OBJECT (Paula): Last week, I was at the Australian Science Communicators Conference in Brisbane.
During the conference, I went to a number of sessions that touched on the concern ‘that people were becoming disengaged with science’. When you’re interested in science and see it as part of your everyday life, it’s hard to understand why others don’t. I found it interesting then, in Craig Cormack’s presentation to see a slide where we, ‘the science engaged’, are clearly the outlier in how the wider public values science.
So, how do we engage the disengaged? One approach is ’embedding’ science into events or activities that already exist. During the conference, I listened to Carly Siebentritt talk about introducing science concepts into a community evening class on chocolate and to Drew Berry describe his upcoming Molecular Kaleidoscope installation in the State Library of Victoria for the White Nights Festival. These are approaches that have the potential to introduce science into people’s lives in creative and unanticipated ways.
Living Light, the people’s choice winner of the Conference’s SPECTRUM science-art exhibition, is another example. This is an innovative collaboration between microbiologist and science communicator, Siouxsie Wiles, and artist, Rebecca Klee. Working together, they produced dozens of bioluminescent squid for the 2013 Art in the Dark Festival in Auckland.
During the conference, Siouxsie was handing out small versions of the 3D printed model of the Hawaiian bobtail squid. This is my ‘object’ for this weeks photo challenge. It’s a beautifully formed, pearlescent plastic model. It’s only about 4cm x 4cm. I like it. And it rapidly attracted the attention of my primary-school-aged boys. They each took it and the information sheet to school to show their classes. Not many objects get that accolade!
For the Art in the Dark Festival, the 3D printed models of squid each held thousands of the bioluminescent bacteria, Vibrio fischeri. Siouxsie and Rebecca blogged about the progress of their project here. Like any good story, there were challenges to overcome, including how to get enough bacteria to make the squid glow visibly and how to create leak-proof 3D squids. Siouxsie also made a short animation explaining the story of the Hawaiian bobtail squid and how it uses bioluminescent bacteria for an ingenious form of camouflage, called ‘counter-illumination’. This animation uses voice-over and clear visuals to explain the science of bioluminescence and to introduce the concept of ‘quorum sensing‘.
For my vote, this project ticked all the boxes for innovation, insight and impact!
through a science lens 