Welcome to the April edition of Imagination Engines. My month ahead is going to busy getting ready for the European Geoscience Union General Assembly – I am attending as part of my day job this year whilst also doing my usually Games for Geoscience bits. To get the full lowdown on this year’s (unofficial) EGU Games Day, scroll down the Gaming Environments newsletter at the end of this newsletter.
Building Blocks of Environmental Communication
I’m not the sort of person who starts a project by doing loads of preparation and extensive planning. My neurodivergent brain much prefers to dive right in, try things out, and figure out what works along the way. I think this is quite common with ADHDers, making us well suited to things that require flexibility and rapid ingenuity but less suited to strategic thinking. It is a double edged sword for an academic. On the one-hand, the heuristic mindset and approach is a blessing for experimenting but can often leave you lacking the theoretical framework in which to place and define your work.
My science communication journey started in 2015 at the first Hull Science Festival. Back then I was running a hacked version of my model of the Humber Estuary that allowed people to change sea level in it. It was the idea of my then boss, Prof Tom Coulthard but it was my job to make and demonstrate it. In the 10+ years since, I have gained a lot of experience in science and environmental communication, trying out lots of ideas and exploring a shed load more. Surely, there’s plenty of knowledge stored in my head that would be useful to share with others?
This was my challenge when I was asked to give a two hour session on Environmental Communication to the Geography students at York St John University (see last month’s Imagination Engine to read more about my Visiting Fellowship there). The students will be undertaking research projects in Slovenia and as part of their coursework they will be creating communication materials to share that research, including posters, short-form videos, and social media posts. My session was to prepare them for this.
What I really appreciated from this experience was that it finally got me to sit down and pull my experiences together into a single narrative – a story told through powerpoint. The question I asked myself was ‘what is it that I do when I design an exhibit? What am I trying to achieve when I put a video together? I compiled together my building blocks for effective environmental communications:
- Aim for impact – your communications want to change something, what is it, and how does it work towards it?
- Embrace a behavioural model for change – work with the way people’s brains work, learn from psychologists.
- Avoid robbing people of agency – empower people, don’t drown them in doom and gloom.
- Emphasise positive actions – show examples of others doing good work so they won’t feel like Billy no mates.
- Structure an engaging narrative – tell a story, don’t give a scientific report.
- Share the ‘Hero’s Journey’ – all good stories have a hero who changes and grows, who it is?
- Make it resonate with your audience – make your message relevant to the things your audience cares about.
When I reflect on the building blocks I shared, it was apparent that my approach is still that of a practitioner – not that there’s anything wrong with that. I find ideas and I apply them. It is still my ambition to put my work into relevant theoretical frameworks and critically reflect on the literature in the many fields I have drawn from, including psychology, museology, gaming, and scenography. Maybe one day I will study a Master’s degree in science communication to force me to do it!
If you’d like to learn more about my building blocks of environmental communication then Subscribe to my YouTube channel. I plan to turn the session into a series of resources that I will post there, possibly in the second half of 2025.
Inspiring Interactions – Ayo Sokale
Ayo is incredible. She is a colleague of mine at the Environment Agency and I first encountered her when she gave a keynote at my department’s annual face-to-face meeting. Ayo is autistic and her talk that day was the first time I had heard someone talk positively about their neurodivergence, whilst still acknowledging the challenges. I was struggling in the early part of my ADHD journey and I needed this message.
Ayo is incredible. She is a colleague of mine at the Environment Agency and I first encountered her when she gave a keynote at my department’s annual face-to-face meeting. Ayo is autistic and her talk that day was the first time I had heard someone talk positively about their neurodivergence, whilst still acknowledging the challenges. I was struggling in the early part of my ADHD journey and I needed this message.
The range of activities Ayo undertakes is astonishing. Her website describes her as a TV Presenter & Actress, Chartered Civil Engineer, CEO & Founder, Speaker & Coach, Charity Patron & Trustee, ICE Superhero, Former Councillor & Deputy Mayor, and Former Beauty Queen. I am personally inspired by how Ayo manages to achieve so much whilst also excelling in her ‘day job’. For example, her recent role as a presenter on CBeebies’ Get Set Galactic looks so much fun and not something I would have anticipated a colleague doing!
