The Science of Blogging

Blogging science comes in many different forms; there are blogs for serious scientists, blogs for fun, blogs to say whatever is on your mind, and blogs to motivate.  For the serious scientist, I thought that EEB and Flow was a great blog.  It gave commentary on current topics in the literature and on new publication – a good resource for ecology and evolution folks but, perhaps, not so great when trying to educate the public.  (You would need to have some solid science background.)  And educate the public is what I’m interested in.  Two blogs I checked out,  Parasite of the Day and Zooillogix, seemed to be good “procrastination blogs” that you can check up on when you want a little big of fun scientific news.  Parasite of the Day gives quick, informative, interesting descriptions of parasites and would appeal to anyone with any kind of interested in parasites.  While this particular topic may not appeal to everyone, I thought that the concept of the blog was a good approach to celebrate biodiversity and could be applied to any group: herp a day; arthropod a day, mollusc a day, etc.  Zooillogix, while perhaps not the most “hard-science” informative, was fun to brows through: this blog gave fun videos, factoids, and quizzes that are all science related and useful in breaking the stereotype that science is “hard and boring.”  Fun is needed when capturing the public’s interest and imagination – an important step in public outreach.  Science Friday, the NPR show blog, is a different kind of science blog.  It did not give the impression of being written by “scientists” but rather by everyday people talking about environmental and other science issues in their everyday lives.  It seemed to be less of an informational blog and more of an outlet for the authors to talk about what is on their mind and also to promote the Science Friday program.  I am unsure, as of yet, on how effective this blog is at education the public because while there didn’t seem to be a common thread/theme/message/goal, each blog was informative and thought provoking on the topic addressed.  (As a personal preference though, I thought that this was the most boring blog).  The two blogs which I felt would be most effective at public outreach and education were Scientist at Work and Marine Conservation News.  I thought that Scientist at Work was a good educational blog that would appeal to people who like to follow a continuous story.  This blog site gives snapshots of the day in a life of a field biologist.  These blogs give interesting stories of what field researchers do.  In a way, it removes the mysterious cloak that surrounds the scientific process and lets the public know what the tax dollars are going towards.  These blogs can give people a personal connection to science as they follow their favorite field expeditions.  My favorite blog was Marine Conservation News (I admit that I am partial to marine systems and conservation in general so my preference may be slightly biased).  The threads of this blog were all short, easy to read, illustrated, and ended with some sort of call to action.  While the topics could be considered depressing, the blogs were not.  Rather, they were encouraging.  Each ended with some form of the message: it will take everyone thinking creatively to save marine ecosystems.  I felt like this blog was speaking to people and encouraging people to learn more and get involved with nature and science.  In terms of public education, I think that this should be the end goal, which is why this blog gets my vote.