Bringing story back

One of the things that’s really important to me as a science communicator is telling stories. I certainly didn’t invent the idea of moving towards a more narrative way of describing science, and I know that I’m not the only one that feels that storytelling is key to more engagement in science. In fact, it was this idea in particular which lead to the creation of the #onsci (“on science”) twitter chats that started last year after the Inspiring Australia conference. But now I feel that I’m actually starting to put my ideas into practice and it’s exciting!

Recently an article that I wrote (with Waite scientist Matt Gilliham) was published on Scientific American’s guest blog. It still makes me want to do a happy dance when I think about it. I was really lucky that Matt was prepared to indulge my ideas, both when pitching and writing the story, and that his research had such a good story behind it. I’m also really lucky to be working in science communication right now.

I have actually been working in science communication for more than 10 years in various guises. As recently as 3 years ago, using blogging and other social  media tools as a way to communicate science was not considered by research organisations, at least not the ones I knew about. Almost all of our communications activities were focused on the mainstream media, newspapers in particular, which lead to a formula for writing science. Of course I understand a particular style of writing is needed to catch the attention of someone who only bought the paper to line the budgie cage. But now, with blogs etc, we have intentional, deliberate readers who want to be inspired and amazed, rather than accidental readers who we hope will read enough words to think ‘science is important’ before they turn the page.

I have always been interested in telling stories about science and I didn’t realise how different this was from ‘conventional’ science communication until very recently, when another science communicator was providing some feedback on something I’d written. She gave me some direct feedback on the statements attributed to her organisation, but then she gave me some advice on how the article should have been written; more stress on the impact of the work, especially at the beginning. I hadn’t written to the formula.

My decision to not write to the formula was deliberate. We’ve been taught that science articles should look something like: researchers have solved a problem, what the problem is & why it is important, how they did it (sciencey bit), why this research is important and how the results of the research will be delivered to solve the problem. But not all research is a breakthrough. Most breakthroughs happen because teams of scientists have worked hard for a long time on a small piece in a big puzzle. Often they aren’t exactly sure which puzzle the piece belongs to, and the picture on the front of the box can be absent, wrong or incomplete.

Do we really want to know how the story ends at the beginning? I’m interested in telling the kinds of stories that meander; that describe surprise, creativity, discovery and disappointment

Although it’s only one post, I feel like I’ve finally made a start. I hope it’s the first of many!

Dear Sir David

This post was first published on the Letters to Sir David Attenborough blog set up by my ASC pals @upulie and @ScientistMags.

Dear Sir David Everyone has a collection of Very Special Things. These are the precious things, the first things into the car when a bushfire looms along with the kids and the pets. Keepsakes like negatives, lost teeth and Nanna’s china. On my list of Very Special Things, somewhere near my great-grandmother’s Queen Victoria mourning handkerchief from 1901 and the lock of hair from my son’s first hair cut, is my copy of the Trials of Life, autographed by you.

I was in third year at Uni in Sydney when the book and TV series came out; studying a unit on animal behaviour as part of my agricultural science degree so the timing was perfect. You were doing a signing at the ABC Shop in the Queen Victoria Building and it’s still the only book signing I’ve ever been to. I thought I’d got there pretty early, but the queue already snaked around the building, giving me plenty of time to rehearse my ‘speech’. I wanted to tell you how you’d been an inspiration for a generation of people like me, growing up in regional Australia in the Time Before Internet. You brought amazing images of the beauty and diversity of nature into our homes, our lounge rooms, giving us a window into our very own world. Watching your TV programs was a family ritual and I couldn’t help but be fascinated by it all. I wanted to tell you that my love of science and desire to become a scientist was influenced by you. I wanted to say something profound and funny so that you might remember me out of the millions of people who queued up for your autograph. In the end, I was so nervous and awestruck that I’m not sure that I spoke at all, but I do remember that you smiled at me as you closed the cover of the book and pushed it towards me.

The book has always had pride of place on my book shelf. The dust cover has bite marks in it after a mouse plague in Queensland and maybe one day I’ll buy another copy so I can swap it over. Like the book I’m probably a little worse for wear now too. I didn’t make it as a scientist, but my fascination with living things has never left me. When I was trying to work out what else to do with my life, I remembered how hearing the rich, descriptive narrative of the story of life on this planet made me feel and the next step became obvious. I haven’t done anything profound or inspiring like you, but I have made a living talking to people about how amazing the living world is. And you showed me that was possible.

