TY - JOUR
T1 - March mammal madness and the power of narrative in science outreach
AU - Hinde, Katie
AU - Amorim, Carlos Eduardo G.
AU - Brokaw, Alyson F.
AU - Burt, Nicole
AU - Casillas, Mary C.
AU - Chen, Albert
AU - Chestnut, Tara
AU - Connors, Patrice K.
AU - Dasari, Mauna
AU - Ditelberg, Connor Fox
AU - Dietrick, Jeanne
AU - Drew, Josh
AU - Durgavich, Lara
AU - Easterling, Brian
AU - Henning, Charon
AU - Hilborn, Anne
AU - Karlsson, Elinor K.
AU - Kissel, Marc
AU - Kobylecky, Jennifer
AU - Krell, Jason
AU - Lee, Danielle N.
AU - Lesciotto, Kate M.
AU - Lewton, Kristi L.
AU - Light, Jessica E.
AU - Martin, Jessica
AU - Murphy, Asia
AU - Nickley, William
AU - Núñez-De La Mora, Alejandra
AU - Pellicer, Olivia
AU - Pellicer, Valeria
AU - Perry, Anali Maughan
AU - Schuttler, Stephanie G.
AU - Stone, Anne C.
AU - Tanis, Brian
AU - Weber, Jesse
AU - Wilson, Melissa
AU - Willcocks, Emma
AU - Anderson, Christopher N.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Hinde et al.
PY - 2021/2
Y1 - 2021/2
N2 - March Mammal Madness is a science outreach project that, over the course of several weeks in March, reaches hundreds of thousands of people in the United States every year. We combine four approaches to science outreach – gamification, social media platforms, community event(s), and creative products – to run a simulated tournament in which 64 animals compete to become the tournament champion. While the encounters between the animals are hypothetical, the outcomes rely on empirical evidence from the scientific literature. Players select their favored combatants beforehand, and during the tournament scientists translate the academic literature into gripping “play-by-play” narration on social media. To date ~1100 scholarly works, covering almost 400 taxa, have been transformed into science stories. March Mammal Madness is most typically used by high-school educators teaching life sciences, and we estimate that our materials reached ~1% of high-school students in the United States in 2019. Here we document the intentional design, public engagement, and magnitude of reach of the project. We further explain how human psychological and cognitive adaptations for shared experiences, social learning, narrative, and imagery contribute to the widespread use of March Mammal Madness.
AB - March Mammal Madness is a science outreach project that, over the course of several weeks in March, reaches hundreds of thousands of people in the United States every year. We combine four approaches to science outreach – gamification, social media platforms, community event(s), and creative products – to run a simulated tournament in which 64 animals compete to become the tournament champion. While the encounters between the animals are hypothetical, the outcomes rely on empirical evidence from the scientific literature. Players select their favored combatants beforehand, and during the tournament scientists translate the academic literature into gripping “play-by-play” narration on social media. To date ~1100 scholarly works, covering almost 400 taxa, have been transformed into science stories. March Mammal Madness is most typically used by high-school educators teaching life sciences, and we estimate that our materials reached ~1% of high-school students in the United States in 2019. Here we document the intentional design, public engagement, and magnitude of reach of the project. We further explain how human psychological and cognitive adaptations for shared experiences, social learning, narrative, and imagery contribute to the widespread use of March Mammal Madness.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102008285&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85102008285&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.7554/eLife.65066
DO - 10.7554/eLife.65066
M3 - Article
C2 - 33616530
AN - SCOPUS:85102008285
SN - 2050-084X
VL - 10
SP - 1
EP - 37
JO - eLife
JF - eLife
M1 - e65066
ER -