Geology Jenga

Geology makes a difference to Society

Laura Roberts-Artal January 28, 2014

The Geological Society of London have just today released a great report highlighting how geology contributes to our society.

All too often the impression is that all geologists do is study rocks. Whilst in essence, this is what we do, the implications of geological research are far reaching and not always understood by the wider public. I think this report is a fantastic piece of science communication (yes, I’m off again!) but more importantly, a great tool for all to appreciate just how important to our every day lives the study of Earth Sciences actually is.

In total, the report covers 12 areas in which our understanding of geology shapes our daily lives. A maximum of 2 pages are dedicated to each topic, which makes for very clear, quick and easy reading. Topics covered include: Geoengineering, Energy, Geohazards, Climate Change and some unexpected ones: The Anthropocene and Valuing and protecting our environment. Of course, I have a favourite and you won’t be surprised, I’m sure, that it is the pages on Communicating geology: time, uncertainty and risk.

The Societies pages on how geology impacts on society can be found here and can be downloaded as a PDF too.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons,
Author: Alpsdake

Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Author: R. Clucas. This image is in the public domain because it contains materials that originally came from the United States Geological Survey, an agency of the United States Department of the Interior.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Author: de:Benutzer:Alex Anlicker

Making the Most of your PhD – Engage & communicate

Laura Roberts-Artal January 23, 2014

Credit: Simon Redfern.

As promised, here is the next post in the series I started towards the end of last year: Making the Most of you PhD. This is the third post in the series and I want to cover a subject very close to my heart. (For the previous posts in the series, have a look here and here).

Public Engagement, Science Communication and Outreach is something I feel quite passionately about, but the point of this post is not to tell you why I feel all the above are important. There are a number of people who put the point across, far more eloquently than I could, so if you want further information about why it is important to communicate your research, take a look at the following blog posts and articles:

Green Tea and Velociraptors. John is a fellow EGU blogger and I had a particular post of his in mind when I started writing this quite a while back. Looking through his blog though, I’ve realised his got far too many fab posts on why it’s important to communicate science and why it is cool. So just click on the sci comm. widget on his blog!

Why we need Science Communication, by Emily Coren for Soapbox science, Nature.

Speaking to, a series of posts, a bit like our very own 10 minute interview, where Julie Gould talks to science communicators in her Speaking about Science blog, there are interviews with the likes of Ed Young and Professor Athene Donald.

The why and how of science communication. A chapter of a book, with a pretty self explanatory title.

The point of this post is to list the opportunities available to you should you agree with me that engagement is important. If you don’t quite know how to get started or just want to be better at it, look no further.

I’ve attended a number of these courses and events myself, so where possible, I’ll give you my views on them. Needless to say, as they’ve made it onto the post, I highly recommend them!

Courses

Public Engagement Course (NERC) –Having attended just a few weeks ago myself, I highly recommend this course. It’ll give a lot of insight into how the media works and how to plan and prepare outreach activities.

Standing up for Science media workshops (Sense About Science) – a one day workshop for early career researchers to get their voices heard in public debates about science. During the workshops concerns about speaking to the public and misconceptions about how the media works are covered. (@senseaboutsci & @voiceofyoungsci).

Spot On London – A series of community events for the discussion of how science is carried out and communicated online. Not strictly a course but a good place to look for resources and a great annual conference to attend for those interested in science policy and communication. (@SpotonLondon).

Conferences

You’ll find a number of conferences also cover topics on science communication and public engagement and there are a number of sessions which you might consider attending. It may also be that you can attend workshops at the conferences too.

British Science Association Science Communication Conference – The annual event for those involved with public engagement to share ideas and best practice.
Communicate – UK’s leading conference for environmental communicators. This year NERC funded some NERC funded ERCs to attend the conference. (@Communicate2013)
Spot On London – Annually held conference in London. Follow this link for what happened in 2013.
EGU 2014 – The meeting this year (held in Vienna in April-May), has a whole symposium dedicated to the subject. You can find it in the programme under EOS – Educational and Outreach Symposia. There are a number of sessions and workshops on range of public engagement topics.
AGU Fall Meeting – I can’t seem to find the link to the 2013 programme, but I know there are a number of opportunities at the meeting to explore all things sci comm!

Get STUCK IN!

On top of these slightly more academic routes to learning about this subject, you might just chose to jump in at the deep end and get stuck in. You could do that by proactively engaging your public – I say your public, because it’s up to you to choose your audience. The medium by which you reach them will depend on a number of factors and might determine in what way you engage in science communication. Here are a few options to consider.

STEM Ambassadors – engaging school aged children with science. As well as being expected to attend a school of public engagement event s a year where you help deliver some sort of outreach activity, there are a number of opportunities for training once you are part of the network.
CREST Mentor – Mentoring school aged children to help with science projects, via the British Science Association. The scheme recently featured in another of the EGU blogs.
Science Grrl – Because Science is for everyone. A similar set-up as the STEM network, but specifically to encourage young girls into science. Opportunities include delivery of practical activities to school children, involvement with larger outreach efforts such as attending science week events etc, or setting up a local Science Grrl chapter.
I’m a Scientist Get me Out of Here! I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here is a free online event where school students get to meet and interact with scientists. It’s a free X Factor-style competition between scientists, where the students are the judges.
I’m a geoscientist Get me Out of Here! Is the same idea as the above, but specifically to promote the Earth Sciences. Read all about it in this post.
Outreach via your institution. A number of institutions proactively seek to engage the communities in their local area. There might be an outreach officer in your department or at a higher levels in your institution, whom you could approach to see how you can get involved.
Museums. Volunteering at science and natural history museums is a great way of talking to the public about science. The roles you might get involved with are diverse.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons,
Author: David Hawgood from geograph.org.uk

Science Writing

I could probably write a whole blog post on this alone… There are so many routes to do this, but here are just a few for you to consider.

Blogging – If the thought if your own blog is a little daunting, then how about guest blogging for some established bloggers? Dan and I would be keen to host some guest blogs (I’m not saying we are established) and some of our fellow EGU bloggers have hosted guest blogs in the past ( Matt Herod of GeoSphere gave me my first break) and Jon Tennant of Green Tea and Velociraprots is currently looking for guest bloggers.
The Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the ‘Guardian’ and the ‘Observer’.
The Richard Casement internship -would-be journalist spend three months of the summer working on the newspaper in London, writing about science and technology.
British Science Association Media Fellowship – spend three to six weeks over the summer working with professional journalist at a media host: national press, broadcast or online media. Calls open in January 2014.

To tweet or not to tweet?

My final words for this post I save for twitter. I may get around to writing up my notes for the discussion panel I was involved with at EGU last year: Blogs & Social Media for Science Communication, but for now let me say this.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons,
Author: Dgultekin

Whilst I was originally very sceptical of the advantages of using twitter, I am now a huge advocate. It is a great way of disseminating your science and output, it quite simply gets you out there and raises your profile. As a result, it is possible to build the largest network of contacts imaginable and that leads onto opportunities: a job opportunity, an opportunity to collaborate with someone, an opportunity to move into a new field, a scholarship/internship/grant you’d not hear of, etc…. The list is truly endless.

The answer is simple: TWEET!!!!!!!!!!

That’s all for this week. Next week, I hope to compile a list of international geosciences related training courses. If you know of any that I ought to include, please get in touch!

10 Minute Interview – Earth Science Communicator

Laura Roberts-Artal January 17, 2014

Dan and I are both advocates for the communication of science,via all possible means, and that is why this week’s interview is close to our hearts.

Sarah Day’s role at the Geological Society of London focuses on conveying the importance of the study of the science behind how our planet works. I met Sarah about a year ago, when I invited her to give a talk here at Liverpool. It was a hugely successful talk which covered how geology has been communicated through the ages. Sarah made some good points in her talk. Firstly, Earth Sciences are GREAT for science communication because we can take people out into the field and show them why it is an exciting science. However, the ‘story’ (or scientific findings) are often doctored (by scientists and the media alike), so that they have greater impact, and sell more. In her talk, Sarah showed that this is not new and when it comes to communicating geology, has been going on since the industrial ages. My particular highlight was finding out that for a period from the mid 18th to the 19th century, geology was considered the coolest science!

Vital Statistics

You are: Sarah Day
You work at: The Geological Society of London
Your role is: Earth Science Communicator

Q1) What are you currently working on?

All sorts of things! We’ve just finished Earth Science Week in the UK, which I hope we can grow into to a much larger event. It’s been a lot of fun finding out about the geology people are coming across in their everyday lives. We held a series of walking tours of geology in London which were a real eye opener!

Q2) What is a typical day like for you?

Unless I’m out and about at a school visit or science festival, I’m likely to be spending the first hour or so checking up on our social media accounts and responding to enquiries received via twitter/email/blog/facebook – some of which require more research than others. After that, it depends what projects are happening – I might be writing a press release, calling a scientist to interview them about their work or proof reading articles for our blog or website. When we hold events here, I’m likely to be found pestering scientists with a microphone for an interview! And during any of that, the phone could ring with a media enquiry that needs answering five minutes ago…

Q3) Does your job allow you to have any academic outputs?

One of the reasons I went into science communication was because I love finding out about science, but don’t think I have the necessary qualities to do it myself! Instead, I get to spend time with people from a huge range of disciplines and find out what they’re up to, which I love. If I did venture into academia, it would be more focused on ‘science studies’ – the history and philosophy of science and its communication – but for now I’m happy cheering researchers on from the sidelines!

Q4) What has been the highlight of your career so far?

I love it when a news story you’ve worked hard on does really well – geology can be quite a difficult sell to mainstream media (unless it involves dinosaurs.) A couple of years ago we held a meeting about The Anthropocene – a proposed new geological epoch, which made the cover of the Economist. I also really enjoyed writing a response to Iain Duncan Smith’s jibe about geologists being less useful than shelf stackers – if only more public figures would have a go at geology so we can make the news defending our members…

Having said all that, I think my proudest moment is still the press release based on some archive material, ‘Charles Darwin was crazy about dinosaurs’, which found its way onto various news sites missing the last two words….

