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Our Ruined Lives with Taliah Farnsworth - Ep 28
289 Plays5 years ago
On this episode of Our Ruined Lives, we chat with the fantastic Taliah Farnsworth, the Virtual Experience Coordinator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS).
We delve into science communication and her current position at DMNS. She shares with us hilarious stories from her interactions with the public, such as "Night vision" and "Dad's personal garage time". More importantly, Taliah really delves into the nitty-gritty of science communication and education as a full-time profession.
Please give this episode a listen and follow Taliah on social media.
Contact
- Email: alifeinruinspodcast@gmail.com
- Instagram: @alifeinruinspodcast
- Facebook: @alifeinruinspodcast
- Twitter: @alifeinruinspod
- Website: www.alifeinruins.com
Find Taliah at:
- Instagram: @taliahdoesscience
- DMNS website
- Virtual Experiences Website
Affiliates
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. As Connor said, the whole faucet's the facets. God damn, I just can't talk tonight. Fuck off. You're listening to a Life in Ruins podcast where we investigate the careers and journeys of those living a life in ruins. This podcast is a dialogue between three archaeologists and their guests in which they discuss their eclectic careers and research in archaeology and why they have chosen to live a life in ruins.
Meet the Guest: Talia Farnsworth
00:00:38
Speaker
Welcome to Episode 28 of a Life in Ruins podcast, where we investigate the careers of those living in life in ruins. I'm your host Carlton Gover, and I am joined by my co-hosts, Concrete Johnn and David Ian Howe. So everyone, here we are again with another edition of Our Ruin Live, my favorite segments to look forward to. Our guest tonight is Talia Farnsworth, who is the virtual experience coordinator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, also known as DMNS.
00:01:04
Speaker
Although Talia is not an anthropologist or archaeologist, she is an accomplished professional in science communication, and we wanted to chat about her experiences tonight. Talia, thank you so much for coming on the show. We were very delighted to have you on. Thank you all for having me. It's great to get to be here. Yeah, we're glad to have you. Are you currently recording at the Denver Museum? Are you in the fancy setup or?
00:01:25
Speaker
I am not in the fancy setup. I am coming to you live from my apartment. So you might hear the noise of the dog squeaking a squeaky toy in various apartment sounds, but still here. Happy to be chatting. I
Connecting Through Social Media
00:01:37
Speaker
think we met through my Instagram, right? Or was it through the podcast?
00:01:43
Speaker
I think so. I think I just sort of caught wind of what you all were doing, or I follow a lot of different science communication accounts on Instagram. And I definitely started following you, David, I know that much. And then started, this is a funny story, one day in the break room at the museum, just describing some accounts that I was following to someone I was eating lunch with. When your good friend Meghan Grizzle overheard me describing your account at a table over and she goes, wait, is that David that you're talking about? And I said, yes.
00:02:12
Speaker
She goes, did he ever follow you back? And I said, no. And she goes, I'm going to text him right now. That's kind of how. But yeah. And then I remember that now cause she was like, go follow her. You jerk or something.
Museum Video Project and Inspirations
00:02:27
Speaker
went and did it and then yeah you have like really cool museum video like with the harry potter one or you were a witch i can't remember what it was yeah we made a video all about why do museums keep collection specimens which i think is a lot of people's big question you know why do you have these
00:02:43
Speaker
rooms full of things hidden out of people's view. Uh, so we made a video with, you know, some light copyright infringement, fantastic beasts and where we store them. So I got to dress up as a witch and with some very special effects, open cabinets. I mean, nevermind. I am actually magic. That was not special effects in any way, shape or form. Oh, I had no doubt like that. The VFX was cool. So it had to be real. Oh, absolutely.
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah. And then we actually met you at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science when David was there taking pictures. And I think we got to see some of those fantastic beats that you were describing. Is that correct? You did. You did. We got to head down into the zoology collection down underneath the museum. A lot of people who visit don't even realize that it's there and then upstairs and another behind the scenes area that most people never even see into our education collection. So it was a fun day.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah.
Behind-the-Scenes at Denver Museum
00:03:31
Speaker
I got to see that like life-sized stuffed hyena that made my day. I love that room. Yeah. That type of the room of death with all the taxes are me is just my absolute favorite at DMNS. I love it too. And it never really gets old. Just being in the back of a museum walking around is like always still the coolest thing to me. Cause as a kid, you're like, I wonder what goes on back there as someone who's worked at a museum and like in archeology, like I still giddy and freak out and like run around when I'm buying a museum. Cause it's like always cool stuff.
00:03:59
Speaker
They are always cool. And honestly, confession. I am so used to after having been at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science so long, I am really used to being able to just walk through doors that say authorized personnel only. And I will sometimes find myself at other museums when I go visit having to say, wait, wait, you don't work at this one. You need to guideline. Yeah.
00:04:24
Speaker
All right. So how'd you first fall in love with science? What
Journey into Science Communication
00:04:27
Speaker
led to you working at DMNS as the virtual experience coordinator? You know, I never really imagined that this is a career that I would have, and I certainly didn't ever strive to become a science communicator, a virtual experiences coordinator. It's really a career that I sort of came to accidentally, which is pretty interesting.
00:04:46
Speaker
But looking back on it, I have a hard time imagining how I ever ended up anywhere else. So as a kid, I always loved animals. I loved my cat and my dog, and I loved going outside and looking for bugs.
00:04:59
Speaker
Growing up, I wanted to be everything from a horse training princess that was right about first grade, to a veterinarian, to a cognitive therapist, to, oh gosh, so many other things. And I always, as I look back on those careers, I realized that a common thread through all of those things, oh, I wanted to be a paleontologist for a while too, because what kid doesn't? Dinosaurs were sort of the gateway drug to science, in my opinion. Hold up. That's a t-shirt.
