Monthly Archives: September 2014

Event review: The art of communicating science

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Thank you to Kathleen Hayes and George Aranda for the event review.

The Victorian branch recently held an event looking at the use of art – such as photography, animation, illustration and video – in communicating science.

A wonderful night was had by all, with ASC member Kathleen Hayes providing the following review:

“A night of good company, interesting conversation and amazing visuals made the Art of Communicating Science event a great time for all. For the mainly science based crowd the presentations gave a new and stimulating perspective on art, and how it could effectively convey and inspire scientific thinking. It was fascinating to learn about the practicalities of communicating science in visual mediums, be it cartooning, photography or animation. In particular I loved the high speed photography of air movement by Phred Peterson, I’d never understood the beauty of the maths behind such physics as helicopter flight until I saw it illuminated. First Dog was also a crowd winner as he humorously took the room to task on the status of science communication and its importance in the current climate. As well as being an enjoyable night, I think the event contributed to the group knowledge of science communication as well, and I anticipate more such events in the future.”

If you missed the event – or if you made it, but enjoyed it so much you want to see more – video interviews with science photographer Linnea Rundgren and Horrible Science series Tony De Saulles can be found on the PopSciGuy youtube channel.

Celebrity guest, First Dog on the Moon!

Celebrity guest, First Dog on the Moon!

Event review: Melbourne National Science Week mixer

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Thank you to Linden Ashcroft for the event review.

Science educators and communicators converged at Markov Place, Melbourne on Thursday 14 August to bring in National Science Week 2014.

More than 40 people came along to the Victorian branch of ASC’s ‘ice-breaker’ for what many claim to be the most exciting week of the year! The beer and conversations ran freely between attendees, including representatives from Australian Young Scientists, Knox Innovation Opportunity and Sustainability Centre (KIOSC), Science Teachers Australia, Inspiring Australia, the Environmental Film Festival Melbourne, Scienceworks, The Royal Society of Victoria, Mill Park Library Monash University, Laborastory and many other science–based events and organisations across Melbourne.

Those who were running events during National Science Week were given an opportunity to promote their shows on a timeline posted along the wall of the bar. There was also a chance to spruik events to the crowd in a two-minute lightning talk. Many thanks to those of you who took to the wobbly stool!

A large number of door prizes were even given away. Movie tickets, a night at an observatory, 3D-printed cookie cutters and free passes to National Science Week events were all up for grabs.

Despite the packed house a good time was had by all and it was encouraging to see such an active ASC community alive and well in Melbourne. We look forward to seeing you all at our next event!

ASC-August-2014

Science bloggers get Linked In to ASC

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Thank you to Claire Harris for the discussion summary.

The ASC public LinkedIn group took off in early August with a discussion about scientist bloggers sparked by Jacinta Legg.

She asked, “Does anyone have any favourite Australian scientist-bloggers they follow?”

Jacinta, who describes herself as a ‘science geek’ likes to know what is happening in the world of science and enjoys blogs as an alternative source of news to the usual ‘latest breakthrough’ stories of mainstream science media.

“I’ve been reading science blogs, some regularly and some less so, for years. I like the conversational tone and the personal element. Ben Goldacre (Bad Science), Ed Yong (Not Exactly Rocket Science) and Phil Plait (Bad Astronomy) are long time favourites,” said Jacinta.

“Some months ago, a work colleague asked me about science blogs, and it got me thinking: of the science blogs I read, I couldn’t recommend any Australian ones to him; because I didn’t know any.

“I went searching online, but I didn’t know where to look. And I’m a science communicator! So I decided to put it to the ASC community. They know things,” she said.

The discussion that ensued on LinkedIn attracted 24 comments with lots of people chiming in with their ideas.

“Of the blogs people suggested, I loved the variety of science (canine science!), great subjects (women in science) and great post titles (‘Too much sex is sometimes deadly’),” said Jacinta.

“I was particularly excited by ‘The League of Remarkable Women in Science’. Great title! Finding out about it coincided with the Australian women in science Wikibomb by the Australian Academy of Science. Go Aussie women in science!”

George Aranda, who suggested Science Book a Day also volunteered to put a list of the blog suggestions on the ASC website.

“I saw that people were asking about science blogs by Australian authors, which I am particularly interested in – as I teach higher ed science students how to write blogs, with the aim of improving their communication skills,” said George.

“An Australian list of blogs is something I couldn’t walk past. Thanks to the LinkedIn group, we now have a great starting list which I put together for the ASC website,” he said.

George has included a short form for website users to submit blogs to be added to the list, which George is planning to update monthly.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their suggestions! And thanks to George for starting the blog list; what a great value-add for science communicators!

 

Jacinta’s tips for people thinking of starting a blog:

  • Be personal.
  • Use conversational language.
  • Write about things you find interesting.
  • Write from ‘real life’.
  • No jargon (or keep it to a minimum).
  • Use images and photos.
  • Don’t waffle on – keep it short.
  • Have fun with it – the reader and the blogger should enjoy it.

