Designing for Broad Understanding of Science Insights from Practice

Abstract

With the acceleration and increasing complexity of macro-scale problems such as climate change, the need for scientists to ensure that their work is understood has become urgent. As citizens and recipients of public funds for research, scientists have an obligation to communicate their findings in ways many people can understand. However, developing translations that are broadly accessible without being "dumbed down" can be challenging. Fortunately, tenets of visual literacy, combined with narrative methods, can help to convey scientific knowledge with fidelity, while sustaining viewers' interest. Here we outline strategies for such translating, with an emphasis on visual approaches. Among the examples is an innovative, National Science Foundation-funded professional development initiative in which National Park rangers use scientists' imagery to create compelling explanations for the visiting public. Thoughtful visualizations based on interpretive images, motion pictures, 3D animations and augmented, immersive experiences complement the impact of the natural resource and enhance the role of the park ranger. The visualizations become scaffolds for participatory exchanges in which the ranger transcends the traditional roles of information-holder and presenter, to facilitate provocative conversations that provide members of the public with enjoyable experiences and well-founded bases for reflection and ultimately understanding. The process of generating the supporting visualizations benefits from partnerships with design professionals, who develop opportunities for engaging the public by translating important scientific findings and messages in compelling and memorable ways.

Designing for Dissemination and Sustainability to Promote Equitable Impacts on Health

“…Arts-based knowledge translation ( 3 , 88 ) has been proposed as a viable strategy for dissemination to health care provider and consumer groups. Use of visual graphics can support communication with and translation of complex science concepts to target audiences ( 73 , 119 ). For instance, this video by the University of Colorado Record Linkage team ( https://youtu.be/kt9u5omGwsY ) uses graphic storytelling to explain research data privacy and security concepts.…”

Arts-based approaches to public engagement with research: Lessons from a rapid review

“…External expectations from research funders about public engagement needs can also drive decisions to adopt arts-based approaches for engagement with research [29,30]. Much research funding comes with a requirement to demonstrate research impact, and one way to do that may be through arts-based approaches [31].…”

“…Nevertheless, our analysis of the literature suggests that there may be funder expecta-tions for researchers to use arts-based approaches for engagement with the public to ensure it is more accessible than traditional forms of academic dissemination [29,30]. This desire to effectively disseminate research findings to the public is sometimes seen as a requirement tied to the acceptance of public research funds [30], and arts-based approaches are sometimes perceived as an effective way of meeting this requirement in funding applications.…”

Thomas H. Kunz

“…Tom often engaged in many informal talks and demonstrations for people keen to see what he was working on. In these interactions, the foundations were laid for what would become iSWOOP, a large-scale NSF-funded initiative for making science in national parks visible to their millions of annual visitors (Merson et al 2016;Hristov et al 2018). Tom knew that helping the general public understand the facts about bats, wildlife, and the environment is especially important for promoting effective, meaningful government policy to support a broader scientific research agenda.…”