Question 2

From: csreesvolmon-bounces@lists.uwex.edu [mailto:csreesvolmon-bounces@lists.uwex.edu] On Behalf Of Linda Green
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 7:56 AM
To: CSREESVolMon@lists.uwex.edu; 'Volunteer water monitoring'
Subject: [CSREESVolMon] Using Data to tell a story

Hi Folks,

Apologies for cross-postings…

At an upcoming conference we will be presenting a workshop called “Putting it All Together – Using Data to Tell a Story”. On a planning call for the workshop, we got to sharing stories about different experiences we’ve had in preparing reports, presentations, etc. We thought that it’d be useful to ask all of you in the volunteer monitoring realm for your favorite tips and techniques for using data to tell a story.

What has worked best for you? Do you have examples of materials that have worked really well to turn data into a compelling water quality success (or failure) story? Do you have such materials available online (if so, where)? Or do you have tips for other volunteer monitoring coordinators about what to expect when preparing reports or data analysis presentations? We all agreed that you should plan to take at least twice (and probably three times) as long as you expect to develop compelling data stories.

What’s been your worst experience with data presentations or reports? You can come clean about your own mistakes, or of course let us know about someone else’s debacle.

We’ll compile your suggestions into a fact sheet handout for the workshop, and then will post it on-line afterwards, so please let us know if you’d like to be quoted or anonymous when you reply.

Thanks so much everyone!

Linda Green & Elizabeth Herron

USDA-CSREES Volunteer Water Quality National Facilitation Project

www.usawaterquality.org/volunteer

URI Watershed Watch Program

www.uri.edu/ce/wq/ww/

URI Cooperative Extension Water Quality

College of the Environment and Life Sciences

CIK, 1 Greenhouse Road

Kingston, RI 02881-0804

401-874-2905

Responses

From: Streamkeepers [mailto:Streamkeepers@co.clallam.wa.us]
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 1:13 PM
To: Linda Green
Subject: RE: [CSREESVolMon] Using Data to tell a story

Hi Linda & Elizabeth,

Interesting questions! Clearly posed by people who have long grappled with these questions.

Our data was used (along with other sources of information) for a comprehensive 2004 report on the state of our county's streams. Here's the link: http://www.clallam.net/streamkeepers/html/state_of_the_waters.htm. The basic formula was to try to present information about every stream system, with a combination of summary text in 3 categories (overview, implications for people, and implications for fish), a health-rating table (with ratings of healthy, compromised, impaired, highly impaired, and critically impaired) in 3 categories (WQ, biology, and habitat), and a "particular concerns" and "recommendations" box. Plus maps, photos, and a host of explanatory material in introductory and appendix chapters. It took LOTS of work, both by staff and a paid writer/editor, and was about 2 years late in publication. Of course, now we have a template that we can follow and improve on in future years.

This past year, we took on the challenge of creating a display for fair booths "telling the story" of our data. We decided on the following:

--Use the B-IBI as our summary-statistic of stream health (luckily, we have a pretty rich set of B-IBI data).

--Present the B-IBI in map form with colored dots (see "bug ratings" (5.4 MB jpg file), attached).

--Have a poster explaining what the B-IBI is all about and why it's important (see "BIBI" (678 KB jpg file), attached).

--Present 3 stream case-studies in which data is presented in a way that it not only tells about the health of the stream, but also gets across important watershed-process concepts, so that viewers can have a deeper understand of how watersheds work and how they get disturbed (see "Peabody" (579 KB jpg file), "Bell" (562 KB jpg file), and "Salt" (617 KB jpg file) posters in that order). We wanted to concentrate on concepts that people were less likely to know, such as:

-----the connection between development, hydrology, stormwater, and sediment delivery and movement;

-----the importance of LWD and LWD recruitment;

-----the role of riparian areas.

Again, it took a LOT longer than we thought it would for these 5 posters, probably 60 hours of my time and 350 hours of a contractor's. These posters will soon be on our website, once our volunteer webmaster gets them loaded.

Some things we've decided/found out:

--Think of it as a story. Start out by saying, "What's the story of this creek? What's the story we're trying to tell?" So we started with watershed-assessment documents, plus what we collectively knew about the creeks. Then we looked at the data and whether it supported the story. Then we decided which data to focus on and how to present it. In the process, we certainly became familiar with our data gaps!

--It's okay to present something that's not conclusive and say that it's not conclusive. That's science.

--Colored dots on maps are good, but too many maps can be overwhelming in a display. We're working on a slideshow now which has lots of maps, but that's okay when you have a presenter describing what people are seeing on the maps.

--You can probably present one or two other concepts along with a basic dot on a map. So for instance, we've put question-marks in dots that only represent one year of B-IBI data. In another case, we show our monitoring sites along with whether they're sponsored by an outside client and whether they're monitoring a restoration project (see "ccwr sk client sites" (472 KB jpg file) , attached).

--Figure out when you need to be comprehensive, and when you just want to focus down on a few salient data findings.

--Multiple presentational graphics are good: we've tried integrating text, maps, photos, charts, tables, and graphs.

--Photos in particular are important, so that people can see what the landscape impacts look like, then look at what the data tells about the results of those impacts.

--Headings and subheadings are critical: get across whatever basic message you want to convey in the big letters, so that someone just passing by the booth will at least see those important points (and hopefully be drawn in enough to want to take a look!).

--Callout text of various types really helps make graphs meaningful.

--A good report-production team needs to have people with the following skills/knowledge: watershed ecology, the available data, statistical analysis, graphing, GIS, pedagogy, page layout, and wordsmithing. If you're lucky, some people will have several of these! We needed a basic team of 3 people.

--The review process is critical. We showed drafts to our advisory board, our volunteer data-analysis team, and our education/outreach team. We gots lots of feedback and went through many, many drafts. As frustrating as it often was, the posters just kept getting better.

--For graphs and maps, you've got to check the color-production of the printers and projectors you'll be using. We found, for example, that with our projector, our orange and yellow dots were indistinguishable, and with our plotter, one of our color orthophotos didn't show the land-cover features we were trying to show, so we had to take our poster file somewhere else to get printed.

That's what comes to mind right now. I'm sending this on to some of our volunteers/colleagues to see if they have anything to add.

Cheers, Ed

Ed Chadd & Adar Feller
Streamkeepers of Clallam County
Clallam County Department of Community Development
223 E. 4 St., Suite 5
Port Angeles, WA 98362
360-417-2281; FAX 360-417-2443
streamkeepers@co.clallam.wa.us
www.clallam.net/streamkeepers

 

Updated Tuesday, 29-Jan-2008 12:49:26 CST