Finding new ways to visualize things is really happening field. (I’ve recently started toying with creating infographics, with inspiration from some really cool blogs.)
Pinterest is a way to visualize things from the internet or real life by showing the photo of interest with your own caption underneath. It is a nice way to visually show things according to topics of interest. “Pin” links with photos or videos or upload your own, and assign them to a “board” where you keep other pins of similar topic.
You can follow me on Pinterest, and I have a specific board for science related things.
Some ways I’ve started to use Pinterest:
- Science and other interesting articles
- Food and recipes I’d like to try
- Cool objects (that are cool but I would never need)
- Books I should read
- Crafty things like knitting
- And the only bit of consumerism I will publicly partake in, a Style board with clothes and objects that I like
Pins that tend to dominate Pinterest boards seem to be related to various kinds of photography and style (my sister uses it to collect wedding ideas), although I am not super familiar with it yet. BUT, I do see a cool niche for science here. Aside from the cute photos of http://pinterest.com/pin/262194009525901784/ praying otters and videos of baby animals in buckets http://pinterest.com/pin/100768110382346218/, I imagine scientists sharing photos from field trips, or videos from conferences. It would be really awesome to see one day a community of sharing that connects the scientist’s world to the non-scientist’s world. And if that means first posting some really cute photos, maybe that is just another path to getting people to know more about science.
