FAE3011 Writing Popular Science Publications

MSc in geosciences or environmental sciences. Knowledge in basic soil chemistry or water chemistry is recommended.

The course entails definition of the project; what is to be written, to whom and why. The scope of the publication should be defined and discussed with an adviser at the department of SEED. The manuscript must be sent for internal peer review. When the document is published it should be sent to everyone at the department and preferably a short seminar/commentary at the weekly department meeting is to be given.

Documentation of the course is required.

This includes:

• A copy of the popular publication.
• Documentation of the discussions with the adviser – how you decided on the topic and scope of the topic and the reason why you felt you wanted to write the publication.
• A written discussion about your learning experiences in writing the popular publication compared to writing scientific articles.
• Documentation of the time you spent on the course, for 1.5 ECTS a minimum of 40 hours of work is required.

Aims of the course are:

• To give the student insight into how to write science in a way that it is interesting for the general public.
• To develop the students ability to critically evaluate what is relevant when writing to people who are not experts in the scientific field.
• To develop the students ability to present their scientific work in a way that relates it to daily social and infrastructural problems. To show how their science is relevant to society.