00:05:24
Speaker
It is. I think it is. That is a cracked t-shirt. I think that needs to be in the next round of Life in Ruins merch.
00:05:34
Speaker
Looking back on all of those careers though, there was always a couple of common threads is I always liked people and I always liked science. I always wanted to do something that involved, you know, whether it was helping people care for their pets using animal science, you know, whether it was helping someone understand themselves by being a cognitive therapist. It always sort of involved those two things. And funnily enough, I got started at the museum because right about the summer of 2007, I was a bored high schooler and my mom decided I needed something to do. And so she
00:06:03
Speaker
signed me up to go volunteer with summer camps at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I was reluctant at first, turns out I loved it, and stuck around for a seasonal internship starting in 2011, joined the permanent staff in 2014, and have played every role since from educator-performer, was my first permanent job there, so working in galleries, going out to schools, doing outreach programs with schools, and then started teaching virtual programs as an educator. And from there,
00:06:30
Speaker
When a position as virtual experiences coordinator opened up, I applied and for better for worse, you know, whether that was a good decision on the museum's part or a bad one, we'll see. They, they picked me and here I am. That's quite the trajectory. And I'm going to answer that last question and say.
00:06:46
Speaker
They did fantastic, especially when you have a fantastic beast and where to find them video and all the other stuff you guys have done. It's been super impressive and super cool to see. Thanks. I kind of segueing with the dinosaurs as a gateway drug into science or into archaeology or whatever. I actually in fourth grade was taken to the back of the paleontological collections by Dr. Kirk Johnson. Is he still there?
00:07:13
Speaker
Kirk has since moved on. Dr. Johnson has moved on and is now with Smithsonian. That's a step. It might ring a bell. It's a little museum in Washington, D.C.
00:07:28
Speaker
Oh, cool. Yeah. But yeah, that's that's what really got me involved in wanting to do and loving kind of the museum science aspects of that. Mind blowing, right? You know, when you you think about, wait, millions of years before I was born, there were these giant creatures that, you know, ate each other and may or may not have had feathers or, you know, it's kind of hard not to get super blown away by dinosaurs. I'm actually a little bit weirded out by people who are like, I never really cared for them. It's like, really? Have you have you thought about them now?
00:07:56
Speaker
Well, according to the creationist museum in Kentucky, dinosaurs used to roam around with humans and they only ate vegetarians, vegetables until Adam only ate vegetables, not vegetarians until the apple incident. And then they grew sharp teeth and started killing each other because of the original sin. My mistake. Yeah. Take that museum as you will. And for what it's worth.
00:08:19
Speaker
But DM&S is nothing like the Creation Museum. They do not have people in black suits and ties watching people be disrespectful and taking them out. Your visit is safe at DM&S. So everybody loves dinosaurs. And I think every archaeologist or museum professional that we've ever talked to, there is an inherent love of antiquity and monumentality that is associated with the love of dinosaurs. Like just as you described, like how old they were, how big they were, how long ago they existed. So how did that kind of communicate into college?
00:08:50
Speaker
I actually did not study really anything related to dinosaurs in college. I got a degree in neuroscience instead, again, related a little bit to wanting to be a therapist for a little while. I also grew up with a learning disability. I have ADHD and
00:09:06
Speaker
someone identifies that's David, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And so out of that, you know, struggling with that, especially in middle school and in high school, really drove me to want to understand, wait, what's what's going on with my brain that makes me different from other people?
00:09:20
Speaker
And so that drove me toward neuroscience. I majored in psychology and biology at the University of Denver. Took lots of classes related to sort of the intersection of those two subjects, pharmacology, cellular communication, which was massively interesting.
Role of Neuroscience in Teaching
00:09:34
Speaker
But when I finished college, I really wasn't
00:09:37
Speaker
quite sure what I wanted to do with that. I got this cool fancy degree and really it's it's really great for when people are like what you study you say cognitive neuroscience people are like ooh but I graduated and I really had no idea what I wanted to do so I went back to the museum thinking I've worked here for several years I know that I have worked with them for at least this coming summer because I was helping out with summer camp and that's when they offered me the opportunity to stick around and be part of the permanent team so
00:10:04
Speaker
My experience in college was not super related to what I ended up doing, but it did teach me a lot. You know, learning about neuroscience and understanding the brain does help you understand how people learn and then helps you then understand how to teach. And so having that foundation, not only of neuroscience as a whole, but how cognition and how memories are formed, that was really a foundation for my career as an educator.
00:10:28
Speaker
So you ended up also continuing on to get a master's degree. Was that in conjunction with the museum or working with them? It wasn't related. I got to a point where I had been working at the museum for several years and I was interested in some new challenges. I was
00:10:43
Speaker
ready to learn some new things and expand my practice a little bit more. And that's when I found the Advanced Inquiry Program, which requires a little bit of explanation, I guess. The Advanced Inquiry Program, or AIP, is one of the graduate programs offered through Miami University in Ohio. Good to specify a lot of people when I announced that I'd gotten in said, so when are you moving to Florida? And I had to explain not only is it not Florida, it's also an online degree. So I've still never even been to Ohio. Program through Miami University's Project Dragonfly Program, in which
00:11:13
Speaker
It's really tailored toward formal and informal educators and people who are interested in making a switch over to more of a conservation-focused career. So in my cohort, we had classroom teachers, high school and middle school mostly. We had people who were working in retail who were interested in making a little bit of a career change. We had someone working in cancer research. We had lots of other informal educators, and it's just meant to help you
00:11:40
Speaker
understand how to better teach people using inquiry. So helping people define their own questions, find their own answers, how to help you work with your community to create change benefits, the natural world. It's really, it's a program that's highly customizable. You can really make it whatever you want. So I joined thinking, Hey, I like teaching with inquiry. I like working with my community. I like getting inspired. And with them, I got the chance to work with a lot of different communities, everything from
00:12:06
Speaker
genetics researchers down in New Mexico near the Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge to Reef HQ, the Great Barrier Reef Aquarium in Queensland, Australia. And so this hodgepodge of different experiences has really opened my eyes to the ways that working with the community and working to benefit the natural world and help people understand the natural world is complicated. It's challenging. It's also really rewarding. Working on the Great Barrier Reef and understanding the reasons why some people are
00:12:36
Speaker
really reluctant to act in its favor or thinking a little bit differently about why some people might deny that climate change is happening. All of those were experiences and new perspectives that I gained from working with the Advanced Inquiry Program and doing some of that research. So I'm certainly grateful for that experience. Why wouldn't someone want to protect the Great Barrier Reef?
