Category: SciComm Tips

Compassionate Science Communication—Scicomm that Cares (Part 2)

9/16/2021

By: Jennifer Ma

Last week, I talked about how Compassionate Science Communication can provide value for and have lasting impact on our audiences. It requires the communicators to first learn what our audiences care about before offering a relevant scientific perspective. How? Let’s review the steps that guide the process:

Listen: Approach our audience with curiosity—ask questions, listen, try to understand their perspectives and acknowledge where they come from without judgement. This puts us in a much better position to provide information that would actually benefit our audience.
Relate: Identify something in common so we can better empathize, speak their language, and form a genuine connection.
Inform: Offer scientific information that is relevant to their values, questions, or concerns, in a way that is accessible.
Encourage: Provide actionable points & a sense of hope, highlighting what they have to gain from the actions to motivate and empower them.

Will it be worth it? Absolutely

What these steps look like in practice depends on your platform and your audience. Let’s break them down in a case study based on Gentle Facts, a project I started in March 2020.

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Compassionate Science Communication—Scicomm that Cares (Part 1)

9/9/2021

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By: Jennifer Ma

Imagine you have been wanting a pair of orange shoes for a long time. You finally find a pair that would go perfectly with your favorite orange outfit and are feeling pretty happy after trying them on! A salesperson then approaches you and says:

You shouldn’t get those orange shoes. They don’t pair well with outfits and you can’t wear them to work. In fact, a survey says 85% of employers would not allow orange shoes at their workplaces. You would be a fool to purchase them and you should reconsider how you shop for shoes. This pair of white shoes, though, is a much better option. You should get these instead!

How likely are you to take their advice, even if they might be right?

How are you feeling? Source: Gentle Facts.

Now imagine walking into another store and this is what another salesperson says:

Those look really cute on you! Are you looking for orange shoes specifically? Oh you have an orange outfit you want to pair them with, that’s so fun! I wonder if that would be too much orange though. These white shoes may go really well with it too and there’s a study that says white shoes are the most versatile, so you can wear them all the time. What do you think?

How likely are you to listen this time?

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Back to the Lab This Fall? Don’t Forget Your SciComm Skills!

9/2/2021

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By Nidhi Parekh and Sheeva Azma

The COVID-19 pandemic taught scientists that the way in which scientists communicate science impacts global communities. Lecturers that teach science communication (also called SciComm) at various levels draw upon and recognize the importance that all forms of science communication play in society — not just in their own lives, but in their students’ lives, too.

As more people around the globe are slowly coming out of summer holidays to start school once again, we thought this would be a good time to review different ways to improve students’ SciComm skills. Keep reading for a few SciComm tips for educators to consider on the way “back to school.”

Welcome Back to School. Pixabay.

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Learning from Pandemic SciComm in Action

7/15/2021

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By Sheeva Azma and Nidhi Parekh

In our column, we’ve discussed ways to teach science communication in the classroom through lectures and classroom exercises. We’ve talked about the helpful do’s and don’ts in teaching SciComm in a classroom setting. In this article, we will highlight certain methods that were successful in the COVID-19 pandemic-related science communication.

In our last article, we discussed ways in which scientific research has helped advance the field of science communication. We introduced this concept in our previous blog post on evidence-based SciComm. As we explained in our post, and have learned through the COVID-19 pandemic, this is a relatively new field that still has a long way to go.

The pandemic, however, has provided us with an opportunity to informally evaluate science communication techniques. Throughout the pandemic, people around the world required outreach efforts to reach every corner of the globe. Scientists that followed the foundational findings of evidence-based SciComm were able to successfully advocate for science throughout the pandemic.

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Using Evidence-Based SciComm to Improve SciComm Education

7/8/2021

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By Sheeva Azma and Nidhi Parekh

We’ve talked at length about different ways that one can teach science communication in the classroom through lectures and classroom exercises. We’ve also written about helpful do’s and don’ts in teaching SciComm in a classroom setting. It’s great to teach students foundational skills that can help them explain complexities of science in a simple way to boost science understanding.

To maximize the effectiveness of science communication training, it’s important to understand how evidence-based science communication teaching actually helps communicate science better.

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Do’s and Don’ts for Developing Classroom SciComm Exercises

6/9/2021

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By Sheeva Azma and Nidhi Parekh

In our column, we’ve previously blogged about lecturing about SciComm and different SciComm exercises you can do in your class. In this post, we provide some do’s and don’ts for developing a SciComm module or course for your students.

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Practical Science Communication Exercises for the Classroom

6/3/2021

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By Sheeva Azma and Nidhi Parekh

We’ve previously blogged for Science Talk about how to lecture about science communication. In this post, we’ll talk about practical science communication exercises that educators can use, and discuss a few do’s and don’ts in undertaking these exercises in the classroom.

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How to Lecture about Science Communication

5/13/2021

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By Nidhi Parekh and Sheeva Azma

University science programs, both undergraduate and graduate, have an exceptional variety of scientists conducting ground-breaking, cutting-edge work. However, these research institutions do not often train students in effective science communication. That’s not to say that some universities have not made strides in establishing science communications curricula. MIT, for example, created a communications requirement tailored to the oral and written communications of scientific materials. However, researchers need to move beyond communicating effectively in their field and learn to communicate scientific information to a general audience.

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Science in the Media: A Game of Telephone

2/11/2021

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By Stephanie Batalis

A group of children sit in a circle, decorated with party hats and giddy from cake and ice cream. The first child turns to the second and whispers a made-up phrase. The second child giggles, turns, and repeats the message to his neighbor. By the time the message has been passed all the way around the circle, it’s completely unrecognizable. The classic telephone game has twisted the original message into nonsense.

Breaking scientific discoveries are distorted through a similar game of telephone. On the journey from the lab to your Facebook feed, a scientific message is morphed by a series of exaggerations and misunderstandings.

Although scientific reporting has always been vulnerable to misrepresentation, the COVID-19 pandemic has put this process on a global stage. Information about the health crisis is time-sensitive, pressuring news outlets to report quickly and often without adequate fact-checking or context. The world has watched in confusion as single studies have spawned a whole slew of contradictory messages.

Alison Bernstein from the blog SciMoms calls this phenomenon the “Chain of Exaggeration.” As information passes through multiple sources, each step “amplifies fear, loses nuance, and loses context.”

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Compassionate Science Communication—Scicomm that Cares (Part 2)

Compassionate Science Communication—Scicomm that Cares (Part 1)

Back to the Lab This Fall? Don’t Forget Your SciComm Skills!

Learning from Pandemic SciComm in Action

Using Evidence-Based SciComm to Improve SciComm Education

Do’s and Don’ts for Developing Classroom SciComm Exercises

Practical Science Communication Exercises for the Classroom

How to Lecture about Science Communication

Science in the Media: A Game of Telephone

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