On November 19, 2013, we SCOMrades
hopped in various cars and convoyed down to Toronto. The impetus for the trip was the Canadian
Science Policy Conference, at which Dave and Chantal were running a science
communication workshop. Once our 13-person
class un-mobbed itself enough to mingle, we met loads of brilliant, creative
and welcoming people. Many inspiring
conversations were shared over delicious conference fare.
Another highlight of the trip was the
tour of CTV studios. Our guide Nina was eternally patient and
answered the thousandth excited question as fully as the first. We spent most of our time around the set of
Daily Planet—behind the scenes with the production team, on the sidelines while
the show was taped, and even right on the main couch, attempting to read off of
the teleprompter. (It’s harder than it
looks, believe me.) Dan Riskin and Ziya
Tong were personable and energetic hosts.
I think we all left the studio with hoarse throats and sore legs—the pace
of television production is crazy!
We skipped out of the city for a day or
so to visit the Perimeter Institute and the Institute for Quantum Computing in
Waterloo. Both places were a bit outside
my own science experience (would I…would I take my car to Quantum Mechanics?), but the two
physicists in our class were right at home!
And our hosts—Damien Pope at PI and Martin Laforest at IQC—were incredibly
approachable, welcoming questions of any knowledge level. At PI, we were awed by the sleek-yet-warm design
and Damien’s tricky physics demonstrations.
At IQC, we saw a super-stable building within a building and a piece of
equipment that, at near-absolute zero, was colder than the far reaches of
space. It was clear that both PI and IQC
were spaces of innovation and imagination.
My personal favourite experience was
back in Toronto, at the Royal Ontario Museum.
We were invited to attend the staff opening of Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
WPY is an international photography
competition run by BBC Worldwide and the Natural History Museum in
Britain. This year there were 43 000
entries and we saw the cream of the crop—100 gorgeous backlit photos that
showcased the diversity of life on this planet.
The winning photographs included wildlife big and small, plant and
animal, terrestrial and marine, pristine and heavily human-influenced.
This experience really demonstrated the
stunning impact that visual science communication can have. After taking in a spectacular image of an
elephant or a dugong or a bumblebee, it was gut-wrenching to read about the
damage humans are inflicting on these creatures and their habitats. The WPY
exhibit showed the power that visuals can have, and this power was further
developed through public programs and events accompanying the exhibit. The Fleming College Environmental Visual
Communication group put a lot of work into this programming: Friday Night Live
“Go Wild,” Twitter and Instagram participation with #ROMWPY, photography
workshops and expert lectures.
Overall, our trip was packed with
fascinating, fun content and we all came home tired, but happy.
-Kate Henbest, SciComm '14
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