Rapid City scientists joined in the national March for Science over the weekend to draw attention to science fields and studies. Organizers lead the group to an Earth Day Expo and encouraged people to take part in environmental awareness activities in the community.
Nearly 90 people gathered at the School of Mines and Technology. They held up signs and marched through downtown streets.
Julie Driebergen is a 24 year old grad student at the school pursuing a masters in paleontology. She says she’s marching because she believes scientists are being overlooked.
“So I’m marching for obviously paleontology. Bears Ears and other national parks are getting closed right now. So that’s obviously going to harm my future. Also marching for climate change. No one’s really listening to scientists about climate change even though 97 percent agree on it. So that affects the animals that I work with too.”
Driebergen says she’s an advocate for science and tries to do outreach in her community. Sarah Keppen helped organize the march. Keppen says she wants to draw attention to local uranium mining and oil drilling that she believes might harm the environment.
“We want to sort of highlight the importance of evidence based science and we believe that’s really going to solve many of the problems that we see both locally, statewide, nationally and globally. Just looking at our problems through the lens of evidence based science will allow us to figure out what some of the solutions are.”
Keppen says she's hoping to change environmental policies. She says it comes from scientists in every community taking a stand.