Transforming Nights and Minds with Princia.org Founder (and High School Junior!) Rushil Kukreja

Summary:

Discover the captivating journey of Rushil Kukreja, a passionate advocate for dark skies, as he sheds light on the unseen effects of light pollution. From stargazing to global advocacy, Rashil's story is a beacon of hope and action for a clearer night sky.

High school junior Rushil Kukreja, who recently spoke at the United Nations and is the founder and president of Princia.org, takes us on his inspiring journey from a high school astronomy enthusiast to a leading voice against light pollution. Learn about the profound impact of artificial lighting on stargazing, wildlife, and human health, and how Rushil's work (and that of the hundreds of high school, college, and graduate-level collaborators around the world) is raising global awareness. 

Rushil discusses how you can help make an impact, from adjusting outdoor lighting to advocating for policy changes. Explore the pivotal role of education and community involvement, and discover resources available to support dark sky advocacy.

Timestamps: 

(0:00:03) - Advocating for Dark Skies: Rushil's journey from student to global advocate, the impact of light pollution, and Princia.org's efforts.

(0:09:16) - Empowering Youth to Combat Light Pollution: The importance of mentorship, integrating light pollution awareness in education, and practical tips for home.

(0:16:27) - Resources for Supporting Dark Sky Advocacy

Additional Links: 

Princia Website - Learn more about light pollution and how you can support the cause.

The Hidden Cost of Bright Nights

Dark Sky International - Join a global community advocating for dark skies.

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Transcript

00:03 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So if you have ever experienced the wonder of a dark sky, you're in for a treat. And if all you know are the lights that shine brightly and pollute the skies and you have a hard time seeing the stars, you're also in for a treat. Today, we have the most incredible guest with us. Today, we have the most incredible guest with us. His name is Rushil Kukreja and he is a junior at Thomas Jefferson High School in Northern Virginia. He's an advocate for dark skies. He's the founder of Princia, which is an international nonprofit dedicated to combating light pollution, and I was lucky enough to meet him at the National Book Festival and I got to tell you I have so much hope for the future. Welcome to the show. 

00:48 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Thank you. 

00:50 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Rushil, can you tell us a little bit about your adventures in learning? How did dark skies become an issue for you and how, at your age, have you become the founder of a nonprofit advocacy group? 

01:02 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yep. 

01:02
So I've always been interested in astronomy. I love to look out at the night sky with my telescope, and one of the things that I often realized but never really thought about, thought to understand why it's happening is that often the night skies are very hazy. It's very difficult to see stuff even with the telescope, especially living in such a metropolitan area in Northern Virginia, and when I started to look into the issue, I realized that this was because of light pollution, and light pollution isn't something that just harms our astronomical observations, but it's also something that causes a lot of health issues, it disrupts wildlife, it wastes a lot of energy, and so I chose to get involved with Dark Sky International, which is an organization that's heavily focused in light pollution, and what I realized is that, even though this is such an important issue, it's often something that's neglected and overlooked, especially among the students and younger population, and that's why I kind of decided to start Prencia as an organization dedicated to addressing light pollution that would be focused on the student perspective and the perspective of this next generation. 

02:06 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So you gave me a lot to unpack in there. Let's start with dark skies. If somebody is listening and hasn't really thought about it before, what would you tell them about dark skies in terms of that being an issue? You know, I know that I came to it from the point of view of bird migrations and the disruptions to that, but I'd love to hear more from you about what dark skies are and all of the different things that they impact. 

02:33 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yep, so just like air pollution and water pollution, light pollution really goes hand in hand with that. It's a form of pollution that really causes a lot of issues. So, as you mentioned, it's something that hurts bird migratory patterns, it also hurts other animals such as sea turtles, and at the same time, it also disrupts human circadian rhythms, so that can lead to things like sleep disorders, depression, anxiety, and at the same time, it's also just an excess waste of light, and so it wastes a lot of energy, it wastes a lot of money, and so it has these impacts both on, like the environmental side, the human health side, economic side, and so it's really an issue that kind of affects all aspects of human nature, and not just human nature but like the entire environment around us. But at the same time, it's something that's not often addressed as much as other issues. 

03:24 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And so if we wanted to, it feels it's something that's not often addressed as much as other issues, and so if we wanted to, it feels like it's something that's so big. You know, you think about turning off the lights and you know what does one person do that makes a difference? How would you tell somebody to get started, sort of if they were interested and wanted to learn more or wanted to take a step? 

03:43 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, so really, light pollution is something that is affected both by residential households as well as commercial and governments, and so, even on just like a personal level, you can make sure that you don't have lights unnecessarily on outside your home, making sure that you don't have any lighting that's going, that's trespassing into other places, trespassing into the environment. And then, on a larger scale, if you want to actually advocate for the issue, I'd highly recommend joining Prince Leota if you're a student, or joining Dark Sky International as well. There's a huge community of advocates who are focused on this issue, who are actually advocating to legislators, trying to get legislation passed on this issue, and so that's really a great thing that you could do, and tell us a little bit more about Princia. 

