From the depths of the earth to the edge of space.

National Geographic Explorer Ariel Waldman is redefining exploration and inspiring future generations of women.

Would you believe that we have Ariel right here with us on the inspire set?

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Ariel Waldman.

Inspire is sponsored by the Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and by the estate of Ray and Anne Goldsmith.

Hello and welcome to Inspire.

We have a very special guest for today's show, and I cannot wait for you to meet her.

But first, I'm glad to share today's show with my beautiful Inspire sisters Betty Lou Pardue, Danielle Norwood.

What if the secrets of life on other planets are hidden right here on Earth?

Today we'll learn how one woman is uncovering the secrets of life and the most unexpected places.

She's a National Geographic Explorer, worked for NASA.

She's a TED speaker and a voice for curiosity.

We are honored.

She's with us right here in person today.

A warm welcome to the host of a new PBS series, Life Unearthed, with Ariel Waldman.

We are so honored to have you here.

Thank you.

Okay.

To be here.

So we go to 39 counties with this show.

We're on streaming, and people might know you because you're somewhat of a local person.

Will you explain that?

Yeah.

I grew up in the Kansas City area, grew up right in Overland Park, and, yeah, I went to school there.

And, I mean, that's where I started my life, and that's where I also was exposed to so many different creative voices and just wonderful people.

Now, how do you go from being in a creative arena that actually is more artistic, I would think, than scientific?

How do you get to be like this big researcher and scientist and you went to Antarctica, girl, how do you do all that?

Yeah, I mean, I started from a nontraditional background, so I don't have a formal science background.

I went to art school, got my degree in graphic design, but I was watching a documentary one night about NASA and about how they were sending people into space for the first time in the 1960s and and how all the mission control guys from that era just didn't know anything about spacecrafts or orbits or rocketry and I was watching that and saying, well, I don't know anything about space exploration, and I want to work at NASA.

That sounds amazing.

And so I sent someone to NASA an email on a whim.

And I serendipitously ended up getting a job at NASA from emailing them.

Yeah.

And it changed my life, changed my career.

And then.

And then I had a career in science for a long time.

So what is it that you do now so that so our viewers can kind of keep up?

You know, you went from do you went to the Kansas City Art Institute?

I mean, so you have a wonderful arts background and now you're doing really, really cool stuff in the Stem industries.

What exactly that you what are you doing?

Yeah, yeah.

So as you said, like, I went to the Kansas City Art Institute.

I worked at VML, an ad agency in Kansas City.

And, then when I was working at NASA, a lot of my work was really focused on trying to get people inside and outside of NASA to collaborate.

So a lot of what I was doing was trying to communicate with people in different disciplines and nontraditional backgrounds to get them to contribute their skills and backgrounds towards space, mission, context.

And so I did that for a long time.

And while I was at NASA, I learned about people working in Antarctica because it's an analog for Mars and other moons in our solar system.

Just a really exciting place.

And I was really hooked on the idea of going to Antarctica as a version of going into space, in a sense.

But you get to keep gravity in an atmosphere and, you know, like it's a little bit nicer.

And so, yeah, I worked, towards trying to figure out how I could benefit researchers and the public, and that came in the form of filming microorganisms, which don't really sound like anything exciting on the surface.

But the reality is they're actually tiny animals, literally animals.

And so we're surrounded by this microscopic wildlife all the time that we don't usually get to encounter.

And scientists study them, but they don't often film them.

And so we miss out from like, interesting scientific behaviors.

And also then the public misses out on getting to see what all these weird little animals are that surround us every day.

This is so thrilling that we're going to have you right here on KTWU, PBS.

And but the choice of Antarctica.

Tell us about what it felt like to be in that freezing cold.

And, you know, how did you maintain I mean, I so I go at the height of summer in Antarctica in a, in an epic summer warm day is 32°F.

But that's like, oh, it's it feels so nice when you're there.

But but I'm often camping at five degrees Fahrenheit, and it's cold.

It is very cold.

And, Yeah, I mean, there's no way around that, but it's also dry because Antarctica is also a desert.

And so it's a place where you have humidity below 10%.

And so it's not only the cold that gets to you, but it's it's so dry and you really have to kind of prepare for that as well, because, you know, all of your skin dries out and your equipment and everything.

You have to really keep track of everything and take care of yourself.

In a sense, you were a National Geographic Explorer.

How did that prepare you for what you're doing now?

So National Geographic is a really wonderful nonprofit because they are able to support people who are doing interesting work all across the globe.

And so for me, what it really meant and why it was such a catalyst for this work, was I had already gotten a spot to work with this research team in Antarctica, but I was going to, you know, go down there and help them with research and national Geographic was the one that allowed me to have just enough funding to film this documentary series.

And so it was really through their help that they enabled me to, you know, buy equipment, hire an editor, hire a music composer, and put the series together.

But I still had to film everything by myself in Antarctica because the spots are so limited.

I was in a remote location that many people can't get to, and so I couldn't bring any assistance.

I couldn't bring a film crew.

And so the entire Antarctic episodes, all three of them were, filmed by me over two months.

And it was it was challenging.

Wow.

See, I love that.

It is not because you have this killer scientific background and with an Ivy League degree, blah, blah, blah.

You're a you're an artist at heart.

You know, you're creative.

You do creative content.

And because of that, you can go to Antarctica, which is amazing.

Okay, so here's the question I want to ask.

Why microbes?

I saw your Ted talk.

It's really interesting.

We do actually get to see the little animals.

They're colorful and interesting and a little creepy.

But sometimes we think about that.

But why?

Why are they important?

Why study them?

Who cares?

