AMES, Iowa -- A filmmaker and a soil scientist who worked in partnership on a creative film about soil science and its role in tackling today's most difficult environmental issues will speak at Iowa State University.
Deborah Koons Garcia.
Photo by Nic Coury, Monterey County Weekly.
Deborah Koons Garcia and Kate Scow will present "Communicating Science through Stories in Film: A Dialogue about Agricultural Sustainability and Soil" at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 30, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. The lecture is ISU's 2014 Pesek-Pierre Colloquium on Agricultural Sustainability and Soil Science. It is free and open to the public.
Scow, a professor of soil science and a soil microbial ecologist, was one of several scientists who worked with filmmaker Garcia on the film "Symphony of the Soil." Drawing from ancient knowledge and new scientific discoveries, their film is an artistic exploration of the miraculous substance called soil. It also examines our human relationship with soil, the use and misuse of soil in agriculture, deforestation and development, and the latest scientific research on soil’s key role in ameliorating the most challenging environmental issues of our time.
Garcia directed and produced "Symphony of the Soil." She fell in love with filmmaking while a student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1970. She went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute, and runs her own production company, Lily Films. Garcia's earlier film, "The Future of Food," examines the rapidly increasing corporate domination of our food supply.
Kate Scow
Scow is on the faculty of the University of California at Davis, where she also directs the Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility. Her program focuses on a broad range of interactions between microorganisms and their environments and spans the continuum from individual organisms to large scale-field studies. She works on the below-ground biodiversity of agroecosystems, microbial ecology of nitrogen cycling, and the microbial processes of biodegradation and bioremediation. Scow also works with smallholder farmers in Uganda on participatory extension approaches to enhance production and marketing of vegetables. She earned her master's and doctoral degrees from Cornell University.
The lecture is co-sponsored by the Practical Farmers of Iowa, Pierre Soil Science Lecture Fund, Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture, colleges of Design and Liberal Arts and Sciences, Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Bioeconomy Institute, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture, Science Communication Project at ISU, the departments of Agronomy, Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, and English and the Committee on Lectures, which is funded by the Government of the Student Body.
More information on ISU lectures is available at http://www.lectures.iastate.edu, or by calling 515-294-9935.