00:12:54
Speaker
I think, you know, there are a lot of things that go into, there are a lot of factors driving, you know, things like coral bleaching, which is when they expel the little microorganisms, their endosymbiance that live inside of them. And some of them are things like fertilizer runoff from coastal areas. Most of Australia's population lives in the coastal areas, you know.
00:13:13
Speaker
for good reason. The center of Australia is kind of barren wasteland. It's beautiful, but nothing grows there. So most people live on the coasts, particularly in tropical North Queensland. One of the biggest industries there is growing sugar cane. And so run off from the fertilizer.
00:13:29
Speaker
that's used to grow the sugarcane causes a nutrient imbalance in the water, which then promotes the growth or the overgrowth, I should say, of the native, but now no longer controlled crown of thorns starfish. And so you can understand, you know, if your livelihood is growing sugarcane, why would you want to stop? You know, if that's how you make your money, if that's how your family has made its money for generations, if that's how you put food on the table, why would you want to stop? You know, just because some coral reef a couple hundred miles offshore is maybe hurting a little bit.
00:13:57
Speaker
That's super interesting. That's like a, that broad approach that you seem to be describing where you kind of take all these other factors into it. It's not something I don't think we're exposed to a lot in like popular media. Generally, you know, we talk about the bleaching of the coral reefs or things like that, but there's, there's lots of different facets to, and lots of things going on that we might not understand, but that's super cool that you're kind of exposed to that. And you can also teach people about that.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think the number one thing that I learned from getting this degree, which is a master's of arts of teaching in biology, that conservation is a social science. And so is science communication, really. All of those things are blended together like a big tangled bowl of spaghetti. And it's really, really hard to
Virtual Experiences Coordination
00:14:42
Speaker
work to benefit nature and the natural world without also considering the ways that the natural world
00:14:49
Speaker
interacts with people and that people interact with the natural world. It's really, really hard to separate the two. And so being a science communicator, I have the incredible responsibility and privilege of figuring out how to work with people, how to talk to people, how to make them understand the ways that they are impacted by these natural issues and the way that what they do every single day, even if they don't realize it, could impact a place as far away from them as the Great Barrier Reef.
00:15:14
Speaker
I think it's just clear from this first segment just how well that master's has kind of paid off. Just listening to how articulate you are in describing the whole process of science communication and as Connor said, the facets that surround broaching these issues with the public because you have to have an understanding that's not just about the environment, but the people that are implicit in some of these environmental issues that you've talked about, Great Barrier Reef and so on, that
00:15:40
Speaker
you have to make it relevant to them. And as you said, with archaeology in particular, we, for some goddamn reason, have to deal with ancient aliens all the time and people that are very prominent in pseudo-archaeology and pseudoscience at large. And to have someone like yourself who combats a lot of these things with the general public is just absolutely phenomenal. Being able to engage with people, and especially, like you work with kids a lot, right?
00:16:08
Speaker
I do. I work with adults too, but my primary focus at the museum is bringing virtual experiences with science. So programs that can be beamed directly into your living room, into a classroom, everything from paleo art to scientific illustration to the wonders of the human body, respiratory, circulatory, digestive systems, and puberty. We teach about that one too, so I'm sure we'll get to that at some point during the podcast. So yes, I usually work with kids in schools.
00:16:35
Speaker
on that lovely note talking about puberty. I think we're going to start the next segment with a lovely story from Talia about some questions she's been asked while at her job. So we're going to end this first segment and then we'll catch you in segment two.
00:16:48
Speaker
And welcome back to a life and ruins podcast episode 28. We are still here with Talia. David is having some technical problems, so he is just going to be chilling at the moment. So just me and concrete here. So we mentioned briefly in the last segment, Talia, kind of what your job was, but can you more fully explain what your role is and what you do for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science?
00:17:08
Speaker
Absolutely. So my role at the museum is the virtual experiences coordinator, which means that I have been responsible over the last couple years have been in this role since 2017, two and a half years, I am responsible for overseeing and helping coordinate and run and manage and, you know, anything that needs done.
00:17:27
Speaker
for our virtual school programs. And we have sort of two different flavors of virtual programming at the museum. One is our virtual science academy suite of programs. So those ones can be booked by schools, groups, organized youth groups. We even sometimes have senior centers book them as well at the date and time of their choosing. And so I mentioned in the last segment, we cover everything from
00:17:45
Speaker
scientific illustration and paleo art to several different systems across the body. And of course, our most popular program, I'm sure you can understand why, is all about puberty. So we will take the responsibility out of fifth grade teachers' hands and have that talk with their kids so that they don't have to. The other one that we do is called Scientists in Action, and that's where we connect schools across the country in a single Zoom call. So lots of schools are all in at one time.
