TheIntersection Study Association NewsletterSECtion

Issue3

Editorial note

The new year has already aged two months and the third quarter has com-menced. Since the last SECtion, plenty of interesting things have happened, or are about to happen. You´ll find everything about them in this flash version of the SECtion full of news.

To give you some hints: education conference plans, the SEC departments preparation for the re-accreditation of the master, an internship experience in Australia, a sneak peak about some of the SEC student’s participation on the next PCST and more. Turn the page and enjoy!.

2012 running fastBy: Robbert van Leeuwen InterSECtion president

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Room F154Building 22

Lorentzweg 12628 CJ Delft

The Netherlandsintersection@tudelft.nlwww.sa-intersection.nl

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PCST: Preparing for professional live with InterSECtion

Science Journalism in Australia

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Board: Robbert van Leeuwen President Natalia Rodriguez Secretary Robin Vermeij Treasurer

Design and Edition: Natalia Rodriguez

Contributors: Pat Hong Melvin Kouijzer Ammeret Rossouw Marjoleine van der Meij Natalia Rodriguez Robbert van Leeuewen

*The InterSECtion newsletter is a publication by the Study Association of the Master in Science Education and Communication at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.

Mar/12

News and Events

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SECtion

As future communication or education expert, it is of vital impor-tance to build and maintain a network of professionals. Come and join us to the borrel at the Bouwpub, on March 13th and have a good (networking) time with your fellow-students!InterSECtion will provide the first few drinks, master and minor students are welcome. We’ll start at 17:30.

Borrel @ Bouwpub

From now on you can contact interSECtion at a new email

account: intersection@tudelft.nl keep in touch!

New InterSECtion email account

Graduating students

Florence from April 18-20 will be busy with science communication (SC) professionals attending the 12th international conference on “Public Communication of Science & Technol-ogy” (PCST). The PCST is a get-together for science communicators from various fields of practice from all over the world. This year's edition is on 'Quality, honesty and beauty' in science communication, with a key theme being ‘Professionalization’.

Our SEC department will organize two panel sessions on the theme of Professionalization. In line with this theme a session with extra attention for students is organized by former board members of InterSECtion (Ammeret, Marjoleine, Pat and Melvin).

Honestly, do you have what it takes to be a science communicator?

The session titled “Working towards competence-based science communication career models for science communication students and -curriculum developers” aims at helping students bridge the gap from their SC studies to the professional field. Both students and professionals are invited to attend.

Together with Fred Balvert, Robby Berloznik, the audience and the organizers, we will explore the dimensions of the concept “compe-tence” (knowledge, skills, personal characteris-

tics and ambitions) and ask ourselves what competencies are unique or especially relevant for professionals and researchers in the SC field.

We need you!

Each SC student should ask him or herself the question: what does it take to prepare for professional life? What have I learnt so far and what would I still like to learn? Also, as the session provides room for discussion, it will be interesting to come up with questions you would love to but never dared to ask a SC professional. Feel the enthusiasm for this discussion rising? Send us your ideas and ques-tions (InterSECtion@tudelft.nl) before April! From 18-20 April, get yourself behind a com-puter to follow @PCST2012 and @sa_intersection on twitter, or check Facebook (PCST2012 or Study Association InterSECtion) to stay up-to-date.

For more information on the conference and program visit www.pcst2012.org

*Fred Balvert works as Science Communicator at the Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, The Netherlands and the International School for Scientific Journalism and Communication, Erice, Sicily, Italy

*Robby Berloznik is Director of the Institute Society and Technology in Belgium. This institute is comparable to the Rathenau Institute in the Netherlands.

InterSECtion has joined previous PCST conferences with great satisfaction and this year we will go with a group of fourteen students. It’s a great opportunity to expand your international network and explore the �eld!

By: Melvin Kouijzer, Ammeret Rossouw, Pat Hong and Marjoleine van der Meij.

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PCST2012: Preparing for professional life with InterSECtion in Italy

SECtionNews and Events

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dandy_lions

There will be a special SC colloquia on May 7th (third Monday of fourth quarter).

After a ‘standard’ colloquia, students will give their final presentations and thereby finish the course. In a 10min. presentation, they’ll pitch a challenging proposal on their view on science communication.

Needless to say that this TEDx-like setting is very inter-esting for all SC students, so be there!

If you want to present yourself, contact Caro-line Wehrmann at least 3 weeks ahead.

There’s an accreditation coming up for the SEC educa-tion. The 14th and 15th of March, the education will have its first check up since the start of the study in 2007.

In February there was a test accreditation which was a useful experience and prepa-ration for the real one.

In order to be an official Dutch study, every education is checked every five years by professionals to see if it meets the standards. A lot of effort is put in the prepara-tion and it is expected that SEC will pass the test and will continue for at least another five years!

SC grand colloquia Accreditation SEC

The Onderwijs Research Dagen (ORD12) is a 3-day event in Wageningen, starting at June 20th.

This year’s theme is “Ecologic learning”, but education researchers also present research results on education methods and processes, teachers, ICT and more. Useful, relevant and a good network opportunity!

InterSECtion wants to facilitate a trip to the ORD12 with some financial aid. If you might be interested, please tell us before the 20th of March. If 5 or more students are willing to go, we’ll do a more detailed proposal for the trip and costs.

For more info, see www.ord2012.nl

Education conference

Consultancy company Hollandspoor solves corporate and project communi-cation related problems. If you want to see how consultancy really works, join us to Rotterdam on the 28th of March.

Apply before the 21st of March by sending an email to intersection@tudelft.nl. Be quick, limited amount of places available.

The content will be the same as last year’s CPS study trip.

www.hollandspoor.com

Hollandspoor Consultancy

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Our teacher Ann van der Auweraert is still not able to return her position as teacher in Delft. We wish her all the best and hope she’ll recover soon. Meanwhile, the

rest of the SEC-team is working hard to keep the educa-tion up and running, keep up the good job!.

In the lappenmand

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The Transferborrel is the yearly tradition of the old

board (this year Pat, Melvin and Kees) handing over their

tasks and responsibilities officially to the new board.

Unfortunately, Kees was absent due to his internship in Hamburg, but his speech

(read by Melvin and Pat) was fabulous. The new board

received loads of nice gifts, among others a picnic

basket, dishes to paint and a racket to kill mosquitos.

SEC students

UQSURJ is a new online and printed science research journal made by and for undergraduate students at the University of Queensland in Australia. This initiative is a joint project between the School of Journal-ism and the Faculty of Science in order to engage students in an early stage with science writing.

Normally undergraduate students have little opportunity to publish on a peer review publi-ication, with UQSURJ enthusiastic students will have the chance to showcase their work and share their research projets to a broad audi-ence. But how to start a project like this?

When I just arrived to Australia, UQSURJ was a very nice project but it still existed only on paper. It was very well defined with a lot of information, support and a budget to start. The challenge: making it happen.

From webpage and layout design to publishing policies and marketing, a lot of things function behind the courtins of a journal. Editors, reviewers, copywriters, webmasters, designers and authors have to work together to run a project like this.

Multitasking would be the perfect word for this internship. First I had to set up an online plat-form for the journal, programming was a new thing for me so I learned a lot about online

During a period of three months I worked at the University of Queensland in BrisbaneAustralia, setting up the new Science Undergraduate Reseach Journal (UQSURJ)

scholarly publishing. For the printed version I had to design the journal layout and templates, I enjoyed this job a lot since I’m attracted to visual communication. Finally I had to get in contact with students to help and encourage them to submit material, this made me practice my interpersonal skills and meet a lot of new people.

Apart from the setting up process I also worked on a small research about student’s perception on science writting. “What are the skills requi-ered to be a good science writer?” and “Do you have the skills needed to become a science writer?” were some of the questions that students had to answer to help us get a view on their self perception. The results of this small research will be part of an upcoming pub-lication.

And because not everything was work I must say that the best part of this three month period was the oportunity to travel and get to know a complete different culture. Beautiful sceneries, beaches, parks and wildife made my time in the other side of the world an unforge-table experience.

If you want to get more information about opportunities to do your internship at the University of Queensland go to: www.uq.edu.au

By: Natalia Rodriguez

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Science Communication Internship: Destination Australia