Introducing #scimom

My Science for Citizens Project!

UPDATE:  Bloggers from both communities are starting to write posts.  The first post came from Thea Joselow - her "Nerd Love Story" is a great read.  Next, Jeanne Garbarino (a science blogging mom) gives us The call of... booby.  As more come in I'll organize them.  I've added a scimom tag to my delicious feed, so that's another way people can find the links.  (As long as delicious exists, anyway.) 

I think this could be cool. It's not a science project, but it may help make science more interesting and acessible to everyone.

Online moms have extraordinary power – far more than most people realize. Companies listen to them. Policy makers listen to them. Moms make the overwhelming majority of decisions in life – what to buy, who to vote for, when to get health care, and so on. They do most of the work. They do most of the child-rearing.  They're the boss. The problem is a lot of online moms feel labeled, disrespected, and misunderstood. 

Science bloggers push the boundaries of ideas.  They give us facts, and theories, and great stories about discovery.  They celebrate the pursuit of knowledge and help us understand all kinds of important things.  The problem is a lot of science bloggers also feel labeled, disrespected, and misunderstood. 

I think if moms are making decisions based on the right information and with the right context – the kind of context you can get from science bloggers – the world will be a much better place. And I think if science bloggers understand the perspectives of the REAL influential people in our society, they can help make sure their work has an even bigger impact than it already does. 

Of course I know there are plenty of people who are scientists AND moms.  But even those mom/science bloggers tend to stick to one community or the other.  In my observations over a few years now, these two online communities remain fairly isolated from each other.  So I've been working on an idea to get the two communities talking.  Here it is, plain and simple.

1) if you're a mom blogger, write a post this month that has something to do about science or science blogging.  It could be anything -your love (or hatred) of science or a particular scientist, a hope you have for your child, an appropriate role model, whatever you like.  Just make it personal and relevant to your life. 

2) if you're a science blogger, write a post this month that has something to do with parenting or parent blogging.  Maybe it's something your parent did to get you interested in science.  Maybe it's on the science of parenting.  Maybe it's your love (or skepticism) of something in the mom-o-sphere. Just make it personal and relevant to your life. 

3) if you're a mom AND a scientist, then just write a post this month about how awesome it is to be a mom and a scientist or something like that.  Maybe suggest a role model, or a story about why both roles are important to you.  Just make it personal and relevant to your life. As far as I'm concerned you make an awesome role model and people should know about you.

4) ask another blogger in your online community to participate.  You can call them out in your post like it's a blog meme or you can ask them any way you like. 

5) tag your post #scimom and I will keep track of the posts and link to them at Science for Citizens and here as well.  If you want to tweet a link to your post, just add the hashtag #sci-mom and we'll keep a tally so people can find relevant posts to read. 

6) read a post from a blogger in the OTHER community (i.e. if you're a mom blogger read a participating science blogger's post and vice versa) and leave a comment.

That's it.  At the least I hope it adds some links and traffic to people's blogs, and gets them a few new readers.  Maybe it will spur new conversations, friendships, projects.  I don't know.  I just like to see people interact.  Please let me know if you're in, if you have questions or ideas, or anything else.