I remember a colleague asking Ayo what she did to relax and Ayo’s answer was “I’m learning to fly a helicopter”. This last point chimes with my own neurodivergent experience – both myself and Amy relax by doing things. For Amy it is things like learning new languages, for me it is putting together this newsletter. Ayo’s answer helped me to understand this about ourselves and also taught me the power of talking about your experiences. You never know who might be listening who needed to hear exactly that.
I asked Ayo a few short questions about what imagination means to her.
Why is imagination important to the work you do?
Imagination is about creativity, and creativity is about thinking in new ways. It’s not always about generating entirely new ideas but rather about connecting existing ones in ways others might not see. It allows us to apply knowledge innovatively, solve problems effectively, and add unique value. My interest in a wide range of areas allows me to do this effectively and imagine a whole new world.
How do you keep your imagination sharp?
Learning. I think it is important to always keep learning but most importantly following those organic glimmers and curiosities as they strike you as that feeds your imagination and enables you to think in wild and wonderful ways.
What are you currently working on that you would like to shout about?
I am focusing my energy currently on my AI coaching app, with the hope everyone in the world will try it and find value in coaching tools which I think helps us all to realise our potential.
A bunch of new research publications
I have a whole bunch of new papers recently published to tell you about. I can’t take (all) the credit though as they have been led by amazing colleagues. First, a huge shout out especially to Josh Wolstenholme who has been working hard to publish various bits of his PhD research.
Hydro-geomorphological modelling of leaky wooden dam efficacy from reach to catchment scale with CAESAR-Lisflood 1.9j – Geoscientific Model Development.
The first paper in this update led by Josh covers the modelling work performed for his PhD. He used an enhancement of CAESAR-Lisflood I wrote that allows users to represent leaky woody dames in the model, including those with flow gaps underneath. This provides an ideal tool to simulate the long-term changes natural flood management can cause in rivers. Josh’s research demonstrates the feasibility of this including verification against field observations.
Localised geomorphic response to channel-spanning leaky wooden dams – EGUSphere Pre-print (under review for Earth Surface Dynamics).
This is the second paper Josh has produced from his PhD research, currently under review but you can access the pre-print. Whilst the paper above covers his modelling work, this one covers his fieldwork. This includes some enjoyable, yet very cold, trips to Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire, and the installation of trail cams. The field work observed changes to the river before and after natural flood management interventions had been undertaken.
Flood hazard amplification by intra-event sediment transport – ResearchSquare Pre-print (under review for Nature Earth & Environment).
I cannot tell you how happy I am to see this paper out! Five years ago this was going to my big paper, the one with significant findings rather than some niche model sensitivity tests. But every time I made progress something in the model popped up to frustrate me. After I left Hull in 2021 I let it sit. Last year, Josh picked it up again and brought fresh eyes and energy to it. He has done a brilliant job and made it his own.
The way we assess flood risk assumes rivers do not change shape during floods. In the majority of cases this is a reasonable assumption, however, the modelling work here shows that it is not always the case. Large amounts of sediment can be transported downstream and deposited, increasing flood inundations and volumes during later stages of the same event.
Using 360° immersive storytelling to engage communities with flood risk – Geoscience Communication
This paper, led by Katie Parsons, describes the work we did co-creating educational materials to support the Help Callum and Help Sali 360 videos. The videos came about when I worked with Alison Lloyd-Williams to use my immersive storytelling research to tell the real-life stories of flood-affected children that were shared through Alison’s research. Katie brought her education expertise to work with children, young people, and teachers to create resources to use the videos in the classroom.
I have been so privileged to get to collaborate with amazing and wonderful researchers like Josh and Katie. It’s also great to see them work together on the HedgeHunter’s project too. I had nothing to do with this but it is really cool work:
Automated identification of hedgerows and hedgerow gaps using deep learning – Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation.
Back in 2020, just before the lockdown, Katie took part in my NERC-funded Earth Arcade Academy project with a project called INSECURE and it grew massively since (nothing to do with me!). Katie used creative methods to foster intergenerational engagement in communities at risk of coastal erosion. Even though my contribution was tiny and remote, it is such a great project I am going to pretend I had a small hand in it!:
Crumbling cliffs and intergenerational cohesivity: A new climate praxis model for engaged community action on accelerated coastal change – EGUSphere Pre-print (under review for Geoscience Communciation)
Both Josh and Katie are now at Loughborough University and working on new projects together. I cannot wait to see what they will produce next.