00:18:10
Speaker
with a scientist where they work. And so sometimes that's at paleontological dig sites. So I've been out at dinosaur digs before, which, as we mentioned, dinosaurs were my gateway drug to science. And it sounds like a lot of people's as well. So my inner four-year-old basically lost her mind that day. We've been down in research labs. We've gotten to travel to vet hospitals. I was not the one who got to go, unfortunately, but we've gotten to go to Air Force bases and other sites for things like launches into space. So launch events with
00:18:39
Speaker
some of the big organizations doing space travel, space research, which is really cool. And so we give students a chance to learn a little bit about what some of those careers and what some of those projects are like, and then we take their questions live, which is pretty cool. So I'm really lucky to get to play that role. It's super heartwarming and amazing to, you know, pull my attendance report after the event ends or just scroll through the chat and see that I'm connected to people from
00:19:03
Speaker
all across the country. We have schools that tune in from above the Arctic Circle up in Alaska down into the tropics of Florida, rural communities in Colorado where I live and work, urban communities all across the country. It's incredibly meaningful work to get to do. And then since COVID-19 sort of turned the world on its head, I've been working with
Adapting Programs During Pandemic
00:19:22
Speaker
a really great team of people at the museum on
00:19:24
Speaker
producing programs for adults, families, members, going live in Zoom, on Facebook Live, everything in between. So it's been really great to have a skill set that allows us to bring science to people even when people can't come to the science, if that makes sense.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, that totally makes sense. I'm glad that it seems pretty adaptable to the current crises and probably going forward. You had hit on a little bit earlier and, you know, before we were talking this interview, you had mentioned something about we had asked you about what funny stories you have from your interactions with kids, adults, anything like that. And you had mentioned a particularly interesting story about night vision in male. It's a classic for sure. So
Humorous Teaching Stories
00:20:05
Speaker
the thing about teaching about puberty is it's
00:20:09
Speaker
To quote Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility. For a lot of the kids that we reach, I think we might be the only person who has this really in-depth discussion with them about what's going on with their bodies. And I understand that. It's an uncomfortable subject for a lot of people, so I can understand why parents or caregivers, even teachers, are maybe not all that interested in leading that conversation with their kids. So we get the great responsibility of getting to
00:20:35
Speaker
share that information and help kids come to a good understanding of what their bodies do and how their bodies are going to change. And it's really important to get to do that because if you don't, they're going to come away with some really, really weird ideas about what's going on with their body. And sometimes
00:20:51
Speaker
We even have to be careful mid-program what we're saying. And I say we meaning me as well as a team of educators that I work with at the museum who teach the program along with me. We've had kids before get confused mid-program and of course we have to clear things up. And the best example of this ever was that during the middle of a session, I put the words nocturnal emissions up on the screen. Oh Jesus. Yeah.
00:21:14
Speaker
the you can already tell where this is going and i look down and in the front row of the class i can see a boy start to sort of shake his friends sitting next to him and he's like elbowing him really excitedly and i look at him and he just goes dude dude i managed to overhear he says do you see what that says do you see what it says it says that when boys go through puberty they get nocturnal vision
00:21:35
Speaker
Oh, oh gosh. That's amazing. I had to not only look at this kid and be like, I'm so sorry. Sweet little cinnamon roll. Sweet, sweet summer child. Oh my God. Not only do you not get night vision when you go through puberty, it's, it's much worse. Whose idea was like, you know what? Let's teach kids about puberty at the museum.
00:22:02
Speaker
That program actually predates me. That one has been running at the museum for a very, very long time. It used to be taught when kids would come to the museum. Best field trip ever. It used to be also taught going out to the schools, but we discovered that we were able to get the same effect and actually reach a larger number of kids, translating it to a virtual version. And we were actually then able to make use of graphics.
00:22:27
Speaker
You know, other pieces of media that can really help these abstract concepts come to life for kids. So we made it a virtual program several years ago. It's been virtual ever since. I can't take credit for the idea. Just reap the benefits of all of the incredible stories.
00:22:40
Speaker
I hope that all adults out there who have used this as a teaching tool because they're having a hard time communicating that information with their kid have, you know, since donated lots of money to the museum because you are saving lives and saving awkward conversations out there.
00:22:58
Speaker
I can tell you I did teach this program when it was still done in schools when I would travel to schools to do the program. And the number of times that I was greeted at the front of the school or at the door of the classroom by a teacher going, just thank you for being here. Just thanks. That was payment enough. That was pretty sweet. There is no love deeper than a teacher who knows that you are there to explain the reproductive system to their students instead of them.
00:23:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's, I'm just getting like non flashbacks to like fourth grade when I had to learn this stuff. That's awesome program that you guys are doing. That's a fun one. I got other good stories too. I can tell you one more. I mean, like, yeah, give us one more story. I mean, the thing about working with kids, right? Is, you know, we all, we've heard the saying, you know, out of the mouths of babes or kids say the darndest things they really and truly do.
00:23:47
Speaker
And I really think that they just don't even know what they're saying like they have no filter and they also have a lot of the time they're just so excited to be talking to you that they will tell you things that they maybe shouldn't shouldn't tell you. So once I was out of the school this was several years ago.
00:24:04
Speaker
We used to run a program in which we talked about different ecosystems in Colorado. That one has since been sunset, but we would talk about everything from Colorado has deserts, we have riparian ecosystems, we have alpine and subalpine ecosystems, we have grasslands and
00:24:20
Speaker
At the grassland station, one of the features was that kids could smell a little container of prairie sage. And one of my favorite things to do, you know, we talked about inquiry, asking questions, getting kids to think creatively, make new connections, was always to ask kids, you know, what is, what does this smell remind you of? Have you ever smelled anything like this before? And usually they would tell you, like, I feel like I've had, you know, there's spices in my house that my mom puts on chicken that
00:24:45
Speaker
This smells like him. Like, yeah, that's sage. Our kids would often tell me it smells like tea or it smells like a candle. But once I had a kid take a big old whiff, she looked me right in the eye and she goes, this smells like when my dad goes in the garage for his alone time. Oh, wow. OK.
Creating Educational Series
00:25:08
Speaker
That was one where you're like, all right. Good to know. Thank you for sharing. Moving on.
