Keywords

Under a bridge near Discovery Drive, tucked behind the Environmental Studies building at the University of Colorado (CU), there is a population of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) who swoop from their nests catching insects in their bills to feed their chicks. The creek beneath the bridge runs as slowly as time on a hot summer day. Bikes zip past on the path that winds beside the creek. Wild grass along the water’s edge sways slowly in the breeze. A Red-Winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) darts towards a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) who stands in the water, likely too close to the Red-Winged Blackbird’s nest. In this scene during the summer of 2021, eleven human high school students (Homo sapiens) – all either female-identifying or gender nonbinary – leisurely observed the birds as they flew and noted their behavior in relation to each other and their environment. They filled their journals with scientific fieldnotes, modeled for them by the evolutionary biologists. Besides those notes, they wrote poems and sketched the birds. They danced in the field adjacent to the creek, led by the applied theater artists. They meditated together on what they might learn from this population of Barn Swallows and this merging of often disparate ways of knowing: art and science. Day after day, these young people returned to see the birds, and over time, they began to slow down and immerse themselves in the more-than-human world through a direct relationship with one group of the Barn Swallows. They began to see these birds as friends.

Bird’s Eye View is an art-science, informal learning project for youth engagement in storying our way beyond the climate crisis. The project is situated within the larger Side by Side initiative at CU and was designed to lead a group of Boulder youth in observing and embodying birds through puppetry and costumes within multiple outdoor settings. After a few weeks spent with the Barn Swallows under the bridge, we – the artists, scientists, and educators who led this immersive program – expanded the scope of the program beyond the bridge. We held the last four weeks of our 6-week program at various locations in Boulder’s Open Space Mountain Parks (OSMP), the protected greenspace that makes Boulder a popular destination for diverse species (including humans). As the program leaders, we invited the young people to branch out beyond Barn Swallows to seek out a connection with a local bird of their choosing. We challenged them to take art-science field notes on their observations and research on this species, which came in the form of sketches, poetry, and traditional observational and natural history field notes. Drawings from these field notes informed the young people as they constructed and painted articulated wings made of recycled cardboard of the local birds they chose – crows, magpies, hawks, and beyond. These human-sized wings allowed the students to embody the movements of the bird species they had chosen and further deepened their understanding and partnership with the more-than-human world. The youth then constructed headpieces inspired by what they had learned about their birds from various sustainably sourced materials, such as thrift store hats, papier mâché with newspaper, and discarded foam.

The written field notes and scientific research the youth conducted on these bird species became raw materials for written scripts, which highlighted the interspecies connection the youth co-formed with the local bird they chose. Embodying these birds through performance in Boulder’s OSMP marked our assertion of unity with these birds and the natural world. Two professional filmmakers created videos of Art Hikes that include each youth moving in the bird costumes within the bird’s environment, multiple types of large-scale bird puppets, and the spoken scripts by the youth. The videos layer each of these elements into an artistic whole – five-minute videos for each of the three OSMP locations – that we posted on the OSMP website and on placards with QR codes posted at the three trailheads where each video was shot. An artistically edited video compiling all of these videos from each location has been shown by several film festivals, including the Colorado Environmental Film Festival.

Throughout this process, we engaged as a group in conversation and action for equity and environmental concerns to invite and support young people in coauthoring an equitable, survivable, and thrive-able future for all life and the ecosystems upon which life depends. We offer these brief definitions for each of these goals: Equitable means each person has the opportunity to fulfill their needs, without barriers based on identity or ability. Survivable means all beings have access to what they need. Thrive-able means all beings, humans and beyond, have an environment conducive to the pursuit of happiness and meaning. The ritual of these meetings provided space for personal exploration, open and safe discussion about belonging in the natural world, and a place to talk and dream.

Introduction

The Side by Side initiative described above aims to story a new way out of our climate crisis by utilizing an “art-science” approach to foster a feeling of belonging as a part of the natural world for youth and adult leaders. For too long, we have been telling a story of difference that keeps us disconnected and reinforces false hierarchies: humans above other species, adults above youth, and certain types of knowledge above others. We strive with this project to disrupt these hierarchies to cocreate an equitable, survivable, and thrive-able future for all forms of life on this planet and the ecosystems upon which life depends. If we need a new story, we likely need new storytellers. This project attempts to make deep shifts in perception toward an honorable relationship between humanity and the natural world through a story of interspecies friendship that centers the voices of youth and values multiple pathways of knowing: the head, the heart, and the soul.

In this chapter, we share moments and highlights of our time spent alongside youth and birds in Side by Side during the summer of 2021. We connect this experience to the broader questions we face in informal learning through art-science as a field:

  • How can we create the rapid and lasting shifts needed to ensure our collective futures through creative climate engagement?

  • How can we disrupt current ways of being and hierarchical models through interdisciplinary approaches?

  • How can we story a new future?

