Abstract :
[en] In the framework of the course on “Climate Change and Impacts”, which is part of the programmes of the Master in Geography, Global Change, the Master in Geology and the Master in Space Sciences at the university of Liège, students have to carry out a personal project which consists in a practical, full-size, live, public-outreach exercise in climate communication, on a subject of their own choice. That subject only has to be directly related to the climate system in the broad sense (which includes biogeochemical cycles, atmospheric chemistry, etc.), or to climate change. It may cover any aspect related to these two broad fields, encompassing
- Scientific foundations (“How does the climate system work?”);
- Past, present, future;
- Policy (national, international);
- Social impacts (health effects, food security, water security, livelihood security, migration, etc.);
- Economic impacts: damages to infrastructure, reduced reliability of infrastructure due to extreme events, wildfires, etc.
The primary target audience are 5th and 6th year secondary school classes. Accordingly, projects have to be realized in French by default. Students with insufficient proficiency in French may realize their project in English, and they have to present it to one of the classes of the English courses of the first years’ science bachelors’ students (geography, chemistry, geology, physics).
The preparation follows a multi-stage process. First, students have to select appropriate publications from the scientific literature to cover the chosen subject. During the course tutorials, we assess the quality and pertinence of the references, and students then frame their subject, formulate an appealing title and produce a 4–5 line abstract, in the style of the lead of a newspaper article. These leads are used produce the programme to be announced to the secondary schools of the greater Liège area. In a second stage, students must submit a 3–4 page summary report that is going to be copy-edited, typeset and included in the educational kit posted for class usage by the participating schools. Writing this summary report is one of the major challenges for the project: it has to be written in the style of a newspaper article, without references to scientific literature, although it has to be based upon the scientific literature; it has to respect the level of understanding of the target audience and it must include a final section entitled “To find out more…” where the students have to provide 3–4 quality references to freely accessible resources (web or print) for readers who want to learn more about the subject. Finally, students prepare (with two mandatory rehearsals at least) and give a 25–30 minute oral presentation to school classes. The different outcomes are assessed with regard to their scientific and pedagogic qualities.
In my talk, I present in detail the different challenges and learning outcomes that we aim at: to select, define and delimit a scientific subject, to popularize without caricature, to simplify, with rigour, to inform without exaggeration or dramatization, and the importance of using precise language.
