Over 30 journalists and journalism school faculty paddled in canoes, learned new audience engagement strategies, chatted with chefs and seafood distributors and tasted gourmet cooking as part of a novel pilot program to give journalists in all fields enjoyable and productive access to the sciences while learning new journalism skills.

“Right Fish, Wrong Place: Invaders in the Coastal Zone,” a September 6, 2014 collaboration of the Science and the Media initiative and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), explored the world of marine invaders – creatures from other ports and regions that arrive in local waters and wreak environmental and economic damage.

The multifaceted program enabled journalists to experience the world of SERC’s scientists firsthand, as well as explore market and consumer solutions to environmental problems. Journalists also learned about crowdsourcing and citizen science projects that scientists and experts from the Smithsonian, a vast collection of museums and research centers visited by over 30 million people each year, are using to engage the public in their work and build an audience. These same strategies may also benefit news organizations.

The September 6 pilot program was the second to test a new professional development model for non-science journalists. The model combines science content and a journalism craft component. The first, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in June, explored marine creatures that glow and underwater photography.