04:31 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
What does Princia do? When did you start it? How many people are involved? That kind of stuff. 

04:36 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, so I started Princia last year. Essentially, we have we're focused on addressing light pollution through a variety of aspects. So one of the things that we're doing is conducting research. Just last week we published a paper on the impact of light pollution on human health, and that paper is actually we just received word that it's in the top 10 in that journal. We've also been working on kind of advocacy, so we've been talking with both local, state and national legislators, trying to get policies passed on each level of government to address light pollution, and then at the same time, we're also trying to raise awareness and educate people about the issue, and so things like creating social media posts about it, just going to different outreach events to start speaking about light pollution. We were invited to the United Nations to give a presentation there about light pollution, and so that was a great experience to kind of get out the word about it as well. 

05:30 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So have you spoken at the United Nations? 

05:33 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yes, I have. 

05:34 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Tell us what that was like. That sounds scary and daunting and amazing all at the same time. 

05:41 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
So it was at the science summit at the United Nations General Assembly, which is essentially a place, an outlet, where they invite all the top scientists from across the world, and so I was invited to kind of present on my work with Princia and my work on light pollution, and so it was definitely a place where there were a lot of people. It was a great opportunity to kind of get interest out or to raise awareness on light pollution. So that was definitely a great opportunity to kind of get interest out or to raise awareness on light pollution. So that was definitely a great experience both for myself as well as for the organization and the cause. 

06:12 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That's incredible. So when you're doing your writing and your research, who are you collaborating with? Are you carrying the burden on your own, or are there other people that are working with you? 

06:23 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, so right now we actually have over 100 advocates from six continents so every continent other than Antarctica and we're basically all working together. We have different research teams who are each focusing on a specific aspect of light pollution, and it's really catered to people's interests. So some of our advocates are more interested in the intersection of environment and economy, and so they might be looking at a research paper on the economic impact of light pollution, where some have like skills in computer science that they want to apply. So we have a team of researchers who are currently working on using satellite data to help predict the rising light pollution in cities that are currently being developed, and so there's really a huge variety of things that people are doing, but it's definitely not just like me who's holding the burden of the organization. It's a huge community of people. We're all working together. 

07:13 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And are you all students in Princia and sort of all high school college age? 

07:20 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, so we have students starting from high school all the way up to undergraduate and graduate students, but it is entirely focused on just students intersectionally. 

07:44 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I think that's so important because often we wind up in our silos and we're not thinking about how the issue we care about intersects with other things, and it sounds like you all really have a much broader view of things, which I think is very cool. Yep, definitely. I want to ask you kind of a random question. Have you because you're in Northern Virginia and I know the light pollution in Northern Virginia I'm sort of in the same area have you ever been to a part of the world where you've actually experienced a night sky without light pollution, and what was that like? 

08:17 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Unfortunately, I have not. I've seen a lot of things about, like. One of the places I really want to go to is New Zealand, because they have amazing night skies. Based on what I've heard and what I've seen, um, and based on what I know about that, it's really like an incredible experience. People who go there and kind of just look up at the sky especially people who are interested in space they come back saying that it's like it's an experience that they've never seen before, um, and that's really like something that I want to be able to do just from right here in the United States. 

08:46 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Yeah, I experienced it for really the first time. This summer I was on a ship in the middle of the Great Lakes and it was actually in the middle of Lake Michigan and there were no lights anywhere. And it's probably the first time I've ever truly seen the Milky Way, you know, to be able to lie on your back and look up and see that, and it's awe-inspiring and amazing. It's one of those things that you wish everybody had the opportunity to experience. So I want to ask you a couple of other questions. I'm so in awe of what you've done and how you've sort of gathered all of these people together. How did you reach a point where you felt empowered to do that? You know, did you have support growing up to pursue issues that mattered to you, sort of who are your heroes? Who's kind of given you the nudges you needed along the way? 

09:40 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, I mean my parents have always supported me, like throughout my journey, but especially with regards to light pollution. As I mean, my parents have always supported me, like throughout my journey, but especially with regards to light pollution. As I mentioned, I kind of started off getting involved with Dark Sky and the people over there were very helpful. Some of them really encouraged me to kind of create the student arm, actually get students involved in the issue by creating my own organization, and so they've been an incredible resource for support throughout the journey as well. I've spoken to teachers at my school as well. They've all been very encouraging and they've helped me out whenever I had any questions about anything, and so really it's been a journey where I've had a lot of mentors who have been great in helping me out. 

10:24 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And what? This is the million dollar question. I have two, two 20 somethings now and I know they hate this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What are you hoping to do after high school? Where are you thinking you want to go? 

10:39 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, that's something that I've given a lot of thought to. Right now, I'm thinking of going into astrophysics. That's really a subject that interests me. I've done a lot of research in that field as well, and so maybe becoming an astrophysicist. 

10:55 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Yep, that sounds amazing. If I wanted to be able to encourage a school or, you know, either high school or college, to become involved in Princia, how would they go about doing that? 

11:10 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, so we have a lot of. We're doing a lot of work in terms of collaborating with like educators as well, and so if any, if there's any high school or any school at all that kind of wants to collaborate within our mission, get access to learning resources. That's definitely something they can reach out to us for. We have a contact form on our website as well as our email contact at princiaorg, and so if you're interested in kind of anything related to light pollution, getting that across to different students or even actually making an impact on like a campus, that's something that you could definitely reach out to us for. 

11:46 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And what kind of educational resources do you provide? You just mentioned you had some. 

11:52 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, so most of our resources right now are targeted towards younger students, so elementary, middle schoolers because what we've realized is that a lot of times, students are learning about environmental science, they're learning about climate change and air pollution, but one of the things that they don't learn about a lot is light pollution. In fact, it's something that I personally didn't realize until just a couple years ago, and so if we get that education to them right from the forefront, that's something that would really help boost our cause, and so that's what we're trying to focus our educational resources on. 

12:24 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That's perfect and that was actually where I was going to go with. This was sort of how are we addressing elementary and early childhood and middle school, because I think that that's kind of where it starts. You know, we do learn about our environment and we don't necessarily connect all of the dots to see that each action has an impact. 

12:45 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Right, and so what we've been trying to do is reach out to not just individual educators but also entire school districts and state department of educations to try to get that incorporated as, like a part of the curriculum, something that all teachers in the state or county are going to be teaching to their students, because, as you said, that's really where, like, the start, of education happens. If people understand that this is an issue from their early years, they're going to start focusing on it throughout the rest of their life. It's going to have a huge impact. 

13:14 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And if you could look into the future and sort of set goals for what you hope to see in the next 10 years. What do you see us moving towards in terms of dark skies and making a difference? 

13:32 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, so right now, the current pace of light pollution it's actually growing faster than the rate of the population increasing, and so definitely just trying to reduce that rate of increase, even going in the opposite direction, starting to decrease the amount of light pollution, would be great, I think, in the upcoming years. It's something that like, especially in both urban and rural areas, light pollution is something that can be easily addressed just by simple changes in what you're doing and simple changes in policy, and so we can really get a huge decrease in the amount of light pollution over the next decade or so. 

14:06 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
All right. So I'm going to ask you one more kind of. I'm going to change this in a minute, but what I want to ask you is can you give us sort of some bullet points? What would be your list of five things you would want everybody listening to do right now to make a difference for dark skies in their homes? 

14:29 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, so the first thing is especially focusing on lights outside your house, making sure that every single light there is actually useful, it has a clearly intended purpose and it's only there to serve that purpose. So if you have a light on your front door to make sure there's no intruders coming in, you have to ensure that that light isn't trespassing to the entire environment, to other neighbors' homes, making sure that that light serves that purpose and just that. And so, really, if you do that with like your lights, there's a procedure to get dark sky certified using like from Dark Sky International, and so that's something I would highly recommend to all the listeners and because that's a great way to kind of do a first step just from your home, excellent. 

15:20 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And then, if you were to look at policy and what you would like to see communities and governments do over the next five to 10 years, what would be sort of the laundry list of things that need to happen? 

15:27 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, so the first thing that we've been trying to do is just raising awareness and education. One of the things that Fairfax County Public Library started just a few months ago was they started to provide light pollution monitoring kits, and so we're trying to get something similar in other community libraries as well, where people can just borrow this kit to understand more about light pollution and actually measure the levels where they live, because because that helps raise awareness and then, at the same time, getting education done throughout schools and then, in the longer term, actually creating new lighting ordinances. This is something that municipalities and states have also begun doing, so lighting ordinances that kind of limit the brightness of lights, that both for residential and commercial buildings and then also any new government operated streetlights that are put in, should be properly shielded. So just policies like that that ensure that all lights that are being put in are safely guarded. 

16:26 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing your work with us. If people would like to follow along and learn more, where should they go? 

16:34 - Rushil Kukreja (Guest)
Yeah, so the website for princia.org is great to kind of get more information. We have a lot of information about why light pollution is a problem, how you can support our cause, what our organization has been doing and how you can join as well, and so I definitely point everyone out to that. And in addition, there's also, like as I said, a huge community of people, so that's really a great opportunity to get further involved with the issue. 

16:59 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Rushil, thank you so much for coming on the Adventures in Learning podcast today. It has been such a joy to talk to you and I can't wait to share your story with everybody. Thank you so much for having me.