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22 July 2022
#AntarticLog: To sea we go!
And now for something completely different. #AntarcticLog heads to the deep sea, where carbon sinks, where the sea is black, and where the tiny submersible Alvin — able to carry three people — will soon be shining its light on unseen territory.
17 June 2022
#AntarcticLog: Advocating on behalf of coral
Presenting…Cindi Punihaole, the Program Director of ReefTeach, a coral reef advocate — making a public policy difference as well as a personal impact — at Kahalu’u Bay, Mission Blue newest Hope Spot. Cindi — who has lived and relied on the Bay all her life, has observed the changes taking place there over recent decades, as the sea level has risen, sea temperature and acidity have soared, and the number of tourists visiting the Big Island of Hawaii has skyrocketed.
3 June 2022
#AntarcticLog: Headed for Hawaii
Serendipity? My tickets to the big island of Hawaii were already bought when I read that the international nonprofit organization Mission Blue had designated its 141st Hope Spot — Hawaii’s second — right where I was headed. For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be learning about — and posting about — the changes taking place on Kahalu’u Bay.
23 May 2022
#AntarcticLog: Communicating climate science
I’ve been listening to teachers, and reading their words. They’re overtired, overworked, underpaid, and, when it comes to science teachers, extra worried: they’re concerned about the hard line that has been drawn by many people against science.
13 May 2022
#AntarcticLog: It’s tough getting to Antarctica
I think we’ve established that it’s not easy to get to Antarctica. Ever since the Drake Passage opened ten million years ago, letting the Southern Ocean circle the Antarctic continent, it has rendered human arrival there perilous and arduous.
15 April 2022
#AntarcticLog: Getting Graphic
At times the trouble isn’t finding science stories, it’s finding how to tell them. In comics, the words are vital, but the images are, dare I say, even more important. Why? Because they’re what catches your attention, clues you in, inviting you to read, and — in the best cases — they work to convey aspects of the science that just wouldn’t work as well in words. And, as experts in science education and communication know, the more modes you use to tell the story, the more eyes you’re going to get on your work.
1 April 2022
#AntarcticLog: A Lite-Brite of SciArt
I got my start at Scholastic News, a classroom magazine for 11 and 12-year-olds that covered everything — so I had to interview everyone who was making news. I quickly realized that the people I liked talking to the most were scientists. They were the most passionate, the most enthralled, and they had the biggest lives — even as they focused on a small research topic or specific geographic area. To me they were dots of light that — like the Lite-Brite toy I’d grown up with — formed pictures.
21 March 2022
Volunteer-Driven Outreach Highlights Research at Scripps Oceanography
Have you ever been hugged by a sea urchin? Watching a young kid apprehensively place their finger between the spines of a sea urchin, then light up with excitement when the spines gently squeeze them is just one thing that motivates us to dedicate so much time to outreach. While we have the attention of that student, we can explain that photoreceptor (or light-sensing) cells on the tips of the urchin spines allow them to sense shadows and move their spines towards predators as a defense mechanism.
18 March 2022
#AntarcticLog: (Climate) refugees
Sometimes there just aren’t words to express my response to what’s going on. That’s what led me to comics in the first place — a grievous story of walrus stranded by climate change — and it’s what leads me on. What “does not compute” in words can make a connection in visuals.
11 March 2022
#AntarcticLog: Coming together for science
My Twitter feed is full of calls for peace. And last week’s #AntarcticLog post had a call for “more science!” Coming right up. Actually, Antarctica is proof that we can have peace and science, and that the countries of the world can come together to secure it.
The Plainspoken Scientist is the science communication blog of AGU’s Sharing Science program. With this blog, we wish to showcase creative and effective science communication via multiple mediums and modes.
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