 All right, I think we're right at two past the hour. So we'll go ahead and get started. Welcome to the New Mexico Smart Grid Center webinar on science communication. I'm Selina Kniele, Upscores Education and Outreach Manager, and I'll be your host for this webinar today, along with Brittany Vanderhoef, our public relations specialist. I've got a few housekeeping items before I introduce our speaker. First, I wanna let you know that this webinar will be recorded and archived on our website, nmupscores.org. Next, we're gonna have time at the end for audience questions, and at any time during this webinar, you're welcome to type your questions into the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen, and Brittany and Allison will field those questions at the end of our session. We also are gonna be using chat today for the webinar, and you'll find that on your bar as well. And finally, I'd like you to mark your calendars for our next webinar, which will be on September 23rd at noon, when Seth Bloomsack from Penn State present a webinar entitled Carrots, Sticks, and Other Smart Tricks in Making Energy Consumption Smarter. So it's my great pleasure to introduce and welcome our speaker from Explora, who's our project collaborator for public outreach and communication. Allison Brody is a friend and a longtime collaborator of mine, and she's also the Explora's Director of Education. She is a doctorate in ecology and biological education from Idaho State University, and has run out of school education programs since 1998 at the Bronx Zoo, Oklahoma City Zoological Park and Botanical Garden, University of Las Vegas Public Lands Institute, Clark County Wetlands Park, and Explora. Although Allison's expertise lies in STEM, much of her work has centered around effective compelling STEM communication, whether facilitating a multicultural outreach program for Hispanic families with UNLV or helping STEM professionals engage people of all ages and backgrounds through the Institute for Learning Innovations portal to the public program. Welcome, Allison. There we go. Thank you so much. Really appreciate that, Selena. Okay, let's get started with a little bit of an activity. I have a strip of paper here, and I'm just going to make a loop with it. I'm gonna take some tape, and I'm just going to tape my loop here thusly, and then I'm just going to, with a pair of scissors, cut down the middle of this strip of paper. Okay, just like this. Cut it down like that. And not surprisingly, what we end up with is two different loops. Not very surprising. But if I take a different strip of paper, and for this one, I'm going to actually make a mark. I'm just gonna draw two different dots here, one on one end, one on the other there. So I've got my two dots right there. And then instead of making a single loop like this, I'm going to twist the paper, just kind of a half twist right there. And this might be fun if you all think about if for this particular loop of paper, what might happen if I cut it exactly as I did before? What am I gonna end up with? So let's, first time I cut it, I ended up with two loops. Now when I cut it straight down the middle, my cutting skills are wanted, I have a single loop that's a Mobius strip. It's got a twist right there. So a single loop Mobius strip. Let's do this one more time. Single piece of paper. I'm gonna draw my two dots on it, one on each end, thusly. And now instead of doing a half twist, I'm going to do a full twist so that my two dots are facing the same way. All right. And now I think if I cut down the center of the strip, again, we have a single strip of paper all three times, but now I have this full twist on it. Now, if I cut down the center, what do you think I'm gonna get? So the first time was two loops. The second time, the Mobius strip, this time, let's see what we got. If you wanna put any ideas in the chat, that would just be absolutely awesome. All right, I'm just cutting down the center just a little bit more tricky now, plus I'm trying to keep it straight. Oh, good grief, here we go. Cutting down the middle, anybody have any ideas what I'm gonna end up with? Loops, connected together. All right, I'm, oh, we do have a chat. Oh, oh, oh. Nice, Brittany, thank you. All right, I'm gonna do one more, but this is cool, right? A nice little party trick. I'm gonna do one more. This time, I'm gonna do two loops. So two loops of paper, I'm gonna tape, so I'm taping one loop together. So there's my one loop. I'm gonna have a second loop together, tape that thusly. And then I'm going to put my two loops you might wanna put a speaker view rather than gallery views, so you can sort of see because definitely you're gonna wanna try this at home. So I'm gonna put my two loops perpendicular to each other and then I'm gonna tape it at every spot where the loops intersect, okay? So I'm gonna tape it there, there, so there's gonna be four pieces of tape because there's four intersection points. All right, and then I'm gonna do the same thing. I'm going to cut down the center of each of these loops. And again, what do you think I will get? Let's give it a shot. So I'm gonna cut down the center here, end up with a sort of a handcuff-like thing right there and I'm gonna cut down the center of the other one, be straight here, and boom, out of two loops, we end up with a square. All right, so what on earth does this have to do with science communication? This is what we call a discrepant event. It's something that is discrepant to what it is you expected, it's something that's surprising. A discrepant event can be a demonstration, it could be a question that you ask, what animal goes through a thousand teeth or 10,000 teeth in its lifetime? It could be a statement