Hey, David Wescott here again – this week I have something special.  For quite a while Darlene and I have kicked around an idea we called #scimom – basically a blog meme that tries to bring mom bloggers and science bloggers (and people who are both mom bloggers AND science bloggers) together.   In my day job I spend a lot of time navigating different online communities, and over the years I’ve found these communities remain fairly isolated.
The “rules” of #scimom are very simple, and really anyone from either online community can participate.  (Even if you’re not a mom or a scientist, you can join in too.)  You can find the background at my member blog at Science for Citizens and the ways to participate are as follows:

1) if you’re a mom blogger, write a post this month that has something to do about science or science blogging. It could be anything -your love (or hatred) of science or a particular scientist, a hope you have for your child, an appropriate role model, whatever you like. Just make it personal and relevant to your life.
2) if you’re a science blogger, write a post this month that has something to do with parenting or parent blogging. Maybe it’s something your parent did to get you interested in science. Maybe it’s on the science of parenting. Maybe it’s your love (or skepticism) of something in the mom-o-sphere. Just make it personal and relevant to your life.
3) if you’re a mom AND a scientist, then just write a post this month about how awesome it is to be a mom and a scientist or something like that. Maybe suggest a role model, or a story about why both roles are important to you. Just make it personal and relevant to your life. As far as I’m concerned you make an awesome role model and people should know about you.
4) ask another blogger in your online community to participate. You can call them out in your post like it’s a blog meme or you can ask them any way you like.
5) tag your post #scimom and I will keep track of the posts and link to them [at Science For Citizens] and my own blog It’s Not a Lecture. If you want to tweet a link to your post, just add the hashtag #scimom and we’ll keep a tally so people can find relevant posts to read.
6) read a post from a blogger in the OTHER community (i.e. if you’re a mom blogger read a participating science blogger’s post and vice versa) and leave a comment.

That’s it – write a post, read a post, comment on a post.  If you’re not a blogger, just check out the really cool links from some great bloggers.   Anyone can play along.  I hope you’ll join us!