Around 13 scientists from different fields including computers and electronics, biotechnology, materials science, and nanotechnology gathered at the five-day science communication workshop where they took off their white gowns and put their microscopes away to become new communicators and performers.

"They had to change their roles. They became performers as well as television presenters and learnt how to communicate their scientific efforts to average people simply and easily," said Monthida Sitathani, the director of NSTDA's Public Understanding of Science, Technology and Innovation project, and the initiator of the workshop.

Held under a partnership with the Bristish Council (Thailand), Nation Multimedia Group as well as Patravadhi Theatre, during March 20 to 24, the workshop was the first ever science communication training course in Thailand to train scientists how to convey scientific information to the public in a simple way.

Instead of restricting themselves to experiments in labs, in the workshop a biologist from the National Centre of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology became the Matrix-style neo-narrator of a scientific play telling a story about DNA and how it works.

Another from the National Nanotechnology Centre put his studies on hold for a while to direct a play about cryonics and a new methods of medical treatment using nanotechnology.

A researcher in material science and a lecturer in environmental engineering then took centre stage in a performance about GMO in another play.

All three scientific stories were staged privately at Patravadhi Theatre as a part of an exercise to present science in a theatrical environment. The participants had only a day to develop their science story and create their own performance for the theatre.

Patravadhi Sritrairat, also known as Kru Lek, the theatre's director and a well-known performance art expert, sat in the shadows to see the plays. She said she was amazed. "I enjoyed all the scientific plays and never imagined how good Thai scientists could be at this kind of performance art."

She added as the plays could deliver complex scientific information in a simple way, she planned to work with scientists to develop scientific plays for the public so they could better understand science.

Not only have the activities at Patravadhi Theatre drawn the human characteristics from Thai scientists, the Science on TV session was another exercise that encouraged scientists to show their more latent talents.

In this session, scientists were assigned to groups to produce their own television programmes. Some of them became the programme producer, while others were assigned to be the host and a special guest being interviewed on television.

"Being on television actually made me a bit nervous but the show must go on - I had to do my best to present a science story on television. This was a good experience to help me understand how television works," said one of participants.

Scientists need to learn how to get their message over most effectively during television interviews. Apart from this, scientists in the workshop also discovered how to work with journalists and the media in a session with Jeffery Thomas, a senior lecturer in science communication from the United Kingdom's Open University, who was a key lecturer and facilitator in this workshop.

During the five-day workshop, the scientists said that they learnt much and now they understood how to better communicate science and work with the media to make science stories as simple as possible. Thomas later said that he could see much more in scientists as a result of the workshop. Apart from their scientific abilities, they're also human beings.

"We could say we met success as we were able to pull the humans from the scientists and this was important. We now know that their communication with others in the non-scientific world can be done much better, in a simple way, not a scientific way," Thomas said.

As effective communication in science cannot come from one side alone, participants in the workshop also came from the media. Five participants from printed and television media attended to share their experience and importantly, work with the scientists on each science communication project.

Monthida said the workshop was to be a starting point to create synergy among scientists, scientific organisations and the media to communicate science more effectively. Scientific stories would become much more understandable and attractive, thus spurring an interest in science amongst the public.

pongpen@nationgroup.com

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation