USE YOUR OWN WORDS! Developing science communication skills of NST experts in a guided discourse

A one-hour guided discourse was designed to support developing the outreach communication skills of physics experts with middle school students. The participants consisted of 12 physics researchers who conduct research in the field of nanoscale science and technology (NST). The guided discourse consisted of a professional development task for preparing the researchers to communicate their NST research. Each scientist was presented with two sets of concepts (NST essential concepts and middle school physics concepts) using a visual board and was asked to find connections between them. Before and after linking the two sets of concepts, the scientists were invited to describe their research. The findings showed that a change had taken place in the concepts the scientists used to describe their research: an increased use of concepts from middle school physics and a decreased use of complex scientific jargon. A qualitative examination of the results revealed different types of participants, based on the way the scientists were influenced by the task. Each of the three types of science communicators is presented as a case study. We suggest that this task can be applied to prepare scientists to communicate with middle school students.