00:25:16
Speaker
Oh boy. Okay. And have you created programs yourself at the museum? A big part of my role in, in this position is creating the scientists in action series. So again, new me puberty, that's the name of the program, as well as all of the other virtual science academy programs that we offer actually predate me. So I sort of inherited those, but scientists in action is something that we come up with a monthly series. And so each school year we do a different one each month and sometimes we'll repeat them year after year,
00:25:44
Speaker
they've been really successful in years past or if teachers have requested that certain ones come back and we're able to make it work, we'll do that. But a lot of the time we're coming up with new ideas and so sometimes I will be approached with a new idea for a partnership with a different organization or one of our curators has work going on that they would really love to get to share with some students. So my job then is to help
00:26:08
Speaker
these people a lot of the time who are not science communicators take what is often a really complicated subject and turn it into something that a seven-year-old can understand and my philosophy is always if a seven-year-old can't understand what you're talking about you're not talking about it very well which I don't know maybe that's an unpopular opinion but I think being able to bring what you're an expert in down to the level of a third or a fourth grader is a really
00:26:35
Speaker
important skill and I think seven-year-olds are actually in second grade. But being able to translate what you know into language that a kid could understand is a super important skill and so a lot of the time I'm working with scientists, I'm working with researchers, I'm working with engineers or other STEM professionals and helping them find the story in their research and a lot of the time you know narratives that are really appealing to kids and adults too are things like overcoming a challenge. So you know maybe we're working on a program with
00:27:04
Speaker
a space travel organization or a space research organization. And the challenge that we need to overcome is how do you land this craft on Mars? We worked on a program all about the insight lander a few years ago, and that was the big one. How do you get through the seven minutes of terror when you lose contact with the lander? Well, it's just sort of been freefall toward the surface of the red planet. How do you get through that and make sure that everything's going to be OK and that you've crossed every T and dotted every I?
00:27:31
Speaker
Or sometimes it's, how did you end up in this career? I've also worked with veterinarians in the past from Colorado State University. How did you end up in this career that I think is really, really appealing. Veterinary medicine, I think is another gateway drug to science for a lot of kids. So it's all about helping them find that story and then also helping them translate.
00:27:50
Speaker
really complex topics like I said into something that kids can relate to and a lot of the time it's you know what's a fact or a piece of information or a comparison or a statistic that you can share that'll help or not help but will make someone say wait what you know how many iPhones does it take to store all of the information required all the data required to make that picture of a black hole you know how
00:28:14
Speaker
How many cheeseburgers does it take to equal the weight of the International Space Station? I'm just coming up with that now, and that's a question I'd love to know the answer to, you know? At least five. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. You're not right either, but you're not wrong.
00:28:32
Speaker
at least five. We see in memes sometimes like I've seen once before where it's like a mule deer is as tall as one and a half bicycles or something like that and people are like oh man Americans will use anything but the metric system won't they?
00:28:48
Speaker
And it's true. It's true. But also, if you look at a kid and you're like, you know, this dinosaur weighed as much as six elephants or something like that, that to them is way, way, way more impactful than telling them a number of pounds because they can't visualize that. Or, you know, telling a kid, well, let's think about how long dinosaurs were on Earth getting back to dinosaurs, because obviously.
00:29:13
Speaker
Stegosaurus was as far back in time to T. rex, as T. rex is to us. So putting it in that kind of terms, you know, helping people visualize things like size, like distance, like time, it's a fun challenge to help scientists come up with translations or I guess conversions, you know, years into cheeseburgers. I'm not sure what the conversion rate, the exchange rate is for that. At least three. At least, again, it's not.
00:29:42
Speaker
That's a really fun challenge. I think it's just super fascinating that you're able to use these ulterior methods of information in order to better help out kids who are undeveloped humans, half-baked, and understanding the world around them in a way that they can
00:29:59
Speaker
better digest that information. Because like you're right, like if you tell a kid like, Oh, this weighed, you know, so many tons, they don't really have a spectrum for understanding how much a ton is, but then you use like if a T-Rex weighed four and a half elephants, like they get the, they get that they might not.
00:30:14
Speaker
still be able to totally comprehend, but they know what an elephant is and they can understand like four and a half elephants. That's a lot of elephants. I guess like, what do you get out of this in terms of like job fulfillment? Because you're in a very niche role that we've talked about a couple of times on the podcast of scientists in general are horrible
00:30:36
Speaker
at science communication and you've found yourself and you have a science background in this role where you have to talk about the whole vastness of what is presented at DMNS from zoology, anthropology, paleontology, geology, blah, blah, blah, and you get to teach kids. So what's the payoff for you?
00:30:55
Speaker
I mean, nocturnal vision stories come pretty frequently, so that's nice. That much is good. I get certainly enough good memories to be able to come home and say, you'll never guess what a kid said to me today. But really, I do get a lot of satisfaction, not only out of bringing these experiences to kids in schools, you know, not only in knowing that I was able to connect with the school in Alaska or last year we got to work with the school in Arctic Bay, Nunavut, Canada, you know, knowing that I've
00:31:23
Speaker
brought these programs and brought DMNS to these far away places and created really impactful experiences for those kids. I also get a lot out of imparting science communication skills on scientists. It's a crucial skill. If you can do the research, I mean, again, another unpopular opinion, we'll see how your podcast ratings fare after this, but I kind of feel like it's great if you can do the research, but if you can't tell an average person about it,
00:31:50
Speaker
you know, what does that even mean? And a lot of the time too, research is funded by the public, you know, whether it's through grants that are paid for by tax dollars or whether it's, you know, tuition money at universities going toward research projects. I think it's an important public service for scientists to be able to communicate what they do in a way that someone who's never heard of what they talk about or what they study before to understand. So I get a lot out of that too.
