Week 6 / Thursday

Larissa had discovered when she went to see Layna on Wednesday afternoon that Layna’s welcome lecture the next day was an hour before hers, so naturally, she dropped her own normal lecture and went to Layna’s big one instead.

Layna’s lecture to welcome the science communications students was held in one of the big first year lecture halls. Now that the covid peak had passed, the university had lifted restrictions other than masks, and the hall was very full. In addition, the lecture was being live streamed for people at home isolating. Both students and faculty were present in force, along with the project team. And Larissa, sitting with the project team, and Hannah next to her. And on her other side, Cass and Jackson, the nuttercases’s kids.

The dean of science handled the welcome. “Good morning, everyone. Today I’m really pleased to introduce one of our favourite science comms graduates, and definitely our most famous. Layna graduated last year, and for her final year science communications project, a group of students got together and made a couple of videos for Youtube talking about the challenges of climate change and biodiversity. That group of students was so successful that they kept making videos, with our support, and through the year they turned into absolute experts at making Youtube videos that not only score hits, but have really solid content. This year, we’re proud to be their sponsor. You all know Layna as the front for the project. But Layna is much more than a pretty face; we asked her here today to talk to you about their project, and how they think about science communications, and what you should learn and think about. This is officially a lecture to the first year students, but Layna’s work is so significant that we have students from all years, and post-graduates and faculty here, and we’re really privileged. Welcome, Layna.”

“Thanks everyone, and it’s a pleasure to be here. I want to welcome you to Science Communications, those of you who are new, and hello again to all of you who aren’t, and I see many friends in the audience. Thanks!”

“Now a fundamental problem for society right now is that while the truth is not a democracy, neither is science a tyranny. Key questions facing society right now are challenges because of the tension between these two things, and that’s the problem you’re taking on as your focus when you do this course.”

“When I say that truth isn’t a democracy, I mean that the underlying facts are not something you can vote for. It doesn’t matter what you wish, up is up and down is down. The world is round, and it doesn’t matter how many people make silly Youtube videos trying to explain that Australia is fictional, we are really here. And vaccines work; it doesn’t matter how many people vote against that, wish it wasn’t true, they do actually work, and they don’t stop working because people claim otherwise. In the same way, the world is heating up, and it will keep heating up no matter what we say about it, unless we change our behaviour.”

“But you all know that! That’s why you’re doing science, after all, and why you’re doing sci-comms.”

“On the other side, science is not a tyranny. The core of the scientific process is debate, research, comparing and contrasting evidence, and then gradually coming to understand how things actually work. The things that are easy to figure out were solved centuries ago, and now it’s all hard. So there’s no experts who can say, ‘there’s nothing more to say, no one can argue about things’. But experts do have to say, ‘what you just said is stupid, don’t listen to that’. The first problem in science comms is how to say that well, how to say that so that everyone who needs to hear it can, no matter what their background. And honestly, since there’s no science without communication, this is the most important subject for every single scientist, and I think this is the one that should be mandatory for all STEM degrees, not any of the others.”

“It’s much more than that though. Sure, vaccines work. But does that mean that we should mandate people to take them? If we do, how do explain that that’s a good idea so that people buy into it? If we think we shouldn’t, how do we make that case without falling into mistruths like ‘vaccines don’t work’? Because hardly anyone seems to be able to do that, even if there’s a really solid case to be made. If we accept that the world is heating up, how do we decide what to do about that? How do we debate that so that people can contribute, not just fight, or go to war? The central challenge to all of these great questions facing the world today is, how do we communicate with people about difficult subjects where there is absolute truth, uncertainty about some of what that is, highly motivated liars, and contention about what do about the subject?”

“Now there’s a lot of subjects that matter. Public Health. AI. Genetics. The environment, the economy, climate change. All of these, sure, there’s basic research, and it matters, but what’s the point if there’s no communication that people understand? So I put it to you that this subject deserves your utmost focus, because this is make or break for society.”