We offer our core findings as guideposts for our future work and for the collective efforts of all who work in informal learning spaces. Our findings center on the importance of fostering a sense of belonging, using narratives to create interspecies friendship and solidarity, and supporting youth to participate in climate action through positive frameworks, while providing opportunities to process climate-related grief.

The Nest

Side by Side is an ongoing art-science initiative created and facilitated by two coauthors of this chapter: Dr. Beth Osnes (Professor of Theatre and Environmental Studies) and Dr. Rebecca (Becca) Safran (Professor of Evolutionary Biology), co-founders of the CU Inside the Greenhouse, an interdisciplinary project for creative climate communication (https://insidethegreenhouse.org). We (Beth and Becca) are drawn to the power of what feminist scientist Donna Haraway (2016, p. 4) calls “unexpected collaborations and combinations” in which we “become-with each other or not at all.” As interdisciplinary artists and researchers, we have witnessed the power of dismantling academic hierarchies and blending both qualitative and quantitative approaches to ensure that learning experiences and climate communication speak to all parts of our collective humanity. Furthering this work, we created Side by Side as an ongoing pursuit to dismantle other forms of hierarchy that have limited our ability to work our way out of the climate crisis. Two core focuses of this work are patriarchal structures that reinforce notions of detachment and neutrality as necessary elements of knowledge creation and the humanist notion of separation from nature. Side by Side benefits from Becca’s decades-long career researching Barn Swallows and Beth’s equally long career utilizing theater and performance-based methods for community building, education, and climate communication.

Through Side by Side, Beth and Becca activate the theories of primarily feminist ecologists and Indigenous scholars as they seek a re-evolution of how we conceptualize our relationship with each other and the Earth beyond harmful colonizing and commodifying ways. In Decolonizing Relationships with Nature, philosopher and ecofeminist Val Plumwood (2003) focuses on characteristics of both colonial and anthropocentric approaches to the Other, namely a strong focus on dualism, exaggerating differences and denying commonality. One aspect is hyper-separation or radical exclusion, marking “out the Other for separate and inferior treatment” (Plumwood, 2003, p. 51). A natural extended group of partners in this work are the Barn Swallows and local birds of Boulder, Colorado. We have centered this project around humanity’s relationship with Barn Swallows because, with this species, many humans have a shared story of expansion and home. Barn Swallows have followed humans in their migration across the planet and currently build their nests almost exclusively in human-made structures (Safran & Levin, 2019). Settler communities – some with their colonizing legacies of domination that require healing and reconciliation – can benefit from guidance toward mindful action from this interspecies friendship in coauthoring a survivable future for all. In this new story, we join together in the spirit of mutualism, a biological term for a mutually beneficial relationship among members of different species (Biologydictionary.net, 2017). As we seek to find an equitable way for life to survive on this planet, we look to this relationship for inspiration.

Extending interspecies friendship to birds is a gesture toward dismantling species hierarchies to establish a “side-by-side” relationship. Towards this aim, through our collaboration with birds, we offer our protective care to birds whose lives have been lost and whose lives we are losing (Rosenberg et al., 2019) because of the impacts of climate change (Langham et al., 2015) and who have historically been put forth to ensure human survivability in the pursuit of fossil fuels, including the caged canaries taken into the coal mines where their death would warn miners of the presence of lethal gases. This painful fact highlights that birds have long been considered an excellent indicator species (Rosenberg et al., 2019), such that studying the presence and behavior of birds can inform us about changing ecosystems, which directly affects our shared, interspecies ability to continue “becoming.”

Another core goal of Side by Side is to ensure that all voices and ideas are given platforms to be heard so that we might benefit from all, especially those who are historically and still routinely marginalized and silenced. Becca and Beth have both spent much of their careers embracing and promoting diversity. A goal of Side by Side is to increase access to STEM learning for young women, nonbinary students, and members from minoritized groups. Beth has worked directly on supporting young women’s voices through SPEAK (SPEAK, 2022), a nonprofit she co-founded with Dr. Chelsea Hackett, who holds a PhD in Educational Theatre from New York University and serves as the Executive Director of SPEAK. Chelsea was brought in as a core educational and voice consultant for Side by Side during the summer of 2021.

Notably, Beth and Chelsea are applied performance artists and scholars. Several distinct features characterize applied performance: “Performers” are mostly members of the community rather than professional artists; creators utilize nontraditional performance spaces; positive social change generated through the performance experience is a core objective of the work; and the artistic process is valued as highly as any final performance (Prendergast & Saxton, 2009). Essential to this work is a focus on equity and social justice. These values are mirrored in Becca’s anti-racist, gender-aware pedagogical and scholarly work, which is expressed through an article she coauthored with the students in her laboratory entitled Belonging in STEM: An Interactive, Iterative Approach to Create and Maintain a Diverse Learning Community. This project marks a coming together of these approaches for a unique art-science experiment that broadens belonging beyond just STEM and the arts. This project seeks to inspire a feeling of great wide belonging as part of the natural world and as part of a community taking on the response-ability to preserve and protect it for those who participate in its making and those witnessing creative outputs.

