Category Archives: NatConf

ASC National Conference
8 – 10 February 2010, ANU Canberra

ASC conference – a social happening

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Cocktails in UTS’s new Great Hall? Café Scientific in a pub? Book Launch event of The Genome Generation? Pre-conference drinks with sci-comm up-and-comings?

Yes to all! The conference social calendar is now in place and we even offer a choice on the Tuesday evening.

First off is a relaxed pre-conference get-together at the Belgian Beer Café in the Rocks on Sunday 26 February from 6pm. Will Grant is organising this event. Reply to his tweet @willozap if attending.

Science Communication Tweetup pre #asc2012. 6pm, 26th Feb, Belgian Beer Cafe The Rocks (See Map Here) ping @willozap if attending!

Get dressed up on Monday 27 February for a cocktail function from 6-8pm at the newly refurbished Great Hall of the University Technology Sydney. All registered conference delegates are invited to this convivial gathering. Arrive on time to mingle and relax. There will be a couple of brief presentations and then some more mingling, etc. UTS has a lot to show off – you’ll hear about the exciting major rejuvenation of the university and its neighbourhood, its new science facilities and novel partnerships in communicating science. The Great Hall is in the Tower building on Broadway in Ultimo, a short walk or a quick bus ride from the conference venue.

Tuesday 28 February offers two events from 6-8pm for different tastes. In fact your choice of which one to go to may be influenced by where you want to eat afterwards.

  • The science team at the ABC with support from NETS and Rod Lamberts, our conference convenor, are putting on a light-hearted conversation about seriously communicating science, and the best part is that’s in a pub (location TBA).
  • The second event is in restaurant rich Glebe (a short bus or taxi ride from the Masonic Centre). Elizabeth Finkel’s latest book, The Genome Generation, will be launched at Gleebooks on Glebe Point Road. The first 20 delegates to RSVP will get free entry (otherwise $10). Drinks are available. Elizabeth will be in conversation with Wilson da Silva, editor-in-chief of Cosmos Magazine. See http://www.gleebooks.com.au/default.asp?p=events/events4_htm#Elizabeth_Finkel.

More information about how to RSVP for the events will come soon.

More details are being added to the conference program and many sessions have powerful panels of potent presenters. The sooner you register the quicker you can reserve your place for sessions and events that have limited numbers.

So get organised and get registered – go to http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/register/ to make it happen.

Jesse Shore
National President

ASC2012 – you *know* you want to go. Here’s why!

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27 February 2012to29 February 2012

On the web, your colleague in the office down the hall is as close as the one from the other end of the continent – but wouldn’t it be nice to catch up with all of them in more than 140 characters? In person and in one place? To chat about what they’ve been up to and even get to know all those colleagues you didn’t even know you had? ASC2012 is the place to do exactly that. From February 27 to 29 science (and) communication professionals from all over Australia come together at Sydney’s Masonic Centre to discuss old and new media, past and future campaigns, established and beginning careers…

All chief scientists, including the big cheese of Australian science himself, Ian Chubb, will offer their account of the current state of science and policy in Australia – followed by generously timed Q & A sessions. Of course, among all these celebrities, the communicators’ own perspective on science, politics and lobbyism will not be neglected either!

A wide variety of professional development sessions, many of them in interactive workshop format, will provide new tools for even the most seasoned science communicators. Sci Comm newbies, on the other hand, will find inspiration from other young professionals and tips from veterans during a speed mentoring event.

Among many others we’ll find sessions on the development of professional communication plans, how to spot and fix common problems with science writing and how to communicate clearly and concisely (in three minutes, to be precise…). Yet another session instructs scientists how to manage their relationship with the media – and ensure their work is represented the way they want it to be.

As a matter of fact ASC2012 won’t stop short of new or less common media. We’ll learn about the value of computer games and there will also be a serious look at social media in science communication. The program even boasts a science-art exhibition.

Finally, having all these communication tools is very useful, but how can we know that our strategies are effective and the message reaches the target audience? ASC2012 has a solution for that, too. Several presentations and workshops deal with the evaluation of science communication. Yes, even ASC2012 itself will be evaluated – live on stage!

ASC2012
Getting science where it’s needed
Sydney Masonic Centre
27 to 29 February

View the detailed conference program here.

 

Are computer games and apps the new frontiers for communicating science?

