![]() As scientific understanding of the water cycle deepens, the knowledge gap between hydrologists and the public may widen. Broader impacts are clearly an important aspect of water science. Long story short, I won the battle that day by invoking the outreach power of comics! Once over this hurtle, I easily vanquished the Curser by thrusting it outside of my proposal’s 15-page limit. It was clear: The battle for unique broader impacts had begun!įigure 1: The science comic “Urban Forestry – Taming Precipita” I locked an unflinchingly open stare with the Curser’s unflinchingly blinking slash. Like a bot trained by reading innumerable “Broader Impacts” sections, I had spewed out some vanilla text pudding that blandly promised to “present and publish findings,” “integrate work into my courses,” “extend current scientific theory,” and so on …list abbreviated as to not bore the reader any more than was necessary. There it sat, one line below my newest paragraph, derisively staring at this anemic assembly of platitudinous promises. I also knew that I had to act fast, before the Curser’s mocking winks dissolved my thoughts to mush! With astonishing rapidity, my fingers fluttered out several sentences, forcing the Curser to retreat down the page. It became clear that each blink was a taunt as it shed its disguising vowel for a more rancorous one, becoming the villainous “Curs er.” Unluckily, I knew this villain all too well. Every other blink interrupted my stream-of-thought until, after mere minutes, the cursor had elevated itself from nuisance to arch-nemesis. The motivation, background, research approach, hypotheses, methods, and even project and data management plans fit snuggly together beneath the overarching question: Will forests interact differently with rainfall along a natural-to-urban continuum? Then, confidently, I wrote “Broader Impacts” in bold, sipped my single-origin third-wave coffee, and stared blankly at the blinking text cursor. ![]() Writing my first full science proposal in a new tenure-track position was challenging but, honestly, most sections flowed smoothly from my fingertips. A –Streams of Thought– contribution by John Van Stan & Jan Friesen. ![]()
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