Commencing in August 2018, the Northwest Passage Project will embark on a 22-day expedition into the Passage aboard the state-of-art, ice-class research vessel Akademik Ioffe. Departing from Resolute Bay then traveling south and west to Cambridge Bay via Bellot Strait, the Akademik Ioffe will return to Lancaster Sound and Pond Inlet before traveling down the east side of Baffin Island, with several stops along the way.
Research
Since 2016, Bach has participated in a number of formal science research projects; including the internationally recognized (NSF funded) Northwest Passage Project, multiple science communication documentary and quantitative university funded studies alongside Dr. Miquel Gonzalez-Meler, as well as a list of independent communication research projects. Most notably, spoke as a guest speaker at the 2017 ESA convention in Portland, Oregon; alongside nationally recognized science communication researcher Kika Tuff.
Play Video
006
Projects
500k+
Impacted
Exploration
Coast to coast
20+
Partners
“
The future isn’t built with the innovation of tomorrow but rather the vicissitude of processes today."
Timothy Bach
Play Video
Northwest Passage Project: NSF Funded, in Collaboration with The University of Rhode Island's Inner Space Center
The ExpeditionNorthwest Passage Project participants will sail into the Passage in the tradition of polar explorers, but with the capacities to carry out 21st century oceanographic research.
Finding a northwest passage, a northern water route shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific, has long been the obsessive quest of explorers and navies. For over 400 years, more than one hundred ships carrying thousands of mariners sailed into the Arctic to probe its waters and trek its shores. A warming climate and subsequent ice melting has opened up the Northwest Passage during the summer months, and it is profoundly changing the Arctic. There is unprecedented global interest in this once impenetrable region and its pristine environment.
The Participants
The Northwest Passage Project is a collaborative effort between the University of Rhode Island (URI), Inner Space Center (ISC), and the Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO), the film company, David Clark, Inc., and several other collaborators, including five U.S. universities that are classified as Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).
Along with the ship’s crew, there will be scientists, education professionals, and studentssailing through the Northwest Passage. During the expedition, there will be 15 undergraduate students aboard. The students will receive science instruction as the ship is underway, participate in live broadcasts from sea, and work alongside ocean scientists as they conduct Arctic research.
Onboard participants will also include the ship’s crew, ISC education and operations staff, scientists, historians, journalists, and members of the David Clark Inc. film production team.
The physics of Arctic ocean circulation: Transpolar water drift through the CAA
Scientists will investigate the increased freshwater storage and export from the upper Arctic ocean due to a warming Arctic. As ice melting occurs, increased freshwater is accumulating in the Arctic, resulting in a large freshwater anomaly. Freshwater inputs can have dramatic impacts on ocean circulation, particularly when freshwater is discharged into the North Atlantic Ocean from the Arctic. The CAA, and particularly Northwest Passage, is one of the principal conduits for freshwater transport from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic. There is uncertainty about the magnitude of the flow of water through the various restricted outlets from the Arctic to the Atlantic. One of the pathways for this freshwater transport can be found in the Northwest Passage, where the Northwest Passage Project expedition will take place.
The Art of Science Communication: Ordinarily Extraordinary
Interviewed five of the worlds for most ecologists, discussing their unlikely journey to be coming a research scientists. From a heroing journey of a boy preventing the destruction of his beloved childhood home to an artists journey of combining her passion for art and science to reach others, Ordinarily Extraordinary demonstrates that environmental heroes coming in all shapes and sizes.
Featuring Kika Tuff, Dr. Jayne Belnap, Dr. Paige Warren, Dr. Todd Crowl, and Dr. Emily Cloyd; Ordinarily Extraordinary documents the private and professional lives of five leading ecological researchers. Taped in Portland, Oregon at the 2017 ESA annual convention.
University Funded Biological Science x Communications Collaboration: Science Literacy of Crowdsourced Experts
Crowdsourced experts are becoming an ever-growing trend. Consumers are looking for answers and turn to social media to get information and connect with others they relate to. Networks such as Instagram and YouTube have developed several subcommunities around health, beauty, and the environment; featuring prominent creators as experts in their fields. There are no license or vetting process for an individual to be considered an expert on the internet. What is the level of science literacy of these crowdsourced experts?
Research question: Social media connects more youth to information than any other traditional media. Information disseminated by social media targets audiences based on an array of topics selected by disseminators, known as influencers; these influencers are crowd source experts as their validity comes from the number of followers they attain. It appears timely to ask how the current measurements of science literacy map onto these new celebrities’ capacities in order to accomplish specific tasks, such as to understand science or health messages, choose between competing sources of information, identify expertise, or modify behavior? For example, how information pertaining to science is shared by these social media influencers and how their background affect the effectiveness in communicating scientific topics to their audiences? How do these attributes relate to the probability of positively adding to either science, particularly with respect to environmental issues? How does science knowledge—and knowledge about science—shape their ability and willingness to engage with contemporary scientific and technological issues? I will focus on environmental and health science literacy of crowd sourced expert (social media creators) with followings ranging 100,000 plus users specifically on Instagram.
Research methods: Science literacy rates will be determined by taking a mix of first and second-hand data from a list of social media influencers, to understand their level of science literacy, comparing that to their STEM-related media conversations which will determine if the level of science literacy a public figure has correlates to the amount of publicly shared science conversations they have. Utilizing a series of qualitative surveys we will be able to place number values on responses; converting the qualitative data into quantitative data points which we will use to determine the individuals and overall science literacy trend. To make this determination, a series of mid-level social media influencers will be studied (with 200k-1mil total followers). Each influencer’s past online communication will be studied as a preliminary observation; public social media posts, news interviews, fan interactions, etc.; as well as a short in person or online video interview will be conducted, during which a series of questions with a mix of open and closed questions will be asked. Each influencer will be given two scores, a science literacy score (based on educational and media information), and a science communication score (based on science topics selected in their posts and the interviews when available). In addition to knowing the media’s level of both science literacy and science engagement, we will also compare the scores to determine if an individual’s level of science literacy affects their level of science communication.
University Sanctioned Research Project: Sex Appeal's Effect On Social Media Engagement
To date, much of the research conducted around sexual appeal has been focused around three key areas; 1) the seuxalization of the female body and the negative effects it has on the general female populations self body image, 2) the difference between male and females use of sexualized content, and 3) sex allure used in marketing and its effectiveness. To date, there has not been a single publicly released research study that focuses specifically on how to successfully use sex appeal to boost online engagement. Most, if not all (aside from a select few marketing based projects), articles framed sexual appeal in a negative light which has not be done in this study. Sexual attraction is natural, a gift from God, and can be used in positive and negative ways; my goal is to understand the most successful ways to use it.
Research Questions:
- How does promiscuity affect engagement (clicks, likes, comments, watch time, view duration) and styles of brand/individual presentation online?
- Because so many individuals are on social media, brands and creators turning to sex appeal to stick out.
- The idea of using sex to sell product is an old method but modern influencers have increased the supply and demand has not slowed with the rise of production.
- Do images with subjects wearing few clothing pieces and having higher sex appeal receive more engagement than similar content items with more conservative representation?
- . Instagram is full of accounts made famous over night after their own posted a ‘sexy’ or ‘hot’ image of themselves with limited clothing and a sexually suggestive caption.
- YouTube thumbnails are also full of butts and abs, along with highly suggestive captions and titles, people grinding on their lady friend or touching their boyfriends crotch.
- On average, the less clothing a subject is featured in, the more engagement it will receive.
- What body parts receive the most engagement and how does an image’s composition (body position, angle, colors, background, etc.) affect the level of engagement?
- . There are millions of pretty people posting suggestive posts on instagram but still only a fraction of them received a large following. Is this chance or are some creators marketing themselves more than others.
- Images featuring more sexualized poses and facial expressions will receive higher engagement than then those with less allure.
Additional questions that may be covered or could be subjects for future research:
- Does culture play a significant role in an individual’s belief, desire, and reaction to sexualized content?
- Are the users that view the sexually suggestive content pieces attracted to the pieces or are they of similar psycho/demographics of the creator/brand; utilizing the content as motivation?
- There are an ever increasing number of sports and fitness brands/creators that are creating content around the act of attaining sexual appeal.
- Many of the users following these accounts desire to attain a similar physique and utilize the account to receive motivation and information to attain their desired body.
- With the increasing number of accounts turning to sex appeal to boost their engagement, is sexual allure losing its effectiveness? (question of additional research post study)
- . Because of the millions of accounts utilizing sex appeal as pull to bring an audience much of the attraction is being watered down.
