Dr. Casady demonstrates how to identify grass species on the sagebrush steppe in central Washington as a part of a Rangeland Ecology lab.

Faculty Q&A with landscape ecologist Grant Casady

Grant Casady is Professor of Biology and Director of Environmental Studies at Whitworth University in Washington, where he has been teaching since 2011. Courses he teaches include Introduction to Environmental Science, Ecological Measures, Global Change Ecology, and Central American Field Ecology in Costa Rica. He also teaches Alpine Ecology at Au Sable’s Pacific Rim Campus.

Do you have a favorite course to teach?

I enjoy anything in the field. I like the Costa Rica course because we get to spend a lot of time doing field research. I also like the Ecological Measures course, where we have a series of Saturday field trips and one weekend away collecting data in the field.

You’ve done some research on sage-grouse in Washington. What is your current focus?

I would consider myself a landscape ecologist. Sage-grouse is an interesting bird because they use a lot of the landscape in different ways in different seasons. Understanding how sage-grouse use the landscape is fascinating to me.

Currently I’m doing a number of projects, mostly student-focused. We’re working on one paper with a few students related to sage-grouse habitat, investigating the use of drones as a tool. There was a large wildfire in September 2020 in our region, which is sagebrush steppe in central Washington.

We collected drone data to see if we could do assessments of sagebrush cover and sagebrush height and were pretty successful in that. We’re putting together a paper now with three of the students.

How does drone technology change the way you do research?

The other way to measure percentage of shrub cover is to manually run a number of ground transects – usually some kind of line transect – identifying how much of that line is covered by shrubs. It’s quite work intensive and you only have a limited number of lines you’re able to do.

With a drone, it usually takes us on the order of an hour or so to collect a whole region. The processing can then be done back in the lab. Which is not as interesting for ecologists but it’s efficient. All of my research is done with an eye to helping students do a better job of thinking through the research process. Drones are a tool that will be used increasingly in natural resource management and research. It helps students to have had experience working with the equipment as well to run the software to do the analysis and think about why we have errors.

What other projects are you working on?

There is some sort of water mold – of the genus phytophthora, which is similar to fungus – attacking our trees on campus. We’re collecting soil from around trees that might be affected. I’m excited about helping our arborist on campus, who’s concerned about the loss of these trees.

Thirdly, we’re using environmental DNA to see which tributaries to the Spokane River have Northern Pike, which is native to the Midwest but invasive in Washington. It’s a pretty voracious predator on our native salmonids. Ecologists in the Northwest are working to reintroduce Redband trout and some of the salmon species.

We filter five liters of water from a site and then take the sample and send that to a lab. Then it’s sequenced for specific loci on the DNA to see if we can target which species it is. So far, we have only sampled the Little Spokane River. We have been pleased to not find any evidence of Northern Pike in that river.

What are you most excited about related to your research, teaching, or service?

I’m a little bit further along in my career now. I made a transition to full Professor. I’m the most excited when I see students thriving in their research. I don’t have a real need to break new ground in research myself. Seeing students engage with God’s creation in a way that is exciting to them is what excites me.

One of the things that this current generation of students struggle with is an overall hopelessness. In the classroom we can get buried in that. There are so many problems to focus on. When I see students emerge from that and be able to see that there is hope, that we as individuals have the opportunity to participate with Christ in the redemption of his whole creation, that is deeply meaningful to me.

If we don’t have hope then we may as well not study these things. We may as well bury our heads in the sand and wait for the end. I don’t think that’s an appropriate response as Christians.

What gives you hope?

On one level, I do believe deeply that through the person of Christ, God is redeeming all things back to what he originally intended. He is making all things new. That’s what the gospel is all about. I also believe that he calls us to participate in that process. That includes sharing my journey with my neighbor who doesn’t know Christ, but it also includes planting trees and restoring streams and reducing our carbon emissions. All of those things are a part of the redemption of creation that we pursue only fully in the person of Christ, but he is gracious enough to invite us in to that work. I have to have hope that that is true. If it’s not true then I need to readjust my entire worldview.

One another level, I have hope in pointing to projects where there have been successes. I invite people into my Intro to Environmental Science class who share stories of relatively small projects that make a big difference. It’s balancing an understanding of where we are and how we got there. In essence, understanding of how our sin has brought the world to the place where it is in Romans 8—why creation groans—and understanding we can and are doing things to help alleviate that groaning. It’s bundled into the “already but not yet” aspect of the kingdom of God. We are doing these things but we won’t realize the fullness of creation until God brings that to pass.

What does the Au Sable experience offer your students?

For schools like Whitworth, there are faculty at Au Sable able to teach with expertise more targeted courses than what we’re able to teach at our institutions.

If someone wants to go into forestry, they can take a Forest Ecology course at Au Sable. Au Sable is pulling faculty all over the U.S. and Canada that have expertise in a particular field. This prepares students for graduate work or trains them in a field they may have interest in.

Secondly, Au Sable offers a form of Christian community that students may not have in the same way at their home institution. A lot of students come from places with a strong Christian identity, but many of their fellow students don’t have the same commitment to creation care. At Au Sable they’re put into a community of students and faculty who all share that passion. That’s eye opening to many of them. It’s a huge source of relief that this exists and of empowerment that they’re in the right place and doing things that are important.

Third, Au Sable is very experiential. Most of the courses have a minimal classroom component. Most of it is in the field. The fact that they’re able to immediately apply the things they’re learning is a huge benefit.

What do you want students going into the environmental science field to know?

I want them to know that there is place for them. Many first-year students or sophomores are still curious about whether or not they’ll be able to find work. They think, “I like being outside. I can be a park ranger.” I want them to know that the field is so diverse that I can’t even answer the question of what kind of a job they can get. There are so many opportunities and so many ways to engage with God’s creation as a vocation. You just need to dive in and find which way is yours.

We can care a lot about things but if we don’t understand them and don’t have the right skill set to address them then we’ll be ineffective and maybe even harmful.

You have to pursue this with hope, and that hope is well founded. Your career can make a substantial difference. If we don’t have this generation engaged in making that difference, it’s not going to get better soon.

I want students to be well-equipped. There’s a great Wendell Berry quote: “How will you practice virtue without skill?” We can care a lot about things but if we don’t understand them and don’t have the right skill set to address them then we’ll be ineffective and maybe even harmful. I want students to go into the workplace with a really good set of skills ready to tackle the problems that we face.