00:32:15
Speaker
Well, thank you for the job that you do because it's, you know, it can be difficult for a scientist to get that. So I'm glad that there's people who could help us translate that in which I was trying to say before Alexis rudely interrupted us. And on that note, in the next segment, Talia is going to tell us if the museum comes to life at night. I mean, if Robin Williams and it's not Luke Wilson, what's the other one? Owen. Yeah. If Owen Wilson will come in. So we'll catch you on the third segment.
00:32:43
Speaker
Stick around. Welcome back to episode 28 of a Life in Ruins podcast. We are chatting with Talia Farnsworth, talking about science communication. This is segment three. And we wanted to start off this section. I know we kind of teased it in the last section that we're going to talk about Night at the Museum and Robin Williams and wow, and all these sorts of things. But we wanted to start. We wanted to start. I'm so sorry.
00:33:12
Speaker
We wanted to start off the segment just asking you what are kind of some difficulties you and the science world in general have with communicating complex subjects.
Challenges in Science Communication
00:33:24
Speaker
I mean, the number one issue I run into is screen sharing in Zoom is hard. When technology doesn't cooperate as the virtual experiences coordinator, that's probably my number one complaint. But no, it's really interesting working for a public institution. It's pretty common that we encounter people coming into the museum or if we're out in the community who maybe have a different relationship with or opinion of science than
00:33:53
Speaker
we do. As someone with a science background who is a career science educator, science communicator, I love science. I have a high opinion of science. I use science to dictate how I interact with the world. It's sort of the lens through which I view reality and I have a feeling that all of you on the podcast probably feel the same way. But we do sometimes, and again, I say we referring to
00:34:15
Speaker
me and others who I work with. I'm not speaking for the whole institution here, but I certainly have encountered people who are not interested in accepting science. I have encountered in my work climate change deniers. I have encountered people who do not believe in evolution. I have encountered people who believe the earth is flat. That's a real thing that we have encountered before in me and my fellow educators. That's an interesting one, right?
00:34:41
Speaker
you in the moment when someone comes up to you and starts wanting to talk to you about some of these subjects, it's easy to panic. And so that's definitely a challenge. I've learned in time, though, that there are a few different things that you have to make sure you do when you get into a discussion like this. And the first thing is if someone comes up to you and they want to duke it out and argue with you, the first thing that's important to do is just check in with yourself. Say, hey, do I have time to have this conversation right now?
00:35:10
Speaker
be needing to be on a stage in a few minutes to give a demonstration, or I might have a meeting I need to run off to in a short amount of time, and so I might not have the time to devote to a conversation like that. And also, do I have the mental energy? I think all of us who work in the science field have probably had a conversation with someone. Maybe they're well-meaning, but they just don't understand, or
00:35:32
Speaker
perhaps they're not well-meaning and they want to argue. I think a lot of us can think back on conversations that we've had that have been a little bit draining. And so you have to be honest with yourself about, am I emotionally ready to have an argument with someone today or to get into a debate today? And also, do I have the subject expertise? There are a few things in science where I feel like I could actually get into a pretty heated discussion with someone, be able to hold my own, but there's also a lot that I don't feel like I could do that with. And so it's important to check in.
00:36:02
Speaker
And the second thing is if someone comes up to you and they want to have a discussion about, you know, creationism or flat earth or the dangers of vaccines or, you know, what have you, sometimes the easiest thing to do rather than immediately take them up on their offer to get into a fight, because I think that's a lot of the time what people might be interested in doing, is to just listen. You know, if you can listen to them and say, you know, I have been hearing people say things like the earth is flat.
00:36:29
Speaker
I have not ever really understood why people say that. Tell me more. That sounds sort of counterintuitive. I think a lot of people might be like, wait, you want to give a platform to people saying that the earth is flat. But you know what? A lot of the time just being listened to and having someone say,
00:36:45
Speaker
You know what? Let me hear your perspective. It not only brings the energy in the room down to sort of a manageable level, you know, it helps people sort of deescalate a little bit. It also helps build a relationship with science and with the science community. One thing that I found through my work in graduate school, through my work on the floor of the museum, working with guests, that a lot of the time when people come to you sort of believing something that we know not to be true or
00:37:11
Speaker
that the data points toward being not true. There's a reason for that. There's a reason that they sort of have that belief. There's a reason that they
00:37:20
Speaker
think that vaccines cause health issues. There's a reason that they don't believe in climate change. And for them, a lot of the time it's really personal. And so for you taking the time to just say, hey, I see you as a human being and I want to understand where you're coming from. So not only does that de-escalate the situation, it might also leave them with the impression of, wow, I went to the museum and someone who is a scientist who represents science in their mind
00:37:44
Speaker
listened to me and treated me with respect. That can go a long way. So it's interesting. It's challenging. And I have cried in a few closets in my time as a science communicator after a really, really tense conversation. But you know what? It's like I said in segment one, conservation, science communication, all different kinds of science. You can't do those things without also understanding people and meeting those people where they are. And so that requires a lot of empathy and willingness to listen.
00:38:12
Speaker
When David doesn't have time to engage in pseudoscientific comments on his Instagram, he just calls his bulldog to do it for him. Isn't that right, David? It is. It is right. You do a good job of it. Yeah, there are certain situations where you definitely have to engage. And I've also been put on the spot before and sort of been cornered into situations where I can't not engage. Thankfully, all of my teammates at the museum are really great. I will just say this about sort of recognizing when someone maybe needs to
00:38:40
Speaker
be given some backup but I have also been in situations where I can't have that and one thing that's I think really important to remember is what is what is your goal here and can you find a common goal with the person who's trying to engage with you. I
Handling Controversial Topics with Empathy
00:38:52
Speaker
once had someone I was doing a sheep lung dissection in our health exhibit expedition health
00:38:57
Speaker
And I had someone walk up to me and say, isn't it incredible that God made the respiratory system exactly like that? And you know what? In that moment, my role and my goal as an educator was to get this person to appreciate how amazing the respiratory system was. And so my way of engaging there and reaching that goal was just to say, yeah, our respiratory system is really, really incredible. It's really amazing that we have all of these complex structures in our body that allow us to breathe and run and jump and be active.
