Tag Archives for practical tips

NatSCA Digital Digest – October 2025

Compiled by Milo Phillips, Digitisation Co-ordinator at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Welcome to the October edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.

A monthly blog series featuring the latest on where to go, what to see and do in the natural history sector including jobs, exhibitions, conferences, and training opportunities. We are keen to hear from you if you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest, please drop an email to blog@natsca.org.

Sector News

GCG Winter Seminar in Hastings – Registration Open Now

While the call for abstracts has now closed, you can still register to join the Geological Collections Group in December at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery for their 2025 Winter Seminar and Annual General Meeting. The Seminar and AGM will be held at the Museum on December 10th and will be followed by a field trip to the coast in the Pett Level – Fairlight area on December 11th.

For registration forms and details about the talks of the day, guidance on what to expect during the field trip, and directions for finding your ways to all of the above, visit their website here.

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NatSCA Digital Digest – September 2025

Compiled by Olivia Beavers, Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at World Museum, National Museums Liverpool.

Welcome to the September edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.

A monthly blog series featuring the latest on where to go, what to see and do in the natural history sector including jobs, exhibitions, conferences, and training opportunities. We are keen to hear from you if you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest, please drop an email to blog@natsca.org.

Sector News

Call for Papers – GCG special issue of Geological Curator.

This is reminder of the upcoming GCG special issue of Geological Curator. This issue will be published in Spring 2026, titled ‘Moving towards equitable Geoscience Collections’.

The purpose of this issue is to consolidate current research and initiatives that aim to improve the environment, accessibility, and future of geological collections. Broad themes welcomed in this issue include anti-colonial practice, physical accessibility, neuroinclusive practice, and representation of minority groups. Submissions can include topics relating to museums broadly, but submissions with a Geoscience collections focus would be preferred.

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Crispy, Brown and Far Too Delicate – Are Herbarium Specimens Just Too Difficult to Use?

Written by Clare Brown, Leeds Museums and Galleries.

Taking a walk through a forest, running through fields of wheat or even just gazing at trees, all a far-cry from dealing with the sheets of pressed, long-dead dried plants you come across in museum collections. Good taxidermy at least looks like the original animal.

Other problems with plant specimens include their need for low light, extremely careful handling and, occasionally, mercuric chloride. Despite being phenomenally important to researchers, for everything from tracking climate change to curing cancer, plant collections are not at the top of many people’s lists when it comes to exhibitions, events and workshops.

So, what public-facing engagement can you do with herbarium specimens? Here I’ve looked at a few great case studies where creative collections are delivering brilliant botany… Continue reading →

NatSCA Digital Digest – August 2025

Compiled by Ellie Clark, Collections Moves Team Leader at the Natural History Museum.

Welcome to the August edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.

Digital Digest is a monthly blog series featuring the latest on where to go, what to see and do in the natural history sector including jobs, exhibitions, conferences, and training opportunities. We are keen to hear from you if you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest, please drop an email to blog@natsca.org.

Sector News

Transmitting Science Upcoming Online Courses

Registration is open for a number of online training courses over at Transmitting Science. Upcoming courses include Naturalistic & Scientific Illustration, An Introduction to R, Finite Element Analysis Applied to Life Sciences and Python Machine Learning in Biology.

For a full list of courses, details on timetables, course structure, pricings, academic credits, and registration can be found on the courses open for registration page here.

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How to Foster Empathy with Endangered Animals: Developing a Creative Writing and Drawing Workshop Toolkit

Written by Dr Christina Thatcher, Lecturer in Creative Writing & Dr Lisa El Refaie, Reader in Language and Communication, Cardiff University.

With biodiversity declining at an alarming rate, we need to find ways of encouraging people to care about all endangered animal species, not just the ones with the most obvious appeal, such as pandas and polar bears, for example. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s ‘Red List of Threatened Species’, 27% of mammals are threatened with extinction, but so are 44% of reef corals, 41% of amphibians, 37% of sharks and rays, 21% of reptiles, and 12% of birds.

In 2023, we—Dr Christina Thatcher and Dr Lisa El Refaie from Cardiff University—met and discovered our shared interest in the expressive arts, metaphor, empathy and nature. We then designed a project which aimed to use the power of creativity to increase public awareness of, and empathy for, endangered animals, focusing on species that have few or no obvious human-like features. The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Impact Acceleration Account and ran from November 2023 until the autumn 2024, in collaboration with Natural History curators at the National Museum Cardiff. Continue reading →