By Shane M Hanlon

Science communication is a catch-all phrase that means so many things. Even when narrowing it down to scientists talking about their research to (mostly) non-scientists, there are still so many avenues and places to start. Is is best to share your science with public groups like science museums or nature groups? Should you focus on getting your work picked up by news outlets and talking to journalists? Do you want to advocate for science and meet with policymakers? Or how about encouraging young minds by visiting with students in K-12? There’s a lot here and it can be tricky to figure out where to start or even what each one of these avenues entails. That’s where we come in. 

We have a ton of resources on working with the general non-science public, K-12, journalists, and policymakers (among other audiences). You can go to our website, check out our toolkits, follow us on Twitter, and join our community. But we understand that you’re busy and that’s a lot of different directions. So, we’ve put most of it in one place. Introducing (well, reintroducing w/ some updates), Paths to Engagement. Created by me and illustrated by my Sharing Science colleague Olivia V Ambrogio, this guide is meant to help you on your scicomm journey. Want to work with policymakers? Cool! We have a path for that. Non-science public? Path for that too. Journalists? K-12? You get the picture.

We had a lot of fun designing this and it looks pretty cool. But, the best part is that if you download the PDF, almost every bubble is hyperlinked to take you to resources to help you achieve your scicomm goals. So download the guide today and start your journey!

Paths to Engagement. By Shane M Hanlon & Olivia V Ambrogio.

– Shane M Hanlon is Program Manager of AGU’s Sharing Science program. Find him on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.