Yeah, I mean, for me, it started with my love of space exploration while I was at NASA, because there's a discipline called astrobiology, and it's all about studying how, you know, life forms on Earth and how weird life is on Earth.

To better understand how we might be able to discover it on other moons and and planets in our solar system or beyond.

And that was interesting to me, the idea of finding alien life one day, and that got me excited.

And so much of what we believe might be out there, or could be out there, would be microbial life and so by studying the microbes, we can actually study life at its most extremes.

You know, these these microbes, like tardigrades, are these tiny little animals.

And they're able to expel all of the water out of their body and then pop back to life when water comes back, like these incredible feats that we as humans would not be able to do.

And so it does make them really, actually more interesting to study.

And I think just seeing the diversity of life at the microscopic level, which most people don't get to see in nature documentaries, is really profound.

Okay.

We just had the very successful Artemis two.

Is space exploration in your future.

I mean, I would never say no, but I really no like exploring Earth.

And I'll tell you why.

Because when I was at NASA, I really loved space exploration and studying Mars and moons and exoplanets and all of that.

But the longer I was a space geek, the more I appreciated just how weird and whimsical our own home planet is, and in a way that I didn't appreciate prior to space exploration.

So it was a kind of a wayward journey where getting into space actually made me more interested in Earth.

Because.

Because I realized how weird our planet is.

And I love that.

Yeah.

How close are we to discovering life beyond Earth?

I mean, that's a that's $1 million, billion dollar question.

Multibillion dollar question.

The challenge of discovering life beyond Earth has so much to do with life detection technologies.

So NASA, most of their missions are detecting habitability.

So we can look at a moon, we can look at Mars, and we can say, oh, it has the ingredients for life that we know how to do based on how life survives here on Earth.

But how we would one day confirm that we definitely saw we're not going to see a fish, but how we would definitely confirm that that was a fish and not just a rock, you know, sort of moving across, you know, a camera or something.

It's actually incredibly challenging because we're trying to find life as we don't know it.

Possibly.

And, you know, do we detect it through motion?

Do we detect it through chemical signatures?

You know, that's a big debate.

And it's much harder because the worst thing that could happen is if we go to a moon in our solar system and we see something that we think is life, but we cannot definitively confirm it, you'll probably spend decades debating if you actually saw something or not.

And so that's actually the biggest challenge that's keeping us from detecting life right now.

So you don't think there's microbes on Mars or the moon or so I think there.

There's the possibility of microbes in Enceladus, which is an icy moon of Saturn, and Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter.

If on Mars, it maybe life once existed, possibly we might find it in Martian caves where it was, protected from the radiation.

Those are all places that we've been sort of thinking about and looking at for life, you know, at NASA and kind of around the world.

And so I think it's definitely possible, but trying to figure out, you know, how are we going to you definitively detect it one day is is really the big challenge question.

Right.

So it might be there.

This is incredible okay.

Beautiful.

Coming up we learn more about the science behind Ariel's work.

And we get a preview of her upcoming PBS show.

So please stay with us.

This landscape rewards curiosity.

The trick is knowing how to look from the dizzying heights of an orbiting spacecraft all the way down through the lens of a microscope.

She's worked with NASA, explored extreme environments, and is changing how we see science.

We are back to continue with our discussion with Ariel Waldman.

What are some misconceptions about space exploration?

Some of us were disappointed when money was like, moved away from NASA and and going to the moon and other planets, but now we seem to have money to kind of start that up again.

So what's something that we think we know?

But actually that's incorrect.

I mean, there's a couple of things.

One is that people often think that NASA is funded at, like, I don't know, 1,020% of the federal budget when it's, you know, really half of a penny, in reality.

And, you know, so far less, percentage of the budget than it was in the 1960s when we were doing the Apollo era.

Really?

So that's one the second one, I would say, you know, is the rationales for why we go into space.

So a lot of, a lot of times in modern times, I would say, you know, billionaires will talk about, oh, we're doing this for the survival of the species.

Well, that's just one rationale.

People, when you survey them, have multiple rationales, you know, in terms of like education, inspiring students.

You know, kind of having an aspirational program, to get people interested in science.

You know, there's a lot of different reasons in which we go to space and when we look out into kind of a broad population, the reason why we do this is a kind of a combination of rational, pragmatic reasons as well as aspirational reasons combined.

And so anyone who's out there saying like, well, the reason we're doing space exploration is this and only this is really kind of misleading it because we have all these different rationales for why we do this sort of thing.

So when I think of NASA, I think of, you know, a big gray building, NASA's written on it.

And what happens behind there?

No one really knows.

You know, one of those kinds of things you advised NASA what's that like?

What's behind the scenes?

Yeah, I mean, I will say their buildings are not as, glamorous as they appear in the movies.

They're not as, like, space age looking, you know, they're government buildings, their regular places and and regular people.

And so what it's really like is, you know, it is exciting.

It is one of the few places where you can actually think about the future.

So a lot of what I was doing at NASA was advising them on future technologies that might be able to change space missions 10 to 40 years down the line.

So things that might not yet be possible today, but we can begin doing the research to see if they might be possible in the future.

So things that might help, space telescopes or human spaceflight or astrophysics.

And so, I mean, there's very few jobs in which you can actually focus on building future technologies that aren't yet possible.

And so NASA is just incredible for that.

I want to talk about PBS and your series unearthed.

Please explain.

Yeah.

Life on Earth, is a series that's really about looking at ecosystems through multiple orders of magnitude.

So from the microscopic level, insect eye view, human eye view, bird's eye view, satellite view, and then thinking about our place in the cosmos.

