By Elizabeth Surovic , third-year PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales Sydney in Australia.
Samantha Burke PhD candidate at University of New South Wales Sydney.
Curiosity is a common spark for questions that could change the world. But the spark will go out unless someone is there to communicate the concepts behind the world.
Samantha Burke says that Science communication, or sci com, is “the way of getting people outside of science to understand more about what science is, how it works, and how they also play a part in it”.
Sammy is an early career scientist and science communicator and has been involved in science communication for many years. Through her experiences, she shows her story of how science communication is changing the world around her one spark at a time.
Sammy’s first interest in science communication came from seeing people’s interactions with science in the world around her. She grew up with parents who were scientists, so learning about science was an early experience for her, and it inspired questions and her curiosity about the world around her. But people she met at school thought that science was too hard to understand and something that could never be grasped. Seeing this, she was inspired to take action to try and bridge the gap between science knowledge and the everyday person. Sammy embarked on several sci com activities to build up her skills – presenting at science fairs, speaking to students in remote communities, tutoring at university, writing articles, interviewing people on a podcast, and presenting at conferences.
Sammy learned many lessons about how sci com can reach people. In particular, she learned the importance of understanding her audiences. “Reaching people in the area where they’re comfortable … rather than expecting them to seek out that information, I think, is a really great way of showing how accessible science can be”.
Samantha Burke
Sammy has done a program in Sydney, Australia, called Pint of Science, which has festivals worldwide and brings scientists into pubs to talk to the community. She has also done some very different science comedy, using humor to draw audiences into science. “The presentation was 80% science and 20% comedy. We met with some professional comedians, and they helped us to restructure a scientific talk using more comedic techniques – by incorporating more jokes, incorporating language that people can understand, and graphics”.
image from site at the bottom of the blog
The same holds when dealing with school kids. “One of the biggest hurdles for younger scientists in science education is that sometimes things get too complicated too soon, or they don’t engage with the content as much because it seems too abstract”. However, “if you teach science in a way that can engage the students, then it’s much more digestible and understandable for them.” Sammy finds that effective sci com can nurture students’ curiosity. She really enjoys “teaching kids who are just starting to get curious about the world, … and allowing them to grow”.
Through her experiences, Sammy believes that communicating with the public is an integral part of science. Sci com can teach people to be curious and get them involved in the world around them. Effective sci com can also engage people in citizen science and conservation, and sci com can affect public opinions on policy and science funding. Sammy hopes to continue her sci com journey, making science accessible to everyone, though the scarcity and precarity of paid sci com roles make it difficult to pursue as a career.
Science communication is an essential part of the scientific process and can cause significant change in the world around us. Sammy advises young scientists who want to get into science communication to “find people that you look up to in sci com to find communication styles that you like, then go and try it in your community”. Science communication can be very rewarding. And it all starts with being curious.
If you would like to contact Sammy, her social media details are below
Twitter: @SammyMarineB
Instagram and Threads: @SammyMarine_B
Website: samanthamarine.com
Blogger Elizabeth Surovic is a third-year PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales Sydney in Australia. This year, she is a Mangum blogger. She also practices sci com and is part of a science podcast.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.surovic
Instagram: @esurovic
Further reading about sci comm and its importance
The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science recognizes that writers come to the table with different needs and audiences. Through solid examples and concrete advice, Montgomery sets out to help scientists develop their own voice and become stronger communicators. He also teaches readers to think about their work in the larger context of communication about science, addressing the roles of media and the public in scientific attitudes as well as offering advice for those whose research concerns controversial issues such as climate change or emerging viruses.
https://partnerships.nature.com/blog/the-importance-of-science-communication-for-researchers/
Integrative and Comparative Biology 