Bringing Scientists and Stakeholders Together through ScienceTapes (Alaska Voices)

Start Date

2017

End Date

2020

Release Date

2017

Communities, state and federal agencies, resource managers, and decision makers throughout Alaska need sound scientific information to better understand our changing world to make informed, science-based decisions that will shape the future. Scientists also need information from these stakeholders to understand what science questions need to be answered, develop research priorities, and gain important insight about the landscape based on personal experiences and generational knowledge. However, effective two-way conversations between scientists and stakeholders are often limited, due to resource constraints, a lack of necessary communication skills and tools, and other factors. A mechanism for better communication between scientists and stakeholders is needed to facilitate the successful exchange of scientific information. This project aims to address this need by developing the ScienceTapes project, an initiative to record and archive conversations between research scientists and non-scientists in order to share science stories to build connections between people, science, and the environment to create a greater understanding of change in Alaska’s (and beyond) landscapes. The project team is partnering with StoryCorps and has trained a group of volunteers to facilitate effective conversations between two people. The volunteers then participate in facilitating, recording and archiving the conversations. The goal is to record and archive 36 to 60 interviews in the first year after the training. The interviews feature pairings of a scientist and a resource manager or a member of the community or stakeholder, and include scientists and partners from several Alaska CSC collaborations. Several of the recordings from the first year have been processed into shorter pieces that can be accessed on the project’s pilot website (www.sciencetapes.org). The project coordinators also intend to create a model for science communication that can be applied to a variety of other science communication needs in the larger science community.

ScienceBase WMS

• Alaska CASC
• National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers