April 2021 CDSS Meeting

Title	CDSS Meeting
Date	Thursday, April 22, 2021
Time	4:00pm-5:30pm MDT
Main Purpose	Quarterly updates
Location	Eccles Broadcast Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City
Attendees	Stephen Bannister (UU Economics) John Barentine (IDA) Mason Berglund (CPDSC) Preston Chiaro Jessica Heim (Trinity St. David) Dave Kieda (UU) Aubrey Larsen (State of UT/CPDSC) Daniel Mendoza (UU Planning/CDSS) Janet Muir (CDSS) Justina Parsons-Bernstein (Utah State Parks) Thomas Quayle (Clark Planetarium) Paul Ricketts (UU) Levi Simons (UCLA) Emily Wilkins (USU)

Agenda

• Utah Dark Sky Month (Janet)
• Utah State Parks (Justina)
• USU update (Emily)

• Daniel called the meeting to order at 4:05pm MDT after allowing some time for others to join.

Utah Dark Sky Month

• DM: Gov. Spencer Cox named April “Dark Sky Month” in Utah. Awareness has been great, glad to see it. 
  • JM: The Office of Tourism also debuted an astrotourism toolkit on its website (https://travel.utah.gov/news/uot-partner-toolkit-dark-skies-edition)
  • JM: This is an outgrowth of an effort in the Office of Tourism underway for some time. The importance of all this can’t be overstated. It’s the state of Utah embracing dark sky over multiple dimensions, not just tourism. Justina, anything to add?
  • JPB: We weren’t contacted in advance about it, but the governor has been such an enthusiast about Utah state parks. The declaration is in recognition of all of the partners. It was really a lovely thing to reward us all for our hard work.

Utah State Parks report

• JPB: Goosenecks and Fremont Indian were designated by IDA in March. They’re both Gold-tier under the 2015 guidelines. They’re both my favorite for dark skies for different reasons.
  • Fremont Indian has many petroglyphs, some of which have astronomical themes. There’s an ongoing archaeoastronomy project there.
  • Goosenecks, which is near Mexican Hat on the border with Arizona. Our most remote park. This is a place where there’s a “very thin veil between you and the Milky Way”. In two nights, I saw more than 100 meteors. Such a wonderful place. I run into people from all over the world who come to that remote park, in the middle of nowhere, to enjoy dark skies. 10 campsites, maybe; 170 campers there last week. It’s really picking up in popularity.
• JPB: Now 10 designations among Utah state parks. Reactivated Gunlock’s nomination effort. Beginning Snow Canyon and Bear Lake applications. 
• JPB: The Utah Girl Scouts dark sky patch is about to become a reality. 4H dark sky six-lesson module has been picked up nationally. Building next-generation stewards for dark skies.
• JPB: Had a meeting with the Master Naturalist coordinator at USU, Wendy Wilson at Antelope Island, Mattias Schmidt at Cedar Breaks. Haven’t had field schools because of Covid. But we’re talking about the possibility. Many people have taken the online course; they need field experience to get certified. We might have one at each of these parks in different seasons. 
• JPB: Met with Oregon State Parks and others recently to help them get started with applying to IDA, at Ruskin Hartley’s request. Two-hour meeting via Zoom. It was good. I wish them the best of luck. Put them together with some of our partners, such as Girl Scouts and 4H.
• JPB: USP offered a dozen self-directed activities for International Dark Sky Week. Some programs had several thousand views. 
• DM: Keeping Utah “on top of the pile” is demanding work, but I’m glad we clearly have such a strong team on it.

USU update

• EW: I’m a researcher in the Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism at USU. We were founded in 1998 by the Utah Legislature, housed under extension. We provide data for the state to help decisions in this realm. We work with people in social science: why do people go to parks and what experiences they’re looking for.
• EW: Working with Justina, we’re undertaking a survey to find out more about dark-sky visitors. We meet them between about 7-10pm. Finding out what they want in terms of experiences and we try to understand what their economic impact is. We’re surveying in Fremont Indian, Dead Horse Point, and Goblin Valley; later we will survey in NPS units. 
• EW: CPDSC and BRDSC starting in October will be housed here at USU under the Institute. It’s a very new development. We;’re trying to build more capacity to do more research on dark skies, with our diverse faculty. 

