Dear RMBL community, This has been an ecologically weird year, and RMBL scientists are documenting it. After an extraordinarily low-snow winter, wildflowers bloomed weeks early, Blue Mesa Reservoir fell to historic lows, and drought, insects, and disease continued to challenge our aspens and conifers and reshape our forests. And then there are the marmots. About [...]
Dear RMBL community, Over the past few weeks, something remarkable happened. A playful story about some delightfully round yellow-bellied marmots captured the attention of people around the world. What began as a fun social media moment quickly grew into national and international news, with stories appearing on the NBC's TODAY, in The New York Times, [...]
Dear RMBL community, If you've spent any time in the Upper Gunnison Valley this summer, you've likely noticed something remarkable: monument plants are everywhere. Towering above the landscape at heights of 7 to 9 feet, monument plants (Frasera speciosa) are experiencing a "super bloom" year. These extraordinary plants can live for decades — sometimes nearly [...]
Dear RMBL community, There is something magical about the beginning of summer at RMBL. As the snow slowly recedes from the mountainsides, the first glacier lilies emerge through the thawing ground, signaling the arrival of a new field season in Gothic. Soon after, the hillsides and meadows begin bursting with countless other alpine wildflowers, transforming [...]
Dear RMBL community, As we head into summer, RMBL enters the season with both momentum and a critical question: After one of the driest winters on record, how will the Gunnison Valley’s lack of precipitation shape its ecology, including impacts on pollinators, plants, water systems, and wildfire risk? This historic weather anomaly presents a rare [...]
Dear Friends of RMBL, April brings us to Earth Day, a time to reflect on our relationship with the planet and the responsibility we all share in caring for it. At RMBL, Earth Day resonates deeply with our mission. For nearly a century, scientists, students, and educators have come to Gothic to study the natural world, listen [...]
Dear Friends of RMBL, March is Women’s History Month, and we are proud to recognize and celebrate the extraordinary women who have shaped, advanced, and sustained science and education at RMBL for nearly a century. The Bean Pod Sprouts a Century of Women in Science article in this newsletter beautifully highlights this legacy and RMBL’s longstanding role [...]
Dear RMBL Community, February is a time to reflect on water at its source. National River Day and World Wetlands Day, both on Feb. 2, remind us that everything downstream depends on what happens upstream — at the headwaters. Snowpack becomes wetlands. Wetlands feed rivers. Rivers sustain ecosystems, agriculture, and communities far beyond the mountains [...]
Dear RMBL Community, As we begin a new year, I want to start with gratitude. Thank you for the many ways you supported RMBL over the past year. Your engagement, curiosity, generosity, and partnership continue to sustain and strengthen this remarkable place. Because of you, RMBL enters 2026 with strong momentum, a clear vision, and [...]
As I reflect on this year, I am filled with a deep sense of appreciation and excitement for continuing to move RMBL forward into the next century. This year has been extraordinary for our organization, from the acquisition of RMBL 365 and the future of RMBL year-round to reconnecting with alumni and building new partnerships. [...]
Dear Friends and Colleagues, We have officially closed on the Crested Butte Hostel - RMBL 365!!! This is such an exciting milestone for RMBL and for our entire community. RMBL 365 represents the beginning of a new era—one that celebrates our legacy while opening the door to year-round science, education, and community connection. This space [...]
At RMBL, our work is rooted not only in science but also in community. For nearly a century, RMBL has been a place where research, education, and collaboration come together to create knowledge that extends far beyond the Gunnison Valley. Today, as we look toward our second century, the impact of RMBL in our local [...]
Dear RMBL Community, As the seasons change and we look ahead to RMBL’s future, I am reminded of the importance of building a strong foundation that allows science, education, and community to thrive in every season. I am thrilled to share exciting progress on the RMBL 365 Hostel acquisition. This initiative is central to our [...]
This summer, the impact of RMBL was felt more deeply than ever. Our scientists continued to break new ground in understanding climate change, biodiversity, and ecosystem dynamics. Their work reaches far beyond the valley and informs global conversations about our planet’s future. We welcomed a new generation of students and early-career researchers whose passion and [...]