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27 February 2012to29 February 2012

Computer games can be a powerful form of media, not only in school teaching, but also to engage the general public in science. In a session at the Australian Science Communicators’ National Conference, ASC2012, a panel of experienced game designers and educators will explore and explain how this is done. Among the speakers at this session will be Cathy Howe, project leader for MacICT’s Game Design Team and Sam Doust, who developed the ‘participatory drama’ Bluebird AR for ABC online.

The success story of computer games closely tracks that of the technology on which we play them: personal computers, gaming consoles and lately mobile phones. As these devices have spread and developed into sophisticated multi-media communication tools, computer games themselves have become intricate ‘worlds’ within which gamers – often together with other players – solve complex challenges. What started off as a means of passing time and escaping reality is increasingly being recognised as valuable training to wrestle with real-world problems. Military forces across the globe have long been using game-like simulations to train soldiers. Educational institutions are now following suit.

Playing computer games children acquire skills through applying them to challenges. This problem-based learning, argues Prof James Paul Gee of Arizona State University, the author of several books on the educational value of video games, is far more effective than the classic teaching approach, which is “focused on relating facts and how well students retain this info”. A purely mathematical activity can become much more engaging when, with the help of video games, students can be involved in developing the entire exercise. Alice Leung, head science teacher at Merrylands High School in Sydney and a speaker at the GAME ON! video gaming festival last October experienced this, when she started using a Formula 1 racing game to teach Newton’s laws of motion. An additional advantage of game-based learning is that students are happy to play more often and longer than the time they would devote to conventional study. The immediate feedback and constant rewards for every individual point scored or level completed in a computer game leads to the release of the pleasure hormone dopamine in the brain and keeps gamers happy and playing.

ASC2012
Getting science where it’s needed
Sydney Masonic Centre
27 to 29 February 2012

Concurrent Session 4D

Speed mentoring at ASC conference

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The ASC conference is less than six weeks away and additional program details and events keep coming in. We will announce our line up great social events for the Monday and Tuesday nights very soon. The speed mentoring session on day 1 of the conference is looking amazing with 15 mentors to be on hand. ASC members have often requested a mentoring program and this experimental format will be our first step toward providing that service.

Speed mentoring offers early career science communicators a chance to get tips and cautionary tales from those who have spent years honing their skills and advancing the craft. Mentors include:

  • Karl Kruszelnicki (aka Dr Karl – author, television and radio personality, Sleek Geek Week presenter, etc)
  • Adam Spencer (Dr Karl’s partner in the Sleek Geek Week science roadshow and television program, and ABC local radio breakfast announcer)
  • Wilson da Silva (editor-in-chief of Cosmos magazine)
  • Paul Willis (formerly of ABC TV’s Catalyst and now Director of RiAus)
  • Bernie Hobbs (broadcaster extraordinaire and formerly on the New Inventors program)
  • Elizabeth Finkel (award winning science journalist and book author)
  • John Curran (General Manager, CSIRO Communications)
  • Susannah Eliott (CEO, Australian Science Media Centre)
  • and seven other diversely experienced long-term achievers.

Everyone is invited although the target audience for this session are students and those relatively new to communicating science. We don’t want to get too crowded so we can to ensure everyone talks with several mentors.

I’ll be stage-managing the session (less formal than chairing or facilitating and more polite than saying shepherding). I’ve gathered the key ingredients and you folks are the reagents so let’s see what we can mix up on the day. Let me know whether you want to attend so I can plan out this experiment.

You can still register for the conference and it is great value. The program is bursting at the seams with great topics, issues, professional development, science-art, and all of Australia’s Chief Scientists. Drop me a line if you have yet to register as that helps with our planning.

Jesse Shore
Speed mentor wrangler

ASC National Conference 2012 – Dec 2011 update

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The full program for the National Conference is now on the conference website, http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/. Increasingly detailed information will be added regularly to the site.

The early bird deadline has been extended to 15 January 2012. As usual ASC members get a significant discount to the non-members rate.

The conference will be at Sydney Masonic Centre from 27-29 February 2011.

The sign of a good conference program is when it is difficult to choose between the parallel sessions. I’ll be torn between competing interests for every session and once again wish I could be in two or more places at once.

Day 1

  • Opening keynote: Professor Ian Chubb, Australia’s Chief Scientist will open the conference and be the first plenary speaker.
  • Before and after lunch: an overview of Inspiring Australia followed by an in-depth look at regional outcomes
  • After lunch: State Chief Scientists will feature in a plenary and then in parallel sessions.

Day 2

  • Plenary: Careers in science communicating– hear about career possibilities and resources.
  • Plenary: Sophisticated Social Media Use & Science – continuing insights into how to use a range of rapidly evolving communication channels to communicate science (and maybe make a buck?).
  • Plenary: The NBN and how to use it – a science communication perspective of nation changing technology.

