Souls of Science: Personal Narrative Workshop
Keywords: Science Communication, STEM Communication, Narratives, Visual Communication, Personal Identities in Science, Social Media
A workshop developed by the Center for Science Communication at Colorado State University to assist researchers in developing personal narratives to support science communication engagement. Developed in association with Field Peterson in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Science at Colorado State University in 2023.
Developed By
Department of Journalism and Media Communication
Colorado State University
1785 Campus Delivery
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1785 USA
Project Lead
Field Peterson
M.S. Candidate
Center for Science Communication
Project Committee
Jaime Jacobsen, Committee Chair
Director, Center for Science Communication
Ashley Anderson, Ph.D, Committee Member
Department of Journalism and Media Communication
Center for Science Communication
Jeni Cross, Ph.D, Committee Member
Director, Institute for Research in the Social Sciences
2025 Update: The workshop is now open source!
Overview
Stories are vital tools to build trust between scientists and the public. This workshop guides participants through the process of brainstorming, crafting, and sharing a personal narrative to facilitate their personal communication efforts. Guided by the Center for Science Communication and an array of research, Souls of Science teaches you how to build a personal narrative through imagery that can be shared online to connect with audiences.
Learning Outcomes
This workshop guides participants to the goal of developing and sharing a personal narrative. Achieving this objective will help participants replicate and feel empowered to engage in a similar process outside of the workshop. Participants will gain exposure to the process of examining their life experiences, developing a target audience, structuring a compelling story, exploring visual narratives, and building social media posts.
Pre-workshop concepts provide participants with background facts and research, which they can apply within the exercises in the workshop. They will also analyze examples and evaluate their effectiveness. The final aspects of the workshop involve creating a product that has been informed by participants’ prior first-hand engagement with concepts.
Audience & Delivery
Research groups in STEM fields, approximately 6-15 people who can commit to developing a successful product for their communication initiatives.
Requires 2 facilitated workshop sessions at 3 hours each, plus encouraged prep work before and between the sessions. Both sections are necessary for a complete understanding of the topic, with Part 1 informing Part 2.
Delivery can accommodate in-person or remote options. Participants will engage in individual and small group exercises (breakout rooms or table discussions), ranging from 10-30 minutes each, with opportunities to share thoughts with the larger group. Facilitators will be available to support throughout.
Center for Science Communication
The Center for Science Communication at Colorado State University brings together experts, professionals, and students in pursuit of research-driven strategies for understanding the communication of science and science-related topics. We are a hub for interdisciplinary, stakeholder-engaged scholarship in science communication.
Our goal is to foster better communication outcomes in pursuit of socially sustainable agricultural, environmental, and health systems. Through research, teaching, mentoring, training, and outreach, we help stakeholders communicate effectively about science and provide expert solutions to science communication problems.
We define science broadly to include interwoven topics and issues related to agriculture, environment and natural resources, energy, food, human health (including “one health” issues), nutrition, risk, technology, veterinary medicine and animal health.
Content: Literature and Concepts
Dive deeper into the themes, concepts, and literature that informed the content and exercises for this workshop.
Slices of the Workshop: Content and Exercises