Other updates

• DM: About the minor, we’re featured on KUER (https://www.kuer.org/arts-culture-religion/2021-04-05/new-residency-aims-to-connect-artists-and-scientists-on-path-to-climate-solutions). Working with an art collective from New York to come do a residency here but Covid dashed those plans. They were part of the capstone course and the introductory course in the minor last fall. What’s new about it is that we’re tying science and art together. 
  • JB: The intersection of art and science is a topic of growing interest — it’s the cover story in the current month’s issue of Physics Today. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4722
  • LS: UCLA’s art/sci group: http://artsci.ucla.edu/. Paper I wrote last year, I wrote with an artist and we put a piece in to an art show this spring. We did a survey to build an ecological light pollution model that involved obtaining thousands of hemispherical images. 
  • DM: Thanks, Levi. Also: https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/revolving-sky–gizhibaa-giizhig/. We also wanted to incorporated Health and Main Campus. 
• DM: Other minor-related news, I will teach the capstone class here this summer. It was a successful class in the fall, when it was last offered; didn’t have the enrollment numbers in the spring, so we shifted it to summer. Working with Park City this summer. Want to look at the influence of snow on light pollution. Did a small project with the town of Alta for the minor, took some measurements. Mountain communities are very interested in this, especially ski communities. They have a “captive audience”. Will present findings to Alta city council next week.
• DM: A team of us including Dave Kieda and collaborators in biology, Kelly Bricker, others, submitted a proposal to NPS for improving visitor experience at national parks. Looking at impacts of lighting both on people a their connection to the park, but also on the ecosystem. Only one grant will be awarded for this call. I think we made a strong proposal.
• LS: I have a paper at Science Advances now on machine learning applied to light pollution in coastal ecosystems. We used random forest modeling, looking at influence on nesting sites for birds and spawning grounds for fish. “Sharp step effect”. For grunion, there’s an optimum level at about half a full moon for spawning events. For plovers, anything brighter than 1/4 of a full moon, they just totally avoid. Trying to model LP in the context of other environmental influences. Working in LA, finding that it correlates with things like housing density. In wildland interface areas, it’s harder to tease out these effects.
• JM: Can I ask about IDA interns and JDSS?
  • JB updated on interns (Christian Jou and Laurin Hoadley)
  • DM: The minor students did a light assessment of campus, working with facilities management and the police department. Held a town hall. Janet, Stephen was involved in that. John, were you there? (no) I’ll make sure you get an invitation next time. One aspect that was surprising is that the issue of light is not just for people to see but for security cameras to get clear pictures of people. Not many cameras are very sensitive to low light. We had to understand that. It was very eye-opening. 
  • DM: About the Journal, it’s been delayed much longer than I would like. I have been working with John and one of our students in CMP. We have been reviewing every review article submitted. We’re in the final phase of sending articles with comments out to authors. Can’t promise a fixed date for the issue, but we’re looking at publishing them together as the inaugural issue. Since capstone is upcoming, we want to wrap that up. 
• JB: My group just had a paper published about the influence of satellites on night sky brightness and made a bit of splash in the media (e.g., https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/study-finds-nowhere-earth-safe-satellite-light-pollution) The paper is on https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnrasl/slab030/6188393. 
  • DM: Sad and startling, but glad that your result got some high-profile coverage. At least in the American West, this is a resource that’s so easy to lose. Making as big of a stink as possible now may be what’s required. 
• DM: Is there any other news?
  • AL: Mason, introduce yourself?
    • MB: I’m the new CPDSC intern and a student at the U. Involved in the campus lighting effort. Glad to be here and meet everyone.
• DM: 29th July is our next meeting. We had to push it back a week from where we would normally have it on the 4th Thursday because of Pioneer Day.  I’ll send out a reminder mail ahead of time as usual. Hopefully by then the first full issue of the journal will be out. Emily, I’ll add you and the others on to the email list. 

Key Dates

Next meeting will be held virtually on Thursday, 29th July, at 4pm MDT.

Summary & Takeaways

Today we heard updates from several members. Justina shared the great work she and her team at USP have done recently in several parks and with external partners like the Girl Scouts and 4H. She also gave some background on the recent proclamation of April as Utah Dark Sky Month by Gov. Cox. Emily announced that the Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism at USU would become the home of both the Basin and Range and Colorado Plateau Dark Sky Cooperatives. She also described an ongoing IORT project to survey visitors to parks about their motivations for seeking out dark skies, as well as estimating their economic impact. Daniel updated everyone on the Dark Sky Studies Minor at the U, including a recent art/science collaboration and plans for the upcoming instance of the capstone course this summer, as well as the planned publication of the first proper issue of the Journal of Dark Sky Studies. Levi mentioned his own recent art/science effort through UCLA and his recently submitted Science Advances paper applying machine learning to light pollution in coastal ecosystems. John briefly mentioned the two Minor students interning at IDA this semester, as well as his recent Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society paper on satellite light pollution. Finally, Mason Berglund introduced himself and described his role with the CPDSC.