that you make that's surprising, anything that elucidates that surprise reaction. And how this is useful in the context of science communication is that surprising events are, is an excellent strategy to get your audience into this inquisitive scientific mindset to really foster that sense of curiosity and compel that, that I want to know. It's like, what just happened? I just really want to know what might happen if I try something else, what might happen if I try three loops of paper, what might happen if I try two complete twists on the paper, what is the presenter going to do next? And using strategies such as discrepant events is important because when we communicate about our science to the public, it's often in a setting outside of a school setting, whether you're talking about graduate school, undergraduate teaching in high school. But this type of science communication often takes place in non-formal, non-school situations. You might be talking to a reporter, you might be tabling an event, you might be doing an outreach program. You might even be trying to explain your science to a family member or somebody that you met in a grocery store. And so this idea that communicating science outside of a school setting might be different. It's worth looking at the possibility of those very two different environments. What is different about it? Let's think about this for a minute. What are some similarities between conventional instruction that might happen in a school or formal education and science communication that might happen in an informal setting? What might some of those differences be? If you have an opportunity, go ahead and put some ideas in the chat. I'm actually going to stop sharing for a minute, but put some idea in the chat. You can definitely have science content in both situations. Another way- Do you remember the question? Yeah, so the question is, what are some of the similarities and differences between conventional instruction in a school type setting and science communication that's happening in the informal non-school setting? Another way of thinking about that is asking that same question from the audience's perspective. One might label this table as a captive audience versus a non-captive audience. What's the difference? And share my screen again. In the school setting, the audience is captive, right? They are there. In a non-school setting, the audience is more voluntary. And it turns out that difference makes a big difference. Let's take a look at this. This comparison originally was done by Dr. Sam Ham at the University of Idaho. And these are some of the differences that he identified between captive audiences in the school setting and a non-captive audience. In a captive audience, the time commitment is often fixed, right? They're, for this time, external rewards become important. And because of that, you have to pay attention. That the professor's gonna have this on the test, I have to pay attention, otherwise I'm not gonna do well at the test. The captive audience is more accepting of a formal academic approach and definitely because of those external rewards, because of this extrinsic motivation, they're gonna make an effort to pay attention because they want that grade, they want that diploma, the certificate, the license, maybe it's a captive audience in a job situation, in a job training, maybe money's on the line, advancement is on the line, maybe success with your colleagues is on the line. But all these factors feed into that external, extrinsic motivation of the captive audience. Compare this with the non-captive audience. A non-captive audience is there voluntarily. They don't necessarily have a time commitment, external rewards are not as important, rather the intrinsic motivation becomes extraordinarily important. And think for a second what types of things might motivate somebody to pay attention. They don't have to pay attention. There's nothing extrinsic holding them there. So what kinds of intrinsic motivations might feed into a non-captive audience? This is an audience that definitely expects an informal atmosphere in a non-academic approach and they're totally gonna switch their attention if they're born. There's no reason not to. There's no test looming over them. What are some ideas that people have about intrinsic motivations that might hold somebody there and motivate them not to remain engaged in the science communication? Brittany, do we have any comments? Yeah, we've got, it looks like Dr. Jen says that they care about the topic. Andra says information that directly relates to them. Dave says, what does it mean to me? Nice. Yeah. Nice. And those definitely make the list. As things are self-enriching, things that allow people to improve themselves. It's like learning is about your life and achieving a better life. And so it's those things that sort of feed into those deeper feelings as well as everything that you just said. Fun entertainment, those are also things that would feed into that. The key part here is that if they decide, if the audience at this point decides to pay attention, it is only because they want to. So it's up to us as the communicator to make them want to. So keep these two differences in mind, the extrinsically motivated captive audience versus the intrinsically motivated voluntary audience. Keep these differences in mind as we think through what the implications are. This is a model that was originally developed and I've adapted from Triple AS. And when we as scientists do presentations, we often follow a format such as that represented on the left side of this model. So you spend quite a bit of time on the background information, some of the supporting details, and then you reach the results