And so if you take sort of a regular nature documentary and you sort of add the microcosmos to it and add the larger cosmos to it, that's what the series is trying to do, is trying to give you a different perspective on ecosystems and show wildlife and perspectives that people don't often get to see, even in BBC nature documentaries.

I have to say that I'm not much into scientific or nature shows.

In fact, yours was the first one that I've watched on PBS.

Don't kill me, but I will say that I watched two episodes last night.

You totally engaged me with all I mean, and you brought it down to where we could understand, and it was interesting.

Tell us about your style, your approach.

Because when you can hook me into something like that, you have got me.

So tell our viewers about what you did in terms of just making it palpable for us to want to enjoy the show.

Yeah.

I mean, for me, a lot of it begins with just my own personal story of not having that formal science background and getting this job at NASA, you know, very unexpected and I was not I didn't self-identify as a science geek growing up.

Like I didn't hate science, but it just wasn't really my thing.

And so I think a lot of, building this series comes from that background of, you know, of discovering these things and remembering the first time I learned about these things and wanting to share that with other people so that other people can have the experience of learning things for the first time.

And I think this is something that, you know, a lot of nature documentaries are hosted typically by scientists, and that's a really great, you know, screen.

You get an interesting amount of information from that.

And but I think there's room also to have science exploration through the eyes of people who don't come from that background.

And so I get to sort of bring people along for the journey, and they get to discover things while I discover them, and I get to share things that excited me when I first learn them with other people.

Do you ever struggle reconciling the scientific, scientific accuracy of what you're doing and knowing that it's television?

You want it.

You want it to be entertaining and informative and answer curiosities.

And then you've got so you have the storytelling aspect.

How do you reconcile that?

Yeah.

I mean, I view it personally as a beautiful marriage.

Like I have researchers join me as co-producers on this production.

And so they're, in the field with me on production, and they're pointing out interesting things as much as, like, we're looking for interesting things as a film crew.

And to me, I think actually pulling researchers in closer to productions is actually really the trick to balancing storytelling and science, because then it's not just something where you're talking to a scientist a couple of times to get their advice and get them as a fact checker, and then saying, okay, thanks, we've got what we need.

We're good.

But actually bringing them into the filmmaking process, I think is a really key point, and it allows for you to have a better relationship and to discuss those issues about where, you know, where the tug and pull is between science and storytelling.

But I think it's so important, and it's one of the things that PBS hangs her hat on.

And here at KTWU, is facts, you know, and making sure that the general public, every viewer, knows what's going on.

They get the facts and then they can make up their own mind.

They can have their own thought process going on.

And you're taking us from, Antarctica to the Plains in this first series?

Yeah.

Please.

Yes.

Yeah.

So the first three episodes of Life on Earth are take place in Antarctica, and then the following three episodes take place in the prairies, which at first glance, you're like, why would you go from Antarctica all the way to the prairies?

But the reality is, are both ecosystems that I think are underestimated and underappreciated.

And I really want to shine a limelight on these ecosystems and provide those different lenses so people can really enjoy and see the biodiversity that's there.

But you just need like a little extra minute to to pay attention.

And so with the prairies and coming back home to Kansas, it was really about showcasing that biodiversity, because the reality is they are it by a biodiversity hub.

And I don't think they get the credit that they're due.

So as a girl, again, artistic because I want to go back to that because I have some, you know, relation in terms of being a creative, but how do you go from doing that?

And to being more of a scientist and in particular girls in Stem, because there's not a lot of girls in Stem programs and I'm in, you know, middle schools, high schools all the time.

And you don't see too many girls in those classes.

How do you bring people over into that to make it exciting and show that women can be a part of that world as well?

I mean, I think there's with anything you need a diversity of approaches, because not everything is going to sing to everyone's heart.

And and so for me, you know, I didn't really fall in love with science until I was out of college.

And, and discovered this opportunity at NASA.

But I think if you approached most people at any point in their life and you're like, you could have a job at NASA today without changing anything about yourself, would you want it?

Yeah, everyone would say like, hell yeah.

Like it's something that, you know, is really exciting.

And so, so much of my career, once I got that job, was trying to show that there's actually ways in which you can contribute to science, even if you're coming from a different background.

Science needs designers, they need writers.

They need lawyers, they need all sorts of people.

They're not always good at communicating that, but they're needed.

And so equally, like, you know, when you're thinking about middle schools and high schools and even college and beyond college, I think it's important to not view especially women if if they get interested in something that's not science, it doesn't mean they're lost to science.

It means that they might come to science through a different method.

And I think they might be excited about that.

You know, not all of us want to get a PhD in microbiology, but we might want to work with people who are microbiologists, you know?

And so I think that's a lot of a starting point of like, yes, try to give opportunities to women to get involved and interested in Stem.

But also, if they're not interested in Stem, don't count them as a lost cause, like include them in the discussions for how they can contribute what they're interested in toward science context.

And so wonderful.

Perfect.

You have sparked our curiosity and coming up we have a few more thoughts and wonderful things to talk to Ariel about.

So please stay with us.

There's something quietly electric about experiencing the prairies.

These wide open spaces are bursting with life.

If you just take the time to look.

And we're back with Ariel Waldman.

Ariel, let's keep our conversation going about your PBS show, Life on Earth.

Now, the first couple of episodes are about Antarctica.

The next couple of episodes are about the very exciting plains, you know, our home state.

What else is coming?

What other what other plans do you have?

Are you traveling?

What what what's what are you holding in store for the rest of the viewers?

Yeah.

So, I mean, Life on Earth is an ongoing series.

So the whole point is to go to different ecosystems and really reveal the life that's there at those different orders of magnitude.

And so, yeah, we've done Antarctica.

We've done the prairies.

Next we're focusing on the southwest deserts of the US.