Dear RMBL Community, The energy in Gothic this summer has been incredible. June and July were brimming with activity—field research is thriving, visitors are returning in record numbers, and excitement about RMBL’s future continues to grow. We have hosted nearly double the number of events this summer, from community dinners, expert talks, and science [...]
The heart of volunteerism and citizen science at Gothic RMBL's docent program started as a way for the lab to better connect with the community and communicate the remarkable science happening at the lab. Since its creation through the Visitor Center, the docent team has become a tight-knit bunch that benefits both researchers and those [...]
Benn Schmatz and the Facilities Team - opening up a field station for the summer Tag along with Facilities Manager, Benn Schmatz, as he takes us through the process of "waking up Gothic for the summer." In order for ground-breaking research and science to take place, our students and scientists need basic amenities - running [...]
Curtis Beutler and Austin Shirley - winter research at rmbl Even though the road to Gothic is closed in the wintertime, research and discovery happens all year long. Spend a few minutes learning about the hydrology of mountainous systems with Curtis Beutler and Austin Shirley, scientific research associates for a RMBL-Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory project. [...]
Ericka Bremer development and summer events Learn more about what a summer looks like as a RMBL Explorer. Every summer, we curate exclusive events for our major donor community. As we finalize our events list for 2025, we are excited to share what's on the docket, which includes hikes with other local non-profits, science lectures [...]
Susan Washko undergraduate education program Spend a few minutes watching a short video about Dr. Susan Washko, who has been an instrumental part of RMBL's longstanding undergraduate research program. This project has been funded since 1991- likely one of the only education programs to have received continual funding for over 30 years. The program [...]
Word is out. Have you ever seen Dr. David Inouye trap a hummingbird? You can. Just find the Rocky Mountain PBS online video “Gothic’s Outdoor Science Lab.” Thanks to programs like this, anyone can tune in and watch science happen. Media coverage of RMBL research puts science news in front of non-scientists. And the more [...]
Transition “Hummingbirds have a very good ability to navigate long distances. However they do it, they manage to come back to the same place year after year. I guess as it turned out I was working with plants that are going to live longer than I am. That can sometimes make my lifespan feel a [...]
Mother of pearl “The oyster stirs, a silent plea, To coat the grit, with pearly sea, Layer by layer, a glistening coat, A lustrous gem, the shell will tote. With each caress, the nacre grows, A shimmering sheen, the beauty shows, A pearl is born, from pain and strife, A treasure found, a precious life.” [...]
Philosopher’s Stone “Alchemy neither composes nor mixes: it increases and activates that which already exists in a latent state. Therefore, alchemy can be more accurately compared with botany or agriculture than with chemistry.” - Franz Hartmann (19th century theosophist) "Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and [...]
Soil “If I could do it all over again, and relive my vision in the twenty-first century, I would be a microbial ecologist. Ten billion bacteria live in a gram of ordinary soil, a mere pinch held between thumb and forefinger. They represent thousands of species, almost none of which are known to science. Into [...]
“We are as gods and might as well get good at it”. Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalogue, 1968. “We are as gods and have to get good at it”. Interview with Stewart Brand, Edge, 2009. Humans have transitioned from being a thread in the tapestry of life, to being the image within which all threads [...]
Kith and Kin “Because we have not made our lives to fit our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded, the streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope then to belong to your place by your own knowledge of what it is that no other place is, and by your caring for it as you [...]
Bugs “It is the beginning of wisdom when you recognize that the best you can do is choose which rules you want to live by, and it's persistent and aggravated imbecility to pretend you can live without any.” (From All the Little Live Things, Wallace Stegner) Despite fear of judgement, I admit that the cleanliness of my [...]
Are you on the bus? “You’re either on the bus or off the bus” - Ken Kesey, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test To paraphrase William Shakespeare, “to be (part of something larger) or not to be (part of something larger), that is the question!” Evolution is often defined by changes in genes, or changes in [...]
The Marmot Abides “One generation passeth, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever” (Ecclesiastes 1:4-9, King James Version) Like “The Dude”, the marmot abides. “I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that.” – The Big Lebowski. Similar to a rug that ties a room together, the Marmoteers make RMBL [...]
New Insights "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within Himself make pure!” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson) An unusually warm [...]
