The 2024 Collectors Tour: A Case Study in Field-Based Geoscience Communication

Abstract. The 2024 Collectors Tour is a field-based science communication initiative that uses narrative structure, place-based explanation, and methodological transparency to engage non-specialist viewers with Critical Zone science. The project consists of a 21-episode video series produced during an 18-day, 4500-km field campaign to service a network of mineral dust collectors deployed across alpine, desert, and urban environments in Utah, Nevada, and Idaho as part of the NSF-funded DUST^2 Critical Zone project. Each episode in the Tour is anchored to a specific site and task, such as arriving at a collector, observing the surrounding landscape, and retrieving samples, and uses that moment to introduce focused concepts related to mineral dust, soil formation, snow–hydrology interactions, climate variability, ecosystem function, and human influence. This approach foregrounds scientific process, uncertainty, and interdisciplinarity, allowing viewers to observe how geoscience knowledge is generated in real settings. The communication strategy emphasizes authenticity, continuity across episodes, and visual engagement with landscapes, transforming a routine monitoring campaign into a coherent outreach narrative. Mineral dust serves as a unifying theme through which otherwise disparate environments and disciplines are connected, illustrating the Critical Zone as a laterally linked system rather than a set of isolated sites. The Collectors Tour also reflects lessons learned from long-term communication efforts, including the value of consistency, the power of storytelling grounded in genuine field practice, and the importance of acknowledging collaboration, logistics, and uncertainty. As a case study, the Collectors Tour offers a replicable model for integrating science communication into ongoing field research and contributes to broader discussions on effective strategies for communicating Earth and space science to diverse publics.