2018 NJ March for Science

On April 14, we took to the streets of Trenton, NJ, along with thousands of people across the nation, to send a message to the United States government: Science, not Silence!
These past 16 months have been pretty scary for anyone (that I know) in science and science education. We usually have to worry about the usual: anti-evolution and anti-climate-change rhetoric in classrooms ("teach the controversy" style nonsense, as well as complete refusal to understand how climate and weather work). The Trump administration has been ripping apart the landscapes of scientific research and the environment; mostly in the name of either money... or simply to childishly UNDO something President Obama did. This post isn't about that. If you're interested, National Geographic has a great running article on attacks made by the Trump admin. Scientific American has a pretty good one, dated January 19, 2018.

Photo by March for Science New Jersey 

We met up with hundreds of our closest friends at the Trenton War Memorial with our pitchforks and torches signs. We heard motivating speeches by people like NJ Congressmen Frank Pallone Jr, Commissioner of Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal, and Dr. Andrew Zwicker, physicist, and Head of Science Education at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Also:

• Prof. Karina Schafer, a professor of ecology at Rutgers.
• Prof. Sam Wang, professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University.
• Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club.
• Loreen Boles, Director of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance.
• Marilyn Weeks Ryan, science teacher at East Brunswick High School in East Brunswick, NJ.
• Alana Cueto, registered professional nurse and veteran health care administrator.
• Christianah Akinsanmi, a 17 year old senior at Howell High School in NJ, who read a moving poem. 
• And Prof. Matthew Buckley, co-founder and co-organizer of the New Jersey March for Science, and assistant professor of theoretical astrophysics at Rutgers.

Notice anything? People of SCIENCE talking about SCIENCE... as opposed to what's going on in our government. Granted, this has been going on for a while, but this insane crescendo has got to come to an end, soon!

Photo by Derek Boen of Action Together New Jersey.

We marched from the Memorial to the State House steps, where speakers continued and led us into a small science festival. I even got my face painted with a budding Darwin "I Think" tree. (It was a first for the artist; she took a photo for her portfolio. It came out beautifully!)

How did this help Science? Hopefully, the sheet number of people attending these marches, all over the United States, sends the message that we know shenanigans are afoot, and we're registered to vote.

This was actually my favorite sign, but it was the one NOT planned out from the start. I did it on the WAY to the march, and Husband helped me conjure some of the things inside the letters.
Do you see the Easter Egg?