Speaking the Same Language ™

Effectively Communicating Science to Indigenous Communities

Case Study

One of our most popular offerings, this workshop features up-to-date, Indigenous-led and informed research, content and exercises. This session was designed to help scientists and engineers understand how to cultivate positive relationships with Indigenous communities, build trust and communicate for informed, fact-based decision-making.  The Canadian Centre for Science Communication first custom-designed this workshop for a Federal Government Agency to help their scientists communicate more effectively with Indigenous communities.

Learning Objectives

Workshop participants will gain communication skills, techniques and tools to effectively communicate science to Indigenous communities by understanding historical and current context that have shaped western science world views and Indigenous traditional views. At the end of the workshop, participants will understand how traditional values and knowledge and western science intersect to create opportunities for revealing shared values and mutual purpose. Participants will learn culturally informed interpersonal skills for building relationships and two-way trust, get tools for delivering information effectively, and learn effective engagement skills necessary to share their science.

The workshop was designed to be interactive, with several cases studies of effective science communication taken from the health, harm reduction, extractive, energy, public policy and science research sectors.

Workshop Outline

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The communication cycle and principles of effective communication;

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Who are Canada’s Indigenous peoples, and, more specifically: undertaking an audience analysis, including demographics, psychographics and learning styles;

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Understanding Indigenous cultures, values, social and political structures, the barriers to effective science communication and why there is increased polarization;

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Understanding how Indigenous and western world views impact science communication;

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Understanding Indigenous traditional knowledge and customs and where they intersect with western science for building mutual understanding;

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Tools for trust-building, interpersonal communication skills and relationship-building;

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Successful tools and strategies for communicating science with Indigenous audiences for evidence-based decision-making;

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Overcoming the fear of saying or doing the “wrong thing”;

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Measuring the effectiveness of your science communication.

The workshop was designed to be interactive, with several cases studies of effective science communication taken from the health, harm reduction, extractive, energy, public policy and science research sectors.

Workshop Participant Feedback

I’ve never attended such a well-researched and informative workshop. A 10 out of 10.

Wow, I was blown away and can’t wait to start applying this to my work.

Loved all the practical skills and case studies, you really did your research on us.

Fantastic.