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Antikickback_Paul t1_j9jvvwy wrote

SciComm from a molecular biology perspective has been... tricky. Ecology and zoology has the benefit of incredible imagery to capture an audience-- predators chasing down prey, elaborate mating rituals, exploring animals like coyotes that people can literally see in their back yards. It's hard to make poking-and-zapping-cells-in-a-dish-please-believe-me-its-real-i-swear captivating, relatable, and accessible. I've always felt it challenging on my team's science news show. Do you work with or have thoughts you can share on this type of communication, where you're faced with difficulties in captivating an audience or with a topic that isn't so intuitive and therefore tough to explain to a lay-ish audience? Thanks!!

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nationalgeographic t1_j9leg2j wrote

Oooh I love this question, what a tough one. I think one of my favorite tools to use is incorporating an analogy or some sort of "social math" into science communication. For social math, for example, when we talk about fence ecology we could say something like "the length of fences wrapped around the earth could likely reach the sun". That loops people into the scientific material through a topic/distance/measurement that they can understand and relate to.

I think that Seeker (https://www.seeker.com/) also does a great job at communicating all of that great micro-science stuff - though they use a lot of fancy animations and camera work which might not be logistically feasible.

The advice, in short, is to connect your science back to the average person. Why might it matter to them? What aspect of a person's daily life does the science connect to? It's a good series of questions to ask yourself when seeking funding too - I think my explorations with SciComm have improved my grant writing ability to a great extent.

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