Born in New Mexico and raised in Chicago, freelance journalist Cally Carswell is exactly where she wants to be. She\u2019s back in her home state telling stories about climate science, ecology and land management.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the reasons that I really like those kinds of science stories is they\u2019re just really important and relevant to society right now, so it feels like important stuff to be reporting on,\u201d said Carswell, an alumna of Metcalf\u2019s 2014 Annual Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists. \u201cI also really like trying to make complicated stories accessible, interesting, and a bit inspiring to people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carswell has been drawn to the environment since her childhood summers at a Minnesota wilderness camp and her five-week long backpacking trek through the Arctic National Wildlife refuge in 2000, just before starting college. The catalyst for Carswell\u2019s science-writing career came from an environmental historian in one of her college classes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a great storyteller and talked about the environment in human terms,\u201d said Carswell. \u201cThat was the moment when I started to think about journalism. I thought, maybe I could learn how to tell stories, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carswell not only learned how to tell stories, but her work on forest mortality and climate change gained her the 2014 Science in Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers and the Kevin Carmody Award for In-Depth Reporting from the Society of Environmental Journalists. Now, after six years as a full-time writer and editor for High Country News, she\u2019s striking out on her own as a freelance journalist.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, the thing that I\u2019m really interested in is figuring out how to make environmental stories interesting and compelling to a more general population, not just people who already have a high level of interest in science and the environment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Carswell still uses many of the tools gained during her Metcalf fellowship, a program that allowed her \u201cto get a science education on the fly.\u201d The workshop also gave her the opportunity to connect with other journalists and provided her with a better understanding of the culture of science through informal interactions with researchers.<\/p>\n
Her interest in applied science and desire to move the climate change conversation from \u201cgloom and doom\u201d to action prompted her to apply for Metcalf\u2019s upcoming Climate Change and the News: Climate Change Planning and Response seminar at the National Adaptation Forum in St. Louis, May 11-12.<\/p>\n