“Now last year, we had to do a science communications project. Many of you will too, all SciComms students do it in final year. Chez here came to me and said, ‘I don’t want to muck around, I want to do something big for real, will you front it for me?’ And I said, sure, but only if we do it about climate change and biodiversity, because that’s the only subject I care enough to put my body on the line for, and I really do. But I’d only do it if the content was solid, and we really all worked hard. So we both went and asked Julian, because we thought he really understood the content side, and he said he was in if it was honest and right and had heart, which is just what we wanted. And then Chez and I built a team, people who were prepared to work really hard, way harder than a normal uni project. Jo and Callum and Dylan joined us, and the six of us started churning out videos on Youtube. You can still go back and look at the early ones, when we had no idea what we were doing, but gradually we’ve learnt, and today, we kind of have quite a high profile.” She stopped for laughter. “OK. None us can turn around on this campus this week without getting cheered or at least positive comments because of that nuttercase fellow. I’ll talk about him later, but I do want to thank you all for your support.” A lot more cheering for that.

“Now the point of this lecture is to inspire you. So I am going to tell you about the project and some funny things that have happened, but before I do that, I want to be really clear with you all. Sure, I’m beautiful. I went online and looked at some comments on the university page before this, and I saw someone saying, ‘it’s easy for Layna, but how can anything she says be relevant to us?’ OK. That’s a reasonable question. So let’s talk about that. I’ve known I was beautiful since I was a young teen. It’s a fact of life I have to deal with. I know people are jealous about that. So let me ask you all a question. Other than for fancy dress, how many girls in this room use make up to make themselves less attractive?” She stopped and looked around. “Right, no one. That’s a survival skill for me. Being pretty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as I discovered when I was raped as a young teenager.” There was stunned silence for that. “It took me many years to be able to say that sentence. Thank you Larissa and Steph, my bestest friends, and Joe, my lover, for getting to me that point. So when you hear people say, ‘Layna puts her body on the line,’ or you hear me say that, I want you to know, that’s not an abstract idea for me. It has a very concrete meaning around danger and pain. But still, I’m beautiful, so it’s not the same for you. OK.”

“So let me tell you about the project team. There’s ten of us now, nine here. Every one of them is critical. I’m going to ask them to come forward, and tell you who they are, and what they do.” She did, one at a time, Chez last. Each of them gave a description of what they did for the project, and a passionate one sentence statement about why they cared. And Steph ... Steph did it while she was breastfeeding Rachel.

“Now, which of the team is the most critical to the project, including me? The correct answer is, every one of us. And it’s critical that every one of us knows what we all do and why, so they can do their bit optimally. Dylan knows what to film, because he knows what we’re doing. Jo knows what image to convey, because she understands what we’re doing. Chez is the one who tells the story in video, but only because she understands the whole picture. Steph knows how to respond on social media because she sees the picture. I’m the generalist in the team who does everything that the rest of them tell me to do. So what’s my point here?”

“Well, I have two points. The first is, it’s irrelevant to me whether you’re pretty, or you have a great voice, or you use words well. Or even whether you want to stand out the front or just blend into the team. You have some skill and energy, and so you have something to offer, and you have something to learn. The other is that when you do this course, sometimes you’ll think to yourself, why are we learning or doing this thing? How on earth can it be relevant? And the answer is, I am stunned by the breadth of things we all need to know in order to do what we do in the project. So even if you don’t see the big picture, just do everything with your heart and soul, because sooner or later it will matter.”

“OK. Let’s talk about some of the fun and crazy things that have happened.” Layna lightened the mood with some funny videos, and some shots of protests, and some of their bloopers. Through it, she built a clear picture of what they were trying to achieve in the project.

