My first consciously conducted science experiment was to gauge my parents' reaction to my playing in the mud. They sighed and brushed me off when I played in the dirt but encouraged me with toys and special clothing to play in the water, so I wondered 'How will they react when I combine dirt and water and play in that?'

That kind of self-directed learning is encouraged by certain educational institutions. But whether encouraged by formal schooling, we all start out—in some sense—as self-directed learners. Many of us get muddy in the process. That commonality of childhood experience can limit us as adults, though, by making it too easy to think of educating ourselves at more challenging subjects—such as science communication—as beyond the scope of self-education. Instead, as we grow up, we are increasingly prompted by many social systems to rely on formal experts. In some cases, that's useful because adult mistakes can be far more costly than muddy clothes.

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So when a group of self-directed graduate students invited me to serve as an expert reviewer at ComSciCon-Triangle 2019, a workshop about communicating science for graduate students put on by graduate students, I went with the enthusiasm of a muddy imp who had just learned how to make his parents scream.

In just over a decade, the United States went from laughing at Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness” to fighting over Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts.” Scientific evidence is a necessary resource in this contentious environment, but to utilize that resource, scientists need to build effective communication skills. ComSciCon-Cornell helps scientists do exactly that, bringing together graduate and postdoctoral researchers from across the Central and Western New York region to learn about and engage in scientific communication.

This past July, a team of six Cornell University graduate students and postdoctoral fellows organized ComSciCon-Cornell 2018 for 40 STEM researchers. The two-day event explored modern digital communication, with special focus on storytelling, socially sensitive topics, and public engagement. On both days of the conference, attendees learned from a diverse group of 20 professional communicators and experts through Q&A and interactive sessions. Concurrently, attendees wrote their own popular science articles and actively engaged with panelists and workshop peers alike for feedback.

t’s 16:30 in rural Myanmar and my field crew, who had spent the day surveying for elephant dung, are racing our caravan of motorbikes back to the field camp before dusk descends. As the day fades tempering the oppressive heat, elephants emerge from the shade of the forest to begin foraging, sometimes in the sugarcane and rice paddies that are increasingly spreading across the country. Running into one of these giants as they too use the network of dirt roads to travel through the landscape can be fatal, necessitating a strict policy of returning to camp before dark for the safety of the team. While my field season lasts a short three months, this is one of many concessions residents are forced to make or risk their lives encountering an elephant as night falls.

A large chunk of elephant skin

It is unsurprising that most of the remaining endangered charismatic mega fauna are in some of the poorest areas on earth. It is in these areas where wildlands still exist, and the lack of economic development has prevented the boom of industry and infrastructure that could spell the end for remaining mega herbivores and carnivores. It is also in these areas where the people tasked with the burden of living with the species disproportionately bear the brunt of human-wildlife conflict. Though local community members indicate they value elephants for religious and cultural reasons, as well as the important role they play in the ecosystem, increasing human-elephant conflict may lead to a greater acceptance of elephant poaching as a way to prevent crop-raiding and reduce human injury and death from run-ins with their giant neighbors.

ComSciCon is an organization by and for Grad Students

I’m constantly distracted from research by science twitter (Sorry Ken!) and spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how scientists can help uniform the public about all the great research going on thanks to their tax dollars. All this to say, I was immediately enamored with the ComSciCon organization.

A monk started to prepare his simple lunch of rice, vegetables, and broth. After meditating for hours, he grew hungry and wanted a delicious meal. He looked inside a wooden vat of fermenting miso made from soy beans and wheat that he had prepared the winter before. All that was left were dredges that had seeped through the bottom. Curious, the monk decided to reach with a wooden spoon. As he raised the utensil to his mouth, the aroma wafted into his nostrils — toasty, caramel, and acidic. He brought the dark liquid to his tongue.

The taste was exquisite.

According to legend, Shinichi Kakushin was a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk who has been credited with introducing soy sauce to Japan in 1254 AD. While both Chinese and Japanese monks had been exchanging recipes for soy sauce across the Sea of Japan since 772 AD, it wasn’t until Kakushin serendipitouslydiscovered a recipe for this particular shoyu soy sauce that the Japanese began their love affair with this universal condiment.

I sat down the day after ComSciCon-San Diego with ten pages of notes and my head buzzing with possibilities. There are so many directions to take a science communication career, and I just got a head start on whatever path I choose.

ComSciCon is a free science communication conference for graduate students. Since its inception in Boston five years ago, the event has expanded to include satellite conferences like last weekend’s San Diego meeting. Attendees from as far as Northern California and Arizona drove in to join some familiar faces. Shout out to the SANDSWA members among the organizers, attendees and panelists.

The morning starts like any other for the local environmental monitors in Fort Good Hope, N.W.T. — laid out across the storage room floor are boxes of clear glass bottles, GPS units, batteries, and an array of equipment that at first glance looks like something from a sci-fi movie.

Environmental monitors from Fort Good Hope are joined by an Environment and Climate Change Canada researcher to do water sampling from local wetlands in the Ts'ude niline Tu'eyeta (Ramparts River and Wetland) area.

Most of the graduate students I work with are spending the bulk of their time in lab, teaching or preparing for required departmental examinations—ultimately, preparing for future careers. During our undergraduate training and even at the graduate level, most of us are led to believe our career options are limited to academia, industry, government or alternative careers. This narrows the areas of science we are exposed to—including science policy.

The cornerstones of science policy include, but are not limited to: science advocacy, scientific communication and science-based policymaking and legislating. As most of us matriculate through our graduate school careers, we begin to notice the need for increased funding in science, a disconnection between science and the public, and a host of other issues—issues we can fix.

I believe that communication is the single most important skill that scientists need to succeed in their work. While it's not always recognized and valued for its immense importance, it may well be what determines whether you get the job after your next interview or whether your receive the next grant you apply for.

After all, the only value your work will have in the world is the value that you can succeed in communicating. Even the most rigorous, insightful, and novel scientific research will be wasted if you cannot convince others that it is important and relevant to them.  

On the surface, Professor John Craig Freeman’s augmented reality installation Imagining the U.S./Mexico Border: Migration Stories has more to do with political science than natural science.

But Freeman, a public artist who teaches in the Visual and Media Arts Department, and School of Communication Dean Raul Reisbelieve that augmented reality (AR) and its close cousin, virtual reality (VR), have vast potential for telling the most pressing stories of science—climate change, public health, biotechnology, renewable energy, etc.—in a way that absorbs and engages the public.

Freeman will give a talk on Imagining the U.S./Mexico Border during Communicating Science (ComSciCon) 2018, a national workshop series to advance storytelling in the “hard” sciences. Founded by graduate students at Harvard University and MIT, and organized by graduate students across the country, the series is being hosted by Emerson College June 14–15.

Learning how to communicate science to the public is vital for graduate students today; however, many programs do not offer formal training in communication. This gap has been filled by ComSciCon, an annual science communication training conference organized by and for graduate students interested in learning how to share their science knowledge with the wider world. ComSciCon is a national body which has given rise to a handful of regional meetings now joined by ComSciConATL. Organized by four graduate students (including our own Anzar Abbas), ComSciConATL brought together 50 graduate students from the Atlanta area and greater Southeast region in early March to learn science communication skills through interactive workshops, panels and networking with local experts, and collaboration between fellow attendees.

During the second year of my PhD program in psychology, I found myself on the verge of quitting. I was overwhelmed by the pressures of graduate school, feeling bouts of imposter syndrome, and struggling to do research independently. I had considered other non-academic jobs but never had the gumption to discuss it with anyone, especially my adviser. Those were dark days.

In February of that same year, I learned of an opportunity outside academia. A university email mentioned that applications were open for a national science communication conference called ComSciCon. The goal: to teach STEM grad students how to better communicate complex and controversial scientific topics to non-scientific audiences.