and conclusions and you really have this sort of more formal approach. So for example, if you're doing a presentation about lasers, you might start talking about well, background information, how do lasers work? How do I need to explain how lasers work? So you might talk about electron valence shells, coherent wavelengths, other background information. But let's go back to that voluntary audience. What is it that's gonna capture their attention and make them want to listen to it? Is it really electron valences? Is that really the way to go to capture their attention? And again, keep them wanting to be engaged, wanting to listen to you. And the answer is often no, it's not how things work. It's like, what is the bottom line? You've got a laser for heaven's sake. What's cool about a laser? What are they capable of? What can you demonstrate with a laser? Why should I care? To Dave's point, what does this mean to me? So flipping that triangle is one of the first considerations when thinking about successfully engaging an audience in a non-formal setting. Let's see here. This model is another model of communication that I've seen many times. I'm sure you have as well. And what is being presented here is essentially a one-way flow of information. The assumption being that the speaker's messages are being received whole clock by the audience members. But this doesn't really take into account, and yes, they have that little, maybe there's some feedback coming back to the presenter, but this model really doesn't take into account what we know about how learning actually happens. What is actually learned by the audience? Depends on what is going on in their individual brains, how engaged they are, whether they're emotionally involved, how well they are able to integrate the message with their prior experiences, their knowledge, their values, their feelings, and just sort of where it is they are today. So we're gonna go through each of these bold points, brain chemistry, engagement, strong emotional stamp integration one step at a time and see what the research tells us about what happens in each step of the way. So in terms of brain chemistry, what we know is that pleasurable thoughts actually stimulate the production of endorphins in dopamine. These chemicals are addictive in the same way that morphine is. And so in the brain that really wants those hits and it wants those hits so badly that if the brain is bored or is being presented with a difficult subject matter, it's gonna look for more pleasurable thoughts elsewhere. And this is essentially what happens when we daydream. Daydreaming is an involuntary act and essentially what is happening is that the brain is a control of our intention and it's such a powerful tendency of the brain to find pleasure that even if you're consciously, you know, I'm trying to pay attention, I know this is gonna be on the test. If it's super boring or uninteresting or I can't engage with it or it doesn't make sense to me, the brain again, that brain chemistry is gonna want to take control. So going back to that voluntary versus involuntary audience, if you have an involuntary, I'm sorry, if you have a voluntary non captive audience, this is huge, right? As a presenter, you have to go, I want to present, I wanna create my communication experience in a way that's going to stimulate that brain. It's gonna stimulate enjoyment. It's gonna keep people engaged. What else do you have to think about? Engagement itself. Motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic and interest influence what people choose to learn. It's a huge influence and learning is highly effective when learners are engaged in experiences that are relevant to their lives, they can imagine, again, it's like this is gonna make a difference. This is relevant to me, it's age appropriate. It makes sense to me, it's compelling and it's not just motivating, but it's intrinsically motivating. And there is a lot of really compelling research out there that indicates that learning that is intrinsically motivated is more lasting and more effective than learning that is extrinsically motivated. And I'm looking at this young man in this photo doing this chemistry activity and I'm thinking of my own experience with chemistry which was all formal and pulling these all-nighters, I mean, four years dedicated to chemistry that really I didn't have that much to show for it and what I actually learned. In this case, with this young man, what we also know about learning is that it's rarely linear, it takes place over time and space. And so it's almost never this instantaneous, you present me about chemistry, I'm going to learn what it is you present me, that sort of whole-cloth model of learning. Rather, it's the sort of unfolding cumulative process versus continuous accumulation of experiences, of ideas, of different sources of information that happens at different times. Maybe you have a relative that becomes ill and you are motivated to learn the chemistry from the context of different medicines or vaccines. Maybe as this young man, you have this opportunity to have this fun experience with chemistry. But what's important here is that this young man may not be learning a lot of chemistry content doing this activity, but the experience itself is literally going to stick in his brain and allow other experiences to be added onto that. Some learning theorists have an analogy of little hooks in your brain that literally these experiences need a place to hang on. So if you don't have an existing hook in your brain for an experience to lock onto, it's going to be less effective. And so in this case, as a science communication provider for this young man, I'm not less worried about what content he's