In searching for more professional development opportunities in science communication, I came across the Solving for Science ENGAGE course facilitated by Liz Neeley. I knew immediately that I wanted to participate and signed up for the 10-week course. Every Monday afternoon from September 18th until November 20, 2023, I hopped on Zoom, eager to learn and slightly nervous to be in a virtual room with people who seemed much more accomplished and further ahead in their career stages than myself. I tried my best to absorb as much material as I could and came away each week with lots to think about. I know that the lessons and resources shared with us in this course will continue to shape my science communication practice and I hope that they can help to shape yours too.
Below you will find my weekly take-aways from the experience.
WEEK 1 – Foundations and Motivations
In the very first session, we learned about Anthony Dudo and John Besley’s framework for strategic science communication that involves goals, objectives, and tactics. At first, I was confused about the difference between goals and objectives, but Liz explained that goals ask, “what change in behaviour do I hope to create?” and encompass broad, overarching outcomes while objectives ask, “which beliefs, feelings and frames (BFFs) shape that particular behaviour?” and refer to specific strategies or actionable steps that can be used to achieve your goal. Tactics are even more specific and get at the “how” of each objective by asking, “which messages, messengers, timing, and tone can affect people’s BFFs?”. For our course assignment, all participants were asked to think of a strategic communication goal. I wrote,
“My goal is to empower people who may not feel like scientists to think deeply and critically about themselves and the world around them, not only in times of crisis but in their everyday lives.”
My hope with this goal is to take actionable steps that contribute to a world that is more equitable, welcoming, and accessible. This involves meeting people where they are, not where I think they should be as well as celebrating and developing people’s strengths instead of focusing on their deficits (e.g., lack of knowledge, lack of resources).
WEEK 2 – A Practical Problem
Building upon the strategic science communication framework from Week 1, Liz introduced the Theory of Planned Behaviour in Week 2 to help us better understand why people do what they do. This theory suggests that there are a variety of reasons why people make decisions, whether it’s subjective norms, personal attitudes, or self-efficacy. By showcasing a model of science that centers scientists’ identities (ex. personal preferences, capacities and skills, institutional context, etc.) and puts effective communication at the core, I was better able to appreciate the value of science communication and how it can serve as an important tool for decision making. One of the things that Liz said this week that resonated with me was, “our most important audience is our future selves.” If we cannot decipher or understand the messages we share, how can we expect anyone else to? When designing tactics for strategic communication campaigns, we can shape our workflows so that they result in meaningful and understandable outputs. Drawing from data sciences, Liz introduced us to the Tidyverse framework which includes 4 kinds of work:
Import: universal inbox to capture everything;
Tidy: metadata to action items and track progress;
Analyze: identity and linking to build context and connections; and
Output: make stuff with our future selves as collaborators.
As someone who struggles to keep track of all the information and ideas I encounter daily, I found this visual funnel helpful for figuring out what stage I am in and where I need to go. Employing this structure in our lives can also make it easier to recall specific examples or stories about certain topics. I get distracted easily and currently have notes scattered across many different notebooks, buried in journal pages, and hidden behind screens on various software platforms. Some of it is tidy; some of it is a mess to sift through. Writing this blog post is my attempt to analyze and output just a small portion of the information I imported from the ENGAGE course so that I can build my repertoire of science communication knowledge.
WEEK 3 – Social Science for Social Issues
This week was all about social sciences which is right up my alley. I love social sciences, but I felt like an anomaly in a room mainly full of immunologists and biologists. I see immense value in understanding how people think, feel, and understand the world around them from a psychological and philosophical perspective, however, I know that many people carry a bias that frames social sciences as “less important” or “easier” than other sciences. This is simply not true. Unlearning this bias and developing an appreciation for social sciences unlocks a whole world of insight and understanding. In science communication, it’s important to consider people’s beliefs, feelings, and frames if we want our messages to resonate with those who can benefit from the knowledge being shared. In trying to understand where people search for information, how they process it, and how they make sense of the world, we must draw upon diverse bodies of knowledge that have been accumulated. By sharing studies about the science behind narrative arcs, combating misinformation, and activism in the peer-review process, Liz introduced us to different ways in which social science research can improve science communication.
