When it comes to science communication, “science” can mean a myriad of things.
Perhaps you work in public relations at an engineering company. Or maybe you’re a public information officer for the National Park Service. Or maybe you organize community outreach events for a science center/museum.
Throughout my career, I’ve communicated everything from bee semen research to ultracold atom breakthroughs to the airline pilot shortage. As a newspaper reporter, and later as a marketing writer at a university, I interviewed dozens of researchers about their projects. And now as a data journalist at Emsi, a labor data software company, I tell stories with data.
Regardless of what kind of science you communicate, the principles remain the same:
- Keep it simple
- Tell a human story
Let’s take a closer look at these concepts.
Keep it simple
Some researchers are great at explaining their complicated work in layman’s terms. Others… not so much. And when the latter is the case, you have to get creative, sometimes asking the same question in several different ways to get the answer you need.
I’ll also often ask researchers to explain their work to me as if I was a fifth grader. That way, they get to practice explaining their research in simple ways and I can make sure I understand the concepts well enough to communicate them to others. Win-win!
For example, I once interviewed a triple-major senior (German, music, and physics) at Washington State University about his work with ultracold atoms. 
Now, I had zero clue what ultracold atoms were or how they worked. Chemistry and physics were never my forte. But after asking the student to explain it to me like I was a fifth grader, here’s what I came up with:
“When we think of atoms, we typically think of them like billiard balls bouncing very rapidly throughout our physical environment. However, when you cool atoms to extremely cold temperatures, they start behaving differently … Absolute zero is a theoretical concept where all motion stops because there’s no heat or energy to create motion. If we were to measure temperatures like distance, and absolute zero was in Pullman, then room temperature would be in Boston. The temperatures of these cooled down atoms would be equal to the width of a pencil right next to Pullman. We’re talking about extreme cold.”
Tell a human story
In every story I write, I try to think about the human application. Why is this relevant to me and my fellow humans? If you just show people numbers, they’re not going to care. But if you tell them a story with data, then they can see the “why.”
For example, I wrote a story last year for Emsi showcasing how an economic development client used our data to put former Kentucky coal miners back to work.
If I had just shown the data, no one would have paid attention. But by combining the data with the personal stories of the coal miners whose lives were changed, I was able to show the human application.
Anyone who has ever struggled to find a new job after being laid off or re-skill themselves later in life can now relate to this data.
Conclusion
Science communication encompasses many topics and mediums and is certainly never a simple endeavor. But keeping these two principles (keep it simple and tell a human story) in mind will help you effectively communicate any subject.
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Read my Q&A with science communication extraordinaire Rachel Webber, the creative mastermind behind WSU’s Dr. Universe.
Meredith Metsker 