00:39:26
Speaker
And so it required a moment for me to think about, wait, how do I respond to this? But yeah, sometimes you have to engage. And sometimes the way to engage is just to say, if what I want you to do is appreciate this thing that I have in front of me and that I'm showing you and your access point to that appreciation is, you know, your spirituality or your faith, go for it. You know, who am I to take that away from you? It's an interesting line to walk.
00:39:51
Speaker
Yeah. And I guess like this is kind of goes for like dealing with friends or relationships and things, but like you always hear the term people just want to be heard. So I think the way you're approaching that is actually a perfect way to do it. Cause like, if you allow them to talk and explain their point of view to you, like they, they feel heard. And then that way when they go home that night, they'll think about the way you said things that might make them think a little more rather than being on the opposing or being told that they're wrong kind of thing like that.
00:40:20
Speaker
Absolutely. And sometimes too, a good way to do that is to come at them, not just by saying, yeah, that's awesome that you think that, but come at them with really over the top empathy. This is really helpful in conversations about climate change. And this is another thing that came out of my time on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, just understanding that a lot of the time people's beliefs about climate change, again, those are personal too. And so sometimes you need to empathize with people before you can start to
00:40:48
Speaker
reframe their point of view. So not only does meeting someone and listening to them and hearing them out deescalate, not only does it help build relationships between someone who's maybe closed off from science and science, it also can help you begin to change their perspective a little bit. And you can't get there with someone who's completely closed off. And so if someone comes to you and they say,
00:41:10
Speaker
Why is climate change a problem? It's not really affecting me here. In Colorado, we still get these big snowstorms every winter, which are tied to climate change, spoiler alert. But a lot of people say, we're still getting these freezing cold winters. We're getting these bomb cyclone snowstorms that you hear about. Of course, the planet's not getting warmer. How could that possibly be a thing? Instead of looking at them and saying, well, actually, because that's not going to get you anywhere, saying, oh, you're wrong because, because again, that's not going to get you anywhere, you say,
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's really hard to see how climate change is affecting us here in Colorado because the winters are still really, really cold. You know, if you meet them with that, you say, yes, you're right. It is hard to know. Or if someone says like, well, I don't really think that this is real, scientists keep changing their mind about stuff all the time, you know, saying, yeah, it really seems like information is constantly changing, then that's an opportunity for you to pivot and say,
00:42:02
Speaker
But you know what? That's what science is, is we are always learning things that force us to change our minds and change our perspectives. You know, that's a way for you to hear them out and then reframe their point of view. Yeah. I think that's a brilliant way to go about it. So
00:42:17
Speaker
keep on doing that because I think that's the way to go.
Relevance of Science to Personal Life
00:42:21
Speaker
I guess that segues into our next question, which I kind of thought about this when we were about to have you on. So you get people that come into the museum and ask questions like, you know, often and then like kids ask them, adults ask them, like whatever. Do you find that most questions are like in regards to human evolution? Are they in regards to climate change? Are they in regard to physics or something like that? Like what is something that
00:42:46
Speaker
us in the science community could like teach better from your experience.
00:42:51
Speaker
I mean, I think a lot of the time, I mean, maybe this sounds bad. People are really self-centered and myself included. People want to know how something relates to them, how it relates to their life. You know, I talked about when I was still working as an educator performer, so before focusing pretty much fully on virtual programs, I would be working in our health exhibit a lot. You know, when we would do a program about or, you know, a demonstration, a dissection of a heart or something like that and show off some collection specimens of
00:43:21
Speaker
different things that people would use in heart surgery or models of how arteriosclerosis looks inside of the body. People would start to tell me stories and then ask me questions related to their own lives. So someone might say, well, I have an uncle who died of a heart attack. Can you tell me about how that happened? Or same thing with doing a lung dissection demonstration of like, well, I have asthma. So what does asthma do? And I think we see that in a lot of different
00:43:49
Speaker
a lot of different fields. And that's human health, so it's easy to understand how people would see a connection between their lives. But, you know, with dinosaurs, talking about paleontology, kids sometimes want to know, like, well, my favorite dinosaur is T-Rex. What's your favorite dinosaur? They want to make that connection between the scientists.
00:44:06
Speaker
Me sometimes sometimes someone else and them and their personal lives or kids ask me a lot of the time actually we have kids bring in Rocks or say I found this cool rock in my yard. I think it's a fossil Can you take a look at it for me? And most the time it's just a rock but I appreciate their excitement you know, they want to know how all of this relates to their lives and so I
00:44:26
Speaker
You know, you as podcasters, you as scientists and the scientific community as a whole, I think one of the most important things to do is help people see how things are relevant to their lives. You know, whether that's you're teaching climate science and atmospheric science and, you know, talking about weather.
00:44:41
Speaker
help people understand the connection between your research and the weather that will affect their homes. You as archaeologists help them understand the connection between what you are hoping to discover about people of the past and how that can help us learn about ourselves today and how that can help us learn about the future. David, I know you research dogs. How does that matter to people?
00:45:03
Speaker
You know, you love your dog if people always love their dog throughout human history. I think the most common questions are just all about why should this matter to me in one way, shape, or form? And so it's important as science communicators to show them. Yeah, I think largely like why my account grew the way it did is because
00:45:20
Speaker
Like if it was just an anthropology account, people aren't going to follow it. But if I rope them with dogs and then they realize, oh, okay. So people in the past lived with dogs the same way. That makes sense. My dog does that. So then like, they're also inadvertently learning anthropology, which then opens them up to more science. So I, I think that's cool, but we've identified another gateway drug to science, which is heck and chonky boys. It knocked my mic over.