getting and I'm more concerned with what it is that I can add to what he knows and understands about chemistry. How many hooks can I help to create in his brain that will be available for later knowledge and later experiences to add onto what he knows and understands about chemistry? So in this case, I want to create an experience that's engaging, that's relevant, that's compelling, that's motivating and that is likely to create a success for future learning experiences. And one last point about this is that learning is a way of responding to the day-to-day experiences of our lives, right? So it's not just learning about facts and concepts. It's deeper than that. So as science communicators, the more that we really understand, it's connecting with our audience. What is it that I can do to connect with our audience, the more successful that we're gonna be? Questions so far? We don't have any questions. Awesome. I will carry on. Emotional stamps. You know, and we often don't give learning experiences, we don't often think of them as these emotional things, but it turns out that the limbic process, I'm sorry, the limbic system is tightly bound up with learning experiences. And so there's these like feedback loops that exist between these emotional states and learning processes and memories are a function of what happens in these feedback loops. And so a system that combines these sort of higher mental functions, I'm sorry, so the limbic system is a system that combines like these higher mental functions and emotions. And it's that combination that's going to result in whether the learning experience is gonna be strongly held or if it's gonna be weakly held. And if it's weakly held, it's just gonna sort of disappear over time. And so the bottom line is, is that the stronger the emotional value to a learning experience, the better the memory is gonna be, the more lasting that learning experience is going to be. And so again, this is how do we take this into account when we're thinking about communicating science? Things that are experiences that are fun, that are playful, that are enjoyable, that are strongly rewarded are going to have that stronger emotional staff, as well as experiences that are collaborative in nature, that maybe it's like a challenge. I want to succeed, a challenge is awesome because it really taps into that intrinsic motivation in that emotion, because I want to succeed. So those are ways to receive that strong emotional, that high emotional value as part of that learning experience. And then finally, integration plays an integrating mechanism and it helps a learner make important connections amongst things they learn, they know, they feel, they understand. There's a lot going on in somebody's life and the learning experience that you have sort of has to fit into that. And so providing these playful experiences can help make that stronger integration in everything else that's going on in somebody's life. Again, it's not just about their learning, but it's that what it is, they already know the prior experiences they're bringing into it, their values, what it is they already think they understand about something, what preconceptions they have, that may be right, that may be wrong. So another aspect of integration is also really understanding where your learner is at, giving them the opportunity to tell you these things. And this can be as simple as asking an open-ended question before you start a presentation, like what is it you know about lasers? You can learn a lot about where your audience is at and how they know and feel about a subject just by starting off with a couple of those open-ended questions to begin with. And you'll end up being able to more successfully integrate it if you're able to respond to that. So not only ask those open-ended questions, but have a couple of strategies in your back pockets to be able to respond to what it is that you hear from the audience. So finally, this is a statement that I absolutely love. This is again from Dr. Sam Ham who is a learning psychologist and has just spent a lot of time working with communication in informal settings, especially in national parks around the world. And from all of his work, he has boiled it down to this one sentence, that good communication or effective communication has to capture your audience's attention. So all those things, what are you gonna do to capture their intention? How are you gonna respond to them personally? How are you gonna make it age appropriate? How are you going to make it relevant to them? And then how do you successfully make your point? It has to be compelling. It has to be fun. It has to be engaging. It has to make somehow a connection and integration point into their lives. And so, and I did, I have got plenty of time for questions right now, but just sort of the bottom line is that effective science communication definitely actively engages the audience, but it's not just about incorporating activity, right? It's the entire approach that you take to communication that's gonna matter. So how is it that you take into account the motivations, the interests of your audience, the emotional connections that you can make with the audience and really being satisfied with meeting the learner where they're at, not necessarily where you want them to be. Where they're at is where they're at, right? They're exactly where, if you just sort of accept that this is where they're at, and my job is just to add to that in a way that's gonna set them up for success in continuing that learner over time and through space. So, as Selena was talking, Explora is working with a New Mexico AppScore and Smart Grid staff, scientists and others around this idea of communication. How can