This week we were tasked with creating a template brochure for two datasets within each of our groups of land, air and water. In terms of our template brochure, we realized that we were a little too wordy in providing a synopsis of the atmosphere’s state over these last 50 years. As a group we decided that the less words there are the more likely it is that readers will stay engaged. For our infographics on the other hand, we found that it is important to strategically include images that are understandable to the general public alongside brief text that explains the data. As a collective then, we have decided to utilize a single template on Canva and a single colour scheme to complete our final brochure.
Our journals this week discusses the role that infographics play in communicating science. In the air group we all appear to have very similar views on infographics. We all believe that infographics are visually appealing and thus are quick and easy to understand especially for young audiences and the general public. We felt that infographics are a really great way to learn more about complex scientific information as usually they contain summary points of a topic alongside imagery describing it. Part of our job in ENVR 448a is to create a poster of our datasets for a presentation in Science World and thus infographics are a perfect tool as they won’t overwhelm people with too much information but will provide enough detail for them to understand our data.
In terms of examples of infographics in the real world, it appears that infographics are everywhere. Lilo found some infographics hanging in the Beatty Biodiversity Museum here at UBC. She found that these infographics are very effective as they attract visitors to certain exhibitions. I on the other hand, usually see lots of infographics online, particularly on social media based on the health and environmental pages I follow. These infographics usually consist of a lot of statistics alongside steps to mitigate something like plastic usage for example. Overall, from both of our examples we have found that infographics are visual, simple, and informative and are extremely useful in communicating science.