Oldenburg postdoc Pamela Rossel is researching hydrothermal vents in the deep sea - not a topic that is easy to communicate. In the project "Once upon a time ... scientific short stories", the geochemist has taken up the challenge.
They see themselves as a kind of "new generation of scientists": Pamela Rossel and her 20 or so fellow campaigners, who have spent months of creative work turning their research activities into fairy tales, short stories, poems and even romance novels. "It is very important to us doctoral candidates and postdocs not only to publish our work in a scientific context, but also to get it out into the world," says the 40-year-old, who is a researcher in the Marine Geochemistry Bridge Group, which links the Oldenburg Institute of Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment with the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen. After all, in times of climate change, it is particularly important to communicate to people how the sea and climate are connected and what each individual can do to ensure a future worth living.
So Rossel did not hesitate for long when the Federal Ministry of Education and Research announced the university competition "Show your research" for students, doctoral candidates and postdocs to mark the "Year of Science Seas and Oceans 2016*2017". The challenge: to present their own scientific work to the general public in the best possible way. Under the umbrella of MARUM - Centre for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen, international marine researchers from various research institutions in the northwest came together and launched the project "Once upon a time ... scientific short stories". The aim: to publish a multilingual e-book with stories for adults and children. They were one of 150 projects to apply for funding totalling 10,000 euros - and were awarded the grant, as were 14 other groups. The only condition: They had to have realised their project within a year.
The timeframe was a particular challenge for Rossel: her second child was born at almost the same time as the money was approved. Although Rossel is on parental leave, she has continued to work on the project over the past few months. "Sometimes it wasn't so easy to juggle everything," says the Chilean. Fortunately, her youngest is a rather quiet baby, so she has always found time to work on her story. "I'm used to reading books to my children. But writing a story myself was new to me," says Rossel. She tried to put herself in the shoes of a reader who simply wants to read a nice story - without assuming a lot of scientific background knowledge.
"The challenge was to still incorporate some scientific facts, which is what the project is all about," Rossel clarifies. The young scientists discussed how this balancing act can be achieved at monthly meetings. Experienced science journalists gave them valuable tips - for example, that it is easier to write the story in their native language first and then translate it into English and German later. As a result, the e-book will be published in several languages - initially in German and English, and later probably also in Spanish, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Hebrew, Farsi and Filipino. Rossel and her co-authors hope to reach as many people as possible in this way.
The stories deal, for example, with baby corals that lose their entire family; small creatures in the seabed that have to build a home out of plastic particles or whales that invite the reader on a journey into the deep sea. Pamela Rossel's protagonist Lucas also lives down there, on the seabed. "Lucas is a creature from the volcanoes on the seabed," explains Rossel. He is our ancestor, so to speak, because according to current doctrine, life began in these hydrothermal vents. "I show how important Lucas and the first life forms in the deep sea are for our biodiversity today," says the author. She was one of the first of the group to complete her story. The texts are now gradually being published in a blog on the MARUM website. "We are doing this deliberately. We want to reach a wide audience at this early stage and hope to get a lot of feedback, which we can then incorporate into our stories," she explains. The final e-book is due to be published in October.
It will not only contain twelve stories in several languages, but also lots of illustrations. The scientists worked together with three different artists. Each author was able to choose an illustrator and develop the design with them. "The collaboration was very exciting for me," says Rossel. Together, they immersed themselves very deeply in Lucas' story. That fuelled her imagination for writing once again.
Overall, "Once upon a time" will remain a fond memory for her. "It was a great experience and I hope that I can do something like this more often in the future," summarises the researcher. But now she is curious to see how readers react to her story. "We're also planning some readings in the autumn. Let's see how our book is received outside the world of science."
