The goal of her research is to identify why some healthy coral reefs are breaking down. She also wants to find out how this degradation affects fish that live in and around the reefs. A number of the reefs are converting from being, you know, these beautiful coral reef systems that have a lot of holes for animals to hide in, into reefs that the coral’s degrading and collapsing and then there is not as much hiding spaces for fishes and things like that.” Early in her research, Dixson made some videos for people in Fiji. The videos explained her work to the local community. She says she wanted them to understand how her research would help them. For the local children, Dixson started making books explaining her work. This helped to keep them from walking through her “laboratory” baby pools filled with water she was using for her experiments. I was living, actually, in the village with some of the locals. It was a lot easier to get research done if they understood what I was doing and how it would help them. And one of the ways that I was able to connect with the adults was I would make these videos for them. And then I started making children's books for the kids so that they would have a better idea of why I was there, so that when I ask them not to walk through the baby pools I was using for experiments or something like that, that that would actually happen.” When Dixson returned to the United States, she started doing the same thing for children in this country. She uses colorful story books to capture the imagination of children. While she has their attention, she provides very useful information about science.