While climate change is understood as one of the most important issues facing the world, the science behind what is actually happening to the Earth can be difficult to understand without having a Ph.D. in atmospheric science.
Many parents may want to introduce their kids to the idea of climate change or help them understand what people mean when they say the term climate change but may not feel equipped to correctly explain it. That is why six parents, who also happen to be atmospheric scientists, are banding together to create resources aimed at parents and kids to help them learn the facts about climate change.
It’s called Science Moms.
Tracey Holloway is a mother of two and the 2017-2021 Gaylord Nelson Distinguished Professor at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, serves as the team lead for the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team, and has a Ph.D. in atmospheric and oceanic sciences from Princeton University. She is one of the six moms who make up Science Moms.
“The Science Moms initiative was set up as a way to link moms together,” she says. “We’re just trying to be a resource — an accessible, non-partisan, neutral source of information.”
Holloway says that a problem can’t be solved until people are able to recognize what the problem is and she wants people to understand that climate change is a real problem, but one that has solutions.
She says she’s realized that being a scientist and being a parent share many qualities — one being a feeling a responsibility of creating a better future.
“I’d never really thought about how being a mom and being a scientist relate to each other, but once I started thinking about it, it really did come naturally that it had to do with this sense of responsibility,” she says.
In the end, Holloway wants parents to have the right information so they feel like they are equipped to have conversations with their children.
