Posts in: Bridging Communities

One of the most challenging (and exciting!) aspects of communication is that our audience is never a blank canvas. Rather, getting to know them is more like trying to interpret a Jackson Pollock painting¹. Before we’ve even shared a single word, the person we’re looking to connect with already has a set of existing, entwined beliefs about the world, themselves...

Karen Nickel and Dawn Chapman met at an air-sampling event created in response to alarming odors in their neighborhood. “The odors were unlike anything we'd ever experienced,” Dawn explained. “They were causing our eyes to swell and burn and our noses to bleed.”  Just a week prior, in the middle of planning her daughter’s fifth birthday party, Dawn le...

Excerpt from Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science by Jessica Hernandez published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2022 by Jessica Hernandez. Reprinted by permission of North Atlantic Books. The bottom-up approach allows conservation initiatives and projects to come from within the community. Contrary to the top-down ...

Science can have the greatest impact in the world when scientists work in partnership with community leaders and policymakers - and those partnerships require effective, inclusive science communication. But what characterizes inclusive science communication, and who is practicing it?  Hosted by the University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute and organized ...

St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church has flooded twice in the last decade: in 2011 from Hurricane Irene and in 2018 from Hurricane Florence. While the church rebuilt both times from flood insurance payouts, Minister Gerald Godette is counting the days until another supercharged hurricane sends waters up the Pamlico and into their sanctuary. Yet, with fe...

Practice is core to our work. Our trainings revolve around hands-on exercises and feedback in a supportive setting, and are unique in that the practice and feedback comes from trusted partners from other fields, such as journalism, policy, and community leadership. These experts work closely with scientists in small groups and one-on-one as they practice communicat...