Asking questions is the basis for all scientific practices and can help to build up a case for why we are doing what we are doing with our science communication and public engagement efforts. How do people process stories? Where do people get their news? What moves people to action? What do people remember? These are all questions we can ask to determine whether or not our science communication will be effective. Starting with a plausible theory of change, then researching theoretical foundations, accumulating empirical evidence, and implementing knowledge into real-world situations, we can lay the groundwork for best practices in science communication. Science serves as a source of knowledge and practice. However, it is important to keep in mind that it is not the only source of knowledge and is not the only way to practice.
Science doesn’t fully answer questions but rather provides us with direction for what to ask next.
At the end of this week’s lesson, Liz asked us to read a paper called, A Guide to Understanding Social Science Research for Natural Scientists by Moon & Blackman (2014). This paper challenged us to grapple with our presumptions about knowledge, how it is created (epistemology), and what there is to be known (ontology). While there were some big words and complex ideas in the paper, I found it intriguing to learn about different spectrums and categories of knowledge to build up my understanding of how theoretical perspectives can influence not only how we communicate science, but also how we navigate and understand the world at large.
WEEK 4 – Core Competencies
What skills do you need to be a science communicator and how do people learn these skills? In this week’s lesson, Liz talked about core competencies in science communication drawing from learning theories and communities of practice. While some people might find this boring, I found this topic interesting because the major research paper I wrote during my Master’s in Science Communication was a content analysis of science communication job postings. Science communication is a growing meta-discipline that requires a unique set of core competencies. While there is currently an increase in demand for people with science communication skills, training, and professional development experience, there is a lack of standardization when it comes to which core competencies employers are seeking from science communication professionals. Furthermore, there is a lack of shared vocabulary to describe the skills required for these roles. My research project aimed to scratch the surface of this issue by identifying what skills and qualifications are in demand for entry-level science communication professionals in Canada as described by publicly accessible job postings. While my small project concluded that broad skills such as writing, project management, community engagement, and graphic design were sought after by Canadian employers, one of the papers that Liz recommended in Week 4 provided more depth to my understanding of which core competencies are foundational to the practice of science communication. In the paper by Lewenstein & Baram-Tsabari (2022), the authors differentiate between occasional, active, and professional science communicators and provide lists of essential and advanced learning objectives for training purposes. It is important to note that the list of learning objectives in this paper is not exhaustive and context plays a crucial role, however, it provides a systematic approach to science communication training that did not exist prior.
I enjoyed this week’s lesson because it reminded me that everyone is on their own path and that one person cannot be everything to everyone. Learning is a skill that can be practiced for a lifetime and there will always be more to learn as the world continues to change and evolve.
WEEK 5 – Logic and Emotions
This week’s lesson marked the halfway point in the course and was conducted asynchronously. While I prefer the accountability and community aspect of synchronous learning, it was still interesting to explore the topic of logic and emotions as they play crucial roles in science communication. Scientists are humans and this means that our personal beliefs, values, and experiences shape our work. Data cannot cannot speak for itself and relies on human analysis, interpretation, organization, and presentation for it to make sense and have meaning. By simply presenting data as “facts'' we fail to position that information into a larger socio-cultural context. In a rhetoric class I took during my Master’s, we learned about Aristotle’s modes of persuasion – logos (logic), pathos (emotions) and ethos (credibility) – as a way to appeal to our audience. In Liz’s Week 5 lesson, we were introduced to the information deficit model and a variety of cognitive biases that impact our ability to think logically. She also discussed how emotions can influence our cognitive evaluations and thereby affect decision-making.
The information deficit model is a zombie idea that implies that scientists can improve science literacy by filling the knowledge gap between what they know and what their audience knows with more information. However, simply explaining science to people does not result in an understanding of science. In her slides, Liz wrote that we are, “awash in information” and “desperate to understand”. In the digital age we are living in, the problem is not that the information isn’t out there or that it is unavailable to us, but rather that we don’t know how or don’t have time to sift through the overwhelming amount of it all.
As we encounter new information, our brains are also wired to make mental shortcuts. Liz introduced us to the Cognitive Bias Codex and I was fascinated with the graphic because I love the brain and have experienced many of these biases in my own life. The graphic highlights numerous ways in which we deal with four different types of problems:
Too much information
We notice things that are already primed in memory or repeated often.
Bizarre/funny/visually striking/anthropomorphic things stick out more than non-bizarre/unfunny things.
We notice when something has changed.
We are drawn to details that confirm our own existing beliefs.
We notice flaws in others more easily than flaws in ourselves.
Not enough meaning
We find stories and patterns even in sparse data.
We fill in characteristics from stereotypes, generalities, and prior histories whenever there are new specific instances or gaps in information.
