July 2021 Newsletter
the power of PLACE
Just another summer as a kid in Gothic!
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 dens. Learning to make an espresso and answer questions about what elevation the deer turn into elk. Smoking cigarettes and burning down old buildings. Just another summer as a kid in Gothic!
Luckily it has been about 85 years since the stable incident and selling coffee is a relatively recent addition to a young adult’s life in Gothic. Inflation has hit the outhouses, with a roll of toilet paper creeping up from a nickel to a quarter. Long woven into the fabric of Gothic, are rapscallions, free range kids, a feature, or a bug?
Kids, along with the families and community that come with them, are fundamental to harnessing the Power of Place.
Ian Billick | PhD
Executive Director, RMBL
sciencestories
Drs. Berry Brosi and Karen Levy
Familial ground
Does RMBL produce better science because it’s family friendly? It wouldn’t be a stretch to make that claim. Time and again, scientists say that one of the best ways RMBL supports them, especially those that return year after year to work on long-term studies, is by welcoming their families. For decades, RMBL has understood that scientists, like other humans, fall in love, get married, and have kids — and yet want to keep doing science.
One scientist couple who’ve been coming to RMBL since 2010 are adamant about the scientific value of RMBL’s familial culture. They are Drs. Berry Brosi and Karen Levy, both associate professors at the University of Washington.