Science experts hope discussion will boost communication skills
Knowing a subject doesn’t make it easy to tell others about it, hosts say
How can a person who’s knowledgeable in science, or any subject, effectively communicate with those who are curious about the subject, but who may not know or understand technical language?
Showing students how to be solid communicators is the basis for today’s seminar, “Communicating Physics,” slated for 11 a.m. to noon in the fourth floor lobby of the Science Building, on the east side of Ivy Street and just south of Big Chico Creek. Professors Joe and Hyewon Pechkis will host the event, chatting with science educator, journalist and radio and podcast host Dave Schlom.
The discussion is part of the weekly seminar series in the Physics Department. It’s open to anyone who’s interested, but mainly is targeted toward upper-division physics students.
“We’re helping students work on their communication skills,” Pechkis said, “as they prepare for submissions to peer-reviewed journals, or the public, or experts in their field.”
This is important, Schlom explained, because it’s one thing to know a topic thoroughly — but quite another to be able to express thoughts to people who know little about a topic, but are curious.
“We’re going to talk about my career as a science communicator,” Schlom said. “We’ll interact with students and give them advice on interviewing — both sides of it, as interviewer as well as interviewee.
“At some time they may be called upon by someone seeking information. They might run into a Nobel laureate at a conference, for example,” he added. “It would be a wonderful opportunity, but they need to know how to do this.”
Schlom can certainly back up what he’s going to discuss. He hosts the radio show and podcast “Blue Dot” on North State Public Radio, covering topics such as surfing, interstellar space, rock guitars and the oceans.
“It’s a radio show that’s distributed through PRX (Public Radio Exchange) to other stations. We also edit it down and crank it out as a podcast,” Schlom said.
He emphasized that interviewing people in these and other fields requires a solid knowledge of communication skills on top of researching a subject before going on the air.
Pechkis agreed with those assessments.
“We (as scientists) are pretty good about communication to other experts who have baseline knowledge,” he said, “but we want to do a better job of communicating to the public.
“We want to ask ourselves, ‘Why is science important for them?’ Just about anything we do in society, from climate change to general technology, is important to the public.”
Pechkis said the event “will be open to questions — we really want the audience to lead the discussion. Dave wants conversation, not question-and-answer. We’d like our conversation to follow: Where does that conversation go, and where do the audience members take it?”
Schlom said he’ll discuss “how to talk about science to everyone from your grandmother to an 8-yearold.
“It’s all about knowing your audience,” he said. “You want to respect everyone’s intelligence. Use some analogies, but don’t dumb things down. People are smart; treat them that way. Help them understand and have a simple ‘elevator speech’ — you should be able to explain what you’re working on in a minute without a lot of technical jargon.
“You should also be able to use technical language, but be ready to explain what that means. I’m a big believer in analogies because it’s great way to explain science.”
Pechkis and his wife also have excellent research background, as they performed their postdoctoral research at the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland. They also worked in the research firm for William Phillips, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997 along with Steven Chu and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji.