Tag Archives: science communication

Sharing science through social media

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Happy New Year!  With regards to Susan’s post on the final day of 2013, I appreciated the chance to reflect on my experiences and accomplishments of the past 12 months.  I have already learned so much from my peers, my courses, and through work in the Cyberlab.  I am looking forward to 2014 as it will be full of hard work and additional opportunities to build personal and professional skills while I conduct research in the field of free choice learning.

One area I am excited to continue studying are strategies and methods of communicating scientific information to the public.  At the Visitors Center we are always striving to improve our exhibit design, and our personal methods of interpretation while interacting with visitors.  We critique what we say and how we say it whether it is on exhibit signage or in conversation.  Effective communication, particularly the translation of technical information to a diverse audience, is a skill that takes practice.  The challenge is communicating the information in a way that is inclusive and avoids confusing jargon.  Other members of our lab have discussed the value and elements of science communication through the blog and I am seeing more of these conversations occurring within the scientific community online.

As scientists and researchers, we are attempting to answer questions and understand natural phenomena.  Why would we want to keep that information to ourselves?  Are scientists motivated to share their work beyond formal conferences and peer-reviewed journals?  With regards to the previous question, there is evidence that indeed scientists want to share their work with a wider network.  For example, more and more researchers are writing blogs and using social media channels to showcase their findings.  I recently joined Twitter and following #scicomm has been a valuable resource for me as I learn about this topic.  The discussion covers many areas — whether scientists should be trained in graduate school on effective communication strategies, to which channels are most effective (Twitter vs. Facebook), to making connections and advancing research.  I am interested to follow how the the relationship between social media and science progresses.  As future generations enter the field of research, how will the value or use of peer-reviewed journals and social media platforms evolve?

In future posts I will discuss social media and science, and other examples of how scientific content is shared in unique ways online.  Of particularly interest to me are infographics, which represent complex data and information using graphic design techniques.

Talk the talk

Posted on by | Leave a reply

How did I learn to communicate scientific information to the public? While I was working towards my bachelor’s degree in biology I started working as an interpreter at a city park in Indianapolis.  The position was advertised through the university’s biology department and I decided it’d be a great way to get involved in the community. A lot of what I did was nature hikes with home-schooled youth, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts, and a few family events. My knowledge about indigenous plants and animals grew every week (i.e. I learned a lot of content). While I simultaneously gained confidence talking to people, I received very little training on how to communicate. The experience, however, was a driving force for where I am now – environmental education. My communication knowledge and skills have developed in recent years from coursework and from having Shawn as a mentor.

How can we teach others to communicate science to the public? As Laia stated last week, we led a workshop about outreach. We focused on questioning, observing, and reflecting and the workshop seemed well received. During a small group discussion, some scholars and I talked about how to start a conversation with a stranger, engage kids with complicated science concepts, and how to talk to someone who is aggressive and says your research is wrong. These are all important and relevant topics, which we addressed using past experiences and how those experiences were handled. Hopefully the workshop is a stepping-stone for the scholars as they continue to think about and pursue outreach and communication opportunities. You can visit their blog to see what they had to say about communicating science at daVinci Days (a Corvallis event).

So, how did you learn to communicate science to the public?

Let there be Communication!!

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Today I had the opportunity to do an “outreach about outreach” activity with a group of undergraduate Sea Grant Scholars. They are going to be volunteering at a local annual festival called Da Vinci Days, which celebrates art and science in honor of Leonardo da Vinci. After a brief presentation and chat session, we did the ever-popular ice melting in fresh and salt water, complete with food dye (my fingers are lovely green now). They seemed to receive it well, if a bit quietly. My past experience working with STEM undergraduates was very similar – they rather passively take in the information about communication.

Personally I think that all science undergraduates should have training in science communication, and more than just a workshop or two. There’s no way to stress how important it is to be able to converse about the work being done with more than just other scientists. Heck, there are even communication barriers between the sciences. Public perception of scientists remains remarkably static, and in large part I think it’s the lack of communication ability on the part of the scientists that supports this stagnation. And science supports the habit of poor communication skills within itself by not assigning it any importance, as reflected in its lack in the formal education process of science. There needs to be a greater push to support communication within science, since collaboration is the wave of the future, and with non-scientists to help change the public perception (misperception) of scientists.