Pilot

Side by Side is a long-term initiative that has, and will continue to have, many iterations. The focus of this chapter is on the pilot of the Side by Side initiative during the summer of 2021 – Bird’s Eye View – and the many people and birds who made our shared learnings possible, as well as the initial work done on this project in the summer of 2020.

Summer of 2020

Our first launching of Side by Side occurred in the summer of 2020 with seven female-identifying youth who had been active with SPEAK’s Young Women’s Voices for Climate group (Osnes et al., 2022). During this time, we began with observations at the Discovery Drive research site and made scientific notations and drawings of barn swallows. We also explored other species as a group, such as Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura), together and created puppets that we performed in various outdoor locations. There is a short video made of this work that was shown at two film festivals, the Eugene Environmental Film Festival and the Hague Global Cinema Festival (Inside the Greenhouse, 2020). During the summer of 2020, Beth and Becca worked with Molly T. McDermott, a PhD candidate in Becca’s group, to create a pilot curriculum that integrated a prescribed set of art-science observations and explorations, which was utilized during the 2021 summer.

Summer of 2021

For work in her Barn Swallow research lab, Becca was awarded large-scale funding from the National Science Foundation. Through this funding, we were able to secure supplemental funding for the summer of 2021 – the Research Assistantships for High School Students (RAHSS) – to foster interest in the pursuit of studies in the Biological Sciences, particularly those who are women and members of minoritized groups. We offered these RAHSS-paid positions to the seven young women who had participated in 2020 first. We then informally recruited four more students who were either female-identifying or gender nonbinary students based on interest in the project. Our final group of 11 youths consisted of Eliza Anderson, Lola D’Onofrio, Olympia Kristl, Ting Lester, Uli Miller, Lerato Osnes, Sofia Wendell, Gwen Harker, Finella Guy, Leela Stoede, and Noah Barbosa. Numerous CU undergraduate and graduate students from both Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Theatre and Performance Studies joined the project as interns and served as near-peer mentors to the high school-aged participants. Their names and contributions are listed in Appendix 1.

Community Partner, Boulder City Open Space Mountain Parks

Our primary community partner in this ongoing work is Juanita Echeverri, the director of Outreach and Engagement with Boulder City’s OSMP. She did much more than help choose and reserve the space for our sessions and filming; she helped us conceive of our work within and as a part of the Open Space Mountain Parks Artist Hike series. Since the mission of Open Space is to preserve and protect these natural spaces for all species, this was a perfect match. She was also helpful in ensuring equitable access and relevance of our project for all members of our community by assisting with Spanish subtitles for our films to make them accessible for Spanish-speaking community members.

At the start of our 2021 pilot at the Discovery Drive bridge, the youth participants were led to a nearby tree where 11 netting-wrapped gifts were hung with ribbon, left mysteriously by the birds, we told them. Inside each was a note, “Let’s dip our paint brushes into a test tube to coauthor a future that’s looking up” along with an actual test tube and a paintbrush. Each youth was handed their blank field journal and was asked to fill their test tube with water from the creek to watercolor a personalized cover for their journal. Our journey began with this literal coming together of tools for an art-science approach, and this playful invitation to see ourselves as participants in a narrative-approach to climate action. This activity was designed to intentionally invite participants into the act of storytelling through immersion in their setting and grounding in a specific art-science approach. We wanted the youth to author a future that’s looking up – by fostering a sense of belonging and friendship in the more-than-human world; we hoped to counter the doom and gloom narratives about climate change with a creative approach that invites hope and thus action. From May 29 to July 1, 2021, we met three to four days a week from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Every session began with a physical and vocal warm-up including running about a quarter of a mile together, in equal parts running sideways facing one direction, sideways facing the other direction, backward, and forward. We did this to remind ourselves daily that we are capable of a wide range of ways for running and moving about our environment. Participants were asked to pay attention to what they noticed when they diversified their perspective and how they traveled. Through this activity, we sought to embody the notion put forth by Queer Ecology that all species, including Homo sapiens, are capable of a much wider range of behavior than usually credited by the status quo (Bagemihl, 1999). Part of the widening of our own behavior is to unlearn the humanist delusion of being separate and above the rest of the planet and instead be “in service of world-making,” recognizing “nonhuman animals as agential others swirling in, and of, this shared earthly substrate” (Lloro-Bidart & Banschbach, 2019). This concept was woven into our daily rituals.

