90-1 Measuring the effects of teaching science communication in college classrooms

Session: Diversifying Geoscience Education Across the Academic Playing Field: Using Creative Methods to Foster the Current and Next Generations of Geoscience Professionals, Part I

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The ability to communicate science effectively is increasingly becoming a vital skill for scientists across all disciplines and careers. With new technology and new modes of communication, scientists have more ability than ever to communicate messages about science with a global audience. However, not many geoscience programs for undergraduate or graduate students have incorporated formal science communication training as part of the degree-earning process. Understandably, many educators have found that it is challenging to find space in their curricula to build in science education content. Researchers have found, though, that students are positively impacted in their development when explicit science communication skills are built into the curriculum that complement the material already being taught. 

We studied the submitted science communication projects of college students in order to better understand how they learned science communication skills. Upper-level geology and biology students in a paleobiology course were tasked with writing a research blog as their final project for the semester. The end goal of this project was to have a published piece of writing for a science communication website that could be added to students’ CVs or resumes afterwards. This project was scaffolded with numerous formal and informal lessons and assessments throughout the semester that focused on teaching core skills in science communication. Students learned about science communication through multiple means, built into the course curriculum, via discussion of written texts, peer review of students’ writing, practice writing alternative text of images, etc. We explored the relationship between this directed, scaffolded research blog and the science communication skills that the assignment was designed to teach. To do this, we developed a standardized rubric, focusing on core skills in science communication, to evaluate the final drafts of the assignments. These assignments were independently evaluated by three researchers and their interrater reliability was measured. Our interpretation of the results from this study suggest that the effects of the implementation of a science communication can be measured through the use of a blog post assignment using our newly created science communication rubric. In this presentation, we present the results of the measured gains in science communication skills and we also present practical suggestions for building science communication skills into existing courses. 

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

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