Communicating Science

Let’s Talk (or sing) about Space

November 26, 2012

If you want a pleasant diversion from your day, check out this sweet song and music video from the Let’s Talk About Space project.  It’s a sweet, kind of They-Might-Be-Giantsy song and music video about space dreams… Let’s Talk About Space is a UK based project to promote interest in science and astronomy through music.  [...]

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Nice article about my podcast series….

June 25, 2012

Our educational technology folks at CU just published a very nice article about my Learning About Teaching Physics podcast series. A planet traverses the face of the sun.  Particles collide.  The energies that make up the natural world are contemplated and measured.  Physics can be a captivating subject, yet introductory course instructors often struggle with [...]

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Talks at the University of Oregon (Cognitive Science & Science Communication)

May 3, 2012

I just came back from the University of Oregon, in beautiful Eugene, where I did a series of workshops and talks.  Here are the materials and slides from those talks, for anyone interested in these materials. What every teacher should know about cognitive research. This talk looks at some of the findings from cognitive psychology [...]

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Speaking of Physics… The Art of Science Communication

April 13, 2012

Yesterday I gave a short presentation to our graduate student group here at the University of Colorado, to discuss my background in science writing and education, and share some best-practices in communication and writing that they can use with the public, or with colleagues.  One thing that I often find when reading academic papers or [...]

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Seeking the warm spot: My nonlinear career path in science writing and education

February 29, 2012

I was recently invited to write an article for the Agora blog on women and science on my career path.  The resulting article is on their blog, but I am cross-posting it here for y’all: ——— I’ve spent a lot of my life worrying about what to do for a job.  I’ve had so many [...]

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Get the word out: Effectively communicating the results of PER (#aaptwm12)

February 6, 2012

I just gave my talk this morning on effective communication of PER, and how we can learn from the science communication field.  This can also be termed, as coined by Richard Hake, “PER needs more PR.” These are ideas I’ve been playing around with for a while, and gave a one hour invited talk at [...]

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Writing about starquakes and quantum cats

January 17, 2012

I haven’t been doing much straight science journalism lately, having gotten my grubby mitts deep into science education and education research and seemingly unable to extract them.  But recently I was contracted to write some research pieces for JILA (an institute of CU-Boulder and NIST that focuses a lot on atomic and molecular physics, among [...]

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Phylm: Make a film about physics!

January 8, 2012

Phylm /’film/ n. [physics + film] The fifth annual Phylm Prize is now open! Until May 13, anyone can enter a film — though students are especially encouraged — about physics. Year three’s winners were a set of students with the Special Relativity Rap. The second year was Science Made Fun about black holes (which [...]

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Portal to the Public: Connecting scientists to the masses through museums

November 28, 2011

In my past life as a science writer, I was particularly enamored of the idea of helping scientists to speak to “real people,” partially because I was the poor sucker on the other end of the phone trying to decipher the strange language that scientists were speaking.  Science journalists are really translators more than anything.  [...]

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Dance, dance your PhD

November 20, 2011

I love the Dance your PhD contest, in which doctoral students are invited to take the horrible monster that gobbled their life for 5+ years and interpret it through dance in a 5-minute video.  What better way to become a clear communicator? I was even more excited to see that one of my colleagues, and [...]

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The Art (and Science) of In-Class Questioning via Clickers (Learning About Teaching Physics podcast) #clickers

August 22, 2011

In this second episode of the podcast, I explore recent research on teaching with clickers and in-class questioning:  What techniques do teachers use to make maximal benefit of this teaching approach? Are “clickers” or “personal response systems” just the latest fad in education? Or is there solid research behind their use? In this episode we [...]

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Speaking of Physics: The art of science communication #aaptsm11

August 2, 2011

I just gave my invited talk at AAPT, on effective science communication.  The whole session was delightful — Becky Thompson from APS gave a rundown of the different types of evil geniuses portrayed in movies, Jacob Blickenstaff outlined the images of scientists in the Big Bang Theory, and Karen Williams looked at students’ views of [...]

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New podcast: Learning About Teaching Physics

July 28, 2011

This has actually been in the works for about a year, but I’m finally unveiling my brainchild of the past several years — a podcast to communicate physics education research to working teachers.  I’m calling it Learning About Teaching Physics, and our amazing local high school teacher Michael Fuchs is co-hosting it with me.  Here’s [...]

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The Psychology of Climate Change Communication

June 16, 2011

I’m increasingly interested in how education researchers can more effectively get their messages across, so that people act on these findings (see my post about my FFPERPS talk, Get the Word Out).   I’ve been writing a lot about climate change communication lately because climate change communicators face some of the same challenges — communication of [...]

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The importance of mental models

June 13, 2011

I wrote last week about how the metaphors we use in communication have a powerful effect on how the issue is framed and how people understand and/or are convinced by what we say. Part of the thing that is so powerful about metaphors is that they prime us to think about something in a certain [...]

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Communication and persuasion: The importance of metaphor and framing

June 6, 2011

I‘ve written here and here about climate and persuasion, and what this means for us as education reformers working to change the system from within.  Today I want to write about metaphor and framing. Framing is basically how you describe, or “frame” an issue — what is the issue, why is it important, what should [...]

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When arguments backfire: Climate change communication and persuasion

June 1, 2011

I wrote before about how skeptics of Obama’s birthright aren’t convinced by a flimsy slip of paper indicating his citizenship — that hitting a belief head-on with data generally doesn’t work.  Instead, arguments are more persuasive when they fit with someone’s previous mental models of how the world works.  Confronting a “birther” with Obama’s birth [...]

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Arguing against a denier: How to convince a die-hard

May 19, 2011

What does Obama’s birth certificate have to do with science education? A lot, it turns out. Check out this awesome post by FastCompany. Apparently, despite the fact that the birth certificate has been revealed, a lot of die-hard skeptics are still arguing that Obama is not native to the U.S. How can reasonable people firmly [...]

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Get the word out: Effective communication of physics education research

May 16, 2011

I recently gave a plenary talk at the Foundation and Frontiers of Physics Education Research – Puget Sound conference.  What an honor!  And very fun, because I got to talk about anything that I wanted to.  I’ve been wanting — for ages — to talk about the intersections that I see between science journalism and [...]

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Beautiful data… visualizing science!

April 24, 2011

I have been absent for too long — this time for a good cause:  Vacation!  Geekgirl enjoyed California and Vegas and anything not involving a computer for over a week.  It is a good experience to have at least once a year.  And in return, dear reader, I give you a nice long post.  Thank [...]

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