00:45:50
Speaker
But I have a question for you, Talia, to wrap this whole thing up. Do you follow our Instagram account? You've seen David's ethno, and then I assume you listen to an episode or two of Ruins. What could, you know, the three of us have zero training in science communication? Like they did not teach us any of this at Wyoming or CSU, Tennessee, Radford. What could, from your professional experience, what could we be doing better in our attempt to be science communicators on behalf of archaeology and anthropology?
00:46:20
Speaker
I will say I don't think you're doing a bad job, so don't worry. I think you're all on the right track. I think we've already touched on a few of these sort of fundamentals of good science communication, but help people understand how it relates to their own life as one. You know, and maybe think about how can you get people who have never learned anything about archaeology or
00:46:40
Speaker
you know, maybe you have a high school kid listening in who thinks they might want to be an archaeologist, you know, how can you bring someone with very, very little knowledge along by showing them how what you're talking about and what you're researching relates to what they might be interested in or relates to humankind or, you know, human society as a whole. I think it's really important to draw those connections and even to connections between archaeology and anthropology
00:47:04
Speaker
and other sciences as well or even like art and music you know those sorts of things can be another I guess the better word is access point but gateway drug come on gateway drug to science another thing to think about too and I think you all do a good job about this we've been laughing the whole time we've been doing this but just humor how can you make people laugh people don't necessarily remember strings of facts but if you can make them laugh or if you can make them remember man that was a funny thing that they
00:47:33
Speaker
Being silly don't ever be afraid to be silly or be goofy. I gave a presentation in grad school in a bee costume No joke, and if we had more time I would tell you that story too But you know people remember that presentation we had people from other cohorts I had people from other cohorts come up
Effective Science Communication Techniques
00:47:48
Speaker
to me who saw that presentation and say are you the lady who gave that? Talk in the bee suit and I was like, yes, that is me. My mom is very proud
00:47:55
Speaker
You know, what can you do to make people laugh? What can you do to give them an emotional experience? And then just like we said earlier, anything but the metric system, right? If you can make comparisons in number of cheeseburgers or in, you know, how many washing machines would you have to stack on top of each other to equal, you know, the height of this pyramid or something like that? That's always interesting for people to help them put their world in perspective. And also remove all the cuss words, right? I mean, no, you're obvious, right?
00:48:26
Speaker
I too once dressed up in a B outfit, but it was a woman's B outfit for Halloween. And my fraternity brothers like to remind me about that incident every October 31st. So yeah, I can totally get the humor and kind of just burning mental images into people's head with that association. I will forever associate you now Carlton with a V suit. So look at that. You're already on the right track. There we go. It's somewhere on that Instagram. I can't even, I don't even know how far back, but
00:48:53
Speaker
All right, life in ruins, listeners. That is your challenge. And share that post to your story. Oh, boy. Yeah, it's yeah. Oh, boy. But do we have anything else, boys, before we wrap up? I think the last question you had for me was about what happens at the museum at night. Oh, yes. Please let us let us know. Yeah. It's a trade secret, gentlemen. I'm going to have to let that one be where it is. Oh, no. You and Ben Stiller both. I've written them so many times.
00:49:24
Speaker
Oh, I have like one last question before we wrap up. Is it true? Like the T-Rex that sits in the front lobby as you're checking into DM&S, like that's anatomically incorrect, right? Like they had to break it in a million pieces to get it into that, that pose. I only recently learned, which, you know, I just goes to show you, I am still learning things about the museum that I have worked in for nine years and volunteered in since starting in 2007. I learned recently that, yeah, the pose that that T-Rex is in is not a pose that T-Rex
00:49:54
Speaker
would have been able to strike normally. But you know what? It's a classic, so it is still there. If you threw a top hat on him and gave him a cane, he would look like he was tap dancing. Give him the old rezels down full. That's what I think of every time I see it. Well, thank you, Talia.
00:50:16
Speaker
so much for coming on and chatting with us. And singing Apple Dazzle. Oh yes, please, please feel free to come back anytime and sing that for us. Because this show is called A Life in Ruins, we usually ask this question, you know, if you had a choice again, would you live a life in ruins? And we were going to, you know, modify it to your situation a little bit. So
Reflections on Science Communication Career
00:50:35
Speaker
given the chance, would you still choose to live a life on the front lines of science communication?
00:50:40
Speaker
I would. I think I would take a slightly different path. I would have taken more advantage of things like communication courses in college and writing courses. If I knew then what I know now, if I knew then that this is where I would end up, I would have taken more opportunities to really hone my skills earlier on in my career. But yeah, this job is so fun. In what other career field would you have to explain to a kid that he's not going to get night vision during the day?
00:51:06
Speaker
You know such a loss in what other career field Do you just get to be paid money to talk about dinosaurs with five-year-olds like come on? How could I pick something different?
00:51:18
Speaker
Amen. So we just interviewed Talia Farnsworth, the virtual experience coordinator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Talia, it has been a pleasure having you on and we look forward to see what DMNS brings forward for you. Thanks so much. And just as a quick plug, folks, you can check out the things that we have put together over the last several months as the museum has been closed. We are reopened now, of course, as of June 23rd at DMNS.org and on our social media channels. Facebook is DMNS.org and I believe it's the same on Instagram as well. So look us up.
00:51:47
Speaker
So you can see my face. I'm on there all the time talking science and answering questions. Thanks everybody. I really appreciate you having me on. And with that, we are out. Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life and ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life and ruins podcast at gmail.com.
00:52:13
Speaker
And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer. Ladies and gentlemen, why did the germ cross the microscope? To get to the other slide. Come on! Wow. Do you want to just take my roll on this podcast? Yeah. Can we just hand this off to you? Because you're doing a better job. Come on! Oh, boy. That was good.
00:52:52
Speaker
This show is produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com. Oh, shit. Hold on. Am I muted still? No. No, I'm not even muted. God, dude. Wow. Sorry. This has just been, it's been a day.