Science Communication

Are you studying science? Are you interested in how science is disseminated in the media, in museums, in popular culture? Do you want to reach members of the public, policy-makers, grant reviewers? Do you want to tell stories about explorations—of space, of microbial worlds, of the frontiers of technology? If so, the graduate certificate in science communication might be for you. In this 15-credit course sequence, open to all NAU graduate students, you’ll gain an understanding of the tools effective science communicators use.

• You’ll beef up your writing skills by examining and practicing how analogies and narrative work.
• You’ll practice using numbers to entice rather than scare readers.
• You’ll get your hands on the latest audio, video, and photo technology, and use it to create stories that engage audiences using multiple senses.
• You’ll develop an in-depth project that will showcase your skills.

Throughout, you’ll be taught by faculty members who have excelled in the field by producing award-winning feature stories, books, films, photography, and audio stories. The graduate certificate requires you to take a sequence of 12 credits of graduate-level Communication courses plus 3 elective credits. If you’re not able to take the full sequence of classes, you can still beef up your communication skills by taking one or more of the 1-credit classes that make up the certificate’s introductory sequence. Students who have completed the graduate certificate work as communication coordinators at such institutions as the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, the American Farmland Trust, and the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals; as postdocs and researchers in a variety of university and institutional labs; and as independent communications professionals and storytellers. Examples of recent student science communication projects:

• Erika Rackley: Life in the Greenhouse podcast
• Ellie Stevenson: Grazing in Northern Arizona interpretive panels
• Trevor Ritland: El Dorado: The Search for the Golden Toad film
• Ellie Broadman: Science News explainers
• Haley Dunleavy: Long-term ecological research road trip stories: Boreal Forest Research Legacies; Tundra Roots