Tag Archives: teaching

Preparing Science Communications for a Diverse Audience: Why Should Scientists Bother?

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why science video focus diverse audience communicationScientists are increasingly expected to participate in science communication, beyond what we’ve done in the past, which is essentially to talk to each other via technical articles and papers presented at scientific conferences.  Science students are not taught in school to communicate with the non-technical audience, which sends the message that it’s not important to have the skills necessary to communicate with an audience beyond the scientific community.  In fact, many scientists would argue that it is not their job to communicate their science to broader audiences, and they often balk at any suggestions that they do so.

Unfortunately, such an attitude puts you at a disadvantage in the competitive world of science.

Scientists also have a responsibility to promote the value of science to society, which helps combat anti-science groups and misinformation campaigns.  However, I realize that most people will be motivated only by what will benefit them directly, such as research funding, publications, a good job, tenure, and general professional recognition.  So I will focus on one of these:  funding.

Scientists are increasingly expected (and required) to explain their research to non-scientists.  Funding from government agencies, at least in the US, usually comes with a requirement to make the results available to the public and in an understandable format. Some funding agencies expect proposers to show how their project will make a broader impact.  The National Science Foundation, for example, assesses proposals based on two criteria:

  1. What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?
  2. What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?

Most scientists have no problem understanding and addressing the first merit criterion, but are stumped by the second one.  Many fail to grasp that NSF expects proposers to fully address both criteria in their proposals.  In fact, here’s what NSF says with regard to this point: “Effective October 1, 2002, NSF will return without review proposals that do not separately address both merit review criteria within the Project Summary. We believe that these changes to NSF proposal preparation and processing guidelines will more clearly articulate the importance of broader impacts to NSF funded projects.”

Here are some of the specific questions NSF expects the proposal to answer in addressing the Broader Impacts criterion:

  1. How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning?
  2. Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding?
  3. To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships?
  4. What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?

NSF is deliberately vague, however, about how to go about this because they do not want to stifle creativity.  They do provide some examples on their website, but it’s mostly up to the individual PI to figure out a specific plan and write a convincing description of how they will meet the Broader Impacts requirement.

Even if your peer reviewers mainly focus on the technical merits of the proposal, the panelists at NSF will be instructed to carefully consider how well the proposal addressed the Broader Impacts criterion.  Here is what NSF says that panelists should consider in assessing a proposal with respect to the Broader Impacts:  “…the personal, professional, and educational experiences, the future plans and prior accomplishments in the integration of research and education, and the potential to reach diverse audiences and benefit society.”

I’ve been a co-PI on a number of NSF proposals, and my experience is that the second criterion is not taken seriously by quite a few PIs (and not surprisingly, their proposals fail to get funded).  Not only should NSF proposals fully address the second merit criterion, they should provide examples of how the PI has successfully done this in the past, just as they demonstrate their technical expertise by listing their relevant publications.  Do you have any examples of broader impacts to list in your proposals?  If all you’ve got is “I trained x graduate students and x post-doctoral scientists”, you should be aware that you are competing with others who submit proposals with prior accomplishments such as involving K-12 teachers or students in their research; developing a series of videos, tutorials, and interactive websites to educate the general public about science concepts; or holding a series of workshops to teach graduate students the basics of science communication.

There are many other reasons to participate in science communication to broader audiences, but the desire to be successful in competing for grant funding should be sufficient motivation to get you started.  If you are a student or new Ph.D. and have yet to land your first NSF grant, you should be working to develop an edge…not only in the technical aspects of your research, but in communication skills.  If you are a more established scientist, but have not been very successful, especially with NSF or similar funding agencies, you might want to consider whether your proposals have successfully addressed the Broader Impacts criterion.  If you can communicate with non-technical audiences and can list concrete examples to convince a review panel that you can meet the Broader Impacts criterion, you will be ahead of many people applying for grants.

If you seriously plan to develop outreach products or get involved in activities to reach diverse audiences, you first have to know who they are and how to talk to them.  This series of blog posts is meant to provide some beginning guidelines and suggestions for you, the scientist, in communicating your science to diverse audiences.

The next post considers who the diverse audience is and how to connect with them.

Video Review: What Is A Flame?

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Some of you may have heard about the “Flame Challenge” proposed by Alan Alda, the actor, and sponsored by the Center for Communicating Science.  In an effort to promote clear communication of science, Alda challenged scientists and engineers to explain what a flame is, using everyday language that an 11-year old could understand.

There were over 800 entries, which were judged by 6,000 11-year olds around the world.  The medium used to create the explanation was entirely open.  Some entries were written text; others were graphical; and a few were videos.  It was no surprise to me that the winning entry was a video.  Here’s the winning entry by Ben Ames, a Ph.D. student in quantum optics:

What was a surprise to me was how few of the finalists submitted videos.  I was really curious to know how many of the 800 or so entries used video, but could not find that information.  So I could only judge by the proportion of videos in the list of finalists (5) and honorable mentions (8).  Of these (total of 13), only five were video entries, and many were just written text (7 of 13 = 54%).

