Communicating Science to Non-scientists

“The course is a discussion-focused, community-based learning course. The move online in response to the pandemic in March meant we were now learning in an environment that wasn’t conducive to in-person discussion, at a time when we could not physically be out working in our community. These challenges meant a complete overhaul of the course design.

“My goals were for students to learn to apply techniques like using humor, keeping things simple, having empathy and being flexible.”

“An unexpected silver lining for this course was that suddenly science was everywhere. It was on our Facebook feeds and our Instagram; people were talking about it at the dinner table and with their friends. Given this new science communication environment we were living in, I geared my syllabus overhaul toward embracing the pandemic. Students applied their knowledge of effective communication techniques to evaluating how the science of coronavirus was being communicated in the media. In response to national concerns that young people were not taking social distancing seriously, the students combined their knowledge of effective science communication with their knowledge of their peers to develop and share social media messages that communicated the importance of social distancing to college students.

“When I first developed this course, my goals were for students to learn to apply techniques like using humor, keeping things simple, having empathy and being flexible to effectively communicate scientific information. After all the changes during spring semester, I hope that those same skills will be helpful to them outside of science as well.” — Reggie Paxton Gazes ’04

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