MAYBE WE GOT LOST IN TRANSLATION (OF SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION)

What I gained from fairy tales as a child is that so much more is possible in this world than anything we can imagine. Deep time, in many ways, is another fairy tale we tell ourselves - our past conceptions of life on earth which we will likely never see. These stories are told in fragments and pieces and ghosts from the past. There is context, but it is often untethered from narratives surrounding the human experience. Scientists often wish that we could divorce the personal, and our personal, identity from our work, but this not always possible. In fact, the more that we ignore the past, and the history of our discipline, the less we can progress and truly understand earth systems science. So how do we start to encourage some of these dialogues and acknowledge the complex systems in which we work? One method traditionally used can be different forms of scientific communication.

Scientific communication has been an integral part of my scholarship since declaring my major in the earth sciences as an undergrad. As a practice, however, traditional modalities of scientific communication have often failed the communities that they claim to serve. At best, these modalities are ineffective and at worst they are often patronizing, gatekeeping, and paternalistic – reinforcing the idea of science, broadly, as a domain restricted to those who can assimilate well. Knowing this, how can we do better? . I have synthesized these artifacts using a teaching and learning software designed to teach students portfolio building – PebblePad. Combining them in a portfolio style allows for other instructors, and institutions, to view the diversity of work and take the chance to explore these creations more completely.