About Us

Art, Data, and Environment/s (ADE/s) is an exploratory program that seeks creative solutions for data visualization in ecological stoichiometry and beyond. ADE/s hosts group activities and short talks that critically probe data representation in the sciences.

 

By examining the ways that we look at water, land, and territory, and discussing what we want our tools to do for our work, we arrive at a more rigorous and generative understanding of graphic representation - both its pitfalls and potentials. In so doing, we create new science thinking practices that attend to diverse ways of learning and knowing.

 

Verbal and visual communication are key components of the project. Insights from Ecological Stoichiometry are urgently needed to better predict and manage the consequences of anthropogenic changes to ecological processes and ecosystem services, whether from threats to biodiversity or impairments to good water quality. It is essential, then, that a project of this kind enhance scholars’ and students’ capacity to communicate their insights to multiple constituents, such as resource managers, community organizations, laypersons, and the media.

 

Given the broad array of specialists contributing to the project, from evolutionary biologists to statisticians, an exploration of available tools for data visualization and scientific translation needed to go beyond merely integrating one’s research into a single large-scale database. Researchers involved in the project also needed to understand the capacities and limitations of various tools to visualize (or, conversely, erase) certain components of ecosystems. Critical approaches to data visualization are therefore crucial in building capacity for cutting-edge ecological and environmental research and creating critical frameworks for water policy analysis.