Jacinta also said: Blogs I’m impressed with tend to be a little quirky and have a sense of humour. But the most impressive, is when a working scientist (not a professional communicator) takes the time to engage non-scientists with interesting thoughts/events/findings from their life as a scientist. I like to feel they’re having a conversation with the reader – demystifying the world of science and dispelling the myth of scientists being apart from the rest of the world.

How do Australians engage with science?

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Thank you to Dr. Suzette Searle for preparing this survey summary.

Does it surprise you that friends and family, and CSIRO were equally the most trusted sources of accurate scientific information volunteered by respondents (12%) in a recent Australian survey? What about the 21% who didn’t know who to trust, or the 9% who trusted no-one? Are those findings a cause for concern or an opportunity for you as a science communicator?

What is clear from this survey, however, is that most Australians value science and scientists in this society. For example, most (80%) agreed that, ‘science is very important to solving many of the problems facing us a society today.’ Most (88%) also agreed that ‘a career in science is a good choice of a career for people these days’ and scientists were ranked third, after doctors and teachers, in terms of the importance of their positive contribution to society.

I actually didn’t know what to think when it was found that 51% could not identify any Australian scientific or technological achievement. Of the 49% who could name something, however, most thought of the Cochlear ear implant, followed by the cervical cancer vaccine, “spray-on skin”, penicillin, Wi-Fi, the black box flight recorder and discovering the cause of stomach ulcers. Medical achievements were the most frequently mentioned, and in answers to other questions, it was clear that many people wanted to know more about medical science and technology.

There are many such insights that range across Australians attitudes, behaviours and values about science and technology to be found in ‘How do Australians engage with science’. This survey was designed to inform science communication practitioners as well as science policy decision makers and leaders of science in Australia. It was supported by Inspiring Australia, designed by CPAS ANU* and conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs.

This survey was based upon a questionnaire answered by 1,020 adult Australians over the telephone in February 2014. It describes their engagement in terms of how often they encountered science and technology information, how often they searched for information about science and technology, their participation in science-related activities and events within the previous 12 months and their attitudes towards science and technology. Both ‘science’ and ‘technology’ were defined and asked about separately.

Preliminary results, including analyses by gender age and location (major cities, regional and remote), segmentation by frequency of interaction, and the questionnaire are now available online.

 

President’s update

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Thank you to Joan Leach for the President’s update.

 

Did you survive (and thrive) during National Science Week?

I feel that I’ve just recovered—a week later—from National Science Week. It was a rather impressive spread of activities going on around the country. I was very lucky to participate in Adelaide with a packed house who came to both learn and give their views on the future of food. Professor Rachel Ankeny, Dr Heather Bray and and Peta Callaghan put together quite an impressive evening of experts—and gourmet samples. The experts gave overviews of the issues arising with native foods (small acreage growers, unknown potential for over 6000 varieties from Davidson plum to pepper berry), with functional foods (do we want to invest in making food less allergenic, have more vitamins, include vaccines?), with GM (the GM banana went over quite well!); and what about these new ‘old’ varieties of grains where, in some cases like chia and freekeh, demand far outstrips to supply? In addition to discussion, the SA team did a bit of research using ‘keepads’ to poll the audience as they tried each new food. I look forward to seeing more of the results but, for me, this was a great evening of science communication as well as research…and I did eat a lot of freekeh salad.
We’d love to hear more about your involvement with National Science Week and are happy to dedicate some Scope space next month to reports from colleagues around Australia as we all digest what just happened!

Proactionary or Precautionary?
When I wrote for the July issue of Scope, I was just headed for a conference where a key topic was ‘Should the precautionary principle be overthrown by a proactionary imperative?” The precautionary approach has been a guiding principle for much science and technology innovation—and has impacted science communication as well. Historically, the principle comes out of environmental law; the Rio Declaration put it like this, “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation.” But, the usual interpretation of the precautionary principle focuses more on caution in the face of uncertain science, a kind of ‘ounce of prevention’ or ‘look before your leap’ response to scientific risk. There has been a lot of credence given to this approach by science communicators who have (quite rightly in my view) wanted to carefully weigh scientific evidence and risk before communicating it to others.  But, if we go back to the Rio Declaration, the emphasis is a bit different.  Basically, in the face of uncertain science, you may still have to ACT to avoid calamity in the future. The Proactionary imperative takes this a few steps further. It argues we shouldn’t be afraid of scientific uncertainty or risk.  We should be ready to innovate and even push boundaries. Proponents (Steve Fuller is one) argue that this will lead to some failures, but also serious innovation. However, they argue that the ‘check’ on this boundary-pushing should be the capacity for the risk-takers to compensate for any damages their failures cause.
Now, I’m still not sure where I sit on this debate, but I don’t think this is going to go away. It’s an important notion that guides our practice—are we communicating how to be safe from science or are we communicating to advance science (and do these have to be exclusive?). That’s a lot to think about, but it’s a debate that has gotten my attention.   I’m going to follow this up on 2 October for a Science Communication Roundtable: Communicating Humanity 2.0. It’s part of the International Communication Association Asia-Pacific meetings in Brisbane. I’d love to see colleagues there.