Microscopic Marvels: Ethan Freese and Dakota Altman

In this episode of Streaming Science’s Microscopic Marvels series, we explore the intersection of science, storytelling, and tiny organisms with digital media producers Ethan Freese and Dakota Altman hosted by University of Florida - Agricultural Education and Communication student Zack Sopko. As part of the Platte Basin Timelapse Project, these Nebraska-based storytellers use photography and video to showcase the beauty of ecosystems and support scientific communication. We hear about their creative journeys, the power of time-lapse imagery, and the importance of connecting people to nature through compelling media. From Nebraska’s Sandhills to NSF-funded research, this episode celebrates curiosity, collaboration, and the microscopic wonders shaping our world.

Transcript

Zack 

Hi everyone. Welcome to our streaming science microscopic Marvel series where tiny organisms is a big deal. Streaming science is a student driven science outreach platform that introduces listeners to real world scientists and professionals in the agricultural and natural resources field. I'm your host. Zack Sopko, a student majoring in agricultural education and communications at the University of Florida. In this series, we're talking to scientists, ranchers, students and storytellers about nematodes. They're nearly invisible, microscopic worms that can tell us about our environment. In this episode, you will hear from Ethan freeze and Dakota Altman. They are both Nebraska based digital media experts with a passion for science storytelling. Ethan and Dakota have had a great interest in photography and maintaining natural ecosystems their whole life. They are team members of the Platte basin time lapse project and are assisting in science communication on the NSF nematode project across Nebraska and Florida. We discussed their beginnings in science media production and how they help researchers tell their stories through their discoveries. We discussed the beauty of the Nebraska Sandhills, the importance of addressing a growing skepticism of science and the importance of connecting to nature. Let's learn more about our guests and the microscopic Marvels around us.

Zack 

Thank you both again, so much for joining me today. Let's start with telling our listeners a bit about yourselves and what all you do. 

Ethan 

I'm Ethan Freese. I'm a photographer and producer with plat basin time lapse project, which is housed at the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. And I'm really passionate about grasslands and wetlands and using media to tell that story about those ecosystems.

Dakota

I'm Dakota Altman. I work at the University of Nebraska Lincoln with the plant based and time lapse project with that group. I'm a producer, a photographer and an instructor, and then at the heart of it, I'm a storyteller, using like photography and videography to uplift important ecosystems around the state and just get people to pay more attention and to care a little bit more.

Zack

Can you describe to me your journey with media production and how you got to where you are now?

Dakota

way back when, when I first remember getting a camera. I think it was in my first year in high school, my parents got me this Nikon D 60. So, throughout the years, I practiced with it a lot. I got into college where I where I focused more on like, my passion for science and nature and wildlife photography sort of took a back seat, but still was like present towards the end of college. Ethan and I had been friends for quite some time, and I can touch on that, but he told me about the plot based and time lapse group, but it was sort of at the end of my undergrad career, so I didn't have a chance to see where that direction could go. So, I ended up working on like an organic dairy farm, planting oak trees for a little bit, and then out of the blue, I was contacted by Joel Sartoris team at the photo arc. Joel Sartori founded it, and he essentially takes pictures of animals on black and white backgrounds to separate this species from its background to sort of appreciate all of its unique qualities. So, I worked for him for about three years. I was a taxonomist in office biologist. I helped Joel on a few shoots. At one point, I kind of wanted to branch out and see where else my like passion for photography could go, since I've explored the biology side of it. So I talked with Ethan a little bit, and then I talked to Mike Forsberg, who was the co-founder of flat basin time lapse, and we kind of worked out some details, and I was able to get on a citizenship and I did grad school for about two and a half years, working on a big project that we partnered with Nebraska game and Parks Commission called the wetlands of Nebraska. And after grad school, I was I was hired on full time as a producer and instructor with PBT. And that was back in, I think, the beginning of 2023 so I've been here, been with PBT for a few years, but as a full time for about two so it's been a fun journey.

