So you have been introduced to the magical world of science communication. But there is so much more to it than a talk at a school or writing about the latest scientific discovery.
It’s almost overwhelming how many options there are. There will be so many more than I manage to fit into this post, and there will be ways that no one has even thought about yet. But in this post, I wanted to give you an outline of the many flavours of science communication that there are and give you an idea of what the science communication landscape looks like.
I want to give you a whistle stop tour of what opportunities are out there for you. I have tried to group them into four super broad categories. They probably don’t all fit neatly in these categories, but we are gunna go with it to try and give this some structure.
This is going to be a bit of a whirlwind so I hope you’re ready.
This post was originally a podcast episode. You can listen below or scroll on to keep reading! There is also a second part where you can help work out which type of science communication is best for you!
Let’s go! Here are 66 different ways that you can do science communication:
Media
Social media – Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pintrest, Snapchat, Tik Tok, Reddit
Videos – YouTube channels, science documentaries on TV, films, video abstracts, livestreams, cartoons, animations, cameraman, soundman, director
Audio – radio, podcasts, Clubhouse, editor
Writing – journalism, press releases, popular science books, children’s science books, blogs, feature articles, script writing
Events
Science festivals at international, national or local levels
Debates and panel discussions
Demonstrations and workshops
Talks – public lectures, academic conference talks, school career talks, storytelling events
Science comedy nights
Cosplay events
Science cabaret and drag events
Augmented reality or virtual reality experiences
Arts
Exhibitions and installations
Photography
Sculpture
Illustrations – comic books, data visualisation, stickers and other products, graphic abstracts, infographics, covers of research journals
Make up and fashion
Crafts
Poetry
Performing arts – music, theatre, dance
Other
Games – board games, video games, escape rooms
Science policy
Museums
Baking
There will be countless more but hopefully that will give you a flavour of what the options are. Really. I think that the only limit is your imagination. Of course, they could be mix and matched and combined together, the key is knowing if the way you choose to share your science story blends well with your why, your audience and the goals of your scicomm project.
Now you know more about the scicomm landscape, make sure to head to this post for some tips to work on which flavour of scicomm is best for you.
This post is a part of a mini series called SciComm Foundations. It covers the why and the what, the who, the where, when and the how of doing science communication. They are available as blogs, but also all available as podcast episodes in Season 1 of my podcast The SciComm Toolkit. On the podcast page, you can also find all the resources that will give you the tools you need to build YOUR scicomm toolkit.
Work on them all together before you start planning your scicomm project and you are going to have a strong core and framework to build upon.