Pruss, who opens the “Ice World” portion of the show and provides commentary throughout, offers her expert take on the segment’s premise: What type of habitat will big cats find on earth millions of years from now?<\/p>\n
Producers at National Geographic called Pruss over the summer to see if she wanted to participate in the show. Pruss said they were drawn by her knowledge of a theory known as \u201csnowball earth\u201d\u2014the idea that earth\u2019s surface was almost completely frozen some 720 million years ago.<\/p>\n
Producers also knew Pruss was experienced at translating science for a TV audience. Pruss appeared on a National Geographic Channel show filmed in 2008 in Shark Bay, western Australia, a World Heritage site known for its singular geology.<\/p>\n
Five months pregnant at the time, Pruss recalled long hours of interviewing in 100-degree heat for that show, \u201cEnd of Man,\u201d about what the earth\u2019s surface would look like in 250 million years.<\/p>\n
The single day she spent filming in Los Angeles in June for the “Future Cat” broadcast was a far easier assignment, Pruss said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were no big lights shining in my eyes or flies in my face,\u201d she noted with a smile. \u201cThey asked me about some specific scenarios\u2014what would things be like on earth a million years into the future or 100 million years?\u201d<\/p>\n
Pruss said she was able to fact-check a script producers developed for the show based on questions emailed to her and other experts about future circumstances on earth.![\"unnamed\"](\"http:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/gatenew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/unnamed-230x125.png\")
<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were very receptive to changing things,\u201d Pruss said. \u201cThey built the show around the answers from the scientists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than having to memorize lines for the broadcast, Pruss answered questions on camera about potential future habitats for big cats.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was important to me to feel comfortable that what I was saying was true and was me,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Was it hard to communicate scientific knowledge in sound bites made for TV?<\/p>\n
Pruss said she relied on her teaching experience at the University of Southern California\u2014where she earned her Ph.D.\u2014and for the past eight years, at Smith.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m an educator,\u201d she pointed out. \u201cI know how to explain things. I\u2019ve learned ways of getting things across.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pruss also wanted to communicate her passion for paleontology, a field she\u2019s been interested in since she was eight years old when her family moved to Alaska for a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me that\u2019s the most exciting part of doing a show like this,\u201d Pruss said. \u201cI thought about my son or some other young person watching and getting excited about learning about Earth history.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she understands colleagues who view TV appearances as \u201cpandering or not real science,\u201d Pruss said she feels an obligation to share her knowledge with a wider public.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my generation of scientists is concerned about public outreach,\u201d Pruss said. \u201cWe have to get out there in front of the taxpayers to talk about what we\u2019re doing. And if we can get in front of new faces and open them up to something they didn\u2019t know about, why wouldn\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say she agrees with everything about the “Future Cat” show.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, I think they did a good job,\u201d Pruss said. \u201cWere there some ideas that might be a little far-fetched? Yes. But there were interesting lessons embedded in the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pruss shared those lessons\u2014including a few spots where she felt information was overdramatized\u2014with her Smith students.<\/p>\n
While she was taping her interview in the Los Angeles studio, Pruss said several National Geographic producers gathered around to watch.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfterwards they said, \u2018I\u2019d love to take a class from you,\u2019\u201d she added. \u201cThey really got into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Associate Professor Sara Pruss sees it, the field of earth science is plenty entertaining without being played up for television. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to spin it too much,\u201d said Pruss, who has taught geosciences for eight years at Smith. \u201cThere are cool enough things happening with the earth.\u201d Yet Pruss also believes that scientists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-12151","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12151"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12193,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12151\/revisions\/12193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}