Imagine turning a dry spreadsheet of numbers into an artistic design that gives you goosebumps. It might sound crazy, but that’s part of the job of scientific charts and graphs. They help visualize and tell entire stories using numbers and values that, on their own, seem incomprehensible or boring. Just as a good painting pulls you in and encourages you to take time to interpret its meaning, Fairchild's award-winning environmental science competition, called the Fairchild Challenge, invited South Florida high school students to innovate how we communicate local plant science by taking a page from the art world.

Five different datasets were contributed from scientists to be shared and interpreted by South Florida high school students. Pine rocklands research topics included the effect of smoke exposure on seed germination rates of Blodgett’s silverbush (Argythamnia blodgettii), plant biodiversity variability between urban pine rocklands, temperature and humidity variability in rockland hammocks, population tracking of the critically imperiled crenulate leadplant (Amorpha herbacea var. crenulata) over 30 years, and the life cycle of the imperiled Lesser Wasp Moth (Pseudocharis minima). Students visualized the data artistically and shared the artistic choices they made and what their piece communicates about the Pine Rocklands in a short Artist Statement.

A big thank you to Jennifer Possley, Dr. Lauren Trotta, Dr. Raelene Crandall, Tiffany Moore, Nick Matsumoto, and other scientists not mentioned here for contributing to this effort!