Achievement

Trainees initiated the concept and helped plan and carry out a 5-week IGERT media workshop on science communication in collaboration with Dartmouth's media center. This is an innovation that will be made available to other graduate students to help with outreach training. It included technical training in photography, videography, audio recording, blogging, YouTube, and website development. It also included skills building for interviewing and being interviewed; each trainee was videotaped discussing IGERT and explaining their research focus, which was followed by a performance critique. They learned techniques for shooting digital photographs in challenging polar environments, such as on snow/ice and underwater; ways to protect equipment in cold and wind; and digital mapping and geo-tagging of images and video using GoogleMaps. Trainees are now better prepared to communicate their science with a worldwide audience through a common portal.