Botanist enlists citizen scientists

While earning his master’s at Western Washington University, Bloom and his research assistant, Matt Kniepp, studied 76 alpine sites in the Rocky Mountain chain, looking at how climate change and wildfires are affecting one high-elevation wildflower species, the spotted saxifrage.

They’ve created a campaign called Climb-It Change to raise awareness of climate change issues in the mountains. They hope to release a short documentary about their Rockies research adventures, a film Bloom hopes will be inspiring.