Ethan

So, my story with media in high school, I think it was my senior year, I just gotten kind of a simple point and shoot camera for Christmas. I had a nice zoom looking for places to. Go photograph. I went to a lot of prairies and wetlands around Lincoln, where I'm from, that kind of exposed me to all these local ecosystems that we have at the same time when I was learning photography. So those paths kind of overlapped. And in college, I was majoring in fisheries and wildlife and grassland ecology and management. And I always thought that was kind of more the career path I would take, like ecology or land management. But then I heard about this plant based and time lapse group that was at the university, so I applied. I got an internship. I think that was the summer after my freshman year. So, for the most part, was interning with pot basin time lapse. Finished my undergrad degrees, there's an opportunity to do a master's project with pot basin time lapse. So, my master's project focused on some prairie restorations just outside of Lincoln, Nebraska, and I was really trying to highlight the work that the people were doing that we're working in those ecosystems, and also just how biodiverse those ecosystems are. So then, after my master's project, I started on full time with PBT. So, I've been full time with the project since the summer of 2020, so yeah, it's been a great journey. Got to see a lot of cool stuff, meet a lot of great people, and then to get into how Dakota and I met, so we've probably known each other for close to 15 years. There was a nature camp that was run by Lincoln Parks and Recreation called Wilderness nature camp, just in a park. And we just at that camp, we just kind of had the opportunity to just kind of run around and explore nature. So that's kind of how we first met each other. We were both Junior counselors, and then in college, we were both fisheries and wildlife majors, so we had a lot of classes together. We both actually went on a study abroad trip to Botswana together, and we were we were tent mates for that trip, and travel together for that trip. So yeah, that's kind of where I feel like our friendship really blossomed. Was kind of in college, and we went together and everything. And Jaco and I, we do a lot of similar stuff at PBT. So yeah, we spend a lot of time together in the office and on the road and out in the fields.

Zack

When I was researching this project, I heard a little bit about, like, all the camping stuff, and that you guys really liked the camping part of it. 

Ethan

Yeoh’s a lot of times when we're out in the field, we'll be going to some pretty remote areas where there's not a lot of hotels and anything nearby. So, it's honestly just easier for us to camp, then we can just camp at a location, and if we need to get up in the morning, we're already right there. A lot of times, if we're working in the Sandhills, ranchers will just let us set up the tent out in their pasture. So yeah, I get to camp at some pretty cool places for this project.

Zack

That's so fun to hear. I'm not much of a camper myself, but I respect the passion. So, for my next question, you both have mentioned a lot about the plat basin time lapse project. Could you tell a little bit about that for people who don't know what it is like, briefly describe it? I really think it's important that our viewers kind of know about this, like, amazing project.

Dakota

Yeah, well, so flat base and time lapse, short for PBT, as we often refer to it as, is a multimedia storytelling project. So, we use photography and videography and written word to stories about our watershed. And so, the plot basin watershed is about 90,000 square miles. It covers three different states, so Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska, and the major river that runs through it is the Platte River. So, the North Platte River that starts in partially in Wyoming, and then the South Platte River that starts in Colorado, that converge into the main Platte River in Nebraska and then flows into the Missouri River. I mean, we do everything from we're kind of getting into podcasts now, but all of it revolves around this idea of helping other people sort of understand where their where their water comes from. That's, that's the one thing that sort of ties every single living creature on this planet together. And so, the co-founders, Mike Forsberg and Mike Farrell, that was kind of they’re their theme, their launch pad, so to speak. We've also heard stories of them saying, you know, that the that the start of plot based and time lapse project, where the plot time lapse aspect comes into play was because they go out to these places in Nebraska for, you know, field work, or to when they were making documentaries. Because Mike Farrell is a is a long-time documentary filmmaker. With Nebraska Public Television. And Mike Forsberg is a long time conservation photographer, so they've been working together for many, many years, and when they go out to these like places, they'd always hear back that, like, you should have been here yesterday, you should have been here a week ago, or you should have been here, you know, a year ago, and you can't reverse time unless you have these like cameras set out. And we and Ethan can touch more on that, but we've got a whole army of cameras spread across the plot basin right now, and they take pictures every hour of every day, light hour. And it's pretty amazing, like, when you get those cameras back in the office, and when you're like, piecing together, like, what we do, it's amazing to see, like, the landscape breathes like it's literally, you know, breathing, living organism, regardless of if there's like an animal that you can see.

