{"id":1540,"date":"2017-05-31T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T13:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/advancingecocomm.wordpress.com\/?p=1540"},"modified":"2017-05-31T07:00:15","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T13:00:15","slug":"myscicomm-greg-nickerson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/2017\/05\/31\/myscicomm-greg-nickerson\/","title":{"rendered":"#MySciComm: Greg Nickerson on shifting from history and journalism to scicomm"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, Greg Nickerson responds to the #MySciComm questions!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Greg

Greg with an Irish Elk<\/a>; photo courtesy of Greg Nickerson<\/p><\/div>\n

Greg is a writer and filmmaker for the Wyoming Migration Initiative<\/a>, a project at the University of Wyoming that tracks wildlife migrations and shares that information with the public. He studied history of the American West and worked as a journalist in the Wyoming State Capitol before turning his interest to the human stories of wildlife migration. Connect with him\u00a0@GregNickersonWY<\/a>, on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and at www.gregorynickerson.com<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The #MySciComm series features a host of SciComm professionals. We\u2019re looking for more contributors<\/a>, so please get in touch<\/a> if you\u2019d like to write a post!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n

Okay, Greg\u2026<\/span><\/h4>\n

1) How did you get into the kind of SciComm that you do?<\/span><\/h4>\n

I think of myself first as a scholar and educator, and all of my science communication flows from that.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This means learning the science and getting involved in the process, from reading scientific papers to capturing mule deer and putting on GPS tracking collars.<\/p>\n

Like many westerners, I was brought up in a family of elk hunters. As a teenager I learned to travel in the mountains and read the signs made by wild animals as they moved through the seasons. During my early 20s I worked as an elk hunting guide and experienced firsthand how weather and snowfall drives migration.<\/p>\n

As I started graduate school I had two friends, the photographer Joe Riis<\/a> and the writer Emilene Ostlind<\/a>, who were the first to follow the Path of the Pronghorn<\/a> on foot and document the journeys of these animals. Their work helped build momentum for the first federally-designated wildlife corridor in the United States.<\/p>\n

I found the project really inspiring, because it combined adventure and journalism with wildlife.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I always had a goal in the back of my mind to learn more about wildlife migrations and draw on my background of hunting experiences. The trajectory to getting there was circuitous.<\/p>\n

I went to graduate school at the University of Wyoming to study history of the American West, then got urban experience by making history documentaries in Philadelphia for a few years. I returned to Wyoming to be the first statehouse reporter for the nonprofit news site WyoFile.org<\/a>, with forays into other topics like American Indian issues and wildlife management.<\/p>\n

As a reporter I had an opportunity to write one of the first stories about the discovery of the Red Desert to Hoback mule deer migration<\/a>, and my reporting was well received by one of the sources in the story: Matt Kauffman (@wyokauffman<\/a>), director of the Wyoming Migration Initiative<\/a>\u00a0(WMI). A year later he was searching for someone to do publicly oriented communication about wildlife migrations, and my interests and skills fit the bill.<\/p>\n

2) What are your top 3 SciComm tips and\/or resources?<\/span><\/h4>\n

1. You have options.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is so much opportunity to use different media to communicate science: photography, film, writing, audio, art, and more.<\/p>\n

2. Characters are critical.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For us, seeking the best, most shareable story has meant finding a compelling character from our research and giving people an emotional hook to grab onto.<\/p>\n

3. Social media is an incredible tool for packaging science communication into episodic, character-driven stories. <\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, there is a mule deer we named Jet, and we have shared her migration on the WMI Facebook page\u00a0<\/a>with periodic updates. She attracts a lot of traffic, because people get emotionally engaged in her journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, Greg Nickerson responds to the #MySciComm questions! Greg is a writer and filmmaker for the Wyoming Migration Initiative, a project at the University of Wyoming that tracks wildlife migrations and shares that information with the public. He studied history of the American West and worked as a journalist in the Wyoming State Capitol before turning his interest to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5470,"featured_media":1565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,2],"tags":[53,62,76,81,87,113,115,117,126,150],"class_list":["post-1540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-myscicomm","category-news-blog-scicomm-by-scientists","tag-blog-post","tag-contributed-post","tag-general","tag-handy-links","tag-inspiration","tag-resource","tag-resources-2","tag-scicomm","tag-science-journalism-2","tag-transition-to-scicomm-career"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/communication-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}