Brigadoon To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour. (William Blake) For better and worse, Gothic is no longer the Brigadoon of the West Elk Mountains. Located in the Scottish Highlands, an enchantment froze [...]
Learning I have learned that everything has its own language and that if I listen carefully to the birds and the creatures, and even the grasses, I will hear the sound of God in the music of the silence. There are multiple realities surrounding me and I know that I must keep the eyes of [...]
Ruby Peak: A monument to inference and ways of knowing Ruby Peak stands at a metaphorical point of triangulation on the map of how we know the world involving the West Elk Mountains, 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, and field science. Edward Howard Ruffner was a minor surveyor who was overshadowed by the four [...]
The Power of Mitzvah: from Thanksgiving to Hope “A great flame follows from a little spark.” Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, 1321 AD (Courtney Langdon translation) Communities and futures are built upon lifetimes of small actions. We gathered on an earthly knoll within the Crested Butte cemetery, in the embrace of the surrounding mountains. We gave [...]
“History repeats her tale unconsciously, and goes off into a mystic rhyme” James Burn, In the Christian Remembrancer, October of 1845 “The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and .. there is no rational explanation for it” Eugene Wigner, In The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the [...]
Philosopher and historian Will Durant reminds us that we might benefit by occasionally considering the ground upon which our feet stand, metaphorically as well as literally. Geology is often destiny, and explains Crested Butte’s coal mines, ski resort, and even RMBL. The presence of Crested Butte’s coal mines is explained in part by the Western [...]
When the child was a child, It was the time for these questions: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did time begin, and where does space end? Is life under the sun not just a dream? Is what I see and hear and smell [...]
“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked [...]
With the GPT-3 chatbot writing college essays and computer programs for students desperate to reduce homework loads, concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) destroying humankind have taken on a new urgency. One version of AI-driven doomsday involves a computer program deciding on its own to eliminate humans. This ascribes an intentionality to AI that seems unlikely. [...]
“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a [silver] sixpence in her shoe.” You will have to bear with me to see how I connect the dots. But oddly enough this traditional wedding rhyme captures RMBL’s Science Strategy. First, the old. It’s great to see the exposure that the RMBL Phenology Project is [...]
“The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit’s one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the cliffs in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they [...]
Thirty spokes are joined together in a wheel, but it is a centre hole that allows the wheel to function. We mould clay into a pot, but it is emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful. We fashion wood for a house, but it is the emptiness inside that makes it livable. We work with [...]
An MBA might have been better preparation than a PhD for serving as RMBL’s Executive Director. But studying ants turns out to have been good job training. For 5+ years I hiked up to Virginia Basin above Gothic and counted ants to understand what controls the sizes of colonies. When my friends call me Dr. [...]
In addition to supporting the work of individual scientists through ensuring access to field sites and providing logistical support, RMBL is changing field science by encouraging integrative research. Supported as a RMBL Synthesis Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Rebecca Prather (see accompanying article) and 14 collaborators recently published work utilizing 10,812 observations involving 30 plant, 25 insect, [...]
While the acceleration of time with age can be distressing, when it is -10 F and daylight is a precious commodity, the blur of time can be comforting. But my New Year’s resolution is to seek comfort not in escaping, but in looking up. I’m back in my early morning routine of walking up and [...]
Only through the bringing together of head and heart- intelligence and goodness- shall man rise to a fulfillment of his true nature. From Love in Action, Martin Luther King, Jr. RMBL has a responsibility to evaluate the success of our education programs. In spending 10 weeks in Gothic, students give us the greatest gift, the [...]
Dr. Johnson first encountered Gothic on July 4, 1919. He had just finished a PhD in Parasitology at the Univ. of California, Berkeley and he was visiting friends and family in Gunnison for some rest. But by his own admission, Johnson was not someone for whom idleness came easy. He jumped at a friend’s invitation [...]
RMBL research sits at the center of one of the most critical issues facing the western United States, water. The Titan Prometheus defied the gods to bring fire to humans, a metaphor for the generation of knowledge and technology that enabled the emergence of civilization. But if fire birthed civilization, water will maintain it. The [...]