Zack

A question for you. Ethan, when we had met before, you mentioned you really love the Nebraska Sandhills. I researched a little bit about it, but I’d love it if you could tell the audience what's their importance and how cool they are, because the little I looked at them was like, so mind blowing to know, like, how you know, massive these planes are.

Ethan

yeah. So, the Sandhills is a really special part of Nebraska. So, believe it's over 20,000 square miles of grass stabilized sand dunes. So, if you go into the Sandhills. It's just these, these rolling hills, just as far as you can see, and it's just a mass fairy. It's over a quarter of the state of Nebraska. And even though it takes up such a large part in Nebraska, a lot of people, even in Nebraska, really don't know a lot about it and have never been there. So, it's largely maintained by cattle ranchers in that area. They've done a great job managing the ecosystem so they can produce food, but then also provide great habitats for all this grassland wildlife. We don't have a lot of areas left where you have big, expansive areas of grassland, and the Sandhills are one of those kind of last strongholds. So, they're really important to a lot of grassland wildlife. There's a lot of birds, mammals, insects that need grassland habitat. So yeah, they're just very hugely important area. Spent a lot of time out there in college. My first job in college was doing grass slain bird surveys in the Nebraska Sandhills. So, I kind of fell in love with the landscape then. And then I usually get out there at least two or three times a year to check cameras and then just spend some time out on the landscape. 

Zack 

Question for you, Dakota, you mentioned working at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Could you tell me a bit about what you do there, how you got started, just sort of like an overview of your time there?

Dakota

Sure. So, like I had mentioned before, I started at the university after two years of community college, at southeast community college, getting an associate's degree, and then I fell into the fishers and wildlife program with Ethan, so we kind of rekindled our friendship in college, and then I went back for my graduate work in applied science with an emphasis on conservation storytelling, which is not technically a degree, but it's starting. We're starting to, like push to build it into a more robust program. A few other colleges in the states have slowly picked up that title as well. So, what I do here at the university is primarily with cloud based and time lapse project. But I also teach a course, and in my graduate work, I tried for a course called digital imaging and storytelling and agricultural and natural resources, where it was sort of a higher level, more hands off course, where we'd get, you know, a few students, maybe five or six students, to come in and sort of drum up a story that they wanted to tell about their lives or about some issue or some topic or something that they're passionate about. So, I TA for that class, for my time in graduate school, and then after that, I joined another class that PBT had started, called Introduction to conservation photography. And so that's what I do. Part of my time here at the university is co teach with Carly and Mariah, or part. The five-basin time lapse team, we get about 15 to 16 students every semester, and we've been teaching it for about the last five semesters. Every student pick picks a story that they a story topic in the field of Conservation and Natural Resources and takes photos and writes an essay. And so, they throughout the semester, we teach them different tools and techniques, such as, you know, photo skills, but also writing skills, how to create, like a social media post, things that a potential conservation photographer would need to tell a pretty impactful story. So, we're there to help guide them and teach them, but ultimately, they sort of form their own path with their own story. I think it's been maybe 40 students that I've 40 or 45 students that I've that have come through this class when I've been teaching it, and it's amazing to see where they are now, but it's also amazing to see, like where they started, and the stories that they pick could be on this a very similar topic, but each one is so unique that they take a different approach to it, because everyone has a unique experience to explore.

Zack

We kind of talked about this about how important it is that you are the person taking a picture, because only you would see what your vision is for that pictures, amazing stuff. So, kind of a fun question, since probably a lot of our listeners will be in Florida. But what's one of your favorite parts about living in the Nebraska area? Because I've never been near there. I'm sure our listeners haven't either. So, if anyone wants to, like, jump in and say some of their favorite things, it’d be great.

