Monthly Archives: October 2014

Announcement of 2014 ASC ACT branch AGM – 18th November

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Dear members.

The ACT branch of the ASC is holding our local Annual General Meeting on Tuesday, November 18th.

The AGM will start at 530pm (Meeting Room, Belconnen Arts Centre, 118 Emu Bank) and we welcome you to attend and help shape our branch into 2015. We should be finished by about 630pm where you are invited to have a drink and network and chat with other members at the nearby LaDeDa bar.

Please register at https://ascactagm2014.eventbrite.com.au

PROXY: If you can’t attend and wish to pass on your proxy vote please register via this link here and use the following (or similar) wording when passing on your proxy vote:

I hereby authorise Ian McDonald as ASC ACT branch President (or name of other ASC member in attendance) as proxy holder for the ASC ACT branch Annual General Meeting on Tuesday November 18, 2014 to vote on my behalf.

As we need a quorum (20% of members), this is important so our AGM is valid.

In 2015, all committee roles are open:

  • President
  • Treasurer
  • National liaison position (this position can be held as a dual-role by President, Treasurer or a Committee member)
  • Secretary
  • Social Media and web Officer
  • Marketing officer
  • Digital Media officer
  • Student liaison offier
  • General committee members

For more information on committee member roles please send an email or expression of interest to asccanberra@gmail.com before the AGM. We welcome anyone and everyone to be involved but you do need to be a current financial member. A committee position is really what you make it and we are looking for enthusiastic and energetic members to help us make ASC even better in 2015. If you are not interested in taking on a role but would like to participate on the committee please let me know and we can discuss options.

Why should you join the committee in 2014?

Canberra has a great hub of science communicators and by joining the committee you can help us not only support our local science communicators but tailor events and workshops to meet the needs of our members. In 2014, the local branch ran a variety of networking and social events, while also organising some small scale events focused on communicating science to the public. It’s a great way to network and make yourself known within the industry.

ACT AGM agenda items:

  1. Confirmation of members attending, apologies
  2. Notification of proxies
  3. Minutes of 2013 AGM
  4. President’s report
  5. Treasurer’s report
  6. General discussion about 2014 activities
  7. Election of new committee members
  8. Ideas for 2015
  9. AOB

We would love to see a strong local contingent at our AGM so we hope you can make it.

Kind regards,

— ASC Canberra Committee Our ASC profile Check us out on Facebook

WA Event: Quizalicious Quiz Night – Tuesday 21 October

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Get your thinking caps on and join us for our fabulous annual Quizalicious Quiz Night! Quizalicious2014

Great prizes. Tables of 6.

WHEN?      Tuesday 21 October 2014 – Doors open at 6pm (come have some pub grub beforehand). Quiz starts at 7pm sharp

WHERE?    Rosie O’Gradys, 205 James Street, Northbridge (in the Cab Bar)

WHO?         Anyone 18 years+

COST?       $10 ASC Members, $15 non-members, or $60 a table

HOW?        Bookings are essential www.quizalicious2014.eventbrite.com.au

ACT event: Science, Cartoons and Politics – Communicating Big Ideas

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The ACT Branch of ASC continues its regular networking series and invites you to our next special event on Friday evening, 17th of October – Science, Cartoons and Politics – Communicating Big Ideas

Join Toss Gascoigne as he chats with three generations of Canberra-based cartoonists to discuss how they develop, draw and communicate big (and sometimes controversial) ideas through cartoons.

Panel features:

  • Stuart McMillen: Freelance cartoonist, specialising in long-form comics
  • David Pope: Canberra Times cartoonist
  • Geoff Pryor: Retired cartoonist, formerly with the Canberra Times

This event is free for ASC members and $10 for non-members. Free welcome drink and substantial snacks throughout the evening.

Please be sure to register at www.science-politics-cartoons.eventbrite.com.au (so we can cater accordingly)

  • TIME: 6pm for 6:30 start
  • DATE: Friday, 17 October
  • VENUE: The Whisky Room, Civic Pub, 8 Lonsdale St, Braddon

Science Cartoons & Politics_ASC 17 Oct

Post-event edit: an audio recording of this event, featuring the three cartoonists’ slides is now available through YouTube.

Keen to study SciComm at uni?

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Thank you to Claire Harris for the update.

Have you been wondering where you could study science communication at university? Maybe some soon-to-be school leavers are interested in exploring the mix of science and people that sci comm offers?

A number of universities in Australia offer subjects and qualifications focused on science communication. These universities include:

  • Australian National University
  • University of New South Wales
  • The University of Queensland
  • University of Western Australia
  • University of Adelaide.

Interestingly, the Centre for Public Awareness of Science is the longest running science communication academic centre in Australia, offering its first graduate diploma in 1986.