Maintaining and sharing knowledge is nestled in the core of being alive, and human. There are many ways of knowing. DNA molecules sit in our nuclei, bits of information transmitted across generations reflecting an accumulated wisdom that if we are lucky, allows us to survive and reproduce. How we share knowledge today is intertwined with [...]
In a classic film Bill Murray’s character repeatedly wakes on February 2, Groundhog Day, doomed to live the day over and over. Stuck in an endless loop, he initially wreaks havoc, with each dawn erasing his bad behavior. Ultimately he breaks the cycle that a Buddhist might call samsara by embracing his better self. It [...]
This spring my family visited London, taking one last family trip after opportunities lost to covid before our oldest son leaves for college. A highlight was visiting the Old Royal Observatory. Stepping off a ferry on the Thames, we grabbed a coffee in Greenwich Village, walked past the National Maritime Museum (“Dad, how can you [...]
Red Rock rises just south and east of Gothic. A relatively easy climb with good south facing exposure, it is a popular first hike for RMBL students without a lot of experience. Ferdinand Hayden, visiting the East River valley 150 years ago, indicated Red Mountain was laid down during the Carboniferous period about 300 million [...]
Hosted by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Alvin can transport scientists miles underwater to explore the deep sea. With no light, organisms scavenge material falling from above or manage to make a living off thermal vents. Deep sea fish are composed almost entirely of water; any air pockets would get crushed. The water pressure three [...]
I think regularly about the article by David Brooks in the Atlantic (Oct. 5, 2020) "America is having a moral convulsion." He cited polling data showing that among Americans, trust is at a historic low. With “high trust institutions,” like public schools and libraries, facing an onslaught of lawsuits and criminal charges, trust continues to decline. [...]
“The only real requirements for the job are imagination and ingenuity; so far as experience and expertise are concerned—forget it. The idea is to correct the successes of the past, and people who know how to do things are a drawback.” George Sibley, Part of a Winter: A Memory More Like a Dream. I am [...]
Director’s Letter, January 2022 It’s deep winter in Crested Butte. My early morning skis above Mt. Crested Butte bring double digit negative temperatures joined by dawns that splash warm, red glows on the surrounding peaks. The summer of 2021 is quickly fading in memory, but I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on RMBL’s [...]
Almost 2500 years ago Archimedes famously waxed poetic about fulcrums and torque: “Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth.” As high school physics students have long learned, with sufficient leverage, a small force can move worlds. There is an educational equivalent; the right mentor at the right time can shift [...]
I’m a telemark skier and getting new equipment can be a bit traumatic for reasons hard to explain to non-telemark skiers. The staff at the local outdoor gear company, the Alpineer, has been dropping hints as only good friends can. I got new boot shells, but with odd-shaped feet I desperately clung to my old [...]
Water. Aspen. People. To steal a metaphor from author Barbara Kingsolver, fall brings low tide to Gothic. But unlike oceanside tidal pools, our ebbs and flows come from the sun, not the moon. Our highwater point? One summer a health inspector expressed concern about an outlet valve on our old water treatment plant not being [...]
Scientific Hogwarts It is a sign of how far Gothic’s facility plant has come that there is no possibility I would be considered for a RMBL maintenance job today. That wasn’t the case in 1991. It was a glorious summer for me. Cash, or more accurately “loose change”, in my pocket, free room and board, [...]
What could have been a wet, soaked July 3rd turned into a day of sunshine. The day was a celebration of the life of Dr. Scott Wissinger. Scott has been a big part RMBL’s success. In 1988 he picked up the torch of long-term research at the Mexican Cut from long-time RMBL’ers, including Dr. Scottie [...]
Pink tutus. Stiches to heal a foot. Mucking about in mud filled with caddis flies. Hikes to remote mountain basins. Learning more about identifying flowers that might ever be expected of a teenager. Washing dishes in the dining hall and stocking outhouses with toilet paper. Wandering off into the willows and learning to avoid porcupine [...]
Melittology, the bee-you-ti-ful study of bees, may seem like an obscure subject. However, one-third of the calories that humans eat come from plants which are pollinated by insects and animals, with bees being a major pollinator, alongside butterflies, wasps, hummingbirds, and many other types of pollinators. Plants can also pollinate themselves or rely upon the [...]