So now that I have the opportunity to talk to you again, all I really want to say is …

Thank you, Sir David.

Heather.

A room full of friends I’d never met

Last week I went to the Australian Science Communicators conference in Sydney. I’ve been to lots of work-related conferences before, but this one felt very different. Perhaps it was because I was presenting my own research, rather than someone elses, for the first time in a long time. But I think the main reason was because I was attending a conference full of friends that I’d never actually met.

Through Twitter, I’ve been lucky enough to have had conversations with a number of people either doing, researching or just interested in science communication in Australia. Some of them I’ve been talking to as long as I’ve been on Twitter, just over a year now, without ever meeting them in person. Although we do talk about science and science communication, for example during #onsci chats, we also talk about music and concerts, tv shows and books, holidays, birthdays, work, families and children. It was amazing and humbling to be greeted as a long lost friend by people I admire.

There’s already a number of links to blogs and other highlights from the conference. The inspiring call to arms to communicate science better by Australia’s Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb (here) is an important read for anyone interested in science and society.

There’s also live blogging by Kylie Sturgess (here is a link to her post on ‘Science and Social Media’) and a more reflective piece (here) by the Director of the RiAus, Dr Paul Willis. There are probably others I’ve missed. Some of the sessions also have Storify summaries, for example the session on ‘The Consultancy Game‘ compiled by Sarah Keenihan.

For me there are a few things that have stayed with me since returning home.

The first is that there seems to be a paradigm shift in the way we are thinking about evaluating and researching science communication activities. Several years ago I was a science communicator, with a science background, working on a program that had been devised by a scientist. I quickly realised that the complex way science is supported, ignored or used by society is not a scientific phenomenon. It is a social one, and there are a growing number of people who are using approaches from social science and other disciplines to investigate how people engage with scientific issues. I look forward to learning more from them.

The second is the connection between science and art. One of the highlights of the conference for me was the ‘Science as Art’ exhibition organised by Kate Paterson (and I’ll be ordering a t-shirt with the people’s choice winning image ‘Descent of Chicken’  by James Hutson ASAP). But as the connection between art and science came up from time to time it started to feel like a ‘new thing’ and I started to wonder when the connection was lost. For me, there has always been art in science (think botany), art in science communication (think diagrams and illustration), art inspired by science (think Escher) and of course science IN art (think pigment chemistry, conservation and new tools and techniques). Perhaps what we need to be doing is promoting (and supporting) science more broadly as a creative and cultural activity.

Thirdly, perhaps there was a missed opportunity to look closely at some of the emerging science-based issues and to use our collective expertise to devise ways of engaging the community. The last session I went to was on the ‘War on Science’ where we critiqued some science communication issues and it struck me that the collective experience within the ASC is phenomenal.

Finally, I’ve seen how Twitter can become intergrated into the fabric of a conference – not just to connect people BEFORE the conference, but also during and after. During the conference several tweeps broadcast highlights to their networks, allowing people within ‘our community’ who could not be there in person to participate. Others used Twitter to reflect, pose questions or provide links to examples which could be followed up at a later date. Of course there was some ‘back of the classroom’ stuff, but that all added to the conference experience. Several people started tweeting at the conference and the conversations are continuing still, a week later, on the conference hashtag #ASC2012. I have become amazed at how Twitter can be used as a platform for ‘communities of practice’.

All in all it was an inspiring and fulfilling event, perhaps best summed up by this tweet by @upulie:

… and what could be better than that!

Look at our tomatoes!

As you’ve probably gathered, I’m not one to miss an opportunity for some agricultural science, whether it’s at work, social occaisons or at home. Recently an opportunity presented itself so I thought I’d share.

During the summer school holidays, Boy persuaded me to get some of those ‘kitchen garden’ kits from a popular retailer. They come in a plastic cup with two pellets of compressed coconut fibre and a packet of seeds. We bought tomatoes (a dwarf variety), chillies, coriander and chives. Being a good little scientist, I encouraged Boy to follow the instructions to the letter, and we planted all the seeds in the cups. I didn’t count how many there were, but there were way more than we needed and the instuctions said that you could thin them out afterwards (and you never know what the germination percentage is going to be like with these things).

Within a couple of weeks we had cups full of seedlings, so it was back to the shop to get some potting mix. I filled a few pots with the cheap potting mix I bought but still didn’t have enough, so I mixed the soil from some old pots I wasn’t using with composty soil from the bottom of the compost bin.  I had mixed success with some of the other plants, but one of the pots of tomato seedlings just went off!

The tomatoes in the two pots were transplanted at the same time. The pot on the left is the cheap potting mix and the pot on the right is the compost mixture. Yes, there are actually some seedings in the pot on the left!

Admittedly the cheap potting mix had the consistency of shredded bark, but I didn’t expect it to be that bad. I also didn’t expect my compost to be that good, although I’ve been using the same bin for years, adding unused fruit/veg (naughty!), scraps & peels and the dirty bedding from our  two guinea pigs.

I asked Boy what he thought was happening.

He suggested that there could be more nutrients that the tomatoes needed in the compost mix and also thought that there could be bigger air spaces in the commercial potting mix which let the water through too quickly. He also thought that the tomato roots might find it easier to get through the compost mix.

While all of these are valid hypothesis, I didn’t really have the equipment to test them at home. What I did have was a pH testing kit. Doesn’t everyone? These kits aren’t expensive and are available at most places where you buy garden stuff. Although Boy didn’t mention pH as a possibility, I thought it was worth a try. I had done some pH stuff with Boy before (the old red-cabbage indicator trick – I still have the photos somewhere) so when I mentioned that I thought we should see how acid or alkaline the soils were, he knew basically what I was talking about.

So we put a small sample of the soils on a white tile, added the indicator and then the white powder to make the colour show up. There was quickly an obvious difference according to the colour chart, but we needed to wait a couple of minutes to read the result, so we decided to look up what soil pH tomatoes liked.

According to a site we found, tomatoes do best at the slightly acidic pH of 5.8-6.8.

To our surprise, the potting mix (the lower sample in the picture) has a pH closer to 8 or even 9. No wonder our tomatoes weren’t happy!

We’ve now transplanted the seedlings from the potting mix into another mixture of old soil and compost to see if they’ll recover. And I’ll definitely be mixing the new potting mix with compost and checking the pH before I use it again.

Here’s the sciencey bit

I love the sciencey bit. I don’t mean the stuff on face cream or toothpaste ads. I mean the bit that comes just after the point where you ask yourself “Ooh, how does that work?” when you’re reading or watching something.

I ask myself that question a lot, always have. And I love finding out, then knowing, the answer. I guess that’s why I became a scientist in the first place. I also love sharing that knowledge with people, which is why I then became a science communicator. I can’t help myself! I’m the sort of person who joins conversations at social gatherings with “Well, actually ….”. Let’s face it, I’m a nerd!

My favourite kind of science to talk about is, unsurprisingly, agricultural science. By that I mean the chemistry, biology, physics etc involved in producing food and fibre. Agriculture is just packed with science! After all, agriculture is just science you can eat. Luckily, most people like talking about food (and everybody eats!) so every now and then I get the chance to drop one of my “Well, actually …” sciencey bits into a conversation. Getting onto Twitter has also given me lots of opportunities to show my ‘ag science nerd pride’. But I want to do more which is, in part, the purpose of my blog.

So now that I’ve started to get into this blogging caper, I thought it was time for the sciencey bit. To kick things off, I thought I’d start with a few ag science factoids that I’m thinking of turning into posts. They would also be great dropped into a dinner conversation (well, in my opinion anyway).

- Pigs don’t sweat. That’s why they wallow. Only a slight increase in body temperature will be enough for them to stop eating.

- Teats on a bull can be useful, especially on dairy bulls, because it’s an indication of how well-placed their daughters’ teats will be.

- A tomato is a berry.

- Despite looking similar, lettuce and cabbage are not related. Lettuce is related to thistles and cabbage is related to mustard. However they are both known botanically as ‘terminal buds’. Basically, the stems just haven’t grown.

- Pigs have a corkscrew-shaped penis (as an audience of children during a show I was giving at the Royal Melbourne Show once found out).

- While humans have 1 set of paired chromosomes (bundles of DNA in our cells; half of each pair comes from each of our parents), bread wheat contains 3 sets.

- Narrow-leafed lupins, a crop grown mainly as animal feed, is one of the few commercial crops grown in Australia that was only domesticated in the 20th century.

- Humans rely on only about seven species of grass as staple foods.

And there’s plenty more where that came from, so stay tuned!

I’m sure the dinner invitations are going to just stream in.

Downshifting

According to Wikipedia, ‘downshifting‘ means to live a simpler life with less focus on material things and to find an improved balance between life and work. It usually means spending ’quality time’ with family and friends and trying to have less impact on the environment. It’s also about spending time meaningfully. 