we help the important work of communicating successfully about this Smart Grid to as broad an audience as possible? And so, some ideas that we have is actually sort of this holistic approach, so this multi-layered. So one is we wanna create these mini-travelings Smart Grid exhibits and we need your help in planning and designing these. And so, beginning in October, we will invite you to a couple of what we call design charrettes. These are essentially listening planning sessions where you get to contribute ideas in a really open-ended way. It's really fun and it's a great way just to develop sort of these sort of broader thematic topical approaches that we might take with these exhibits. Then we'll take what we learned from these design charrettes. Again, we hope that you consider participating in October. We'll take what we learn to create a couple prototypes, show you all those prototypes, get some feedback from you all, work with some audience members, get some feedback from them, then iterate the design and end up with between three and six of these for the spring. Then what's gonna happen is we're going to actually use these Smart Grid exhibits, not just here at Explorer, but you will have the opportunity to use them for your public communication of science throughout New Mexico or wherever. As well, we're gonna work with other museums and other institutions to bring them to public audiences there. And we would definitely appreciate any help that we could get in actually facilitating those exhibits in those different settings. Because again, it's not just about those exhibits, it's also about the opportunity to interact with real STEM professionals, real scientists such as yourself. Other opportunities we have to engage the public, New Mexico Science Fiesta is coming up, Selena's got the Save the Date postcard for that. That's coming up this September. We will have science communication workshops coming up this spring. Those will happen either in person or virtually. We'll start those in January. And we will actually have an emphasis on Southern New Mexico for those, especially if those are in person. We'll try to bring those down to Las Cruces. We would love to highlight smart grid scientists in Meet a Scientist videos. These are less about what it is you do, explaining what a smart grid is and more about you as a scientist. Meeting a scientist, if people are able to break down some of those stereotypes that they have about who scientists are, what scientists are like, that science is boring, that science is all about electron valence shells. And science is this person who has this compelling story to tell and this cool pathway story about how they got to be where they are and they're doing this important work. Those are the kinds of things that come out in those videos. So we would love the opportunity to interview you all. We'll be doing some teen science cafes this year. We're unclear as of yet what those look like, stupid pandemic, as well as opportunities to bring you to students through either like a meeting up with a classroom or sort of as a role model in other types of events. You ready for questions? Yes, I am. Awesome, cause we have a few. Dr. Jin wanted to know where the quote came from that said good communication captures your attention and it successfully makes a point. Yes, let me grab the book. Hold on, I'm looking up right now. The book is called interpretation, making a difference on purpose. I'll put that in the chat. Awesome, thank you. We also have other questions. I'll let you type that in. All right, you ready? Yeah. Okay, Sarah would like to know any observations on how COVID has changed your approach to science communication? Has engagement increased? Right, and you know, that's a really good point because good communication is good communication regardless, certainly you have to think about engagement a little differently. In some ways I've been really pleasantly surprised at how virtual does not exclude or preclude the possibility of being hands-on. And so for example, that this quick activity, we've done this virtually with adults and with students. It's materials that you easily have at home. We've done like design challenges virtually. We've done computer science virtually. It's just a matter of getting the materials in the hands of the learner. And in some ways what we've learned the advantage of this format, the virtual format, the advantages in some ways, it's more accessible. I mean, look at this right now. Everybody across the state can participate. You don't have to drive anywhere. It's just like right there. It can be hands-on if you plan accordingly, either use meaning materials that are at home or if we do this science communication training virtually, we'll be mailing participants kits so that they will have those materials and then they'll just be participating at home. If you work at learning tends to be a social endeavor. Again, that's what contributes to that strong emotional scam, so you have to consider that. How are you gonna still make this social? And this webinar sucks in that way, right? It's like, you know, we've got the chat, but there's no real opportunity to collaborate. And so using features and tools for collaboration becomes really important. And then so in Zoom, maybe that's the breakout room. Maybe it's Jamboard, mural.co has some really cool collaboration tools, collaborating on a PowerPoint slide. Again, there's just different ways to do that, but it's still possible. So again, as long as you sort of take those things into account, it's still possible. But yeah, there's things that suck about it. I think that answered the question. I think it gave a general overview. Thank you. So we've got two different