Good Morning – A Solo Roleplay Game
Those who work to plan and prepare for disasters will often use a method called counterfactuals. It proposes ‘what if?’ questions to the planners and they work out how they would respond if that circumstance arose. Similarly, after something bad happens we often look back and think about what we might have done differently.
Downward counterfactuals combine these two methods. It looks back at something that happened and asks ‘what if this other thing happened too?’. For example, planners might look back at how they responded to a disaster and then ask what they would have done if they lost power to their operations room, or if the phone network went down, for example.
Good Morning is a very simple solo roleplay game. It asks you to first generate a task and then generate a complicating factor. You respond by writing down how you would respond to these. Then, generate a further complicating factor to add to your scenario. How does this change your response?
To generate a task or factor, roll two 6-sided dice, one after the other. The first roll is the first digit and the second the second digit. For example, roll a 2, then a 3, your result is 23. Then find that number on the corresponding table.
This isn’t meant to be serious, just a bit of fun to get you thinking – and imagining – how you might act is some very normal and some very odd circumstances. I hope you enjoy!
FloodSkinner YouTube Update
It has been an unusually busy month on my YouTube channel with the release of three new Shorts. The first was a test of my new kit, having recently purchased an Insta360 x4 and a Rode Wireless Go 3 microphone set. The mic receiver handily attaches to the side of the camera, allowing me to film in 360 and have two people radio mic-ed at once. I’m exciting about what I could do with this set up.
I’ve been desperate to test it, so during a quick trip to Hull I had a play around near the barrier and later put this video below together. Unfortunately, my desktop PC really struggled editing the 8K video, so a new PC is on the shopping list (don’t forget to check out my Ko-fi link at the bottom of the newsletter!).
I am very pleased to bring my series on the Sustainable Development Goals to a close this month! A total of 18 videos, covering the 17 goals and a ‘half-time’ summary, which I started in October 2023. The reason I chose a series on the SDGs was because it would give a sustained amount of content in order to practice and learn filming and editing videos and hopefully you can see that progression through the series.
The video are from having gone viral but at last count the series has been collated over 1300 views on YouTube and about the same again on Instagram. I just need another 2,998,700 views on them to be eligible to be a YouTube partner!
I have enjoyed making these short form videos so will continue to do so but I have to admit, I’m pleased I don’t have any more SDG to cover!
Gaming Environments
Gaming Environments contains all the news I have found relating to the nexus of gaming and the environment. This news is also published on the Games for Geoscience website each month and can be found here.
The (unofficial) European Geoscience Union Games Day is back for 2025! As is now traditional, the middle day of the General Assembly will host both the Games for Geoscience sessions and the world famous Geoscience Games Night.
Games for Geoscience Poster Session – Weds 30th April, 14:00-15:45 CEST (display until 18:00), Hall X2 – In-person online.
Games for Geoscience Oral Presentations – Weds 30th April, 16:15-18:00 CEST, Room -2.41/2.42 – Hybrid in-person and Zoom.
(The World Famous) Geoscience Games Night – Weds April 30th, 18:00-19:30 CEST, Foyer D – In-person only.
To get the full details, visit the EGU Games Day 2025 webpage here.
Want to go Into Model Land? Join this workshop at the European Geoscience Union General Assembly (Wed, 30 Apr, 14:00–15:45 CEST. Room -2.82) to learn how to use tabletop roleplay games to explore the bizarre world’s created by numerical models. It is inspired by Escape from Model Land written by Erica Thompson. More details here.
The current issue of Consilience, the “online journal exploring the spaces where the science and the arts meet” is out. Issue 20 is themed about Change and can be read here. Submissions for Issue 21 open on 31st March 2025 with the theme Chaos.
I am Chris Skinner, a science communicator, STEM professional, and ADHDer. I am on a mission empowering people to unlock their full potential by transforming imagination into a powerful, actionable skill. This newsletter tracks my journey. I would like you to join me, so please subscribe. The newsletter also includes a copy of Gaming Environments, the monthly news relating to the nexus of gaming and the environment that I collate for the Games for Geoscience website. This newsletter is free and I do not offer a paid tier. If you would like to say thank you and/or help me in my mission please buy me a coffee using the link below.
Views expressed in this newsletter are mine and do not represent those of my employer. Content and links are provided for informational purposes and do not constitute endorsements. I am not responsible for the content of external sites, which may have changed since this newsletter was produced.
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