2025-10-03 –, Jean-Baptiste Say Amphitheater
Language: English
This project is a playful collection of interactive Pluto.jl notebooks, made to turn tricky scientific and math ideas into something explorable! The aim? To make learning feel less like a boring lecture and more a “wow, that’s cool!” moment—while sharing clean, high-quality Julia code anyone can use. I also want to take you behind the scenes to show how you can build these notebooks yourself using the same tools for computational storytelling (and have fun doing it!).
Let’s face it—science can be kind of a snob. It hides behind jargon, paywalls, and tools so complicated they seem like you need a PhD just to hit “run.” Meanwhile, people today are hungry for knowledge—curious, eager, and constantly Googling everything (as long as it doesn’t require an attention span longer than a TikTok video). So why not meet them where they are? That’s where computational storytelling comes in.
With Pluto.jl as our trusty sidekick and the straight-up simplicity of Julia, we’re breaking down barriers with beginner-friendly, interactive notebooks that make big ideas in science and math feel fun, clear, and totally doable. Why Pluto? It blends live interactivity with real code—so you get the best of both worlds. Everything updates in real time, making learning feel more like play. And that’s exactly our mission! Together with Fons (the brain behind the awesome Pluto project), I want to make learning joyful, code reusable, and science feel like something everyone can jump into right away.
To show what that looks like, I’ve created a series of notebooks, each zooming in on one cool concept.
One notebook dives into domain coloring, turning complex numbers into vibrant visual art. Math doesn’t have to feel dry or intimidating—so we brought out the colors to prove it. Curious? Check it out!
Another notebook unpacks decision trees in AI using a hands-on approach: tweak some sliders, change the inputs, and see how the model responds in real time. With so many people getting interested in AI these days, we wanted to offer a easy, friendly peek behind the curtain. Try it yourself!
And then there’s the story-driven ozone repair notebook, which uses interactive maps and animations to show how the world came together to solve a global crisis. It’s a scientific win that deserves more love—and while this one’s still in progress, we’ve dropped a sneak peek screenshot to give you a taste.
Every notebook is designed to feel less like a textbook and more like a little learning adventure, wrapped in approachable code and powered by curiosity. And we don’t stop there—we’re also pulling back the curtain on how you can make such notebooks.
How can you use computation to tell a story, beyond just generating plots and figures? Can Julia code be part of your story?
In the talk, I’ll walk you through a few of these hand-picked notebooks, and we'll interactively learn about these topics together! Then I'll go into the topic of Computational Storytelling and give you a behind-the-scenes tour of what goes on in my head while building the notebooks, sharing tips, tricks, and the must-know do’s and don’ts of telling a great science story with code that apply across fields, to help you tell your next story the same way. Still curious? Let’s make the world of science communication different together, let’s make this talk happen!
