U-M Science Communication Fellows take their research on the road

Science Communication Fellow Joe Paki, a doctoral student in physics, demonstrates superconductivity at a recent STEMFest at the Ypsilanti District Library (YDL) Whittaker Road branch.

 

 

On a recent Saturday afternoon Professor Natalie Tronson got a chance to do something she long had thought about: demystify science and share her research on learning and memory with a general audience.

 

Tronson and other University of Michigan faculty, graduate students, and postdocs put their science communication skills to the test as a steady stream of families interacted with their displays during a March 17 STEMFest at the Ypsilanti District Library (YDL) Whittaker Road branch. The public display is one of the final parts of the Science Communication Fellows program offered by the U-M Museum of Natural History.

 

“I’ve been interested in doing outreach, but it’s hard to know where to start,” said Tronson, an assistant professor of psychology in U-M’s College of Literature, Science, & the Arts. “So the fellows program really helped me get a leg up on how to develop an activity based on my research, and make it into something new. ”

Patricia DeLacey, a PhD student in biological psychology, and Sharmi Sen, a doctoral student in biological anthropology, run an activity that illustrates honest signals in animal communication.

The idea behind Science Communication Fellows is to help researchers share their work and explain the broader impacts, so the public can see and understand the latest research.

“It shows people that science is about finding a creative way to discover answers to problems nobody has solved yet, and it shows how they do the actual work,” said Amy Harris, director of the U-M Museum of Natural History.

 

Now in its second year, the program offers workshops and instruction for faculty and graduate students on communicating to K-12 students and the public, and creating interactive tabletop activities to showcase their work. To earn certification, fellows then share their activity at two or more outreach events.

 

With the Museum of Natural History closed in preparation for its move to a new location,  outreach events took place at Forsythe Middle School in Ann Arbor and the Whittaker branch of the YDL.The offsite outreach events may continue after the museum reopens in 2019.

 

The displays are something Bonnie Keating, 13, can’t get enough of. She and her mother Roxann took their time looking at  everything from superconductors (complete with liquid nitrogen) and chemical reactions to primate research, psychology, and neuroscience—including mouse and sheep brains.

 

“I think it’s awesome to see how people discover these things,” said Bonnie Keating, who plans a career in a STEM field. “You go to school and people say ‘OK, there’s this thing called gravity and it holds all of us to the Earth and here’s why it happens.’ But I think it’s also cool to know how we found out there was gravity. They’re showing you how we’re learning about that today.”

 

Reaching those passionate learners is what drives Mariana Valencia Mestre, a PhD graduate in ecology and evolutionary biology with an interest in how agricultural transformations support sustainable farming. Much of her research takes place in Central America, and the Science Communication Fellows program interested her because she wants to communicate her work to the communities and schools there.

 

And, like the other scientists in the program, she wants to interact with people and improve the connection between science and society.

 

“Going out into the community like this shows that U-M isn’t just this place over there in Ann Arbor,” she said. “My mother was a science communicator and I’ve seen the positive impact it has. It could be about just having a good time while learning something, or even getting people to talk about things they haven’t considered before.”

 

Learn More About Science Communication Fellows

 

— Terry Kosdrosky, communications manager for public engagement