Do you know of any others that we’ve missed?

Have you found any Massive Open Online Courses in sci comm that you’d care to recommend? Comment below. (See an earlier article in Scope about MOOCs.)

Members may also be interested in checking out the discussion on the public LinkedIn site following a question from an undergraduate science student about what qualifications are needed to be considered a science communicator.

Inspiring Australia update – Evaluation

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Thank you to Nancy Longnecker for the update.

As many ASC members know, the government’s Inspiring Australia program provided funding aimed at building the evidence base that underpin science communication efforts. In a national audit conducted by Metcalfe, Alford and Shore (2012), some providers reported using feedback forms and surveys but relatively few used systematic methods to critically measure the impact of their events. In order to assist event providers to collect consistent and useful information, a set of evaluation tools were produced, trialled and reported on. Tools include surveys and bean polls.

In 2012 1,508 surveys were received from 36 events held in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia during National Science Week. In 2013-2014 2,177 surveys were received from 23 events held in South Australia, New South Wales, Western Australia and Tasmania. Bean polls were conducted at five public events in 2013 and 2014 eliciting a total of 6,259 responses.

Key findings in terms of addressing Inspiring Australia’s desired outcomes:

  • a society that is inspired by and values scientific endeavour 
  • almost all respondents enjoyed science engagement events and found the topic of the event important and relevant to them. Events increased people’s interest in science and made participants feel more inspired by science.
  • a society that attracts increasing national and international interest in its science
  • this outcome was not measured in the survey because it is more appropriately captured through other measurements like media monitoring.
  • a society that critically engages with key scientific issues
  • a majority of respondents intended to take actions, talk to others, or search for information on science after attending events. People strongly agreed that science engagement activities should be available to the public, would recommend events to others and attend future events. Some events provided participants with new insights and deeper understanding of issues.
  • a society that encourages young people to pursue scientific studies and careers
  • students felt more inspired and confident about career options in science and events helped them understand pathways to science careers.

Our findings indicate that science engagement events provided across Australia represent value for the time, energy and money spent and that science engagement events examined in this study were achieving the intended outcomes of Inspiring Australia. By attending events, people stated they felt more inspired by science, interested in science and valued it. In many events that are designed to increase understanding, participants came away with new insights or different ways of thinking about the issue. Students attending career-related events said they felt more inspired by science and confident about careers in science.

Check out final info-graphic here!

NB: The author, Nancy Longnecker, is now Professor of Science Communication at the University of Otago in Dunedin. She is continuing to research about evaluation and is happy to discuss it but is not currently connected with an Inspiring Australia project.

President’s update

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

Controversial science
I’m writing this with my leg in a compression bandage covered in ice with a grade 2 tear in my medial gastrocnemius. I’m told that this is a characteristically Australian injury; many people get it at the beach when they have one foot buried in sand and then try to move too quickly and *pop* goes the calf muscle. Sadly, I didn’t get this injury on a luxurious beach holiday (or even a morning walk on the beach). But, from the moment I hit the pavement to now, there has been a rush of experts to tell me what my treatment regime should be. Shall I head to the GP for a referral for an MRI? Will I head straight to the physiotherapist for an assessment and some time on a TENS machine. Another expert has told me that TENS machines rely on a discredited ‘gateway’ theory of pain—no way they are going to work. A biochemist colleague tells me that getting some electrolyte balance is going to help healing (bring on the bananas?). This rather minor injury, though making me grumpy, does illustrate something important about expertise. Since this injury has put me on ice for a morning, I spent the time reading some science blogs on scientific controversy. Without exception, every controversial science topic forces one to take a position on the nature of experts. Which kind of expert do we want in a particular case—one that knows everything about the science? One that knows about the application of the science? One that knows about the context of the application? And on we go. My answer to the ‘many experts’ problem has always been to say ‘YES’; I want to know what they all say and then I’ll form my view. But my morning with the blogs (and my own helpful experts opining on my calf muscle) show me the folly of my thinking. Sometimes you have to choose your expertise and that changes what you think the controversy is about. For me, I chose the physio—not because I like the idea of an outmoded theory guiding my treatment (and to be fair, no TENS machine made an appearance though I saw one in a corner gathering dust)—but because an MRI seemed excessive, time-consuming, and unneeded. But, I’m not sure I can justify any of that. And I’m not sure that many of the blogs I read justified the reliance on expertise that they touted. Because we’re in the business of communicating, at least some of the time, what experts say maybe we should be a bit more forthright about why we pick the experts we do. Let’s hope my hunches turn out to be justified, but I may need to develop a better framework for consulting experts.

