#27 Top Stories in Science Journalism from STS Students | WeAreSTS

The assignments students do in STS modules today are nothing like what they used to be. These days, they build portfolios with all sorts of things: short writing, long writing, posters, blogs, in-class presentations. Add to these, projects like podcasts, film clips, campaign strategies, briefing papers, debates, and full-on project proposals. Research of different kinds. They all require hard work, creativity, and rising to the challenge.

We diversify our curriculum because we know the future holds work as varied as we do ourselves each day. We want our students skilled up, practiced, and ready to go.

Today’s episode samples from this year’s student-made podcasts. You’ll hear projects from our undergraduate science journalism module, run by Dr Jean-Baptiste Gouyon. The assignment is straightforward: create a three-minute news feature about a recent piece of research at UCL. The piece must be suitable for use on as a news segment for radio or podcast. Students start with a recent press release, and they go from there. The piece must include a short interview segment with a researcher. They have a tight deadline, and they have to work pretty much with the tools they have through a laptop and their phone. This is real world work and pace as a freelance journalist.

For you, I’ve brought together eight of the ones I like a lot. They’re varied, and they deliver the assignment is different ways. We’ll take a quick break in the middle, but I want to leave the students to deliver their work as they presented it. Links to all the detail are in the show notes.

The whole syllabus for HPSC0107 Science Journalism:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/sites/sts/files/hpsc0107-science_journalism-syllabus_2022-23.pdf

Tracks

TRACK 1. People Over 50 Often Sleep Better | Lydia Yallop
TRACK 2. Natural Language Modelled and Printed in 3D | Daphne Sarkany
TRACK 3. Link Between Daily Active Movement and Better Cognition in Mid-life | Emile Stuglyte
TRACK 4. We’re Ignoring Impact of Long Covid | Mandy Huynh
TRACK 5. Importance of Breastmilk Bacteria for Healthy Gut in Babies | Omar Al Hashimi
TRACK 6. Time in Nature Can Improve Wellbeing | Isobel Hutt
TRACK 7. Fast-lived Invasive Species Pose Greatest Challenge | Federico Citterich
TRACK 8. Doctors of the Earth: Seismologists Sense the Earth’s Pulse | Andrea Lekare
Details about each track are available on the episode page:
https://profjoecain.net/27-top-stories-in-science-journalism-from-sts-students-wearests

Host

Professor Joe Cain, UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology
https://ucl.ac.uk/sts/cain/

Music credits

Intro and Exit music
“Rollin At 5,” by Kevin MacLeod
https://filmmusic.io/song/5000-rollin-at-5

“Silly Intro,” by Alexander Nakarada
https://filmmusic.io/song/4786-silly-intro
Both are available on the website: filmmusic.IO

Music in intervals is a loop created in GarageBand.

Podcast information

WeAreSTS is a production of the Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) at University College London (UCL). To find out more, or to leave feedback about the show:
https://ucl.ac.uk/sts/podcast