Ethan

I really like living in Nebraska, because we get these big, expansive landscapes, but you don't have the big crowds like you'll get in in Colorado or other areas in the West, at national parks and stuff. So, it's really great just to be out on these landscapes and look out and not see and see hardly any signs of people at all. I think that's really cool. But the people that we do have in Nebraska are really great and for the most part, are really friendly and really welcoming. So yeah, that's what I really love about Nebraska. 

Dakota

I really love Nebraska, but I don't think I wanted to live here when I was younger. I wanted to travel out west, because I didn't really see what I see now, which is just an amazing like gradient of ecosystems that run, you know, north and south and east to west. And the people that live here too live within those ecosystems, and for the most part, take really good care of the land they live on, and have a deep respect for it. And you know, when you're I think the best thing, I've learned while being here and working here is like, you have to really be patient. I think Ethan and I both follow that path really well. Because if you're photographing in a in a wetland or a prairie, which are, you know, these ecosystems that Ethan and I really gravitate towards, you have to be like, extremely patient

and let things like just kind of come alive.

So yeah, Nebraska is pretty dang cool

Zack

To kind of ask about the streaming science connection to this. What drew you both to this nematode project that we're talking about?

Ethan

So, I had worked with Tom and Chris Powers, who were involved in this project in the past. So, when they were writing the grant for this project, they incorporated PBT into that grant, and that's kind of how we first got involved with it. 

Dakota

And I had seen that work was previously done and was excited to see that it was happening again, especially in the Sandhills, which is such a beloved place to a lot of us. Manal coin lakes that they, you know, heavily work in, are pretty dang unique. So that that sort of drew me the researchers, but also, like the landscapes that they were working in, drew me to this project.

Zack

What is this project in your eyes, like, what? Why is it important to you? Why is it important to other people? Just give me some of your thoughts about that. Let's start with Dakota.

Dakota

 I thought about this a little bit, and I think, you know, it's just, it's a is it's, it's as much of a people story as it is a story about, you know, the landscapes and the research itself, it's as much about the researchers that are, you know, collecting this data and the unique perspectives they bring along with like the ranchers and the landowners that we travel to meet and do research on their properties, as well as, like the landscapes the. Very big landscapes that hold these such like cool and minute creatures that go unseen by so many but are incredibly vital to life on earth and to the ecosystems and the other wildlife that live here. 

Ethan

I think it's really cool because it's just diving more into the biodiversity in the Sandhills and looking at a scale that we can't even see. So, there's so much that we don't know about how these ecosystems work. It's trying to figure out more about the biodiversity of this really unique landscape. So that's what I think is really cool with this project, and to see all these multi-disciplinary people coming together.

Zack

To follow up on that you say about the multi-disciplinary people who are coming together, how do they all play a part? And how do you all play a part? Kind of describe your like collective process of working through what you're researching and all that stuff that you find. 

Ethan

Yeah, so there’re obviously the researchers that are going out there, and they're collecting the data, nematodes and everything. But then, yeah, our side of the project is more the media side of the project, trying to tell the stories of those researchers. So, I think nematodes can be kind of hard for people to relate to, with them, just being microscopic us not being able to see them. So being able to tell those researchers stories and follow them around, I think really makes it more relatable to people, and can help people start to see, see the value of understanding why it's important to study nematodes in the Sandhills. Because I'm sure a lot of people, if you just kind of briefly explain that to them, they'd kind of be like, what's the point? But I think showing the researchers in the context of this broader landscape and the people that live on this landscape, I think, is really important to show, showing the value of this research. 

Zack

What do you think your media production skills are like? What are the ones that are being tested the most in this?

