Syllabus

PFS0184 Communicating Forests and Land-Use Research in Popular Science, 4.0 Credits

Subjects

Education cycle

Grading scale

Language

Prior knowledge

Objectives

The overarching aim of this intensive course has a dual fold. The first objective is to provide an in-depth understanding of the strategic communication approach to amplify forest and land-use research for diverse stakeholders, at the local, regional, and international levels. Interlinked with the first, the second objective is to enhance the skills of students for practical application in communicating their Ph.D. research through popular science.

After successful completion of this course, the students can

• demonstrate the ability to holistically understand the significance of communicating forest and land-use research through diverse popular science for public

• gain insight, critically analyze and interpret forest and land use research to communicate using relevant channels and techniques for a specific audience or target groups

• be able to select from a variety of popular science and creatively use relevant communication tools/ mediums to convey their forests and land-use study from scientists to common people,

• demonstrate the ability to justify and convey complex forest and land-use science by simplifying it and relating it to the context of Agenda 2030.

Content

Popular science is about the way scientific research is interpreted and shared with a broad audience – from children to policymakers. Popular science is presented in many ways, including journalistic print articles, films, and policy briefs. The role of the scientist has been moving beyond doing just research towards ensuring their science has a sustainable impact on society. This specialized intensive course focuses on forests and land-use narratives using the lens of Agenda 2030 and ways to influence diverse stakeholders through popular science. The focus on forests and land-use enables cross-learning among peers and enriches the scientific debate by identifying ways to simplify forest and land-use scientific terminologies. The course is divided into four modules, which correspond to 4 ECTS.

The first module will introduce through lectures, small-group sessions, literature readings, and individual presentations about forests and land-use change in Europe and internationally. The second module introduces a range of popular science with practical experiences – on prints (including journalism writing, policy briefs, blog, poems, and books), audio (podcasts, songs, radio dialogue), visual (photograph), and a combination of medium (photo storybook, films, infographics). The participants will interact with a few invited international guest lecturers - creative artists and academicians. In the third module, participants will work independently, they will submit project work using one or a combination of the media tools interpreting their research subjects on forests for popular science. The fourth module is individual web-seminar presentations of their creative work and demonstrates constructive critique of their fellow’s work. The participants incorporate the comments, and suggestions and submit the final version.

Additional information

Responsible department

Department of Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre