Green Tea and Velociraptors

Geology beyond science

Jon Tennant September 18, 2013

This was originally posted at: http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/earthbound/geology_beyond_science

So people who read this blog (*one person cheers off in the distance*) may have noticed that my partner-in-crime, Jane Robb, recently abandoned me to the fusty claws of Nature. *sniff* Fear not though! Jane is pursuing awesome things now with the European Geosciences Union, the other organisation I also happen to write for. She also maintains a personal blog, which is well worth following.

So last week, I wrote about how we can use different plots to help craft stories within geoscience. I want to stay along the theme of ‘science communication’ for a while, and write about an excellent paper Jane had published recently, calling for an increase in public engagement within geology higher education. Expect tonnes more along this in the future, as Jane develops her role at the EGU, but for now, I figured it would be cool to highlight some of the key points in Jane’s paper, as a sort of weird, blog-eulogy to her passing.

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Plotting for the Earth. Sciences.

Jon Tennant September 7, 2013

This was originally posted at: http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/earthbound/plotting_for_the_earth_sciences

So a cool paper came out a while back about using plots when attempting to construct stories as a mode of communicating in Earth Science. I cannot, as always, emphasise my frustration when someone writes an article that’s supposed to be broadly educational, and sticks it behind a paywall. In this case, it might have reached the target audience of practising institutionalised Earth scientists (hello), but not the many who aren’t fortunate to have a subscription.

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The values of social media and blogging for academics

Jon Tennant April 11, 2013

At this years European Geosciences Union General Meeting (Vienna), I’ve been asked to be on a panel discussion describing the ways in which I think using social media and blogging can enhance academic careers. Sometimes, talks of this kind can be very echo-chambery, and there are plenty of really cool guides already out there online. This was a chance though to actually directly target a group of academics who may not have any experience of these things though, so was an opportunity to mobilise a new wave of ‘web 2.0’-active academics. Of course, I’m writing this in advance of the actual discussion, so it might be the case that only a few people turn up and live-blog the entire thing, in which case it might be viewed as a little preaching-to-the-convertedy.

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The crux of the matter – language, context, and narrative

Jon Tennant November 27, 2012

Throughout this series, I have highlighted the pitfalls and issues associated with effective communication of scientific knowledge to and with the public. This has largely been fueled by a recent paper highlighting these points as stepping stones and hurdles which scientists face and can develop upon to create strategies for becoming better at public communication. However, I’ve yet to offer any kind of solution.

Yesterday, I wrote briefly about the way in which geoscientists can use different plots to help them reconstruct scientific information into a digestible narrative format, taking on the style of a refashioned ‘story’. Continuing to draw upon the analysis by Iain Stewart and Ted Nield, this post will focus on how developing a narrative and particular language can help researchers to ‘talk geoscience’ in a more engaging manner.

To reiterate the actual issue, I’m going to steal a quote from the Stewart and Nield paper citing the geoscientist and science writer Rex Buchanan (it’s like he was made to be a geoscientist with a name like that..):

“We do a mediocre job of helping adults to learn about and appreciate science. Many of the science stories that I read in newspapers or try to watch on television aren’t very engaging. Some are too long, and many seem irrelevant. Popular science often seems like castor oil – some we should take because it’s good for us, not because we want too” (2005)

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