Q5) To what locations has your research taken you and why?

One of my first projects was to take part in a meeting of the European Association of Geological Societies in Romania – luckily for me, the theme that year was ‘tourism’, so I got to see some amazing geological sites. I really enjoy delivering school workshops – it’s amazing how excited a group of children can get about rocks! – and taking part in science festivals. The furthest those have taken me is Orkney, which has a brilliant science festival every September, I recommend a trip!

Q6) Do you have one piece of advice for anyone wanting to have a career similar to yours?

Networking doesn’t have to be a dirty word – it really helps to get to know others involved in science communication, either in person or on Twitter. There are some great conferences, some of which have bursaries for people starting out, and an increasing number of free events. And whatever you end up doing, my number one rule is: no one is an expert on everything. Ask scientists the questions you think your audience will want to know the answer to and never, ever, feel stupid for doing it.

Q7) If you could invent an element, what would it be called and what would it do?

ItsJustARock-ium. (Still working on that name…) Somehow, this would create the ability in everyone to recognise that no, that interesting looking rock you found is not a meteorite. Or a dinosaur egg. Or radioactive. It’s just a rock. Please stop emailing me.

Sarah is a science communicator and author. After studying for an MA in the History and Philosophy of Science, she moved to London to study Science Communication at Imperial College. When not communicating geology/telling people their rocks aren’t meteorites, she writes fiction and occasional articles for Guardian’s Comment is Free and The Vagenda. You can find her on twitter @geowriter.

A round-up of some newsworthy geomagnetism stories

Laura Roberts-Artal January 15, 2014

Happy New Year to you all!

We’ve had a long Christmas break at Geology Jenga, but we are back! For 2014 we’ve got some really interesting 10 minute interviews lined up, as well as the continuation of the ‘Making the most of your PhD’ series and musings on all the things that interest Dan & I. So without further ado, let’s get started!

The past few weeks and months have seen some exciting newsworthy stories regarding the Earth’s magnetic field. I thought I’d highlight a few of them for our first post of the New Year.

The Aurora that never was.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons, user: United States Air Force, This image or file is a work of a U.S. Air Force Airman or employee, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image or file is in the public domain.

On 7^th January, there was a large solar flare with an associated fast traveling Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), which was headed straight for the Earth, and was expected to hit our planet by the 9^th of January. Space weather scientists, the media and people across the UK and Europe were glued to the night skies in hopes of seeing aurora borealis at abnormally southerly latitudes. Perhaps the excitement surrounding the potential to observe these mysterious phenomena was fueled, at least in the UK, by the timely airing of the first episode of the new series of Star Gazing Live, in which the team (made up of Prof. Brian Cox and comedian Dara O’Brien) took on the challenge to capture the northern lights.

Space weather has featured heavily in the UK media in the run up to the Christmas, as the UK government pledged a £4.6 million investment in the forecast of space weather. From early this year, the Met Office will forecast, deliver alerts and warnings to key sectors that might be adversely affected by solar flares and CMEs.

Despite the hype, the skies did not deliver. A great blog post by Dr Gemma Kelly, at the geomagnetism team of the British Geological Survey, explains the reasons behind why the Northern lights didn’t quite happen!

For more information on solar flares, CMEs and why they are important: have a look at my guest blog post for GeoSphere on the Earth’s protective shield and also the information pages of the British Geological Survey.

Magnetic Interactions 2014

For two days last week, I was at Cambridge University at the UK conference for the geomagnetism community. This year there was also a strong international presence. I would usually write a blog post on the highlights of the research that was

Logo courtesy of Richard Harrison.

being showcased at the conference; however, the meeting organisers beat me to it! Read about the science behind fundamental, applied rock and mineral magnetism, as well as, how an ancient voyage by naturalist Alexander von Humboldt might help us understand the geomagnetic field prior to the 1800s in this blog post by Dr. Richard Harrison, of Cambridge University.

It’s been a long time coming: SWARM!

After a long time waiting, the SWARM mission was finally launched on the 22^nd November, 2013. A very exciting time for geomagnetist across the globe, as well as the European Space Agency

The SWARM mission is a European Space Agency mission to study the intensity (strength), direction and changes in the Earth’s magnetic field using high precision and resolution measurements collected by instruments aboard three identical satellites. The three satellites will collect data from all the sources of the Earth’s magnetic signal: core, mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and the magnetosphere. Two satellites will fly at lower latitudes, whilst the third will fly at a higher altitude to measure all the vectors of the magnetic field and to reduce the uncertainty associated with not having high quality spatial and temporal data. The data set will be used in models to better understand the Earth’s magnetic behaviour, including how it may be changing over time. It will assist in deciphering processes such as weakening magnetic shield, space weather and radiation hazards.

Photo courtesy of Victoria Ridley, who also baked this impressive SWARM cake!

For a great blog covering the build-up to the mission launch, impressive launch videos and cake, head over to the ESA mission blog. If you are interested in more details about the satellites, the mission aims and all sorts of other details, follow the links in the ESA blog too.