Scientists and Social Media III
This is a continuation of the Scientists and Social Media assignment for Science Writing for a Lay Audience. Since I created a Twitter account specifically for this assignment, almost all the accounts I follow have something to do with the world of science and nature, or science writing specifically. I have been scrolling through my Twitter feed and retweeting things that I found to be particularly interesting/ a good example of science writing — or an interesting piece on science writing — and sharing it with the class’ hashtag #UnitySciWri.
One tweet that I found was by an account called Sharing Science @AGU_SciComm; Account of the Sharing Science program at the American Geophysical Union. I thought the tweet had a good caption to grab peoples’ attention. The tweet also had a couple of good hash tags that were useful to explore other science communication content on twitter — “New ways scientists can help put science back into popular culture. http://ow.ly/uWN830izHLP #popsci #sciengage #scicomm”. The preview of the article linked to in the tweet showed a glimpse of a graphic novel, which might also make someone more interested in clicking on it.
The article, headlined “New Ways Scientists Can Help Put Science Back into Popular Culture”, is on a website called The Conversation “academic rigor, journalistic flair”. You can immediately tell from the tagline of the website that this is not a site that most people get their news from. The articles on this website are meant to be read by academics — people that are doing the scientific research and wanting to communicate it. Despite this, I found the article to be straightforward and readable. This article explains the importance of science being part of our culture,
“But really science is part of the wonderful tapestry of human culture, intertwined with things like art, music, theater, film and even religion. These elements of our culture help us understand and celebrate our place in the universe, navigate it and be in dialogue with it and each other.”
The author, who seems to be anonymous, goes on to explain how scientists should work with people in the entertainment industry so that accurate science is included in popular culture like movies and TV shows. The importance of readable nonfiction books with accurate scientific elements is also discussed, which is when the graphic novel seen on the link preview comes in. These books need to “…let readers see themselves as part of the conversation about science.”
Another thing I found interesting was tweeted by American Forests (@AmericanForests) with the caption “#DYK a single tree can filter as much as a third of the nearby pollution? One of the most effective actions a city can take is to plant more trees. #IntlForestDay http://bit.ly/2IsMmRB (via @nature_org)”. This caption also contains several helpful links such as #DYK — Did You Know — which shows more tweets that have interesting facts, and #IntlForestDay which shows more tweets with interesting things about forests. The tweet shows a very well-done graphic made by the Nature Conservancy about the benefits of urban forestry. I think the graphic has the right amount of color, and it’s very easy to read. I would say that it would make an average person agree that we should plant more trees in the city.
The link in the American Forests tweet links to an article on the Nature Conservancy’s website about urban forestry. The article reminded me of the stories we’ve been reading in class because it had a very strong sense of place. The story talked about the city of Louisville and how the air quality was very bad, so they started an urban forestry project and the air quality improved.
Another interesting article I came across on twitter was also shared by Sharing Science @AGU_SciComm with the caption; “Introducing Students to the Challenges of Communicating Science by Using a Tool That Employs Only the 1,000 Most Commonly Used Words http://ow.ly/VKJt30jh2gF #SciSharSci #scicomm #upgoer5”. The link in the tweet takes you to the American Society for Microbiology. The article is a very serious looking scientific article, with an abstract and everything. As suggested by the headline — in the caption of the tweet — this article is about training students to be able to communicate science using a tool that only lets you use the 1,000 most commonly used words. This would be a very good skill to have as a science communicator.
The tool — found here: https://xkcd.com/simplewriter — was developed by Randall Munroe. Munroe is the creator the popular science/ nerdy web comic series xkcd.com. Munroe is “well-versed in communicating scientific and mathematical topics in creative ways” and he has several books published that explain science related things in plain language.
The twitter account New Scientist @newscientist — an online science news magazine — tweeted on April 9th “Antarctica still losing ice despite big rise in snowfall http://bit.ly/2qk6ZHb “. The link takes you to an article on New Scientist’s own website with the headline being the same as the caption of the tweet. The article describes recent data that that shows annual snowfall in Antarctica has been rising, but Antarctica is still losing ice due to climate change. Just about every time it snows you hear climate change deniers use the fact that it is currently snowing to try and disprove climate change. But this article makes it clear that just because it’s snowing, doesn’t mean that the planet isn’t still warming.
One of my latest tweets was something I actually found on Facebook, but I thought it was interesting enough to post to #UnitySciWri on twitter. The post was from a Facebook page called Wildbird Recovery, which is a nonprofit organization in Pennsylvania that helps wild birds. This post is another colorful graphic that helps people understand something about nature. This graphic is very effective and easy to read. It shows a cartoon of a dead tree and explains why dead trees are actually full of life. I think it is a great example of scientific communication to the general public.