After moving through space in a new way, we explored meditation. Lying on the grass, Beth asked all to close their eyes and breathe with the Earth, exhaling what the plants need and inhaling what we need, grounding ourselves in our breath and its rhythm of reciprocity between ourselves and the natural world. Then, facing the grass on our hands and knees, we were invited to travel back beyond 350 million years to our human ancestors before they lost their boney tail for better upright movement. We were asked to imagine the remnants of an embryonic bony tail buried in our lower backs – the coccyx or tailbone. We were asked to move that tail while tucking our head and tail down between our legs, then upward with arched backs, then both head and tail to the left, and both to the right. Then, we were asked to achieve a synchronized circling of our heads and tails up, left, under, right, and then in the opposite direction. Next, all were asked to move around quadrupedally on our hands and feet around the space. Slowly rising to stand on two feet again, we were invited to imagine having tail feathers attached to our tails and to notice how we, like birds, are bipedal when moving about on the land. Imagining our arms as wings, we were asked to move about the space as a bird accomplishing the following tasks: Eat a worm from the grass, drink from a puddle, intimidate a predator, and attract a mate. This physical and vocal exploration not only produced laughter but also prepared us for artistic expression alongside the science we were exploring.

For the first six sessions, we focused on Barn Swallows using an art-science field guide developed by Molly with Becca and Beth. These lessons focused on honing observation skills through all of our senses, then applying those skills to observing patterns of movement, behaviors, and interactions. Each scientific concept addressed in the curriculum had a corresponding performance-based exploration. What follows is content from a session entitled Coming to Our Senses, in which we learned that animals perceive the world in distinct ways through specialized sensory organs.

Often, but not always, animals have organs that sense light (sight), vibration/sound (hearing), chemicals (taste and smell), and texture (touch). There is a lot of variation in how sensitive each organism is to each type of sensory input. This allows them to see things we can’t – For example, many bird species have plumage which appears black to us, but actually reflects UV light, making them appear colorful to other birds (Tedore & Nilsson, 2019). Humans are primarily a visual animal: We rely on our eyes to tell us about the world. What are we good at noticing, and what might we miss as a result?

To artistically explore this material, we asked the group to spread out around the site, with most of them on the bridge looking down to minimize stress for the birds. Once settled, we asked them to close their eyes for 5 min and observe the site with only their ears. Once done, we asked them to draw and/or write what they observed in their journals. Seated in a circle, we announced we would create a soundscape of what we heard. One at a time, going in alphabetical order by first names, each person added one sound they heard. Sounds included the approaching and the retreating sound of a truck crossing the bridge, the caw of a bird, the gurgling of the stream, and beyond. Once everyone had joined in, we allowed it to continue so we could all experience this recreation of the sounds of our site.

Once we stopped, we reflected together on what it was like to rely on sound for observation and what was noticed by creating a soundscape together. Many were surprised by how much the sounds could vividly represent the site. These explorations in our local context were an enactment of a form of activism known as grounded normativity – practices that are “inherently informed by an intimate relationship to place” expressed through “other people and nonhuman life forms in a profoundly nonauthoritarian, nondominating, nonexploitative manner” (Coulthard & Simpson, 2016, p. 254). Our extended time at the Discovery Drive bridge ecosystem and the various locations in OSMP fostered a familiar relationship with these places. At first glance, our Discovery Drive site seemed a most ordinary concrete bridge over which cars drove and under which bikes passed. Over extended and numerous visits, the complex ecosystem beneath was revealed to us as we became more immersed and familiar with our surroundings. This was deepened by activities such as the soundscape, which helped us to isolate aspects of the space and see (and hear it) through new refined senses.

Although there was a basic plan for the 6 weeks, extensive theoretical research, and practical preparations, there was also a feeling that we were building the bridge before us during each session with each step across. This was experienced generally as exhilarating and appropriate rather than as stressful. Since we were doing this as informal learning and were not bound to any specific student learning outcomes, we tried to stay nimble and responsive to what emerged from the overall experience and from any one of the participants. Beth created the design for each session – drawing from the guidebook created by Molly for early sessions – and oversaw the arc of the overall experience with regard to an enriching process along the way for the participants, opportunities for the CU students to facilitate activities, and for completion of needed benchmarks to achieve what we were setting out to collaboratively create by the end of our time together. After Beth had created the activity focusing on the tail, she asked Avani Fachon, CU Ecology undergraduate student intern, if she would be willing to create a similar exploration on the similarities between human arms and bird wings. That next week, Avani led a magical visualization during which we traced the evolutionary split between arms and wings as she helped us feel the anatomical differences and vast similarities between the two (see Appendix 2). Ben Stasny, CU Theatre graduate student intern, created a meditation for the group that began with each of us as a seed buried beneath the cold soil and then slowly led us through sprouting and growing fully toward the summer sun.

The sessions were designed and prepared, but we left room for being responsive to the environment and living organisms – human and beyond human – that arrived. During one session at Discover Drive, the sky above the site came to life as we witnessed a team of small black common grackles (Quiscalus quiscula) pester a much larger Red-Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) who had dared to fly too close to their nests. Later on in the program, we grew familiar with and affectionate for each of our three OSMP locations, especially the one on Flagstaff Mountain, and the life that called it home. One day while discussing the construction of the wings, we halted our conversation, remained still and quiet, and watched with awe and delight as a fox approached.