I love the current RMBL staff. We have had some great people working for RMBL over the years, but this group is special, from top to bottom. Their collective experience includes serving on the leadership team on an international nonprofit going through a major campus expansion (Kelly Sudderth), running a field station on the North [...]
My quiz of the month—name this environmental feature! Its moods range from raging in the spring to placid and calm in the fall. It is 1450 miles long. It starts in La Poudre Pass Lake west of Fort Collins, but if we can make a reasonable argument that much of the journey starts in the [...]
RMBL is reaching for the stars. Or to be more precise, the lower atmosphere. For the next two years our bug hunters and wildflower counters will be joined by snowflake measurers and scientists who track storms. Led by Berkeley Lab climate modeler Dr. Dan Feldman a whole posse of atmospheric scientists will be descending on [...]
billy barr, subject of the adjoining article, is the beating heart of the RMBL community. He embodies a lot of what makes Gothic unique. Empathetic and engaged, he creates a sense of acceptance and inclusiveness. When I first arrived as a student 30+ years ago and went to his office to pay my bill, billy [...]
What does it mean to know a place? As a field scientist, knowing often involves quadrats, binoculars, and sensors—data we collect and mine for insight. But there are other ways of knowing a place. One spring when I was at graduate student in San Diego, avid snowpack watcher billy barr gave me hope in early [...]
For what am I giving thanks for as we put 2020 behind us? A big part of my winter routine is climbing up Mt. Crested Butte early in the morning and skiing down just as the light breaks on the mountains. It can be hard for me to spend as much time outside in summer, [...]
What type of person is RMBL looking to for support in the season of giving? Our community is committed to science and education. From medicine, to energy innovation, to smart phones, scientific innovation is the foundation of the modern world. This is not a huge step for most, but there are a lot of scientific organizations. Why RMBL?
RMBL supporters are passionate about the outdoors; many have had formative and powerful experiences outside. Our community also values the importance of the natural world to well-being, affecting everything from mental health, to food security, to water, to air, and disease. We attract people who combine a love of science with a passion for the outdoors. But the world is a big place. Why the high alpine valleys winding their way through the central Colorado Rockies of the Gunnison Basin, centered on Gothic?
Here’s my list, rooted in how the Power of Place transforms us and the world we live in.
Standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before me, I know my place and I’m sticking to it. It gives me a view to the past, and more importantly, to the future. It can be hard to appreciate the great scientists that have passed through RMBL. A member of the Oklahoma Hall of [...]
We are born into a world of chaos of fragmented and disconnected light and sound, but millions of years of evolution have shaped our brains to find order. Our five senses are data collecting machines designed to satisfy our innate curiosity. Within the space of 10-20 years we pass from a helpless babe sheltered in the arms of our parents, to individuals capable of beautiful music, writing sonatas, and peering into the mysteries of the universe. The challenge of an educator is not to fill the heads of students with facts, but to nurture curiosity and reveal tools of discovery that complement our five senses.
Forever is a long time, even for a 90+ year-old organization like RMBL. On July 16th RMBL placed a conservation easement on the Gothic Townsite, dedicating the land and the buildings to research and education in perpetuity. The power of a place is the result of how shared human experiences are woven into a region’s [...]
Five million wildflowers and counting! The National Science Foundation will invest almost $750,000 to support the RMBL phenology project another 5 years. In 1973, Dr. David Inouye (emeritus at the Univ. of Maryland) started tracking when plants flower. His daughter-in-law Dr. Nora Underwood (Florida State University) now heads the project and is joined by Dr. [...]
RMBL owes our ability to move creatively in response to Covid19 because our founder, Dr. John C. Johnson, was fired from his job for not being a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. After World War I, the Colorado State Normal School, which trained teachers, became Western State College, offering 4-year degrees. Dr. Johnson had [...]
Field scientists enjoy studying evolution in the field but are less excited to be in the middle of it themselves. Gothic will be different this summer! Having operated through the Great Depression and World World II, RMBL curates one of the largest collections of long-term field studies. The show goes on!
