Assistant professor University of Texas Austin, Texas
As bee biologists we are all aware of public misconceptions around what bees are and what they look like. In 2019 I decided to write a children's book about bee diversity and embracing diversity in general, and the book was published this year. In this talk I will discuss the process of writing a book for the public that aimed to be both informative and compelling, and reaching the balance between scientific accuracy and storytelling. I will also discuss how we as scientists can best engage with the public more generally and how to maximise our outreach efforts. The illustrator of "Am I even a Bee?", Alexa Lindauer, will discuss how as an artist and scientist she chose to represent the bees, in order to capture scientific realism whilst creating characters that would appeal to children.
