Big Sky, Big Science
I feel like I have to accurately set the scene for this post and have it be maybe a percentage as experiential as the festival itself was.
When you arrive in Missoula, Montana - your plane comes in from Denver over the mountains. The winds push you into a constant turbulence as your aircraft navigates over the ridge line and suddenly you are nose diving into the airport that is smaller than some shopping malls. You politely shuffle yourself out and into the arid heat and are immediately struck by the fact that you're in a bowl of mountains. The city gives way to sprawling farm land almost at the flip of a switch and the big, rolling hills seem to ease you along. When I arrived in the afternoon I just sat in my hotel room and stared out the window as the sun seemed to stay in the sky forever. 9:30pm and finally it was going down in a blaze of pastels. It would come back out around 5:00am, burning up the land fast. By 8:00am you'd be breaking a sweat and around 3:00pm you could hallucinate the heat index was so high.
Arlee is settled outside of Missoula and the locals can make it in 18 minutes without a fuss; if you're unfamiliar with the winding roads, it takes closer to 35. A blink-and-you-miss-it stop on US 93 on the Flathead Reservation that perhaps lacks in population density but makes up for in sheer natural beauty. Which is where I found myself - figuring out the schematics of power drops in a tent on the Pow Wow grounds July 4th weekend.
I would get there around 8 in the morning and by about 6pm I would have to call it quits on sheer exhaustion, but the people I worked alongside managed to keep it up until almost 8 at night (or later if they were staying for pow wow activities). For two days in a row, we manned that tent alongside the main pavilion of the celebration. Day one we set up natural sciences (animals, biology, hydrology) and day two was medical and health sciences. Each day had different hands-on exhibits for kids to engage with, but more importantly they had native staff on hand to interact with attendees.
Signs at each exhibit explained not only the exhibit, but someone within the tribe who worked in that field of study. Accompanied with a picture of the native scientist, often the pictured scientist was on-hand to personally intercept those interested. While they talked STEM with children and adults alike, the pavilion rang with the amplified sounds of native song.
When Montana Public Radio came out and asked to interview me, I wasn't sure what I could possibly say about this event. The spectrUM and SciNation festival has been on our radar and in our network since I started at the Science Festival Alliance. I sometimes feel very close to the festivals that came on board with us as part of the Alfred P. Sloan grant that we administered in 2013 whether or not I've been heavily involved in their planning and processes. This festival came across my desk and I got chills - still do - when I read about their work. Every subsequent conversation I've had with the team at spectrUM has only given me more passion for their project. When I told MTPR that what they do is unparalleled, I meant it. There isn't another festival like this in our network. There are components of festivals or certain programs that can be likened to it but we don't have festivals that actively go into a cultural event of this magnitude and not only present themselves but integrate themselves.
The success here isn't about reaching an audience that would otherwise not get access, it's about the the fact that they so willingly give over the reins of this project to the community and let them take charge. spectrUM presents this festival but it's a community property. It isn't just science for the sake of science, it's science that this community is taking part in. These educators and STEM professionals from the reservation and from the university all take a keen interest in the community having as much input into this as they do. They're so intimate with these people that when a young boy ran in and started playing at one of the exhibits, an educator turned, smiled, and said "wait, don't tell me--" and pulled his name out of thin air.
"You were here last year weren't you?"
The kid smiled and nodded saying, "I'm happy you're back this year - are you going to be here tomorrow?"
"I'm happy you're back! We will be - and tomorrow it's going to be health science!"
That's not casual interaction.
At the end of the day on Friday my car said it was 107 degrees. My iPhone (which had been in a shady spot) displayed that it was too hot to function. We had to put it in a cooler to get it to power on again.
We were drinking 10-15 bottles of water each and it never felt like enough. Occasionally one of us would walk around the tent and spritz other educators with a water bottle so they could stand in front of the lone fan for a few minutes and revel in the brief respite from the heat.But the kids kept pouring in and everyone just kept smiling and rotating stations and engaging. On breaks, we would edge closer to the pavilion and listen as prayers were recited. Different clans from each tribe sang and drummed and an occasional dancer in full regalia would move around the floor. Volunteers in the tent who were members of the tribe were gracious in sharing not only their work as a STEM professional but also a sort of cultural ambassador. Sitting in a shady corner of the tent and listening to them patiently explain the significance of the songs drifting over us and the ceremony of this event was a deeply impactful and moving experience for me.
People kept asking me to take pictures, to show them what I experienced but in the end I had only a handful of shots from not just the festival, but from the visit itself. No camera could capture the mountains in all their glory, could make Flathead Lake as clear and blue as it was in person, no carefully framed and instagrammed pic could capture that spirit and fire of being there.
It's not the longest festival I've ever been to, there may not have been as many people as some others I've visited, but sometimes you can't measure impact in numbers. The festival team sent me a Thank You card after the event was over, but in reality I think I should thank them. Not only for including me in their festival staff as a last-minute volunteer or taking the time to educate me on everything from geography and history to culture and heritage; but for what they do here year round. This kind of relationship doesn't come from a single meeting or a desire to put on a big event together once a year - this is something that takes time and nourishment and respect. It was the only thing more beautiful than the land itself.