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that so many scientists and engineers submitted written text to explain what a flame is.  That’s the medium they are accustomed to using.  They clearly did NOT have their audience (11-year olds) in mind when coming up with the medium to convey their explanation of a flame.  I can’t imagine why anyone would think an 11-year old would be impressed with a text explanation.  Before I go any further, here are a couple of the text entries so you’ll get the idea:

Honorable Mention (electrical engineer):  “A flame is like you (a human) and needs oxygen to breathe and must eat to live, except a flame will eat almost anything (wax, wood, paper, etc.).  After a flame eats its dinner, it “poops” out part of what it ate in the form of ashes or melted wax.”

Finalist (engineer): “What is a flame? A flame is an object, a “thing,” something you can see, something you can touch (but don’t do that because it is hot). It is not like other objects, such as a rock, because it “happens” and then goes away.  It “happens” when something (a “combustible”) is heated to a high enough temperature and then starts to burn. This might be wood, or paper, or gas, or oil, or dry leaves, just to name a few. It takes different amounts of heat to get them to burn, but they all do. The big name for things burning is “combustion.” You get the heat by burning something else or — if you have a magnifying glass and focus sunlight on a single spot — you will be able to burn paper and some other things.

There are other ways to make a flame by mixing chemicals, but heating is easiest to understand. When something burns, it changes into ash and/or a gas (“residue”), and light. This light is what is called “a flame.”  So a flame is what you see when something burns.”

Now, I’m not picking on engineers or these two specific examples.  These were two of the shortest entries that made it into the final selections.  Short is good.  Other written entries were quite a bit longer.  These descriptions are simple and clear enough for an 11-year old to understand.  The problem is that for visual learners, verbal explanations are not going to work well.  All of this makes me wonder about the other 780 or so entries that did not make it into the final group.

It’s also clear why the winning entry was the one that the 11-year old judges selected:  It was fun to watch.  I can imagine after reading a bunch of written entries that this video was a welcome relief.  It also contained many of the elements I’ve listed previously for what makes a science video effective:

1. The video is relatively short (7 1/2 min).

2. The information is presented visually (as well as verbally).

3. The video continually adds information at a steady but rapid pace.

4.  There is constant motion going on throughout the video.

5. Colors are intense and dramatic.

6. The text is minimal; only what is essential to understanding.

7.  The video elicits an emotional reaction in the viewer (amazement, amusement, curiosity).

8.  The video has people, animals, or cartoon characters that are doing something interesting, unusual, or surprising (a cartoon man chained in what appears to be Hell).

9.  There is an element of suspense (what will happen to the guy who’s chained up?).

So overall, I thought the winning entry was particularly good from the standpoint of creativity and meeting audience expectations.  One possible criticism, which I came across at another blog by Marc Kuchner, is that the video perpetuates the stereotype of the nerdy, cold-hearted scientist.  I see his point, although I don’t think this video is the worst example of scientist stereotypes (see this post for a really bad video with stereotypes).  Nonetheless, it’s something to keep in mind when designing science communication products.

On the other hand, I was disappointed that so few scientists and engineers bothered to do more than just write a text explanation.  A few of the graphical or video entries were submitted by scientists/engineers who partnered with someone who helped them develop the visual components.  At least they realized that there needed to be a visual explanation to help get across the information to an 11-year old, and they sought out someone who had those skills.

In summary, I think this contest highlighted the enormous gap between what the general public needs and expects in the way of science information and how scientists and engineers are trained to communicate their science.  The fact that a few of the contestants were able to create reasonably good videos is encouraging.  But we can do better.

Message to you scientists and engineers out there who are planning to submit an entry to the next science communication challenge:  Kids who’ve grown up with YouTube are not going to be satisfied with text explanations.

Tutorial: Avid Studio for the iPad (Part 2)

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In this post, I’ve added the second part of the tutorial on using the movie editing program, Avid Studio, for the iPad.  With this app, which costs only $4.99, you can shoot and create professional-looking videos entirely with your iPad.  Avid Studio has more editing options than iMovie, which I covered in previous tutorials, but is a bit more challenging than iMovie.

Both are fine editing programs….each has their advantages and disadvantages.  If you’ve learned how to use iMovie already, however, you’ll have no problem with Avid Studio.  I’ve covered all the basics in this two-part tutorial, but have left some options for you to discover on your own.

So here’s the second and final part of the Avid Studio tutorial (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):

Tutorial: Avid Studio for the iPad (Part 1)

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Think you need special equipment, expensive software, and special skills to create a video about your work?  Well, if you already have an iPad 2, for just an additional $4.99 for a movie editing app for the iPad, you can shoot and create a professional-looking video. To help you along, I’ve also done a tutorial, linked below, showing how to use Avid Studio.

Previously, I did a tutorial series on the iMovie app for the iPad.  In this post, I talk about another excellent movie editing app for the iPad that you can use.  Avid Studio has more bells and whistles than iMovie, but is a bit more challenging to master and use.  But with this tutorial, you should be able to begin using Avid Studio immediately to edit your science videos.

Take a look at Part 1 (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):

How to Remove the Background from an Image (Part 2)

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This is the second part of the Adobe Photoshop (CS5) tutorial in which I show how to remove the background from an image when that background is not a solid color but is instead a more complex image.  I provide several examples of images with different types of backgrounds and then show different techniques for handling these situations.

Once you master these very easy techniques, you will then be poised to create more professional looking montages in your videos or even to begin creating some simple animations.

Here is the video tutorial (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):