Honors College Thesis
 

Science Education Through Comics: Improving Understanding of Current Marine Environmental Issues

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/honors_college_theses/xk81js822

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  • According to a 2017 Pew Research Study, 44% of adults in America say that they do not feel informed enough about science to understand news and new discoveries discussed on the media (Funk et al. 2019). This is concerning, because adults are not just passive consumers of media; among other things, they vote on issues related to these subjects. In the same study, 46% of respondents said that they are too busy to keep up with science news as much as they would like. With this thesis project, my goal is to increase science knowledge on environmental issues relating to the ocean, through a series of comics explaining the science behind these issues. Comics are an ideal way to convey this information, since they are both textual and visual: illustrations can be used to diagram processes that would be overly complex if described purely through text, and the shorter comic format may appeal to those 46% of respondents who say they do not have much time to read science media. I have been fascinated by the ocean my entire life, and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have had opportunities to learn more about it as a child and be able to devote my career to studying it as an adult. Like many environments on Earth, oceans face a barrage of human-caused challenges. For this project I focused on eutrophication (excess algal growth fed by nutrient runoff) and the resulting hypoxic zones, and microplastics (discarded plastics breaking down and entering the food web). I chose these topics based on their relevance in the news and interest to me, and I wanted to convey their importance to a broad audience. I created two hand-drawn comics and a webpage to host them and posted links to the page through Twitter and Instagram. I am gathering feedback from comments, likes, and emails, to gauge impact from the comics and to guide creation of additional comics in the future.
  • Key Words: comic, science communication, eutrophication, microplastics, zoology, marine biology
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