Reflections on Becoming the Science Communicator. Part three (and the scariest) Video

The EPSCoR Becoming the Messenger workshop was really incredibly useful and insightful! I only wish I had more time to work through all the topics we discussed. It was a whirl wind experience and one I hope to not forget anytime soon. Here without final ado is...


The final reflection. - video.


The video section was perhaps the most useful and the most embarrassing. It's amazing today how easy it is to make a video. If you've been following our blog you've seen a few of my attempts already. However at the meeting we got some great tips on how to make them look much more professional... with only the use of a phone or flip cam. Once again the layout was the same. Have a strong message with three pillars to really hold it up. Once you've got your message and structure you also need a call to action and of course some visual support. I found it interesting how this call to action was really related to letting your audience in, making them feel that they have a stake in this to and can do something about it.

All of these public out reach forums are things that as a scientist one never thinks they are going to do. One does not go into science to start a blog or become a celebrity and talk with news outlets, but it is something that I'm finding is really important. We become scientist, for the most part, because we love to figure things out and want to understand the world around us. But it is so important for us to also be able to show and communicate our results to the larger community. I suppose that means that at least to a certain degree I better get use to hearing my own voice or seeing myself in a video.

In the task given to us we were asked to film our message in three shots, an opening statement in a wide shot, our three main points in a tight shot, and then our closing statement in a wide shot. As you can see we didn't quiet make that.

The opening statement was suppose to pull the audience in. Thus my attempt at a funny story about how space weather gave me a snow day in school for at least one class. And that's where I then started to realise I was running out of time (we had less than 2 mins to talk). The next section was suppose to really convey concisely (not a strong point for me) what we wanted people to take away from the video. And in the closing statement, instead of rushing to a result, one is suppose to restate your message and "galvanise" your audience.

Here is my attempt. (If you notice I also took the time to add some "B-roll" of the flights of our payloads.)

And because I made you all sit and listen to me, here is a wonderful lecture  about some early astrophysics ballooning by perhaps the best physics educator ever Prof. Walter Lewin. Thank you stratocat for pointing me to this clip. 

Reflections on Becoming the Science Communicator. Part 2 The Message

The Message:
The message session was all about the triangle. Have a main point and three attributes holding up that main point. It's a great way to "Frame" your talk. Framing was another buzz word which really helped me "picture" the outline of my talk (sorry I couldn't resist). When framing a picture you might not include the whole thing, but you do make sure to frame and highlight the parts that resonate with the viewer. A talk should have the same thing.

The majority of the talks that we discussed were those to a more general audience. Perhaps a 5 minute presentation to a group of citizen scientist. Man, in 5 minutes I'm not sure I can even define what space physics is! However, as you'll see in the attached video in the next post, I gave it a good try.

During all the sections we had some great worksheets to go through. I think it really helps. On the most useful one they gave us 10 points to think about. I've included what I try to think about while writing blog post, however I would be really interested to know who reads our posts, and what you think we should be focusing on.
The first is pretty obvious for us:
1) I'm going to talk about: BARREL and space physics.

The next few are who I think tends to read our posts now that the 2013 campaign has finished. Is this a correct guess? How much do you are readers know about space physics/space weather and Antarctic Balloon missions?
2) My audience is: The citizen scientist
3) My message is targeted to this one type of person in the audience: Scientifically-friendly with some science literacy. Friends and family of out colleagues who may or may not be scientist themselves.
4) Relative to what I'm talking about they know: Perhaps that space physics has something to do with the aurora and explosions on the sun.
5) This makes them (supportive/resistant): Supportive!
6) The audience will respond most favourably if I make my points in the context of: science, effects on technology, and personal involvement.

The next ones really touches on what we hope you the reader leave with after reading our blog.
7) Relative to what I'm talking about I want the reader to believe: that scientific research is important, fun, and really interesting. It is something that helps not just our understanding of the world around us, but leads to advancements in technology, other areas of scientific research, and better lives.
8) Three things that the audience show walk away knowing about this subject

• What space physics/ space weather is. 
• Why we want to be able to predict space weather events. 
• How Balloon missions can add greatly to this endeavour of understanding our Sun-Earth environment and someday being able to predict space weather events. 

9) arguments and evidence that support my assertions (This was an interesting one because it changes based on whom you are talking to. With other scientist in your field we want cited studies, but for a more general audience analogies and more emotional appeals or story telling was what was suggested to go here.)

• The 1989 power outage which blacked out most of the north Eastern coast. 
• The day the pagers died  (or Lyods of London provide space weather insurance. I can't make up my mind which is more compelling. )
• BARREL has been a success! 

And finally, I will be reaching my audience through: A Blog!

So how do you think I've done so far? Have I sucessfully understood who my audience is?

And tomorrow, the conclusion and the embarrassing one take video...

Reflections on Becoming the Science Communicator. Part 1 Twitter.

When we first started this blog I think we all felt like beginners. I still feel like a beginner, but after the workshop I think I'm one step closer to understanding all this social media. On Wednesday NSF NH-EPSCoR held a workshop on becoming a science communicator. We talked about twitter, creating a solid message, powerpoint presentations, videos, and of course Blogging. As I was writing up all that I had learned, it was obvious that the post was becoming really long so I've divided it up into three sections, Twitter, The Message, and the Video.

I think the main point I got from yesterday is that you need to just put yourself out there. You will make mistakes, but with practice and some forethought you should be fine. So this is an experiment for myself, and hopefully along the way I'll be able to impart why I think space physics, and space physics with Balloons is just so incredibly cool!

Twitter:
I had a twitter account, but I had never really used it till the workshop. Man was it fun when people really started to get into it. The presenters had four screens, two showing the presentations and two showing the tweets trending on #NSFMessengers. We even got people who came to previous workshops tweeting with us. It was amazing how a topic would come up and all of a sudden people would be tweeting relevant links and adding to the discussion.

At the beginning of the campaign we had talked about having a BARREL twitter account. Since none of us were all to familiar with it we decided to focus our efforts on other things, like this blog! However after the workshop I went online and signed us up. You can now follow us at BARREL_Antarctic. I'm hoping that we can use this tool to not only reach more people, but to get information out there even faster than before.


Tweets by @BARREL_Antartic

Becoming a science communicator.

Today I (Alexa) am attending an NSF EPSCoR workshop on science communication. Hopefully I'll learn some really cool tricks and be able to improve this blog to make it even more awesome. Thus far today we've learned about twitter, and how about why many science communications fail. It's been really interesting and I hope to learn a lot more. In the mean time, this gives me an excuse to show two videos of my favourite science communicators. Bill Nye the Science guy and Neil deGrasse Tyson. I hope you enjoy!