Adriane here,
Admittedly, the title of this post is a bit misleading; I didn’t actually go to Ireland to give a talk, in the midst of a pandemic. Rather, I was invited to discuss my research, path into science, and science communication by a graduate student, Luke O’Reilly, at the University College Cork through video conferencing software.
Luke recently began his journey into outreach by establishing a virtual seminar series for the graduate and undergraduate students and professors in his community, as a way to come together and continue learning about topics related to marine science. Luke’s endeavors have been highly successful; not only are those in academia participating, but also members of the general public! To date, about 300 people have signed up to tune into the talks! You too can sign up for this seminar series by clicking here.
Most of the talks to date have included folks presenting their research using figures and text on slides in a ‘traditional’ talk format. But Luke indicated that he wanted to do a more free-form format, to see how that worked with his audience. We both agreed that a lighthearted, off-the-cuff talk would be fun for us both, and we hoped this format helped our audience engage more with us and participate. Neither of us had done such a presentation in this format before.
To prepare for this talk, I didn’t spend copious amounts of time making a slide show or modifying figures. Instead, I pulled up videos, images, Google Earth, and some slides from previous talks I’ve given. This way, I was able to screen share these resources with the audience when certain topics were touched upon. Personally, this format and style was really fun, kept me on my toes, and allowed me to share a lot of information pretty quickly. Luke indicated he received positive feedback about the talk format as well from audience members!
The topics we covered ranged all over the place, which was really fun! We began by just talking about living at sea for 2 months, and what that is like. I showed the audience a drill bit I had with me, and also showed a short video explaining how we conduct drilling in the middle of the ocean. Topics also then ranged from foraminifera and their ecology, the importance of the Kuroshio Current Extension to the Japanese fishing industry, how this massive current may change under human-induced warming, and we even touched on the topic of tectonics! Audience members asked questions throughout the talk via typing them into a chat box. Luke and I paused for questions throughout the talk, which really allowed for some more in-depth discussion of topics. We also had an additional Q & A session at the end of the presentation.
The cool thing about working in science communication is that I am always learning from other people, and this experience was no different. From experimenting with this talk format, I realized that mixing things up and doing something in a different way can be hugely successful. So take chances! Be bold! You never know how successful an endeavor will be until you try.
You can watch some of the recorded UCC Marine Geology Lectures here on YouTube!