campus. Yeah. And I got accepted. So we did a semester where we sailed a schooner from Maine to Haiti and then afterwards I was really enamored with AV so I stayed on the road a while and

Laura 
if y'all can see Nick's face right now,

Nic  
so while it so like so you did you just like this was part of your travel bug or did you already have a travel with

Erica Moulton 
my parents were definitely not my parents are definitely, yeah, it's Friday. Let's get in the car and go camp. You know, it's in and I've carried that through. Yeah. Yeah, the only pause in my travel history was the first six weeks of life after my first child and then after he was six weeks old, we packed them up and went on our way. And we continued that Oh, yeah. So taking our kids everywhere, but but that's sort of the travel thing, how it's wrapped up into my work. It's wrapped up into my research. There's quite a few vacations that weren't necessarily vacations but it was a trip and then we also did a 10 mile hike right? Because we were there. So but yeah, but it's also like the family focus, right? We haven't really necessarily invested in going to football games together or to a concert or something else. It's sort of our family thing. And I've kind of passed it on, I guess pretty well to my kids. Yeah,

Nic 
that's really cool. I mean, you know, we're usually asked when we know we have a traveler on the most unfair question, which is, you know, what's your favorite place you've ever been? And so I'll give you two seconds to stall. So I mean, it's just one of those things that the joy of traveling is honestly just you know, maybe maybe it's the next trip every time

Erica Moulton 
Yeah, usually is the next trip, right. But yeah, gosh, I think every place to begin is my favorite. But if you're asking me to pick my most recent favorite is my trip to Antarctica that I'm just now home from about two weeks ago. That was a trip Regan trip and without my family but with my family, I would say we enjoyed Peru. We went to Machu Picchu, but tapping Machu Picchu was Lake Titicaca. And I just think that that is probably one of the most fantastic fabulous places I've ever been on the planet. I just completely enamored with the people who live out there on the reed islands, the entirety of that lake. It's just phenomenal that this body of water exists at that elevation and the critters that live in it and the people that live there and make it their home. It's just really, really incredible.

Nic 
You know, it's funny, like I said, I went to Machu Picchu. I did that as well. And I remember going there like I'm sure this will be fine. And then once we got there, it was incredible. Like it blew my mind. Yeah all these people around and you have no idea you can be at the far end of that thing and no one's near you and

Erica Moulton 
beautiful. We really enjoyed the hike and the climb and all it was really amazing. But yeah, then we got a $10 bus ride and, you know, took whatever six or eight hours down to spend a few nights on like Jakarta it was just

Nic 
And that's even more incredible, man. No, no, I'm jealous. I didn't do that. Okay. All right.

Erica Moulton  
Well, there's always a reason to go back. Yeah.

[Antarctica]

Nic  
But I mean, tell us about Antarctica. I know. That's like one of my goals. I'm you know, and I think for us to actually it's to see like all 50 states all seven continents, right. So how was he an article? What was that? Like? Because that's, you know, most people don't get to do that.

Erica Moulton 
Yeah, it's impressive. It's really any bit more than once now, right? No, I went to the Arctic. So I've been to Okay, okay. Yeah, so

Laura 
it's even better.

Erica Moulton 
Right, it's a friend of both ends. It's really impressive. You know, I think that there's sort of like this childlike wonder about the fact that I think people kind of tease me about it a little bit, but I really just became completely enamored with the fact that I had to fly to Texas and then fly 10 hours south right to get to Argentina and then you get out of a plane and to get the smaller plane to get to Shrine, which is, you know, another three and a half hours away. And then it's still two days by boat across the drink. That you keep thinking like, make us I have a traveler, right. So it's been a lot of places and a lot of long plane rides. And this is just epically long and it's arduous to get there. We completely, you know, thankful and privileged that I got to have this experience, but I spend a lot of time in the moment thinking about, you know, with modern travel, took me a heck of a long time to get there, a lot of work and how people managed to get there and prior in at whatever, and I have all this you know, fancy gear that keeps me warm and is lightweight and right they knitted together something from sheep school and no animal hides and here I am, right it's definitely pretty

Laura 
good trip to is it's dangerous. How was it scary?

Erica Moulton 
Is it just so there's the references you either get the drink lake or the drink shake, and so shake is more like a blender. And yeah, we had moderate drink shake. So I'm honored and privileged and proud to say I did not need a little bags taped over the walls outside the ship. So I did okay, but you never know. Sometimes it just sneaks up on you. But yeah, so I was really impressed with the work to get there the effort to be there and be present. And then I was impressed by the people who literally have probably docked for, you know, hundreds of years and new TWIA and submitted places and thought there must be something further right that drive to go explore further and to be able to kind of follow along in those footsteps through the vehicle passage and then across the Drake Passage to get there. It's impressive. Yeah, that experience is in and of itself part of the voyage and it's not something that I necessarily ponder every other time I've traveled so I really took that in this time. It's a little interesting to try and get a perspective when you're there things are so large, that there's no other structures or there's no tape measure out there, right, let you know that this is extremely high and tall. And then it's interesting to be with other scientists who are all experts in their craft and to learn all the things that we're able to learn about what's affecting climate change and to see it through their eyes and their understanding having some of them have been a 910 times and so to have their expertise, and then to be able to get in the water. No Don all that gear and get in the water

Unknown Speaker 
water you know that

Erica Moulton  
well but I've seen in several places so yeah, putting on all that gear in the dry suit and then getting into see what's under there. It's quite impressive.

Nic 
Under the ice you went under the ice to

Erica Moulton 
Well, that's not to me like ice sheet we dug a hole of an entourage to give

Nic  
me heart attacks over here.

Erica Moulton 
But no, there's definitely lots of I don't know kind of like some days diving in the slushy or Slurpee whatever ice right that's original name. Yes, like I sort of wonder Yeah, that's a that's a brand here right?

Nic 
Is that challenging them to dive in that where you can't really see very far in your
______________________________________________
Erica Moulton 
You know, I think that for those folks who dive and enjoy that kind of habitat I think it's just so impressive. I think the only disappointing thing is that you eventually have to get out. Yeah, there's tons of gear to write lots of thermal stuff you can wear stuff you can plug in and heat your inner suit up and you can stay Yeah, we've definitely scientifically engineering wise type equipment wise we've worked that out so you can make it pretty comfortable for people to stay in the water for pretty extended period of time. And I guess you know, in actuality you probably just limited to by what your carrying capacity is for your your tank and things like that. How fast you're going to breathe, but I guess it might be a difference. If you saw something like an elephant seal coming at you. That might be

Nic 
what I was thinking, yeah. Or a leopard seal. Goodness. You know, that's a really cool stuff that I love. I love that and I don't know, I like that. So how does it compare to kind of like what you did in the Arctic is I mean, obviously they're very, very different. You know, even Yeah,

Erica Moulton 
so in the art right, both goals, both eyes of icebergs have some charismatic megafauna. I got to see lots of polar bears in the Arctic in the Arctic. You know, we've people not not necessarily us but indigenous people in you it haven't happened to the Arctic for a really long time. And so there aren't any people in Antarctica, nobody's ever inhabited that continent. And so getting to work and learn from new people in the Arctic was really quite the treat eye opening. I learned so much about our planet and our perceptions of things that we've learned about conservation. Right. I think that I grew up in a generation where it was reinforced that people were eating slaughtering seals and all sorts of horrible things are happening, but none of that is actually really true. People were living and surviving and people here hunt animals and use them for food and all that sorts of things. And so yeah, obviously, baby seals are cuter than, I don't know, maybe possums maybe but, you know, in terms of nutritional value or need for life and sustenance, it's all equal. So yeah, really, really eye opening for what people do there to sustain and live and how they move. It's very interesting to learn from people in the Inuit communities about how climate change has affected their perception of places and spaces and where they live and what they do you know, when you're used to navigating by mountain ranges that are no longer there, it's just exposed rock, you know, because he used to be covered with ice and snow, that sort of changes. And if you've had a verbal history about what an area looks like, and then now you go back and the purple history is that oh, it's green, and it has brown rocks when it used to just be, I don't know, seven mountain peaks. That's that's a change in historical documentation, the family communication, conservation, all those sorts of things. So it's a pretty big deal.

Nic 
So yeah, you mentioned to so so both times you're the research that you're doing is related around climate change and everything like that.

