Go Forth… and Science!

I’ve often thought that an internal monologue of frustration-based expletives is the laugh track of scientists. Not only are we often inventing new ways to figure out things that have only been imagined before, but usually those inventions turn up answers that are opposite to what we thought they would be… so then we have to spend time finagling our brains around the new information to determine what it means. But what of when something goes right? When a code error finally gets fixed or a big idea falls into place, when someone else’s results match your own or a conversation with other scientists catapults you into a whole new chaotic exciting adrenalin-pumping hopeful way of thinking? Ooooh dang is that satisfying.

But even when things work out, there is always a next challenging step. Curiosity never rests for a scientist, and neither does our drive to share our discoveries with others. However, when we barely understand our own work, when our brains are grasping at straws (reusable, non-plastic ones of course), how can we expect to communicate our work in a way that others can understand? And not only fellow scientists, but politicians and grocery store clerks and the IT woman who saved the content of your laptop when you spilled coffee on it at 3am last year?

Science communication, in some ways, is even more challenging than the science itself. In its purest form, it’s translation. We have to take technical jargon, statistics, plots with thousands of data points and years of work and condense it down into one simple message that is easy for everyone to understand. But here’s where it really gets tricky: there is no way that one simple message can reach everyone. There are almost 8 billion human brains on this planet, and the beauty of our species is that every single one of those 8 billion brains thinks differently. But, as we’ve figured out in every past and present conversation ever, communicating with other people is hard.

So, I can’t say that I’ll do a good job reaching everyone (I am just one person lucky enough to have internet access and a nerdy-art-fixation), but I am excited to scratch a little bit of the surface. I’m excited to be a science translator. I’m excited to take complex science and turn it into comics and podcasts and adventure stories. I’m excited to bring you ‘Go Forth and Science’.

‘Go Forth and Science’ originally began as an idea stemmed from conversations around my grad school living room table with my roommates. Then it turned into a resumé booster to make me look better to full-time job hiring teams (seriously, what even is a full-time job?). And now it’s finally settled into a platform where I can share my passions for science and the world around us with people who are interested in following along. For those who have long commutes or learn best through storytelling, I have a podcast where I talk about natural sciences with cool guests, and of course tie in all the crazy adventures we get into when we’re trying to discover the world (like sleeping on glaciers, hunting for hot springs, and crying in front of high schoolers). For those who like to learn visually, I have infographics and comics. My drawings are mostly about sea life right now but stay tuned for more branching out on that front. For those who learn by doing, come find me on a sailboat and we’ll definitely get our hands mucky. But, since it might take a while for both of us to end up on the same boat together, in the meantime you can check out my website at www.goforthandscience.com. 

Kate

Kate Hruby has a Master of Science in Earth and Climate Science from the University of Maine and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from the University of New England. When she’s not in school she works on sailboats, usually on the west coast, teaching K-12 students about the world around us from the platform of a tiny ship in a big wide ocean.