sharing science workshops
Workshops for all your communication needs
These workshops can focus exclusively on communicating with community groups and other “non-science public” audiences, journalists, policymakers, and other audiences of your choosing. They can also focus on specific communication elements and devices like storytelling and multimedia.
We work with our host institution to determine the workshop focus that is most appealing to them. Workshops range from half-day to multi-day offerings. Pricing starts at $5,000 for a 4-hour workshop and scales accordingly depending on the duration/content of the workshop(s).
Our intention is both to provide scientists with skills and confidence in communicating and to provide them with the first step on a longer journey of science communication and outreach. We are especially excited to work with institutions and attendees who are committed to using their skills to disseminate science and its value.
Stats and Praise
Year after year, over 90% of attendees rate our workshops as excellent.
Attendees' confidence in their ability to communicate science to wider audiences increases by an average of 30%, with some attendees reporting that our workshops have boosted their confidence in their abilities by 70%.
From Serna B. Lee: “Very engaging. I felt that I was able to get a lot of assistance on a personal level, which is sometimes difficult to obtain when at a workshop w/ people from different research areas. The workshop provided me with new perspectives on how to better present my research to a wide range of audiences. I came away w/ new tools that I am going to use straight away.”
From Kelsey McBeain: “I LOVE how interactive this workshop is. Nothing makes me turn off faster than a lecture on things like this.”
Offerings
Our standard, 4-hour workshop is staffed by 2-3 AGU personnel and covers:
- Perspective: why, how, to whom we scicomm
- Identifying your audience
- Reducing/eliminating jargon
- Crafting an elevator pitch
- The value, and mechanics, of storytelling
- Drafting your message
- Practice through role playing
Workshop duration can range from 4 hours to multi-day workshops. We also offer topic-specific workshops that include all the components from standard model (with alterations for time) with the addition of specialized content.
Policy
- Science policy priorities
- Value of policy engagement
- Deep dive on policymakers
- Working with difficult audiences
Media
- Deep dive on journalists
- What makes a news headlines
- Crafting plain-language summaries
- Value of social media
Storytelling
- Identifying the basic structure of a story (i.e., the story arc)
- Recognizing narrative themes
- Crafting personal narratives to bolster a scientific message
- Telling science stories via different media/mediums (e.g., social and/or multimedia)
Multimedia
- Types of multimedia (e.g. audio, photo, video)
- Creating a multimedia campaign
- Phases of production
- Creation of product(s)
Digital and social media
- Examining online footprint (i.e., what happens is someone Googles you?)
- Types of multimedia
- Social media review
- Multimedia via social media campaigns