The Schist of It is an edutainment podcast hosted by geologist Cate Larsen and is dedicated to making geoscience make sense so you can get the *gist of it. Learn about new research on things like magma chemistry, earthquakes and eruptions, and earth's interior and even hear from the researchers themselves! You can also get a lesson on the history of geoscience in Gneiss History episodes wherein we dive into the stories behind major geological events and the major discoveries made by historical figures.
The show is a gateway into geoscience as it highlights the current work being done in different subdisciplines and gives listeners a chance to keep up with and actually understand the scientific advancements being made every day. It's an open invitation for open ears!
Special thanks to musician Tom Messina for letting us use his song Lady Palm as the podcast's official music!
The show is a gateway into geoscience as it highlights the current work being done in different subdisciplines and gives listeners a chance to keep up with and actually understand the scientific advancements being made every day. It's an open invitation for open ears!
Special thanks to musician Tom Messina for letting us use his song Lady Palm as the podcast's official music!
The Reason Behind It
In a world with so many nations, cultures, and languages, we're bound to face language barriers. One that we often overlook is the language barrier between science and society. It's not hard to understand that science is, well, hard to understand. We get a basic science education in K-12 and sometimes a bit more in college, but that's old news, things we've known and have been teaching for years. What about the new stuff that gets discovered every day?
Scientists collectively are constantly doing research and putting it forth into the world in the form of publications, presentations, and articles. We're always learning something and always sharing it with others! But why isn't the general public learning about it?
It boils down to scientific papers being really tough to read, especially if you don't have a background in the subject. That's because they're not written for the average person, they're written for other scientists. An alien vernacular, slews of run-on sentences, numbers and symbols galore, weird graphs and plots; it all contributes to scientific papers being practically incomprehensible, sometimes even to people in that field!
So, what's to be done about this literal language barrier? We could get more scientists in journalism so the public can hear about new scientific work from mainstream media; we could start teaching how to read scientific papers in high school; we could convince all the world's scientists to write for us every once in a while instead of each other. Those are all good goals to work on over time, but for now? I'm reading these papers for you and breaking it down in a way you can understand. You're getting "the schist of it."
Scientists collectively are constantly doing research and putting it forth into the world in the form of publications, presentations, and articles. We're always learning something and always sharing it with others! But why isn't the general public learning about it?
It boils down to scientific papers being really tough to read, especially if you don't have a background in the subject. That's because they're not written for the average person, they're written for other scientists. An alien vernacular, slews of run-on sentences, numbers and symbols galore, weird graphs and plots; it all contributes to scientific papers being practically incomprehensible, sometimes even to people in that field!
So, what's to be done about this literal language barrier? We could get more scientists in journalism so the public can hear about new scientific work from mainstream media; we could start teaching how to read scientific papers in high school; we could convince all the world's scientists to write for us every once in a while instead of each other. Those are all good goals to work on over time, but for now? I'm reading these papers for you and breaking it down in a way you can understand. You're getting "the schist of it."
Want to Be on the Show?
The Schist of It wants YOU to show off your research! If you've published* a paper/thesis/dissertation in the last 6 months, you are invited to present it on the show and share your hard-earned knowledge with the world. Not only will get to talk about about all the cool stuff you did, you also will be gaining valuable presenting experience. Explain your work, break down the process, and provide scholarly insight to listeners interested in your topic of study. To apply, see the Google Forms link below.
*To be eligible, your publication must be in an open access journal or otherwise accredited and publicly available without paid or institutional access. More information and eligibility criteria can be found on the application page.