people. We've got multiple people actually are interested in getting involved. How do they get involved with these opportunities that you mentioned? Awesome. I will work with Selena. We'll get a couple of Google Forms going and we'll get you guys loaded up for bearer. Standing, we have another question and we will get the information to y'all if you're interested, maybe just put your email message us, your email in the chat. I'll put my email for people to email me. Thank you. How's that? Yeah, that's a great idea, Selena. Thank you. Another question we have is, Andra wants to know, do you have any good suggestions for communicating to those who may be coming from a place where they actively distrust scientists or may have a bias against your research, vaccines, clean energy, et cetera? Right, right, right. And that's definitely where we're at right now, right? It's like a science communication on the one hand has never ever been so important. Well, maybe it has, but it's definitely so important right now. And there seems to be a trust level there, but the whole politicization of it. And so this holistic approach becomes important. And so the science fiesta is an opportunity to again directly address stereotypes and preconceived ideas that people have about what science is and who does science and where it happens and how science is integrated into a community. And so that's one of the reasons why New Mexico EBSCORE supports the New Mexico Science Fiesta as one of our sponsors is that we are able to address that through a couple of different ways by showing just a huge varied array of different types of science and different types of scientists and where it's happening. We connect people with the opportunity to actually talk with real scientists so they see scientists as people. We give the scientists as an opportunity to role model and engage directly with the people. NSF has funded some evaluation of science festivals in the 2015s, I believe. And some of those evaluation results really demonstrated the efficacy of meeting real scientists and exposing people to science in that way. Another thing that we do in Science Fiesta is that we flip science on its head, we reframe it. It's like we're gonna have some break dancers there and look at the science behind break dancing. And so that way we're trying to reach people that don't just self identify as the science nerd. We need to reach beyond that. If that's all we reach then we're always gonna be in that same tunnel. We need to reach people that don't necessarily identify themselves as some of this interesting science. But it's like, hey, break dancing is cool. And oh my God, I never thought about the way that the momentum and I've lost my nouns. It happens, the center of gravity and how that affects a break dancing. And now that I'm listening to this, yeah, science is kind of cool. And just giving people the opportunity to put themselves in the position of enjoying science and enjoying scientists. The MetaScientist videos, again, by focusing on scientists as a person rather than explaining what it is you do is another way of addressing that. And again, there is some research that demonstrates the efficacy of that approach in broadening. I don't think there's been demonstrated efficacy in impacting people's trust of science but definitely it broadens their view of science and has the opportunity impact how they value science. The questions are rolling in. All right, so we have a question that is asking which, sorry, how would you suggest approaching the topic of effectively communicating scientific ideas depending on audience in a succinct manner to high school students? Right, and this is awesome. And this is from Shafiq, how are you? Right, this is awesome because we, the new science standards are all about science practices. And so engaging students with phenomena and having them ask questions and see what happens if I try this. But it's about the facilitation. So yes, the phenomenon is right there but the facilitation of that phenomenon becomes the important aspect of engaging them with those science practices. And that happens through open-ended questions. It happens when you as the science communicator, it's less about explaining what it is you do and more about facilitating the interaction with that phenomenon. So that's what I would suggest and that's definitely a paradigm shift. Awesome, we have a question in the Q and A. I think it might be asking for advice on training scientists so they don't scare people away from classroom lectures. Do you have anything on that? Or any suggestions for scientists so they don't scare people away with their lectures? Right, well, and it turns out that, if we really take to heart, the research that tells us that intrinsically motivated learning experiences are super powerful and super effective, then we would tap into that intrinsic motivation regardless if the audience is captive or if it's in a classroom setting or not. And so utilizing these strategies is a great way to make science accessible, relevant and meaningful to all of our audiences. And really, that's what we have to do. My degree is a doctor of arts. It's not a PhD, it's a DA degree. And the idea behind that degree was to put people that were trained in teaching in front of undergraduate students so that we have that opportunity right from the get-go to get people interested and motivated and excited about a subject area. Oh, we have a hard question here, but it's a good one. It kind of riffs along the same thing we've been getting. Austin wants to know what's the best way to communicate or persuade scientific realities to someone who is not scientifically literate or in denial. Right, and getting people to do things