Posts by Hanny Rivera
Making the Invisible Visible: The Secret, Bizarre, and Amazing World of Plankton
The importance of adaptations From the watery realm of plankton to grad students at the Cambridge Science Festival By Alexis D. Fischer April 23, 2013 “Did you know,” I said to the eight-year-old boy in a Red Sox cap, “that about 50 percent of the oxygen in our atmosphere comes from the ocean by way…
Read MoreCommunications Happy Hour with Science Writer John Bohannon
On a rainy Cambridge night, a couple MIT students met up with science writer John Bohannon for an informal “science communications happy hour” at the Miracle of Science near MIT. Amid conversations about how to communicate about climate change to the public, what the greatest science communications challenges are, and how John got to where…
Read MoreOcean Stories: A Synergy of Art and Science
Panel Discussions at the Museum of Science: March 3 – 1pm-2pm – 2pm-3pm Free with Exhibit Halls admission Explore the planet’s last true frontier – the ocean – and encounter swirling currents traced in light, mysterious seascapes rendered in paint, and delicate marine life etched in vibrant color. At Ocean Stories you will find works…
Read MoreScience in Ten-Hundred Words: The “Up-Goer 5” Challenge
We had a lot of fun with the Upgoer Five activity and wrote some great paragraphs. We struggled with certain concepts such as plankton and the biological pump, but also deconstructed our research to its essential components, for example: How to describe a coral without using the word coral? It’s a lot of small animals…
Read MoreThe Broader Impacts Group Kickoff at the MIT Museum
On Monday February 11, the Broader Impacts Group hosted a Cambridge Kickoff meeting at the MIT Museum. The meeting featured speaker John Bohannon, a creative communicator of science who has engaged the public not only via science writing, but through the cutting-edge medium of dance. About 25 participants attended, coming from a range of MIT…
Read MoreCommunications Workshop with Linda Pogue
“It’s so great that the BIG scientists are taking the initiative to improve how they and their colleagues communicate.” – Diana Kenny, workshop participant Participants in the two BIG communication workshops last week learned effective approaches to presenting scientific material, both to academic and public audiences. In the first session, communications professional Linda Pogue emphasized…
Read MoreBlog Writing Workshop
BIG held a successful blogging workshop on Tuesday January 15 from 5-6:30pm in the WHOI student lounge. Science writer Ken Kostel from the WHOI Communications Department and students Sarah Rosengard and Ben Linhoff lead an open discussion on the experience of blogging as a young scientist. Workshop participants also engaged in hands-on, interactive practice in concise science writing.
Read MoreBeyond the Silver Liquid: 3 Joint Program Students blogging at UN Mercury Negotiations in Geneva
Three MIT/WHOI graduate students, Alice Alpert, Bethanie Edwards and Julie van der Hoop, and a several other MIT students are in Geneva, Switzerland, attending the UN Environment Programme’s fifth and final meeting to finalize a legally-binding global mercury agreement. They are blogging at mit.edu/mercurypolicy and will be tweeting live from sessions, sharing their experiences as we observe the treaty-writing…
Read MoreSocial Event with At Large Steinbach Scholar Andrew Dessler
Andrew Dessler will be visiting Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from August 20th through 22nd as a visiting scholar. A Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University, Dr. Dessler’s research focuses on water vapor feedbacks in the atmosphere and the role of clouds in climate variability. Dr. Dessler has served as a Senior Policy Analyst in the White…
Read MoreRadio Sound Bites Evening
The Broader Impacts Group will host a Radio Sound Bites evening with Ari Shapiro, a former Joint Program student and WHOI postdoc and current science radio journalist, and Emily Moberg, a current JP student. Ari and Emily will talk about what goes into radio journalism and how they think about stories and communication when they…
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