Day 3

  • Plenary: Three astronomers walked into a bar…Features a Video of interview with Brian Schmidt and David Malin, astronomical photographer – an illustrated talk– in an exclusive for the conference, Brian Schmidt, the 2011 Nobel Prize winner for Physics, is interviewed on video by Rod Lamberts. The discussion will interweave winning a major science prize with effective science communication of astronomy.
    • Plenary: “Discoveries Need Dollars: Protect research”: A case study of a successful science advocacy campaign– explore how heads of science advocacy groups represent their members’ interests to politicians and government departments.
    • Plenary: Science to Policy: War Stories from the Heart of the Action – the big wigs will be prodded to tell all as they are quizzed about the role and funding for science communication in their patches.
    • Plenary: What’s the Buzz? What’s new in Science Television – get the goods on science for the small screen.

Other parallel session topics include (partial listing; PD means session has a professional development focus):
*       Speed mentoring (PD)
*       The consultancy game – a follow-on from the careers plenary
*       Making a communication plan – a seven step process (PD)
*        engaging with the media (PD)
*       Philanthropy, fundraising and science communication
*       Beyond evaluation (PD)
*       Science as theatre
*       Putting the ‘confer’ back into conferences (PD)
*       The latest in research in science communication
*       Science and art sessions and exhibitions
*       War on science

Website: The conference website is http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/.
Online registration is active. See http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/register/.

Jesse Shore
National President

ASC national conference travel grants

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Up to four travel grants of $200-400 each are available to ASC members from WA for attending the Australian Science Communicators conference in Sydney in February 2012.

The ASC conference will be held 27-29 February 2012 in Sydney at the Sydney Masonic Centre, a centrally located conference venue. We look forward to ASC members from around Australia attending the conference.

To make the event affordable we kept conference registration fees low and sourced economically priced hotels as part of the conference accommodation offering.

We want to encourage more distant members to make the trip and we know that travel costs are a factor, especially to our many members in Western Australia. The National Executive has noted that return airfares from Perth to Sydney average $200 more than flights from other capital cities, with the exception of Darwin which is even more expensive.

The National Executive and WA branch committee will help up to four ASC members overcome the hurdle of this extra cost. Each group are contributing equally to provide $800 towards travel grants. The branch will decide how to allocate the funds, in grants of $200 to $400 each.

ASC conference travel grants

General criteria. To be eligible all applicants must

  • be residents of Western Australia, and current financial members of the Association (you may apply for membership when you submit your application for the travel grant). You can join or renew membership online at http://www.asc.asn.au/join/.
  • have limited or no financial support to attend the conference.
  • submit travel grant applications to the WA branch, asc.events.wa@gmail.com by 6 January 2012. Details of the application are below.

To apply for the grant: send an email to WA branch, asc.events.wa@gmail.com, with a statement in 100 words or less what you want to gain from attending the conference and how the grant will assist you to attend. Include full contact details with the address of your primary residence.

Applications will be assessed by representatives of both the WA branch committee and the National Executive. Applicants will be advised of the outcome in mid-January 2012.

Winning applicants must register for the conference to receive the grant and will get the early bird rate. Each winner will be invited to write an article for Scope about their conference experience.

The WA branch reserves the right not to award any grants.

Emma Donnelly, President of ASC WA Branch
Jesse Shore, National president

ASC National Conference 2012 – Update & session overview

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The ASC National Conference will be at Sydney Masonic Centre from 27-29 February 2012. The program is coming into shape and looks enticing. Here’s a quick overview (some sessions may change, not all are listed, and titles and details of sessions will be refined):

Day 1

  • Opening keynote: Professor Ian Chubb, Australia’s Chief Scientist will open the conference and be the first plenary speaker.
  • After lunch: State Chief Scientists will feature in a plenary and then in parallel sessions.

Day 2

  • Plenary: Careers in science communicating – hear about career possibilities and resources.
  • Plenary: New media – continuing insights into how to use a range of rapidly evolving communication channels to communicate science (and maybe make a buck?).
  • Plenary: The NBN and how to use it -  a science communication perspective of  nation changing technology.

