Visualizing Environments: Toward A Natural History of Science Communication

Abstract

To illustrate how environmental aesthetics shape present-day science communication pedagogy, this article situates contemporary science communication in the context of the American environmental writing tradition, drawing from the field reporting techniques of William Bartram as a form of artist's study. We use teaching case examples to demonstrate how the aesthetic experience of scientific knowledge—the acts of etching, visiting, feeling, and being in nature—ultimately contributes to better practices and pedagogy for technical illustrations, as well as more accessible entry points for scientific and technical communicators and their audiences. We present such examples of field-based writing, visualization, and multimodal projects from an undergraduate environmental writing course and a graduate science writing course to locate the role of aesthetics in natural history and contemporary science communication, contributing to a deeper engagement with the field's interdisciplinary history.