The last time I engaged in a science outreach activity for kids was five years ago while I was an undergraduate at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. As part of the ‘Fundamentals of Environmental Management’ course, we carried out a workshop on rainwater harvesting to primary students in selected schools. (Fun fact: It was this experience that helped me realize I wanted to pursue a career in environmental science!)
Last weekend I participated in my first science outreach event in Australia. Four of us (representing UNSW Science and SWAQ) demonstrated simple science experiments to children at ‘Science in the Swamp’. This was organized as part of the Sydney Science Festival 2019 which was part of the National Science Week. This is Australia’s annual celebration of science and technology where many individuals get involved, taking part in over 1000 science events across the nation. In addition to celebrating the contributions made by Australian scientists to the world of knowledge, it also encourages an interest in science pursuits among the general public. On Sunday morning we headed to Centennial Park and set up our stall. Although the event was scheduled for an 11 am start, we had our first visitors at 10 am, just as we finished setting up. Thus, began the demonstrations. The children were quite small, but they knew what a tornado was and so they were excited to see one inside a bottle! They all wanted to give it a go and some of them were reluctant to let go of the bottles (until their parents reminded them to let the others have a turn). I was pleased to hear some kids go “Daddy can we try this at home?”. If you want to try this at home (or better yet show it to some kids), here's a breakdown of what's going on. There's water in one bottle and air in the other. When you invert the system it will take some time for the water to empty, but this can be sped up by giving it a swirl. When the bottles are inverted, water and air try to move through the same passage at the same time. However, if you give it a good swirl, a vortex (spinning column of air) is formed. The air will move through this column while the water moves around this, with minimal friction with one another. The water is pulled toward the air column by centripetal force and it moves downward due to gravity. As a result, you will see that the water moves faster when you give it a swirl. When I signed up for Science in the Swamp, my main concern was ‘communicating science’ to a very young audience as a non-native speaker. I thought there may be issues with a mismatch in accents, but it turned out that the bigger challenge was in simplifying science. I learnt that the most effective explanations were the ones that used the simplest language and those that were conveyed with a sense of excitement. My experience at Science in the Swamp was enriched by the sheer enthusiasm of the kids who came to our stall. Before we knew it, it was time to pack up and leave. It was a well-spent Sunday and the weather was splendid to be outdoors! I couldn’t help but wish we had done similar experiments when we were in school. It’s never too early to get children excited about science and in my case, it’s never too late to get more involved in outreach programmes 😊
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I enjoy talking about environmental issues, especially about climate change. I think it’s important to make these issues a part of our day to day conversations. Having said that, we need to be mindful of how we go about it. At the end of the day, if we scientists don't talk about the science we study, then those who know much less, will, and I don't need to tell you how messy that can get! I recently attended a science communication (scicomm) workshop which helped me gain a better understanding about being an effective science communicator. Let me share with you what I learnt from the workshop.
Why do we communicate? At the Annual Winter School organized by CLEx, we had a communication workshop on the final day. It was led by four amazing science communicators - Linden Ashcroft (University of Melbourne), Sonia Bluhm (Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub) and David Holmes and James Goldie from the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub. They kickstarted the workshop by asking us who we want to communicate to and why. After pondering over it for a while, this is what I came up with. Aim: To create awareness and a proper understanding of a subject (climate change), among people who don’t necessarily have that background knowledge. What information? The basic science of climate change, what’s causing it and their impacts Desired outcome: For my audience to have a better understanding of climate change as well as to inspire behavioural/ attitudinal change. Having discussed among the groups it was clear that there was a single underlying reason behind our communication goals. We communicate to bring about change, be it a change in mindset, attitude, action or knowledge base. We then worked in pairs on creating a video pitch. Each of us had to come up with a 2-minute video where we pitched ourselves to a chosen audience. We recorded each other and then critiqued our videos against our expected communication goals. I took the opportunity to teach heat stress to an undergraduate class! My friend opted to do a job application. It was a scary exercise because let’s be honest, no one likes to watch their video to see how they talk (?!). But I have to say that it was also interesting, in that we got to observe ourselves as a spectator. Knowing your audience Another aspect of the workshop that I particularly enjoyed was the one about ‘knowing your audience’. It was interesting to learn about the ‘Five Australia’s’ concerning beliefs and perceptions on climate change in Australia. The 5 categories are Alarmed, Concerned, Uncertain, Doubtful and Dismissive. The Dismissive are the climate skeptics. The Uncertain and Doubtful are those who don’t have enough facts and are open to learning more. They’re the ones we should be talking to, as our efforts can enable such audiences to make better-informed decisions. The language we use and the way we communicate our ideas can vary depending on the audience we target. Knowing your audience makes it easier for you to communicate your ideas more effectively. To successfully drive your message home, the message must be * factual and easy to process (so think twice before bombarding people with facts and know when to stop) * presented by trusted sources (eg: scientists or journalists with credibility) * local (eg: people seemed to show an increased interest in climate extremes when the media portrayed how tennis players were affected by high heat during the Australian Open). So for those of you who are pursuing a degree or career in science, I hope you will bear this in mind. In my experience, people around me are showing a greater interest in what I do now (a PhD in Climate Change) than in what I did a few years ago (a Bachelor's in Environment Science). I'm beginning to pay more attention to the way I engage in science communication. This is why I’ve decided to blog my way through my PhD and be more active on Twitter! Here's hoping my efforts in scicomm help at least one other individual become more climate literate 😊 |
AuthorBudding climate scientist from Sri Lanka, currently pursuing a PhD on heatwaves, at the Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) at UNSW, Sydney. Believes in using effective science communication to bridge the gap between science and society :) Archives
June 2021
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