What’s your legacy?
These thoughts adapted from my keynote presentation to the 2022 Central Florida GIS Workshop in Daytona Beach, FL.
I am available to keynote your next event to share an intentionally positive and hopeful message about the future of science and society. Contact me at timothy.hawthorne@ucf.edu with interest.
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As you read this, I’d like to ask you to first take a journey back in time with me. Really far back to when you were a child. A child with no fears, immense energy, dirt on your hands, and an excitement for learning and exploring. Think specifically back to your K-12 school days. What big learning moments from those school days stand out to you? The ones you still remember all those years later.
Maybe your memories are like mine. I think of that field trip three hours away by a charter bus to the science museum in the big city. I think of the visit to the fire station with fire fighters and fire trucks. I think back to the planting of trees in our small wildlife area at my middle school.
Those early childhood learning moments we’re all thinking about right now, they shaped us. They’ve stuck with us all these years later. How do you think those events you just remembered shaped the person you are today?
Let’s keep those impactful, educational memories from our own childhoods front and center in our minds as we explore together.
Each of us has a legacy that will change our profession. Your legacy might include working as a team to make big and small changes to the world. It might include lifting up those around you. Or it might include building a tool that revolutionizes science and industry.
So the big question I pose to each of us today is:
What will your legacy be for science, for the next generation, for the future of your field?
As a 2022 National Geographic Explorer, I dream about what the future of our world can look like. I think about legacy as our Citizen Science GIS research organization works with communities across the globe to use GIS, mapping, and drones to examine complex social and environmental problems.
Why do I think so much about legacy? Because I am surrounded by everyday, extraordinary people of all ages who push me to think differently about our work and our world. They push me to believe in a better future, like Jack Dangermond and others at Esri say “to see what others, can’t.”
The folks I interact with push me to see a future with stronger partnerships between the academy, industry, and society. These folks ask me (and sometimes demand me) to let scientists know that we’re not doing enough to include community voices, we’re not doing enough to do science that matters or that is understandable to a broader audience. They want me and my colleagues to be better. Because they know our world is changing, in a variety of ways.
These energizing conversations….in the classroom, over email, in the field, on Zoom, over social media, and on an old city bus turned into a mobile learning lab fire me up as I think about the future of science and our industry. They always bring me back to that big word: legacy.
Our ideas for GeoBus came from years of working with communities across the globe who clamored for more opportunities to engage the next generation in learning more about science. Many of these folks didn’t have any clue what GIS was, what a drone could do, or why mapping was so important. To them and to us, the big idea behind the nation’s first GeoBus wasn’t about technology.
GeoBus is a platform where young children can believe in themselves, see themselves as scientists, ignite a curiosity for our world, and a become an explorer. We built it to help children find their path and begin their own legacies, even at a very young age.
As we finished GeoBus over the last few years during a pandemic, we worked with so many young folks who reminded us why the next generation and legacy are so important for science and industry. Let me share a quick story of some of these amazing young people.
I think about Addison, Callie, Isiah and Gabe, 4 amazing high schoolers from Astronaut High in Titusville who I met last fall for the first time in a visit to their school to talk about drones. I saw a curiosity in their eyes. Fast forward to this past March when thanks to a grant from the US National Science Foundation we took the four of them and their 4 high school teachers to Bodega Bay, California where we work with the Smithsonian to drone map eelgrass.
We spent a week with them. On Monday we asked them to spot for our team as we flew the drones, and we talked about how drones functioned, by Wednesday, they were flying the Phantom series drones on their own with only a watchful eye from our team. And they were asking important questions about threats to the coast and changing coastal ecosystems.
The 4 young folks I just talked about, and the thousands of young folks our team has worked with over the last several years with our education and outreach work give me hope. They give me so much hope. Hope for a better future. You see these young people are thinking big. They’re thinking bold. And they’re full of energy and ideas for a better tomorrow.
They are the reason we and so many incredible partners came together to build GeoBus. Together we and our GeoBus Drivers of Change (as we like to call them), built GeoBus to light the spark. To introduce the next generation of science to a world of imagination and possibility. Whether they said it or not, every single person who helped bring GeoBus to life was likely thinking about legacy.
We took a retrofitted city bus donated to us by Lynx and turned it into a 40-foot mobile lab that has visited schools across Florida since last spring…it’s a place for kids to dream big and believe in what’s possible.
The second we first saw Bus 556…a 2005 baby blue, retired city bus that was about to be sent to auction and was donated to us by Lynx bus company. We thought about what was possible. We heard the small questions. Where would it park? Who would drive it? How do you paint a bus? How would you maintain it? We ignored the questions. We focused on the bigger picture. We focused on legacy.
But we didn’t want an old city bus just the way it was, we wanted to transform it into something even more. So we searched for an innovative partner who would help us power our mobile lab with renewable energy. We sent countless unreturned emails, we met folks who said putting solar on a moving bus would be too much for their group, we received quotes that were astronomical to us.
And then we met UCF alum and solar visionary, Lisa Pearcy, and her solar crew at 15lightyears who put solar panels on our roof and built a wall of batteries and inverters to power our learning lab with renewable energy at no cost to us right before the pandemic changed our world. Lisa and her team were thinking about the bigger picture. Legacy.
On those early humid 6 am Saturday mornings and hot 90 degree Florida summer days last year after a significant pandemic pause, our Citizen Science GIS team at UCF team painted the floors and walls and installed tables dreaming of what was next and dreaming about what legacies would be created in this mobile learning lab.
So many people brought GeoBus to life. And what have we seen since we launched in February this year? Besides too many emails to count, and a waitlist of over 4000 students. We’ve witnessed hundreds of folks already step foot onto GeoBus. We’ve witnessed Excitement. Teamwork. Energy. Learning. Passion. Questions.
But most importantly, we’ve witnessed the next generation of science and this industry take some of their first steps in believing in themselves, seeing themselves in science and the careers we all hold now. We’re empowering Florida kids with GeoBus for the same reasons you do…
We’re doing everything we can to leave science and our industry better than they were when we started in our careers. We’re thinking about legacy!
When I opened this blog a few paragraphs ago, I asked you to think back to those impactful learning moments you remembered as a child. As I close out our time together, I ask you to think again about those moments from your childhood. What did those moments have in common?
My guess is many of you remembered moments where people took an interest in you. Showed you something new that you didn’t think was possible. Maybe they even showed you a glimpse of the person you hoped you might become.
My friends, I ask you to think about how you can create a similar set of memorable and deeply impactful learning experiences for the next generation. Whether that means joining us as a GeoBus Driver of Change, or volunteering at a school event in your community at GIS Day events, I ask that you consider how much impact you have -or will have- for the young people around you. I ask you to think about your legacy.
My friends, keep on exploring and keep changing the world. And keep living your legacy.
To support GeoBus at UCF, please consider donating to our UCF Foundation account.