is hard. And actually, that's Sam Ham has been spending quite a bit of time working with, for example, Park Service to try to influence behaviors with the general public. How do you influence what it is that people might, how they might behave, are there actions like whether or not they recycle or whether or not they take like petrified wood out of Petrified Forest National Park? But you're also talking about how do we influence what people know and feel? And that's hard, right? We know that people come by their values over a lifetime. They come by them honestly. And they are where they are. We have to meet them where they are. So we have to sort of reframe this and it's not about what it is I want them to know and understand. It's about working together to understand each other. Like why should I listen to you if you won't listen to me? You are telling me all these things about global climate change. Why should I listen to you if you've never talked to me about my experiences and my understandings of how climate is affected my families and my family's farms and ranch for generations. And so it's reframing that whole thing is about having conversations rather than one-way communication events. It's about, again, we're not gonna change people's values just with one's communication event. It might happen. It's gonna be extraordinarily rare. And in fact, what research has shown is that we might accomplish exactly the opposite of what we set out to do by trying to do so because people tend to entrench themselves in what it is they already know and the values they already have. And they'll tend to believe that even harder in the face of conflicting that information. And so it's not about throwing information to people. It's not about throwing facts at people. It's about having conversations. It's about engaging with them. It's about having experiences together. It's about meeting them where they are at and being satisfied with that. That's where we have to start. But the more we have those conversations and the more that we're willing to listen to each other, there's been, the Park Services is for a while, was doing a lot with community dialogues, especially around climate change. And there's some really interesting papers and approaches that really seem efficacious. So that would be something that would be, takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of intention, but that would definitely be one approach. Wow, what a spot on answer. Cool. That is fantastic. Thank you so much, Allison. We do actually have another question in the chat from Cynthia about whether there's any website or resources that you might recommend. And so Allison, as I'm wrapping up, maybe you can put some of that into the chat because I know you know the answer to that and then we'll get this wrapped up. Thank you so much. I think I can probably speak for all the audience that this is the most interactive webinar I've attended in many months. So we appreciate that you practiced what you preached and we'll all virtually give you a hand in appreciation. Thank you, Allison. Nice, thank you. So I want to just finish up with a couple of commercials for things that are coming up that you can use to help hone your own science communication or be inspired. And Allison mentioned the Science Fiesta, which is coming up. It's a week-long celebration of science September 18th through 26th. The website is going to launch on Friday, but we've given you an advanced peak and there's the URL where all the great stuff will be. There's live events. There's also be a number of things that are recorded and people can access at any time. So go ahead and save that date and share it widely. There's no registration on that. I think the platforms for access are super accessible like YouTube and Facebook. Anything else I should say about Science Fiesta, Allison? No, we will get you more information. I'm sorry, I'm like madly Googling because I want to share this website and I'm trying to figure it out. Okay, so go ahead and Explorer will certainly be pushing out all the information about the Science Fiesta. So look forward to that and you can see that Upscore is a sponsor. So we're really excited that it's moving ahead in the virtual space this year. And then finally, I want to remind you about this webinar that will be coming up in September with Seth Bloomsack and he's a fantastic communicator. So I think you'll really enjoy learning about his expertise as an economist and connected to the smart grid. So with that, I think we will say goodbye. Allison, have you been able to get your things into chat or shall we keep it open for a bit longer? Yeah, give me one minute. Okay, well, and so one thing I would recommend to everybody, the science communication training that Allison is planning for January that Upscore is helping to sponsor is open to scientists across New Mexico. You don't have to be associated with the smart grid center and so we would welcome you or participation in that. And if you're interested, go ahead. I put my email into the chat and you're welcome to email me and I can make sure that you're on the list to get more information about that training coming up. And Brittany is an alum of that training so she can vouch for how impactful it is and useful. And we certainly have space to accommodate scientists from across New Mexico and that's our intention. It's an awesome training, everybody. So anybody who's interested in seeing the information from Allison, please hang on and we'll get that posted in the chat. All of the rest of you all who are ready to go on with your day, we thank you for attending and hope to see you again at Science Fiesta and next month at our webinar. Take care everybody, bye-bye.