Since we never knew exactly when the science students from Becca’s lab would finish their morning fieldwork, we never knew when or if they would be able to join in our sessions, though they all often expressed their desire to be involved and present. Our sessions naturally evolved as being permeable with a welcoming quality that easily absorbed those who could join in and made time for them to share what they were doing in their field research. When there, they would be expected to jump right in and participate in the performance-based and the science-based activities. This was new ground for many of them, and the team, including Becca, reported feeling challenged because scientists are trained to be objective and as separate as possible from the subjects of their study. It became extremely refreshing and wonderful to witness the science team participate with a positive attitude, an open mind, and curiosity. The CU undergraduate intern and member of the Colorado Ballet Academy, Grant Gonzalez, was with us for most of our sessions and often had an update on what he had witnessed in his fieldwork in regard to the birds, such as announcing the hatching of chicks. Heather Kelley, CU Theatre graduate student intern, led us in an interactive session on augury, the ancient art of divining guidance from birds’ movement or their sounds. This was based on research she had done on the use of augury in Ancient Greek drama and the horrid fates that befell those who did not listen to the birds – a useful and relevant lesson for our contemporary society and this project.

A high point for many of us was the times we sat on the grass after experiencing one of the experiential lessons on Barn Swallows, and Becca was there to respond in real time to questions from participants. This was a conversation truly led by the students’ curiosity, which seemed to vividly hold their attention, evident by their sustained visual focus on whomever was speaking, their participation in the conversation, and their lack of side talk with each other. It was just as interesting when Becca didn’t know the answer to one of their questions as when she did, since her explanation of why that was not known or had not yet been researched was just as interesting and revealing about the nature and limitations of science. In the field notes written about June 8 by one of the high school students, it was shared that:

When Becca arrived nearly everyone seemed to direct their attention fully to her stories of bird research and the findings that have come of it. Many in the group raised great questions, and even those who didn’t were audibly gasping and otherwise reacting to Becca’s descriptions in ways that seemed genuinely invested in what she was saying.

After these times, many of us reflected on a sort of magic circle that seemed to form around us, as if we were of one focus with a shared curiosity that led us on an improvised path of inquiry.

Indigenous biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013) describes humanity’s broken relationship with the living world as a state of isolation and disconnection referred to as species loneliness – a deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of Creation, from the loss of relationship. Actively involving adolescents while they are still relatively young is important regarding climate-related issues since research reveals that pessimism about addressing climate change increases with age, particularly from early to late adolescence (Ojala, 2012). With increased knowledge of climate challenges and biodiversity loss, youth mental health and well-being can be impacted. Researchers, such as CU Professor Emerita of Environmental Design, Louise Chawla, offer some key ways adults can help youth work through these feelings and maintain hope to actively address environmental problems constructively, such as sharing and listening to each other, spending time outdoors connecting with nature, building a community of shared concerns, valuing young people as partners in addressing environmental challenges, and actively authoring and enacting solutions (Chawla, 2020). These moments with Becca showed the impact that Chawla’s suggestions can have. The youth were engaged not only in the facts that Becca shared, but the emotions beneath her stories. Moments spent together in a circle in nature asking extemporaneous questions reframed the youth as researchers doing fieldwork. We were all together as partners, and we all wanted to find answers.

Once we finished with the Barn Swallow curriculum, we began to meet at various OSMP locations and our focus shifted to supporting each student in choosing a local bird to observe, explore, and embody with whom they felt a personal affinity. Choosing a bird was easy for some and difficult for others. Becca offered to create an online survey of personal traits to match people with a local bird with similar traits, and several of the participants filled out the survey and chose the bird she recommended. This survey was designed so that Becca could help each participant feel connected to their chosen bird either through their love of a shared habitat, diet, or color. Early on we met at Pella Crossing in Boulder County Open Space, a location that features several irrigation ponds separated by dams. Due to the abundance of water and islands in the ponds, it hosts a vast abundance of bird species, including Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias), American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos), American Coots (Fulica americana), Red-Tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis), Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus), and beyond. After we had settled in and done our warmups, we asked everyone to hydrate, leave their cell phones and field journals behind, and find their own location anywhere in the expansive park. We challenged them to find a place with no one else in their field of vision, get comfortable, and do nothing but dissolve into belonging within the natural world. We agreed upon a vocal call that would call them back to our meeting place at the end of 45 min. Afterward, Noah said that it wasn’t until after sitting for 20 min in one space that a sudden rustling in the reeds revealed an American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) only a few feet away that had likely been there the entire time they had been there. Others noted losing track of time in the way they usually experienced it. This queering of time, away from productive use with expected and measurable outcomes, was intended to release them into a different sort of observation free from the necessity for a resulting outcome (Halberstam, 2005). This location and the activity combined were designed to offer a possible affinity to arise unbidden between them and any of the local birds present that day. In her field notes on this session, Gwen Harker wrote:

As a group, we immersed ourselves in the prompt of ‘Do nothing but dissolve into belonging’. As I walked by my peers, I noticed their body language was focused on the watery ecosystem and their attention to the natural world. From this, I concluded that everyone was very immersed in belonging to the environment and connecting with our friends the birds. A highlight of this experience for me was the connection to one bird. In simply existing and coming to terms with belonging and existing, one bird species kept coming back to my locations, and I felt that I was called to learn more about the species. The exploration of the water ecosystem helped me to find my bird to study (Harker, 2021).

