{"id":3227,"date":"2020-03-23T14:46:52","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T18:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/?p=3227"},"modified":"2020-03-27T09:00:15","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T13:00:15","slug":"science-you-can-understand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/issues\/spring-2020\/science-you-can-understand\/","title":{"rendered":"Science You Can Understand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Science literacy is critical\u2014if people don’t understand what causes global warming and why it’s a problem, they won’t care about or participate in curbing it. But for science to be understood, it has to be communicated clearly. That’s the goal of SciWrite, a program that trains students to translate complex science so that even non-scientist audiences\u2014the public and policymakers, for example\u2014can understand it. How can you up your science literacy? Read on.<\/p>\n

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Nancy Karraker in Sulawesi, Indonesia, where, in 2017\u201318, she traveled on a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research on the Southeast Asian box turtle.
Photo: Dana Drake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists don’t get political.<\/p>\n

Nancy Karraker heard this often as a student studying wildlife and conservation biology. “I was told, \u2018You are not to be an advocate. Be impartial,\u2019” she says. “But science literacy in America is on the decline. It’s our obligation to be advocates.”<\/p>\n

An associate professor in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences, Karraker also has a master’s in teaching writing. She is one of the professors behind SciWrite, a program offering a two-year graduate certificate in science writing and rhetoric, as well as workshops, courses, and internships to 溏心vlog免费B站’s academic community.<\/p>\n

In the two-year program, students take courses in writing in the natural sciences, public engagement with science, ethics, and multi-media. They also complete a four- to six-week internship in which they translate an organization’s science into accessible writing: blogs, press releases, grant proposals, podcasts, etc.<\/p>\n

“We would like to become known as the place to go to get training in science writing,” Karraker says.<\/p>\n

At a moment in time when misinformation is rampant and scientific fact is challenged, programs like SciWrite are of vital importance. Increasing the public’s capacity and confidence in their knowledge of science, Karraker says, “will make them more likely to understand, for example, what a changing climate means for our coastal communities, how choices we make at the grocery store affect how much plastic ends up in our oceans, and how the purchase of a frog or turtle from the local pet store may contribute to the species’ extinction from the wild.” \u2022<\/p>\n

\u2013Marybeth Reilly-McGreen<\/em><\/p>\n

You Can Build Your Science Literacy Too\u2014Here\u2019s How:<\/h1>

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Use trusted sources of information:<\/p>\n

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