ACARA v9 CONTENT DESCRIPTION “explore the role of science communication in informing individual viewpoints and community policies and regulations”
Builds on the idea that scientists gather evidence about the world. Here we look at the step that turns evidence into action: how that evidence is communicated. The way a finding is shared shapes what individuals believe and the rules a community sets.
Evidence only acts when it is communicated
Scientists in Australia have strong evidence that ultraviolet, or UV, radiation from the sun can damage skin, and that covering up, using shade and protecting skin lowers the risk. But evidence sitting in a report changes nothing. It only informs people once it is communicated, and the way it is communicated, a snappy slogan, a daily number, or a school rule, changes how well it reaches people and how it shapes their choices. Sun safety is a clear example of science communication at work.
Communicating sun safety: each way gains and gives up something
Pick a way of communicating the UV evidence and see what it does well and what it cannot do. The best campaigns usually combine several.
Public health scientists want everyone to protect their skin from UV radiation. They can communicate the evidence in different ways. Choose one to see its strength and its limitation.
Choose a response to see what is gained and what is given up.
From individual viewpoints to community rules
Notice the two levels in those options. A slogan or a daily number mostly informs individual viewpoints: each person decides what to do. A school or workplace rule works at the community level, setting a shared policy that protects everyone. Good science communication often needs both. The slogan builds understanding and willingness, and that support is what makes a community comfortable adopting a rule. Communicating clearly and honestly is what links evidence to the decisions people and governments actually make.
Did the communication change what people do?
Communicators can measure whether a message is working. Over years of sun-safety campaigns, health surveys asked people how often they protect their skin on hot, sunny days. Read the figures below, as the share of people regularly using sun protection, first as a table and then as a graph. A message only counts as effective if numbers like these actually move.
Share of people who regularly protect their skin in summer
View the survey results as a table, a bar chart and a line. Steadily climbing numbers are how a campaign shows it is reaching people.
The share rises year after year as the messages spread and stick. Tracking behaviour over time is how communicators tell whether the way they share evidence is actually changing what people do.
Judging a different message
The same questions apply to any public message. On smoky days from bushfires, authorities publish a daily air-quality index, a single number rating how clean or polluted the air is. A reasonable claim is that this index helps people look after their health. Sort the statements below into those that are real evidence the index helps, and those that sound related but do not actually test it.
Does a daily air-quality index help people?
The claim is that the published index helps people protect their health. Decide which statements genuinely support it.
Claim: Publishing a daily air-quality index helps people protect their health on smoky days.
When the index is high, people with asthma report staying indoors more and having fewer flare-ups.
Schools use the published rating to decide whether to move sport indoors on a smoky day.
The index uses simple colour bands, from green for good to red for hazardous, that most people grasp at a glance.
The smoke on a bad day can be smelled from a long way off.
The index is reported alongside the day of the week and the date.
Decide whether each statement is evidence for the claim, or not.
Why this matters
You meet communicated science every day, in weather warnings, food labels, health advice and news headlines. Knowing that the form of a message shapes its reach, and that simple and detailed messages each have limits, helps you judge what you are told and seek the fuller picture before deciding. It also shows why scientists work hard not just to find evidence but to share it well.
Quick self-check
1. Why does the way science is communicated matter so much?
2. A short slogan such as a simple sun-safety catchphrase is good at...
3. A daily UV index number helps people because it...
4. When science communication leads to a school sun-protection rule, this shows that communication can shape...
5. What is the key trade-off in choosing how to communicate science?