Day 3

  • Plenary: The Nobel experience – in an exclusive for the conference, Brian Schmidt, the 2011 Nobel Prize winner for Physics, is interviewed on video by Rod Lamberts. The discussion will interweave winning a major science prize with effective science communication of astronomy.
  • Plenary: Science and Art – a star-studded illustrated talk by David Malin and a conversation about beauty and science communication.
  • Plenary: Heads of Science Agencies – the big wigs will be prodded to tell all as they are quizzed about the role and funding for science communication in their patches.
  • Plenary: Advocacy – explore how heads of science advocacy groups represent their members’ interests to politicians and government departments.

Other parallel session topics include (partial listing; PD means session has a professional development focus):
*       Speed mentoring (PD)
*       The consultancy game – a follow-on from the careers plenary
*       Communication strategies
*       Philanthropy, fundraising and science communication
*       Beyond evaluation (PD)
*       Science as theatre
*       Putting the ‘confer’ back into conferences (PD)
*       The latest in research in science communication
*       Science and art sessions and exhibitions
*       War on science

Website: The conference website is http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/.
Online registration is active. See http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/register/.

Jesse Shore
National President

ASC National Conference 2012 – update

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The conference will be at Sydney Masonic Centre from 27-29 February 2012. Here’s a quick overview on progress so far:

  • Opening keynote: Professor Ian Chubb, Australia’s Chief Scientist will open the conference and be the first plenary speaker.
  • Hail to the Chiefs: Several state Chief Scientists have accepted invitations to speak at the conference. We anticipate they will feature in a plenary and perhaps parallel sessions.
  • Nobel presence: In a special video interview made for the conference, Australia’s 2011 Nobel Prize winner for Physics, Professor Brian Schmidt, will talk about the role of science communication in his work both before and after being awarded the Nobel. Rod Lamberts and Sue Stocklmayer will be asking him the hard questions. This special session will include a broad discussion of the role of science communication for science prize winners. Brian will be speaking in Washington during our conference and was sorry that he couldn’t be in two places at once.
  • Program progress: The program committee is digesting the submissions from the recent call for session producers and their proposals.
  • Pre-conference kick-start: There have been discussions with key people about the pre-conference event. If all goes well it will be fun and thought-provoking, and be a great way to lead into the conference proper.
  • Research stream: Rod Lamberts has nine reviewers lined up to scrutinise submitted research papers. Some of them may help with a subsequent monograph of a selection of edited papers to be produced after the conference is over.
  • Website: The conference website has gone live. Have a look at http://2012conf.asc.asn.au/.
  • Lots of infrastructure is being set in place and there are a few hurdles to get over. Online registrations will be activated any day now.

Jesse Shore
National President

Update: ASC conference 2012, 27-29 February, Sydney Masonic Centre

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There has been a lot of behind the scenes development work on the upcoming ASC conference. The call for session producers has just been issued and I’ve previously announced that Professor Ian Chubb, Australia’s Chief Scientist, has agreed to open the conference and be our keynote speaker.

We have received acceptances from several state Chief Scientists to join Professor Chubb in a plenary panel discussion about their takes on science communication and related matters. I anticipate the Chief Scientists will also be available to present separate discussion presentations with others from their state in parallel sessions.

Each day of the conference will have a different feel. The second day will likely feature a plenary with executives from major scientific research and funding agencies. They will be able to discuss how they adjust to changing science policies along with other matters that the session producer and program committee throw at them.

The conference team is thinking the third day will focus on edgier topics such as the rapidly changing world of communication media. It might cover the spread of computer gaming as a learning and communications media, and wherever and whatever the many threads of social media are at present.

The conference team is planning for an active exhibition area as a complement and contrast to the presentation sessions. They are aiming for a strong art-science presence and displays from the science communication industry.

The web site will go live very soon as we complete final details and testing. It will be easy to navigate and will continue to be improved as program updates and other information gets added.

The conference team is ably led by Rod Lamberts, as conference convenor, and Kali Madden, as conference director, with much involvement from several ASC members.

Being fun people the team is planning a busy social program to balance the other conference activities. So mark your diaries for the 27-29 February and keep the night before open too as the pre-opening evening should be thought provoking as well as entertaining.

Jesse Shore
National president

ASC National Conference 2012

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The Sydney Masonic Centre has been selected as the venue for the ASC conference. It has impressive facilities and is well located. The dates for the conference are 27-29 February 2012. Very shortly Rod Lamberts will issue the call for papers for the research stream of the conference.

Rod has lined up a significant keynote speaker and I expect that we can build some important sessions around this dignitary. I’ll leave it to Rod to make the the relevant announcements soon.

I’m looking forward to a thought provoking three days. Be sure to mark it in your diaries and attend what I anticipate will be a terrific group of sessions.

Jesse Shore

National President