O hai, terrifically neglected blog and blog-readers! I totally got sucked into that weird swirly vortex of work/rest/procrastination that sometimes happens over the winter break (you grad students know the one I mean), then suddenly found myself back in action at school (including teaching three days a week) and I am just now getting my spinning head above water again. Phew! Anyways, I’m back now.

The start of this new term was marked by my latest presentation. I didn’t give this talk at a conference, nor at a departmental seminar or even for a grad course. No, this talk was given to a special interest group called the Arctic Circle – a group of people with experience working in the Arctic and/or who are simply interested in what goes on in Canada’s northerly latitudes. I had been invited to speak about my research on beetles from Nunavut and the program of which I’m a part (www.northernbiodiversity.com).

Now, consider this:

The audience members were not people in my field. The networking opportunities were therefore not ideal and it was unlikely that I would get the chance to schmooze with any potential future advisers or employers. I did not get paid.  This was not an academic event. There was no press coverage. There wasn’t even any free swag or food.

So why on earth would I spend hours carefully preparing slides and rehearsing? What was in it for me?

Well, that’s actually not really the point. The point is that one of our jobs as researchers and leaders in our chosen fields is to bring new and interesting information about our work to the general public.  I think we are often guilty of forgetting who it is that we’re doing research for: Mr. & Ms. J. Q. Public.

Grad students are doing lots of amazing research, but it often doesn’t make it past the pages of the latest issue of X Journal. It’s read, of course, by our academic peers, but what about everyone else? Don’t they also deserve to know about our research, and how it affects them personally? We find our  own work super-interesting (hopefully) – wouldn’t we want other people outside our field to be excited by it too? Let’s also not forget that most of us, in one way or another, are conducting publicly-funded research; the public deserves to hear what their tax dollars are doing.

I think we all have a duty to take these kinds of opportunities for outreach or education with the general public whenever possible – to share our work (and our enthusiasm for it) with others.

If you must have less altruistic reasons for doing this kind of thing, here you go:

• sometimes you get paid (Or fed. Or offered beer. Or all three.)
• you can practice your communication skills:
• public speaking (this talk was the first lecture-length presentation I’d ever delivered – and it went well!)
• PowerPoint slide-making
• NOT USING JARGON (completely impractical when speaking to a non-specialist audience, or to children!)
• you might meet someone that could end up being a collaborator or supporter ($) of your work
• you can get really interesting and outside-of-the-box feedback on your work
• it can be fun!

Personally, I look forward to these kinds of opportunities. It’s refreshing to speak to more diverse audiences than the usual conference-goers. Working with kids can be especially rewarding – they have such enthusiasm and a wonderful sense of adventure, and they really provide the perfect audience for doing hands-on or outdoor workshops!  I see this blog (and Facebook, Twitter etc.) as being natural online extensions of these activities.

What do you all think?