Last month, I attended the European Geosciences Union annual conference in Vienna. I wrote about my experience chairing a session and presenting a PICO on my research in a recent post, but this year, I also attended more science communication events and sessions than I had in previous years – so I wanted to mention some of my #scicomm highlights from this year’s EGU!
SciComm Sessions at EGU
Over the past year or so, I’ve really enjoyed getting more involved in science communication, and EGU was a great opportunity to explore new ways of communicating complicated scientific research. I attended sessions on Games for Geoscience, and communication and education in geoscience, and there were also sessions on sciart and creative writing, and a “rhyme your research” workshop that I would have loved to attend if they hadn’t clashed with the science sessions I was attending – maybe next time! The games session I found particularly inspiring, and found myself jotting down ideas during the talks for projects I hope to work on in the future, including one that I’m particularly excited about and have already started working on!
Games for Geoscience
The Games for Geoscience session also had a poster session where we had the chance to try out some games (I cannot wait to get hold of Top Trumps – Rivers!) and learn about the process of creating a science outreach game and what you can learn from playing them. They’re a great way to get people thinking about science in new ways, or exploring peoples’ decision-making processes (for example running a workshop involving a roleplay game allowed Jess Neumann and the Water@Reading team to learn a lot about how seasonal hydrological forecasts are used throughout the West Thames – you can read more about this here).
I also went along to the first ever EGU Geoscience Games Night, where several game creators brought along their games for us to try out, from computer games to board games – it was great fun and something I hope is continued in the future at EGU. I particularly enjoyed playing the Water Cycle Snakes and Ladders game by Massimiliano Zappa – even though I got stuck in the clouds and never made it into the rivers!
Missed the Geoscience Games Night or just want to relive it? Then check out my 360 tour of the games #EGU18 #scicomm
Best viewed on a smart phone, via the YouTube App (not the browser)
— Dr Chris Skinner – Researching Flood Resilience (@FloodSkinner) April 12, 2018
Poetry Slam
And last but certainly not least, at the infamous convenors party at the end of the week, I went along to the Poetry Slam, where we heard some fantastic science and research-related poems such as “Thesis, oh Thesis” by Bart van Osnebrugge, and a poem by Jess (with a little input from myself and Louise too!) inspired by the work we do in hydrology, which you can watch in the video below. It was a hilarious evening and one we’ll remember for quite some time to come – there’s no reason that you can’t have fun while attending a scientific conference! The poetry slam also saw the launch of a brand new “Geoscience Communication” journal (complete with cartoons on the cover!) – the first of it’s kind in the geosciences, and one I hope to be able to publish in in the near future.
I’m looking forward to attending more scicomm related events in the future and I’m definitely feeling inspired to continue working on my side-projects – did you attend any of the scicomm sessions at EGU? Have you attended any other conferences with scicomm events as part of the programme? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
It’s taken a while – but just in case you missed the fabulous poetry slam @EuroGeosciences @samillingworth here’s our take on being #inspired by #hydrology… #scicomm #sciart pic.twitter.com/7nmQYxQmPK
— Jess Neumann (@Jess_n1) May 14, 2018
Rebecca Emerton 