Gwen had been chosen by and had chosen the Violet-Green Swallow (Tachycineta thalassina).

Each student was encouraged to use that same art-science approach that we had used to explore the Barn Swallows while exploring a local bird species of their choosing. We did the following work together described below to create three videos that serve as Art Hikes for three different OSMP locations. These videos are designed to share the gift of our exploration this summer into connection, a feeling of wholeness, and a sense of belonging as a part of the natural world. We considered the following questions to guide the creation of our Art Hike videos – What happens if connection, wholeness, and belonging occur deeply in our human species? What choices would be widely made? What societal structures would change to accommodate that belief? What actions would be inspired? How might this contribute towards a world that is more equitable, survivable, and thrive-able for all life and the ecosystems upon which all life depends?

We requested that each high school participant create the following on their own outside of our sessions together: three pages of art-science field notes and a headpiece for the bird costume made of repurposed materials. During our sessions together, each student relied on their research to inform creating a costume of articulated wings of the bird, by first cutting out 16 scrap corrugated cardboard feathers for each wing from a template, then painting these in the colors of the bird, attaching the feathers to the reinforced underside of a long-sleeved shirt purchased from a thrift store, and carefully securing the feathers to each other with string on each side of each wing. The shirts were also painted to convey the bird. This process took three sessions – a total of 12 hours – to complete and required careful observation of the bird’s coloring and patterns. Subsequent sessions were spent with Grant giving coaching to each student while wearing the wings on movement specific to each species. During that time, others worked on writing their script which was to integrate: (1) some scientific aspect of the bird chosen by each student, (2) each person’s point of connection, and (3) anything else that rises unbidden from each person’s heart. These individual pieces were to be about 40 seconds when read aloud or roughly 70–100 words each. The youth described the birds with language along a continuum of art-science: Some used more poetic language, some more straightforward and scientific. We recorded each person speaking their script to be used in the videos as a voice-over to images of them moving costumed within Open Space embodying the bird of their choosing.

As we created costumes and puppets based on various local birds and sought to embody their movements, we were guided by the notion put forth by Jack Halberstam (2011) in The Queer Art of Failure against “gross and crude forms of anthropocentrism (p. 33),” where the human “projects all of his or her [or their] uninspired and unexamined conceptions about life and living onto animals, who may actually foster far more creative or at least more surprising modes of living and sharing spaces (p. 34).” We based this embodiment on our art-science observation, leaning into the notion expressed in the book Becoming Animal, “The simple act of perception is experienced as an interchange between oneself and that which one perceives—as a meeting, a participation, a communion between beings” (Abram, 2011, p. 268). We proceeded with the intention of feeling embodied empathy:

…a concept which describes feelings/seeing/thinking bodies that undo and redo each other, reciprocally though not symmetrically, as partial perspectives that attune themselves to each other. Therefore, empathy is not experiencing with one’s body what the other experiences, but rather creating the possibilities of an embodied communication (Despret, 2013, p. 51).

Throughout this process, we remained in conversation about the nature of the relationship between each student and the bird they chose. We considered not referring to each bird as “my bird” to remember each bird’s autonomy and self-agency, especially in light of humanity’s history and continued practice of owning animals. Also, we did not want to deny the implication of “my bird” as “my friend” in the manner of friendship being claimed and celebrated. We explored the nature of empathy in the sense of understanding and being sensitive to, even vicariously experiencing the feelings or possible thoughts or perspectives of another, yet we also held the risk of our imaginative projections on each bird as turning each into an object infused only with our projections. To guide this balance, we send out a collective ode of gratitude for Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ (2020) book Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, part of which we all read that offered guidance on how to approach interspecies observation, friendship, and love. Her voice celebrates a kind of generosity of scholarship toward interspecies friendship that supports love. She writes:

My hope, my grand poetic intervention here is to move from identification, also known as that process through which we say what is what, like which dolphin is that over there and what are its properties, to identification, that process through which we expand our empathy and the boundaries of who we are become more fluid, because we identify with the experience of someone different, maybe someone of a whole different so-called species.

We aimed to carry the spirit of her underwater exploration for connection to the skies above.

