#asc2014

[ini-niki]

Rebecca Lam from Hong King has win the Audi Young Creator - the additional award for Audi Star Creation 2014 #asc2014 #audigala #affsg #singapore #fashion (at Tent@Orchard - Audi Fashion Festival)

[ini-niki]

Opera singers + microphone = very loud #audigala #affsg #asc2014 #fashion #singapore (at Tent@Orchard - Audi Fashion Festival)

[angelajgee]

My internship experience

When I initially considering enrolling in the journalism internship over the summer I had assumed that it would be a work placement at a newspaper or another media outlet. After attending the information session however I had the understanding that it would instead be a university project that I would be working on.

My involvement with the Pongamia Project was both what I expected and not what I had expected the internship to be about.  At first I thought I was really going to struggle with working on the project and getting the required hours as I had assumed that my role was to be solely focused on the social media side of the project. After working with my supervisor Sharon however, I discovered that I had a lot more freedom in my role and was able to do longer written pieces. This was definitely an aspect of the project that I thoroughly enjoyed. As I had expected to work solely on the social media side of the project I really enjoyed the other opportunities that I was presented with as a part of the project.

I believe that the internship changed the way that I look at my degree and my role as journalist. This is honestly the best part of the internship. Instead of seeing my role as a journalist as only in a newsroom I can now see how many more options are available. The internship presented me not only with the opportunity to be a journalist at the Australian Science Communicators conference but the Pongamia side of the placement opened my eyes to a whole range of things which one can do as a professional communicator. Social media was a major aspect that I had not previously considering as being a part of my future career but now after working on the Pongamia Project I can see the importance of being skilled in social media.

I would not say that there was a ‘worst’ part of my internship as such however I did find my role confusing at times. This was quickly rectified however after talking to Sharon who was able to give me a better understanding of what I was meant to be doing. The internship has taught me a lot not just about my role as journalist but also allowed me to test my abilities. Both the work on the Pongamia Project and the Australian Science Communicators conference tested my ability to understand and to write about topics, which I do not normally write or even read about everyday. The conference also provided me with an insight into all of the different avenues of communication that are out there and how all of these communicators work together.

I would definitely rate my internship as a highly positive experience. I was able to learn a lot that I do not believe I would of learnt in a normal newsroom environment. It would have been great to intern at a newspaper or similar but I know that I am able to do that at any point in my degree so it was great to have a unique and different experience. I would rate my internship an eight out of ten and would recommend an internship similar to mine to others as I believe that it was able to teach me not just but give me a much broader communication experience.  

The project helped me to gain a lot of knowledge and understanding about working on social media, which I believe is a very important skill to possess in the changing media market. News today is not delivered in the same way that it was five or ten years ago. There is now a greater reliance by the public on social media as a source for accessing information so its good to know that I have some experience in the area which I will be likely to use in my future career.

Sharon Samuel, the project supervisor was extremely supportive. Over the course of the project we met once a week and I was constantly in contact with Sharon over email where she offered me feedback on my work and ideas that I could use for other work. I was definitely made to feel a part of the Pongamia Project and trusted enough to work independently with my ideas between meetings with Sharon.

As a journalist I have always aspired to work in print media however I now see a future in other avenues of journalism and communication. I had never considered social media and the role that it may play in my career and after working on the Pongamia Project I feel as though that is a skill that I hope to continue to work on as I believe it will be helpful in getting a job in the industry. After working on the Pongamia Project I would also now consider a career in forms of professional communication other than journalism.  

[angelajgee]

Making science understandable

[angelajgee]

Can science and social media be friends?

These networks do not just connect us to our family; friends and colleagues today social media has the ability to connect us to a wide range of people from celebrities to professionals and experts.

Despite our obvious reliance on social media for networking and information only 13 per cent of scientists use blogs and social media as a means of communicating with other scientists and the public. 

Vanessa Hill, a speaker at the 2014 Australian Science Communicators conference told the audience that ‘there are some people who are really enthusiastic to use social media to communicate but the bulk of people aren’t.’ 

