NEW COURSE
COM 597D
SPRING QUARTER 2011
COMMUNICATING SCIENCE:
DEALING WITH THE PUBLIC, POLITICIANS AND THE PRESS
This 5-credit seminar, designed for graduate students of all physical and social science disciplines, will examine how to effectively communicate science at both conceptual and practical levels.
We'll use the debate over climate change as one case study, looking deeper at why scientists lost this communication battle early on and at more effective strategies that could be used to engage the public. We'll examine celebrity scientist/authors and what they may sacrifice in terms of scientific and journalistic integrity. We'll look at the variety of roles scientists can play in shaping public policy and analyze how scientists are viewed, often unfairly, in the media and popular film.
The class will also include practical training, coaching, role-playing and writing exercises so students become more comfortable speaking about their research, and science topics in general, to a variety of audiences including the public, politicians and the press.
This course will be taught by Usha Lee McFarling, currently an artist-in-residence in the Department of Communication. McFarling is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist who has worked for the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe and Knight Ridder covering a variety of fields ranging from climate, earth science and astrophysics to nutrition and psychology. She is also trained as a scientist, with undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology.
This course will meet once per week, Monday mornings from 9:30-12:20 in Mary Gates Hall Seminar Room 85.
Students will be required to co-lead one class discussion, submit various short writing assignments, prepare and give short presentations about their research and also help critique the communication skills of others taking the class.
The course size is capped at 15 students, so please enroll early if you are interested.
For more information, email the instructor: usha3@uw.edu