Erica Moulton 
In the bigger picture, both expeditions were focused on climates, but my component in the Arctic was working with little underwater robotics kits that I've been working with for most of my career. So I, I used a different grant funding and supported bringing ROV kits to Inuit communities and then we provided educational materials and the kits to those communities so they can choose what to do with those kits. Part of my fascinations kind of carried throughout my career, right like in Guyana, I became fascinated with this group of people who didn't get told some instructions right by somebody else about what to do. For conservation, through choosing things on their own, which is how it should be. And so the same thing with a lot of science that goes on around the planet sometimes to go into spaces and people's places where they belong, and then tell them how to do things. When actuality we should just kind of share our knowledge and then say, here's the gear or the equipment that we have, and you can choose to do what you want to do as well. And so that was sort of my role in the Arctic right is to bring my underwater robotics gear provided as educational material, provide educational material to and lessons to instructors and then let them carry out and use it in an efficient way. That's reasonable. For them are not efficient. I mean, the effective way for

Nic  
them. Yeah, that's,

Erica Moulton  
that's and I don't know what those answers are. Right? Because those aren't my choices that used to be right. So

Nic 
yeah, so no, that's that's really cool to hear and say I think that sounds very progressive. It's really really

Erica Moulton  
it's a continual thread throughout my career looking for a commonality and I suppose right and that's a continuous thread throughout my career, right? Knowledge is power, we should all share it.

Nic 
That's fascinating because there's so many different ways you can go from there but like, success stories, I guess, like we're you know, you've come to an area you've shared some knowledge too and, and how the community has adapted changed over time. Do you have like examples of that? Or some some

Erica Moulton 
examples? Well, I think that the continued work in Guyana, which isn't necessarily you know, my work was really sort of documenting that and then providing a little bit education in school groups there. That's still ongoing, right, the people there. They've learned from other scientists throughout the years and we've got connected to resources so they tag and track the sea turtles that are coming in and they provide education to other native peoples and indigenous groups about you know, if you're eating all of the eggs, then there's not going to be some turtles next season, or the season after or however many hundreds of years it might take for the process to restart. There's education. So I'm going there about what are some alternate protein choices. Turtles make a really great food source. We've talked about them from my childhood. It's why people were collecting them people still eat gopher tortoise, even though that's highly illegal. But you know, in terms of seafaring people from ancient times, maybe those going to Antarctica to the sea turtle, you can flip it on its back, and it will stay alive. Sadly, for a really extended like the time and, you know, that's kind of gruesome to think about but in terms of a protein source, you didn't have to refrigerate or care for a cure. A turtle has made a global impact, right about how, where people have done so. So changing that mindset. Again, that's still going on. And there's not just sea turtles that are being eaten but you know, spurred tortoises and all that kind of stuff. So that work is still successfully happening and people are learning and looking for other sources of easy to use and grow protein. So yeah, that's an example then there's plenty of groups that I've worked with in the United States and I think the STEM center project here with a living shoreline where we've changed out, I don't know, just horrible plants like presidium belong here we put in mangroves and we've added gopher tortoise burrows. And now we have all these animals that didn't exist here before. We have burrowing owls, which have never been documented on the property. So there's all kinds of little Yeah, it's pretty. That's the best part of like, field camera work with students is the excitement of what are you going to see? Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah, so that's 6x 32 Yeah.

[The Center of Open Exploration]

Nic 
Yeah, that's a great segue into the next thing I want to ask you about. So talk to us about the center of open exploration. What is that program and how do you

Erica Moulton 
see okay, so supernovae is basically just a small nonprofit. I have a small board where seed for really.org is our website. And the idea is that we're there's nobody in it who takes a salary, but for those of you familiar with science and research and education and educational institutions, not necessarily the one that I'm at, but throughout the country. Overhead is a portion of a grant that goes straight to university. So across the board in the United States, at most public education institutions, if a scientist writes a grant to do research could be on shoes, right? But you're asking for a million dollars and the overhead of your college is 48 or 52%. You lose that first half of your funding and that keeps the lights on at the college. It keeps people employed it pays, you know, for the accountant, all those sorts of things. That's a really large chunk of change, especially in science when you're trying to do some research. So scientists are famous for saving everything and I have, you know, milk jugs and all kinds of stuff around my office because don't throw it away. We might need it for something. So the idea behind care is that there are a lot of us who have these little side projects, right the things that are near and dear to your heart that you want to protect and conserve. And so through our organization through the nonprofit, we can have small brands, and then 100% of the funding or 90% if we need to cover some overhead like an accounting bill or something like that goes to that project. And so when there is a small grant 5000 $10,000 Maybe to bring our TVs or I don't know, educational material to community, we can do that. And we've done that around the Great Lakes. We've done that in Sable Island. We've done that in Seattle, all over the place. And so without having a major overhead this nonprofit allows us to run programming and funding those programming to their full extent possible. And then a lot of us just sort of, you know, volunteer or give our time out of the kindness of our heart but and allows a lot of experts like those who are on my board to contribute to all sorts of science and a lot of it is citizen science. Really based

Nic 
so yeah, it's kind of like you do very little bit of everything is what I'm hearing. That's what sounds like I don't know. Yeah. But it's there a

Erica Moulton 
lot of balls to keep in the air but it's not like a basketball or baseball or tennis ball on a golf ball. They're all baseballs or, you know, whichever one you want to pick but they're all of the same ilk, right? It's not they're not

Unknown Speaker 
better. Well, as good as I do.

Nic 
Yes, yeah. Yeah. My only moment on the show. So I'm big space nerd. Right. I just, I think it's fascinating. I mean, you know, really, it's not fair to say I'm a science nerd in space happens to be just one of the things I like, right. I love it. But I heard that you were one of a team of four scientists who plays in aquaculture experiment on a satellite or on a space shuttle mission. Yeah, so that about Tell me about that.

Erica Moulton 
Oh, so when I first finished grad school, and I was teaching college at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, the call came out, you know, kind of like that poster on the wall with the mail and card. It was email. Anyways. STS 95 was going to be the mission for the shuttle for John Glenn to return to space and a big component of that mission. NASA had put out a request for proposals, who was really trying to look at what are the potential for long term space travel? I mean, we're expanding on that every day now. Right. So but back then, they were looking at what kind of things could grow in a space station, or in long term spaceflight, that might be here we are back to sources of protein or different space foods. And so some colleagues and I who had done some aquaculture work together, kind of merged our proposal with the idea that we could fertilize fish eggs in space, so you could keep the gametes apart until they were ready to meet and then you could have baby fish out in space and tilapia which many people probably eat, maybe don't even know. But tilapia, you can. Essentially, if you look at tilapia farms online, you can put 10 tilapia in a bucket with an airstone and some water and as long as water is moving over their gills and you're feeding them, I would never recommend this but just to drive home that point that they'll pretty much grow anywhere right there. And people see them in lakes and ponds and streams, and they've taken over habitats there. They're definitely a hardy fish. And so, yeah, they're farmed all over the world. But anyways, yeah, so the idea was to see if we could get fish to hatch and space. So we did fish in space. Right in the T shirts are great, right? Because if you're

Nic 
making a movie right now,

Erica Moulton 
yeah, so yeah, the other space nerd is the photographer here of five butcher, the black and white photographer. He does more.

Laura 
Okay, we got a shout out his wife because I've only ever my whole life heard of Clyde Clyde Clyde. And there's an exhibit at the Clearwater library right now. Nikki's photography and heard the rise. Yeah, awesome. So

Erica Moulton 
yeah, but Clyde. I had met him a few times and done some other work with him. And I told him about this experiment. So he came and shot it on large format for me. So I have a really lovely picture of the mangroves and the space shuttle going up and we came in camped with my family. It's pretty fun. That's awesome. Yeah, pretty good. So that's my My favorite memory of that is the success obviously and then afterwards, the fish and went to live at museums,

Unknown Speaker 
Glenn's house.

Erica Moulton 
They went to live at Mozi the Museum of Science industry in Tampa when their their first location and then it was kind of cool because they had different little different babies right people in project up to project and a whole genetic right complement. So there were some people who looked at you know, what were the changes in their in their swim bladder and all those sorts of things, right, because you're in micro gravitational orbit. So how does that affect their ability to orient themselves? Right, because issues are sort of a ladder to stay up, right?

Nic 
Yeah. So cool. Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna be reading about this the rest of the day.

Laura 
You knew there were eight some space but you did not know about the fish.

Erica Moulton  
Telling you Yeah, but I would encourage anybody who's interested. In fact, I think that NASA just put another one up on their website. They're constantly looking for folks with unique ideas about launching things into space, whether that's, you know, gardens, there's the cube sats, there's all sorts of stuff that you can participate in with NASA. And, you know, there's science drawers that go up and, you know, you get a little compartment and then like your lab is this size by the size. And if your experiment it's in there, and we've got room, we'll send it up. And the cool thing is, is that there really isn't a cost, right? It's not like I had to raise a million dollars to try and figure out how to get my fish in space. NASA is like, Hey, we got room. Oh, cool. Yeah, those opportunities are open for they have some that are even targeted at you know, middle school audiences. So I always try and keep an eye out for for those posts.