And so we're really wanting to look at a lot of the extreme life forms in the deserts and see how life is able to survive there.

And you're doing this in so many areas, which we love.

But but since we're here in Kansas, let's get back to Kansas.

The Konza prairie.

What did you think about, you know what excited you or surprised you?

I mean, the prairie is epic.

It's such a large area.

And, you know, there's so few tallgrass prairie left in the US.

And so the konza is one of the largest ones, if not the largest one.

And, and I was able to experience not only all the beautiful bison herd that's there, but also I got to witness, you know, prescribed burns.

So when they set fire to the prairie and do that as a way of doing ecosystem management, that was just incredible to watch because it's thrilling.

But it's also, fascinating because it's, you know, science and action in a sense.

What are some of the takeaways that you got from your time on the prairie?

Because I'm sure that there were things that just kind of like hit you like one after the other.

What are some of the highlights of your time?

I mean, one of the things I was really excited to highlight about the prairies is that a lot of people, when they think of the prairies, they think of just the grassland and nothing else.

But the reality is prairies are a mosaic of different habitats.

So you have wetlands, you have woodlands, and you have the grasslands, and those actually all come together like a quilt to actually create what we know as the prairies.

And that really changed my perspective when I was going through and filming.

All of this was realizing, you know, you have aquatic creatures that are prairie creatures, but people don't often think of like, water and the prairies going together.

And so to me, it was sort of seeing the diversity of prairies and no longer seeing them as a monolith.

That was something that, you know, was fascinating when I was doing my research, but equally fascinating to actually go out and see that.

So I want to know in the same way that you had, what was it, tardigrades or whatever?

Undergrads.

Yeah.

In Antarctica.

Did we have some interesting microbes?

Yeah, there's tardigrades in the prairie.

No way.

So this is what I love.

Tardigrades have become famous with especially a lot of children, because they're famous for being able to survive the vacuum of space and survive all these extremes.

And we and I filmed them in Antarctica.

But the reality is, you go outside anywhere on Earth and you find a little patch of moss, you're going to find those little tardigrade animals in that patch of moss.

So if we were to walk outside and dig up some moss, even in a sidewalk crack, we would find tardigrades there, and they would look the same as the tardigrades in Antarctica.

So, oh my gosh, yes, I love them.

I love my body.

Needs to go out and start digging microscopes.

Yes.

And start looking at because the way that you had them on the screen during the show, I was like, oh my God, look at that.

But now you're saying it's probably right in our backyard, in your backyard.

And, you know, this is what I love is the idea that every time when you leave your house in the morning, you're walking by entire, you know, zoos or Serengeti of tardigrades, and you just can't see them.

But to walk outside and know that, like all these little animals are just living their best lives, like right outside of your site.

Like, I don't know, I think it's fun.

It sounds awesome.

Yeah.

I'm curious because you've talked about the different, climate areas.

You know, you've got, desert deserts and the plains and probably do the tundra and all that.

Yeah.

I'm wondering about cities like Tokyo or you know, Chicago or.

Yeah, you know, would you ever do a show from there to kind of show this is what's happening, you know, when it's a concrete I mean, this is this is what you can find.

Absolutely.

I mean, where I live in San Francisco, if people have ever flown into SFO before, they've been able to see, like, these weird colored ponds when they come in and they're red and yellow and pink and purple, they look really, really strange.

And those are those colors because of the microbes that live in them, because those microbes have those pigments in them, and that those pigments protect them from the UV radiation.

And so I've been able to go out and sample some of those ponds right in my own backyard in San Francisco.

And so, you know, there's these little creatures that are just swimming around and they're colored purple.

And that's why those salt ponds are purple.

They're they're salt loving microbes.

They have no idea they're in San Francisco.

No.

So is this one of your goals to let people realize what a beautiful earth we have and to respect it and help, then can we respect it?

What can we do as inhabitants along with them?

Yeah.

I mean, one of the things we talk about in the Prairie episodes is like, so much of you know, the restoration of prairies and helping or is has to do with how much space we give Earth to have, you know, native plants and animals around in them.

And, you know, mind you, like we need space to.

But creating corridors and creating little spaces and pockets and places, you know, in our yards or, you know, in, commercial areas is really important because without that, you know, you lose native pollinators, you lose a lot of wildlife that are important at all different scales.

So it's not only, you know, creating habitats for larger, you know, forms of life like deers or foxes and stuff, but also for, you know, tiny little bees and flies and, you know, wasps, you know, they're all important and if they can't pollinate those flowers, a lot of those flowers will start dying.

And so a lot of it's about just, you know, the idea of thinking critically about how much space we can really save for, you know, native plants and animals to live in.

Because if we're saving ourselves, then ultimately we're saving our.

Yeah.

The humans.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, all these systems, you know, help filter our water.

They help, you know, provide, you know, really healthy soils for us to grow things out of.

And so, you know, these are all part of a system.

And if you take away certain parts of the systems, they do start to break down.

And and so it is a part of saving ourselves as much as it is, you know, saving the earth.

Well, we're talking about respecting the Earth.

Earth day is coming up very quickly.

Talk about global warming and global cooling, because some people don't put stock in either of those ideas.

What's your thought about that?

I mean, with climate change, you know, you're really talking about things that are just making, extreme weather events more common.

And that's what we're seeing.

So in some areas you're going to get more floods, more droughts, more rain, less rain.

In Antarctica, you know, they're facing, you know, a lot of ice loss, of course.

But I think, you know, one of the things that's important with climate change and narratives around climate change is that it is a different story in different places, and that there is nuance to it and a lot of climate change.

The scary thing about it is that we just don't know a lot of what's going to happen.

There are some things that we forecast to happen that we know, like, okay, these species might not do so well, these species might do better, but there's a lot that we just don't know.

And that to me is what's scary in Antarctica.

You have and the area that I work in, in the Dry Valleys, the risk there is that it might become more habitable.

And that might mean other creatures could live there.

Great for those other creatures, really bad for the creatures that have been isolated there for 20 million years and haven't had to compete for resources as much.

So I think the discussion that I would like to see a lot more is just these nuances and the fact that it's a different story everywhere.

It's not it's not all about, you know, glaciers melting into the ocean and sea level rise.

That is a big part of it.

But there are just these different stories about, you know, in Kansas versus Antarctica versus in China, about how climate change is affecting these regions.

Okay.

I'm going to go ahead and put you on the spot with all you've done and all you've seen.

How optimistic are you about our future?

I think I'm optimistic in the sense that I think, you know, to achieve big things, we have to come together.

And I do think that on the majority, as I have traveled the earth, which I have done quite a bit, that, you know, people do want to work together and collaborate, and I think there's a lot of opportunities there.

But I also see optimism in the science.

So in prairies, for instance, we used to think if we restored an abandoned field, that it would take decades before that field could become closer to a native prairie sort of soil area.

But research has uncovered that, you know, on the microscopic scale, restored prairies can bounce back 80% of the way in like 3 to 5 years.

And that is really encouraging.

So that means, you know, if you go to an abandoned field and you begin the process of planting, you know, native plants and converting it over that, when you look at the microbes in those soils, you get 80% of like a native prairie soil back in just a few years.

And so while there is a lot, you know, that's not, so, so rosy to look at there is encouraging science and encouraging collaborations and citizen science efforts that are taking place that really give me a lot of hope and, and mean that it's, you know, it's not all lost.

I'm thrilled that you believe that there's a lot of hope on a lot of levels, including bringing people together, which is so needed during this time.

So I'm gonna talk more with Ariel and be back with more of her insight right here on K-12 use inspire.

So stay with us.

A lot of people think of Antarctica as a place that's barren and mostly lifeless.

But really, this is a continent that's absolutely dynamic, filled with so many ecosystems, hundreds of species, and it's at the precipice of change.

We're thrilled to be back, to continue our conversation with our wonderful Stem traveler, Ariel Waldman.

We love this.

So much.

You know, this is International Dark Sky week.

We need to appreciate being out in the prairies, being out where it's dark.

Not a lot of light coming in.

Why is that important?

I mean, so one of the things why it's important is for fireflies, which we feature in the series, which were just so beautiful and so growing up in Kansas City.

Of course, I know about fireflies and lightning bugs and all of that, but most of the rest of the country don't know about it.

And they're these delightful little creatures.

And so we featured fireflies and lightning bugs in the series.

But to your point, you know, the more that we have light pollution from houses, from streetlights and everything, the more we're sort of pushing out those fireflies and lightning bugs and, you know, they're just this wonderful thing that, you know, it'd be really sad to live in a world without them.

And so protecting them is part of, like, you know, turning your lights off at night and having, street lamps that are, you know, less flooding the zone with light and everything like that.

And, and to me, you know, so much of looking at fireflies relates to our appreciation of the night sky, you know, getting to see this beautiful illumination and and the night sky equally, you know, needs less light pollution in order for us to see it.

Well, even migration with birds, I mean, that is so instrumental in making sure that they can get to where they're going without, you know, being blinded.

Yeah.

Being blinded.

Yeah, absolutely.

I love how you just pulled that out.

I'm impressed with that.

Oh, professional dark sky.

Like I'm like, okay, let's just have a moment with that as we go on with the dark sky thing.

How can everyday people engage with science?

Like people like myself?

We're like.

We're busy with our jobs.

We've got families.

How can we still have some kind of, you know, curiosity about other realms?

Yeah.

I mean, the thing I love that has been around for, you know, at least a few decades now is citizen science.

Some people call it community sciences and science, but it's really the idea that people from all different backgrounds and disciplines can get involved and actually actively contribute to science.

That makes a difference.

And so one of the ways is, there's a River watch program that's run across the Midwest that's like you go into rivers and you sort of see what weird little invertebrates you can find there, and you tally them and you count them and it talks.

And at that teaches us about the, you know, the health of those river systems.

And so that's one example.

But there's, you know, a bunch of things, there's, projects where you can categorize galaxies so that you can help discover new galaxies.

There's projects in which you can help design the next generation of Mars rovers and compete in competitions for that, you know, so whether you're interested in space or Earth, you know, there's so many different projects.

People get really into bird watching and bird counting, of course, and this is what I love is like, you know, and these are things that you often can just drop into.

So you're busy, okay.

You don't have to make a multi-year commitment.

Maybe just show up to one river, watch counting thing and, you know, see what you can find.

And if you're too busy the rest of the year, that's okay.

You've done your contribution.

Nice.

Okay.

Yeah.

Is there a website for all of this?

Because for someone like me, I this is all news to me.

Birdwatching.

Of course I've heard about that.

But all the river watching I don't know anything about that.

I also don't have a science background, but would love to do something like that.

Where would I even start to look?

I mean, some of it just does start with googling.

So, you know, typing in like Kansas Citizen science and seeing what projects come up with that or typing in, you know, bird citizen science and seeing what comes up with that.

There's so many different projects that there's a lot of ways to get involved.

And my home in San Francisco, they do a lot of tide pooling.

So again, looking at different creatures are in the tide pools to tell us about the health of those tide pools.

But, you know, if you're interested in galaxies, type in galaxies, citizen science, I guarantee you things are going to come up.

You know, a lot of these websites are run by volunteers and different groups, so they are a bit scattered around, but you'll find them citizen science.

Yeah.

What does it take to put together a series like this?

You did all your filming in the Antarctica, but it was like, how do you put this together and come up with the idea and explain that, pitch it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I kind of pitched it to myself, you know, like if it's something where, you know, a lot of it did start with, you know, thinking critically about, if I did a project, that was what I wish someone would hire me to do, what would I do?

And someone, you know, asked me to sort of come up with a project around that.

And that really inspired me.

And I was like, well, you know, this is what I would love to do.

I would love to be a filmmaker and create, you know, these documentaries and explore these places, and also be behind and in front of the camera.

And so I started building that out.

But really, I mean, it started with two months of filming in Antarctica by myself.

Of course, I was terrified, and I didn't know if I was going to be able to pull it off.

And I was live.

Oh yeah, there's that too.

Yeah, well, I was just like, what did I put myself up to?

Like no one films a docu series by themselves?

So I didn't know if I was going to be successful, but I think that that's one important component.

And then, you know, once I came back from Antarctica and those episodes came together, then I was like, oh, then now, you know, we can go to the prairies and make this a thing.

And so much of what was involved in Antarctica versus the prairies is slightly different.

You know, in Antarctica I was filming by myself, but in the prairies we had a small group of like 4 or 5 people, and that was mostly myself, a director of photography, a production assistant, and then two researchers.

And so that was our crew, the whole time and still, you know, very scrappy.

But a lot of, the preparation for that came from sort of dabbling in YouTube over the years.

And so I, you know, made YouTube videos.

It's a wonderful way to prototype your ideas and sort of hold yourself accountable, you know, forcing yourself to push them out publicly, even if you're not totally happy with them.

Yeah.

It helps.

It helps you to develop your ideas, it helps you to prototype them.

And so on my YouTube channel, there's like a couple of short videos that are called like orders of Magnitude, where I'm looking at ecosystems like close to home.

And those were really, you know, my prototypes for creating this series.

So that's where I began.

Would you take us behind the scenes?

Because like I said, I've seen the first two episodes when you all are flying into what looks like the Netherlands, like, I don't know where you're going, and it's freezing cold and you're setting up tents.

Tell us about that, because that in itself is a journey.

Yeah.

So the journey to Antarctica, in San Francisco, I fly all the way to New Zealand, about a 13 hour flight from New Zealand.

We take a military aircraft to Antarctica, which can often take, It's like a C-130 aircraft.

And so that takes 8.5 hours from New Zealand to Antarctica.

We land on a compacted snow runway, and then we go further out, about an hour out in a helicopter to then camp in the middle of nowhere with like five other people.

And the plane didn't have seats.

The plane did not have seats.

It's just cargo, nothing.

These are military aircrafts.

They were not meant for passengers and so they are highly uncomfortable.

And not only do they not have seats, they don't have proper toilets.

Yes, yes, I noticed in the show I was like, oh my God.

And what I mean by that is, there is a bucket with a curtain around it, and that is your bathroom for 8.5 hours, shared with the whole plane sitting on the floor.

You do have a folding chair or this netting that sort of folds out.

And so you're sitting kind of in cargo netting as what's happening and your knee to knee locked in with everyone around you because there's so little space, so literally your knees are interwoven with other people's knees who are sitting across from you.

It's highly uncomfortable.

You're also in a heavy parka.

Sure.

You know, it's yeah, you're a big marshmallow in a space that you can't move.

It's it's a lot.

And then and I'm calm and then you go out and you camp in five degree Fahrenheit weather.

And I wonder, what does that mean?

You're not pitching a pup tent.

I mean, so what?

I mean, you're pitching a regular looking tent.

Seriously, these are not, you know, they don't have heaters in them.

You have, like, a fleece, you know, sleeping bag.

I went to sleep with, a hot water bottle at my chest and a hot water bottle at my feet and put my parka over me, and then it's 24 hours of sunlight in Antarctica.

So you also pull your hat over your eyes, and it's intense.

And filming in this, in these conditions is intense.

So my colleagues, my researchers that I was there with, they would go out on these big hikes and they would sample all of the, you know, creatures in the area.

But I would have to set up my film equipment by myself.

And so while they had very challenging physically, challenging tasks, I had the coldest task because I would be setting up my equipment and then just sitting and talking to camera without moving for hours.

And it was.

Yeah, that it was the coldest job for sure.

Would you do it again?

100%.

And I hope to go back very soon.

Oh my gosh, I am just so honored to be part of this conversation.

And we will be back with more with Ariel Walton and.

Through our exploration of Antarctica, we've unearthed the smallest animals on the planet.

Antarctica teaches us about the corners of our own home planet that we never knew before.

We just needed to see it through a different lens.

We're back with more with Ariel Waldman, and I've been just so inspired by this conversation.

What are some of the things that you've learned along the way?

Some of the life changing, maybe moments that you've had as you've been on this exploration, to share some of that with us?

I mean, yeah, I've definitely had points in time where I feel like a fundamental shift has happened because of my my wayward, eclectic journey through all of this.

You know, working at NASA really changed my mind and to the fact that, like, anyone can contribute to science and space exploration and and that really set me on a mission for a lot of the work I do, and trying to make science more accessible and more approachable to people.

And then when I got to Antarctica the first time, really what changed about that was it's just such a a shifting experience to have, to go to a place that you never expected to go to before.

And for me, it came in the form of feeling like I no longer had to really prove myself to people and no longer prove myself to myself.

And so in a sense, like it had a calming effect, it sort of took that chip on my shoulder away from me and allowed me to sort of like, unwind a little bit about my own career and about my experiences and, and appreciate, you know, being in the moment more.

