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A concept cartoon to kickstart discussions about why water striders can walk on water

In March, we are developing concept cartoons. They are perfect to get people discussing, since they give several common answers to a question and people have to explain why some of them are valid while others are not.

In Sara’s case, the question is “why are water striders able to walk on water?” and answers include “because they are so light”, “because they distribute their weight”, “because of their long legs”, “because of surface tension”, “because they re so fast”. What do you think? Why can water striders walk on water? And how would you use concept cartoons for your own topic?

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Curious about water striders? Sara sings her elevator pitch!

Here is a very cool example of an elevator pitch for January’s #scicommchall, sung by Sara Siebert.

Yes, sung.

Normal elevators are boring, she has done those for last year’s #dayofscience challenge already… Now without further ado:

Follow Sara on Instagram @FrauWissenschaft or Twitter @Sara_Siebert to find out more about water striders, immersive media, science education and communication, and how all those go together!

 

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Sara shares her #dayofscience!

Wanna know what a day in the life of a science communication researcher looks like? Sara shares her #dayofscience on her Instagram @frauwissenschaft, go check it out!

How cool is it when people still contribute to old #scicommchalls, like Sara to the June one?

Do you want to share something related to previous challenges? We are always excited to get inspiration from what you come up with!

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Walking on water with Sara’s #SciCommChall!

For April’s #SciCommChall, Sara (follow her on Instagram: @frauwissenschaft) came up with a really cool idea: DIY water striders for kids! This is a fun activity kids can do with us (or their parents, or anyone, really!) to learn about surface tension, nano technology, physics, all kinds of interesting subjects! And that they can take home to remind them and their parents of what they learned together.

We don’t have the diy instructions ready just yet, but isn’t this prototype adorable? If it inspires you to other cool scicomm crafts, let us know! 🙂

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Water striders and cereal boxes. Sara’s #nano #scicomm as part of March’s #SciCommChall

Sara presents her March’s Science Communication Challenge on her brand new Instagram account @frauwissenschaft.
She found a funny water strider motto “Water strider – You cannot please everyone. Even if you can walk on water, someone will come and ask if you are too stupid to swim.” and created a meme using one of her research pictures and that motto to stick on a cornflakes package, so that families are prompted to discuss about surface tension and all the cool nano research during breakfast.

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Hairy legs and walking on water – #LOLmythesis as part of January’s #SciCommChall

We’ve been doing the #SciCommChall offline for a while already, and this is a cool example of a #LOLmythesis that Sara did as part of the January #SciCommChall.

Sara is working on developing scicomm for material sciences (specifically nano sciences) in a virtual reality format. She writes: “When water striders get wet feet, tiny hairs have superpowers and audiences tear up. Who gets immersed more? We’ll soon find out!” and it is shown on a scanning electron microscopy image of a water strider’s hairy leg.

Sara is writing about her PhD- and scicomm journey on Instagram: Find her as @frauwissenschaft (“Ms. Science” in English)!