Nic 
For those of you wondering, I'm sure it's too small for a person to fit into. So no funny ideas.

Erica Moulton 
I haven't done that yet. So we'll see.

Nic 
Experiment. It's the same me.

Laura 
I can see now why you've been accepted to the Explorers Club. Is that something you have to apply to? It's a

Erica Moulton 
little bit of both right? You can apply. But also typically you're you're asked or someone sponsors your membership and encourage you to fill out an application and then you have two folks who were existing members, for which application and write letters to the board and then there's a committee that votes on accepting you or not accepting you very cool.

Laura  
Yeah, Tim Gallaudet was one of our past explorers, clubs person and amazing trips from him as well.

Erica Moulton 
Yeah, it was really fun on the recent trip to Antarctica. I think that they're out of the 114 of us, I think there were 2623 26 members. And this was Explorers Club is also famous, infamous for flags, right? There's a 203 flags and existence. I think 190 ish, 197 ish are still in rotation and so you can apply to have an expedition be a flag expedition. And then all the flags are numbers, a lot of move into I mean, it's been all over the planet, right? Several of them have been into space and to all the highest peaks and the lowest points and so we took flag 61 on this expedition. So it's really kind of fun. So everybody who's a member then stamps the flag and takes the picture and it's pretty, pretty interesting. Then you get to figure out what that flag has been. And the other thing is it's accomplished or been with when it something else has been accomplished. So the big part of the expedition in article will be in October with a film and a book series and some photo essays that go around traveling. Cool,

[Field Notes]

Laura 
to have you back to talk more about that in the future. But now it is time for field notes. It's the part of the show where we talk to our guests about memorable moments doing work in the field because that's one of the things that connects us all. And we encourage listeners to share your own stories using the hashtag field notes so that we can find them and read them on a future episode. And I know you have a million stories that we've heard talked about a couple of things, but I wanted I know that these are just fun for people, myself included, just to hear sort of like the scary things that happen because they these weird, crazy things happen and I don't know you have a really crazy one. So I'll let you tell it

Erica Moulton 
like craziest one. scary one. My scary one. Well, my scary one. Yeah, my scary one is when I was working in Guyana, is this the one you're referring to? Yeah. So when I was working in Guyana, in the Northwest region, that's I really remote region. So that is remote is Antarctica, but we're talking six to 800 miles or so from the next civilization of real people with telephones. And so because you work at night looking for turtles and monitoring nests, you have really odd hours, but Late one afternoon, into the dusk hours we saw some boats approaching the shoreline and so if you look at a map or Guyana is at the Orinoco River, you can see that the the coastline of Venezuela is not too far away and just offshore. The only folks with big boats and lights would be drug runners. And so unfortunately, they saw our little campfire on the beach because we were going to be monitoring turtles. And they were having some sort of, I don't know, heated discussion argument and decided to come ashore and drop off somebody who they thought that wouldn't be a part of their Expedition anymore for whatever nefarious things they were doing. That didn't go over so well. And then so there was a person who came deceased keep it PG was pretty horrible. But then they invaded the camp with guns and things like that. So we spent quite a few hours trying to hide in the mud and under the mangroves along the shoreline. Yeah, so unfortunately although I survived in goodwill, and I did not get shot, I did see people get shot and I saw some other horrible things, but then as a lasting memory because of all the mosquito bites, I got malaria.

Nic 
So, Josh,

Erica Moulton 
so my grassroot work took a little longer than necessary because I had to recover from some of

Laura 
that, but yeah, and you were less students during this like,

Erica Moulton  
yeah, I was trying to be my career. I don't know if this is like my third trip down there. And yeah, so you know, and then there's no way out right except the dugout canoe and a small engine to paddle for days. So you have to you have to hide to do the best you can. And so, yeah, it was pretty interesting. I, it took a little I mean, you know, malaria is not very fun and it takes some time to recover from that and thankful for modern medicine and access to it and things like that. So, you know, it was troubling for quite some time at night when I was sleeping, but I can imagine for a long time, but yeah, I know, right now.

Laura  
Thanks for sharing. I think it's one of those things will work you know, something bad goes, goes wrong in the field for us. We can say well, it's not as bad as Eric is story.

Erica Moulton 
There's always that joke right about how bad is it? Nobody died like yes, people did.

