Spotlights

Our July 2020 event featured an engaging conversation with Drs. Pamela Ronald, Brittany Anderton and Kevin McLean about digital science communication.

To prepare for the workshop, attendees watched a video produced by each of the speakers:

We have all been to a science conference where half of the talks or posters are too complex for most of the conference-goers. We have also tried to explain our work to somebody outside of our labs – a member of our cohort, a faculty member, a roommate, a family member – and failed to explain it clearly. For those of us in science outreach, communicating difficult research can get ten times harder when we go to community events and talk to non-science members of the public. Why is communicating our daily work so difficult for most of us? 

An extended PDF of the workshop with notes and examples from the in-person event can be found here for all those that wish to participate from home. 

This February, Lucas Hatton led us through a two-part improvisational theater, or improv, workshop where we participated in improv games to learn two key skills: active listening and spontaneity. As scientists, these skills are important for every communication opportunity: we must listen and adapt quickly to communicate effectively with a given audience. If you missed the workshop, I highly recommend participating in the future.

We invited alumni to talk about their careers, experiences, and answer our questions about science communication for our 2019 end-of-the-year event.

“Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can…”

Since the early 1960s, Spider-Man has had some technical upgrades — think the Iron Spider featured in the Tom Holland movies — but scientifically speaking, how does Spider-Man’s biology chalk up to spiders?

As the world population has grown to 7.7 billion people, and is increasing every day, there are several challenges our global society faces. At our current rate of consumption, we will run out of numerous natural resources. Overpopulation is a problem for the world at large, not just because our quality of life could be affected by running out of resources such as fossil fuels, but due to the lack of the very basic necessities needed for survival.

I am so excited to be back tabling at Farmer’s Markets, and what better place to do that than Davis! Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by and participated. We met some really awesome community members who had questions and great conversation topics for us. Hopefully we will see you all again, and some new faces, too, in October with the Bohart Museum of Entomology for Halloween Creepy Crawlies! ~ Mary