Then she said, “Right. Let’s get serious again. What are we doing? What we are doing is a adding a small voice that tries to convince people that have to take action as an entire community to prevent the looming environmental catastrophe. So we have to start by communicating that it is a catastrophe coming, and why. For instance, the temperature is going up two degrees, say. Whacky-doo, the temperature jumps around by twenty degrees every day, so why does two matter? So we can talk about that, and show what the first order effects of an increase in average temperature are ... whacky-doo, still. Reasonable people look at the predicted first order effects, and say, so? Why is that so bad? And it kind of isn’t that bad ... except that it actually will be, as the system spins out of control. So it’s for us to make that the case that we do have a catastrophe coming, but that turns out to be not that easy to show, because it’s all about interdependent adaptive systems that are really complex, right? And we can’t say with real certainty what will happen or how they might adapt, just that it’s getting increasingly more likely we’re going to have a disaster. People are still working on that, and it’s contentious. So it’s up to us to make the case in way that convinces people.”

“The project team talked about this a couple of weeks ago, and one thing we’re going to do is start focusing a lot more on interdependence, and adaptive systems. And one key part of that is we’re going to be focusing a lot more on friendships, because they’re our own key adaptive interdependence, and we want to make that part real. That’ll probably take us all year, but you know what? The very first video we focused on friendships, and bingo, we’re in the national media!”

She brought up Larissa’s favourite photo on the screen. “Right, so let’s talk about this picture. My best friend, a lovely photo of us chatting after a hard day filming our fishing video. Larissa had a covid funeral the next day, a family member, and she was feeling it. And someone’s very loved dog had died in her arms a few hours before this, because she works as an emergency vet. Larissa’s life is big and so is her heart, and we were talking about these things, and then we got talking about another friend of ours, and Larissa had done something really wonderful for her, and it had worked out, and so I kissed her, because we were both feeling great about that. It was a lovely moment, two best friends who were just very happy.” She stopped and looked around. “How many people in the room would’ve kissed in that situation?” She looked around again. “Yeah, most of the girls. Great. So you should. And we did. And then, in the national media, this photo, which is a favourite for both of us, was called ‘suggestive’ and ‘gay-friendly’. I’m really sorry for the man who wrote that. He has a massive friendship deficit. Because what would he make of this photo?”

Wow, that was her photo from the airport in Queenstown, Marty kissing Julian and Tui kissing Larissa.

“Here’s two couples, really good friends after an intense two weeks working for the project, saying goodbye as Julian and Larissa left New Zealand to come home. Marty and Tui are our New Zealand arm, and watching now, hi! This was a few weeks ago. Julian and Marty had become very close friends, and they were saying goodbye. Two straight guys, just friends. Goodbye. How many guys in the room would’ve done this?” Layna looked around. “Yeah, very few. What do you reckon our national media will say about this now that I’m publishing it?” A real buzz of conversation. “It’s not hard to guess, that’s for sure. Julian, can you come and talk about this please?”

Julian stepped up and talked about kissing guys, and the difference between kissing and sex, but that for most guys, they were linked. But why? It wasn’t for girls. And if you did kiss guys, it changed your relationship with them – much more trusting. And wasn’t that the problem with guys – needed better relationships? So how brave are you, can you buck society’s stupid expectations?

“Great, thanks Julian. All of you know that Julian is brave.” Quite some laughter for this. “So how many of you guys might reconsider your position about kissing now? A few? Great. I’ll keep chipping away at this. And girls, you should all chip away at this. Get your guys to kiss each other the same way you do.”

“Now, you might ask yourself, why am I labouring this point in a presentation about Science communications? Yes, I can see many of you are. Even the dean of science is wondering what on earth I’m going on about here.” More laughter from the audience, and he was nodding openly now. “I’m hammering on this point because the essence of science communications is to convey factually correct information to the heart, not the mind. It’s the scientific equivalent of a kiss, and you must kiss your audience in order to build a relationship with them, and to do that well, you must rise above the expectations society has given you.”

