every wednesday this semester, coastal resilience educator lisa auermuller drives two hours from her home in tuckerton, a coastal town of southern new jersey to teach at rutgers university. it might be a long commute, but for her, it’s worth it because it’s a reminder of the gap between science and people. she’s spent more than two decades of her life bridging that gap.

since joining the jacques cousteau national estuarine research reserve in 2002, auermuller has been helping new jersey’s coastal communities understand the changing ocean tides. now as a rutgers professor and the executive director of megalopolitan coastal transformation hub — a multi-institution project that helps coastal regions adapt to climate change, she stands at a busy crossroads of science, policy, education, communication, and community.

in the class she teaches, coastal climate risk and resilience, auermuller tells students that effective collaboration begins with listening. by understanding others’ perspectives, she says, they can learn to communicate at the right level, speak to shared values, and build trust instead of simply pushing their own agenda. she also weaves lessons from a previous course, communicating science with decision makers, where students practiced turning research into action: writing policy briefs, press releases, and science journalism pieces, and simulating conversations with local leaders to learn how to present complex information clearly.

auermuller recalls two examples from her work that illustrate the power of environmental education to create change. “a team of us at rutgers started to set out to develop an online tool called the new jersey flood mapper,” she says. the goal for the project, launched in 2013 to help laypeople visualize where sea level might start affecting coastal communities.

the idea was to make science visible for everyone. 

the new jersey flood mapper allows anyone, from local officials to homeowners to explore what sea-level rise could mean for their communities. users can zoom in on a neighborhood to see which roads or properties might flood under different conditions and scenarios, or which areas are most exposed during storm surges and high tides.

the map lets users explore different sea-level rise scenarios for the coming decades and century based on noaa’s sea-level rise projection to show how future flooding could evolve over time. developed with continuous feedback from residents, the tool has evolved to include new layers such as tidal flooding, resilience planning, and future sea-level projections.

her second example came from the classroom, where she watched students rethink their entire academic or career paths after realizing the power of translating and communicating science for others outside academia. “they thought their path was purely more academic, research-oriented. but we’ve had students come back and tell us, like, this (the class) completely changed the way i thought about where i wanted to take my career.” 

two of her former students went on to intern with the u.s. department of state, supporting the bureau of oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs. another pair of students took positions in congressional offices. those experiences, auermuller says, reflect how strong communication skills can open doors far beyond academia.

auermullers say real change happens when people see themselves in science and communicate it together. whether on a map or in a classroom, auermuller’s work is about the same thing: helping people see that the coast is not a distant subject, but something they all belong to.

“although my degrees are in marine science, i knew that when i ended grad school, focusing only on research was not going to be satisfying for me. i found a lot of pride in helping people understand that they’re connected to the coast in a way that they don’t even know why they’re connected.”

she described her work as creating spaces where everyone could collaborate. “it’s really important for our researchers to have the opportunity to connect, and hear from stakeholders and community members, to really understand what the issues on the ground are.” auermuller trains graduate students in the skills to educate, translate information clearly and also be a good advocate for the work they’re doing.

“i think when i look at the class and have conversations with everyone, i just feel so inspired that there’s this much energy focused on wanting to do things in a more informed way. i hope they leave even further inspired and, like, have some of the skills now in a way they might not have before they came to class, giving it even more tools to be able to, like, put that energy to really good use.”

teaching climate change is never easy, she says. one challenge is honestly conveying the risks and opportunities that people face. “if you only present the negative, people are going to shut down and they’re going to feel overwhelmed, like they can’t do anything about it.” she added that to communicate climate risks, we also have to make sure that people truly understand what they can do as an individual or as a community.

“but being with the students gives me hope,” she said. “it gives me hope that we have a chance of making better choices than we have in the past as a society and we have a better chance of connecting our information to our children.”