BACKGROUND Seminal reports, based on recommendations by educators, scientists, and in collaboration with students, have called for undergraduate curricula to engage students in some of the same practices as scientists-one of which is communicating science with a general, non-scientific audience (SciComm). Unfortunately, very little research has focused on helping students develop these skills. An important early step in creating effective and efficient curricula is understanding what baseline skills students have prior to instruction. Here, we used the Essential Elements for Effective Science Communication (EEES) framework to survey the SciComm skills of students in an environmental science course in which they had little SciComm training. RESULTS Our analyses revealed that, despite not being given the framework, students included several of the 13 elements, especially those which were explicitly asked for in the assignment instructions. Students commonly targeted broad audiences composed of interested adults, aimed to increase the knowledge and awareness of their audience, and planned and executed remote projects using print on social media. Additionally, students demonstrated flexibility in their skills by slightly differing their choices depending on the context of the assignment, such as creating more engaging content than they had planned for. CONCLUSIONS The students exhibited several key baseline skills, even though they had minimal training on the best practices of SciComm; however, more support is required to help students become better communicators, and more work in different contexts may be beneficial to acquire additional perspectives on SciComm skills among a variety of science students. The few elements that were not well highlighted in the students' projects may not have been as intuitive to novice communicators. Thus, we provide recommendations for how educators can help their undergraduate science students develop valuable, prescribed SciComm skills. Some of these recommendations include helping students determine the right audience for their communication project, providing opportunities for students to try multiple media types, determining the type of language that is appropriate for the audience, and encouraging students to aim for a mix of communication objectives. With this guidance, educators can better prepare their students to become a more open and communicative generation of scientists and citizens. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-021-00304-0.

中文翻译：

---

在本科环境科学课程中建立科学沟通技巧的基线。

背景 开创性报告基于教育工作者、科学家的建议并与学生合作，呼吁本科课程让学生参与一些与科学家相同的实践——其中之一是与一般的非科学受众交流科学。科学通讯）。不幸的是，很少有研究专注于帮助学生发展这些技能。创建有效和高效课程的一个重要的早期步骤是了解学生在教学之前具备哪些基本技能。在这里，我们使用有效科学传播的基本要素 (EEES) 框架来调查学生在环境科学课程中的 SciComm 技能，在该课程中他们几乎没有接受过 SciComm 培训。结果 我们的分析表明，尽管没有给出框架，学生包括了 13 个元素中的几个，尤其是那些在作业说明中明确要求的元素。学生通常针对由感兴趣的成年人组成的广泛受众，旨在增加受众的知识和意识，并使用社交媒体上的印刷品计划和执行远程项目。此外，学生们通过根据作业的背景稍微改变他们的选择来展示他们的技能灵活性，例如创建比他们计划的更有吸引力的内容。结论 学生们展示了几项关键的基本技能，尽管他们在 SciComm 的最佳实践方面接受的培训很少；然而，需要更多的支持来帮助学生成为更好的沟通者，在不同的环境中进行更多的工作可能有助于在各种理科学生中获得关于 SciComm 技能的更多观点。在学生的项目中没有很好地突出显示的少数元素可能对新手沟通者来说并不那么直观。因此，我们为教育工作者如何帮助他们的本科理科学生培养有价值的、规定的 SciComm 技能提供了建议。其中一些建议包括帮助学生为他们的传播项目确定合适的受众，为学生提供尝试多种媒体类型的机会，确定适合受众的语言类型，并鼓励学生以多种传播目标为目标。有了这个指导，教育工作者可以让他们的学生更好地培养成为更开放、更善于交流的一代科学家和公民。补充信息 在线版本包含补充材料，网址为 10.1186/s40594-021-00304-0。