“So welcome to Sci-Comms. I’ve laid down a big challenge for you today, and told you that I believe that challenge is a central one facing society. I wish you much fun and heartache as you rise to the challenge this year, in your career, and in your life. Thank you for listening.”

Wow, what an ending, and she got a standing ovation for that. So she should.

When it stopped, the dean stood up and said, “That was a great ending Layna, I didn’t see it coming at all and yet you made perfect sense. Well done. We have time for some questions, but I’m out the front, so I’m going first. How are you going to respond to that opinion piece you referred to? Did you find it upsetting?

“Yes, I was upset that he insulted our fans’ intelligence. What he said about me was pretty predictable; the challenge for us is to do good science communications after you take away what we do to pander to hit counts. And as dean you know that we get extensive support from your whole department there. Take Hannah here, she spent two long nights in her chair going through research archives to find the pictures we used in our recent fishing video. Hannah even had to climb a ladder at night to do that, but she did it. That’s the kind of support we have – well done Hannah!” She led applause for Hannah. “So we’re going to make the case in another video that we have solid content, and everyone should work to build better relationships, and we are doing that, and otherwise, we’ll just keep doing our thing.”

Wow, Larissa thought, if only they knew, because she knew just what a punch Layna had buried in those few words.

Layna answered other questions, about building community, the big battery, handling nasty social media, and a weird question around handling intellectual property – there was always one weird one.

“All right,” the Dean said, “Last question, and I get to ask it. Now that you’ve had the experience of doing this for a year, what advice would you have for people here who are inspired and thinking of copying you, and trying to make a difference?”

Layna pursed her lips. “Through this last year, I’ve found it super challenging personally to deal with the fact that this has become who I am. I can’t walk away from this, and my life is defined by doing this. That’s both extremely limiting, and incredibly fulfilling and freeing. So my first piece of advice is, if you want to matter, you have to own it, and that will have a very big price, and a very big reward. And my second piece of advice is that I could not have done this, cannot do this, without an extensive support network, the whole department on call, the project team – it’s their work, and I just front it. My families, my adoptive family and my personal friends, my besties, and Joe. If I didn’t have those awesome relationships that I call on constantly, this would all fall in a hole. And because I call on those relationships, I must be faithful to them, and deliver on my commitments. We are who we are because of our relationships, so be faithful to them.”

Larissa had ten minutes to get to her lecture. She waved to Layna and then Isabella and left; Layna and team had a reserved slot in her lecture. When she got there, she found that attendance at her lecture was the same – not just the first years, though they appeared to there in force. Most of her friends were there. Even Annie – maybe some guy had finally tamed her? Her host for the lecture was her favourite lecturer, sweet, though there were several other lecturers there as well, and the dean. Layna’s project team and extras, including Isabella, slipped in just before the host stood up.

“Hey everyone, welcome. Today’s lecture is special; you’re hearing from another undergraduate in this course who’s currently working as a vet right now. That’s unusual, very unusual, but I’ll let Larissa tell you about that. We asked Larissa to talk to you to inspire you, to get our excited about your course work. But I can see that we’ve got far more that just the first year students here, all of us excited to hear from Larissa, so welcome!”

“Thanks! I’m really excited to be back at Uni after working through the holidays, and in particular, working straight through the covid disaster that was the last 4 weeks. So hello all you new students, and all my friends that I can see, and everyone else.”

“OK, so apparently I need to get you excited about your course work. I don’t know, maybe it’s just not very exciting all by itself, or something.” She got laughter for that. “And you know, it’s not. I found it a real struggle. You sit here and listen to the lecturers drone on, while you’re dreaming about the awesome party last night, and it’s just really hard to come to terms with the content, because biology is so complex.”

“I mean, whoops, the awesome lecturers here give these amazing lectures full of really incredibly interesting ideas, really mind-blowing explanations of how biology and chemistry and veterinary science work, and it’s just so interesting, who’s got time to think about parties?”

“Well, which is it? It’s actually both at once, and the difference is inside you. So what I’m going to do is try to provide a framework that you can use to understand why the lectures are incredibly interesting, not just a bunch of old people droning on. Because the key is how you think yourself, and linking up with the context.”

“So let’s look at a series of sick animals or wildlife rescues. These are out of my case files over the last little while. Real animals that I just had to deal with. I’m going to show you their photo, tell you about how they presented to me, and then talk about the kinds of things I needed to know to deal with them. Because that’ll give you an idea of why you learn all this stuff, and I personally found that understanding this context totally transformed how I listened to the lectures.”

And also because these cases were all really interesting stories, and she’d managed to get photos for the service records.

She started with Harry on Christmas day, because what a bang. Yes, she had them, riveted with that story, and then what she needed so she would know to decide what to do. Then the story of the koala she rescued with Asha. The dog with the snake bite, on Christmas day. The lamb she delivered with Alison. The eagle she had to catch with Cheryl. A very old dog that she put to sleep as her cancer ridden owner watched in despair. They dog she had to put down from terminal lung cancer – she’d taken good photos for that one. Her decision to report the virus, which she’d put in after all. The koala she rescued with Alison. A selfie of herself fully kitted out in PPE looking at a bunch of newborn puppies. And finally, her rescue of Lacey, the full video.

“So I found the course hard at first because I was learning random facts about random facts. If that’s something you find yourself struggling with, take heart, because that’s not what defines your success in life, that’s just the hard labour you have to do to get there, so hold on to the context because it makes that easier.”

“OK, so I’m an emergency vet; my life is full of crazy, which works for me. But you don’t have to do that. Here’s the kind of people I run into day to day.” This was a series of photos of different people she deal with, vets, surgeons, various kinds of specialists, nurses, farmers, consultants, animal trainers, lecturers: all things you could do with the qualifications from this course. Each came with an explanation of what they did. Many of these were friends, and some were in the room. Maria. Ruth.

“So you don’t have to do emergency medicine, you just have to love animals, and be prepared to learn. Now, how did all this come about?” She told them about the original party. “But the real reason it came about is because I care, because I’m willing to step up and be counted. So step up, and commit to your course. I’m not saying don’t party, I still do, I’m just saying, when you’re here, be here, in the moment, and help your friends. And understand that what you’re doing here will make a difference. If you finish your course, and get a job, you’ll be able to say, ‘this is the life I saved’, or ‘this is the difference I made.’ So welcome to animal medicine, and good luck with the course.”

“Thanks for listening.”

After the applause, her lecturer stood up and said, “Thanks Larissa, inspiring as always. Time for questions, everyone, but I get to go first. What’s the most difficult part of what you do?”

She told them about having to put down the guy’s dog against his well, and then failing to save that overheated dog, and how distressing Alison found it watching the young children bawling their eyes out. Then she gave her standard answer about really mattering.

Then she had a series of questions about being famous, being young, being female, dealing with covid, how prescribing worked for her, and what she most liked (births!), what it was like being on Youtube, and was she happy to be married so young (yes, and there’s my husband sitting there!)

Finally, the favourite lecturer asked, “Last question, where do you see yourself going? This has been really good; would you like to teach?”

“Well, thanks! But I have no idea. I’m super fulfilled being a rescue vet, and caring for people and their animals day to day, and it’s exciting too. So for now, that’s what I dream of doing as a job. Will that change? I don’t know.”

Then she had two other lectures to attend, and then she got a taxi up to work. Why a taxi? Because today, she had a passenger. Cass, the nuttercase’s daughter, was accompanying her all day, and then Cass was having dinner with Larissa and Layna. Larissa had no idea how Layna had made that happen, but she had.

Cass and Jackson had turned up at the project office just after she had; they’d been running late, but were still exchanging barbs with their father on twitter. Layna had introduced them to her skeleton team – just Dylan, Layna and Larissa, and then sat them down for a talk in front of the camera that had ended up going for a couple of hours. They still didn’t have anywhere to stay, so they’d stayed with Steph on the lounge overnight, and then Layna had brought them to Uni so she could listen to both lectures.

Jackson was going off to be intern for the day with the project team, and Layna had suggested that Cass spend the afternoon with Larissa, since she was working. Cass had said yes, and Mark had said yes, and bingo, it was happening. Larissa was entirely unsurprised when Mark met them at the office and did Cass’s paperwork himself and suggested that she wear a service uniform for the afternoon. Larissa prepared herself for an adventurous day.

Which is exactly what she got. Straight away she was out doing accidents and wildlife rescue. Kangaroos, Wallabies, a Koala, an Eagle in trouble, and several dogs, sheep and a goat. Then she was called to a house where police were arresting the occupants and moved their pets into the back of her van to go back to HQ.

Then she did a run through the eastern outskirts of Melbourne, a couple of hobby farms, and another old lady – a common kind of customer, hard for them to get out – and then a dog having difficulties giving birth. Not much she could do, but she saved the mum and two of the four pups. That was it, done for the day.

Through the day, she had a lot of time to build a friendship with Cass. Cass was in a difficult place – they’d had a very passionate fight with her father, and then they’d walked out of home, and it had gone very public. Her father was clearly a strong personality, and Cass was too, and the fight had turned personal, as it would. They’d had plenty to say on camera about the evening before, and then after a long talk with Layna and Larissa they’d cooled down a lot. Larissa’s focus was to help her heal emotionally, which mostly consisted of pursuing happy subjects to talk about. And Cass was very entranced by the actual work that she was doing, which was helping.

Once they were heading back to base, Larissa finally got to the difficult part of the discussion. “OK. How are you feeling now? That was a good day, yes?”

“Yes, it really was, I have had a great day. But what now?”

“Yes, that’s a good question. Layna invited you to join us for dinner, along with Jackson, right?”

“Yes, sure, that’ll be great. Layna’s incredible.”

“So this where I tell you that she also invited your mum and dad, and she’s just messaged me to say that they’ve agreed to come.”

“Really? Mum and Dad? Do they have to be there? Do I have to go?”

“No. You don’t have to. And Layna’s telling Jackson now, and he doesn’t have to either. And Layna says that your parents weren’t particularly keen either. But the question you should ask yourself is what else do you think will happen? You have to sort out your argument eventually, right?” Yes, she did; as a fifteen-year-old, she had no choice. “And you remember what Layna talked to you about last night?” Yes, she did. “The question for you is whether you want to sort things out with your parents with Layna and I helping, or some other way. I understand that this will be tough for you, and I’m there to help you.”

They talked further about it, and Cass agreed that she thought she could do it. Because Larissa would be there.

Back at base, Larissa and Cass had a shower, and then she helped Cass do her hair, and put a bit of make up on. Cass decided, with only a little encouragement from Larissa, to stay in her uniform, because she really felt inspired by what Larissa had done in the afternoon. Well, it was time. They got a taxi and headed off to the restaurant. Larissa focused on building Cass up, making her feel strong, and then they arrived, and made their way to the private room that Layna had hired.

“Hi Layna, Jackson,” Larissa said, “How was your afternoon?”

Layna smiled and Jackson said, “I had an awesome day. Dylan and Callum showed me what they do – it’s awesome, and they let me help them record a lot of interviews.” Larissa grinned to herself – Jackson was a techie kind of guy, and Dylan and Callum had a dream set up, every device connector under the sun, and power to burn. “What about you, Cass?”

“It was incredible. Layna, what Larissa does is the most amazing thing there is. You’ve got to do it yourself.”

“Oh I have, and it is amazing isn’t it? I wish everyone in the world had the opportunity to see it.”

Cass and Jackson told each other about their days for a few minutes. And then their parents arrived.