Positive lessons from our recent public seminar

Last night, Dr Jenn delivered the Skemps Memorial Lecture on behalf of the Launceston Field Naturalists Club. The last time she was invited to deliver this lecture was in 2016, so it felt timely to provide an update on our Lab’s achievements over the past decade.

Jenn focused on how our Lab is deeply imbedded in community (we’re funded largely through public donations – see here) and host Australian-centered projects, given the bulk of our team resides here, as do the many of the amazing birds we study. Parts of the seminar were depressing: rapidly increasing rates of plastic ingestion in seabirds resulting in Plasticosis (a disease that our team named and described in 2023). To balance this, Jenn included a motivational section that focused on unique, meaningful actions including:

1. Lending your skill: roughly 25% of our Adrift Lab team is comprised of non-scientists, including Jesse (IT support), Andrew (tradie in residence), and Richard (mapping guru). What we do would is only possible because these wonderful people volunteer their time and incredible skill. Adrift Lab acknowledges and celebrates their contributions through multiple avenues, including co-authorship. The key message was, no matter your background/training/skill, you have something to offer to science!

Last night taught us it’s OK to publicly celebrate the wins – and the struggles – with confidence and pride. In a time of endless bad news, others want to share in our success and support what we do. You can’t care about what you don’t know about, so we should be open and honest about who we are as a Lab, and what makes us different. It’s also OK to tell people sad stories – don’t shy away, they want the truth. But they also want to be empowered to make a difference – our aim is to leave folks thinking “yes, I can do that!”.