We imagine things and people we’re familiar with or fond of as better than things and people we aren’t familiar with or fond of.
We simplify probabilities and numbers to make them easier to think about.
We think we know what others are thinking.
We project our current mindset and assumptions onto the past and future.
Need to act fast
In order to act, we need to be confident in our ability to make an impact and to feel like what we do is important.
In order to stay focused, we favor the immediate, relatable thing in front of us over the delayed and distant.
In order to get anything done, we’re motivated to complete things that we’ve already invested time and energy in.
In order to avoid mistakes, we’re motivated to preserve our autonomy and status in a group and to avoid irreversible decisions.
We favour options that appear simple or that have more complete information over more complex, ambiguous options.
What should we remember?
We edit and reinforce some memories after the fact.
We discard specifics to form generalities.
We reduce events and lists to their key elements.
We store memories differently based on how they were experienced.
WEEK 6 – Awe and Wonder
In this week’s lesson, we learned about awe, wonder, and curiosity in science. While it may seem frivolous to some, these emotions are powerful tools for attracting people to science. The first time I saw the elephant toothpaste experiment in a chemistry magic show I thought, “Wow! How did they do that? Where did it come from?” When I went snorkelling for the first time and saw hundreds of underwater creatures, my initial reaction was “Woah, there’s a whole other world down here!” In both of these examples, I was experiencing awe, an emotion that happens when you feel like you are in the presence of something vast, that transcends your understanding of the world and makes you realize that your current understanding is inadequate. Other examples of experiences that could evoke awe include witnessing a birth, stepping foot on the Great Wall of China, or hearing a symphony orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall.
According to Dacher Keltner, author of the book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, eight categories of experiences can elicit awe:
Moral beauty
Collective effervescence
Nature
Music
Visual design
Spiritual experience
Life and death
Epiphanies
Based on the definition of awe presented in this week’s lesson, I am curious to know if awe ever detracts people from science as well. If feelings of awe involve the realization that our current understanding is inadequate, could this lead to negative feelings, such as feeling dumb, stupid, or incompetent?
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to evoking awe because everyone is unique. In Liz’s presentation, she showed a picture of a spider and talked about the awe she felt when reading that tiny jumping spiders can see the moon. However, when I saw that picture I almost cried and had to look away because I am terrified of spiders. Liz mentioned that surprise is a key factor for learning to occur, so maybe she was onto something.
I came away from this week’s lesson curious to know more about how science communicators can evoke, harness, and build upon the power of awe.
WEEK 7 – Fear and Uncertainty
Liz began this week’s lesson by summarizing that, “Perhaps the most consistent thing that we find is that people struggle to understand what other people think and why.” I can definitely attest to that. The particular topic of fear and uncertainty came at a fitting time for me as I was consuming a lot of news that led to feelings of anxiety and hopelessness. My heart felt heavy and my mind was cluttered, but learning how communicators deal with these emotions in times of crisis reminded me that I was not alone.
Risk is a social construct.
Everyone’s tolerance and evaluation of risk differs depending on context. Liz introduced an equation for risk that describes it as hazard multiplied by outrage. As our perceptions of either of those factors increase, so too does our perception of risk. Other factors that affect risk perception include novelty, controllability, or immediacy of the threat.
Later in the lesson, Liz emphasized that emotion is not something we are trying to combat or remove from our science communication; emotion can actually be beneficial for moving people into action. To assess and mitigate risk, we can engage in deliberative democracy, a system in which people discuss and deliberate before making decisions. Deliberative democracies have (1) accurate information as the basis, (2) a representative diversity of viewpoints, (3) a deliberative stance, and (4) sufficient time. Not having all of these characteristics can lead to the spread of misinformation. Misinformation is bad because it undermines our sensemaking abilities. A popular analogy for reducing the risk of spreading misinformation is the Swiss cheese model. This model outlines a multilayer process that includes media literacy, inoculation, correction, content labeling, content moderation, and de-platforming. This model highlights that no one strategy can solve the problem, but collectively they have the power to greatly reduce risk.
