Itching to tell the public about your science? Maybe you want to explain to the public why your field deserves public support. Maybe you want to set the record straight about misconceptions the public holds about your field. Or maybe you just want to finally be able to explain to your friends and family what it is you actually do at work.

What: Outreach 101 for Scientists – Getting started with engaging the public with your science

When: 29 April – 31 May 2013 (five weeks) Course participants should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week on the course.

Where: The Internet! This course will be highly interactive and will take place largely through an internal SciFund wiki, short videos, Google Hangouts, and blog posts.

Who: Active scientists in any country in any discipline at any level (from graduate student to emeritus professor to government scientist to NGO scientist). This course is intended for scientists who are new to outreach, but are interested in getting started.

Cost: Free – however, we aren’t just giving this course away. Course participants must pledge to share what they have learned with their colleagues.

Applications close: 24 April 2013. To keep the class size reasonable, course participants will need to fill out a brief online application form.

Find out more and apply here.

About SciFund Challenge: The #SciFund Challenge is an experiment – can scientists use crowdfunding to fund their research? The #SciFund Challenge is also a way to get scientists to directly engage with the public. Crowdfunding forces scientists to build public interaction and outreach into their research from day one. It’s a new mechanism to couple science and society, and one that we think has a lot of promise.