Meeting Bettymaya

Hey Courtney,

Thanks for the email!

My thesis is in the process of being written, but is mainly focusing on fatal light attraction which affects nocturnally migrating birds.

I received a SCIF grant to install 5 new light fixtures on the Fort Douglas area of campus, with informational signage. And I am doing a showing of The City Dark on Thursday, March 26 at the Union Theatre, also as a part of my SCIF grant.

I could definitely use some help working on signage for the lights, and possibly with the film showing!

If you want to meet for lunch on campus sometime, Im generally free Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 to 12:30.

Its awesome that you want to stop light pollution! I hope we can!

Cheers,

Maya

This is the first email I received from Bettymaya with information about her SCIF project! She was extremely open to helping me and had a lot to offer as far as the realm of contacts went. She told me that, currently, there is no dark sky chapter in Salt Lake City. I think that this MAY be too big of a task to take on at this point. I would maybe like to gather a group of people committed to making this happen, but as of this May I will have a bachelor's degree and (hopefully) a full time job somewhere. It will be hard to devote my free time to starting a Salt Lake City chapter, but it is not something I am necessarily opposed to.

I think Bettymaya's project is really meaningful! I lived in the dorms around where she put in the light fixtures, and light shining in at night really is disturbing. I am glad that she is making strides in fixing up those fixtures and ending light pollution on campus. I only hope that I can make as much of a difference as she has in the time that I have left at the University of Utah.

Someone that Bettymaya told me about but forgot to write down contact info is a man named Bill Leach. He is apparently the head of lighting facilities at the U, and has a map depicting all of the outdoor fixtures on campus and whether they are dark sky compliant or not. I really want to contact Bill to see if he is able to get me a copy of this map so that I may use it in creating my pamphlet! I don't know yet how difficult the pamphlet is going to be to make, but I am hoping that I can contact someone who will be willing to help me. What needs to be done very soon is narrowing down the information that I want to include in my pamphlet. I am unsure if I should keep it very general, explaining every effect light pollution has on ecosystems, or if I should try to keep it at a local level. I think that people will relate better to a more localized pamphlet, but then again, everyone loves baby sea turtles. I just can't decide, hopefully my class will help me out on this subject.

I am hoping that Bettymaya gets back to me quickly with Bill's info so that I can contact him very soon! He has a lot of valuable information, and I am hoping he is more than willing to share it with me. Also, I hope that the University as a whole is working to put an end to light pollution on campus. I know that this is something that I would take great pride in coming from the university myself. I want to see the milky way from my bedroom window, and I think that this is something that can be accomplished very easily if we can achieve the correct amount of cooperation!