In 2012 I’m downshifting.

Why?

Reason 1: Lack of funds. Basically, there is only enough money ‘in the kitty’ to keep me working for four days a week this year. I currently have two part-time roles with the same employer, each of two days per week. I could have worked harder to bring in more funds to cover day five for this year (and I may still be able to) but, quite frankly, the idea of downshifting was more appealing by the middle of last year. Usually downshifting means sacrificing some income, but I’m fortunate enough to have accrued some long-service leave so I’m ‘sacrificing’ that instead, one day per week.

Reason 2: I need to stabilise. 2011 was a year of big changes for me. In fact, 2010 and 2011 were both years of big changes. Actually, 2009 was a pretty big year too. And 2008, 2007 … I actually can’t remember a year that wasn’t full-on. But last year I became single, (trying my hardest to make the transition as smooth as possible for my son) became the sole owner of my home and started both of my part-time roles while other projects continued to occupy (and fund) the fifth working day until the end of the year. This year I want to consolidate the new routines and be more available for my son.

Reason 3: I want to do lots of things! I have a MASSIVE to do list! There are so many things that I want to do that are just not compatible with working five days per week (in three or even more roles) and being a single/parent and all that goes with that. I want to be able to focus on the two part-time roles that I have (and love) so that I feel like I’m doing my best at them both. I want to finish the Masters that I started in 2007. I want to finish renovations on my home that were started years ago, make more stuff, cook more, waste less, exercise, garden, read, blog!

So although downshifting to me does mean getting a better balance, I don’t really feel like it’s about balancing my time. I know myself well enough to know that I’m still going to be busy and I don’t want to feel like I can only spend a certain amount of time doing a particular thing. I’ve been lucky enough through my work to have spent time with Karilyn Fazio, from the Impetus Team and in her workshops she talked about energy management rather than time management. I want to spend my energy meaningfully in 2012. I want to focus more on the things that give me energy, rather than use it up. It’s a subtle difference, but it resonated with me.

So I’ve already started on the list. Instead of getting take-away pizza on Friday nights I’m making it from scratch (yes, including the dough). I’ve been making a menu plan for the week before going shopping. Boy and I have started a herb garden and so far we have tomato, chilli, chive and coriander seedlings in pots all over the place. I’ve started my Uni assignments (probably should have done that first) and I’ve been crocheting again. I’ve been calling my family more regularly. And I’ve written a post for my blog.

Of course, we all seem optimistic at the beginning of the year, equipped with our New Year’s resolutions and flushed with holiday freshness. Sure, everything might be different by the time July comes around. But right now, this is one more big change that I’m really looking forward to. Bring on 2012!

Something about trains

There’s something about travelling by train that is special. I travelled around NSW by train quite a bit when I was younger and now I’m on the train for the first time in many years, travelling from Kempsey to Sydney. My son is beside me as we snake down the green strip east of the Great Dividing Range, through lush summer pastures and thick forests with straight, tall Eucalypts, cross wide, grey rivers and pass hills with bald granite or sandstone outcrops. This landscape is alien to him, a bit “too green” for my little Adelaidean, but it makes me think of home.

The train trip I’ve done the most is the south coast run between Sydney and Nowra (Bomaderry). I grew up in Nowra, and that’s our final destination tonight but we’ll be driving this time. I remember my first train trips – school excursions to Wollongong and Sydney on red-rattlers with carriages like the Hogwart’s Express. When I started Uni I made the trip fortnightly, racing from Botany prac with half-finished drawings to catch the last train south, electric until Wollongong, then the train that time forgot to Nowra. It had doors that wouldn’t shut and stopped at all stations, even Bombo, where you could smell the salt from the sea. Bomaderry is the end of the line, the last station, because there’s no railway bridge to carry the train across the Shoalhaven River into Nowra. The frequency of that trip lessened over time as family and friends moved on. Still, I had other places to go by then, and mostly by train.

I like travelling by train. The sense of motion, watching the landscape change, the overheard conversations between families and strangers. From a train you see into people’s backyards, not the front presented to the world. It seems a little more honest. As highways increasingly bypass anything interesting, travelling by train provides a glimpse of rural towns and rural life that we often miss in our rush to get somewhere.

Travelling by train also means, to some extent, that you give up control over your journey. The route and timetable is fixed. You can’t change it. You get to sit back and watch the view. Yes, it’s slower, but sometimes slower is good.