Heather O’Leary, professor of anthropology at St Petersburg’s University of South Florida, sets the story of Florida’s declining oyster population to music.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Florida’s oysters are in trouble. Overfishing and environmental factors are devastating the population there, and a group of scientists in the sunshine state want you to learn about it by making bad data into good music for your ears.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HEATHER O’LEARY: I’m Dr. Heather O’Leary. I’m an associate professor at the University of South Florida in the department of anthropology.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RASCOE: O’Leary says she’s a science ambassador.
O’LEARY: I’m a water anthropologist. And so, essentially, we ask the questions about, what is it like to be human over space and time, but specifically, through humans’ fundamental relationships with their water?
RASCOE: Oysters are deeply connected to northwest Florida’s cultural history.
O’LEARY: For many people, especially folks on the coast, they’ve grown up around oysters, whether or not they are an intergenerational member of a family who has gone shucking and oystering as far back as a family can remember or if they simply just enjoy oysters as a part of their seafood.
RASCOE: So it makes sense that O’Leary, who’s based in St. Pete, Florida, would pay close attention to oysters as a water anthropologist. And to make her data more accessible to regular people, she got the students of anthropology and music at USF to translate the numbers to music. They came up with this jaunty tune.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RASCOE: But why jazz?
O’LEARY: When I say the word oysters to a lot of people, their brain goes in a couple of different directions. Some of them think about the roaring ’20s, like, living to excess with lots of different kinds of, like, oysters and champagne and “The Great Gatsby.”
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE GREAT GATSBY”)
LEONARDO DICAPRIO: (As Jay Gatsby) I’m afraid I haven’t been a very good host, old sport.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DICAPRIO: (As Jay Gatsby) You see…
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DICAPRIO: (As Jay Gatsby) …I’m Gatsby.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RASCOE: O’Leary says you can actually hear the numbers they work with.
O’LEARY: When people listen to the MIDI file, they can hear that there are changes in the pitch of the music. So the higher the price of oysters that are being brought in, the higher the notes. So you’ll hear the melody change.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
O’LEARY: And you can also hear some changes to the rhythm. The faster the rhythm goes, the more times people are going out for oyster trips.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RASCOE: And O’Leary wants your feedback.
O’LEARY: I think my dream in creating this group of interdisciplinary collaborators and communities is essentially the fact that we don’t want people to just listen. We want them to play with the data, see the patterns and hear the patterns in different ways than we have, and help us explain some of the anomalies in the data. Because when scientists can be good listeners to the community, then we’re doing science right.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RASCOE: O’Leary says the composition is just a prototype right now. The USF Symphonic Band will perform the finished piece live early next year.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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