A “fortune teller” for #WorldOceanDay! What would you work on if you were an ocean scientist? And if you are an ocean scientist — are you doing the work you were destined for? ;-) Your favourite drink can give you the answer!
Click on the image below to download a printable .pdf, and find out!
I would really appreciate it if you could give me a 3-minute feedback (click here!) so I can improve future versions of the “fortune teller” as well as my science communication in general!
I thought I would try a playful approach to ocean sciences for #WorldOceanDay on Tuesday. When I think back to my PhD and postdoc days, I could well imagine printing and building something like the “fortune teller” shown above, and then go visit some of my colleagues to show it to them. I would have thought it was fun then, and I still think so! So let’s see if people like it when I share it on Tuesday. For now, I would like to share my thought process and ask your advice in the end.
The direct goal is to “condition” people to think about ocean sciences in their every day lives by installing an item they encounter every day as a trigger to make them think about ocean sciences. An indirect goal is that those people will then act as multiplyers to their friends and family.
The direct target audience for are people with an affinity for ocean sciences and some (or a lot of) backgound knowledge. My friends and colleagues, PhD students, master students, highschool teachers. They might then engage their networks in conversations.
The main message I am trying to convey is that you can enjoy the exploration of oceanic processes in your everyday life.
In order to find a trigger in peoples everyday lives that we can use to connect to oceanography, I make use of the fact that most people have a go-to drink they like to order, and that in many of those drinks, there is a lot of oceanography to be discovered! So I am eliciting positive emotions when people think of their favourite beverages, raise curiosity by saying that those drinks can tell them something about their research interest, and then hopefully hold that curiosity in order to transfer it onto the hint of a related hands-on experiment with the drink they have in front of them (if not in that moment, than at least often) and a little bit of scientific input. The input is kept very general. It is not meant to give an overview, rather to show connections between the drink and the real world, and to give people key search terms if they wanted to investigate the topic further.
In previous versions (and before I tried whether the text would actually fit in the available space!), I provided a lot more input on the experiments that I am envisioning people would do with those drinks; on how and what to observe, and how to relate it to the ocean. But I ended up with a fairly minimal version: It does provide ideas about what experiments to do (or so I tell myself), but there is definitely a lot of room for open inquiry!
I find it difficult to imagine measuring the impact of such a gimmick like the “fortune teller”, so here is where I would like to ask for your help. I want to share the “fortune teller” via my blog and social media for #WorldOceanDay on Tuesday. With it, I want to share a link to a short questionnaire (all answers are optional). I am planning to ask the questions below, and I would love your feedback and suggestions for how to do it better in order to understand the impact of the “fortune teller”! :)
What do you think? I would love to hear from you! :)
(And since you are still reading, thank you for your interest and here is a link to a printable pdf. I would obviously love your feedback on that one, too! But please don’t share widely before Tuesday)
(Download in English || Download in Spanish; thanks to Felipe Veloso for translating!)
How about a little wave watching game to celebrate #WaveWatchingWednesday?
The minute I saw Andrea Lopez Lang’s tweet, where she made a “fortune teller” (no idea that’s what they were called) as going-away and please-remember-what-you-learned gift for her class, I HAD to make something like that!
Unfortunately I’m not teaching a class right now where I could easily see how this could be done, but luckily there is always wave watching!
Click to get the pdf!
And Kjersti had a great idea for how this could be used right away: To send students out with these toys and ask them to discover one example for each of the waves shown on the toy. Plus then of course document it, and share on social media… ;-)
Waves are traditionally taught in a theoretical and very dry manner, and the transfer to the real world is hardly happening at all (especially since the large tank in the basement at GFI has been demolished, which still breaks my heart), so this is a fun way to get students outside and try & find contents from their lecture in real life.
P.S.: It’s not as difficult as it might seem at first once you start observing and get a little creative. Nobody said that the rock that makes the ring waves had to have been there when you got there, and wakes can be created by ships or bird or even if you pull a stick through the water…