With the conference focusing on the importance of effectively communicating science is social media a good form of communication for scientists? 

Sarah Keenihan is one scientist who believes in the positive role which social media and blogs can play in science communication. She recently completed a yearlong project where she wrote a blog post everyday reflecting on science and how it tied in with other broader events that occurred during the year. She reflected on this at the conference saying that ‘blogging, for me is definitely not a dirty word.’

For some scientists however blogs and social media do remain a ‘dirty word.’ There remains the view these platforms do not provide the same trust and credibility as traditional news sources do. In fact in a debate over whether social media was a hero or villain in science at the conference social media was decided to be a villain.

The rotational twitter account @realscientists is one example where science and social media are effectively working together. The account is helping scientists communicate their findings to both other scientists and the general public with great interest. On its first birthday this month, the account almost had 10,000 followers and had made more than 24,000 tweets. Everyone from scientists to science communicators, policy makers and artists have treated the accounts followers to an insight into their involvement with science.

Whether there is a place for social media in communicating science effectively is something that only time will tell. 

[angelajgee]

The importance of science recognised at ASC2014

Professor Lowe, a leading Australian scientist, asked the audience where they would be without science. I looked around the audience to notice many people live-tweeting the conference courtesy of CSIRO’s free WIFI, others were checking their emails or checking in on Facebook and some were just listening to Lowe and reading his slides. It was there in that moment that I realised just how different moments like that would be without science. Why is it then that we don’t appreciate or perhaps even understand the important role that science plays in our day-to-day lives?

When looking at a list of things science has brought us since the 1950s I realised today we take most of those things for granted. Science has given us everything from airbags in cars, text messaging and the internet things which we can’t imagine our lives without to things like at home kidney dialysis, IVF and synthetic human insulin breakthroughs which some people literally owe their lives to.

Lowe reflected on his own life during his address. Self described as ‘the oldest serious outswing bowler in Queensland’ he is currently a member of Australia’s over 70’s cricket team which will tour England this year. Quite a feat for a mean who admitted in his speech if it wasn’t for scientific breakthroughs he may not have even have reached his seventies let alone still be fit and able bodied enough to be playing cricket. Advances in health and the human condition are certainly a win for science but we seem to better remember the times where science has not quite hit scored a bull’s eye.

Instead of focusing on the good that science does we often spend too long being sceptical of science or vocalising its failures.  

Scientists may have got it wrong before but that does not mean that we should not trust them. Sure scientists may not have predicted the impact of nuclear energy on places like Chernobyl, The Mile Island and more recently Fukushima but we have to remember that scientists, just like everyone of us, do not always get it right. The great thing about science though is that they are always working to further what we already know, even if it is contrary to an older scientific finding.

There are also times when science has gotten it right, long before any of us were ready to listen. Times when we were too busy listening to the media and popular opinion to care about the scientific findings. Fifty years ago General Luther Terry told the world of the dangers of smoking. Even in 1910 scientists were studying the impact of smoking and nicotine however it is only in recent years that we have started to see real change. Watch any movie or television show even from the nineties and you are likely to seeing someone smoking. Go to many European or Asian countries and people will still be lighting up. Alarmingly all you have to do is go to a teenage party or drive past a pub or club on a Friday night to see that young people are still taking up smoking. It is not science’s fault that people continue to die of lung cancer and other smoking related diseases when they have been trying to warn people of the impact for years.

Changes in attitude do not happen over night and science cannot changes the minds of people on its own. Perhaps smoking is a lesson that we should listen to science when we have the opportunity to make a change. Climate change is one such issue where we still have the chance to make a difference. While we are spun the stories of climate change denial by popular media it is people like Professor Lowe who are experts on climate change that we should really be listening to. After all as the saying goes, ‘the proof is in the pudding.’ The sea levels are rising, the temperatures are increasing and ice is melting, climate change is not something we can deny any longer, just like science is not something that we should distrust any longer.