Following Ideas Exchange, The Chook Chat Shack (Australian Eggs, Agrifutures and PHA joint initiative) sponsored over 40 scientists to attend a science communication workshop. The workshop was facilitated by Dr Will Grant from ANU and was a combination of discussion and hands on activities. The two main objectives of this workshop were to;
- Enable researchers to write better written summaries of their work
- Give researchers the tools to enhance their presentations (more engaging, less jargon, telling a story)
One of the activities researchers were asked to talk about was their science, while congregated in a large circle. Will challenged people to remember what each person said, but most people struggled to remember what anyone else in the group worked on. Then Will asked each participant to nominate one thing they are passionate about and repeated the challenge of remembering. It was interesting to note that it was much easier to remember what people were passionate about as they spoke with emotion and didn’t use jargon. It was a great exercise to demonstrate how we should be communicating science!
It was great to see the enthusiastic participation from all who attended and the feedback received from researchers was very positive. Effective science communication is integral to ensuring that all of the fantastic research that is undertaken for the benefit of our industry is talked about and shared. We want to ensure that our researchers are able to effectively communicate the research they do to a wide array of people which will also have a positive impact on extension of their science into industry in the future.