Thinking about evaluation
Also while on ice, I got to think about a nice piece that Jackie Randles, Inspiring Australia Manager for NSW wrote for the Inspiring Australia newsletter. In a conversation earlier in the month, she was reflecting on the challenges of evaluation and said one reason she hears a lot for why institutions don’t evaluate their communication programs is that they seem to be doing fine—people come, they seem to have a good time, the event has a good reputation and the organisation has little reason to change it. Why evaluate? I’d just like to tick off my ‘top 3’ to answer this one:
  1. Because you may not be as successful as you think; evaluation is an opportunity to get it even ‘more right’.
  2. Evaluating and sharing that evaluation can be both an advertisement for your good work and an encouragement for others to raise the bar on their activities.
  3. Because what your organisation thinks is important and working now could radically change; what is your plan going forward?
To think a bit more about this, Professor Nancy Longnecker (University of Otago) has given us some take-home messages from her work on evaluation.
Now, back to the ice…

Vic Event: Workshop: Crowdsourcing information for humanitarian disaster responses

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ASC Victoria are pleased to present a FREE workshop on Crowdsourcing information for humanitarian disaster responses. The workshop will be run by Cobi Smith who has been intimately involved with the project.

When: Monday, October 6, 6pm, for a 6:15 start – 7:30pm
Where: The Meeting Room at the East Melbourne Library and Community Centre | 122 George Street East Melbourne 3002
NOTE: You will need to bring your own laptop/tablet device for the workshop. The library has wifi available.
Afterwards: Coffee and chatting can continue at Hilton on the Park, a short walk from the library.

Register at Eventbrite:  https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/crowdsourcing-information-for-humanitarian-disaster-responses-tickets-13275384031

What is it all about?
During disasters this century, people share photos and experiences on social media, sometimes before emergency services are involved. The GeoTag-X pilot project is a collaborative open-source experiment to integrate information from social media into official humanitarian disaster response efforts.

The project is led by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research’s Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNITAR/UNOSAT). It is part of Citizen Cyberlab, a broader European collaboration for citizen science projects – which also happens to involve some Australians.

We’re looking for volunteers to help test our beta version and share your experience. For this workshop you will need to bring your own laptop with which to experiment. We will be using GitHub to share bugs and feedback, so preferably you will have a GitHub username already, or you can learn to use GitHub Issues during the workshop.

What will we cover?
This workshop will share an overview of why this project is possible, from the perspective of humanitarian organisations like the United Nations as well as from an open-source technology perspective. Then we will have half an hour in which participants can explore the technology on their laptops, then we will have a half-hour discussion sharing feedback about the project. We will wrap up by discussing how people can get more involved if they’re interested.

Who will be teaching it?
Cobi Smith is presenting this workshop on behalf of the Australian Science Communicators. She is a human rights advocate, open activist, sometimes comedian and former ABC journalist. Her PhD research at the Australian National University’s Centre for the Public Awareness of Science is about participatory governance of science and technology. Cobi keeps taking leave from her PhD to work on cool projects like GeoTag-X.

Event Review: The Making Of Chemistry World

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The Chem World display at QUT’s The Cube was officially launched during National Science Week 2014, but back in June many ASC Queensland members got a special preview and a behind the scenes look at how it was designed.IMG_4107

Over 70 guests enjoyed networking drinks and canapés as the creators of Chemistry World explained the process of designing and creating the display. Guests were then treated to a test drive of this innovative display and enthusiastically launched rockets into space and created fireworks using a variety of chemical elements.

IMG_4130

In collaboration with QUT’s Institute for Future Environments, AbFab Catering, and ASC Queensland, the event raised $370 for the QUT Learning Potential Fund.

If you’re in Brisbane, a visit to The Cube is well worth it to experience this impressive interactive display.

 

Event Review: The Future of Food

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To celebrate National Science Week 2014, the Queensland branch of ASC delved into the world of food and gazed into the future beyond food selfies, sous-vide, and fat-free fads.

Our host, Brisbane journalist Natalie Bochenski, led an entertaining discussion on the current trends in food production and consumption with the help of a panel of food experts—Dr Jaz Choi, A/Prof Jason Stokes, and Dr Joel Gilmore.

Future of Food

Trying to steer clear of the popular discussions around GM and fast food, we looked at the ways food shapes our society and how improvements in technology influence what, and how, we eat. Who would have thought there are researchers across the world working on ways to make sure manufactured food has a good ‘mouthfeel’? (I.e. Doesn’t feel like an old boot in your mouth).

A crowd of about 50 keen science communicators and enthusiasts attended the event at Iceworks Restaurant to eat, drink, and be merry. Thank you to everyone for making the science communication community in Brisbane so vibrant!

This event was supported by Inspiring Australia and National Science Week.