Page 24 - Periodic ISSUE 8

In
form, Inspire, Engage

Jess Fleming (Lincoln 2016) writes about a project to help students
communicate their research.

What links birds, drum kits and interstellar text designed to communicate a complex idea in
gas clouds? All featured in the department’s an accessible and engaging manner. A well-known
infographics project, launched for the first time example is Compound Interest, run by Andy Brunning,
this academic year. which features an extensive library covering the
chemistry in everything from porridge to nail polish.
In October last year, 20 Part II students were brought
together with the challenge of using this novel format Unfortunately, the typical format of a journal article is
to communicate their research to a wider audience. hardly conducive to public engagement. Instead, the
After some initial training in science communication, “inverted triangle” approach is encouraged: start with
the students had two weeks to produce an infographic the findings, move onto the method then briefly cover
to be shared with their peers in a Q&A session at the the background. Text should be concise and replaced
Chemistry Teaching Laboratory. with simple diagrams wherever possible. The number
one rule? Be ruthless! It’s time to decide what really
The word itself gives a clue to its function: matters.
infographic = information + graphics. An infographic
is a combination of charts, images and minimal

Simplifying your science can be a lot harder than mix of groups were brought together to share their
it sounds. Randall Monroe’s book “Thing Explainer” science and become more confident communicators,
uses only the 1000 most common English words to hopefully inspired to do more public engagement work
describe topics including chemistry’s periodic table. in the future. One participant said “the infographic
In his version, fluorine becomes “green burning air writing helped me better understand my Part II
that kills” and sulphur is “smelly yellow rocks”! Whilst research by making me summarise and present it as
it wasn’t necessary to go quite this far, eliminating the simply as possible to explain it to a non-scientist. It
jargon is key to a successful infographic. was also a helpful insight into scientific communication
that stood me in good stead to start the huge task of
The students’ creations have now become part of writing a thesis”.
the department’s wider outreach work. They were
displayed at the department’s annual alumni reception The project is currently at the pilot stage, organised
at the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and have by Richard Cooper, Martin Galpin and Saskia O’Sullivan
been used in wider training activities. Given that with a view to expanding it further next year. See the
a recent RSC survey found roughly half the public images for some examples of the students’ output
don’t feel confident discussing chemistry, clearly so far.
outreach work is as important as ever. It prevents
disinformation, inspires the next generation and
boosts funding for research. Find out more or have a go:
https://www.compoundchem.com/
The participants themselves also benefited from being Thing Explainer by Randall Moore
challenged to think about their research in a new way https://www.rsc.org/campaigning-outreach/
and really understand the fundamentals of it. A diverse outreach/public-attitudes-chemistry/

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