Visiting the JRA River Education Center was a great opportunity to learn, through first hand experience, about the research that is taking place along the James River and how it used to create conservation goals for restoring and improving the health of the James. In doing water quality tests, like pH, temperature, nitrogen, and phosphorus levels, we were able to really understand what goes into understanding the river’s health and determining what the next steps are for restoration. The James River Report Card does a great job at balancing non-expert literacy and relaying important scientific information in a comprehensive way. This is especially important considering scientific reports are often too dense, complex, and difficult to understand without some level of experience. I think the idea of giving the James River’s health a grade is really great for communicating its environmental condition in an aggregated way.
In my opinion, scientific research should be the basis on how environmental policy is made. Policy without consideration or understanding of the true problems leads to ineffective, insufficient solutions. Education inspires both community and policy action. From a community perspective, if citizens aren’t aware of the environmental issues in their community they won’t know to act. Increased public salience and community involvement is very likely to incentivize policy makers to act. Policy action through funding and community action through volunteer efforts would greatly support and assist the work being done by the JRA River Education Center and other similar organizations. Scientific research is necessary for understanding environmental issues and creating conservation goals and solutions. So communicating scientific findings without regurgitating mass amounts of data that many people won’t read or won’t see isn’t the best way to promote action. Through an easily accessible and understandable graphic and grading system, people can educate themselves and become inspired to act.