By Shane M. Hanlon

Part 2 – Hands-on Engagement

Communicating Climate Science and Science Video Storytelling Workshops
Our week started off with two workshops intended for scientists who wish to improve their communication skills in regards to climate science or through videos. Both workshops included excellent speakers/panelists. For the climate workshop, Dr. John Abraham, Aaron Huertas, and Dr. Sarah Myhre gave participants some insight into talking with diverse groups about climate science through presentations, Q&A, and role playing activities. Jason Clemons, a writer/director/producer with NASA, and our own Derek Sollosi, ran an exciting and successful video workshop where they talked about crafting your message, logistics of filming, and had participants film their own videos while providing editing feedback. All in all, this was a great way to start the conference.

Sharing Science Mentoring Meet-Up
New for this year, we matched established scientist mentors with mentees to discuss their experience as an academic trying to navigate the world of science communication, in addition to their duties at their institutions.

 #sketchyourscience at Fall Meeting
Perhaps the surprise success of the meeting, we asked scientists to draw their research, or #sketchyourscience, and they delivered. As this is a visual experience, we created a Storify about it here. Take a look!

 Up-Goer Five Session
A core goal of science communication is to make science accessible to anyone. An extreme version of this goal was championed by Randall Monroe, creator of the comic XKCD. He took the blueprints for the Saturn V rocket and explained the different pieces using the 1000 (ten-hundred) most common words in the English language, renaming the rocket the “Up-Goer Five”. From this, the Up-Goer Five Text Editor was created to test the abilities of individuals (especially scientists) to explain anything using the 1000 most commons words. Using these guidelines, we held a session at #AGU15 where scientists were encouraged to explain their science. The results were spectacular and highlighted here.

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2015 was an exciting year for Sharing Science, capped off by an excellent Fall Meeting. Looking forward to 2016, we will be holding sessions/workshops at the annual AAAS Meeting and Oceans Sciences Meeting (stay tuned for details), both in February, we are currently planning traveling workshops, and we are working on content for blogs, webinars, and our network. If you haven’t yet, please join the Sharing Science Network and join a community of scientists dedicated to the promotion of science communication. If anyone has questions about our events at Fall Meeting, or the Sharing Science Program in general, please email us at [email protected]. Here’s to a great 2016!

– Shane M. Hanlon is an AGU Sharing Science Specialist