Can we go more into that?

Because I'm fascinated that you said you don't have to prove yourself to yourself or to anybody.

And I know a lot of us struggle with some of those feelings.

Talk about that.

Yeah.

I mean, it's something where I was often, the youngest in a lot of the situations I was in, I was, on a National Academies, of science committee about, you know, the future of human spaceflight.

And that was advising Congress and the white House and NASA, you know, and I was in my 20s, and it's something that, you know, can be intimidating.

And so, in a sense, you know, to move through the through the world, you know, being in places that are not places that you studied to be in and being in, you know, nontraditional spaces for your career path, means that, you know, sometimes it's a little nerve wracking to sort of say, you know, I belong here and to try and feel like you need to prove yourself, whether you're the youngest or you're coming from sort of an outsider role.

And so, you know, that sort of built up over in me, you know, over time, it was really something where I did feel like I had to prove myself.

I had to prove that, like, I knew the science, that I knew what I was talking about, that I was well-educated, and so going to Antarctica, I feel I just felt like a big release of a lot of that energy of of the feeling that, you know, that I did belong and that if someone did not think I belonged, that it was no longer my problem and that it wasn't, you know, on me to sort of prove them wrong anymore.

And that was a really nice feeling.

So what advice would you give to young people I. Daly.

Young women who aren't sure what they want to do, who might be interested in science, who, just they don't know what to do, but they're curious.

What advice would you give them?

I mean, first it comes with, you know, acknowledging what skills or ways of looking at the world are natural to you.

So for some people, they love writing.

For other people, they like making TikTok videos, you know, whatever it might be, you know that is a useful starting place.

And the reality is, with a lot of sciences, there's not a lot of accessible resources out there all the time.

And so if you're into writing essays, you know, write essays about things that you wish people wrote essays about, you know, make TikTok videos about things about science that you wish people made about.

That's one starting place.

And then beyond that, you know, if there's an area of science that you get interested in that you think is cool because you read that New York Times article or, you know, read on a blog about something, you know, it doesn't hurt to, like, reach out to the researchers who do that work and just say that you're a fan of what they do.

That's how I started my NASA journey was, you know, just kind of sending some fan email that I never expected to hear back from.

But but researchers often don't get fan emails.

And, you know, and they they do want to engage with people so often.

And so, you know, emailing a researcher you read about and saying like, hey, I'm a fan of your work.

I would love to, you know, learn more if or if you ever need a volunteer or something that doesn't hurt.

You might not always hear back, but a lot of times, you know, these scientists and researchers don't get fan email, and they should know there's a lot of movies out, you know, Hail Mary talking about.

We've got aliens out there.

Is there anything in your wild imagination that you hope is out there?

I mean, I certainly hope that there is life in the universe.

There's too many planets and stars and galaxies out there for it to not be out there at all.

It could be rare.

But if life is rare, you're still talking, you know, billions of galaxies, trillions of stars, you know, trillions and trillions of planets.

And so let's say life is super rare.

There's still going to be some of it out there.

That's sort of my viewpoint on it.

I wanted to know at the end of the second episode, because you said that there could be some, you know, inhabiting of Antarctica.

Could people actually live there at some point?

So Antarctica is incredibly challenging to live in.

And and because of the International Antarctic Treaty, no one can live in Antarctica or claim Antarctica as their own.

And so, when researchers go down, they typically most will spend a year down there before they then go back to their home.

And so we don't allow anyone through international agreement to live there permanently.

And also, you know, we don't allow any countries to claim ownership.

Some may try, but it's not recognized that some some do try, but it's not recognized.

That's one thing.

But the second thing is, okay, let's say we said okay, we'll allow people to start living in Antarctica and we come to that agreement.

It requires so many logistics to survive the Antarctic winter and to keep the people that we do keep down.

There's like 100 researchers over the winter, to survive there.

You know, there's there's a reason in which we take military aircrafts to go to Antarctica.

And it's because we need that, like heavy industrial infrastructure just to survive there.

It is really harsh.

You're really not in a place that's hospitable at all to you.

And the amount of resources it takes is, is incredible just to keep researchers there.

So it would be a monumental challenge even with climate change, even with a changing climate like Antarctica is not going to get any easier to live in in our lifetime.

And some say that there's ancient civilizations under all that ice in Antarctica or Antarctic.

But I mean, that's so life is possible because of the microbes that you found.

Yeah.

I mean, there's there's life living in the subglacial lakes of Antarctica.

They're living, you know, in frozen lakes and streams and all different places.

And really, I mean, most of what's covered under the miles of ice in Antarctica are just huge mountain ranges that you don't even see because they're covered in miles up to three miles thick in some locations of ice.

Okay.

So we're bringing it back to K-State, where you just spoke.

Yeah.

And you had a sold out crowd.

It was fantastic.

What do you love about being back here on Earth where you can see a bison and you can see something running around?

And the cons of prairie, the nature Conservancy, I mean, you know, isn't that wonderful to see all that coming together.

It's incredibly wonderful.

I will say, you know, coming back from Antarctica, people talk about in Antarctica.

Aren't you breathing the freshest air on Earth?

Isn't that so lovely?

But when I come back from Antarctica, I step off the plane and I take a deep breath and I'm like, this is fresh air.

And I realize my concept of fresh air is being able to smell plants and trees and grass.

It's not being able to smell nothing.

And so Antarctica, in a way, is like going to space because it does make you appreciate that much more.

Coming back to Kansas, coming back to the Great Plains and actually being able to experience like the plants and the biodiversity and your body just, you know, feels at home in these locations.