Nic 
You know you also resilient you know, you came back and you know, your long career afterwards. Were you could have said, well, you know what, I'm good. So I think that's really impressive. And I think it

Erica Moulton 
keeps me nowadays I'm like, well, it's not that scary. Because I know scary. Right? Right.

Nic 
Yeah. Effective.

Erica Moulton 
Well, but I also I usually try and remind myself that sometimes it is best to do things still afraid. Right? Because it keeps you on your toes. keeps you aware of your surroundings. Issue cognizant of the things that could possibly go wrong and that not everything, or every scenario is each key. Right? There's various things that can happen to you. So

Nic 
that's a great point. I think. I don't worry about people who've never done field work before. I worry about people who have done field work long enough to think they know everything about how it goes Yes. And that's where you really get hurt. I mean, like, Yes, young people, you know, new people can get hurt. But the really dangerous stuff is usually someone who thinks they know what they're doing. Yeah, hey, watch this, you know, kind of thing.

Speaker 3 
Right? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Or I don't need that safety equipment because I've done

Nic 
it 100 times or whatever. Yeah, well, I don't I don't need to put my boots on. I'm sure I'll be fine.

Erica Moulton 
Great. overstayed? Yeah,

Laura 
we are running short on time, but I want to give you a chance to tell us a good story. Like maybe one of your opposite favorite stories.

Erica Moulton 
Opposite favorite story. Gosh, I have. I have so many it what genre favorite story about like,

Laura 
let's take it back to to Nick envy, animal encounter. Corn.

Erica Moulton  
Oh, that one's probably easy, right? Now. It's probably the penguins I mean, penguins in our array. I wouldn't around. There really isn't anything better than this little wobbling middle finger that in a tuxedo coming straight at you. is probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do but to tuck your hands and not touch because I'm just going to tell you right now I wanted to reach with everything I had and squish them you know, they they lay down accidentally in the penguin poop or on the algae or along the shoreline of the sand and their little white chest is all you know covered in whatever and you just want to do that mother thing right where you lick your thumb Yeah, they're absolutely adorable. But I promise scouts honor I did not even though I wanted to touch one or interact with one they're just really phenomenal, amazing, really amazing. Little Critter and that they're so curious. And there's probably a lot of people who are listening who are very familiar with that need that was generated. I don't know maybe 2015 Maybe we're already here where there's the scientists who are I think they're drilling into the ice and there's little pigment behind them. And the little caption is now like yes, I'd like to science please. So there there aren't but that is that. I think that's their whole personality. They're just kind of curious and come right up and what are you doing? I'd like to do this. Yeah. Yeah. Can I try? And you want to let them

Nic 
Yeah. Yeah.

Laura  
That's awesome. Okay, last thing, when we talked about we met kind of over women in STEM thing. And I know that you do work with girls too on some of these trips and research and stuff. What give us a takeaway, something for young women starting their careers to help them succeed.

Erica Moulton  
Maybe don't listen to me but naysayers who have said all those horrible things in the past that I still hear sometimes today, but you can do it all. You maybe can't do it all the same day. And some days certain things are gonna get 100% and some things are gonna get you know, 0% and then some days are 5050 on all things, but life is this really cool long marathon and there's time and space for all the things that you want to accomplish, whether that's in your personal life or your professional life. And you can also switch gears and find out that maybe again, fieldwork isn't for you and you want to do more lab work and it's okay. But then any opportunity you have to lift other women up. Do so right. It's not a competition and there's plenty of space for everyone at the table. And being able to work together has been one of the greatest gifts in my career, meeting other women in science and getting to partner with them on things. It's just been really fantastic.

Laura 
That's awesome. I love all of that and you are living proof because you have got a family in the travel and a career and the lagoon outside your office we do.

Nic 
Ultimate whatever. We've got to look good. I'm sorry.

Laura 
All right. So that's we're out of time, but is there anything else you want to talk about that we didn't touch on today?

Erica Moulton 
No, I think this was really fun. I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk with you guys today.

Laura 
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. Last Last thing where can people get in touch with you?

Erica Moulton  
So you can reach me? My email address is fine. It's my first name erica.my last name moulton@gmail.com. You can also find me on social media at C for UI. org, which is also on Facebook. Or you can look up the STEM center on Facebook at STC STEM center. That's our Facebook page and there's you can find me anywhere in this space.

Laura 
Awesome. Thanks, Erica. Yes, a lot of fun.

[Outro]

Nic 
And that's our show. Thank you Erica for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. See you everybody.

Laura
Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai