Adelaide NetSquared

On Monday I went along to Talk Social and Science, an event held by the Adelaide NetSquared Meetup Group. This group works on and offline to connect communities at the intersection of technology and social change. Monday night's event featured two speakers talking about how online social technology is making an impact in the scientific world.

Dr. Kristin Alford from Bridge8 spoke about how online tools are being used to make learning more exciting for school students. It's an innovative way of using technology to encourage people to get into topics of interest that they may not normally be engaged in. Check it out on youtube as well.

Scott Mills shared some fantastic insights into the use of crowdsourcing, citizen science and open source hardware/software in scientific research. This approach can have significant impact in just about any industry.

The overall theme of the event was  Science Communication (the practice of communicating scientific principles to the public) and how online social technology is making an impact in the scientific world.

If you're interested in learning some more about science communication or becoming a science communicator, then you might want to check in with the Australian National University's Centre for the Public Awareness of Science or the Australian Science Communicators

If you're a scientist and you're looking to engage with communities outside of your regular network, then you might want to get involved with the I'm a Scientist Get me Out of Here program, ScienceMob or perhaps you'd like to start documenting the natural environment around you by participating in some projects like these:

• Changing Places - a flickr project run by the National Museum of Australia
• One year in 40 seconds

Or get in touch with some of these science related organisations that are hosted on SAcommunity:

• Astronomical Society of South Australia Inc
• Body Donation
• Royal Geographic Society of SA Inc
• Field Geology Club of SA