Leanne Roulson, HydroSolutions’ fisheries biologist and NEPA specialist, is leading a science communication seminar at Montana State University, Bozeman, for the second year this semester. The course is open to junior and senior undergraduates preparing for a career in science disciplines. Changes in how people search for information on science topics and the increasing importance of underlying science in public project decisions spurred the University’s interest in offering the course. Ms. Roulson has presented on this topic at American Fisheries Society (AFS) meetings and was approached to develop a course in 2018. Early career science professionals are often unprepared to present their work to a non-scientific audience such as a public meeting or an investor panel. The seminar teaches students how to prepare a presentation for a specific audience from informal social to professional conference settings, present data in graphic formats that make the data stand out, and deal with misconceptions on complex scientific topics. Ms. Roulson designed the course to cover written, visual, and spoken communication and to be adaptable to any science discipline from health sciences to environmental resource planning. Students will also have a chance to apply what they’ve learned in class and at the National Council on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) conference this spring on the MSU campus.