You know, we we relax when we hear birds chirping, when we hear all the insects around us.

And I think, you know, by going to different locations, we can better appreciate the places that are right next door.

Yeah.

Kind of body, mind and soul.

Yeah.

Do you feel that?

Yeah.

I just feel it on a on a deep level and I'm.

I wouldn't even qualify myself as an outdoorsy person.

I love cities, I love living in a city that's great.

That's where I feel at home.

But being able to access nature regularly, I think makes a really big difference on your mental health.

And also just being able to explore things, having things be a little bit unpredictable, not so predictable and sort of like, okay, I'm gonna open my email.

I'm going to see like 20 emails today.

But being going out on a walk and going like, wow, look at that weird fungi.

Look at that.

You know, weird looking B or something.

Yeah.

It's fun.

Oh, it's not that really is no place like home there.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, coming up, we have just a few more minutes to finish our discussion with this amazing woman, Ariel Waldman.

Please.

You stay there and we'll stay here, and we'll see you in a minute.

Sadly, our time with Ariel Waldman has gone by so quickly, and in our final moments, we would like to ask her, what would you like to share with our viewers?

I mean, what I would love to share is that exploration is really accessible and approachable to so many people.

And so whether you want to contribute to science or other areas, you know, I think it's something where you can begin with, you know, what are you currently enjoying doing?

Or if you can only go into your backyard, you know, you can get a microscope and you can begin looking at microscopic wildlife.

There's so many things that are just really approachable nowadays, and I don't think you have to go to Antarctica.

I don't think you have to work at NASA in order to get involved with really cool stuff.

I think you can create resources for space exploration.

I think you can get a microscope and explore microscopic wildlife in your own backyard.

And I think all of these things are really available to people, but they might not know about it.

And so I would like to help them know about it.

And besides exploring and expanding your own mind, what does it do for those around you, your family, your friends?

How?

What's the bigger picture?

I think a lot of it is about just getting people excited about the fact that things are available to them that they didn't previously know about.

You know, getting people to realize that, you know, maybe they don't want to, you know, pivot their whole career towards science and space exploration, but maybe they do want to help out on a weekend or they do want to, you know, categorize some galaxies on their computer, or they do want to look at weird invertebrates in their local streams and be able to tell us about the health of their natural habitat, local to them.

So I think it's something where, you know, just getting people excited about these different possibilities and realizing that not everyone is going to be excited about the same things, but they should all know what's accessible and available to them.

What legacy would you like to leave behind?

That's an incredible question.

You know, because you've done so many things.

Yeah, I mean, I have and, you know, if I'm being honest, I don't really like thinking in terms of legacy because I think, you know, you do what you can with the time that you have, and you hope that other people do the same with their own time.

And so I guess if talking about legacy, I think it's really just making people know that, you know, if they have a job or something where they're not really excited about it, but they don't feel like they can leave it.

You know, that's totally understandable.

But there are things in which you can get involved in and try out, and I think it's okay to experiment with things and not know where you're going for.

So much of my career, I didn't know exactly where I was going.

You know, it only makes sense in hindsight, but when I'm going through it, you know, I'm going like, can I pull off a film?

I don't know, you know, can I work at NASA for multiple years and have people respect me?

I don't know, like, you know, a lot of these things when I'm going through them, I'm not quite sure what I'm doing.

And I think getting people comfortable with that feeling, even if it feels scary, is really important.

I love that working outside your comfort zone, finding things that you, that you don't know about and you just want to pursue it because we are so very careful about maintaining our company and what we want to say inside our comfort zone.

And curiosity is the thing that takes us out.

And that's that's where the magic happens right outside.

You know, in the news, people worry about having the imposter syndrome.

So that enters in.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I 100% I had imposter syndrome is like there's so many times where I was scared, I didn't know what I was doing.

I didn't know if I was going to pull it off.

And sometimes you do feel that's okay.

It's okay to feel it's okay to have something not work out, and you just pivot and go on to the next thing.

And I think, you know, I think a lot of people, when they look at my career, they might say, oh, she's so brave or, you know, I wouldn't be able to do that.

And it's like I was just as scared as they would be going through it.

And it's just being scared and doing it anyway.

And it's okay to be terrified the whole time and not sure of what you're doing and just embrace that.

That's part of it.

But you've conquered a whole lot of territory.

I mean, Antarctica, the prairies.

So we're going to enjoy those explorations coming up on Thursday night, the debut here on KTWU.

Tell us what's the first episode?

Because isn't it about dry fields?

So, the dry valleys of Antarctica?

Yes.

So season one is a six episode season, and the first three episodes are Antarctica in the Dry Valleys, which is one of the most Mars like places on Earth.

And then the following three episodes are in the prairies looking at the Konza prairie in Kansas, and then the chiefs of grasslands in Illinois.

And then we need to be plan in season two.

Yes, I will be watching all six episodes.

Thank you.

So I'm excited for everything that is to come.

And you know what?

I'm excited for you all to check it out.

That's going to be coming up on Thursday, so make sure that you check it out here right here on KTWU.

And that's all that we have for this evening.

We want to thank you for your time, Ariel.

It's been such an honor for us to have you here on Inspire, and I hope you've been inspired by her as much as we've been inspired by her.

And you can watch this program again at watch.ktwu.org And if you're so inspired to learn more about Ariel, which I bet you are.

Find out what's coming up on future shows and get access to additional content.

Be sure to visit our website at wwwwktwu.org/inspire Inspiring, inspiring women.

Inspiring everyone to stay curious and keep exploring inspiring you on KTWU.

Thanks for watching.

Inspire is sponsored by the Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation and by the estate of Ray and Anne Goldsmith.