A new collaboration between Ecography and Frontiers for Young Minds will be bringing the latest ecological research for dissemination with the Frontiers for Young Minds audience.

— By the Frontiers for Young Minds team. Originally published on the Ecography blog

We are delighted to announce that Ecography is the first editorial partner of Frontiers for Young Minds in the field of ecology, macroecology, and biogeography. In this new collaboration, Ecography will be recommending published articles to be re-written for younger audiences through the Frontiers for Young Minds peer review process.

Frontiers for Young Minds is a non-profit scientific journal with articles written by researchers and adapted for a younger audience – with an editorial twist: manuscripts are reviewed by a board of kids and teens that assume the role of peer reviewers. It is then up to the authors to address all concerns raised by the Young Reviewers and to adapt their article into a form that can be disseminated and understood by younger audiences. By involving Young Reviewers (age 8–15) in the process, we empower them to think critically, to ask questions, and connect them with today’s researchers.

By involving scientists to take charge in adapting their own work for a younger audience, they have the power to create understandable and accessible research for a wider audience. In doing so, researchers are provided with a channel to communicate their work without misinterpretation and offering them the tools to become better communicators. Articles that have undergone the scrutiny of peer review with our Young Reviewers are published online to be freely distributed as an educational resource, comprising of research that would typically take several years to appear in classroom textbooks.

We are very happy to form this partnership with Ecography and to share our commitment in creating a freely available and reliable resource of cutting-edge research. Authors of articles recommended by Ecography will be invited by Frontiers for Young Minds to adapt their previously published work into Young Minds versions, to be made available in our specialty sections of Biodiversity and Earth and its Resources.

Are you a scientist and up for the challenge of making your science accessible to young readers? Can you explain what you do in a (mostly) jargon-free manner, while still conveying the original meaning of your work? For those interested in getting started, see our author guidelines or contact kids@frontiersin.org for additional information!