Abstracted/indexed

Geoscientists can struggle to communicate with non-geoscientists, especially around contentious geoscience issues. We compare the thoughts and feelings of geoscientists and non-geoscientists around the subsurface, mining/quarrying, drilling and flooding. We find that geoscientists focus more on human interactions when thinking about these processes, while non-geoscientists focus more on economic and environmental impacts. Understanding these differences and similarities can help enable dialogue.

We study the impact of an educational seismology program on earthquake awareness and preparedness in Nepal. We see that educational activities implemented in schools are effective at raising awareness levels and in improving adaptive capacities and preparedness for future earthquakes. Knowledge also reached the broader community though social learning, leading to broadscale awareness. The result observed in this study is encouraging for the continuation and expansion of the program.

We use time series data from the first United Kingdom Earth System Model (UKESM1) to create six procedurally generated musical pieces for piano. Each of the six pieces help to explain either a scientific principle or a practical aspect of Earth system modelling. We describe the methods that were used to create these pieces, discuss the limitations of this pilot study and list several approaches to extend and expand upon this work.

Boundary|Time|Surface was an ephemeral art installation providing an opportunity to contemplate the human experience relative to the enormity of time and the fragile and arbitrary nature of human-defined boundaries. Exhibitions derived from the documentation of the original installation provided opportunities for over 25 000 members of the public to interact with the work, both aesthetically and as a source of information on the geological and sociopolitical history of the site.

Air is as valuable a resource as water. We defined a novel index, the Clean aIr Index (CII), to evaluate air cleanliness in terms of a global standard. Japan was chosen as a study area. The air cleanliness of Tokyo was 1.5 and 2.3 times higher than that of Seoul and Beijing, respectively. Extremely clean air occurred to the west of the Pacific coast and in the southern remote islands of Tokyo during summer. CII can be valuable, e.g., for encouraging sightseeing in and migration to fresher air.

The Environment Agency (EA), responsible for flood risk management in England, is moving towards the use of probabilistic river flood forecasts. By showing the likelihood of future floods, they can allow earlier anticipation. But making decisions on probabilistic information is complex and interviews with EA decision-makers highlight the practical challenges and opportunities of this transition. We make recommendations to support a successful transition for flood early warning in England.

At the 14th IEEE International eScience Conference domain specialists and data and computer scientists discussed the road towards open weather and climate science. Open science offers manifold opportunities but goes beyond sharing code and data. Besides domain-specific technical challenges, we observed that the main challenges are non-technical and impact the system of science as a whole.

This paper focuses on the use of games and illustrations in scientific outreach. This approach tries to make scientific concepts attractive to the general public by trying to reach people of all ages and social backgrounds. In this work, we would like to give a brief overview of some didactic tools, retracing the choices made while ideating them, thanks mainly to close collaboration with artists and illustrators.

The paper describes an informal education activity focusing on coastal dynamics to engage with 10-year-old students. It combines science concepts, storytelling, and creative dance through six exercises translating wave generation, propagation, and sediment transport. Benefits from these types of activities range from engagement with science to acknowledgement of individual differences. Results of a questionnaire (112 students) show evidences of engagement and willingness to participate further.