Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Write Science - A collaborative project to practice the craft of communicating scientific ideas.

While looking for some information on Mars I ran across this blog and started reading some of the posts. 
You may enjoy them as well.

Another reader asked when the blog began and how to track them from past to present. See link below

I will also pass you the link about Mars.  Easy reading by Shane L. Larson. 
If you find the posts interesting you can also sign up to follow and get alerts to new posts.
- LRK -

-----------------------------------

in the beginning . . .

This is an experiment, though not a scientific one.  We should know.

The premise of this space is that scientists could be better communicators on many different levels.  One place to start is through the written word.  Writing is a tool to clarify our ideas, as well as a means to get others to understand these ideas.  We spend time in front of chalk boards, behind podiums, standing on desks with bowling balls, or lying upon a table offering a bed of nails.  We think that this exudes understanding, and in some ways it does.  But it doesn’t tell the whole story.

So, this space allows some of us to practice.  Each month, one of us gives the rest of the group a topic.  This could be a single word, a topic sentence, a premise, a question . . . perhaps the creativity starts with the prompt itself.  The entire group, including the person who creates the monthly assignment, gets to write to that prompt.  Everyone gets to read each other’s work, comment, reflect, reconsider, etc.  There are no answers, no prizes, and no losers.  We’re just trying to get a sense for the craft, get better at writing, and perhaps even get better at communicating and doing science.
...
-----------------------------------

Here is the blog about Mars that caught got my attention.
- LRK -

-----------------------------------

Cosmos 5: Blues for a Red Planet

Posted on January 1, 2014 by  |
More than any other world in the solar system, Mars has captured the imagination of the human race (except maybe for Pluto, but it’s not a planet, right?). Mars has dominated our imaginings of other worlds for more than a century, beginning with H.G. Wells’ masterpiece of invasion, The War of the Worlds.  Since The War of the Worlds was first written, many other tales of adventure, danger and horror have been penned or filmed concerning Mars — Kim Stanley Robinson’s epic Mars Trilogy, the classic 1964 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Elton John’s sonorous musings that Mars is no place to raise a family in “Rocketman,” and many many more.
...
-----------------------------------

Beginning of Shane's COSMOS series.
- LRK -

-----------------------------------

Cosmos 0: It’s Time to Get Going Again


At midnight on a December night in 2001, I waited breathlessly in a darkened theatre in Los Angeles, surrounded by my friends from Caltech, for the world premiere of Peter Jackson’s monumental film based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Fellowship of the Ring.  In the 47 years following the publication of the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien’s work had ascended to become a cultural icon, and had launched the worldwide obsession with fantasy, swords and sorcery.  It was, by all accounts, the gold standard against which all other fantasy novels were measured. To dabble with trying to translate Middle-Earth to the screen was foolish at best, and had failed before.  There was, and still is, much arguing and hand-wringing about the translation, but by-and-large it was successful. If nothing else, it introduced a whole new generation of people to Hobbits, Ents, and the Rohirrim.
...
-----------------------------------

Thanks for looking up with me. 
- LRK -
 
============================================

WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
============================================
Posted by at
Labels: ,