Science Education and Social Media: Experiences with Content Creation in the Field
When people ask what I do for work, I often struggle to give a simple answer. As Communications Coordinator for The University of Kansas’s Undergraduate Biology Program, my role blends graphic design, social media management, and event planning. What I never expected was that this job would one day take me up a Colombian mountainside as part of a scientific field research team.
I was ecstatic when Dr. Victor H. Gonzalez Betancourt, undergraduate biology faculty and research associate with the KU Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum, invited me in the spring of 2025 to support his newly funded National Science Foundation Project entitled Tropical Plant-Pollinator Interactions in a Changing World. The goal of this project is to investigate climate and landscape changes and their effects on plant-pollinator interactions in tropical regions. It engages five U.S. undergraduate students in collaborative research with Colombian partners and U.S. faculty mentors for eight weeks. Students have the opportunity to integrate multiple research fields, including animal behavior, molecular biology, and ecophysiology, while applying advanced techniques to address urgent scientific and societal challenges in conservation and agriculture.
Colombia was chosen as the base of study because it is one of the most biologically and agriculturally diverse countries in the world. Colombia’s variable topography and diverse climates provide an ideal natural laboratory for studying these ecological relationships. My role was to document the experience through photography and social media while also mentoring students on science communication.
Like many Americans, my knowledge of Colombia as a country was minimal. I knew it was in South America and that the capital city was Bogotá. I assumed most of the county was rainforest or coastline—as movies rarely show anything else. I was surprised to learn that Bogotá and its surrounding environment was mountainous and grassy and would not have looked out of place in an outdoor shot in The Sound of Music.
Before our departure in early June, during the orientation phase of the program, I led a workshop on Social Media Strategies for Biologists. I emphasize the role of science communication in today’s world, the importance of fighting and preventing misinformation, best practices and ethical considerations, and tips for platform choice and content creation. As a first-time participant on a research trip, I was excited but unsure what to expect from working at other institutions or in the field. I knew my days would involve photography, social media content creation, and bees, but I didn’t realize the opportunity would become so much more.
Our research in Colombia took us both high into the mountains and down into the Colombian lowlands. The weather was consistently drizzly yet pleasant, around 60oF in the higher elevations, or an intensely muggy, upper 80oF in the lowlands. At the trailing end of the rainy season, mud was an expected part of our forays into the field. No matter where we conducted research that day, the plant life was dense, highly variable in species for its respective zone, and intensely lush. Birds and wildlife to the far north of the country were surprisingly sparse. The bugs, however, were dominating. Butterflies, moths, bees, and beetles could be found any place you took the time to look. This entomological prevalence was advantageous for both the research team and for my work as a photographer.
During my two weeks in Colombia, I documented and shared daily updates on social media about our cultural exploration and scientific research. Within the remaining month and a half after my departure, the student researchers applied the lessons from my workshop by creating their own posts and suggesting ten additional social media posts for KU’s social media platforms. Their content was inspired and varied, from a photo showing the bee developmental cycle, to a timelapse video of a student measuring 349 bees over the course of two days, to a short video featuring ‘ASMR is the Field’, featuring the visceral squelch of rubber boots sinking into deep mud. Their creativity proved that science communication is within everyone’s ability and not only limited to those in more creative pursuits.
Beyond content creation, students benefited from having access to an ever-growing library of photos taken across multiple site visits. These images will support their research papers, conference posters, and presentations, while also serving as personal memories of the trip. To quote William Henry Fox Talbot, inventor of photography, the advantage of photography is that “it will enable us to introduce into our pictures a multitude of minute details which add to the truth and reality of the representation, but which no artist would take the trouble to faithfully copy from nature.” This sentiment proved true in Colombia, a photo can capture the fleeting lives of insects with the permanence the eye alone lacks.
From the first day onward, students checked the shared drive for photos to post on their personal accounts or share with school pages and family members. They had the opportunity to upload their own snapshots; each a celebration of the individual’s particular interests and photographer’s eye, allowing for a shift in composition and personal perspective, that gave way to various chances for both the scientific and downtime exploration to be documented.
Students developed collaborative projects with local students and faculty, joined by Dr. Deborah Smith (KU), and Drs. Margarita M. López-Uribe and Dr. Luis Duque (Penn State University). Alongside this core group, a rotating cast of experts generously shared their expertise across diverse fields. Exposure to so many varied experts undoubtedly impacted on the students’ learning and overall experience.
I was blessed with an overabundance of interesting subject matter, from beautiful vistas and hiking action shots to stingless bees the size of a grain of rice swooping into the hive. The depth of visual interest across thousands of shots led to a variety of opportunities to post beautiful photos. Summer semester –- a historically dry period for the creation of content, with limited classes in session and no planned Biology events— was changed this year due to the Colombia NSF trip.
Analytics confirmed the impact: posts consistently generated high engagement across our main platforms of Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, such as increased follower interactions, via likes, comments, direct messages, and follows. We also saw boosted ability to reach a larger audience due to tagging collaborative partners such as the @beas_lab at the Universidad Militar Nueva Granada in Colombia, as well as connecting with other universities within the US, which our student researchers attended.
This experience reshaped my role. I became not only a photographer and mentor but also a participant in the scientific process. It allowed me to step beyond the halls of my institution and to learn more about the day-to-day life of a researcher in the field. It was a privilege to step into the field, gain firsthand knowledge of research life, and to share those stories with broader audiences. I have already seen the benefit of being able to speak of the experience with personal knowledge instead of secondhand information. Like the students, I returned with new skills and perspectives, insights that continue to enrich my work and personal growth.