Holding the dignity and sovereignty of each bird in our consciousness guided us in this process of offering interspecies friendship that was being extended without assumptions or expectations of how it might be received. Notably, each time a student was observing the bird of their choosing, it was nearly certain that that bird was also watching them and noting their behavior as either a threat or an admiring benign presence. We supplied high-quality binoculars for students to check out to avoid getting too close and causing stress to the birds. The scripts created by each student for the Art Hike videos reflect this sensitivity and dance adeptly along the edges of these distinctions. In one of our warm-up activities, everyone stood across from a partner making eye contact that would be held throughout the entire activity. The person wearing the darker shirt was asked to go first and move slowly at a consistent pace facing their partner while the other person mirrored their movements. Without stopping the movement, the other person was asked to be the leader and the other to follow; then again without stopping the movement, partner groups were asked to continue moving with both leading together, leaning into co-becoming with the movement. Partners were encouraged to continue moving and investing in seeing if a co-led movement is possible. Several groups afterward reported achieving moments that felt like authentic co-becoming.

We filmed all day on June 30 and the morning of July 1, 2021, at each of the three locations. The Art Hike videos made through this art-science process are available for viewing (Inside the Greenhouse, 2021). Each student wore the wings and the headpiece based on their observations of the bird of their choosing and moved extemporaneously as their bird within a chosen location at one of the three OSMP trails. We all collaboratively decided where to place each person for the filming based on the deep familiarity we had developed with each of the sites and based on each student’s knowledge of where that bird might most likely dwell within this space. Grant was present with each student to guide and encourage their movements based on their exploration of each bird. Milo Lewon, a CU undergraduate student in Music, was present with his accordion to provide musical accompaniment and, when being filmed within the frame, was wearing a Barn Swallow papier mâché headpiece. Milo’s accordion music was also recorded as the soundtrack along with each student’s recorded script. Many of the CU students were also present for the filming days to help manipulate some of the larger three-person puppets and to attend to other sundry details. After seeing a mature Prairie Rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) at the head of the South Mesa Trail, we included a rattlesnake check along the edges of each trail before using it for movement. We tried to stay on the trails rather than in the grass to model good stewardship with the plant life in Open Space, which challenged our movement during filming somewhat, but lessened our risk of snakes. Since the dissemination of the films through our partners has not yet occurred, we cannot yet comment on their reception. For those of us who have seen the first drafts, we feel ridiculously pleased and satisfied. Each of the three five-minute videos for each different location prompts a profound, unexpected, and joyful shift in how humans relate to the natural world and other species. They rejuvenate a new way of interacting.

Doom and gloom narratives that emphasize problems, costs, and adverse impacts are the most dominant narratives about climate change (Hinkel et al., 2020). In our work, we were guided by climate change communication researchers who agree that narratives motivate climate action more than climate information (Chapman et al., 2017; Fløttum & Gjerstad, 2016; Hulme, 2009; Moser & Ekstrom, 2010). In fact, many researchers believe that doom and gloom narratives are counterproductive for climate action as fear may demotivate climate action (Chapman et al., 2017; Hinkel et al., 2020). Narratives can contribute to people’s agency for climate action through the creation of transformative narratives that tell a positive and engaging story, articulate an aspirational vision, and provide solutions for attaining this vision, rather than articulating problems to avoid (Hinkel et al., 2020). Research by Beth and Max Boykoff, CU Professor of Environmental Studies and cofounder of Inside the Greenhouse, shows that involvement in “good-natured” arts-based performance supports youth in processing negative emotions regarding climate change, feeds hope, and sustains engagement (Osnes et al., 2019). The transformative narratives created through Bird’s Eye View highlight the stories of friendship between Boulder youth and a wide variety of local birds enacted by the youth within the City of Boulder’s OSMPs. The design for our final Side by Side performance, Bird’s Eye View, intentionally included ways for supporting youth well-being, which in turn feeds into a sense of belonging and, importantly, hope. Only with an intact sense of hope – a belief that your actions can make a difference – does climate action make sense, and only with a feeling of well-being is that action sustainable.

Lessons Learned and Reflections

Art can accentuate and foster a connection and feeling of belonging within the natural world. At Sawhill Ponds at the very end of our first filming day, we all stood for a “viewing this natural world” meditation – just using our sense of sight to relax into seeing all that was around us – while Milo improvised a song on his accordion in response to his feeling of place. The experience was extraordinary – five minutes of being music-assisted into seeing this place with deeper sight – an enhanced feeling of connection carried by the live music and coming through Milo in this shared co-presence. One of the participants, Lerato, wrote:

During our last meeting, when we had our meditation accompanied by Milo’s accordion playing, I felt a deep sense of belonging while listening and just being, absorbing and exploring the natural world by looking at the sky, moving with the wind, and feeling the gravel on the ground. It was almost like the music brought me to a place where I really felt like I could be in that environment and feel a connection to nature through the music (Osnes, 2021)

There is something powerful about arts-assisted connections to the natural world that can augment, deepen, and increase what connections might have otherwise happened on their own. Perhaps that is not always true or even true for everyone, but it could be a sweet spot that is reached by our summer’s offering when the urgency for unification is so strong, and our species is so disconnected from the natural world.

During many of our sessions, we spoke of “unlearning” what we have been taught of domineering ways of learning and viewing our relationship with the natural world. What Lola D’Onofrio wrote offers another way of considering this notion.