Dakota

Well, right now we're channeling our podcast energy, trying to at least this might be like the first one that we've done, but as a prod, as a as part of the project as a whole, it's a lot of videography work so that we can, like, get clips and capture scenes to eventually use for, you know, short social media posts or short films that that are produced in the future. And then, you know, using photography as a as a way to easily, like, spread the message used in, like, photo essays that are part of this project, along with, you know, our writing skills, if that was needed, you know, if we're going to be writing about part of this project in our own words and our own experiences, writing has, I've learned, has become a really major part in what we do as conservation photographers. Because you can do some you can only do so much with a photograph, and then you kind of have to explain a little bit more through your own words.

Zack

I'd love to hear. If you guys do make a podcast, please do send me an email, because I'll be one of the I'll be one of the first listeners. So, kind of like a big question here. Do you think it is important that scientists utilize media production and their scientific research process. 

Ethan 

I think it's super important, especially now I think, you know, unfortunately, there's pretty widespread skepticism of science in a lot of areas, unfortunately. So, I think it's really important to show why this research is valuable. Because if you're just kind of looking at the title of the scientific paper, a lot of times it's like people might not understand why it's important to be looking at this. So, I think showing something in a really visual way that's approachable to a wide audience is, is really important. Is a really important aspect to incorporate in research going forward, just to make it more approachable to more people? 

Dakota

Yeah, I just like to add that I think it's extremely necessary, you know, and in these times and science is cool. You know, the research that that is being done is awesome, and the researchers are really fascinating and cool. So, we've got to, like, show that to other people in a way that they can, like, become part of the narrative, so to speak. And when you. Use like a visual way, when you use other ways to represent, like the science and the cool things that are being done that are harder to understand when you're like Ethan says, look at looking at like a research paper. You break you break down barriers, and you bring people closer to like, the heart of like, what you're trying to show.

Zack

Another question I kind of came up with was, how do you think that photography helps express the beauty, or, like, the majesty of nematodes, like you've mentioned, Ethan, like, we don't often see them. So, it's hard for people to really, you know, get that care and that attention that they deserve for nematodes. But like, what is, what way that media production and photography can help the nematodes in a way?

Dakota

Well, recently, I think last year, the powers lab, so Chris and Tom powers, they worked with a local art gallery called wall space L and K to showcase some of their work with nematodes in a completely like unique way. So using Ethan, some Ethan's photography showcasing the landscapes that these particular species of nematodes live in, along with these exquisite detailed images of nematodes that are extremely microscopic but have been blown up to 1000 times life size, and you can see every single detail, and that was all you know done with some of their really expensive and fancy equipment, like scanning electron microscopes, where they cover and plate these nematode specimens in gold and then shoot electrons into them, which does there's some process that happens where those electrons are creating, like images or little pixels that eventually, like create a complete image, and just to be able to see something so small come to life in right in front of you is pretty, I would say, pretty impactful.

Zack

I guess my last little question for you guys is, what's next? What's the next project you're working on, or anything you'd like to share for our listeners, as we're kind of rounding out.

Dakota

Ethan and I was since we worked together, all those projects are collaborative. So, we're both working on some wetland educational films and projects, and then grassland, a big grassland project that's slowly taking shape. This nematode project is ongoing, so there'll be, I think, a few, at least a couple more years of field work out in the Sandhills to do more sampling, and then on our end, more filming and photographing, which will be excellent. Yeah, and it's if you want to check out more of what plot based in time lapse does. You can go to our website plattebasintimelapse.com 

Zack

I believe that answers all my questions. Thank you all so much for being here and taking the time out of your busy schedules. It means so much to me, and I was, I was so glad to hear your perspectives. 

Ethan

Yeah, thanks, Zack. it was great. And really enjoyed talking with you.

Dakota

Yeah, Zack, that was awesome. It was a pleasure talking with you.

Zack

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of microscopic marvels, I've been your host, Zack Sopko, and I hope you've learned about nematodes, the power of digital media production and the potential of looking for how you can tell stories with nature for more information or to listen to other podcasts and episodes in this series. Visit streaming science.com Funding for this series and for the nematode research discussed in the episodes comes from a National Science Foundation poorly sampled an unknown taxa grant awarded to researchers at the Universities of Nebraska and Florida