PANEL DISCUSSION: WHAT CAN YOU DO AND SHOULD NOT DO TO INFORM THE PUBLIC ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

Date: Wednesday, 25 February 2015   Time: 13:30.

Location: Auditorium Manuel de Falla (Floor 1)

        See the trailer at:  http://youtu.be/xTqVg8AX_DM

We are upset that the public does not better understand environmental problems and become involved with fixing them, yet we do a very poor job of communicating with the public.  Sometimes, the wrong approach will actually decrease public interest in the issue being addressed. There is growing awareness in our aquatic science community that we should be doing more, yet most scientists do not know what or how to effectively communicate.

We have organized a panel discussion with a media expert as moderator and three of your colleagues as panelists. All of us have struggled in recent years with ways in which we can more effectively attract the attention of the public and get them involved.  We also recognize that some activities to get public interest tend to be alarmist and do the opposite of getting public involvement. In this panel discussion, the focus will be on both successful approaches with warnings about the wrong approaches.

The panel will be moderated by Montserrat Dominguez, Editor of the Spanish Edition of the Huffington Post.  The panelists will be Daniel Conley (Professor of Biogeochemistry, Lund University, Sweden), Carlos Duarte (Research Professor, IMEDEA, Spain), and Jonathan Sharp (Oceanography Professor Emeritus, University of Delaware).  The panel will take place in the mid-day break (13:30 – 15:00) of Wednesday February 25 in Auditorium Manuel de Falla (Floor 1) at the Granada Congress Center.  For more information and updates, periodically check this website.

 

Financial support for this workshop has been received from the Ocean Sciences Division of the US National Science Foundation.

 

Visit one of the concession stands and pick up your lunch and join us at the panel discussion.