In an article written for the Atlantic called How to Talk About the Coronavirus, Liz describes five ways to address feelings of fear and uncertainty when communicating about topics that may make us uncomfortable:
Start where you are
Pick your battles
Avoid unforced errors
Be honest and transparent
Expand your thinking
WEEK 8 – Sensemaking
As scientists, we often find ourselves in conversation with people who express concerns over topics that have little to do with our area of expertise. When engaging in these conversations, it’s important to be honest and transparent about what we do and do not know, while also recognizing that we serve as nodes of trust in our community and we can use our position to help others think more critically. In this week’s lesson, Liz began by introducing Yale’s Climate Change Communication framework called Global Warming’s Six Americas which separates audiences based on their attitudes towards issues of climate change. The six groups are: (1) alarmed, (2) concerned, (3) cautious, (4) disengaged, (5) doubtful, and (6) dismissive.
She highlighted that each audience varies in terms of their belief in global warming, their level of concern about the issues, and their level of motivation and involvement towards making a change. The type of information people seek from climate scientists also varies from evidence and causes of the issue to consequences and actionable steps. The climate change communication discussion was followed by an activity where we had to role-play a conversation with Liz about bird flu in Arkansas to address whether or not she should be worried. Participants took turns asking Liz questions to better understand why she was concerned and to help her make sense of the situation. The exercise was a bit uncomfortable because most of us didn’t know much about bird flu in Arkansas, but it simulated experiences that we may face in our everyday lives when people express concern and seek our input. The purpose of this activity was to show us how dialogue can play an important role in sensemaking.
Sensemaking is based on the idea that “situations, priorities, and systems are talked into existence.” Humans are social creatures who collectively respond to threats. In other words, a crisis is not a crisis until we start treating it as such and we often don’t know that something is happening until other people are reacting to it.
Sensemaking is an ongoing and retrospective process that attempts to tame the “ongoing, unknowable, unpredictable streaming of experiences.“
Students of sensemaking understand that change comes just as much from the subtle, the small, the relational, the oral, the particular, and the momentary as it does from the conspicuous, the large, the substantive, the written, the general, and the sustained. The key takeaway from this week’s lesson was that seemingly small structures and moments can have large consequences.
WEEK 9 – Reflexivity
Reflexivity is a term I first heard in the Inclusive Science Communication Starter Kit from Metcalf Institute. They refer to reflexivity as “the ways that one reflects, thoughtfully and systematically, on their communication practices and outcomes.” To me, reflexivity involves the continuous and systematic act of reflecting, iterating, improving, and critically thinking about the work we produce and why we are doing what we are doing.
In this week’s lesson, Liz encouraged us to practice reflexivity by giving us time to review our notes from the entire course and share with the group what that experience felt like. People may try to avoid engaging in a reflexive practice because it takes a lot of time, being self-reflective can be vulnerable, hard, or embarrassing, and we fear that others are judging us. However, incorporating reflexivity into our instruction, practice, and feedback loop can benefit us and our research.
Reflexivity is often an overlooked and undervalued step in the science communication process, however, lack of reflexivity is a characteristic of functional stupidity which refers to the inability and/or unwillingness to use cognitive and reflective capacities in anything other than narrow and circumspect ways. Functional stupidity involves:
Lack of reflexivity: involves an inability or unwillingness to question knowledge claims and norms
Lack of justification: when actors do not demand or provide reasons and explanations.
Lack of substantive reasoning: entails the myopic application of instrumental rationality focused on the efficient achievement of a given end and ignorance of broader substantive questions about what that end is.
WEEK 10 – Wrapping Up
Throughout the 10-week ENGAGE course, I learned a lot about the science behind science communication. Liz covered several theoretical perspectives but also provided short practice opportunities each week and encouraged everyone to participate in whatever capacity they felt comfortable. While I didn’t come away from the course with a completed science communication product or piece of work, I did gain access to a plethora of resources from experts in the field, a community of people who share in my enthusiasm for science engagement, and a renewed sense of self-efficacy in my ability to do good science communication.
I’ve personally been struggling with my understanding of what it means to be a scientist and who qualifies as a science communicator. I grew up with a particular idea of what a scientist was, but as I continue to learn, my understanding is constantly changing and expanding. The thing that usually brings me back to loving, appreciating, and trusting science is learning about the process and the people behind the work. Hearing stories about people searching for answers to seemingly simple questions, only to reveal a million more questions and unexpected answers fills my mind with curiosity.
At the beginning of the course, Liz shared a quote that said, “The only way out is through”. Despite my best efforts to find “the easy way out” of things that require a lot of thinking, I am constantly reminded that there are no shortcuts, especially when it comes to creativity and building expertise. This ENGAGE course is part of my journey “through” and I will carry these lessons with me as I continue to navigate my way through the triumphs and tribulations of finding my place in the world of science communication.