This week we honed in on the importance of infographics for communicating science. Infographics can play an important role in the communication of science. Infographics are able to portray data in an interesting and engaging way and provide a visual story by taking complex ideas and depicting them in a simplistic and visually aesthetic way. This is important because it can be understood by all ages and backgrounds, therefore an academic is able to communicate science to a wide variety of audiences. Infographics play an important role in science as well as our day to day lives as students.
Infographics serve two important purposes in science: 1) they allow for the audience to know what’s important with regards to the research and 2) they allow researchers to condense their research and verbalize what relevance and impact their research has on the general public. Isabelle’s main introduction to many complex scientific concepts was through infographics. If a topic or a certain concept is especially confusing in class, simple infographics online will portray the general idea that can then be built on through notes from class.
Infographics have been useful to me, Mikaela, in many instances but one of the most helpful experiences would have to be the infographics I have encountered in textbooks. I am a visual learner so when I am reading about concepts in textbooks, having an infographic to explain something complex in a different way has proved to be very useful for my understanding as well as my memorization of a concept. I also find having pictures and diagrams to break up long paragraphs of information makes for a more interesting read. Infographics on posters are also very useful because it makes a poster look more intriguing and approachable so that people want to stop and engage with the poster. It is a good way to provide context in as few words as possible.
Theresa enjoys infographics because they summarize topics and give key facts without having to do much research. This can be especially helpful for people outside of the scientific community who may not have much access to scientific papers. Infographics also present information in an eye catching and less intimidating way than, for example, a 10-page long scientific paper filled with jargon, tables and graphs.
Overall, we love a good infographic!