RMBL has received approval for an operating plan from public health that will allow us to house scientists in Gothic. We are eliminating shared bedrooms, so we will operate at about two-thirds capacity. To minimize having a scientist re-introducing the virus to Gunnison County and to keep the virus from spreading within Gothic, we will have aggressive containment procedures. We will require scientists to self-isolate for 7 days upon arrival, conduct daily symptom-monitoring, and use face masks.
Scientific detectives are pointing to the pangolin as a key puzzle piece in understanding the biological tragedy that has killed tens of thousands, thrown millions out of their jobs, and stranded even more in their homes. Covered entirely in scales, pangolins are the least cuddly mammal. Lacking teeth, they use tongues as long as their [...]
What does it mean to support field scientists and students in the year of Coronavirus? As soon as we figure it out, we will let you know! With one of the highest rates of infection in Colorado, the local school, ski resort, hotels and short-term rentals are closed. Most flights have been cancelled and restaurants [...]
Having met my wife and raised two boys in Gothic, the subject of families at RMBL is dear to my heart. Jennie and I had a typical RMBL romance (and you can read another story of family and science in the adjoining article), wandering across years, states and universities, as we narrowed in on how [...]
A Gothic winter is magical and RMBL is expanding opportunities for students of all ages to experience it. When the snow starts to fall, the larger world fades away. A typical year brings 40 feet of snow, covering one-story buildings with a white, smooth blanket of snow. The snow came so fast in one storm [...]
Philanthropy makes it possible for us to reach undergraduates who otherwise would never make it to Gothic. In 2019 we provided approximately $150,000 in financial awards to students, equivalent to full rides for 20 students, or half of the 40 students we host. For a society in which children have fewer opportunities to grow up [...]
RMBL relies upon donations to operate. Scientists and students all pay to be at RMBL. But we maintain 70+ buildings in a harsh environment almost 2 miles above sea level. The elevation is a double whammy. Not only does almost 40 feet of snow beat up the cabins, but Gothic is closed for half the […]
Dr. Rosemary Carroll is following the lifecycle of a snowflake. We can’t use a slow motion camera to watch a snowflake as it falls onto Schofield Pass in deep winter, and then trace it underground before it eventually makes its way back into the East River and through a fish. But Rosemary uses isotopes, different […]
It’s a small thing, but it makes me proud. In early September Volunteer Outdoor Colorado (VOC) visited Gothic and reworked the Judd Falls Trail (see the adjoining article). One of the most heavily used recreation areas, the previous trail was not “designed”. It “emerged” as people scrambled through rocks and picked their way, occasionally through […]
With your support, RMBL is investing in youth science. 30 years ago, RMBL started Kid’s Nature Camp. We now focus the program on science and formalized that transition in 2016 by renaming it Youth Science Programs. In 2001, we had 190 summer contact days with younger children. By 2018 we had over 1700 youth contact […]
The phrase “climate change” evokes a range of responses. For many, climate change is a defining challenge; will our society be able to maintain the ecosystem services that underlie food, water, and human health? For others, the words invoke confusion, disagreement, or even weariness. Oddly, for a subject that is so tied up in complicated [...]
Biologists are learning that to understand life, we need to understand teams. Your body is composed of a series of teams. Only half the cells in your body are human. The other half are bacterial, viral, and fungal. We used to think that these non-human cells were invaders.
If you are old enough to have been lost, you can appreciate how quickly mapping technology is changing field science. It wasn’t that long ago that my trips involved stacks of maps and my shaky sense of location. Now, a swipe of my smartphone keeps my trip stress free.
The importance of a Gothic summer to individuals is clear. We assess and track students, and they describe RMBL as “unforgettable”, “life-changing”, “once in a lifetime experience”, and “the best thing that has happened throughout my academic career”.
Hummingbird research captures why RMBL’s plans to archive historic data are so important.
Family and community are at the heart of what makes RMBL special. It is tempting to think of scientists as lonely figures in white lab coats working late at night amongst test tubes and beakers. But there are as many ways of being a scientist as there are scientists. Many RMBL scientists bring their families to Gothic year after year, and the importance of family and community at RMBL has a big impact on our science.
Last year the RMBL Board of Trustees adopted a new vision: To unleash the power of place to transform how we understand the world and provide the scientific knowledge needed to maintain the environmental processes that support food security, air and water quality, and human health. This month we are launching a new communications effort with this newsletter.