I have found that belonging in nature is not a process, not a struggle. we have othered ourselves so very much that we think to come into belonging with the natural world is a journey, that it’s work, that it’s unlearning of so many things. but all it is, really, is embracing that which we already are. through the explorations we have done this summer, i realized the real work, the real struggle, is distancing yourself from nature. to belong is our natural state. when i listen, meditate, jump in rivers, hike mountains, it is not work to attune myself to their natural rhythms and beauties. it is work to get into my car, realign my brain in a ‘human’ way that is selfish and materialistic. understanding the birds is not hard. it is just a reversion to my natural, wondrous, childlike mindset of understanding, love and joy for all things. belonging is something we all have bursting from us. It is only held back by a wall our society & culture has told us to build. that wall breaks down every time we go outside, take a deep breath. now i think all we need to learn is not to rebuild it (D’Onofrio, 2021).

From a place of belonging and inspired by our interspecies friendship, we continuously brought forward our hopeful narratives into climate action. During our time together this summer, we invited participants to opt into several public enactments of climate. When many from our group costumed as all sorts of birds arrived at the 350.org march in support of a state-level climate bill, the already-gathered activist crowd seemed to be visually arrested by our arrival, took it in, and then exploded into applause. We added a visual spectacle to the march that was exceptional and joyful. When the Plastic Pollution Act was awaiting our governor’s signature to be made into law, we created a sign with the name of the bill up top and then a message saying, “Governor Polis, Please sign the bill!” with a drawing of a duck’s bill signed by each of them and sent to his office. When one member of our group’s sister planned an LGBT Pride event, we created a sign in support reading “Science says, being queer is natural!” The modeling of how to be in consistent and active partnership with local efforts and challenges seems the most useful in this effort. It seems to support their process of “becoming” actors in creative and public civic action. Our youth are learning a nimble responsiveness in which they are ready to show up. They are cultivating a community in which to discuss various perspectives on an issue. They are gaining the courage to be visible and speak in the public sphere, as one of them, Leela, was interviewed at the march for the local radio station. They are engaged in enacting climate through imagination and performative acts that are publicly shared through multiple venues and media. They are learning how to shepherd these imagined solutions from acts of public expression into public policy. They are participating in contacting city, state, and national governmental representatives to encourage and thank them for introducing new policies. They are being facilitated in tracking these bills through the political process via government websites. They are growing in understanding of how to advocate for these policies all along the way until they become law. They are enacting climate through performance and policy in a way that makes literal the double meaning of the word enact: (1) to act out as play or to perform and (2) to make into policy or law.

This experience supported them in authoring an account or insight into their experience of an interspecies friendship – first as a group with Barn Swallows and then individually with a local bird of their choosing. The art-science approach toward this friendship was more formally structured for the first portion focused on Barn Swallows, and then the process was opened up to be more self-led for the second portion when they chose, observed, and researched a local bird of their own choosing. A hope built into this entire experience design was that an increased feeling of belonging would be cultivated. Digging deeper, there are three aspects to this feeling of belonging that are all intertwined and that gain sustenance from the same experiential root system: (1) a feeling of belonging as part of the natural world, (2) a feeling of belonging as part of a local community engaged in action for climate solutions, and (3) a feeling of belonging within STEM and the artistic community focusing on climate solutions. By focusing on female-identifying, gender nonbinary youth and members of minorized groups, we hope to contribute under-represented perspectives for coauthoring an equitable, survivable, and thrive-able way forward for all life and the ecosystems upon which all life depends. We trust that the empowered presence of female-identifying, gender nonbinary, and members of minoritized groups youth in STEM and in the arts will diversify the approaches, perspectives, and solutions made possible. We look forward to learning what will be experienced through the finished videos of the Art Hikes that we created. We look forward to codesigning future iterations of this project that invite and support young people in enacting a climate for a future that is looking up.

What Is Needed Now

This program offers the coming generation a narrative of hope that if we can see through the eyes of another species, we can not only solve our greatest challenge, climate change, but we can also find our own place of belonging and unity within the natural world. This focus on Barn Swallows is serving as a portal to our larger relationship with the natural world. At this moment in history, to claim our response-ability to the planetary ecological crisis we all face, we look to our relationship with Barn Swallows and local birds in our open spaces and through their eyes for an expanded interspecies perspective. High school student Sofie Wendell described this summer’s experience:

As I move to the beautiful music of the accordion and sense the sunlight warming my skin, I feel at peace. As I open my eyes and watch the organic movements of my closest friends and dearest mentors, I feel belonging. Here, protected by tall pine trees, surrounded by strong mountains, and among such beautiful individuals, I feel as though I belong. Here, my ideas hold weight, they matter. Here, I am not judged or overlooked. Here, I am given the opportunity to connect not only with nature but with new friends and unique ideas. Together, we are building the bridge to an equitable, survivable, and thrive-able future through science, art, and love. I know I belong because this feels like home.